subject: [Wikipedia-l] Apropos:moldovia

body:
Jacky,

just for me to be clear on a few details about the "native speaker" issue:
pls answer just yes/no to 1) then follow the instructions.
1) you mean a special policy for MO-only should be inforced? (yes/no)
2) if you answered no to 1), could you please tell me where are we going to
find the native speakers that would justify the existence of a latin
wikipedia? (just a nation name here, they must be "natives", that is, born
in families were ancient latin is spoken as a first language)
3) if answered yes to 1), can you quote *any* contemporary law, in which a
punitive measure is said to apply to *only* one person/institution?
(country, law code, article name, comma)

Answer to this and we shall finally have some real data stated.

>I fully subscribe to the analysis of Berto. And I
>mean *fully*.
Thanks, I take your word on it. :) My analysis also called for an immediate
ban of everybody just even mentioning "national feelings" as a decision
making criteria. So that means you agree on that, too. Now, will you please
reread the whole thread and tell me how many people from BOTH sides should
have their IPs banned forever, according to the proposal you just kindly
supported? Pls also state who was the author of the "violation" and cut and
paste the relevant text, so you and I can copy the Board with the result and
ask disciplinary measures to be enforced ASAP. I'd love people from both
sides to join this call, seriously. It would show that excess is not a rule
for both editions.

Not that I am seriously expecting this to happen... It would take a
braveness and constructive aim that I don't really see in *any* point of
this discussion. You know what will happen? You all will either
a) start to polemise with me and to figure out that I am some sort of "awful
enemy". Or
b) you will simply tell me that I am right once again, then you'll go on
fighting each other as nothing ever happened.

Wanna bet some money? :) You can pay with western-union :) Say 100 euro for
a start? :)))))))))))
B?rto

----- ???????? ????????? -----
??: "Jacky PB" <dpotop1 at yahoo.com>
????: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
??????????: 4 ???? 2006 ?. 16:56
????: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Apropos:moldovia

And given this analysis, the question you should ask
yourselves is: Are there *any* Moldovans interested in
this cyrillic script here on wikipedia?

If not, this non-partisan analysis tells us that
mo.wikipedia is just another political tool in a dirty
war.

:en:Dpotop

--- Berto <albertoserra at ukr.net> wrote:

> Now... I live in Kiev, I am NOT ethnically russian,
> slavian or whatever, and
> I could not care less for anyone's national
> feelings. Actually I suppose the
> NPOV policy should simply BAN anyone even just
> mentioning them as a decision
> criteria. If politics are allowed to be a decision
> criteria, then you can
> expect a LOT of such quarrels coming up. We all have
> political opinions, and
> I cannot think of any country in in this planet that
> has never had pretty
> good reasons for them to feel offended by (at the
> very least) some of their
> neighbouring peoples, religions, cultures, scripts,
> miniskirts,
> trolleybuses, etc. Do you want to open this
> pandora's box? Go on. Only pls
> rename this list into Wikipedia-h (H is for
> hooligans), because that's what
> it's going to be.
>
> So... living here I meet a number of moldavian (not
> transdnistrian)
> residents on the net. Bear in mind, I say
> *residents* because I simply do
> not give a damn about their blood, religion, DNA,
> etc. And I believe that
> nobody should. This people speak BOTH russian and
> moldavian. Since my use of
> rumenian languages is limited (I speak IT-4, which
> is enough to read most
> RO, but definitely not enough to write even just at
> RO-1), I usually use my
> RU-3 with them. And it works perfectly. Now, RU-3
> happens to be written in
> cyrillic and so are most of their answers, too (just
> a small number of them
> using a latin transliteration). Which in turn means
> that they either use a
> russian interface or type by some sort of charmap.
>
> I read enough *weird* reports about Ukraine at the
> time of the "orange
> revolution" to know how western journalists that
> come here should be valued.
> It really depends on which side of the conflict buys
> them sex partners, wine
> etc. In the most honest cases they sincerely believe
> to what their
> translators tell them, but simply do not have any
> way for them to check
> anything of what they are told. Such western reports
> have supported all
> possible conflicting sides in regional hot spots in
> the recent past, mostly
> because of this. So I'm really asking myself whether
> the press should be
> used as a source, when contemporary politics are
> even remotely a part of the
> issue. Reality is usually much wider and more
> complex than the canonic 8.000
> symbols a redactor is giving to his journalists for
> them to describe an
> event.
>
> I  don't mean to offend BBC's reputation, actually
> they are one of my
> favourite and most reliable news sources. I simply
> wonder whether the news
> *as such* can be used to make a decision at all, no
> matter what the source.
> After some 6 years in eastern Europe I came to
> understand that most of what
> we think of it is simply absurd. It is actually
> impossible to judge a
> foreign culture unless you dont' spend *many* years
> in it.
>
> From all practical POVs, moldavians of all kinds do
> know cyrillic scripting.
> This is because of the trade they have with Ukraine
> and Russia, that are
> ONLY using cyrillic script(s). The situation will
> only get to a further
> integration into using cyrillic once Rumenia steps
> in the EU and more strict
> border checking between Rumenia and Moldavia will be
> in place. Many
> moldavian products already bear mixed latin/cyrillic
> labels for them to be
> easily exported here (wine, mainly). The most world
> wide known moldavian
> band (Zdub si zdob, I believe BTW, they are GREAT)
> made a fortune by singing
> (also) russian songs and maintains an internet site
> in both russian and
> moldavian. So it's simply absurd to claim that one
> of the two scripts (no
> matter which one) could be unknown to the locals,
> who definitely have much
> more urgent life problems than writing a wiki, but
> undoubtedly do trade and
> listen to the radio.
>
> Choosing a script or another is mainly a thing at
> official level, a thing
> dealing with politics only. In reality, people will
> simply use them both, no
> matter what the local war games end up in deciding,
> because BOTH are needed
> in practical and economical life, and even the most
> radical guys need money
> to make a living. Same applies to the (many)
> rumenian minorities in Ukraine.
> From a practical POV having a latin script is nice
> for bringing people
> closer to the undisputable source of the rumenian
> culture, that is Rumenia.
> But on the other hand there are many minorities in
> Ukraine that never really
> had a formal instruction in the latin script (and
> probably never will), but
> still speak some rumenian dialect. And the only
> script they can manage is
> ukrainian and russian cyrillic.
>
> My fivepence worth, because I got to understand that
> most people in here
> simply does not know what the issue is about. And as
> long as we deal with
> facts and information on cold NPOV basis I am happy
> to help. IMHO the sooner
> we manage to detach geopolitics from languages, and
> get to speak about
> content accessibility in instead, the better we will
> work.
>
> B??rto
>
> ----- ?~???.?????????? ?????????????????? -----
> ?z?,: "ScottL" <scott at mu.org>
> ?s?????f: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
> ?z?,????????????????: 4 ???Z???? 2006 ??. 15:07
> ????????: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Where are the decision
> makers?
>
>
>    From the BBC article posted way way back on this
> thread it appears
> that the schools for ethnically Moldavian children
> in Transdniester
> actually use the Latin script if they can, and some
> times they do it
> when they are officially being persecuted.  At least
> that is what the
> article said.  As far as I can tell the
> (non-moldavian speaking) people
> in power are trying (unsuccessfully) to impose this
> script.  Now it
> probably is likely older people in the region still
> use it and its
> probably in public use but I am not sure you can say
> that its in many
> schools. At least not to a point where students are
> learning it to the
> exclusion of the Latin based script.
>
> SKL
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > It incorrectly represents Moldova? Come on!
> >
> > Wikipedia uses language as a MEDIUM. If somebody
> wants to know about
> > the language, they would go to
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language or
> > http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldau or whichever
> language they speak
> > article.
> >
> > They will NOT go to mo.wikipedia.
> >
> > And you are clearly not in touch with reality. In
> schools east of the
> > Dniestr river, which teach Moldovan, the Cyrillic
> alphabet is taught.
> > This fact is a fact and you cannot contest it.
> This is the usual
> > script.
> >
> > Now, unless you want to challenge the territorial
> integrity of
> > Moldova, it seems reasonable to accept that
> Moldova is, in fact, a
> > biscriptal nation.
> >
> > As Gerard noted, mo-cyr is not acceptable because
> it violates conventions.
> >
> > Mark
>
=== message truncated ===

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list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity - feedback

body:
Cormac Lawler wrote:

>snip
>
>

>As an update, I'm still trying to move this process along within the
>Special projects committee, and hopefully there will be something to
>show for it soon. Meanwhile, however, I continue to invite comments,
>suggestions, criticisms from anyone, however new or peripheral to the
>discussion you may feel yourself to be.
>
>
I could not find recent Wikiversity  proposal activity either in the
special subcommittee's resolutions or on their agenda:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee/Resolutions
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee

The only documented suspense I could find required that you setup your
Wikiversity subcommittee and report back by March 21, 2006.

What exactly are the tasks remaining before the Wikiversity proposal can
be presented to the Wikimedia Board for a final go or nogo decision?

Are you aware that Jimbo has informed us directly a few months ago
either here on this list or on the foundation list that the present
Wikimedia Foundation board members all support the Wikiversity project?

