body:
Anthere <anthere8 at yahoo.com> writes:

> Copied the text, put it in your emailer, preferably in html
  encoding

Please, don't send HTML mails.  If you need more than plain text,
use the enriched mime type.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
                                                         |    http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/
                                                         |    |
                                                         |    (*)/'(*)


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: European Wikipedia-meetings this summer :-)

body:
I hope that someone kind will translate for me.

> - 10.-12. of June in Berlin (Jimbo will be present)
> - 26. or 27. June in Genova (Jimbo will try to be present)
> - ???? in Munich (Jimbo mentioned, that he wants to visit Munich)
> - ???? in Paris (Anthere, what do you think about this ;-)
> - ???? London would also be nice, wouldn't it?
> - any other proposals/ideas?

My current plans are:

10-12 June, Berlin, Germany at Wizards of OS Conference
http://wizards-of-os.org/

26-27 June, Genova, Italy
Informal (?) wikipedia gathering, see
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_a_Genova%2C_capitale_europea_della_cultura_2004
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussione:Prossimi_Eventi

6-10  July, Bordeaux, France at LSM 2004 Conference
http://lsm2004.abul.org/breve2.html

Please consider me 'confirmed' for those events.  However, if there is
a specific day that I'm supposed to speak or have dinner with people,
that may mean that I will not be at the _entire_ conference.

I am considering spending time in Siena, Italy and Munich, Germany
(and surrounding areas around both of those) and Paris would be
delightful, too.

I'm very much an Anglophile, and my current plans involve trying to
find a way to spend the entire summer of 2005 in the UK, if I can find
a University to sponsor me or something of that sort.  This trip is
already going to be very expensive for me anyway, both in terms of time
and money, so I do need to not over-schedule.

I'd actually be willing to spend the entire summer almost anywhere in
Europe, if I had access to office space and a nice internet
connection.  So long as I have those two things, I can work from
anywhere.  If I don't have those two things, I can just answer email
from Internet cafes or use dialup from hotels or whatever.

--Jimbo


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Nicolas Weeger

subject: [Wikitech-l] Feature suggestion on links in articles

body:
Hello.

I have some feature ideas, and i'm wondering what everyone would think about'em.
Note: i'm not a developer, just a (french) Wikipedia user, so don't count on me
to implement'em :)
(ok, i could maybe if i took the time to dig into the code, but people knowing
it a lot would probably need less time).

First, it would be nice to automatically change links to redirects to links to
the 'real' article during edition. This avoids having the 'redirected from'
message on the linked article, thus giving the impression of a well-managed
encyclopedia ^_-. And also will avoid some issues if the redirect becomes a
disambiguation page.

Second, it could be really nice if, during preview, the first lines of the
linked articles were displayed somewhere. Real often, people write links and
just check the article exists, but don't check if it's actually the article they
intend to link to. Displaying the first lines would make it fast to check.
In the same idea, maybe detect & display links to disambiguation pages in a
different color ?
Those could be options in preferences, for people who don't want that behaviour.

I think those ideas would make it easier to write articles, and make correct
article interlinks.
On the other hand, they would probably increase slightly the load (on db &
server), since they require digging & displaying first lines of linked articles,
which may be numerous. But hopefully our new servers could handle that, no? :)

Nicolas 'Ryo'


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: What would Richard Stallman say?

body:
Michael Snow wrote:
>Well, you've had disagreements with at least two so far.
>Though of course, lawyers frequently disagree with each
>other, too. It's sort of an occupational requirement.

Actually I agreed with and helped to defend most of Alex's positions -
including most of his views on using fair use materials in Wikipedia. Our only
major disagreement was the last one (which turned out to be a misunderstanding
on my part - I have sent two emails apologizing to him but have not heard from
him yet...).

>However, if you feel that our disclaimer of warranties
>shifts the obligation to downstream users, making it
>their job to determine what they can legally copy,
>that's a reasonable position to take.

That is one of the major reasons why I supported Alex in getting the disclaimer
linked from every page.

>As I have pointed out in some of my other posts, there
>are other legal justifications for quotation besides fair
>use under US copyright law. I believe we should shift
>our reliance to Article 10 of the Berne Convention,
>which specifically allows quotation of published works.

That seems like a good idea, given our international bent. I find the wording
in the Berne Convention to be easier to follow than the convoluted mess of fair
use doctrine.

>We would have to make sure we mention the source
>and the name of the author.

Exactly! We have WAY too many images that don't have this type of information.
IMO, we should stop all uploads and launch a tagging effort. Once that is fully
underway a form should be added to the upload page that would force uploaders
to enter text into author, source, and license fields. I consider the current
situation to be untenable and dangerous to the long term viability to the
project.

To even have a chance of being considered fair, the use *must* give author
info, no? I hear that over 20% of the images on the English Wikipedia do not
give that information.

>I think this can pretty much resolve the issue for text, and
>an argument can be made to apply it to images and sounds
>as well.

Yep. That is my IANAL interpretation. Has this been tested for non-text
content?

-- mav

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bureaucrat on French Wikipedia

body:
Guillaume Blanchard a ?crit :

> You created a statu of bureaucrat so Wikipedias are not any more need to
> request the developers to ratify the vote of the new administrators, but the
> only user who has this statu on French Wikip?dia is a user that don't taking
> part in French Wikipedia and who don't speak French. Can you make some
> French-speaking bureaucrats?

Unless i'm mistaking, any sysop can make other users sysop.
Bureaucrat kind of disappeared :)

> Aoineko


body:
> If this were done it would become impossible to go to the redirecting page,
> wouldn't it? Currently there is a "&redirect=no" link in the "redirected from"
> message.

You can still see the redirection pages in 'what links here'.

> Being a well managed encyclopedia is more important than giving the impression
> of being one :-) The redirection messages serve as a reminder to go back and
> fix the link.

Except non contributors wouldn't know how to fix :)

> That would be useful, but might be problematic for something like [[List of
> computing topics]]! Besides where would you show the first few lines? Maybe
> it could be put in a tooltip.

Or a checkbox like 'this is a minor edit'? You could check it or not by default
in preferences, and toggle it any time when editing.

> Arvind

Nicolas 'Ryo'


body:
> On French Wikipedia, sysop get a message "you need bureaucrat statu" when
> trying to acces the "Turn a user into a sysop" page.

Weird, a few days ago i could access the page, even though i'm not bureaucrat...

> Aoineko

Nicolas


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bureaucrat on French Wikipedia

body:
no Ryo, it is not so. It was not very well explained, but you need to be
bureaucrat to make people sysop, and a bureaucrat is a sysop which needs
a special status given by a developer.
Bureaucrat did not disappear, they do not exist for us. On fr, nothing
has changed because no one is bureaucrat, but E23, who is a non french
speaking developper.
I suggest you (I think Shai was interested as well) ask a developper to
make you bureaucrat on fr, so we do not have to bug a developper any
more :-)

ant

Nicolas Weeger a ?crit:
> Guillaume Blanchard a ?crit :
>
>> You created a statu of bureaucrat so Wikipedias are not any more need to
>> request the developers to ratify the vote of the new administrators,
>> but the
>> only user who has this statu on French Wikip?dia is a user that don't
>> taking
>> part in French Wikipedia and who don't speak French. Can you make some
>> French-speaking bureaucrats?
>
>
> Unless i'm mistaking, any sysop can make other users sysop.
> Bureaucrat kind of disappeared :)
>
>> Aoineko
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Database servers

body:
Jimmy, we're seeing a couple odd problems on suda. Something that may
or may not be helped by a kernel upgrade (maybe? who knows) and what
appears to be a corrupt page in the database (maybe? who knows).

We *need* a slaved server *now* in case suda goes south unrecoverably.

Is gunther available for this (if so on what IP?), or should I strip
down one of the other machines?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Arvind Narayanan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Need actual articles on broad topics

body:
Hi,

I've noticed that several articles on broad topics are actually
massive collections of links to subtopics. (Look at many of the
topics in the "Encyclopedia" section on the main page. [[History]]
is a good example.) IMHO this should be improved, because it puts
off the reader who is not an expert in the field. So I suggest
that we make a conscious effort to describe the field at a basic
level in entry-point articles. [[Philosophy]] looks very good to me.

Comments?

Arvind
--
Its all GNU to me


body:
> no Ryo, it is not so. It was not very well explained, but you need to be
> bureaucrat to make people sysop, and a bureaucrat is a sysop which needs
> a special status given by a developer.

I did understand that.
But I'm also _certain_ at some point I _did_ access the 'make sysop' page. IT
has a plain text box to enter the user's name :)

> I suggest you (I think Shai was interested as well) ask a developper to
> make you bureaucrat on fr, so we do not have to bug a developper any
> more :-)

I have no objection to being bureaucrat - but maybe we should ask the opinion of
other french contributors.

> ant


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database servers

body:
On Feb 22, 2004, at 16:00, Brion Vibber wrote:
> We *need* a slaved server *now* in case suda goes south unrecoverably.
>
> Is gunther available for this (if so on what IP?), or should I strip
> down one of the other machines?

For now I'm taking isidore out of apache rotation.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Mediation 168 Mav

body:
Hello all,

This is an update of the current situation between 168 and Mav
disagreement with each other.

As a reminder, Mav requested mediation with 168, officially for abuse of
sysop position, and general disruption
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_mediation#168..._and_maveric149),

168 considers that Mav had an unfair behavior towards him, and that it
had detrimental implications on the way his actions were perceived by
the community.

