subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki vs DokuWiki benchmarks

body:
Someone on IRC was asking about performance relative to DokuWiki, a
lightweight file-backed PHP-based wiki.

Quick benchmark results and some comments on ways we can improve:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/DokuWiki_vs_MediaWiki_benchmarks

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

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: WMF as publisher as in GFDL

body:
Robin Shannon wrote:
<snip>
>>Wikimedia doesn't have any policy on this. The link back policy appears
>>to have destroyed our Google ranking, triggering spam heuristics. In
>>many cases we are ranked below the mirrors. This has forced Google to
>>consider a change to their ranking algorithm.
>
>
> what? sorry, why has the link back destroyed our ranking? isnt it that
> the more places that link to us the better our rating, and also what
> do you mean by spam heuristics? Why are we ranked below our mirrors?
>
> gah, im confused,
>
> paz y amor,
> rjs

hello,

Having hundred of website having hundred thousand of links poiting to
www.wikipedia.org somehow trigger a "rank spam" alert in google engine.

Then google lower our ranking believing we set mirrors to raise our rank
wich is link spamming. Our mirrors get less link back but are still used
as a reference by other website.

Basicly:

  (Wikipedia_rank - googleantispam) < random_mirror_rank

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
Servers in trouble ? noc (at) wikimedia (dot) org
"This signature is a virus. Copy me in yours to spread it."


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Dec 8, 2004, at 5:15 PM, Shane King wrote:
> Remember that a change to one page can cause changes to other pages,
> and those other pages all need to be updated.

Bingo -- that's the big ugly. Creating or killing a page changes the
look and behavior of links to it, requiring the pages with the links in
them to be re-rendered. Changes to templates likewise require
invalidating the including pages (something we currently only do one
level deep, IIRC, which sometimes causes problems).

As it is, updating the cache invalidation timestamps and purging the
squid cache of affected pages can be a significant burden in some
cases. Having to also re-render all those tens, or hundreds, or
thousands of affected pages immediately would quickly become
impractical.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Alexander Prudnikov

subject: [Wikitech-l] mysql 4.1

body:
Hello.

  Once I asked a question in this mailing list about mysql fulltext search
  in UTF-8 encoded text.
  It's a few month since stable version of mysql 4.1 released. This version
  supports collations for UTF-8. Do you plan to use mysql 4.1? Do you have
  any experience using it? What do you know about its performance and
  stability? May be you may give me some useful links or something.
  The goal of my questions is to find out if it is safe and worthy to
  migrate to mysql 4.1.
  Thanks for your time and attention.

Best regards,
Alexander Prudnikov


list: wikien-l

from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] original research

body:
I refer you to my response to Mark Richards.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

David Gerard wrote:

>John Lee (johnleemk at gawab.com) [041208 04:45]:
>
>
>
>> The inclusionists harp on it - "But it's
>>VERIFIABLE! We gotta' keep it!" Without a source not from Wikipedia,
>>this is not verifiable at all.
>>
>>
>
>
>I eagerly await you either (a) posting a link from the history to
>"inclusionists" (plural, as you pluralise) demanding an article be kept
>with no sources other than Wikipedia, as you seem to be describing; or (b)
>admitting that you're blowing smoke.
>
>
>- d.
>
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Debugging suggestions?

body:
On Dec 5, 2004, at 1:38 PM, Nick Triantos wrote:
> Thanks Brion, it turns out that I did have an extra newline after my
> copy of EasyTimeline.php.  That did the trick.
>
> Still, I'd be curious how y'all go about debugging your code.  Do you
> really jus sprinkle printf's throughout?

Sprinkling printfs is a time-honored tradition. ;)

I should note that Zend Studio (a closed-source product, gratis for
personal use with limitations) is a PHP-centric IDE which allows you to
set breakpoints, single-step, and all that fun stuff. I haven't used it
much as I've found it awkward to edit in and the CGI interface is hard
to control. If anyone knows a PHP debugger interface that doesn't suck,
I'd love to hear about it.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews Licensing

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>user_Jamesday wrote:
>
>
>>Copyleft is only necessary when you want to limit the people who can
>>use the work. That's the antipathy of the objective of Wikinews, which
>>is to get the news published as widely as possible.
>>
>>
>
>I don't disagree with much of what you said, but I wanted to add a
>different perspective to what copyleft does.  In many cases it does
>*not* limit the people who can use the work, but rather serves as an
>easy way to persuade them to make their own work available under a
>free license as well.
>
>
I don't really see how it limits news companies either.  Nearly all of
their news sources are not public-domain, but subject to much more
restrictive licenses.  For example, if they want to republish Associated
Press stories, they must pay the Associated Press considerable sums of
money.  All copyleft asks is that if they want to republish our stories,
that they allow us in turn to republish any modifications they make to
them.  I don't believe it would require them to GFDL their entire
newspaper, only the story that they're using from us.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews Licensing


from_name: Robert Miner

subject: [Wikitech-l] status of MathML support

body:
Hello,

I saw a thread from last August on the status of MathML support, and am writing
to inquire if there has been any activity since.

As co-chair of the W3C Math Interest Group, an editor of the MathML spec, and
one of the authors of the MathPlayer plug-in for Internet Explorer, I am
interested in doing what I can to help.

--Robert

------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Robert Miner                                RobertM at dessci.com
W3C Math Interest Group Co-Chair                      651-223-2883
Design Science, Inc.   "How Science Communicates"   www.dessci.com
------------------------------------------------------------------


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Quick benchmark results and some comments on ways we can improve:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/DokuWiki_vs_MediaWiki_benchmarks

One of the issues seems to be cache hits vs. non-hits, as always.
Something I've poked around at a bit, but not found a clean way to start
hacking on without completely rewriting large section of the code, is
moving from a "render on view but cache" to a "render on edit, and then
just serve static pages on view" model.  The "render on edit" would just
generate a static HTML file for non-logged-in users, so a large
proportion of page-views would never hit PHP at all.

Is something like that at all feasible?

-Mark


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: NPOV and credibility (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Original research)

body:
At 10:21 PM 12/8/2004 -0500, JAY JG wrote:
>Wikipedia couldn't possibly represent ALL views, nor should it.  There are
>6 billion people in the world, each with their own view on a limitless
>array of topics.  Even if we limit ourselves to the much smaller (though
>still overwhelming)  number of views that are, say, published on websites,
>NPOV does not demand that we say "according to Einstein e=mc^2, but
>according to my Aunt Gertie [www.relativityaccordingtogertie.com], e=mc^3"

I was quite saddened to discover that www.relativityaccordingtogertie.com
doesn't appear to be a real website. I wanted to read more about her
theories. :)


from_name: JAY JG

body:
>>Sometimes we exclude views, but more commonly we move them to where
>>they belong -- in an article about theories that are not widely
>>accepted.
>
>Which is still biasing towards "credibility", and hence not compatible with
>the NPOV as written. I quote: "The neutral point of view policy states that
>one should write articles without bias, representing ALL views fairly" (my
>emphasis on the ALL). I fail to see how shunting some views to seperate
>articles and not others counts as "fair".

Wikipedia couldn't possibly represent ALL views, nor should it.  There are 6
billion people in the world, each with their own view on a limitless array
of topics.  Even if we limit ourselves to the much smaller (though still
overwhelming)  number of views that are, say, published on websites, NPOV
does not demand that we say "according to Einstein e=mc^2, but according to
my Aunt Gertie [www.relativityaccordingtogertie.com], e=mc^3"


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Alex Kwan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedian gender ratio

body:
Hello,

Andy Rabagliati wrote:
> I was born in Kenya, my nationality is British, I spent 12 years in the
> USA, and the last 7 years in South Africa.

Ah, I do apologize, but your origins made your focus on only the
Americas even weirder? How's the situation in, let's say, the British
Isles? Or Kenya itself?

little Alex


from_name: Axel

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Editor Eclipse Plugin available in CVS

body:
Hi

There is a first Wikipedia Editor Eclipse Plugin available in the
PHPeclipse CVS:
http://phpeclipse.de/tiki-index.php?page=Wikipedia+Editor+Plugin

Very buggy at the moment, but the principles for documenting a PHP
project with some additional Wikipedia texts should work.

A.C.Kramer


from_name: Jonah Bossewitch

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Debugging suggestions?

body:
Also, in case you missed it, you might want to try using the wfDebug
function from the GlobalFunctions file.  You will need to set the
$wgDebugLogFile variable to the location where you want your debug trace
logged.

/Jonah

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com>
Newsgroups: gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 9:42 PM
Subject: Re: Debugging suggestions?

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


from_name: Geoffrey Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] URGENT - Vandalism

body:
Our Featured article just got vandalized. I made several attempts to
revert it to a previous version, but either (1) my network connection is
too slow or (2) the servers are bogged down.

Seeing how I'm currently connecting from work, & the company likely has at
least one high-speed conneciton to the Internet (they're a well-known
manufacturer of computer chips), I'm presuming that the problem lies on
the Wikipedia servers.

Can someone with better access to the servers do the necessary magic?
It doesn't look good for us when the Featured article of the day has been
vandalized.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] URGENT - Vandalism

body:
Never mind. It appears that I was trying to revert the article at about
the same time Seth, Eggstasy & another user were also trying to revert it.

Geoff


from_name: Shane King

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
> Oh, I think it is a lot easier to evaluate the credibility of sources
> than the credibility of theories.  If you offer me your personal
> theory of "Liquidity, Efficiency, and Bank Bailouts" then it's going
> to be quite hard for me to judge whether you are an economics crank or
> someone with an interesting theory.  But if you point me to an essay
> of that title in _American Economic Review_, I can feel comfortable
> that it is at least credible.