There is no guarantee this will be true of future Board members.

lazyquasar


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity - feedback


subject: [Foundation-l] Offering Wikibooks content for sale

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>Snip
>

>4. All of this is taking place in the midst of negotiations to obtain a
>grant to secure more money for the development of the Wikijunior books. One of
>the issues being discussed is print. When they come to us and say "But you  are
>already printing the books," we will look pretty stupid answering "Actually,
>we didn't know that."
>
>
Actually we might look awesomely committed to "free" content available
to any human being who follows the FDL requirements of attribution if we
could smartly point out that, although we were not previously aware of
this specific publisher, they appear to following our suggested format
for attribution of content creation back to our wiki communities of authors.

regards,
lazyquasar


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] page move vandalism restrictions not working

body:
On 7/4/06, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I wouldn't be keen if this applied to *all* users. I've done around 50
> > page moves in maybe 5 minutes - and I'm not a vandal. Sometimes you
> > want to standardise the naming for a category. In my case, I was
> > renaming all the French rivers from like "Garonne" to "Garonne River".
> >
> You are asserting that you moved each page, checked for and fixed all
> double redirects, and changed the bold page title; personally reviewing
> and verifying 3 or more actions for 50 pages, all in under 5 minutes
> (300 seconds, a rate of 2 seconds or less per edit).  Two responses:

For what it's worth, I don't check for double redirects. I consider
something them a bot could do a lot better. And they're not that
harmful.

(which isn't to say that fixing double redirects is to be discouraged,
it's just a way of helping Wikipedia that I choose not to perform. I
figure the benefits of standard naming outweigh the temporary
downsides of the DRs. And I thoroughly reject any notion that one
should not do beneficial thing A because one didn't also do beneficial
thing B.)

>   1) There really isn't such a rush, this isn't a competition.

Ah, ok. So, I should probably only, like, make, what, one Wikipedia
edit per day?

>   2) I don't believe you.

What was the claim again, 50 pages in 5 minutes? Well, it turns out I
only managed 5 per minute:

# 08:53, 29 May 2006 (hist) (diff) Arly (moved Arly to Arly River:
consistency (see discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject French
d?partements))  (top)
# 08:53, 29 May 2006 (hist) (diff) m Arly River (moved Arly to Arly
River: consistency (see discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject French
d?partements)) (top)
# 08:53, 29 May 2006 (hist) (diff) Arman?on (moved Arman?on to
Arman?on River: consistency (see discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject
French d?partements)) (top)
# 08:53, 29 May 2006 (hist) (diff) m Arman?on River (moved Arman?on to
Arman?on River: consistency (see discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject
French d?partements))
# 08:53, 29 May 2006 (hist) (diff) Arve (moved Arve to Arve River:
consistency (see discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject French
d?partements)) (top)
# 08:53, 29 May 2006 (hist) (diff) m Arve River (moved Arve to Arve
River: consistency (see discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject French
d?partements))
# 08:53, 29 May 2006 (hist) (diff) Ille (moved Ille to Ille River:
consistency (see discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject French
d?partements)) (top)
# 08:53, 29 May 2006 (hist) (diff) m Ille River (moved Ille to Ille
River: consistency (see discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject French
d?partements)) (top)
# 08:53, 29 May 2006 (hist) (diff) Huisne (moved Huisne to Huisne
River: consistency (see discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject French
d?partements)) (top)
# 08:53, 29 May 2006 (hist) (diff) m Huisne River (moved Huisne to
Huisne River: consistency (see discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject
French d?partements))

But hey, it's not a race :)

> It's not random.  It brings all response times back to human scale.

Yay, I'm superhuman. And I wasn't even trying! Imagine if I trained a bit...

Steve


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 04/07/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yay, I'm superhuman. And I wasn't even trying! Imagine if I trained a bit...

I'll put you in touch with Marvel, and the people who make those cute
plastic action figures.

Rob Church


body:
Brad Patrick wrote in part:

>Licensing others to publish, from
>the WMF perspective is not a big step, and is to WMF's great financial
>advantage.
>
snip

>Robert, what would an efficient process look like to you, assuming the
>licensing component is a requirement?
>_______________________________________________
>
>
This is a poor set of assumptions and I think gives a contrary
impression to what is intended.

The FDL is specifically designed to allow anyone to modify the material
and republish it in any form that meets the attribution requirements and
the requirement that the FDL propagate to the recipient.   It
specifically prohibits publishing in a form that does not include an
FDL  for the recipient to republish the "free" content at will.

This would seem to require that the content be kept separate from the
Logos and Trademarks.  Essentially we could sell the right to use the
logo and trademark in advertising and promotion efforts but not for
packaging with the FDL material unless the Trademark and Logo were also
released under the FDL.

Assuming the content must be licensed from the WMF is a violation of the
FDL and it could be argued an attempt to exploit the name brand
recognition of the GNU FDL without meeting the responsibilities of its use.

It seems pretty easy to me to delineate that the trademarks and logos of
the WMF may be licensed separately for use in advertising and sales
promotion to any publishing effort using the FDL'ed material in ways
mutually acceptable to the WMF and the publisher.   Any customer who
purchased the content could in turn modify the content and the
attributions appropriately and then republish without the use of the WMF
trademarks or logos.

Clearly any licensing arrangement for the trademarks or logos should
include a right to review and cancel the use of the trademarks and logos
in inappropriate fashions.

regards,
lazyquasar


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Berto

subject: [Wikipedia-l] MO-RO, a request for help

body:
Hi again,

sorry for getting out of the script war and talking business in instead. I
am currently compiling an article on the Bronze Age for pms.wiki. Here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_age I have a wonderful pic of rumenian
B.A. findings, but NO info about the rumenian Bronze age. Can any of you
help me?

B?rto


list: wikien-l

from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] Top-posting (was Re: Offline submissions?)

body:
On 7/2/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> [top-posting fixed]
> On 2 Jul 2006 at 01:30, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 7/1/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> >
> > > On 30 Jun 2006 at 23:52, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Wait...what's wrong with white people? =D
> > >
> > > They like to top-post their e-mail replies?
> >
> > If you want to tell me how to fix this in gmail, go ahead =D
>
> http://mailformat.dan.info/config/gmail.html
>
>
> --
> == Dan ==

Near as I can tell, all that offers is "th; signature blocks and
quoted material in replies are properly formatted. My only gripe is
that, in replies, the cursor is placed above the quoted material with
a blank space there, thus encouraging top posting, but the signature
block is still at the very bottom, and it's easy to delete the extra
space and then move the cursor down (trimming quotes as necessary as
you go) until you reach the bottom and can begin typing a properly
bottom-posted reply."
...which tells us how to manually bottom-post, as if we couldn't
figure out how to edit text, and does not tell us "how to fix this in
gmail".

~maru


from_name: Mei Wu

subject: [Wikitech-l] PDF Export with htmldoc

body:
Hi Niklas,

thanks for the tip. In the PDF Export script, a temporary file is created

$mytemp = "/tmp/f" .time(). "-" .rand() . ".html";

and then the following command is executed:

passthru("htmldoc -t pdf --quiet --jpeg --webpage '$mytemp'");

When I use the script in the wiki, the Acrobat Reader opens and then
shows "File does not begin with %pdf ". I installed htmldoc 1.8.24 and
MediaWiki 1.6.7.
How can I check if the file has U+FEFF at the beginning and how can I
fix that? Thanks for your help.

Mei

On 7/4/06, Niklas Laxstr?m <niklas.laxstrom at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/07/06, Mei Wu <mwu.mailbox at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [03-Jul-2006 23:58:55] PHP Warning:  Cannot modify header information
> > - headers already sent in Unknown on line 0
> >
>
> Most likely some of the files have U+FEFF aka Byte order Mark at the
> beginning. PHP doesn't like these. Remove them and use an editor which
> doesn't insert BOMs.
> --
> Niklas Laxstr?m
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

>Brad Patrick wrote:
>
>
>
>>Robert, what would an efficient process look like to you, assuming the
>>licensing component is a requirement?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>snip
>
>

>This needs to be a community-driven approach, where ordinary Wikimedia
>users who contribute to various project have the opportunity to
>participate and make this sort of content available.  There is also no
>need for having a dozen independent "publishers" that all go off on
>their own direction.  Certainly once it is apparent that you can make
>some money off of publishing content like this, there will be a dozen
>different companies offering Wikimedia content for sale, so your caution
>is justified.  In this case, we are talking about publishing content as
>a Wikibooks community rather than as a bunch of mavericks.
>
>
We need to be a little cautious in how the community proceeds to
proactively to publish its materials.

By all means I think it would be excellent for the community to publish
its materials to create revenue for the Foundation by licensing the
Logos and Trademarks.

However, "mavericks" should not be discouraged or encounter systematic
hostility from any components of the "community" or the WMF in future
participation because they choose to publish material in accordance with
the FDL.

regards,
lazyquasar


from_name: Timwi

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
>
> I'm surprised it hasn't been said yet, but the classic wiki solution to page
> move vandalism is not to put up barriers to making contributions, but rather
> to make vandalism easier to revert.

I'm surprised (well, rather disappointed) that this even needs saying.
It implies that most people here don't know what wiki is all about.

Timwi


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Automatic translator

body:
On Tue, Jul 04, 2006 at 03:07:26PM +0200, sajasaze wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm the gothic wikipedia's sysop, and I would like to know how
> to create an automatic translator between gothic and latin
> alphabet as it already exists on the chinese wikipedia.
>

Check languages/LanguageZh.php [1] and the way the LanguageConverter
is working, and provide a patch that's doing the same for gothic
and latin alphabets.

	Regards

		jens

[1] http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/languages/LanguageZh.php?revision=15004&view=markup


subject: [Wikipedia-l] MO-RO, a request for help

body:
Thanks! :

----- ???????? ????????? -----
??: "TSO1D From Wikpedia" <tso1d at yahoo.com>
????: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
??????????: 4 ???? 2006 ?. 20:49
????: Re: [Wikipedia-l] MO-RO, a request for help

This site: http://domino.kappa.ro/guvern/istoria-e.html has some good
information about Romanian history in general and it does discuss the bronze
age.

