body:
On Tue, May 17, 2005 at 09:13:01AM +1000, Skyring wrote:
> On 5/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I do NOT remember any political "explosion" at all. Just apathy.
> > >
> >
> > Tell British drivers they must stick to a 50kph
> > speed limit and there's liable to be a lot of political fallout, if not
> > actual damage, concerning road crash statistics.
>
> Cripes. In Australia it's the LAW that you must stick to a speed
> limit. If you go over whatever the posted limit is, you risk the cops
> checking your speed and sending you a polite but expensive greeting
> card.
>
> Doesn't matter what the limit is. They get antsy if you go over it.

I think he's referring to the fact that British drivers might have
problems with limits measured in kph instead of mph.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: PGP plug-in

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Haven't you heard? Public key cryptography is a panacea, it fixes all
> conceivable software-related problems. Bots attacking your network? Use
> PKA. Users being harassed by an unfriendly government? Use PKA. A troll
> is creating 10 sock puppets per day? Just use PKA. It's just a matter of
> working out how to apply it. The programmers can work out those tedious
> details, don't worry, they're good at that sort of thing.

Don't be silly, Tim. Everybody knows it's P2P that does all those things!

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

from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Announcing a policy proposal

body:
Alphax wrote:
> >
> > CE/BCE is already a standard in many disciplines. Make it so in WP.
> >
>
> ...except where use of BC and AD is appropriate. Would you have us
> convert every instance of something being measured in feet, inches,
> fathoms, chains, pounds, ounces, psi and the like to its metric equivalent?
>
> You can't impose a blanket policy where the usage is dependent on
> context. Like naming conventions, there *are* exceptions to the rule.
>

It would be wonderful if Wikipedia converted completely to the metric
system, or perhaps [[SI]] ("the most widely used system of units").
Perhaps units should be referred to the Countering Systemic Bias
Wikiproject.

As for the use of BC and AD, it is indeed perfectly appropriate in
articles about Christianity-related topics, just as the use of the
Hebrew, Hindu or Chinese calendars is appropriate in articles related
to those topics.

Nevertheless, a standard for articles not based on those topics would
be useful, and CE/BCE seems to be the least POV and easiest to
implement out of the options available.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: JAY JG

body:
>From: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>
>
>AD and BC might be offensive to some, who knows what the abbrevations
>actually mean. Good stuff that so few know about it. But what ACTUALLY
>MUST be extremely offensive to a huge number of people is the
>imperialist use of the word "American." Therefore, if we change all
>instances of AD/BC, shouldn't be also change all instances of
>"American" to something that will not offend the majority of all
>Americans?

The argument is silly; "American" is short for "citizen of the United States
of America", not "resident of North or South America". Quite a few non-U.S.
"Americans" find it offensive to be called "American", and what "ACTUALLY
MUST be extremely offensive" to them is when Scandinavians try to
appropriate their voice in order to bash the United States.  The mindless
application of the word "imperialist" whenever people think of the United
States is also offensive.

Jay.

Jay.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Stirling Newberry

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Jimbo to be on Open Source,
	the new Christopher Lydon radio show?


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Announcing a policy proposal: Why I devised
	thisproposal

body:
>From: Pete/Pcb21 <pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com>
>steven l. rubenstein wrote:
>>my real purpose is to spark a frank discussion about our NPOV policy.
>
>Yeah really?
>
>A couple of points about your wikiquette today/yesterday:
>
>1)Starting a vote on an issue when only side of the debate has had the
>opportunity to put their
>
>2) Blanket-messaging a whole bunch of talk pages about your policy proposal
>(this is similar to "spamming")
>
>3) When someone comments that you have been "spamming" you delete that
>comment.
>
>4) When someone restores that comment, you delete it again without
>discussion when you to re-merge the duplicate pages.
>
>5) After the merging, you simply delete the page name you don't like,
>without a redirect and without a deletion debate.
>
>6) You accuse another user of trying to use the other page name of
>"vandalism" when it is nothing of the sort.
>
>7) When someone undeletes the page, you delete it again without any
>discussion.
>
>This is not consistent with wanting "to spark a frank discussion"
>
>Pete

I wasn't around for the fireworks, but from what I can tell, an "anti
BCE/CE" voter tried to re-write the argument of the "pro BCE/CE" side in a
way that subverted the "pro" argument, and tried to unilaterally move the
page to do the same thing.

Jay.


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] dumps

body:
Hello,

new dumps (as of 20050516) available at http://download.wikimedia.org/
Please note, we no longer provide 2GB split files. I do sincerely believe,
that HTTP has enough capability to do partial downloads of files ;-)
And those splits simply double disk space requirements...

Cheers,
Domas


from_name: David Monniaux

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

body:
Angela wrote:

>>...so, either the french
>>association quickly has cash to pay for such expenses, or the foundation
>>should have a credit card in europe to take care of such matters... opinion ?
>>
>>
>
>Is there any reason we don't have a credit card on the Belgian account?
>
>
If this can be of any help: due to some internal problems, the French
association does not have yet a bank account, so I strongly doubt it
should have a credit card in the near future.


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

body:
AD and BC might be offensive to some, who knows what the abbrevations
actually mean. Good stuff that so few know about it. But what ACTUALLY
MUST be extremely offensive to a huge number of people is the
imperialist use of the word "American." Therefore, if we change all
instances of AD/BC, shouldn't be also change all instances of
"American" to something that will not offend the majority of all
Americans?

--
mvh Bj?rn


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Announcing a policy proposal: Why I devised this
	proposal

body:
steven l. rubenstein wrote:
> my real purpose is to spark a frank discussion about our
> NPOV policy.

Yeah really?

A couple of points about your wikiquette today/yesterday:

1)Starting a vote on an issue when only side of the debate has had the
opportunity to put their

2) Blanket-messaging a whole bunch of talk pages about your policy
proposal (this is similar to "spamming")

3) When someone comments that you have been "spamming" you delete that
comment.

4) When someone restores that comment, you delete it again without
discussion when you to re-merge the duplicate pages.

5) After the merging, you simply delete the page name you don't like,
without a redirect and without a deletion debate.

6) You accuse another user of trying to use the other page name of
"vandalism" when it is nothing of the sort.

7) When someone undeletes the page, you delete it again without any
discussion.

This is not consistent with wanting "to spark a frank discussion"

Pete


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
Rick said:
> --- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>> It would certainly be nice if each use of units was
>> quoted in both
>> systems though, unless it makes no sense to do so
>> (e.g.
>> non-engineering-oriented science articles).  Putting
>> in miles is
>> appropriate, but not providing a conversion for them
>> is sloppy.
>>
>> -Mark
>
> It's not sloppy if the editor doesn't know how to do
> the conversion.
>

Wouldn't it be cool to have some kind of macro system for pint,
liter/litre, kilogram/kilogramme, foot, and whatnot--something not unlike
the date conversion system we use, that enables me to see 8 October, 1988
where an American would see October 8, 1988.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Metric road signs in the U. S.

body:
>
> I do NOT remember any political "explosion" at all. Just apathy.
>

Things are slightly different in the UK, where Europeanization is a bit of
a political football.  Tell British drivers they must stick to a 50kph
speed limit and there's liable to be a lot of political fallout, if not
actual damage, concerning road crash statistics.


from_name: El C

body:
Ahah! But mediums without wikilinks and other such goodies of
autonomousnesses. ;)

El_C

>Orthogrphy is of no consequence in a medium designed to appeal to the
>illiterate.

>Ec


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia encourages employees to use Blogs and
	Wikis

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Mathias Schindler (neubau at presroi.de) [050517 00:16]:

>
>     http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedians_who_blog
>
Argh. I mistyped the title.

s/Wikipedia/IBM/.

Sorry
Mathias


body:
Delirium said:
> Sj wrote:
>
>>Zhengzhu's script for maintaining side-by-side traditional and
>>simplified chinese articles should work just as well for side-by-side
>>US and Queen's English articles.  We should try that out...
>>
>>
> I believe at some point en: made a rough decision that we were willing
> to put up with a non-preferred version of color/colour for the sake of
> not introducing unnecessary complexity.

Orthography aside, the languages are very closely bound because of
American TV and movies.  It would be a tragic duplication of effort to
produce dual versions; the great strength of the English Wikipedia is that
so many people of all nations can write English well enough for others to
understand what they have written and, if necessary, correct minor grammar
and spelling errors.


body:
Skyring said:
> On 5/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>>
>> Wouldn't it be cool to have some kind of macro system for pint,
>> liter/litre, kilogram/kilogramme, foot, and whatnot--something not
>> unlike the date conversion system we use, that enables me to see 8
>> October, 1988 where an American would see October 8, 1988.
>
> I'd be interested to see you doing some fancy footwork over this as
> other users try to pound some sense into your head. Keep it in your own
> back yard, please.

I wrote a system to do this kind of thing in the 1980s.

In VAXTPU. :)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Announcing a policy proposal

body:
> >AD and BC might be offensive to some, who knows what the abbrevations
> >actually mean. Good stuff that so few know about it. But what ACTUALLY
> >MUST be extremely offensive to a huge number of people is the
> >imperialist use of the word "American." Therefore, if we change all
> >instances of AD/BC, shouldn't be also change all instances of
> >"American" to something that will not offend the majority of all
> >Americans?
> >
> I have observed that most of the objections to my proposal fall into one of
> three camps: people who simply do not understand our NPOV policy (which I
> addressed in my last message), and people who, as in the cases of  David

I read that. To me it mostly sounded like a "I'm right, you are wrong"
argumentation. It would be good if you could describe in which ways
your opponents have not understood our NPOV policy. That they just
disagree with you does not suffice.

