subject: [Wikipedia-l] Power Search

body:
Thanks for this snazzy new feature! I just found it yesterday when I got
back to the pedia after my holiday... it looks like it will be very
useful, especially the ability to search particular namespaces.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

To err is human... to really foul things up add kitten and stir.

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
Ample Aussies Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikitech-l] Fun with URL encoding

body:
I finally got around to ferreting out the URL-encoding problem, which
could produce some URLs that were encoding correctly, but others that
actually encoded the URL-encoded form. For instance, for a page titled
'An?tomy?' we might see hrefs that are incorrectly double-encoded like
these:

http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=An%25E1tomy%253F
http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=An%25E1tomy%253F&action=edit
http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=An%25E1tomy%253F&action=history
http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:An%25E1tomy%253F&action=edit

as well as correct ones like:
http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Userlogin&returnto=An%E1tomy%3F
http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=An%E1tomy%3F
http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&target=An%E1tomy%3F

(Note that the &s in the URL appear here as & because I copied them
right out of the HTML source of the page, where they must appear that
way to be legal HTML.)

A hackish redundant urldecode() in Title::newFromURL() was presumably
added to catch the first case. (PHP decodes URL-variable before we get
them, so it's not necessary on correctly-encoded URLs.) I'd prefer to
remove it, but double-encoded URLs have been polluting the search
engines for some time and we have to retain compatibility.

The culprit was wfLocalUrl(), which takes two parameters, a wiki page
title and a section for additional URL bits; it URL-encodes the title,
then tacks both onto the server's hostname... but the first one has
already been encoded by Title::getPrefixedURL(), so we get the fubar'd
double-encoding above.

The correct encoding remains up in the target=, returnto=, etc because
the URL bits aren't encoded a second time (the &s can't be URL-encoded
or they lose their meaning).

I've removed the redundant encoding from wfLocalUrl(); I haven't come
across another mis-encoded URL on since, and I've been trying.

Additionally, I've added a check from Title::newFromURL() that checks
the character encoding of links coming in from the outside; for a
latin-1 wiki UTF-8 encoded links are detected and converted to latin-1,
and on a UTF-8 wiki latin-1 links are detected and converted to UTF-8.
(The check is done in Language::checkTitleEncoding() and can be
customized by language; I've set up the Polish to detect Latin-2 and the
Esperanto to detect X-surrogates, so they'll be able to retain
compatibility with existing links once converted.)

This is needed for a couple reasons:

* Some browsers (notably Internet Explorer) send URLs encoded in UTF-8
if you type them into the URL bar or follow a link that's not
URL-encoded. Thus we were getting mis-encoded titles from time to time
when someone typed a title with accented chars directly into the URL bar
or followed links from differently-encoded external sites.

* This should help with linking between the various language wikis, with
less need for manually adding URL-encoding to interlanguage links that
cross encodings.

* As noted above, compatibility with old URLs on some wikis.

Note that _theoretically_ a legal UTF-8 sequence could also be legal ISO
8859-1. (But not bloody likely -- an uppercase accented letter followed
by a single high punctuation mark or symbol, or a lowercase accented
letter followed by two or three high punctuation marks or symbols.)
Title URLs aren't checked or converted if the referer matches our
server, so one could still work with such a page; just set up a redirect
from the converted form for the benefit of outside links.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Metapedia

body:
>This was probably mentioned before,
>but why don't we just change
>"meta.wikipedia.org"
>to "www.wikipedia.org"? We could
>adapt the main page accordingly, and
>move the current meta main page to
>something like "assorted diskussion".
>That way, we won't have but a single
>page at www.wikipedia.org, but all the
>(international) discussion about it.
>
>Magnus

But then where does the Wikipedia Foundation go?
Metapedia is a completely different animal than any of
the Wikipedia encyclopedias with totally different
rules (thus the light gray background was added to
emphasize this difference). It would be most odd to
land on www.wikipedia.org, hit Recent Changes and see
random discussion and POV essays. That's not our
primary mission here. If anything www.wikipedia.org
should eventually be where we have a wiki for the
Foundation and have that Recent Changes by default
display Recent Changes for all edits made in each
Wikipedia encyclopedia (along with the occassional
edit or translation for a Foundation page). Granted,
that would mean a near static wiki at
www.wikipedia.org but how often are we really going to
be changing the by-laws and constitution (GNU.org
hasn't made many changes to their text for a very long
time)? The main function of the wiki at
www.wikipedia.org is to give a broad overview of the
whole project and the Foundation and also be a gateway
to each of the wikipedia encyclopedias and display all
edits in all languages.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

PS
It might also be neat to automatically detect the
language a person's browser is using and display all
links and text at www.wikipedia.org in the same
language as the browser (with the ability to turn this
off if needed). We are already going to have to
translate all Foundation pages and localized Main
Pages in several different languages. Therefore a user
with a French browser will be greeted by an uber Main
Page/Portal at www.wikipedia.org that is in French.
All the links will be in French and all the Foundation
pages that have French translations will be in French.
Just some thoughts.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moving the English Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 10/10/02 4:10 PM, "Brion VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>>The Cunctator wrote:
>>>The primary objection is that this hasn't really been discussed.
>>
>>It's been nothing _but_ discussed for months.
>
> Please reference.

http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/intlwiki-l/2002-March/000360.html
http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-August/003979.html
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regarding_URLs
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org

And it ain't been _done_ yet, just _discussed_.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Common userspace.

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>The Cunctator wrote:
>
>>Now that the various wikis are being put together on *.wikipedia.org, the
>>user accounts need to be consolidated. There should not be walls between
>>editing the various translations of the wikipediae.
>>
>
>I was wondering about that myself.  I wonder if there's much of a
>problem with overlap already.
>
>It'd be best, if we're going to do this, to do it sooner rather than
>later.
>
One potential problem would be if the same name is used by different
people on deparate wikipedias.

Eclecticology


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 10/10/02 3:26 AM, "Brion VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> We haven't decided yet exactly what to make the new www.wikipedia.org
> project front page look like, but it seems pretty well decided that we
> do want to move the English wiki to en.wikipedia.org and set up some
> sort of multilingual and/or browser-language-setting-sensitive intro page.
>
> (See: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org )
>
> If there's no objection, I'm going to switch the URL redirecting around
> tomorrow, so that www.wikipedia.org/* points to en.wikipedia.org/*
> rather than the other way 'round. A new intro page can later be set up
> at convenience.

I object strenuously. This is not a slam-dunk good idea at all. Please hold
off at least a good while before doing this.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Common userspace.

body:
Now that the various wikis are being put together on *.wikipedia.org, the
user accounts need to be consolidated. There should not be walls between
editing the various translations of the wikipediae.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
My objection is not to putting English Wikipedia an en.wikipedia.org but to REDIRECTING www.wikipedia.org to en.wikipedia.org -- it would perpetuate the problem it claims to be solving.

Let's first ask all the various language groups who are actively building The Wikipedia how they would prefer for their readers to find them. And ask what www.wikipedia.org should be, to serve each language group.

Is English really the world's international language? Or just a vestige of British Imperialism (fueled by US Imperialism)? (I believe neither of these myself.)

Maybe first-time visitors to www.wikipedia.org should get a chance to choose their favorite language. Or the page could detect their language setting and users with View-Encoding-Japanese would be greeted in Japanese, with alternate links for the other languages below.

This isn't as easy as changing the suffix from .com to .org -- I think.

Ed Poor


body:
On 10/10/02 2:15 PM, "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:

> The Cunctator wrote:
>> I object strenuously. This is not a slam-dunk good idea at all. Please hold
>> off at least a good while before doing this.
>
> O.k., let's wait.
>
> What are the objections?

The primary objection is that this hasn't really been discussed. That said:

1) There isn't a clear picture of what overall policy this fits in with;

2) Whether whatever that overall policy is well-thought out and correct;

3) What the consequences of the change from a usability perspective have not
been delineated;

4) "A new intro page can later be set up at convenience" is probably not how
we want to do this;

5) There are real, concrete benefits to having a default and preferred
interface/language;

In other words, the pros and cons of such an act should be explicitly and
clearly listed.  There are many reasons that www.google.com, www.dmoz.org,
etc. (which all have multilanguage settings) have English as the default,
and it's not just that the servers are US-based).

Once that's done, we can weigh priorities.

I personally think a better focus right now for the developers is to work on
maximum integration of the different language wikis. If the backend is
better integrated, frontend issues become easier to deal with.

A big question that we are in the process of resolving now is whether we
want to think of Wikipedia as a single project that has multiple
translations, or as a bunch of largely independent projects specific to
particular nations and language sets. I think the first conception is
healthier and more productive over the long term. We really should think
about this issue before we take broad actions that touch upon it.


body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 10/10/02 3:47 PM, "Brion VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>>I ain't heard nobody but Cunc object so far, and he doesn't say why. I
>>await the reasons with bated breath,
>
> http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-August/004031.html

I already cited that where you posted it at meta. It doesn't list any
reasons against using an en.* URL for English articles, which is as you
say "only a minor component" of the language integration.

For someone who says that "more effort should be put into building the
cross-link capabilities" and "there should be the option of having
Recent Changes show changes from any array of the languages", you're
putting an awful lot of effort into stalling useful work to those ends
by yakking on over this tiny thing.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
On 10/10/02 3:47 PM, "Brion VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> The Cunctator wrote:
>>> I object strenuously. This is not a slam-dunk good idea at all. Please hold
>>> off at least a good while before doing this.
>>
>>
>> O.k., let's wait.
>>
>> What are the objections?
>
> I ain't heard nobody but Cunc object so far, and he doesn't say why. I
> await the reasons with bated breath, if he's got something better than
> "the English Wikipedia needs a large pool of people working on it to
> achieve neutrality and perspective, but I apparently don't give a rat's
> ass about the contents of Wikipedia in other languages" to show for it.

