body:
I had suspected this.

Again you are not dealing with the real problem.

The real problem is that the people you are talking to are being very
shallow. The Ossetic Wikipedia has not been controversial. To assume
it must be bad because I was involved is not only offensive but just
plain idiotic.

Such an attitude is not appropriate in any situation. As before your
best option will be to request it personally from Brion. When others
give me shit, he is usually willing to create Wikipedias quietly as
long as the issues surrounding it have been resolved (ie, he was
reluctant to create fur: until he found out a native speaker had
eventually shown up). Brion is a great person and doesn't suffer from
the same illogicality and delusions which seem to be common now within
this operation (I now generally avoid en.wikipedia because it has gone
from what I believe was a truly healthy environment and was making
great progress to a toxic environment which seems to me to be going
slowly backwards, due not in the least to corruption at the top -
there is no admin accountability, and while this is good in that the
majority [ie, the usually-good admins] can't be bogged down by bogus
complaints, it is bad in that those admins who cause more harm than
good often simply stay as they are until they really cross the line
and it's with somebody who is brave enough to complain - but even many
non-admins of course seem to have this sort of toxic attitude too -
wikihate seems to be slowly devouring wikilove).

I believe that while a portion of my bad reputation is deserved, the
great majority of it is due to hype and exaggeration. For example,
Jimbo seems to believe I just want zh.wikipedia to split up for
whatever frivolous reason I can find. IIRC when a working converter
was first showcased by Zhengzhu is when the rhetoric actually toned
down and compromise was found - I didn't say "Well conversion even if
it'ss perfect isn't good enough, we need separate Wikipedias no matter
what".

And I know there is no lack of talk about me behind my back - I'm
actually in on quite a bit of it (you know who you are). This all
helps to formulate a "mob mentality" which changes things from "he's
annoying and he's done a couple of bad things which he apologised for
and some things which were debatable, as well as some relatively good
contributions" to "he burned our crops, raped our women, and enslaved
our children! get him!". (note: since I have said something similar to
some people in the past and they have been extremely uncool in
believing I was paranoid or stupid enough to actually think they
thought or said stuff about me raping women and burning crops... I
feel it is nessecary to make it known that this is an extreme
exaggeration on my part).

I'm just thankful that, in addition to a pile of crap which is partly
of my own making and partly due to the crap-recycling machine known as
The General Population, I actually have people I can count on and
trust, and who understand me and whom I can count as true friends. To
those one or two of you who pretended to be my friends and then turned
into some of my worst enemies, really, that's disappointing but there
were signs from the beginning and it was na?ve of me to not notice
them.

I have also noticed a great deal of backstabbing (you know who you
are) and broken promises (you also know who you are) in addition to
lies (ykwya), slander (ykwya), harassment (ykwya), and complaints
about me to authorities from cowardly individuals who are not willing
to say to my face that I irritate them (if you have a problem with me,
I am perfectly willing to hear that and if you're not excessively
condescending and can respect me as I try to respect you, I will
accept what you have to say and try to improve on it, as I have shown
in the past in the very few cases where somebody has come up to me
politely and told me what others would only tell to Tom W).

I am also greatly appreciative of the support I have received from
many people, however small or tentative, because it often helps me to
look at things in perspective and take a step back and realise that
not everybody is a jackass and to let things go for a few weeks.

Mark

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:17:55 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mark,
> For your information, I have been trying quietly to find someone to
> create the Ossetian wikipedia. I have been refused several times because
> they are nauseated by all the huha around it. Literally: you are
> involved so it must be controversial. I have already spoken with someone
> on the board and they say "ask someone as it fullfills the requirements".
>
> So I do not care that much what you say but at this moment you have the
> Midas touch in reverse; everything you touch is considered shit.
>
> Groetjes,
>     GerardM
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Oh, and I know I can at times be irritating and condescending
> >(although this isn't usually intentional, and when it is, well, you'd
> >better watch out). But when somebody makes a point of telling me
> >something they dislike specifically or warns me about something about
> >them, I don't go flagrantly violating it.
> >
> >Everybody can be irritating, but it takes a true master to send a
> >condescending message of advice to one who has in the past said he
> >doesn't much appreciate advice (I have enough advice as it is -
> >believe me, I've heard all of this before), especially when it's
> >delivered in such a manner.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:25:17 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I didn't say he didn't have a good point. I just said the method of
> >>delivery wasn't good.
> >>
> >>So it wasn't entirely lost on me, I just got a bit pissed at Stan for
> >>the way he said it.
> >>
> >>Mark
> >>
> >>On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:17:42 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Dear Mark W.,
> >>>
> >>>At 05:09 23/02/2005 +0000, Mark Williamson wrote to Stan Shebs:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>"Thanks" for the advice.
> >>>>
> >>>>I have some for you, too - cool off a bit, and quit acting so
> >>>>condescending. It's very irritating, even in small doses. And as I have
> >>>>noted before, while friendly advice is usually appreciated by me, when it
> >>>>is given in a tone like this it really doesn't help anybody.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>As someone who has supported you before (even though I have no way of
> >>>telling whether you appreciated it), I ask you to break a little bit there
> >>>-- Stan Shebs' advice wasn't *that* bad, actually... It is easy for us all
> >>>to sound a bit condescending at times (and you probably think I sound
> >>>condescending right now), but you sound more than a bit condescending (and,
> >>>frankly, a bit irritating (since you brought up that term)) yourself at
> >>>times, you know ....
> >>>
> >>>I think this may be a good time for you to step back a bit and rethink your
> >>>debating strategies.
> >>>
> >>>Listen to Stan -- and give what he said some thought. It won't hurt. You
> >>>don't need to post all your thoughts about it here (or anywhere else, at
> >>>that) -- but please try to listen. Maybe you find that he isn't right. But
> >>>in that case, maybe you could make your own life easier by finding out
> >>>why/how people misunderstand you -- and then find ways of avoiding these
> >>>misunderstandings...?
> >>>
> >>>I appreciate very much your struggle for "small"-language wikipedias, Mark.
> >>>I have also seen you contribute in many other great ways., and I hope that
> >>>you will continue the struggle for Wikipedia to become ever more democratic
> >>>and diverse within the limits of truth and humanism. But in this struggle,
> >>>one needs both a strong conviction AND a level of humility (!) and
> >>>flexibility (!!!) that allows people not to be driven away from the good cause.
> >>>
> >>>I have defended you before, and will be happy to do so again as long as I
> >>>see that you do positive things for Wikipedia. But sometimes it is time to
> >>>listen and learn for all of us -- even for you.
> >>>
> >>>Respectfully,
> >>>
> >>>Olve
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>___________________
> >>>
> >>>Olve Utne
> >>>http://utne.nvg.org
> >>>
> >>>_______________________________________________
> >>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >_______________________________________________
> >Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> >
> >
>
>


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request,
	and Chinese Wikipedia again

body:
> > > His examples are just stubs. And in fact I can read it as well.
> >
> > His examples from www.cantonese.org.cn?
>
> No, but from the Cantonese test site on meta.

Did you get Alex's point?? Did you even visit the link she gave you? Geez.

> > > are only two possible solutions: 1) do not translate these terms into
> > > Cantonese, which makes a Cantonese Wikipedia a repetition of Chinese
> > > Wikipedia, or 2) translate, and no one understands.
> >
> > You just said that written Cantonese is so easy to understand and now
> > you say once a term is translated, no one will understand it?
>
> I mean technical terms can be tricky, because essentially no one knows
> what one technical term should be translated into Cantonese. And in a
> topic that is very technical (which does come out often in an
> encyclopedia), that will make reading and understanding difficult.

This is dubious at best. I thought you said Cantonese isn't written,
how can you translate something into a language that /doesn't exist/!?

Unlike general vocabulary, most very technical terms in Cantonese are
either identical to the Mandarin translation, or are a transliteration
of the English word but are widely used and widely understood
thruought the Cantonese-speaking world.

For example in Cantonese it is common to say "git8ta0" for guitar,
"fei0lam" for film, "zek0zi6fung0" for saxophone, and "tzeu0gu0lik0"
for chocolate. This isn't common in Mandarin, but it often appears in
Cantonese writing, and can be understood by people from all over the
Cantonese-speaking world.

Mark


subject:
Reputation (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request,
	and Chinese Wikipedia again)

body:
I have tried before, but nobody notices, nobody cares.

In fact, if anything, things have gotten worse for me whenever I have shut up.

