subject: [Wikipedia-l] This Español/Castellano split

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> I just noticed that in addition to the
> Spanish/Castilian wikipedia at
> http://es.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Portada (using the
> old, ugly and difficult to use UseMod wikiware) with
> 1400 articles there is a very lively FDL?d Spanish
> wiki encyclopedia at http://enciclopedia.us.es/ (using
> php wikiware) with nearly 9,000 articles.
>
> Did the Spanish wikipedia fork into two projects? And
> if so why?

Remember the brief ruckus a few weeks ago re: a submitted new logo image
for the French wikipedia? Imagine that kind of discussion going on for
several weeks with no voice of reason.

 > Seems like a lot of wasted effort to have
> two projects in the same language and also wasted
> interwiki link functionality since the more popular
> Spanish wiki is not on the same server (could we make
> interwiki links anyway?). This Espa?ol/Castellano
> split makes about as much sense as having separate
> American English and British English wikipedias would.

Yes, it's pointless and stupid. I would recommend simply dumping the
nearly unused one on Wikipedia and changing the URL used for the lang
links for Spanish to point to the forked server, at least if it's okay
with them.

> BTW, why are we reporting the stats of the
> http://enciclopedia.us.es for the Spanish wikipedia?

Because we intlwiki folks are completists.

> Also, when in the world are the non-English wikipedias
> going to get a software upgrade?

Gee, wouldn't we like to know? We were promised an upgrade in March.
Then in May. Then in June. Never materialized; at most we got a test
server...

> Hum, I just read their about page (warning, my Spanish
> is rusty). From what I read, they seem to be rather
> critical of Wikipedia, citing as fact that Wikipedia
> is a ?for-profit project of a North American company?
> and something about the fact that Wikipedia is at a
> ?dotcom? address. Then they go on to state, again as
> fact, that the English wikipedia has an ?elite with
> administrator privileges? who ?harasses contributors?
> and ?censure content? and ?prohibit editing of certain
> pages?. Yikes! Do we deserve this?

What, does 24 write in Spanish now? ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Wikipedia-l] "Wanted pages" fix

in_reply_to: <200207082301.g68N1cA26744@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 04:01:38PM -0700

body:
On Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 04:01:38PM -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> I could easily enough add a unique key with a combination of
> the "from" and "to" fields.

Actually, I don't think you can. I tried that at the time and found out that
MySQL cannot define unique indexes over such large (in bytes) combinations.
So unless you changed the types of the columns, that is not possible.

> Is there a good reason to do that?  I
> never access the table by that--I only access it by the individual
> fields *i.e., there's never any query in which both fields appear in
> the where clause or an order by or group by).

The main reason would be data integrity and perhaps compactness, not access,
and, well, we would be breaking Codd's first commandment: "Thou shalt always
have a primary key". :-) But seriously, you could quite easily maintain this
constraint by making the variabel for broken links an associative array that
associates the links names with "1" or something. Thanks to the excellent
object-oriented way in which you organized the code, that would probably be
a simple change in the class LinkCache plus some changes when
reading/writing it from the database.

Would it be worth it? I think that #pages is a slightly better metric than
#links because although it is policy to link every word only once on a page,
a newcomer might make a certain titel inadvertantly very wanted by linking
it very often on the same page.

> MySQL is doing it, but it uses a temp file ("explain" on the query
> says so, anyway).  And the error we were getting before was the size
> of the tempfile bumping into a disk quota.

Ultimately the best solution would be to have a table wanted(title, #pages)
with an index on #pages (and a unique index on title), then MySQL wouldn't
need to sort at all. I don't know of the top of my head if there are any
other queries that depend on 'brokenlinks' but I don't believe so and if
there are not then I would recommend replacing it. That would really speed
things up and save resources.

Translating the updates of 'brokenlinks' to updates of 'mostwanted' is not
trivial but also not very difficult either. If a page is deleted/replaced
you subtract 1 of #pages for every title it had a broken link to. If a page
is created/updated you add 1 to #pages for every title it has a broken link
to. The only extra work is that you have to check before the increment if
the title is already in the table (otherwise you have to create it first) and
on the other hand if after the decremetn #pages has become zero (in which
case you probaly want to delete it).

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] possible explanation for Spanish 'pedia fork; plus some thoughts...

body:
Here is a possible explanation (found at
http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia).

Esta enciclopedia surgi? como una escisi?n de la
versi?n en castellano de la wikipedia tras un anuncio
sobre la posibilidad de que hubiese publicidad en la
versi?n original.

Translation: This encyclopedia split off from the
Castilian version of wikipedia after an announcement
of the possibility that there would be advertising in
the original version.

Sigh?

We should consider doing some strategizing to make
sure another fork doesn?t happen (I hear members of
the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).
Specifically, we might want to revisit the idea of
wikipedia becoming a non-profit (preferably a European
one). That way, anti-Americanism and distrust of
Boomis (which is both an American company and, /gasp/,
for-profit) wouldn?t weigh on anybody?s mind.

I for one completely trust Jimbo and his company to
continue doing only good for Wikipedia ? but others
are instinctively distrustful of both Americans and
for-profit companies and will over-react when certain
capitalistic ideas are put forward or American
influence is perceived to be expanding. I wouldn?t
mind at all contributing 10 Euros/dollars a month to
keep Wikipedia (all languages) afloat (esp. if my
donation were tax deductible). Oh and there would be
no reason why a non-profit Wikipedia.org couldn?t have
a corporate sponsor. ;-)

--maveric149

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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] This EspaXol/Castellano split

body:
Then they go on to state, again as
>fact, that the English wikipedia has an ?elite with
>administrator privileges? who ?harasses contributors?
>and ?censure content? and ?prohibit editing of certain
>pages?. Yikes! Do we deserve this?
>
>--maveric149

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
	And foolish notion;
What airs in dress and gait wad lea'e us,
	And ev'n devoltion!"

Robert Burn, "To a Louse"

A few of you can be a bit officious.

Fred Bauder


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] a (somewhat) rhetorical question

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from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] This Espa�ol/Castellano split

body:
Hello Daniel

You should go to the international mailing list (or
register for that matter). I think there are many
comments that should lighten the matter to you. Both
on the spanish fork and about the french "threat". It
will probably answer some of your questions.

--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I just noticed that in addition to the

> interwiki links anyway?). This Espa?ol/Castellano
> split makes about as much sense as having separate
> American English and British English wikipedias
> would.

I don't agree at all with you on this point.
Even with a z and s matter, you speak the same
language and understand each other. The fork had
apparently nothing to do with a castillan and spanish
language. The fork seemed to come from a scare upon
"english imperialism". Each time I'm on the english
wiki, I feel somehow unconfortable. First because it's
not easy to get when people are serious or joking,
second because there are many points you don't get
easily, third because you don't always succeed to
polish your own comments as you would do in your
language. I am sure you could understand what I mean
here. And believe me, it's easy for a non english
speaking to feel pushed.

As Brion (?) and others stated it, many of us don't
understand english well enough to wander on the meta
for example. Even after 10 years learning english.

> and something about the fact that Wikipedia is at a
> ?dotcom? address. Then they go on to state, again as
> fact, that the English wikipedia has an ?elite with
> administrator privileges? who ?harasses
> contributors?
> and ?censure content? and ?prohibit editing of
> certain
> pages?. Yikes! Do we deserve this?

btw, none of us on the french wiki has any admin
privilege. Well, we have to take the time to ask
Jimbo. That doesnot seem essential right now, but
that's a fact :-) But, as far as I know, we have
freedom on all our pages. Thanksfully.

Does it trouble you not it is a .dotcom ??? It
troubles some of us.

I know some of us seem to consider forking later on a
sort of natural occurrence. Others do not...

As for updating the software, we will finish the
mainpage translation this we hopefully (probably as we
reach 1000 articles, I am very happy about that).
After that, it all relies on others to do the update.
Who is taking care of that ?

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from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] possible explanation for Spanish 'pedia fork;
    plus some thoughts...

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body:
I am not sure you really realise what you are writing
here Jan.

Consider carefully the "it wastes effort but we can
still copy articles from them"
and vice versa - thank you for it
actually, some of us that do great copies of the
en.wiki do put the link each time. Not so much to give
you credit maybe, than to try to link our wikis
together rather than making separate wikis...
Now, if you understand french (are you belgian ?), we
would be most delighted to see you copy an article
from the fr.site one day...

Also consider very carefully the "does our license
then FORCE them to put a link on every article that
they have copied from the original site"
That's an interesting comment. Indeed I'd like to know
what the licence says about that !

But you gave me an idea. I didnot put much on the
en.wiki. But, do you think I should insist it was from
french langage originally ? LOL. never crossed my mind
before !

Let's be serious. I consider great that some french
speaking come and visit from time to time. We must
somehow get over these cultural differences.

--- "Jan.Hidders" <hidders at uia.ua.ac.be> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 12:56:16PM -0700, Daniel
> Mayer wrote:
> >
> > We should consider doing some strategizing to make
> > sure another fork doesn?t happen (I hear members
> of
> > the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the
> past).
>
> Is that really such a big problem? I know it wastes
> effort but we can still
> copy articles from them and vice versa, right? But
> does our license then
> force them to put a link on every article that they
> have copied from the
> original site?
>
> -- Jan Hidders
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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from_name: Brion VIBBER

body:
Anthere wrote:
> The fork seemed to come from a scare upon
> "english imperialism". Each time I'm on the english
> wiki, I feel somehow unconfortable. First because it's
> not easy to get when people are serious or joking,
> second because there are many points you don't get
> easily, third because you don't always succeed to
> polish your own comments as you would do in your
> language. I am sure you could understand what I mean
> here. And believe me, it's easy for a non english
> speaking to feel pushed.
>
> As Brion (?) and others stated it, many of us don't
> understand english well enough to wander on the meta
> for example. Even after 10 years learning english.

