subject: [WikiEN-l] Classification of China?

body:
Zoe wrote:

> Please explain what discipline is applied to those within the hierachy
> who deviate from the canon in the United States government.
>

Well, you can get fired if you're not in one of the protected Civil
Service jobs. There is also a whole system of rewards and
punishments, for instance in choice of foreign postings in the
State Dept, choice of assigned commands in the military, etc.

But I think you missed my point.  I don't consider the US govt to be
at all authoritarian; Fred Bauder's definition was so broad that any
non-anarchy would fit.  A cleverer definition might have said
something about criminal penalties for political dissent, which
is not too hard to test for, although it doesn't really work for
private organizations that one might think of as "authoritarian".

Stan

> Zoe, who is tired of being polite
>
> */Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>/* wrote:
>
>     You'll have to do better than that! - your description applies equally
>     well to the United States government, and to both the Green Party
>     and Libertarian Party. And therein lies the problem with attempts
>     to say a government is or is not authoritarian, communist, or
>     whatever - those kinds of terms are editorial assessments of a
>     pattern of objectively observed behavior. Even if 99% of people
>     believe the assessment, the only truly NPOV thing you can say is
>     "99% of observers believe the government to be authoritarian".
>
>     Stan
>
>     Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>     >No, the Roman Catholic church is authoritarian in different ways, for
>     >example, one person, the Pope, has the power to issue edits
>     binding upon all
>     >catholics. There is a hierarchal structure, an official canon, and
>     >discipline applied to those within the hierachy who deviate from
>     the canon.>All goes to show that if you change the subject, you
>     change the question and
>     >the answer.
>     >
>     >Fred
>     >
>     >
>     >>From: Sean Barrett
>     >>Organization: Boskonia
>     >>Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>     >>Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 17:06:19 -0700
>     >>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>     >>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classification of China?
>     >>
>     >>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>     >>Hash: SHA1
>     >>
>     >>And the Catholic Church (for another example you used of an
>     present-day
>     >>authoritarian organization) does any of these things? I can (I have)
>     >>written letters extremely critical of Cardinal Mahoney that were
>     >>published -- without interference -- in the free press. Should I
>     fear
>     >>the Spanish Inquisition?
>     >>
>     >>Methinks your definition of "authoritarian organization" is
>     remarkably
>     >>broad if it lumps the C! atholic Church in with the Butchers of
>     Beijing.
>     >>
>     >>It makes me wonder how fluid your definition of "truth" is.
>     >>
>     >>
>     >>
>     >>Fred Bauder wrote:
>     >>| The criteria are control of the press, repression of political
>     speech,
>     >>| imprisonment of those who atempt to organize an opposing political
>     >>party or
>     >>| a union, etc.
>     >>|
>     >>| Fred
>     >>|
>     >>|
>     >>|>From: Vicki Rosenzweig
>     >>|>Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>     >>|>Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 19:31:58 -0400
>     >>|>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>     >>|>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classification of China?
>     >>|>
>     >>|>At 05:16 PM 4/25/03 -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:
>     >>|>
>     >>|>>I intend to speak truth. China (and the Catholic church, for
>     another
>     >>|>>example) are authoritarian. \ It is not merely a mat! ter of
>     the opinion of
>     >>|>>vague critics. There are objective criteria which if met
>     constitute an
>     >>|>>authoritarian government.
>     >>|>
>     >>|>This concerns me, not because I disagree, but because I don't know
>     >>|>what objective criteria Fred is using, and because almost
>     anyone who
>     >>|>promotes a point of view sincerely believes that he or she is
>     speaking
>     >>|>truth.
>     >>|>
>     >>|>The determination to speak truth, while admirable, is not the
>     same as
>     >>|>NPOV, which is our policy.
>     >>|>
>     >>|>
>     >>|>
>     >>|>>Fred
>     >>|>>
>     >>|>>
>     >>|>>>From: Daniel Ehrenberg
>     >>|>>>Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>     >>|>>>Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 09:32:01 -0700 (PDT)
>     >>|>>>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>     >>|>>&! gt;Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classification of China?
>     >>|>>>
>     >>|>>>You can't just say "China is an evil totalitarian
>     >>|>>>country" (I know that's not what you said) or even
>     >>|>>>"China is a controlling country" because that's an
>     >>|>>>opinion, not a fact. The communist party in China
>     >>|>>>might think "We're not controlling or authoritarian,
>     >>|>>>we just want the best for our citizens", which makes
>     >>|>>>the comment POV. You could say (in a later
>     >>|>>>paragraph), "China is critisized for being
>     >>|>>>[[authoritarianism and
>     >>|>>>totalitarianism|authoritarianist]].
>     >>|>>>
>     >>|>>>--- Fred Bauder wrote:
>     >>|>>>
>     >>|>>>
>     >>|>>>>I stirred up this hornet's nest by inserting a l! ink
>     >>|>>>>to [[authoritarianism
>     >>|>>>>and totalitarianism|authoritarian]] into the first
>     >>|>>>>paragraph of the article.
>     >>|>>>>I think this is a fair characterization of the
>     >>|>>>>regime (regardless of what
>     >>|>>>>ever other adjective might describe it).
>     >>|>
>     >>|>--
>     >>|>Vicki Rosenzweig
>     >>|>vr at redbird.org
>     >>|>http://www.redbird.org
>     >>|>
>     >>|>_______________________________________________
>     >>|>WikiEN-l mailing list
>     >>|>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>     >>|>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>     >>|
>     >>|
>     >>| _______________________________________________
>     >>| WikiEN-l mailing list
>     >>| WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>     >>| http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>     >>
>     &g! t;>
>     >>- --
>     >>~ Sean Barrett | John and Mary had never met. They were like
>     >>~ sean at epoptic.com | two hummingbirds who had also never met.
>     >>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>     >>Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
>     >>Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>     >>
>     >>iD8DBQE+qc16v/8xpnvE6M8RAgzSAJwIu7RjTPanefl1Dhj2tpYHIVDL+QCbBPQg
>     >>38nIk0sB52iPC06Fw/0onlk=
>     >>=ErzZ
>     >>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>     >>
>     >>_______________________________________________
>     >>WikiEN-l mailing list
>     >>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>     >>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>     >>
>     >
>     >_______________________________________________
>     >WikiEN-l mailing list
>     >WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>     >http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>     >
>     >
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
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>     WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>     http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tony Wilson

subject: [WikiEN-l] A plea for sanity in capitalisation from the coalface

body:
Cunc, I don't think we need to get out the firehoses here.

I am 100% certain that Mav has *not* been wasting his time here. He is
as good a Wikipedian as anyone could reasonably ask for. He has argued
his case clearly and respectfully. I have no beef with Mav, nor with
that question of his.

It is equally true that the people who ARE doing the hard yards in the
fauna entries are NOT the ones who keep interfering with them. Everyone
working in the area knows perfectly well that species names are
capitalised, and we have all run afoul of the hit and run edits of the
people who (although undoubtedly sincere and meaning well) are NOT
working in the area, and often have no expertise in it. Neither Mav nor
I have got personal about this disagreement, nor do I think it likey
that either of us will.
Tony Wilson
(Tannin)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Tony Wilson wrote:

>Mav writes:
>
>>Thus common nouns (those that tell the "kind" of something) are not
>>capitalized but proper nouns (those that name a singular, specific person,
>>place or thing) are capitalized. Anything other than that complicates
>>matters.
>>
>
>This sounds logical but is completely inconsistent. Consider
>
>V-1 Flying Bomb: This is a *kind* of aircraft, but it is capitalised
>Labrador Retriever: This is a *kind* of dog, but it is capitalised
>Splendid Fairy-wren: This is a specific *kind* of fairy-wren, which is
>why it too is capitalised. (A non-specific kind is written as
>plain"fairy-wren".)
>
Aircraft have nothing to do with the present debate.  Applying this kind
of analogy is another kind of logical fallacy.

Ec


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>>...accurate articles I have seen on wiki which
>>have been reduced to semi-literate gibberish
>>by clumsy illinformed editing and screwed capitalisation
>>based on questionable wiki conventions on capitalisation.
>>
>
>And Tannin and I were being so polite to each other. Thanks for reducing this
>polite discussion to name calling.
>
If the only issue between two versions is a matter of capitalization, we
are still far from the matter of whether either is gibberish.

Ec


body:
Mav writes:
> Thus common nouns (those that tell the "kind" of something) are not
> capitalized but proper nouns (those that name a singular, specific person,
> place or thing) are capitalized. Anything other than that complicates
> matters.

This sounds logical but is completely inconsistent. Consider

V-1 Flying Bomb: This is a *kind* of aircraft, but it is capitalised
Labrador Retriever: This is a *kind* of dog, but it is capitalised
Splendid Fairy-wren: This is a specific *kind* of fairy-wren, which is
why it too is capitalised. (A non-specific kind is written as
plain"fairy-wren".)

The rules of correct capitalisation for species are plain and in the
main straightforward. Those of us who do the vast bulk of the work in
the fauna entries all know those rules and use them  - which is
precisely why we all have such difficulty when well-meaning people come
along and ask us to ignore them!

The goal of the encyclopedia is indeed to be consistent. Right now it
is highly *inconsistent* in that it uses the correct term for most
things but tries to impose incorrect and ambiguous terms on only *some*
of the fauna.