Mark

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:54:11 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mark,
> The os:wikipedia is seen to be controversial because you are involved.
> You admit that you know/suspect this. Why then do you do what you do
> when you know that what you do makes things worse for others. Why do you
> not tone down your voice. Why do you not make sure that people start to
> appreciate you. THAT is what Stan among others says you are capable off
> when you apply yourself.
>
> Blame others, blame the bad environment on en: but when do you start
> looking at yourself and DO something about it?
>
> Groetjes,
>     GerardM
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >I had suspected this.
> >
> >Again you are not dealing with the real problem.
> >
> >The real problem is that the people you are talking to are being very
> >shallow. The Ossetic Wikipedia has not been controversial. To assume
> >it must be bad because I was involved is not only offensive but just
> >plain idiotic.
> >
> >Such an attitude is not appropriate in any situation. As before your
> >best option will be to request it personally from Brion. When others
> >give me shit, he is usually willing to create Wikipedias quietly as
> >long as the issues surrounding it have been resolved (ie, he was
> >reluctant to create fur: until he found out a native speaker had
> >eventually shown up). Brion is a great person and doesn't suffer from
> >the same illogicality and delusions which seem to be common now within
> >this operation (I now generally avoid en.wikipedia because it has gone
> >from what I believe was a truly healthy environment and was making
> >great progress to a toxic environment which seems to me to be going
> >slowly backwards, due not in the least to corruption at the top -
> >there is no admin accountability, and while this is good in that the
> >majority [ie, the usually-good admins] can't be bogged down by bogus
> >complaints, it is bad in that those admins who cause more harm than
> >good often simply stay as they are until they really cross the line
> >and it's with somebody who is brave enough to complain - but even many
> >non-admins of course seem to have this sort of toxic attitude too -
> >wikihate seems to be slowly devouring wikilove).
> >
> >I believe that while a portion of my bad reputation is deserved, the
> >great majority of it is due to hype and exaggeration. For example,
> >Jimbo seems to believe I just want zh.wikipedia to split up for
> >whatever frivolous reason I can find. IIRC when a working converter
> >was first showcased by Zhengzhu is when the rhetoric actually toned
> >down and compromise was found - I didn't say "Well conversion even if
> >it'ss perfect isn't good enough, we need separate Wikipedias no matter
> >what".
> >
> >And I know there is no lack of talk about me behind my back - I'm
> >actually in on quite a bit of it (you know who you are). This all
> >helps to formulate a "mob mentality" which changes things from "he's
> >annoying and he's done a couple of bad things which he apologised for
> >and some things which were debatable, as well as some relatively good
> >contributions" to "he burned our crops, raped our women, and enslaved
> >our children! get him!". (note: since I have said something similar to
> >some people in the past and they have been extremely uncool in
> >believing I was paranoid or stupid enough to actually think they
> >thought or said stuff about me raping women and burning crops... I
> >feel it is nessecary to make it known that this is an extreme
> >exaggeration on my part).
> >
> >I'm just thankful that, in addition to a pile of crap which is partly
> >of my own making and partly due to the crap-recycling machine known as
> >The General Population, I actually have people I can count on and
> >trust, and who understand me and whom I can count as true friends. To
> >those one or two of you who pretended to be my friends and then turned
> >into some of my worst enemies, really, that's disappointing but there
> >were signs from the beginning and it was na?ve of me to not notice
> >them.
> >
> >I have also noticed a great deal of backstabbing (you know who you
> >are) and broken promises (you also know who you are) in addition to
> >lies (ykwya), slander (ykwya), harassment (ykwya), and complaints
> >about me to authorities from cowardly individuals who are not willing
> >to say to my face that I irritate them (if you have a problem with me,
> >I am perfectly willing to hear that and if you're not excessively
> >condescending and can respect me as I try to respect you, I will
> >accept what you have to say and try to improve on it, as I have shown
> >in the past in the very few cases where somebody has come up to me
> >politely and told me what others would only tell to Tom W).
> >
> >I am also greatly appreciative of the support I have received from
> >many people, however small or tentative, because it often helps me to
> >look at things in perspective and take a step back and realise that
> >not everybody is a jackass and to let things go for a few weeks.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:17:55 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
> ><gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Mark,
> >>For your information, I have been trying quietly to find someone to
> >>create the Ossetian wikipedia. I have been refused several times because
> >>they are nauseated by all the huha around it. Literally: you are
> >>involved so it must be controversial. I have already spoken with someone
> >>on the board and they say "ask someone as it fullfills the requirements".
> >>
> >>So I do not care that much what you say but at this moment you have the
> >>Midas touch in reverse; everything you touch is considered shit.
> >>
> >>Groetjes,
> >>    GerardM
> >>
> >>Mark Williamson wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Oh, and I know I can at times be irritating and condescending
> >>>(although this isn't usually intentional, and when it is, well, you'd
> >>>better watch out). But when somebody makes a point of telling me
> >>>something they dislike specifically or warns me about something about
> >>>them, I don't go flagrantly violating it.
> >>>
> >>>Everybody can be irritating, but it takes a true master to send a
> >>>condescending message of advice to one who has in the past said he
> >>>doesn't much appreciate advice (I have enough advice as it is -
> >>>believe me, I've heard all of this before), especially when it's
> >>>delivered in such a manner.
> >>>
> >>>Mark
> >>>
> >>>On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:25:17 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I didn't say he didn't have a good point. I just said the method of
> >>>>delivery wasn't good.
> >>>>
> >>>>So it wasn't entirely lost on me, I just got a bit pissed at Stan for
> >>>>the way he said it.
> >>>>
> >>>>Mark
> >>>>
> >>>>On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:17:42 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>Dear Mark W.,
> >>>>>
> >>>>>At 05:09 23/02/2005 +0000, Mark Williamson wrote to Stan Shebs:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>"Thanks" for the advice.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>I have some for you, too - cool off a bit, and quit acting so
> >>>>>>condescending. It's very irritating, even in small doses. And as I have
> >>>>>>noted before, while friendly advice is usually appreciated by me, when it
> >>>>>>is given in a tone like this it really doesn't help anybody.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>As someone who has supported you before (even though I have no way of
> >>>>>telling whether you appreciated it), I ask you to break a little bit there
> >>>>>-- Stan Shebs' advice wasn't *that* bad, actually... It is easy for us all
> >>>>>to sound a bit condescending at times (and you probably think I sound
> >>>>>condescending right now), but you sound more than a bit condescending (and,
> >>>>>frankly, a bit irritating (since you brought up that term)) yourself at
> >>>>>times, you know ....
> >>>>>
> >>>>>I think this may be a good time for you to step back a bit and rethink your
> >>>>>debating strategies.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Listen to Stan -- and give what he said some thought. It won't hurt. You
> >>>>>don't need to post all your thoughts about it here (or anywhere else, at
> >>>>>that) -- but please try to listen. Maybe you find that he isn't right. But
> >>>>>in that case, maybe you could make your own life easier by finding out
> >>>>>why/how people misunderstand you -- and then find ways of avoiding these
> >>>>>misunderstandings...?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>I appreciate very much your struggle for "small"-language wikipedias, Mark.
> >>>>>I have also seen you contribute in many other great ways., and I hope that
> >>>>>you will continue the struggle for Wikipedia to become ever more democratic
> >>>>>and diverse within the limits of truth and humanism. But in this struggle,
> >>>>>one needs both a strong conviction AND a level of humility (!) and
> >>>>>flexibility (!!!) that allows people not to be driven away from the good cause.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>I have defended you before, and will be happy to do so again as long as I
> >>>>>see that you do positive things for Wikipedia. But sometimes it is time to
> >>>>>listen and learn for all of us -- even for you.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Respectfully,
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Olve
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>___________________
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Olve Utne
> >>>>>http://utne.nvg.org
> >>>>>
>


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report (updated)

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>For that matter, in the computerless world, even languages such as
>German and French and Spanish are relatively rare. We are talking here
>about targeting entire continents such as Africa which are best served
>by native-language content which we cannot currently provide in any
>way shape or form. We have growing Arabic and Afrikaans Wikipedias, a
>minimal Swahili Wikipedia, just beginning Wolof, Bambara, Zulu,
>Somali, and Amharic Wikipedias, and can already obviously provide
>English, French, and Portuguese-language content for those Africans
>who can speak these languages fluently.
>
>
I'd question that: I think Africa is "best served" by whatever content
the most people can read, which is likely to be English.  Even expanding
to say, four languages, the best choices are likely to be English,
French, Arabic, and Swahili (although I can't find very good statistics
on this).  Unless you have a plan to simultaneously publish editions in
500 different languages, publishing in the major languages---i.e. those
that the most people are able to make use of---seems like the best plan.

-Mark


from_name: Olve Utne

subject:
Reputation (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language
	request, and Chinese Wikipedia again)

body:
Dear Mark W.,

At 05:09 23/02/2005 +0000, Mark Williamson wrote to Stan Shebs:
>"Thanks" for the advice.
>
>I have some for you, too - cool off a bit, and quit acting so
>condescending. It's very irritating, even in small doses. And as I have
>noted before, while friendly advice is usually appreciated by me, when it
>is given in a tone like this it really doesn't help anybody.

As someone who has supported you before (even though I have no way of
telling whether you appreciated it), I ask you to break a little bit there
-- Stan Shebs' advice wasn't *that* bad, actually... It is easy for us all
to sound a bit condescending at times (and you probably think I sound
condescending right now), but you sound more than a bit condescending (and,
frankly, a bit irritating (since you brought up that term)) yourself at
times, you know ....

I think this may be a good time for you to step back a bit and rethink your
debating strategies.

Listen to Stan -- and give what he said some thought. It won't hurt. You
don't need to post all your thoughts about it here (or anywhere else, at
that) -- but please try to listen. Maybe you find that he isn't right. But
in that case, maybe you could make your own life easier by finding out
why/how people misunderstand you -- and then find ways of avoiding these
misunderstandings...?

I appreciate very much your struggle for "small"-language wikipedias, Mark.
I have also seen you contribute in many other great ways., and I hope that
you will continue the struggle for Wikipedia to become ever more democratic
and diverse within the limits of truth and humanism. But in this struggle,
one needs both a strong conviction AND a level of humility (!) and
flexibility (!!!) that allows people not to be driven away from the good cause.

I have defended you before, and will be happy to do so again as long as I
see that you do positive things for Wikipedia. But sometimes it is time to
listen and learn for all of us -- even for you.

Respectfully,

Olve

___________________

Olve Utne
http://utne.nvg.org


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>It is very linguistically imperialistic of you to assume that the
>entire population of Africa is best-served by English.
>
>
No, it is simply realistic.  I'm not trying to tell people what
languages they ought to know, merely observing what languages they *do*
know.  My goal is to get information to people in a language they can
read it, not some quest to promote particular languages.  If Espertanto
were more successful and most of the world spoke it, I'd be happy
publishing just one Wikipedia in Esperanto.  As that's not the case, we
have to do the next-best thing and publish in multiple languages,
choosing the languages to reach as many people as possible.

See, I speak Greek fluently.  Being Greek, I like the language, like
speaking it, and would like it to be preserved.  But it would be silly
to argue that Greek ought to be one of the first languages being
considered for a print version of Wikipedia.  Not only are there many
other languages with many more speakers, but many Greeks speak one of
those other languages anyway (mostly English, with some German).