For those of you English-speakers out there who sort of know another
language but aren't fluent in it, I highly recommend you try to
participate in the wiki for that language (if there is one). It will be
a learning experience!

* All your contributions are going to be heavily edited for
language/style corrections. Don't take it personally...

* In Talk-page discussions, you're not familiar with the existing
conventions and "power structure" -- whose comments to take seriously,
whose to consider, whose to ignore.

* Was that a joke?

Now, imagine that _those_ people run the server that the English wiki is
on, and that this mailing list is in their language, and that you have
to go to them with any problems, questions, or suggestions. You'd
consider forking too. :)

> btw, none of us on the french wiki has any admin
> privilege. Well, we have to take the time to ask
> Jimbo. That doesnot seem essential right now, but
> that's a fact :-) But, as far as I know, we have
> freedom on all our pages. Thanksfully.

The admin privledges are sort of a mix of two things:

* Convenience features (renaming articles instead of laboriously copying
the text and thus splitting the edit history over two entries)

* Anti-vandalism measures (ability to outright delete pages and uploaded
files that are obscene, illegal, or inappropriate, and to ban people who
frequently do such)

> Does it trouble you not it is a .dotcom ??? It
> troubles some of us.

The top-level domain doesn't mean much these days. "Userfriendly.org"
and "slashdot.org" are particularly prominent .org sites that run
advertisements and have paid subscription options... Heck, User Friendly
is a publicly-traded company!

> I know some of us seem to consider forking later on a
> sort of natural occurrence. Others do not...

There are forks and then there are forks...

I personally would have no real objection to an _amicable_ fork, in
which a group runs their own server but we all work together on matters
of mutual interest: use of the name, integration/linking between
languages, sharing updates to the software, etc.

The Spanish fork was rather unpleasant, no doubt in large part due to
the language problem.

> As for updating the software, we will finish the
> mainpage translation this we hopefully (probably as we
> reach 1000 articles, I am very happy about that).
> After that, it all relies on others to do the update.
> Who is taking care of that ?

Well, I'm going to be pushing for getting the Esperanto wiki upgraded as
soon as possible, so I can throw in the other languages along with it.
:) Now that we've got the new Wikipedia server set up with more access
for the developers, it should be easier to get this done.

(Note that there's an even newer version of the Wiki software in
development, but we'll adapt the translations etc after we've got things
transferred to the version we *know* works.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


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body:
Gareth Owen wrote:
> Brion VIBBER <brion at pobox.com> writes:
>>(Note that there's an even newer version of the Wiki software in
>>development, but we'll adapt the translations etc after we've got things
>>transferred to the version we *know* works.)
>
>
> I don't want to appear glib, but which one are you referring to?

The "even newer version" is the one that LDC's been hawking the
(English) test server for: http://130.94.122.197/

The "version we *know* works" is the software that's currently running
the English wikipedia, for which we have localization files for
Esperanto, German, Polish, Spanish, and soon French.

Test/demo servers in various states of updatedness:
   Polish: http://test.wikipedia.com/
   German: http://test-de.wikipedia.com/
   Esperanto: http://test-eo.wikipedia.com/

Active:
   Spanish (forked): http://enciclopedia.us.es/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Page layout in new code

body:
On Fri, 14 Jun 2002 koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> It just occurred to me that another option might be to let the user
> specify which links show in the side bar.  I don't know how practicable
> that is, but I for one wouldn't mind if I could "turn off" the links to
> short and long pages, among others. (though I know others would).

Like, if the user is logged in as $username and if there is a page named
user:$username/sidebar, that wiki page would be included in the sidebar
instead of the standard menu.  Or why stop at the sidebar - the entire
user interface could be specified by user:$username/layout with a single
<<PAGE>> describing where that users wants the page contents displayed.

Next step, put the wiki source code on a (meta) wiki, so anybody can
edit it.  :-)

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


from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] possible explanation for Spanish 'pedia fork;
	plus some thoughts...

body:
On 7/9/02 5:28 PM, "lcrocker at nupedia.com" <lcrocker at nupedia.com> wrote:

>
>> What, does 24 write in Spanish now? ;)
>
> Nah, the "elite" thing was never his beef.  Sounds more like
> they're being run by an El Cunctadoro :-)
> 0
Ha ha.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Intnl wiki mailing list

body:
On Tuesday 09 July 2002 05:45 pm, Anthere wrote:
> You should go to the international mailing list (or
> register for that matter). I think there are many
> comments that should lighten the matter to you. Both
> on the spanish fork and about the french "threat". It
> will probably answer some of your questions.

I'll do that. Thanks for suggesting it. (I oftentimes miss the obvious :-).

--maveric149


from_name: Tim McCormick

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Introduction; OpenContentList project announcement

body:
Wikipedians--

I've been following Wikipedia and Nupedia for a while,
so wanted to
delurk, thank everyone for the most interesting work
going on here,
and describe two closely-related projects on which I'm
working.

First, OpenCritic.org, an early-stage initiative whose
goal is to build
"a universal, public, open, and extensible database of
critical information
-- reviews, articles, lists, and bibliographic data."?
I am interested in
focusing on critical/bibliographic data, and creating
information
exchanges with other projects, such as Wikipedia or
FreeDB, that are
developing libre data resources. More project
information is available at
http://www.opencritic.org.

Secondly, I have started a site and mailing list
called OpenContentList,
for news, articles, announcements, and discussion of
Open Content issues
in general. It is an outgrowth of an extensive Open
Content resources page
I've been compiling and maintaining for the last two
years or so
(see http://www.opencontentlist.com/resources). My
goal is to provide a
bit of a watering-hole and announcements board for the
large and growing
community working on what I'd call Open Content
projects -- from
Wikipedia to Creative Commons to public-domain
bioinformatics; and to
help disseminate the news and developments to a wider
community of
technologists and journalists. See
http://www.opencontentlist.com and
http://www.opencontentlist.com/about

I invite all Wikipedia participants to take a look,
and to send me any
news or announcements of Open Content-style projects.
I will try to keep
my lists as up-to-date with these, and with Wikipedia
news.

thanks,
 Tim

-----
Tim McCormick
http://www.tjm.org / www.opencritic.org? / www.opencontentlist.com

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from_name: Stephen Gilbert

body:
Tim,

Your projects sound interesting. I especially like the
idea of OpenCritic.org, and I'll probably drop by and
take a look.

- Stephen Gilbert

--- Tim McCormick <tjmccormick2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Wikipedians--
>
> I've been following Wikipedia and Nupedia for a
> while,
> so wanted to
> delurk, thank everyone for the most interesting work
> going on here,
> and describe two closely-related projects on which
> I'm
> working.
>
> First, OpenCritic.org, an early-stage initiative
> whose
> goal is to build
> "a universal, public, open, and extensible database
> of
> critical information
> -- reviews, articles, lists, and bibliographic
> data."???
> I am interested in
> focusing on critical/bibliographic data, and
> creating
> information
> exchanges with other projects, such as Wikipedia or
> FreeDB, that are
> developing libre data resources. More project
> information is available at
> http://www.opencritic.org.
>
> Secondly, I have started a site and mailing list
> called OpenContentList,
> for news, articles, announcements, and discussion of
> Open Content issues
> in general. It is an outgrowth of an extensive Open
> Content resources page
> I've been compiling and maintaining for the last two
> years or so
> (see http://www.opencontentlist.com/resources). My
> goal is to provide a
> bit of a watering-hole and announcements board for
> the
> large and growing
> community working on what I'd call Open Content
> projects -- from
> Wikipedia to Creative Commons to public-domain
> bioinformatics; and to
> help disseminate the news and developments to a
> wider
> community of
> technologists and journalists. See
> http://www.opencontentlist.com and
> http://www.opencontentlist.com/about
>
> I invite all Wikipedia participants to take a look,
> and to send me any
> news or announcements of Open Content-style
> projects.
> I will try to keep
> my lists as up-to-date with these, and with
> Wikipedia
> news.
>
> thanks,
>  Tim
>
> -----
> Tim McCormick
> http://www.tjm.org / www.opencritic.org??? /
> www.opencontentlist.com
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] On forking

body:
On Tuesday 09 July 2002 02:27 pm, Lee wrote:
> But even so, I'm not sure a fork is such a bad thing (or to
> be clear, I don't think it's bad if some other group owns one
> of the foreign Wikis--I do think it's bad to have to separate
> ones).

To be clear, what I meant by "fork" was that there are two or more projects
doing the exact same thing in the same language (in this case, two Spanish
language FDLd encyclopedia's with the same darn editing rules and very
similar policies).

So long as the underlying software is compatible so that things like inter
wiki links work, then it doesn't matter that a particular language wiki is
not on the same server as other languages or not (would be nice to have all
languages with the same software soon...). My main point was that if efforts
between the two Spanish wikis were combined, then that wiki would grow even
faster and have even better quality articles.