-------

Some time after Mav requested that 168 behavior as a sysop be examined,
168... was temporarily unsysoped as preventive action, as many editors
thought he was using his sysop power in the wrong way

-------

Today, following a poll, 168 sysophood was restored. Several users
considered the initial unsysoping was meant to be temporary, and that it
had to be kept temporary for the temporary tool to stay usable as a
*temporarily* tool.

Jamesday comment : That's one reason why it's important that 168 be only
a tempoprary de-sysopping. If it is not reversed it will create the
impresion that it was not temporary and people will be reluctant to use
this approach for similar ongoing situations in the future. I urge
everyone to select the poll choice to re-sysop 168, knowing that if
misuse happens again, we can repeat the process rapidly. Jamesday 14:23,
21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

--------

Several people have expressed their opinion that 168 should be
unsysopped, for a short time, or more permanently, or that at least
resysoping should be accompanied of guarantees from 168, that he will
not act again in an alleged bad way (mav, Maximus Rex, Lirath Q. Pynnor,
RickK, Eloquence, Kingturtle, plus other comments)

-------

The resysoping of 168 does not change the initial request of Mav...nor
does it change the initial feeling of unfairness of 168.

Mav and 168 have both written their own factual report of what happened
on DNA and related pages. Reports may have been edited by other people,
but they both agree with at least one report of facts. These are
available here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/168.

 From my opinion, they both agree on facts. But two versions were
necessary, since opinions tended to mix with facts (it is really tough
to be NPOV right :-)).

I am currently trying to decipher the bottom reasons of each to be
rather unhappy with each other. Curiously, I think they might agree on
more than what they think...but well... :-)

-------

I am sure that some people will want to request that 168 is unsysopped
again. I hope they will give a little more discussion time to us before
going on a crusade. I think it is very important.
I just want to reassure Mav that it is not because 168 has been
resysopped that his request is not relevant any more (this in case he
feels like calling for arbitration), to tell 168 that his other concerns
are still valid, and anyone not to put fire on the oil, even if they
currently feel like 168 sysophood is a community matter, not a 168/Mav
matter.

I think these two people are good people, and both good contributors,
perhaps both with nice egos, and there is no terrible hurry. Please,
give them time (well, us :-)).

Thanks

Ant


from_name: Optim

subject: [Wikipedia-l] What would Richard Stallman say? (IP users)

body:
Dear Mr. Stallman,

In my understanding by IP-users he meant the
anonymous users who post in Wikipedia without
having a registered user account (user name and
password). When someone posts without username
and password, his or her IP (Internet Protocol)
address is shown.

My opinion is that an anonymous user (IP user)
still owns the copyright of his or her works he
or she uploads. I don't think it matters he or
she has no user account in Wikipedia: he or she
still owns the copyright for his or her original
work and he or she chooses to submit his or her
work under the terms of GFDL. So, in short, the
"IP user" manages the copyright of his or her
edits or contributions (which he or she chose to
distribute under the terms of GFDL after he or
she pressed the Save button in Wikipedia). (IANAL
- I am not a lawyer).

By the way: Happy to see you posting on Wikipedia
mailing list. I would like to Thank you for your
"GNU" project and Wish you Happiness in your life
and Peace Profound.

--Optim

--- Richard Stallman <rms at gnu.org> wrote:
...

>     BTW: What is your opinion on who manages
> the copyrights of IP-users?
>
> I cannot understand this either.  What are
> "IP-users"?  If I guess
> that "IP" stands for "intellectual property", I
> still can't understand
> what the question means; but please don't
> *ever* use the term
> "intellectual property".  It spreads bias and
> confusion.
>
> See
>
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia print edition: wikireader

body:
On Feb 22, 2004, at 17:24, Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
> Even if you don't speak a word of German, the page
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiReader
> is worth to have a look. Thomas Karcher of the German wikipedia
> assembled our articles about swedish topics to a IMO very beautiful
> print edition.
>
> Download: http://tkarcher.gmxhome.de/WikiReader_Schweden.pdf

Very cool!

It should though include a copy of the GFDL; smallish print in the back
is probably fine.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any more

body:
Do you mean using the legal system is considered
bannable behaviour?

--Optim

--- Allan Crossman <a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk>
> The former is Irismeister, who, as well as
> engaging in a prolonged
> edit war on [[Iridology]], has now threatened
> legal action against
> not one but two other users. Is this acceptable
> behaviour now? He
> remains unbanned.

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from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Requiring image sources

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

> I would like to propose the following:
>
>That any new image uploads should be required to give a source for the
>image (be it a URL, book or photographers name). Failure to provide a
>source should make an image a candidate for speedy deletion.
>
A required field in the upload page for source information is an
excellent idea. I would not carry it so far as to subject images without
source information to speedy deletion, at least not in the sense that is
practiced on en.wikipedia. Such images should go on VfD if there is
concern about the use, to allow time for us to track down the actual
source and investigate whether we can still use the image.

Improperly used and inadequately documented images are a big problem,
but there's also a danger of overreacting to the problem. Let's not
resort to draconian measures in solving it.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Richard Stallman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] What would Richard Stallman say?

in_reply_to:
<200402202011.45801.news@RobertMichel.de> (message from Robert
	Michel on Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:11:39 +0100)

body:
The questions you are asking are legal technicalities.  You need
to ask a lawyer--I am not capable of giving advise about such points.


body:
    > This text, with no link and no details about the image, would name and
    > shame the Foobar company, but would not help Foobar sell copies of the
    > image.

    Bad idea. Maybe if they try to sue use for no good reason or violate
    the license, but any other offence is not in the free spirits I have.

It appears you disagree with me on something.  I can't tell what the
issue is, though.

    BTW: What is your opinion on who manages the copyrights of IP-users?

I cannot understand this either.  What are "IP-users"?  If I guess
that "IP" stands for "intellectual property", I still can't understand
what the question means; but please don't *ever* use the term
"intellectual property".  It spreads bias and confusion.

See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.


from_name: Delirium

body:
Optim wrote:

>Do you mean using the legal system is considered
>bannable behaviour?
>
>
Well, if you indicate you wish to sue Wikipedia or its users, you
indicate that you have no interest in working within our established
procedures, and therefore we may kindly ask you to leave (or force you
to leave) as your presence is hurting our community and hampering our
work to produce a free encyclopedia.  We have no obligation to allow all
people to edit Wikipedia.

-Mark


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>>Well, you've had disagreements with at least two so far.
>>Though of course, lawyers frequently disagree with each
>>other, too. It's sort of an occupational requirement.
>>
>>
>Actually I agreed with and helped to defend most of Alex's positions -
>including most of his views on using fair use materials in Wikipedia. Our only
>major disagreement was the last one (which turned out to be a misunderstanding
>
Many disagreements are really misunderstandings. Ours was to some extent
as well. It doesn't mean that we will always disagree any more than you
and Alex would. Points of agreement generate less discussion--if I had
agreed with you initially, I wouldn't have piped up at all. Anyway,
disagreement is not the same as disrespect, and you have treated me
respectfully throughout this discussion. I hope you would say the same
of me.

>>We would have to make sure we mention the source
>>and the name of the author.
>>
>>
>Exactly! We have WAY too many images that don't have this type of information.
>IMO, we should stop all uploads and launch a tagging effort. Once that is fully
>underway a form should be added to the upload page that would force uploaders
>to enter text into author, source, and license fields. I consider the current
>situation to be untenable and dangerous to the long term viability to the
>project.
>
Now this, I agree with almost totally. I'm not sure it's necessary to
actually stop uploads completely--that feels really drastic, and perhaps
we could develop the upload form first and then go back and tag the old
images that predate the form.

>To even have a chance of being considered fair, the use *must* give author
>info, no?
>
The way I read the Berne Convention, yes. Fair use law in the US doesn't
necessarily require attribution, because US copyright law historically
has shown less concern for the "moral rights" of authors.

>>I think this can pretty much resolve the issue for text, and
>>an argument can be made to apply it to images and sounds
>>as well.
>>
>>
>Yep. That is my IANAL interpretation. Has this been tested for non-text
>content?
>
I'm not aware if relying on Article 10 has even been tested in the
courts for text. As a practical matter, copyright holders often
calculate that it's not worth the effort to go after this kind of use.
The use may well be considered legitimate, and it tends to be on a
low-level scale anyway.

--Michael Snow
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subject:
[WikiEN-l] I'm mad as hell,
	and I'm not gonna take it any more (who is a user?)

body:
(I don't refer to the specific case presented by
the originator of this thread, but I talk about
legal rights and wikipolicy in general)

If some troll-behaviouring individual makes a
user's life difficult, can't the user sue the
troll-behaviouring individual? (IN THEORY)

--Optim

--- Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:
> Well, if you indicate you wish to sue Wikipedia
> or its users, you
> indicate that you have no interest in working
> within our established
> procedures, and therefore we may kindly ask you
> to leave (or force you
> to leave) as your presence is hurting our
> community and hampering our
> work to produce a free encyclopedia.  We have
> no obligation to allow all
> people to edit Wikipedia.
>
> -Mark
>

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from_name: James Rosenzweig

subject: [WikiEN-l] Also mad as hell...

body:
I am doing my level best to remain silent in the face
of a campaign by Irismeister to bait me into lashing
out at him.  I have been advised from several quarters
not to say anything bad so he can get himself banned.
I may lose patience very soon, and either make
horrible comments his way or leave Wikipedia (possibly
both).  Irismeister apparently believes he can
threaten to sue me and then blame me for cutting off
contact.  If I have to endure much more of the
following

"Jwrosenzweig is an adult and perhaps he can speak for
himself. But if he refuses to speak to me (perhaps he
is just afraid and/or embarassed for the miserable
things he did to me and the iridology page) - then why
doesn't he address the Wiki community instead, for
what he did last week? Does he fear legal action there
too ? I know it's hard for him to be a policeman
(keeping him from editing - which he really does
better than policing) but I am willing to forgive his
provocative and insulting behavior"

from a known troll, I think it will be the end of me.
I believe I have exhibited as much patience as
possible, but I cannot continue to try and edit
productively here if I am threatened with libel for
talking to trolls, and threatened with censure or ban
for ignoring them.  If anyone thinks it is easy to
endure the kind of baiting that Irismeister resorts
to, I invite you wholeheartedly to attempt a
discussion with him.  Will the AC please consider
looking into Irismeister?  I am very sorry to admit
that I wouldn't bring the charges myself (without a
document from him stating that I would not be held
liable for any statements made), as I can't risk a
lawsuit.