Berto <albertoserra at ukr.net> wrote:  Hi again,

sorry for getting out of the script war and talking business in instead. I
am currently compiling an article on the Bronze Age for pms.wiki. Here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_age I have a wonderful pic of rumenian
B.A. findings, but NO info about the rumenian Bronze age. Can any of you
help me?

B?rto

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body:
On 7/4/06, Ben Garney <beng at garagegames.com> wrote:
> Wikis are designed to be self-healing. Anything that reduces the capacity of
> the wiki to be edited is contrary to the nature of the wiki. This implies
> that there will be uneasiness - we don't always WANT things to be in flux! -
> but that's what a wiki is all about. It's better to have tools that can deal
> with that - for instance, by mass reverting a user's contributions - rather
> than penalizing all the innocents out there.
>
> Also - never, never, never make assumptions about what's humanly possible or
> not. Physically possible, maybe. If it's a real human doing editing then
> they may as well go as fast as they want to, and who are we to tell them
> it's wrong?

I suppose the simple example would be: if the MediaWiki interface let
me rename every single river to meet the "...River" naming convention,
in one single second, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

The answer is, "good thing".  One might then argue that giving such
power to vandals is bad. But that wasn't the question: the question
was whether *I* should have such power...

Steve


from_name: Essjay

subject: [Foundation-l] Just curious...

body:
James Hare wrote:
> Hello mailing list folks,
>
> I've been thinking about this... it's not really a pressing issue, but how
> would the Wikimedia Office handle Office Actions on other projects? As far
> as I know, Danny Wool isn't a sysop on Wikinews. Would the developers make
> him into an administrator? Or would he make administrators available at the
> time do the office's bidding?
>
> --James
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
Danny is a steward...If he is doing the business of the Foundation, he
can sysop himself on any wiki (just as Mav does/has done to handle
sitenotice matters for fundraisers).

Essjay

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/


subject: [Foundation-l] Just curious...


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPUI requesting unblock

body:
On 7/4/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> If pseudonymity is that important to you, you should be willing to put
> up with that hassle.  This is a barrier to entry best characterized as
> a log to step over, not a fence.  If you can't make that step, or are
> unwilling to put in the 5 minutes to do so, that's your own fault.

I'm not sure that's the friendliest, most welcoming attitude we could
possibly give to someone who has possibly been wrongly blocked (it
happens, you know). But I'll leave it there.

Steve


body:
On 04/07/06, grok at resist.ca <grok at resist.ca> wrote:
> And I think there are also some baseless assumptions about
> what a wiki is (or isn't) here too. Maybe these are what the
> _mediawiki_ wiki software is -- but not wiki software per se.

The truth is, no-one is still quite sure what a wiki engine should do,
because no-one is still quite sure quite what a wiki is. Yes, there
are definitions all over the place; but compare my opinion, Tim's,
Brion's, etc. - and then compare those to Ward's. You'd find the
details would vary in small but significant places.

Rob Church


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-07-05

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!

Passed 393 of 407 tests (96.56%) FAILED!


from_name: Daniel Arnold

body:
Am Dienstag, 04. Juli 2006 18:25 schrieb Robert Scott Horning:
> The difference with the German Wikipedia is that Directmedia has, on
> their own inititive, created the "product" and are selling it according
> to the terms of the GFDL.  Some arrangements have been made with the
> WMF, but that is to deal with the fine points of trademark issues.

Maybe I can give some further information here as I am involved member of the
de.wikipedia community (note: I am not part of Directmedia I am a
de.wikipedia community member).

Directmedia did not only publish the German Wikipedia DVD but also the
WikiPress books (http://www.wikipress.de) which are compiled parts of
de.wikipedia (to be precise the books get published by a sister company
called Zenodot run by the same people). In case of the DVD and the books all
authors get named, the source, the license (full print in English and German)
and the relationship of that product towards Wikipedia, the community and
Wikimedia.

In order to see how exactly the license conditions and so forth were respected
by the books have for example a look at the Wikipress book that I did
compile:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:WikiPress_6_Sonnensystem.pdf

If there are people interested I (and some other people) can share some more
experience about the creation process of that books.

All these products have in common that they stress the point that they weren't
created and released by "a Wikimedia organisation" but by the (interested)
individuals of Wikipedia in cooperation with Directmedia/Zenodot in the "wiki
style" which is radical new for such products like DVDs and books. So the
community aspect is one of the key selling points.

Of course these products do support Wikimedia and are appreciated and
supported by Wikimedia after some arrangements have been done.

This rather independent working style has also something to do with the
relationship of de.wikipedia community and Wikimedia. Generally Wikimedia
Foundation is the necessary support organisation for de.wikipedia that
generously enables them creating their own content within a wide range of
possibilities and which doesn't interfere a lot with their daily business as
long there's no absolut (legal) emergency. So it's mostly some kind of
respect towards a separated organisation people normally wouldn't advance in
order to support their own business but which gets credited for the shadow
work that made their work possible.

I personally would suggest the following policy:
* Do not give the impression creating an official Wikimedia product as long as
there hasn't been an official agreement.
* Speak only for yourself and involved people as long there hasn't been an
official agreement.
* Respect Wikimedia trademarks.
* If it is a community project (community is nothing official just a larger
crowd of good faith people) make a project page in the wiki for organisating
the matter that naturally also can contain links to offsite pages connected
with it.
* Try to merge back any improvements.
* Never link from article namespace to the project (page) and it's results
only link from the relevant project and portal page (I generally think that
portal and project page links should be removed from articles).
* If the book can be buyed link the ISBN (not Amazon book numbers and such in
order to be vendor neutral) alongside (!) a link to the free downloadable pdf
at the allowed places in the wiki, so that people can freely choose by
themselves.
* An upload of the final pdf to the wiki is part of the back merge and thatfor
appreciated.

So I personally think that Wikisource project page link of the "Wikijunior"
book would have been ok if the book wouldn't give that false impression that
it is an official Wikimedia product and and if the book would have another
name (beside respecting the GFDL).

Arnomane


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>However, "mavericks" should not be discouraged or encounter systematic
>hostility from any components of the "community" or the WMF in future
>participation because they choose to publish material in accordance with
>the FDL.
>
>regards,
>lazyquasar
>
>
Just to see how difficult of a job it was for this user who put the
Wikijunior Big Cats up on the Lulu website, I decided to create a new
account with Lulu and go through the process itself (without actually
offering the book for sale).  For an average Wikimedia user who can deal
with uploading images and handle a typical wiki:  It was so easy I
almost forgot that this was controversial and just about offered the
same content for sale in the same manner all over again.

The fact that Wikibooks is offering so many "books" via PDF makes it all
that more tempting to have somebody do exactly this again, and this time
with the entire inventory of Wikibooks and not just one Wikijunior book.
 Mind you, Lulu Press is just the printing house.  *I* would have been
the publisher and assuming the associated risks in that situation.  I'm
still thinking of doing exactly that in the near future, although I
would like to set up a joint account that would include some of the more
active Wikibooks users as well if this were to get going.

I will say that I've been very cautious about doing this, and knowing
how far to go and not tread on project space inappropriately has been a
major concern of my.  Certainly I don't want to be seen as abusing my
admin status to promote a business that I may be starting in this way.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
Daniel Arnold wrote:

>I personally would suggest the following policy:
>* Do not give the impression creating an official Wikimedia product as long as
>there hasn't been an official agreement.
>
That is easy to say as a guideline, but the line between acknowledging
the WMF and appearing as endorsed by the WMF can seem to be a fine line
here.  The Wikijunior Big Cats book did not really imply being endorsed
by the WMF, but simply stated that the WMF had a copyright claim.
 Apparently that was in error, although I still havn't seen a formal
statement by the Foundation disclaiming copyright as well, even though
I've read statements here on this mailing list suggesting that the
Foundation doesn't want to have copyright over Wikimedia content.

>* Speak only for yourself and involved people as long there hasn't been an
>official agreement.
>
Agreed.

>* Respect Wikimedia trademarks.
>
This is a tricky point here in some ways.  Trademarks identify all of
the various Wikimedia projects in a number of ways, and it gets into
similar issues with what happened regarding simply using the name of the
WMF in any capacity, even for an ackowledgement that the WMF was
involved with the creation and preparation of the content (which they
were.... the content originated on WMF servers).

The use of the title "Wikijunior Big Cats" is itself a trademark, as is
even just "Big Cats".  BTW, this is exactly the situation that the Free
Software Foundation got into when they established the invariant
sections portion of the GFDL, where they tried to make a way for free
content to keep a registered trademark (aka Wikijunior Big Cats) but
still allow others to be able to freely print and distribute textual
content.  In this case the title would be one of the invariant sections
under the GFDL, perhaps with a disclaimer that publication does not
imply endorsement by the WMF.

This would be the same issue as if you printed a physical edition of
Wikipedia, such as has been done by the German Wikipress group:
 http://www.wikipress.de/Bild%3AWikipedia_Cover.png

Mind you, I think there are going to be some individuals who are going
to go beyond simply using the names and really will imply endorsement by
the WMF, as does happen already with mirrors of Wikipedia content.  And
I think that the WMF does have justification to protect trademarks.  The
question here is should 3rd parties simply not use any Wikimedia
trademarks of any kind on any product, including even the name of the
WMF not even being named in the credits, nor even links to WMF servers?
 Or should there be reasonable uses of these trademarks where it is
noted that while the content was developed on WMF servers, this is an
independent publication.

>* If it is a community project (community is nothing official just a larger
>crowd of good faith people) make a project page in the wiki for organisating
>the matter that naturally also can contain links to offsite pages connected
>with it.
>
That is a safe way to proceed, as it removes any liability problems from
the WMF for any actions of a group of users going independent and
publishing on their own.  And if there is a group doing this sort of
organizing, it makes sense that it should be on a seperate website.  I
think that even if it becomes an "official" and sanctioned project, it
should be on a seperate wiki as well anyway.