Tony Wilson
(Tannin)


from_name: Axel Boldt

body:
--- JFrost8401 at aol.com wrote:
> I've read Tannin's and Mav's recent contibutions, and I'm happy with
> the redirect solution. Can this be displayed somewhere obvious,
> because I still think that Tannin, Kingturtle and me are still going
> to get capitals within the articles removed?

One way to fix conventions for your bird pages and get everyone on
board would be to create a new WikiProject
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikipedia:WikiProject
or use the existing one for the Tree of Life.

Axel

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Word wrap

body:
Jason Williams wrote:

>On Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 01:58:34PM -0700, Zoe wrote:
>
>>I just checked.  My preference is to word wrap at 55 characters.  I don't know why my messages aren't wrapping, but I have no idea what to do about it. Zoe
>>
>
>At the risk of stating the obvious, why not just press enter at the
>end of every line?
>
That won't work.  You will still have different line lengths because
people have different screen widths.  For the most part we all just keep
typing, and let the word wrap take care of itself.  That would be a hard
habit to change

Ec


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] As long as we're talking about these trivial conventions...

body:
Some articles have many one-sentence paragraphs and it
is very annoying. Whenever I see this, I change it
into one or two larger paragraphs. What is the
convention, if any, on starting new paragraphs, and
should it be changed?
-LittleDan

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body:
They don't *need* to be capitalised, that's just the
international convention. If someone went out and
said" Instead of writing species as Genus species,
I'll write it as GeNuS sPeCiEs" he wouldn't be wrong,
but it's not the convention. We should use the typical
conventions of the world. I personally think Wikipedia
should try to use mostly metric measurments, only
American for clarification, because that's what almost
all of the world uses.

--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Tony Wilson wrote:
>
> >Everyone
> >working in the area knows perfectly well that
> species names are
> >capitalised,
> >
> Arrogant sophistry!
>
> This is the logical fallacy of [[Appeal to common
> practice]]
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A plea for sanity in capitalisation from the coalface

body:
Tannin wrote:
>[agreement with compromise]
>....
> My suggestion is that we should start from the idea that if the
> intention of the article is to single out that *particular* *species*
> as opposed some *other* species, then capitalisation is correct.
>....

This seems like a good rule but I would venture to guess that the only place
the up style would be needed is in a small set of articles about the
particular animals and a few other places that compare and contrast them. The
subtle ambiguity issues that the up style addresses hardly ever come-up
outside of that context. There is, for example, no other bird in the US
called "bald eagle" other than the "Bald Eagle" that I'm aware of.

In a general context our readers are not going to get the distinction between
"bald eagle" and "Bald Eagle" anyway. But when comparing two species then
capitalization can be used to make things more clear.

This is a subtle point of grammar that I'm sure only the most astute of our
copyeditors will notice. Our naming convention on capitalization should be
updated to reflect this subtly.

There will be a problem with edit links though - under this scheme we will
tolerate up style and down style red links which could potentially result in
duplicated effort (something our naming conventions aim to reduce). But we
already live with a similar "red link problem" because we tolerate British
and American spelling variations. I'm not aware of that being real problem.

So if the people doing the bulk of the work on those articles don't mind this
side-effect then I don't mind.

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


body:
I think that's a great system, but somewhat
complicated. Is there a simpler solution with similar
results or another way to explain it?

--- Tony Wilson <list at redhill.net.au> wrote:
> The place where we *will* have problems is
> demarkation. At what point
> do we draw the line between the "specialist" entries
> and the "general"
> entries? This is a potential breeding ground for
> edit wars.
>
> If we can discuss this in advance and work out a
> policy *before* we run
> into disputes, then the disputes need not happen.
>
> My suggestion is that we should start from the idea
> that if the
> intention of the article is to single out that
> *particular* *species*
> as opposed some *other* species, then capitalisation
> is correct.
>
> On its own, that's not quite enough to make a
> workabe guideline, so
> let's work some examples.
>
> First, consider the case of the bald eagle as the
> symbol of the United
> States. If that is coming from an entry about the
> President of the USA,
> it should normally be down style. (I can think of
> some unlikely
> hypothetical exceptions, but they are just that:
> unlikely and
> hypothetical.)
>
> Now, what about a more difficult example: Mav's case
> of an article on
> the US parks system that mentions the bald eagle.
> Seems to me that if
> we are talking in generalities, then "bald eagle" is
> correct. If, on
> the other hand, we are talking about specific
> species in a context
> where exact identifiication of that species matters
> - say, the parks
> service having to decide if they should prioritise
> scarce financial
> resources to the preservation of either the Bald
> Eagle or the Golden
> Eagle - then correct capitalisation to distinguish
> between the species
> is appropriate. Here is a rule of thumb to help
> decide: if you could
> sensibly replace "bald eagle" in the sentence with
> "Haliaeetus
> leucocephalus" and not have it seem horribly out of
> place, then you
> should capitalise. If "Haliaeetus leucocephalus" is
> clearly
> inappropriate, then you should *not* capitalise.
>
> My thanks again to Mav for a handsome compromise
> offer. I think this
> one will fly.
>
> Tony Wilson
> (Tannin)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>Some articles have many one-sentence paragraphs and it
>is very annoying. Whenever I see this, I change it
>into one or two larger paragraphs. What is the
>convention, if any, on starting new paragraphs, and
>should it be changed?
>
This is a matter of style that will vary with the subject, and the
individual article.  I can't begin to imagine any workable policy on this.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: A plea for sanity in capitalisation from the coalface

body:
Eclecticology wrote:
>...
> The fact that a certain cohort has currently been concentrating its
> attentions on the bird articles does not imply that it has any rights to
> insist on its own peculiar format.  We do have Wikipedia rules which, at
> least in this case, tend to be consistent with the usage of grammarians.
>  The burden of proof falls on the shoulders of those who seek to
> institute an exception to those rules.  I don't think that they have
> carried that burden, and their approach is "for the birds". ;-)
>...

Perhaps this exception can be only for the bird articles themselves... I await
what other people have to say. I for one have /never/ used capitals for the
common names of species but then again I haven't taken any courses in
ornithology.

--mav


subject: [WikiEN-l] Little budda is a vandal

body:
> I must state here that Fat Budda has been making
> many
> stubs to replace the redirects, which I deeply
> appreciate.

Some of his stubs should be redirects.  On the page
[[Primate extinction]] (or something like that) he
wrote "[[Extinction]] of [[primate]]s". I quickly
replaced it with a redirect to [[Ape extinction]]
because primate extinction almost always reffers to
the other primates dying out, not us. (There was a
recent article in Nature about how gorillas are almost
extinct an should be classified as very endangered
instead of just endangered, I think that article used
the two terms interchangibly).

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked

body:
I edit Wikipedia frequently at work, er, school.
Everyone is so slow at the classwork that I can just
go to the library for the rest of the period to go on
Wikipedia.

--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Just an FYI: The "unban" function is not disabled
> when a sysop's IP has been
> banned. I know this because I banned my work IP
> several times last year for
> days at a time in order to get some, er, work done.
> Having to first unban my
> workstation's IP before editing kept me from wasting
> work time editing
> Wikipedia.
>
> Now the state has spyware on all computers so I
> hardly edit at all while at
> work (expect during breaks).
>
> -- mav
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked

body:
That's a good idea, but someone could just write a
trusted user cookie to get on the site if they tried
hard enough. Probably no one would get around it. I
still think a blocking cookie would work for the 75%
of internet users that don't know how to delete their
cookies.

--- sannse <sannse at delphiforums.com> wrote:
> I know the cookie idea will hopefully help with
> banning people like Michael,
> bypassing the need for an IP block - but could it
> work the other way too?
> I'm not technical so I don't know if this is
> feasable or not, but could we
> have a "trusted user" cookie.  One that allowed
> trusted users to skip any
> block on the IP they are using?  It woldn't be
> needed for most users, but
> would overrule an IP block in cases like Danny's.
>
> Anyway, as I say, I have no idea if this is possible
> or desirable
>
> Regards,
>
> sannse
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
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from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked

body:
mav wrote:

> Just an FYI: The "unban" function is not disabled when a sysop's IP has
been
> banned. I know this because I banned my work IP several times last year
for
> days at a time in order to get some, er, work done. Having to first unban
my
> workstation's IP before editing kept me from wasting work time editing
> Wikipedia.

I didn't know that, thanks.  So have I got my Dannys mixed up?  There is a
User:Danny listed on the sysop list (as well as LittleDan)

sannse


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Like a Virgin

body:
> Is Like a Virgin another incarnation of Lir/Adam/etc.?

Yup, looks like it. Same articles Lir last edited, same style.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] i'm blocked again

body:
> Hi

> Can we figure out a better way to block users. I keep getting messages that
> I am blocked because I am Michael. I can understand the need to block
> Michael, but I don't think I should bear the brunt of the punishment because
> I happen to use the same server as him.

I've unblocked a bunch of Michael IPs and some other IPs which were banned
for small vandalism. Let us know if you can get back in now.