Really, I think that's the point.  When a troll also
apparently possesses some funds, legal counsel, and
the desire to sue, I feel trapped.  And I've probably
already said too much that would be counted libel by
Irismeister, so I'm done talking now.  HELP.

Jwrosenzweig

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body:
On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 01:16:29PM +0100, Nicolas Weeger wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I have some feature ideas, and i'm wondering what everyone would think about'em.
> Note: i'm not a developer, just a (french) Wikipedia user, so don't count on me
> to implement'em :)
> (ok, i could maybe if i took the time to dig into the code, but people knowing
> it a lot would probably need less time).
>
> First, it would be nice to automatically change links to redirects to links to
> the 'real' article during edition. This avoids having the 'redirected from'
> message on the linked article, thus giving the impression of a well-managed
> encyclopedia ^_-.
If this were done it would become impossible to go to the redirecting page,
wouldn't it? Currently there is a "&redirect=no" link in the "redirected from"
message.

Being a well managed encyclopedia is more important than giving the impression
of being one :-) The redirection messages serve as a reminder to go back and
fix the link.
> And also will avoid some issues if the redirect becomes a
> disambiguation page.
Well, editors are supposed to disambiguate links using what links here
when creating a disambiguation page.
>
> Second, it could be really nice if, during preview, the first lines of the
> linked articles were displayed somewhere. Real often, people write links and
> just check the article exists, but don't check if it's actually the article they
Yes, I've noticed this often too.
> intend to link to. Displaying the first lines would make it fast to check.
That would be useful, but might be problematic for something like [[List of
computing topics]]! Besides where would you show the first few lines? Maybe
it could be put in a tooltip.
> In the same idea, maybe detect & display links to disambiguation pages in a
> different color ?
Sounds like a good idea. But again there's the server load problem. One solution
would be to detect newly created wikilinks and do it only for those links.

Arvind
> Those could be options in preferences, for people who don't want that behaviour.
>
> I think those ideas would make it easier to write articles, and make correct
> article interlinks.
> On the other hand, they would probably increase slightly the load (on db &
> server), since they require digging & displaying first lines of linked articles,
> which may be numerous. But hopefully our new servers could handle that, no? :)
>
> Nicolas 'Ryo'
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
Its all GNU to me


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any  more

body:
At 01:14 AM 2/23/2004 +0000, Allan Crossman wrote:

> > I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jimbo needs to
> > officially sanction our revert policy and sysops should be allowed
> > to ban users for 24 hours if they violate it.
>
>After all I've laid out - you want to ban him for a mere 24 hours?

Hopefully that means _every_ time they violate it.

I wouldn't exactly say I'm mad as hell, but I'm certainly nonplussed over
how the Wikipedia system bends so far over backwards to be "nice" to
incorrigibly disruptive people like this. Surely at some point the "cost"
in driving away other contributors who can't stand working with them must
be outweighing the "benefit" of making sure we don't accidentally ban
participants who could potentially be valuable contributors some time down
the road? Not to mention the sheer amount of work some of these users
create in cleaning up after them.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requiring image sources

body:
Imran wrote:
>That any new image uploads should be required to give a source
>for the image (be it a URL, book or photographers name). Failure
>to provide a source should make an image a candidate for speedy
>deletion.

I agree with this 100%. There is no way a use can be considered fair without
such information. I also think that this is already implied by our current
policies against copyright infringement. We have just been way too lax on the
issue.

--mav

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requiring image sources

body:
Erik wrote:
>NO. Images are a far too sensitive issue to allow speedy
>deletion. There must be due process to prevent legitimate
>fair use cases or unrecognized PD works from getting deleted.

Hm. Good point. My intention with my las email was to point out that images are
rarely put through the amount of scrutiny that text is. Waiting 5-7 days is
good enough for me.

I still think there should be moratorium on all uploads until with get a handle
on the current situation.

-- mav

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] 500,000 milestone is here!

body:
Andrew Lih wrote:
>One of the most standard outlets for press releases is PR Newswire.
>It costs some money to put it on there, but we can investigate the
>cost and see if it's worth it.

IIRC, about two years ago it cost US$200 to post a press release to a website
like that. Even if it were twice as much now I think it would be worth it and
would more than pay for itself in donations.

-- mav

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body:
Erik wrote:
>I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jimbo needs to
>officially sanction our revert policy and sysops should
>be allowed to ban users for 24 hours if they violate it.

IMO, Jimbo isn't needed to sanction all policies. Most are developed by
consensus on Wikipedia itself.

There does seem to be very wide general support for this 'rule to consider'.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:How_to_revert_a_page_to_an_earlier_version#Revert_wars_considered_harmful

So far there are 27 people supporting this rule and 8 against. That comes to
~77% in favor of the rule by my calculation. For polling purposes, we consider
80% to be consensus and thus binding, no?

Thus all we may need to make this policy is a vote or two more in favor of the
rule.

I encourage everybody to consider this issue and vote their conscience.

--mav

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from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Nick Pisarro CVS access granted

body:
Hi,

I've granted CVS access to Nick Pisarro. He wants to commit the following
changes:
- PEAR:Mail support for authenticating against SMTP servers
- make use of previously unused $wgWhitelistEdit array to specify list of
pages a user has read access to until they create an account.

Both of these changes seem useful to me. I have also granted Nick access
to the trackers.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Dan Drake

subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any

body:
On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 17:24:26 -0800 (PST), wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:

>From: Optim <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk>
>...>
>Do you mean using the legal system is considered
>bannable behaviour?

No.  I'm using the legal system this week, if the lawyer who's handling my [civil matter, none of
your business, not expected to be litigious] is ready for another conference.  I admit this in the full
expectation of not being banned from Wikipedia for handling my own affairs. Is your question
deliberately misleading, or is it just looseness of expression?

New question: Is using the legal system to settle Wikipedia disputes and vendettas bannable
behavior?

Answer: How can you ask? Of course it is. Take it from an Americocentrist in litigious America:
you don't want to go there.


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Dumps record distribution per namespace (was Let's
	separate user and talkpage databases from article database)

body:
Optim wrote on wikipedia-l

> I think it would be a good idea to have separate
> databases (or downloadable files) for userpages,
> talkpages and articles.
..
> Having separate databases (or downloadable files)
> will help the people who mirror our content to
> copy just what they really want (the articles)
> and not userpages and talkpages

Optim provided non-technical rationale.

People who want to download Wikipedia for local browsing might appreciate
smaller dump sizes,
so I checked the distribution of records per namespace.

Here are figures for the most recent fr: dumps (largest dumps that I can
download without errors)
Keep in mind that real dumps are smaller due to compression, and that some
namespaces may compress better than other due to similarity of subsequent
versions.

I am not sure what to conclude from this, but here are the figures anyway.

CUR table

namespace=description: x bytes = y perc. of total - z number of records

0: Articles: 58346580 bytes = 71.7% - 32549 records
1: Article discussions: 7487166 bytes = 9.2% - 3714 records
2: User pages: 1811361 bytes = 2.2% - 1254 records
3: User discussions: 3737941 bytes = 4.5% - 1379 records
4: Wikipedia: 6788373 bytes = 8.3% - 641 records
5: Wikipedia discussions: 1680691 bytes = 2% - 282 records
6: Image pages: 1020852 bytes = 1.2% - 3653 records
7: Image discussions: 48294 bytes = 0% - 62 records
8: Messages: 389328 bytes = 0.4% - 600 records
9: Message discussions: 10702 bytes = 0% - 8 records

OLD table

namespace=description: x bytes = y perc. of total - z number of records

0: Articles: 783459699 bytes = 51.4% - 195416 records
1: Article discussions: 100863970 bytes = 6.6% - 12668 records
2: User pages: 19020815 bytes = 1.2% - 5765 records
3: User discussions: 133820662 bytes = 8.7% - 10385 records
4: Wikipedia: 455423770 bytes = 29.8% - 22493 records
5: Wikipedia discussions: 30388381 bytes = 1.9% - 2408 records
6: Image pages: 558602 bytes = 0% - 2456 records
7: Image discussions: 109211 bytes = 0% - 90 records
8: Messages: 91808 bytes = 0% - 109 records
9: Message discussions: 21505 bytes = 0% - 16 records

Erik Zachte


body:
Erik wrote:
>He is needed to allow us instant tempbans in case this
>particular policy is violated, which I think would be a
>useful option to have. There is almost no ambiguity
>in edit wars.

What punishment to invoke is a separate matter from the policy - yes. But we
need to establish the policy first before we can punish people for violating
it. There are now 30 in favor and 8 against the rule = 79% in favor. Assuming
nobody votes against it, we still need two more votes in favor of the rule to
reach 80%.