I suspect a slightly less rude and sarcastic attitude on your part may help
the discussion.

Changing your above statement to "Wikipedia needs a large pool of people
working on it to achive neutrality and perspective" is a good starting
point.


from_name: Lightning

subject: [Wikitech-l] Patch for editondblclick

body:
link dont work

look at the url it creates
http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title?Anthropology&action=edit

it shoudl be
http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=Anthropology&action=edit

an = after title, not ? again

Lightning

> Oh, I thought I'd mentioned it before: Another version of the
> doubleclick thingy has been running at
>     http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page
> for about a week now.
>
> Magnus
>
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> >Hi,
> >
> >I decided to give it a try myself and wrote a patch for allowing edits
> >on doubleclick. It is attached. I decided not to create a context diff
> >because I think the patch is so small to be better readable without it
> >-- YMMV.
> >
> >I have made editondblclick an option, so we can turn it off by default
> >for anonymous users. I would recommend making it the default after we've
> >given it a good test. I have tested it in various browsers (including
> >lynx etc.) and it either worked or was silently ignored by non-JS
> >capable browsers.
> >
> >I have also added a German translation. Let me know if anything is
> >missing.
> >
> >To test it, apply the patch, go to your prefs and activate the option.
> >Then pick any editable page and double click anywhere in the browser
> >window. Trust me, soon you won't want to live without it ;-)
> >
> >Regards,
> >
> >Erik
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On 10/10/02 4:10 PM, "Brion VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> The Cunctator wrote:
>> The primary objection is that this hasn't really been discussed.
>
> It's been nothing _but_ discussed for months.

Please reference.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the Wikipedia family

body:
I would just like to point out that part of the
frustration that the current non-English Wikipedians
seem to feel is that there appears to be a hierarchy
where the English Wikipedia is considered to be far
more important than the non-English Wikipedias in
some. This is also one of the reasons why we had a
Spanish fork to begin with. Part of the reason why we
were getting good vibes from them on reunification is
due to our then tentative plans to move the English
Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org. So without this small
concession by us, I don't think there is a good chance
for them rejoining our project. The English Wikipedia
won't be harmed by being placed at en.wikipedia.org --
this is the only fair and neutral thing to do. If the
English Wikipedia continues to push its weight around
over these types of issues then there will be other
forks. How is that for Balkanizaiton?

As I stated before, the URL thing is symbolic and each
Wikipedia encyclopedia in my view should be treated as
siblings. Granted the English Wikipedia is the oldest
and largest but it shouldn't be vaulted as /The Main/
Wikipedia with the other languages relegated to second
class status in The Main WIkipedia's shadow. The Main
Wikipedia is the /whole/ project which includes all
languages not just one, no? I furthermore don't see a
move as Balkanization when we will soon all be on the
same software, all use the same Metapedia and all have
interlanguage links going back and forth from all the
different languages. I now will often take info from
articles in other languages to update their English
counterparts and I also see the reverse being done by
non-English Wikipedias. www.wikipedia.org should be
home for the Foundation and a portal to each of the
different language sub-projects as I stated in my
previous post. The English Wikipedia would be just one
click away from the portal and so would all the other
wikipedias. This is only fair.

--- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


from_name: Anthere

body:
> Let me clarify the above statement: by "a single
> project that has multiple
> translations" I don't mean "English + translations
> into other languages" I
> mean "a single language-neutral encyclopedia with
> entries in all different
> languages, with the goal that every entry exist in
> every language". That is,
> I think we should think of the entries in English as
> being translations of
> the French entries, and the Polish entries, and vice
> versa.
>
> Ideally, if an entry exists in one language but not
> another, such as "racine
> Grecque"
> (http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Racine_Grecque) a
> link to the
> unwritten [[Greek root]] should pull up a result
> that indicates that there's
> a version of the entry in French.

ah, you ring a bell here. I several times felt the
consuming desire just to create an empty page (or an
*horrible* stub) in english, just to link a french
page that existed.

Sorry for those who don't like stubs, but *this* issue
is just a call for stubs. Or, we need to find another
way to indicate links from a empty link.

Well, we have not used all the color of the rainbow
yet. Say, when a page doesnot exist in english, but
exist in polish, the link in the english page to the
non existing page is purple instead of red, and when
you click on it, you get an nearly empty page with "no
article available yet" and "this page is available in
[[polish]]" (in the page).
+ link to the polish page.

As long as only an "official" stub is available, this
message could stay for any other langage available.
Once the article is nice enough not to be a stub
anymore, the automatic message is removed
automatically, and the link is just available as a
[[pl:]]

On the polish side, there could be an option somewhere
allowing to propose the link to other wikis. Once the
article is thought really good, polish people could
propose it to intern linkage. If the page in french
exist, the link is a [[pl:]] at the top, if the page
in english doesnot exist, the link is in the page with
the message.

Is this understandable ?

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Patch for editondblclick

body:
Hi,

I decided to give it a try myself and wrote a patch for allowing edits
on doubleclick. It is attached. I decided not to create a context diff
because I think the patch is so small to be better readable without it
-- YMMV.

I have made editondblclick an option, so we can turn it off by default
for anonymous users. I would recommend making it the default after we've
given it a good test. I have tested it in various browsers (including
lynx etc.) and it either worked or was silently ignored by non-JS
capable browsers.

I have also added a German translation. Let me know if anything is
missing.

To test it, apply the patch, go to your prefs and activate the option.
Then pick any editable page and double click anywhere in the browser
window. Trust me, soon you won't want to live without it ;-)

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de
-------------- next part --------------
Index: Language.php
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phpwiki/newcodebase/Language.php,v
retrieving revision 1.144
diff -r1.144 Language.php
43c43,44
< 	"editwidth" => "Edit box has full width"
---
> 	"editwidth" => "Edit box has full width",
> 	"editondblclick" => "Edit pages on double click (JavaScript)"
Index: LanguageDe.php
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phpwiki/newcodebase/LanguageDe.php,v
retrieving revision 1.38
diff -r1.38 LanguageDe.php
40c40,41
< 	"editwidth" => "Text-Eingabefeld mit voller Breite"
---
> 	"editwidth" => "Text-Eingabefeld mit voller Breite",
> 	"editondblclick" => "Seiten mit Doppelklick bearbeiten (JavaScript)"
Index: Skin.php
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phpwiki/newcodebase/Skin.php,v
retrieving revision 1.111
diff -r1.111 Skin.php
85c85
< 		global $wgUser, $wgTitle, $wgNamespaceBackgrounds;
---
> 		global $wgUser, $wgTitle, $wgNamespaceBackgrounds, $wgOut, $oldid, $redirect, $diff;
90a91,104
> 		if($wgOut->isArticle() && $wgUser->getOption("editondblclick") ) {
>
>                         $n = $wgTitle->getPrefixedText();
>                         $t = wfMsg( "editthispage" );
>                         $oid = $red = "";
>                         if ( $redirect ) { $red = "&redirect={$redirect}"; }
>                         if ( $oldid && ! isset( $diff ) ) {
>                                 $oid = "&oldid={$oldid}";
>                         }
> 			$s = wfLocalUrlE($n,"action=edit{$oid}{$red}");
> 			$s = "document.location = \"" .$s ."\";";
> 			$a += array ("ondblclick" => $s);
>
> 		}


body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> On 10/10/02 2:42 PM, "The Cunctator"
> <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
>
> > A big question that we are in the process of
> resolving now is whether we
> > want to think of Wikipedia as a single project
> that has multiple
> > translations, or as a bunch of largely independent
> projects specific to
> > particular nations and language sets. I think the
> first conception is
> > healthier and more productive over the long term.
> We really should think
> > about this issue before we take broad actions that
> touch upon it.

It is true that from a strict efficiency point of
view, the goal of a comprenhensive and neutral
encyclopedia would benefit from dealing with issues in
only one central article with as many actors as
possible debating/working together rather than several
different articles with only a couple of persons in
each place, even though they are updating their own
articles from the other wikis.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Interlanguage link stubs (was Re: Moving the English Wikipedia to
 en.wikipedia.org)

body:
Anthere wrote:
 >The Cunctator wrote:
>>Ideally, if an entry exists in one language but not another, such as "racine
>>Grecque" (http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Racine_Grecque) a link to the
>>unwritten [[Greek root]] should pull up a result that indicates that there's
>>a version of the entry in French.
[..]
> Well, we have not used all the color of the rainbow
> yet. Say, when a page doesnot exist in english, but
> exist in polish, the link in the english page to the
> non existing page is purple instead of red, and when
> you click on it, you get an nearly empty page with "no
> article available yet" and "this page is available in
> [[polish]]" (in the page).
> + link to the polish page.

Something like that sounds doable (I don't know about the specific
colors, but in general). This could perhaps be related to the proposed
stub link indication -- see
http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-September/005510.html

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Patch for editondblclick

body:
Oh, I thought I'd mentioned it before: Another version of the
doubleclick thingy has been running at
    http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page
for about a week now.

