from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wiki syntax for exponant

body:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 02:02:48PM +0200, Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I implemented a new wiki syntax for mediawiki.
>
> The syntax is:
>    ^^sometext^^
> It will render HTML as:
>    sometext

Why anything should generate code like that ?
 is already rendered in smaller font.


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server down message

body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:

>Please give us at least 15 Minutes to change the mentioned server down message
>accordingly, so that people can save their work.
>
>
While I agree with the at-least-15-minutes notice, I actually have the
opposite complaint about this one (can't please everyone, eh?).  The
outage is scheduled for 1800 UTC on June 11, and has been up since at
least 1700 UTC on June 10.  Do we really need a 25-hour notice on every
wiki page?  It seems that the disruption of having this red-outlined
warning at the top for over a day is actually more than the disruption
of having the wiki be down for a mere 30 minutes.  A previous downtime
had such a message up for nearly three days, if I recall correctly.
Would perhaps putting it up 3-5 hours or so before scheduled downtime be
a decent compromise?

-Mark


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wiktionary?

body:
Dan Miller wrote:

> I think the reason for this is that a dictionary
> cannot really take advantage of the wiki structure.
> Consider the dense interlinking that occurs in any
> decent encyclopedia article; how would something like
> that be useful, or even apply, in a dictionary?

I'm not sure I follow this train of thought. There may be fewer links
per Wiktionary entry on average as in a Wikipedia article, but it is
still pretty densely interlinked. E.g. [[Golden eagle]]:

	=== Noun ===
	'''[[golden]] [[eagle]]'''

	# A [[bird]] [[species]] of the [[family]] ''[[Accipitridae]]'',
	  [[genus]] ''[[Aquila]]''.

	====Scientific name====
	* [[Aquila chrysaetos]]

9 links! ;-) In Wikipedia, you get less links per sentence because in an
encyclopedia the links should go to articles that are relevant to the
context. In a dictionary, the links just go to words, so theoretically
you could link absolutely every word! (Of course, I don't think every
word should be linked, but just about every word that someone might
conceivably want to look up. Someone unfamiliar with taxonomy might want
to look up "species", "family" and "genus" in the above.)

Timwi


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Random stuff to add to Wiktionary

body:
Hi,

I meant to post this here a long time ago, but I never got around to it.

Before Wiktionary existed, I had made a website called "Languages in
Languages" where people could enter the names of all languages in all
other languages. It is far from complete, but I'm pretty sure that you
can find stuff there that isn't already in Wiktionary. By now I'm pretty
fed up with this site, and Wiktionary is way better anyway, so I'm
asking you to go through the data and integrate it all into Wiktionary.

	http://timwi.dyndns.org:8989/cgi-bin/a.cgi

Please notice, however, that this URL only works when my computer is
online (and I'm in England, so if you're in the US you'd have to try it
early in the day).

If you want the entire data on one page, you can have it here:

	WARNING: 2.4 MB FILE !
	http://timwi.dyndns.org:8989/cgi-bin/a.cgi?r=l
	WARNING: 2.4 MB FILE !

Once you are sure that you have taken all the information into
Wiktionary, let me know, so I can finally take this thing down :)

Greetings,
Timwi


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: The wiki software is written for wikipedia

body:
Gerard.Meijssen wrote:
  > LS, When I follow what has happened the last few days, I can not help
  > but come to the conclusion that things are done with wikipedia in
  > mind.

Not exactly. We generally have two things in mind: Wikipedia, and
non-Wikimedia users.

  > Take for instance those lines that are "gratis" when you use
  > headings. They make excellent sense when in Wikipedia but they look
  > _horrible_ in wiktionary. Have a look at
  > http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Breton for instance. It does not look
  > good.

You should be able to override this using [[MediaWiki:Monobook.css]]

  > Take a look at the restriction on the number of messages (5) per
  > page. This is "reasonable" in wikipedia, but when you want to
  > internationalise a page and use messages to indicate things that
  > differ from language to language, like the gender of a word, you can
  > have dozens words that are masculine and you get garbage as a result.

I've received a number of complaints about this from Wikipedians, and
this is the first one I've had from someone from Wiktionary, so I fail
to see how this indicates Wikipedia-centrism. It's a problem I intend to
address during my reworking of template inclusion, over the next week or
two.

  > When there are problems, they seem to be relatively quickly fixed for
  > the wikipedia's but, for the wiktionaries the consistency  is
  > lacking.
  >
  > When you have an environment like wiktionary/wikipedia they _need_ to
  > be the same in order to be able to fix things and understand the
  > behaviour of the software. The wiktionaries do not behave in a same
  > way. You can create an article with a Chinese (characters) name in
  > English but not on the nl:wiktionary (and others).

Wiktionaries were set up by copying the MediaWiki namespace and language
files from the associated Wikipedias. You can't create an article with
chinese characters in the title on the nl wikipedia either. English and
German are exceptions to this rule because of special-case work done by
the respective contributors.

  > We have just had a major disaster. What I expected in the aftermath
  > was some consolidation. However, now the "Enhanced recent changes
  > (not for all browsers)" in preferences is up the creek!!

What's wrong with it? It looks fine to me.

  > What concerns me is that for us "simple" users there is no idea what
  > problems are being tacled. What the priorities are and if things
  > still get tested prior to production.
  >
  > *Is the idea that we have stabilized?? *Do we still have database
  > problems? (anecdotal evidence says we do) *Is there a moratorium on
  > minor stuff so that there is the peace and quiet to fix the major
  > stuff?

I'm not going to announce everything I do in 10 different places. If you
want to know what's going on in terms of software development and server
administration, you should read wikitech-l.

Please understand that I'm not obliged to fix problems just because you
want them fixed. You are not paying me. I try to make people happy, but
you have no right to expect a minimum level of service.

I'm amazed at the poor quality of the English Wiktionary, it seems to
miss so many important English words. Most new pages seem to be slang,
jargon, and people adding a few dozen words from their native tongue.
Plans to import a public domain dictionary were abandoned, and now there
seems to be little organisation or direction. Perhaps Wiktionary can be
revitalised with extra features, but I doubt stylesheet changes will be
enough. It needs a different look and a whole raft of features. It needs
methods for easily adding new words, and for categorisation and listing.
But I'm neither excited by the project nor optimistic about its future.
So most of all, it needs people who want to work on it.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Re: The wiki software is written for wikipedia


list: wikien-l

from_name: Mark Richards

subject: Logic (was Re: [WikiEN-l] RickK)

body:
I'm sorry Fennec, how does one follow logically from
the other?

There seems no logical connection between the number
of sysops and 'legions of trolls harrassing'.

There also seems to be no evidence that the kind of
actions that sysops take actually reduces the level of
disruption caused by troll feeding.

We certainly need better sysops, regardless of the
number.
Mark

--- Fennec Foxen <fennec at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 10:01:43 -0700, Ray Saintonge
> <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > I would support any move to reduce the number of
> sysops.
>
> Wow. That's an awfully categorical statement. So
> would you support
> legions of trolls organizing themselves offsite then
> coming on
> Wikipedia and harrassing dozens of sysops until they
> quit out of
> frustration? ... that's rhetorical, of course.
>
>
> We don't need fewer sysops- we need both more good
> sysops and
> more-good sysops. Perhaps we do need a more
> effective method to
> desysop certain controversial sysops, but consider
> how many people
> would categorically object to taking any sort of
> action of this
> nature. It's difficult enough to get rid of simple
> trolls (I'm not
> naming names here), and even cases such as that of
> Paul Vogel have
> taken quite some time to come to a head. Desysopping
> is likely to
> prove even less simple.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
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list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Greek wikipedia with monobook still (half) broken

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Timwi wrote:
>
>> Oh, OK, I forgot about that ... but doesn't that only affect &, < and
>> >, and at most possibly also " and '? I don't see why Greek letters
>> would need to be entity-ised.
>
> htmlentities() might be useful if you're not sure what the charset
> encoding of the final output will be. However, since we *do* know we
> don't need that level of conversion. [... etc. ...]
> This isn't code we wrote ourselves, so don't ask us why they used that
> function. ;)

Thank you. Very clear explanation. Dankon, Brion. :-)

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server down message

body:
The next time someone puts up a "server down" message, please could you
be a little bit more professional? Currently it reads:

	wiki will be down for approximately 30 minute, please excuse the
	interruption

What are visitors supposed to think of that?!

I'm particularly annoyed by the fact that there seems to be nobody that
I can contact about these things. I asked on IRC who put up the message
and was told it is shaihulud. So I asked him to change it, but he
deferred me to someone else who shall remain unnamed. That someone
started telling me they had been spewing in the toilet. WTF?

Why can't we simply have a Wiki-editable server down message that will
be used automatically? In particular, it should be a different one on
each different language Wikipedia. :-p

Thanks,
Timwi


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Preferences reloading?

body:
I notice that at some point the Preferences screen has started showing
this message: "Note: After saving, you have to clear your browser cache
to see the changes: Mozilla: click reload(or ctrl-r), IE / Opera:
ctrl-f5, Safari: cmd-r, Konqueror ctrl-r."

Is there a reason for this? Nothing in preferences should require forced
reloading; saving the preferences updates the user_touched timestamp and
forces subsequent page loads to refresh if the client's cached version
was older than that point.