But a policy without teeth is a bit useless. I agree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:How_to_revert_a_page_to_an_earlier_version#Revert_wars_considered_harmful

-- mav

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from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

body:
You created a statu of bureaucrat so Wikipedias are not any more need to
request the developers to ratify the vote of the new administrators, but the
only user who has this statu on French Wikip?dia is a user that don't taking
part in French Wikipedia and who don't speak French. Can you make some
French-speaking bureaucrats?

Aoineko


body:
From: "Nicolas Weeger" <nweeger at noos.fr>
> Guillaume Blanchard a ?crit :
>
> > You created a statu of bureaucrat so Wikipedias are not any more need to
> > request the developers to ratify the vote of the new administrators, but
the
> > only user who has this statu on French Wikip?dia is a user that don't
taking
> > part in French Wikipedia and who don't speak French. Can you make some
> > French-speaking bureaucrats?
>
> Unless i'm mistaking, any sysop can make other users sysop.
> Bureaucrat kind of disappeared :)

On French Wikipedia, sysop get a message "you need bureaucrat statu" when
trying to acces the "Turn a user into a sysop" page.

Aoineko


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

references:
<E1AuAuo-0001oK-1j@fencepost.gnu.org>
	<20040220234741.GA2246@tomk32.homelinux.org>
	<E1Av2Hx-0006Ui-AO@fencepost.gnu.org>

body:
On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 05:41:29PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:

>     BTW: What is your opinion on who manages the copyrights of IP-users?
>
> I cannot understand this either.  What are "IP-users"?  If I guess
> that "IP" stands for "intellectual property", I still can't understand
> what the question means; but please don't *ever* use the term
> "intellectual property".  It spreads bias and confusion.

If you don't log in when you edit the Wikipedia your IP will be
shown, therefore -> IP-user or anonymous user (although you are
more anonymous ifff you log in)

--
http://www.tomk32.de - just a geek trying to change the world
   -.-       http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
   /|>	           http://tomk32.bookcrossing.com
   / \                 http://tinyurl.com/u6de


from_name: Imran Ghory

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requiring image sources

body:
I would like to propose the following:

That any new image uploads should be required to give a source for the
image (be it a URL, book or photographers name). Failure to provide a
source should make an image a candidate for speedy deletion.

The motivation behind this is that there are far too many images where we
have absolutely no information about where they came from. This makes
doing copyright research into them a lot harder. Even in cases where it is
stated that an image is PD, without a source there is no way to verify if
this is indeed the case (or to find out if PD status only exists in
certain juristictions).

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


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
"Nicolas Weeger" <nweeger at noos.fr> schrieb:

> First, it would be nice to automatically change links to redirects to links to
> the 'real' article during edition. This avoids having the 'redirected from'
> message on the linked article, thus giving the impression of a well-managed
> encyclopedia ^_-. And also will avoid some issues if the redirect becomes a
> disambiguation page.

No. If those "redirected from" messages are a problem, remove the
message. To automatically change the links would mean that when someone
decides the redirect page should not be that any more, that person
needs to go to all pages linking to the page redirecting to to check
what their actual link is. This is quite a problem if the redirect becomes
an article, and _even worse_ if it becomes a disambiguation page.
Rather than solving problems, it would create them.

Andre Engels


from_name: Allan Crossman

body:
Wikipedia's methods to deal with trolls are broken. I'll refer to 2
cases, one I'm not involved in, the other I am.

The former is Irismeister, who, as well as engaging in a prolonged
edit war on [[Iridology]], has now threatened legal action against
not one but two other users. Is this acceptable behaviour now? He
remains unbanned.

The latter is User:Plautus_satire, who has engaged in edit wars on:

[[Quasar]], [[Laser star hypothesis]], [[Albert Einstein]], [[Black
hole]], [[September 11, 2001 attacks]], [[Space Shuttle Columbia
disaster]] and others.

A look at the full (ie 500 edit) history of [[Black hole]] shows that
on that one page he's been reverted by me, SheikYerBooty, Cyp,
Jwrosenzweig, Isomorphic, Modemac, Morwen, Curps, and an anonymous
IP.

He has had similar wars on other pages. Even after 8 days, and
certainly after having had NPOV pointed out to him, he continued the
insertion of opinion as fact, for example, on [[Laser star
hypothesis]], stating categorically that Hubble is a spy satelite.

According to a a poster at Apollo-moon-hoax groups, who commented at
[[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Plautus satire]], he has been banned
from two such groups. Said poster gave a link:

http://www.clavius.org/plautus.zip

At the above is an archive of Plautus's messages to the Yahoo Apollo
group, in which he sends literally hundreds of messages, often
abusive, in the space of a single week. This suggests to me his
motives are simply stirring up arguments, rather than any genuine
desire to contribute.

[[User:Silsor/fanmail]] contains several extremely abuse emails from
him when he was temporarily banned. As has been noted on this list,
he also spammed just about every sysop in connection with that event.

Now, I freely admit I have not always acted well when faced with
Plautus - I have occasionally adopted a sarcastic and condescending
tone, for example. As a result of feeling I was in too deep, I
decided to try to take a break from Wikipedia for a while. Yet even
after this was pointed out to him, he repeatedly trolled my talk page
with absurd complaints about me removing comments from it.

Lest anyone should think it's just me who has a problem with this
guy, there is a vote at
[[Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Plautus_satire]] where, at the time
of writing, 14 people are in favour of him being banned, with 5
opposed.

Yet he remains unbanned.

Supposedly, instead of banning him, we now have to mediate with him.
This is quite literally insane.

--
Allan Crossman - http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
PGP keys - 0x06C4BCCA (new) || 0xCEC9FAE1 (compatible)


subject:
[WikiEN-l] I'm mad as hell,
	and I'm not gonna take it any (a scenario)

body:
--- Dan Drake <dd at dandrake.com> wrote:
> No.  I'm using the legal system this week, if
> the lawyer who's handling my [civil matter,
> none of
> your business, not expected to be litigious] is
> ready for another conference.  I admit this in
> the full
> expectation of not being banned from Wikipedia
> for handling my own affairs. Is your question
> deliberately misleading, or is it just
> looseness of expression?

Misleading? No. Probably it was looseness of
expression.

> New question: Is using the legal system to
> settle Wikipedia disputes and vendettas
> bannable
> behavior?
>
> Answer: How can you ask? Of course it is. Take
> it from an Americocentrist in litigious
> America:
> you don't want to go there.
>

>From below the thread starts becoming silly.
Don't continue reading if you don't have time to
waste.

Bad-User-1 may post libel or personal information
against Crazy-User-2 on Wikipedia pages. The
nature of the libel and the information is such
that in a lawsuit against Bad-User-1,
Crazy-User-2 could win immediatelly.

Crazy-User-2 has two options: Either ask
Wikipedians to remove the libel and personal info
from public view and ban Bad-User-1 or fill a
lawsuit. The first option is, of course, the
best, but Crazy-User-2 is a bit crazy and is
willing to spend money and time for fun.
Crazy-User-2 also wishes to "test" their new
lawyer. Crazy-User-2 chooses to fill a lawsuit.

Without involving Wikimedia Foundation,
Crazy-User-2 finds Bad-User-1. Crazy-User-2 fills
a lawsuit against Bad-User-1.

Wikimedia Foundation knows nothing about the
lawsuit. Bad-User-1 didn't threatened in public
Crazy-User-2 with a lawsuit. Nobody, except the
lawyers and the two users, know anything.

Bad-User-1 sends an email to Wikimedia Foundation
asking to ban Crazy-User-2 from Wikipedia because
of the lawsuit: "Hi! Crazy-User-2 just filled a
libel lawsuit against me! Crazy-User-2 is a bad
person! Please ban Crazy-User-2! Thanks!"

The lawsuit does not involve Wikimedia Foundation
or Wikipedia in any way. Nobody asked Wikimedia
Foundation to give information about any user.
Other Wikipedians would know nothing if the email
was not sent.

Will Crazy-User-2 get banned?

Note that this is a different case than if the
lawsuit involved Wikimedia Foundation (for
example. asking the developers to disclose
information such as IP addresses etc).

This is only a theoretical discussion, mostly to
see our reasoning on some scenarios. And, hey,
Don't take this discussion too seriously! :)

--Optim

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body:
> >From below the thread starts becoming silly.
> Don't continue reading if you don't have time
> to
> waste.

Oops, sorry. The extra > was added by mistake. It
was not intented.

--Optim

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requiring image sources

body:
Imran-
> That any new image uploads should be required to give a source for the
> image (be it a URL, book or photographers name). Failure to provide a
> source should make an image a candidate for speedy deletion.

NO. Images are a far too sensitive issue to allow speedy deletion. There
must be due process to prevent legitimate fair use cases or unrecognized
PD works from getting deleted.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Allan-
> The former is Irismeister, who, as well as engaging in a prolonged
> edit war on [[Iridology]], has now threatened legal action against
> not one but two other users. Is this acceptable behaviour now? He
> remains unbanned.

> The latter is User:Plautus_satire, who has engaged in edit wars on:

> [[Quasar]], [[Laser star hypothesis]], [[Albert Einstein]], [[Black
> hole]], [[September 11, 2001 attacks]], [[Space Shuttle Columbia
> disaster]] and others.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jimbo needs to officially
sanction our revert policy and sysops should be allowed to ban users for
24 hours if they violate it.

Regards,

Erik


body:
> I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jimbo needs to
> officially sanction our revert policy and sysops should be allowed
> to ban users for 24 hours if they violate it.

After all I've laid out - you want to ban him for a mere 24 hours?