> 'DJ' Hedley and mvh Bj?rn, either fantasize about more and more absurd and
> entirely hypothetical cases, which is just a means to avoid a specific and
> concrete proposal that addresses different views actually held by millions
> of people, and practices that are and have been going on for at least a

Your analysis of discrimination on the debate page was very
enlightening. You said that those who are not discriminated have a
very hard time understanding those who are discriminated and what they
feel is discriminating (kindof, I cant quote it all here). But I think
you are yourself as blind as those of us who do not prefer AD/BC over
CE/BCE. I can bet alot on that millions of Americans get really
irritated every time the word America is used in reference to USA.

Therefore, the offense argument doesn't hold. There are hundreds of
words, names and expressions in the English language that are a
hundred times more loaded than AD/BC.

> people were asked to stop doing these things so as not to offend, would
> involve no real sacrifice, no loss of integrity or honor.  I will never
> understand why in such cases such people not only refuse to make the small
> change asked for, they actually seem to relish and take pride in offending
> people.

In a few years it is not implausible that CE/BCE will have "won." But
currently AD/BC is much more popular according to Google. Google also
reveals an ongoing debate between supporters of the two year-formats.
Should Wikipedia really take a stand on the issue? I also think that
many people feel that the idea that they would be FORCED to use the
date format they do not prefer and are not accustomed to is offensive.
The change in itself might be what is most offensive. Check the vote
comments, there seem to be quite a few feelings there.

Let it just rest. In a few months there will be a feature for
selecting your preferred dating format and then everyone can be happy.

--
mvh Bj?rn


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] On the road again....

body:
So... in march 2005, after several people expressed their wish to become
stewards AND after many people complained that the current stewards were
too slow... I suggested that new stewards elections be held.

More than 2 months later, we still have no new stewards. And those
suffering of this are 1) stewards and 2) those waiting for things to get
done.

Now... nothing happened because Jimbo suggested that stewards be
nominated rather than elected, due to the reason steward is a
"technical" position.

Steward is indeed essentially a technical position, just as sysops are.
And sysops are approved by the community, not nominated. This is how
things are done on all projects and I see no reason why it would be
different for stewards.

I read those fears that it would be a big mess, that we were sick of
votes and that only english stewards would be elected. I think it has no
ground. The first set of stewards was absolutely not english only, so
there is no reason to have any fears. and when elections were suggested,
about 10 people made their candidacy known, not a flow of candidacies.
For all I remember, most were good people we know quite well.

I am tired of seeing this issue not fixed. So I opened the vote. It will
stay open for two weeks. After two weeks, one of the current steward
will make the most approved people stewards, and that will be it. We'll
have a flow of votes in the next week, so best to do it all of them at
once and be done for a while.

Please, consider it a sort of sysop election. The issue is not to only
*like* a person. It is not a popularity contest. The goal is to have the
job done. Half of the stewards elected last year are inactive. Please
let us avoid this and not make it a big deal of it. Just quietly say
"yes" to those you think can help. Say "no" if you think the person is
nice but will not help.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2005

Please...

Ant


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] On the road again....


from_name: Alphax

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

Stephen Bain wrote:
> Alphax wrote:
>
>>>CE/BCE is already a standard in many disciplines. Make it so in WP.
>>>
>>
>>...except where use of BC and AD is appropriate. Would you have us
>>convert every instance of something being measured in feet, inches,
>>fathoms, chains, pounds, ounces, psi and the like to its metric equivalent?
>>
>>You can't impose a blanket policy where the usage is dependent on
>>context. Like naming conventions, there *are* exceptions to the rule.
>>
>
>
> It would be wonderful if Wikipedia converted completely to the metric
> system, or perhaps [[SI]] ("the most widely used system of units").
> Perhaps units should be referred to the Countering Systemic Bias
> Wikiproject.
>
> As for the use of BC and AD, it is indeed perfectly appropriate in
> articles about Christianity-related topics, just as the use of the
> Hebrew, Hindu or Chinese calendars is appropriate in articles related
> to those topics.
>
> Nevertheless, a standard for articles not based on those topics would
> be useful, and CE/BCE seems to be the least POV and easiest to
> implement out of the options available.
>

So if BC and AD are appropriate for Christianity-related topics, why not
allow foot-pounds and the like for articles where using the Imperial
measurements is in context and factually accurate? Highways were
measured as being x *chains* wide, depths were recorded in *fathoms*,
altitudes measured in *feet*, etc. Where there is historic convention to
do so, use the historic units. Where there is not, use the modern units.
The concepts of BC and AD were around *before* CE and BCE, and are
*historical units*. Let them remain as such where it is relevant to do so.

Anyway, since this is the /English/ Wikipedia, shouldn't we follow the
conventions of English-speaking countries? I can't think of *any* that
use BCE and CE in official documents.

- --
Alphax
GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/8mpg9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Official Positions

body:
Jimmy Wales a ?crit:
> Sj wrote:
>
>>I would like to present a somewhat contra-OP argument that the core of
>>WP's success has not been its exclusive delegation of responsibility
>>to individuals, but rather its successful empowerment of /all/ of its
>>users, even new ones, to jump in and do what needs to be done.
>
>
> Absolutely.  This is key.  The official positions should be thought of
> as people who are co-ordinating and advising and communicating, not
> people who are solely responsible for doing things, or who are the boss
> of other people.

I totally agree as well.

I also think that Angela and I were somehow this year in one of those
"official position", and though none of us is perfect (admittedly, we
fail sometimes), I believe we were more on the side of co-ordinating,
advising and communication (at least in the areas we could understand
:-)), than just deciding it all with authority without letting room for
others to jump in.

I do not see official positions as different. No official should be
expected nor encouraged to take care entirely of an issue, nor should he
  try to force volunteers. I doubt that would work well :-)

This said, there is what is written about a role... and human side...

To my opinion, what might limit the most people from "jumping in" is a
mixture of miscommunication or lack of communication or restricted
information. If one does not say what is going on, the new comer does
not have any grip.

However, if we try to communicate the best we can (through Quarto, the
irc channel, various mailing lists, the wmf website), there will always
be some issues which will be privately discussed (and which will have to
be privately discussed).

At this point, it is at the same time to role of the newbie to be bold,
and the role of some involved persons to take care of babysitting the
newcomer to get him involved.

It may sounds weird to say... but I think those already involved have
little to fear from the multiplication of official positions. They are
already part of the team anyway.

What there is to fear is that
* some editors leave, so should be replaced
* there is more and more work to do, so more help would be good
* some projects and some languages are badly represented. We should
focus on these ones to get them involved.

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Official Positions


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> >> It would be wonderful if Wikipedia converted completely to the metric
> >> system, or perhaps [[SI]] ("the most widely used system of units").
> >> Perhaps units should be referred to the Countering Systemic Bias
> >> Wikiproject.
> >
> > It isn't Systemic Bias and most of the articles seem to be drifting
> > in the direction of SI anyway.
>
> Since this seems to be favoring the majority Systeme Internationale
> against minority systems such as Foot-pound-second, shouldn't we still
> refer this to Countering Systemic Bias? :)
>

I was writing more in jest than in seriousness. I'm mostly just a
little frustrated as an Australian having to constantly convert from
pounds to kilometres, or from miles to kilometres whenever I read an
American source (and since it is mostly America who resists the metric
system, this probably is systemic bias).

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
Skyring said:
>
> Perhaps Australians are more perceptive than British or American folk.

Or maybe Brits are just less imaginative.

Thanks, I never thought of that.  Two types of speed limit sign. Yes!


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] On the road again....

body:
Anthere:
> Please, consider it a sort of sysop election. The issue is not to only
> *like* a person. It is not a popularity contest. The goal is to have the
> job done. Half of the stewards elected last year are inactive. Please
> let us avoid this and not make it a big deal of it. Just quietly say
> "yes" to those you think can help. Say "no" if you think the person is
> nice but will not help.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2005

Thank you, Anthere, for moving forward with this. It was indeed about
time, and I hope that this will reduce some of your workload on top of
your Board duties, as both you and Angela are stewards (talk about
commitment!).

I have added a brief note that developers with shell/database access
cannot serve as stewards, as this was, I believe, our initial agreement
when this role was created.

All best,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] On the road again....


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: On the road again....

body:
Erik Moeller a ?crit:
> Anthere:
>
>> Please, consider it a sort of sysop election. The issue is not to only
>> *like* a person. It is not a popularity contest. The goal is to have
>> the job done. Half of the stewards elected last year are inactive.
>> Please let us avoid this and not make it a big deal of it. Just
>> quietly say "yes" to those you think can help. Say "no" if you think
>> the person is nice but will not help.
>>
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2005
>
>
> Thank you, Anthere, for moving forward with this. It was indeed about
> time, and I hope that this will reduce some of your workload on top of
> your Board duties, as both you and Angela are stewards (talk about
> commitment!).
>
> I have added a brief note that developers with shell/database access
> cannot serve as stewards, as this was, I believe, our initial agreement
> when this role was created.
>
> All best,

 > Erik

Nod.