>* Try to merge back any improvements.
>
Agreed.

>* Never link from article namespace to the project (page) and it's results
>only link from the relevant project and portal page (I generally think that
>portal and project page links should be removed from articles).
>* If the book can be buyed link the ISBN (not Amazon book numbers and such in
>order to be vendor neutral) alongside (!) a link to the free downloadable pdf
>at the allowed places in the wiki, so that people can freely choose by
>themselves.
>
This is the point I really don't understand.  I'm discussing a way to
publish content and as a "publisher" I generate the ISBN number.  We are
in a very interesting situation with the GFDL as you can have multiple
ISBN numbers for the same book, each one of which goes to a seperate
publisher.  In other words, the attempt to be vendor neutral just got
lost by even including the ISBN link in the first place.  All you have
done is open up additional sales outlets to handle the distribution of
the content in the first place with the inclusion of the ISBN number.

Normally this isn't a big deal with traditional copyrighted material as
there are exclusive publication rights for a single publisher, so one
book title has only one ISBN.  For free content, that is no longer the case.

It is very natural path for some people to want to have a physcial
printed copy of some of the project content on Wikimedia projects.
 Indeed, there is a "printable version" link on every page right now
that encourages this.  The question then comes up on where to get a
printed copy you can simply purchase with a couple of clicks of the
mouse?  Offering any link, including just ISBN numbers, is going to
imply some sort of endorsement in this situation.

>* An upload of the final pdf to the wiki is part of the back merge and thatfor
>appreciated.
>
>So I personally think that Wikisource project page link of the "Wikijunior"
>book would have been ok if the book wouldn't give that false impression that
>it is an official Wikimedia product and and if the book would have another
>name (beside respecting the GFDL).
>
>Arnomane
>
>
Using the name Wikipedia (as the Wikipress group has done) is pretty
much the same thing here in terms of how the name Wikijunior was used.
 Again, the only implied endorsement for the Wikijunior book was because
the WMF was listed as a copyright claimant.  Offering a title to some of
this content is going to be an interesting task, as the titles
themselves for many other Wikibooks (like Blender 3D: Noob to Pro) can
be defensibly considered trademarks of the WMF.  Indeed this title uses
the trademark for another non-profit foundation, Blender.

My impression is that using the title of the book (Wikijunior Big Cats)
is an acceptable use of trademarks, but perhaps I'm wrong.  How this
sort of trademark applies to GFDL'd content is untested legally.  The
GFDL implies (as do comments by the Free Software Foundation on this
issue) that titles of content are important for recognizing, even
"branding" content, yet they also want to make this sort of content
freely available for redistribution.  This is no different than having a
GPL'd copy of Firefox and putting it on a CD-ROM with the name "Firefox"
and the Firefox logo on the label, then trying to sell the CD-ROM.  This
is not only happens, but is encouraged.  You don't change the name of
this software simply because it has been handed to a 3rd party.  I'm
sure there are contrary opinions to all of this, but the point is that
copyleft content does have some different rules to work under than
traditionally copyrighted content.

We really are moving into an interesting legal area here, and it is
natural to try and be very cautious before trying to push any legal
point including telling people to not do things that may in fact be
perfectly legal to do anyway.  Much of how this content will be
published is going to depend on the tone toward trademarks that the WMF
sets toward such usage and what is even going to be considered a
trademark.  I don't think that the board members are trying to be
anti-user or anti-publication, but it is also natural for people like
Brad and Jimbo to try and strongly defend trademark usage and keep it
tightly controlled.  I am also not trying to push the legal envelope but
rather trying to do what is best for the Wikimedia projects and offer
something that has been requested by some Wikibooks users and readers.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 5 Jul 2006 at 10:13, "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> To bottom post in gmail:
>
> 1. Press reply.
> 2. Delete the space above the words "On xxx, yyy wrote:"
> 3. Press ctrl+end.
> 4. Type your message.

It's better to move through the original message trimming out parts
that aren't relevant, and then inserting your replies inline, rather
than just jumping to the end and bottom-posting under a fullquote.
To this end, starting the cursor at the top is actually the sensible
thing, though it shouldn't be done with a space left at the top as
Gmail does it.

> But, really, be strong, be brave, resist the temptation. Stand up to
> the bullies. There's actually nothing objectively wrong with
> top-posting except that the "old-timers" don't like it.

Personally, I think top-posters should be executed by lethal
injection (or perhaps an alternate means such as a firing squad), but
unfortunately the laws of some countries block this sensible
proposal.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: EricJonah

subject: [Wikitech-l] smtp server integration in MediaWiki

body:
You can send mail via PEAR Mail.
1.install pear
2.Edit LocalSetting to add the pear into the include_path like this
$path = array( $IP, "$IP/includes", "$IP/languages", "/usr/share/pear" );
3set the smtp
$wgSMTP = array(
	"host" => '',
	"IDHost" => "",
	"port" => "25",
	"auth" => true,
	"username" => "",
	"password" => "",
);

On Sun, 2 Jul 2006 18:04:06 -0700
"Mei Wu" <mwu.mailbox at gmail.com> ???:

> Hi all,
>
> I installed Mediawiki in a LAN environment. I specified the internal
> Microsoft smtp server in the "php.ini" to send out emails. However,
> the mails were not sent out although the local smtp server is
> listening on port 25. I do not  really know what the problem is and
> would appreciate any help.
>
> The computer is directly connected to a router and has an internal IP
> (192.168.x.x). The Wiki is running on Apache 2 on port 8080. The smtp
> server is listening on port 25 (IIS 5).
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Mei
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
EricJonah <ericjonah at gmail.com>


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Viral swarming teenage vanity spam

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 7/5/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 7/5/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The page was now deleted, in spite of no consensus, and in spite of a
>>> very large amount of blog coverage and a newspaper report in Politiken
>>> about it.
>
>> Slight majority in favor of keep in fact. on that basis I've undeleted.
>
> Thanks. Now get ready for the accusations of starting a "wheel war."

And now it's deleted again. It's been put up for review at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Eon8>.

I don't frequent AfD so perhaps I get a skewed impression, but does
anyone think that the prevalence of extremely hyperbolic "strong" voting
is on the increase? AfD isn't even supposed to be a vote in the first
place, technically, so giving a vote to "Destroy, pillage and salt the
earth of this accursed article" or "Strong strong strong KEEP" seems
kind of silly and pointless. The calls to _ban_ article contributors
and/or people who voted to keep the article are even more silly, well
over into the realm of blatantly stupid - AfD is not ArbCom, the very
notion of crossing the two gives me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe it's just
these specific highly contentious arguments where that sort of thing
happens.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] SPUI requesting unblock

body:
On 7/4/06, Zero <megamanzero521 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  I've no idea what the manner of this conversation has to do with SPUI.  I was under the impression the focal point of this e-mail thread was  the discussion of the unblock and the editor in question.
>
>  In relevance, I paticularly don't think this user should be unblocked  so easily anymore. I'm not very experienced with SPUI, but to have  multiple blocks, consistant comments concerning behavior on WP:AN/I,  blatent disregard to dispute resolution and egregrious edit warring is  not the standards demanded of us as wikipedians.

Oh, sorry, I wasn't responding specifically about SPUI, though I can
see where the confusion came from. SPUI is definitely a troll of the
worst kind - to some, he's a saint, to some, he's the devil. He floats
eternally on the borderline, making friends with the masses and
pissing off the admins. Block him forever and his supporters will hate
you. Let him go unpunished and he'll get imitators. No idea what to do
about him.

But dear god I wish he would stop this "I've been blocked. WHY???" behaviour.

Steve


body:
On 7/5/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...which tells us how to manually bottom-post, as if we couldn't
> figure out how to edit text, and does not tell us "how to fix this in
> gmail".

To bottom post in gmail:

1. Press reply.
2. Delete the space above the words "On xxx, yyy wrote:"
3. Press ctrl+end.
4. Type your message.

But, really, be strong, be brave, resist the temptation. Stand up to
the bullies. There's actually nothing objectively wrong with
top-posting except that the "old-timers" don't like it.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Moldy discussions

body:
Alternatively, don't quote any text at all, so no one knows if you're
top or bottom posting.

Steve


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 7/5/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> My impression is that using the title of the book (Wikijunior Big Cats)
> is an acceptable use of trademarks, but perhaps I'm wrong.  How this
> sort of trademark applies to GFDL'd content is untested legally.

The GFDL is rather explicit with this, at least with regard to
derivative works.  Derivatives are supposed to "Use in the Title Page
(and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the
Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there
were any, be listed in the History section of the Document)."
Verbatim copies would presumably have the same title, but I suppose
the GFDL doesn't explicitly state this.

However, [[Wikibooks:Copyrights]] states that "You may use the same
title as the Wikibooks book and/or module(s) but trademark law
prevents you from advertising the Wikibooks or Wikimedia names without
our written permission."

Anthony


from_name: Brad Patrick

subject: [Foundation-l] Publishing

body:
The lawyer is very much aware of this problem now and will be working on
it.  In particular I am fascinated that two of our stellar 'IANAL' folks are
the persons who wrote [[Wikibooks:Copyright]].

