body:
Erik Moeller (erik_moeller at gmx.de) [050523 06:51]:

> A peer review process, in my opinion, must be tied to *discussion* first
> of all, and not to voting. Voting is a valid last resort, but not a
> generally good way to review an encyclopedia. It would be very bitter if
> a simple software feature could be used to overthrow years of
> consensus-building culture on Wikipedia.
> I am somewhat concerned that the fact that these ratings will be public
> will be used to influence discussion. I hope when this feature goes into
> beta, we will have a clear and public policy that these ratings have no
> relevance whatsoever to ongoing discussions and decision making
> processes.

Mmmm. Possibly the results should not even be viewable for 1.5.

> Otherwise I strongly oppose this feature being taken live in
> the first place. I have no objection to people using the ratings to
> build a list of pages to work on, as long as the question whether the
> pages do, in fact, need work remains a community decision.

Yes. However, articles with low ratings will be an obvious place to go for
people to fix things up.

I think it'd be horrible if "low ratings" suddenly became a VFD reason.

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Ratings and decisions (was: Article validation:
	allow IP ratings for the raw data phase)

body:
Erik Moeller (erik_moeller at gmx.de) [050523 06:51]:

> I am somewhat concerned that the fact that these ratings will be public
> will be used to influence discussion. I hope when this feature goes into

By the way, please also put these concerns on
[[m:Article validation possible problems]].

- d.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: james

subject: [Wikitech-l] imported - now have errors

body:
i have successfull imported wikipedia.... though there are lots of php errors -
 similar to below;

Warning: gmdate() [function.gmdate]: Windows does not support dates prior to
midnight (00:00:00), January 1, 1970 in
C:\Xampp\htdocs\wiki\media\includes\GlobalFunctions.php on line 1094

Warning: gmmktime() [function.gmmktime]: Windows does not support negative
values for this function in
C:\Xampp\htdocs\wiki\media\includes\GlobalFunctions.php on line 1081

how do I get rid of these errors, or correct them??

Also, how do i get the images? Currently all of the images are labelled
image_name.png on each and every location of an image - and would look better
if there was an image there :)

is it also possible to edit the default mediawiki template??

and also, is it possible to get rid of any mention of other languages??

thanks :)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbian Wikinews set up

body:
With the required support, and after the basic pages were prepared on
Meta, I have set up a Serbian edition of Wikinews at:

	http://sr.wikinews.org/

For this edition I've asked one of the most active proponents of Serbian
Wikinews, User:Dcabrilo, to make the announcement in the Serbian
community instead of doing it myself.

The next editions are likely to be Catalan and Russian.

All best,

Erik


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbian Wikinews set up


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Validation feature update

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

Brion Vibber schrieb:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>> Brion Vibber schrieb:
>>
>>>> Magnus Manske wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I have treated the "user anonymity problem" by showing the user IDs
>>>>> rather than their names. So, in its current state, it *is* possible to
>>>>> find the user who did the rating, but it requires actual work :-)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I find that very unusual from the perspective of how we do things, a
>>>> step backwards from the open model.
>>
>>
>>
>> Maybe I didn't make myself clear (happens:-)
>>
>> I am "hiding" the user names just as a precaution, in case people don't
>> want their ratings to be public.
>
>
> But their ratings are *supposed* to be public. That's the whole point of
> the exercise!

The ratings *are* public! The question was wether it should be public
*who* rated *what*...

Magnus
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFCkX/zCZKBJbEFcz0RAoUaAJ9ur9VLXBMk/xL8HaOHTicIcAka5gCeIygZ
3YK4ih5VQW5iMgWUsFV6qnI=
=vGGn
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Validation feature update

body:
"Bryan Derksen" <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote in
message news:428F7E94.1070309 at shaw.ca...
[snip]
> Maybe just make reviews show up in user contributions along with other
> edits, so recent work is theoretically available for checking but it
> slides off over the horizon of history after a while.

This would be sensible, since a validation vote will be just as much a
contribution to the content of Wikipedia (or whatever) as a normal edit.

I don't see why it should be any more easy for someone to "vandalise"
articles by voting against them than by blanking or inserting rubbish.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
Gregory Maxwell (gmaxwell at gmail.com) [050523 08:15]:
> On 5/22/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> > Mmmm. Possibly the results should not even be viewable for 1.5.

> So are we to create yet another class of privileged user now? Those
> with access to the verification system output?
> What a horrible idea.  Our community is founded on openness and

No, no, only for 1.5 - so that the data gathering can proceed without any
visible output as a running score.

I anticipate the results of the data-gathering test to be available in a
downloadable form for people to pick over in close detail.

> > I think it'd be horrible if "low ratings" suddenly became a VFD reason.

> Eh, 'low raitings' would never be a direct reason to VFD.

I'm sure someone said that about "notability", which isn't in the deletion
policy either.

You watch. I bet someone will try just that and someone else will think
it's a dandy idea for culling Wikipedia.

> However, the rating system could be (ab)used to help automate the
> voting collection process for places where we already vote (FAC, VFD)
> by providing a uniform way to collect votes and perform tallies.

It provides some framework for article metadata, yes. Or at least for ideas
on metadata.

- d.


from_name: Nicolas Weeger

subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki selected for Trophées du Libre

body:
> Latest plan is: if we don't hear from Hashar real soon, Notafish and Ryo will go.

If I can get a day off, yeah. But i'm not sure notafish (*slaps brion, small case "n" ! :)) would go, then - no need to be too many.

> Unfortunately it seems Ryo misjudged the timeframe when signing us up for this thing so we didn't already have a plan ready. :)

Didn't guess someone would need to be present, and didn't check on the ceremony date. My mistake, indeed.

> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Nicolas [[fr:User:Ryo]]

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:
[Wikipedia-l] Article validation: allow IP ratings for the raw
	data	phase

body:
Yann Forget (yann at forget-me.net) [050523 08:21]:
> Le Sunday 22 May 2005 17:05, Magnus Manske a ?crit :
> > David Gerard schrieb:

> > > I suggest that we allow ratings by anonymous users (IP numbers), at least
> > > in 1.5.
> > > * we've always worked by leaving things as open as possible and only
> > >   restricting as needed;
> > > * we're explicitly not using the data for anything important yet, so if
> > > ten thousand rating spammers put [[Image:Autofellatio.jpg]] top marks for
> > > everything, it won't actually affect anything;
> > > * the raw data will be of great interest to people, and as wide as
> > > possible is good. (I can see the academics studying Wikipedia slavering
> > > for the ratings data tarball ;-)

> > * Later, we will allow only logged-in users to rate articles, right?
> > Otherwise, we'll lose a great part of the perceived reliability
> > improvement, IMHO. But how can we really set up this system if the data
> > we use as a foundation for the decision is based on anon entries as well?

> I think it better if only logged in users can validate articles.
> But well it depend what we want to do with this feature: selecting articles
> for an offline publication or studying psychology and sociology of Wikipedia
> readers ?
> We have a precedent: only logged in users can upload images.

It would be interesting to gather the data. Possibly the name of the tab
should be changed from "Validate" to "Rate this article".

Although vote-spamming will happen with anons, it'll still provide
interesting numbers. And we're not obligated to use them.

- d.


from_name: MHart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Export content to HTML

body:
I wrote an article on the meta wiki that explains how to generate a PDF in
MediaWiki: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PDF_Export

We use this to generate manuals from articles.

- Matt H

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alvaro Lopez Ortega" <alvaro at alobbs.com>
To: <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 6:16 AM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Export content to HTML

> Hi,
>
>  I'm wondering if it is possible to export the content of a mediawiki
> site to HTML.  We have started to work with mediawiki to write down a
> Free Software project documentation, and now we need a way to export the
> current content to HTML to distribute it as a user manual.
>
>  Do you have some suggestions?  I have been looking for a while but I
> haven't found anything.
>
> --
> Greetings, alo.
> http://www.alobbs.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


body:
Gregory Maxwell (gmaxwell at gmail.com) [050523 09:55]:
> On 5/22/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> > No, no, only for 1.5 - so that the data gathering can proceed without any
> > visible output as a running score.
> > I anticipate the results of the data-gathering test to be available in a
> > downloadable form for people to pick over in close detail.

> Eh, it sets a bad precedent. Users will claim we stole their anonymity
> when we turn off the feature. Besides what will it hurt? sure it might
> get used in fodder for silly arguments but so does everything else.
> To make the test the most valid we should try to make it approximate
> the real usage as close as possible. For example, it's likely that
> people will vote more often when they disagree with the existing
> votes. But that wont happen if the existing votes are private.

The thing is we don't know what the real usage will be until we have some
data. An "About the ratings trial" link may be applicable. Then they can't
claim they weren't warned, just because they didn't see the bit on the
twelfth page in <font face="Flyspeck" size="-3">.

I dunno. I was worried about observer effect - particularly with the live
updated ratings tallies - but then, that may also be a test of just how
spammy their little hearts are. Also, that way we don't have to change the
current code and can bug Magnus about other aspects of it instead ;-)

> People will claim many things. We are going into 1.5 with an explicit
> statement that it's a test and shouldn't be used for anything.

True. People out to do something obnoxious will find an excuse.

> > It provides some framework for article metadata, yes. Or at least for ideas
> > on metadata.

> Well version metadata. We already have article metadata of a sort,
> think catagory tags and the like. :)

Mmm. Those, like interwiki links, are pseudo-metadata - they work like
metadata, but they're actually in the wikitext, which is not ideal in many
ways.