Regards,

Erik


body:
(Cut & paste from Mav's talk page, but of more general relevance.
Formatting will be funny because of the limitations of email, but it
should still be readable)

My former enthusiasm for doing fauna entries has evaporated. After
doing a bit of this and a bit of that, I was really enjoying working in
a field which is, if not controversy-free, at least one where the
controversies are very civilised.

Consider the horrible mess that is bird taxonomy, with the English, the
Americans, the Australians, the Dutch, the South Africans all having
different and incompatible classifications. And yet, here on the
'pedia, we have two Englishmen, an American, and an Australian - all
happily cooperating to build a body of work that is as up-to-date and
scientifically correct as we can make it. It has a long, long way to
go, and there are several thorny issues to resolve, but bit by bit we
are getting there.

Or consider the woeful state of the mammal entries. (I'm thinking of
the Australian ones in particular here.) I've spent days and days
working on these, checking all my facts with appropriate sources as I
go along, and they have started to take some form and accuracy on.

All the while I've been swallowing, largely without complaint, the
constant and tedious fiddling from people who, however well-meaning,
are being very unhelpful. Yesterday I reached a "last straw" state of
mind and I've spat the dummy out.

I don't want to do fauna stuff here anymore.

I take your point about using common names instead of specialist names,
and agree with it. However, we need to think this through. Consider the
three basic situations:

(i) Highly specialised and very formal publications that generally
avoid common names entirely. In these, if it appears at all, a common
name is more a textual decoration than an indication of a particular
precise species. Writers only use the commom name to do things like
avoid too much repetition in a sentence, and never use it to stand
alone as an identification of a species. The common name is, in effect,
used as a sort of psudo-pronoun. For example (just a made-up sentence
to illustrate):

A. australis is endemic to New Zealand, where it is classified as
vulnerable, but on neighboring islands the brown kiwi remains common.

Not a very good illustration, but the point is that the common name
serves no special purpose of identification (in these publications,
binomial names rule supreme) and does not need to be set off in any way
from the rest of the text. Hence, it can be left uncapitalised without
loss of meaning or clarity. (By the way, at least so far as birds go,
this style is very rare indeed.)

(ii) Scientifically correct publications more broadly. These can be
aimed at the general reader or the professional working in the field,
but usually fall somewhere between those extremes. Here, correct
capitalisation is a vital part of the use of common names. In at least
some fields (birds is certainly one), the common name is an exact
equivalent to the binomial name. There is only one Black-shouldered
Kite in the entire world. You can write "Elanis axillaris" or
"Black-shouldered Kite" and no-one has the slightest doubt which
creature you mean. However, a "black-shouldered kite" could equally
well be E. scriptus or any of several birds from the northern
hemisphere. Unless we include the binomial name each and every time we
want to indicate E. axillaris or E. scriptus (as the highly formal and
rather unreadable type of strictly-scientific publication listed at (i)
above does), we have no other choice but to use capitalisation.

(iii) General works which don't aim to be scientifically correct. Here,
there is no particular attempt to be accurate or precise, or (usually)
to identify any particular species. Often, neither the author not the
reader even knows what the species is, let alone cares. For example, if
I were writing a novel, it would be silly to write:

Gloria shuddered at the thought of her pet harming the beautiful
Scarlet Robin she had admired from the window earlier that morning.

You might as well go the whole hog and write:

Gloria shuddered at the thought of her pet harming the beautiful
Scarlet Robin (Petroica multicolor) she had admired from the window
earlier that morning.

In a novel or in a work of general non-fiction, it is perfectly
acceptible (and indeed correct) to not capitalise, as the intention of
the work is to highlight some thing other than the creature in
question. In the passage above, for example, we are not interested in
the robin, nor even in what Gloria's cat has done to it, we are
interested in Gloria's emotional reactions.

In summary, there are three possibilities:

(a) That we always use binomial names if in the slightest doubt about
the identity of a species. This would be, strictly speaking, correct,
but unreadable for the vast majority.
(b) That we abandon the attempt to create a scientifically correct body
of work, and become a light-weight, non-auhoritive place that is little
more than a glorified chat room. (Not that there is anything wrong with
chat rooms, it's just not what I think Wikipedia ought to be. Nor you.)
(c) That we adopt the same solution as is used by the vast majority of
works that aim to be factual, comprehensive, scientific, and accessible
to the general reader too - i.e., we use the correct capitalisation for
species names.

I would be delighted to return to crafting factual, readable, accurate
entries about fauna of all kinds. I have greatly enjoyed doing that
over the last few months. But, fair dinkum, I have had a gutfull of
constant hit and run edits that do nothing but spoil the result of all
the effort I put in. I don't want to be unreasonable or petulant, but
let's face it, we all only work on articles because we enjoy doing it
and find it rewarding. I am no longer enjoying it, and it's no longer
rewarding. As I have documented elsewhere, everyone who is doing bird
entries on any significant scale has similar problems. It's not just
me. I just happen to be the one who has reached the end of his tether
first.

Tony Wilson
(Tannin)


from_name: JFrost8401 at aol.com

body:
In a message dated 27/04/03 20:16:21 GMT Daylight Time, axelboldt at yahoo.com
writes:

> One way to fix conventions for your bird pages and get everyone on
> board would be to create a new WikiProject
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikipedia:WikiProject
> or use the existing one for the Tree of Life.
>
> Axel
>

We have created Birds as a Wikiproject
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from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject:
[WikiEN-l] As long as we're talking about these trivial
  conventions...

body:
At 12:23 PM 4/27/03 -0700, LittleDan wrote:
>Some articles have many one-sentence paragraphs and it
>is very annoying. Whenever I see this, I change it
>into one or two larger paragraphs. What is the
>convention, if any, on starting new paragraphs, and
>should it be changed?

There isn't a specific Wiki convention. The general convention
in writing English is that a paragraph should consist of related
thoughts. If it gets too long, look for a good break point. But
don't run unrelated sentences together into a single paragraph.

If (hypothetical) I'm working on an article about a musician, and
all that's available are her date and location of birth, what albums
she's released, and her unsuccessful campaign for Secretary
General, that last doesn't go in the same paragraph even if it's
only one sentence. The albums could all go in one paragraph, or
each get its own, depending on how much information is available.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Zoe

subject: [WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked

body:
Not a problem.  I have no interest in performing
anything other than the minimal creation of brand new
articles.  Henceforth I will be blocking no one,
reverting no vandals, editing nobody else's articles.

There.  All of the people I have ever blocked are now
unblocked.

Have at it.

Zoe

--- daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> I understand why it is necessary to block Michael.
> However, it is absolutely
> unnecesary to block me! Furthermore, the answer that
> the block against
> Michael (and by extension, against me) will be
> lifted in a day or so is
> absolutely unsatisfactory.
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Word wrap

body:
I won't even bother to respond to that.

Zoe

--- Jason Williams <jason at jasonandali.org.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 01:58:34PM -0700, Zoe wrote:
> > I just checked.  My preference is to word wrap at
> 55 characters.  I don't know why my messages aren't
> wrapping, but I have no idea what to do about it.
> Zoe
>
> At the risk of stating the obvious, why not just
> press enter at the
> end of every line?
>
>
> --
> jason at jasonandali.org.uk
> http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


from_name: cprompt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked

body:
Hmmm...
Or maybe an "exempt from blocking" cookie? Preferably containing data
that needs to be verified by the server, so others couldn't construct
the cookie, and it should expire fairly rapidly (week? month?) at which
point the server will no longer consider the data valid.

That way, we could be (slightly) more liberal with bans involving IP
ranges, since inadvertantly affected anonymous users could have a
cookie, and those with an account would get an account exemption.

Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>That's a good idea, but someone could just write a
>trusted user cookie to get on the site if they tried
>hard enough. Probably no one would get around it. I
>still think a blocking cookie would work for the 75%
>of internet users that don't know how to delete their
>cookies.
>
>--- sannse <sannse at delphiforums.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I know the cookie idea will hopefully help with
>>banning people like Michael,
>>bypassing the need for an IP block - but could it
>>work the other way too?
>>I'm not technical so I don't know if this is
>>feasable or not, but could we
>>have a "trusted user" cookie.  One that allowed
>>trusted users to skip any
>>block on the IP they are using?  It woldn't be
>>needed for most users, but
>>would overrule an IP block in cases like Danny's.
>>
>>Anyway, as I say, I have no idea if this is possible
>>or desirable
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>sannse
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
>http://search.yahoo.com
>
>


body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:

> At 12:23 PM 4/27/03 -0700, LittleDan wrote:
> If (hypothetical) I'm working on an article about a musician, and
> all that's available are her date and location of birth, what albums
> she's released, and her unsuccessful campaign for Secretary
> General, that last doesn't go in the same paragraph even if it's
> only one sentence.

Another benefit of Wiki: Even though it's one sentence, it could later
become a paragraph. For example, Jello Biafra, lead singer of the band
Dead Kennedys could have an article with much information relating to
his musical career. A one-sentence paragraph saying "He ran for mayor of
San Francisco in 1979" could add that he lost, and that a campaign
slogan of his was "There's always room for Jello".


from_name: John Knouse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Capitalization and quotes

body:
First, there was a message in the last batch of email that
had huge quotes, re-quotes, and so forth, so much so that
one section had eight, count them, eight, quoting
marks/indents.  Please, people, clean up your emails.  You
don't need to quote every preceding transaction on a topic.

Secondly, I appreciate the mav/tannin compromise on
capitalization, and, hey, you see, a compromise was
possible, now, wasn't it?  Having said that, Tannin, I have
to take you to task for being rather insulting by
implication to everyone who wasn't one of your self-selected
clique of "three or four" experts.  What work I've done on
fauna is reasonable and a good starting point, and if you
don't like it, then it takes a lot less time for you to edit
it than it takes to write it in the first place.

Now, I want to be sure that this rule is being applied to
fauna, and not flora.  It's true that many if not most
popular reference works capitalize common names for flora,
but authoritative works such as Gleason & Cronquist
generally do not except for the first letter when it's in
the first word mentioned (as in capitalizing the first word
in a sentence) or when it's a proper name, such as New York
fern.

--
John Knouse
jaknouse at frognet.net


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked

body:
>From: daniwo59 at aol.com
>Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>To: wikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked
>Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 02:21:28 EDT
>
>I understand why it is necessary to block Michael. However, it is
>absolutely
>unnecesary to block me! Furthermore, the answer that the block against
>Michael (and by extension, against me) will be lifted in a day or so is
>absolutely unsatisfactory.

I suggest you get a username, if you don't already have one, and tell us
what it is. The development team will be able to override the IP blocking
for you personally. This will allow us to continue to block Michael, and
will also give us an obvious course of action if you turn out to be just
another Michael pseudonym trying to get the previous pseudonyms unblocked.

If you're currently an anonymous contributor and you're anxious about
getting a username, keep in mind that users with usernames have much better
privacy protection in place than "anonymous" users.

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.?Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [WikiEN-l] Photodetector

body:
On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 02:32, Richard Grevers wrote:
> Does anyone know if there was an article at [[photodetector]] prior to
> today?

Doesn't seem to have been:

# 09:26 Apr 27, 2003 Notheruser deleted "Photodetector" (content: "yes i
think it is also true about what he has to say. electrons can only move
freely when")

    * 09:25 Apr 27, 2003 . . Heron (-incomplete comment)
    * 09:18 Apr 27, 2003 . . 213.120.56.33 ()

>  I came up as a bizarre on-line stub on random page with no edit
> history. Could someone check a dump or backup to see if there have been
> shennanigans?

What on earth kind of shennanigans might you be thinking of?

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

subject: [Wikitech-l] Search feature not working

body:
On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 17:20, Tim Starling wrote:
> At the moment, all the search feature does is tells you there are no title
> matches (regardless of what you search for), and directs you to a Google
> search. The go button still works, so at the moment "go" is the only way to
> do a title search. I had assumed the dev. team has this under control and I
> worked around it, but I've had a new user (Susurrus) complain directly to
> me, asking me to forward his complaint on to here. So here it is. I know
> about "miser mode", but this isn't miser mode, it's nonexistent mode. What's
> going on?

I've just gone ahead and turned the title search back on. I mean, heck,
who wants to actually be able to read or write anything on the wiki?
Much better to be able to search it -- _if_ you're lucky enough to get
through at all.

Hooray!

If it starts to suck too much (which it likely will come morning), I'll
disable it again.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Geoff Burling

subject:
[WikiEN-l] As long as we're talking about these trivial
 conventions...

body:
On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, tarquin wrote:
>
> Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
>
> >Some articles have many one-sentence paragraphs and it
> >is very annoying.
> >
> Good style is hard to define in simple terms.
>
> But paragraphs of a single sentence often read badly.
>
> They sound stilted.
>
> But it's one of those things where you just have to use your judgement
> as a writer. Sometimes a single sentence paragraph is good, sometimes not.
>
And sometimes you stumble across an entry that makes you wonder how it
slipped beneath the radar for so long.

I direct the curious to [[Amanda Pays]], & to study the history of that
article. Boy, did it need some cleaning up.

And for the record, years ago I did have a crush on Ms Pays. And I still
haven't made my peace with Corbin Bernsen.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Photodetector

references:
<oprn97gvsdzs1r4a@localhost>
	 <1051490727.28991.1.camel@frank.vibber.org>  <oprobdasm8zs1r4a@localhost>

body:
On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 17:36, Richard Grevers wrote:
> On 27 Apr 2003 17:45:28 -0700, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> gave
> > On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 02:32, Richard Grevers wrote:
> >> I came up as a bizarre on-line stub on random page with no edit history.
> >> Could someone check a dump or backup to see if there have been
> >> shennanigans?
> >
> > What on earth kind of shennanigans might you be thinking of?
> >
> Well, there has been talk of people deleting pages without proper
> procedure. I'm not sure what remains in page history if a page is deleted
> and then started anew.

The page history would show no earlier revisions, but the undeletion
archive (which I quoted in previous message) would, as would the
deletion log show the earlier deletion (and if someone tried to edit the
log to remove it, the line would be saved in the previous revision of
the log page's history).

>  I wouldn't have been so worried had this not come up
> in "random pages" - I though there was some mechanism to prevent stubs
> appearing in random pages.

No, there is no biasing of random selection in favor or against
long/short/old/new/good/bad/well-written/obscene/obscure articles. Only
being a non-redirect in article space, and being randomly selected, is
required for such appearence.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Capitalization and quotes

body:
On 4/27/03 7:52 PM, "John Knouse" <jaknouse at frognet.net> wrote:
> Secondly, I appreciate the mav/tannin compromise on
> capitalization, and, hey, you see, a compromise was
> possible, now, wasn't it?  Having said that, Tannin, I have
> to take you to task for being rather insulting by
> implication to everyone who wasn't one of your self-selected
> clique of "three or four" experts.  What work I've done on
> fauna is reasonable and a good starting point, and if you
> don't like it, then it takes a lot less time for you to edit
> it than it takes to write it in the first place.

Eh, both sides were being a bit insulting. Let sleeping dogs lie.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Word wrap

body:
On 4/27/03 7:34 PM, "Zoe" <zoecomnena at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I won't even bother to respond to that.
>
Hooray for paralipsis!


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked

body:
In a message dated 4/27/2003 6:30:44 PM Eastern Standard Time,
zoecomnena at yahoo.com writes:

> Not a problem.  I have no interest in performing
> anything other than the minimal creation of brand new
> articles.  Henceforth I will be blocking no one,
> reverting no vandals, editing nobody else's articles.
>
> There.  All of the people I have ever blocked are now
> unblocked

Since this was in response to my email, I think I should respond.

Zoe, in no way was my email meant as an attack against you. Rather, it was
pointing out a fundamental problem with blocking users. I am not against
blocking users. Michael should be blocked. Ark (remember him?) should have
been blocked. The problem I have is that occasionally the blocking affects
other users as well. On two occasions, it has affected me: when Isis blocked
someone, and when you blocked Michael. As I understood your answer, I would
have to wait till Michael was unblocked. To me that is not a solution.
Imagine yourself in a similar situation--being blocked because your happen to
share an IP address with Lir.

Of course, I am not blaming you for the problem. I am simply bringing to the
attention of the list that this problem exists and should be addressed. By
all means block vandals, but let's try to find a better way to do it, so that
other users are not blocked too. LittleDan has made a suggestion on how that
can be done. I am too computer illiterate to understand the ramifications,
but it seems that there are alternative ways. I hope we can explore them.

I've been at Wikipedia for a relatively long time--long enough to remember
many of the characters that have done their damage here. On a more positive
note, I've even been here long enough to remember new users, including you,
testing the waters, so to speak, and turning into some of our top
contributors. In the time I've been here, I've contributed quite a few
articles myself and I even did all the president tables. I hope to continue
contributing for a long while to come. If I am blocked, however, I will not
be able to do so. Maybe that is a major part of the part of the damage that
vandals do--having other contributors with something to add tossed off the
project for computer-related problems.

If my posting to this mailing list offended you, I apologize. It was
certainly not meant in that way. All I wanted was to find an alternative way
of blocking vandals, so that real contributors, such as me, are not forced
out.

Danny

Wikikarma: [[ney]]
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from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Photodetector

body:
Does anyone know if there was an article at [[photodetector]] prior to
today? I came up as a bizarre on-line stub on random page with no edit
history. Could someone check a dump or backup to see if there have been
shennanigans?

--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/


from_name: Tony Wilson

body:
Mav writes: many of the links to the bird/mammal articles will be from
articles that "highlight some thing other than the creature in
question. In those articles it is most correct to have "bald eagle" in
the running text of the article and not "Bald Eagle".

I agree entirely. We should only use "Bald Eagle" where the aim is to
specify a particular exact species - i.e., the Bald Eagle as opposed
to, say, the Golden Eagle or a Spotted Harrier. In general, that will
nearly always be within the context of a fauna entry.

Mav suggests the following compromise: Have the bird and mammal
articles follow the capitalization convention deemed appropriate by the
specialists and enthusiasts working on them BUT a down style redirect
MUST be pointed to the up style article title.

This makes excellent sense and I agree wholeheartedly.

Mav writes: what is needed is to make redirects far less ugly than they
are now. People seem to get real pissy when they follow a term they
know and use only to get a result that in effect screams "the method
you are using to access this page is depreciated".

Yes. There is *absolutely* *nothing* wrong with redirects, they are a
really useful, indeed essential part of the 'pedia. But people do tend
to think that there is something "wrong" with using a redirect. How
about we change the "Redirected from XXXX" display font so that it is
in smaller letters? I'm sure that there are more advanced and elegant
solutions around (Mav offers some in his post), but that on its own
would help quite a lot. Also, we should sprinkle a few more "there is
nothing wrong with a redirect" statements around the place. In the
welcome pages, the FAQs, wherever.

Mav writes: So if specialists will allow down style links to their
articles I can live with those articles following the up style and
other conventions deemed appropriate

I have no problem with that. I don't think anyone else will either.

------------------

The place where we *will* have problems is demarkation. At what point
do we draw the line between the "specialist" entries and the "general"
entries? This is a potential breeding ground for edit wars.

If we can discuss this in advance and work out a policy *before* we run
into disputes, then the disputes need not happen.

My suggestion is that we should start from the idea that if the
intention of the article is to single out that *particular* *species*
as opposed some *other* species, then capitalisation is correct.

On its own, that's not quite enough to make a workabe guideline, so
let's work some examples.

First, consider the case of the bald eagle as the symbol of the United
States. If that is coming from an entry about the President of the USA,
it should normally be down style. (I can think of some unlikely
hypothetical exceptions, but they are just that: unlikely and
hypothetical.)

Now, what about a more difficult example: Mav's case of an article on
the US parks system that mentions the bald eagle. Seems to me that if
we are talking in generalities, then "bald eagle" is correct. If, on
the other hand, we are talking about specific species in a context
where exact identifiication of that species matters - say, the parks
service having to decide if they should prioritise scarce financial
resources to the preservation of either the Bald Eagle or the Golden
Eagle - then correct capitalisation to distinguish between the species
is appropriate. Here is a rule of thumb to help decide: if you could
sensibly replace "bald eagle" in the sentence with "Haliaeetus
leucocephalus" and not have it seem horribly out of place, then you
should capitalise. If "Haliaeetus leucocephalus" is clearly
inappropriate, then you should *not* capitalise.

My thanks again to Mav for a handsome compromise offer. I think this
one will fly.

Tony Wilson
(Tannin)


from_name: tarquin

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>Some articles have many one-sentence paragraphs and it
>is very annoying.
>
Good style is hard to define in simple terms.

But paragraphs of a single sentence often read badly.

They sound stilted.

But it's one of those things where you just have to use your judgement
as a writer. Sometimes a single sentence paragraph is good, sometimes not.


from_name: Krzysztof Kowalczyk

subject: [Wikitech-l] error during installation

body:
Apologies if this is something obvious.

I tried to install the latest CVS phase3 code on RH Linux 7.2, MySQL
3.23.54, PHP 4.3.1. I got the following error when running "php
install.php":

    Enter the root password here: ***
    Creating database...

    Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in
    /var/www/kovi/www/wiki/User.php on line 287
    /var/www/kovi/www/wiki/User.php(287) : Fatal error - Call to a member
    function on a non-object

My guess is that it comes from populatedata() in install.php which calls:

        $sql = "INSERT INTO user (user_name, user_password, user_rights)"
        .
          "VALUES ('WikiSysop','" . User::encryptPassword(
          $wgDBadminpassword ) .
          "','sysop'),('WikiDeveloper','" . User::encryptPassword(
          $wgDBadminpassword ) . "','sysop,developer')";
        wfQuery( $sql, $fname );

User::encryptPassword() is:
        function encryptPassword( $p )
        {
                return $this->addSalt( md5( $p ) );
        }
and User::addSalt() is:
        function addSalt( $p )
        {
                return md5( "wikipedia{$this->mId}-{$p}" );
        }

Now, I know next to nothing about PHP but what the error seems to be
saying that encryptPassword is being called as a static function (in C++
meaning) while it isn't because it calls addSalt() which isn't static
because tries to access object data so it needs an instance of the class
to operate on.
Is this a known problem or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,


from_name: Nicolas Delahaye

subject: [Wikitech-l] error when installing Wikipedia

body:
Hi

I am installing wikipedia from scratch, am a newbie in php, and got the
latest version of the code (phase3). I also got an error, and was wondering
if I did something wrong, or if I needed to configure more, or run something
else before install.php.

I followed the steps of INSTALL, turned register_globals on, and got
following fatal error.
I am on RedHat 7.2, with apache 1.3.27, mysql 3.23.56 and php 4.3.1.

Anyone to help me?

Thanks

Nicolas

[root at localhost wiki]# php install.php
Directory "/usr/local/apache/htdocs/wiki" created.
Directory "/usr/local/apache/htdocs/wiki/upload" created.
Directory "/usr/local/apache/htdocs/wiki/style" created.
Directory "/usr/local/apache/htdocs/wiki/upload/tmp" created.
Copying files...

* * *
Warning! This script will completely erase the
existing database "wikidb" and all its contents.
Are you sure you want to do this? (yes/no) yes

You should have already created a root password for the database.
Enter the root password here:
Creating database...

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in
/usr/local/apache/htdocs/wiki/User.php on line 287

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Little budda is a vandal

in_reply_to: <8k$d7S4SpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 11:56:00PM +0200

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Don't even think about it. Logged in contributors can only be banned by
> decree from Jimbo Wales.

There is one exception to this: "pure" vandalism from a logged in
contributor when I can't be found in a timely fashion.  It's a little
(a lot?) fuzzy as to what is "pure" vandalism, but it's pretty safe to
say that if you have to ask, it isn't.

Examples of pure vandalism would be logging in and writing curse
words in articles, posting pornographic pictures, randomly deleting
content, randomly changing content to have simple wrong facts.

"George shit Washington was born last Thursday, and here's a naked
picture of him I found on goatse."

That sort of thing.

But if it's just a content fight, then a ban is a serious last resort
after much annoying and tiresome conversation.  :-)

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Classification of China?

body:
It looks like there was a very long thread over the weekend, and I
couldn't possibly weigh in on all of it.  I *will* read all of it,
though.

But from the outset, remember that Vicki has very well summed up my
a priori position, with this:

Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> The determination to speak truth, while admirable, is not the same as
> NPOV, which is our policy.

That's exactly right.

NPOV statements are a subset of statements that I think are true.
Which subset?  The set of statements that I think are true, and which
almost everyone would also agree are true.

This usually means that NPOV statements are "softer" than we might
like if we strive to speak the whole truth.  I might want to say that
China has a terrible human rights record.  It's true, after all!  But
it is "softer" to say "China's human rights record has been criticized
by X, Y, and Z."

Is China authoritarian?  Sure it is.  But it's not necessary for us
to actualy make the claim ourselves.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Classification of China?

in_reply_to: <BACFB610.1B01%fredbaud@ctelco.net>; from fredbaud@ctelco.net on Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 04:05:36AM -0600

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> We get all over those who would deny the holocaust; no reason not to
> not adopt the same sort of disrespect and impose the same restraints
> upon those who would deny the sins of Marxism-Leninism.

I agree completely, but neither case requires us to deviate from NPOV.

The simplest tool for dealing with this sort of situation is to "go
meta".  We don't _exclude_ unfavorable information, we _attribute_ it.

> Exclusion of unfavorable information is not a neutral point of view, but
> bowing to what is essentially a demand that such information be censored.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <200304260851.h3Q8pfo12080@www.wikipedia.org>; from list@redhill.net.au on Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 06:59:12PM +1000

body:
Tony Wilson wrote:
> Over and over again, a small number of good, decent Wikipedia
> contributors are causing difficulties for those of us who are
> actually doing the hard yards in the fauna articles.

It's almost impossible to disagree with anyone who raises a criticism
in such a civilized fashion.  I really like to see this: a presumption
that people who are doing something that annoys are doing it out of
goodness and decency and error, rather than malicious spite.

Hats off to you Tony, and although I have no knowledge or helpful
comment on the specific issue you raised, it sounds to me like you're
right, and I hope people follow suit.

--Jimbo


body:
Anthere wrote:
> --- Zoe <zoecomnena at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > No.  This is Wikipedia.  You do not own an article.
> > Zoe
>
> Quite true
>
> Nor do you own conventions

Absolutely right.

One of the important principles that has made Wikipedia work is mutual
caring and support among the contributors.  Of course it's right at
times to take a firm stand, even at the risk of annoying others, but
really, it's a lot better to try to get along with people,
particularly if they care a lot about something, are producing a lot
of work, and it's minor to everyone else.

--Jimbo


body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> Whatever the case, I don't think we'll be hurt either way, and I don't
> think it's worth antagonizing useful contributors by changing their work
> (and making no other contributions) and then implying that they're
> elitist bastards for complaining.

While still remaining agnostic on the content issue of capitalization,
I do heartily endorse Cunc's implicit call for relaxation and cutting
each other some slack.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Questions about honesty and fair play

in_reply_to: <200304281022.h3SAMDo01672@www.wikipedia.org>; from list@redhill.net.au on Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 08:30:23PM +1000

body:
It's not a good thing to do that, for sure.  People should be made
aware that it's uncool to deliberately hide substantive edits, if they
aren't already.  Of course, anyone who would do this *deliberately*
would already know that it's uncool.