On 7/4/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dont we have a lawyer for these kind of things? =D
>
> On 7/4/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> >
> > Anthere wrote:
> >
> > >Also, unless I am wrong in what defines an "author", I
> > >see not why the Foundation would be listed as a
> > >co-author of the books, or of any wikibooks in the
> > >future.
> > >
> > >
> > In part I am responsible for this chain of events as far as claiming the
> > WMF as an "author". I'm still not convinced that the Foundation isn't an
> > author or at least a copyright claimant, but I was trying to make a
> > politically neutral sentiment when I created the copyright notice that
> > the Wikijunior books have which simply stated the following:
> >
> > "(c) Copyright 2004?2006, Wikimedia Foundation Inc. and contributing
> > authors, all rights reserved. Permission is granted to copy, distribute
> > and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Document
> > License, version 1.2."
> >
> > I have tried to solicit comments about this wording, and the page it is
> > on
> > (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Solar_System/Copyright_Notice)
> > dates back to over a year ago when I first put it up. I'm sorry that it
> > has created this kind of problem. All this user did was use the WMF name
> > as one of the "authors", just as the copyright notice claimed.
> >
> > I know this was a small detail at the time, but it is the kind of minor
> > detail that can create huge problems if not done correctly. If there are
> > any reasonable suggestions on how to change the wording of this
> > copyright slug and what should be listed here instead, it would be
> > appreciated. This is a Wiki page and thus is editable by ordinary
> > Wikimedia users as well
> >
> > --
> > Robert Scott Horning
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


subject: [Foundation-l] Publishing


body:
I hate to point this out, but I have through this discussion been made aware
of the Wikibooks:Copyright page, which was written by two very well known
non-lawyers.  The purported copyright notice at the top of that very page
does not even identify by whom the supposed copyright is owned.  This is not
a simple question, and I expect to have a closer look at the page line by
line in the future.

All I'm saying is, beware quoting the Wikibooks:Copyright page as sacred
text.


body:
On 7/4/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Brad Patrick wrote in part:
>
> >Licensing others to publish, from
> >the WMF perspective is not a big step, and is to WMF's great financial
> >advantage.
> >
> snip
>
>
>
> Assuming the content must be licensed from the WMF is a violation of the
> FDL and it could be argued an attempt to exploit the name brand
> recognition of the GNU FDL without meeting the responsibilities of its
> use.

I have never suggested such a thing.

It seems pretty easy to me to delineate that the trademarks and logos of
> the WMF may be licensed separately for use in advertising and sales
> promotion to any publishing effort using the FDL'ed material in ways
> mutually acceptable to the WMF and the publisher.   Any customer who
> purchased the content could in turn modify the content and the
> attributions appropriately and then republish without the use of the WMF
> trademarks or logos.

Bingo.

Clearly any licensing arrangement for the trademarks or logos should
> include a right to review and cancel the use of the trademarks and logos
> in inappropriate fashions.

It's not extortion of free content.  It's being smart about marketing and
endorsements.  Managing licenses implies quality control; that is not the
same thing as instituting a requirement for every single book composed of
WMF-project related content.

I wasn't around for Big Cats.  Going forward, I hope we can achieve clarity
with minimal transactional friction from the community and publishers.  We
aren't here to be obstructionist.

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


body:
Rob Church wrote:
> On 04/07/06, grok at resist.ca <grok at resist.ca> wrote:
>
>>And I think there are also some baseless assumptions about
>>what a wiki is (or isn't) here too. Maybe these are what the
>>_mediawiki_ wiki software is -- but not wiki software per se.
>
> The truth is, no-one is still quite sure what a wiki engine should do,
> because no-one is still quite sure quite what a wiki is. Yes, there
> are definitions all over the place; but compare my opinion, Tim's,
> Brion's, etc. - and then compare those to Ward's. You'd find the
> details would vary in small but significant places.

Still, though. I'm sure the people will all agree that a wiki primarily
aims to work by making it easy to revert vandalism, not by preventing it
in the first instance. I just find it surprising (or disappointing, as I
said) that people don't naturally extend this to any form of
contribution (e.g. page moves in this case). Instead, we regularly get
suggestions to slow everyone's useful contributions down. It's really
frustrating to see these misguided suggestions appear over and over again.

Timwi


subject: [Foundation-l] Publishing

body:
Brad Patrick wrote:

>The lawyer is very much aware of this problem now and will be working on
>it.  In particular I am fascinated that two of our stellar 'IANAL' folks are
>the persons who wrote [[Wikibooks:Copyright]].
>
>
I hope you are not refering to myself here.  All I've done on that page
is some minor tweaks partucularly to inform project admins that there
might be a copyright violation (making it easier to delete violating
material) and adding a disclaimer that you should seek local legal
counsel if you are not in the USA but are republishing content that is
fair-use.  I hope you don't consider that to be bad advise.

As far as Mav is concerned, he was simply trying to get something of a
disclaimer, hoping that at some time in the future we as a group would
eventually get somebody interested and give it the hard legal review it
deserves.  The Wikipedia copyright page really isn't that much better
for that matter, and if I'm not mistaken the Wikibooks copyright page
was a fork of the Wikipedia copyright page back when Wikibooks was first
started, and certainly the Wikipedia copyright page was worked on by the
same individuals.

For myself, why I may not be a lawyer, I have done an extensive study of
copyright law including case histories in the USA, and try very hard to
keep up on changes in copyright law as well.  I do this mainly out of
professional interest because so much of what I do every day is tied to
copyright law in some way or another, and there are a number of legal
landmines you can land on if you are not careful.  Quite litterally, my
livelyhood and ability to provide for my family depends on knowing
copyright law.  That I don't do more is because I would rather create
the content than spend time learning how to stop idiots from stealing it.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Publishing


from_name: Liviu Andronic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] mo - let's make a point ...

body:
If anyone is still interested to make some research on this matter, this
information on meta<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects#What_reliable_sources_say_about_Moldovan_Language>could
prove interesting. This
summary on meta<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects#What_decision_makers_need_to_know>could
also make things clearer.

On 7/4/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
>
> Its not me who says that they differ, but having colleagues (just search
> for translations + Moldovan) that obviously make the difference ... well
> ...
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Publishing

body:
On 7/4/06, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> There is an issue on which I'd like to react though.
>
> Anthony wrote "Distributing content (including in
> print form) *is* the
> purpose of Wikimedia."
>
> Well.... not exactly.
>
> The bylaws do mention a distribution free of charge,
> but it makes no reference on whether it should be
> online, on paper, on dvd etc...
>
It's important to realize the context of my statement, which was
regarding Unrelated Business Taxable Income on revenues generated by
distributing print versions of content currently distributed online.

The amended articles of incorporation give the "specific purpose" of
the foundation as "to create and freely distribute freely licensed
encyclopedias, textbooks, reference works, and other literary,
scientific, and educational information in all languages of the
world."  Print is not explicitly mentioned.  This purpose is certainly
much different from that of a museum.

> Among benefits, a financial one. It is unclear as of
> today whether we are looking for *this* specific
> benefit though. *I* am not looking for that benefit
> for the Foundation. I do not know if other board
> members would.
>
> Another benefit would be to help distribution, for
> example in providing all pressed dvd to ship in
> certain countries. We could press the DVD and get as
> an income exactly what the DVD costs us. This is a
> different benefit. And one which might possibly induce
> lesser costs in case of a problem.
>
I've said before that online distribution will never be sufficient to
achieve the alternately stated goal of realizing "a world in which
every single person is given free access to the sum of all human
knowledge".  I still think that's true.

> But in any cases, it is not among goals of the
> Foundation to become publishers to make *profit*.

Of course not.  Profit is merely a possible avenue to fund the
achievement of the goals.

> Distributing content in print form *is* not the
> purpose of Wikimedia. We may do it. It is not our
> declared goal.
>
Distributing content is one of the two stated purposes of Wikimedia
(with creating it being the other one).  Print form is simply a method
of distribution.  I see no philosophical reason it should be any more
or less desirable than any other form.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Publishing


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
On Jul 5, 2006, at 10:46 AM, Lord Voldemort wrote:

> I just think we need to select admins who we can trust to make the
> decision to take these types of editors into less account than others.
>  Admins are chosen because the community trusts them to be able to
> determine consensus (along with a few other minor things ;-)).  So we
> need to make sure the quality of admins remains high.  We need admins
> that are willing to do a little research into the "voters".  And look
> at the discusison, not just the numbers on either side of the
> keep/delete line.  Admins that base things on numbers alone should be
> censured (or some other analogous procedure).  --LV

RfC? :)

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


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Moldy discussions

body:
OK.

:-)

Stan


body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 7/5/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
>
>>My impression is that using the title of the book (Wikijunior Big Cats)
>>is an acceptable use of trademarks, but perhaps I'm wrong.  How this
>>sort of trademark applies to GFDL'd content is untested legally.
>>
>>
>
>
>The GFDL is rather explicit with this, at least with regard to
>derivative works.  Derivatives are supposed to "Use in the Title Page
>(and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the
>Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there
>were any, be listed in the History section of the Document)."
>Verbatim copies would presumably have the same title, but I suppose
>the GFDL doesn't explicitly state this.
>
>However, [[Wikibooks:Copyrights]] states that "You may use the same
>title as the Wikibooks book and/or module(s) but trademark law
>prevents you from advertising the Wikibooks or Wikimedia names without
>our written permission."
>
>Anthony
>
>
Although in this case it is the verbatim copy of a document, not a
derivitive document that merely uses some of the content of the previous
document.  Any changes are merely formatting and are not related to the
content of the document.

For some (I guess IANAL) advise you can go to [[Wikipedia: Verbatim
copying]] that seems to give the exact opposite advise as to what you
are suggesting here.  Indeed it says that you *MUST NOT* change the
title of the document (i.e.Wikijunior Big Cats).  So which bit of advise
is correct here?

This would stop you from claiming that you have created a book like
"Anthony's Big Cats" when in fact it really is a Wikijunior book that
you have changed the title of and republished as if you created it in
the first place, even if you have small print somewhere that says
otherwise buried near the back page of the book.