Magnus

Erik Moeller wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I decided to give it a try myself and wrote a patch for allowing edits
>on doubleclick. It is attached. I decided not to create a context diff
>because I think the patch is so small to be better readable without it
>-- YMMV.
>
>I have made editondblclick an option, so we can turn it off by default
>for anonymous users. I would recommend making it the default after we've
>given it a good test. I have tested it in various browsers (including
>lynx etc.) and it either worked or was silently ignored by non-JS
>capable browsers.
>
>I have also added a German translation. Let me know if anything is
>missing.
>
>To test it, apply the patch, go to your prefs and activate the option.
>Then pick any editable page and double click anywhere in the browser
>window. Trust me, soon you won't want to live without it ;-)
>
>Regards,
>
>Erik
>
>


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

body:
>...Part of the reason why we
>were getting good vibes from them on reunification is
>due to our then tentative plans to move the English
>Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org. So without this small
>concession by us, I don't think there is a good chance
>for them rejoining our project. The English Wikipedia
>won't be harmed by being placed at en.wikipedia.org --
>this is the only fair and neutral thing to do.

Poppycock.  There absolutely /no/ technical benefit
to this change, and it will cause massive problems
by changing the URL of every page indexed by every
search engine in the life of the project and increase
server load.  If its only purpose is to placate a few
Spanish-speaking folk, then I say let them get over it.
We're not here to stroke their egos.  We're here to
create a product that will be useful to our users--88%
of whom speak English (estimated from server logs).
We'll make real, substantive progress soon when we get
the non-profit running and better integrate the new
software.  Without that, no amount of symbolic fluff
will matter; with it, the Spanish-speakers will have
no reason to worry about minor little nits like domain
names.

Have patience, all will be well.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Patch for editondblclick

body:
Am Don, 2002-10-10 um 16.36 schrieb Magnus Manske:
> Oh, I thought I'd mentioned it before: Another version of the
> doubleclick thingy has been running at
>     http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page
> for about a week now.

That one doesn't seem to work -- the URLs it creates are not valid.
Also, it doesn't check whether the page is protected. Plus, it doesn't
seem to be optional.

Was it correct to send the patch to the list, or should I send it
somewhere else?

Regards,
Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


body:
On 10/10/02 2:42 PM, "The Cunctator" <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:

> A big question that we are in the process of resolving now is whether we
> want to think of Wikipedia as a single project that has multiple
> translations, or as a bunch of largely independent projects specific to
> particular nations and language sets. I think the first conception is
> healthier and more productive over the long term. We really should think
> about this issue before we take broad actions that touch upon it.

Let me clarify the above statement: by "a single project that has multiple
translations" I don't mean "English + translations into other languages" I
mean "a single language-neutral encyclopedia with entries in all different
languages, with the goal that every entry exist in every language". That is,
I think we should think of the entries in English as being translations of
the French entries, and the Polish entries, and vice versa.

Ideally, if an entry exists in one language but not another, such as "racine
Grecque"  (http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Racine_Grecque) a link to the
unwritten [[Greek root]] should pull up a result that indicates that there's
a version of the entry in French.

I hope this clarifies this conceptualization of Wikipedia.


body:
On 10/10/02 4:29 PM, "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpj at kki.net.pl> wrote:
> I think we have created a
> relatively small but precious Wikipedia with some remarkably
> good articles.
> We are, of course, willing to share our content with other Wikipedias.

It's this balkanization that I fear. I see there being one Wikipedia, which
has multiple languages in it. Not separate Wikipedias run by separate groups
that might or might not be "willing to share our content" with "other
Wikipedias".


body:
On 10/10/02 4:10 PM, "Brion VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> The Cunctator wrote:
>> The primary objection is that this hasn't really been discussed.
>
> It's been nothing _but_ discussed for months.
>
>> That said:
>>
>> 1) There isn't a clear picture of what overall policy this fits in with;
>
> Naming standards: every encyclopedia wiki in the project is at
> {languagecode}.wikipedia.(com|org) except the English one.

Naming standards is not a strong enough policy to change the URLs of nearly
all the pages of the Wikipedia project.

Interlanguage harmonization might be.


body:
On 10/10/02 3:47 PM, "Brion VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> The Cunctator wrote:
>>> I object strenuously. This is not a slam-dunk good idea at all. Please hold
>>> off at least a good while before doing this.
>>
>>
>> O.k., let's wait.
>>
>> What are the objections?
>
> I ain't heard nobody but Cunc object so far, and he doesn't say why. I
> await the reasons with bated breath, if he's got something better than
> "the English Wikipedia needs a large pool of people working on it to
> achieve neutrality and perspective, but I apparently don't give a rat's
> ass about the contents of Wikipedia in other languages" to show for it.
>
http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-August/004031.html


body:
On Thursday 10 October 2002 04:39 pm, LDC wrote:
>Daniel Mayer wrote:
> >...Part of the reason why we
> >were getting good vibes from them on reunification is
> >due to our then tentative plans to move the English
> >Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org. So without this small
> >concession by us, I don't think there is a good chance
> >for them rejoining our project. The English Wikipedia
> >won't be harmed by being placed at en.wikipedia.org --
> >this is the only fair and neutral thing to do.
>
> Poppycock.  There absolutely /no/ technical benefit
> to this change, and it will cause massive problems
> by changing the URL of every page indexed by every
> search engine in the life of the project and increase
> server load.

This isn't about technical issues -- Google will just reindex the site and all
current www links can point to en. It took Google about a month, but it
already has done this with the .org change.

>If its only purpose is to placate a few
> Spanish-speaking folk, then I say let them get over it.

Maybe you should actually read my entire post. I stated very clearly that
www.wikipedia.org should be the home of the foundation and a portal to all
the projects. The reunification para was only one part of my post.

> We're not here to stroke their egos.  We're here to
> create a product that will be useful to our users--88%
> of whom speak English (estimated from server logs).

Which came first? The very prominent and large English Wikipedia or the large
English speaking user base? One of the reasons why Wikipedia is
overwhelmingly dominated by English only speakers is because we emphasize the
English Wikipedia so much. If we emphasize the non-English Wikipedias more or
less equally with the English one then the non-English Wikipedias' user-base
and article count will rise accordingly.

And so what if ~90% of our visitors are English speakers? How are they at all
harmed by having in the English Wikipedia at en.wikipedia instead of
www.wikipedia? How about minority rights? Shall we just brush them away? I'm
not at all convinced that most of those ~90% would support the status quo or
even care. Therefore we should err on the side keeping the whole Wikipedia
community happy and together.

> We'll make real, substantive progress soon when we get
> the non-profit running and better integrate the new
> software.  Without that, no amount of symbolic fluff
> will matter; with it, the Spanish-speakers will have
> no reason to worry about minor little nits like domain
> names.

I know from experience that when you are treated like a second class citizen
symbolism and well-intended gestures become very important (The en.wiki thing
is just the most visible part of the puzzle). Also with the current
status-quo where is the foundation's website going to be located? On the
English Wikipedia or at foundation.wikipedia.org? Either way this does carry
symbolic meaning ("foundation" is in English) that will be viewed negatively
by many non-English speakers.

> Have patience, all will be well.

I'm not so sure. Perhaps some empathy is in order; What would you want to
occur if you were treated as a second class citizen?

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Broken link because of encoding

body:
Lightning wrote:
> I just noticed this... go to:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Tunes_%26_Merrie_Melodies_filmography
>
> it takes you to looney tunes... and its not a redirect? and when i look
> at the history it works fine and it shows me how it really should be...
> whats going on?

Looks like a glitch in the URL-rewriting configuration -- the full
expanded form works fine:

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Looney_Tunes_%26_Merrie_Melodies_filmography

(This was previously hidden by another bug which produced an incorrectly
escaped URL.) I'll bang it into place.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Broken link because of encoding


subject:
[Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Moving the English Wikipedia
	to en.wikipedia.org

body:
On 10/10/02 6:43 PM, "Brion VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> The Cunctator wrote:
>> On 10/10/02 3:47 PM, "Brion VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>>> I ain't heard nobody but Cunc object so far, and he doesn't say why. I
>>> await the reasons with bated breath,
>>
>> http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-August/004031.html
>
> I already cited that where you posted it at meta. It doesn't list any
> reasons against using an en.* URL for English articles, which is as you
> say "only a minor component" of the language integration.
>
> For someone who says that "more effort should be put into building the
> cross-link capabilities" and "there should be the option of having
> Recent Changes show changes from any array of the languages", you're
> putting an awful lot of effort into stalling useful work to those ends
> by yakking on over this tiny thing.
>
That's a very interesting argument. If you consider it a tiny thing, then
drop it.


body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:
> Lightning wrote:
>> I just noticed this... go to:
>> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Tunes_%26_Merrie_Melodies_filmography
>>
>> it takes you to looney tunes... and its not a redirect? and when i
>> look at the history it works fine and it shows me how it really should
>> be... whats going on?
>
> Looks like a glitch in the URL-rewriting configuration -- the full
> expanded form works fine:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Looney_Tunes_%26_Merrie_Melodies_filmography
>
> (This was previously hidden by another bug which produced an incorrectly
> escaped URL.) I'll bang it into place.

Got it. Annoyingly enough, the internal url-encoding function seems to
encode everything _but_ ampersands, so I had to write a quickie external
filter. Sheesh.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> In other words, the pros and cons of such an act
> should be explicitly and
> clearly listed.  There are many reasons that
> www.google.com, www.dmoz.org,
> etc. (which all have multilanguage settings) have
> English as the default,
> and it's not just that the servers are US-based).

Google doesn't have a default English setting. If I go
to Google from here, it gives me a Korean interface.
If I want English, I have to set preferences to tell
it so.

Just for the record...

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


body:
--- Gareth Owen <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> lcrocker at nupedia.com writes:
>
> > I also think it's a really bad idea to have
> www.wikipedia.org be anything
> > but the most direct route to the front page of the
> English Wikipedia. Like
> > it or not, that's where the action is.
>
> Indeed. I agree with Lee and Cunc.
> Whether people like it or not, English is the lingua
> franca of t'Internet,
> and its likely to stay that way for the forseeable
> future.
> --
> Gareth Owen

Well, that's three. Where have you folks been the past
few weeks? :)

Stephen

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the
	Wikipedia family

body:
On 10/10/02 6:41 PM, "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Granted the English Wikipedia is the oldest
> and largest but it shouldn't be vaulted as /The Main/
> Wikipedia with the other languages relegated to second
> class status in The Main WIkipedia's shadow.