Speaking of forking Lee, do you have any idea if Enciclopedia Libre Universal
en Espa?ol plan on forking the php codebase? -- that too would be an
unfortunate duplication of effort (in the same way as it would be unfortunate
if Linux forked).

On Tuesday 09 July 2002 02:27 pm, Jan Hidders wrote:
> Is that really such a big problem? I know it wastes effort but we can still
> copy articles from them and vice versa, right?

Yes, all text on either side can be copied back and forth because of the FDL
(not sure about the link -- I thought that was an encouraged condition and
not a requirement?), but merging articles is time consumming and wouldn't be
needed if there were only one Spanish language FDLd wiki encyclopedia
project.

On Tuesday 09 July 2002 05:45 pm, Anthere wrote:
> I know some of us seem to consider forking later on a
> sort of natural occurrence. Others do not...

On Tuesday 09 July 2002 05:45 pm, Brion wrote:
> I personally would have no real objection to an _amicable_ fork, in
> which a group runs their own server but we all work together on matters
> of mutual interest: use of the name, integration/linking between
> languages, sharing updates to the software, etc.

Could not have said it better myself.

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] On forking

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> On Tuesday 09 July 2002 02:27 pm, Lee wrote:
>>But even so, I'm not sure a fork is such a bad thing (or to
>>be clear, I don't think it's bad if some other group owns one
>>of the foreign Wikis--I do think it's bad to have to separate
>>ones).
>
> To be clear, what I meant by "fork" was that there are two or more projects
> doing the exact same thing in the same language (in this case, two Spanish
> language FDLd encyclopedia's with the same darn editing rules and very
> similar policies).
>
> So long as the underlying software is compatible so that things like inter
> wiki links work, then it doesn't matter that a particular language wiki is
> not on the same server as other languages or not (would be nice to have all
> languages with the same software soon...).

For kicks, I tried adding lang links to the article on Esperanto:
http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Esperanto&oldID=19263

The links point to the correct places, but they appear in the text
rather than being automagically listed in the page header by language
name. It looks like they've tweaked the code to remove the integration
feature, but links can still be made.

 > My main point was that if efforts between the two Spanish wikis were
 > combined, then that wiki would grow even  faster and have even better
 > quality articles.

No argument here!

> Speaking of forking Lee, do you have any idea if Enciclopedia Libre Universal
> en Espa?ol plan on forking the php codebase? -- that too would be an
> unfortunate duplication of effort (in the same way as it would be unfortunate
> if Linux forked).

The last time I heard anything from them about the software was April
30, when Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas (juanan at us.es) contributed the Spanish
localization file. Their server doesn't have special_edituser.php, which
was added to CVS May 13, so they seem to have a version of the codebase
from roughly that period, late April-ish.

I don't know if they're doing separate development from that codebase,
or just not updating. Ask Juan directly, or maybe he's still on intlwiki-l.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 12:56:16PM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> We should consider doing some strategizing to make
> sure another fork doesn?t happen (I hear members of
> the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).

Is that really such a big problem? I know it wastes effort but we can still
copy articles from them and vice versa, right? But does our license then
force them to put a link on every article that they have copied from the
original site?

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Gareth Owen

in_reply_to: Brion VIBBER's message of "Tue, 09 Jul 2002 15:01:45 -0800"

body:
Brion VIBBER <brion at pobox.com> writes:

> (Note that there's an even newer version of the Wiki software in
> development, but we'll adapt the translations etc after we've got things
> transferred to the version we *know* works.)

I don't want to appear glib, but which one are you referring to?
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] minor ? about stats in new codebase.

body:
In the new software, would something like [[User talk archive 1:maveric149]]
be counted as an article when the statistics are run, or does the stats look
for and exclude any article with the string "talk" in it?

--maveric149


from_name: Imran Ghory

body:
On 9 Jul 2002, at 23:07, Jan.Hidders wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 12:56:16PM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> >
> > We should consider doing some strategizing to make
> > sure another fork doesn?t happen (I hear members of
> > the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).
>
> Is that really such a big problem? I know it wastes effort but we can
> still copy articles from them and vice versa, right?

If the arguement is on a superficial issue, i.e. banner adverts, there
is no reason why the backends (i.e the articles) of both projects
can't essentially be mirrors of one another.

> But does our
> license then force them to put a link on every article that they have
> copied from the original site?

No, what the licence does say is that,

1) They can't use the name Wikipedia without permission, i.e. they
have to rename.

2) They can't remove the name of the authors of articles, in the
case of anonymous articles, this might mean they have to attribute
Wikipedia.

3) For at least the next four years they will need to acknowledge
wikipedia.com as the source, but this can be done on a "History"
page and need not be on every article.

IANAL. But I'm familiar with copyleft licences and their application
to non-software content.

Imran
--
TheOpenCD Project
Promoting Open Source on Windows
http://www.theopencd.org


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] possible explanation for Spanish 'pedia fork; plus some laughs...

body:
LOL !!!!
excellentissime !!!!

C'est ? se pisser dessus !

hahahahahahahahahahhahah

Thank you very much Lars for that HUGE laugh this morning.

I am sorry I didnot have more than a couple of minutes, but I am looking forward fully appreciating it this evening

Good job !

On est pas pr?t de faire une encyclo avec ?a et cela ne va pas am?liorer notre image de marque de dilettantes !!!

Mais...j'en glousse encore

hihihihihihih

anth?re

  Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote: On Tue, 9 Jul 2002, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> We should consider doing some strategizing to make
> sure another fork doesn't happen (I hear members of
> the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).

There are two ways:
1) Be the better alternative (like former West Germany), or
2) Build a Berlin Wall and shoot any defectors (like former GDR).

The French Wikipedia runs the old software. The "Home Page" and "Recent
Changes" links are not translated into French. ISBN numbers to French
titles (such as on http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Langage_C) lead to
U.S. online bookstores that don't sell French titles. Page titles have
Every Word In Caps, which is against French language use. I don't speak
French, but these deficiencies are just so obvious, so showstopping.

I cannot understand how the French Wikipedia in its current state can
succeed in attracting any new contributors.

If I were an active contributor to the French Wikipedia, I would fork now
before the wall goes up, since there is nothing that indicates that Bomis
has alternative (1) as their strategy for fr.wikipedia.com.

Here is a nice looking French Wiki with 600 pages and a weird kind of
humor that I could show to my French-speaking friends, if I wanted to
explain the Wiki concept to them, http://www.weaki.org/

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

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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body:
On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 02:58:39PM -0700, Anthere wrote:
> I am not sure you really realise what you are writing here Jan.

That could be, I am not a native English speaking person, so my remarks are
sometimes a bit unpolished. I hope you understand. :-)

> Consider carefully the "it wastes effort but we can still copy articles
> from them" and vice versa - thank you for it actually, some of us that do
> great copies of the en.wiki do put the link each time. Not so much to give
> you credit maybe, than to try to link our wikis together rather than
> making separate wikis... Now, if you understand french (are you belgian
> ?), we would be most delighted to see you copy an article from the fr.site
> one day...

I have been living and working in Belgium for a year, but am Dutch by birth.
Unfortunately I don't really speak French although I usually can manage to
read a French newspaper, but since I am living in Belgium I'm slowly trying
to pick up again the French I was taught for six years in school. So maybe I
will, one day. :-) But I digress...

I was not really thinking about copying between the English wikipedia to
wikipedias in other languages, but from wikipedias at wikipedia.com to forks
in the same language. The "us" in my remark was not the English wikipedia
but the whole of wikipedias at wikipedia.com. This is probably because I
have no idea about the fights that have been fought over the possible forks
of non-English wikipedias, so my ideas of "us" and "them" might be different
from yours. I have the feeling that you have concluded that I am one of
"them".

I also have the impression that you think that I would be against copying
things from wikipedia. Nothing could be further from the truth. The whole
reason that I find wikipedia interesting is that its contents are open and
placed under a licence that keeps it open. It is very important to me that
Bomis does not own the contents of wikipedia.

> Also consider very carefully the "does our license then FORCE them to put
> a link on every article that they have copied from the original site"
> That's an interesting comment. Indeed I'd like to know what the licence
> says about that !

It wasn't a comment, it was a question. But I have to admit that I mainly
asked it to see what Jimbo's opionion would be. Did you read the GFDL on
this, especially section 4? There's more to the GFDL than just that the
modified work should again be under the GFDL.

> Let's be serious. I consider great that some french speaking come and
> visit from time to time. We must somehow get over these cultural
> differences.

Well, here in Belgium they seem to have several cultures within a single
country. It's not always easy but in general they make it work here. I don't
see why that couldn't be the case for wikipedia.

Sinc?res amiti?s

-- Jan Hidders


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikitech-l] brokenlinks table

body:
Jan writes:

> Ultimately the best solution would be to have a table wanted(title,
> #pages) with an index on #pages (and a unique index on title), then
> MySQL wouldn't need to sort at all. I don't know of the top of my head
> if there are any other queries that depend on 'brokenlinks' but I
> don't believe so and if there are not then I would recommend replacing
> it.

I believe we need the full brokenlinks information in order to
initialize the links table once a new article is written, so that
"What links here" will immediately work for new articles.

Nevertheless, I think we should have a wanted table as above in
addition. Space is really no issue, but time is, and Most Wanted is
likely to be one of our more commonly called slow functions.