I can see all kinds of problems either way in terms of both using
trademarks and changing titles of books that you republish.  It is
precisely in this situation where copyleft law is undefined and why this
is a totally new beast from traditional copyright law and how it would
be treated if it were a publication from a traditional publisher who
doesn't give copyleft permissions.  Again, it is an issue of how the WMF
wants to treat their trademarks, and how anal they want to get about
protecting those trademarks.

This does have a small impact on even page names, and I see a hard-nosed
view of protecting trademarks running straight into the GFDL like a
brick wall, especially for individual project names as trademarks.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
geni wrote:

>On 7/5/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
>
>>The use of the title "Wikijunior Big Cats" is itself a trademark, as is
>>even just "Big Cats".
>>
>>
>
>
>Could you expand on this point?
>
>

I'm just pointing out that if for some reason a book called "Wikijunior
Big Cats" is widely known as a valuable book and appears in many
different classrooms and the hands of many parents and children, it is
something by itself that is a brand that is highly recognized.

Some companies, notably Paramount Studios with their Star Trek
franchise, have gone to incredible lengths to trademark all kinds of
related words as trademarks and even have gone through the effort to
register them with the USPTO.  Notably Captain Kirk, Spock, Uhura,
Scotty, and other names are formally trademarked and can't be used
theoretically without formal permission from Paramount, keeping you from
even potentially writing fan fiction using those characters or even
writing commentary about Star Trek episodes.  This very posting to the
mailing list, under extreme interpretation of the law, could be
considered an infringing use of trademarks for that company.

In this same token, it might be possible for the WMF to control
publication rights to Wikimedia project content merely on the basis of
trademark infringement, as has appeared to have occured here with the
Wikijunior Big Cats book.  Clearly this is the name of the Wikibook and
it is being worked on by Wikibooks users, with numerous links to the
project page under that name from many other sources both within and
outside of Wikimedia projects.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Zero

body:
Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:  Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 7/5/06, geni  wrote:
>> On 7/5/06, Erik Moeller  wrote:
>>> The page was now deleted, in spite of no consensus, and in spite of a
>>> very large amount of blog coverage and a newspaper report in Politiken
>>> about it.
>
>> Slight majority in favor of keep in fact. on that basis I've undeleted.
>
> Thanks. Now get ready for the accusations of starting a "wheel war."

>>And now it's deleted again. It's been put up for review at
.

>>I don't frequent AfD so perhaps I get a skewed impression, but does
>>anyone think that the prevalence of extremely hyperbolic "strong" >>voting
>>is on the increase? AfD isn't even supposed to be a vote in the first
>>place, technically, so giving a vote to "Destroy, pillage and salt the
>>earth of this accursed article" or "Strong strong strong KEEP" seems
>>kind of silly and pointless. The calls to _ban_ article contributors
>>and/or people who voted to keep the article are even more silly, well
>>over into the realm of blatantly stupid - AfD is not ArbCom, the very
>>notion of crossing the two gives me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe it's >>just
>>these specific highly contentious arguments where that sort of thing
>>happens.

  I think the problem with DRV and other processes that reivew content is  the entire premise. I reviewed a backlog previously to discover a  template. To my horror,  it noted:

  "The community is interested in process not content".

  This is madness. - Randall Brackett
_______________________________________________
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WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
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 Next-gen email? Have it all with the  all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta.


from_name: Delirium

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>The important message I want to give here: this is not an issue of the
>foundation versus the community, but rather about an individual versus
>both the community and the foundation.  We should have been told first,
>there should have been a discussion and some consideration given to a
>number of important factors.
>
>
I agree only in the very narrow case of the use of the trademarked name
"Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.", and possibly any logos if they were used.
I hope that was the complaint to Lula.

In the more general case, the entire *point* of the GFDL is that you
*don't* need the permission or approval of the original author to
republish in any form you see fit.  It might be nice to consult with
them, but we absolutely can not and should not prevent people from
unilaterally printing books.

-Mark


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity - feedback

body:
On 7/5/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:
> Cormac Lawler wrote:
>
> >snip
> >
> >
>
> >As an update, I'm still trying to move this process along within the
> >Special projects committee, and hopefully there will be something to
> >show for it soon. Meanwhile, however, I continue to invite comments,
> >suggestions, criticisms from anyone, however new or peripheral to the
> >discussion you may feel yourself to be.
> >
> >
> I could not find recent Wikiversity  proposal activity either in the
> special subcommittee's resolutions or on their agenda:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee/Resolutions
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee
>
> The only documented suspense I could find required that you setup your
> Wikiversity subcommittee and report back by March 21, 2006.

You're right. We need to improve documentation of our activity on the
Special projects committee. We're currently working on that.

To clarify my update, I have raised Wikiversity at our last two
meetings (June 28th and June 14th) as well as on our mailing list, and
am awaiting feedback from the other committee members.

>
> What exactly are the tasks remaining before the Wikiversity proposal can
> be presented to the Wikimedia Board for a final go or nogo decision?

It is to be presented as is, unless the SPC have any specific
recommendations. Apart from that, cleaning up the interlinking pages
on Meta so that they fully complement each other seems like the best
thing we can do. But most importantly, have we addressed the questions
raised by the community at the last vote? This is the fundamental
question the board will ask.

>
> Are you aware that Jimbo has informed us directly a few months ago
> either here on this list or on the foundation list that the present
> Wikimedia Foundation board members all support the Wikiversity project?
>
> There is no guarantee this will be true of future Board members.
>
> lazyquasar

I think there is a difference between supporting the Wikiversity
project in principle and endorsing the current proposal in practice
(Jimbo's comments fall into the former - not necessarily the latter,
as far as I could make out). This is exactly what we have been doing
over the last few months - addresssing the last recommendations we
were given, as well as the concerns of the community (which the board
specifically asked for, and Jimbo re-affirmed). Believe me, I'm as
anxious to get Wikiversity set up as you are, and as frustrated it's
taken this long, but that doesn't change where we are or what we are
doing - which is to develop and realise as clear and realistic a
project as possible.

Cormac


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity - feedback


body:
Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:  On 7/5/06, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:
> Is every random spammer who hits 'edit' automatically a member of the
> 'community'?
>
> Why would we give automatic suffrage to folks who have not yet
> demonstrated a significant degree of support or even understanding of
> the goals of the project?
>
> Why do I ask?
> Going down the VFD page it would appear that a large number, if not a
> majority, of the 'keep' voters have less than 50 article edits. Some
> have no article edits at all.
>
> Almost any form of edit count or tenure weighing would leave this a
> clear consensus for delete. Even more importantly, the arguments on
> the delete side are far more compelling in my view: for example,
> Thatcher131's observation that "eon8 gets one hit on Google News and
> one hit on Lexis/Nexis; both are blog-related hits based solely on the
> claims of the website itself". With that in mind, how can you claim
> that the article isn't an attempt to spread an idea as opposed to
> merely documenting already popular idea?
>
> This is not the clear cut case of ignoring consensus that you make it out to be.

>>I just think we need to select admins who we can trust to make the
>>decision to take these types of editors into less account than others.
>>Admins are chosen because the community trusts them to be able to
>>determine consensus (along with a few other minor things ;-)).  So we
>>need to make sure the quality of admins remains high.  We need >>admins
>>that are willing to do a little research into the "voters".  And look
>>at the discusison, not just the numbers on either side of the
>>keep/delete line.  Admins that base things on numbers alone should be
>>censured (or some other analogous procedure).  --LV

  That is utter nonsense to say that administrators should not base their  decisons of that of a user's experience, paticularly in mainspace. This  common practice of new editors who have as little as below the 10 edit  mark or the like claim "I know what is best for wikipedia" and "I know  what the encyclopedia is all about." Such opinions should not be taken  seriously. - Randall Brackett
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
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body:
It would seem that it is not so narrow a case, since that is precisely the
problem.

On 7/5/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> >The important message I want to give here: this is not an issue of the
> >foundation versus the community, but rather about an individual versus
> >both the community and the foundation.  We should have been told first,
> >there should have been a discussion and some consideration given to a
> >number of important factors.
> >
> >
> I agree only in the very narrow case of the use of the trademarked name
> "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.", and possibly any logos if they were used.
> I hope that was the complaint to Lula.
>
> In the more general case, the entire *point* of the GFDL is that you
> *don't* need the permission or approval of the original author to
> republish in any form you see fit.  It might be nice to consult with
> them, but we absolutely can not and should not prevent people from
> unilaterally printing books.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


subject: [Foundation-l] GFDL publisher credit (was: Wikibooks for sale)

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>To be perfectly clear, Anthony, I stated that our name (and logo) are
>trademarked. That is unquestionable. The books were listed as being created the
>Foundation, yet we had no knowledge of it. In other words, the publisher used
>our trademarked name on a book without the agreement of  the Foundation. While I
>am not assuming malicious intent, that is  clearly unacceptable. Don't twist
>what I said.
>
>
Trademark law can't be used to prevent statement of facts, though, so
all uses of the name are not *necessarily* trademark violations, and as
a matter of being nice we shouldn't be draconian about prohibiting
people from ever mentioning our name.  For example, we ourselves have
pages which say a particular article is based on text from the 1911
Encyclopaedia Britannica.  That's of course not a violation of the
trademarked name "Encyclopaedia Britannica".

The important issue is to avoid giving the impression that the Wikimedia
Foundation is publishing or approved of the material.  If the use of the
name "Wikimedia" or some other Wikimedia-Foundation-trademarked name is
clearly done in a factual manner, then it shouldn't be a problem.