By the same token, the English-lang Wikipedia is the oldest and largest (by
far), and it shouldn't be shoved around simply for the sake of political
correctness.

> The Main
> Wikipedia is the /whole/ project which includes all
> languages not just one, no?

I agree that the Wikipedia project includes all languages. Whether changing
www.wikipedia.org to a portal page is a good idea is a different question.

> I furthermore don't see a
> move as Balkanization when we will soon all be on the
> same software, all use the same Metapedia and all have
> interlanguage links going back and forth from all the
> different languages. I now will often take info from
> articles in other languages to update their English
> counterparts and I also see the reverse being done by
> non-English Wikipedias.

All those things are exactly what I agree with.

> www.wikipedia.org should be
> home for the Foundation and a portal to each of the
> different language sub-projects as I stated in my
> previous post. The English Wikipedia would be just one
> click away from the portal and so would all the other
> wikipedias. This is only fair.

Fairness is a very squishy issue. Is it only fair that states with
populations of 600,000 get the same number of Senators as states with
populations of 35,000,000?

It would be a poor idea for www.wikipedia.org become the foundation url.

It should have its own url, much as gnu.org and fsf.org are separately
named.


body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> Let me clarify the above statement: by "a single
> project that has multiple
> translations" I don't mean "English + translations
> into other languages" I
> mean "a single language-neutral encyclopedia with
> entries in all different
> languages, with the goal that every entry exist in
> every language". That is,
> I think we should think of the entries in English as
> being translations of
> the French entries, and the Polish entries, and vice
> versa.

Why use the term "translation", then? The articles, in
most cases, are not translations of each other; they
have been composed in the given language. There is a
big difference between translation and composition.

> Ideally, if an entry exists in one language but not
> another, such as "racine
> Grecque"
> (http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Racine_Grecque) a
> link to the
> unwritten [[Greek root]] should pull up a result
> that indicates that there's
> a version of the entry in French.

Yes, I'm all for that.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> On 10/10/02 6:41 PM, "Daniel Mayer"
> <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> > Granted the English Wikipedia is the oldest
> > and largest but it shouldn't be vaulted as /The
> Main/
> > Wikipedia with the other languages relegated to
> second
> > class status in The Main WIkipedia's shadow.
>
> By the same token, the English-lang Wikipedia is the
> oldest and largest (by
> far), and it shouldn't be shoved around simply for
> the sake of political
> correctness.

Do you think the English Wikipedia is being shoved
around? These things are not being discussed for
political correctness, but are an attempt to bring the
separate language project together.

> > The Main
> > Wikipedia is the /whole/ project which includes
> all
> > languages not just one, no?
>
> I agree that the Wikipedia project includes all
> languages. Whether changing
> www.wikipedia.org to a portal page is a good idea is
> a different question.

You're right.

<snip>

> It would be a poor idea for www.wikipedia.org become
> the foundation url.
>
> It should have its own url, much as gnu.org and
> fsf.org are separately
> named.

Both fsf.org and gnu.org point to the same page.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and theWikipedia family

body:
> Fairness is a very squishy issue. Is it only fair that states with
> populations of 600,000 get the same number of Senators as states with
> populations of 35,000,000?

no... thats why congresses, in the US, mexico, germany, and..alot of other
places, have the uhm "house of representatives" or equivalent.. why? you
want to set up a wikipedia bicameral congress or soemthing?

please i apologize if i missed the point. i just woke up frm a long nap and
i am very hungry

Lightning


from_name: Gareth Owen

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com writes:

> I also think it's a really bad idea to have www.wikipedia.org be anything
> but the most direct route to the front page of the English Wikipedia. Like
> it or not, that's where the action is.

Indeed. I agree with Lee and Cunc.
Whether people like it or not, English is the lingua franca of t'Internet,
and its likely to stay that way for the forseeable future.
--
Gareth Owen


body:
I just noticed this... go to:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Tunes_%26_Merrie_Melodies_filmography

it takes you to looney tunes... and its not a redirect? and when i look at the history it works fine and it shows me how it really should be... whats going on?

Lightning
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Broken link because of encoding

body:
I just noticed this... go to:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Tunes_%26_Merrie_Melodies_filmography

it takes you to looney tunes... and its not a redirect? and when i look at the history it works fine and it shows me how it really should be... whats going on?

Lightning
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from_name: tarquin

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>A big question that we are in the process of resolving now is whether we
>want to think of Wikipedia as a single project that has multiple
>translations, or as a bunch of largely independent projects specific to
>particular nations and language sets. I think the first conception is
>healthier and more productive over the long term. We really should think
>about this issue before we take broad actions that touch upon it.
>
Neither.

It can't be the first:
1) true translation is impossible, anyone who speaks more than one
language knows that
2) it would be quite insulting to the people who work on the other
pedias to suggest that they are mere translators. The polyglots among us
are the cross-pollinators. :-)

It can't be the 2nd:
1) all projects must work towards an NPOV, open, GFDL encyclopedia.

We have to move in two directions simultanously:
1.) we have to give the other language equal status and more independance
2.) we have to bring them closer in: same software, same name, same
logo, same attitude

We also have to remember that most of the other pedias are way further
behind in their development. -- that doesn't just mean in number of
*articles*.
Look behind you. Read the old english wiki debates on NPOV, on article
names, on how to handle everything. Some of them are still at that
phase. Give them time.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] en.wikipedia.org vs
	www.wikipedia.org and the Wikipedia family

body:
On Thu, 2002-10-10 at 20:40, Paul Ebermann wrote:
> "The Cunctator" skribis:
>
> > It would be a poor idea for www.wikipedia.org become the foundation url.
> >
> > It should have its own url, much as gnu.org and fsf.org are separately
> > named.
>
> ... and both servers www.gnu.org and www.fsf.org have completly
> the same pages.
>
> This is a bad example.

Got me there! Maybe that's why the site is so confusing.


from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia Search - Strange Results

body:
Hi  Members,

     I went to try the new search on Wikipedia. I entered "JavaScript" as the
search argument and got back two entries:

1. JavaScript (47 bytes)
2. Javascript (47 bytes)

followed by a number of citations from articles.

The actual title of the article is "JavaScript."
The two articles are one and the same. I realize that the difference is in the
capitalization.

Is this the result we want? Two entries of the same article?

Further, if you look at the entries, they are clearly not 47 bytes, but much
longer - what happened?

                 As Ever,

                    Ruth Ifcher

--


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Search - Strange Results


subject: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.com

body:
I patched together a script that lists the individual wikipedias, and highlights
the preferred language from the browser settings. Just to give you an impression
(sorry for the ads, lycos account...)
    http://mitglied.lycos.de/manske/wiki/test.php
Didn't have time for flags'n'stuff...

Magnus

________________________________________
Online Fotoalben - jetzt kostenlos bei http://www.ePost.de


from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

body:
On 10-10-2002, Brion VIBBER wrote thusly :
> The Cunctator wrote:
> >A big question that we are in the process of resolving now is whether we
> >want to think of Wikipedia as a single project that has multiple
> >translations, or as a bunch of largely independent projects specific to
> >particular nations and language sets. I think the first conception is
> >healthier and more productive over the long term. We really should think
> >about this issue before we take broad actions that touch upon it.
> "Translations" is an odd choice of words.
> The *user interface of the program* is 'translated' from a central
> source, but the encyclopedia articles aren't. Ideally they should all
> contain the same (maximal quality, maximal amount of) information by
> cross-pollination: new material added in any one language can be taken
> over to the others. That's not a one-way street, and doesn't have to be
> achieved by "translation".
Coordination, cooperation, confederation are terms that I think should
describe the whole collective project of _Wikipedias_.
You (the Cunctator) are entering quick sands area. Too much, too hasty
and careless integration into "a single project" can be disastrous.
The Spanish Wikipedia fork has not still been reverted...

We are looking forward to shifting to the Phase III software and
working out ways to exchange content. I am sure Polish Wikipedians
would regard it as a big disincentive to be reduced to mere translators
of English (other languages?) articles. I think we have created a
relatively small but precious Wikipedia with some remarkably
good articles.
We are, of course, willing to share our content with other Wikipedias.

Regards,
[[Kpjas]]


from_name: Jeroen Heijmans

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Metapedia

body:
Maveric wrote:

>It might also be neat to automatically detect the
>language a person's browser is using and display all
>links and text at www.wikipedia.org in the same
>language as the browser (with the ability to turn this
>off if needed). We are already going to have to
>translate all Foundation pages and localized Main
>Pages in several different languages. Therefore a user
>with a French browser will be greeted by an uber Main
>Page/Portal at www.wikipedia.org that is in French.
>All the links will be in French and all the Foundation
>pages that have French translations will be in French.
>Just some thoughts.
>
I think that's a bad idea. I personally hate automatic detection of
settings. I want to set things myself if possible and desirable, but I
don't want to turn off settings.

Jeronimo


from_name: Jens Frank

body:
> 5) There are real, concrete benefits to having a default and preferred
> interface/language;
>
> In other words, the pros and cons of such an act should be explicitly and
> clearly listed.  There are many reasons that www.google.com, www.dmoz.org,
> etc. (which all have multilanguage settings) have English as the default,
> and it's not just that the servers are US-based).

It's the default, but if your browser is set up to sent a preferred language
as part of the request (German Netscape and German MSIE do so), google.com
welcomes in the preferred language.