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Jimbo interview on NPR Friday?

body:
David Gerard (fun at thingy.apana.org.au) [050521 23:57]:

> There was a Jimbo interview about Wikipedia on Friday around 12 noon Boston
> time. I was in it as well by phone, so I'm interested in hearing it :-) Did
> anyone get a recording and/or transcription?

Found it!

    http://www.radioopensource.org/2005/05/16/pilot-3-the-wikipedia/

49MB MP3. iTunes gave a Spinning Beachball Of Death before we got to my
bit, I'll try again tomorrow ;-)

Where do these get indexed?

- d.


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Article size consistency 32k

body:
Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050523 10:39]:

> This discussion is about how to improve the usability of the website.
> Looking forward to a print edition the 2mb limit makes sense, but these very
> large images ought not to make it difficult for the less advantaged to use
> the website.
> Some way needs to be found to not impose them on users whose equipment is
> unable to handle them.

The thumbnails in articles are usually much smaller - JPEGs, a few tens of
kilobytes; the sort of size that's fine on dialup (or was when dialup was
all there was).

- d.


from_name: Alvaro Lopez Ortega

subject: [Wikitech-l] Export content to HTML

body:
Hi,

  I'm wondering if it is possible to export the content of a mediawiki
site to HTML.  We have started to work with mediawiki to write down a
Free Software project documentation, and now we need a way to export the
current content to HTML to distribute it as a user manual.

  Do you have some suggestions?  I have been looking for a while but I
haven't found anything.

--
Greetings, alo.
http://www.alobbs.com


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: sco/fiu-vro in danger..

body:
>Timwi a ?crit:
>>Brion Vibber wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>Maybe whoever told them that could explain it.
>>
>>
>>They have when they did...
>>
>>>It seems a bit odd.
>>
>>
>>Says who?
>>
>>I thought it was a very good idea, and to me it's putting Meta to a very
>>good use. So far, I've never really understood the point in meta other
>>than collecting humorous articles and a few philosophical discussions
>>about the Wiki principle which mirror stuff already on MeatBall.
>>
>>Timwi
>
>There are two principles in meta, which do not exist on MeatBall. First it
>allows anyone to post (and not people under their real name as in MeatBall)
>and second it allows to do so in any languages (while MeatBall is english
>first of all, french possibly second).
>
>I'll add that Sunir was a bit tired to see so many wikipedians at some
>points, as the experience we were reporting was not the experience of the
>hightest majority of wiki, but the one of a rather unique case. He feared
>this would come to principles being reported being applicable to large
>wikis predominently.
>Remember this :
>http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?action=browse&id=WikiLifeCycle&oldid=CommunityLifeCycle
>
>There are some professionals (business) who now hesitate to set up a wiki
>for their firm, as they think "it will be a very small community, only a
>big community can really work on a wiki as wikipedia shows. We are not
>numerous enough".
>
>Just thoughts. I regret we do not hear much more of Sunir any more :-)
>
>anth
>
Now that we've seen all this, can someone tell Aphaia he has to keep his
hands off from the test wikis? I'm sure he will go on erasing the work of
others when he isn't told that by someone like Jimbo, Angela, Tony or
Anthere.

Regards,
W

_________________________________________________________________
Speel online games via MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/


from_name: Jure Spik

subject: [Wikitech-l] Blank page after refresh in firefox

body:
Zigger wrote:

>This seems similar to http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1763 .
>You could try the latest MediaWiki version 1.4.4, as it includes a fix for IIS.
>
>-- Zigger
>
>
MediaWiki <http://wikipedia.sf.net/> 1.4.4 shows a slight change in
headers but the same behavior

working header is
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 09:39:28 GMT
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET, PHP/4.3.11
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Language: en
Vary: Accept-Encoding, Cookie, Accept-Encoding
Expires: -1
Cache-Control: private, must-revalidate, max-age=0
Last-Modified: Thu, 19 May 2005 10:57:36 GMT
Content-Encoding: gzip

while header for blank page is

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 09:40:00 GMT
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET, PHP/4.3.11
Connection: close
HTTP/1.0: 304 Not Modified
Content-Type: text/html
Vary: Accept-Encoding, Cookie, Accept-Encoding
Expires: -1
Cache-Control: private, must-revalidate, max-age=0
Last-Modified: Thu, 19 May 2005 10:57:36 GMT
Content-Encoding: gzip

(for the non working page there are also these request headers:
If-Modified-Since: Thu, 19 May 2005 10:57:36 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=0)

Could this be a browser bug and if the page returns 304 in the header
firefox should reload it internally ?

Jure


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: article size

body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> It does bring up the interesting point that perhaps there should be a
> little more editing in making a paper version besides just validating
> articles.  For example, it might make sense to collate these all into
> one article for print publication.

That can be done via transclusion. A container article would have =Level 1=
headings that would have the names of each component article. Then in a print
version, {{main|blah}} would need to be changed from 'Main article: [[blah]]'
to 'For further detail see [[blah]]' (might be a good idea anyway).

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail


body:
> Now that we've seen all this, can someone tell Aphaia he has to keep his
> hands off from the test wikis? I'm sure he will go on erasing the work of
> others when he isn't told that by someone like Jimbo, Angela, Tony or
> Anthere.

First, "he" is a "she", fyi :)
Second, she didn't erase anything, but merely listed articles on VfD - which is *not* the same as deleting.
Third, on foundation-l, she and the author of the pages agreed that there was a misunderstanding - so good faith on both parts.

> Regards,
> W

Regards

Nicolas

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)


body:
> > Now that we've seen all this, can someone tell Aphaia he has to keep his
> > hands off from the test wikis? I'm sure he will go on erasing the work
>of
> > others when he isn't told that by someone like Jimbo, Angela, Tony or
> > Anthere.
>
>First, "he" is a "she", fyi :)
>Second, she didn't erase anything, but merely listed articles on VfD -
>which is *not* the same as deleting.
>Third, on foundation-l, she and the author of the pages agreed that there
>was a misunderstanding - so good faith on both parts.
>
> > Regards,
> > W
>
>Regards
>
>Nicolas
>
OK, Nicolas, thank you for pointing this out. I was only afraid that the
very same would happen to my own, not-yet-mature test wiki. Furthermore I
apologise for considering Mrs. Aphaia a man. I naturally consider users of
whom I don't know the sex as male.

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Webmessenger doet het altijd en overal http://webmessenger.msn.com/


from_name: Merlin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Connection closed by remote host

body:
Hi there,

I am trying to load the old table into a remote server but due to the large
amount of data I do get a close after a while. I am also wondering how long this
takes and if I am doing properly. Loading 15GB of data with mysql might take
several days?!

Here is how I am doing it:
- login via ssh to the remote server
- login to the mysql 4.x database
- issue: mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE '/home/wiki/20050516_old_table.sql' INTO TABLE
wiki.old;

Any suggestions? Thank you for your help,

Merlin


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki selected forTrophées du Libre

body:
Eheh,

But that is rather short notice to organise yourself, no ? ;-)

Ant

Lee Daniel Crocker a ?crit:
> On Sun, 2005-05-22 at 21:54 +0200, Anthere wrote:
>
>>As we were looking for someone part of mediawiki development team to go
>>to the ceremony, I contacted Hashar. He has not been around recently, so
>>I am not sure he will answer.
>
>
> Hey, if they'll spring for the flight...
>


body:
Brion Vibber a ?crit:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> As we were looking for someone part of mediawiki development team to go
>> to the ceremony, I contacted Hashar. He has not been around recently, so
>> I am not sure he will answer.

No answer for now....

> Latest plan is: if we don't hear from Hashar real soon, Notafish and Ryo
> will go.
>
> Unfortunately it seems Ryo misjudged the timeframe when signing us up
> for this thing so we didn't already have a plan ready. :)

Tssss. This is how wikipedia works. Be bold.

> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: STOP Translations needed: Wikimedia Commons -
	25th of may

body:
Aphaia a ?crit:
> On 5/23/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>I thought it real weird... Went through my mails ... tough on yahoo mail
>>box... found the most official one... it was written the official date
>>for release was 23rd... My memory is playing with me :-((
>>I hope you will accept my apologies...
>>
>>/me put alcohol in the herbal tea and goes make an act of contrition.
>
>
> Wait a moment, you remind me now on another official topic.
> Where is your mail to WQ3, che`ere Florence ;-) ?

*This*, I *DID NOT* forget *AT ALL*.

There is the board letter and the final words still to do.

I am waiting for our final decisions with regards to official positions
and to wikicouncil to finalize them both. Hopefully today ;-)

Ant


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Article validation: allow IP ratings for the raw
	data phase

body:
Yann Forget a ?crit:
 > Hi,
 >
 > Le Sunday 22 May 2005 17:05, Magnus Manske a ?crit :
 >
 >>David Gerard schrieb:
 >>
 >>>I suggest that we allow ratings by anonymous users (IP numbers), at
least
 >>>in 1.5.
 >>>
 >>>Reasons for this:
 >>>
 >>>* we've always worked by leaving things as open as possible and only
 >>>  restricting as needed;
 >>>
 >>>* we're explicitly not using the data for anything important yet, so if
 >>>ten thousand rating spammers put [[Image:Autofellatio.jpg]] top
marks for
 >>>everything, it won't actually affect anything;
 >>>
 >>>* the raw data will be of great interest to people, and as wide as
 >>>possible is good. (I can see the academics studying Wikipedia slavering
 >>>for the ratings data tarball ;-)
 >>
 >>Two reasons against this:
 >>
 >>* Later, we will allow only logged-in users to rate articles, right?
 >>Otherwise, we'll lose a great part of the perceived reliability
 >>improvement, IMHO. But how can we really set up this system if the data
 >>we use as a foundation for the decision is based on anon entries as well?
 >
 >
 > I think it better if only logged in users can validate articles.
 > But well it depend what we want to do with this feature: selecting
articles
 > for an offline publication or studying psychology and sociology of
Wikipedia
 > readers ?
 > We have a precedent: only logged in users can upload images.