I seem to remember this message was created for the user
stylesheet/javascript bits.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Preferences reloading?

body:
Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 19:08 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>>I notice that at some point the Preferences screen has started showing
>>this message: "Note: After saving, you have to clear your browser cache
>>to see the changes: Mozilla: click reload(or ctrl-r), IE / Opera:
>>ctrl-f5, Safari: cmd-r, Konqueror ctrl-r."
>>
>>Is there a reason for this?
>
> A new generated css (underlined/not underlined, p justification etc)
> will only be picked up after the refresh.

That's why they were in a <style> before. Why the change? It seems to
make things harder, not easier.

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

from_name: Andre Engels

subject:
[Foundation-l] Article validation (was WikiReader Free
	Software	and Free Contents)

body:
"Ulrich Fuchs" <mail at ulrich-fuchs.de> schrieb:

> If we all would agree that we are working on an encyclopaedia, not an
> everything-goes-in-wiki, not a website, if we would all agree that its needed
> to delete poorly researched content and articles on silly subjects (like "the
> xyz drum produced by company A") while there aren't articles on the main
> subject ("Drumming"), then we wouldn't need to talk about those "validation"
> concepts, because the validation would happen all the time - the wiki
> principle would do.

Without a validation system, "poorly researched content" will be hard to spot.
The only way that that is found is when someone tries to validate and finds
it is b******t.

> A validation process can operate in two ways: either there is some was of a
> democratic voting sytem, which will lead to mediocre article (science is not
> democratic). Or there are some people which are more trusted than others -
> and that's the capitulation of the wiki principle.
>
> Our problems is not validation. Our problem is that the goals are not clear
> (what goes in, or perhaps: what goes in in which edition), and that editing
> (which means: deleting a lot of things) is considered bad habit.

You can't do one without the other. Deletion is on itself a rather strong
form of negative validation. It has exactly the same problems you state for
validation: Either we let one person get more power than the other, or we
get a sort of voting system. Both a voting system and a system where experts
have more power is better than the current system, which basically hands the
decision to the person with the longest breath in controversial cases, and
the person who happens to write something the first in uncontroversial ones.

Andre Engels


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] MNH is still mass reverting articles.

body:
Mr-Natural-Health, is still doing non-stop reversions of
any edits to the alternative medicine articles. He is
filling it with personal testimonies, and deleting widely
used English definitions.

He has driven away a large number of users who wanted to
add some science to this article; people have written me
privately saying that they have given up on Wikipedia
because of his abuse.

We can allow him to do hundreds of mass-reversions, and
push away yet more people, or we can finally ban him.

And yes, he hasn't retracted his threat to me, that he
knows I am a Jew, and that he is a Nazi who lives near me.
So I guess the question is whether or not the Wiki-En list
considers implied death threats, censorship, and
mass-reversions the proper way to improve the encyclopedia.

The other articles I have edited and written this week,
more than a dozen, have been MNH free, and there have been
no problems. Mr-Natural-Health is again the common
denomination.

Robert (RK)

__________________________________
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http://messenger.yahoo.com/


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Specific cases? (was Re: [WikiEN-l] RickK)

body:
>Can you point to specific cases that you are
complaining >about?
Mark

---

Yes, The current problem began here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:White_nationalism#Better_soloution

I attempted to resolve matters here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:RickK&diff=4011967&oldid=4011813

and here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#RickK.2C_Sam_Spade

I have had similar problems with him in the past.

Should I make a request for comment, or what?

I'm at a loss for how to handle situations with people who don't accept mediation.

Jack/"Sam"

_______________________________________________
Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com
The most personalized portal on the Web!


subject: [Wikitech-l] Preferences reloading?

body:
Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 19:25 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>>That's why they were in a <style> before. Why the change? It seems to
>>make things harder, not easier.
>
> Mainly working up to Squid caching for logged-in users and a slightly
> smaller header.

Hrm... how's that going to interact with options like math rendering
style, date style, etc?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Fennec Foxen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protesting my ban

body:
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 12:25:59 -0700, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Fred is certainly known to have strong opinions.  He was not applying
> the term to anyone but himself.

Perhaps the modifier "self-described" would be in order. But this is
really something for the article talk page.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Correstponding language logos for each wiki

body:
"Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com> schrieb:
> Andreas Kasenides wrote:
> >> Jay Bowks wrote:
> >>> the logo is back to English in the other lang wikis.
> >
> > el for example.
>
> el is fixed now, thanks for pointing it out.

nl as well

Andre Engels


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: wiki syntax for exponant

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
>
>>    http://www.twenkill.net/wiki/index.php/Exposant
>
>
> http://www.twenkill.net/wiki/index.php?title=Exposant&action=edit
>
>     Parse error: parse error in /var/www/wiki/includes/Title.php on
>     line 1188
>
>     Fatal error: Undefined class name 'title' in
>     /var/www/wiki/includes/Setup.php on line 219

Yup sorry, that's my development site and I like to save my changes
while editing a script ... So from time to time it might comes down
withh a parse error :o)
It's usually resolved some minutes after.

--
Ashar Voultoiz


subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK

body:
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 10:01:43 -0700, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I would support any move to reduce the number of sysops.

Wow. That's an awfully categorical statement. So would you support
legions of trolls organizing themselves offsite then coming on
Wikipedia and harrassing dozens of sysops until they quit out of
frustration? ... that's rhetorical, of course.

We don't need fewer sysops- we need both more good sysops and
more-good sysops. Perhaps we do need a more effective method to
desysop certain controversial sysops, but consider how many people
would categorically object to taking any sort of action of this
nature. It's difficult enough to get rid of simple trolls (I'm not
naming names here), and even cases such as that of Paul Vogel have
taken quite some time to come to a head. Desysopping is likely to
prove even less simple.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Re: Reply to Tim Starling

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>> The "special-case work" he was referring to was the conversion of the
>> respective Wiktionaries to UTF-8 (sorry if this is too technical,
>> since we're not on the tech list here). This cannot be done by regular
>> contributors and must be done externally. Because of that, I'm finding
>> it extremely disappointing that nobody has done it yet and expects a
>> Dutch contributor to do it. Tim, or Brion, or whoever, please could
>> you convert all Wiktionaries to UTF-8? The sooner you do it, the less
>> there will be to convert.
>
>
> On the train this morning I started work on changing the remaining
> language files so we can use UTF-8 on all languages while retaining
> Latin-1 compatibility on the large Wikipedias until we finish converting
> them.
>
> I'll try to finish it up this evening after work and see if we can get
> the wiktionaries back to their natural Unicode state.

I've checked in and installed the changes. It should be possible to
convert the da, es, nl, and sv wiktionaries relatively quickly, while
the wikipedias wait longer to switch into UTF-8 (on account of downtime
needs etc).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wiktionary-l] Re: Reply to Tim Starling

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>> The "special-case work" he was referring to was the conversion of the
>> respective Wiktionaries to UTF-8 (sorry if this is too technical,
>> since we're not on the tech list here). This cannot be done by regular
>> contributors and must be done externally. Because of that, I'm finding
>> it extremely disappointing that nobody has done it yet and expects a
>> Dutch contributor to do it. Tim, or Brion, or whoever, please could
>> you convert all Wiktionaries to UTF-8? The sooner you do it, the less
>> there will be to convert.
>
>
> On the train this morning I started work on changing the remaining
> language files so we can use UTF-8 on all languages while retaining
> Latin-1 compatibility on the large Wikipedias until we finish converting
> them.
>
> I'll try to finish it up this evening after work and see if we can get
> the wiktionaries back to their natural Unicode state.

I've checked in and installed the changes. It should be possible to
convert the da, es, nl, and sv wiktionaries relatively quickly, while
the wikipedias wait longer to switch into UTF-8 (on account of downtime
needs etc).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server down message

body:
> Why can't we simply have a Wiki-editable server down message that will
> be used automatically? In particular, it should be a different one on
> each different language Wikipedia. :-p

Yes. PLEASE. And PLEASE: Would the developers please announce on THIS LIST:

* When the Wiki will go down
* Why the Wiki will go down
* And how long the outage will be.

That isn't so difficult, is it?

Please give us at least 15 Minutes to change the mentioned server down message
accordingly, so that people can save their work.

Thanks a lot

Uli


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protesting my ban

body:
On 06/10/04 11:51, Fred Bauder wrote:

> He mentioned it as a point in argument. He did not threaten to invite
> them. And in any event, according to established Wikipedia policy they
> and their neonazi viewpoints are welcome. He may have technically broken
> the three revert rule, but that is to be expected from a new user when
> they first enounter determined opposition. His spam linking is not in
> itself a violation.
> Due to the frustrating nature of dealing with this type of point of view
> editor, your frustration is understandable, but you can't properly ban
> folks, even of disagreeable views, if they follow Wikipedia rules.
> He tried, in a show of good faith, to discuss many of the controverted
> points on the talk page of [[white nationalism]] but is not getting much
> discussion on the points he raised.

I'll have a look too.

I mean, I'd have been happy to put up with Vogel if he didn't revert on
crack and whitewash so much. And could construct a grammatical sentence.
The tortured grammar is a significant part of the pain.

- d.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Server down message

body:
Timwi wrote:
>
> The next time someone puts up a "server down" message, please could you
> be a little bit more professional? Currently it reads:
>
>     wiki will be down for approximately 30 minute, please excuse the
>     interruption
>
> What are visitors supposed to think of that?!
>
> I'm particularly annoyed by the fact that there seems to be nobody that
> I can contact about these things. I asked on IRC who put up the message
> and was told it is shaihulud. So I asked him to change it, but he
> deferred me to someone else who shall remain unnamed. That someone
> started telling me they had been spewing in the toilet. WTF?
>
> Why can't we simply have a Wiki-editable server down message that will
> be used automatically? In particular, it should be a different one on
> each different language Wikipedia. :-p
>
> Thanks,
> Timwi

This has already been suggested.

And done.

And advertised during one month on meta goings-on :
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goings-on/May_2004

You may find the page here
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_outage_message

anthere


from_name: Gerrit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wiktionary?

body:
Timwi schreef:
> 9 links! ;-) In Wikipedia, you get less links per sentence because in an
> encyclopedia the links should go to articles that are relevant to the
> context. In a dictionary, the links just go to words, so theoretically
> you could link absolutely every word! (Of course, I don't think every
> word should be linked, but just about every word that someone might
> conceivably want to look up. Someone unfamiliar with taxonomy might want
> to look up "species", "family" and "genus" in the above.)

Why should not every word be a link? We could change the stylesheet to
leave links the same a text, and automatically let every word be a link,
without necessity for the [[syntax]]. Names could redirect to the
Wikipedia, and it would make editing easier. After all, each word
deserves an entry... what do you think?

BTW, I agree with the original poster about the Wiktionairy problem.

Gerrit.

--
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from_name: Svyatoslav Igorevich

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sooo, when does this 24 hour ban expire?

body:
Where do I find out when my ban started, and when it
will end?

~Svigor

__________________________________
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body:
Okay, apparently it has been lifted.  I'd still like
to know how one finds out when bans start and when
they lift though.

--- Svyatoslav Igorevich
<svyatoslav_igorevich at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Where do I find out when my ban started, and when it
> will end?
>
> ~Svigor
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
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> Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
> http://messenger.yahoo.com/
> _______________________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
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subject: Summary style (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Response to Bryan Derken)

body:
On 06/10/04 04:18, Geoff Burling wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>Abe Sokolov wrote:
>>>maveric149 at yahoo.com:

>>>"The ability to write good summaries is a rarer trait than the ability
>>>to write at length on a subject. Let those who can summarize help
>>>improve the article series by making it useful to people who don't
>>>want to read for an hour."

>>>Are you saying that I can't. FYI, I've written dozens of brief

>>I would prefer to take Mav's statement at the face value of a generality

> Treating the topic as a personal afront appears to be 172's strategy in
> every interaction. One is left with one of two reactions: bewildered shock
> that one has inadvertently caused offense, or suspicion that 172 is
> acting in bad faith. I have offered evidence in my previous email why I
> embrace the latter interpretation, but here's one more example:
> 172 complains that he doesn't have the time to make certain changes in the
> article under discussion, & that the article isn't important enough for him
> to make them. Mav offers to do the work, & 172's response is to find offense.

I don't think it's bad faith at all. Although the effects are often
indistinguishable, the motivation is important.

User:172 is annoying and arbitrary. But I'm sure Abe Solokov is in fact a fine
fellow. There's something about the Internet hothouse social environment that
sets some people off.

Abe: when people make personal attacks on 172, you really do have to imitate a
duck's back and let it roll off.

172 just doesn't seem to get the [[Cathedral and the Bazaar]].
One's edits, style and formatting have to be intuitively obviously a good idea
to a random editor a year hence. Reverting in a territorial fashion because
it's decided in one's own mind is an example of not being able to work with
others.

(I am trying to go easier on [[Linux]] when the [[GNU]] partisans - who I in
fact agree with on the [[GNU/Linux naming controversy]] - change the whole
article while introducing grammatical errors into *every sentence edited*.)

I present to you an essay: "What Makes A Fuckhead?" by David Kendrick.
(Warning: contains salty language.)

     http://thingy.apana.org.au/~fun/fuckhead.html

It works better if you think of it as an adjective not a noun, e.g. "Am I
having an attack of fuckhead today?" I catch myself a lot.

The primary Internet social skill is to (0) accept that "My God! It's full of
idiots!" and (1) be able to cope with the fact. "Staying cool when the editing
gets hot."

(This is a very rough draft of a prospective pompous essay on the subject.
Acerbic editorial demolition welcomed.)

- d.

ps: trolls are NO trouble compared to the people described above. Trolls
sometimes rest.


body:
Thank you Angela

--- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > svyatoslav_igorevich at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Where do I find out when my ban started, and
> when it
> > > will end?
>
> You can find out by searching for your username or
> IP in the block log
> at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Block_log
>
> Angela
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Peter Jaros

subject: [WikiEN-l] Error on quadratic formula page

body:
On Jun 8, 2004, at 10:56 AM, Fennec Foxen wrote:

> On Sun, 30 May 2004 23:20:10 -0400 (EDT), kartik at townisp.com
> <kartik at townisp.com> wrote:
>> One day when I looked at the quadratic formula page, it mentioned
>> another
>> quadratic formula I had never seen before:
> <snip>
> On Wikipedia, I have a message I use for cases such as this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sofixit

Notice the date on the original.  I think it's another one from the
moderation backlog.

Don't worry, they trick the best of us...

Peter

                            -- ---<>--- --
                  A house without walls cannot fall.
     Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org
                            -- ---<>--- --


from_name: Imran Ghory

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Klingon

body:
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Timwi wrote:

> Imran Ghory wrote:
>
> > However as I said before, if you or someone else can get Paramount to
> > clarify the legal permission of the lanugage, then we'd be in a position
> > to progress.
>
> It should be pretty obvious that Paramount is not going "clarify"
> anything, but rather exaggerate or skew everything to their favour
> (lying isn't illegal).

It is if you get them to use a DMCA style statement which requires they
act in "good faith" in claiming copyright.

Anyway, there's one way to know for sure and that is to ask them. Would
someone in the US please write to them so we can find out what the
actually say rather than just speculating.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


subject: [Wikipedia-l] noindex

body:
On Jun 4, 2004, at 2:56 PM, Vladimir V. Medeiko wrote:

> I have checked Special:Allpages page, and discovered the followin tag:
>
> <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow" />
>
> And this may negatively impact rank of Wikipedia in different search
> engines.
> Could anyone explain me why this tag is put there?
> Is it possible to remove it?

It's there because it's silly for Google to index Special:Allpages,
since it's just a list of pages.  It's useful for Google to follow
the links though, to index the articles it points to (which is all
of them).

Peter

                            -- ---<>--- --
                  A house without walls cannot fall.
     Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org
                            -- ---<>--- --


subject: [Foundation-l] (from wikitech) Logo use

body:
Angela wrote:
> I expect that using the logo for advertising
Wikipedia would come
> under fair use/fair dealing. A related question
though would be
> whether the Foundation should be approving
advertising before it is
> sent out.
>
> Angela.

I do not think so.

Power should stay in the hand of people; we should be
careful that this is never forgotten, because
empowering people to act, and avoiding decision making
bottlenecks is what is making wiki work.
We should assume good faith of editors with regards to
relationships they have with the outside, not ask them
to ask permission to Foundation to try to make
wikipedia more famous.

I think it is up to any editor to check what another
editor is doing. If it is discovered one editor is
doing wrong and hurting wikipedia by inappropriate
advertisment, then it is his peers job to tell him so
and to make him stop.
If that is not enough, then peers should warn the
Foundation about it, so that the Foundation make act
from a more legal perspective.

The Foundation is here to help and support the
development of the project, not to make decisions for
people.

-----

Practically speaking, the ad looks good. French people
are happy with it, so I do not think there is *any*
type of authorisation to get from the Foundation.

__________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] (from wikitech) Logo use


from_name: Delirium

body:
The matter has been under consideration for about 1 1/2 days now at
[[Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Mr-Natural-Health]].  If you have
additional information not already there, that would be a better place
to put it than this mailing list.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Innapropriate bans

body:
Hmmm, why does all this seem eerily familiar?

--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> That is presumption of innocence which is totally
> forgotten
>
> * blocking is done without AC consideration first to
> the case
>
> * reverting of dozen of edits is made, regardless of
> the quality of the
> edits; in effect blind reversion resulted in
>
> ** removing perfectly accurate categories, which
> resulted in people
> losing time to put them back
> ** restoring spelling mistake that the banned user
> had corrected
>
> * letting RK go wild again on ethical topic.
>
> I understand why Heaph blocked the guy, but in
> effect
> =>consequence number 1 (block) is saying "we do not
> trust AC to do what
> it should o"
>
> =>consequence number 2 : deliberate impoverishment
> of the encyclopedia
> (reinsertion of mistake to enforce a ban) plus
> addition of work load for
> Bryan Derksen and I, who had to revert back the
> reversion, to restore
> the good edits manually
>
> =>consequence number 3 : RK is removing again whole
> parts of articles,
> plus adding very unnice comments, which are
> irritating me *greatly*.
>
> I feel like censorship from RK is on its way again.
> And I do not think
> this is good.
>
> I think this is just plain bad.
>
>
>
> Mark Richards wrote:
> > It appears that Heaphaestos has blacked these two
> > users because they are 're-incarnations of banned
> > users'.
> > The current policy of "ask politely, show
> evidence,
> > consider, block" does not appear to have been
> followed
> > in this case. Please let me know if I am mistaken
> and
> > you have, in fact, asked both these users,
> gathered
> > convincing evidence, displayed it somewhere and
> given
> > time for the community to consider it.
> > Thank you,
> > Mark
> >
> >
> > 03:40, 10 Jun 2004, Hephaestos blocked Leo
> Trollstoy
> > (expires 03:40, 10 Jul 2004) (contribs)
> (Reincarnation
> > of previously banned user. 30 days should give
> > Arbitration Committee time to approve or deny.)
> >
> > 03:40, 10 Jun 2004, Hephaestos blocked JRR
> Trollkien
> > (expires 03:40, 10 Jul 2004) (contribs)
> (Reincarnation
> > of previously banned user. 30 days should give
> > Arbitration Committee time to approve or deny.)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
> > http://messenger.yahoo.com/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Klingon

body:
On 06/10/04 20:32, Imran Ghory wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Timwi wrote:
>>Imran Ghory wrote:

>>>However as I said before, if you or someone else can get Paramount to
>>>clarify the legal permission of the lanugage, then we'd be in a position
>>>to progress.

>>It should be pretty obvious that Paramount is not going "clarify"
>>anything, but rather exaggerate or skew everything to their favour
>>(lying isn't illegal).

> It is if you get them to use a DMCA style statement which requires they
> act in "good faith" in claiming copyright.
> Anyway, there's one way to know for sure and that is to ask them. Would
> someone in the US please write to them so we can find out what the
> actually say rather than just speculating.

Has anyone asked Richard Stallman what he thinks of the idea of
copyrighting a *language*, down to the *words*? I think we'd see a
somewhat more vigorous Klingon wikipedia. Filled with political
speech.

- d.


from_name: Pablo Saratxaga

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Correstponding language logos for each wiki

body:
Kaixo!
Li 10 Jun 2004 19:56 GMT,
 Andre Engels <engelsAG at t-online.de> scrijheut:

> >>> the logo is back to English in the other lang wikis.
> > el for example.
>
> el is fixed now, thanks for pointing it out.
 AE> nl as well

Walloon (wa) one is still wrong...

Isn't there an easier way to change the logo?
Is it needed to have a shell access and overwrite the file the only way?

--
? bient?t,
Pablo Saratxaga           PGP Key available, key ID: 0xD9B85466

http://chanae.walon.org/pablo/


from_name: Jimmy O'Regan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Klingon

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> Has anyone asked Richard Stallman what he thinks of the idea of
> copyrighting a *language*, down to the *words*? I think we'd see a
> somewhat more vigorous Klingon wikipedia. Filled with political
> speech.

...all of which would be invariant. RMS/FSF don't believe documentation
should be as free as software, which is why there's so much cruft in the
GFDL.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>--- Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I think we don't need to reduce the number, so much as
>>ensure that they are following community made
>>guidelines. Mark
>>
>>
>But if the sysops don't, surely they need to be desysopped.
>
>Also: people who have been inactive for a while (6 months or more)
>should perhaps be desysopped (with cursory reinstatement if needed).
>
I've considered that process which I would call desysopping without
prejudice.  I would have suggested 90 days, but would not oppose 6
months.  This group has done nothing wrong; they just aren't around.
For re-admission they just need to let us know that they are back and
active.  Some very good people would be a part of this group.

Ec


from_name: Abe Sokolov

body:
fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) wrote:

"There's something about the Internet hothouse social environment that sets
some people off. There's something about the Internet hothouse social
environment that sets some people off. Abe: when people make personal
attacks on 172, you really do have to imitate a duck's back and let it roll
off."

Thanks for the really sound advice to all users and me in particular. I'm a
novice when it comes to communicating on the internet (it wasn't an internet
user before mid-2002), but I can pick up what you mean by the "Internet
hothouse social environment."

Since of the tone of this thread of postings started dying down, I've been
trying to ignore the personal attacks, while responding to the users who
want to get something productive done, such as Mav and Bryan. This strategy
has been working, given that the wise words from you, Ray, Mav, Anthere,
etc. now overtaking the heated attacks and counter-attacks.

Thanks again for the wise words,
172

_________________________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikitech-l] bug with images

body:
Kaixo!

I found two bugs with [[Image:...]] syntax:

* when using "thumb", if no caption is given, extra empty space is
  displayed at the right of the image
  ( compare [[Image:foo.png|thumb|]] and [[Image:foo.png|thumb|aaa]] )
* when using "framed" it isn't possible to resize the image
  (eg: [[Image:foo.png|framed|150px|left]] doesn't work; is it on
  purpose?)

Thanks

--
? bient?t,
Pablo Saratxaga           PGP Key available, key ID: 0xD9B85466

http://chanae.walon.org/pablo/


from_name: Ryan Wetherell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
Just wanted to greet the general mailing list community.  I am, of course, [[User:Merovingian]] on en:.  Have a nice day.

Ryan
--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
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from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] Preferences reloading?

body:
On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 19:08 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
> I notice that at some point the Preferences screen has started showing
> this message: "Note: After saving, you have to clear your browser cache
> to see the changes: Mozilla: click reload(or ctrl-r), IE / Opera:
> ctrl-f5, Safari: cmd-r, Konqueror ctrl-r."
>
> Is there a reason for this?

A new generated css (underlined/not underlined, p justification etc)
will only be picked up after the refresh.

Gabriel Wicke


subject: [Wikitech-l] moreri is running squid

body:
I've set up moreri to run another squid instead of the apache, it's
getting 1/3 of the traffic now (2 out of 6 public ips).

Gabriel Wicke


subject: [Wikitech-l] Preferences reloading?

body:
On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 19:25 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:

> That's why they were in a <style> before. Why the change? It seems to
> make things harder, not easier.

Mainly working up to Squid caching for logged-in users and a slightly
smaller header.

Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Angela

body:
> svyatoslav_igorevich at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Where do I find out when my ban started, and when it
> > will end?

You can find out by searching for your username or IP in the block log
at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Block_log

Angela


from_name: Timwi

body:
Pablo Saratxaga wrote:

> Isn't there an easier way to change the logo?
> Is it needed to have a shell access and overwrite the file the only way?

I've been wondering about that too. Shouldn't there be one normal
uploadable file (if necessary, protected for sysops only) so that the
logo can be changed more easily?

Currently, there's a long list of waiting requests at
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_requests
and it just never gets done, the list gets continually longer. Clearly a
better system is needed...


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: bug with images

body:
Pablo Saratxaga wrote:

> * when using "thumb", if no caption is given, extra empty space is
>   displayed at the right of the image
>   ( compare [[Image:foo.png|thumb|]] and [[Image:foo.png|thumb|aaa]] )

OK, that's a bug, but shouldn't images always have a caption?

> * when using "framed" it isn't possible to resize the image
>   (eg: [[Image:foo.png|framed|150px|left]] doesn't work; is it on
>   purpose?)

Interesting. I didn't know about "framed". What does that do? Is it the
same as "thumb|none"? If so, why not use that? :)

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Error on quadratic formula page

body:
Peter Jaros wrote:

> On Jun 8, 2004, at 10:56 AM, Fennec Foxen wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 30 May 2004 23:20:10 -0400 (EDT),
>> kartik at townisp.com
>> <kartik at townisp.com> wrote:
>>
>>> One day when I looked at the quadratic formula page, it mentioned
>>> another
>>> quadratic formula I had never seen before:
>>
>> <snip>
>> On Wikipedia, I have a message I use for cases such as this:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sofixit
>
> Notice the date on the original.  I think it's another one from the
> moderation backlog.

Fennec's message was nevertheless useful to the rest of us.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikipedia logo Nohat

body:
David Friedland wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> Found the mail
>>
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikifr-l/2004-June/001702.html
>>
>>
>> At the bottom, there is a link to a jpeg low resolution image of an ad
>> which will be run in a linux journal.
>>
>> The picture mentions that the logo is copyrighted, is that correct ?
>>
>> Do we need Nohat permission for this ?
>
>
> Since I uploaded the logo to the meta Wiki, it is released under GFDL.
> The major questions that have arisen are if I wish to additionally give
> up rights retained by the GFDL to facilitate use of the logo in
> particular ways that don't require derived works of the logo to be
> released under GFDL (such as putting the logo into a larger image or
> changing the colors or whatever).
>
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo explains what the current state of
> the permissions are. I haven't yet agreed with what is written there,
> but you can use the logo for the time being under the terms described there.
>
> - David

Okay. Thanks Nohat.
I suppose that one day, what is written there and the reality of the
logo use will come to a common ground :-)
Meanwhile, off we go with the ad :-)


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Anthere's personal attacks

body:
Anthere,

Please stop your hysterical persona attacks on me. No on,
let alone I, is censoring the article on [[Ethics]]. The
problem is that a banned user, EntmootsOfTrolls, is back,
and is reinserting his own personal rant about eco-feminism
and toilet training (I am not making this up). I removed
his additions, which had nothing at all to do with the
article.

He was banned for his behaviour and threats. Please do not
encourage him, or continue lying about me.

Robert

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
> --- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>  I would support any move to reduce the number of
>
>>sysops.
>
>
> Likewise.

Thirded


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Innapropriate bans

body:
That is presumption of innocence which is totally forgotten

* blocking is done without AC consideration first to the case

* reverting of dozen of edits is made, regardless of the quality of the
edits; in effect blind reversion resulted in

** removing perfectly accurate categories, which resulted in people
losing time to put them back
** restoring spelling mistake that the banned user had corrected

* letting RK go wild again on ethical topic.

I understand why Heaph blocked the guy, but in effect
=>consequence number 1 (block) is saying "we do not trust AC to do what
it should o"

=>consequence number 2 : deliberate impoverishment of the encyclopedia
(reinsertion of mistake to enforce a ban) plus addition of work load for
Bryan Derksen and I, who had to revert back the reversion, to restore
the good edits manually

=>consequence number 3 : RK is removing again whole parts of articles,
plus adding very unnice comments, which are irritating me *greatly*.

I feel like censorship from RK is on its way again. And I do not think
this is good.

I think this is just plain bad.

Mark Richards wrote:
> It appears that Heaphaestos has blacked these two
> users because they are 're-incarnations of banned
> users'.
> The current policy of "ask politely, show evidence,
> consider, block" does not appear to have been followed
> in this case. Please let me know if I am mistaken and
> you have, in fact, asked both these users, gathered
> convincing evidence, displayed it somewhere and given
> time for the community to consider it.
> Thank you,
> Mark
>
>
> 03:40, 10 Jun 2004, Hephaestos blocked Leo Trollstoy
> (expires 03:40, 10 Jul 2004) (contribs) (Reincarnation
> of previously banned user. 30 days should give
> Arbitration Committee time to approve or deny.)
>
> 03:40, 10 Jun 2004, Hephaestos blocked JRR Trollkien
> (expires 03:40, 10 Jul 2004) (contribs) (Reincarnation
> of previously banned user. 30 days should give
> Arbitration Committee time to approve or deny.)
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
> http://messenger.yahoo.com/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Server down message

body:
Delirium wrote:

> While I agree with the at-least-15-minutes notice, I actually have the
> opposite complaint about this one (can't please everyone, eh?).  The
> outage is scheduled for 1800 UTC on June 11, and has been up since at
> least 1700 UTC on June 10.  Do we really need a 25-hour notice on every
> wiki page?

It was actually put up at around 18:10 UTC (I was there at the time).
YES, we DO need a 24-hour notice. Different users are from different
time zones and use Wikipedia at different times of the day.

> It seems that the disruption of having this red-outlined
> warning at the top for over a day is actually more than the disruption
> of having the wiki be down for a mere 30 minutes.

Pardon? What disruption? Wikipedia is functioning perfect even with that
message at the top. If you don't want to have it displayed, add

	#siteNotice { display: none; }

to your [[User:Yourusername/monobook.css]].

> A previous downtime
> had such a message up for nearly three days, if I recall correctly.

I think you're exaggerating. :)

> Would perhaps putting it up 3-5 hours or so before scheduled downtime be
> a decent compromise?

No. Absolutely not. People get frustrated very easily when Wikipedia is
down and they have not been informed of a planned downtime. And it is
entirely common for someone to stop using Wikipedia for a mere 5 hours!

Greetings,
Timwi


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop numbers

body:
My impression is that in recent times, the number of WP admins has grown
roughly in line with the number of WP pages.

This has nothing much to do with the activities of certain high-profile
sysops, I think.  Nor is it directly related to the presence on the site of
a handful (at any one time) of problematic users.

I would say a sysop per 1000 or more pages on the site is not excessive.
Sysop powers of rollback help in dealing with nuisance- or graffiti-level
vandalism.  The power to temp-ban IP-only users is also useful in repelling
the casual vandal (of the school kid/Random page add rude word type).  The
more talk pages, the more need to have a little supervision of talk
discussion when it gets heated.

I honestly think those things, together with quick deletions of low-grade
pages, represent the bulk of sysop activity.  I would argue that the volume
effect of the growth of WP means that the sysop body does need to grow in
line.  Actually my impression is that the time to discovery of casual
vandalism is lengthening, on average.

I'm no great fan of a self-aware attitude amongst sysops; it can be helpful
in dealing with certain users to 'wear the hat' rather conspicuously, but
that trick doesn't always work.  I thought that it was interesting that
Jimbo, in his London talk, was in agreement with Theresa Knott that
vandalism as we presently know it is not too serious an issue for WP; a
comment that he balanced by saying (in effect) the Old Bolsheviks of the
site were more of a problem.

Charles


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fixed term sysops.

body:
Having fixed terms is an excellent idea. One or two
year appointments would be ample, and would not be
overly burdensom. A sysop whose term had expired could
stand for re-election after (say) 6 months.
Mark

--- Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
> Timwi wrote
>
> > I'm having trouble extracting from your message
> whether you are
> > advocating (a) limiting the amount of sysops, or
> (b) increasing them.
>
> I was of course responding to posts suggesting a
> decrease in numbers would
> be welcome.
>
> <snip>
>
> > The number of sysops is not something that we
> should (or even can)
> > regulate. It's a quantity that evolves by itself.
>
> I don't know about that.  Appointment could be for a
> limited term, for
> example; with a need to stand for re-election.  The
> system could probably be
> tweaked in other ways.
>
> Not that I advocate that.  I thought it was better
> to make a new thread in
> which to discuss the numerical side.
>
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Suspending sysop powers for inactive users

body:
It seems uncontroversial to suspend the sysop powers
of anyone who is inactive for a prolonged period, on
the understanding that they can get them back simply
by asking.
Mark

--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Christopher Mahan wrote:
>
> >--- Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I think we don't need to reduce the number, so
> much as
> >>ensure that they are following community made
> >>guidelines. Mark
> >>
> >>
> >But if the sysops don't, surely they need to be
> desysopped.
> >
> >Also: people who have been inactive for a while (6
> months or more)
> >should perhaps be desysopped (with cursory
> reinstatement if needed).
> >
> I've considered that process which I would call
> desysopping without
> prejudice.  I would have suggested 90 days, but
> would not oppose 6
> months.  This group has done nothing wrong; they
> just aren't around.
> For re-admission they just need to let us know that
> they are back and
> active.  Some very good people would be a part of
> this group.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Rad Geek

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [MediaWiki-CVS] phase3/stylesheets wikibits.js,
	1.34, 1.35

body:
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 14:15:04 -0500, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> Nathan Hamblen wrote:

>> As far as the site goes, it should set accesskeys that are the most
>> useful to the most people, without too much regard for pre-release
>> browsers on Linux with open accesskey bugs.

> That would probably be very few access keys then.  Do more than a
> handful of people actually use these access keys, and have any
> significant number of people requested them?  I'd wager there's more
> Wikipedians who use Firefox on Linux than there are Wikipedians who use
> alt + . to visit their user page.

The major use case for accesskeys is to help with accessibility for the
disabled. (They can be very helpful for users with screen readers and
users with motor disabilities in particular.) For more information, cf.
<http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_15_defining_keyboard_shortcuts.html>

It's also worth noting that accessibility concerns make including
accesskeys simultaneously more important *and* more difficult, because
they impose the extra concern of not colliding with keyboard shortcuts
defined by the browsing software (and packages like the JAWS screen reader
define quite a few). I was a bit alarmed to see that WikiPedia has been
colonizing alphabetic shortcut keys for its shortcuts; the best thing to
do to avoid collisions is to restrict accesskeys, insofar as possible, to
numbers 0-9 (= ALT+0, ALT+1, ...). Dive Into Accessibility covers some of
the common mappings that have been agreed on, and links to further
discussions.

HTH.

-C

--
Charles Johnson <technophilia at radgeek.com>
AIM: AiPuch
WWW: http://www.radgeek.com/

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


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] DMA good, NFS bad

body:
So we've got Zwinger speaking SATA and DMA, woopiee! Should be faster
and stuff.

On the maybe less good side, we had set some of the other machines to
mount /home with nfsvers=3, which it no longer accepts. This might cause
problems particularly with large files (eg for backup).

I've switched the mounts back to 'defaults' for now.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop numbers

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:

> My impression is that in recent times, the number of WP admins has grown
> roughly in line with the number of WP pages.
> [...]
> I would say a sysop per 1000 or more pages on the site is not excessive.

I'm having trouble extracting from your message whether you are
advocating (a) limiting the amount of sysops, or (b) increasing them.

Both are topics that I really don't understand why people even start
them. We can't artificially increase the number of sysops if there
aren't any who volunteer. Similarly, we can't arbitrarily choose some
people and de-sysop them solely on the grounds that we want less of
them. How would you feel if your request for adminship was rejected just
because "there are already enough of them"? It's simply not fair.

The number of sysops is not something that we should (or even can)
regulate. It's a quantity that evolves by itself.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop numbers

body:
Timwi wrote

> I'm having trouble extracting from your message whether you are
> advocating (a) limiting the amount of sysops, or (b) increasing them.

I was of course responding to posts suggesting a decrease in numbers would
be welcome.

<snip>

> The number of sysops is not something that we should (or even can)
> regulate. It's a quantity that evolves by itself.

I don't know about that.  Appointment could be for a limited term, for
example; with a need to stand for re-election.  The system could probably be
tweaked in other ways.

Not that I advocate that.  I thought it was better to make a new thread in
which to discuss the numerical side.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fixed term sysops.

body:
Well, I'm not sure - vandals don't tend to vote on
nominations for adminship, and having the occasional
disenting voice on it might spur the silent majority
to get more involved in their civic duty there. I
think most admins would be re-ellected, despite the
occasional personal grudge.
Mark R.

--- Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
> Having fixed terms is an excellent idea. One or two
> year appointments would be ample, and would not be
> overly burdensom. A sysop whose term had expired
> could
> stand for re-election after (say) 6 months.
> Mark
>
> No offense, but I think this is an extremely bad
> idea. With
> maybe one or two exceptions, our sysops are
> trustworthy,
> reliable, and obedient to the rules. Having
> elections, on the
> other hand, would be like ringing the dinner bell
> for everyone
> troll or vandal with an axe to grind against a
> particular sysop
> (or sysops). In addition, the administrative
> overhead would be
> fearsome. I'd also like to point out that by your 1
> sysop/1000
> article standard, we're about 40 sysops below
> strength.
>
> Now, in the past, I have complained that a lot of
> people are
> getting nominated for adminship without being here
> long enough.
> I think this criticism is valid. I don't recognize
> most of the names
> coming up on the RFA these days, and that worries
> me. I think
> people need to be a bit more critical of new
> requests, but I don't
> think that means that we should be trying to cull
> down the number
> of sysops - don't throw the baby out with the
> bathwater.
>
> --Mark
>
>
>
> > _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: DMA good, NFS bad

body:
Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> As far as I understand, zwinger is the file server and offer files to
> the other servers ?  Reading your messages, are you saying that until
> now the server wasn't using DMA at all for disk access ?  :op

Right, we've been yakking about that problem for a couple months in here.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fixed term sysops.

body:
Is there any procedure for this, or guidlines?
M.R.

> Hm. Have a significant number of them turned out to
> not be trustworthy
> enough? If not, then there's no problem. If yes,
> then I'm sure they can
> still be de-sysopped, no?
>
> Timwi

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from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New Language

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Kenneth J. Sanderson wrote:
>
>> Could you add The Cornish Language to your encyclopaedia. The Cornish
>> language's name for Cornish is KERNEWEK so the xx could be *ke*, *kr*
>> or *kn.*
>
>
> The ISO 639-1 language code for Cornish is kw. (kr is Kanuri, kn is
> Kannada, ke seems to be unassigned.) When it's created it'll be at
> http://kw.wikipedia.org/
>

This is created now, as well as the companion Wiktionary at
http://kw.wiktionary.org/

Some readers might be interested to know that I used this opportunity to
test and debug the new addlanguage.php. So it's now a lot easier to add
new languages.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikitech-l] timetravelling server down message?

body:
As of 2004-06-11, 20:45 UTC (right about now), there's a header at the
top of every page on wikipedia saying it'll be down on 2004-06-11 from
18:00 to 19:00 UTC...

-Mark


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bug in categories: sorted under wrong letter

body:
Hi,

take a look at

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pok%E9mon

Not that I'm particularly interested in Pok?mon or anything, but I
wonder: How come a number of articles are listed under "C" even though
they don't begin with C?

I've also looked at the source text of the pages, and they all just
contain the standard [[Category:Pok?mon]] and no special identifier.

Is this a bug?
Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Please stop sending me junk E-mails

body:
Erm, I think you can unsubscribe here:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

--- "Marcus J. Daitch" <mdaitch26 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Wikipedia,
>
> I would like to ask a favor. I'm not trying to be
> mean, but can you please
> stop wasting my space with your E-mails to me?
>
> Sincerely,
> Marcus J. Daitch
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> Check out the coupons and bargains on MSN Offers!
> http://youroffers.msn.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with server?

body:
Will people please stop checking experimental code into CVS?

Thanks.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Mark Pellegrini

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
Hi Ryan.

Welcome to the mailing list. You might want to duck - there's been a lot of flack flying around here lately.

--Mark
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Fixed term sysops.

body:
Having fixed terms is an excellent idea. One or two
year appointments would be ample, and would not be
overly burdensom. A sysop whose term had expired could
stand for re-election after (say) 6 months.
Mark

No offense, but I think this is an extremely bad idea. With
maybe one or two exceptions, our sysops are trustworthy,
reliable, and obedient to the rules. Having elections, on the
other hand, would be like ringing the dinner bell for everyone
troll or vandal with an axe to grind against a particular sysop
(or sysops). In addition, the administrative overhead would be
fearsome. I'd also like to point out that by your 1 sysop/1000
article standard, we're about 40 sysops below strength.

Now, in the past, I have complained that a lot of people are
getting nominated for adminship without being here long enough.
I think this criticism is valid. I don't recognize most of the names
coming up on the RFA these days, and that worries me. I think
people need to be a bit more critical of new requests, but I don't
think that means that we should be trying to cull down the number
of sysops - don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

--Mark

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from_name: Jens Wolfgarten

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with templates and the left navigation

body:
Hi everybody!

I've got some problems concerning the use of the mediawiki.

First of all, I want to change the left navigation. Can you please tell me,
where I can archive this? Where can I change the header and the footer and
so on?

Moreover I want to use templates. From everything I read, I just have to
insert a link in the form {{test}}. The wiki should automatically display
an edit link. I can't make this work. Can you please help me? My wiki only
displays {{test}} as plain text.

Thanks

Jens


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Bug in categories: sorted under wrong letter

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Hi,
>
> take a look at
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pok%E9mon
>
> Not that I'm particularly interested in Pok?mon or anything, but I
> wonder: How come a number of articles are listed under "C" even though
> they don't begin with C?
>
> I've also looked at the source text of the pages, and they all just
> contain the standard [[Category:Pok?mon]] and no special identifier.
>
> Is this a bug?
> Timwi

Hello timwi,

There was a bug that sorted all category into the "C" section of a
category list. This bug have been fixed.
The trouble now, is that all articles that some (all?) articles that
have been added to a category are listed in the "C" section !!!

I edited http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Felina_Ivy so it can be
reparsed, it's no more listed under "C" but under "P" now.

I think the cl_sortkey was set to Category:Professor_Felina_Ivy instead
of Professor_Felina_Ivy.

Two solutions:
1/ edit incorrect article, change something, save it : new category sort
key will be generated.
2/ bug a dev to have a look at this and fix them all. This solution
might need to reparse all articles with a cl_sortkey set as Category:
and I think it will take too much time :/

At least, it's user fixable :o)

--
Ashar Voultoiz
[[fr:Utilisateur:Hashar]]


from_name: shizhao

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: China goverment maybe blocked wikipedia today

body:
yuanml <yuanml at ...> writes:

>
> Several users in China had repoerted that they can't visite the whole
Wikipedia today.
>
> China goverment maybe blocked wikipedia, because today is the 15th
commemoration day
> for the Tiananmen Square Event.
>
> So far it is not sure whether Wikipedia is blocked, more infomation is
needed for confirmation.
>
> I'm an administrator for Chinese Wikipedia in P.R.China.
>

Today China goverment blocked all lang. of all projet on wikimedia. How
manages?


from_name: Marcus J. Daitch

body:
Dear Wikipedia,

I would like to ask a favor. I'm not trying to be mean, but can you please
stop wasting my space with your E-mails to me?

Sincerely,
Marcus J. Daitch

_________________________________________________________________
Check out the coupons and bargains on MSN Offers! http://youroffers.msn.com


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Anthere's personal attacks

body:
Robert wrote:
> Anthere,
>
> Please stop your hysterical persona attacks on me. No on,
> let alone I, is censoring the article on [[Ethics]]. The
> problem is that a banned user, EntmootsOfTrolls, is back,
> and is reinserting his own personal rant about eco-feminism
> and toilet training (I am not making this up). I removed
> his additions, which had nothing at all to do with the
> article.
>
> He was banned for his behaviour and threats. Please do not
> encourage him, or continue lying about me.
>
>
> Robert

Evening :-)

You are absolutely correct Robert. He was banned for his behavior.


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fixed term sysops.

body:
A few observations from a non-sysop:

It's clear to me that we don't need to reduce sysops,
but at the same time, there may be some sysops who
should not be sysops. We need sysops who are active,
responsible, and reasonable.

It's important to de-sysop (without prejudice) the
inactive. Otherwise we're deceiving ourselves about
how many sysops we have.

In a sense, don't sysops represent Wikipedia? If so,
shouldn't they have some responsibility to those whom
they represent, to the community as a whole? Having
unlimited terms does not encourage a responsible
attitude.

Term limits could be implemented in such a way that an
active sysop who wants to continue will continue
unless heavily opposed. For instance, an unopposed
sysop could retain office simply by indicating a
desire to do so.

If indeed being a sysop is "no big deal" as it says on
[[wikipedia:Administrators]]
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators]),
then being voted out as one should also be "no big
deal", right?

It would be nice if anonymous voting could be used.
Perhaps the Board voting mechanism?

If we are short on good sysops, let's make sure that
it is understood that being a sysop is a service to
the community, not a power trip. For example, don't
call it "self-nomination", but "volunteering." Or,
make it clear that nominations are sought, so that
people will be more likely to nominate others.

Comments?

-Rich Holton [[user:Rholton]]

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Fixed term sysops.

body:
Why have a delay? I think it would be healthy to
remind sysops periodically of what it is like not to
be a sysop.
Mark R

--- Fennec Foxen <fennec at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 11:10:46 -0700 (PDT), Mark
> Richards
> <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Having fixed terms is an excellent idea. One or
> two
> > year appointments would be ample, and would not be
> > overly burdensom. A sysop whose term had expired
> could
> > stand for re-election after (say) 6 months.
> > Mark
> >
> Why have a delay at all?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK

body:
It would give a better impression of the number of
'real' sysops there are relative to articles - if
there are 10, and only one is active, then you only
really have one.
Mark R

--- Fennec Foxen <fennec at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 23:40:07 -0700, Ray Saintonge
> <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > I've considered that process which I would call
> desysopping without
> > prejudice.  I would have suggested 90 days, but
> would not oppose 6
> > months.  This group has done nothing wrong; they
> just aren't around.
> > For re-admission they just need to let us know
> that they are back and
> > active.  Some very good people would be a part of
> this group.
>
> What would this accomplish?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Fennec Foxen

body:
On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 05:15:05 +0100, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

> Fennec's message was nevertheless useful to the rest of us.

As was Timwi's edit, I suppose. :)


subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK

body:
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 23:40:07 -0700, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I've considered that process which I would call desysopping without
> prejudice.  I would have suggested 90 days, but would not oppose 6
> months.  This group has done nothing wrong; they just aren't around.
> For re-admission they just need to let us know that they are back and
> active.  Some very good people would be a part of this group.

What would this accomplish?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fixed term sysops.

body:
On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 11:10:46 -0700 (PDT), Mark Richards
<marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Having fixed terms is an excellent idea. One or two
> year appointments would be ample, and would not be
> overly burdensom. A sysop whose term had expired could
> stand for re-election after (say) 6 months.
> Mark
>
Why have a delay at all?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocking without following policy

body:
Can someone please take a look at Request for review
of admin actions and give me a reality check? It seems
to me that Hephaestos and Guanaco are repeatedly
blocking user Leo Trollstoy because s/he annoys them.
They are claiming that s/he is the same as a
previously banned user, but refusing to follow the
procedure in 'reincarnations' of asking the user and
then presenting evidence, insisting on the right to
ban the user.
I don't think the name is funny, but the AC has not
yet ruled on this issue, and it seems to undermine the
committee and the policy to allow this sort of
behavior. It gives ammunition to those who claim that
admins are unacountable and out of control.
I do not propose letting vandals and trolls run amock,
but it is important to retain some procedure and not
have admins simply banning users that annoy them.
Mark

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body:
Ashar Voultoiz wrote:

> Timwi wrote:
>
>> Not that I'm particularly interested in Pok?mon or anything, but I
>> wonder: How come a number of articles are listed under "C" even though
>> they don't begin with C?
>
> There was a bug that sorted all category into the "C" section of a
> category list. This bug have been fixed.
> The trouble now, is that all articles that some (all?) articles that
> have been added to a category are listed in the "C" section !!!

Ah, I see. This is like the links table bug: Even when it's fixed, it
has permanent effects that need to be fixed separately. (Not saying that
the links table bug has completely been fixed, but I can understand if
all the developers are pretty much stumped at it, because it's not
reproducible.)

Thanks :)
Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Problem with templates and the left navigation

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Jens Wolfgarten wrote:
>
>> Moreover I want to use templates. From everything I read, I just have
>> to insert a link in the form {{test}}. The wiki should automatically
>> display an edit link. I can't make this work. Can you please help me?
>> My wiki only displays {{test}} as plain text.
>
> Sounds like you're running 1.2. Templates are in 1.3.

Don't you also have to add $useDatabaseMessage = 1; to LocalSettings.php?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Personal attacks

body:
Robert wrote:

> Anthere,
> [...]

Am I the only one who thinks that addressing someone in the subject line
of a posting that is meant to complain about them, is rude?

To me it often feels like it's meant to publicly expose someone's flaws.

Just a thought.
Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fixed term sysops.

body:
Mark Pellegrini wrote:

> No offense, but I think this is an extremely bad idea.

I agree.

> Now, in the past, I have complained that a lot of people are
> getting nominated for adminship without being here long enough.

Hm. Have a significant number of them turned out to not be trustworthy
enough? If not, then there's no problem. If yes, then I'm sure they can
still be de-sysopped, no?

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fixed term sysops.

body:
--- Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Rich Holton wrote:
>
> > It's important to de-sysop (without prejudice) the
> > inactive. Otherwise we're deceiving ourselves
> about
> > how many sysops we have.
>
> I agree with this, but I don't agree to having
> sysops re-voted-on and
> re-elected every 6 months. It should be possible by
> software to
> determine inactive sysops and de-sysop them without
> inconveniencing
> active sysops so much.

Just so there's no misunderstanding, I was not
necessarily connecting the two: I'd say a good first
step in any event is to find out who is inactive and
de-sysop them unless and until they become active
again. This should either be done periodically.

Also, I'm open on the question of how often to review
(re-elect?) sysops. However, time passes very quickly
on Wikipedia. 6 months actually seems like a long
time. (what was happening on Wikipedia 6 months ago?)

>
> > If indeed being a sysop is "no big deal" as it
> says on
> > [[wikipedia:Administrators]]
> >
>
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators]),
> > then being voted out as one should also be "no big
> > deal", right?
>
> That page only says it to reduce the amount of hard
> feelings and
> resulting flaming a little. In practice, however, it
> *is* a big deal in
> the sense that sysop status is seen as an elevated
> status or a position
> of authority, consciously or not. I'm sure many
> sysops also feel
> slightly more powerful or influential than they did
> before they were
> sysopped, even though few will admit it.
> De-sysopping for such a
> frivolous reason is thus likely to cause hard
> feelings for the ex-sysop
> in question.

Of course you're right, Timwi. Being a sysop is _not_
"no big deal." Or, to eliminate the double negative,
being a sysop is a big deal. It is an important role,
with some additional privileges. All the more reason
to make sure that the role is performed responsibly.

Voting may not be the best answer. But I truly believe
that we need to give this matter serious and careful
thought. I foresee sysops only becoming more powerful
as Wikipedia grows -- for no other reason than it will
be necessary. Do we have an adequate method of keeping
sysops in line? According to [[Wikipedia:List of
administrators]]
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_administrators]),
there are exactly 10 former sysops since 2002, of
which apparently only 3 were involuntary. Is this
indicative of a superlative record at naming excellent
sysops, or of inadequate monitoring and discipline?

Please understand that I have had nothing but good
experiences in my dealings with sysops. I have no axe
to grind, no one in particular that I'd like to see
booted.  But there does seem to be some flaws in the
current system.

-Rich Holton ([[User:Rholton]]

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Server down message

body:
Delirium wrote:

> Timwi wrote:
>
>> It was actually put up at around 18:10 UTC (I was there at the time).
>> YES, we DO need a 24-hour notice. Different users are from different
>> time zones and use Wikipedia at different times of the day.
>
> So?  If Wikipedia is down and they did not know about it, what's the big
> deal?

Uhm... you ask them. People tend to make a big fuss when that happens.

> Are there people who plan their schedules a day in advance and
> absolutely must edit Wikipedia from 1800 to 1830 UTC on a particular
> day, and would be irate if they could not reschedule in advance?

This has nothing to do with scheduling, but everything with
communication (knowing of planned downtimes in advance) and convenience
(it's frustrating if you don't know when it will be back up).

> The complaints I've heard [...] are that users would like *some*
> warning so if they are in the middle of an edit they can save it
> before the server goes down [...]

This is one type of complaint, yes; I've seen others though. Mainly that
if downtime is known in advance, then everyone should know in advance.

> It makes the site look ugly,

You're welcome to suggest a better look at [[MediaWiki
talk:Monobook.css]] :-)

> and gives the impression to the public that
> Wikipedia is down much more than it is,

I don't think we should be trying to use psychological tricks to make an
impression that suits us. Telling users the truth is more honest. If
Wikipedia is down, we shouldn't be covering it up like a secret agency.

> Server status messages should be minimized as much as possible [...]

Actually, I think downtimes should be minimised as much as possible. :-p

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: timetravelling server down message?

body:
Delirium wrote:
> As of 2004-06-11, 20:45 UTC (right about now), there's a header at the
> top of every page on wikipedia saying it'll be down on 2004-06-11 from
> 18:00 to 19:00 UTC...
>
> -Mark

They extended the maintenance window as it took longer than expected.