Is there any good argument for putting Greek anywhere near the top of
the list of languages we ought to produce a print version of?  I don't
think there is---any of a number of languages (English, French, Arabic,
German, Spanish, Chinese, etc.) are more useful to a much larger number
of people.  So why would there be a similar argument for any other
language of about the same size (Greek has around ~11 million native
speakers)?

The question is, basically, "what reasonable subset of the world's
languages can we pick that will serve the largest number".  The answer
might include some languages we're not currently good at, but not that
many.  From what I can tell, the only languages in the top 10 whose
Wikipedias are fairly inactive are Bengali and Hindi, and possibly Russian.

-Mark


list: wikitech-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Spam

body:
Brion Vibber (brion at pobox.com) [050223 01:01]:

> The lists are restricted to registered users only, but we hold other
> mails in the moderation queue rather than discarding them outright.
> This means a lot of spam gets in the moderation queue, which nobody ever
> sees except the list admins. I keep hearing a rumor that we've set up
> SpamAssassin but I guess it hasn't really gotten done.

There's a LOT of spam in the moderation queue, but it does no harm sitting
there (unless the mail server is about to fall over with the weight of it).

The main reason to check the queues at all is just in case there's a
message from a human to allow through.

- d.


list: wikien-l

from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject:
[WikiEN-l] One reason why Wikipedia is not
	presently	classroom-safe

body:
James D. Forrester wrote:
>>We. Make. No. Choices. For. Anyone.
>
>
> Ah, but you do, by creating and maintaining the list of categories upon
> which to block; this choice is POV.

How? A user can choose to filter on any category they want, or none at
all. Once again, this was proposed _for the explicit purpose_ of making
_no_ choices for the user but only giving them a feasible method to make
their own choices.

 > What if I'm offended by images of goats?

What's wrong with an "images of goats" category? Seems to me it would be
a useful category even without filtering.

> Are you going to categorise every image in all conceiveable ways just so

We already categorize pages in a great deal of (sometimes ridiculous)
ways. I don't see the problem.

> that anyone can be rendered 'happy'? Really? What about when you, I, and
> everyone else committed to continuing with this have left (perhaps in a
> century through death)?

I can't even make sense out of this question. If no one's around that
cares to continue it, then it's probably moot at that stage.

 > What about when we have 10 million image deselection
> categories in all 300 languages? Who makes the judgement call that an image
> is, indeed, sufficiently containing of goats soas to render it necessary to
> be so-categorised?

What are you talking about?

> Block-all-images is a sensible, neutral, and, most critically,
> '''scalable''' system.

What's not scalable?


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV and category-based image filtering

body:
Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050223 03:21]:

> This illustrates the whole problem with this area, finding a middle ground.
> Although many of our potential readers might object to these images they are
> unobjectionable. That should not rule out sensible limits on offensive
> images. But we seem on Votes for Deletion to be running into some problems.
> I think one of the problems is a lack of feedback from consumers which
> affects those who take an extreme position. In the real world there are
> costs associated with exceeding reasonable bounds.

For printed works, those "costs" are a lack of sales.

Waht will happen to Wikipedia if we don't? People will abandon Wikipedia
and our servers will run too fast? (Or they'll come here for the H0T N3KK1D
P1X and our servers will melt?)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: blocking policy over personal attacks

references:
<cvb9v2$d87$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<BAY13-F39E54F6DBBEEBF0E830F2AB0610@phx.gbl>
	<1bfe3eb05022208317b8e9e4c@mail.gmail.com>
	<421B6104.9090106@runawaynet.com>

body:
Nicholas Knight (nknight at runawaynet.com) [050223 03:42]:
> Theresa Knott wrote:

> >Unfortunately for them, they have revealed thier IP address. If they
> >come back after the 23rd I suggest we block the IP as well as whatever
> >the latest sockpuppet is for a long period (a month say)
> >A reverse DNS gives 216-55-149-21.dedicated.abac.net.

> The "dedicated" bit made me think this is probably a static address and
> thus maybe some information could be found on its owner, so I googled
> it. It looks like a system at this address is serving as an exit node
> for an anonymizing network. This makes it virtually certain he'll be
> able to easily show up again with an entirely different IP coming from
> an entirely different ISP. It also makes it virtually impossible to say
> for certain whether it's anyone we know at this point.

Definitely troll, then. When the database is read-write, the address should
be blocked as an {{OpenProxy}} (Tor, to be specific).

- d.


from_name: Robert Brockway

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Problems?

body:
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Brion Vibber wrote:

> As far as we know no, no changes should be lost (except potentially a
> handful at the very end).
>
> Update logs are still replaying, but we're up to 42 minutes prior to the
> crash on one machine and still going. I don't expect problems.

Well done guys and girls.  I think some people got little sleep last
night.

Rob

--
Robert Brockway B.Sc.
Senior Technical Consultant, OpenTrend Solutions Ltd.
Phone: 416-669-3073 Email: rbrockway at opentrend.net http://www.opentrend.net
OpenTrend Solutions: Reliable, secure solutions to real world problems.
Contributing Member of Software in the Public Interest (http://www.spi-inc.org)


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject:
Africa info (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Day 4 Fund
	Drive Report (updated))

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>
>Another issue that we found at least on the Dutch Wikipedia, is that
>Africa is rather underrepresented in the encyclopedia. Getting more
>articles on African subjects would benefit both Wikipedia as a whole
>and a specific project to get information to Africa.
>
A couple things I've discovered is that in African topics one has
to go to those quaint old places called libraries (forget finding
anything online), and one can get to the edge of current research
very quickly. For English, there is the "Historical Dictionary"
series which is very useful, but in their bibliographies you'll
see comments like "only book on the subject".

The positive way to look at it is that it's an opportunity to
make WP the must-use reference, with the only online info on a
topic, while there are a thousand D-Day websites to "compete" with.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Downtime

body:
JAY JG wrote:
>
>>
>> Looking at a couple of articles yesterday, I noticed that all Monday
>> edits had been lost. Is that permanent?
>>
>> Jay.
>
>
> Oops, it appears the problem may have been fixed today.  Sorry about that.

The transaction log was probably still in the process of being replayed
when you noticed the loss of the Monday edits. It has since finished and
everything ''should'' be fine, so if you still notice any issues with
missing (or corrupted) edits now, be sure to report 'em to the tech crew.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] One reason why Wikipedia
	is	not	presently	classroom-safe

body:
Christiaan Briggs said:
>
> To use a browser as you suggest defers ALL images. This way defers some
> images.

That is true, and that is precisely the problem.  In my opinion deferring
*all* images is the only way that is consistent with NPOV.  *You*, as an
editor, cannot know which images *I* want deferred.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject:
Africa info (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Day 4
	Fund Drive Report (updated))

body:
Might try http://allafrica.com/

Fred

> From: Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 06:12:41 -0800
> To: Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: Africa info (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Day 4 Fund
> Drive Report (updated))
>
> Andre Engels wrote:
>
>>
>> Another issue that we found at least on the Dutch Wikipedia, is that
>> Africa is rather underrepresented in the encyclopedia. Getting more
>> articles on African subjects would benefit both Wikipedia as a whole
>> and a specific project to get information to Africa.
>>
> A couple things I've discovered is that in African topics one has
> to go to those quaint old places called libraries (forget finding
> anything online), and one can get to the edge of current research
> very quickly. For English, there is the "Historical Dictionary"
> series which is very useful, but in their bibliographies you'll
> see comments like "only book on the subject".
>
> The positive way to look at it is that it's an opportunity to
> make WP the must-use reference, with the only online info on a
> topic, while there are a thousand D-Day websites to "compete" with.
>
> Stan
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Conflict resolution on meta Wikimedia

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:
> I think that Gerard's paragraph that he added and you keep removing is
> highlighting the negative side of you idea. Why isn't he allowed to put
> that there?

The page is about implementation details. Philisophical discussion of
whether or not it should be implemented are off-topic.


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Oh, and I know I can at times be irritating and condescending

Finally something we agree upon!

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Mark,
For your information, I have been trying quietly to find someone to
create the Ossetian wikipedia. I have been refused several times because
they are nauseated by all the huha around it. Literally: you are
involved so it must be controversial. I have already spoken with someone
on the board and they say "ask someone as it fullfills the requirements".

So I do not care that much what you say but at this moment you have the
Midas touch in reverse; everything you touch is considered shit.