This is not the same.
Uploading images is a way to improve the quality of the project. We had
to put restrictions to limit vandalism.

However, I think we need feedback from readers as well. Possibly a way
to go around of vandalism would be to allow voting with a valid email
address on top ?

Ant


body:
Wouter Steenbeek a ?crit:

>> Just thoughts. I regret we do not hear much more of Sunir any more :-)
>>
>> anth
>>
> Now that we've seen all this, can someone tell Aphaia he has to keep his
> hands off from the test wikis? I'm sure he will go on erasing the work
> of others when he isn't told that by someone like Jimbo, Angela, Tony or
> Anthere.
>
> Regards,
> W

Hmmmmm
Wouter...

Please consider to say "she" for Aphaia instead of "he"

Also, we are talking of meta, not of test. Aphaia is not admin on test
and cannot delete anything there;

Third, if Aphaia deletes things and we do not agree, we can simply
restore. No big deal.

And please consider than even if I really do not agree with her opinion
on such deletion matters (I am a very very inclusionnist one, while she
appears to be very much of a cleaner), nor on what meta should be used
about... I also like Aphaia very much... and value very much her
contributions to our projects. She is in particular extremely helpful in
all translating matters. She is also a sensible person, and I would not
want to be harsh to her. I wish she takes into account in the future
comments made on meta on the votes for deletion page... however, I would
*never* consider *telling* her what to erase and what to not erase. I
may not agree with her on this, but she is allowed free will as long as
the community agrees. Same for me.

Anthere

PS : who is Tony ?


body:
Wouter Steenbeek a ?crit:

> OK, Nicolas, thank you for pointing this out. I was only afraid that the
> very same would happen to my own, not-yet-mature test wiki. Furthermore
> I apologise for considering Mrs. Aphaia a man. I naturally consider
> users of whom I don't know the sex as male.

Naturally...

/me goes for another cup of herbal tea.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Serbian Wikinews set up

body:
Catalan ?????

with a wikipedia 14000 articles all wet ?

Waouuuu

Ant

Erik Moeller a ?crit:
> With the required support, and after the basic pages were prepared on
> Meta, I have set up a Serbian edition of Wikinews at:
>
>     http://sr.wikinews.org/
>
> For this edition I've asked one of the most active proponents of Serbian
> Wikinews, User:Dcabrilo, to make the announcement in the Serbian
> community instead of doing it myself.
>
> The next editions are likely to be Catalan and Russian.
>
> All best,
>
> Erik


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikibooks Newsletter

body:
I'd like to try out an idea to have a periodic newsletter, maybe every
two weeks or so. Here is the trial version:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Newsletter

Help me make it better so we can send it out.

I think that a periodic review of what we are doing will help us
gather forces and get people more excited about what is being done.

Thanks,
Karl


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] HMSO Crown copyright FOIA Request

body:
David Newton wrote:

>So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published
>in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and
>is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
>
>
Certainly good news!  The copyright laws are rather complex, so I
suppose it's not impossible that they could in theory lay a claim to
more than 50 years under, say, U.S. copyright law for material published
in the U.S.  To avoid that possibility, it may be worth archiving this
response somewhere, since "the copyright owner explicitly told me I
could use it" is a reasonably good defense against
copyright-infringement claims, and at the very least would likely
severely mitigate any damages that might ever arise.

-Mark


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

body:
On Mon, 23 May 2005, Merlin wrote:

>Hi there,
>
>I am trying to load the old table into a remote server but due to the large
>amount of data I do get a close after a while. I am also wondering how long this
>takes and if I am doing properly. Loading 15GB of data with mysql might take
>several days?!
>
>Here is how I am doing it:
>- login via ssh to the remote server
>- login to the mysql 4.x database
>- issue: mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE '/home/wiki/20050516_old_table.sql' INTO TABLE
>wiki.old;
>
>Any suggestions? Thank you for your help,

AFAIK the sql dumps aren't text data, but actual sql commands. So you'll
just cat the unzipped file to mysql:

cat old.sql | mysql -u username -p

using appropriate username and password options.

There have been reports about people taking one day to load the 1 GB "cur"
table, so 15 GB may be really slow. But results seem to vary wildly, for
me loading the "cur" dump only took one hour or two on an average machine,
and using Windows too, where mysql is not optimized.

Alfio


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: article size

body:
dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote:

> Incidentally, article size is one area in which "Wikipedia is not
> paper" serves us poorly. In the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia
> Britannica, the article on the Bible is approximately one megabyte in
> size. That decision was presumably made on the basis of style,
> organization, and readability. You can riffle through twenty pages a
> second or more and still glimpse running heads. And the articles in
> the old Britannica are so well-written that you can sit down with them
> and read them from beginning to end.

I think Britannica goes for a different style than we do, largely
because it *is* paper.  In a paper encyclopedia, cross-references are
much more of a hassle, and the reader can't flip between articles and
volumes in the click of a mouse.  Thus, articles tend to be longer and
fewer.  With Wikipedia, there's no trouble breaking up a major topic
like, say [[United States]], into an overview article with separate
articles on [[History of the United States]], [[Economy of the United
States]], and so on, because it doesn't place much of a burden on our
users to click through if they want the long articles.  Even the way we
format it---"Main article: [[History of the United States]]"---really
only makes sense in a hyperlinked encyclopedia.

It does bring up the interesting point that perhaps there should be a
little more editing in making a paper version besides just validating
articles.  For example, it might make sense to collate these all into
one article for print publication.

-Mark


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] sco/fiu-vro in danger

body:
Thank you for your reply, V?rok.

On 5/23/05, Sulev Iva <juvasul at ut.ee> wrote:
> 22.05.2005 9:24:22, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> kirot':

> I apologize. Yes, I misunderstood the situation. It is my fault because I am still quite unfamiliar in MetaWiki.

I accept your apology with gratitude for your understanding. Already
we communicate on meta factually and I suppose you convince now both
of us acted on a good faith.

Friendly advice: if you seriously plan to launch a new Wikipedia and
seek cooperators, it would be better to have at least two project
documents as soon as possible : NPOV and Copyright (or explanation of
GFDL precisely). Sorry if you have both of them already, but from my
experience lacking of those two policies any Wikimedia project is
unfeasible.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] sco/fiu-vro in danger


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: failure notice

body:
> I guess that settles it...
>
> Notafish and Ryo are planned for Soissons :-)
>
> Let's hope we get the price :-)

I phoned him, but no reply so far (answering machine).

I managed to get my day off thursday, so I'll go - not sure yet whether Delphine will go or not, but anyway there'll be someone :)

Do you developers have something specific to say, just in case we win the prize? ^_^

> Ant

Nicolas [[fr:User:Ryo]]

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: [Wikitech-l] Re: wikipedia downloads only available with 2GB?!

body:
Hi Kate,

are you sure? The line gives me that output:
  curl >/dev/null
http://download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/20050516_old_table.sql.gz
   % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed          Time             Curr.
                                  Dload  Upload Total    Current  Left    Speed
   0 2047M    0 2600k    0     0   449k      0  1:17:48  0:00:05  1:17:42  511k04

I am trying this on suse 9.1 and files over 2GB are supported on the file system.

Regards, Merlin

Kate Turner wrote:
 > Merlin wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:
 >
 >
 >>I am trying to download the german "old" table on:
 >>http://download.wikimedia.org/#wikipedia
 >>The link says that the size of that file is 13.97 GiB.
 >
 >
 >>Howver, the file is just 2GB (definatelly) and there are no aditional
 >>files like described on the wikipedia download help page.
 >
 >
 > are you sure the program you are using to download it supports large files?
 >
 > ? 101> curl >/dev/null
http://download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/20050516_old_table.sql.gz
 >   % Total   % Received % Xferd  Average Speed             Time             Curr.
 >                                 Dload  Upload   Total    Current    Left   Speed
 >  22 14.0G  22   3.1G   0     0  27.5M      0   0:08:40   0:01:55   0:06:45 28.2M
 >
 >
 >>merlin
 >
 >
 > kate.
 >
 > _______________________________________________
 > Wikitech-l mailing list
 > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
 > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Request for selected parts of the user table to be
	included in the dumps.

body:
> What sort of statistics work are you doing?  I'm working on creating a
> statistics service for wikipedia over this summer.  :)

I just wanted to know what preference options were actually being used
and what options weren't and evaluate if it was worth the effort to
keep maintaining support in our codebase for features that aren't in
wide.


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
Timwi wrote:
> I'm getting annoyed when people make images so huge
> because they have a 1280x1024 resolution and they think everyone else
> must have that too. (I even had one replying back to me saying "Not
> everyone has a resolution as low as yours, so please leave the image
> this big!")

If you don't want to be criticised for having a low resolution, then
may I suggest that you refrain from criticising people for having
older browsers:

>> It's an ancient version of Mozilla that I probably compiled
>> incorrectly when I installed in years ago
>
>In that case, I'm very afraid you have no grounds to complain.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
Old versions of curl cannot download files >2GB. Intermediate versions
have a bug on the display. This is probably your problem.

