from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Georgia/Victoria

body:
G'day Steve,

> On 17/04/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>([[Memphis]] is a pretty good example of how to handle an obscure
>>source and go into a disambig, though)
>
> Interesting - it had forgotten to actually link to [[Memphis
> (mythology)]] so I fixed that. It's funny how some disambigs, like
> this one, are quite restrained - there are few entries that aren't
> "genuinely ambiguous". No link to [[Memphis Belle]], for example.
> Whereas on other dab pages, the standard for inclusion appears to be
> "includes the word somewhere in the title", and sometimes not even
> that :)

When creating disambigs or redirects, I often use myself as the Model
Searcher (because my memory is lousy).  There's plenty of times when
I've been looking for an article with an utterly unambiguous name, but
only been able to remember part of the name ... fortunately, there's
usually a helpful disambig around to remind me ...

Cheers,

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>John Lee stated for the record:
>
>
>>Sean Barrett wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I have unblocked Eloquence on the English Wikipedia.  Blocking him was
>>>clearly inappropriate.  Blocking him indefinitely was astoundingly
>>>stupid.  Desysopping is equally insane, but resysopping him can wait for
>>>the wheels to grind.
>>>
>>>
>>Danny reverted the block, but didn't use the OFFICE account (Dannyisme).
>>This is getting interesting...
>>
>>John
>>
>>
>I will not wheel-war, so I will not re-un-block Eloquence, but I firmly
>stand by my characterizations of this action.  Regardless of any
>WP:OFFICE issues involved, Eloquence is not a danger to the project;
>blocking him and refusing to communicate is a stupid thing to do.
>
>I eagerly wait an explanation of why Eloquence was indefinitely blocked.
>
>
I too think that an informed explanation is required, not just a
lawyer's lame mumbo-jumbo to justify secrecy.

I often disagree with Eloquence, but I have no reason to doubt his good
faith in what he does.  It seems that the accusation of recklessness was
excessive.

I did look at the material, and it seemed like just another routine
dispute about an obscure right-winger.  I looked at the article history
and note that Danny was not the one to add the WP:OFFICE tag.  This
opens up the big question of who is authorized to use it.  If just
anybody can add the tag it doesn't mean very much.  Perhaps the
explanation page should also list those who are authorized to add it.
When it is added by anyone else it should be safe to ignore it.

Ec


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: BorgHunter

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and desysopping
 by User:Danny

body:
Patrick, Brad wrote:

>Greetings:
>
>I am the attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation in the US.  I work for
>the Board.  Among my responsibilities is keeping the Foundation out of
>legal trouble and responding to lawsuits, actual and threatened.  I have
>had a long chat with Eric Moeller about the circumstances that resulted
>in his ban (since reverted by someone Being Bold).  I also believe that
>the misunderstanding, although in good faith, still presented a risk to
>the Foundation.
>
>The issue of blocked articles is a complex one, and in many instances
>can be the visible result of careful consideration on the part of
>Foundation board members, staff, and other admins/bureaucrats/sysops who
>have knowledge of the facts and circumstances.  Often the community at
>large will not have any idea what the facts and underlying
>considerations are.  Not everything that involves Wikipedia is public,
>nor should it be.  The typical user or admin doesn't have all the pieces
>of the puzzle.  Don't let hubris get the better of you.
>
>There may be those of you who have yet to experience the American legal
>system in any fashion, save for a movie or two.  Dealing with lawsuits
>is what I do for a living.  Avoiding them is also what I do for a
>living.  My job is to make sure that the Foundation has the best legal
>advice and best options open to it to keep things running smoothly, and
>to not land in court unless all other avenues have been exhausted.
>
>The WP:OFFICE policy is still in its infancy.  People will challenge it
>through their words and actions.  Everyone is entitled to his or her
>opinion.  But I believe everyone who believes in the future success and
>sustainability of the project must also recognize the need for judicious
>use of confidentiality at the Foundation level.  The Foundation officers
>and Board members have a fiduciary obligation to the organization, as I
>do as a lawyer for my client.
>
>Certain members of the community (and notably, not Mr. Moeller) have
>expressed dissatisfaction about WP:OFFICE and its use.  There is a
>healthy debate yet to be had about it.  We can have that debate, but I
>also have to make clear that the Foundation's obligations are greater
>than loyalty to any one user.  Even someone with the history of
>contributions to Mr. Moeller.
>
>-BradPatrick
>
>
>Bradford A. Patrick, Esq.
>Fowler White Boggs Banker
>501 E. Kennedy Blvd.
>Suite 1700
>Tampa, FL  33602-5239
>bpatrick at fowlerwhite.com
>
>
Mr. Patrick,

I understand the concerns about the Office action, and how it may have
posed a legal threat to Wikimedia. The issue at stake here, however, is
not "Was the Office action justified?" Rather, I think the problem was,
at a fundamental level, communication. Along the way, it was failed to
be communicated that the action in question was indeed an Office action.
Thus, it was acted upon as if it was not. If Wikimedia feels the need to
issue such an action, should it not be clearly labeled to avoid that
very legal threat to Wikipedia that Danny was attempting to avoid in the
first place? I hope that all involved have learned from the experience,
but I don't think that Erik constitutes a continued threat. His action
was borne of misunderstanding, and actions against him to prevent
further threats are, now that the misunderstanding has been cleared up,
unnecessary. I don't think anyone is questioning the legitimacy of the
Office action here, but I think we all are concerned that a
misunderstanding led to all this. Again, I ask: Should Office actions
not be labeled explicitly as such?

Thanks,
BorgHunter


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fund-raising suggestion

body:
On 4/18/06, Ian Tresman <it at knowledge.co.uk> wrote:
> I'm just saying that I would; and I guess that it doesn't matter if
> the advocate knows who the sponsor is, as it doesn't matter if an
> administrator or arbitrator knows who brings a regular case to their attention.
>
> I just feel that my time can be better spend editing articles, rather
> than having spent 80% of my time arguing over them.
>
> And it can't hurt to try it out?
>
> Regards,
> Ian Tresman

Sure it could. These things have a tendency to live on. How long ago
was the Seigenthaler affair, and how often do we still hear about it?
There are still people who think we banned anonymous editting entirely
because of that.

~maru


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Cross-namespace templates

body:
Well, on some wikis we use the syntax {{template|day|month}} to include the
template. Then it autocategorizes itself by date at the violations category.

"Steve Bennett" <stevage at gmail.com> escribi?
en el mensaje
news:f1c3529e0604190045w468bdeaehcf89e50436cfdd5a at mail.gmail.com...
> On 19/04/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com>
> wrote:
>> If I correctly understand both a) what you mean, and b) how it works,
>> the new INCLUDEONLY/NOINCLUDE stuff will permit that (you can create a
>> template which causes the page into which you include it to be placed
>> in a category, that is).
>
> Yep, and that works to an exent. But all it can really store is
> membership, and the title of the page as it should appear on the
> category page. That's apparently insufficient, because pages like
> wp:copyvio still exist. To replace pages like that, it would need at a
> minimum the date that the template was added, and a text comment.
>
> INCLUDEONLY/NOINCLUDE is definitely very cool, and I can't believe we
> got by without it before ;) It's only a pity that they NOINCLUDE's
> cant actually be included...some cute template documentation templates
> could be produced otherwise.
>
> And to make this email about three separate things at once, it would
> be really nice if MediaWiki could be changed so that special variables
> displayed differently on template pages than on the page where the
> template is included. For example, if PAGENAME actually rendered as
> PAGENAME, rather than fa or welcome or whatever. Similarly, {{{1}}}
> could rendered as PARAMETER1... that might make templates a little
> easier to use and understand for novices.
>
> Steve
>
> Steve


body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

>BorgHunter schrieb:
>
>If Wikimedia feels the need to
>
>
>>issue such an action, should it not be clearly labeled to avoid that
>>very legal threat to Wikipedia that Danny was attempting to avoid in the
>>first place? I hope that all involved have learned from the experience,
>>but I don't think that Erik constitutes a continued threat. His action
>>was borne of misunderstanding, and actions against him to prevent
>>further threats are, now that the misunderstanding has been cleared up,
>>unnecessary.
>>
>>
>This was not a misunderstanding, this was lack of good faith. Erik
>should have trusted danny that he has good reasons for an action which
>might not be selfexplaining. If he wanted to know more, he could have
>asked. And an admin who acts before he understands the situation can -
>as this incident has shown - potentially endanger the foundation.
>
Tha knife cuts both ways.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by
	User:Danny

body:
I could be wrong, and of course maybe I'm also doing a little tea-leaf
reading here, but...

My impression of this is that the foundation's hard-line on desysopping
people who undo an admin action taken by a representative of the WMF is that
it's intended to send a message:  Don't wheel war -- in fact, don't even
revert once -- someone who might even potentially be acting to represent the
foundation in a matter that they've deemed sensitive in some way.

I don't see what's so unreasonable about this.  To me, it's better to ask
first, revert/undo later, than the reverse, given the real-world
implications in admin actions performed by people like Danny.  I have no
doubt that Erik was acting in good faith, and I'd support restoring his
privileges, but folks should consider this an object lesson I think in
understanding that championing "the wiki way" doesn't trump averting real
legal entanglements.

k

On 4/19/06, sannse <sannse at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
>
> This is likely going to be a duplicate, but I think Brad's mail may have
> got stuck (if he isn't subscribed fully to this list) and I wanted to
> make sure it got through quickly....
>
> sannse
>
> Patrick, Brad wrote:
> > Greetings:
> >
> > I am the attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation in the US.  I work for
> > the Board.  Among my responsibilities is keeping the Foundation out of
> > legal trouble and responding to lawsuits, actual and threatened.  I have
> > had a long chat with Eric Moeller about the circumstances that resulted
> > in his ban (since reverted by someone Being Bold).  I also believe that
> > the misunderstanding, although in good faith, still presented a risk to
> > the Foundation.
> >
> > The issue of blocked articles is a complex one, and in many instances
> > can be the visible result of careful consideration on the part of
> > Foundation board members, staff, and other admins/bureaucrats/sysops who
> > have knowledge of the facts and circumstances.  Often the community at
> > large will not have any idea what the facts and underlying
> > considerations are.  Not everything that involves Wikipedia is public,
> > nor should it be.  The typical user or admin doesn't have all the pieces
> > of the puzzle.  Don't let hubris get the better of you.
> >
> > There may be those of you who have yet to experience the American legal
> > system in any fashion, save for a movie or two.  Dealing with lawsuits
> > is what I do for a living.  Avoiding them is also what I do for a
> > living.  My job is to make sure that the Foundation has the best legal
> > advice and best options open to it to keep things running smoothly, and
> > to not land in court unless all other avenues have been exhausted.
> >
> > The WP:OFFICE policy is still in its infancy.  People will challenge it
> > through their words and actions.  Everyone is entitled to his or her
> > opinion.  But I believe everyone who believes in the future success and
> > sustainability of the project must also recognize the need for judicious
> > use of confidentiality at the Foundation level.  The Foundation officers
> > and Board members have a fiduciary obligation to the organization, as I
> > do as a lawyer for my client.
> >
> > Certain members of the community (and notably, not Mr. Moeller) have
> > expressed dissatisfaction about WP:OFFICE and its use.  There is a
> > healthy debate yet to be had about it.  We can have that debate, but I
> > also have to make clear that the Foundation's obligations are greater
> > than loyalty to any one user.  Even someone with the history of
> > contributions to Mr. Moeller.
> >
> > -BradPatrick
> >
> >
> > Bradford A. Patrick, Esq.
> > Fowler White Boggs Banker
> > 501 E. Kennedy Blvd.
> > Suite 1700
> > Tampa, FL  33602-5239
> > bpatrick at fowlerwhite.com
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> > [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Erik Moeller
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 2:57 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List; English Wikipedia;
> > wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
> > Subject: [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny
> >
> > I have been a Wikipedian since 2001 and a MediaWiki developer since
> > 2002. I was Chief Research Officer of the Foundation from May to August
> > 2005. I initiated two of Wikimedia's projects, Wikinews and the
> > Wikimedia Commons, and have made vital contributions to both. I have
> > made roughly 15,000 edits to the English Wikipedia, and uploaded about
> > 15,000 files to Wikimedia Commons. A list of my overall contributions
> > can be found at
> >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence
> >
> > and the linked to pages; this does not include my numerous international
> > activities such as conference speeches, as well as my book and articles
> > about Wikipedia. I have never been blocked before, nor have I ever been
> > subject to an Arbitration Committee ruling (in fact, I was one of
> > Jimmy's original suggestions for the first ArbCom, and one of the people
> > who proposed that very committee).
> >
> > I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and
> > desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an
> > "Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not
> > specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that he
> > was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead talk to
> > the Foundation attorney instead. To my knowledge, this is the first time
> > office authority has been used to indefinitely block and desysop a user.
> >
> > What happened?
> >
> > Yesterday, Danny radically shortened and protected two pages,
> > [[Newsmax.com]] and [[Christopher Ruddy]]. The protection summary was
> > "POV qualms" (nothing else), and there was only the following brief
> > comment on Talk:NewsMax.com:
> >
> > "This article has been stubbed and protected pending resolution of POV
> > issues. Danny 19:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)"
> >
> > There was no mention of WP:OFFICE in the edit summary or on the talk
> > page. Danny did not apply the special Office template, {{office}}, nor
> > did he use the "Dannyisme" account that he created for Foundation
> > purposes, nor did he list the page on WP:OFFICE. Instead, he applied the
> > regular {{protected}} template.
> >
> > Given that Danny has now more explicitly emphasized this distinction
> > between his role as a Foundation employee and a regular wiki user, I
> > assumed he was acting here as a normal sysop and editor, and unprotected
> > the two pages, with a brief reference to the protection policy. I also
> > asked Danny, on [[Talk:NewsMax.com]], to make it explicit whether the
> > protection was under WP:OFFICE. I would not have reprotected, of course,
> > if he had simply said that they were, and left it at that.
> >
> > I apologize if this action was perceived as "reckless", but I must
> > emphasize that I was acting in good faith, and that I would much
> > appreciate it if all office actions would be labeled as such. I was
> > under the impression that this was the case given past actions. In any
> > case, I think that the indefinite block and desysopping is very much an
> > overreaction, and would like to hereby publicly appeal to Danny, the
> > community and the Board (since Danny's authority is above the
> > ArbCom) to restore my editing privileges as well as my sysop status. I
> > pledge to be more careful in these matters in the future.
> >
> > Thanks for reading,
> >
> > Erik
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
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from_name: SPUI

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by
 User:Danny

body:
> Patrick, Brad wrote:
>
>>Greetings:
>>
>>I am the attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation in the US.  I work for
>>the Board.  Among my responsibilities is keeping the Foundation out of
>>legal trouble and responding to lawsuits, actual and threatened.  I have
>>had a long chat with Eric Moeller about the circumstances that resulted
>>in his ban (since reverted by someone Being Bold).  I also believe that
>>the misunderstanding, although in good faith, still presented a risk to
>>the Foundation.

<snip>
None of this explains why the action that Eloquence was blocked for
undoing was not marked as an office action.


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] broken documentation links

body:
On 4/18/06, Tels <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote:
> Moin,
> Actually, I wanted to find documentation on the Parser class, it's
> functions and members. However, the automatic documentation feature
> doesn't seem to offer much more then "this function does exist and has
> the following params".
>
> I expected a lot more text like: what does it do? What are the params
> actually? what some possible values? etc.
>
> So, I am not sure if the autogenerated doc is very usefull at all. It's a
> start, but in the end I just looked in the source whenever I wanted to
> see how something really works :)

Automatically generated documentation will only ever be as good as the
source code (or other data) it's generated from. So this is a symptom
of classes and other interfaces not being documented well enough, not
of the documentation system as such.


subject: [Wikitech-l] broken documentation links

body:
On 4/19/06, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > FYI, I tried running phpdoc over the current code and found it breaking the
> > memory limit of 256 megabytes I have set on my server.
> >
> > We might want to consider a new documentation parser that can handle our code. :)
>
> r13740 migrated trunk from phpdoc to doxygen, I even updated the
> mwdocgen.php.

Excellent, as Brion mentions the phpdoc package is horribly written,
when I was generating this documentation I was forced to add more
memory by creating a virtual swap partition (dd => mkswap => swapon),
which send my box into swapping hell that it couldn't get out of for
the next hour or so (it's very slow even if you manage to keep it all
in RAM though).


body:
Oliver Coddington wrote:

>I'd have to say any block seems to me to be out of place. Why should
>Eloquence be punished for Danny's actions, and lack of clarity over whether
>his action was OFFICE related or not.
>
>It certainly seems fair that Eloquence should have perhaps used more
>judgement before his actions, but I still don't think they warrant any block
>or ban, indeed it is Danny's actions which are more of a problem (from the
>lack of the correct template, unclear edit summary, blocking a user
>indefinitely, and de-sysopping).
>
>I understand the problems of litigation, indeed I have plenty of experience
>in this field, in the UK setting, but I still don't think such 'threats' (I
>do much prefer to call them challenges) justify what I see as abnormal
>action.
>
>I think all parties will have learnt from this experience, but I think a
>line should be drawn under the whole thing, and any blocks removed.
>Otherwise you could argue that Danny should be looking at punitive measures
>as well, due to his actions I outlined above.
>

We have too many people who prefer a punitive solution to problems.  If
indeed Ruddy was the one to complain about the articles, (and it would
be his right to complain) would it not have been easier to simply say
that the article is temporarily blocked for that reason while the matter
is being investigated?  As long as the basis for punitive actions
remains unexplained we can expect reactions such as have happened here.

Ec


from_name: Ben Lowe

body:
I'm trying to figure out why Danny *removed* the {{office}}
tag<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/NewsMax.com>(sorry,
sysops only) if this was an office action, and am also curious about
Danny's statement that his admin actions are essentially always on WP:OFFICE
mode<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Splash&diff=prev&oldid=49018307>.
If this is all within policy guidelines, then [[WP:OFFICE]] should be
changed to reflect that all actions by Danny, whether he mentions it or not,
are considered unrevertable Office actions.