But your comparison there is hardly fair: you've picked a (potentially)
hard theory to judge but an easy source to judge. There are plenty of
other sources that aren't clear cut, there are plenty of theories that
are clear cut. The issue of judging source credibility is a real problem
that has been discussed at length on [[Wikipedia:Forum for Encyclopedic
Standards]], as well as various other places.

If judging the credibility of a source is so easy, why are there still
millions of people who think FOX News really is "fair and balanced"? ;)

> I think you're misreading it, then.
>
> Here's a line I use in public talks which always gets a laugh.  "NPOV
> does not mean that we have to say 'some say the moon is made of rocks,
> some say cheese'."  We absolutely do care that a theory is credible,
> as it's essential to a neutral presentation of any topic.

Well, I'm reading what's there on the page. There's only one mention of
"credible", and it's in a context that we should report on views even if
they aren't credible:

How are we to write articles about pseudoscientific topics, about which
majority scientific opinion is that the pseudoscientific opinion is not
credible and doesn't even really deserve serious mention?

If we're going to represent the sum total of "human knowledge"--of what
we believe we know, essentially--then we must concede that we will be
describing views repugnant to us without asserting that they are false.
Things are not, however, as bad as that sounds. The task before us is
not to describe disputes fairly, on some bogus view of fairness that
would have us describe pseudoscience as if were on a par with science;
rather, the task is to represent the majority (scientific) view as the
majority view and the minority (sometimes pseudoscientific) view as the
minority view, and, moreover, to explain how scientists have received
pseudoscientific theories. This is all in the purview of the task of
describing a dispute fairly.

It seems to me from this single mention that credibility doesn't matter.
If it's not credible, we report on others saying so and leave it at
that, we don't make the judgement ourselves. The idea of whether those
people are credible is not even mentioned and is hence a non-issue by
the NPOV policy. Instead of credibility, we're asked to judge popularity
instead (minority/majority views). That may not have been your intention
when developing the NPOV policy, but that's how it stands now. I urge
you to clarify it if it's not how it should be.

> Sometimes we exclude views, but more commonly we move them to where
> they belong -- in an article about theories that are not widely
> accepted.

Which is still biasing towards "credibility", and hence not compatible
with the NPOV as written. I quote: "The neutral point of view policy
states that one should write articles without bias, representing ALL
views fairly" (my emphasis on the ALL). I fail to see how shunting some
views to seperate articles and not others counts as "fair".

Maybe since you developed the NPOV policy, it has an implicit meaning to
you that I'm not seeing because I'm only reading the words explicitly
written on [[WP:NPOV]]?

Shane.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Original Research (sort of)

body:
steven l. rubenstein wrote:
> Boy do I disagree with Shane.  Yes, it is true that relying on
> previously published source sshifts the burden.  But that doesn't mean
> there is no difference.  I can see a difference between our assuming the
> burden, and editors of journals and publishers assuming the burden.
> First, most academic articles and books go through a peer-review
> process.  This process has its flaws, but it does mean that authors are
> held accountable to experts in the field on which they are writing.
> Second, published books and articles are authored and authors are
> accountable.  This is not the case in Wikipedia where, as a
> collaborative project, articles have no authors.  Problems with
> wikipedia articles are likely to be debated on talk pages, which may
> lead to changes in articles -- an original, innovative, and interesting
> process I am happy to participate in.  But when scholarly books and
> articles are published, professional researches in the field often go
> out and try the experiments over, or re-check sources, or try to apply
> theories to other situations, and then publish more articles or books
> which carry research further.  Our articles can report on this process
> and the debates within academic fields it engenders, but we cannot be a
> substitute for it.

That's not what I meant by "shifting the burden". I meant it shifts OUR
burden. Instead of evaluating theories, we're now evaluating sources
(who, as you point out, have evaluated the theories). I don't see any
fundamental difference between these activities: we're still making
judgment calls that we may not be equipped to make.

> One of the big problems with peer-review is, as Shane points out, that
> it excludes ideas and research that peers do not find credible.  There
> certainly should be a venue for such indiosyncratic and potentially
> ground-breaking work.  The internet already provides a venue for
> publicizing such work.  I do not think the internet needs one more such
> venue.  There are, thanks to the WWW, now an almost infinite space for
> people to present such fringe research.  The question is, do we report
> on it.  I still say: no.  If such fringe research has merit I truly
> believe it will end up in a book or peer-reviewed journal.  We all know
> how much of what is our there is crap.  I just don't think we should
> waste reader's time with crap, and I think to include it in our
> encyclopedia articles demeans the whole project.  How do we decide what
> is crap?  We don't -- we let professional editors of journals and
> presses do that, because that is their business.  Wikipeida's strength
> is that it is an amateur's venture, and that is indeed it is a
> strength.  It is also a weakness, and I see no reason why, in this one
> case, we can't rely on the pros.

Sure, it will eventually turn up elsewhere. But we're an online
encyclopedia. Why should we tie ourselves to the old, slow methods? Part
of the beauty of wikipedia is that it is (or at least can be) up to the
minute up to date. To wait for things to appear offline reduces our
capacity to do that. I for one don't want that. If I wanted and out of
date encyclopedia, I'd buy Britannica. :)

Shane.


subject: [Wikitech-l] status of MathML support

body:
Hi.

Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Dec 8, 2004, at 11:34 AM, Robert Miner wrote:
> > I saw a thread from last August on the status of MathML support, and
> > am writing to inquire if there has been any activity since.
>
> None, so far as I know.

Thanks Brion. That's what I figured.

> As co-chair of the W3C Math Interest Group, an editor of the MathML
> spec, and one of the authors of the MathPlayer plug-in for Internet
> Explorer, I am interested in doing what I can to help.

> There are two things to look at.
>
> First, is the actual conversion to MathML; currently only a couple of
> very simple stub bits are supported, eg nothing where it would actually
> be useful. :) The TeX preparser which produces HTML and MathML output
> is written in ocaml which unfortunately is perhaps an impediment to
> wide hacking on it. Currently more functions are supported for HTML
> output than MathML simply because the work hasn't been done.

Apart from the ocaml thing, which is a bit of a challenge, this sounds
reasonably straight forward.

> Second, is producing appropriate output markup. The current system will
> embed the MathML code directly into the XHTML output. This works in
> Mozilla when the wiki is configured to send an application/xml+xhtml
> Content-type for pages, but not when using text/html (as is default
> because not all browsers support this and we can't currently guarantee
> well-formed markup at all times).

Right.  This was the thrust of the August thread as well.

> Does the MathPlayer work with directly embedded code, or does it
> require some sort of plug-in-style usage?

It works with directly embedded MathML.

Actually for this application, the situation is pretty good.
MathPlayer sniffs all incoming documents with the
application/xml+xhtml MIME type and looks for a DOCTYPE declaration
mentioning MathML.  If it finds it, it filters the incoming document,
adding a declaration to the document header to load MathPlayer and
bind it to the MathML namespace.  Also, since IE doesn't display XML
directly, it changes the MIME type back to text/html, which "tricks"
IE into displaying the document as HTML.

In practical terms, what this means is a sloppy XHTML page with
embedded MathML will generally display okay in IE.  Of course it still
crashes in Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox.

I take it there is currently no convenient content negotiate mechanism
in MediaWiki so one could serve MathML embedded in (X)HTML to IE, and
HTML with PNGs to other browsers?  When MathPlayer is installed in IE,
it modifies the user agent string so it is easy to detect.

--Robert

------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Robert Miner                                RobertM at dessci.com
W3C Math Interest Group Co-Chair                      651-223-2883
Design Science, Inc.   "How Science Communicates"   www.dessci.com
------------------------------------------------------------------


subject: [Wikitech-l] status of MathML support

body:
On Dec 9, 2004, at 8:17 AM, Robert Miner wrote:
> In practical terms, what this means is a sloppy XHTML page with
> embedded MathML will generally display okay in IE.  Of course it still
> crashes in Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox.

Fun. :P :)

> I take it there is currently no convenient content negotiate mechanism
> in MediaWiki so one could serve MathML embedded in (X)HTML to IE, and
> HTML with PNGs to other browsers?  When MathPlayer is installed in IE,
> it modifies the user agent string so it is easy to detect.

Not currently. Since the math rendering option affects the wiki -> HTML
conversion it could play hell with our caching if done naively.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Delirium wrote:
> One of the issues seems to be cache hits vs. non-hits, as always.
> Something I've poked around at a bit, but not found a clean way to start
> hacking on without completely rewriting large section of the code, is
> moving from a "render on view but cache" to a "render on edit, and then
> just serve static pages on view" model.  The "render on edit" would just
> generate a static HTML file for non-logged-in users, so a large
> proportion of page-views would never hit PHP at all.
>
> Is something like that at all feasible?

I think it's feasible in that it's been done for similar sites, but it's
not necessarily a good direction to be heading in. Other systems that
have taken this approach (eg message boards) have sometimes found it to
be worse than the cache-on-view approach. You'd certainly have to do
some preliminary benchmarking first.

Remember that a change to one page can cause changes to other pages, and
those other pages all need to be updated. We don't really seem to have a
great system for working out the "dependencies" of a page change at the
moment, it seems when you include pages with {{}} you often have to
flush the cache to get them to re-render correctly. If you do decide to
rip the caching system apart, I hope you pay attention to this area,
since it's quite annoying.