Tony Wilson wrote:

> From time to time, it is said that deliberately hiding substantive
> changes to an entry is a bannable offence.  Is this true? If so, where
> is it written down? Is there a mechanisim in place to warn offenders
> that their behaviour is unacceptable?  Or, if it is not true, should a
> policy change be instituted to make it true?
>
>
> Tony Wilson
> (Tannin)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
It is part of the pattern of certain trolls. The situation you are alluding
to: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/communist_state is a different situation.
There is no need to write an essay on why that article is being reverted.
See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communist_state.

As to the general question: It is improper to make major changes to an
article, then mark it as a minor change. Done deliberately, it is part of a
pattern that eventually leads to banning.

Fred

> From: "Tony Wilson" <list at redhill.net.au>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 20:30:23 +1000
> To: "WikiEN" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Questions about honesty and fair play
>
> From time to time, it is said that deliberately hiding substantive
> changes to an entry is a bannable offence.  Is this true? If so, where
> is it written down? Is there a mechanisim in place to warn offenders
> that their behaviour is unacceptable?  Or, if it is not true, should a
> policy change be instituted to make it true?
>
>
> Tony Wilson
> (Tannin)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] two annoying vandals

body:
Hi

Two bothersome vandals are

1. Or, who keeps making changes to History of Croatia, deleting any
discussion of the fascist government of that country. No other changes have
been made by him, except that I suspect he is the same anonymous vandal that
erased [[Jasenovac]] three times--using that number, he also deleted the same
material he is deleting in Croatia;

2. Zog, who has been adding some nasty anti-Semitic and racist materials in
the History of the Jews in the Soviet Union, History of the United States,
and Johnny Rebel. BTW, Zog stands for "Zionist Occupation Government", a
rightwing term for the supposed Jewish cabal that controls governments. In
fact, he even used it that way in History of the Jews in the Soviet Union.

Danny
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body:
Ray writes: We do have Wikipedia rules ..... The burden of proof falls
on the shoulders of those who seek to institute an exception to those
rules.  I don't think that they have carried that burden, and their
approach is "for the birds". ;-)

This, however completely to come to grips with the prior situation:
i.e., that key phrase I already cited from the naming conventions: "or
is otherwise almost always capitalized". So no, Ray, your attempt to
reverse the burden of proof will not wash. No-one is talking about
making "exceptions to the normal rules", we are talking about NOT
making exceptions to the normal rule that species names are
capitalised. There is a very good reason for this rule, namely the
ambiguity problem, which is why it exists in the first place.
Tony Wilson
(Tannin)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Capitalization and quotes

body:
Jaknose says: "Please, people, clean up your emails.  You don't need to
quote every preceding transaction on a topic." Amen to that.

Also: "Tannin, I have to take you to task for being rather insulting by
implication to everyone who wasn't one of your self-selected clique of
"three or four" experts." Steady on there:  we are not taking
"cliques", simply the the people who have, over the last several
months, been most active in the birds area. If you want to hop in and
do more fauna entries, then I think that would be great! You write well
and the more the merrier.There is no shortage of work to go around!

And finally: "Now, I want to be sure that this rule is being applied to
fauna, and not flora." My preference would be to apply it to species
names across the board. The plant books I have handy certainly
capitalise (and yes, I've done a few plant entries too, and plan more
as time permits). However, in the interests of a quiet life and the
spirit of cooperation, I'm happy to work with a more modest compromise.
The obvious and easy dividing line is vertebrates on the one hand,
everything else on the other.

Tony Wilson
(Tannin)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked

body:
>From: "sannse" <sannse at delphiforums.com>
>Tim Starling wrote:
> >>I suggest you get a username, if you don't already have one, and tell us
> >>what it is. The development team will be able to override the IP
>blocking
> >>for you personally. This will allow us to continue to block Michael, and
> >>will also give us an obvious course of action if you turn out to be just
> >>another Michael pseudonym trying to get the previous pseudonyms
>unblocked.
>
> >>If you're currently an anonymous contributor and you're anxious about
> >>getting a username, keep in mind that users with usernames have much
>better
> >>privacy protection in place than "anonymous" users.
>
>If I remember rightly, daniwo59 at aol.com is User:Danny, a longstanding
>contributor and a sysop

Sorry Danny.

>
>The problem is that a block will stop all users on that IP, logged in or
>not.  The only reason sysops can't block logged in users is that they don't
>know the relevant IP numbers (aside from the policy reasons of course)
>
>I know the cookie idea will hopefully help with banning people like
>Michael,
>bypassing the need for an IP block - but could it work the other way too?
>I'm not technical so I don't know if this is feasable or not, but could we
>have a "trusted user" cookie.  One that allowed trusted users to skip any
>block on the IP they are using?  It woldn't be needed for most users, but
>would overrule an IP block in cases like Danny's.
>
>Anyway, as I say, I have no idea if this is possible or desirable
>
>Regards,
>
>sannse

I notice this "trusted user cookie" idea has been taken up in a few other
posts. I don't understand. Why do you need a cookie? All I'm suggesting is a
single, rather inelegant modification to User.php, i.e. adding the following
few lines to the top of getBlockedStatus():

if ( $this->mId == 584 ) {
    $this->mBlockedby = 0;
    return;
}

...thereby making Danny unblockable. No cookies required. Of course, if
Danny goes crazy with the power, or someone hijacks his account, the
modification can be removed. If we feel the need to make this mechanism more
general, we can add a "unblockable" flag to the user table, and make it
something like this:

if ($this->mUnblockable) {
    $this->mBlockedby = 0;
    return;
}

But of course that will require much more work to implement.

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp


subject: [Wikitech-l] Search feature not working

body:
At the moment, all the search feature does is tells you there are no title
matches (regardless of what you search for), and directs you to a Google
search. The go button still works, so at the moment "go" is the only way to
do a title search. I had assumed the dev. team has this under control and I
worked around it, but I've had a new user (Susurrus) complain directly to
me, asking me to forward his complaint on to here. So here it is. I know
about "miser mode", but this isn't miser mode, it's nonexistent mode. What's
going on?

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp


subject: [WikiEN-l] Word wrap

body:
Jason Williams wrote:

>At the risk of stating the obvious, why not just press enter at the
>end of every line?
>
>
If I wanted to do that, I would be using a mechanical typewriter!

>
>
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] SQL Request

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:

>Hello,
>I'm sysop on the french Wikipedia.
>I want to run a SQL request to change all "Egypte", "egypte" and "?gypte" to
>"?gypte" (french name for Egypt) on the body articles of the french data
>base. (I will make the titles rename by hand)
>Someone are against that ?
>What request do you advise ?
>
>
since we're having server problems at the moment, I'd advise against it.

etant donn? que le serveur rame comme c'est pas possible en ce moment,
je dirais qu'il vaudrait mieux attendre.
Ou faire les articles un par un - tu les copies-colles dans un editeur
de texte qui fait les expression regulieres. (je te conseile TextPad)


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Patch for LanguageDe.php

body:
On Wed, 23 Apr 2003, Thomas Corell wrote:

> Here is an update with typo corrections for LanguageDe.php.
>
> A user detected that "longapgewarning" was not translated. Please check if
> the added array element works properly (included in the patch).
>
> Is there somewhere a information abount missing translations? A small grep
> shows some problem (other missing elements):
>
> Language.php:1
> LanguageCs.php:0
> LanguageDa.php:1
> LanguageDe.php:0
> LanguageEn.php:0
> LanguageEo.php:1
> LanguageEs.php:0
> LanguageFr.php:1
> LanguageIt.php:0
> LanguageJa.php:0
> LanguageKo.php:0
> LanguageNl.php:1
> LanguagePl.php:1
> LanguageRu.php:0
> LanguageSv.php:0
> LanguageZh.php:0

What do these numbers mean?

Andre Engels


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] SQL Request

in_reply_to: <3EAD2041.3020100@planetunreal.com>; from tarquin@planetunreal.com on Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 01:36:17PM +0100

body:
Just a thought...  Wouldn't it be less load on the server if someone
were to download the fr database dump, run a query on their local
machine to figure out what entries need updated, then run several
specific queries on the live database to update the appropriate
entries?

This way, we could avoid the full text matching on "%whatever%" to
discover which entries need updating.

Please forgive me if my SQL knowledge is lacking, or if a solution has
already been found during discussion in French...  I'd love to read
(in English) what was said in the French discussion of this thread, if
anyone cares to translate...

Jason Richey

tarquin wrote:

>
>
> Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
>
> >Tu penses vraiment que c'est une requete lourde ?
> >Si tu as peur que j'abime la base avec une erreure de requete, je prefere
> >que tu me le dise franchement ;o)
> >
> non non c'est pas ca!
> mais j'ai l'impression que le serveur rame pour un rien en ce moment.
> Mais je ne suis pas developeur, c'est juste ce que j'entends sur cette
> liste.
> Les plages peu encombrees: quand les Americains dorment!!!
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server overload?

body:
Is it just me, or is the server bogged down?  50% of clicks to another
page are
timing out, and the ones that succeed take multiple minutes.  Hardly seems
worthwhile trying to edit anything when it's like this.  Is the load
coming from
users or wikipedians or what?