--
Allan Crossman - http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
PGP keys - 0x06C4BCCA (new) || 0xCEC9FAE1 (compatible)


body:
Optim writes:

> Do you mean using the legal system is considered
> bannable behaviour?

Users making serious threats against others should not expect to be
allowed to continue here, especially when they're involved in other
disruptive behaviour. That's what I mean. Obviously there are
exceptions - legal action against Michael was talked about, for
example. A little common sense needs to be applied.

--
Allan Crossman - http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
PGP keys - 0x06C4BCCA (new) || 0xCEC9FAE1 (compatible)


body:
Allan-
>> I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jimbo needs to
>> officially sanction our revert policy and sysops should be allowed
>> to ban users for 24 hours if they violate it.

> After all I've laid out - you want to ban him for a mere 24 hours?

I want to ban him for 24 hours every time he gets into an edit war.
Hopefully, that way he will learn that he has to use the discussion page
instead of trying to bully people into preferring his version.

As for a permanent ban, I think a quick route to the arbitration committee
should exist. But keep in mind that for a ban to be effective, the other
person needs to be at least somewhat sane. There are cases like Michael or
142.177, mentally diseased individuals who will not be deterred by a ban
and operate under such a wide range of IP addresses that a complete IP ban
would affect many legitimate users. There are good reasons to believe that
we keep dealing with the same people under different names. It may be more
effective to integrate them into a community in some way.

The other thing we need is a clearly defined decision making process. I'm
thinking about a [[Wikipedia:]] page which defines recommended discussion
periods for minor and major issues. After the discussion period any user
would be allowed to call for a binding vote. I want to get Jimbo out of
the loop for most binding decision, not because I don't trust him but
because he simply can't keep up with making critical decisions in a 500K
article 50 language project.

I hope you will reconsider your decision to leave the project and work
with me in establishing these required norms and policies.

All best,

Erik


from_name: Joshua Holman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] new ML member here!

body:
Hello,

My name is Joshua Holman, known on the EN WP as 'Hoshie'.

I have joined this list to offer input to make the WP better.

Joshua Holman
AKA Hoshie


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
Hello,

Even if you don't speak a word of German, the page
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiReader
is worth to have a look. Thomas Karcher of the German wikipedia
assembled our articles about swedish topics to a IMO very beautiful
print edition.

Download: http://tkarcher.gmxhome.de/WikiReader_Schweden.pdf

Maybe preparing such articles series is good way towards a print edition
of Wikipedia.

greetings,
elian


subject: [WikiEN-l] Also mad as hell...

body:
James-
> Will the AC please consider
> looking into Irismeister?

I agree. Arbitration Committee, spring into action. This should be
addressed ASAP. Legal threats against Wikipedians are unacceptable,
period.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Isam Bayazidi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Arabic Mailing list

body:
Hi all..
  I am Isam Bayazidi, a wikipedian from the Arabic wikipedia, and a
SysOp there .. There had been a raising demand on having a mailing list
for Arabic wikipedia issued.. I wanted to know how can we have it
created ?! wikiar-l List ..

Thank you very much
Yours
Isam Bayazidi


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:
> No matter how many pictures I take of the interesting things I visit,
> I will never take a picture of Bob Keeshan (1927-2004) -- and you will
> not find a free picture of him.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/K/htmlK/keeshanbob/keeshanbob.htm

That's a pretty typical publicity still, and a guy like Bob Keeshan
must have literally hundreds of these taken over the course of a
lifelong career in show business.  The picture itself has very little
commercial value in and of itself, and I can see no particular reason
why Bob Keeshan's estate,

or CBS (where his show appeared for 30 years)

or one of the wire services (who might own photos of him taken
at various public events)

or some paparazzi with a huge collection

might not want to make just one or two representative images available
under a free license.

We won't know until we try.

Unfortunately, and I'm as guilty of this as any of us, doing work like
this -- approaching people to try to get not just standard permission
but a free license -- will involve stepping outside our comfort zone,
which is "sit and type on the Internet".

--Jimbo


references:
<20040219155059.GL8258@joey.bomis.com>
	<200402201901.i1KJ1KfP006633@orwen.epoptic.com>
	<r5i8yixvalv.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>
	<200402202053.11788.news@RobertMichel.de>

body:
Robert Michel wrote:
> And isn`t this challange, to find new friends of the wikipedia a very nice
> one?

Hooray!

I find that what we are doing excites people.  It's meaningful work,
and it's something people really support.  People can see how their
support is a way to take action to make the world as it "might be and
ought to be".

--Jimbo


body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:
> I see two factions here. The "no fair use" faction, and the group
> that wants to allow fair use. As far as I can tell, the "no fair
> use" insists on getting rid of every single fair use image, which
> would include the examples that I and others have named. (My Lai
> massacre, Tinament Square, etc.) The pro-fair use group seems to
> want to offer a compromise: Only use fair use images for
> circumstances where GFDL images are impossible.

But is anyone really arguing for absolutely no fair use in any
circumstances?  I don't think that's a defensible position for at
least these reasons:

1.  Even quotes from books are done under 'fair use' and no one is
suggesting (I hope) that we can't even quote from books.  But if we
can quote from a book we can also "quote" from a movie (by using a
single still from a longer work, for example) or other work.

The conditions under which we can and should do so are murky, due to
the vagaries of copyright law and our interest in complying usefully
with the laws of many nations at the same time, without compromising
our integrity of course.

But "never under any circumstances" doesn't strike me as a remotely
plausible position.

2.  The "hardliners" (of whom I count myself one) are hardliners in
part because of a certain set of views on copyright.  These views
ought to lead us to want to _expand_ the doctrine of fair use.
Therefore, we *want* fair use, we want to rely on it, we want to use
our position of influence to break down the myth that just because
something is copyright, it's entirely untouchable.

--Jimbo


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jimbo needs to officially
> sanction our revert policy and sysops should be allowed to ban users for
> 24 hours if they violate it.

I would not be averse to this, but I have to hear more arguments pro
and con first.  I'm trying to get out of the business of benevolent
dictating, but I've no intention of adbicating my responsibilities
before we have better systems in place.

--Jimbo


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I want to get Jimbo out of the loop for most binding decision, not
> because I don't trust him but because he simply can't keep up with
> making critical decisions in a 500K article 50 language project.

Everyone should already know, but I agree with Erik completely.  I
can't even keep up with everything going on in 'en' land, even though
I spend at least 30 hours a week reading emails and studying arguments
on talk pages, etc.

> I hope you will reconsider your decision to leave the project and work
> with me in establishing these required norms and policies.

Yes, agreed!  Allen, don't go.  We need level heads.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database servers

body:
Brion Vibber brion-at-pobox.com |wikipedia| wrote:
<>> Jimmy, we're seeing a couple odd problems on suda. Something that
may or may not be helped by a kernel upgrade (maybe? who
 > knows) and what appears to be a corrupt page in the database (maybe?
who knows).

Just to let the list know, in case someone has any information: this was
in the dmesg log around the time of the problem. We don't know if it's
related to this problem, or if it's just a coincidence:

// E23

> kernel BUG at page_alloc.c:139!
> invalid operand: 0000
> soundcore nfs lockd sunrpc ide-tape ide-cd cdrom ipt_LOG parport_pc lp
> parport autofs tg3 ipt_REJECT iptable_filter ip_tables
>
> keybdev mousedev hid input usb-o
> CPU:    0
> EIP:    0060:[<c0146b1b>]    Not tainted
> EFLAGS: 00010282
>
> EIP is at __free_pages_ok [kernel] 0xeb (2.4.20-8smp)
> eax: 00000018   ebx: c1030d90   ecx: c1000030   edx: d3a5ec40
> esi: 00000000   edi: 00000000   ebp: 00000000   esp: ef1c9bb8
> ds: 0068   es: 0068   ss: 0068
> Process docount.sh (pid: 11603, stackpage=ef1c9000)
> Stack: 00015de9 c1030d90 c0406ee0 c0148560 c0406ee0 00000000 00000001
> c1030d90
>        00000163 c1030d90 c1030d90 00000163 00000000 fffee0b8 c01351b4
> c1030d90
>        00df4067 c0137be6 f6b5dbc0 40000000 fffee0b8 e5d113b4 00000001
> c013aff6
> Call Trace:   [<c0148560>] remove_exclusive_swap_page [kernel] 0xb8
> (0xef1c9bc4))
> [<c01351b4>] __free_pte [kernel] 0x4c (0xef1c9bf0))
> [<c0137be6>] zap_pte_range [kernel] 0x22e (0xef1c9bfc))
> [<c013aff6>] do_generic_file_read [kernel] 0x26a (0xef1c9c14))
> [<c013596b>] zap_page_range [kernel] 0x107 (0xef1c9c28))
> [<c0139320>] exit_mmap [kernel] 0xc4 (0xef1c9c6c))
> [<c013c0f0>] generic_file_mmap [kernel] 0x0 (0xef1c9c88))
> [<c0159d5d>] exec_mmap [kernel] 0x1fd (0xef1c9c90))
> [<c013c0f0>] generic_file_mmap [kernel] 0x0 (0xef1c9ca4))
> [<c0159d84>] flush_old_exec [kernel] 0x14 (0xef1c9cac))
> [<c0174945>] load_elf_binary [kernel] 0x2bd (0xef1c9cc0))
> [<f88680d7>] ext3_do_update_inode [ext3] 0x173 (0xef1c9ce4))
> [<f8852fd8>] journal_get_write_access_Rsmp_dae0236a [jbd] 0x5c
> (0xef1c9d04))
> [<f8853b4e>] journal_stop_Rsmp_ab07e5bf [jbd] 0x17e (0xef1c9d58))
> [<c0143941>] reclaim_page [kernel] 0x231 (0xef1c9d78))
> [<c01471c9>] __alloc_pages_limit [kernel] 0x85 (0xef1c9d9c))
> [<c0174688>] load_elf_binary [kernel] 0x0 (0xef1c9df0))
> [<c015a454>] search_binary_handler [kernel] 0x128 (0xef1c9dfc))
> [<c015a66b>] do_execve [kernel] 0x17b (0xef1c9e44))
> [<c0107c80>] sys_execve [kernel] 0x54 (0xef1c9fa4))
> [<c010971b>] system_call [kernel] 0x33 (0xef1c9fc0))


body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> I wouldn't exactly say I'm mad as hell, but I'm certainly nonplussed over
> how the Wikipedia system bends so far over backwards to be "nice" to
> incorrigibly disruptive people like this. Surely at some point the "cost"
> in driving away other contributors who can't stand working with them must
> be outweighing the "benefit" of making sure we don't accidentally ban
> participants who could potentially be valuable contributors some time down
> the road? Not to mention the sheer amount of work some of these users
> create in cleaning up after them.