Shane.


body:
On Dec 8, 2004, at 9:25 PM, Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> Do you load extension only when used into text?
> If not, we can include_once() those modules only when we found the
> corresponding markup.

Extensions are loaded from LocalSettings.php. You could split an
extension into a stub initialiser/hook setup file and a 'guts' file,
which might be worth it if it's very long and will be used on a site
that can't install an opcode cache.

> How many SQL access are needed to render an empty page?

For a file cache hit we're down to this:

BEGIN
SELECT N FROM user_newtalk WHERE user_ip='X'
SELECT cur_id FROM cur WHERE cur_namespace='X' LIMIT N
SELECT cur_touched,cur_is_redirect FROM cur WHERE cur_id='X' LIMIT N
UPDATE LOW_PRIORITY site_stats SET
ss_total_views=(ss_total_views+N),ss_total_edits=(ss_total_edits),ss_goo
d_articles=(ss_good_articles) WHERE ss_row_id=N
UPDATE cur SET cur_counter = cur_counter + N WHERE cur_id = N
COMMIT

These take a couple milliseconds even in good times, but without a PHP
opcode cache (Turck etc) they are dwarfed by PHP parsing by about a
factor of 50.

A page render or parser cache hit will take a few more queries to load
the message cache, the page data, and the parser cache data (if any)
and a few individual link checks. A logged-in user will also load some
user data and check watchlist status.

>  How many per link?

Links in the body of a wiki page are saved up and checked in large
chunked queries (one per namespace). Template inclusions and links in
the skin are checked individually as they are found. If you turn on the
stub threshold, a query must be run for every link.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] status of MathML support

body:
On Dec 9, 2004, at 10:56 AM, Delirium wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>> Programming for IE only should be no issue. When MathML only works
>> with IE it is broken beyond repair.
>
> I'd say it's Firefox that's broken in this case, due to its lack of
> support for W3C standards.

Firefox correctly rejects XML that is not well-formed -- to render such
pages would be in flagrant violation of the standard.

Unfortunately the wiki can't currently guarantee that output for all
inputs will be well-formed, so it's not safe for us to send the
application/xhtml+xml content type.

(Hypothetically we could do an XML parsing pass on output and then send
text/html if it's not well-formed. But that's... uuuugly and probably
very slow and will get us shot. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

body:
Shane King wrote:
> But your comparison there is hardly fair: you've picked a (potentially)
> hard theory to judge but an easy source to judge. There are plenty of
> other sources that aren't clear cut, there are plenty of theories that
> are clear cut.

Yes, but my example is the usual case.

> If judging the credibility of a source is so easy, why are there still
> millions of people who think FOX News really is "fair and balanced"? ;)

And why do even more people trust Dan Rather?

Anyway, I hope that the average Wikipedian has greater media
competence than the average viewer of the evening news.

> It seems to me from this single mention that credibility doesn't matter.
> If it's not credible, we report on others saying so and leave it at
> that, we don't make the judgement ourselves.

And we also report *that* it is not credible, for example by saying
things like "This theory is rejected by virtually all mainstream
scientists."

> The idea of whether those people are credible is not even mentioned
> and is hence a non-issue by the NPOV policy. Instead of credibility,
> we're asked to judge popularity instead (minority/majority
> views). That may not have been your intention when developing the
> NPOV policy, but that's how it stands now. I urge you to clarify it
> if it's not how it should be.

Not popularity!  Popularity is seldom very helpful in clarifying
credibility.

> Which is still biasing towards "credibility", and hence not compatible
> with the NPOV as written. I quote: "The neutral point of view policy
> states that one should write articles without bias, representing ALL
> views fairly" (my emphasis on the ALL). I fail to see how shunting some
> views to seperate articles and not others counts as "fair".

Really?  I don't really see the problem.  It isn't "shunting" -- done
properly it's just good writing.

--Jimbo

--
"La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


body:
NPOV page says:
> If we are to represent the dispute fairly,
> we should present competing views in proportion to their representation
> among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties.

Shane (mis)understands this as:
> a) We only give Einstein more space in the main article because his view
> is more popular, not because it's more credible; and

Not "more popular" -- "in proportion to their representation among
experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties" -- credibility
is an inherent part of this judgment.

--Jimbo


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki vs DokuWiki benchmarks

body:
Shane King wrote:
> Remember that a change to one page can cause changes to other pages, and
> those other pages all need to be updated. We don't really seem to have a
> great system for working out the "dependencies" of a page change at the
> moment, it seems when you include pages with {{}} you often have to
> flush the cache to get them to re-render correctly. If you do decide to
> rip the caching system apart, I hope you pay attention to this area,
> since it's quite annoying.

Template cache invalidation is far from ideal. The problem is that
template inclusions are stored in the link table, there's no way to tell
the difference between links and inclusions. We use a kind of heuristic
-- we assume that all links to a page in the Template namespace are
inclusions. When a page in the Template namespace is changed, all pages
linking to it are invalidated. Many templates are outside the template
namespace, so they don't update their referring pages properly.

We're getting quite a large collection of different link tables, and
Brion and I agree that it would be better if we merged them, with a
"link type" field, rather than adding yet another table.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] A need to maintain credibility

body:
JAY JG wrote:
> Wikipedia couldn't possibly represent ALL views, nor
should it.  There
> are 6 billion people in the world, each with their own
view on a
> limitless array of topics.  Even if we limit ourselves to
the much
> smaller (though still overwhelming)  number of views that
are, say,
> published on websites, NPOV does not demand that we say
"according to
> Einstein e=mc^2, but according to my Aunt Gertie
> [www.relativityaccordingtogertie.com], e=mc^3"

I totally agree with Jay's point. Wikipedia will
immediately lose any credibility it has if it becomes a
massive repository of crank views, which it will be if
people strictly follow the letter of the NPOV policy as
currently written.  Articles on and by cranks will
outnumber serious issues a hundred to one (at least).

Shane replied, quoting from [[WP:NPOV]]
> ...
> ...So while we don't necessarily have to give Gertie a
> spot besides Einstein, the NPOV policy says that:
> a) We only give Einstein more space in the main article
> because his view is more popular, not because it's more
> credible; and  b) Gertie can (and should) be given space
> if someone's willing to write the article.

I am sure that this was never the purpose of the NPOV
policy; it seems to me that the concerns Jay related were
behind the original insertion of this paragraph. This
paragraph was meant to limit material on and by cranks.

> Now that may seem ridiculous to you, but that's what the
> policy page says! If that's not actually what we want to
> be doing, then we should change the policy, not ignore
> it.

I agree. A literal reading of this section can be taken out
of context and misued in this way.

> It seems to me Wikipedia has a whole  lot of policy that
> if you read it closely doesn't describe how things
> are actually done at all. I want to fix that: either
> by getting people to follow the policy, or getting the
> policy changed.

That is fine by me. We should subtly rewrite this section
of the NPOV article to take into account Jay's concerns; we
should use some of the very language he used in his letter
here.

Robert (RK)

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body:
Robert wrote:
> I totally agree with Jay's point. Wikipedia will
> immediately lose any credibility it has if it becomes a
> massive repository of crank views, which it will be if
> people strictly follow the letter of the NPOV policy as
> currently written.

Let me repeat again: this is a terrible misinterpretation of the
policy as it is currently written.

If there needs to be a clarification somehow, then there needs to be a
clarification.  But I find it all quite clear as it is.

--Jimbo

--
"La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


subject: [Wikitech-l] status of MathML support

body:
> > Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >> Programming for IE only should be no issue. When MathML only works
> >> with IE it is broken beyond repair.
> >
> > I'd say it's Firefox that's broken in this case, due to its lack of
> > support for W3C standards.
>
> Firefox correctly rejects XML that is not well-formed -- to render such
> pages would be in flagrant violation of the standard.
>
> Unfortunately the wiki can't currently guarantee that output for all
> inputs will be well-formed, so it's not safe for us to send the
> application/xhtml+xml content type.

This is really the issue.

MathML is natively supported in the Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape codebase
for valid XHTML documents.

MathML is supported in IE via MathPlayer for valid XHTML document. As
I noted in my original post, as a side effect, MathML is also
supported in IE for non-valid XHTML and HTML documents too.  But I see
tell that is of no interest to some of you at least, so I won't labor
the point.

So, the real obstacle to MathML in the wiki is that it can't guarantee
valid XHTML.  Checkmate.

It would be nice to move forward with MathML support to gain the
benefits of reuse in CAS systems, accessibility, searchability, and
better rendering.  But if you can't, you can't.

Thanks,

--Robert

------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Robert Miner                                RobertM at dessci.com
W3C Math Interest Group Co-Chair                      651-223-2883
Design Science, Inc.   "How Science Communicates"   www.dessci.com
------------------------------------------------------------------


subject: [Wikitech-l] status of MathML support

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Programming for IE only should be no issue. When MathML only works
> with IE it is broken beyond repair.

I'd say it's Firefox that's broken in this case, due to its lack of
support for W3C standards.

-Mark


body:
JAY JG wrote:
> Wikipedia couldn't possibly represent ALL views, nor should it.  There
> are 6 billion people in the world, each with their own view on a
> limitless array of topics.  Even if we limit ourselves to the much
> smaller (though still overwhelming)  number of views that are, say,
> published on websites, NPOV does not demand that we say "according to
> Einstein e=mc^2, but according to my Aunt Gertie
> [www.relativityaccordingtogertie.com], e=mc^3"

Actually, from [[WP:NPOV]]:

Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as
detailed a description as more popular views. We should not attempt to
represent a dispute as if a view held by only a small minority of people
deserved as much attention as a majority view. That may be misleading as
to the shape of the dispute. If we are to represent the dispute fairly,
we should present competing views in proportion to their representation
among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. None of
this, however, is to say that minority views cannot receive as much
attention as we can possibly give them on pages specifically devoted to
those views. There is no size limit to Wikipedia. But even on such
pages, though a view is spelled out possibly in great detail, we still
make sure that the view is not represented as the truth.