Groetjes,
    GerardM

Mark Williamson wrote:

>Oh, and I know I can at times be irritating and condescending
>(although this isn't usually intentional, and when it is, well, you'd
>better watch out). But when somebody makes a point of telling me
>something they dislike specifically or warns me about something about
>them, I don't go flagrantly violating it.
>
>Everybody can be irritating, but it takes a true master to send a
>condescending message of advice to one who has in the past said he
>doesn't much appreciate advice (I have enough advice as it is -
>believe me, I've heard all of this before), especially when it's
>delivered in such a manner.
>
>Mark
>
>On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:25:17 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I didn't say he didn't have a good point. I just said the method of
>>delivery wasn't good.
>>
>>So it wasn't entirely lost on me, I just got a bit pissed at Stan for
>>the way he said it.
>>
>>Mark
>>
>>On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:17:42 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Dear Mark W.,
>>>
>>>At 05:09 23/02/2005 +0000, Mark Williamson wrote to Stan Shebs:
>>>
>>>
>>>>"Thanks" for the advice.
>>>>
>>>>I have some for you, too - cool off a bit, and quit acting so
>>>>condescending. It's very irritating, even in small doses. And as I have
>>>>noted before, while friendly advice is usually appreciated by me, when it
>>>>is given in a tone like this it really doesn't help anybody.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>As someone who has supported you before (even though I have no way of
>>>telling whether you appreciated it), I ask you to break a little bit there
>>>-- Stan Shebs' advice wasn't *that* bad, actually... It is easy for us all
>>>to sound a bit condescending at times (and you probably think I sound
>>>condescending right now), but you sound more than a bit condescending (and,
>>>frankly, a bit irritating (since you brought up that term)) yourself at
>>>times, you know ....
>>>
>>>I think this may be a good time for you to step back a bit and rethink your
>>>debating strategies.
>>>
>>>Listen to Stan -- and give what he said some thought. It won't hurt. You
>>>don't need to post all your thoughts about it here (or anywhere else, at
>>>that) -- but please try to listen. Maybe you find that he isn't right. But
>>>in that case, maybe you could make your own life easier by finding out
>>>why/how people misunderstand you -- and then find ways of avoiding these
>>>misunderstandings...?
>>>
>>>I appreciate very much your struggle for "small"-language wikipedias, Mark.
>>>I have also seen you contribute in many other great ways., and I hope that
>>>you will continue the struggle for Wikipedia to become ever more democratic
>>>and diverse within the limits of truth and humanism. But in this struggle,
>>>one needs both a strong conviction AND a level of humility (!) and
>>>flexibility (!!!) that allows people not to be driven away from the good cause.
>>>
>>>I have defended you before, and will be happy to do so again as long as I
>>>see that you do positive things for Wikipedia. But sometimes it is time to
>>>listen and learn for all of us -- even for you.
>>>
>>>Respectfully,
>>>
>>>Olve
>>>
>>>
>>>___________________
>>>
>>>Olve Utne
>>>http://utne.nvg.org
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

body:
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 01:42:39AM -0500, Delirium wrote:
> speaking it, and would like it to be preserved.  But it would be silly
> to argue that Greek ought to be one of the first languages being
> considered for a print version of Wikipedia.  Not only are there many
> other languages with many more speakers, but many Greeks speak one of
> those other languages anyway (mostly English, with some German).

If you don't require it to be a print of the complete Wikipedia then German
was the first to be printed last year. You just gotta have the content and
find someone to print it. That's nowhere a political discussion but about
a lot of work.

About language statistics:
http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://verlag.tomk32.de/ - WikiReader Digest als Print-Ausgabe
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


from_name: Matt R

subject:
[WikiEN-l] One reason why Wikipedia is not presently
	classroom-safe

body:
 --- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Christiaan Briggs said:
> >
> > To use a browser as you suggest defers ALL images. This way defers some
> > images.
>
> That is true, and that is precisely the problem.  In my opinion deferring
> *all* images is the only way that is consistent with NPOV.  *You*, as an
> editor, cannot know which images *I* want deferred.

I don't think selecting only some images would be POV at all, but simply
pragmatism. Consider that Wikipedia also engages in "primary topic
disambiguation" -- that is, if there's a subject that needs disambiguation, and
it's considered that one topic is much more likely to be searched for than
another under that name, then the name points to the primary article. For
example visiting [[NSA]] leads to [[National Security Agency]], not [[National
Scrabble Association]].

The real reason we do primary topic disambiguation is for the user's
convenience: to save clicks (on average). Sometimes people misinterpret it as
judging "the most important" topic -- it's not; it's simply a convenience
feature for the reader.

I think there's an important parallel here -- what page goes at the page name
is judged (imposed!) by Wikipedia editors. Some readers might well be looking
for the [[National Stuttering Association]], but some editors have decided
that, on average, it's very likely you're looking for the article on the US
intelligence agency instead. This isn't imposing a Point of View, but making a
common-sense, heuristic judgement about which topics are popular and which or
not. Sometimes this can even lead to heated debate, but nobody would accuse
Wikipedia of censorship just because an extra click is needed to get to the
page on the [[Neurological Society of Australasia]].

To me, judging whether an image is very likely to be offensive is no different
a process than the pragmatic decisions made when using primary disambiguation:
we're seeking to minimise user inconvenience amongst competing concerns.

Matt

___________________________________________________________
ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


body:
Mark,
The os:wikipedia is seen to be controversial because you are involved.
You admit that you know/suspect this. Why then do you do what you do
when you know that what you do makes things worse for others. Why do you
not tone down your voice. Why do you not make sure that people start to
appreciate you. THAT is what Stan among others says you are capable off
when you apply yourself.

Blame others, blame the bad environment on en: but when do you start
looking at yourself and DO something about it?

Groetjes,
    GerardM

Mark Williamson wrote:

>I had suspected this.
>
>Again you are not dealing with the real problem.
>
>The real problem is that the people you are talking to are being very
>shallow. The Ossetic Wikipedia has not been controversial. To assume
>it must be bad because I was involved is not only offensive but just
>plain idiotic.
>
>Such an attitude is not appropriate in any situation. As before your
>best option will be to request it personally from Brion. When others
>give me shit, he is usually willing to create Wikipedias quietly as
>long as the issues surrounding it have been resolved (ie, he was
>reluctant to create fur: until he found out a native speaker had
>eventually shown up). Brion is a great person and doesn't suffer from
>the same illogicality and delusions which seem to be common now within
>this operation (I now generally avoid en.wikipedia because it has gone
>from what I believe was a truly healthy environment and was making
>great progress to a toxic environment which seems to me to be going
>slowly backwards, due not in the least to corruption at the top -
>there is no admin accountability, and while this is good in that the
>majority [ie, the usually-good admins] can't be bogged down by bogus
>complaints, it is bad in that those admins who cause more harm than
>good often simply stay as they are until they really cross the line
>and it's with somebody who is brave enough to complain - but even many
>non-admins of course seem to have this sort of toxic attitude too -
>wikihate seems to be slowly devouring wikilove).
>
>I believe that while a portion of my bad reputation is deserved, the
>great majority of it is due to hype and exaggeration. For example,
>Jimbo seems to believe I just want zh.wikipedia to split up for
>whatever frivolous reason I can find. IIRC when a working converter
>was first showcased by Zhengzhu is when the rhetoric actually toned
>down and compromise was found - I didn't say "Well conversion even if
>it'ss perfect isn't good enough, we need separate Wikipedias no matter
>what".
>
>And I know there is no lack of talk about me behind my back - I'm
>actually in on quite a bit of it (you know who you are). This all
>helps to formulate a "mob mentality" which changes things from "he's
>annoying and he's done a couple of bad things which he apologised for
>and some things which were debatable, as well as some relatively good
>contributions" to "he burned our crops, raped our women, and enslaved
>our children! get him!". (note: since I have said something similar to
>some people in the past and they have been extremely uncool in
>believing I was paranoid or stupid enough to actually think they
>thought or said stuff about me raping women and burning crops... I
>feel it is nessecary to make it known that this is an extreme
>exaggeration on my part).
>
>I'm just thankful that, in addition to a pile of crap which is partly
>of my own making and partly due to the crap-recycling machine known as
>The General Population, I actually have people I can count on and
>trust, and who understand me and whom I can count as true friends. To
>those one or two of you who pretended to be my friends and then turned
>into some of my worst enemies, really, that's disappointing but there
>were signs from the beginning and it was na?ve of me to not notice
>them.
>
>I have also noticed a great deal of backstabbing (you know who you
>are) and broken promises (you also know who you are) in addition to
>lies (ykwya), slander (ykwya), harassment (ykwya), and complaints
>about me to authorities from cowardly individuals who are not willing
>to say to my face that I irritate them (if you have a problem with me,
>I am perfectly willing to hear that and if you're not excessively
>condescending and can respect me as I try to respect you, I will
>accept what you have to say and try to improve on it, as I have shown
>in the past in the very few cases where somebody has come up to me
>politely and told me what others would only tell to Tom W).
>
>I am also greatly appreciative of the support I have received from
>many people, however small or tentative, because it often helps me to
>look at things in perspective and take a step back and realise that
>not everybody is a jackass and to let things go for a few weeks.
>
>Mark
>
>On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:17:55 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
><gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Mark,
>>For your information, I have been trying quietly to find someone to
>>create the Ossetian wikipedia. I have been refused several times because
>>they are nauseated by all the huha around it. Literally: you are
>>involved so it must be controversial. I have already spoken with someone
>>on the board and they say "ask someone as it fullfills the requirements".
>>
>>So I do not care that much what you say but at this moment you have the
>>Midas touch in reverse; everything you touch is considered shit.
>>
>>Groetjes,
>>    GerardM
>>
>>Mark Williamson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Oh, and I know I can at times be irritating and condescending
>>>(although this isn't usually intentional, and when it is, well, you'd
>>>better watch out). But when somebody makes a point of telling me
>>>something they dislike specifically or warns me about something about
>>>them, I don't go flagrantly violating it.
>>>
>>>Everybody can be irritating, but it takes a true master to send a
>>>condescending message of advice to one who has in the past said he
>>>doesn't much appreciate advice (I have enough advice as it is -
>>>believe me, I've heard all of this before), especially when it's
>>>delivered in such a manner.
>>>
>>>Mark
>>>
>>>On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:25:17 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I didn't say he didn't have a good point. I just said the method of
>>>>delivery wasn't good.
>>>>
>>>>So it wasn't entirely lost on me, I just got a bit pissed at Stan for
>>>>the way he said it.
>>>>
>>>>Mark
>>>>
>>>>On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:17:42 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Dear Mark W.,
>>>>>
>>>>>At 05:09 23/02/2005 +0000, Mark Williamson wrote to Stan Shebs:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>"Thanks" for the advice.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I have some for you, too - cool off a bit, and quit acting so
>>>>>>condescending. It's very irritating, even in small doses. And as I have
>>>>>>noted before, while friendly advice is usually appreciated by me, when it
>>>>>>is given in a tone like this it really doesn't help anybody.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>As someone who has supported you before (even though I have no way of
>>>>>telling whether you appreciated it), I ask you to break a little bit there
>>>>>-- Stan Shebs' advice wasn't *that* bad, actually... It is easy for us all
>>>>>to sound a bit condescending at times (and you probably think I sound
>>>>>condescending right now), but you sound more than a bit condescending (and,
>>>>>frankly, a bit irritating (since you brought up that term)) yourself at
>>>>>times, you know ....
>>>>>
>>>>>I think this may be a good time for you to step back a bit and rethink your
>>>>>debating strategies.
>>>>>
>>>>>Listen to Stan -- and give what he said some thought. It won't hurt. You
>>>>>don't need to post all your thoughts about it here (or anywhere else, at
>>>>>that) -- but please try to listen. Maybe you find that he isn't right. But
>>>>>in that case, maybe you could make your own life easier by finding out
>>>>>why/how people misunderstand you -- and then find ways of avoiding these
>>>>>misunderstandings...?
>>>>>
>>>>>I appreciate very much your struggle for "small"-language wikipedias, Mark.
>>>>>I have also seen you contribute in many other great ways., and I hope that
>>>>>you will continue the struggle for Wikipedia to become ever more democratic
>>>>>and diverse within the limits of truth and humanism. But in this struggle,
>>>>>one needs both a strong conviction AND a level of humility (!) and
>>>>>flexibility (!!!) that allows people not to be driven away from the good cause.
>>>>>
>>>>>I have defended you before, and will be happy to do so again as long as I
>>>>>see that you do positive things for Wikipedia. But sometimes it is time to
>>>>>listen and learn for all of us -- even for you.
>>>>>
>>>>>Respectfully,
>>>>>
>>>>>Olve
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>___________________
>>>>>
>>>>>Olve Utne
>>>>>http://utne.nvg.org
>>>>>