Thank you very much Erik.

Ant


from_name: Skyring

body:
On 5/16/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Anyway, since this is the /English/ Wikipedia, shouldn't we follow the
> conventions of English-speaking countries? I can't think of *any* that
> use BCE and CE in official documents.

You're not so hot on research.

http://www.nla.gov.au/worldtreasures/html/theme-words-5-cuneiform.html
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/deadseascrolls/scroll04.html
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/info_for_students/timeline/
http://www.wa.gov.au/perthobs/Venus/venus.html

All these are easily -found official government documents.

I suggest that ALL English-speaking countries use this convention on
some official documents.

--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: thomas-edison at ziplip.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] re: Explanation of Tony Sidaway's block of Pioneer-12,
	who isn't doing anything wrong

body:
Hmmmm? I did not ask to be blocked. This is exactly the sort of overreaction I was trying to avoid. Since I haven't been very excited about posting anything to the talk pages lately anyway, it doesn't accomplish anything except hinder the discussion and hinder me from contributing to the encyclopedia. Any potential damage has already been done.

If you want, until the issue is settled, I won't post to any talk pages except my talk page. My talk page is already "disputed" so further posting there can do no harm. I don't want to bother posting to other pages until it is settled what technique can be used to post with no disagreement over "what's GFDLed and what's not"... if the extreme interpretation is used then I will have to make future posts using links. If what I've learned in my copyright research so far is true, then I should be able to post quotes which would be more convenient for everybody.

- Pioneer-12


body:
Skyring said:

> Cripes. In Australia it's the LAW that you must stick to a speed
> limit. If you go over whatever the posted limit is, you risk the cops
> checking your speed and sending you a polite but expensive greeting
> card.
>

Don't get me on about British drivers.  They're horrid, like a lot of
spoiled brats.


body:
Chad Perrin said:
>
> I think he's referring to the fact that British drivers might have
> problems with limits measured in kph instead of mph.

Anybody who has seen One Foot in the Grave, just imagine a nation of
Victor Meldrews and then what would happen if you told them that the mph
they'd used all their lives weren't good enough.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: dumps

body:
Timwi wrote:
>> new dumps (as of 20050516) available at http://download.wikimedia.org/
>> Please note, we no longer provide 2GB split files. I do sincerely
>> believe, that HTTP has enough capability to do partial downloads of
>> files ;-)
>> And those splits simply double disk space requirements...
>
> Yay. I've always been wondering what sort of people would need the split
> files.

We started providing split files simply because Apache on the servers
they were running on would refuse to *serve* files larger than 2 gigabytes.

If your OS is unable to handle files of that size, you're probably going
to have problems with the database too. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: David Gerard

body:
Mathias Schindler (neubau at presroi.de) [050517 00:16]:

> http://www.snellspace.com/IBM_Blogging_Policy_and_Guidelines.pdf
> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/59570
> experpts:
> "Whether or not an IBMer chooses to create or participate in a blog or a
> wiki or other form of online publishing or discussion is his or her own
> decision."
> "2. Blogs, wikis and other forms of online discourse are individual
> interactions, not corporate communications. IBMers are personally
> responsible for their posts."

    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedians_who_blog

(to do: indicate which ones are LiveJournals and which ones have a
LiveJournal feed.)

- d.


body:
Pete/Pcb21 (pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com) [050517 05:53]:
> steven l. rubenstein wrote:

> >my real purpose is to spark a frank discussion about our
> >NPOV policy.

Perhaps you could go vote in the pointless poll on [[WP:POINT]] too.

> Yeah really?
> A couple of points about your wikiquette today/yesterday:
> 1)Starting a vote on an issue when only side of the debate has had the
> opportunity to put their
> 2) Blanket-messaging a whole bunch of talk pages about your policy
> proposal (this is similar to "spamming")
> 3) When someone comments that you have been "spamming" you delete that
> comment.
> 4) When someone restores that comment, you delete it again without
> discussion when you to re-merge the duplicate pages.
> 5) After the merging, you simply delete the page name you don't like,
> without a redirect and without a deletion debate.
> 6) You accuse another user of trying to use the other page name of
> "vandalism" when it is nothing of the sort.
> 7) When someone undeletes the page, you delete it again without any
> discussion.
> This is not consistent with wanting "to spark a frank discussion"

I foresee a new entry in [[WP:POINT]].

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Announcing a policy proposal

body:
William H. Haggett (whaggett at brick.net) [050517 07:01]:
> On Mon, 16 May 2005 16:02:40 -0400, "steven l. rubenstein"
> <rubenste at ohiou.edu> wrote:

> >But sometimes there are little things people do which, if the
> >people were asked to stop doing these things so as not to offend, would
> >involve no real sacrifice, no loss of integrity or honor.  I will never
> >understand why in such cases such people not only refuse to make the small
> >change asked for, they actually seem to relish and take pride in offending
> >people.

> Is it possible that they may sincerely feel that the proposed policy
> chance is ill advised -- perhaps even foolish?

Add "querulous" and "a fine piece of support for [[m:Don't vote on
everything]]".

- d.


body:
On 5/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>
> Wouldn't it be cool to have some kind of macro system for pint,
> liter/litre, kilogram/kilogramme, foot, and whatnot--something not unlike
> the date conversion system we use, that enables me to see 8 October, 1988
> where an American would see October 8, 1988.

I'd be interested to see you doing some fancy footwork over this as
other users try to pound some sense into your head. Keep it in your
own back yard, please.

Pete, wondering if we could call in Babelfish as a consultant.


body:
On 5/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:

>
> Road signs haven't switched because it would be very difficult and
> dangerous as well as politically explosive.

We simply changed to a different design of speed sign. The average
driver had no problem distinguishing between the two.

Perhaps Australians are more perceptive than British or American folk.

--
Peter in Canberra


body:
On 5/17/05, Roger Wesson <wikipedia at world-traveller.org> wrote:
>
> Not sure that changing distances on road signs would be that difficult or
> at all dangerous, it's just that being on an island we have no compelling
> reason to conform to the continental standard - there would be no benefit
> to be gained from a switch.

You might not drive overseas, but I'm sure that many other British
folk drive on the Continent.

I'm all in favour of standardisation in driving in the interests of
safety. I grew up with driving on the left, but it makes it an added
stress to drive on the right when I visit the USA. Likewise with
speeds.

We should have a global standard in this shrinking world of ours.

Speaking of astronomers, there's the case of Gene Shoemaker, who was
driving on a narrow outback Australian road when he unexpectedly
confronted an oncoming vehicle. The standard practice on these roads
is to move onto the shoulder so that both cars may pass each other.
But the Aussie driver automatically went left and Shoemaker
automatically went right, and that was it.

We should all drive on the same side. In the long run it works out
safer. And cheaper. As a right hander, I'd rather change gears and
fiddle with the radio with my right hand instead of the left like I do
now.

--
Peter in Canberra


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] Directmedia update

body:
I have now imported some of the artist metadata from the Directmedia
"10,000 masterpieces" DVD that was kindly donated to Wikimedia. For this
purpose, I have created a new "Creator:" metadata namespace on the
Commons. You can see all pages in this namespace at:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=100

As you can see, I have written some conversion routines to translate
date information from German into English. Other information, however,
is primarily in German.

Note that the current bot output still sometimes produces a *de: bullet
point when it should not pass any parameter at all to the template,
i.e., when the field is blank. For this reason, I have not completed the
import, and will run the bot again after this bug is fixed. (Also, the
bot didn't have a bot flag, with so many pages, that was very annoying
on Recent Changes.)

Before I proceed, however, I ask you to take a look at the current
imported pages, and tell me about any other issues with the metadata as
it is.

What's the point of this? Simple, using this content, I can now put

{{Creator:Johann Anwander}}

on an image page, or on a gallery page, and get instant metadata
information as well as a proper category with sort key. I will add these
{{Creator:Xy}} tags to all the uploaded images. This avoids redundancy
across different pages where the same information is used,  and thereby
makes updating and extracting artist metadata easier. Effectively, we
are modelling the structure of the relational database using templates
(yay, Wikidata without Wikidata ;-).

After the bot run is finished, I will upload a few example images from
the DVD, and if that is to everyone's satisfaction, we can go for the
full load.

All best,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Directmedia update


subject: [Foundation-l] Directmedia update


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Commons-l] Directmedia update

body:
Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> writes:

> As you can see, I have written some conversion routines to translate
> date information from German into English. Other information, however,
> is primarily in German.

What you call the English date format actually is the [[ISO 8601]] date
format and as such it is the official (preferred?) date format in
Germany and in many other European countries.  For more info see
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html

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


body:
On 5/17/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> Also, some people in this discussion have drawn parallels between this
> and imperial units of measurement. HELLOOOO?! It's not really like you
> need to *convert* between the two, you know?! Or maybe I just somehow
> missed that 1 year CE is actually equivalent to 3.573495764 years AD?

Did you actually read my post on this and grasp the point I was making?

Presumably not. Just as some people cling to old units of measurement,
the "standardists" in the AD/CE debate cling to AD and BC because they
are used to them, not because they are Christians.

See the point now?

--
Peter in Canberra


body:
On 5/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Skyring said:
> > On 5/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Wouldn't it be cool to have some kind of macro system for pint,
> >> liter/litre, kilogram/kilogramme, foot, and whatnot--something not
> >> unlike the date conversion system we use, that enables me to see 8
> >> October, 1988 where an American would see October 8, 1988.
> >
> > I'd be interested to see you doing some fancy footwork over this as
> > other users try to pound some sense into your head. Keep it in your own
> > back yard, please.
>
> I wrote a system to do this kind of thing in the 1980s.

What, make lousy puns?

--
Peter in Canberra


body:
On 5/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Skyring said:
> >
> > Perhaps Australians are more perceptive than British or American folk.
>
> Or maybe Brits are just less imaginative.
>
> Thanks, I never thought of that.  Two types of speed limit sign. Yes!

It was odd. The new signs looked cool and the old ones were suddenly
looking as old fashioned as a red telephone box.

Of course it took a few months before the last one of the old signs
had been replaced, but the various road authorities had stockpiled the
new signs and the only real problem was physically finding enough
workers to unscrew the old ones and screw on the new ones.

--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: Jim Trodel

body:
steven l. rubenstein wrote:
> >>my real purpose is to spark a frank discussion about our NPOV policy.

From: Pete/Pcb21 <pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com>
> >Yeah really?
> >
> >A couple of points about your wikiquette today/yesterday:
> >
...[enumeration of points]
> >
> >This is not consistent with wanting "to spark a frank discussion"

On 5/16/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I wasn't around for the fireworks, but from what I can tell, an "anti
> BCE/CE" voter tried to re-write the argument of the "pro BCE/CE" side in a
> way that subverted the "pro" argument, and tried to unilaterally move the
> page to do the same thing.

That is one of the problems with the actions the Slrubenstein has
taken - he has diverged the history onto two pages so no one can
figure out what happened (whether present for the "fireworks" or not).

He protected a page in which he was involved in the debate, and did
not use any notification in the history about what he was doing. He
has personally attacked those that honestly believe that the terms
BC/AD have meanings independent of the words for which they are an
abbreviation (what I slopily called their etymology). He gets a
compromise on the Jesus page* (which he claims to support) on Sunday
and follows it up Sunday night with this proposal.

The entire thing shows once again the wisdom of the original
distributed setup of Wikipedia i.e. that setting up general guidelines
and then letting each article evolve within those guidelines
(primarily the NPOV) is a much better approach than the top down
authoritarian policy driven approach. Although this approach takes
time it is much more likely to evolve towards neutral, than the
approach I think of as "my idea is neutral so I'll make it wikipedia
policy."

Jim

*The compromise was to use BC/BCE only and to avoid the use of AD/CE
all together.
--
Jim (trodel at gmail.com)
"Our love may not always be reciprocated, or
even appreciated, but love is never wasted"
-but sometimes it is difficult to love:)


body:
On 5/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> >
> > I do NOT remember any political "explosion" at all. Just apathy.
> >
>
> Tell British drivers they must stick to a 50kph
> speed limit and there's liable to be a lot of political fallout, if not
> actual damage, concerning road crash statistics.

Cripes. In Australia it's the LAW that you must stick to a speed
limit. If you go over whatever the posted limit is, you risk the cops
checking your speed and sending you a polite but expensive greeting
card.

Doesn't matter what the limit is. They get antsy if you go over it.

--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

body:
Alphax wrote ...

>You mean whether it's plain sense or not? No, it's not. It's actually
>/more/ POV than BC/AD is, because it makes the *assertion* that the
>Birth of Jesus, whether is Christ, Lord, Prophet or otherwise, is
>*common* to *all* cultures - it's Western Imperialism and Political
>Correctness at its worst.

You have a right to believe this, as you have a right to disagree with my
proposal.  But it is clear that you didn't read my proposal, since I argue
against the interpretation you present, and provide a different explanation.

I disagree with LOTS of people, but I listen to what they say and try to
respond (indeed, I mention several other editors in my proposal because I
listened carefully to what they said, thought about it, and wanted to
explain to them why I disagree with them, even considering their own
arguments).

It is a shame that Alphax won't do this.

According to our policy: "The first resort in resolving almost any conflict
is to discuss the issue ...Take the other person's perspective into account
and try to reach a compromise."

I have tried to do this with every person who opposes my
proposal.  Sometimes I get impatient, and in three or four cases,
rude.  Other times the other person gets hostile and rude.  But even then,
I try to listen to their arguments, and respond to what they actually said.

I wish Alphax chose to follow this route, rather than the ones/he chose.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Meta-template situation

body:
The "meta-template problem" is getting out of hand. Would it be possible for
the various technical brains to hammer out a definitive statement as to the
actual cost/benefit balance?

I hate to bring particular names into this but [[User:Netoholic]] has been
prominent in connection with this, and has been indulging in activities
which AFAICT are more damaging than the problem he (?) is seeking to solve.

I will set out the situation as I understand it, and the no-doubt-huge holes
in my logic can be filled in by those who know better. I'm posting this here
because I think the technical aspects of the problem are paramount.
----
There is a certain overhead involved with transcluding a template. If that
template transcludes another in turn (a "meta-template"), this overhead
increases somewhat.

However if both the template and the "meta-template" remain static, this
overhead is relatively small and can be absorbed without any huge fuss.

If *any* template is changed, then all the pages which transclude it must be
flushed from the caching system, and for a popular template this can incur
significant costs. The costs might well be magnified for a "meta-template"
because its "popularity" is the sum of that of all the templates which
transclude it.

Thus editing a meta-template most likely will incur increased costs.
----
The problem I am seeing is that the user I name above seems to be (and I
phrase it like this because I might simply be failing to see any other)
engaging in a one-user war upon meta-templates and reverting madly to remove
them whenever possible.

This is the damaging activity to which I alluded before, because several
popular templates are being reverted and re-reverted seemingly incessantly,
which must be causing havoc to the caching system.

I was under the impression that [[User:Netoholic]] was actually under some
sort of ban from editing in the Template and Wikipedia namespaces, but
obviously I'm behind the times because he's at it again today
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AContributions&target=Netoholic&hideminor=0&namespace=10>).

The article [[Wikipedia:Avoid using meta-templates]] contains some very
useful background provided by [[user:Jamesday]] but I wonder if the
situation requires more strenuous action.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: admin Yellowikis

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: PGP plug-in

body:
So, if someone from Andijan wanted to edit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2005_unrest_in_Uzbekistan from Andijan

without fear of being caught by the friendly local police; they'd need
to install the Tor client to help protect their IP anonymity and make
it more difficult for their network location to be identified.

Setting up a username and password on Wikipedia also helps hide their
IP addess (along with Tor)...

But (in theory) the actually post isn't secure from interception  (and
blocking?) - unless the wiki server is running https.

Do any Wikipedias run https?

BTW: I am sorry for displaying my ignorance about these things - It is
a blissful ignorance, the result of living most of my life in a
more-or-less civilized, more-or-less democratic country. Don't
hesitate to let me know if you ever want help with branding or
marketing ;-)

On 5/17/05, ????????? ??????? <alexander.sigachov at gmail.com> wrote:
> Government being harassed by an unfriendly users. Use PKA.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon

subject: [Wikitech-l] privacy problem with anonymous posting

body:
John Fader <jfader at gmail.com> wrote:
> All I can suggest is that you make some significantly noticable change
> to your .css file (like changing the background colours of things).
> Hopefully you'll get used to these changes, and you'll be more likely
> to notice should you inadvertently edit while logged out.

*cough* Anon edit warning patch *cough*

(Speaking of which, I should enter that into Bugzilla...)

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


body:
On 5/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Chad Perrin said:
> >
> > I think he's referring to the fact that British drivers might have
> > problems with limits measured in kph instead of mph.
>
> Anybody who has seen One Foot in the Grave, just imagine a nation of
> Victor Meldrews and then what would happen if you told them that the mph
> they'd used all their lives weren't good enough.

This would be the same Victor Meldrew who coped with the change to
decimal currency?

Nobody but antique coin dealers uses pounds shillings and pence any more.

--
Pete, aware that we're talking about a fictional character here


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: dumps

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
>
> new dumps (as of 20050516) available at http://download.wikimedia.org/
> Please note, we no longer provide 2GB split files. I do sincerely believe,
> that HTTP has enough capability to do partial downloads of files ;-)
> And those splits simply double disk space requirements...

Yay. I've always been wondering what sort of people would need the split
files.

For Windows users, I recommend GetRight to download the file in chunks
and with interruptions.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Special variable

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
>
> Is it not possible to arrive at an article by any other means than an
> explicit search? Like clicking a wiki-link perchance? Or following a
> link from an outside source?

How can a wiki-link or an outside link ever link to [[lilac (color)]] if
it is meant to link to [[lilac]]?


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Export Dictionary?

body:
Brian Suda wrote:

>I have been on this list awhile, when i originally joined i was
>interesting in the possibility of exporting the wiktionary data as
>.dict format. Now that the newest version of OSX 10.4 has a built-in
>dictionary that uses the dict:// to look-up words i was interested to
>see if anyone on the technicaly side would like to explore the
>possibility of either exporting the Wiktionary database as .dict
>format, or run a dictionary daemon that would access the wiktionary
>database server and return dict entries. It would be read-only, but it
>would be another interesting way to access the wiktionary besides the
>web interface.
>
>Does anyone on the tech list know if this is even possible? I'm not
>asking you to do it (i can write the export), i was wondering if there
>is some sort of database schema available to extract the data into
>dict format, or are the entries too fragmented to even attempt an
>export?
>
>-brian
>
Hoi,
I read your mail with intrest. It made me look into what the .dict
format is. It is described in RFC 2229. It allows for people to look up
information from their computer and the information is delivered from
one of the many hosts that may hold the requested information. As Angela
said in her reply to your post, we are working on a new iteration of
Wiktionary that is going by the name of "Ultimate Wiktionary". This will
have a relational database at its heart. It is intended to have content
in all languages and the first challenge is to make it work in the first
place. The second challenge is to create a User Interface that
translates to all these languages and the third challenge is to have an
import and export mechanism, preferably using a standards based XML scheme.

We hope to show something at the Wikimania event. In your mail you want
to export the wiktionary data. The consequence is that when you choose
for export, you will have to do this continually as we hope to increase
the content of Ultimate Wiktionary dramatically. As far as I understand
the RFC, there is a need for responding to a request and providing a
reply in a set format. There is no need to have a database in a specific
format as long as the respons provided conforms to the RFC.

As the Ultimate Wiktionary is being designed at the moment and as
Wikidata is being built, this is a time to consider what is needed to
provide .dict functionality. This functionality will be included when
someone does the programming or when someone finds the funds to strap
the .dict functionality on top of Ultimate Wiktionary. At this time it
is premature to think about exporting from UW as UW has not been built
yet. It will however be possible to do so.

Some of the current wiktionaries can be parsed into information as they
are highly structured. Some will prove an interesting challenge to
convert to any other format. Because of its lack of structure and
consistency it is as closed as any proprietary format would be. Even the
names of an article is not necessarily the name of the associated word
as some Wiktionaries still capitalise the first character of a word.

One problem I see with exporting content from Wiktionary is the GNU-FDL
requirement to maintain the history of the contributors. For the UW, I
think it can be solved by adding the history information on the talk
page. The necessity for UW stems from the likelyhood that many
wiktionaries, if not all, may merge into the Ultimate Wiktionary and be
abandoned.

Thanks,
    GerardM.


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Export Dictionary?


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Announcing a policy proposal

body:
--- "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu> wrote:
> I have observed that most of the objections to my
> proposal fall into one of
> three camps: people who simply do not understand our
> NPOV policy (which I
> addressed in my last message),

Just because someone (and apparently a majority of the
people who have expressed an opinion) disagrees with
your interpretation of NPOV does not mean that we
don't understand it.

RickK

Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Announcing a policy proposal: Why I devised this
	proposal

body:
steven l. rubenstein wrote:

> I have a few, brief comments to make concerning the list-serve
> discussion. First, I appreciate Skyring?s comments (and several
> others), very much. I disagree with Stephen Bain on one point: yes, BC
> and AD should be used when appropriate. But I do not think that ?when
> appropriate? means ?Christianity related articles.? Christianity
> related articles, like Jewish related articles, Muslim related
> articles, Marxism related articles, Fascism related articles must all
> be written from an NPOV. BUT I recognize that many articles will
> include within them passages that describe or present a Christian
> point of view. I believe that it is in such sections that BC and AD
> are not only appropriate, but must be used for the sake of accuracy.

I'm one of those non-believers who is not offended by using BC/AD, and
would continue to use it I also think that people should continue to
feel free to use whichever form suits them. True enough that the BCE/CE
formats are being used by increasingly more people, but it may be a
generation or two before everybody does.

> The fact is, if I thought everyone understood and was committed to our
> NPOV policy, I would not have made this proposal NPOV should be a
> general policy people can use to make decisions on an ad hoc basis.
> However, much of the opposition to this proposal (and remember, the
> big dispute on the Talk: Jesus page started with a change by JimWae)
> convinces me that many people do not understand or care about NPOV. I
> realize you may think my understanding of NPOV is eccentric.

The fact that other people interpret NPOV differently from you doesn't
mean that they are less committed to the policy than you

> But here is what convinces me: many people oppose the proposal because
> AD/BC doesn't bother them. Okay, they have a right not to be bothered
> by AD/BC. But to make that a reason for not using another term is ?
> and I am certain I am correct in this ? fundamentally incompatible
> with our NPOV policy. The basis of our NPOV policy is that not
> everyone feels the same way. This necessarily means that it doesn't
> matter that you are not bothered by something; what matters is that
> someone else is. I think this is the very essence of NPOV, to
> recognize that one's own feelings are not shared by others and thus
> cannot be the basis for making decisions concerning NPOV!

It sounds more like the essence of political correctness. We really
can't let policy be driven by what various handfuls of people consider
offensive. There are some terms that everybody agrees are vile, and it's
quite proper to ban them. Beyond that it's important to give the users
the benefit of the doubt, and recognize that they are usually using a
term in good faith. Assuming good faith is just as important a policy as
NPOV. Whether a systemic bias really exists is not for one person to
pronounce; it's rarely a simple matter of changing from one set of
abbreviations to another. The claim of systemic bias ignores the fact
that most people do things without any intention to offend. Such a claim
as often expresses wallowing in offense. Words and other terms change
their meaning and importance over time. Others have referred to the
adaption of Teutonic and Roman gods to the days of the week, and the
months of the year. How are these any less offensive? One does well to
learn from one of those gods. Janus, with one of his faces, represented
a lamentation about the misfortunes of the past, but with the other
represented a future that put aside and no longer dwelt on past ills.

> Yet in many, if not most of the arguments in favor of keeping BC/AD,
> this is the ultimate reason people give. So I have very serious doubts
> about the commitment to NPOV. Jimbo says it is an unconditional
> policy, and everyone pays it lip-service. You know what? I think most
> people follow the policy because most of the time it is easy to follow
> the policy. I think here we have stumbled upon a situation where many
> people truly find it hard to follow the policy, because they cannot
> understand why someone would object to BC/AD as POV. But this is
> precisely the test: to accept that your position is POV even when you
> cannot understand why others do not share it. If someone cannot make
> that leap, then our NPOV policy is in jeopardy. That is why I make
> this proposal: to bolster our NPOV policy in a situation where many
> people find it hard to follow the NPOV policy.

For me NPOV is more an attitude and state of mind than a series of rigid
rules. It little behoves us that that such a principle be used as a
rhetorical tool for silencing opposition

> By the way, I don?t want to descend into an argument over language or
> logic. I am NOT saying that all opposition to my proposal is motivated
> by a disregard for out NPOV people. In fact, many people who oppose my
> proposal share my commitment to NPOV, for which I am grateful. I do
> not write this to convince anyone to support my proposal. I write this
> to propel my real purpose, which is to spark a frank discussion about
> our NPOV policy.

The flaw in this argument is that you can't expect a decent discussion
of a broad policy such as NPOV by focussing on its application in the
more limited circumstances of detailed policy such as how to name years.
Doing so draws people away from a big picture approach to NPOV policy.

Ec


body:
--- "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu> wrote:
> As for "American," well, that is a funny thing.  I
> work in Latin America
> and when in the US with Latin Americans and whenever
> they use the word
> "Americano" referring to us gringos, I reply "Todos
> somos Americanos" (all
> of us are Americans); they usually smile and shrug
> their shoulders.  I once
> had a conversation with an old friend of mine who
> lives in Ecuador, and he
> complained about how we gringos call ourselves
> "Americans."  I said to him,
> "Well, there is nothing stopping Ecuadorians from
> calling themselves
> "Americanos, why don't they" and he had no answer.
> Here is what I think:
> the real problem is not that the USA has
> appropriated for itself as a name
> "America."  The problem is the USA economically and
> politically dominates
> Latin America in many ways.  And that is what really
> pisses off my L.
> American friends.

It sounds to me more like YOU are the one trying to
provoke anger and resentment by "correcting" an
Ecuadorean who doesn't feel like he needs correcting.

RickK

Discover Yahoo!
Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out!
http://discover.yahoo.com/


from_name: Zoney

body:
On 5/17/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> >>I do NOT remember any political "explosion" at all. Just apathy.
> >>
> >>
> >Things are slightly different in the UK, where Europeanization is a bit of
> >a political football.  Tell British drivers they must stick to a 50kph
> >speed limit and there's liable to be a lot of political fallout, if not
> >actual damage, concerning road crash statistics.
> >
> The difference between the Canadian and British experience on
> metrication is a bit like removing a band-aid.  Do you pull it off
> quickly or slowly?  The British started a few years before us, and are
> still experiencing pains over it.  Most of the visible changes here were
> finished in less than a decade; the British have been at it for over 40
> years, and without the need to do so under the shadow of the tail from a
> very imperial bald eagle.
>
> Ec
>

Then there's the Irish system. Start introducing metric-only distance
signage, without removing the old Imperial (or old-English/old-Irish)
mileage signs, and continue to use mph speed limit signs for a decade
or two.

Then suddenly with a few months warning announce speed limit change
from mph to kph, and change every sign in the country overnight.

Continue to only very slowly replace old mileage distance signs from
the earlier half of the last century.

Yep - pretty Irish.

Zoney

P.S. To be honest, the signage in Ireland is only there at all at all
for the sole purpose of directing tourists into the countryside where
they get lost and spend money on our Aran sweaters and
Celtic/Leprechaun trinkets. It works.

P.P.S. OK, it's also for the Dubliners too who don't learn where Cork,
Kerry, Galway, Sligo, etc. (anything outside the M50) are really
located.