As far as legal details go, there doesn't appear to be any strong U.S.
legal precedent in this area.  Again with the EB1911 example, nobody is
really sure where the balance between the right to reprint public-domain
material with factual attribution and Britannica's trademark rights
lies.  So far people have erred on the side of caution by just renaming
it, e.g. to "The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia".  This is probably much
more cautious than actually required, though.

-Mark


body:
Brad Patrick wrote:

>On 7/5/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>The important message I want to give here: this is not an issue of the
>>>foundation versus the community, but rather about an individual versus
>>>both the community and the foundation.  We should have been told first,
>>>there should have been a discussion and some consideration given to a
>>>number of important factors.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I agree only in the very narrow case of the use of the trademarked name
>>"Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.", and possibly any logos if they were used.
>>I hope that was the complaint to Lula.
>>
>>In the more general case, the entire *point* of the GFDL is that you
>>*don't* need the permission or approval of the original author to
>>republish in any form you see fit.  It might be nice to consult with
>>them, but we absolutely can not and should not prevent people from
>>unilaterally printing books.
>>
>>
>It would seem that it is not so narrow a case, since that is precisely the
>problem.
>
>
Perhaps I was imprecise; I meant that I agree with his statement on the
narrow *grounds* of trademark violation.  I was not sure if Jimmy's
statement was intended to be that narrow, or to say something broader
about how people should only publish Wikimedia Foundation materials
after first telling the Foundation, participating in a discussion and
giving consideration to a number of important factors.  That potential
reading of the quoted paragraph is what I was disagreeing with.

-Mark


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Pageview counters

body:
An approximate and inaccurate pageview counter is better than none.
Currently, we have none, and the only reason I've heard is that the fact
that we use squids makes it impossible to count all pageviews reliably.
Surely it would be useful to have a counter that does not aim to be
precise, but at least give an approximation.

Would it be possible to re-enable the pageview counter and rephrase the
message so that it says something like, "This page was viewed
approximately <x> times."? The <x> is a value calculated from the
non-squid pageview count. Perhaps with an "(explain)" link next to it
that sends the user to a Help page that explains why the counter is
approximate and how the estimate was calculated.

Do we have any statistics that allow us to estimate an approximate
number of pageviews given the number of pageviews that came through to
the servers?

Timwi


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserTests code coverage report for Parser.php

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
> Decided to try have a play with a code coverage tool today, and
> pointed it at parser.php whilst parserTests.php was being run.
>
> The purpose of doing this is try and see if the code coverage of the
> parserTests are good - and they are, at around 83% coverage - and also
> to try and indicate if there are any areas that might potentially
> benefit from a few more tests.

Awesome!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Delirium wrote:
> I agree only in the very narrow case of the use of the trademarked name
> "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.", and possibly any logos if they were used.
> I hope that was the complaint to Lula.

Of course.  And there was no complaint, just a request that they put a
hold on this until we get it sorted.  I was told about this at 11PM, I
know Bob Young (CEO of Lulu), he's a good guy.

> In the more general case, the entire *point* of the GFDL is that you
> *don't* need the permission or approval of the original author to
> republish in any form you see fit.  It might be nice to consult with
> them, but we absolutely can not and should not prevent people from
> unilaterally printing books.

Precisely!


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
I doubt anyone will fall for that -- both of those sections are
written by people who advocate for the closing.

By the way Sabine,

I see you are interested in doing research on this topic. As most
translators will probably tell you, the actual differences between
Moldovan and Romanian are negligible. The issue here is mostly one of
culture and alphabet -- in Transnistria and sometimes in other areas,
Moldovan is written using Cyrillic. Prior to 1989, Moldovan was
written in Cyrillic in the entire Moldova as well.

Mark

On 05/07/06, Liviu Andronic <landronimirc at gmail.com> wrote:
> If anyone is still interested to make some research on this matter, this
> information on meta<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects#What_reliable_sources_say_about_Moldovan_Language>could
> prove interesting. This
> summary on meta<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects#What_decision_makers_need_to_know>could
> also make things clearer.
>
> On 7/4/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> >
> > Its not me who says that they differ, but having colleagues (just search
> > for translations + Moldovan) that obviously make the difference ... well
> > ...
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l]  Viral swarming teenage vanity spam

body:
Erik wrote:
>The page was now deleted, in spite of no consensus, and in spite of a
>very large amount of blog coverage and a newspaper report in Politiken
>about it. Whether you like it or not (and I don't), it does meet the
>WP:WEB criteria. This is part of a worrying and growing trend among
>admins to do whatever they feel like when they close an AfD.
>Overriding community opinion should only be done in exceptional
>circumstances and with clear documentation of one's reasoning, which
>can then be taken into policy discussions. Otherwise you end up with
>completely arbitrary enforcement, and an ever growing tension between
>admins and regular users.

Is every random spammer who hits 'edit' automatically a member of the
'community'?

Why would we give automatic suffrage to folks who have not yet
demonstrated a significant degree of support or even understanding of
the goals of the project?

Why do I ask?
Going down the VFD page it would appear that a large number, if not a
majority, of the 'keep' voters have less than 50 article edits. Some
have no article edits at all.

Almost any form of edit count or tenure weighing would leave this a
clear consensus for delete. Even more importantly, the arguments on
the delete side are far more compelling in my view: for example,
Thatcher131's observation that "eon8 gets one hit on Google News and
one hit on Lexis/Nexis; both are blog-related hits based solely on the
claims of the website itself". With that in mind, how can you claim
that the article isn't an attempt to spread an idea as opposed to
merely documenting already popular idea?

This is not the clear cut case of ignoring consensus that you make it out to be.

Erik wrote:
[snip]
>You need to stop worrying and learn to love the wiki.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an experiment is extreme democracy.
Wiki is a wonderful tool, but it's just that... A tool. Not an end
goal. That we are a Wiki does not excuse us from conventional
obligations like quality.


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia visual identity guidelines

body:
On 7/5/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:

> If we have translation(s) a certain policy, however, it will be useful
> to determine whether the translation is as official as the original
> one(s). Which case is that? Or can we simply say "as for all policies
> of the Wikimedia Foundation, basically you should consider the
> original one(s) as official"?

That would be my take, yes. For all official policies, there should be
a disclaimer that says that only the English version is the official
one.

And yes to the translation in several languages. Thank you if you're
willing to coordinate it.

Delphine

--
~notafish


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 7/5/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Still, though. I'm sure the people will all agree that a wiki primarily
> aims to work by making it easy to revert vandalism, not by preventing it
> in the first instance. I just find it surprising (or disappointing, as I

So, has there ever been a serious attempt at implementing a "total
user rollback", undoing every change for a specific user after a
specific date, where there have been no subsequent changes to the
article?

Changes to make it easier for people to flag vandals would also be
welcome. Currently, at en, it seems you can put a {{test}} warning on
their user page, but that probably won't trigger further action. You
can report it to AN/I, but I've never found that system terribly
satisfactory from a user's point of view. Being able to flag edits -
and by extension, editors - as vandalism would be great. Imagine a
system where if 3 different editors have flagged edits by a given
editor as "vandalism", it triggers some vandalism-reduction mechanism
(like preventing changes being immediately public). Of course, the
right to flag vandalism should be revokable to prevent its use in edit
wars (and hence, only given, automatically, after some demonstration
of commitment to the project...)

Just an idea of how to extend the "make it easy to revert vandalism"
idea without impingeing on good editors.

Steve


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikitech-l] Pageview counters

body:
Timwi wrote:
> An approximate and inaccurate pageview counter is better than none.
> Currently, we have none, and the only reason I've heard is that the fact
> that we use squids makes it impossible to count all pageviews reliably.
> Surely it would be useful to have a counter that does not aim to be
> precise, but at least give an approximation.
>
> Would it be possible to re-enable the pageview counter and rephrase the
> message so that it says something like, "This page was viewed
> approximately <x> times."? The <x> is a value calculated from the
> non-squid pageview count. Perhaps with an "(explain)" link next to it
> that sends the user to a Help page that explains why the counter is
> approximate and how the estimate was calculated.
>
> Do we have any statistics that allow us to estimate an approximate
> number of pageviews given the number of pageviews that came through to
> the servers?
>
> Timwi
>
>
Why not use a daemon to scan the logs on each squid, and then only
increment the database read count for (say) one in a hundred, or one in
a thousand of these hits, chosen as (pseudo) random, with the increment
being 100 if only 1 in 100 hits is logged, and so on. Over time, the law
of large numbers will arrange for it to average out to reasonably
representative hit counts.

Something as simple as the following run at intervals from a cron job
should do it, combined with logrotate. Since it's mostly CPU-intensive,
the analysis job can be niced down to avoid interfering with the main
task of squid processing.

If this would not be practical, please let me know why.

# Note: pythonesque pseudocode, not a real program
import random. time, re # and SQL stuff...

N = 1000 # or some other suitable value...

conn = make_sql_connection()

def log_article_hits(url, count):
    time.sleep(5) # to avoid hitting the DB too hard...
    # stub: should parse URL using regexp for project/language/article
title,
    # then call SQL code that increments the article read counter by "count"
    return

for line in open("/var/log/squid/access.log"): # or whatever...

    fields = string.split(line)
    if len(fields) < 7:
       continue

    url = fields[6]
    if random.randint(1,N) == 1:
       log_article_hits(url, N)

-- Neil


from_name: Lord Voldemort

body:
On 7/5/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is every random spammer who hits 'edit' automatically a member of the
> 'community'?
>
> Why would we give automatic suffrage to folks who have not yet
> demonstrated a significant degree of support or even understanding of
> the goals of the project?
>
> Why do I ask?
> Going down the VFD page it would appear that a large number, if not a
> majority, of the 'keep' voters have less than 50 article edits. Some
> have no article edits at all.
>
> Almost any form of edit count or tenure weighing would leave this a
> clear consensus for delete. Even more importantly, the arguments on
> the delete side are far more compelling in my view: for example,
> Thatcher131's observation that "eon8 gets one hit on Google News and
> one hit on Lexis/Nexis; both are blog-related hits based solely on the
> claims of the website itself". With that in mind, how can you claim
> that the article isn't an attempt to spread an idea as opposed to
> merely documenting already popular idea?
>
> This is not the clear cut case of ignoring consensus that you make it out to be.