Axel


in_reply_to: <3D2B75D8.22125.2E07034@localhost>; from ImranG@btinternet.com on Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 11:46:32PM +0100

body:
On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 11:46:32PM +0100, Imran Ghory wrote:
> On 9 Jul 2002, at 23:07, Jan.Hidders wrote:
> >
> > But does our license then force them to put a link on every article that
> > they have copied from the original site?
>
> No, what the licence does say is that,
>
> 1) They can't use the name Wikipedia without permission, i.e. they
> have to rename.
>
> 2) They can't remove the name of the authors of articles, in the
> case of anonymous articles, this might mean they have to attribute
> Wikipedia.

But in Wikipedia articles aren't necessarily anonymous; there's a history
that describes who wrote what. That's why it was suggested that a link to
the original article (and thereby its history) could replace the list of
original authors.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How do I add a photo/image to an entry?

body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> I've got some fairly good photos of Australian native plants etc that I
> want to add to the appropriate entries, but I don't have a clue how to
> do it.

First, if necessary crop & size the photos to an appropriate size for
the web. Save as a JPEG file; if you want, tweak the compression
settings to achieve a nice balance between small file size and good
image quality. The file name should preferably be reasonably descriptive
(say, the name of the plant) but not too long; try to avoid funny
characters or punctuation beyond ".", "_", and "-".

Now, go to the Upload page: http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/special:Upload
and follow the directions there to upload the file to the server. In the
"description" box, you might mention which article you plan to use the
image in.

Once the file is successfully uploaded, find it in the list on the
upload page or the uploads log (the upload page is sorted oddly, so it's
easier to find your file in the log -- [[log:Uploads]]). Click on the
name of your file, and if everything has gone well, you should be
greeted with your picture.

In your browser's location bar there should now be the URL for the image
(something like http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/someimage.jpg). Copy
that URL, and paste it into an article at the point where you want the
picture to appear.

That ought to do it...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


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subject: [Wikitech-l] brokenlinks table

in_reply_to: <200207100023.CAA14119@linde.uni-paderborn.de>; from axel@uni-paderborn.de on Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 02:23:13AM +0200

body:
On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 02:23:13AM +0200, Axel Boldt wrote:
> Jan writes:
>
> > Ultimately the best solution would be to have a table wanted(title,
> > #pages) with an index on #pages (and a unique index on title), then
> > MySQL wouldn't need to sort at all. I don't know of the top of my head
> > if there are any other queries that depend on 'brokenlinks' but I
> > don't believe so and if there are not then I would recommend replacing
> > it.
>
> I believe we need the full brokenlinks information in order to
> initialize the links table once a new article is written, so that
> "What links here" will immediately work for new articles.

Good grief. How could I miss that? I even remember writing the code that did
that! You are of course completely right. Lee already pointed out another
problem that has to do with the fact that pages are not saved until after
they are rendered, but by that time the information of the old page (esp.
the valid links on that page) is no longer in the internal PHP variables.

> Nevertheless, I think we should have a wanted table as above in
> addition. Space is really no issue, but time is, and Most Wanted is
> likely to be one of our more commonly called slow functions.

In fact I advised the same thing by mail to Lee. However, I also agree with
Lee that we should now go with the quick fix and get Wikipedia running on
the new code base ASAP. Then we will be able to get some real timing data
and be sure that this is one of the bottle-necks. I strongly suspect it will
be because it will still be eating a lot of space. If I had the time and Lee
would allow it I would probably go and implement it right away.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Difficult Research...

body:
An ABEbooks search returns 618 hits on the keyword silversmiths.

At 12:02 PM 7/10/02 +1000, you wrote:
>You know it's going to be hard to find any decent information on a
>subject when the primary link shown by Google is the Wikipedia stub that
>you're trying to work on! Has anybody ever heard of a silversmith named
>Porter Blanchard? Apparantly he was famous enough that there's an
>archive of his personal letters, but not for any meaningful internet
>pages to have been written about him!
>
>--
>
>Karen AKA Kajikit
>
>You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
>out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...
>
>Come and visit my part of the web:
>Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
>Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
>Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
>
>Love and huggles to all!
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Translation: This encyclopedia split off from the
> Castilian version of wikipedia after an announcement
> of the possibility that there would be advertising in
> the original version.

That's right.  But I think it was about more than that, really.

> We should consider doing some strategizing to make
> sure another fork doesn?t happen (I hear members of
> the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).

I think that one was a very isolated incident.  The story is that a
French guy sent a new logo to Jason.  Jason did not feel authorized to
just install it without asking someone.  I was not available, so he
asked 'the community'.  He wrote to the fellow a nice note explaining
this.

But this was taken the wrong way.  It was taken as a rejection, I
think, and as lacking in respect for the French community.  Why should
the English-speaking mailing lists have so much power?  That's a
legitimate question, but his response was -- in my opinion -- overly
harsh, and overly sensitive.

This was resolved quickly by me installing the fellow's logo and
declaring that we don't want to fight over it.  Also, as here, I
blamed the whole matter on confusion about Jason's role.  Jason works
for me, as an employee, so he doesn't just randomly go around doing
things he's not sure about without talking to me first.

-----

The big issue is that not only are our languages different, but our
cultures are different, our ways of interacting are different.  My
belief is that Americans (myself most emphatically included) are
blunt, simple, plain-talking people.

I have studied Japanese language, and Japanese culture.  My wife is
half-Japanese.  I'm not an expert by any means, but some things are
well-known about the differences between Japanese and Americans.  From
the American point of view, Japanese are perplexing because they do
not like to say 'no' to any request.  That doesn't mean that they are
pushovers and will do whatever is asked, it's just that it is rude in
their culture to just say flat-out 'no' in the way that Americans do.

Businesses trying to deal with Japanese companies find this frustrating.
A deal or partnership is offered, and the Japanese do not just say "no",
they say that they will think about it, that they have to have a meeting,
etc.  If Americans understood that this means 'no', then there would be no
problem.  Japanese deal with each other very well.

This is all an oversimplification, of course.  But it illustrates the
kinds of problems we will have.

The Europeans report that we seem "pushy" to them.  This is baffling
to us.  We're just being Americans, dealing with each other just fine
in the way that we deal with each other.  But this seems pushy to
Europeans.

We could argue forever about who is "right" or "wrong" or which method
of dealing with each other is better.  It doesn't matter, though.  The
point is, there will be misunderstandings no matter what we do, BUT we
can and should try to minimize these by remembering that we are all
from different cultures.  What seems rude to Americans will seem
normal to French people, and vice-versa.

> Specifically, we might want to revisit the idea of
> wikipedia becoming a non-profit (preferably a European
> one). That way, anti-Americanism and distrust of
> Boomis (which is both an American company and, /gasp/,
> for-profit) wouldn?t weigh on anybody?s mind.

I agree with the non-profit part.  The American part, I don't know.  I
don't really care.  My plan is to continue supporting Wikipedia with
bandwidth, machinery, and as much programming as I can afford.  And I
anticipate that there will never be any financial returns to me, at
all.  This is now a hobby, a passion.

So, to me, the institutional structure is more or less unimportant.

It will cost some money to set up the nonprofit, and I chose recently to
buy wikipedia a new $3000 server rather than set up some useless legal
rigamarole.

But I know that this can not continue indefinitely, particularly if the
current situation leads to mistrust.

> Oh and there would be
> no reason why a non-profit Wikipedia.org couldn?t have
> a corporate sponsor. ;-)

Sure, but I think that "sponsor" is really not the right word.  I think
"patron" is more accurate.

A sponsor gets something in return -- advertising space.  Based on the
reactions against such ideas when floated in the past, and based on
the overall low cost of keeping wikipedia going, I don't need that.
I'm happy to be a small-time benefactor.

So long as wikipedia is part of Bomis, Inc., my costs are tax
deductible as ordinary business expenses, with no paperwork and no
complicated justifications to the IRS.  I just spend money, the
company is that much less profitable, and that's that.  Any benefit to
Bomis is highly intangible, but that's fine.

Once Wikipedia is a separate entity, then there are all sorts of rules
that will partially inhibit my ability to simply freely spend money.  I
don't really know what *all* the ramifications are.  One ramification is
that I have to spend time learning more tax law, ugh!  :-)

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

One idea, once we get a nonprofit, is to set up a bank account strictly
for hardware expenses.  I'll continue to supply bandwidth, but other
contributors will contribute to the hardware fund.  We'll set up a credit
card merchant account and let people make one-time donations *and* to set up
for monthly billing.   You might sign up at the $20 level, and every month
we'd autobill your credit card for $20.  ALL the money would be strictly
earmarked for hardware, to be owned by the nonprofit entity.

Later, if I get tired of paying for the bandwidth (which is not
important right now, because the total traffic on wikipedia is a mere
fraction of my bandwidth across my network of web sites), that fund
would start paying for bandwidth.

If levels of contribution were eventually high enough, then we could
float proposals to the donors for other potentially worthy projects.
Individual donors could earmark money as they see fit, perhaps.  We
might earmark money to hire a fulltime editor again, although in the
wikipedia system, this seems unnecessary.

We might earmark money to hire a programmer, although that's expensive of
course.