>
> Once that's done, we can weigh priorities.
>
> I personally think a better focus right now for the developers is to work on
> maximum integration of the different language wikis. If the backend is
> better integrated, frontend issues become easier to deal with.
>
> A big question that we are in the process of resolving now is whether we
> want to think of Wikipedia as a single project that has multiple
> translations, or as a bunch of largely independent projects specific to
> particular nations and language sets. I think the first conception is
> healthier and more productive over the long term. We really should think
> about this issue before we take broad actions that touch upon it.

Since many non-english wikipedians contribute to the english and their
native 'pedia, the projects are not independent but highly linked.
Having a common starting page would reflect this.

I agree with you that we should first decide on the future starting
page and change www.wikipedia.org to something else as soon as we know
what exactly to do.

Regards,

JeLuF


body:
On Thu, Oct 10, 2002 at 09:45:04PM +0000, rose.parks at att.net wrote:
> Hi  Members,
>
>      I went to try the new search on Wikipedia. I entered "JavaScript" as the
> search argument and got back two entries:
>
> 1. JavaScript (47 bytes)
> 2. Javascript (47 bytes)
>
> followed by a number of citations from articles.
>
> The actual title of the article is "JavaScript."
> The two articles are one and the same. I realize that the difference is in the
> capitalization.
>
> Is this the result we want? Two entries of the same article?
>
> Further, if you look at the entries, they are clearly not 47 bytes, but much
> longer - what happened?

Those two pages are redirects to

	ECMAScript programming language

as the title of the pages shows.

The redirect has 47 bytes, but the article has more.

	Regards,

		JeLuF


from_name: Paul Ebermann

subject: [Wikitech-l] Fun with URL encoding

body:
"Brion VIBBER" skribis:

> Note that _theoretically_ a legal UTF-8 sequence could also be legal ISO
> 8859-1.

[eo] Cxu vere?
Mi pensis ke en la komenco de la dua duono de ISO-8859-1
estas kelkaj numeroj reservita (kontrola kodoj) -
128 gxis 159, se mi memoras gxuste. Tiuj estas la bitokoj
de la formo 100xxxxx, kiuj ja povas aperi en UTF-8 (en
la dua aux sekvaj bitokoj de UTF-8-kodita signo).

[en] Really?
I thought that at the start of the second half of
ISO-8859-1 some numbers are reserved (control codes) -
128 to 159, if I remember correctly. That are the octets
of the form 100xxxxx, which can occur in UTF-8 (in the
second or following octets of a UTF-8 encoded sign).

Pauxlo


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the  Wikipedia family

body:
On Friday 11 October 2002 12:40 am,  The Cunctato wrote:
> On 10/10/02 6:41 PM, "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>
> > Granted the English Wikipedia is the oldest
> > and largest but it shouldn't be vaulted as /The Main/
> > Wikipedia with the other languages relegated to second
> > class status in The Main WIkipedia's shadow.
>
> By the same token, the English-lang Wikipedia is the oldest and largest (by
> far), and it shouldn't be shoved around simply for the sake of political
> correctness.

? How is finally having the English Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org shoving
around the English Wikipedia? All the others are at xx.wikipedia.org so this
isn't about political correctness, it is about what is fair and equal.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the Wikipedia family

body:
"The Cunctator" skribis:

> It would be a poor idea for www.wikipedia.org become the foundation url.
>
> It should have its own url, much as gnu.org and fsf.org are separately
> named.

... and both servers www.gnu.org and www.fsf.org have completly
the same pages.

This is a bad example.

Paul


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikitech-l] Fun with URL encoding

body:
Paul Ebermann wrote:
> "Brion VIBBER" skribis:
>>Note that _theoretically_ a legal UTF-8 sequence could also be legal ISO
>>8859-1.
>
> [eo] Cxu vere?
> Mi pensis ke en la komenco de la dua duono de ISO-8859-1
> estas kelkaj numeroj reservita (kontrola kodoj) -
> 128 gxis 159, se mi memoras gxuste. Tiuj estas la bitokoj
> de la formo 100xxxxx, kiuj ja povas aperi en UTF-8 (en
> la dua aux sekvaj bitokoj de UTF-8-kodita signo).

Jes ja, sed ne cxiuj UTF-8-kodoj trovigxas en la gamo rezervita; se la
sekva(j) bitoko(j) formas laux 101xxxxx ili trovigxas en la gamo
160-191, kiu konsistigxas el diversaj punkciiloj kaj simboloj. Ekzemple:

   ?? -> ?
   0xC3 0xA1 -> 0x00E1
   110(00011) 10(1000001) -> 0000000011100001

Malofta bitokaro en latino-1, certe, sed lauxnorma.

> [en] Really?
> I thought that at the start of the second half of
> ISO-8859-1 some numbers are reserved (control codes) -
> 128 to 159, if I remember correctly. That are the octets
> of the form 100xxxxx, which can occur in UTF-8 (in the
> second or following octets of a UTF-8 encoded sign).

Sure, but not all UTF-8 codes will find themselves in the reserved
range; if the tail byte(s) are in the form 101xxxxx they'll be in the
160-191 range, which is populated by various punctuation marks and
symbols. For instance:

   ?? -> ?
   0xC3 0xA1 -> 0x00E1
   110(00011) 10(1000001) -> 0000000011100001

Not a terribly likely sequence of bytes in Latin-1, but it's legal.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Question re: talk page notifier

body:
You know that handy little asterisk that notifies you when there's
something new on your user talk page since you last viewed it?

Well, on the English wiki the default value of the user_newtalk field
which controls said notifier is 0. On the other wikis, it's 1 as defined
in buildTables.inc.

A newly created user account has the field set to 0 anyway by
User::addToDatabase(), but in a wiki that's converted up from phase II
(ie, meta-wikipedia and potentially Enciclopedia Libre) a migrated user
account without an existing user talk page sees the asterisk
continuously until a user talk page is created and viewed, since the
field doesn't get cleared if the talk page doesn't exist...

My question is, is there a good reason that the database-creation
scripts are defining the default as 1, or should it just be set to 0?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject:
[Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org
 and the Wikipedia family

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> This isn't about technical issues -- Google will just reindex the
> site and all current www links can point to en. It took Google about
> a month, but it already has done this with the .org change.

Is Google the *only* external referrer you see in Wikipedia's access
log files?

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


from_name: Jimmy Wales

in_reply_to: <B9CB4251.4290%cunctator@kband.com>; from cunctator@kband.com on Thu, Oct 10, 2002 at 02:42:25PM -0400

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> There are many reasons that www.google.com, www.dmoz.org,
> etc. (which all have multilanguage settings) have English as the default,
> and it's not just that the servers are US-based).

I suppose the main reason is that more people on the Internet can read
English than any other language.

> A big question that we are in the process of resolving now is whether we
> want to think of Wikipedia as a single project that has multiple
> translations, or as a bunch of largely independent projects specific to
> particular nations and language sets. I think the first conception is
> healthier and more productive over the long term. We really should think
> about this issue before we take broad actions that touch upon it.

I agree very much with the first conception, although I wouldn't
necessarily use the word 'translations'.

--Jimbo


body:
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
> I am sure Polish Wikipedians would regard it as a big disincentive
> to be reduced to mere translators of English (other languages?)
> articles. I think we have created a relatively small but precious
> Wikipedia with some remarkably good articles.

I think Cunc will gladly take back the word "translation".  I think he was
just speaking loosely there.

The way I see it is that the Wikipedia is one project with many
languages.  The individual language wikipedias are not separate
projects, but part of the large family.  But neither are they merely
_translations_.

We are united by the fundamental goals: NPOV, openness, encyclopedic
writing.

I am opposed to the idea, for example, that an article in Spanish about
the Spanish-American war should be in any way fundamentally different
from an article in English about the same war.  There's no need for
them to be translations of each other, of course.  But they should
contain the same information, and both should be free of bias.

Multilingual people can read both and notice discrepancies and bring
the articles into line with each other.

--Jimbo


body:
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
> But policies, in Wikipedias realm, oughtn't be enforced - they
> should be discussed, negotiated and agreed on, with room for minor
> regional differences.

I can agree with this, so long as the differences really are _minor_.

One thing that's true is that people from different cultures are
likely to behave differently, to an extent, in some wiki-relevant
ways.  Americans are more libertarian, with less respect for
authority, than most other cultures.  The Japanese are more
hierarchical, with greater respect for authority, than most other
cultures.  I hesitate to characterize the differences between
Americans and Europeans, but there are differences to be sure.

"Be bold in updating pages" comes naturally to Americans.  To
Japanese, it might seem better to extensively discuss a change on the
/Talk pages first.

There's no reason for detailed policies to be decided on a top-down
basis.  If the Japanese prefer to extensively and politely and slowly
discuss changes before they make them, then that's what they should
do.  I personally (as an American) think that's a slow way of getting
things done, but they might consider our way reckless.  (We're in the
land of stereotypes here, I know, but flow with me to see my general
point.)

As long as NPOV, openness to newcomers, encyclopedic writing are
followed, then lesser social norms will naturally vary to an extent.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <200210101909.g9AJ9X401743@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Thu, Oct 10, 2002 at 12:09:33PM -0700

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> I really hate saying this, but, um, I'm with Cunc here.
> I also think it's a really bad idea to have www.wikipedia.org
> be anything but the most direct route to the front page of
> the English Wikipedia. Like it or not, that's where the
> action is.  As long as the front page continues to have links
> to the foreign wikis, I see no need to waste the time of 90%
> of our users with a pointless "intro" page.