body:
Mark,
How can things get worse when the things that you stand for do NOT
happen because you are involved. I have nothing with Ossetian, only
because I know they fulfill the requirements and because I know why
things do not happen do I involve myself.

When you try to be nice for a week nobody notices, when you behave for a
month people start to relax, when you start to make friendly overtures
in two months, people may be willing to listen to you again. But keep
the volume down please.

Thanks,
    GerardM

Mark Williamson wrote:

>I have tried before, but nobody notices, nobody cares.
>
>In fact, if anything, things have gotten worse for me whenever I have shut up.
>
>Mark
>
>On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:54:11 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
><gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Mark,
>>The os:wikipedia is seen to be controversial because you are involved.
>>You admit that you know/suspect this. Why then do you do what you do
>>when you know that what you do makes things worse for others. Why do you
>>not tone down your voice. Why do you not make sure that people start to
>>appreciate you. THAT is what Stan among others says you are capable off
>>when you apply yourself.
>>
>>Blame others, blame the bad environment on en: but when do you start
>>looking at yourself and DO something about it?
>>
>>Groetjes,
>>    GerardM
>>
>>Mark Williamson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I had suspected this.
>>>
>>>Again you are not dealing with the real problem.
>>>
>>>The real problem is that the people you are talking to are being very
>>>shallow. The Ossetic Wikipedia has not been controversial. To assume
>>>it must be bad because I was involved is not only offensive but just
>>>plain idiotic.
>>>
>>>Such an attitude is not appropriate in any situation. As before your
>>>best option will be to request it personally from Brion. When others
>>>give me shit, he is usually willing to create Wikipedias quietly as
>>>long as the issues surrounding it have been resolved (ie, he was
>>>reluctant to create fur: until he found out a native speaker had
>>>eventually shown up). Brion is a great person and doesn't suffer from
>>>the same illogicality and delusions which seem to be common now within
>>>this operation (I now generally avoid en.wikipedia because it has gone
>>>
>>>
>>>from what I believe was a truly healthy environment and was making
>>
>>
>>>great progress to a toxic environment which seems to me to be going
>>>slowly backwards, due not in the least to corruption at the top -
>>>there is no admin accountability, and while this is good in that the
>>>majority [ie, the usually-good admins] can't be bogged down by bogus
>>>complaints, it is bad in that those admins who cause more harm than
>>>good often simply stay as they are until they really cross the line
>>>and it's with somebody who is brave enough to complain - but even many
>>>non-admins of course seem to have this sort of toxic attitude too -
>>>wikihate seems to be slowly devouring wikilove).
>>>
>>>I believe that while a portion of my bad reputation is deserved, the
>>>great majority of it is due to hype and exaggeration. For example,
>>>Jimbo seems to believe I just want zh.wikipedia to split up for
>>>whatever frivolous reason I can find. IIRC when a working converter
>>>was first showcased by Zhengzhu is when the rhetoric actually toned
>>>down and compromise was found - I didn't say "Well conversion even if
>>>it'ss perfect isn't good enough, we need separate Wikipedias no matter
>>>what".
>>>
>>>And I know there is no lack of talk about me behind my back - I'm
>>>actually in on quite a bit of it (you know who you are). This all
>>>helps to formulate a "mob mentality" which changes things from "he's
>>>annoying and he's done a couple of bad things which he apologised for
>>>and some things which were debatable, as well as some relatively good
>>>contributions" to "he burned our crops, raped our women, and enslaved
>>>our children! get him!". (note: since I have said something similar to
>>>some people in the past and they have been extremely uncool in
>>>believing I was paranoid or stupid enough to actually think they
>>>thought or said stuff about me raping women and burning crops... I
>>>feel it is nessecary to make it known that this is an extreme
>>>exaggeration on my part).
>>>
>>>I'm just thankful that, in addition to a pile of crap which is partly
>>>of my own making and partly due to the crap-recycling machine known as
>>>The General Population, I actually have people I can count on and
>>>trust, and who understand me and whom I can count as true friends. To
>>>those one or two of you who pretended to be my friends and then turned
>>>into some of my worst enemies, really, that's disappointing but there
>>>were signs from the beginning and it was na?ve of me to not notice
>>>them.
>>>
>>>I have also noticed a great deal of backstabbing (you know who you
>>>are) and broken promises (you also know who you are) in addition to
>>>lies (ykwya), slander (ykwya), harassment (ykwya), and complaints
>>>about me to authorities from cowardly individuals who are not willing
>>>to say to my face that I irritate them (if you have a problem with me,
>>>I am perfectly willing to hear that and if you're not excessively
>>>condescending and can respect me as I try to respect you, I will
>>>accept what you have to say and try to improve on it, as I have shown
>>>in the past in the very few cases where somebody has come up to me
>>>politely and told me what others would only tell to Tom W).
>>>
>>>I am also greatly appreciative of the support I have received from
>>>many people, however small or tentative, because it often helps me to
>>>look at things in perspective and take a step back and realise that
>>>not everybody is a jackass and to let things go for a few weeks.
>>>
>>>Mark
>>>
>>>On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:17:55 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
>>><gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Mark,
>>>>For your information, I have been trying quietly to find someone to
>>>>create the Ossetian wikipedia. I have been refused several times because
>>>>they are nauseated by all the huha around it. Literally: you are
>>>>involved so it must be controversial. I have already spoken with someone
>>>>on the board and they say "ask someone as it fullfills the requirements".
>>>>
>>>>So I do not care that much what you say but at this moment you have the
>>>>Midas touch in reverse; everything you touch is considered shit.
>>>>
>>>>Groetjes,
>>>>   GerardM
>>>>
>>>>Mark Williamson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Oh, and I know I can at times be irritating and condescending
>>>>>(although this isn't usually intentional, and when it is, well, you'd
>>>>>better watch out). But when somebody makes a point of telling me
>>>>>something they dislike specifically or warns me about something about
>>>>>them, I don't go flagrantly violating it.
>>>>>
>>>>>Everybody can be irritating, but it takes a true master to send a
>>>>>condescending message of advice to one who has in the past said he
>>>>>doesn't much appreciate advice (I have enough advice as it is -
>>>>>believe me, I've heard all of this before), especially when it's
>>>>>delivered in such a manner.
>>>>>
>>>>>Mark
>>>>>
>>>>>On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:25:17 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>I didn't say he didn't have a good point. I just said the method of
>>>>>>delivery wasn't good.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>So it wasn't entirely lost on me, I just got a bit pissed at Stan for
>>>>>>the way he said it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Mark
>>>>>>
>>>>>>On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:17:42 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Dear Mark W.,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>At 05:09 23/02/2005 +0000, Mark Williamson wrote to Stan Shebs:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>"Thanks" for the advice.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>I have some for you, too - cool off a bit, and quit acting so
>>>>>>>>condescending. It's very irritating, even in small doses. And as I have
>>>>>>>>noted before, while friendly advice is usually appreciated by me, when it
>>>>>>>>is given in a tone like this it really doesn't help anybody.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>As someone who has supported you before (even though I have no way of
>>>>>>>telling whether you appreciated it), I ask you to break a little bit there
>>>>>>>-- Stan Shebs' advice wasn't *that* bad, actually... It is easy for us all
>>>>>>>to sound a bit condescending at times (and you probably think I sound
>>>>>>>condescending right now), but you sound more than a bit condescending (and,
>>>>>>>frankly, a bit irritating (since you brought up that term)) yourself at
>>>>>>>times, you know ....
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I think this may be a good time for you to step back a bit and rethink your
>>>>>>>debating strategies.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Listen to Stan -- and give what he said some thought. It won't hurt. You
>>>>>>>don't need to post all your thoughts about it here (or anywhere else, at
>>>>>>>that) -- but please try to listen. Maybe you find that he isn't right. But
>>>>>>>in that case, maybe you could make your own life easier by finding out
>>>>>>>why/how people misunderstand you -- and then find ways of avoiding these
>>>>>>>misunderstandings...?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I appreciate very much your struggle for "small"-language wikipedias, Mark.
>>>>>>>I have also seen you contribute in many other great ways., and I hope that
>>>>>>>you will continue the struggle for Wikipedia to become ever more democratic
>>>>>>>and diverse within the limits of truth and humanism. But in this struggle,
>>>>>>>one needs both a strong conviction AND a level of humility (!) and
>>>>>>>flexibility (!!!) that allows people not to be driven away from the good cause.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I have defended you before, and will be happy to do so again as long as I
>>>>>>>see that you do positive things for Wikipedia. But sometimes it is time to
>>>>>>>listen and learn for all of us -- even for you.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Respectfully,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Olve
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>___________________
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Olve Utne
>>>>>>>http://utne.nvg.org
>>>>>>>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Spam

body:
Yann Forget (yann at forget-me.net) [050223 09:21]:
> Le Tuesday 22 February 2005 16:01, David Gerard a ?crit :

> > There's a LOT of spam in the moderation queue, but it does no harm sitting
> > there (unless the mail server is about to fall over with the weight of it).