But anyhow, that's one of the big benefits of a nonprofit... it makes it
easier for people to donate money to help out.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Difficult Research...

body:
Might try this book:

The Arts and Crafts Movement in California - Living the Good Life, ed. by
Kenneth R. Trapp for the Oakland Museum, 1993, Abbeville Press, ISBN
1-55859493-0

At 12:02 PM 7/10/02 +1000, you wrote:
>You know it's going to be hard to find any decent information on a
>subject when the primary link shown by Google is the Wikipedia stub that
>you're trying to work on! Has anybody ever heard of a silversmith named
>Porter Blanchard? Apparantly he was famous enough that there's an
>archive of his personal letters, but not for any meaningful internet
>pages to have been written about him!
>
>--
>
>Karen AKA Kajikit
>
>You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
>out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...
>
>Come and visit my part of the web:
>Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
>Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
>Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
>
>Love and huggles to all!
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] This Español/Castellano split

body:
On Tue, 9 Jul 2002, Anthere wrote:
> I don't agree at all with you on this point.
> Even with a z and s matter, you speak the same
> language and understand each other. The fork had
> apparently nothing to do with a castillan and spanish
> language. The fork seemed to come from a scare upon
> "english imperialism".

Whatever the reason, a fork or spinoff is, in my opionion, not necessarily
bad.  I think it would be worse if Bomis, Inc. was the only entity in this
world that has the energy to start and operate general purpose
encyclopedias based on Wiki technology.  Independence and ownership are
strong driving forces that promote responsibility and innovation.

An analogy: Gottlieb Daimler in Germany was the first to build a useful
automobile, but the Americans weren't late to "fork" that project, add the
assembly line, and build their own cars.  The Japanese too stole the idea,
and started to compete with the Americans in their own market. Most would
agree that the U.S. automotive industry has gained more than they lost
from the competition from Japanese car makers.  Whining about people who
stole ideas and forked projects is not the way forward.  Let the forking
projects be, let them implement their own innovations (and then steal
back their ideas!).  Competition is good, we'd better learn to embrace it.

The project at the University of Sevilla is no longer "the Spanish
Wikipedia", but a separate project with its own name, "Enciclopedia Libre
Universal en Espanol", http://enciclopedia.us.es/
They've grown faster than any non-English Wikipedia, just like the Polish
Wikipedia did during its breakout period. Some of their articles are mere
templates for geographic place names, but more substance has been added
lately.

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


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] possible explanation for Spanish 'pedia fork; plus
 some thoughts...

body:
On Tue, 9 Jul 2002, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> We should consider doing some strategizing to make
> sure another fork doesn't happen (I hear members of
> the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).

There are two ways:
1) Be the better alternative (like former West Germany), or
2) Build a Berlin Wall and shoot any defectors (like former GDR).

The French Wikipedia runs the old software.  The "Home Page" and "Recent
Changes" links are not translated into French.  ISBN numbers to French
titles (such as on http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Langage_C) lead to
U.S. online bookstores that don't sell French titles.  Page titles have
Every Word In Caps, which is against French language use.  I don't speak
French, but these deficiencies are just so obvious, so showstopping.

I cannot understand how the French Wikipedia in its current state can
succeed in attracting any new contributors.

If I were an active contributor to the French Wikipedia, I would fork now
before the wall goes up, since there is nothing that indicates that Bomis
has alternative (1) as their strategy for fr.wikipedia.com.

Here is a nice looking French Wiki with 600 pages and a weird kind of
humor that I could show to my French-speaking friends, if I wanted to
explain the Wiki concept to them, http://www.weaki.org/

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] BusStop

body:
Why don't you also post this on the international
mailing list ?

http://ross.bomis.com/mailman/listinfo/intlwiki-l

--- Kurt Jansson <jansson at gmx.net> wrote:
> Hello Dear Wikipedians!
>
> German wiki-activist HelmutLeitner has started to
> create some BusTours
> between all the different wikis. The idea reminds me
> of webrings, but
> there are differnences. The tours shall intensify
> the cooperation and
> community feeling between the different projects.
>
> Helmut asked me to invite the international
> Wikipedia, so maybe someone
> could take a look at
> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BusManagement
> Everything is described there.
>
> Is it something the international Wikipedia want's
> to be a part of?
>
> I liked the idea enough to create a German Wikipedia
> BusStop.
>
> Kurt
>
> P.S.: Do we have a InterWikiLinking feature in the
> new software? If not,
> maybe we should?
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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body:
Thanks for your nice answers Jan.
I have been living in Antwerpen for a while, also
moved quite a bit further north. Though the climate
was terrible, the people were really great.

I forgot this morning to make you all benefit of the
new address of the french wiki :

For those of you who understand a little bit of french
(though it might not matter really...), check out

http://www.locus-solus.org/machine/getUrl.asp?page=http://fr.wikipedia.com/

Thanks Lars ! J'en ris encore...

--- "Jan.Hidders" <hidders at uia.ua.ac.be> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 02:58:39PM -0700, Anthere
> wrote:
> > I am not sure you really realise what you are
> writing here Jan.
>
> That could be, I am not a native English speaking
> person, so my remarks are
> sometimes a bit unpolished. I hope you understand.
> :-)
>
> > Consider carefully the "it wastes effort but we
> can still copy articles
> > from them" and vice versa - thank you for it
> actually, some of us that do
> > great copies of the en.wiki do put the link each
> time. Not so much to give
> > you credit maybe, than to try to link our wikis
> together rather than
> > making separate wikis... Now, if you understand
> french (are you belgian
> > ?), we would be most delighted to see you copy an
> article from the fr.site
> > one day...
>
> I have been living and working in Belgium for a
> year, but am Dutch by birth.
> Unfortunately I don't really speak French although I
> usually can manage to
> read a French newspaper, but since I am living in
> Belgium I'm slowly trying
> to pick up again the French I was taught for six
> years in school. So maybe I
> will, one day. :-) But I digress...
>
> I was not really thinking about copying between the
> English wikipedia to
> wikipedias in other languages, but from wikipedias
> at wikipedia.com to forks
> in the same language. The "us" in my remark was not
> the English wikipedia
> but the whole of wikipedias at wikipedia.com. This
> is probably because I
> have no idea about the fights that have been fought
> over the possible forks
> of non-English wikipedias, so my ideas of "us" and
> "them" might be different
> from yours. I have the feeling that you have
> concluded that I am one of
> "them".
>
> I also have the impression that you think that I
> would be against copying
> things from wikipedia. Nothing could be further from
> the truth. The whole
> reason that I find wikipedia interesting is that its
> contents are open and
> placed under a licence that keeps it open. It is
> very important to me that
> Bomis does not own the contents of wikipedia.
>
> > Also consider very carefully the "does our license
> then FORCE them to put
> > a link on every article that they have copied from
> the original site"
> > That's an interesting comment. Indeed I'd like to
> know what the licence
> > says about that !
>
> It wasn't a comment, it was a question. But I have
> to admit that I mainly
> asked it to see what Jimbo's opionion would be. Did
> you read the GFDL on
> this, especially section 4? There's more to the GFDL
> than just that the
> modified work should again be under the GFDL.
>
> > Let's be serious. I consider great that some
> french speaking come and
> > visit from time to time. We must somehow get over
> these cultural
> > differences.
>
> Well, here in Belgium they seem to have several
> cultures within a single
> country. It's not always easy but in general they
> make it work here. I don't
> see why that couldn't be the case for wikipedia.
>
> Sinc?res amiti?s
>
> -- Jan Hidders
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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references: <3D2B75D8.22125.2E07034@localhost>; from ImranG@btinternet.com on Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 11:46:32PM +0100

body:
On 10 Jul 2002, at 2:34, Jan.Hidders wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 11:46:32PM +0100, Imran Ghory wrote:
> > On 9 Jul 2002, at 23:07, Jan.Hidders wrote:
> > >
> > > But does our license then force them to put a link on every
> > > article that they have copied from the original site?
> >
> > No, what the licence does say is that,
> >
> > 1) They can't use the name Wikipedia without permission, i.e. they
> > have to rename.
> >
> > 2) They can't remove the name of the authors of articles, in the
> > case of anonymous articles, this might mean they have to attribute
> > Wikipedia.
>
> But in Wikipedia articles aren't necessarily anonymous; there's a
> history that describes who wrote what.

I was referring to people who hadn't logged in rather then wikipedia as a whole.

> That's why it was suggested
> that a link to the original article (and thereby its history) could
> replace the list of original authors.


in_reply_to: <3D2BFB6B.FBCB1FC8@labyrinth.net.au>; from kaji@labyrinth.net.au on Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 07:16:27PM +1000

body:
On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 07:16:27PM +1000, Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> I've got some fairly good photos of Australian native plants etc that I
> want to add to the appropriate entries, but I don't have a clue how to
> do it.

Go to 'upload files' either by quickbar or by 'Special pages'. Then
- select the file from your system (click the "browse" button)
- enter a short description of the file
- mark the box to indicate that there's no copyright problem
- hit upload

If all goes well and the file's name is wombat.jpg you can then link to it
in an article with

   http://www.wikipedia.com/images/uploads/wombat.jpg

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Difficult Research...

body:
You know it's going to be hard to find any decent information on a
subject when the primary link shown by Google is the Wikipedia stub that
you're trying to work on! Has anybody ever heard of a silversmith named
Porter Blanchard? Apparantly he was famous enough that there's an
archive of his personal letters, but not for any meaningful internet
pages to have been written about him!

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

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

Love and huggles to all!


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] miroir, oh mon miroir...

body:
to kq

Hum did you click on the link for the en.wiki
(Wikipedia) that is located on the second line ???

OK; let me provide a second link then

http://www.locus-solus.org/machine/getURL.asp?page=http://www.wikipedia.com

and please somebody explain that to me...

anth?re

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from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] BusStop

body:
Hello Dear Wikipedians!