So while we don't necessarily have to give Gertie a spot besides
Einstein, the NPOV policy says that:

a) We only give Einstein more space in the main article because his view
is more popular, not because it's more credible; and
b) Gertie can (and should) be given space if someone's willing to write
the article.

Now that may seem ridiculous to you, but that's what the policy page
says! If that's not actually what we want to be doing, then we should
change the policy, not ignore it. It seems to me Wikipedia has a whole
lot of policy that if you read it closely doesn't describe how things
are actually done at all. I want to fix that: either by getting people
to follow the policy, or getting the policy changed.

Shane.


from_name: Mark Richards

body:
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Not "more popular" -- "in proportion to their
> representation among
> experts on the subject, or among the concerned
> parties" -- credibility
> is an inherent part of this judgment.
>
> --Jimbo

This becomes more and more difficult in controversial
subjects, like water floridization (sp?) for example,
or ESP. Who are the 'experts' on the subject?
Mark

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from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

body:
Do you load extension only when used into text?
If not, we can include_once() those modules only when we found the
corresponding markup.

How many SQL access are needed to render an empty page? How many per link?

Aoineko

Brion Vibber wrote :

> Someone on IRC was asking about performance relative to DokuWiki, a
> lightweight file-backed PHP-based wiki.
>
> Quick benchmark results and some comments on ways we can improve:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/DokuWiki_vs_MediaWiki_benchmarks
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


body:
Mark Richards wrote:
> This becomes more and more difficult in controversial subjects, like
> water floridization (sp?) for example, or ESP. Who are the 'experts'
> on the subject?

I don't really see what the difficulty is.  I'm not trying to be dense
here, but to me this is quite simple.

Our current article on Extra-Sensory Perception, for example, is quite
bad.  And the reason is precisely the lack of _credible_ sources.
These exist, but the current article appears to be written by people
who would prefer for these not to be named.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: NPOV and credibility (was Re: Original research)

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> I was quite saddened to discover that
> www.relativityaccordingtogertie.com doesn't appear to be a real website.
> I wanted to read more about her theories. :)
>

Allow me to put in a plug for the excellent website http://www.crank.net/

--------------------------------------------------------
The esteemed Crank o' the Day for 2004 Dec 08:

Revelations, a Screenplay Trilogy
     "Have you ever wished you could go into the future and see what it
holds? Or go back in time and see what really happened? Stories, myths
and legends. I'll show you where they all began. And more importantly,
how they'll end."

Finally, the true interpretation of the Bible's prophecy books,
including Revelation, and other mysteries of the world.
Learn answers to questions like:
Who built the Giza Pyramids and Sphinx... how and why?
When will the Antichrist and False Prophet appear?
Were there giants in our past?  Are there Titans in our future?
What does Lucifer, the original flying Serpent Cherub, look like?
What really wiped out the dinosaurs?  Is Evolution a lie?
Who is God and where is Heaven located?  What are UFO's?
When will the final Apocalypse or Armageddon happen?
When will the seven-year Tribulation begin?


from_name: James Rosenzweig

subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
For everyone's information, en:User:OneGuy has posted
a proposal here --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disabling edits
by unregistered users and stricter registration
requirement

There is already a vote of sorts taking place -- a
list of "support" and "oppose" votes is growing
slowly.  I am not clear as to why a vote is taking
place so early, or whether the vote is intended to
have any force.  I also don't know if it was
advertised anywhere (I hadn't seen it anywhere but
RC), but I thought a proposal (and apparent vote) to
disable anonymous editing and add stricter
requirements for registering as a user deserved a note
on the mailing list.  If it's already been posted
here, forgive me (but I don't think it has).  Thanks
for your attention to this issue,

James Rosenzweig (en:User:Jwrosenzweig)

__________________________________
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body:
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Mark Richards wrote:
> > This becomes more and more difficult in
> controversial subjects, like
> > water floridization (sp?) for example, or ESP. Who
> are the 'experts'
> > on the subject?
>
> I don't really see what the difficulty is.  I'm not
> trying to be dense
> here, but to me this is quite simple.
>
> Our current article on Extra-Sensory Perception, for
> example, is quite
> bad.  And the reason is precisely the lack of
> _credible_ sources.
> These exist, but the current article appears to be
> written by people
> who would prefer for these not to be named.
>
> --Jimbo

I think we may be at cross purposes. I think the
difficulty is in identifying who the credible sources
are, and with whom they are credible when you are
dealing with things that some people think are
pseudoscience and others think are suppressed truth.
The only way to go I suppose is the 'he said / she
said' model of article like 'Moon hoax'.
Mark

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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research

body:
Don't worry about it. The material they are after is in other areas, like
idiosyntric definitions of truth, novel political and scientific theories,
etc.

Fred

> From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 09:00:29 +1100
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Original research
>
> Nicholas Moreau (beaubeaver at yahoo.co.uk) [041210 07:40]:
>
>> While off the current topic, I've always wondered, are interview that a
>> Wikipedia editor conducted included in the realm of "original research"?
>> For example, I occasionally write a column on Family Entertainment for
>> Suite101.com. I've interviewed people like Canadian TV show
>> producer/creator/writer Blair Peters. While there no article yet on
>> Studio B or him, is the information I found out in the interview
>> "original"?
>
>
> Good question. The conservative choice would be not to put in one's own
> research in this manner ...
>
> (I have had to consider this problem with wanting to write about Australian
> '80s indie rock. Trouble is, I'm one of the authoritative sources. Do I
> just not write about the stuff I'm the specialist in? Do I write about it
> and link to interviews I wrote and published? Should I just put a list of
> possible articles and the source I would list as reference and leave others
> to maybe write the articles? That last would satisfy propriety, but it has
> a certain PITA factor.)
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research

body:
No, what he said, in response to your questions, is not. What would be
original is theorizing on your part about what it all means.

Fred

> From: Nicholas Moreau <beaubeaver at yahoo.co.uk>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 20:25:23 +0000 (GMT)
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Original research
>
>
> While off the current topic, I've always wondered, are interview that a
> Wikipedia editor conducted included in the realm of "original research"?
>
> For example, I occasionally write a column on Family Entertainment for
> Suite101.com. I've interviewed people like Canadian TV show
> producer/creator/writer Blair Peters. While there no article yet on Studio B
> or him, is the information I found out in the interview "original"?
>
> Zanimum
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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> _______________________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Jeremy Sanders

subject: [Wikitech-l] PostgreSQL support in beta

body:
Hi -

I'm trying out the 1.4beta1 release with PostgreSQL. Is it simple to
persuade it to use PostgreSQL, or should I wait until the installer
supports it?

Thanks

Jeremy


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] status of MathML support

body:
Robert Miner wrote:

>Hi.
>
>Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>
>
>>On Dec 8, 2004, at 11:34 AM, Robert Miner wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I saw a thread from last August on the status of MathML support, and
>>>am writing to inquire if there has been any activity since.
>>>
>>>
>>None, so far as I know.
>>
>>
>
>Thanks Brion. That's what I figured.
>
>
>
>>As co-chair of the W3C Math Interest Group, an editor of the MathML
>>spec, and one of the authors of the MathPlayer plug-in for Internet
>>Explorer, I am interested in doing what I can to help.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>There are two things to look at.
>>
>>First, is the actual conversion to MathML; currently only a couple of
>>very simple stub bits are supported, eg nothing where it would actually
>>be useful. :) The TeX preparser which produces HTML and MathML output
>>is written in ocaml which unfortunately is perhaps an impediment to
>>wide hacking on it. Currently more functions are supported for HTML
>>output than MathML simply because the work hasn't been done.
>>
>>
>
>Apart from the ocaml thing, which is a bit of a challenge, this sounds
>reasonably straight forward.
>
>
>
>>Second, is producing appropriate output markup. The current system will
>>embed the MathML code directly into the XHTML output. This works in
>>Mozilla when the wiki is configured to send an application/xml+xhtml
>>Content-type for pages, but not when using text/html (as is default
>>because not all browsers support this and we can't currently guarantee
>>well-formed markup at all times).
>>
>>
>
>Right.  This was the thrust of the August thread as well.
>
>
>
>>Does the MathPlayer work with directly embedded code, or does it
>>require some sort of plug-in-style usage?
>>
>>
>
>It works with directly embedded MathML.
>
>Actually for this application, the situation is pretty good.
>MathPlayer sniffs all incoming documents with the
>application/xml+xhtml MIME type and looks for a DOCTYPE declaration
>mentioning MathML.  If it finds it, it filters the incoming document,
>adding a declaration to the document header to load MathPlayer and
>bind it to the MathML namespace.  Also, since IE doesn't display XML
>directly, it changes the MIME type back to text/html, which "tricks"
>IE into displaying the document as HTML.
>
>In practical terms, what this means is a sloppy XHTML page with
>embedded MathML will generally display okay in IE.  Of course it still
>crashes in Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox.
>
>I take it there is currently no convenient content negotiate mechanism
>in MediaWiki so one could serve MathML embedded in (X)HTML to IE, and
>HTML with PNGs to other browsers?  When MathPlayer is installed in IE,
>it modifies the user agent string so it is easy to detect.
>
>--Robert
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>Dr. Robert Miner                                RobertM at dessci.com
>W3C Math Interest Group Co-Chair                      651-223-2883
>Design Science, Inc.   "How Science Communicates"   www.dessci.com
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
Programming for IE only should be no issue. When MathML only works with
IE it is broken beyond repair.
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Trading cards and their data

body:
On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 06:39:06 -0800 (PST), Rich Holton
<rich_holton at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Structurally, a page for each card makes a lot of
> sense. They could then be organized in a variety of
> ways: By card number, by set, by color,
> alphabetically, etc. each of which has its uses. In
> this case, having actual list pages (as opposed to
> categories only) would perhaps be useful. Such a list
> page could contain a brief summary of each card.