Well, there is a bit more to it than that, but your point is a very
valid one.

The main thing that I would add is the perhaps ironic issue that there
are unintended consequences to things like bans that may actually
generate *more* strife.  The peace we seek could be illusory if we
change the culture away from co-operation and love towards crime and
punishment.

Some people are just mentally unbalanced.  Effectively dealing with
them will always be challenging.  Keep them around, well, that's not
really a live option, they're lunatics.  Ban them, well, that's not
really always going to work either, since they just create new
accounts, different ips, come in through proxies.  We'll never have a
state of perfect peace.

So the question becomes finding the right balance to minimize harm.

--Jimbo


body:
Well, I just voted 'yes', because I think the rule is excellent.

As usual, I'll engage in a few more days of annoying thought about the
matter before making any sort of proclamation linking this rule to
short-term bans.

--Jimbo

Daniel Mayer wrote:

> Erik wrote:
> >He is needed to allow us instant tempbans in case this
> >particular policy is violated, which I think would be a
> >useful option to have. There is almost no ambiguity
> >in edit wars.
>
> What punishment to invoke is a separate matter from the policy - yes. But we
> need to establish the policy first before we can punish people for violating
> it. There are now 30 in favor and 8 against the rule = 79% in favor. Assuming
> nobody votes against it, we still need two more votes in favor of the rule to
> reach 80%.
>
> But a policy without teeth is a bit useless. I agree.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:How_to_revert_a_page_to_an_earlier_version#Revert_wars_considered_harmful
>
> -- mav
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
> http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] User-agent block list & Netscape 3

body:
How hard would it be for us to have and maintain a "lynx-friendly"
html, and serve it to old browsers like this?  It seems a shame to
give people something that causes headaches, even if they really
really should upgrade, because maybe they can't upgrade for some
reason (poverty, for example).

Brion Vibber wrote:

> In addition to the Safari fiasco a couple days ago, I've recently
> received a complaint that Wikipedia blocks Netscape 3.0. The last entry
> in the block list was for "^Mozilla/3.0", which blocks Netscape 3.0 and
> some WebTV and similar browsers.
>
> Now, I seem to remember blocking "Mozilla/3.01 (compatible;)" back in
> the day, but never just plain "Mozilla/3.0". I've changed it for now to
> that...
>
> Incidentally, I managed to get Netscape Gold 3.04 up and running... It
> does sort of work on Wikipedia. Sort of. :)
>
> It gives a JavaScript error on every page view; a syntax error for a
> regexp used for the toolbar code I believe. It doesn't support PNG
> images, and the sidebar shows at the bottom of the page... also it
> doesn't grok UTF-8. It seems to have caching problems on default
> settings and doesn't reload pages automatically after edit. But, pages
> (in English at least) are legible and it understands virtual hosts.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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


body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Obviously for good reason.  If it is unblocked by now, print a warning
> if a reader tries to access WP with this browser:
>
>     You are using Netscape 3.x, this is last century software and as
>     such it does not support today web technologies.  Consider
>     switching to a more recent browser.
>
> I guess nobody wants to write NS 3.x compatibility code.

:-) Well, this is amusing, but a better answer would be to serve them
a plaintext page.  Maybe the 'printable' version would be happy enough?

--Jimbo


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Well, I just voted 'yes', because I think the rule is excellent.
>
>As usual, I'll engage in a few more days of annoying thought about the
>matter before making any sort of proclamation linking this rule to
>short-term bans.
>
>
In the spirit of "soft security", I'd most prefer some sort of temporary
article-level ban, where an article can be left unprotected but the
edit-warriors banned from editing it for 24 hours.  If they try to
circumvent the ban (alternate accounts) or we have to chase them around
various articles article-banning them, then a blanket ban from all
editing could be instituted by any sysop (in my opinion).  Perhaps we
could come up with a fixed number, like 2 or 3, of articles they'd have
to be article-banned on for edit-warring before they were banned
completely for 24 hours.

While I'm generally wary of bans, I wouldn't see a problem with a
procedure like that.  Being banned from a single article for 24 hours is
frankly not a huge deal, and if you're doing enough reverting to be
article-banned on 2-3 articles, then you probably could do with a
blanket 24-hour ban too.

-Mark


body:
Daniel-
> IMO, Jimbo isn't needed to sanction all policies.

He is needed to allow us instant tempbans in case this particular policy
is violated, which I think would be a useful option to have. There is
almost no ambiguity in edit wars.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Marco Krohn wrote:

>In many situations, like the above for example, it could be a typical win-win
>scenario. We could offer adding a "generously donated by foo" text to the
>image and would get a free image in return.
>
>
This I think might be a good idea: to start an informal policy that we
credit image authors in the caption (in the article where the image is
used, not just on the image description page), perhaps in small-font or
something, and perhaps eventually automatically-generated from the
not-yet-extant "author" field for the image.  We can't require that our
distributors keep this (we don't want GFDL invariant sections), but
simply having it be unofficial Wikipedia policy that *we'll* keep it
should satisfy a lot of people, since we're the most prominent Wikipedia
distributor.  And I'd bet many people would consider having a photo
credit in a Wikipedia article at least something of a payment.  Plus
it's actually useful information for our readers in many cases (as with,
say, "photo courtesy of [[NASA]]").

-Mark


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Feb 23, 2004, at 04:10, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> How hard would it be for us to have and maintain a "lynx-friendly"
> html, and serve it to old browsers like this?  It seems a shame to
> give people something that causes headaches, even if they really
> really should upgrade, because maybe they can't upgrade for some
> reason (poverty, for example).

Tarquin's made some mock-ups of a more CSS-friendly page layout that
should degrade more gracefully on older browsers; we'll move to that at
some point. Cleaning up the JavaScript to avoid parsing errors in
pre-javascript 1.2 browsers could help as well with the error I
mentioned.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court

body:
If we have a policy it is that disputes must be settled by arbitration.

Fred

> From: "Dan Drake" <dd at dandrake.com>
> Reply-To: Dan Drake <dd at dandrake.com>, English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 20:26:39 -0800 (PST)
> To: "wikien-l at Wikipedia.org" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any
>
> On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 17:24:26 -0800 (PST), wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org
> wrote:
>
>> From: Optim <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk>
>> ...>
>> Do you mean using the legal system is considered
>> bannable behaviour?
>
> No.  I'm using the legal system this week, if the lawyer who's handling my
> [civil matter, none of
> your business, not expected to be litigious] is ready for another conference.
> I admit this in the full
> expectation of not being banned from Wikipedia for handling my own affairs. Is
> your question
> deliberately misleading, or is it just looseness of expression?
>
> New question: Is using the legal system to settle Wikipedia disputes and
> vendettas bannable
> behavior?
>
> Answer: How can you ask? Of course it is. Take it from an Americocentrist in
> litigious America:
> you don't want to go there.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Sean Barrett

body:
> http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/K/htmlK/keeshanbob/keeshanbob.htm

...snip...

> We won't know until we try.
>
> Unfortunately, and I'm as guilty of this as any of us, doing work like
> this -- approaching people to try to get not just standard permission
> but a free license -- will involve stepping outside our comfort zone,
> which is "sit and type on the Internet".
>
> --Jimbo

Point taken, with a large side-order of "I picked a weak example."

And as for comfort zones, I'm the guy who wrote to Her Majesty's
Stationery Office about Crown Copyright.  I got Michael Phillips,
maintainer of "Ship of the Old Navy," to give us free use of his
material.  I have requests out at the moment.  Anyone who wants help
with such requests is welcome to contact me.

--
 Sean Barrett     | What if the hokey-pokey IS what it's all about?
 sean at epoptic.com |


subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court

in_reply_to:
<BC5F36A0.177B%fredbaud@ctelco.net> (message from Fred Bauder on
	Mon, 23 Feb 2004 04:48:32 -0700)

body:
> If we have a policy it is that disputes must be settled by arbitration.
>
> Fred

I find it hard to believe that the act of editing Wikipedia could
possibly cause someone to lose his right to seek redress through the
courts.

--
 Sean Barrett     | Anyone who believes what a cat tells
 sean at epoptic.com | him deserves all he gets. --Neil Gaiman


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court

body:
Allan Crossman wrote:
>It's the other way round. Seeking redress through
>the courts could possibly cause someone to lose
>his right to edit Wikipedia.

Nobody has a right to edit at wikipedia.org. We are all simply granted that
privilege and that privilege can technically and legally be revoked at any time
and without notice for any or all editors.