German wiki-activist HelmutLeitner has started to create some BusTours
between all the different wikis. The idea reminds me of webrings, but
there are differnences. The tours shall intensify the cooperation and
community feeling between the different projects.

Helmut asked me to invite the international Wikipedia, so maybe someone
could take a look at
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BusManagement
Everything is described there.

Is it something the international Wikipedia want's to be a part of?

I liked the idea enough to create a German Wikipedia BusStop.

Kurt

P.S.: Do we have a InterWikiLinking feature in the new software? If not,
maybe we should?


in_reply_to: <200207100718.g6A7IU317775@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 12:18:30AM -0700

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > In the new software, would something like [[User talk archive
> > 1:maveric149]] be counted as an article when the statistics are
> > run, or does the stats look for and exclude any article with the
> > string "talk" in it?
>
> Only the specifically recognized namespace prefixes are treated
> as namespaces; anything else is just a regular article with a
> colon in the title. 0

This sounds dangerous to me, as people might inadvertantly "pollute" the
namespace name space?

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] software conversion of wikipedia.de

body:
Kurt Jansson wrote:
> What can we do to speed up the process?

We could try to find some German-language PHP programmers who are willing
to volunteer some time to review the code.  We can set up accounts for them
on the server, if we trust them, which, being wikipedians, we do to a fault.
:-)

> Maybe my last mail was overlooked, but I'd still like to have sysop
> status at test-de.wikipedia.com, so that I'm able to play around with
> article renaming and all those other nice features we have now.
>
> Username: Kurt Jansson
>
> Maybe someone could also give sysop status to Ben-Zin, who is very
> active in testing the new software.
>
> When I'm sysop, can I give these rights to the other Wikipedians?

I apologize for being so confused, but which software is test-de.wikipedia.com
using?

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] miroir, oh mon miroir...

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from_name: Jason Richey

body:
I took a quick look at the "bug" list and found that many of the
problems are simple translation issues.  Granted, some of them aren't
quite that simple, but a lot of them are fairly easy fixes.

Jason

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Kurt Jansson wrote:
> > What can we do to speed up the process?
>
> We could try to find some German-language PHP programmers who are willing
> to volunteer some time to review the code.  We can set up accounts for them
> on the server, if we trust them, which, being wikipedians, we do to a fault.
> :-)
>
> > Maybe my last mail was overlooked, but I'd still like to have sysop
> > status at test-de.wikipedia.com, so that I'm able to play around with
> > article renaming and all those other nice features we have now.
> >
> > Username: Kurt Jansson
> >
> > Maybe someone could also give sysop status to Ben-Zin, who is very
> > active in testing the new software.
> >
> > When I'm sysop, can I give these rights to the other Wikipedians?
>
> I apologize for being so confused, but which software is test-de.wikipedia.com
> using?
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at ross.bomis.com
> http://ross.bomis.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


in_reply_to: <3D2CB85B.10649.2C7FCA0@localhost>; from ImranG@btinternet.com on Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 10:42:35PM +0100

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:
> That way the machines running wikipedia wouldn't be under the
> control of one organization/company, this also has the advantage
> that the cost of hardware/bandwidth/etc would be distributed.

I'm not opposed to this, but from a technical point of view, it is
complex to do it in a robust way.  I.E., with a central URL, we don't
get links to things that disappear, etc.

Also, the cost of bandwidth/hardware/etc is not that high.

> As for the donations, it might be possible to bring wikipedia under
> the wings of an already non-profit organization which everyone
> trusts (maybe FSF, FSF Europe, Ibiblio, or one of the open source
> education groups) that way we could get tax-free donations without
> the problem of setting up our own non-profit.

This is possible, but we would be giving control away from our
community, to another organization which might have different goals,
and might not respect our ways.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] miroir, oh mon miroir...

body:
Nope he apparently didnot. LOL
This is really excellent ! I noticed all the
transformed links were working on the french wiki,
while they do not on the english. Weird. And it's
dynamic !

btw JAN, it really was the fr.wiki you were looking
at, just slightly arranged.

With very light and oriented touches of
transformations, and people that don't seem to notice
the address changes... hummmm... there's something
there...

--- "Jan.Hidders" <hidders at uia.ua.ac.be> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 01:33:44PM -0700,
> koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> >
> > um, now I'm thoroughly confused.  The first link
> looked like a legitimate
> > french wiki, but searches didn't work.  The second
> link you sent (below)
> > looks like the English wikipedia with a few random
> words in French.
>
> You're joking, right? I mean, you did check what it
> is that
>
>   http://www.locus-solus.org/machine/
>
> does to a page, didn't you? :-)
>
> -- Jan Hidders
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] miroir, oh mon miroir...

body:
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from_name: Larry Sanger

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia/Nupedia funding

body:
Jimbo wrote:

> We might earmark money to hire a fulltime editor again, although in the
> wikipedia system, this seems unnecessary.

In case anyone is wondering, I agree.  The continuing success of Wikipedia
in my absence--which doesn't surprise me--makes it hard to justify my
return as a paid lead/organizer of Wikipedia, at least not anytime soon
and not as long as the project is plowing ahead more or less as it always
has.  I'm under no illusions about that, and I'm happy for the project.
It's a great thing Jimbo has made it his hobby and is supporting it as he
always has.

Nupedia is a different matter, of course.

I'm still unemployed, by the way.

Larry


body:
What can we do to speed up the process? Some people are getting
frustrated (also by the server problems) at the German wikipedia. I hope
people don't leave the project because of the much to often unreachable
or slow server, but I don't know. Hopefully the problems will be over
after the move to the new server.

We have translated the most important bug reports at
http://test-de.wikipedia.com/wiki/wikipedia:Bug_report

(German version at
http://test-de.wikipedia.com/wiki/wikipedia:Beobachtete_Fehler )

I hope we have found most of them.

Maybe my last mail was overlooked, but I'd still like to have sysop
status at test-de.wikipedia.com, so that I'm able to play around with
article renaming and all those other nice features we have now.

Username: Kurt Jansson

Maybe someone could also give sysop status to Ben-Zin, who is very
active in testing the new software.

When I'm sysop, can I give these rights to the other Wikipedians?

Thanks!

Kurt


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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] minor ? about stats in new codebase. + a proposal

body:
On Wednesday 10 July 2002 03:53 pm, Jimbo wrote:
> lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> >?> In the new software, would something like [[User talk archive
> >?> 1:maveric149]] be counted as an article when the statistics are
> >?> run, or does the stats look for and exclude any article with the
> >?> string "talk" in it?
> >?
> >?Only the specifically recognized namespace prefixes are treated
> >?as namespaces; anything else is just a regular article with a
> >?colon in the title. 0
>
> This sounds dangerous to me, as people might inadvertently "pollute" the
> namespace name space?
>
> --Jimbo

I agree -- that's why I asked the question.

However, I don't think we should just give up on the use of the colon
character as Magnus suggested. I see the use of the colon as one of the nicer
new features of the new wikiware version. But there is the stats issue.....

Would it be just as easy to run the stats based on grouping page names that
contain certain text strings?  For example, search for every page name that
has the strings "user", "talk", "wikipedia", "image", "/" and maybe "list" in
them, then group each of these, count the number in each category, remove
pages that are double counted then present several 'total number of articles'
stats on the stats page.

If this proposal would be more of a CPU resource issue than grouping by
namespace, then we could simply have these stats updated once a day based on
a snapshot of the page title database (this can be processed off-server or by
the server itself in bits and pieces whenever a few CPU cycles can be
spared).

This might be a good idea anyway, since I don't see the need to having a
stats page that recalculates the number of articles for each and every
request (esp. since the main reason for reworking the php wikiware was to
maximize efficiency).

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia/Nupedia funding

body:
I think that without your leadership at the start of
the project, Larry, the whole thing would have fallen
apart. Your most important contribution was getting
the community to follow the priniciple of the neutral
point of view. But now that we have a strong framework
set up, it seems that the Wikipedia community is
self-sustaining.

If I never mentioned it before... thanks!

--Stephen Gilbert

--- Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> wrote:
> Jimbo wrote:
>
> > We might earmark money to hire a fulltime editor
> again, although in the
> > wikipedia system, this seems unnecessary.
>
> In case anyone is wondering, I agree.  The
> continuing success of Wikipedia
> in my absence--which doesn't surprise me--makes it
> hard to justify my
> return as a paid lead/organizer of Wikipedia, at
> least not anytime soon
> and not as long as the project is plowing ahead more
> or less as it always
> has.  I'm under no illusions about that, and I'm
> happy for the project.
> It's a great thing Jimbo has made it his hobby and
> is supporting it as he
> always has.
>
> Nupedia is a different matter, of course.
>
> I'm still unemployed, by the way.
>
> Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia/Nupedia funding

body:
>but I'm sure your job was essential at the beginning of
>Wikipedia.

Yeah, sort of!  Thanks for noticing.  :-)

Larry


body:
> > > As for the donations, it might be possible to
> bring wikipedia under
> > > the wings of an already non-profit organization
> which everyone
> > > trusts (maybe FSF, FSF Europe, Ibiblio, or one
> of the open source
> > > education groups) that way we could get tax-free
> donations without
> > > the problem of setting up our own non-profit.
> >
> > This is possible, but we would be giving control
> away from our
> > community, to another organization which might
> have different goals,
> > and might not respect our ways.
>
> We wouldn't have to surrender control, but rather
> use them as an
> umbrella org, i.e. they could collect the donations
> and put them
> under the control of  a "wikipedia board".
>
> Imran

Hmmm... that sounds like a good idea to me. If we were
to go this route, I think Ibiblio might be the most
appropriate choice, as it specializes more in
"content" projects, rather than software. Although I
think "The Nupedia Foundation" sounds cool. ;-)

-- Stephen G.