This is just a thought to throw into the mix, but don't forget that,
as long as you stick with a convention for naming them (i.e. eliminate
the risk of them changing), you can link to specific sections /
headings within an article. Thus, if you're creating manual lists
rather than Category: pages, you can just have a list like:
* [[List of fire Pokemon#Whatsisface|Whatsisface]]
* [[List of water Pokemon#Thingummiwotsit|Thingummiwotsit]]
etc

(As you may have guessed, I know nothing about Pokemon, and nor do I want to)

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Wikitech-l] status of MathML support

body:
On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 13:56:49 -0500, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
> > Programming for IE only should be no issue. When MathML only works
> > with IE it is broken beyond repair.
>
> I'd say it's Firefox that's broken in this case, due to its lack of
> support for W3C standards.

Well, in that case *all* browsers are broken, since AFAIK none of them
*natively* support MathML. That someone's written an extension for IE
which, as I understand it, *exploits bugs* to allow MathML to be
embedded in any-old-HTML content is not exactly "support for W3C
standards". Actual support would imply the browser processing the
MathML as part of a multi-namespaced (or however it's supposed to
work) XML document, not some extension ripping it out and fiddling
with the rest of the content to trick the browser.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Nicholas Moreau

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research

body:
While off the current topic, I've always wondered, are interview that a Wikipedia editor conducted included in the realm of "original research"?

For example, I occasionally write a column on Family Entertainment for Suite101.com. I've interviewed people like Canadian TV show producer/creator/writer Blair Peters. While there no article yet on Studio B or him, is the information I found out in the interview "original"?

Zanimum

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from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Preliminary Deletion (again)

body:
Voting is now open at [[Wikipedia:Preliminary Deletion/Vote2]].

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

John Lee wrote:

> Some people have been complaining that this hasn't been implemented
> yet, but I consider the results of the first poll too inconclusive to
> be certain. Therefore, I have written a provision for a new vote into
> the proposal. This new vote is not justified by the moanings of those
> disappointed about the first poll's result, but by the following:
>
>    * The provisions for preventing abuse of the process gained a very
>      large following, and as such, have been severely reduced in size
>      and merged with the original proposal;
>    * The criteria have also been reduced in size, but not in meaning;
>    * A 9-point Q&A section answering common concerns has been added;
>    * A minimum edit count and registration date have been added to the
>      prerequisites for voters;
>    * A standard for minimum support to go ahead with the proposal has
>      been added to avoid ambiguities.
>
> As you can see, the proposal has changed quite a bit, and as such, I
> have felt justified in making provisions for a second round of voting.
> I hope those who have opposed and supported the proposal will not just
> vote, but actually *discuss* the proposal before passing full
> judgement on it. Those concerned may find the proposal located at
> [[Wikipedia:Preliminary Deletion]].
>
> John Lee
> ([[en:User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [Wikitech-l] status of MathML support

body:
Delirium wrote:

> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Programming for IE only should be no issue. When MathML only works
>> with IE it is broken beyond repair.
>
>
> I'd say it's Firefox that's broken in this case, due to its lack of
> support for W3C standards.
>
> -Mark
>
I had a read on the Mozilla website, they do support MathML so again,
when MathML only works for IE it is broken beyond repair. There is one
requirement; you need the appropriate fonts loaded on your system.
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Registry - Vancouver University

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Vancouver university

body:
The article improperly mentioning us was in USA Today
print and online editions.  The retraction was only in their
print edition.   Just look at
http://www.worldwideuniversity.edu/alumni.php
to see how ridiculous was the USA Today mention of
us, and from other American sources which equally have not done their
research properly.   We are not an American university
and accordingly would not accredited by a US regional
accrediting agency.

Likuan Tham
-------------- next part --------------

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from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Largest encyclopedia

body:
I don't recall anyone mentioning the [[Wikipedia:Largest encyclopedia]] page
on this list; it has been there less than a week.

I find it an antidote to some current debates.  The graphs are great.
Basically two years of trend growth with hardly a hiccup.

Surely the fact that revisions per article is rising just as much as the
number of articles is hopeful for the article quality.  (Medians rather than
just means would be good to know, of course.)

Charles


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Original research

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>(I have had to consider this problem with wanting to write about Australian
>'80s indie rock. Trouble is, I'm one of the authoritative sources. Do I
>just not write about the stuff I'm the specialist in? Do I write about it
>and link to interviews I wrote and published? Should I just put a list of
>possible articles and the source I would list as reference and leave others
>to maybe write the articles?
>
I see no problem with published experts writing about their field of
expertise on Wikipedia. It's the sort of thing we should very much
encourage to boost our credibility. They can't use Wikipedia to present
and advance new material that hasn't seen the light of day yet - that
would be original research. But if they rewrite their own information
that has been published elsewhere, that would be fine. It's no different
from what anyone else can do using the same information, but the expert
is particularly well qualified to do so.

The critical thing is that the expert *can and should* cite their own
credible material that has already been published elsewhere. This makes
it verifiable and is a check against original research. In academia, it
might be bad form to cite yourself as a source unnecessarily, or as the
primary evidence for a disputed proposition. But self-citation also
happens legitimately, particularly in under-researched fields where the
available source literature is meager. Also, if some of the work is
effectively primary rather than secondary source material (oral history
being such an example), it could be positively poor scholarship *not* to
cite yourself in such cases.

In this sense the problem is somewhat different from the issue that
occasionally arises when people contribute to articles about themselves
or organizations they participate in. The concern there, I think, is
more about the appearance of impropriety and potential to slant the
content in violation of NPOV. The scenarios do have one thing in common,
though, which is that it can be challenging to distinguish between one's
personal knowledge of the subject and the knowledge that has actually
been disseminated to the public already.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.4beta2 released

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

MediaWiki 1.4beta2 is an experimental release, to help flush out
remaining major problems in the code prior to a final public 1.4.0
release. It is not recommended to use this beta on a public site unless
you're familiar with MediaWiki innards and are willing and able to help
diagnose and fix problems that come up.?

All beta1 users should upgrade as soon as possible.

This release fixes separate input validation issues with image gallery
rendering and PostgreSQL. Other fixes include Recentchanges in PHP5,
whitelist-edit mode, table prefixes, page renaming, and other issues.
Additionally, startup time for cached page views is slightly faster.

Full release notes:
http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=288858

Download:
http://prdownloads.sf.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.4beta2.tar.gz?download

Wiki admin help mailing list:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

Low-traffic release announcements mailing list:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
?
Bug report system:?
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/?
?
Play "stump the developers" live on IRC:?
#mediawiki on irc.freenode.net?

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 15:19:00 -0800 (PST), James Rosenzweig
<jwrosenzweig at yahoo.com> wrote:
> For everyone's information, en:User:OneGuy has posted
> a proposal here --
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disabling edits
> by unregistered users and stricter registration
> requirement

*sigh*
Not this again!

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which anyone can edit. Not "anyone who
can be bothered to fill out a form, wait for an e-mail to arrive,
fiddle about with magic verification URLs, and then try and remember
what it was they were going to edit". Anyone who wants to start a
project that's the latter, go do it.

See, for example:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_users_should_not_be_allowed_to_edit_articles
and its talk page.

And for those of you looking for light relief:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_gays_should_not_be_allowed_to_edit_articles

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Robert wrote:

>JAY JG wrote:
>
>
>>Wikipedia couldn't possibly represent ALL views, nor should it.  There
>>
>>
>>are 6 billion people in the world, each with their own view on a
>>
>>
>>limitless array of topics.  Even if we limit ourselves to the much
>>
>>
>>smaller (though still overwhelming)  number of views that are, say,
>>
>>
>>published on websites, NPOV does not demand that we say "according to
>>
>>
>>Einstein e=mc^2, but according to my Aunt Gertie
>>[www.relativityaccordingtogertie.com], e=mc^3"
>>
>>
>
>
>I totally agree with Jay's point. Wikipedia will
>immediately lose any credibility it has if it becomes a
>massive repository of crank views, which it will be if
>people strictly follow the letter of the NPOV policy as
>currently written.  Articles on and by cranks will
>outnumber serious issues a hundred to one (at least).
>
>
Nobody is supporting "a massive repository of crank view"  Saying that
Wikipedia would become so is entirely speculative.  There is no evidence
for this nor for the hypothetical  loss of credibility. ~~~~


body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>Mark Richards wrote:
>
>
>>This becomes more and more difficult in controversial subjects, like
>>water floridization (sp?) for example, or ESP. Who are the 'experts'
>>on the subject?
>>
It's "fluoridation".

>I don't really see what the difficulty is.  I'm not trying to be dense
>here, but to me this is quite simple.
>
>Our current article on Extra-Sensory Perception, for example, is quite
>bad.  And the reason is precisely the lack of _credible_ sources.
>These exist, but the current article appears to be written by people
>who would prefer for these not to be named.
>
I agree that that article is dreadful.  To begin with it is sprinkled
throughout with with words like "supposed" or "alleged" which if
repeated tend to bias the commentary, and certainly detract from the
flow of the text.  Expressions  like "ESP's critics, a group that
includes most mainstream scientists," is a gratuitous reference to the
authority of scientists.  I think that it would be closer to the truth
to say that most scientists have never paid any serious attention to
ESP, so that the basis which that majority criticizes ESP is its own
lack of knowledge.  That to me is not very reassuring.  Many articles
would be much better if the science lobby started to show some
restraint.  A single well-written paragraph can more than adequately
represent the views of the detractors.  Trying to debunk concepts that
have never been proven, with equally questionable data only makes for an
article full of sniping.   The average reader does not choose to read
the article to watch the sniping.

Credible sources for both sides of this argument are available, and it
would be nice if they were chosen in a context of mutual respect..

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
James Rosenzweig wrote:

>For everyone's information, en:User:OneGuy has posted
>a proposal here --
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disabling edits
>by unregistered users and stricter registration
>requirement
>
>There is already a vote of sorts taking place -- a
>list of "support" and "oppose" votes is growing
>slowly.  I am not clear as to why a vote is taking
>place so early, or whether the vote is intended to
>have any force.  I also don't know if it was
>advertised anywhere (I hadn't seen it anywhere but
>RC), but I thought a proposal (and apparent vote) to
>disable anonymous editing and add stricter
>requirements for registering as a user deserved a note
>on the mailing list.  If it's already been posted
>here, forgive me (but I don't think it has).  Thanks
>for your attention to this issue,
>
Sorry but that link is not to en existing page.

Ec


from_name: Jack Lutz

subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
> Sorry but that link is not to en existing page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disabling_edits_by_unregistered_users_and_stricter_registration_requirement


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

body:
Mark Richards wrote:
> I think we may be at cross purposes. I think the
> difficulty is in identifying who the credible sources
> are, and with whom they are credible when you are
> dealing with things that some people think are
> pseudoscience and others think are suppressed truth.

Why is it difficult in this case?  Are there articles in journals
which meet standard practices of peer-reviewed academic research?
Credible.  Are there articles in the National Enquirer?  Not credible.

Are there books published by respectable acacemic presses?  Credible.
Are there books published by "New Age" publishers who appear to
publish anything which will sell?  Not credible.

With ESP, the question is often framed in terms of statistical
probabilities that thus-and-such could have been the result of chance
or not.  While we may not be qualified to directly assess the
statistical evidence itself, we are qualified to look at such
questions of: what is the training of the author?  Does this person
have a PhD in statistics from a reputable University?  Does this
person publish work in peer-reviewed journals?

I don't see any difficulty at all here, as long as we abandon the idea
that neutrality requires epistemological nihilism.

In most cases, it is sufficient to simple state the unconversial facts
in a reasonably complete manner.  "A study conducted by Professor
Smith at Harvard University and published in _Review of Statistical
Psychology_ found thus-and-such.  While this reflects the broad
consensus of the scientific community, it is also true that a vast
popular literature continues to promote..."

--Jimbo

--
"La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
James Rosenzweig wrote:
> There is already a vote of sorts taking place -- a
> list of "support" and "oppose" votes is growing
> slowly.  I am not clear as to why a vote is taking
> place so early, or whether the vote is intended to
> have any force.

I consider such decisions to remain firmly within my range of
discretion, so any such vote would necessarily just be a poll of
community opinion, which is of course always a valid thing to do.

As it stands, it seems that community opinion is, as always, firmly in
favor of openness, a position which I wholeheartedly endorse.

I *do* think there is a serious problem which needs to be addressed,
and I actually agree with Adam Carr's comment that "Unless Wikipedia
takes some policy initiative such as this, it will not only be unable
to achieve its objectives, it will begin to deteriorate in quality as
serious editors are driven away."

But I think this is the wrong approach -- editing by anonymous ip
numbers is barely a problem at all.  Under current blocking rules,
anons are not given the same "due process" protections as logged in
users, and so it's easy enough (other than some very annoying
technical limitations which could eventually cause me to change my
mind) to deal with.

Our biggest problems within the community are not anons trolling and
vandalizing, but rather egregious trolls and pov pushers who log in
and take advantage of our boundless good will.  Making it harder to
sign up will not help with this at all, and can actually hurt it if
the overall rate of participation by the (good willed) general public
declines in the face of some extra burdens of signing up.

POV pushers will jump through the hoops of signing up.  Making it
harder to sign up does nothing to discourage them.  So, yes, we need
to do something about how long it takes us to get rid of difficult
people -- and this is a difficult problem to reconcile with the
demands of NPOV and openness and quality.

--Jimbo


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales (jwales at wikia.com) [041210 07:11]:
> Shane King wrote:

> > Which is still biasing towards "credibility", and hence not compatible
> > with the NPOV as written. I quote: "The neutral point of view policy
> > states that one should write articles without bias, representing ALL
> > views fairly" (my emphasis on the ALL). I fail to see how shunting some
> > views to seperate articles and not others counts as "fair".

> Really?  I don't really see the problem.  It isn't "shunting" -- done
> properly it's just good writing.

In fact, "shunting" seems to me to be generally discouraged - more
typically you have a section which starts "Main article: [[foo]]" and
a paragraph or two summary, with [[foo]] being an extensive piece on the
obscure topic in question.

- d.


from_name: Cadwgan Gedrych

subject: [WikiEN-l] ----critical error on SR page----

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity contains a major error, namely, the claim that the second postulate "has been verified experimentally."

Not only is this not so, but the postulate has not even been experimentally tested.

The status of the second postulate is vital because it is the sole basis of special relativity. This postulate calls for invariance and isotropy in the case of light's one-way speed between two clocks that are in the same frame. (The round-trip light speed case was essentially closed prior to special relativity by the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment, but the one-way case remains open, contrary to the Wiki Special_relativity article.)

(The first postulate does not call for any specific experimental results, but merely says that whatever results are found in one inertial frame must also be found in all other such frames; thus, the second postulate does not dictate an invariant one-way light speed of c over c ? v or vice versa, so the first postulate does not support special relativity.)

This very serious problem needs to be quickly cleared up because of the current polling process which is looking to give the Wiki special relativity article "featured article" status.

The only way that the above-mentioned claim can be made legit is by having its author(s) provide the reference(s) for the alleged one-way light speed experiment(s).

Thank you for your attention,

--Cadwgan_Gedrych--

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research

body:
Nicholas Moreau (beaubeaver at yahoo.co.uk) [041210 07:40]:

> While off the current topic, I've always wondered, are interview that a
> Wikipedia editor conducted included in the realm of "original research"?
> For example, I occasionally write a column on Family Entertainment for
> Suite101.com. I've interviewed people like Canadian TV show
> producer/creator/writer Blair Peters. While there no article yet on
> Studio B or him, is the information I found out in the interview
> "original"?

Good question. The conservative choice would be not to put in one's own
research in this manner ...

(I have had to consider this problem with wanting to write about Australian
'80s indie rock. Trouble is, I'm one of the authoritative sources. Do I
just not write about the stuff I'm the specialist in? Do I write about it
and link to interviews I wrote and published? Should I just put a list of
possible articles and the source I would list as reference and leave others
to maybe write the articles? That last would satisfy propriety, but it has
a certain PITA factor.)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New policy proposal

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> James Rosenzweig wrote:

>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disabling edits
>> by unregistered users and stricter registration
>> requirement

> Sorry but that link is not to en existing page.
>
> Ec

Broken link, try :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disabling_edits_by_unregistered_users_and_stricter_registration_requirement

Pete


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote

> Nobody is supporting "a massive repository of crank view"  Saying that
> Wikipedia would become so is entirely speculative.

Agreed.  My view that nonsense is gradually squeezed out of WP, by steady
edits by sensible editors.  It is, in the main, a salami-slicing operation.

Obviously something daft gets posted every day, and there are occasions when
editors dig in their heels to defend what are, on a consensus view, cranky
views.  I don't think either of those facts need be used to undermine the
position that the normal process  - 'enough eyeballs' - works.

The bad history and politicised rants can be first toned down, then replaced
by better points.  There is always going to be some 'placeholder' material
on WP, waiting for a better job.  I think trying for credibility in excess
of the natural trend is probably a mistake.  The pages have a disclaimer;
and I wonder whether anyone can foresee a time when they will not.

Charles


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] PostgreSQL support in beta

body:
Hey,

> I'm trying out the 1.4beta1 release with PostgreSQL. Is it simple to persuade it to use PostgreSQL, or should I wait until the installer supports it?

Mhm, last time I did that it was loading the schema and setting database type.
There could be other issues as well, I'm trying to document them all up.

Though, installer support might solve all bits. That's what installers are for :)

Anyway, as far as I've heard, there are at least two mw-pg installs, one of which runs on my http://ph3.defau.lt/

Domas


subject: [Wikitech-l] PostgreSQL support in beta

body:
On Dec 10, 2004, at 12:51 AM, Domas Mituzas wrote:
>> I'm trying out the 1.4beta1 release with PostgreSQL. Is it simple to
>> persuade it to use PostgreSQL, or should I wait until the installer
>> supports it?
>
> Mhm, last time I did that it was loading the schema and setting
> database type. There could be other issues as well, I'm trying to
> document them all up.
>
> Though, installer support might solve all bits. That's what installers
> are for :)

Domas, can you write up the manual install instructions? I'd like to
try adding support to the installer but I'm pretty fuzzy on what needs
to be done first.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki, PHP5, PHPTal

body:
On Dec 10, 2004, at 3:23 AM, Ian Barwick wrote:
> can anyone give a brief idea on the status of PHP5 and MediaWiki?
> Specifically:
> - is the 1.3 series PHP5 compatible?