Stan


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] error during installation

body:
> (Krzysztof Kowalczyk <krzysztofk at pobox.com>):
> Apologies if this is something obvious.
>
> I tried to install the latest CVS phase3 code on RH Linux 7.2, MySQL
> 3.23.54, PHP 4.3.1. I got the following error when running "php
> install.php":

Thanks for the report--yes, that's a bug. The original encryptPassword()
function was static, but the recent change to add a salt to the
encryption used a non-static function. I'm not sure why the install
script has been working for me, but at any rate I'll fix it right away.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Search feature not working

body:
> On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 17:20, Tim Starling wrote:
>> At the moment, all the search feature does is tells you there are no title
>> matches (regardless of what you search for), and directs you to a Google
>> search. The go button still works, so at the moment "go" is the only way to
>> do a title search. I had assumed the dev. team has this under control and I
>> worked around it, but I've had a new user (Susurrus) complain directly to
>> me, asking me to forward his complaint on to here. So here it is. I know
>> about "miser mode", but this isn't miser mode, it's nonexistent mode.
>> What's going on?

> I've just gone ahead and turned the title search back on. I mean, heck,
> who wants to actually be able to read or write anything on the wiki?
> Much better to be able to search it -- _if_ you're lucky enough to get
> through at all.

As I wrote you by private mail, I think people would be much more willing
to accept a temporary deactivation of the sysop SQL feature, which, if at
all, should be run on a separate machine (possibly a mirror, could really
be 1-2 days out of date).

As for the search itself, I would like to know *why* it is slow. A simple
title search should really cause no problems. Could it be that the search
is delayed by other factors? How fast is it when it is run without load?

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Patch for LanguageDe.php

body:
I just applied Thomas's patch to LanguageDe.php. It may be a while
before it shows up in the live wiki, but it's in CVS now.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [WikiEN-l] Photodetector

body:
On 27 Apr 2003 17:45:28 -0700, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> gave
utterance to the following:

> On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 02:32, Richard Grevers wrote:
>> Does anyone know if there was an article at [[photodetector]] prior to
>> today?
>
> Doesn't seem to have been:
>
> # 09:26 Apr 27, 2003 Notheruser deleted "Photodetector" (content: "yes i
> think it is also true about what he has to say. electrons can only move
> freely when")
>
> * 09:25 Apr 27, 2003 . . Heron (-incomplete comment)
> * 09:18 Apr 27, 2003 . . 213.120.56.33 ()
>
>> I came up as a bizarre on-line stub on random page with no edit history.
>> Could someone check a dump or backup to see if there have been
>> shennanigans?
>
> What on earth kind of shennanigans might you be thinking of?
>
Well, there has been talk of people deleting pages without proper
procedure. I'm not sure what remains in page history if a page is deleted
and then started anew. I wouldn't have been so worried had this not come up
in "random pages" - I though there was some mechanism to prevent stubs
appearing in random pages.

--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Search feature not working

body:
On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 03:30, Erik Moeller wrote:
> As I wrote you by private mail, I think people would be much more willing
> to accept a temporary deactivation of the sysop SQL feature, which, if at
> all, should be run on a separate machine (possibly a mirror, could really
> be 1-2 days out of date).

I have only very rarely seen slowdowns caused by sysops making SQL
queries, whereas the special pages and the search cause much more
continuous states of slowness as they are constantly pounded on.

> As for the search itself, I would like to know *why* it is slow. A simple
> title search should really cause no problems.

Becuase they don't happen in isolation; there are a lot of searches.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server overload?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 11:26, Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>>Is it just me, or is the server bogged down?
>>
>
>Ah, you must be new here. :)
>
>Yes, the server is overloaded because there are too many people trying
>to use the site.
>
It seems more frequently bogged down than two months ago, which
I guess is good if it means more random people are coming by.
Does anybody have numbers comparing load due to logged-in users
vs random anons?

Stan


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server overload?

body:
On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 11:26, Stan Shebs wrote:
> Is it just me, or is the server bogged down?

Ah, you must be new here. :)

Yes, the server is overloaded because there are too many people trying
to use the site.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] error during installation

body:
> (Thomas Corell <T.Corell at t-online.de>):
>
> Following problems occoured:
> $wgLanguageCode = "de" (example) in Localsettings php is unhappy.

You'll have to tell me what this means in plain English before I
can help you.  Yes, you'll have to add that line to LocalSettings.php,
with the semicolon, to get a German wiki.  This LocalSettings.php file
must be in the top level directory of the phase3 tree (along with a
localized AdminSettings.php as well) when you run the install script,
and you must run it from that directory.

LocalSettings.php must also be updated with the paths in which you
want the software installed, and you must have permission to write
there (or run the install script as root).

> After testing the existence of LocalSettings and AdminSettings in
> install.php, it would help to include them. The next test ($wgUseTex)
> won't work without loading them.

Yep, that's a bug. I moved the second test from after the include
to before it without thinking. My mistake--fixed now in CVS.

> If another language is defined, install should copy the appropriate
> language files.

It does (or should--line 60 of the script). Again, make sure you
have all the environment for the install set up.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Search feature not working

body:
>From: Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>
>On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 17:20, Tim Starling wrote:
> > At the moment, all the search feature does is tells you there are no
>title
> > matches (regardless of what you search for), and directs you to a Google
> > search. The go button still works, so at the moment "go" is the only way
>to
> > do a title search. I had assumed the dev. team has this under control
>and I
> > worked around it, but I've had a new user (Susurrus) complain directly
>to
> > me, asking me to forward his complaint on to here. So here it is. I know
> > about "miser mode", but this isn't miser mode, it's nonexistent mode.
>What's
> > going on?
>
>I've just gone ahead and turned the title search back on. I mean, heck,
>who wants to actually be able to read or write anything on the wiki?
>Much better to be able to search it -- _if_ you're lucky enough to get
>through at all.
>
>Hooray!
>
>If it starts to suck too much (which it likely will come morning), I'll
>disable it again.
>

Nothing that a few boxes full of high-end computer hardware wouldn't fix.
When's that new server coming? Do we have any idea how much difference it
will make?

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp


subject: [Wikitech-l] SQL Request

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:

>Tu penses vraiment que c'est une requete lourde ?
>Si tu as peur que j'abime la base avec une erreure de requete, je prefere
>que tu me le dise franchement ;o)
>
non non c'est pas ca!
mais j'ai l'impression que le serveur rame pour un rien en ce moment.
Mais je ne suis pas developeur, c'est juste ce que j'entends sur cette
liste.
Les plages peu encombrees: quand les Americains dorment!!!


subject: [Wikitech-l] error during installation

body:
> (Thomas Corell <T.Corell at t-online.de>):
>
> It would be nice if in the LocalSettings.sample a line like:
>
> # If you use a language different from english (en) uncomment the
> # following line and edit the Language Code appropriate:
> # $wgLanguageCode ="En";

OK.

> PS: I will think about to change to german language for my mails here, to
> avoid problems(for me), as proposed by Tomasz Wegrzanowski.

Certainly one is welcome to post here in any language, but you'll
limit the number of people who are capable of responding. I, for
example, can't read or answer anything written in languages other
than English, Spanish, or Lojban (and if you actually want to write
bug reports in Lojban, you have way too much time on your hands).

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: JFrost8401 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: usability

body:
I've been getting "server broken or busy" messages from the site for the best
part of nine hours now, and still keep getting thrown out. the only time I
can normally get a good connection to the wikipedia is for an hour or so
first thing in the morning. Is any casual user going to keep trying for hours
on end?

I've no idea what the solution is: the permantly disabled search and special
pages has helped but not solved the problem. If the Wikipedia is to be of any
value to other than its inmates, this surely needs addressing by all you
computer buffs out there?

Jim
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Chat about Wikipedia performance?

in_reply_to: <8khdkhJhpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 10:37:00PM +0200

body:
If everyone decides that this is an important thing to do, I am
willing to attend.  I'd prefer not to, though.  I cherish my
weekends...

Jason

Erik Moeller wrote:

> How about organizing a chat this week about the ongoing Wikipedia
> performance crisis and how to solve it? Talking to people can provide
> additional motivation for getting things done, and help us organize our
> priorities. It might also reduce some frustration. If we do this, all the
> relevant people should be present:
>
> - Jimbo
> - Jason
> - Brion
> - Lee
> - Magnus
> - ...
>
> It might be best to meet on the weekend, so that work does not interfere.
> My suggestion would be Saturday, 20:00 UTC.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server overload?

body:
> (Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>):
> On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 11:26, Stan Shebs wrote:
> > Is it just me, or is the server bogged down?
>
> Ah, you must be new here. :)
>
> Yes, the server is overloaded because there are too many people trying
> to use the site.

Grub seems to be doing its thing at the moment as well.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
uor any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: Thomas Corell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Patch for LanguageDe.php

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>>Language.php:1
>>LanguageCs.php:0
>>LanguageDa.php:1
>>LanguageDe.php:0
>>LanguageEn.php:0
>>LanguageEo.php:1
>>LanguageEs.php:0
>>LanguageFr.php:1
>>LanguageIt.php:0
>>LanguageJa.php:0
>>LanguageKo.php:0
>>LanguageNl.php:1
>>LanguagePl.php:1
>>LanguageRu.php:0
>>LanguageSv.php:0
>>LanguageZh.php:0

> What do these numbers mean?