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body:
I've got some fairly good photos of Australian native plants etc that I
want to add to the appropriate entries, but I don't have a clue how to
do it.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

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

Love and huggles to all!


body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] uber lingua wiki

body:
wikipedia-l at nupedia.com 10 July 2002 3:53 pm, Jan Hidders wrote:
> Actually, I wonder if we should not do exactly the opposite: have one code
> base with one database that serves all wikipedias. I have the feeling that
> in terms of software maintenance the non-English wikipedia's are getting a
> very raw deal indeed; reported bugs are fixed earlier on the English
> wikipedia and the major software changes always happen there first. I
> assume this creates a feeling of being left out there in the cold. Having
> one common system would in my opinion also strengthen the sense of
> community.

Just want to say that I think this would be an excellent idea (if it's
feasible)! It really would lead to very tight integration of the projects
(e.g. being able to choose which language to perform searches in among other
things -- see below). This would also allow, as you said, for instant
updating of all wikis at once (assuming any new hard-coded wording is
translated). This is how most software is developed, why not here? (although
the install routine of most other software requires choosing ONE and only one
language; so I am not sure if multiple languages could run at the same time
in the same program).

In addition, it would also be neat if users could then be able to set their
preferences so that they could choose which languages pops up in their
version of RecentChanges. Then Brion could watch all changes made to both the
Esperanto wiki and the English wiki at the same time in the same Recent
Changes, Anthere could do that with the French and English wiki and I could
watch the English, Spanish and what the hell, Latin wikis in the same
RecentChanges.

If a user wanted to, they could have a tower of Babel going on in their
"Inter-wiki Recent Changes". For example: Clicking on de:atom in
RecentChanges (or Cambios Recientes, Ostatnie zmiany, Changements
R?cents....) would take the user to the German article with all the sidebar
links, the logo and hard-coded wording in German (even though the underlying
php code would be exactly the same -- language meta tags could be affixed to
each page in the database to ID the language the article was written in). The
fr:, de:, eo:, en: or whatever would only be part of the display of the
page's name in such a Inter Wiki RecentChanges and wouldn't be actually part
of the article's name -- just like the current inter wiki links in the php
software running the English wikipedia.

Of course, this feature would by default be set to only display the language
of the wiki the user signed-in with for that session -- with no language
codes in front of page names.

I don't know if this would be easier or harder than having separate software
programs running the separate language wikis. But then, I could just as
easily split the display of my web browser Konqueror into two panes - one
with Recent Changes and the other with Cambios Recientes. But I'm lazy and
stubburn. :-)

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia/Nupedia funding

body:
On Wednesday 10 July 2002 03:53 pm, Kurt Jansson wrote:
> I think for every new international Wikipedia someone like Larry would
> be very helpfull. You need someone who feels responsible for the
> project, especially in the first months. When we have enough money maybe
> we should hire some enthusiastic academic guy for each Wikipedia that
> hasn't already "taken off" for a few months. :-)
>
> Kurt

Sounds good to me - just need the money. ;-)

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] uber lingua wiki

body:
> wikipedia-l at nupedia.com 10 July 2002 3:53 pm, Jan Hidders wrote:
>
>>Actually, I wonder if we should not do exactly the opposite: have one code
>>base with one database that serves all wikipedias. I have the feeling that
>>in terms of software maintenance the non-English wikipedia's are getting a
>>very raw deal indeed; reported bugs are fixed earlier on the English
>>wikipedia and the major software changes always happen there first. I
>>assume this creates a feeling of being left out there in the cold.

For what it's worth, I'm one of the programmers and even *my* favored
wiki (Esperanto) is still running the old crappy software despite
several promises for an imminent upgrade. So don't feel bad folks, we're
not doing it on purpose! We're just slow...

 > Having
>>one common system would in my opinion also strengthen the sense of
>>community.
>
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Just want to say that I think this would be an excellent idea (if it's
> feasible)!

The current software is intended to be able to be run from the same
source files, with the exception of a unique wikiLocalSettings.php for
each wiki, which specifies among other things which localization file to
use. (Note however that it expects everything to be in one directory, so
symbolic links for everything but the settings file pointing to a master
directory is the simplest way to achieve this.)

Thus, only one set of files will need to be updated to get all wikis
upgraded. But any given access to the wiki will be only in one language
at a time...

 > It really would lead to very tight integration of the projects
> (e.g. being able to choose which language to perform searches in among other
> things -- see below).

A while ago I whipped together a primitive meta-search page that will
pop a search term into multiple language wikis:
http://leuksman.com/misc/wikisearch.php

It's not too fancy, but nice if you want to check for articles on
people, as names are usually the same...

> In addition, it would also be neat if users could then be able to set their
> preferences so that they could choose which languages pops up in their
> version of RecentChanges. Then Brion could watch all changes made to both the
> Esperanto wiki and the English wiki at the same time in the same Recent
> Changes, Anthere could do that with the French and English wiki and I could
> watch the English, Spanish and what the hell, Latin wikis in the same
> RecentChanges.

I notice activity on the Latin wikipedia has dropped off a bit of late.
Perhaps someone should advertise in alt.language.latin? ;)

> If a user wanted to, they could have a tower of Babel going on in their
> "Inter-wiki Recent Changes". For example: Clicking on de:atom in
> RecentChanges (or Cambios Recientes, Ostatnie zmiany, Changements
> R?cents....) would take the user to the German article with all the sidebar
> links, the logo and hard-coded wording in German (even though the underlying
> php code would be exactly the same -- language meta tags could be affixed to
> each page in the database to ID the language the article was written in). The
> fr:, de:, eo:, en: or whatever would only be part of the display of the
> page's name in such a Inter Wiki RecentChanges and wouldn't be actually part
> of the article's name -- just like the current inter wiki links in the php
> software running the English wikipedia.

Of course, this would be highly dependent on keeping all wikis on the
same server, with all databases accessible to the same program. This may
be considered as incentive not to fork. :)

In any case, while combining multiple languages into one view might be
fun and occasionally useful, I think a more pressing question is that of
linking between the language wikis.

As a number of people have pointed out, the current system (on the PHP
software which currently only the English wiki is running) is fragile,
and is going to become very hard to maintain: links to the article on
the same topic in every other language must be manually inserted on each
wiki... this is labor-intensive and prone to becoming out of sync as
people add links on some wikis but not on others.

Proposals for improvements have included a separate database table to
hold the links, or having each non-English wiki link just to the English
article and having the software automagically grab the rest of the links
from the English database. Personally I prefer a separate database
table; people should be able to edit the link list from their own
language environment without delving into the English wiki. In either
case, though, the programs will all need access to the same shared link
database, so we would need to keep things on the same server.

> I don't know if this would be easier or harder than having separate software
> programs running the separate language wikis. But then, I could just as
> easily split the display of my web browser Konqueror into two panes - one
> with Recent Changes and the other with Cambios Recientes. But I'm lazy and
> stubburn. :-)

It wouldn't be harder per se, just different from the current setup,
where each language is (logically) a separate server, with separate
article and user databases.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] miroir, oh mon miroir...

in_reply_to: <200207102033.g6AKXiS26743@ross.bomis.com>; from koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com on Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 01:33:44PM -0700

body:
On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 01:33:44PM -0700, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> um, now I'm thoroughly confused.  The first link looked like a legitimate
> french wiki, but searches didn't work.  The second link you sent (below)
> looks like the English wikipedia with a few random words in French.

You're joking, right? I mean, you did check what it is that

  http://www.locus-solus.org/machine/

does to a page, didn't you? :-)

-- Jan Hidders


body:
On 10 Jul 2002, at 4:46, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> But I know that this can not continue indefinitely, particularly if
> the current situation leads to mistrust.

Maybe a good way to progress would be to alter the software so
that wikipedia can be run over multiple machines (at the rate
wikipedia is growing at the moment it'll need to be able to be
distributed/load balanced sometime anyway), with one machine
handling the editing and the others just mirroring the static
content/search/stats pages.

That way the machines running wikipedia wouldn't be under the
control of one organization/company, this also has the advantage
that the cost of hardware/bandwidth/etc would be distributed.

As for the donations, it might be possible to bring wikipedia under
the wings of an already non-profit organization which everyone
trusts (maybe FSF, FSF Europe, Ibiblio, or one of the open source
education groups) that way we could get tax-free donations without
the problem of setting up our own non-profit.

Imran
--
TheOpenCD Project
Promoting Open Source on Windows
http://www.theopencd.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] BusStop

body:
> Why don't you also post this on the international
> mailing list ?

Because I forgot. Thanks for reminding. Done now :-)

Kurt


references: <3D2CB85B.10649.2C7FCA0@localhost>; from ImranG@btinternet.com on Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 10:42:35PM +0100

body:
On 10 Jul 2002, at 14:06, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Imran Ghory wrote:
> > That way the machines running wikipedia wouldn't be under the
> > control of one organization/company, this also has the advantage
> > that the cost of hardware/bandwidth/etc would be distributed.
>
> I'm not opposed to this, but from a technical point of view, it is
> complex to do it in a robust way.  I.E., with a central URL, we don't
> get links to things that disappear, etc.