Yes, except that PHPTal can't be used.

> - can PHPTal templates developed with 1.3 be used with PHP5 and
> in 1.4 without (major) modification?

1.4 no longer uses PHPTal for the default skin, but it is still
supported optionally. For PHP5 you'll need to download a PHPTAL 1.0.0
development snapshot (http://sf.net/projects/phptal) and install it
separately. Drop the skin's .php and .pt files into the skins directory
and it should be automatically picked up; there are some samples in the
skins/disabled directory.

There are some behavior differences between PHPTAL 0.7.0 and PHPTAL
1.0.0, so you may need to tweak bits of your template. (For example,
${stuff} like that is now HTML-escaped, so for raw HTML bits you must
use something like <div tal:structure="stuff"></div>.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Largest encyclopedia

body:
>Surely the fact that revisions per article is rising just as much as the
>number of articles is hopeful for the article quality.  (Medians rather
>than
>just means would be good to know, of course.)

Hopefully it is that, rather than an indication of an increasing frequency
of edit-warring.


from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Original research

body:
> I see no problem with published experts writing
> about their field of
> expertise on Wikipedia. It's the sort of thing we
> should very much
> encourage to boost our credibility.

I agree, but there gray areas. Take, for example, a
person who invents and patents a new engine and forms
a company to market the desing.

The product isn't established, but recieves some
press.

Should this person be prevented from writing a
Wikipedia article?
(see [[Quasiturbine]])

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo


from_name: Ian Barwick

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki, PHP5, PHPTal

body:
Hi

can anyone give a brief idea on the status of PHP5 and MediaWiki?
Specifically:
- is the 1.3 series PHP5 compatible?
- can PHPTal templates developed with 1.3 be used with PHP5 and
in 1.4 without (major) modification?

Thanks

Ian Barwick
barwick at gmx.net


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research

body:
I have two comments concerning the most recent discussion on original
research.  First, can I include information if it comes from an interview I
conducted.  I think the answer has to be no.  This is "original" research
in the clearest sense -- raw data prior to any interpretation or analysis
(I think most of our discussion has centered on, can we provide our own
interpretation or analysis in articles?  Again I think the answer is no,
but this seems to be a more complex issue for many people).  I think this
is a very easy question to answer, given our policy.  I have to say, I have
some regret that the answer is no.  One of the primary ideals of academic
research is making raw data available to allow new interpretations or
analysis, but the way academic research is actually published severely
limits this.  One of the great things about the internet is its potential
to make a great deal of raw data available to the general public, which is
a great thing.  Still, I can think of three reasons why Wikipedia should
not be in the business of making raw data available.  First is
methodological (this doesn't apply to this particular question, which I
think has to do with a rock band, but applies to most scientific research):
can we assert some reasonable degree of confidence that the data was
produced through appropriate (e.g. scientific -- but in courts, the
equivalent would be "following the rules of evidence")
means?  Peer-reviewed journals and books published by academic presses make
this claim, and it is in part based on peer-review and evaluating the
credentials of the author.  We won't be doing that.  As I said, this
doesn't hold for interviewing a musician, but I think it is something to
bear in mind.  My second and third reasons however may be relevant to the
question at hand: publishing information involves legal and ethical
responsibilities.  Here we may be better off comparing ourselves to
newspapers.  Aside from having legal staffs that can and often do check
stories before they are published, journalism schools and newspapers are
supposed to cultivate a common set of ethical principles to guide
journalists.  And journalists still often act unethically!  If journalists,
who as part of their profession may have spent a good deal of time talking
about ethics of reporting screw up, how much more likely is it that someone
somewhere along the line on the internet will screw up?  It is safer for us
not to try to act as reporters.

The second comment has to do with credibility.  I agree 100% with Jimbo's
point that what makes Einstein's theories more credible than aunt Gertie's
is not crude popularity but that physicists give more credence to
Einstein's theories (about physics by the way -- Aunt Gertrude may be more
of an authority on needlepoint or, so as not to be sexist, repairing a
carburetor, than Einstein).  But what about controversial topics like
flouridation or ESP?  Well, in the first case an article can say that there
are debates among scientists and among politicians, and give accounts of
both kinds of views (the obvious model is global warming: all atmospheric
scientists agree that global warming is occurring; some scientists debate
whether it is anthropogenic or whatever the term is; many politicians
debate it).  In the second case -- or let's just say, other cases, we can
say that there is not only debate over what is going on; there is debate
over who is a credible authority: some people say x, others say y ..."

In other words, I don't see this as an NPOV problem; I just see it as
another layer of NPOV -- in some (probably very few) cases there is debate
over who's views are most authoritative/credible, and if so we should
provide some account of this debate.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] 1.4 category image thumbs

body:
While I really like the thumbnail preview of images on the category
pages, I wonder what will happen on pages like [1] once 1.4 goes live on
wikipedia. Will anyone without a T3 line be able to access such a page?
I am already having problems with viewing [2]...

Magnus

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Album_covers
[2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain


list: textbook-l

from_name: Marius Scurtescu

subject: [Textbook-l] Trading cards and their data

body:
Unfortunately this list is not very active and this could be a major
problem for Wikibooks. I saw some comments that Wikibooks is not
taking off as expected, the problem could be the fact that there is no
community to push it.

Not sure what could be done, I am very new to Wikibooks and this list.

Any suggestions?

Marius

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 00:35:02 -0700, kelvSYC <kelvsyc at shaw.ca> wrote:
> I apologize for the crosspost between two of Wikimedia's mailing lists
> in advance, as this is somewhat related to both Wikipedia and
> Wikibooks.
>
> One of my pet projects is [[b:Pok?mon]], which attempts be a game guide
> for everything Pok?mon (some at Wikipedia have proposed that all of the
> Pok?mon articles be moved to the books, but that's not a relevant point
> here), and part of any good strategy guide is data and lots of it.
> Organizing this data is quite the problem.  Here's an example:
>
> One of the subprojects in [[b:Pok?mon]] is the guide to the trading
> card game, and I need to solicit opinions on how a list of trading
> cards should be presented.  In particular, what would the Wikipedia
> convention be when dealing with large amounts of raw data?  Here are a
> few ideas I had thought up:
>
> * Each trading card should have its own page.  This will make
> categorization a trivial task, but will result in too many
> substub-quality pages.
> * Each set should have its own page, with each page describing the
> cards within that set.  This will make categorization between sets of
> cards trivial, but categorization along other lines (such as the type
> of the trading card) a pain in the ass.  This goes for giving a page to
> any arbitrary group of cards.  My personal direction (not necessarily a
> good one) is a variation on this theme: the Pok?mon cards themselves
> are described in their corresponding entry in [[b:Wikibooks Pok?dex]].
> * Wait until there's a real good Wikidata-like thing before
> implementing such an idea.
>
> Part of the problem, I guess, is the lack of contributions from anyone
> else in the Wiki community - thus the need to solicit opinions.  Plus,
> this idea does not have to specifically apply for my project - this
> scenario may arise in any other project in the books or the pedia (for
> example, a good application of this idea in the pedia is episode guides
> for particularly well-known series).
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>


body:
Shane King wrote:

>There is no size limit to Wikipedia.

Perhaps in theory.  In practice Wikipedia is straining under the existing
load.  Loading small articles can take up to a minute.  Simple edits on
articles can take 20 minutes, requiring multiple re-tries.   Users are
randomly and frequently logged out.   Adding every conceivable fringe theory
or position to existing articles, not to mention the current penchant for
adding articles on every high school in North America (and similar trivia),
will only make that worse.

Moreover, there is a limit to the patience of the reader.  If a reader has
to wade through lengthy sections outlining trivia, conspiracy theories,
fringe and crackpot views, etc. while trying to understand what is
significant about a particular topic, then that reader will soon either lose
interest in the topic, or come away with an entirely distorted understanding
of it.


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 12/10/04 4:38 AM, "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>
>> Mark Richards wrote:
>>
>>
>>> This becomes more and more difficult in controversial subjects, like
>>> water floridization (sp?) for example, or ESP. Who are the 'experts'
>>> on the subject?
>>>
> It's "fluoridation".
>
>> I don't really see what the difficulty is.  I'm not trying to be dense
>> here, but to me this is quite simple.
>>
>> Our current article on Extra-Sensory Perception, for example, is quite
>> bad.  And the reason is precisely the lack of _credible_ sources.
>> These exist, but the current article appears to be written by people
>> who would prefer for these not to be named.
>>
> I agree that that article is dreadful.  To begin with it is sprinkled
> throughout with with words like "supposed" or "alleged" which if
> repeated tend to bias the commentary, and certainly detract from the
> flow of the text.  Expressions  like "ESP's critics, a group that
> includes most mainstream scientists," is a gratuitous reference to the
> authority of scientists.  I think that it would be closer to the truth
> to say that most scientists have never paid any serious attention to
> ESP, so that the basis which that majority criticizes ESP is its own
> lack of knowledge.  That to me is not very reassuring.