--
Ashar Voultoiz


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Blocking without following policy

body:
You may feel that the policy is silly, the AC is too
slow, and that you don't need evidence, but I can't go
along with thet. I don't see any evidence of LT being
a banned user, no-one has provided any. No one has
asked him/her, and no one has provided evidence that
any of their edits are problematic. You are acting
like an angry mob, and I can't go along with that.
Mark R

--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mark,
>
>
> There is very wide acceptance that JRR is a
> reincarnation of a
> previously banned user. That previous user was not
> banned for a funny
> name, neither for content reasons, but for
> behavioral reasons.
> Though it can't be proved, I think the reincarnation
> is of wide-clarity
> to most of those who know the previously banned
> user.
>
> Afaik, the question had been asked to the user if he
> was a reincarnation
> (that step sounds really funny to me :-)).
> Evidence with regards to reincarnation has been
> posted on the AC request.
> So, I think the claim saying that these two steps
> have not been followed
> is bogus.
>
> ''Where it is becomes clear that a user account is a
> "reincarnation" of
> an existing banned user, the reincarnating account
> can likewise be
> blocked.''
>
> Banning policy allow a sysop or a group of sysop to
> ban such a
> reincarnation. So, they are within their bounds of
> action as well.
>
> I do not think the banning can be said unilateral as
> well, as several
> sysops have banned him, or supporting his ban.
>
>
> If you wish, we may discuss again of all this, but
> honestly, I think
> evidence is sufficient and policy is allowing this.
>
> I hope you will trust me on this, because I say it,
> adding that I am not
> happy of this ban. I do not have the same opinion
> than the community
> with regards to banning this user, but I also see
> that my opinion on the
> topic is a very seriously minor opinion.
>
> So, I prefer to look at the big picture :-)
>
> ------
>
> Now, the question is (and that is a very good
> question) : should sysops
> take such decisions, or should they wait for the AC
> to decide for them ?
>
> As I said above, I think the policy leaves room for
> a group of sysops to
> act temporarily, before the AC does.
>
> Is it good ?
> *yes, because AC is acting slowly. Participants are
> getting upset to see
> reincarnations waiting for 2 months before
> "judgment" by the AC. It is
> no good that participants become angry. In real
> life, there is similar
> provision.... when someone is said to have done
> something deeply wrong
> and is considered a potential threat to the society,
> he may be put in
> jail before the judgment is made. He should be put
> in jail only if there
> is enough evidence naturally. But this prevents
> damage to the society,
> while giving time to judge fairly.
> If there is a mistake, we should deeply apology to
> the wrongly-blocked
> person, and re-consider how we are looking for
> evidence for next cases.
>
> *yes, it is also good because power should be in the
> hand of people
> first. Those doing the daily work. This is the wiki
> way.
>
>
>
> Is it bad ?
> *yes, it may be bad, if decisions are taken
> **without enough evidence
> **without clear community support
> **Without respect for openness and diversity of
> opinion
>
> Should we not respect these three points, then,
> there would be a danger.
>
> I think the first point was amply provided in this
> case. If you are not
> convinced, ask Uninvited Company (sigh).
>
> The second point is perhaps a little less obvious.
> If you are not
> convinced, why not starting a poll ? There is a
> policy supporting ban of
> reincarnation. You are not certain it is a
> reincarnation ? You are not
> sure the community is certain it is a reincarnation
> ? Well, ask people
> what they think then.
>
> The third point is probably the more tricky one. I
> am not always certain
> we are entirely fair toward diversity of opinion.
> The last political
> debates are not really convincing me we are
> respecting this very well
> all the time. But that is the toughest point, and I
> have no reason to
> think it is better handled by AC than by whole
> community. We all have
> our personal bias, and only the addition of our bias
> will make a
> balance. In this, I trust editors on the whole to
> achieve balance.
>
>
> Heph and Guanaco agreed to wait for your feedback,
> so they did not
> revert again the block. This was very nice of them.
> I think it is quite
> bad to enter a blocking reversion war.
> Now, please, consider the three points :
> * do you need more information to convince you that
> enough evidence was
> provided ?
> * do you need more information to convince you that
> the block is
> generally approved, as a temporary measure to wait
> for AC to deliver his
> judgment ?
>
> And
> * do you think a centralised committee decision
> making is the only way,
> or do you think groups of trusted sysops may act
> temporarily while
> waiting for justice decision of AC ?
>
> Anthere
>
>
>
>
> Mark Richards wrote:
> > Can someone please take a look at Request for
> review
> > of admin actions and give me a reality check? It
> seems
> > to me that Hephaestos and Guanaco are repeatedly
> > blocking user Leo Trollstoy because s/he annoys
> them.
> > They are claiming that s/he is the same as a
> > previously banned user, but refusing to follow the
> > procedure in 'reincarnations' of asking the user
> and
> > then presenting evidence, insisting on the right
> to
> > ban the user.
> > I don't think the name is funny, but the AC has
> not
> > yet ruled on this issue, and it seems to undermine
> the
> > committee and the policy to allow this sort of
> > behavior. It gives ammunition to those who claim
> that
> > admins are unacountable and out of control.
> > I do not propose letting vandals and trolls run
> amock,
> > but it is important to retain some procedure and
> not
> > have admins simply banning users that annoy them.
> > Mark
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
> > http://messenger.yahoo.com/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>
=== message truncated ===

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: DMA good, NFS bad

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> So we've got Zwinger speaking SATA and DMA, woopiee! Should be faster
> and stuff.
>
> On the maybe less good side, we had set some of the other machines to
> mount /home with nfsvers=3, which it no longer accepts. This might cause
> problems particularly with large files (eg for backup).
>
> I've switched the mounts back to 'defaults' for now.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Hello,

As far as I understand, zwinger is the file server and offer files to
the other servers ?  Reading your messages, are you saying that until
now the server wasn't using DMA at all for disk access ?  :op

--
Ashar Voultoiz


from_name: Ryan Wetherell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Pellegrini" <mapellegrini at comcast.net>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 16:49:17 -0400
To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

> Hi Ryan.
>
> Welcome to the mailing list. You might want to duck - there's been a lot of flack flying around here lately.
>
> --Mark

>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Thanks for the welcome, Mark.  Flack?  I'll get my tennis racket.  Thanks again,

Ryan
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from_name: Yann Forget

body:
Hi,

Le Friday 11 June 2004 20:37, shizhao a ?crit :
> yuanml <yuanml at ...> writes:
> > Several users in China had repoerted that they can't visite the whole
> > Wikipedia today.
> > China goverment maybe blocked wikipedia, because today is the 15th
> > commemoration day for the Tiananmen Square Event.
> >
> > So far it is not sure whether Wikipedia is blocked, more infomation is
> > needed for confirmation.
>
> > I'm an administrator for Chinese Wikipedia in P.R.China.
>
> Today China goverment blocked all lang. of all projet on wikimedia. How
> manages?

Are you sure of that ?
This looks like serious bad news.

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


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with server?

body:
When on [[Labour Party (UK)]], I get the following message when I try to
click on [[George Lansbury]], [[Hugh Gaitskell]] and  [[Harold Wilson]]
(and probably others):

Fatal error: Class boardvotepage: Cannot inherit from undefined class
specialpage in
/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-new/extensions/BoardVote/BoardVote.php
on line 22

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 11:13:46 -0700 (PDT)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Suspending sysop powers for inactive users

> It seems uncontroversial to suspend the sysop powers
> of anyone who is inactive for a prolonged period, on
> the understanding that they can get them back simply
> by asking.
> Mark
>
> --- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > Christopher Mahan wrote:
> >
> > >--- Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>I think we don't need to reduce the number, so
> > much as
> > >>ensure that they are following community made
> > >>guidelines. Mark
> > >>
> > >>
> > >But if the sysops don't, surely they need to be
> > desysopped.
> > >
> > >Also: people who have been inactive for a while (6
> > months or more)
> > >should perhaps be desysopped (with cursory
> > reinstatement if needed).
> > >
> > I've considered that process which I would call
> > desysopping without
> > prejudice.  I would have suggested 90 days, but
> > would not oppose 6
> > months.  This group has done nothing wrong; they
> > just aren't around.
> > For re-admission they just need to let us know that
> > they are back and
> > active.  Some very good people would be a part of
> > this group.
> >
> > Ec
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
> http://messenger.yahoo.com/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

I agree; this is just common sense.

Ryan
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Fixed term sysops.

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Pellegrini" <mapellegrini at comcast.net>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 17:08:41 -0400
To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fixed term sysops.

> Having fixed terms is an excellent idea. One or two
> year appointments would be ample, and would not be
> overly burdensom. A sysop whose term had expired could
> stand for re-election after (say) 6 months.
> Mark
>
> No offense, but I think this is an extremely bad idea. With
> maybe one or two exceptions, our sysops are trustworthy,
> reliable, and obedient to the rules. Having elections, on the
> other hand, would be like ringing the dinner bell for everyone
> troll or vandal with an axe to grind against a particular sysop
> (or sysops). In addition, the administrative overhead would be
> fearsome. I'd also like to point out that by your 1 sysop/1000
> article standard, we're about 40 sysops below strength.
>
> Now, in the past, I have complained that a lot of people are
> getting nominated for adminship without being here long enough.
> I think this criticism is valid. I don't recognize most of the names
> coming up on the RFA these days, and that worries me. I think
> people need to be a bit more critical of new requests, but I don't
> think that means that we should be trying to cull down the number
> of sysops - don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
>
> --Mark
>
>
>

>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

I happen to agree with the fixed terms.  Pellegrini had some good reasons, and mine is: why now?  If this is a good idea, why wait until there are well over 200 sysops?  Constant elections = hectic + voter fatigue.

Ryan
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