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: PGP plug-in

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> admin Yellowikis wrote:
>
>> Just curious. Has anyone looked into a PGP "plug-in" for WM that would
>> allow totally secure/anonymous editing?
>
>
> What would such a thing do?
>
> For encrypting web pages in transit between client and server, HTTPS
> already provides this.
>
> For hiding the client's true network location from the server,
> anonymizing proxy networks like Tor already provide this.
>
> The only potentially useful thing I can think of for PGP might be
> signing of edits to prove a consistent pseudonymous identity.
>

Haven't you heard? Public key cryptography is a panacea, it fixes all
conceivable software-related problems. Bots attacking your network? Use
PKA. Users being harassed by an unfriendly government? Use PKA. A troll
is creating 10 sock puppets per day? Just use PKA. It's just a matter of
working out how to apply it. The programmers can work out those tedious
details, don't worry, they're good at that sort of thing.

-- Tim Starling


body:
Alphax wrote:
>
> It's actually /more/ POV than BC/AD is, because it makes the
> *assertion* that the Birth of Jesus, whether is Christ, Lord, Prophet
> or otherwise, is *common* to *all* cultures - it's Western
> Imperialism and Political Correctness at its worst.

Why do so many people associate Political Correctness with NPOV?

It is politically correct to state that all humans are equal in dignity
and rights, but as much as we would like for that to be universally
accepted, it isn't, and so it is POV.

Timwi


body:
I can just see the United States trying to do a mass
conversion of highway signs.  Each state would have to
sign off on it, and many would not just out of "the
federal government can't tell us what to do."

We'll see if the states actually buy the new driver's
license requirements.  Utah has already rejected the
"No Child Left Behind" education requirements, the DL
stuff is going to be even worse.  But highway signs
would be a war.

RickK

Discover Yahoo!
Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM and more. Check it out!
http://discover.yahoo.com/online.html


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Special variable

body:
"Timwi" <timwi at gmx.net> wrote in message news:d6ci8n$t1l$2 at sea.gmane.org...
> Phil Boswell wrote:
>>
>> Is it not possible to arrive at an article by any other means than an
>> explicit search? Like clicking a wiki-link perchance? Or following a
>> link from an outside source?
>
> How can a wiki-link or an outside link ever link to [[lilac (color)]] if
> it is meant to link to [[lilac]]?

How about from a search engine?
http://clusty.com/search?v%3aproject=clusty-encyclopedia&query=lilac for
example. Or say someone's blog or website references a page on Wikipedia?

Am I having a bad day, or am I simply not expressing myself as clearly as I
thought I was?

I thought I had asked a perfectly reasonable question.

ObPython: I didn't expect some kind of Spanish Inquisition.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Александр Сигачёв

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: PGP plug-in

body: Government being harassed by an unfriendly users. Use PKA.


from_name: Sean Barrett

in_reply_to:
<20050517193653.GT9978@thingy.apana.org.au> (message from David
	Gerard on Wed, 18 May 2005 05:36:54 +1000)

body:
> What I want to know is whether weather reports in Detroit *really do* show
> temperatures on the US side in Fahrenheit and on the Canadian side in
> Celsius, on the same diagram, with no explanation.

That's 'cause Canada is colder, of course.  Duh.

--
 Sean Barrett     | If Canada were really a separate
 sean at epoptic.com | country, I'd have to dial a country
                  | code when I phoned someone there.


from_name: Brian

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: dumps

body:
use curl to download large files on windows.

http://curl.haxx.se/download.html

On 5/17/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> Magnus Manske wrote:
> >
> > Timwi schrieb:
> >
> >>For Windows users, I recommend GetRight to download the file in chunks
> >>and with interruptions.
> >
> > What, you recommend mucho $$$ software
>
> Uhm... no?... I recommend something which is free at least in the sense
> of "free beer".
>
> > [1] http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/
>
> Haven't heard of that yet -- will try that later. I'll send my
> complaints about it to you via private mail, mwahaha :-)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Richard Rabinowitz

body:
Question: How would one denote a Jewish year, such as 5765? 5765 ACW?
(After Creation of World)? 5765 Year of HaShem? 5765 Jewish Year? Hebrew
year 5765?

On Mon, 16 May 2005, Stephen Bain wrote:

> Alphax wrote:
> > >
> > > CE/BCE is already a standard in many disciplines. Make it so in WP.
> > >
> >
> > ...except where use of BC and AD is appropriate. Would you have us
> > convert every instance of something being measured in feet, inches,
> > fathoms, chains, pounds, ounces, psi and the like to its metric equivalent?
> >
> > You can't impose a blanket policy where the usage is dependent on
> > context. Like naming conventions, there *are* exceptions to the rule.
> >
>
> It would be wonderful if Wikipedia converted completely to the metric
> system, or perhaps [[SI]] ("the most widely used system of units").
> Perhaps units should be referred to the Countering Systemic Bias
> Wikiproject.
>
> As for the use of BC and AD, it is indeed perfectly appropriate in
> articles about Christianity-related topics, just as the use of the
> Hebrew, Hindu or Chinese calendars is appropriate in articles related
> to those topics.
>
> Nevertheless, a standard for articles not based on those topics would
> be useful, and CE/BCE seems to be the least POV and easiest to
> implement out of the options available.
>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Andrew Dunbar wrote:

>While a fully structured re-design would obviously help myself and people
>wanting to interchange Wiktionary data with .dict data, it would definitely
>make it much harder for the general user to contribute.
>
>
Hoi,
I am interested in knowing why it would be harder to contribute for a
general user. I do agree that the current format of the Dutch Wiktionary
is hard to get into. But I am really interested in learning why a new
application would be harder for the general public to contribute to. The
improvement of the user interface by localisation and the improvement of
quality and qualitity by an integration of Wiktionaries and its
communities will lead to substantial improvements and it will make the
data much more accesible. There will also not be any doubt what can be
filled in where as this will be prescribed by the user interface. And,
yes there will be room to enter data that can not be entered in the
structured UW mark I

I am sorry to learn that you lost all the hard work that you did in
creating a parser for the en.wiktionary. It is truly a loss because the
data that can be exported to a .dict format can also be exported to an
Ultimate Wiktionary format.

Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
JAY JG wrote:
>
>> You know, I've always found this AD vs. CE debate extremely stupid.
>> Like, as if renaming "AD" to "CE" would immediately, suddenly and
>> magically remove all connections with any religion! Guys, it's still
>> the number of years after Jesus' birth, whether you like it or not.
>
> Actually, it's not, which makes the usage even more problematic.

Argh! Come on now, you know exactly what I meant. The point isn't that
the measurement is inaccurate. The point is that renaming it to "CE"
does not make it a different measurement. It is still based on the same
Christian considerations.


body:
Speaking of explosives, should we talk of chemical measures in terms of
moles (units consisting of a certain number of molecules, the number of
which has slipped my mind at this moment)?

On Mon, 16 May 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Delirium said:
> >>
> > Miles are still used in both the United States and UK, which between
> > them count for a pretty large proportion of the English-speaking world.
>
> In the UK this is only for "folk" uses such as pints of beer and road
> signs.  I believe all scientific and engineering ventures switched to SI
> long ago, and nearly all commercial institutions (aforementioned pints of
> beer excluded, for instance) are required to use metric measure although
> they are also permitted to provide equivalent ounces, pounds, stones and
> whatnot.  They sell orange juice in liters, butter by the kilogram, cloth
> by the meter.  Liquor is sold in metric measure, so in a pub you get a
> pint of beer but a 35 ml measure of brandy, and a 200ml glass of wine.
>
> Road signs haven't switched because it would be very difficult and
> dangerous as well as politically explosive.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Skyring wrote:
> On 5/17/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>> Also, some people in this discussion have drawn parallels between
>> this and imperial units of measurement. HELLOOOO?! It's not really
>> like you need to *convert* between the two, you know?! Or maybe I
>> just somehow missed that 1 year CE is actually equivalent to
>> 3.573495764 years AD?
>
> Just as some people cling to old units of measurement, the
> "standardists" in the AD/CE debate cling to AD and BC because they
> are used to them, not because they are Christians.

Did you even read my message? Presumably not. I never denied nor
contradicted that, nor even mentioned or referred to it.

Timwi


body:
By the way, Islamic years and solar years have different lengths.
Also, by the way, it's not exactly the number of years since Jesus's
birth, as the writers of the New Testament were racking their brains out
trying to figure what happened when - and made mistakes, of course. This
led to a monk, the one who invented the BC/AD system to begin with, making
a "best guess" on the basis of inconsistent evidence in scripture. The
upshot: now folks think Jesus was born in 4 BCE, or 6 BCE, or some such
year.

On Mon, 16 May 2005, Timwi wrote:

> steven l. rubenstein wrote:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/BCE-CE_Debate
>
> OMG, not again.
>
> You know, I've always found this AD vs. CE debate extremely stupid.
> Like, as if renaming "AD" to "CE" would immediately, suddenly and
> magically remove all connections with any religion! Guys, it's still the
> number of years after Jesus' birth, whether you like it or not.
>
> Also, some people in this discussion have drawn parallels between this
> and imperial units of measurement. HELLOOOO?! It's not really like you
> need to *convert* between the two, you know?! Or maybe I just somehow
> missed that 1 year CE is actually equivalent to 3.573495764 years AD?
>
> Have you thought that there may be alien civilisations out there? Using
> our Earth year as measurement of time is POV!!
>
> Head-shaking,
> Timwi
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 5/17/05, Richard Rabinowitz <rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu> wrote:
>
> Speaking of explosives, should we talk of chemical measures in terms of
> moles (units consisting of a certain number of molecules, the number of
> which has slipped my mind at this moment)?