> The amount of spams has become so much that managing a list is now a burden.
> So yes, it does harm, because it wastes my time as list administrator.
> I?am sure I am not alone in this case.

Ah - I see what comes into wikien-l, which most people aren't interested in
unless they subscribe. We have four active people with admin access, which
helps a lot. I expect wikitech-l gets a lot more unsubscribed real humans
posting.

I see wikitech-l only has two admins. Adding more may help in the short
term, while waiting on a spam filter.

- d.


from_name: Stephen Forrest

body:
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 14:29:22 +0800, Sheng Jiong <sheng.jiong at gmail.com> wrote:

> I mean technical terms can be tricky, because essentially no one knows
> what one technical term should be translated into Cantonese. And in a
> topic that is very technical (which does come out often in an
> encyclopedia), that will make reading and understanding difficult.

This is an issue with many small Wikipedias.  I suspect that many
speakers of African languages would use some European language (often
the former colonial one) for discussion of technical topics.  Writing
about such topics in their own language may be unnatural and require
frequent coining of new terms.  Yet precedent suggests that this
wouldn't be an impediment to granting a Wikipedia to such a language,
if it were requested.  By extension, it probably shouldn't be an
impediment to a Cantonese Wikipedia.

Steve


from_name: Violet/Riga

body:
I don't see how anyone can object to categorising images and allowing
a user-controllable filter.  Note the "user-controllable" bit there -
nothing is forced on anyone and people not liking censorship do not
have to be involved in it in any way.

I think the on-going arguments and frequently-received complaints
should make it obvious enough that there is a problem and to blindly
state that there should be no form of censorship is just crazy.
Wikipedia is a massively popular site and we have a duty to come up
with a policy - which other site comparable to ours in terms of
popularity has no censorship?  Music, films and TV are censored all
the time but we have to accept that.  With the proposed method we can
choose the type of censorship (if any at all) personally.

The main argument will come as to which filters are on by default and
thus affect anon browsers.


from_name: James D. Forrester

body:
On Wednesday, February 23, 2005 7:13 AM, Nicholas Knight
<nknight at runawaynet.com> wrote:

> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> > Christiaan Briggs said:
> >
> > > To use a browser as you suggest defers ALL images. This way
> > > defers some images.
> >
> > That is true, and that is precisely the problem.  In my opinion
> > deferring *all* images is the only way that is consistent with
> > NPOV. *You*, as an editor, cannot know which images *I* want
> > deferred.
>
> Which is _exactly_ why the proposal was created. Images will be
> categorized. If a user wants a certain category of images deferred,
> they can pay a visit to their preferences and add that category to
> the filter.
>
> We. Make. No. Choices. For. Anyone.

Ah, but you do, by creating and maintaining the list of categories upon
which to block; this choice is POV. What if I'm offended by images of goats?
Are you going to categorise every image in all conceiveable ways just so
that anyone can be rendered 'happy'? Really? What about when you, I, and
everyone else committed to continuing with this have left (perhaps in a
century through death)? What about when we have 10 million image deselection
categories in all 300 languages? Who makes the judgement call that an image
is, indeed, sufficiently containing of goats soas to render it necessary to
be so-categorised?

Block-all-images is a sensible, neutral, and, most critically,
'''scalable''' system.

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk
IM  : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


body:
> Ah, but you do, by creating and maintaining the list of categories upon
> which to block; this choice is POV. What if I'm offended by images of goats?
> Are you going to categorise every image in all conceiveable ways just so
> that anyone can be rendered 'happy'? Really? What about when you, I, and
> everyone else committed to continuing with this have left (perhaps in a
> century through death)? What about when we have 10 million image deselection
> categories in all 300 languages? Who makes the judgement call that an image
> is, indeed, sufficiently containing of goats soas to render it necessary to
> be so-categorised?
>
> Block-all-images is a sensible, neutral, and, most critically,
> '''scalable''' system.
>
> Yours,
> --
> James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

I think the number of people offended by images of goats can be seen
as a small number.  The point would be that the major categories of
offensive image (porn, gore, whatever) would be drawn up.  If the
image does not fit into any category then it will have to remain
uncensored (or the option of not showing any images could be used).
Yes, there will be disputes over the categories but they will be much
better handled than what's been going on at [[Clitoris]] and the like.
 Policies regarding this could easily be drawn up, too.


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Downtime

body:
>On 22 Feb 2005, at 10:01 pm, Rick wrote:
>
>>Any estimates on when Wikipedia will be back up?
>
>22 Feb 2005 13:48:17 +0100 (CET) Brion Vibber wrote:
>>I don't know when exactly we'll have everything editable again, but it
>>should be within 12 hours.
>
>Christiaan

Looking at a couple of articles yesterday, I noticed that all Monday edits
had been lost. Is that permanent?

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Downtime

body:
>
>Looking at a couple of articles yesterday, I noticed that all Monday edits
>had been lost. Is that permanent?
>
>Jay.

Oops, it appears the problem may have been fixed today.  Sorry about that.

Jay.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Problems?

body:
Brion Vibber said:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Update logs are still replaying, but we're up to 42 minutes prior to
>> the crash on one machine and still going. I don't expect problems.
>
> With two servers fully recovered we've got the wikis up for read-write
> access; editing is open. Total time from crash to restoring edit
> service was about 24 hours, 10 minutes. Sigh.
>
> Some special pages (including contribs and watchlist) are off for the
> moment to reduce server load until we have more machines up. Some
> things remain a little wonky.
>
Interesting discussion on Slashdot about the relative recoverability of
Postgresql.  If we stay with open source DBMS, perhaps at least some of
the database servers should be running alternative software.


from_name: Henry Tan-Tenn

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: National Public Radio (US): "Wikipedia's Growth
 Comes with Concerns"

body:
Daniel Mayer ti 2005/2/20 EP 02:33 sia-kong:

> The new Britannica FUD was interesting: Their new take is that Wikipedia is too
> detailed and one of the things that makes EB great is that they make careful
> decisions on what is most important to include.
>
> So that looks to me like they are giving up and declaring their much smaller
> size and long time between updates to be 'features.' :)

EB will do well sticking to its real strengths, most notably (as far as
I can tell) its _uniformly_ good if not excellent English and a general
consistency in style, matched if not exceeded by a subset in en:, ie the
featured articles.


body:
Mark Williamson said:
>
> My point is, I would be heartbroken if English copies of Wikipedia
> print editions are handed out in schools on Hopi, or the school in
> Havasupai, or schools in the Tohono O'odham Nation or the Navajo
> Nation or the Gaeltachta.

English is a very widely spoken second language (a compulsory subject in
Chinese schools, for instance) and the English language Wikipedia is by
far the most mature.  Soon a person will not be considered educated unless
he can read, if not speak and write, English.


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report

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

Mark Williamson schrieb:
| "Please don't go with google. - keep up the great work! Don't go with
| google please, stay independant!" - anon
| "Don't move to Google!" - anonymous Polish donor

These two show that we need to make clear (time and again) that noone's
*moving* to google. The power faliure is a prime example of why there
should be at least an offsite cache, maybe with a database slave to keep
at least read-only mode running, and as "live backup".

| And, as yesterday, lots of "wieder so"s.

That would be "again, likewise". Hope they're not refering to the power
faliure ;-)
"Weiter so" (keep going) is more likely :-)

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

iD8DBQFCHEnSCZKBJbEFcz0RAvMXAJ9ystpsHxetMPoNT2BcGHP/PPXWaQCfZYKX
VjDrpsvBnUmqL/mFA4PD3J0=
=mjrv
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
Matt R said:
>
> To me, judging whether an image is very likely to be offensive is no
> different a process than the pragmatic decisions made when using
> primary disambiguation: we're seeking to minimise user inconvenience
> amongst competing concerns.
>
Yes, I think you're probably right.  This is why I don't have a great
problem with the principle of server-side per-user filtering.  On the
practice of the thing, I am less hopeful.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Problems?

body:
Gerard Meijssen said:
>
> So maybe PostgreSQL is better at recovery. It is not the whole
> solution,  it would at best solve one problem. It would create others.

Yes, it may do.  But clearly recovery could be much better.  Modern
database systems, even very large ones, should not become completely
corrupted simply because the power fails.  It seems to have been a matter
of luck that one uncorrupted system existed.


from_name: Yann Forget

body:
Le Wednesday 23 February 2005 00:20, Brion Vibber a ?crit :
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > Update logs are still replaying, but we're up to 42 minutes prior to the
> > crash on one machine and still going. I don't expect problems.
>
> With two servers fully recovered we've got the wikis up for read-write
> access; editing is open. Total time from crash to restoring edit service
> was about 24 hours, 10 minutes. Sigh.
>
> Some special pages (including contribs and watchlist) are off for the
> moment to reduce server load until we have more machines up. Some things
> remain a little wonky.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Thanks a lot for your work !