Newer version of curl can download files >2GB without problems. Mine is:

$ curl -V
curl 7.12.1 (i386-redhat-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.12.1

The previous version I had (7.10 something) failed.

Alfio

On Mon, 23 May 2005, Merlin wrote:

>Hi Kate,
>
>are you sure? The line gives me that output:
>  curl >/dev/null
>http://download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/20050516_old_table.sql.gz
>   % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed          Time             Curr.
>                                  Dload  Upload Total    Current  Left    Speed
>   0 2047M    0 2600k    0     0   449k      0  1:17:48  0:00:05  1:17:42  511k04
>
>I am trying this on suse 9.1 and files over 2GB are supported on the file system.
>
>Regards, Merlin
>
>
>
>
>
>Kate Turner wrote:
> > Merlin wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:
> >
> >
> >>I am trying to download the german "old" table on:
> >>http://download.wikimedia.org/#wikipedia
> >>The link says that the size of that file is 13.97 GiB.
> >
> >
> >>Howver, the file is just 2GB (definatelly) and there are no aditional
> >>files like described on the wikipedia download help page.
> >
> >
> > are you sure the program you are using to download it supports large files?
> >
> > ? 101> curl >/dev/null
>http://download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/20050516_old_table.sql.gz
> >   % Total   % Received % Xferd  Average Speed             Time             Curr.
> >                                 Dload  Upload   Total    Current    Left   Speed
> >  22 14.0G  22   3.1G   0     0  27.5M      0   0:08:40   0:01:55   0:06:45 28.2M
> >
> >
> >>merlin
> >
> >
> > kate.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
John R. Owens wrote:
> I don't know if this might have ever been suggested before already, but
> perhaps a change in software could allow us to set a maximum image size
> in our user preferences? Either in width/height, e.g. "always shrink
> images to less than 200 pixels wide or 150 pixels high, whichever is
> smaller", or in kB, e.g. "always shrink images to less than 10 kB".

Unfortunately I don't think this would be a workable solution, unless
a thumbnail duplicate of every image was created at the time of
uploading. That would be fairly straightforward to do, although it
would be very resource intensive on the image server(s). (Is there
more than one yet?) To shrink each image after every request before
sending to the browser would literally kill the servers.

A better way would be to allow for a user preference to have images
either on or off by default, but have a link on the page to view a
version with images. So if a user browsing with images off wanted to
see an image, they could then re-load the page with images included.
(If it's good enough for Outlook, then it's good enough for
Wikipedia.)

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] imported - now have errors

body:
On 5/23/05, james <jamessampford at supanet.com> wrote:
> Also, how do i get the images? Currently all of the images are labelled
> image_name.png on each and every location of an image - and would look better
> if there was an image there :)

AFAIK there is currently no possibility to get the images as a dump,
search through the archive of the mailing list, this has been
discussed recently.

> is it also possible to edit the default mediawiki template??

Sure, see .../wiki/skins/MonoBook.php (and other files there).

> and also, is it possible to get rid of any mention of other languages??

I guess you mean that the interwiki links are displayed in the text
instead of the sidebar. If that is your problem, add the required
entries into the interwiki table, there should be some scripts in
maintenance/ to do that. (Mmm, maybe wikipedia-interwiki.sql ?)

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


from_name: Yann Forget

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Article validation: allow IP ratings for the
	raw data phase

body:
Le Monday 23 May 2005 13:24, Anthere a ?crit :
> Yann Forget a ?crit:
>  > Hi,
>  >
>  > Le Sunday 22 May 2005 17:05, Magnus Manske a ?crit :
>  >>David Gerard schrieb:
>  >>>I suggest that we allow ratings by anonymous users (IP numbers), at
> > least in 1.5.
>  >>>
>  >>>Reasons for this:
>  >>>
>  >>>* we've always worked by leaving things as open as possible and only
>  >>>  restricting as needed;
>  >>>
>  >>>* we're explicitly not using the data for anything important yet, so if
>  >>>ten thousand rating spammers put [[Image:Autofellatio.jpg]] top
>
> marks for
>
>  >>>everything, it won't actually affect anything;
>  >>>
>  >>>* the raw data will be of great interest to people, and as wide as
>  >>>possible is good. (I can see the academics studying Wikipedia slavering
>  >>>for the ratings data tarball ;-)
>  >>
>  >>Two reasons against this:
>  >>
>  >>* Later, we will allow only logged-in users to rate articles, right?
>  >>Otherwise, we'll lose a great part of the perceived reliability
>  >>improvement, IMHO. But how can we really set up this system if the data
>  >>we use as a foundation for the decision is based on anon entries as
>  >> well?
>  >
>  > I think it better if only logged in users can validate articles.
>  > But well it depend what we want to do with this feature: selecting
>  > articles
>  > for an offline publication or studying psychology and sociology of
>  > Wikipedia readers ?
>  > We have a precedent: only logged in users can upload images.
>
> This is not the same.
> Uploading images is a way to improve the quality of the project. We had
> to put restrictions to limit vandalism.

For me this is the same. Validating articles is a way to improve the quality
of the project.

> However, I think we need feedback from readers as well. Possibly a way
> to go around of vandalism would be to allow voting with a valid email
> address on top ?

Which is stricter than creating an account and logging in, as we don't require
a valid email for that.

> Ant

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


from_name: Domas Mituzas

body:
> are you sure? The line gives me that output:

Hey, it may be 'range' parsing or at least displaying bug by
software we use. As author of this software knows (and cares)
about this trouble, in day or two we'll be able to run proper service.

Cheers,
Domas


from_name: Geoff Burling

body:
On Mon, 23 May 2005, Timwi wrote:

> I'm trying to tell you that if you are not interested in the images, the
> presence and absence of images should not make any difference to you
> because it does not make any difference to the time taken for the *text*
> to load and display -- unless you have a browser which artificially
> waits until all images are loaded, in which case I would just simply
> suggest to upgrade, rather than trying to re-educate everyone in the
> Wikipedia community on what *you* think is the right amount of images in
> articles.
>
Which has never been my problem: I am not aware of any browser that
requires all of the images to be downloaded before it shows the page.
I have no idea how you concluded that was my point; I was talking about
HOW MUCH TIME THE PAGE TOOK TO DOWNLOAD IN TOTAL.

And because images sometimes do not download in a predictable order,
a user must then DOWNLOAD ALL OF THEM to determine which ones are useful,
& which ones are useless. Even the ones that a contributor insists ought
to be displayed in Wikipedia at 1280x1024 -- I assume that is an example
of the kind of image you have said you object to? Or would complaining
about it be an attempt to "re-educate everyone in the Wikipedia
community on what *you* think is ...  right"?

I'll make this easy on both of us: I'll stop reading or answering any
more of your posts to this list. Obviously, that will make us both
much happier.

Geoff


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Trying to understand "Fair User"

body:
Hell no.  But you knew that.

-Matt (User:Morven)


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] URGENT: blocking open proxies

body:
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
> Dear fellow list subscribers,
>
> li: is in very great danger. We are only three, and we have to cope with
> an apparently intelligent an extremely aggressive vandal, who contantly
> changes his IP addresses and contantly comes up emptiing pages. He
> simply wants our project to be completely destroyed! And I'm not kidding.
>
> We must take an emergency measure: block ALL open proxies.

As I understand it, we are using the SORBS proxy blacklist service to
block all open proxies, except on zh.* and th.*

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: elwp at gmx.de

body:
Domas Mituzas:
> > Hey, it may be 'range' parsing or at least displaying bug by
> > software we use. As author of this software knows (and cares)
> > about this trouble, in day or two we'll be able to run proper service.
>
> I applied some changeset, and now there should be no Range: bug, please
> check.

Do you mean the bug I reported in my last mail?
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-May/029624.html)

If so, the problem is not solved yet, but something has changed indeed:

wget -d -c http://download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/old_table.sql.gz

now yields

---request begin---
[snip]
Range: bytes=12656159519-

---request end---
HTTP/1.0 206 Partial Content
[snip]
Content-Range: bytes 0-15004279247/15004279248

That means the server wants to send the complete file, but that doesn't
help me. I can't download the complete file in one chunk, because my ISP
disconnects me after 24 hours.

--
5 GB Mailbox, 50 FreeSMS http://www.gmx.net/de/go/promail
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++


from_name: Александр Сигачёв

subject: [Wikitech-l] Request to maintain language file

body:
> I think I can help Wikipedia as maintainer of Russain language file

So, it is probably necessary to address personally to Magnus Manske,
Erik Moeller, Tim Starling or Brion Vibber...

--
Cxion la plej helan,
ajvol


body:
Hi,

I think that a previous poster was right. This is a problem in the download sw.
I am currently trying to upgrade to another curl version (without success so
far). Wget seems to be limited to 2GB.

Merlin

elwp at gmx.de wrote:
> Domas Mituzas:
>
>>>Hey, it may be 'range' parsing or at least displaying bug by
>>>software we use. As author of this software knows (and cares)
>>>about this trouble, in day or two we'll be able to run proper service.
>>
>>I applied some changeset, and now there should be no Range: bug, please
>>check.
>
>
> Do you mean the bug I reported in my last mail?
> (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-May/029624.html)
>
> If so, the problem is not solved yet, but something has changed indeed:
>
> wget -d -c http://download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/old_table.sql.gz
>
> now yields
>
> ---request begin---
> [snip]
> Range: bytes=12656159519-
>
> ---request end---
> HTTP/1.0 206 Partial Content
> [snip]
> Content-Range: bytes 0-15004279247/15004279248
>
>
> That means the server wants to send the complete file, but that doesn't
> help me. I can't download the complete file in one chunk, because my ISP
> disconnects me after 24 hours.
>


body:
I did write:
> Hey, it may be 'range' parsing or at least displaying bug by
> software we use. As author of this software knows (and cares)
> about this trouble, in day or two we'll be able to run proper service.