I didn't mean to split articles over multiple sites, but rather all the
sites mirror all the content. For instance, mirror 1 would contain all
the pages from the main site, but would change all non-edit links
from www.wikipedia.com to www1.wikipedia.com.

> > As for the donations, it might be possible to bring wikipedia under
> > the wings of an already non-profit organization which everyone
> > trusts (maybe FSF, FSF Europe, Ibiblio, or one of the open source
> > education groups) that way we could get tax-free donations without
> > the problem of setting up our own non-profit.
>
> This is possible, but we would be giving control away from our
> community, to another organization which might have different goals,
> and might not respect our ways.

We wouldn't have to surrender control, but rather use them as an
umbrella org, i.e. they could collect the donations and put them
under the control of  a "wikipedia board".

Imran
--
TheOpenCD Project
Promoting Open Source on Windows
http://www.theopencd.org


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
> > > In the new software, would something like [[User talk archive
> > > 1:maveric149]] be counted as an article when the statistics are
> > > run, or does the stats look for and exclude any article with the
> > > string "talk" in it?
> >
> > Only the specifically recognized namespace prefixes are treated
> > as namespaces; anything else is just a regular article with a
> > colon in the title. 0
>
> This sounds dangerous to me, as people might inadvertantly "pollute" the
> namespace name space?

The alternative would be to forbid ":" in all articles except for the
namespace usage, like it is now.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] miroir, oh mon miroir...

body:
On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 02:13:04PM -0700, Anthere wrote:
> Nope he apparently didnot. LOL

Well, I should admit that I have been staring at it for a minute muttering
things like "Mais.. mais.. Que se produit ici? Je comprends m?me moins
qu'habituel."

> btw JAN, it really was the fr.wiki you were looking
> at, just slightly arranged.

I know, I know, I had a quick look at the original. So if your goal was to
lure some people to the French wikipedia, you have succeeded. :-)

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia/Nupedia funding

body:
Hi Larry!

> > We might earmark money to hire a fulltime editor again, although in
the
> > wikipedia system, this seems unnecessary.
>
> In case anyone is wondering, I agree.  The continuing success of
Wikipedia
> in my absence--which doesn't surprise me--makes it hard to justify my
> return as a paid lead/organizer of Wikipedia, at least not anytime
soon
> and not as long as the project is plowing ahead more or less as it
always
> has.

That's right, but I'm sure your job was essential at the beginning of
Wikipedia.

I think for every new international Wikipedia someone like Larry would
be very helpfull. You need someone who feels responsible for the
project, especially in the first months. When we have enough money maybe
we should hire some enthusiastic academic guy for each Wikipedia that
hasn't already "taken off" for a few months. :-)

Kurt


body:
On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 10:42:35PM +0100, Imran Ghory wrote:
> On 10 Jul 2002, at 4:46, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> > But I know that this can not continue indefinitely, particularly if the
> > current situation leads to mistrust.
>
> Maybe a good way to progress would be to alter the software so
> that wikipedia can be run over multiple machines (at the rate
> wikipedia is growing at the moment it'll need to be able to be
> distributed/load balanced sometime anyway), with one machine
> handling the editing and the others just mirroring the static
> content/search/stats pages.

There isn't really that much static about wikipedia, almost all special
pages are dynamic. If there are performance issues at the moment then this
is not because the hardware cannot handle it but rather because the
programming until recently has been, how shall I put this, less performance
oriented.

Actually, I wonder if we should not do exactly the opposite: have one code
base with one database that serves all wikipedias. I have the feeling that
in terms of software maintenance the non-English wikipedia's are getting a
very raw deal indeed; reported bugs are fixed earlier on the English
wikipedia and the major software changes always happen there first. I assume
this creates a feeling of being left out there in the cold. Having one
common system would in my opinion also strengthen the sense of community.

Apart from that we could also tackle some practical issues more easily such
as checking if an uploaded file is used anywhere in the wikipedia and having
centralized translation tables.

However, this is all far far far away, because we first need to update all
wikipedias to the new code base.

-- Jan Hidders


body:
I asked:
>> When I'm sysop, can I give these rights to the other Wikipedians?

It seems I could, but I can't.

When I click on "Edit user rights" on
http://test-de.wikipedia.com/wiki/special%3AListUsers

the script says:

Special:Edituser
Es gibt keine Spezielle Seite "Edituser"!

(There is no special page "Edituser"!)

Kurt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] "Email this user" function

body:
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from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Sounds good, downside for me is junk mail. Might put posting to the mailing
list as an alternative to emailing a user (but that might clutter up the
mailing list with lots of details about particular articles).

Another thing. I have had some trouble with control codes (caused by
copying to other programs then later pasting to an edit page). They are
invisible in edit but then mess up the article.  Any way to make them
visible while editing?

Fred Bauder

At 02:11 AM 7/11/02 -0700, you wrote:
>One of the post-live features I'd like to implement is a link on User
>pages for "email this user", which will produce a form that can be
>used to send email to the user without actually revealing the email
>address, for those times when you want to talk to someone directly who
>may not be active on the list or follow the talk pages.  This will
>also help reduce the clutter on talk pages.
>
>I'd like to get a sense from the community what privacy issues or
>other issues there are in implementing such a feature.  We may want to
>have a user setting for "don't allow email" or something, though I
>personally would rather not have that feature, and I definitely want
>it turned off for sysops (a working, responsive email address is the
>single most important qualification for a sysop as far as I'm
>concerned, although I suppose active participation on the mailing list
>might be an acceptable alternative).
>
>I'd also like to brainstorm a bit on how to raise the visibility of
>the mailing list.
>
>
>0


body:
> I'd also like to brainstorm a bit on how to raise
> the visibility of
> the mailing list.

Hmmm. How about announcing its existance on the front
page? Or is that too easy a suggestion? :)

--Stephen Gilbert

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
http://sbc.yahoo.com


body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> Another thing. I have had some trouble with control
> codes (caused by
> copying to other programs then later pasting to an
> edit page). They are
> invisible in edit but then mess up the article.  Any
> way to make them
> visible while editing?

It depends on what program you're using to write your
articles. MS Word inserts quite a few non-standard
characters; I don't recommend it. Try using a pure
text editor instead of a word processor.

-- Stephen Gilbert

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
http://sbc.yahoo.com


in_reply_to: <200207102255.g6AMtdh11122@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 03:55:39PM -0700

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> There is a concern, I suppose, that it might limit our ability
> to create real namespaces (and interwiki names) later, in that if
> we decide to create, say, a "Fred" namespace, any previously
> existing articles that happen to be named "Fred:..." may have to
> be changed, but I think a simple convention not to use colons
> for things other than titles that naturally contain them will
> minimize that problem, and creating a new namespace is such a
> major change anyway that having to fix a few article titles won't
> be much of a problem.

O.k., I can see it either way.  But isn't it pretty easy to just disallow
colons in article titles, if that's going to be our "simple convention"
anyway?

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <200207110249.g6B2ncQ03976@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 07:49:38PM -0700

body:
2001: A Space Odyssey

I had not thought of this example, and I just now saw it and grasped for the
first time why having colons in titles is a good thing.

I now side with Lee -- we should allow colons in titles, software wise, but
have a "simple convention" as he puts it to avoid them whenever possible.  But
there are cases -- movie titles, book titles, and the like -- where they are
indispensible.

If a few articles have titles that conflict with some future desired namespace,
we can easily fix those few at that time.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia/Nupedia funding

body:
Larry Sanger wrote:
> >but I'm sure your job was essential at the beginning of
> >Wikipedia.
>
> Yeah, sort of!  Thanks for noticing.  :-)

I don't know about "sort of".  I think it was essential, and I think there's
no question about it.

A real community is self-sustaining once it gets going.  In the parlance of
economics, there are network externalities to communities.  As a potential member
of a community, I want to participate where other people are participating.

If I visited a site with the idea of wikipedia, but no one else seemed
to be there, I would quickly tire of it.  But if lots of other people
are there, it is exciting and fun.

This is why you'll tend to find only two kinds of "web forums" --
really busy ones, and really dead ones.  There's a certain "threshold"
that makes it worthwhile for people to come back day after day.

The neat thing about wiki, of course, is that the threshold is a lot
lower than some other technologies.  But there is still a threshold.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <200207110911.g6B9BWo11614@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 02:11:32AM -0700

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> One of the post-live features I'd like to implement is a link on User
> pages for "email this user", which will produce a form that can be
> used to send email to the user without actually revealing the email
> address, for those times when you want to talk to someone directly who
> may not be active on the list or follow the talk pages.  This will
> also help reduce the clutter on talk pages.

There are pros and cons to reducing the clutter on the talk pages, of course.
If someone comes along a month later and wonders why a page does or does not
mention X, then the talk page can be helpful in reviewing how and why the page is
the way it is.  So too much private talking about the page makes things less
transparent.

On the other hand, just having the ability to email people is great.  Maybe I
want to ask a question of one of the participants on the talk page, so I post
a note to the talk page, but no one from the discussion notices.  Sadness.  Better
to be able to contact them directly.

One thing I think is important -- double opt-in on the email addresses.  We don't
want anyone to use us as an annoying means of mailbombing someone.

--Jimbo