Yann

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


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

body:
  Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs said:
>>
>> To use a browser as you suggest defers ALL images. This way defers
>> some images.
>
> That is true, and that is precisely the problem.  In my opinion
> deferring *all* images is the only way that is consistent with NPOV.
> *You*, as an editor, cannot know which images *I* want deferred.

You are not being honest with yourself or I Tony.

Christiaan


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>I have tried before, but nobody notices, nobody cares.
>
>In fact, if anything, things have gotten worse for me whenever I have shut up.
>
>Mark
>
Just because nobody says anything does not mean that nobody notices or
cares.  If I am not involved with the subjects for which you advocate it
doesn't matter if I notice or care.  There are many things said on this
list and elsewhere that I notice and decide that my best contribution to
the subject would be to say nothing.  For most of us interest in the
Ossetian language will at best never be any more than marginal.  We all
feel that our time is best spent on other issues.

It may be sad that many of these lesser known languages are on the path
to extinction, but unless they generate their own will to live it's not
going to happen.  The non-speakers can do no more than let them know
that the means are available.  Nagging about it will accomplish no more
than somebody's mother nagging after her kid to clean up his room.

You don't need to be noticed by everybody unless you're running for
office.  If you reduce the number of your comments it's only natural
that the number of responses will drop.  If you then concentrate your
efforts on a few things, and work co-operatively with others there  to
find a common solution you will be noticed there.  The notice will
certainly be from a smaller group, but it will be a group whose opinion
matters more in that context.

Ec


body:
Christiaan Briggs said:
>  Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
>> Christiaan Briggs said:
>>>
>>> To use a browser as you suggest defers ALL images. This way defers
>>> some images.
>>
>> That is true, and that is precisely the problem.  In my opinion
>> deferring *all* images is the only way that is consistent with NPOV.
>> *You*, as an editor, cannot know which images *I* want deferred.
>
> You are not being honest with yourself or I Tony.

Please refrain from personal attacks.


from_name: John Liu

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia problems

body:
First of all, forgive me if I'm on the wrong mailing list or asking in
the wrong place.  I couldn't really find anywhere to ask about what's
happening.  I'm not a regular contributor but lurks a lot :)

Some changes I've added just prior to the power failure aren't
appearing in the main article, while there seems to be records in the
history, requests for diff returns database errors.

My particular case was an article on MB boardgame
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Crusade

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Space_Crusade&action=history
Changes on 21/02/2005 are all missing :(

It's no big deal if this can't be recovered, I'll just write again :)
But I'm curious whether this is the only case.

jliu


from_name: Kate Turner

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wiki Problems?

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc:

> Interesting discussion on Slashdot about the relative recoverability of
> Postgresql.  If we stay with open source DBMS, perhaps at least some of
> the database servers should be running alternative software.

it's probably a little early to blame mysql.  most of livejournal's
problems, when the same thing happened to them, were caused by problems
with their RAID controllers rather than mysql itself.

kate.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages for Africa

body:
Andy Rabagliati wrote:

>On Wed, 23 Feb 2005, Delirium wrote:
>
>
>>I'd question that: I think Africa is "best served" by whatever content
>>the most people can read, which is likely to be English.  Even expanding
>>to say, four languages, the best choices are likely to be English,
>>French, Arabic, and Swahili (although I can't find very good statistics
>>on this).
>>
>>
>I would agree with your statement, and choice of languages. One might
>throw Portuguese in there, but that is really only Angola and
>Mozambique.
>
Also Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde

Equatorial Guinea is a former Spanish colony, but I can't be sure of the
status of Spanish in Western Sahara.  Amharic is unusual among
sub-Saharan languages in that it also has a long written tradition.

Ec


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Christiaan Briggs said:
>>  Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>> Christiaan Briggs said:
>>>> To use a browser as you suggest defers ALL images. This way defers
>>>> some images.
>>>
>>> That is true, and that is precisely the problem.  In my opinion
>>> deferring *all* images is the only way that is consistent with NPOV.
>>> *You*, as an editor, cannot know which images *I* want deferred.
>>
>> You are not being honest with yourself or I Tony.
>
> Please refrain from personal attacks.

It is only an observation of events Tony. You refuse to discuss this
matter on meta wishing instead to keep going around in circles on this
email list. Do you not remember that it was you who described the
process of deference leaving the user precisely in control:

"No blocking of any kind occurs; further requests for material are
simply deferred until the user requests them.  This is a simple and
elegant solution to the filtering problem; the user decides precisely
what he does and does not want to see."

I do not expect a rational response from you I'm afraid.

Christiaan


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
Christiaan Briggs said:
> Do you not remember that it was you who described the
> process of deference leaving the user precisely in control:
>
> "No blocking of any kind occurs; further requests for material are
> simply deferred until the user requests them.  This is a simple and
> elegant solution to the filtering problem; the user decides precisely
> what he does and does not want to see."
>

The above description refers to the method that I use, not the method that
you propose.  It is not deferring the loading of some images, but
deferring the loading of *all* images, that leaves control in the hands of
the user.
And I've asked you nicely, twice, but you continue with your personal
attacks.  I ask you a third time, please refrain.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wiki Problems?

body:
Kate Turner said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc:
>
>> Interesting discussion on Slashdot about the relative recoverability
>> of Postgresql.  If we stay with open source DBMS, perhaps at least
>> some of the database servers should be running alternative software.
>
> it's probably a little early to blame mysql.  most of livejournal's
> problems, when the same thing happened to them, were caused by problems
> with their RAID controllers rather than mysql itself.

Thanks for the background.  And thanks for your hard work in getting our
Wiki back up and running.


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Problems?

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Brion Vibber said:
>
>
>>Brion Vibber wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Update logs are still replaying, but we're up to 42 minutes prior to
>>>the crash on one machine and still going. I don't expect problems.
>>>
>>>
>>With two servers fully recovered we've got the wikis up for read-write
>>access; editing is open. Total time from crash to restoring edit
>>service was about 24 hours, 10 minutes. Sigh.
>>
>>Some special pages (including contribs and watchlist) are off for the
>>moment to reduce server load until we have more machines up. Some
>>things remain a little wonky.
>>
>>
>>
>Interesting discussion on Slashdot about the relative recoverability of
>Postgresql.  If we stay with open source DBMS, perhaps at least some of
>the database servers should be running alternative software.
>
>
>
>
Kudos to the developers for their heroic efforts in bringing everything
back from what threatened to be a serious data loss.

Regarding using different databases: I agree, diversity is good.
However, I should point out that I have destroyed a PostgreSQL database
on one occasion by power-cycling a machine (it was running VACUUM at the
time). This makes me sceptical about relying on software diversity
alone, particularly in the face of crude threats such as power loss,
fire, tornadoes and flood.

The value of the Wikipedia data is now big enough that it worth putting
a formal disaster recovery plan in place.

A good idea in the short term might be to keep a slave database or two
offsite, so that it they are unlikely to crash at the same time as the
central site. Note that online slaves are not a 100% solution to data
corruption, as they will faithfully mirror any corruption which
accumulates from causes other than database failure.

This emphasizes the importance of taking and saving snapshot dumps. At
the moment, keeping off-site dumps is done on an ad-hoc basis by
volunteers.  This should certainly be formalized to include the
automatic creation and archiving of dumps off-site, in addition to
running offsite slave databases.  At a data rate of only 10 Mbits/s, a
170GB offsite backup would take only 38 hours to move offsite. At these
sorts of rates, monthly backups could be lodged with any of a number of
mirror services, perhaps organizations such as universities, the UK
mirror service and Internet artchive might be interested in doing this?

The current worst case would be physical destruction of the servers at
the Florida colo; the data is both priceless and uninsurable, but is the
server farm insured against this sort of event?

-- Neil


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Problems?

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Brion Vibber said:
>
>
>>Brion Vibber wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Update logs are still replaying, but we're up to 42 minutes prior to
>>>the crash on one machine and still going. I don't expect problems.
>>>
>>>
>>With two servers fully recovered we've got the wikis up for read-write
>>access; editing is open. Total time from crash to restoring edit
>>service was about 24 hours, 10 minutes. Sigh.
>>
>>Some special pages (including contribs and watchlist) are off for the
>>moment to reduce server load until we have more machines up. Some
>>things remain a little wonky.
>>
>>
>>
>Interesting discussion on Slashdot about the relative recoverability of
>Postgresql.  If we stay with open source DBMS, perhaps at least some of
>the database servers should be running alternative software.
>
At this moment the current colo is a single point of failure. The French
squids will not work if the database is not available. If you want a
100% uptime, you need the complete stack of software elsewhere to allow
for a fail over. This is something we do not do yet. When we have full
redundancy, we will still have problems. We will have different problems.

So maybe PostgreSQL is better at recovery. It is not the whole solution,
it would at best solve one problem. It would create others.

Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs said:
>> Do you not remember that it was you who described the process of
>> deference leaving the user precisely in control:
>>
>> "No blocking of any kind occurs; further requests for material are
>> simply deferred until the user requests them.  This is a simple and
>> elegant solution to the filtering problem; the user decides precisely
>> what he does and does not want to see."
>
> The above description refers to the method that I use, not the method
> that you propose.

In fact the above passage refers to both methods. The only difference
being that your method defers all images while the method I have
described defers only some images. Can you really not see this?

Christiaan


from_name: pinco

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages for Africa

body:
Andy Rabagliati ha scritto:

>One might take Swahili out, as many literate Swahili-speakers also
>speak English.

Is this criterion applicable outside Africa?
That could be very interesting.