I applied some changeset, and now there should be no Range: bug, please check.

Domas


from_name: Alvaro Lopez Ortega

body:
Merlin wrote:

> I think that a previous poster was right. This is a problem in the
> download sw. I am currently trying to upgrade to another curl version
> (without success so far). Wget seems to be limited to 2GB.

  I wrote a patch for wget some time ago (it was rejected because there
were some problems with the Windows compilation).  Now, there is a new
version here:

  http://software.lpetrov.net/wget-LFS/wget-LFS-20041113.patch

  I really don't know if it has been integrated. I don't think so.

--
Greetings, alo.
http://www.alobbs.com


body:
Merlin:
> I think that a previous poster was right. This is a problem in the
> download sw. I am currently trying to upgrade to another curl
> version (without success so far). Wget seems to be limited to 2GB.

I don't know if wget has some 2GB issues as well, but the debug output
I posted here was the plain client request and server response, i.e. the
response was not altered by wget. So I am sure the server is buggy, because
it's response is simply inappropriate.

Your current problem is curl. Your next problem may be the one I have now,
if you have a slow connection and need to interrupt the transmission.

--
Weitersagen: GMX DSL-Flatrates mit Tempo-Garantie!
Ab 4,99 Euro/Monat: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl


subject: [Foundation-l] Malicious user javascript

body:
kelvSYC wrote:
> First of all, I hope that you can forward it off to wikitech, but it
> seems that a malicious user at Wikibooks used their user JS to do  some
> page move vandalism (see [[b:en:User:Vandel Damon/monobook.js]]  for the
> JS in question).  It's not much of a security loophole as it  is
> undesirable for the wiki community, seeing that a lot of people  would
> have to undo a lot of page moves.
>
> If there was some way in the back end to prevent this, it would be
> appreciated.

There's nothing malicious you can do from *your own* user javascript
that you can't do from a different form of client-side script or bot.

In interactions between the server and a client, JavaScript is exactly
equivalent to user-performed actions and non-browser bots.

Even if we tried to place restrictions on user JavaScript or disable it
entirely, there is no way to protect against that distinct from general
restrictions on submissions from some user. The malicious user could
trivially substitute JavaScript that comes from their local machine or
another source, a modifying proxy to insert it, or use a different
client-side tool to perform equivalent processing.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
kelvSYC wrote:
> First of all, I hope that you can forward it off to wikitech, but it
> seems that a malicious user at Wikibooks used their user JS to do  some
> page move vandalism (see [[b:en:User:Vandel Damon/monobook.js]]  for the
> JS in question).  It's not much of a security loophole as it  is
> undesirable for the wiki community, seeing that a lot of people  would
> have to undo a lot of page moves.
>
> If there was some way in the back end to prevent this, it would be
> appreciated.

There's nothing malicious you can do from *your own* user javascript
that you can't do from a different form of client-side script or bot.

In interactions between the server and a client, JavaScript is exactly
equivalent to user-performed actions and non-browser bots.

Even if we tried to place restrictions on user JavaScript or disable it
entirely, there is no way to protect against that distinct from general
restrictions on submissions from some user. The malicious user could
trivially substitute JavaScript that comes from their local machine or
another source, a modifying proxy to insert it, or use a different
client-side tool to perform equivalent processing.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
kelvSYC wrote:
> First of all, I hope that you can forward it off to wikitech, but it
> seems that a malicious user at Wikibooks used their user JS to do  some
> page move vandalism (see [[b:en:User:Vandel Damon/monobook.js]]  for the
> JS in question).  It's not much of a security loophole as it  is
> undesirable for the wiki community, seeing that a lot of people  would
> have to undo a lot of page moves.
>
> If there was some way in the back end to prevent this, it would be
> appreciated.

There's nothing malicious you can do from *your own* user javascript
that you can't do from a different form of client-side script or bot.

In interactions between the server and a client, JavaScript is exactly
equivalent to user-performed actions and non-browser bots.

Even if we tried to place restrictions on user JavaScript or disable it
entirely, there is no way to protect against that distinct from general
restrictions on submissions from some user. The malicious user could
trivially substitute JavaScript that comes from their local machine or
another source, a modifying proxy to insert it, or use a different
client-side tool to perform equivalent processing.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
kelvSYC wrote:
> First of all, I hope that you can forward it off to wikitech, but it
> seems that a malicious user at Wikibooks used their user JS to do  some
> page move vandalism (see [[b:en:User:Vandel Damon/monobook.js]]  for the
> JS in question).  It's not much of a security loophole as it  is
> undesirable for the wiki community, seeing that a lot of people  would
> have to undo a lot of page moves.
>
> If there was some way in the back end to prevent this, it would be
> appreciated.

There's nothing malicious you can do from *your own* user javascript
that you can't do from a different form of client-side script or bot.

In interactions between the server and a client, JavaScript is exactly
equivalent to user-performed actions and non-browser bots.

Even if we tried to place restrictions on user JavaScript or disable it
entirely, there is no way to protect against that distinct from general
restrictions on submissions from some user. The malicious user could
trivially substitute JavaScript that comes from their local machine or
another source, a modifying proxy to insert it, or use a different
client-side tool to perform equivalent processing.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Domas:
> SERVER IS NOT BUGGY (<small>after my small source hack :)</small>). Try
> now and report :)

Looks good now, thanks!

--
5 GB Mailbox, 50 FreeSMS http://www.gmx.net/de/go/promail
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++


body:
elwp at gmx.de wrote:
> Domas:
>
>>SERVER IS NOT BUGGY (<small>after my small source hack :)</small>). Try
>>now and report :)
>
>
> Looks good now, thanks!
>
Hi Domas, did you manage to download the file now? Which command did you use? I
am trying to install curl but it failes due to the fact that I can not find
libcrypto.so.2   and  libssl.so.2

Regards, Merlin


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Delirium wrote:

> David Newton wrote:
>
>> So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published
>> in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and
>> is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
>
> Certainly good news!  The copyright laws are rather complex, so I
> suppose it's not impossible that they could in theory lay a claim to
> more than 50 years under, say, U.S. copyright law for material
> published in the U.S.  To avoid that possibility, it may be worth
> archiving this response somewhere, since "the copyright owner
> explicitly told me I could use it" is a reasonably good defense
> against copyright-infringement claims, and at the very least would
> likely severely mitigate any damages that might ever arise.

If something is already in the public domain the copyright owner's
permission is of no consequence.  It only matters when something is
still protected.

As a rule, no country will grant citizens of another country greater
copyright protection than they do to their own citizens, nor will they
extend the rights of a foreign citizen beyond what he had in his own
country.

Canada is a Berne Convention country which follows the life + 50 rule.
This means that on a worldwide basis a Canadian author's copyrights
expire 50 years after his death notwithstanding foreign laws that would
extend this period to 70 years.  Similarly, any foreign author could be
freely republished in Canada 50 years after his death, but that could
not be distributed internationaly to countries with a longer expiry period.

Ec


from_name: David Newton

body:
It has long been nagging me about the policy of HMSO with respect to
Crown copyright material outside of the UK. Inside the UK the position
is clear: published material from 1954 or earlier is out of copyright
as it was published over 50 years ago. Outside the UK the position of
Crown copyright material has long been ambiguous.

I therefore sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the Office
for Public Sector Information (what HMSO has changed its name to)
requesting clarification of the length of copyright for published
Crown copyright material outside the UK. I received the following
reply from their Information Policy Adviser:

"Dear David,

Thank you for your email enquiry dated May 23rd, 2005.  Crown
copyright protection in published material lasts for fifty years from
the end of the year in which the material was first published.
Therefore, to use your example, material published in 1954, and any
Crown copyright material published before that date, would now be out
of copyright, and may be freely reproduced throughout the world.

I hope this information will be helpful to you, but if you have any
further questions please feel free to get in touch with me again."

So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published
in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and
is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.

David Newton


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: article size

body:
Delirium wrote:

> I think Britannica goes for a different style than we do, largely
> because it *is* paper.  In a paper encyclopedia, cross-references are
> much more of a hassle, and the reader can't flip between articles and
> volumes in the click of a mouse.  Thus, articles tend to be longer and
> fewer.  With Wikipedia, there's no trouble breaking up a major topic
> like, say [[United States]], into an overview article with separate
> articles on [[History of the United States]], [[Economy of the United
> States]], and so on, because it doesn't place much of a burden on our
> users to click through if they want the long articles.  Even the way
> we format it---"Main article: [[History of the United
> States]]"---really only makes sense in a hyperlinked encyclopedia.
>
> It does bring up the interesting point that perhaps there should be a
> little more editing in making a paper version besides just validating
> articles.  For example, it might make sense to collate these all into
> one article for print publication.

That would probably be necessary if we try to produce a massive
multi-volume encyclopedia on a scale similar to existing print models.
On the other hand, less editing is required, and in fact this structure
is quite handy, when considering a smaller reference work focused on a
particular subject. For example, an "Encyclopedia of the United States"
would do quite nicely with exactly these articles, plus those about the
individual states, each US President, and whatever other articles are
deemed necessary and appropriate for the topic.

I suspect our efforts are more likely to head in this direction at least
for now, as the efforts to produce WikiReaders already show. I don't
know if this path will lead us to the encyclopedia model of the past, or
if we should encourage people to reconceive of the full encyclopedia as
a collection of individual specialist encyclopedias.

--Michael Snow


body:
Hey,

> I don't know if wget has some 2GB issues as well,
> but the debug output I posted here was the plain client
> request and server response, i.e. the response was not
> altered by wget. So I am sure the server is buggy,
> because it's response is simply inappropriate.

SERVER IS NOT BUGGY (<small>after my small source hack :)</small>). Try now and report :)

Domas


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: 100,
	000 files uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Since you decided to announce it yourself, could you be good enough to
> put an announcement on the foundation website please Erik ?

In Erik's defense, this was hardly a unilateral press release he
personally announced; it was wiki-written by the Wikimedia Commons
community, with edit history available at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/100K  (Indeed,
one member of the board, Angela, was among the people who helped write it.)

-Mark


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
David Newton said:
>
> So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published in
> 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and is
> thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
>

Great news!  I have updated the copyrights page on English Wikipedia to
say so, quoting a bit of the email reply you got (fair use, of course...)


from_name: kelvSYC

body:
First of all, I hope that you can forward it off to wikitech, but it
seems that a malicious user at Wikibooks used their user JS to do
some page move vandalism (see [[b:en:User:Vandel Damon/monobook.js]]
for the JS in question).  It's not much of a security loophole as it
is undesirable for the wiki community, seeing that a lot of people
would have to undo a lot of page moves.

If there was some way in the back end to prevent this, it would be
appreciated.


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] HMSO Crown copyright FOIA Request]

body:
I think this probably should go also to wikien-l.  I've already updated
our copyrights page.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] HMSO Crown copyright FOIA Request
From: David Newton <davidp.newton at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, May 23, 2005 18:40
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org

It has long been nagging me about the policy of HMSO with respect to
Crown copyright material outside of the UK. Inside the UK the position is
clear: published material from 1954 or earlier is out of copyright as it
was published over 50 years ago. Outside the UK the position of Crown
copyright material has long been ambiguous.

I therefore sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the Office for
Public Sector Information (what HMSO has changed its name to)
requesting clarification of the length of copyright for published
Crown copyright material outside the UK. I received the following
reply from their Information Policy Adviser:

"Dear David,

Thank you for your email enquiry dated May 23rd, 2005.  Crown
copyright protection in published material lasts for fifty years from the
end of the year in which the material was first published.
Therefore, to use your example, material published in 1954, and any Crown
copyright material published before that date, would now be out of
copyright, and may be freely reproduced throughout the world.

I hope this information will be helpful to you, but if you have any
further questions please feel free to get in touch with me again."

So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published in
1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and is thus
fair game for the Wikipedia to use.

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


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: article size

body:
--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> I suspect our efforts are more likely to head in this direction at least
> for now, as the efforts to produce WikiReaders already show. I don't
> know if this path will lead us to the encyclopedia model of the past, or
> if we should encourage people to reconceive of the full encyclopedia as
> a collection of individual specialist encyclopedias.

That is in fact what Wikipedia already is. But the larger context is that those
component encyclopedias must also fit in the general encyclopedia framework.
Thus we have many different readerships to serve all at once. Use of summary
style helps us accomplish this by allowing people to zoom to the level of
detail they need while not forcing too much detail on those who need a more
condensed version.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
Merlin:
> Hi Domas, did you manage to download the file now? Which command did you
> use? I am trying to install curl but it failes due to the fact that I can
> not find libcrypto.so.2   and  libssl.so.2

Both wget and curl work fine under Fedora Core 3. But old versions of wget
cannot download large files. (I have version 1.9+cvs-stable (Red Hat
modified)). You can also try lynx (lynx -dump), tough I didn't test it.

--
Weitersagen: GMX DSL-Flatrates mit Tempo-Garantie!
Ab 4,99 Euro/Monat: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Article size consistency 32k

body:
Stephen Bain wrote:
> John R. Owens wrote:
>
>>I don't know if this might have ever been suggested before already, but
>>perhaps a change in software could allow us to set a maximum image size
>>in our user preferences? Either in width/height, e.g. "always shrink
>>images to less than 200 pixels wide or 150 pixels high, whichever is
>>smaller", or in kB, e.g. "always shrink images to less than 10 kB".
>
>
> Unfortunately I don't think this would be a workable solution, unless
> a thumbnail duplicate of every image was created at the time of
> uploading. That would be fairly straightforward to do, although it
> would be very resource intensive on the image server(s). (Is there
> more than one yet?) To shrink each image after every request before
> sending to the browser would literally kill the servers.

This is wrong in a few ways. Image scaling works as follows. On render,
the apache server checks if a thumbnail image already exists, via NFS.
If it doesn't, or if the full-sized image is newer than the thumbnail,
it retrieves the image over NFS, scales it using ImageMagick, and then
saves it back to the the image server over NFS. Although it's not done
on upload, it's only ever done once for a particular image/size
combination. Image scaling is not a major strain on the cluster, and I
don't think this feature would make it one. However, there is a minor
performance problem with it, which is that different HTML would have to
be generated for users with this feature enabled. That would reduce the
parser cache hit ratio.

And you can't literally kill something that's not literally alive :)

> A better way would be to allow for a user preference to have images
> either on or off by default, but have a link on the page to view a
> version with images. So if a user browsing with images off wanted to
> see an image, they could then re-load the page with images included.
> (If it's good enough for Outlook, then it's good enough for
> Wikipedia.)

I think that would be better done on the client side. Internet Explorer
is better in this respect than Firefox or Mozilla, with a "show image"
context menu item and, in some versions, a "show images" toolbar icon.
I'm sure there are other browsers with similar features to IE. To do it
on the server side would require reducing the parser cache hit ratio.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: JAY JG

body:
An editor has recently been uploading a number of images to Wikipedia, and
including the {{fairuse}} template at the top of each of them.  Essentially
he is asserting that he can upload any image he wants to Wikipedia, and then
use it to illustrate any article in which it is relevant, under the "fair
use" clause of United States copyright law.  Is that correct?

Jay.


body:
David Gerard (fun at thingy.apana.org.au) wrote:

>Are Ordnance Survey maps from 1854 or before Crown Copyright? Because if
>they are now public domain, Open Streetmap (http://openstreetmap.org/)
>would probably love to know.

There are two possible answers to that question.

1) If the maps are published then they have been public domain since
1912 when the Copyright Act 1911 came in, and possibly since 1904 when
50 years since publication expired (although Crown copyright did not
exist in its present form back then).
2) If the maps are unpublished then they are still in copyright and
will remain so until the start of 2040 when the transitional
provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 come to an
end.


from_name: Anthere

body:
Yann Forget a ?crit:
 > Le Monday 23 May 2005 13:24, Anthere a ?crit :
 >
 >>Yann Forget a ?crit:
 >> > Hi,
 >> >
 >> > Le Sunday 22 May 2005 17:05, Magnus Manske a ?crit :
 >> >>David Gerard schrieb:
 >> >>>I suggest that we allow ratings by anonymous users (IP numbers), at
 >>
 >>>least in 1.5.
 >>
 >> >>>
 >> >>>Reasons for this:
 >> >>>
 >> >>>* we've always worked by leaving things as open as possible and only
 >> >>>  restricting as needed;
 >> >>>
 >> >>>* we're explicitly not using the data for anything important yet,
so if
 >> >>>ten thousand rating spammers put [[Image:Autofellatio.jpg]] top
 >>
 >>marks for
 >>
 >> >>>everything, it won't actually affect anything;
 >> >>>
 >> >>>* the raw data will be of great interest to people, and as wide as
 >> >>>possible is good. (I can see the academics studying Wikipedia
slavering
 >> >>>for the ratings data tarball ;-)
 >> >>
 >> >>Two reasons against this:
 >> >>
 >> >>* Later, we will allow only logged-in users to rate articles, right?
 >> >>Otherwise, we'll lose a great part of the perceived reliability
 >> >>improvement, IMHO. But how can we really set up this system if the
data
 >> >>we use as a foundation for the decision is based on anon entries as
 >> >> well?
 >> >
 >> > I think it better if only logged in users can validate articles.
 >> > But well it depend what we want to do with this feature: selecting
 >> > articles
 >> > for an offline publication or studying psychology and sociology of
 >> > Wikipedia readers ?
 >> > We have a precedent: only logged in users can upload images.
 >>
 >>This is not the same.
 >>Uploading images is a way to improve the quality of the project. We had
 >>to put restrictions to limit vandalism.
 >
 >
 > For me this is the same. Validating articles is a way to improve the
quality
 > of the project.

Okay; But then if we do not allow readers to rate articles, we could
find a way to allow their feedback to be taken into account. Ant


from_name: Timwi

body:
Stephen Bain wrote:
>
> If you on't want to be criticised for having a low resolution, then
> may I suggest that you refrain from criticising people for having
> older browsers

OK, so if I give you the $0 you need to download and install the newest
Mozilla, Firefox, Konqueror, or Opera-with-Ads, whichever you prefer,
then will you give me the money I need for a new computer?

Please think about these things before you make insinuations like that.
Of all the people I know I have the slowest connection and yet it
doesn't take me more than half an hour to download and install the
newest Firefox. I'm afraid a computer with a better resolution takes a
bit more than just patience.

Timwi


body:
David Gerard said:
>
>
> What counts as publication for this purpose? OS or HMSO themselves
> publishing them? OS licensing them to someone else who published them?
> Something else?
>

I think we should probably ask them.  Even pre-1954, OS maps were pretty
amazing.  If they're freely publishable, that is a huge treasure of
British geography (and other countries, too, I presume, since OS was
around during the era of empire.)


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Timwi (timwi at gmx.net) [050523 11:37]:
>
>>Not because I have a slow connection (which I do, but I don't mind), but
>>rather because I'm getting annoyed when people make images so huge
>>because they have a 1280x1024 resolution and they think everyone else
>>must have that too. (I even had one replying back to me saying "Not
>>everyone has a resolution as low as yours, so please leave the image
>>this big!")
>
> We have thumbnailing code, so it does make some sense to have images be
> huge on the page and reduced as needed.

I *am* talking about thumbnails. The person I was referring to made the
thumbnail so big that it was more than 70% the width of the article text
area on my screen.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Validation feature update

body:
Magnus Manske (magnus.manske at web.de) [050523 17:02]:
> Brion Vibber schrieb:

> > But their ratings are *supposed* to be public. That's the whole point of
> > the exercise!

> The ratings *are* public! The question was wether it should be public
> *who* rated *what*...

I'd suggest they should be. When the data is released for analysis
afterwards, even.

- d.


body:
>Hell no.  But you knew that.

Just making sure.  So what should I do about it?

Jay.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Ratings and decisions

body:
Brion Vibber (brion at pobox.com) [050523 11:26]:
> David Gerard wrote:
> >Gregory Maxwell (gmaxwell at gmail.com) [050523 08:15]:
> >>On 5/22/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> >>>Mmmm. Possibly the results should not even be viewable for 1.5.

> >>So are we to create yet another class of privileged user now? Those
> >>with access to the verification system output?
> >>What a horrible idea.  Our community is founded on openness and

> >No, no, only for 1.5 - so that the data gathering can proceed without any
> >visible output as a running score.

> Eeeeeeh? This doesn't make any sense, and sounds like a terrible,
> terrible thing. I would rather remove the survey feature ("validation")
> from 1.5 entirely than have some weird hidden secret survey thing.

I really really would like it in for 1.5, as the Wikipedia 1.0 or stable
version plans pretty much require a distributed rating system. So whatever
that takes.

> (In any case, as always I strongly recommend removing it from the core
> distribution and making it an extension. It's not a core function and
> shouldn't be touching core code much if at all. Changing the
> "validation" name would probably also be wise, as it doesn't seem to be
> involved with validating anything.)

The name is the least important thing. Article rating? "Rate this article"
on the tab instead of "Validate"?

- d.


body:
Geoff Burling wrote:
>
> Timwi, I'm not clear where this exchange between us is going.

Nor am I. You are going on about things that I have never contested or
even mentioned, and you have not addressed any of what I've actually
been trying to tell you.

I'll try again.

I'm trying to tell you that if you are not interested in the images, the
presence and absence of images should not make any difference to you
because it does not make any difference to the time taken for the *text*
to load and display -- unless you have a browser which artificially
waits until all images are loaded, in which case I would just simply
suggest to upgrade, rather than trying to re-educate everyone in the
Wikipedia community on what *you* think is the right amount of images in
articles.

Timwi


body:
Timwi (timwi at gmx.net) [050523 11:37]:
> John R. Owens wrote:

> >I don't know if this might have ever been suggested before already,
> >but perhaps a change in software could allow us to set a maximum
> >image size in our user preferences? Either in width/height, e.g.
> >"always shrink images to less than 200 pixels wide or 150 pixels
> >high, whichever is smaller", or in kB, e.g. "always shrink images to
> >less than 10 kB".

> This is absolutely brilliant. I love and support this idea.

Sounds good to me too.

> Not because I have a slow connection (which I do, but I don't mind), but
> rather because I'm getting annoyed when people make images so huge
> because they have a 1280x1024 resolution and they think everyone else
> must have that too. (I even had one replying back to me saying "Not
> everyone has a resolution as low as yours, so please leave the image
> this big!")

We have thumbnailing code, so it does make some sense to have images be
huge on the page and reduced as needed.

> >And of course, you probably wouldn't want the rule applied to Image:
> >namespace pages.

> Yes, you do want it applied to Image:-namespace pages. The actual image
> above it is not part of the page. :)

We already have such a size limitation for the Image: pages as an option in
preferences. Perhaps it just needs some even smaller settings.

> >But then again, you might also end up with weird formatting, when the
> >author/editor inserting into a page doesn't know how large the image
> >ends up being displayed.

> People should learn that formatting is more than just looking at what it
> looks like on *your* screen. Pages must be formatted in such a way that
> they are readable on any resolution (OK, I guess we can assume a minimum
> resolution of 800x600, but not more!). Resizing your window is all it
> takes to check. Once this is done properly, varying sizes of images
> shouldn't have any adverse effect on the formatting.

This is a matter of editorial judgement. "Image reshuffle" is an occasional
edit summary of mine.

- d.


from_name: Cranston Snord

subject: [WikiEN-l] This is obviously bad faith

body:
Yes, I know that I have entered into an ongoing problem.

But the actions of the Admins involved have clearly been in the wrong -
policy violations of Assume Good Faith, and especially violations of policy
concerning using admin powers to gain the upper hand in content disputes,
abound.

There is also the matter of the behavior of the admins towards the two users
in the case, who are clearly not sockpuppets.

>From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
>To: Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: Ah, I get it now. You're protecting yourself.
>Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 19:15:34 -0600
>
>If you can give me a convincing explanation as to why your editing
>pattern is identical, I'm certainly willing to reconsider, but in the
>absence of such an explanation, I won't be responding to any more
>e-mails. I've left a note of our discussion for the other admins; if
>anyone feels I've done the wrong thing, you'll be unblocked.
>
>Sarah
>
>On 5/23/05, Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > First of all, you did not give me much time to edit anything before you
> > blocked me; you appear to have swung instantly to action to protect
>Yuber,
> > who made the false allegation against me.
> >
> > Secondly, I Wikipedia has a policy reminder about this:
> >
> > "Keep in mind there can be multiple users who are driven to start
> > participating in Wikipedia for the same reason, particularly in
> > controversial areas such as articles about the conflict in the Middle
>East,
> > cult figures, or Wikipedia:Votes for deletion."
> >
> > As I stated, you and your fellow admins are in the wrong. I understand
>that
> > it is only natural for you to want to protect yourself, and that it is
>all
> > too easy to fall prey to the trap of using your admin powers to do just
> > that, but you ARE in the wrong.
> >
> > >From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> > >Reply-To: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> > >To: Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com>
> > >Subject: Re: Ah, I get it now. You're protecting yourself.
> > >Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 19:05:36 -0600
> > >
> > >Please feel free to send an e-mail to anyone you want.
> > >
> > >If you're not ElKabong and KaintheScion, do you have an explanation
> > >for your editing pattern being the same as theirs?
> > >
> > >Sarah
> > >
> > >On 5/23/05, Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > If you do not respond I shall have no recourse but to send an email
>to
> > >the
> > > > EN-L mailing list.
> > > >
> > > > >From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> > > > >Reply-To: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> > > > >To: Enviroknot <enviroknot at hotmail.com>
> > > > >Subject: Re: Ah, I get it now. You're protecting yourself.
> > > > >Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 18:32:49 -0600
> > > > >
> > > > >You're Elkabong/KaintheScion, currently blocked for 3RR. You edited
> > > > >from an IP address that resolved to the same city, you reverted to
>the
> > > > >same edits, removed the sockpuppet notice, and are now starting
>with
> > > > >the abusive-admin accusations. Give it another few minutes and I'll
> > > > >getting an e-mail from "me me" telling me that I'm an f-ing
> > > > >POV-pushing pile of dog's vomit.
> > > > >
> > > > >Sarah
> > > > >
> > > > >On 5/23/05, Enviroknot <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > Like it or not, more people than you read Wikipedia. Some are
>even
> > > > >intelligent enough to discern patterns such as Yuber's.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Your attempts to protect him are fairly transparent, you know.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Wikipedia's policy of assuming good faith requires that
>everyone,
> > > > >especially administrators, act in good faith. I made the edits I
>was
> > >making
> > > > >because I do not believe you or your brethren are acting in good
>faith,
> > >and
> > > > >I would appreciate it if you would allow me to finish presenting my
> > >case
> > > > >rather than blocking out voices you disagree with.
> > > > > >
> > > >
> > > > _________________________________________________________________
> > > > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's
> > >FREE!
> > > > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
> > > >
> > > >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
> > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
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from_name: Bill Konrad

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: article size

body:
"Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>> It does bring up the interesting point that perhaps there should be a
>> little more editing in making a paper version besides just validating
>> articles.  For example, it might make sense to collate these all into
>> one article for print publication.
>
> That can be done via transclusion. A container article would have =Level
> 1=
> headings that would have the names of each component article. Then in a
> print
> version, {{main|blah}} would need to be changed from 'Main article:
> [[blah]]'
> to 'For further detail see [[blah]]' (might be a good idea anyway).

Wouldn't that be nice if it would work; but I think that would introduce an
awful lot of redundancy and tedious repetition, since most of the component
articles include phrasing to introduce and contextualize them as standalone
articles. This might be a good way to generate an initial rough-cut, but
some editing would certainly be needed. Otherwise we'd end up with the
inverse of what technical writers used to call "shovelware", where paper
documentation was simply dumped online with very little thought given to
organization, presentation, or usability.