My memory is 6.022 x 10^23


body:
Zoney wrote:

>Then there's the Irish system. Start introducing metric-only distance
>signage, without removing the old Imperial (or old-English/old-Irish)
>mileage signs, and continue to use mph speed limit signs for a decade
>or two.
>
>Then suddenly with a few months warning announce speed limit change
>from mph to kph, and change every sign in the country overnight.
>
>Continue to only very slowly replace old mileage distance signs from
>the earlier half of the last century.
>
>Yep - pretty Irish.
>
>Zoney
>
>P.S. To be honest, the signage in Ireland is only there at all at all
>for the sole purpose of directing tourists into the countryside where
>they get lost and spend money on our Aran sweaters and
>Celtic/Leprechaun trinkets. It works.
>
Perhaps the leprechauns should be put in charge of highway signage.

>P.P.S. OK, it's also for the Dubliners too who don't learn where Cork,
>Kerry, Galway, Sligo, etc. (anything outside the M50) are really
>located.
>
My crude impression of the map of the Irish roads system was that it was
designed so that it would be difficult to travel between two west coast
communities without going through Dublin. :-)

Ec


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Delirium said:
>
>> Sj wrote:
>>
>>> Zhengzhu's script for maintaining side-by-side traditional and
>>> simplified chinese articles should work just as well for
>>> side-by-side US and Queen's English articles.  We should try that
>>> out...
>>
>> I believe at some point en: made a rough decision that we were
>> willing to put up with a non-preferred version of color/colour for
>> the sake of not introducing unnecessary complexity.
>
> Orthography aside, the languages are very closely bound because of
> American TV and movies.  It would be a tragic duplication of effort
> to produce dual versions

I don't think anyone is talking about "duplication of effort". I,
personally, would advocate the use of a new syntax to mark the differing
words. If I remember correctly, the syntax used in zh is
-{traditional|simplified}-, so why not simply have -{labor|labour}-?

Timwi


body:
I created {{Horse carcass 352}} right now, but I dunno what to do with it.
:)

On Mon, 16 May 2005, Stan Shebs wrote:

> BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
>
> >AD and BC might be offensive to some, who knows what the abbrevations
> >actually mean. Good stuff that so few know about it. But what ACTUALLY
> >MUST be extremely offensive to a huge number of people is the
> >imperialist use of the word "American." Therefore, if we change all
> >instances of AD/BC, shouldn't be also change all instances of
> >"American" to something that will not offend the majority of all
> >Americans?
> >
> >
> Heh, that one has already been fought over a bunch of times.
>
> It needs a standard template, for instance "{{horse carcass 352}}"
> that will link to the category of all related pages.
>
> :-)
>
> Stan
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
You did not ask to be blocked explicitly, but part of being permitted
to contribute to Wikipedia is accepting the Wikipedia license.  If you
do not wish your writing to be subject to the Wikipedia license, do
not edit Wikipedia.

Your delusion that you can become a special case just because you said
so doesn't wash.

-Matt (User:Morven)


body:
You're right about it not being the case, but this makes the usage less
problematic, not more.

On Mon, 16 May 2005, JAY JG wrote:

>
> >You know, I've always found this AD vs. CE debate extremely stupid. Like,
> >as if renaming "AD" to "CE" would immediately, suddenly and magically
> >remove all connections with any religion! Guys, it's still the number of
> >years after Jesus' birth, whether you like it or not.
>
> Actually, it's not, which makes the usage even more problematic.
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Abigail Brady

body:
On 5/17/05, monk at zoomcon.com <monk at zoomcon.com> wrote:
>  My first proposal: after I am logged on, I should have the option to
>  disallow my IP address from anonymous posting. So when I am on
>  wikipedia once again, anonymous, the system won't give me the
>  possibility to save changes without logging in (or, may be, pushing
>  explicit button "I want to edit without logging in, with ip-address
>  logged").

This would be a very dangerous facility, if provided.  It would mean
that anyone using a proxy server could block everyone else using the
proxy server, inadvertently.  If we did something like this it would
need doing with cookies, I suppose.

--
Abi


body:
On Tue, 17 May 2005, Skyring wrote:

> On 5/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> > Chad Perrin said:
> > >
> > > I think he's referring to the fact that British drivers might have
> > > problems with limits measured in kph instead of mph.
> >
> > Anybody who has seen One Foot in the Grave, just imagine a nation of
> > Victor Meldrews and then what would happen if you told them that the mph
> > they'd used all their lives weren't good enough.
>
> This would be the same Victor Meldrew who coped with the change to
> decimal currency?
>
> Nobody but antique coin dealers uses pounds shillings and pence any more.

And [[Aristasia]]ns.


from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Special variable

references:
<d63r1l$k4$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<200505140910.j4E9AMBN018163@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk>
	<d6793b$4lt$2@sea.gmane.org> <d69ogo$mf$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d6advj$9v0$1@sea.gmane.org> <d6ag8n$k3s$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d6ci8n$t1l$2@sea.gmane.org> <d6cksf$6jq$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 5/17/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Am I having a bad day, or am I simply not expressing myself as clearly as I
> thought I was?

I guess you are expressing yourself quite clearly, it's just that the
people are trying to tell you that your assumptions are wrong. For
example, do you think that you should place a link to [[Paris Hilton]]
into the [[Paris]] article? You know, people searching for her could
get to [[Paris]] by coincidence. I believe you should not, those two
articles have nothing in common except distant similarity in their
titles. The same applies to [[lilac (color)]] versus [[lilac]]. If you
are at [[lilac (color)]], you either made a mistake, or you are not
looking for [[lilac]]. Both cannot be true. Sure, if you meant to look
for [[lilac]] and got there by mistake, a link could help, but, by
that logic, you could insert 5000 links into the article, "what if".

Just my CZK 0.50,

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


body:
But sometimes it IS fun to be deliberately stupid, so long as you ain't
being a troll.

On Tue, 17 May 2005, Timwi wrote:

> Skyring wrote:
> > It's fun to be deliberately stupid, isn't it?
>
> Please reconsider your attitude towards other people on this mailing
> list. Thank you.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Why such a weird number, anyway?

On Tue, 17 May 2005, Jim Trodel wrote:

> On 5/17/05, Richard Rabinowitz <rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Speaking of explosives, should we talk of chemical measures in terms of
> > moles (units consisting of a certain number of molecules, the number of
> > which has slipped my mind at this moment)?
>
> My memory is 6.022 x 10^23
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: John Fader

body:
On 5/17/05, monk at zoomcon.com <monk at zoomcon.com> wrote:
>   My first proposal: after I am logged on, I should have the option to
>   disallow my IP address from anonymous posting.

This is okay for you, as you have a static IP address - so it's okay
for you to "claim" this address as your own.  But many people use
shared proxies (corporate, school, web-accellerator, etc.) and others
have very dynamic IP addresses (AOL) too.  If someone could "claim"
one of these addresses then they could effectively deny service to
everyone else in the group that shares that (for whatever period such
a "claim" would last).

In most of those cases, there's really no sensible technical solution
which would allow the software to distinguish between those with
shared or dynamic IPs and those with static ones.

All I can suggest is that you make some significantly noticable change
to your .css file (like changing the background colours of things).
Hopefully you'll get used to these changes, and you'll be more likely
to notice should you inadvertently edit while logged out.

--
John Fader


body:
steven l. rubenstein wrote:
>
> But I have to respond to Timwi?s message at length.  His very statements
> actually exemplify the reason I have made this proposal.  To be clear,
> although I certainly do believe in the specifics of the proposal, my
> main motivation was concern over people?s understanding of our NPOV
> policy.  I wanted to open up a debate about NPOV, and raise people?s
> consciousness about NPOV.  As far as I am concerned, what Timwi wrote
> proves that he either does not understand, or does not accept, our
> NPOV policy, and by itself justifies my proposal.

Well, that's fresh, especially considering that I

* didn't argue about or even mention the NPOV policy;
* didn't accept or reject your proposal;
* don't care what you or anyone think about the NPOV policy;
* notice that several people have tried to point out to you that what
   you are advocating here hasn't really anything to do with NPOV.

All I said in my message was that the discussion is stupid.

I think we should have a Dumbest Discussion of the Week award. Or
Deadest Horse of the Week. Or whatever.

Timwi


body:
On 5/17/05, John Fader <jfader at gmail.com> wrote:

> All I can suggest is that you make some significantly noticable change
> to your .css file (like changing the background colours of things).
> Hopefully you'll get used to these changes, and you'll be more likely
> to notice should you inadvertently edit while logged out.

...which are documented, btw, at

    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_styles

(Thinks to self: hmm, it should be easy enough to write a
[[greasemonkey]] script which detects when you're not logged in and
zaps the edit page link.)

--
John Fader


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: PGP plug-in

body:
Thanks Tim.

So would a secure email -> mediawiki interface (for WikiNews) help
protect the person sending the information and the information? even
if the message could still be intercepted/blocked?

Paul

On 5/17/05, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> admin Yellowikis wrote:
> > So, if someone from Andijan wanted to edit:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2005_unrest_in_Uzbekistan from Andijan
> >
> > without fear of being caught by the friendly local police; they'd need
> > to install the Tor client to help protect their IP anonymity and make
> > it more difficult for their network location to be identified.
> >
> > Setting up a username and password on Wikipedia also helps hide their
> > IP addess (along with Tor)...
> >
> > But (in theory) the actually post isn't secure from interception  (and
> > blocking?) - unless the wiki server is running https.
>
> Tor encrypts traffic from your computer to the exit node. It can indeed
> be intercepted and blocked, because the IP addresses of the Tor servers
> are known. I have heard that Tor has been illegal in China since shortly
> after it was invented, and all traffic to it is blocked. But perhaps it
> would be useful in countries which are attempting to maintain an
> appearance of free speech.
>
> In countries with blanket prohibition of anonymising services, the
> methods for distributing information anonymously are necessarily covert
> and diverse.
>
> > Do any Wikipedias run https?
>
> No. But even if it did, the government could work out who is posting
> what by simply correlating the transmission time with the edit time.
> That's possible with Tor too, especially if the number of Tor users in
> the country is small and they're all being monitored.
>
> Steganography is probably a better way to distribute information in such
> situations.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
...


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Rick (giantsrick13 at yahoo.com) [050518 05:32]:
>
>
>>I can just see the United States trying to do a mass
>>conversion of highway signs.  Each state would have to
>>sign off on it, and many would not just out of "the
>>federal government can't tell us what to do."
>>We'll see if the states actually buy the new driver's
>>license requirements.  Utah has already rejected the
>>"No Child Left Behind" education requirements, the DL
>>stuff is going to be even worse.  But highway signs
>>would be a war.
>>
>>
>What I want to know is whether weather reports in Detroit *really do* show
>temperatures on the US side in Fahrenheit and on the Canadian side in
>Celsius, on the same diagram, with no explanation.
>
>
I can't comment on what the Detroit stations do, but some of the
Washington state stations here on the west coast certainly do that.

Ec


from_name: JAY JG

body:
>From: Timwi <timwi at gmx.net>
>JAY JG wrote:
>>
>>>You know, I've always found this AD vs. CE debate extremely stupid. Like,
>>>as if renaming "AD" to "CE" would immediately, suddenly and magically
>>>remove all connections with any religion! Guys, it's still the number of
>>>years after Jesus' birth, whether you like it or not.
>>
>>Actually, it's not, which makes the usage even more problematic.
>
>Argh! Come on now, you know exactly what I meant. The point isn't that the
>measurement is inaccurate. The point is that renaming it to "CE" does not
>make it a different measurement. It is still based on the same Christian
>considerations.

When one uses the B.C. system one is able to make the rather bizarre
statement that "Christ was born 4 to 6 years Before Christ".  At least
Before the Common Era does away with that.

Jay.


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] dumps

body:
I had to block 217.237.151.0/24 (cw?.M1.srv.t-online.de)
as proxy servers from that subnet were downloading
dumps at >200mbps for a quite long time.

I do not know yet what was that, as there were lots
and lots of threads for German articles archive.
If you think the block is irrational, please note.
I suspect some bug in caching software or
something like that..

Domas


from_name: Connor O' Kane

subject: [WikiEN-l] My IP address blocked?

body:
I only relaised today that my IP address has been blocked, it says the
IP is 62.254.32.19. and it was blocked by RickK, but when I looked at
the block list, then at this IP's contributions, I had done none of
them at all, but they were all to do with things in my country.

My username is Escobar600ie and I have only made positive
contributions, I am not a vandal.

Check the contributions by both, you will see they are diferent.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] List policy: unsubscribed posts

body:
Due to a very high volume of spam hitting this list in the last couple
days (several hundred), I've changed the list configuration to
automatically discard posts from addresses not subscribed to the list
instead of holding them in the moderation queue.

If your posts aren't going through, make sure you're subscribed with the
address you're posting from. (Note that you can subscribe and disable
mail delivery, if you prefer reading through the archives or news gateway.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] My IP adress blocked? 2

body:
For confirmation of the clashing IP address - these are my editings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Escobar600ie

And the combined ones of my IP address :
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=50&offset=50&hideminor=0&namespace=&target=62.254.32.19

I am very confused.


from_name: monk at zoomcon.com

body:
Hello Wikimedia,

  here some people have posted some thoughts about the problem of
  anonymous posting.

  I have experienced it too. For me it looks like that: I have posted
  answer on the Talk page, while being anonymous, so system has fixed
  my IP address; from my answer it is perfectly seen that it was me
  who posted it, so everyone can for sure identify me and my IP
  address. And, for now, everyone can see my IP address in history of
  this page.

  But it was supposed that my IP address should be private in
  wikipedia. since it's static, it is not private anymore in any way.

  For now for me it is not very terrible problem; but I think it could
  be for someone or for me in some time!

  What could we think of to solve this problem with privacy?

  My first proposal: after I am logged on, I should have the option to
  disallow my IP address from anonymous posting. So when I am on
  wikipedia once again, anonymous, the system won't give me the
  possibility to save changes without logging in (or, may be, pushing
  explicit button "I want to edit without logging in, with ip-address
  logged").

--
Best regards,
 monk                          mailto:monk at zoomcon.com


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: dumps

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

Timwi schrieb:
> For Windows users, I recommend GetRight to download the file in chunks
> and with interruptions.

What, you recommend mucho $$$ software when Free Download Manager [1] is
available?

Honestly, I *did* buy GetRight some years ago, but scrapped it for FDM.

Magnus

[1] http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/
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iD8DBQFCifNxCZKBJbEFcz0RAi47AJ98nLu5UW7aYjY/dRBlhPWf1mk4owCfX55Y
O4fNeCuTBvhfY7NjNz30ov8=
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from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikitech-l] Meta-templates considered harmful?

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>See
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#.5B.5BWikipedia:Meta-templates_considered_harmful.5D.5D
>
>A question: is there any good reason to keep templates in templates working
>on the Wikimedia servers?
>
>
They're pretty useful in some cases to simplify the markup a user has to
edit.  For example, the British election results used a template where
you put the name of the party as one parameter, and based on that it
then included a meta-template with the appropriate formatting (displayed
name that fits in the width, article to link the name to, and color to
use for highlighting the cell).

This could be replaced by scriptable templates, but that may be a bigger
problem.  Basically, subtemplates in a lot of places are used as a
simulation of "if" statements, and in a lot of places, "if" statements
are exactly the natural thing to do.  An alternative is to duplicate the
templates for every possible outcome of the 'if", like
{{templatewithparam1}} {{templatewithparam2}}, etc., which are identical
except for the one part that should be different, but that's much less
convenient from a user's point of view.

-Mark


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 5/17/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> Wouldn't it be cool to have some kind of macro system for pint,
> > >> liter/litre, kilogram/kilogramme, foot, and whatnot--something not
> > >> unlike the date conversion system we use, that enables me to see 8
> > >> October, 1988 where an American would see October 8, 1988.
> > >
> > > I'd be interested to see you doing some fancy footwork over this as
> > > other users try to pound some sense into your head. Keep it in your own
> > > back yard, please.
> >
> > I wrote a system to do this kind of thing in the 1980s.
>
> What, make lousy puns?
>

Hah, I just got that! Nice catch.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
Hello Abigail,

Tuesday, May 17, 2005, 3:53:28 PM, you wrote:

>>  My first proposal: after I am logged on, I should have the option to
>>  disallow my IP address from anonymous posting. So when I am on
>>  wikipedia once again, anonymous, the system won't give me the
>>  possibility to save changes without logging in (or, may be, pushing
>>  explicit button "I want to edit without logging in, with ip-address
>>  logged").
> This would be a very dangerous facility, if provided.  It would mean
> that anyone using a proxy server could block everyone else using the
> proxy server, inadvertently.
Why? I don't propose letting to log in only for THAT only user. Any
user will be able to log in - or even to post anonymously - it just
won't be so implicit.

> If we did something like this it would need doing with cookies, I suppose.

I think, usual "remember my password across session" option is already
working through cookies. So if cookies are set properly, I will be
already logged on. And if I'm not logged on, cookies are wrong - so I
think your proposition has little sense...

--
Best regards,
 monk                            mailto:monk at zoomcon.com


body:
Hello John,

Tuesday, May 17, 2005, 4:08:49 PM, you wrote:

>>   My first proposal: after I am logged on, I should have the option to
>>   disallow my IP address from anonymous posting.
> This is okay for you, as you have a static IP address - so it's okay
> for you to "claim" this address as your own.  But many people use
> shared proxies (corporate, school, web-accellerator, etc.) and others
> have very dynamic IP addresses (AOL) too.  If someone could "claim"
> one of these addresses then they could effectively deny service to
> everyone else in the group that shares that (for whatever period such
> a "claim" would last).
I want to stress again - I by no way meant to disallow anonymous
posting AT ALL; just to make it more explicit.

> All I can suggest is that you make some significantly noticable change
> to your .css file (like changing the background colours of things).
> Hopefully you'll get used to these changes, and you'll be more likely
> to notice should you inadvertently edit while logged out.

may be. Is there any note about custom css files? how to make them and
so on.

--
Best regards,
 monk                            mailto:monk at zoomcon.com