I just think we need to select admins who we can trust to make the
decision to take these types of editors into less account than others.
 Admins are chosen because the community trusts them to be able to
determine consensus (along with a few other minor things ;-)).  So we
need to make sure the quality of admins remains high.  We need admins
that are willing to do a little research into the "voters".  And look
at the discusison, not just the numbers on either side of the
keep/delete line.  Admins that base things on numbers alone should be
censured (or some other analogous procedure).  --LV


subject: [Wikitech-l] Pageview counters

body:
On 7/5/06, Neil Harris <neil at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Why not use a daemon to scan the logs on each squid, and then only

Are these logs actually kept?

Steve


body:
On 7/5/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On Jul 5, 2006, at 10:46 AM, Lord Voldemort wrote:
>
> > I just think we need to select admins who we can trust to make the
> > decision to take these types of editors into less account than others.
> >  Admins are chosen because the community trusts them to be able to
> > determine consensus (along with a few other minor things ;-)).  So we
> > need to make sure the quality of admins remains high.  We need admins
> > that are willing to do a little research into the "voters".  And look
> > at the discusison, not just the numbers on either side of the
> > keep/delete line.  Admins that base things on numbers alone should be
> > censured (or some other analogous procedure).  --LV
>
> RfC? :)

Yeah, but like a big souped-up RfC with teeth like a doberman.  You
know, the kind of pre-facial tattoo Mike Tyson punch that can't be
ignored and they make Nintendo games about.  Yeeeeah... now that's the
kind of RfC I wanna see.


from_name: mboverload

body:
>=0

On 7/5/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:

> Personally, I think top-posters should be executed by lethal
> injection (or perhaps an alternate means such as a firing squad), but
> unfortunately the laws of some countries block this sensible
> proposal.
>


from_name: John Lyden

body:
On 7/5/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah, but like a big souped-up RfC with teeth like a doberman.  You
> know, the kind of pre-facial tattoo Mike Tyson punch that can't be
> ignored and they make Nintendo games about.  Yeeeeah... now that's the
> kind of RfC I wanna see.

http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/stilltemporary/PBF088ADWorldChampion.html ?

--
John Lyden - rasputinaxp at gmail.com
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to
live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same
time..." -Kerouac


from_name: Puppy

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> Given that we are all internet users, many of us obsessively so, if we
> have not heard of it then it may well be that the arm-wavers are wrong
> about its significance.
Obsessive? Please clarify "obsessive." Do you have a reliable source
which states that over 10 hpd is "obsessive"? Are there significant
dissenting views? This statement reeks of anti-geek POV.

(obligatory smiley:  :-) )

-kc-


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPUI requesting unblock

body:
On 7/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Oh, sorry, I wasn't responding specifically about SPUI, though I can
> see where the confusion came from. SPUI is definitely a troll of the
> worst kind - to some, he's a saint, to some, he's the devil. He floats
> eternally on the borderline, making friends with the masses and
> pissing off the admins. Block him forever and his supporters will hate
> you. Let him go unpunished and he'll get imitators. No idea what to do
> about him.

I find ignoreing him works most of the time.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Publishing

body:
Anthere wrote:
> I do not think it is necessary to comment on whether
> the editor had a good idea or not to make the
> wikijunior on big cats available for print. It seems
> pretty natural to think he made it in good faith. I
> did not have the opportunity to see the version, since
> it was removed from Lulu site.

Only temporarily... I hope.


subject: [Foundation-l] Publishing


body:
On 7/5/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> The use of the title "Wikijunior Big Cats" is itself a trademark, as is
> even just "Big Cats".

Could you expand on this point?
--
geni


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] The Perl Wiki, or Perl-Wikipedia

body:
James Hare wrote:

>Welcome to the mailing list, Mr. Meyers
>
>If you were to go through with this wiki, you aren't allowed to call it
>Perl-Wikipedia, seeing as "Wikipedia" is a registered trademark.
>
>--James
>
>

But be advised that if you import any of the XML dumps from
download.wikimedia.org, then you
will discover "Wikipedia" littered throughout, including ads for
Wikimania, funding solicitation, etc. , so to
remove any confusion, convert the word "Wikipedia" into an adjective by
terming it a "Wikipedia Mirror"
if you are mirroring their content - it its a new wiki not mirroring
their content, "Wikipedia" is an restricted
trademark.

Jeff

>On 7/5/06, Eric R. Meyers <ermeyers at adelphia.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Hello to The Wikimedia Foundation,
>>
>>I'm a Systems Engineer in Pennsylvania, USA.  "Shalom" to Shlomi, in
>>Israel,
>>at http://iglu.org.il, and a "Good Day" to Jacinta, in Australia, at
>>http://perl.net.au.
>>
>>I don't know if Shlomi or Jacinta have read my very enthusiastic response
>>to
>>Shlomi's post on the perl.advocacy usenet, but I've begun to research my
>>idea
>>on Wikipedia, towards the creation of Perl-Wikipedia, "The Free
>>Encyclopedia
>>of Perl."
>>
>>I've just joined the <foundation-I at wikimedia.org> mailing list, and I'd
>>like
>>to start a discussion with The Wikimedia Foundation on their mailing list,
>>and I'm also asking my two fellow Perl advocates to participate in this
>>discussion with me.
>>
>>Shlomi and Jacinta both have valuable Wiki development expertise and their
>>own
>>excellent perspectives on this matter of creating "The Perl Wiki," or
>>Perl-Wikipedia as I see it.
>>
>>Shlomi Fish wrote in the perl.advocacy usenet:
>>
>>
>>
>>>While I may be invoking Joel's Quarreling Kids Rule here[1], I think a
>>>central wiki for Perl may be a good idea, not only as a way to
>>>
>>>
>>consolidate
>>
>>
>>>all these specialised wiki's, but also to be "The Perl Wiki" which
>>>everyone will refer to. We can have http://wiki.perl.org/ for easy
>>>
>>>
>>linking
>>
>>
>>>and good Google Juice.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I responded to Shlomi:
>>
>>        I believe that this http://wiki.perl.org, "The Perl Wiki," is an
>>absolute
>>        requirement, not an option, and I'm fully available to contribute
>>to its
>>        making.  Let's add a Wiki link to
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl, right
>>        under the Website link to http://www.perl.org, and let's do it.
>>
>>        I've learned a lot from Wikipedia, and I've also learned a lot
>>about
>>        Wikipedia, and I just see this "The Perl Wiki" as a normal
>>extension of
>>        Wikipedia, creating the Perl-Wikipedia, "The Free Encyclopedia of
>>Perl."
>>
>>        I've learned what happens on Wikipedia, where "Over 94% of all
>>vandalism is
>>        removed within ten minutes" [1].  That's a very good statistic,
>>and I've
>>        actually seen it happen.
>>
>>        There are so many good things to come from this great idea.
>>
>>        I'm in.
>>
>>I'm an advocate of three global topics:
>>
>>        1. The Religion called Christianity (PERSONAL TRUTH)
>>        2. The Free Encyclopedia called Wikipedia (PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE)
>>        3. The Programming Language called Perl (PERSONAL POWER)
>>
>>I personally believe in and use, all three of them, all of the time.
>>
>>As a result of my personal decision to commit to this next good public
>>thing,
>>I've begun to learn what I need to learn, in order to make this great idea
>>of
>>Shlomi's happen, for the sake of our global community.
>>
>>Today I reviewed what I could find in Wikipedia, The Wikimedia Foundation,
>>and
>>the new project policy at
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_project_policy.
>>
>>I want to help create a new global topic, or a new Wikipedia subtopic,
>>called
>>The Free Encyclopedia of Perl, "'The Perl Wiki' that everyone will refer
>>to,"
>>and I need everyone's help to decide how to engineer it "The Right Way."
>>
>>What is "The Right Way" to create, establish or begin the foundation of
>>"The
>>Free Encyclopedia of Perl?"
>>
>>Should we simply expand upon Wikipedia's Perl entry already established at
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl, opening the door to exponential growth
>>and
>>the possibly rapid consumption of The Wikimedia Foundation's valuable
>>resources, or should we add an external Wiki link in Wikipedia pointing
>>out
>>to http://wiki.perl.org as "The Perl Wiki," which may or may not
>>eventually
>>become Perl-Wikipedia in the future.
>>
>>Whatever solution is found, I want "The Free Encyclopedia of Perl" to be
>>highly integrated with "The Free Encyclopedia," called Wikipedia, to get
>>the
>>maximum synergy of out two very good things put together for the public
>>good.
>>
>>I've come to ask the people of The Wikimedia Foundation for their expert
>>opinions and guidance.  From what I've read today, advancing a new
>>Wikimedia
>>Foundation project called Perl-Wikipedia to fruition could take years, so
>>I
>>know that besides having this initial discussion, the external hosting of
>>http://wiki.perl.org, "The Perl Wiki," is probably the first stage of the
>>development towards my thoughts of Perl-Wikipedia, "The Free Encyclopedia
>>of
>>Perl."
>>
>>I look forward to all of your valuable contributions to this discussion.
>>
>>Eric R. Meyers
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPUI requesting unblock

body:
On 7/5/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> I find ignoreing him works most of the time.

Exactly - something that should be followed by those who edit war with
him as well - it does take two, after all.

-Matt