Bkonrad


body:
Angela wrote:
> On 5/23/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Catalan ?????
>>
>>with a wikipedia 14000 articles all wet ?
>>
>>Waouuuu
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "all wet", but if the objection to this
> Wikinews is

I don't think it was an objection, but rather an enthusiastic cry of
surprise and amazement. You have to read "Waouuuu" the French way and
you get something akin to "wow" or "yahoo".

Timwi


from_name: Koos Jol

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikibooks Newsletter

body:
Hi Karl,

Idea sounds cool to me, but I've 2 little things:

1: Isn't it to early for a newsletter? I mean, it might be fun for 3 times
or something, but after that period, it might become annoying work. And what
from the around 8,500 articles would you pick every week? Most books are
related, which reduces the subjects were you can talk about, so that you
maybe haven't enough articles to bring in some new news in the newsletter.
2: The newsletter seems a bit English orientated. That's logical, because
you (Karl Wick), as English speaking person, have been the only editor of it
for so far. I'm from the Dutch Wikibooks myself and I'm under no illusions
about our articlecount in comparison with the English books, but maybe there
should be some news from the German Wikibooks. I think there are enough
Germans on this list to add something?

After all, if there will become more people involved in this newsletter, it
might be an interesting project. It's a pity that I've no time for the
coming 2 months, because of my preliminary examinations. But after that,
maybe I've time to add some very little things about the Dutch Wikibooks.

Yours sincerly,

Koos Jol
aka [[b:nl:Gebruiker:Firefox]] <-- most used :-)
aka [[b:en:User:Firefox]]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Wick" <karlwick at gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia textbook discussion" <textbook-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 6:45 PM
Subject: [Textbook-l] Wikibooks Newsletter

I'd like to try out an idea to have a periodic newsletter, maybe every
two weeks or so. Here is the trial version:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Newsletter

Help me make it better so we can send it out.

I think that a periodic review of what we are doing will help us
gather forces and get people more excited about what is being done.

Thanks,
Karl
_______________________________________________
Textbook-l mailing list
Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l


body:
> Even if we tried to place restrictions on user JavaScript or
> disable it
> entirely, there is no way to protect against that distinct from
> general
> restrictions on submissions from some user. The malicious user could
> trivially substitute JavaScript that comes from their local machine or
> another source, a modifying proxy to insert it, or use a different
> client-side tool to perform equivalent processing.
>

It's too bad we can't prevent massive damage that may result from
this.  Oh well...


from_name: Angela

body:
On 5/23/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Catalan ?????
>
> with a wikipedia 14000 articles all wet ?
>
> Waouuuu

I'm not sure what you mean by "all wet", but if the objection to this
Wikinews is that the corresponding Wikipedia does not have enough
articles, please be aware that 14000 is more than Serbian and Romanian
have, and those both have a Wikinews. The existing policy of when to
start a Wikinews seems to be going reasonably well, and I don't feel
that including a count of Wikipedia articles in that policy would be
beneficial.

Angela.


body:
Anthere (anthere9 at yahoo.com) [050523 21:23]:

> However, I think we need feedback from readers as well. Possibly a way
> to go around of vandalism would be to allow voting with a valid email
> address on top ?

I wouldn't worry about that at this stage. This is just the data gathering
stage.

Besides, a lot of sites, e.g. Yahoo News, have a "rate this article"
feature. We're a top-100 website, we'll have a lot of casual browsers;
they'll know what to do with a "rate this article" tab. This might gather
enough users to give us largely honest data ;-)

- d.


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

body:
Dear fellow list subscribers,

li: is in very great danger. We are only three, and we have to cope with an
apparently intelligent an extremely aggressive vandal, who contantly changes
his IP addresses and contantly comes up emptiing pages. He simply wants our
project to be completely destroyed! And I'm not kidding.

We must take an emergency measure: block ALL open proxies. Only that can
prevent the guy from constantly returning and practicing his infamous deeds.
But we don't know for heaven's sake how to do that. If anyone of you does,
could s/he PLEASE tell me as soon as possible how?

With desparate regards,
Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
Nieuw: Beeld en geluid met MSN Messenger 7.0 http://messenger.msn.nl/


body:
>On 5/24/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > >Hell no.  But you knew that.
> >
> > Just making sure.  So what should I do about it?
> >
> > Jay.
>
>Contact them on thier talk page and ask them to stop and if that
>doesn't work throw it at
>[[WP:AN/I]]http://by107fd.bay107.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/compose?type=r&curmbox=00000000%2d0000%2d0000%2d0000%2d000000000002&a=8d104eb63fad0973aab6d17f4d0e9086&msg=6641D102-1D2A-4954-8B3B-2A8911FCC9BE&start=0&len=3298&curmbox=00000000%2d0000%2d0000%2d0000%2d000000000002&a=8d104eb63fad0973aab6d17f4d0e9086#
Send

And with the images themselves?  Delete, or...?

Jay.


from_name: Magnus Manske

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

I have started to include anon ratings; this can be switched via a
single variable to "non-anons only", so we can make the decision for the
final stage later (later=good:-)

One thing, though: On dial in, I can change the ratings from the last
guy who got my current IP adress...

Magnus
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFCkjr8CZKBJbEFcz0RAuQfAJ4i/Qs7hx6OlbAbm/nDYS8UYVp9KACcD4Pg
rZiKanrJJN/xQCpcYXTJbM0=
=S+aE
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: HMSO Crown copyright FOIA Request

body:
David Gerard (fun at thingy.apana.org.au) wrote:

>What counts as publication for this purpose? OS or HMSO themselves
>publishing them? OS licensing them to someone else who published them?
>Something else?

The Ordnance Survey have delegated authority from HMSO to deal with
Crown copyright since they are a trading fund. However, for the
purposes of Crown copyright, any authorised publication would count.
The Ordnance Survey tend to publish things themselves, but if they
licence someone else (like the AA for example) to publish a map based
on their data, then it also counts as a publication. However, bear in
mind that any non-Ordnance Survey publication will likely have a
separate copyright for the publisher of the map as well.

So, any OS maps that you can buy in the maps that date from 1954 or
earlier are public domain. However, copyright is not the only
intellectual property to worry about here. There are trademarks to
worry about. Here is a link to a PDF file on the OS website which
lists their trademarks. I strongly suspect that their symbols on maps
may well be trademarked as well, even if they are not registered
trademarks.

So, if you can find old published OS maps from 1954 or earlier, and
you're careful about trademark information, then I think you would be
in the clear.


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] Enotif and updated marker in phase3 testwiki

body:
Dear all,

can someone tell me, why the Enotif and garish updated-marker mechanism
as described in http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Enotif#Update_marker
seems to be totally broken in the current http://test.leuksman.com ?

For those, who want to restore the working version of ENotif/EConfirm
with MediaWiki 1.5alpha1, please refer to
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enotif and the download section of it.

The recently discovered
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2126 (temporary password
cannot be used twice) will be repaired in a couple of hours or you can
fix it by hand, see solution in that bugzilla.

Tom


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Validation/rating feature,
 or the eternal chase to make everyone happy

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

I just checked in some changes to the above feature, mainly:
* Everyone can now see everyone's ratings
* Everyone's identified with full user name
* Anons can now rate too

Doesn't get much more open than this...

Technical note: This required a change in the database. I put it in the
table description, but don't know where to put it in the updater script
(not sure where...). Someone please do. Add
	`val_ip` varchar(20) NOT NULL default ''
to the validate table.

Magnus
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFCkkV4CZKBJbEFcz0RAu6xAJ9rMiypinnk46wOsr717eI8tKZ62QCfZLAp
ffpQRbWX4g9ld35KxfmlaMA=
=/9dX
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Violet/Riga

subject: [WikiEN-l] BC/AD and BCE/CE debate - a compromise proposal?

body:
The BC/AD/BCE/CE debate has kicked up a bit of fuss recently,
including revert wars and an RFAr.  In an effort to stem future
problems I've created a vote to amend the Manual of Style to reflect
the controversy of the use of these eras.

Please take a [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Eras]]
and see what you think.

Direct URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29/Eras

~~~~ Violet/Riga


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: URGENT: blocking open proxies

body:
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
>
> We must take an emergency measure: block ALL open proxies. Only that can
> prevent the guy from constantly returning and practicing his infamous
> deeds. But we don't know for heaven's sake how to do that.

I'm sure that any lists of open proxies he has available, will be
available to you. Try to Google for them and block all their IPs.

Unfortunately, that's all the advice I can give. I'd hate to see an
active project go to waste because Wikimedia folk are too slow to react,
or because the software doesn't have adequate tools to fight organised
vandalism. How many active vandals does it take for a smaller Wikipedia
to receive attention and assistance? :/

Timwi


from_name: Sj

subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Wikibooks Newsletter

body:
I love it :-)

Perhaps coordinate this somehow with http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports ?
(which, btw, we might want to do quarterly rather than monthly for all
but the most active projects...)

SJ

PS - I don't believe nearly enough Wikibooks enthusiasts are coming to
discuss wikibooks at Wikimania this summer.  In fact, we're more or
less at 0.  A nice peaceful workshop about how to start a wikibook on
[your favorite subject] and how to make it shine, would be welcome.
http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Papers

On 5/23/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> oh my...
>
> This is a GREAT idea Karl.
>
> Cheers for you
>
> Ant
>
>
> Karl Wick a ?crit:
> > I'd like to try out an idea to have a periodic newsletter, maybe every
> > two weeks or so. Here is the trial version:
> >
> > http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Newsletter
> >
> > Help me make it better so we can send it out.
> >
> > I think that a periodic review of what we are doing will help us
> > gather forces and get people more excited about what is being done.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Karl
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>

--
+sj+
 _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...]