But we do try to only revoke editing privileges when it is really necessary.
So our social norms and policies try to strike a balance.

At least that is my view of things.

--mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools


body:
This is fantastic.

Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Even if you don't speak a word of German, the page
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiReader
> is worth to have a look. Thomas Karcher of the German wikipedia
> assembled our articles about swedish topics to a IMO very beautiful
> print edition.
>
> Download: http://tkarcher.gmxhome.de/WikiReader_Schweden.pdf
>
> Maybe preparing such articles series is good way towards a print edition
> of Wikipedia.
>
> greetings,
> elian
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Rick

body:
If consensus is in the 80% range, why was 168... allowed his sysop rights back?  The vote in that case was far from consensus.

RickK

Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Erik wrote:
>I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jimbo needs to
>officially sanction our revert policy and sysops should
>be allowed to ban users for 24 hours if they violate it.

IMO, Jimbo isn't needed to sanction all policies. Most are developed by
consensus on Wikipedia itself.

There does seem to be very wide general support for this 'rule to consider'.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:How_to_revert_a_page_to_an_earlier_version#Revert_wars_considered_harmful

So far there are 27 people supporting this rule and 8 against. That comes to
~77% in favor of the rule by my calculation. For polling purposes, we consider
80% to be consensus and thus binding, no?

Thus all we may need to make this policy is a vote or two more in favor of the
rule.

I encourage everybody to consider this issue and vote their conscience.

--mav

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court

body:
The proposed policy is at Wikipedia:Terms of use. By using the site you
would lose your right to seek redress through the courts. Arbitration
proceedings are reviewable by the courts but that review is rather limited.
Unless the procedure was grossly unfair you will not get far.

Fred

> From: Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:35:03 -0800
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court
>
>> If we have a policy it is that disputes must be settled by arbitration.
>>
>> Fred
>
> I find it hard to believe that the act of editing Wikipedia could
> possibly cause someone to lose his right to seek redress through the
> courts.
>
> --
> Sean Barrett     | Anyone who believes what a cat tells
> sean at epoptic.com | him deserves all he gets. --Neil Gaiman
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court

body:
The passage quoted is at variance with our procedures. A signed in user,
unless they engage in gross violations can expect due process.

Fred

> From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 07:15:24 -0800 (PST)
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court
>
> that privilege can technically and legally be revoked at any time
> and without notice for any or all editors.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court

body:
Fred wrote:
>The passage quoted is at variance with our procedures.
>A signed in user, unless they engage in gross violations
>can expect due process.

Fred, please *read* what I write next time. I used the words "technically and
legally" - that has *nothing* to do with our policies and social norms (what
you call "procedures").

A business still has the technical and legal ability to kick you off their
property any time they want and for whatever reason (even no reason) even
though they almost always let you into their establishment to perform certain
transactions.

My point was that editing Wikipedia is not a right - it is a freely granted
privilege. The trouble with very longstanding freely granted privileges is that
after a while people start to think of them as rights and then start to make
demands.

-- mav

__________________________________
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body:
Rick wrote:
>If consensus is in the 80% range, why was 168... allowed
>his sysop rights back?  The vote in that case was far from
>consensus.

I was a bit surprised by that myself. Tim ran the resysop query *very* early in
the polling process when there were 4 in favor of readminship and 2 against.
Last time I checked there were 10 in favor and 8 against (44.4% against).

Just think of all the fun we would have if simple majority decided whether or
not a user becomes an admin in the first place.

--mav

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court

body:
Fred wrote:
>A bad habit of free people. We have no intention of acting in
>arbitrary ways or of not responding to reasonable demands.
>Nor of establishing a legal right to do so. Our terms of use
>creates rights in the user. We could set forth the proposition
>that no user has any rights whatever but have not chosen to
>do so.

What are you talking about Fred? Wiki[p/m]edia is NOT a government so we can't
grant or deny ANY right whatsoever. All we can do is extend or revoke
privileges. We are blessed in respect to the fact that Jimbo and the Wikimedia
Foundation has given us generous privilege grants and allows the community to
pretty much run itself.

All those are good things and should be preserved, but they are not rights.

Perhaps we are speaking past each other (each using a different definition of
'rights')?

-- mav

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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court

body:
I'd rather not be a volunteer here, if people are going to sue each
other over talk page comments. If I were on the Arbitration Committee,
I'd most likely veto to expel anyone who threatened another Wikipedian
legal action in some real-world court.

Get a grip, people. We're just helping each other edit a few articles.
WHAT is the BIG PROBLEM?!

The only grounds for suspension or expulsion is deliberately
uncooperative editing or discourteous behavior:
*outright vandalism
*POV masquerading as "obvious truth"
*name-calling

If you can't get someone like me or Angela or TUF-KAT to mediate, they
are refered to Arbitration. We get a decision in a week. What's wrong
with that?!

Ed Poor
Mediation Committee member


subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court

body:
A bad habit of free people. We have no intention of acting in arbitrary ways
or of not responding to reasonable demands. Nor of establishing a legal
right to do so. Our terms of use creates rights in the user. We could set
forth the proposition that no user has any rights whatever but have not
chosen to do so.

Fred

> From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 08:49:14 -0800 (PST)
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court
>
> after a while people start to think of them as rights and then start to make
> demands.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requiring image sources

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> Giving a source is easy.  Giving a useful source, on the other hand...
> What if you just took it from some random geocities page?

Well, that'd be useful information.  We'd know at least that much,
instead of nothing at all, so we'd have a starting point for further
investigation.

--Jimbo


from_name: KNOTT, T

subject: [WikiEN-l] Also mad as hell...

body:
>I may lose patience very soon, and either make
>horrible comments his way or leave Wikipedia (possibly
>both).

Please don't leave! I've already emailed Jim and said that if it comes to it ban me and irismeister both. So there is no need for both of us to sacrifice ourselves.

>Irismeister apparently believes he can
>threaten to sue me and then blame me for cutting off
>contact.  If I have to endure much more of the
>following

Irismeister can believe what he bloody well likes. No one is going to ban _you_ for not talking to him. Continue to ignore him.

>If anyone thinks it is easy to
>endure the kind of baiting that Irismeister resorts
>to, I invite you wholeheartedly to attempt a
>discussion with him.

I couldn't agree more. Irismeister disguises his swipes in polite language that makes it difficult for people not used to dealing with him to see why otherwise calm people get soooooo angry with him.

>Will the AC please consider
looking into Irismeister?

I understand that fabiform will be making a formal request to the AC later on today.

>I am very sorry to admit
>that I wouldn't bring the charges myself (without a
>document from him stating that I would not be held
>liable for any statements made), as I can't risk a
>lawsuit.

If fabiform doesn't do it I will. I can risk a lawsuit as I don't have a pot to piss in (please excuse the expression) so let him waste his money all he likes.

Theresa


subject: [WikiEN-l] More in sorrow than in anger (was: Also mad as hell...)

body:
I gave Irismeister a strong warning and have placed him on
Uncle Ed's "Naughty List". He better not step out of line again.

Ed Poor


body:
IMO crazy user 2 should be banned for not using option 1.

Theresa

-----Original Message-----
From: Optim [mailto:optim81 at yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: 23 February 2004 08:54
To: Dan Drake; English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] I'm mad as hell,and I'm not gonna take it any (a scenario)

--- Dan Drake <dd at dandrake.com> wrote:
> No.  I'm using the legal system this week, if
> the lawyer who's handling my [civil matter,
> none of
> your business, not expected to be litigious] is
> ready for another conference.  I admit this in
> the full
> expectation of not being banned from Wikipedia
> for handling my own affairs. Is your question
> deliberately misleading, or is it just
> looseness of expression?

Misleading? No. Probably it was looseness of
expression.

> New question: Is using the legal system to
> settle Wikipedia disputes and vendettas
> bannable
> behavior?
>
> Answer: How can you ask? Of course it is. Take
> it from an Americocentrist in litigious
> America:
> you don't want to go there.
>

>From below the thread starts becoming silly.
Don't continue reading if you don't have time to
waste.

Bad-User-1 may post libel or personal information
against Crazy-User-2 on Wikipedia pages. The
nature of the libel and the information is such
that in a lawsuit against Bad-User-1,
Crazy-User-2 could win immediatelly.

Crazy-User-2 has two options: Either ask
Wikipedians to remove the libel and personal info
from public view and ban Bad-User-1 or fill a
lawsuit. The first option is, of course, the
best, but Crazy-User-2 is a bit crazy and is
willing to spend money and time for fun.
Crazy-User-2 also wishes to "test" their new
lawyer. Crazy-User-2 chooses to fill a lawsuit.

Without involving Wikimedia Foundation,
Crazy-User-2 finds Bad-User-1. Crazy-User-2 fills
a lawsuit against Bad-User-1.

Wikimedia Foundation knows nothing about the
lawsuit. Bad-User-1 didn't threatened in public
Crazy-User-2 with a lawsuit. Nobody, except the
lawyers and the two users, know anything.

Bad-User-1 sends an email to Wikimedia Foundation
asking to ban Crazy-User-2 from Wikipedia because
of the lawsuit: "Hi! Crazy-User-2 just filled a
libel lawsuit against me! Crazy-User-2 is a bad
person! Please ban Crazy-User-2! Thanks!"

The lawsuit does not involve Wikimedia Foundation
or Wikipedia in any way. Nobody asked Wikimedia
Foundation to give information about any user.
Other Wikipedians would know nothing if the email
was not sent.

Will Crazy-User-2 get banned?