Actually, no. Most scientists believed in some form of ESP in the 1950s as
initial studies (I believe some of the most prominent coming out of
Berkeley) indicated evidence for it.[1]

 All such studies were found to be unrepeatable, investigatorial bias and
subconscious coaching were found to be causing the results, and the myth of
ESP was laid to rest.

[1] See A.M. Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", Mind, October
1950 (aka the Turing Test paper):

?"I assume that the reader is familiar with the idea of extra-sensory
perception, and the meaning of the four items of it, viz. telepathy,
clairvoyance, precognition and psycho-kinesis. These disturbing phenomena
seem to deny all our usual scientific ideas. How we should like to discredit
them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is
overwhelming. It is very difficult to rearrange one's ideas so as to fit
these new facts in. Once one has accepted them it does not seem a very big
step to believe in ghosts and bogies. The idea that our bodies move simply
according to the known laws of physics, together with some others not yet
discovered but somewhat similar, would be one of the first to go.

 This argument is to my mind quite a strong one. One can say in reply that
many scientific theories seem to remain workable in practice, in spite of
clashing with E.S.P.; that in fact one can get along very nicely if one
forgets about it. This is rather cold comfort, and one fears that thinking
is just the kind of phenomenon where E.S.P. may be especially  relevant."


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] 1.4 category image thumbs

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> While I really like the thumbnail preview of images on the category
> pages, I wonder what will happen on pages like [1] once 1.4 goes live
> on wikipedia. Will anyone without a T3 line be able to access such a
> page? I am already having problems with viewing [2]...
>
> Magnus
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Album_covers
> [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain
> _______________________________________________

One other problem is that categories like "Dutch pronunciation" who do
not contain images are also made into thumbnail preview images. They
only contain .ogg files so it is a waste of effort and a good example
that we indeed could use some more attention to sound files.

The category "Dutch pronunciation" does not show how many articles are
in the category :(

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Justin .

subject: [WikiEN-l] PUI v. Copyvios

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_problems

What's the difference between these pages for images?

I recently had an image listed on PUI because I stupidly called it
public domain when it actually fell under fair use.  My reasoning for
fair use was accepted, and it was removed from PUI.  However unknown
to me it was also listed on Copyvio the same day, where it remained
undefended until it was deleted.

Are these pages supposed to overlap like that?

-Justin


from_name: byron gamildien

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews in many languages

body:
On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 04:05:10 -0800 (PST)
 Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >Hi,>now that we're about to move demo.wikinews.org to
> en.wikinews.org, we have  >to think about a procedure for
> setting up other language domains. If any  >decision on
> this matter has already been made by the Board, please
> let me  >know.
>
> Not that I know.
> I would like that we three have time to discuss this
> before decisions are taken please.
>
> >It should be noted that on two of the language voting
> pages, no majority  >was reached on starting the project.
> These are French and Chinese. Others  >had very small
> participation.>In the original proposal, I suggested that
> Wikinews can be set up in any  >accepted Wikimedia
> project language where there is at least one interested
>  >participant, and that 4 more regulars are required for
> the language to be  >recognized as "official", and for
> the firsts sysops to be created.
>
> I do think that "not recognising something official" even
> though it exists is nice
> but totally irrealistic. As soon as wikinews exists, then
> we could always try to pretend it only
> is "okay" in one language, but not okay or not part of
> wikimedia in another language, that would be
> just ink on paper. For editors and mostly for readers, it
> will be there.
>
>
> So, instead of pretending it is not recognised, we could
> 1) have a temporary adress of the type
> fr.demo.wikinews.org
> and 2) have a temporary logo rather than the official and
> 3) put a warning on top of it.
>
>
> I would like to ask the Board if this procedure is
> acceptable.If it is not, one possible >alternative would
> be to immediately set up  language domains for any
> language where there >are more than 10 votes on  the
> respective voting page on Meta, and more than 50% in
> favor. >This would  currently mean Japanese and German.
> The vote could be re-opened, and kept  >open permanently.
>
> I am opposed to this. There is little sense to set up a
> language just based on editors in this language
> supporting the global project. What should lead the
> creation of a language subdomain is presence of editors,
> not support at a global poll. If some people are
> interested, let's open the domain, if not, we do not need
> to let an empty wiki prey of vandals.
>
> I also think that the vote was meant to be global, not to
> decide which language would be created versus which
> languages would not be.
>
>
> thanks for all the updates and e-mails you have sent
me.who are you anyway?send me some info on yourself.
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
>  The all-new My Yahoo! ? Get yours free!
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

_____________________________________________________________________
For super low premiums, click here http://www.dialdirect.co.za/quote


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] 1.4 category image thumbs

body:
On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 12:42:28 +0100, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> While I really like the thumbnail preview of images on the category
> pages, I wonder what will happen on pages like [1] once 1.4 goes live on
> wikipedia. Will anyone without a T3 line be able to access such a page?
> I am already having problems with viewing [2]...

Perhaps this is a good idea to implement paged category views ASAP -
it would be nice for large article categories anyway. Perhaps we could
have a generic view page that would cope with various queries, so we
could have a nicer whatlinkshere as well [I'm a complete n00b when it
comes to SQL, so say if this is a fundamentally complex problem]. Such
a class could perhaps include [optional] seperation by namespace (bug
450), and obviously the limit for number of images before splitting
into pages would be different from that for number of textual links
before splitting...

[BTW, your second example does indeed seem to have broken things - it
stays loading forever for me!]

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

body:
Hi everyone, this is my first post. I've been reading the archives
about NPOV and "no original research" with interest, as I feel they're
the backbone of Wikipedia. It seems to me that, taken together, they
provide a solid policy base, with no inherent contradiction. NPOV only
refers to Auntie Gertie's views on relativity if those views have been
published in a reputable, and for academic subjects this means
peer-reviewed, journal. The same goes for non-academic subjects. The
views must have been published in a reputable newspaper or other
publisher, where articles go through a system comparable to peer
review by being checked by writers/journalists, editors, lawyers (or,
at least, they're supposed to be).

I feel there will be very examples where NPOV and "no original
research" taken together will not solve an issue; and editors should
provide references whenever they can so that readers can check for
themselves that the "no original research"  principle was adhered to.
Requiring editors to get in the habit of providing references seems to
me to be the key.

Slim


from_name: uninvited at nerstrand.net

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Academic,
	peer-reviewed sources (was NPOV and credibility)

body:
Jimbo wrote:

> Our current article on Extra-Sensory Perception, for example, is quite
> bad.  And the reason is precisely the lack of _credible_ sources.
> These exist, but the current article appears to be written by people
> who would prefer for these not to be named.

This is a problem we have with a certain class of articles.

Over at [[surrealism]], we have a determined edit warrior who has stated
that "art historians are not qualified to write about surrealism," and
"mainstream sources regarding surrealism are useless because they are
written by art historians."  So, well-researched contributions get
shouted down and the article remains an embarrasment.

In like fashion, there is an ongoing edit war at [[cult]], with one side
maintaining that peer-reviewed articles about cults written by
sociologists merely parrot the views of the "anti-cult movement," which
they characterize as fringe.  I cleaned up the article some time ago and
added some well-referenced material, which is now gone; the references
themselves are orphaned at the end of the article amidst a sea of links
to cult-sponsored and cult-apoligist sites.

Some of the alternative medicine articles have the same problems.

The difficulty is political.  The people who care deeply about
[[surrealism]], and [[cult]], and ESP are willing to expend
considerable effort and political capital to get their way, while for
me, each is merely one of many interests.


from_name: R E Broadley

subject: [WikiEN-l] A good enough policy (Was: Original research)

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>Shane King wrote:
>
>
>>I've been thinking about this for a few days, and I can't get around one
>>basic issue: we haven't solved the problem. We've shifted the burden of
>>evaluating the credibility of the theory to evaluating the credibility
>>of the sources. I see no reason to believe we're any better at
>>evaluating the credibility of sources than of theories.
>>
>>
>
>Oh, I think it is a lot easier to evaluate the credibility of sources
>than the credibility of theories.  If you offer me your personal
>theory of "Liquidity, Efficiency, and Bank Bailouts" then it's going
>to be quite hard for me to judge whether you are an economics crank or
>someone with an interesting theory.  But if you point me to an essay
>of that title in _American Economic Review_, I can feel comfortable
>that it is at least credible.
>
>
What about an article written by an associate editor of the New
Republic?  It's still surprising to see how many articles have referred
to information in Stephen Glass's "Hack Haven" article as a credible source.

(However, despite how much the reliability of usually credible sources
can be disputed, I realize Wikipedia needs a clear-cut policy on this,
and that there is probably no such thing as bullet proof policy on
ensuring that everything reported is 100% accurate.)

As such, despite theories such as the [[propaganda theory]] (by [[Noam
Chomsky]]) or other recent court cases proving that big News stations
(e.g. Fox News) can lie legally (due to the 1st amendment overriding
whistle-blowing laws), I still reckon Wikipedia has a much better chance
of being a source for reliable information than most places due to its
collaborative design.

$0.02,
Rebroad

Ed


subject: [Wikipedia-l] External data

body:
Hoi,
For whatever reason there is this silly sign that should indicate that a
link is external.

It is a silly thing for two reasons:
*It does not show itself in an IE browser
*When it is used in a language that is left to right like Arabic or
Hebrew, it insists on being on the right side of the word in effect
blocking out the first character.

Could we PLEASE get rid of this silly thing. And if someone insists on
keeping it, could it be fixed so that it behaves properly ...

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Wikitech-l] External data