Ciao,
Nino

--
http://www.vessella.it (italiano, esperanto, kiswahili, english)
http://www.changamano.org (Iniziative di solidarieta` per la Tanzania)
http://www.lernado.it (Articoli di quotidiani della Tanzania, Corso di lingua swahili, Corso di lingua esperanto, Vocabolario esperanto-italiano, Jifunze lugha ya Kiesperanto, Kamusi ya Kiesperanto)


from_name: Delirium

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> We are creating a resource in English, French and name all the other
> languages. These resources are culturally biased. When people want to
> create their own wikipedia, a wikipedia in their own language, we
> should support that. If there is one thing, we have time and money to
> work on our projects. We can make them as NPOV as our community allows
> us to be.
>
> When a new project is started, it has to get momentum but when you
> watch the subjects that THEY choose to write about, you know that it
> is significantly different from what the emphasis is on the en fr nl
> projects. African wikipedia do not start writing about America, France
> the Netherlands. They write about their country, their language, their
> government, their issues. Even with all the good intentions that we
> have, we cannot write a proper encyclopedia that is relevant in
> another culture. What we can do is enable people to write an
> encyclopedia in their own language.

I would argue those would be *much more* biased than the en: Wikipedia,
and therefore worse resources.  It's true that the en Wikipedia has
cultural bias, but it's rapidly being averaged out due to the wide
diversity of contributors.  The articles on Hong Kong, for example, are
largely written by people from Hong Kong.  A Wikipedia in a language
spoken only in Africa will not have this benefit, as few people in Hong
Kong speak any African languages.

Even as a Greek person, would I go to the Greek Wikipedia for neutral
information on the Greek-Turkey conflict?  Probably not.

-Mark


body:
Christiaan Briggs said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> In fact the above passage refers to both methods.

Christiaan, you're now at the point where you're trying to tell me what my
own sentences mean.  Clearly we cannot *both* be thinking straight, so
further discussion would be redundant.


from_name: Richard Holton

body:
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:36:19 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> The article [[meta:End-user content suppression]] was recently renamed
> to [[meta:End-user image suppression]]. It is an article that descibes
> how we should tag our content eh images so that people can choose to
> have content presented to them or not. The proposers of this idea assume
> that mechanism for censorship will only be triggered by individuals and,
> that it is to prevent them from coming across content they may find
> disturbing. They fail to answer several questions:

The purpose of the page is to discuss the implementation (though I
would suggest yet another name change to make this clear)., It is
unrealistic to expect at this stage that all questions would be
answered.

However, I can give you my personal answers to these questions:

> * Who is going to add these tags
The tags would be normal [[category:xxx]] tags. Such tags are already
being added, and would continue to be added by those who are
interested in adding them. Certainly not everyone would be required to
participate, but I would expect that those who are opposed to
censorship would not actively remove these tags -- since that would in
fact be a form of censorship.

> * What is the basis for tagging content. What to be done when someone
> comes along who wants even more tagging or the tagging of different
> categories.
The basis for tagging would be whatever basis people want to tag them.
As I see it, useful tags for images would include tags based on
content: clowns, temples, butterflies, sexual positions, etc.

Nothing needs to be done when someone wants to add even more tagging
of different categories. If a category in inherently POV (excellent
bands, disgusting people, offensive image) those categories would fall
under the same axe as any other POV.

> * How do you prevent organisations or countries from censoring our
> content using our own mechanism
How do we prevent this from happening now? We cannot directly control
the actions of any government or organization. Mechanism for blocking
specific sites/pages are common. I don't really see the issue here.

> * How do you ensure that the integrity of our NPOV content is maintained
> if people will not see the whole of our content
The intent of this system is not to make viewing of any content
impossible. Only to require some additional intentional action to view
it. People can currently engage in POV disputes without having read
the content, but their input is not particularly relevant.

> * What argument do you have against tagging content if you state that
> this is only about images
I'm not certain I understand the question. Is the concern that this
same mechanism could be used to filter certain articles? This would
require software specifically written to allow that, but I don't
particularly see any issue is allowing someone to so restrict his or
her own choices. Google allows you to have "safe search" on or off.
What's the issue?

> In the article that is now called [[meta:End-user image suppression]] I
> have added a tag to say that the subject is controversial and, the
> reasons why it is controversial. This is not appreciated and resulted in
> a slash and burn reaction. Apparantly you are not allowed to say that
> "when it walks like a duck an it talks like a duck, it must be a duck".
> I am afraid that censorship is alive and well.
>
Indeed! Why don't you start another article on Meta discussing the
merits of free speech / censorship? What is preventing you?
Censorship? Freedom of speech does not allow someone to say whatever
they want whenever they want.

> The proposers of this policy say that it is only technical. I beg to
> differ. Censure is what I do not want for our content.
>

I'm not aware that this has reached the level of a proposed policy.

As I've attempted to describe above, no content would be censored.
You either have a misunderstood the nature of what is being discussed,
or you have a very different understanding of censorship than I have..

-Rich Holton
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton


subject: [Wikitech-l] [1.0] Server logs from poorer Africa?

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:David_Gerard/1.0 , en:User:Payo1
>raises this interesting question:
>
>    Would it be possible to find some schools in developing countries that
>    do have internet access and track what articles their students access
>    for a couple of months? We might even be able to identify gaps in
>    content by looking at their failed searches.--Payo1 10:21, 23 Feb 2005
>    (UTC)
>
>This is regarding selection of articles needed for a paper Wikipedia.
>
>Is such a query feasible or framable? This might be of use!
>
>
There was a time when we kept records of failed searches (including
typos), but we were much, much smaller then.

Ec


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs said:
>> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>> In fact the above passage refers to both methods.
>
> Christiaan, you're now at the point where you're trying to tell me
> what my own sentences mean.  Clearly we cannot *both* be thinking
> straight, so further discussion would be redundant.

Then let me describe the site-based process myself: No blocking of any
kind occurs; further requests for material are simply deferred until
the user requests them.  This is a simple and elegant solution to the
filtering problem; the user decides precisely what he does and does not
want to see.

I can assure there is only one of us who is not thinking straight.

Again, I invite you to discuss this on the wiki, rather than fill up
people's inboxes:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/End-user_content_suppression

Christiaan


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia problems

body:
Yes, I checked that right after the mail and discover the diffs are
working.  (should have check before, my mistake).

Something that still puzzles me though, the current page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Crusade

Isn't showing the latest 'current' according to

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Space_Crusade&action=history

I keep wondering whether it's a cache issue somewhere on my end...

jliu

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 16:27:08 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> John Liu wrote:
> > Some changes I've added just prior to the power failure aren't
> > appearing in the main article, while there seems to be records in the
> > history, requests for diff returns database errors.
> >
> > My particular case was an article on MB boardgame
> > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Crusade
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Space_Crusade&action=history
> > Changes on 21/02/2005 are all missing :(
> >
> > It's no big deal if this can't be recovered, I'll just write again :)
> > But I'm curious whether this is the only case.
>
> I see these, and diffs for them all appear intact:
>         ?       (cur) (last)  07:59, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180
>         ?       (cur) (last)  07:58, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180
>         ?       (cur) (last)  07:48, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180 (?External Links)
>         ?       (cur) (last)  07:46, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180 (?Eldar Attack)
>         ?       (cur) (last)  07:46, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180 (?Operation
> Dreadnaught)
>         ?       (cur) (last)  07:43, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180 (?Operation
> Dreadnaught)
>         ?       (cur) (last)  07:36, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180 (?Eldar Attack)
>         ?       (cur) (last)  07:34, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>

--
jliu - www.ssw.com.au - johnliu.net


body:
Michael Becker wrote:

> The following is a list of these languages in terms of the number of
> countries where each is spoken.  The number that follows is the total
> number of countries that use that language (from Weber, 1997):
>
>   1. *English* (115)
>   2. *French* (35)
>   3. *Arabic* (24)
>   4. *Spanish* (20)
>   5. *Russian* (16)
>   6. *German* (9)
>   7. *Mandarin* (5)
>   8. *Portuguese* (5)
>   9. *Hindi/Urdu *(2)
>  10. *Bengali* (1)
>  11. *Japanese* (1)

Portuguese is spoken in seven countries: Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde,
Guinea Bissau, S?o Tom?, Angola, and Mozambique.  I don't know if it's
still being used in East Timor.

Bengali is used in two countries: India and Bangladesh.

Ec


from_name: Michael Becker

body:
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:28:11 +0100, Thomas R. Koll <tomk32 at gmx.de> wrote:

 > About language statistics:
 > http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm

This site has some good data. These bits seem to be the most useful to us:

if you add the secondary speaker populations to the primary speaker
populations, you get the following (and I believe more accurate) list:
(number of speakers in parentheses)

   1. *Mandarin Chinese* (1.12 billion)
   2. *English* (480 million)
   3. *Spanish* (320 million)
   4. *Russian* (285 million)
   5. *French* (265 million)
   6. *Hindi/Urdu *(250 million)
   7. *Arabic* (221 million)
   8. *Portuguese* (188 million)
   9. *Bengali* (185 million)
  10. *Japanese* (133 million)
  11. *German* (109 million)

The following is a list of these languages in terms of the number of
countries where each is spoken.  The number that follows is the total
number of countries that use that language (from Weber, 1997):

   1. *English* (115)
   2. *French* (35)
   3. *Arabic* (24)
   4. *Spanish* (20)
   5. *Russian* (16)
   6. *German* (9)
   7. *Mandarin* (5)
   8. *Portuguese* (5)
   9. *Hindi/Urdu *(2)
  10. *Bengali* (1)
  11. *Japanese* (1)

After weighing six factors (number of primary speakers, number of
secondary speakers, number and population of countries where used,
number of major fields using the language internationally, economic
power of countries using the languages, and socio-literary prestige),
Weber compiled the following list of the world's ten most influential
languages:
(number of points given in parentheses)

   1. *English *(37)
   2. *French* (23)
   3. *Spanish* (20)
   4. *Russian* (16)
   5. *Arabic* (14)
   6. *Chinese* (13)
   7. *German* (12)
   8. *Japanese* (10)
   9. *Portuguese* (10)
  10. *Hindi/Urdu* (9)

--
Michael Becker