Number of hits.  0 means: longpagewarning missing, 1 it exists in the
appropriate Language file.

PS: Lee, what about the LanguageDe.patch? The next one is waiting ;)

Smurf
--
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

subject: [Wikitech-l] SQL Request

body:
Hello,
I'm sysop on the french Wikipedia.
I want to run a SQL request to change all "Egypte", "egypte" and "?gypte" to
"?gypte" (french name for Egypt) on the body articles of the french data
base. (I will make the titles rename by hand)
Someone are against that ?
What request do you advise ?
Regards,

Aoineko

PS : I consider that "who say nothing agree", so if I have no comment since
last week I will run my request (of course I will send the command line
first).


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 14:14, Erik Moeller wrote:
> The problem with mailing list discussion is that they can die
> quickly, for many reasons, which can delay things unnecessarily. I've seen
> many situations where a mailing list was used to report a serious problem,
> but the post (in spite of hundreds of members) was ignored.

Reporting a serious problem is all well and good, but isn't the same as
_fixing_ it.

> We all know that the performance issue is one of our most pressing
> problems right now -- many people can't use the site anymore, and the
> international Wikipedians are getting a bit irritated. So I think the best
> way to address this *on time* is to sit down (virtually) and go through an
> agenda.

We don't need to sit and chat. We need *code* and we need a second
server to divide the "must-do-fast" web work the and "chug-chug-chug"
database labor.

Here are some things you can work on if you've got time to spend on
Wikipedia coding:

* Page viewing is still kinda inefficient. Rendering everything on every
view is not so good... Caching can save both processing time in
conversion to HTML, and in various database accesses (checking link
tables, etc) with its associated potential locking overhead.

We need to either be able to cache the HTML of entire pages (followed by
insertion of user-specific data/links or simple options through style
sheet selection or string replacement) or to cache just the generated
HTML of the wiki pages for insertion into the page structure (plus
associated data, like interlanuage links, need to be accessible without
parsing the page).

We need to tell which pages are or aren't cacheable (not a diff, not a
special page, not a history revision, not a user with really weird
display options -- or on the other hand, maybe we _could_ cache those,
if only we can distinguish them), we need to be able to generate and
save the cached material appropriately, we need to make sure it's
invalidated properly, and we need to be able to do mass invalidation
when, for instance, the software is upgraded. Cached pages may be kept
in files, rather than the database.

I should point out that while there are several possible choices here,
any of them is better than what we're running now. We need living,
running _code_, which can then be improved upon later.

* The page saving code is rather inefficient, particularly with how it
deals with the link tables (and potentially buggy -- sometimes pages end
up with their link table entries missing, possibly due to the system
timing out between the main save chunk and the link table update). If
someone would like to work on this, it would be very welcome. Nothing
that needs to be _discussed_, it just needs to be _done_ and changes
checked in.

* Various special pages are so slow they've been disabled. Most of them
could be made much more efficient with better queries and/or by
maintaining summary tables. Some remaining ones are also pretty
inefficient, like the Watchlist. Someone needs to look into these and
make the necessary adjustments to the code. Nothing to _chat_ about; if
you know how to make them more efficient, please rewrite them and check
in the _code_.

* Can MySQL 4 handle fulltext searches better under load? Is boolean
mode faster or slower? Someone needs to test this (Lee has a test rig
with mysql4 already, but as far as I know hasn't tested the fulltext
search with boolean mode yet), and if it's good news, we need to make an
upgrade a high priority. Not much to _chat_ about, it just needs to get
_done_.

* Alternately, would a completely separate search system (not using
MySQL) be more efficient? Or even just running searches on a dedicated
box with a replicated database to keep it from bogging down the main db?
Which leads us back to hardware...

For the server; I don't know what's going on here. What I do know is
that Jimbo posted this to wikitech-l in February:

-----Forwarded Message-----

From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Hardware inventory
Date: 07 Feb 2003 02:56:57 -0800

Jason and I are taking stock of our hardware, and I'm going to find a
secondary machine to devote exclusively to doing apache for wikipedia,
i.e. with no other websites on it or anything.  I'll loan the machine
to the Wikipedia Foundation until the Foundation has money to buy a
new machine later on this year.

We'll keep the MYSQL where it is, on the powerful machine.  The new
machine will be no slouch, either.

Today is Friday, and I think we'll have to wait for Jason to take a
trip to San Diego next week sometime (or the week following) to get
this all setup.  (The machine I have in mind is actually in need of
minor repair right now.)

By having this new machine be exclusively wikipedia, I can give the
developers access to it, which is a good thing.

This will *not* involve a "failover to read-only" mechanism, I guess,
but then, it's still going to be a major improvement -- such a
mechanism is really a band-aid on a fundamental problem, anyway.

------

Lots of people think it's a good thing to set up mirror servers all
over the Internet.  It's really not that simple.  There are issues of
organizational trust with user data, issues with network latency, etc.
Some things should be decentralized, some things should be
centralized.

--- end forwarded message ---

and this to wikipedia-l in March:

-----Forwarded Message-----

From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org, wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Off today
Date: 19 Mar 2003 04:47:52 -0800

My wife and little girl are feeling ill today with a cold, so I'm
going to be taking off work to help out.  I'm already a little behind
in wikipedia email, so I'll probably be slow for a few days as I dig
out.

We're getting a new (second) machine for wikipedia -- the parts have
been ordered and are being shipped to Jason, and then at some point
soon, he'll drive down to San Diego to install everything.

--Jimbo

--- end forwarded message ---

I e-mailed Jimbo and Jason the other day about this; I haven't heard
back from Jimbo, and Jason still doesn't know anything concrete about
the new server.

Jimbo, we really need some news on this front. If parts and/or a whole
machine really *is* on order and can be set up in the near future, we
need to know that. If it's *not*, then it may be time to pass around the
plate and have interested parties make sure one does get ordered, as had
begun to be discussed prior to the March 19 announcement.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
> (Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de>):
> How about organizing a chat this week about the ongoing Wikipedia
> performance crisis and how to solve it? Talking to people can provide
> additional motivation for getting things done, and help us organize our
> priorities. It might also reduce some frustration. If we do this, all the
> relevant people should be present:
>
> - Jimbo
> - Jason
> - Brion
> - Lee
> - Magnus
> - ...
>
> It might be best to meet on the weekend, so that work does not interfere.
> My suggestion would be Saturday, 20:00 UTC.
>
> What do you think?

I'll have some more performance numbers by then, and I'm happy
to participate in whatever the group wants to do. But personally,
I've never been big on online chats, and I don't see that this
one could accomplish anything that wouldn't be better accomplished
here on wikitech-l.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: Nick Reinking

subject: [Wikitech-l] clock out of sync

body:
On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 10:54:17PM +0200, Youandme wrote:
> I watch a constant degradation of Wikipedia's clock.
> Before the weekend it was 5 minutes (acceptable for me)
> but today I see the difference is about 10 minutes.
> Some time ago there was a small thread started
> about synchronization through the Net.
> Has been the idea dropped or the possible solutions
> are to complicated?
>
> Youandme (worried, as Wikipedia slips into the Past)

Point at time / time-b.nist.gov for NTP.  That should do the trick.  :)

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


body:
> We don't need to sit and chat. We need *code* and we need a
> second server to divide the "must-do-fast" web work the and
> "chug-chug-chug" database labor.

The code issue is mostly a matter of focus: one or two developers
is probably sufficient to keep the codebase up to date, but neither
Brion nor I are focused on that right now.

So while Brion has issued a call for coders, that could be answered
in other ways: for example, if a good admin stepped up to take some
of admin tasks Brion is currently swamped with, he might be more free
to code (assuming he's interested, which is not a given either).
I've chosen to focus more on long-term goals because like Brion I was
expecting hardware to bail us out in the short term. If that's going
to be delayed, then I can put off things like testing file systems
and focus on caching and tuning.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


references:
<8khdmaoCpVB@erik_moeller>
	 <1051569281.29985.331.camel@frank.vibber.org>  <3EADCFAC.7070300@gmx.net>

body:
On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 18:04, Kurt Jansson wrote:
> Could we set the set the length of the watchlist to 50 or something like
> that per default, and not making it dependent of the length you choose
> in the preferences for the RecentChanges?

Well, that wouldn't help for performance as the data goes through a
temporary table. Basically the DB's grabbing your *entire* watchlist,
then only sending the most recent X items to the wiki for formatting in
a list.

> Even with a second server, and the software and database being faster,
> how long will it take until this again isn't enough because articles,
> editors and visitors should be growing exponentially in theory. There
> will be the foundation, and maybe we'll get some money through it and
> can buy new hardware, but will it be sufficient? And for how long?

How long will the internet be able to deal with all those new users?
Won't we run out of IP addresses if IPv6 never rolls out? When will the
sun burn out, leaving the earth a lifeless ball of coal?? :) Hopefully,
we'll be able to keep up.

>  And
> aren't there other important things we could spend the money on, if an
> other free project or a university would host us for free? But maybe I
> cherish an illusion here.

Do feel free to ask other free projects and universities if they'd be
interested in supporting the project...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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