FWIW, I think the more prudent course of action is to say that all Office
actions will be marked as such in both edit summary and page-tagging, and to
give Eloquence Wiki access back.  Considering Danny's actions look like he
was distancing himself from WP:OFFICE, it seems pretty clear how Eloquence
could think that this was not an office action.

Ben


body:
I think that lately Danny has not been using the OFFICE tag because people
tend to raise a fuss over things protected under this specific policy, and
more publicity to/furor over an issue that's already very sensitive is a
thorny thing to deal with.  My guess, anyway.

k

On 4/19/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> John Lee stated for the record:
>
> > Sean Barrett wrote:
> >>
> >>I have unblocked Eloquence on the English Wikipedia.  Blocking him was
> >>clearly inappropriate.  Blocking him indefinitely was astoundingly
> >>stupid.  Desysopping is equally insane, but resysopping him can wait for
> >>the wheels to grind.
> >>
> >
> > Danny reverted the block, but didn't use the OFFICE account (Dannyisme).
> > This is getting interesting...
> >
> > John
>
> I will not wheel-war, so I will not re-un-block Eloquence, but I firmly
> stand by my characterizations of this action.  Regardless of any
> WP:OFFICE issues involved, Eloquence is not a danger to the project;
> blocking him and refusing to communicate is a stupid thing to do.
>
> I eagerly wait an explanation of why Eloquence was indefinitely blocked.
>
> - --
> Sean Barrett     | I've had a perfectly wonderful evening.
> sean at epoptic.org | But this wasn't it. --Groucho Marx
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
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> KhQrCdBJ808M/Dtt3UD6UOk=
> =n7SA
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and desysopping
	by User:Danny

body:
On 4/19/06, BorgHunter <borghunter.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> I understand the concerns about the Office action, and how it may have
> posed a legal threat to Wikimedia. The issue at stake here, however, is
> not "Was the Office action justified?" Rather, I think the problem was,
> at a fundamental level, communication. Along the way, it was failed to
> be communicated that the action in question was indeed an Office action.

I don't agree. If Erik was unaware of what was going on, he wouldn't
have unprotected the page. Erik has only once before unprotected a
page with that account.  Even his edit summary makes it clear that he
was trying to make a point about the public disclosure office
protection, a matter he has previously been outspoken for...

It may be worth discussing if his point had merit, but I think that it
is clear to everyone who cares about behaving in a responsible way
that it is not acceptable to make a point out of something that is
quite possibly a legal issue.

When did Wikipedia admins forget about talk pages and email?
The complaints about these issues are always justified by fears of
protecting "the community", but what sort of community do we actually
have when trusting and discussion are no longer considered valuable?
How are we a community when every person fancies himself to be
[[Rambo]]?


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 4/19/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com>:
> > I think that lately Danny has not been using the OFFICE tag because people
> > tend to raise a fuss over things protected under this specific policy, and
> > more publicity to/furor over an issue that's already very sensitive is a
> > thorny thing to deal with.  My guess, anyway.
>
> Forgive me if I haven't understood this correctly, but: OFFICE actions are unreversible on pain of dire consequences (e.g. desysopping and indefinite banning), yet anything that Danny does could be an OFFICE action even though not identified as such? This seems very problematic; is there now a class of editor (Danny) whose actions noone can now dare risk undoing in case the action turns out to be an OFFICE action? Surely not.
>
> -- Matt

Danny has a talk page, he has email, and he has a phone number, all
well published.  USE THEM.

Kelly


body:
Why is it problematic? It's a simple enough thing to simply ask Danny first
before undoing something he's done, whether or not he's acted on behalf of
the foundation.  I've done it before (and gotten a "yes but I'd rather this
stay low profile" answer very quickly).

Everybody who's an administrator knows -- or ought to know -- that any of
Danny's actions could be undertaken on behalf of the foundation. To me, this
suggests -- in fact, demands -- a lot more caution with undoing his admin
actions than otherwise, and at the very least warrants a discreet "what's
this about?" before taking action.

k

On 4/19/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com>:
> > I think that lately Danny has not been using the OFFICE tag because
> people
> > tend to raise a fuss over things protected under this specific policy,
> and
> > more publicity to/furor over an issue that's already very sensitive is a
> > thorny thing to deal with.  My guess, anyway.
>
> Forgive me if I haven't understood this correctly, but: OFFICE actions are
> unreversible on pain of dire consequences (e.g. desysopping and indefinite
> banning), yet anything that Danny does could be an OFFICE action even though
> not identified as such? This seems very problematic; is there now a class of
> editor (Danny) whose actions noone can now dare risk undoing in case the
> action turns out to be an OFFICE action? Surely not.
>
> -- Matt
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny

body:
On 4/19/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> I very much rescind this statement. Apparently the Foundation's
> obligations are so important that going against them is ground for
> desysopping and blocking, whereas loyalty to users is not even
> important enough to tell them in advance what actions will lead to an
> indefinite ban. It makes me wonder why on earth I am still cooperating
> with this.

Indefinitely doesn't mean forever.  Indefinite means "we'll lift it
when it's safe to do so".

If, on the other hand, you want to prevent the Foundation from being
able to defend itself against legal threats, then by all means take
away the ability of the Foundation to respond to legal threats.
People who put themselves into harm's way will get run over from time
to time.  You can safely assume that anything Danny does that appears
difficult to explain is probably him responding to a legal threat in
some way, since that's basically all he does anymore.  They are *that*
frequent.

Kelly


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Patrick, Brad

body:
I understand that the indefinite ban was reverted by Danny and
reinstituted by dannyisme for 48 hours.

I don't believe Eloquence should receive a death sentence either.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Barrett [mailto:sean at epoptic.org]
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 5:03 PM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org; Patrick, Brad; jwales at wikia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and
desysopping by User:Danny

Thank you for your explanation.  As an Arbiter, I have some slight idea
of how ... interesting ... situations can become, and I full support of
the OFFICE policy as a tool to use in handling those situations.

Can you explain the reasons why Eloquence must be prohibited from ever
editing the English Wikipedia again?  Danny is apparently using OFFICE
to justify what looks like a lifetime ban (something even the
Arbitration Committee cannot impose) that he refused to explain.

I can understand that the Foundation's obligations are greater than
loyalty to any one user.  Is it the case that the Foundation cannot
explain why this one user is being permanently banned with no
explanation of why he must be sacrificed?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | I've had a perfectly wonderful evening.
 sean at epoptic.org | But this wasn't it. --Groucho Marx -----BEGIN PGP
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body:
On 4/19/06, Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com > wrote:
>
> I think that lately Danny has not been using the OFFICE tag because people
> tend to raise a fuss over things protected under this specific policy, and
>
> more publicity to/furor over an issue that's already very sensitive is a
> thorny thing to deal with.  My guess, anyway.

Is this really a surprise?  I remember always hearing the best way to make a
book popular is to get it banned; why should this be any different on
Wikipedia?  For people looking for controversy and scandal on the
encyclopedia that anyone can edit, the two or three articles that *no one --
NO ONE -- can edit for fear of eternal exile *are way more interesting than
the more-than-a-million other articles.  I suspect more Wikipedians (and
slashdotters) know about [[Brian Peppers]] than [[Jordanhill railway
station]].  Is OFFICE necessary?  Sure, probably.  Wikipedia definitely
needs to be responsible, both in terms of its own liability. But if Danny
wants to use WP:OFFICE without controversy, he needs it to be normalized,
not hidden.  People need to simply get used to it.  The only way that
WP:OFFICE is going to become non-controversial is if it's openly used.

Now of course, I'm reading into this a bit.  Perhaps there's some other
reason, besides trying to avoid outcry, that Danny didn't mention it was an
OFFICE action and removed the OFFICE tag from the page.  Regardless, if
we're to change the policy to say "Danny edits Wikipedia with
Sharpies<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpie_%2528marker%2529>"
(which I don't think is a good idea), if [[WP:OFFICE]] should redirect to
[[WP:DANNY]], it needs to actually say that somewhere.  (And, of course, so
everyone is clear about the difference, Danny shouldn't edit the
encyclopedia anymore, except as Office Danny.)

Ben

P.S. -- If Jimbo is referred to as "God-King" I can only imagine the
nicknames this will create for Danny.


from_name: ops-lists

body:
Kelly said:
> People who put themselves into harm's way will get run over from time
to time.
> You can safely assume that anything Danny does that appears difficult
to
> explain is probably him responding to a legal threat in some way,
since that's
> basically all he does anymore.  They are *that* frequent.

Put simply, you're asking us to give Danny the benefit of the doubt.
That's fair enough, but don't you think that Eloquence has earned the
benefit of the doubt, as well? Of course he has, but Danny certainly
didn't give it to him.

-strom


from_name: Adrian

subject: [Wikitech-l] test

body:
Ok.

Oops, wait. Damn.

On 4/19/06, Carl F?rstenberg <azatoth at gmail.com> wrote:
> ignore this.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Blackcap

body:
On 4/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Recent office actions involve more than just protection. They tend to
> involve a serious cut down of the article as well. As wikitruth has
> shown tracing admins who are leaking information is tricky.

Can't we look in the server logs to see who's looked at, for example,
[[Special:Undelete/Wikitruth.info]] (due to [[Image:Restore Wikitruth
info.png]])? From what I've read at [[m:Privacy policy#Security of
information]], such logs do exist and could at least narrow down the
possible suspects.


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

body:
* sannse wrote:
> Patrick, Brad wrote:

>> Certain members of the community (and notably, not Mr. Moeller) have
>> expressed dissatisfaction about WP:OFFICE and its use.  There is a
>> healthy debate yet to be had about it.  We can have that debate, but I
>> also have to make clear that the Foundation's obligations are greater
>> than loyalty to any one user.  Even someone with the history of
>> contributions to Mr. Moeller.

Thanks for the explanation. However, I think the view of this as a
conflict between 'the Foundation's obligations' and 'one user' is
inherently incorrect.

Eric did not knowingly act against the 'obligations of the Foundation'...
there was no notice of such obligations being involved in the situation,
despite the existence of established procedures for doing so.

This isn't about 'loyalty to one user', but the need for discretion in how
users in general are treated. There should not be 'retaliation' for
actions the user could have no way of knowing imposed some form of 'risk'
on the Foundation. If there is risk then notice should be given under the
'WP:OFFICE' policy. If there is some reason that such notice can't be
given globally then the individual user should be told not to repeat the
action.

Handing down 'punishment' for violation of undeclared restrictions simply
seems capricious... and concerns far more than 'one person'. I don't know
Eric and thus have no especial 'loyalty' to him... but this matter is
still a grave concern to me and to others.

Defend the Foundation by all means... just don't unneccessarily 'punish'
your volunteers in the process. Whatever the situation here an 'OFFICE'
notification or quiet word to Eric could have covered it.


from_name: Ruminations Realist

subject: [WikiEN-l] re being blocked

body:
Hi

  Could someone explain why I was blocked.  I simply added links to a few multiracial entries as follows:

  * [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Black_and_Biracial/'''Black and Biracial''': For people who identify as/ are identified as Black who happen to be biracial.]

  My user name "Ruminations of a Racial Realist" corresponds to the name of my blog on race, racism and racial identity... There are actually two definitions of racial realist included in your encyclopedia - my blog correspondes to the second defintion...however, I would be happy to change my user name if this is considered inappropriate.

  Thanks.

---------------------------------
Blab-away for as little as 1?/min. Make  PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.


from_name: John Tex

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Tool Server disabled - link to WikiTech-L maillist
	discussion (Johntex)

body:
Recently, enwiki was apparently moved without warning to a new server.  This
caused the external toolserver to be unable to perform any analysis of
enwiki information.  One of the major users of toolserver is Gmaxwell, who
performs several different beneficial processes using the toolserver.

He has posted to WikiTech-L explaining what happened and what the effects
are:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034904.html

There is also an essay forming at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Toolserver

I urge everyone to visit one or both of the above links to learn more and to
express your support for getting the situation resolved.

Johntex.


from_name: Jesse W

body:
On Apr 19, 2006, at 4:55 PM, maru dubshinki wrote:
> On 4/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Restore_Wikitruth_info.png
>>
>> Ad nothing in the metadata suggests photoshop.
> Point taken. All the other possibilities (an admin innocently taking a
> screencap, exporting his desktop to another computer who did take a
> screencap etc) seem less likely than a disgruntled admin. Albeit, the
> shot is a bit odd- do logged in accounts really look like that in
> monobook? It's been so long I've forgotten.

Well, the photo has obviously been carefully cropped, as the personal
toolbar (which begins with the account name) has been erased.  Also,
I've only checked on Firefox on Mac OS X, but the font picked might be
able to identify what browser and OS it was taken from.  Furthermore,
as it contains the toolbox links for Lupin's anti-vandal tool, a
combination of
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere/User:
Lupin/recent2.js&limit=500&from=0 and
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Special%3AListusers&group=sysop&limit=2000 results in the
following list of 60 admins(a much smaller list than 800+...) who have
installed Lupin's tool into their monobook.js file and have not taken
the easy step of removing the link-back to recent.js.

Aaron Brenneman
Acetic Acid
Adashiel
Arwel Parry
Banes
Bbatsell
Bkonrad
BorgHunter
BorgQueen
BrokenSegue
Brookie
Can't sleep, clown will eat me
Canderson7
Cdc
Celestianpower
Chris 73
Commander Keane
DaGizza
Dan100
Dante Alighieri
Docu
Drini
Dustimagic
EdwinHJ
Flcelloguy
Fuzheado
Gflores
Hall Monitor
Icairns
Jacoplane
Jareth
Johnleemk
Jpgordon
Kbh3rd
Kmccoy
Marudubshinki
Master Jay
Mathwiz2020
NSLE
No Guru
Petros471
Pschemp
Quadell
Ral315
Raven4x4x
Redvers
Rhobite
RoyBoy
Shanel
Sj
Ta bu shi da yu
Tawker
TexasAndroid
Tom harrison
Trevor macinnis
Ugen64
Vary
Who
Woohookitty
Zippy


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and
	desysopping by User:Danny

body:
I don't think there is any real danger of getting into a mess if you
simply make it a practice to never reverse the action of another
administrator. We have not made this a hard fast rule, but It
completely avoids wheel-warring, an evil which transcends most
instances of harm which are done by ill-considered actions of
administrators.

Fred

On Apr 19, 2006, at 4:44 PM, Ilmari Karonen wrote:

> geni wrote:
>
>> On 4/19/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> This was not a misunderstanding, this was lack of good faith. Erik
>>> should have trusted danny that he has good reasons for an action
>>> which
>>> might not be selfexplaining. If he wanted to know more, he could
>>> have
>>> asked. And an admin who acts before he understands the situation
>>> can -
>>> as this incident has shown - potentially endanger the foundation.
>>>
>>
>> Admins almost never work with complete information.
>>
>
> Indeed, Brad himself wrote just that in his response:
>
> "Not everything that involves Wikipedia is public, nor should it be.
> The typical user or admin doesn't have all the pieces of the puzzle."
>
> Note that, while this is abviously true, it doesn't mean I necessarily
> like it much.  I don't know WTF is going on at the office -- my first
> thought was that Danny must be really close to burning out from stress
> to react so out of proportion -- but events like this are making
> Wikipedia feel like a minefield, an oppressive place where one must
> watch one's every word and never take a step before checking twice
> that
> no-one's toes are in the way.  If I'm to work effectively as an
> admin, I
> _need_ all the pieces of the puzzle, or at least I need to know where
> the missing pieces are.  We are not mushrooms, to be kept in the dark
> and fed manure.
>
> I strongly supported Kelly Martin's earlier 0RR proposal, since it was
> sensible and clear: don't redo what you did earlier without
> discussion.
>   But if the new policy is to be that an admin may not do anything
> that
> might step on someone else's toes, I'm not sure I dare to continue
> being
> an admin.
>
> --
> Ilmari Karonen
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
What is to be "leaked" is the contents of deleted articles.

Fred

On Apr 19, 2006, at 4:46 PM, Rob wrote:

> On 4/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>  As wikitruth has
>> shown tracing admins who are leaking information is tricky.
>>
>
>
>
> What is there to be leaked?  I thought we pretty much kept
> everything out in
> the open.  Unless there's some super sekrit admin meeting that I
> haven't
> been invited to.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: commons-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] an idea for a commons help tool

body:
Brianna Laugher schrieb:
> Since there are some really good tools being written lately, I thought
> I'd throw up a request for one. :) This one would be quite easy to
> make, I think. Just saves some typing. (I would like it for en.wp but
> I think it would be pretty easy to make for any language.wp.)
>
>
<snip>
> Not at all urgent, of course...
>
>
Like this [1]? ;-)

Maybe extensive testing should wait until wikipedia is up to decent
speed again, though.

Magnus
(still waiting to be approved by the toolserver gods)

[1] http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/commons_sumitup.php

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from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] broken documentation links

body:
On 19/04/06, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/18/06, Tels <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote:
> > Moin,
> > Actually, I wanted to find documentation on the Parser class, it's
> > functions and members. However, the automatic documentation feature
> > doesn't seem to offer much more then "this function does exist and has
> > the following params".
> >
> > I expected a lot more text like: what does it do? What are the params
> > actually? what some possible values? etc.
> >
> > So, I am not sure if the autogenerated doc is very usefull at all. It's a
> > start, but in the end I just looked in the source whenever I wanted to
> > see how something really works :)
>
> Automatically generated documentation will only ever be as good as the
> source code (or other data) it's generated from. So this is a symptom
> of classes and other interfaces not being documented well enough, not
> of the documentation system as such.

Got it in one. If the comments are wrong, then the documentation will be, too.

Rob Church


body:
On 4/19/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
>
> Well, the photo has obviously been carefully cropped, as the personal
> toolbar (which begins with the account name) has been erased.  Also,
> I've only checked on Firefox on Mac OS X, but the font picked might be
> able to identify what browser and OS it was taken from.  Furthermore,
> as it contains the toolbox links for Lupin's anti-vandal tool, a
> combination of
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere/User:
> Lupin/recent2.js&limit=500&from=0 and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=Special%3AListusers&group=sysop&limit=2000 results in the
> following list of 60 admins(a much smaller list than 800+...) who have
> installed Lupin's tool into their monobook.js file and have not taken
> the easy step of removing the link-back to recent.js.
>

I don't know when that image was first posted (anyone have a link to it on
the wikitruth.info site, rather than our screenshot?), but that date would
further reduce the list by removing admins who were promoted after the
screenshot was taken.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Ruminations of a Racial Realist requests unblock;
	forwarded message

body:
For reasons I don't exactly understand, this message was sent directly
to me, rather than to the list.  I'm forwarding it as requested.  I
have no further comment.

Jesse Weinstein

Begin forwarded message:
> From: Ruminations Realist <ruminations_of_a_racial_realist at yahoo.com>
> Date: April 19, 2006 5:58:45 PM PDT
> To: jessw at netwood.net
> Subject: POSSIBLE SPAM Re: [WikiEN-l] Indefinite block and desysopping
> by User:Danny
>
> Hi
> ?
> I am a new wikipedia user - I was blocked within about 5 minutes of
> editing although I did not post anything offensive -.I simply added
> links to a few multiracial entries as follows:
> ?
> * [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Black_and_Biracial/'''Black and
> Biracial''': For people who identify as/ are identified as Black who
> happen to be biracial.]
> ?
> My user name "Ruminations of a Racial Realist" corresponds to the name
> of my blog on race, racism and racial identity... There are actually
> two definitions of racial realist included in your encyclopedia - my
> blog correspondes to the second defintion...however, I would be happy
> to change my user name if this is considered inappropriate.
> ?
> I am having difficulties contacting the person who blocked me - could
> you advise me or forward?this messge to someone who could help?
> ?
> Thanks.


from_name: Carl Fûrstenberg

subject: [Wikitech-l] test

body: ignore this.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] test

body:
have the mail servers been down? I've been having major problems
getting onto fr.wikipedia.org, and apparently its image servers (?)
are down, but I don't know about en. For that matter, is there an
off-site status page?

Steve

On 19/04/06, Carl F?rstenberg <azatoth at gmail.com> wrote:
> ignore this.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] test

body:
On 4/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For that matter, is there an off-site status page?

http://www.thewritingpot.com/wikistatus/

Garion96


from_name: Rich Morin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Some notes on Doxygen

body:
Tels wrote:
> I expected a lot more text like: what does it do?

Brion Vibber wrote:
> Neat! Now being autogenerated daily at http://svn.wikimedia.org/doc/

I haven't used Doxygen with PHP, so I don't know how much it is
able to extract from PHP code.  However, here are some notes,
based on my experience using it (a few years ago) with C code:

  *  There are assorted options that can be turned on.

     One option I like is the one that turns on clickable
     (image-mapped) context diagrams.  These are generated
     by the dot(1) program of the Graphviz suite.

     The XML output option can be useful, if anyone wants to do
     analysis of the extracted information (I might :-).

  *  Although Doxygen can extract some information from the code,
     it really starts to shine when the programmers have added
     some mark-up.  This consists of specially-formatted comment
     blocks, placed just before the code that defines data
     structures, functions, etc.

     Here's an example:

       /*! \brief Brief description.
        *         Brief description continued.
        *
        *  Detailed description starts here.
        */

     The "\brief" tag is one of several dozen that can be used
     to specify particular information.  Common tags include
     \def, \file, \fn, \param, and \var.  The more information
     Doxygen is given, the better documentation it can produce.

  *  Doxygen is quite customizable.  If you don't like the way
     the pages look, it's not that hard to change them.  Of
     course, this will saddle you with maintenance issues when
     Doxygen gets updated...

  *  The Doxygen manual is quite extensive (132 pages) and very
     readable.  I have also found the author to be responsive.
     Finally, there is an active mailing list.  For more infor-
     mation, visit the Doxygen web site:

       http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/

-r
--
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume     rdm at cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog     +1 650-873-7841

Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] broken documentation links

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> FYI, I tried running phpdoc over the current code and found it breaking the
> memory limit of 256 megabytes I have set on my server.
>
> We might want to consider a new documentation parser that can handle our code. :)

Hello,

r13740 migrated trunk from phpdoc to doxygen, I even updated the
mwdocgen.php.

The default configuration template only generates HTML output (in the
same directory).

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny
	(Johntex)

body:
It seems to me that Danny should have marked his action as WP:OFFICE if he
meant it to carry the weight of an office action.  Not only did he leave off
the WP:Office label, he also left a misleading Talk page summary:  "This
article has been stubbed and protected pending resolution of POV issues."

That is very misleading and misleading the community is not a good way to
build trust or goodwill.

There should be no such thing as an office action that cannot be advertised
as an office action.  No one is asking Danny to explain WHY the office
action has to be taken.  Just tell us it IS an office action so we know not
to revert it.

Asking people to be mind readers is just wrong.

It's perfectly fine to suggest that maybe Eloquence should have contacted
Danny BEFORE reverting, not after.  But if we are going to hold Eloquence to
that standard, then we should hold Danny to it as well.  That means that
Danny should have contacted Eloquence before he banned him and de-sysopped
him.

Finally, I love the message for our attorney which explains the importance
of having an office policy, but does absolutely nothing to provide any
rational for why we should then FAIL TO FOLLW our office policy.  I guess
maybe that sort of speech fools some of the people some of the time.

-Johntex


from_name: maru dubshinki

body:
On 4/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> Recent office actions involve more than just protection. They tend to
> involve a serious cut down of the article as well. As wikitruth has
> shown tracing admins who are leaking information is tricky.
>
> --
> geni

Actually, I've been wondering about this. Do we really know that an
admin is behind Wikitruth? I haven't seen anything to prove that they
haven't simply scraped Wikipedia at the right time or an outdated
mirror later, and simply claimed to be an admin.

~maru


from_name: Rob

body:
On 4/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  As wikitruth has
> shown tracing admins who are leaking information is tricky.

What is there to be leaked?  I thought we pretty much kept everything out in
the open.  Unless there's some super sekrit admin meeting that I haven't
been invited to.


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:
> I will not wheel-war, so I will not re-un-block Eloquence, but I firmly
> stand by my characterizations of this action.  Regardless of any
> WP:OFFICE issues involved, Eloquence is not a danger to the project;
> blocking him and refusing to communicate is a stupid thing to do.

I have unblocked Erik and hope that everyone will relax so we can talk
about these issues slowly and carefully.  I am sure Erik will not do
anything bad.

I have not had time to really study anything yet, and I am about to go
have dinner with some wikipedians.

--Jimbo


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Finally,
 we are exposed. Wikipedia is a CIA project. Or something like that

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>    Much like the United States itself, Wikipedia pretends to be a
>    "democracy". They proudly trumpet: "Anyone can edit Wikipedia!"
>
> Would this fellow hate us more or less if he realised Wikipedia Is
> Communism?  (or Fascism, or bogey-word-of-your-choice)

<lame>...In Sowjet Russia, Wikipedia edits you. </??????>

Mathias

At least de.wp does not even pretend to be a democracy. We only claim
that some aspects of decision making are similar to those in
democracies. Apart from the feudalistic, meritocratic, monarchist,
anarchist and technocratic ones.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Machtstruktur


body:
In response to Johntex:
>> Finally, I love the message for our attorney which explains the
importance
>> of having an office policy, but does absolutely nothing to provide any
> rational for why we should then FAIL TO FOLLW our office policy.  I guess
>> maybe that sort of speech fools some of the people some of the time.

TonySidaway said:
>This is uncalled for.

Tony, I have to disagree.  The attorney works for the foundation, not the
other way around.  Critiquing whether or not he speaks to the question at
hand is perfectly fair.  All he did was say, we need "WP:Office".  Fine.
Let's follow WP:Office, but that means all of us.

TonySidaway said:
>I'm sitting here and, over the months, watching people head towards
>Danny's office actions like moths to a flame.  No wonder he doesn't
>want to advertise them, particularly the more sensitive ones.

That is no justification.  Doing things on the sly is the way to attract
INCREASING criticism.  I'm a perfect example, I've never had any complaint
about any WP:OFFICE action untill this.

TonySidaway said:
>This latest kerfuffle is a good sign that the process we have set up just
>isn't enough.  The rules are not an end in themselves.

I agree here in principle that results are more important than process.  But
the results here are all bad:  A good admin got desysopped unfairly,
massively additional attention was drawn to this than if the rules had been
followed, WP:OFFICE takes it on the chin, etc.  Therefore, saying the ends
justified the means is no good argument in this case.

-Johntex


body:
On 4/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Restore_Wikitruth_info.png
>
> Ad nothing in the metadata suggests photoshop.
>
> --
> geni

Point taken. All the other possibilities (an admin innocently taking a
screencap, exporting his desktop to another computer who did take a
screencap etc) seem less likely than a disgruntled admin. Albeit, the
shot is a bit odd- do logged in accounts really look like that in
monobook? It's been so long I've forgotten.

~maru


body:
... which, if you think back to the not-so-distant incident with Gator1, can
contain deleted material of a personal nature one would rather not be made
public.

k

On 4/19/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> What is to be "leaked" is the contents of deleted articles.
>
> Fred
>
> On Apr 19, 2006, at 4:46 PM, Rob wrote:
>
> > On 4/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>  As wikitruth has
> >> shown tracing admins who are leaking information is tricky.
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > What is there to be leaked?  I thought we pretty much kept
> > everything out in
> > the open.  Unless there's some super sekrit admin meeting that I
> > haven't
> > been invited to.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Matt R

body:
----- Original Message ----
From: Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and
> desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an
> "Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not
> specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that
> he was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead
> talk to the Foundation attorney instead.

This is astonishing. It would be good to hear Danny's version of events. Even so, it's difficult to imagine any adequate justification for an indefinite block in this situation.

-- Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] broken documentation links

body:
On 19/04/06, Tels <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote:

> It doesn't say what it is for, or what values it could have, or whatever.
> Almost every member or class definition I looked at looks like this,
> circulare references between files but nowhere any real doc beyond "it
> exist and is called foo".
>
> Since at least for members there are usually comments (like for mTitle),
> should't the autogenerated doc pick them up and display them somehow?

As Avar said in a previous message; the documentation is limited in
terms of the original code; if the comments to document it were not
there, then the generated documentation will be sparse.

Rob Church


subject: [Wikitech-l] Outage

body:
On 19/04/06, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
> While the main folks are fixing things (I assume they are very busy now),
> could somebody else point me at documentation about the setup?

To someone who is still an outsider when it comes to the operating
part of Wikimedia, I think half the problem a lot of the time is a
lack of proper internal documentation. On a project where you have a
lot of volunteer staff doing things ad hoc some of the time, it's
essential that things are documented; so that if Domas or Mark aren't
available, then Brion and Jens could bring up the squids without
needing to have been the people who did the configuration [random
example there].

No doubt people will be quick to point out the existence of
http://wikitech.leuskman.com, which I counter with the argument that
at least some of that information has to be out of date, and some of
it is marked as such. I understand there is a private mailing list
where discussion of core issues (and sensitive ones, I assume) takes
place, but basics ought to be documented somewhere, and there's a lack
of it.

The entire project at large suffers from a lack of documentation; some
of the MediaWiki documentation, such as it is, is still stuck on Meta,
and needs shifting across to MediaWiki.org. Vast quantities of pages
need to be audited and brought up to date with what is current.

We're talking about a group of people volunteering their skills from
all over the globe; at different levels and in different fields. We've
got Aussies, and we've got Europeans and Californians. Those people
can't always be available to communicate exactly what they're doing. I
see no reason Wikimedia's cluster can't continue in this vein. I see
every reason why it's going to become even more unmanageable than it
is now without some more organisation.

This rant isn't directed at the staff so much as the system as a whole.

Rob Church


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikitruth,info

body:
On Apr 19, 2006, at 8:17 PM, maru dubshinki wrote:

> I disagree. Vandalism is direct actual damage to our content and our
> reputation, as opposed to possible theoretical damages caused by those
> iages. The abuse of trust is sad, and possibly a moral lapse (do we
> expect admins to never take screenshots of deleted pages, and to hold
> close to their chest any information declared verboten?), but the
> legal argument I'm not sure I buy- the guilty one is the one
> retrieving it and publishing it. We removed it, in good faith. While I
> am not a lawyer, our responsibility seems minimal.

We could keep the contact information of people who make legal
complaints to the office, and then if/when Wikitruth.info republishes
the material inform the complaining party so they go after
wikitruth.info.

Would that constitute disrupting their lives to make a point? Yes.
Should we do it? Absolutely.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: geni

body:
On 4/19/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> And make [[NewsMax.com]] a featured article after extensive review and
> sourcing. :)
>
> Mathias

Tricky. The subject would have POV issues the size of GWB and the
subject itself is likely to take a serious interest.

--
geni


body:
Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com>:
> I think that lately Danny has not been using the OFFICE tag because people
> tend to raise a fuss over things protected under this specific policy, and
> more publicity to/furor over an issue that's already very sensitive is a
> thorny thing to deal with.  My guess, anyway.

Forgive me if I haven't understood this correctly, but: OFFICE actions are unreversible on pain of dire consequences (e.g. desysopping and indefinite banning), yet anything that Danny does could be an OFFICE action even though not identified as such? This seems very problematic; is there now a class of editor (Danny) whose actions noone can now dare risk undoing in case the action turns out to be an OFFICE action? Surely not.

-- Matt


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
I have been a Wikipedian since 2001 and a MediaWiki developer since
2002. I was Chief Research Officer of the Foundation from May to
August 2005. I initiated two of Wikimedia's projects, Wikinews and the
Wikimedia Commons, and have made vital contributions to both. I have
made roughly 15,000 edits to the English Wikipedia, and uploaded about
15,000 files to Wikimedia Commons. A list of my overall contributions
can be found at

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence

and the linked to pages; this does not include my numerous
international activities such as conference speeches, as well as my
book and articles about Wikipedia. I have never been blocked before,
nor have I ever been subject to an Arbitration Committee ruling (in
fact, I was one of Jimmy's original suggestions for the first ArbCom,
and one of the people who proposed that very committee).

I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and
desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an
"Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not
specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that
he was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead
talk to the Foundation attorney instead. To my knowledge, this is the
first time office authority has been used to indefinitely block and
desysop a user.

What happened?

Yesterday, Danny radically shortened and protected two pages,
[[Newsmax.com]] and [[Christopher Ruddy]]. The protection summary was
"POV qualms" (nothing else), and there was only the following brief
comment on Talk:NewsMax.com:

"This article has been stubbed and protected pending resolution of POV
issues. Danny 19:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)"

There was no mention of WP:OFFICE in the edit summary or on the talk
page. Danny did not apply the special Office template, {{office}}, nor
did he use the "Dannyisme" account that he created for Foundation
purposes, nor did he list the page on WP:OFFICE. Instead, he applied
the regular {{protected}} template.

Given that Danny has now more explicitly emphasized this distinction
between his role as a Foundation employee and a regular wiki user, I
assumed he was acting here as a normal sysop and editor, and
unprotected the two pages, with a brief reference to the protection
policy. I also asked Danny, on [[Talk:NewsMax.com]], to make it
explicit whether the protection was under WP:OFFICE. I would not have
reprotected, of course, if he had simply said that they were, and left
it at that.

I apologize if this action was perceived as "reckless", but I must
emphasize that I was acting in good faith, and that I would much
appreciate it if all office actions would be labeled as such. I was
under the impression that this was the case given past actions. In any
case, I think that the indefinite block and desysopping is very much
an overreaction, and would like to hereby publicly appeal to Danny,
the community and the Board (since Danny's authority is above the
ArbCom) to restore my editing privileges as well as my sysop status. I
pledge to be more careful in these matters in the future.

Thanks for reading,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day Mathias,

> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.gossip.celebrities/msg/9f1da2e6d4ad21f3?&hl=en&q=insubject%3Awikipedia

<snip />

Hmm ...

   Much like the United States itself, Wikipedia pretends to be a
   "democracy". They proudly trumpet: "Anyone can edit Wikipedia!"

Would this fellow hate us more or less if he realised Wikipedia Is
Communism?  (or Fascism, or bogey-word-of-your-choice)

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.4/318 - Release Date: 18/04/2006


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

body:
On 4/19/06, Blackcap <snoutwood at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/19/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> >
> > Well, the photo has obviously been carefully cropped, as the personal
> > toolbar (which begins with the account name) has been erased.  Also,
> > I've only checked on Firefox on Mac OS X, but the font picked might be
> > able to identify what browser and OS it was taken from.  Furthermore,
> > as it contains the toolbox links for Lupin's anti-vandal tool, a
> > combination of
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere/User:
> > Lupin/recent2.js&limit=500&from=0 and
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> > title=Special%3AListusers&group=sysop&limit=2000 results in the
> > following list of 60 admins(a much smaller list than 800+...) who have
> > installed Lupin's tool into their monobook.js file and have not taken
> > the easy step of removing the link-back to recent.js.
> >
>
> I don't know when that image was first posted (anyone have a link to it on
> the wikitruth.info site, rather than our screenshot?), but that date would
> further reduce the list by removing admins who were promoted after the
> screenshot was taken.

The article's only a few days old; and the screenshot reflects the
very recent deletions.  I don't believe, offhand, that any of the
admins on that list were promoted that recently.

Kirill Lokshin


from_name: sannse

body:
This is likely going to be a duplicate, but I think Brad's mail may have
got stuck (if he isn't subscribed fully to this list) and I wanted to
make sure it got through quickly....

sannse

Patrick, Brad wrote:
> Greetings:
>
> I am the attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation in the US.  I work for
> the Board.  Among my responsibilities is keeping the Foundation out of
> legal trouble and responding to lawsuits, actual and threatened.  I have
> had a long chat with Eric Moeller about the circumstances that resulted
> in his ban (since reverted by someone Being Bold).  I also believe that
> the misunderstanding, although in good faith, still presented a risk to
> the Foundation.
>
> The issue of blocked articles is a complex one, and in many instances
> can be the visible result of careful consideration on the part of
> Foundation board members, staff, and other admins/bureaucrats/sysops who
> have knowledge of the facts and circumstances.  Often the community at
> large will not have any idea what the facts and underlying
> considerations are.  Not everything that involves Wikipedia is public,
> nor should it be.  The typical user or admin doesn't have all the pieces
> of the puzzle.  Don't let hubris get the better of you.
>
> There may be those of you who have yet to experience the American legal
> system in any fashion, save for a movie or two.  Dealing with lawsuits
> is what I do for a living.  Avoiding them is also what I do for a
> living.  My job is to make sure that the Foundation has the best legal
> advice and best options open to it to keep things running smoothly, and
> to not land in court unless all other avenues have been exhausted.
>
> The WP:OFFICE policy is still in its infancy.  People will challenge it
> through their words and actions.  Everyone is entitled to his or her
> opinion.  But I believe everyone who believes in the future success and
> sustainability of the project must also recognize the need for judicious
> use of confidentiality at the Foundation level.  The Foundation officers
> and Board members have a fiduciary obligation to the organization, as I
> do as a lawyer for my client.
>
> Certain members of the community (and notably, not Mr. Moeller) have
> expressed dissatisfaction about WP:OFFICE and its use.  There is a
> healthy debate yet to be had about it.  We can have that debate, but I
> also have to make clear that the Foundation's obligations are greater
> than loyalty to any one user.  Even someone with the history of
> contributions to Mr. Moeller.
>
> -BradPatrick
>
>
> Bradford A. Patrick, Esq.
> Fowler White Boggs Banker
> 501 E. Kennedy Blvd.
> Suite 1700
> Tampa, FL  33602-5239
> bpatrick at fowlerwhite.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Erik Moeller
> Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 2:57 PM
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List; English Wikipedia;
> wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny
>
> I have been a Wikipedian since 2001 and a MediaWiki developer since
> 2002. I was Chief Research Officer of the Foundation from May to August
> 2005. I initiated two of Wikimedia's projects, Wikinews and the
> Wikimedia Commons, and have made vital contributions to both. I have
> made roughly 15,000 edits to the English Wikipedia, and uploaded about
> 15,000 files to Wikimedia Commons. A list of my overall contributions
> can be found at
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence
>
> and the linked to pages; this does not include my numerous international
> activities such as conference speeches, as well as my book and articles
> about Wikipedia. I have never been blocked before, nor have I ever been
> subject to an Arbitration Committee ruling (in fact, I was one of
> Jimmy's original suggestions for the first ArbCom, and one of the people
> who proposed that very committee).
>
> I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and
> desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an
> "Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not
> specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that he
> was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead talk to
> the Foundation attorney instead. To my knowledge, this is the first time
> office authority has been used to indefinitely block and desysop a user.
>
> What happened?
>
> Yesterday, Danny radically shortened and protected two pages,
> [[Newsmax.com]] and [[Christopher Ruddy]]. The protection summary was
> "POV qualms" (nothing else), and there was only the following brief
> comment on Talk:NewsMax.com:
>
> "This article has been stubbed and protected pending resolution of POV
> issues. Danny 19:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)"
>
> There was no mention of WP:OFFICE in the edit summary or on the talk
> page. Danny did not apply the special Office template, {{office}}, nor
> did he use the "Dannyisme" account that he created for Foundation
> purposes, nor did he list the page on WP:OFFICE. Instead, he applied the
> regular {{protected}} template.
>
> Given that Danny has now more explicitly emphasized this distinction
> between his role as a Foundation employee and a regular wiki user, I
> assumed he was acting here as a normal sysop and editor, and unprotected
> the two pages, with a brief reference to the protection policy. I also
> asked Danny, on [[Talk:NewsMax.com]], to make it explicit whether the
> protection was under WP:OFFICE. I would not have reprotected, of course,
> if he had simply said that they were, and left it at that.
>
> I apologize if this action was perceived as "reckless", but I must
> emphasize that I was acting in good faith, and that I would much
> appreciate it if all office actions would be labeled as such. I was
> under the impression that this was the case given past actions. In any
> case, I think that the indefinite block and desysopping is very much an
> overreaction, and would like to hereby publicly appeal to Danny, the
> community and the Board (since Danny's authority is above the
> ArbCom) to restore my editing privileges as well as my sysop status. I
> pledge to be more careful in these matters in the future.
>
> Thanks for reading,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] broken documentation links

body:
Moin,

On Wednesday 19 April 2006 20:58, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> > Brion Vibber wrote:
> >> FYI, I tried running phpdoc over the current code and found it
> >> breaking the memory limit of 256 megabytes I have set on my server.
> >>
> >> We might want to consider a new documentation parser that can handle
> >> our code. :)
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > r13740 migrated trunk from phpdoc to doxygen, I even updated the
> > mwdocgen.php.
>
> Neat! Now being autogenerated daily at http://svn.wikimedia.org/doc/

Cool. Although the documention is still largely, well, not usefull:

Example:

	Parser::$mTitle

	Reimplemented in ParserXML.

	Definition at line 108 of file Parser.php.

It doesn't say what it is for, or what values it could have, or whatever.
Almost every member or class definition I looked at looks like this,
circulare references between files but nowhere any real doc beyond "it
exist and is called foo".

Since at least for members there are usually comments (like for mTitle),
should't the autogenerated doc pick them up and display them somehow?

(Sorry for sounding so picky! :-)

best wishes,

Tels

--
 Signed on Wed Apr 19 21:22:12 2006 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

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

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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money

body:
--- Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> Side note (board/PR remark; I see the donation email address is
> @wikipedia.org  Would it not be better to use @wikimedia.org or
> @wikimediafoundation.org for that? People give money not to Wikipedia
> but to the Foundation and also not especaily for Wikipedia.

Yeah, that annoyed me a bit too. But we are stuck with the account name that we already have since
changing it would be very non-trivial and give us very little benefit. In the end, this is a
fairly minor thing.

-- mav

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money


body:
On 4/19/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:

> I
> pledge to be more careful in these matters in the future.

Hi Erik,

it woudn't surprise you when people describe you as "stubborn" in some
way. And yes, I am very much for flexibility in handling rules. After
all, I live "be bold" many times.

Speaking of principles... Forgive and forget, please.

And make [[NewsMax.com]] a featured article after extensive review and
sourcing. :)

Mathias


from_name: BorgHunter

body:
Jesse W wrote:

> Also,
>
>I've only checked on Firefox on Mac OS X, but the font picked might be
>able to identify what browser and OS it was taken from.
>
>
That looks very much like Windows to me, judging by the font and the
general shape of the "Go" and "Search" buttons. However, if we want to
muck around in the server logs...how many people have Lupin's tool
installed...AND have visited all those pages that are purple in color
recently, not to mention that Undelete page? It's a long shot, but if
we're serious about finding the mole, it would seem a logical place to look.


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money

body:
On 4/19/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Ah, but if Wikipedia is down, the traffic requirements for it will be HUGE. So
> you can't think of it as a "small website". When we previously tried mirroring
> the donation page on Angela's site it simply collapsed under the weight very
> shortly afterwards.

Couldn't this go on the Asian cluster?

--
Sam


subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money


body:
On 4/19/06, Blackcap <snoutwood at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Recent office actions involve more than just protection. They tend to
> > involve a serious cut down of the article as well. As wikitruth has
> > shown tracing admins who are leaking information is tricky.
>
>
> Can't we look in the server logs to see who's looked at, for example,
> [[Special:Undelete/Wikitruth.info]] (due to [[Image:Restore Wikitruth
> info.png]])? From what I've read at [[m:Privacy policy#Security of
> information]], such logs do exist and could at least narrow down the
> possible suspects.

It would narrow it down a bit, but not all that much, because no doubt
a bunch of admins have looked- from curiosity, if nothing else.
However, combined with the popups evidence, it might narrow it down
from 800 to around maybe only 20.
We shouldn't examine that data, however. Very bad precedent, and poor
for privacy, especially since we aren't dealing with out-and-out
vandals here, but merely critics.

~maru


body:
maru dubshinki wrote:

>We shouldn't examine that data, however. Very bad precedent, and poor
>for privacy, especially since we aren't dealing with out-and-out
>vandals here, but merely critics.
>
>
But should critics of Wikipedia be admins of Wikipedia? I don't believe
so. However, I suppose it's up to Jimbo and the Board if they want to
expend the energy to look into it. As for privacy...it's not against the
privacy policy, and besides which, I'm not sure that's an invasion of
privacy anyway. You're sending data to the Wikimedia servers every time
you visit a page, and that info is logged, and you (should) know that. I
have no problems with the devs looking through page access logs, myself.


body:
On 4/19/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> And then it is okay to revert another admin's actions without even
> asking before? This seems to me a problem of lack of good faith an admin
> should assume.
>

Sometimes. If they say move the main page or mess with the mediawiki
names space. Exactly where you draw the line is open to deabte

> This was not a misunderstanding, this was lack of good faith. Erik
> should have trusted danny that he has good reasons for an action which
> might not be selfexplaining. If he wanted to know more, he could have
> asked. And an admin who acts before he understands the situation can -
> as this incident has shown - potentially endanger the foundation.
>

Admins almost never work with complete information.

> It is often better to play things low and not on an official level. I
> don't know if this was the case here.
>

In theory. However my experence is that on wikipedia doing thing
unofficialy can often lead to more screaming in the long run.

--
geni


from_name: pschemp

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 33, Issue 120

body:
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:53:01 -0700
> From: Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID: <9691cbca651c3db208190c174fb07004 at netwood.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> On Apr 19, 2006, at 4:55 PM, maru dubshinki wrote:
> > On 4/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Restore_Wikitruth_info.png
> >>
> >> Ad nothing in the metadata suggests photoshop.
> > Point taken. All the other possibilities (an admin innocently taking a
> > screencap, exporting his desktop to another computer who did take a
> > screencap etc) seem less likely than a disgruntled admin. Albeit, the
> > shot is a bit odd- do logged in accounts really look like that in
> > monobook? It's been so long I've forgotten.
>
> Well, the photo has obviously been carefully cropped, as the personal
> toolbar (which begins with the account name) has been erased.  Also,
> I've only checked on Firefox on Mac OS X, but the font picked might be
> able to identify what browser and OS it was taken from.  Furthermore,
> as it contains the toolbox links for Lupin's anti-vandal tool, a
> combination of
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere/User:
> Lupin/recent2.js&limit=500&from=0 and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=Special%3AListusers&group=sysop&limit=2000 results in the
> following list of 60 admins(a much smaller list than 800+...) who have
> installed Lupin's tool into their monobook.js file and have not taken
> the easy step of removing the link-back to recent.js.
>
> Aaron Brenneman
> Acetic Acid
> Adashiel
> Arwel Parry
> Banes
> Bbatsell
> Bkonrad
> BorgHunter
> BorgQueen
> BrokenSegue
> Brookie
> Can't sleep, clown will eat me
> Canderson7
> Cdc
> Celestianpower
> Chris 73
> Commander Keane
> DaGizza
> Dan100
> Dante Alighieri
> Docu
> Drini
> Dustimagic
> EdwinHJ
> Flcelloguy
> Fuzheado
> Gflores
> Hall Monitor
> Icairns
> Jacoplane
> Jareth
> Johnleemk
> Jpgordon
> Kbh3rd
> Kmccoy
> Marudubshinki
> Master Jay
> Mathwiz2020
> NSLE
> No Guru
> Petros471
> Pschemp
> Quadell
> Ral315
> Raven4x4x
> Redvers
> Rhobite
> RoyBoy
> Shanel
> Sj
> Ta bu shi da yu
> Tawker
> TexasAndroid
> Tom harrison
> Trevor macinnis
> Ugen64
> Vary
> Who
> Woohookitty
> Zippy

Hi.  Watch me get a little upset that I'm on the accused list, along with
many other innocents because I don't know how to edit my monobook properly.
Seriously folks, its great to know that everyone will be looking at me
suspiciously now. For christ's sake, one of the people on that list was
promoted TWO days ago.

pschemp


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Cross-namespace templates

body:
Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 19, 2006 at 09:45:20AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>>And to make this email about three separate things at once, it would
>>be really nice if MediaWiki could be changed so that special variables
>>displayed differently on template pages than on the page where the
>>template is included. For example, if PAGENAME actually rendered as
>>PAGENAME, rather than fa or welcome or whatever. Similarly, {{{1}}}
>>could rendered as PARAMETER1... that might make templates a little
>>easier to use and understand for novices.
>
> I do want to toss my oar in on this one: would it be possible -- and
> what would the pitfalls be -- to make the rendered version of the page
> for a template's definition *not* render the template?
>
> I can see that you'd have to put it on another page to see how it
> rendered: perhaps the parser could special case it and show both the
> code and the render?

For most templates, this would be counterproductive.  For those few that
would benefit from it, there's <includeonly>.

In fact, you can even do something like this:

   <includeonly>
     (ACTUAL TEMPLATE CODE HERE)
   </includeonly><noinclude>
     {{{{PAGENAME}}|PARAMETER1|PARAMETER2}}
   </noinclude>

to show the parameters as Steve suggests above.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Jakob Voss

subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>> It's only a small website isn't it? I bet the costs of moving to a
>> reliable, independent webhoster will easily pay off.
>
> Ah, but if Wikipedia is down, the traffic requirements for it will be HUGE. So
> you can't think of it as a "small website". When we previously tried mirroring
> the donation page on Angela's site it simply collapsed under the weight very
> shortly afterwards.

Well, your are right. So we should find a reliable, independent
Webhoster that can handle huge traffic spikes - it will still be cheaper
than no donation site or running an extra server array. Or we just wait
until there are more Wikimedia data centers around the world so the site
can be mirrored in a complex way (btw: can you also mirror donations? ;-)

But otrs is only a small website isn't it?

Greetings, fun and thanks for bringing Wikipedia back again,
Jakob

P.S: I know that some people will hit me because of publically
discussion this, but hey - it's no hidden secret that
wikimediafoundation.org was down and that it's hosted together with
Wikipedia!


subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money


body:
On 4/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here's another solution. Make it possible for Danny to silently
> protect a page without it being unprotectable. Communicate a policy to
> all admins that if an admin discovers that a page has been protected
> in such a way, that he should keep it to himself, or risk desysopping.
>
> The ordinary user will simply see a protected page. Admins, unless
> they actually try and unprotect it, will be none the wiser. And if
> they do try, perhaps a message should alert them to keep it
> confidential.
>

Recent office actions involve more than just protection. They tend to
involve a serious cut down of the article as well. As wikitruth has
shown tracing admins who are leaking information is tricky.

--
geni


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN problem - Same folder twice

body:
Well, talking about the SVN, i comment this fail i found at svn some days
ago.
Maybe this should go at bugzilla but i found no place for it, and it's so
trivial... (less than 10 minutes).

Here it is. At the tags folder
svn://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/tags there are two folders with
the same name. initial (from revision 8115) and Initial (from r1082).

I guess it should simply be merged, as the folders have different
subfolders. In any case, they should at least be renamed.

The way it's now blocks checkouts to cas insensitive FS.

Platonides


subject: [Wikitech-l] broken documentation links

body:
Moin,

On Wednesday 19 April 2006 21:34, Rob Church wrote:
> On 19/04/06, Tels <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote:
> > It doesn't say what it is for, or what values it could have, or
> > whatever. Almost every member or class definition I looked at looks
> > like this, circulare references between files but nowhere any real
> > doc beyond "it exist and is called foo".
> >
> > Since at least for members there are usually comments (like for
> > mTitle), should't the autogenerated doc pick them up and display them
> > somehow?
>
> As Avar said in a previous message; the documentation is limited in
> terms of the original code; if the comments to document it were not
> there, then the generated documentation will be sparse.

I _know_. :)

What I wanted to say is that the *comments* are there, but not in the
proper format:

	$sFoo = '';	// This variable stores a string

The comment there is ignored by the doc generator. So presumable the
comments need to be reformated, or whatever (I am not familiar on how
doxygen works exactly). Of course, it would be quite some work. But maybe
it could be semi-automated.

Best wishes,

Tels

--
 Signed on Wed Apr 19 22:36:41 2006 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "I can imagine what you're thinking though: this girl keeps her brains
 in her backside! But actually only the more primitive parts of my brain
 are in my butt. The more interesting parts are kept in a PC - my spinal
 cord is actually an RS232 lead!" - Lucy, the OrangUtan Robot Girl
 http://tinyurl.com/3fv6z

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from_name: Carl Fûrstenberg

body:
I agree, an WP:OFFICE-action must be marked as one for it to be an
OFFICE-action


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
I wrote:
>> I have not had time to really study anything yet, and I am about to
>> go have dinner with some wikipedians.

Carl F?rstenberg wrote:
> Aha, the inner circle I assume? :)

Mindspillage and GMaxwell.  So, yeah.  2 of them. :)

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Cross-namespace templates

body:
On 19/04/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> For most templates, this would be counterproductive.  For those few that
> would benefit from it, there's <includeonly>.
>
> In fact, you can even do something like this:
>
>    <includeonly>
>      (ACTUAL TEMPLATE CODE HERE)
>    </includeonly><noinclude>
>      {{{{PAGENAME}}|PARAMETER1|PARAMETER2}}
>    </noinclude>
>
> to show the parameters as Steve suggests above.

Ah-ha: I didn't realise a template could legally include itself.
That's actually quite nice. Logically you would want to then wrap all
that code in a nice template called {{showtemplate}} or something, but
I'm almost certain that's not possible :)

Also, that actual code didn't work for my test in the user namespace,
presumably something to do with {{PAGENAME}} not returning the
namespace. But that's ok.

Though I must say, the edit preview you get when using code like that
is extremely confusing ;) Since it shows you the previous incarnation
of the code...then you save it, and you think you're seeing the
current version, but when you press edit, it changes again. Eep. A
nice, minor brainf*ck.

Steve