I agree with this, but what do you think of having all the articles at
_both_ en.wikipedia.org and www.wikipedia.org, with us subtly promoting
the latter by hardlinks?

The main reason that I have for supporting this is diplomacy.  We
don't want people working in other languages to feel that English has
unfairly co-opted the privileged 'www' namespace.

My proposal would allow all languages to be on equal footing.  You can set
any individual homepage to be your personal homepage at www, and links under
that lead to your language, like en.wikipedia.org, fr.wikipedia.org, etc.

--Jimbo


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On Fri, 2002-10-11 at 04:05, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
> For the discussion to be productive please state :
> 1. what (other than domain names) signs of balkanization are there ?
> 2. what are you proposals to integrate other Wikipedias into one big
> Wikipedia so that avoid balkanization ?
I've written about both of these in previous emails, so to reiterate:

1. From a procedural standpoint: separate username spaces; separate
Recent Changes spaces; the wikipedia-l/intlwiki-l separation; different
grades of software; imperfect or non-existent interlanguage linking.
Many of these are actively being improved even as we speak, some of them
are not.


from_name: Anthere

body:
> I disagree.
> Its only symbolic, and thats why its its neither
> significant, nor part of any
> real solution.
>
> It's an inconvenience to the vast majority of the
> users, and the only gain is
> that it is a meaningless sop to people who (IMHO)
> don't have a legitimate
> grievance in the first place.

Are you considering only the spanish wiki issue here
(so a soothing option to make them come back) or all
non-english wikis when you raise illegitimate
grievance ?

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] Interlanguage link stubs (was Re: Moving the English Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org)

body:
--- Brion VIBBER <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>  >The Cunctator wrote:
> >>Ideally, if an entry exists in one language but
> not another, such as "racine
> >>Grecque"
> (http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Racine_Grecque) a
> link to the
> >>unwritten [[Greek root]] should pull up a result
> that indicates that there's
> >>a version of the entry in French.
> [..]
> > Well, we have not used all the color of the
> rainbow
> > yet. Say, when a page doesnot exist in english,
> but
> > exist in polish, the link in the english page to
> the
> > non existing page is purple instead of red, and
> when
> > you click on it, you get an nearly empty page with
> "no
> > article available yet" and "this page is available
> in
> > [[polish]]" (in the page).
> > + link to the polish page.
>
> Something like that sounds doable (I don't know
> about the specific
> colors, but in general). This could perhaps be
> related to the proposed
> stub link indication -- see
>
http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-September/005510.html

Colors or just the way it is implemented, is still
something minor I think.
The point is if we see a non-balkanized wikipedia, it
is logical that a subject covered in at least one
langage, is not considered not covered at all in
another. Let's think global.

(avoiding the stub issue) articles right now only have
a dual definition : they exist or they do not. We
should go forward a tri-definition, they exist in
"this" langage (and maybe others), they exist not in
"this" langage but in "others" they do, they do not
exist at all.
In short, it is thinking more of coverage of a subject
than coverage in one langage.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Interlanguage link stubs (was Re: Moving the
	English Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org)

body:
On Fri, 2002-10-11 at 03:35, Magnus Manske wrote:
> Brion VIBBER wrote:
>
> > This could perhaps be related to the proposed stub link indication -- see
> > http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-September/005510.html
>
> It is not proposed anymore, I just installed it. Check your user
> preferences. Personally, I set it to 500. Happy stub-hunting!
>
Quite nice. I assume newcomer default is at 0.

One request: for wikistandard.css could the stub! use the normal
coloring scheme instead of #772233? Thanks.

BTW, how hard would it be to re-implement [Multiple word]? bracketed
links?


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the
	 Wikipedia family

body:
On Fri, 2002-10-11 at 04:00, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> On Friday 11 October 2002 12:40 am,  The Cunctato wrote:
> > On 10/10/02 6:41 PM, "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > <snip>
> >
> > > Granted the English Wikipedia is the oldest
> > > and largest but it shouldn't be vaulted as /The Main/
> > > Wikipedia with the other languages relegated to second
> > > class status in The Main WIkipedia's shadow.
> >
> > By the same token, the English-lang Wikipedia is the oldest and largest (by
> > far), and it shouldn't be shoved around simply for the sake of political
> > correctness.
>
> ? How is finally having the English Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org shoving
> around the English Wikipedia? All the others are at xx.wikipedia.org so this
> isn't about political correctness, it is about what is fair and equal.
>
By writing "finally having" you imply inevitability. That certainly
isn't the case. One could also write "How is redirecting the
overwhelming preponderance of all Wikipedia entries shoving around the
English Wikipedia? A small percentage of entries are at xx.wikipedia.org
so this isn't about political correctness, it is about what is fair and
equal (where equality means having every language group be given
equivalent URLs, even though that concept of equality ignores the gross
differences in the representation of the groups)."

By definition doing "what is fair and equal" for groups with unequal
representation is being politically correct. The Wikipedia entry
[[political correctness]] is pretty good.

Some acts of political correctness are good and necessary; but many aim
to solve important problems with surface changes, and this proposed act
is largely the latter.


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the	 Wikipedia family

body:
>tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> writes:
>
>> But this is a significant move.
>> Like mav said, it's *symbolic*. it's not the solution, but it's part of it.
>> It shows that the other languages are siblings -- younger siblings, yes

Gareth responded:
>I disagree.
>Its only symbolic, and thats why its its neither significant, nor part of any
>real solution.
>
>It's an inconvenience to the vast majority of the users, and the only gain is
>that it is a meaningless sop to people who (IMHO) don't have a legitimate
>grievance in the first place.

Nothing ends a conversation quite like saying "your concern isn't legitimate."  Regardless of how it's intended, it comes across as "Go away kid, you're bothering me."

Aside from that, how would the move to en. be an inconvenience aside from having to log in?  And if having to log in is such an inconvenience, why do I have to log in every month anyway?  Given that we do have to log in every month or so, are you perhaps splitting hairs in calling the proposed move an inconvenience?

kq


subject: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the Wikipedia family

in_reply_to: <r5ilm55t4ca.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>; from wiki@gwowen.freeserve.co.uk on Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 03:52:53PM +0100

body:
Gareth Owen wrote:
> koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com writes:
>
> > Aside from that, how would the move to en. be an inconvenience aside from
> > having to log in?
>
> Link rot

Can you expand on this?

I don't think anyone is proposing that www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson would
ever not work as it does now.  It would be a pure alias for en.wikipedia.com.

--Jimbo


body:
You Wrote:
>koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com writes:
>
>> Aside from that, how would the move to en. be an inconvenience aside from
>> having to log in?
>
>Link rot

Google and others can reindex, right?  I believe they just did that a few weeks ago.

I *do* think it's best to move because I think also that the other wikipedias regard it as an important issue.  Our opinion about whether it ought to be an important issue really doesn't matter, unless we want to tell them that we don't care what they think; and if we want to tell them that, then we might as well say directly "fork off, we don't need you."  We do need them, of course, and want them to stay.  So.  As far as I can see, the question is whether to move now, when we have 56k articles, or next year, when we have 156k.

Perhaps we could move and for a period of a few months or so, have all redirected articles from www. to en. give an automatic message suggesting that the bookmark be changed.  After that maybe www. could be for the portal, and links to former article locations could suggest a link but carry it through.

I'm not a programmer so I don't know if this is feasible or if it will be too much of a burden on the server.

kq


body:
Jimmy wrote:
>I don't think anyone is proposing that www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson would
>ever not work as it does now.  It would be a pure alias for en.wikipedia.com.

Oh.  Heh.  Well, I think that's what I just proposed.  Are you suggesting that links would still carry through to the en. site, but that www. would be reserved for the portal or official business too?  That's an interesting idea.

kq


in_reply_to: <200210111507.g9BF7iZ04829@ross.bomis.com>; from koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com on Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 08:07:44AM -0700

body:
I don't think we need to 'redirect' anything.  I think doing so is a bad idea.

> Perhaps we could move and for a period of a few months or so, have
>all redirected articles from www. to en. give an automatic message
>suggesting that the bookmark be changed.

I see no reason to ever force people to change bookmarks.  We support
the past URLs, but we encourage the new URLs.  We don't need to
redirect or force bookmark changes or EVER break links in this way.

It's very easy to have www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson and
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson and
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson all say the same thing.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <200210111509.g9BF9jM05528@ross.bomis.com>; from koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com on Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 08:09:45AM -0700

body:
koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:

> Oh.  Heh.  Well, I think that's what I just proposed.  Are you
>suggesting that links would still carry through to the en. site, but
>that www. would be reserved for the portal or official business too?
>That's an interesting idea.

I propose that all the old links work just the same as they do now.  But whenever
we are internally constructing a link, we construct it to point to the newly
preferred en.wikipedia.org.

--Jimbo


body:
Given all the good comments made here and Ed message of a couple of days ago, here's my position (I asked other french-sp, dunno what they think yet) on the www.wikipedia.org

amha (french translation for imho, nicely provided by our french linguist)

1)There's a need for a portal page stating the existence of all the wikis, a few infos about each, and a direct link to each. This page should be at wikipedia.org.

2)A very new comer *should* transit at least once through that page. This is very important. I remember it took me quite a while to find out there were other langages. It might seem obvious to english-native-sp., but the main page on the en.wiki is showing quite a lot of information, and many foreign words at the same place don't make it easy to find out the little link that could help toward one's langage. Directly sending readers to the en.wiki might make us loose all those who don't know english or feel inconfortable with it.

3)However, given that most actual users are english-native-sp, given that most users understand english, and *mostly* given that the fewer links to get to the information the better (one click less is a win-win option :-)), I think it essential to track that first passage and to give direct passage to the right encyclopedia as soon as preferences are given (in other words, at the second session)

This mean either/or/and

3a) Cookie. After the first visit, the second-time visiting user is automatically redirected to the encyclopedia chosen the first time (most likely, the english one).

3b) Preferences options : choice of the preferred encyclopedia in the settings. Once a user is known (with login), typing wikipedia.org should lead him to the appropriate link (en. in most cases). This may allow to change the settings of a person who has first visited, say polish wiki, but now wants english as default.

4) On all wikis, the link to wiki.org should be *very* visible, especially since it is possible the direct links to other wikis on main pages will maybe be removed. In this case, there should be no redirection of course :-)

This way, it should not happen very often that a user has to transit more than once by the main wiki.

I will add of course, for those multilingal, that prefs should allow a prime choice, and secondary choices for wikis direct access. The secondary choice should provide a direct link to the second prefered wiki any time whatever wiki she/he is on and whatever page.

My opinion is that this main page is mostly important to unknown users to choose the right directions. It is not important to us, who know the project, and know how to navigate between the various places.

A relogin issue is amha *not* a argument for deciding the move or not. The Wikipedia evolution should not only go forward our *convenience* but the final user *convenience* (us AND others).

However, I can't figure what the problem of keeping links on both address is. This issue is certainly more important.

Oh ! on that login issue !

I have a technical question along those lines. I am always recognised on the fr.wiki.org and fr.wiki.com, so I never need to connect myself.
I am NEVER RECOGNISED on the meta.com, meta.org, wiki.com and wiki.org. I NEED TO LOGIN for each session (not once a month). Often I start on the fr.wiki, then jump through the link on the main page. I always have to relogin. This is mildly annoying. What are the differences between these cases ? (same on opera and netscape)

That would be my only answer to comments such as "logging in one time is gonna be a terrible inconvenience"

In the past month, given that I have to work with at least one window in these 3 adresses (now 4), often 2 windows in each wiki for copy and pasting here and there, I believe I can evaluate the number of time I have been logging in to about 10 times per days, that would make about 300 TIMES IN THE MONTH. I certainly don't need the mailing list to remind me my password ! I have already asked a couple of time for an idea of why it was so....Thanks for any idea anybody could provide to solve that.

Gareth maybe ??

---------------------------------
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in_reply_to: <20021011152047.GK45269@mrtall.compsoc.man.ac.uk>; from jason@jasonandali.org.uk on Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 04:20:47PM +0100

body:
Khendon wrote:
> What was wrong with my proposal to have the links divert to the language
> specified by cookie and/or browser setting? That still seems the best
> approach to me, although it might be a little more work...

If someone clicks on a link to

Wikipedia: Thomas Jefferson

then that's what we should give them: the English language wikipedia
article on Jefferson.  That's what they requested, that's what they
should get.

We should not forward them to fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson,
even if they have a cookie set to prefer French, nor even if they have
a browser setting to prefer French.

One of the reasons is that for many articles, the French article will
have a different spelling in the name of the article.  Efforts to
interlink the articles will be incomplete for a very long time, and in
many cases, efforts to interlink may be impossible due to different
choices of where to "split" certain topics.

We should follow the "Principle of Least Astonishment".  Users should
never be astonished, even if we think they'll be astonished in a good
way.

--Jimbo


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vote: Mav for ambassador

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

> As I stated before, the URL thing is symbolic and each
> Wikipedia encyclopedia in my view should be treated as
> siblings. Granted the English Wikipedia is the oldest
> and largest but it shouldn't be vaunted as /The Main/
> Wikipedia with the other languages relegated to second
> class status in The Main WIkipedia's shadow.

I agree -- as usual -- with Maveric. He is the master diplomat, with a clear and sympathetic understanding of the issues.

I hereby grant to Daniel Mayer (aka mav) my proxy to represent me (Ed Poor) in any and all discussions and negotiations among English Wikipedians and those Wikipedians contributing in all other languages.

(signed)
Ed Poor


subject: [Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the  Wikipedia family

body:
> 1)There's a need for a portal page stating the existence of all the wikis,
> a few infos about each, and a direct link to each. This page should be
> at wikipedia.org.

Unfortunately, the portal page is just about the most bankrupt concept
possible in terms of usability, and online, usability is just about all
you've got. The harm of adding one more click to users, both new and
old, is measurable and huge.

One more click *only once* does not look like *huge* to me. Only once.
And one more login *only once* even less.

>www.wikipedia.org already has all the portalness it needs in its two
>paragraphs of intro. The article count should probably count all the
>languages, but that's about it.

Maybe there is a confusion here. Right now, the www.wikipedia.org is the english wikipedia.
 Right now, on the actual www.wikipedia.org, there is *little way* a user not fluent in english, will have the idea to scroll and look everywhere, down to the bottom of the page, inside a crowded list of international links, to find the link to a latin wikipedia.
Right now, the www.wikipedia.org introduction text is entirely in english.

So how does the actual www.wikipedia.org page could be considered a portal ???
Sorry I don't get it. Maybe, we should then think about what a portal is, because we obviously are not talking about the same thing.

The www.wikipedia.org portal page I am talking about is something inspired from the one Tarquin and Mav and others have been working on at meta.

Are we on the same line of understanding here, or are we just talking of two different things ?

>Right now the different language versions of WP are separate wikis; that
>should not be the permanent case. And that is what should be focused on
>here.

I would personnaly highly prefer interlinguage links are improved, before any portal page.

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from_name: Magnus Manske

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Interlanguage link stubs (was Re: Moving the English
 Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org)

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:

> This could perhaps be related to the proposed stub link indication -- see
> http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-September/005510.html

It is not proposed anymore, I just installed it. Check your user
preferences. Personally, I set it to 500. Happy stub-hunting!

Magnus


body:
Anthere wrote:
> Right now, on the actual www.wikipedia.org,
> there is *little way* a user not fluent in english, will have the
> idea to scroll and look everywhere, down to the bottom of the page,
> inside a crowded list of international links, to find the link to a
> latin wikipedia.

?  Look again.  When I get to http://www.wikipedia.org/ and I'm logged out,
I see, very large and near the top: Danish, German, Esperanto, Spanish, French,
Dutch, Polish, and Portuguese.

It seems very prominent to me already.  It seems sensible to me that
those links should be translated to Espanol, Deutsche, etc.  (But not
by me, since I don't even know what "French" is in French.  Francais?)

But they seem plenty prominent enough.

--Jimbo


from_name: Khendon

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Interlanguage link stubs (was Re: Moving the English Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org)

body:
On Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 09:35:43AM +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:
> >This could perhaps be related to the proposed stub link indication -- see
> >http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-September/005510.html
>
> It is not proposed anymore, I just installed it. Check your user
> preferences. Personally, I set it to 500. Happy stub-hunting!

Excellent :-)  Perhaps there should be an announcement on
Wikipedia:Announcements?

--
Khendon  (Jason Williams)
khendon at khendon.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moving the English Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org

body:
On 10-10-2002, The Cunctator wrote thusly :
> On 10/10/02 4:29 PM, "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpj at kki.net.pl> wrote:
> > I think we have created a
> > relatively small but precious Wikipedia with some remarkably
> > good articles.
> > We are, of course, willing to share our content with other Wikipedias.
> It's this balkanization that I fear. I see there being one Wikipedia, which
> has multiple languages in it. Not separate Wikipedias run by separate groups
> that might or might not be "willing to share our content" with "other
> Wikipedias".
I agree with you in this that Wikipedia is one project there should
be common goals and common means to achieve these goals.
There should be common software base and good interlinking.
But policies, in Wikipedias realm, oughtn't be enforced -
they should be discussed, negotiated and agreed on, with room for minor
regional differences.
Maybe it is misunderstanding on my part and I don't know what you are
implying but I must stress that the Polish Wikipedia and her contributors
feel proud to part of the project and want to continue working for the
common good of the project.
>Not separate Wikipedias run by separate groups
> that might or might not be "willing to share our content" with "other
> Wikipedias".
Oh! Come on. I meant the difference being a colony and a sovereign international partner.

For the discussion to be productive please state :
1. what (other than domain names) signs of balkanization are there ?
2. what are you proposals to integrate other Wikipedias into one big
Wikipedia so that avoid balkanization ?

Regards,
Kpjas.


body:
> ?  Look again.  When I get to
> http://www.wikipedia.org/ and I'm logged out,
> I see, very large and near the top: Danish, German,
> Esperanto, Spanish, French,
> Dutch, Polish, and Portuguese.
>
> It seems very prominent to me already.  It seems
> sensible to me that
> those links should be translated to Espanol,
> Deutsche, etc.  (But not
> by me, since I don't even know what "French" is in
> French.  Francais?)
>
> But they seem plenty prominent enough.

Right. That suits me enough personnaly, so I won't
proceed any further. But, from a conceptual point of
view, that is certainly not a portal. That's an
*english* main page, with links to other languages.
Sorry, but I like words to be used in their context.

fran?ais

It would require the c c?dille (?) to be coded
properly in any langage though

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body:
On 10-10-2002, The Cunctator wrote thusly :
> On 10/10/02 2:42 PM, "The Cunctator" <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> > A big question that we are in the process of resolving now is whether we
> > want to think of Wikipedia as a single project that has multiple
> > translations, or as a bunch of largely independent projects specific to
> > particular nations and language sets. I think the first conception is
> > healthier and more productive over the long term. We really should think
> > about this issue before we take broad actions that touch upon it.
> Let me clarify the above statement: by "a single project that has multiple
> translations" I don't mean "English + translations into other languages" I
> mean "a single language-neutral encyclopedia with entries in all different
> languages, with the goal that every entry exist in every language". That is,
> I think we should think of the entries in English as being translations of
> the French entries, and the Polish entries, and vice versa.
> Ideally, if an entry exists in one language but not another, such as "racine
> Grecque"  (http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Racine_Grecque) a link to the
> unwritten [[Greek root]] should pull up a result that indicates that there's
> a version of the entry in French.
> I hope this clarifies this conceptualization of Wikipedia.
This is my pet idea to notify every other Wikipedia of the appearance of
lengthy, well fleshed out on any Wikipedia.
Creating a compilation of recent changes seems to be awkward and
resource consuming.

So what are other proposals to put this ideas into being ?

Regards,
Kpjas.


from_name: Gareth Owen

body:
Stephen Gilbert <canuck_in_korea2002 at yahoo.com> writes:

> Well, that's three. Where have you folks been the past
> few weeks? :)

I missed the discussion.  Where was it taking place?
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Parallel editing (was : Moving the English Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org)

body:
On 10-10-2002, Anthere wrote thusly :
> --- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> > On 10/10/02 2:42 PM, "The Cunctator"
> > <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> > > A big question that we are in the process of
> > resolving now is whether we
> > > want to think of Wikipedia as a single project
> > that has multiple
> > > translations, or as a bunch of largely independent
> > projects specific to
> > > particular nations and language sets. I think the
> > first conception is
> > > healthier and more productive over the long term.
> > We really should think
> > > about this issue before we take broad actions that
> > touch upon it.
>
> It is true that from a strict efficiency point of
> view, the goal of a comprenhensive and neutral
> encyclopedia would benefit from dealing with issues in
> only one central article with as many actors as
> possible debating/working together rather than several
> different articles with only a couple of persons in
> each place, even though they are updating their own
> articles from the other wikis.

Like there was a page with search though several Wikipedias
for a term there could be a gateway page to working
on several (two, theree, four) versions of the same articles
in different languages.

It would be a bit more convenient than opening several
windows with different language versions of the article.

1. in a frame set that can be programmed (vertical horizontal sizes etc)
2. that can "guess" the name of the article in languages we've chosen
   to work on - Warszawa, Warsaw, Warschau, Varsovie
   you type only Warsaw and it opens respective articles in frames

Regards,
Kpjas.


from_name: Thesmelialichu at aol.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] IRC

body:
<Is the IRC channel underused because nobody wants to use it, or
because nobody bothers because it's underused?>

That's a good question. I am a newcomer to the project, and looked in their
hoping to find some help, but only found one person in there, which I felt
was a bit intimidating (it's easier to direct a question to anyone that wants
to answer, than to one person I find). Maybe I'll try to spend some more time
there. Maybe I just looked in at a bad time?

Alex Bradbury


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cart before the horse (was: www.wiki vs. en.wik)

body:
All this talk about changing from www.wikipedia.org to en.wikipedia.org is a matter of putting the cart before the horse. We've come up with a bright idea and are contending over whether or not it's a good solution.

First, we must define exactly what the problem is. Maveric and Tarquin have tried to do this, among others. Allow me to recap, in part.

Some non-English wikipedias often feel ignored & sidelined. Spanish Wikipedia forked. Susning.nu may be seen as a fork.

Further unilateral discussion, such as the last 200 or so e-mails this week, to determine the fate of the relationship could prejudice the outcome of negotiations, leading the vary ones we wish do woo back think: "Why do THEY get to decide everything? I'm outa here!" and then say to us: "Adios, amigos!"

Lars brought up the concepts of ambassadors and embassies. I don't think we should impose on other langugae communities the restriction of speaking only through an ambassador. Yet it would substantially help us English speakers to appoint an ambassador -- someone like Maveric, who is passionately devoted to the project, willing to work hard, and is eager to understand the viewpoints of others despite his own linguistic limitations.

We need to take a fresh look at why our brothers created their fork(s). Obviously, it seemed good to them. I'd like to know why it did so.

Ed Poor


body:
On 11-10-2002, The Cunctator wrote thusly :
> On Fri, 2002-10-11 at 04:05, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
> > For the discussion to be productive please state :
> > 1. what (other than domain names) signs of balkanization are there ?
> > 2. what are you proposals to integrate other Wikipedias into one big
> > Wikipedia so that avoid balkanization ?
> I've written about both of these in previous emails, so to reiterate:
> 1. From a procedural standpoint: separate username spaces; separate
> Recent Changes spaces; the wikipedia-l/intlwiki-l separation; different
> grades of software; imperfect or non-existent interlanguage linking.
> Many of these are actively being improved even as we speak, some of them
> are not.
We (other Wikipedias/Wikipedists) are not able to change them.
It is therefore not a sign of balkanization but only deficiencies
of design, implementation and/or execution of plans and policies.
>
> >From a conceptual standpoint: seeing Wikipedia as largely separate
> projects specific to individual languages and nationalities.
>
> 2. The procedural improvements I propose should be obvious from what I
> consider to be problem areas.
>
> >From a conceptual standpoint, I think it's important to envision
> Wikipedia as a single project that happens to have content in an
> admixture of languages (much as the World Wide Web is a single network
> that happens to have sites in an admixture of languages--the world does
> much better with a single geo-neutral Web instead of an American Web,
> Chinese Web, Polish Web. I am also troubled by the forces which are
> trying to balkanize the Web).
I take your point but what exactly are you proposing to do to avoid this ?

> I thank you for discussing this in my native tongue. My Polish is worse
> than minimal.
You're welcome. I assure you my Polish is not perfect either.

Please do not give an impression there are some inner trends (in
Wikipedias) to balkanize the whole project.

Regards,
Kpjas.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] IRC

body:
Is the IRC channel underused because nobody wants to use it, or
because nobody bothers because it's underused?

--
Khendon  (Jason Williams)
khendon at khendon.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


from_name: tarquin

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the
 Wikipedia family

body:
Cunc, as I understand it, you have three points to your argument:

1. it's a disruption
2. it's a minor fix to a larger problem
3. why should the largest wikipedia have to move anyway?

1 has been adressed earlier. we've moved domain name before.
2 -- yes, I agree. The problem is larger than this. But this is a
significant move. Like mav said, it's *symbolic*. it's not the solution,
but it's part of it. It shows that the other languages are siblings --
younger siblings, yes, -- but not subordinates.

I fear I cannot answer point 3. I seems to me to stem from a
fundamentally different view of life. But I trust that should the German
Wikipedia ever grow larger than the English, you will be in favour of it
acquiring the coveted www. domain, with the English being demoted to en: ?

Anyway, if we're talking numbers, we should save www. for the Chinese
Wikipedia ;-)

An older post of yours says:
 > More effort should be put into building the cross-link capabilities,
perhaps with some automatic dictionary translations.

Yes. But please please please can we drop this idea of "automatic
dictionary translations". Try it sometime. Computers cannot translate.

The Cunctator wrote:

>On Fri, 2002-10-11 at 04:00, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>
>>On Friday 11 October 2002 12:40 am,  The Cunctato wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 10/10/02 6:41 PM, "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>><snip>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Granted the English Wikipedia is the oldest
>>>>and largest but it shouldn't be vaulted as /The Main/
>>>>Wikipedia with the other languages relegated to second
>>>>class status in The Main WIkipedia's shadow.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>By the same token, the English-lang Wikipedia is the oldest and largest (by
>>>far), and it shouldn't be shoved around simply for the sake of political
>>>correctness.
>>>
>>>
>>? How is finally having the English Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org shoving
>>around the English Wikipedia? All the others are at xx.wikipedia.org so this
>>isn't about political correctness, it is about what is fair and equal.
>>
>>
>>
>By writing "finally having" you imply inevitability. That certainly
>isn't the case. One could also write "How is redirecting the
>overwhelming preponderance of all Wikipedia entries shoving around the
>English Wikipedia? A small percentage of entries are at xx.wikipedia.org
>so this isn't about political correctness, it is about what is fair and
>equal (where equality means having every language group be given
>equivalent URLs, even though that concept of equality ignores the gross
>differences in the representation of the groups)."
>
>By definition doing "what is fair and equal" for groups with unequal
>representation is being politically correct. The Wikipedia entry
>[[political correctness]] is pretty good.
>
>Some acts of political correctness are good and necessary; but many aim
>to solve important problems with surface changes, and this proposed act
>is largely the latter.
>
>
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>


body:
tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> writes:

> But this is a significant move.
> Like mav said, it's *symbolic*. it's not the solution, but it's part of it.
> It shows that the other languages are siblings -- younger siblings, yes

I disagree.
Its only symbolic, and thats why its its neither significant, nor part of any
real solution.

It's an inconvenience to the vast majority of the users, and the only gain is
that it is a meaningless sop to people who (IMHO) don't have a legitimate
grievance in the first place.
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject:
[Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs
	www.wikipedia.org and the  Wikipedia family

body:
On Fri, 2002-10-11 at 11:41, Anthere wrote:
>
> Given all the good comments made here and Ed message of a couple of days
> ago, here's my position (I asked other french-sp, dunno what they think yet)
> on the www.wikipedia.org
>
> amha (french translation for imho, nicely provided by our french linguist)
>
> 1)There's a need for a portal page stating the existence of all the wikis,
> a few infos about each, and a direct link to each. This page should be
> at wikipedia.org.

Unfortunately, the portal page is just about the most bankrupt concept
possible in terms of usability, and online, usability is just about all
you've got. The harm of adding one more click to users, both new and
old, is measurable and huge.

www.wikipedia.org already has all the portalness it needs in its two
paragraphs of intro. The article count should probably count all the
languages, but that's about it.

Right now the different language versions of WP are separate wikis; that
should not be the permanent case. And that is what should be focused on
here.