Note that this is a different case than if the
lawsuit involved Wikimedia Foundation (for
example. asking the developers to disclose
information such as IP addresses etc).

This is only a theoretical discussion, mostly to
see our reasoning on some scenarios. And, hey,
Don't take this discussion too seriously! :)

--Optim

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requiring image sources

body:
On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Erik Moeller wrote:

> Imran-
> > That any new image uploads should be required to give a source for the
> > image (be it a URL, book or photographers name). Failure to provide a
> > source should make an image a candidate for speedy deletion.
>
> NO. Images are a far too sensitive issue to allow speedy deletion. There
> must be due process to prevent legitimate fair use cases or unrecognized
> PD works from getting deleted.

Please re-read my original statement. I said nothing about licencing
issues. I simply said that all uploads have to give a source to show
where they came from.

If it's fair use, the Berne convention and ethics would requires us to
give a source. If it's PD we should give a source so others can verify it
is PD.

Is there any legitimate reason why anyone wouldn't be able to give a
source for an image ?

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


body:
On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Michael Snow wrote:

> A required field in the upload page for source information is an
> excellent idea. I would not carry it so far as to subject images without
> source information to speedy deletion, at least not in the sense that is
> practiced on en.wikipedia. Such images should go on VfD if there is
> concern about the use, to allow time for us to track down the actual
> source and investigate whether we can still use the image.

To give a source take 30 seconds on the part of the uploader. To go
through a VFD procedure for a single message can take hours for
other wikipedians. It's as much as matter of courtesy as fixing links when
you make a disambiguation page.

Imran


from_name: Richards,Michael

body:
Nick,

We have also set up Mediawiki here in Gartner a couple of months ago and are finding it extremely useful for all those things which do not belong on the official internal company website. After using it a while within our application development area we intend to roll it out throughout the rest of the company. I agree wholeheartedly with your comments regarding it being a "killer app".

I also find the differences between it and other wiki engines to be so significant as to make it almost a completely different application in terms of functionality, usefulness, and ease of use. Some people have found it harder to install but I think the difference there is minimal and well worth it.

Kudos to the development team, and I will encourage developers here in our company to contribute back to Mediawiki.

Thanks,

Michael Richards
Gartner

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org]On Behalf Of Nick Pisarro
Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 1:24 AM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Should give some credit to the software

A lot of credit for the growth of Wikipedia has to go to the fantastic
quality of the software that you guys have created.

...

Using MediaWiki, we have set up an internal wiki site here at Aperture
Technologies, Inc. for gathering and disseminating knowledge about
technical development and other issues. In the six weeks since it has been
made available internally, it has already become an indispensable part of
our development department's operation. We expect to expand its use into
other departments of the company fairly soon.

Again, I consider this "killer app" quality software.

Nick Pisarro, Jr.
Aperture Technologies, Inc.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court

body:
A contract is created. Contractual rights not civil rights.

Fred

> From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:35:51 -0800 (PST)
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Going to Court
>
> Perhaps we are speaking past each other (each using a different definition of
> 'rights')?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requiring image sources

body:
The source is the URL of that page (not Geocities).

Fred

> From: Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:53:06 -0500
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Requiring image sources
>
> Giving a source is easy.  Giving a useful source, on the other hand...
> What if you just took it from some random geocities page?
>
> Anthony


from_name: Hunter Peress

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: User-agent block list & Netscape 3

body:
It is wrong to support old browsers because it makes wikipedia maintainance more crufty and
difficult.

Theres 3 main cases where someone has an old browser:

They are in the first world environment:
   1) are completely clueless
   2) are part of the digital divide (eg old, and hence somewhat clueless)
or
   3)They are in the third world.

The majority of people in the first world are not those who we need care about whatsoever, as its
very easy for them to seek out help (remember, linux is free, get a live CD; boot it, run
wikipedia...)

Third world however, is the most important area to focus on.

Now, the ONLY reason these people are running an old browser is because they are running windows.

Thus, we should tell them to run linux. Its the ONLY viable solution for running an up to date OS
on legacy hardware.

Now, if they have internet connection, i dont care where they are, they are within physical
distance of someone with more of a brain than they have (namely the ISP staff). Either one of
these people will be able to install linux.

You see, these 3rd world herd humans that are not able to figure out how to run something other
than NS3/IE2.0 ... were somehow able to figure out how to get a windows box. Thus, we know that
they arent incapable of doing ...things.

Thus, if they breath, and are poor we advise them to run linux. its better for us, and it will
domino be better for them and then us...and so forth.

this really isnt worth discussion: rectify quietly and efficiently.

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from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
> How *does* one go about distributing a press release?  Is
> this info on
> the site somewhere?
>

One of the most standard outlets for press releases is PR Newswire.  It
costs some money to put it on there, but we can investigate the cost and
see if it's worth it.

-Andrew


subject: [WikiEN-l] Dream On

body:
You cannot bind others by contract without being bound yourself.

Fred

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 13:08:33 -0500
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] You have no rights (was: Going to Court)
>
> There's no contract. No rights. You and me and mav and thousands of
> others have only 1 right: the right to fork. But we are all LITERALLY
> "allowed" to post at Jimbo's whim.


from_name: Nick Pisarro

body:
Perhaps the solution here is to have a "Legacy Browser" skin? You might be
able to find out what browser the user is using from an HTTP parameter and
flip to such a skin automatically.

Nick

Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org> writes:
>> How hard would it be for us to have and maintain a "lynx-friendly"
>> html, and serve it to old browsers like this?  It seems a shame to
>> give people something that causes headaches, even if they really
>> really should upgrade, because maybe they can't upgrade for some
>> reason (poverty, for example).
>
>Tarquin's made some mock-ups of a more CSS-friendly page layout that
>should degrade more gracefully on older browsers; we'll move to that at
>some point. Cleaning up the JavaScript to avoid parsing errors in
>pre-javascript 1.2 browsers could help as well with the error I
>mentioned.


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

body:
This is great! I don't speak a word of German, but managed to understand
most of it via Google translation :) What program was used to generate the
pdf? I didn't find a good free html2pdf or latex2pdf.

Alfio

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

>Hello,
>
>Even if you don't speak a word of German, the page
>http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiReader
>is worth to have a look. Thomas Karcher of the German wikipedia
>assembled our articles about swedish topics to a IMO very beautiful
>print edition.
>
>Download: http://tkarcher.gmxhome.de/WikiReader_Schweden.pdf
>
>Maybe preparing such articles series is good way towards a print edition
>of Wikipedia.
>
>greetings,
>elian
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] I think I can make it now,
	the pain is gone (was: I'm mad as hell,
	and I'm not gonna take it any more)

body:
Remember when it took a long, soul-seaching vote on this mailing list
for each new sysop?

Shucks, I remember when people were still afraid I was going to subvert
the whole project for the narrow sectarian interests of (what Erik still
calls) my "cult"; but after Jimbo made me a developer no one batted an
eye when I started promoting sysops...

I still chuckle when I think of that one math teacher who didn't want me
to do mailing list administration, but then mav was like, "Okay, you
wanna do it?" "No." "Then quitcherbitchin." (conversation reconstructed
from memory ;-)

The key people who "lead by leading" in this project have devoted
themselves to keeping up the quality of the articles, the accessibility
and ease of use of the servers, and the congeniality/openness of the
community.

Three cheers for mav, Eloquence, Angela, Jimbo and the cast of hundreds
who keep this show on the road!

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed


from_name: Optim

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Some people are just mentally unbalanced.

Some???? Only some??? :)

> Effectively dealing with
> them will always be challenging.  Keep them
> around, well, that's not
> really a live option, they're lunatics.  Ban
> them, well, that's not
> really always going to work either, since they
> just create new
> accounts, different ips, come in through
> proxies.  We'll never have a
> state of perfect peace.

I am concerned with what banned lunatics say
about us outside Wikipedia.

I have seen many derogatory comments on Slashdot
:(

> So the question becomes finding the right
> balance to minimize harm.
>
> --Jimbo

Yes.

--Optim

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from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requiring image sources

body:
Giving a source is easy.  Giving a useful source, on the other hand...
What if you just took it from some random geocities page?

Anthony

>Please re-read my original statement. I said nothing about licencing
>issues. I simply said that all uploads have to give a source to show
>where they came from.
>
>If it's fair use, the Berne convention and ethics would requires us to
>give a source. If it's PD we should give a source so others can verify it
>is PD.
>
>Is there any legitimate reason why anyone wouldn't be able to give a
>source for an image ?
>
>Imran
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] You have no rights (was: Going to Court)

body:
Are you kidding, Fred? It's more like these plazas you see around
Manhattan which have a little plate set in the concrete saying that
"Easement is revocable at will" or some such -- specifically denying
that any "right" was created just because they put up a fountain and
trees and a few benches.

Jimbo doesn't have to keep this site going. And WikiMedia CAN suddenly
shut it down or go commercial or (shudder) pro-Marxist at any time...

There's no contract. No rights. You and me and mav and thousands of
others have only 1 right: the right to fork. But we are all LITERALLY
"allowed" to post at Jimbo's whim.

Gradually the committees are putting Jimbo out of the "whim business" so
there's a bit of transition going on. But I can shut down the whole
thing anytime with 2 mouse-clicks, and I wouldn't be violating your
rights in any way.

Firmly (but fondly),

Uncle Ed


subject: [WikiEN-l] Irismeister

body:
My talk with Irismeister went as predicted: nowhere.

His incoherent ravings cast too much doubt on the value of his edits for
me to condone his continued participation here.

Jimbo, please ask the Arbitration Committee to block Irismeister, at
least temporarily.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Irismeister for details.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed