subject:
[Foundation-l] Foundation issues not deprecated. (Re: Wikibooks
	NL is changing License)

body:
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 01:11:53PM +0100, Kim Bruning wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 12:14:02PM +0100, effeietsanders wrote:
> > " This document doesn't necessarily reflect the view of Wikimedia
> > Foundation. Also this document may contain outdated and thus wrong
> > information."
>
> <duely proceeds to start tempest>

Reading the comments on the talk page, it does seem like certain items need to still
be integrated. This does not invalidate the document in the mean time. I think I'm ok
with simply modifying the note at the top, so now it's less alarming.

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

(and I was so looking forward to a nice tempest... :-)
--
[Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Kim Bruning


list: wikitech-l

from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.9.3 under DOS Attacks

references:
<4604088B.4080108@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<eu1ai4$hlq$1@sea.gmane.org> <46043CFA.3010405@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
On 3/23/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>
> >Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Wikigadugi.org has been under a massive Bot-Net generated denial of
> >>service attack since late yesterday.  The IP addresses are from China,
> >>Korea, Turkey, and Russia.  Blocking at the firewall or proxy just
> >>results in more spawned attacks from hundreds of new and unrelated IP
> >>addresses.  I found one solution which was limit the number of
> >>connections httpd allows concurrently and this seems to allow legitimate
> >>users to access the system though the attacks persist.  The attack
> >>pattern seems very specific to MediaWiki behavior.    It attempts to
> >>load an article then aborts the HTTP request while MediaWiki is churning
> >>through the database, then immediately issues another request for
> >>another article.  It in essense shotguns through the entire name space
> >>of articles rapidly.  It has trouble taking MediaWiki to its knees but
> >>had no trouble taking squid down to a crawl on the proxies and choking
> >>the network with garbage.
> >>
> >>What do you guys do to deal with these zombie bot-net attacks on this scale?
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Block all involved IPs at the firewall.
> >
> Already started. Didn't help. I ended up blocking thousands of ranges
> and they just kept cloning Zombies
> from new ranges faster than I could enter them. Throttling seems to make
> sense however.
>
>
> >It's a workable solution as long
> >as you can identify the problem requests in your logs. It's entirely
> >feasible to block thousands of IP addresses in this way. Per-IP limits
> >such as apache's mod_throttle will also help, as will system optimisation
> >and caching.
> >
> >
> I changed the cache settings on the squid proxy servers this morning --
> it helped. They are slowing down.
> I guess the person doing it is getting bored, I am 99% certain based on
> a single Russian IP address (which I know
> was being used to monitor the attack and its progress) that I blocked
> who is doing this. It's the guy running
> GNAA -- the one who called me one night and posted an MP3 of the
> conversation online and on the GNAA website
> and the Wikipedia chatroom.
>
> When I blocked his "monitoring IP Address" he got really pissed and
> intentified the attack. The Russian Guy who works at a
> software company by day and trolls the internet by night. He lives
> somewhere in Oregon, and runs these attacks from
> bot-nets all over the world.
>
> At any rate, the network is stable and holding its own. I wrote a port
> 80 shim last night that throttles IP traffic
> by address range and shunted to over to the main Web Server at about
> 11:00 p.m. I was unaware apache
> had something similiar. I'll look at it and get it enabled.
>
> Jeff
>
> >-- Tim Starling

If he's living in Oregon, stop dicking around with us, call the FBI
and your local police.  It's a federal crime, and if he's in the US,
they'll go get him...

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


list: foundation-l

from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikibooks NL is changing License

body:
> The edit (the diff) is not the same thing as the resulting
> (derivate) work.
>
> Suppose somebody named Richard M. Stallman has written a fine
> manual (under GFDL) for the GCC compiler.  I write on my own
> website a little text called "some personal comments on the GCC
> compiler".  I have full copyright to my own original text, but I
> decide to dual license it under CC-SA-BY and GFDL.  Later RMS
> decides to include my text as a chapter in the GCC manual.  He can
> do this because it is licensed under GFDL.  But another person can
> reuse my text in another context based on its CC-SA-BY license.
> In the editing history of the GCC manual, the addition of my text
> is one step, "one edit", one contribution.  This contribution is
> apparently dual licensed.  But the GCC manual, both before and
> after this edit, is still only GFDL licensed.  That's not a
> contradiction.

That analogy doesn't work since RMS is the original copyright holder,
so he can modify his work however he likes. If someone else tried to
merge his work and yours, then things get a little more confusing.


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> On Friday 23 March 2007 12:22, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
>> >
>> >You haven't quantified any actual harm, and your last sentence is so
>> >far speculation. Got any hard info?
>>
>> The harm is sixty pages of childish vandalism promoted as a Good
>> Thing.  And yes, the last sentence is speculation, explicitly so.
>
> How is that "harmful"?
>
> Your assertion does not make it so.
>
> Looks like you're just looking for an excuse to power-trip.

At least he's asking around first.  There's one administrator who
routinely targets harmless stuff like this, pisses people off, and doesn't
care.

-Jeff


from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Sourceforge page outdated

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

Moin,

http://sourceforge.net/projects/wikipedia/

still lists 1.9.1 as the latest release.

All the best,

tels

- --
 Signed on Fri Mar 23 13:56:53 2007 with key 0x93B84C15.
 View my photo gallery: http://bloodgate.com/photos
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Most of the screen on a blog is blank for an imaginary populace of
 readers still using 640x480 resolution. I didn't buy a 19" monitor to
 have 50% of its screen realestate pissed away on firing white pixels,
 you assholes."

  -- maddox from xmission
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list: commons-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] Flommons!

body:
On 23/03/07, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Brianna Laugher wrote:
> > What Flommons should do, is index each image page without the '.jpg'
> > on the end, so images get picked up by google,
>
> Image pages already get picked up by google; that issue was sorted out
> on their end last year.

Hm, so it now appears...
although why can't I go site-specific image searches for Commons, I wonder?

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&gbv=2&q=beijing+site%3Acommons.wikimedia.org&btnG=Search

cheers
Brianna


from_name: ScottL

subject: [WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway?

body:
geni wrote:
> On 3/21/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 3) What is Jimbo's position as an editor on Wikipedia? Does he have
>> the right to ignore consensus? What happens if people disregard his
>> right? Can he confer this right on others? How do we distinguish
>> between Jimbo as normal editor and Jimbo as editor with godlike
>> powers?
>>
>> 4) Does Jimbo have a leadership position, and if so, of what? Whom
>> does he lead? In what way? Is that leadership contestable?
>
> Jimbo's power is due mostly to the community accepting his pronouncements

   Is this an honest assessment?  Could a non-admin (or even a single
admin) go against him and not get banned?  Honestly?  That is not a
measure of respect or even deference except perhaps by a majority of admins.

SKL


from_name: Silas Snider

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re: BJAODN

references:
<3cu703p1rm865ed4p4in1beod2chbrdivl@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140703230926g49db616bp4b0b1e237387c57a@mail.gmail.com>
	<k438035bhlcbf8i0pjkpvn8k524ct1huj7@4ax.com>
	<200703231245.30856.kmw@armory.com>
	<mb5803h4rimqmn9qhgn8m3vju8d2d87jlg@4ax.com>
	<9c97dc780703231114i20ce4d2anf85441acbf44c01b@mail.gmail.com>
	<rh7803p412i966o71bsrsia8sbds8s6sef@4ax.com>

body:
On 3/23/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:14:40 -0800, "Silas Snider"
> <swsnider at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> It promotes the idea that we celebrate childish vandalism.  What is
> >> good about that, exactly?
> ><snip />
>
> >Actually, it promotes the idea that we are willing to recognize humor
> >where it lies -- note that your definition of most of it as childish
> >is inherently subjective -- I often find the humor of the people
> >around me 'childish'. Since they are more mature than I, I must assume
> >that it is a problem with me rather than them.
>
> >Remember that one oft cited complaint about bureaucracy is that it is humorless.
>
> No, I have no problem at all with humour.  Or humor.  As long as it is
> actually funny - but 99% of what's on the BJAODN pages is not. Not
> even remotely so.
<snip/>

This was the other point of my email: Who are you (and I mean this
without acrimony) to decide what is and what is not funny? What are
your credentials in this area? Sure, I find some of BJAODN to be
humorless, gross or juvenile, but I don't think that this allows me to
tell other people that that thing they are laughing at is not funny.
If you don't like the humor contained in BJAODN, just stay away from
that page, or create your own 'humorful' version in your userspace.

Sincerely,
Silas Snider

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silas Snider is a proud member of the Association of Wikipedians Who
Dislike Making Broad Judgements About the Worthiness of a General Category
of Article, and Who Are In Favor of the Deletion of Some Particularly Bad
Articles, but That Doesn't Mean They are Deletionist
(AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD) , and the Harmonious
Editing Club of Wikipedia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.9.3 WG Posted

body:
> > There was a question about the changes:
>
> On Sat, 2007-03-17 at 22:46 -0700, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> >/ This version also includes updated php scripts which enable wider
> />/ support for mwdumper, mwimport, and importDump, as well as updated sql
> />/ scripts which support all Foundation interwiki sites contained in the
> />/ enwiki-20070206 XML dumps.
> /
> Can you explain exactly what this refers to? "wider support"? Update sql
> scripts? What changes have you made to facilitate this?
>
> 1.  Added creteBcrat.php which allows recreation of sysop and bureaucrat
> accounts with a fresh database directly through mysql without needing to
> run MediaWiki install.  See meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps. This is
> a preferred environment for mwdumper and mwimport during XML import.

The diff between createBcrat.php and maintenance/createAndPromote.php is as follows:
-----------------------------------------------------
root at bling:~/tmp/wolf-mediawiki# diff -u mediawiki-1.9.3.WG-20070316/maintenance/createAndPromote.php createBcrat.php
--- mediawiki-1.9.3.WG-20070316/maintenance/createAndPromote.php        2007-03-18 18:08:06.000000000 +1100
+++ createBcrat.php     2007-03-23 12:56:47.000000000 +1100
@@ -27,6 +27,10 @@
        die( 1 );
 } elseif( 0 != $user->idForName() ) {
        echo( "account exists.\n" );
+       $user->addGroup( 'sysop' );
+       $user->addGroup( 'bureaucrat' );
+       $ssu->doUpdate();
+       echo( "done.\n" );
        die( 1 );
 }

@@ -37,6 +41,7 @@

 # Promote user
 $user->addGroup( 'sysop' );
+$user->addGroup( 'bureaucrat' );

 # Increment site_stats.ss_users
 $ssu = new SiteStatsUpdate( 0, 0, 0, 0, 1 );
-----------------------------------------------------

Anyone want this in core?

> 2.  Added over 40 missing language codes to wikipedia-interwiki.sql to
> synchronize with the current enwiki XML dumps.

Merged & sorted in r20632.

> 3.  Included a sample LocalSettings.php script with examples for
> enabling tidylib, local HTML caching, and extensions necessary to render
> the XML dumps as of enwiki-20070206.

It's potentially not a bad idea to include the extensions needed, commented out,
at the end LocalSettings.php, such as:

-----------------------------------------------------
///////////////     Extensions     ///////////////
// If you want to use the Database dumps from http://download.wikimedia.org/ then
// you will probably want to install these extensions and uncomment these lines:
# require_once( "$IP/extensions/ParserFunctions/ParserFunctions.php" );
# require_once( "$IP/extensions/Cite.php" );
# require_once( "$IP/extensions/ImageMap/ImageMap.php" );
# require_once( "$IP/extensions/wikihiero/wikihiero.php" );
-----------------------------------------------------

That might save this list at least a few questions a year.
Worth it?

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Bennett Haselton

subject: [WikiEN-l] purpose served by anonymity / unmoderated edits

body:
At 12:34 PM 3/23/2007 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >Also, one reason I was advocating a means for verified experts to sign
> off
> >on the accuracy of an article, was to enable people to cite or reference
>
> >that article, saying that even if Professor X didn't write it, he
> vouches
> >for its authenticity.
> >
>Saying that Professor X vouched for the article only begs the question,
>"Who the hell is professor X?"  For someone who is not familiar with the
>subject area Professor Y would be just as valuable even if he has an
>opposing opinion.

Well that's why you could search for articles where not only has the
content been signed off on by an expert, but the expert has provided proof
of their expertise in a given area -- for example, a school faculty Web
page identifies them as a professor in a given area and gives their e-mail
address, and the system has sent a confirmation message to that address to
ensure that it's really them.

> >If you go with a sliding scale from 1 to 10 instead of a yes/no option,
> >then there's some ambiguity in whether you can cite an expert as
> vouching
> >for the correctness of the article.
> >
>I'm not completely opposed to some professor's anecdotal evidence.  TV
>ads for medical products regularly show some doctor proclaiming the
>virtues of some product.

Well the article sign-offs would be more trustworthy in that you know the
authority was not paid for their endorsement.  (And most experts hopefully
have limits on what they would sign off on, even if they were paid money.)

> >How high does their rating have to be
> >before you can put them down as "vouching" for the article?  7?  10?  I
> >have no idea.
> >
>How about two standard deviations above the statistical mean.

Well you could use any standard you want for deciding for yourself whether
an article is credible because Professor X gave it a 7.  My issue is that
if you wanted to *cite* the article as a source, and list Professor X as
someone who vouched for it, you run into issues if *you* thought a "7"
meant that Professor X doesn't mind his name being attached to it, but
Professor X objects that that's not what his "7" meant at all.  A simple
yes/no signoff makes it more clear what a "yes" means.

         -Bennett

bennett at peacefire.org     http://www.peacefire.org
(425) 497 9002


from_name: Kurt Maxwell Weber

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re:  BJAODN

references:
<3cu703p1rm865ed4p4in1beod2chbrdivl@4ax.com>
	<9c97dc780703231114i20ce4d2anf85441acbf44c01b@mail.gmail.com>
	<rh7803p412i966o71bsrsia8sbds8s6sef@4ax.com>

body:
On Friday 23 March 2007 13:37, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
> No, I have no problem at all with humour.  Or humor.  As long as it is
> actually funny - but 99% of what's on the BJAODN pages is not. Not
> even remotely so.
>

Says you...

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
> Danny left last Tuesday with no prior notice.

Was he not contractually obliged to give notice?


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


body:
> Magna Carta: a document of which at least three versions were made at
> the time; which was reissued by every subsequent leader for a century;
> and where almost every item involved had the effect of confirming the
> status quo with regards to something insanely trivial and obscure.
>
> Given what the community would make of it, the analogy could be more
> apt than anticipated...

And, if memory serves, about 90% of it is one off agreements relevant
only to the time it was signed.


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>Wikigadugi.org has been under a massive Bot-Net generated denial of
>>service attack since late yesterday.  The IP addresses are from China,
>>Korea, Turkey, and Russia.  Blocking at the firewall or proxy just
>>results in more spawned attacks from hundreds of new and unrelated IP
>>addresses.  I found one solution which was limit the number of
>>connections httpd allows concurrently and this seems to allow legitimate
>>users to access the system though the attacks persist.  The attack
>>pattern seems very specific to MediaWiki behavior.    It attempts to
>>load an article then aborts the HTTP request while MediaWiki is churning
>>through the database, then immediately issues another request for
>>another article.  It in essense shotguns through the entire name space
>>of articles rapidly.  It has trouble taking MediaWiki to its knees but
>>had no trouble taking squid down to a crawl on the proxies and choking
>>the network with garbage.
>>
>>What do you guys do to deal with these zombie bot-net attacks on this scale?
>>
>>
>
>Block all involved IPs at the firewall.
>
Already started. Didn't help. I ended up blocking thousands of ranges
and they just kept cloning Zombies
from new ranges faster than I could enter them. Throttling seems to make
sense however.

>It's a workable solution as long
>as you can identify the problem requests in your logs. It's entirely
>feasible to block thousands of IP addresses in this way. Per-IP limits
>such as apache's mod_throttle will also help, as will system optimisation
>and caching.
>
>
I changed the cache settings on the squid proxy servers this morning --
it helped. They are slowing down.
I guess the person doing it is getting bored, I am 99% certain based on
a single Russian IP address (which I know
was being used to monitor the attack and its progress) that I blocked
who is doing this. It's the guy running
GNAA -- the one who called me one night and posted an MP3 of the
conversation online and on the GNAA website
and the Wikipedia chatroom.

When I blocked his "monitoring IP Address" he got really pissed and
intentified the attack. The Russian Guy who works at a
software company by day and trolls the internet by night. He lives
somewhere in Oregon, and runs these attacks from
bot-nets all over the world.

At any rate, the network is stable and holding its own. I wrote a port
80 shim last night that throttles IP traffic
by address range and shunted to over to the main Web Server at about
11:00 p.m. I was unaware apache
had something similiar. I'll look at it and get it enabled.

Jeff

>-- Tim Starling
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


from_name: Gary Kirk

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool - how to prepare for the onslaught

body:
Creating an account from an account refers to a user creating an
account at Special:Userlogin while logged in. for example, see my log,
you'll see 'Gary Kirk created new user account: Kirkbot'.

On 22/03/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/21/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Erm, can we get back to the topic?
>
> I've got the solution:
>
> We just need to identify and block the troublemakers on the first.
>
> Just IP block (hard, not AO) 0.0.0.0/0 for the 48 hrs...
>
> Wikipedia: The encyclopedia that anybody can edit... NOT.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: stevertigo

body:
> On 3/23/07, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
> >    Is this an honest assessment?  Could a non-admin (or even a single
> > admin) go against him and not get banned?  Honestly?

People disagree with Jimbo all the time, and unlike many others in
similar position, he usually feels compelled to answer questions and
deal with criticism directly, implementing compromises where they can
be found. But the issue wasn't really about his provenance, but the
limitations of his human powers to be aware and in charge of
everything - in this recent case, on matters of particular (but
important) policy and process. Is the community *not to be trusted
with certain policy changes? And is Jimbo therefore expected to take a
more direct of formalized role in this area?

-Stevertigo


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

body:
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 07:39:39PM +0000, Tim Starling wrote:
> Block all involved IPs at the firewall. It's a workable solution as long
> as you can identify the problem requests in your logs. It's entirely
> feasible to block thousands of IP addresses in this way. Per-IP limits
> such as apache's mod_throttle will also help, as will system optimisation
> and caching.

Has anyone ever looked into getting mod_throttle or an IDS to write the
DROP rules for the firewall?

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


body:
On 3/23/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> stevertigo wrote

> We have had Bagehot already, the theorist of the stage machinery of the British constitution. I think another and more up-to-date analogy is the [[golden share]]. We have the "voting is evil" version of that. De facto things can happen on enWP that Jimbo really doesn't agree with; but de jure one can't call that a consensus. It is kind of indicative when a discussion about whether there is consensus on a policy page change turns into a massive debate ...

I didn't catch all of the references, but what stands out for me is
that the [[voting is evil]]
concept is an oft-quoted though oxymoronic essay, and IMHO one largely
promoted by you "Brits" for some reason or another. David for example
was big on VIE, but now, remarkably, remarks of a constitution. Go
figure.

-Stevertigo


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource.com ("Wiki does not exist")

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

Bence Damokos wrote:
> Dear Foundation!
> I would like to ask the Foundation, is it intentional that
> http://wikisource.com doesn't redirect to http://wikisource.org the same way
> wikipedia.com and wiktionary.com does?

An oversight in configuration, it's fixed.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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zYcOyI2Jxxgpo146+BVfRno=
=/WGY
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subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re: [Possible spam]Re: BJAODN

body:
On 3/23/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:22:37 -0700, "Silas Snider"
> <swsnider at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >This was the other point of my email: Who are you (and I mean this
> >without acrimony) to decide what is and what is not funny? What are
> >your credentials in this area?
>
> I, sir, am an Englishman, resident in the BRITONS' Britain, and
> possessed of the Englishman's sense of humour, plus an education from
> a thousand-year-old school with a Pope as an alumnus.
>
> That and the fact that most of it really is crap, honestly.  Have you
> looked?  Really?  The emphasis really is on nonsense.
>
> Guy (JzG)

Move it to meta?
-~~~~


subject: [Wikitech-l] Sourceforge page outdated

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

Moin,

On Friday 23 March 2007 14:18:11 Brion Vibber wrote:
> Tels wrote:
> > http://sourceforge.net/projects/wikipedia/
> >
> > still lists 1.9.1 as the latest release.
>
> Bah, "news" post didn't get updated. Have posted.

Thanx :)

all the best,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Fri Mar 23 15:57:58 2007 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Get one of my photo posters: http://bloodgate.com/posters
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "I can imagine what you're thinking though: this girl keeps her brains
 in her backside! But actually only the more primitive parts of my brain
 are in my butt. The more interesting parts are kept in a PC - my spinal
 cord is actually an RS232 lead!"

  -- Lucy, the OrangUtan Robot Girl http://tinyurl.com/3fv6z
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Talk pages, what a freakin mess

body:
Wondering about making talk pages a little less cluttered, by usage of
whatever conventions we can come up with. Ray made the salient point
about my [[WP:TARCH]] idea that its too dependent on manual labor.
Someone else pointed out the nice work done at [[Talk:Intelligent
Design]] , which is probably the most extreme case AFAIK.

As a simple idea, what do people think about using bold headers for
talk comments instead of the typically clutted indented thread style:

;Myname
Comment comment comment  - mysig
;Responders name
Comment comment comment - sig

etc.

-Stevertigo


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
Kingboyk and I thought the time had come to prune the 'pedia of the
sixty pages of often acutely unfunny vandalism preserved under the
general heading of BJAODN.  Not remove BJAODN, a collection of
genuinely if often unintentionally funny edits, but the 59 subsequent
archives.  The mechanism we employed was to MfD the current one,
because it did not seem worthwhile tagging nearly sixty articles if
there was clear consensus to keep.  That didn't work: a lot of people
think we want to delete all BJAODN (we don't, just prune it down to a
rational size); some people want it kept outright as "harmless" or
whatever; some say they won't advocate deletion of one, only if the
whole lot is bundled.  It's a mess.  We'd like to know what, of
anything, is the best way forward.  We are both still of the opinion
that keeping copies of many hundreds of decisively atrocious edits,
the majority of which do not rise above the level of childish, is
probably not worth the server resources committed to it.  Plus, the
insane mountain of crap makes it hard to sot the genuinely creative
and funny ones, which was the point.  I also feel that some editors
deliberately introduce nonsense in the hope of making BJAODN, but
that's an aside.

The debate is at [[Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Close
Encounters of the Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense Kind]] if
anyone wants to pitch in there, but there may be a better place to
discuss this.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: para

subject: [Wikitech-l] Status of BitTorrent Downloads

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> There have been a large number of downloads of the torrent files for the
> images, however, there does not seem to be a lot of interest
> form folks in helping seed the images files.  I have had a lot of folks
> connect then disconnect.

?Torrent 1.6.1 490 on XP:

  Unable to load "enwiki-allimages-20070206.tar.torrent.6969": Invalid
torrent file!

YMMV HTH HAND.

-- Para


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway?
	-	"nofollow"	decision

body:
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 07:15:54 -0400, Jeff Raymond
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>> Rushed?  People had been asking for G11 for as long as I can remember.
>> It was going to happen sooner or later anyway, and a firm steer from
>> Foundation that spam, abuse of Wikipedia resources for self-promotion,
>> is an abuse and should be stamped on, is hardly a controversial idea.

>I'm referring more to the post-Patrick handling more than the typical
>cries for expansions of various criteria for speedy deletion.

Very few cries these days, the majority of obvious and unequivocal
crap can simply be deleted.  And make no mistake, almost all of it
*is* crap.  I review my deletion logs quite frequently, the proportion
of articles I delete and which subsequently come back in an
encyclopaedic form is tiny - in the tens, out of some thousands of
deletions.

>> You have a strange view of things.  The entire project is for the
>> benefit of people outside the foundation, mainly people like you and
>> me and my kids.

>I don't think so.  Look at how we handled Kohs and the Microsoft issue
>and our COI guideline/policy - it's not meant to be flamebait, Kat,
>thank you very much, but it's sometimes realy sad how we handle things
>that may actually beenfit us as well as outside people financially.

Yup, we banned Kohs.  Good call.  And we told Microsoft not to pay
people to edit.  Good call.  And the world didn't end.  Kohs thinks
we're evil, of course, but Kohs also thinks Wikipedia is bound to fail
as a business directory because it does not allow subjects editorial
control.  If Wikipedia was or aspired to be a business directory he
might have a point, but that is not what we are and not what we want
to be.  Sure, there are people who utterly misunderstand the purpose
of the project, and then lambast us for not being what they think we
should be. Nobody is forcing them to keep coming back.  Moths to a
flame, I guess, and every now and then one of them gets burned.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: thomas Armstrong

subject: [Wikitech-l] How to include RSS feeds of history pages

body:
Cause I'm not able to find the "existing code" :(

On 3/23/07, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> thomas Armstrong wrote:
> > I'm trying to code it by hand, but I'm not able to generate the same RSS code :(
>
> Er, why code by hand when you can use the existing code? :)
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
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> BqHwgY6dR89FyWbTk8pGZ9U=
> =ePS1
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
On 23/03/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:

> Wikipedia is a big enough topic that it attracts all kinds of
> reporters, all kinds of criticism and all kinds of praise. Overall, I
> think it has gotten fairly sympathetic press.

Incredibly so. In my experience, journalists *love* Wikipedia because
it's the universal backgrounding resource.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
On 23/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

>   We are both still of the opinion
> that keeping copies of many hundreds of decisively atrocious edits,
> the majority of which do not rise above the level of childish, is
> probably not worth the server resources committed to it.  Plus, the
> insane mountain of crap makes it hard to sot the genuinely creative
> and funny ones, which was the point.  I also feel that some editors
> deliberately introduce nonsense in the hope of making BJAODN, but
> that's an aside.

You haven't quantified any actual harm, and your last sentence is so
far speculation. Got any hard info?

- d.


body:
Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

>On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 01:27:39PM -0800, George Herbert wrote:
>
>
>>If he's living in Oregon, stop dicking around with us, call the FBI
>>and your local police.  It's a federal crime, and if he's in the US,
>>they'll go get him...
>>
>>
>
>Wouldn't it be pretty to think so.
>
>Some pretty high-profile sites have tried this approach to DOS attacks
>in the past, I'm told.  Not much came of it, except that some people
>got to be laughed at by Special Agents on the phone.
>
>In general, unless there are at least 6 digits in the amount of money
>someone's stealing from you, and preferably 7, the FBI hasn't proven to
>be really interested.
>
>Maybe someone should call Scott Bakula, instead.
>
>Cheers,
>-- jra
>
>
This is more accurate. We had one of these trolls/phisers break into a
border server here at Solera Networks last year with an older Linux
version from Hungry and they hijacked the server and used it to
"harvest" over 300,000 credit card and bank account passwords/numbers
from the Federal Credit Union. An FBI agent showed up and took the hard
drive, then returned it a month later and told us "we cannot go after
people in Hungary, but thanks for the hard drive so we could find out
whose accounts were stolen and can refund their money."

They will do NOTHING unless you have a dead nun laying on the floor of
your data center with a least four stab wounds and 7 digits stolen from
her.

Jeff


references:
<4604088B.4080108@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<eu1ai4$hlq$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<46043CFA.3010405@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<38a7bf7c0703231427h1b56faaau17aadaff84746c70@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 01:27:39PM -0800, George Herbert wrote:
> If he's living in Oregon, stop dicking around with us, call the FBI
> and your local police.  It's a federal crime, and if he's in the US,
> they'll go get him...

Wouldn't it be pretty to think so.

Some pretty high-profile sites have tried this approach to DOS attacks
in the past, I'm told.  Not much came of it, except that some people
got to be laughed at by Special Agents on the phone.

In general, unless there are at least 6 digits in the amount of money
someone's stealing from you, and preferably 7, the FBI hasn't proven to
be really interested.

Maybe someone should call Scott Bakula, instead.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


body:
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Hash: SHA1

Robert Horning wrote:
> I would like to add that http://wikijunior.org does not currently work
> either, although in the past it automatically redirected to
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior
>
> I'm not sure if somebody forgot to pay the bill for the domain, or if
> this is merely an oversight where some configurations were changed in
> the Wikimedia domain server and these records were wiped out.

It looks like the domain got transferred to our servers at some point,
but was never configured on our end. I've set up the DNS and
redirecting, so it should now work again.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
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from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: What can you do under a GDFL licence

body:
Folks,

This is a message that I originally meant to send to English Wikipedia list
but stupidly managed to send to the unblock list.

Regards

Keith Old

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com>
Date: Mar 23, 2007 3:38 PM
Subject: What can you do under a GDFL licence
To: "unblock-en-l at wikipedia.org" <unblock-en-l at wikipedia.org>

Folks,

I received a Google blog alert from Wikipedia which alerted me to this blog
entry by someone who wants to use data in a different way.

http://tinfinger.blogspot.com/2007/03/citizendium-wikipedia-and-tinfinger.html

It states:

"I've set up a CompInt tab in my NetVibes to track blogs of those founders
who I see as having similar goals to me. Pride of place goes to Larry
Sanger's blog about Citizendium <http://blog.citizendium.org/>. The more I
work on Tinfinger the more I am appreciating how the 5-second elevator pitch
I have been using - "Tinfinger will do to the Who's Who what Wikipedia did
to the Encyclopedia Britannica" - means that we will have to learn a lot
from the Wikipedia experience.

Citizendium has already made many mistakes in trying to break free from the
Wikipedia model while still retaining many of its advantages. Larry's latest
post, entitled We Aren't
Wikipedia<http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/21/we-arent-wikipedia/>,
is the starkest illustration yet of what I think is his biggest error: he is
continually defining Citizendium in terms of comparisons to Wikipedia. In
January he and the CZ community made a fine decision to
unfork<http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/01/18/bye-bye-to-wikipedia-articles-hello-to-our-own-work/>,
which should have been the impetus to delete all references to Wikipedia not
only from the content pages, but also in the minds of the contributors. Yet
Larry spent many post-unfork blog posts detailing his criticisms of the
Essjay scandal, and he never lets an opportunity pass to bag the big W for
some ethical slight or another, as if he thinks that is what motivates the
CZ base. It may well be what motivates them, but if so, then that's not the
basis for a healthy community IMO. You want people who are in your community
for the community's sake, not just to spite some other project.

As for Tinfinger, we only share Citizendium's similarities with Wikipedia on
items 5, 7 and 8 in Larry's list. We do share more differences, though: all
but item 7 fit us to some extent. More details on how all of this works
closer to the full launch.

The reason I have got so far into this debate is that Tinfinger is going to
adopt Wikipedia's data structure: unique identifier strings for pages, which
are cross-linked via category, type and property metatags for which pages
are automatically generated. We have downloaded the relevant data from
dbpedia.org of the roughly 60,000 profiles of people in Wikipedia. Instead
of being stored in text-based infoboxes, however, we will store the tags as
relational data in rows of MySQL tables to allow greater granularity in
searches. However, like Citizendium, we will not republish any Wikipedia
articles.

I don't know what that means in terms of licensing - the
Wikipedia:Copyrights
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights>page doesn't talk
about this issue - which is part of why I'm stating this
in public. Perhaps there are lawyers well-versed in the GDFL who can tell me
whether taking just the titles and metadata of these profile articles, not
any of the prose text, means that the GDFL still applies. I want to act in
good faith here, so I need some help."

I have no idea whether GFDL covers this or not.

Regards

Keith Old


body:
On 23/03/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:

> What do you guys do to deal with these zombie bot-net attacks on this scale?

Be a top-10 website that could slashdot other sites if it wanted to? :-)

- d.


from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
Hoi,
Even when there is a contractual obligation to give notice, it is possible
for parties to a contract to agree for an immediate parting of the ways.
Particularly for jobs involving trust, like in computer system management
and security, this is a standard practice.
Thanks,
      GerardM

On 3/23/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Danny left last Tuesday with no prior notice.
>
> Was he not contractually obliged to give notice?
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
> Even when there is a contractual obligation to give notice, it is possible
> for parties to a contract to agree for an immediate parting of the ways.
> Particularly for jobs involving trust, like in computer system management
> and security, this is a standard practice.

That seems the most likely explanation. "He left with no prior notice"
is an slightly odd way to put it, though.


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 16:26:31 +0000, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>>   We are both still of the opinion
>> that keeping copies of many hundreds of decisively atrocious edits,
>> the majority of which do not rise above the level of childish, is
>> probably not worth the server resources committed to it.  Plus, the
>> insane mountain of crap makes it hard to sot the genuinely creative
>> and funny ones, which was the point.  I also feel that some editors
>> deliberately introduce nonsense in the hope of making BJAODN, but
>> that's an aside.

>You haven't quantified any actual harm, and your last sentence is so
>far speculation. Got any hard info?

The harm is sixty pages of childish vandalism promoted as a Good
Thing.  And yes, the last sentence is speculation, explicitly so.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
> >Was he not contractually obliged to give notice?
> >
> I hadn't realized that you were privy to employment contracts.  If
> that's what you read in the contract it must be true.

There's no need for sarcasm, pretty much every employment contract
requires notice (under UK law, you even have to give notice if you
don't have a written contract - I don't know about US law, of course),
so it's a fair question.


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


from_name: Slim Virgin

subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
On 3/23/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > Slim Virgin wrote:
> > >On 3/23/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> > >>Wikipedia is a big enough topic that it attracts all kinds of
> > >>reporters, all kinds of criticism and all kinds of praise. Overall, I
> > >>think it has gotten fairly sympathetic press.
>
> > >Yes, indeed, though I sense that's coming to an end.
>
> Sheldon is talking good sense, Sarah and Ray are not. The press will print bad-news stories about WP, but that's because such stories are _news_. As David Gerard has just said, the hacks like WP and are well disposed towards us.

A rule in journalism is that there comes a point when the story has to
change; when what was good is made bad, and vice versa. The story
always has to change.

Sarah


from_name: Raimond Spekking

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20615]
	trunk/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES

body:
Brion Vibber schrieb:

> *thumbs up*

[X] Done. I hope, the sections and devision of existing entries are
satisfying.

> Mentioned where? They're not part of a MediaWiki release, so
> RELEASE-NOTES maybe doesn't make sense. :)

Ok, though the extensions are no part of MW release, what do you think
about a separate RELEASE-NOTES EXTENSIONS in the extensions dir? Would
it be useful?

Raymond.

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body:
> I would like to ask the Foundation, is it intentional that
> http://wikisource.com doesn't redirect to http://wikisource.org the same way
> wikipedia.com and wiktionary.com does?
> Also I would like to know why doesn't the "Wiki does not exist" page at
> wikisource.com suggest the project Wikisource, and why is Wiktionary so
> prominently featured?
> I hope this is just a mistake, and my letter helps correct it.
> Regards,
> Bence Damokos

www.wikisource.com correctly redirects, as does en.wikisource.com,
it's just when there is nothing before "wikisource" that it fails.
Probably just missed a line in a config file somewhere.


from_name: Sean Whitton (Xyrael)

subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation

body:
> The difference is that Brad gave about a month's notice.
I would also note that Brad specifically said the two were not related
in his original mail to this list :-)

On 3/23/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> George Herbert wrote:
> > On 3/22/07, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> You and I aren't entitled to demand an explanation and to know every
> >> small detail. It's between Danny and the Foundation.
> >
> > It is, however, unreasonable not to expect there to be curiosity and
> > no small degree of consternation when two longtime key employees
> > announce their departures over a couple of days.
>
> The difference is that Brad gave about a month's notice. Danny left last
> Tuesday with no prior notice. Danny's resignation caused some comment on
> internal-l. Anthere decided that since we were talking about resignations,
> this would be a good time to announce Brad's pending resignation, also to
> internal-l. That is why Brad has chosen this time to make his announcement
> to foundation-l, simultaneously with Danny's announcement. The close
> timing is artificial. Brad was careful to make this point on internal-l,
> so I don't think he will mind me making it here.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
?Sean Whitton (Xyrael/xyr)
sean at silentflame.com
http://xyrael.net/


subject: [Foundation-l] My resignation


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re:  [Possible spam]Re: BJAODN

body:
On Friday 23 March 2007 17:47, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> The emphasis really is on nonsense.

And that's somehow not funny because...
--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>


subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 12:45:30 -0500, Kurt Maxwell Weber
<kmw at armory.com> wrote:

>> The harm is sixty pages of childish vandalism promoted as a Good
>> Thing.  And yes, the last sentence is speculation, explicitly so.

>How is that "harmful"?

It promotes the idea that we celebrate childish vandalism.  What is
good about that, exactly?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

references:
<3cu703p1rm865ed4p4in1beod2chbrdivl@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140703230926g49db616bp4b0b1e237387c57a@mail.gmail.com>
	<k438035bhlcbf8i0pjkpvn8k524ct1huj7@4ax.com>
	<200703231245.30856.kmw@armory.com>
	<2758.69.21.252.114.1174672118.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>

body:
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:48:38 -0400 (EDT), "Jeff Raymond"
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>At least he's asking around first.  There's one administrator who
>routinely targets harmless stuff like this, pisses people off, and doesn't
>care.

[[WP:SOAP]]

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

references:
<3cu703p1rm865ed4p4in1beod2chbrdivl@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140703230926g49db616bp4b0b1e237387c57a@mail.gmail.com>
	<k438035bhlcbf8i0pjkpvn8k524ct1huj7@4ax.com>
	<200703231245.30856.kmw@armory.com>
	<mb5803h4rimqmn9qhgn8m3vju8d2d87jlg@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 12:45:30 -0500, Kurt Maxwell Weber
> <kmw at armory.com> wrote:
>> How is that "harmful"?
>
> It promotes the idea that we celebrate childish vandalism.  What is
> good about that, exactly?

It's called _bad_ jokes and deleted _nonsense._ This does not strike me
as a celebratory title.


subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 23/03/07, Kurt Maxwell Weber <kmw at armory.com> wrote:
>
>>> The harm is sixty pages of childish vandalism promoted as a Good
>>> Thing.  And yes, the last sentence is speculation, explicitly so.
>> How is that "harmful"?
>>
>> Your assertion does not make it so.
>>
>> Looks like you're just looking for an excuse to power-trip.
>
> I know anecdotally of a couple of complaints where malicious vandalism
> had been kept on BJAODN, and the subjects had stumbled across it...
>

BJAODN is not exempt from the biographies of living persons policy, so
if there are complaints like this then removing the vandalism is a total
no-brainer. But it's no reason to wipe the entire archive.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: David Goodman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Looking to interview Wikipedians

body:
The rules for trans-border data flow are getting successively more
complicated; there is good reason to conduct a study within a single
country, and for an IRB to require it. In any case, as I see it, a
study on how US and nonUS contributors to the en WP perceived the
differences between the two groups would be a  good separate topic,
quite  complicated enough for a study of its own.
DGG

On 3/22/07, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Gerard.
>
> I absolutely understand your questions are intended as good faith ones
> - but I still don't think it's fair to suggest that this study might
> be (perceived as) a bunch of lies. The study will only aspire to be a
> study of American Wikipedians - and it could be a very interesting one
> within those imposed limitations. An essential part of research is to
> be open and honest about the decisions taken and the limitations these
> bring, rather than trying to cover them up. (I'm not saying here that
> human-subject research methodology can't ever be discussed and
> improved, but I *am* saying that it's never completely bias-free.)
>
> Cheers,
> Cormac
>
>
> On 3/22/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi Cormac,
> > I totally agree. Please read what I reply to; my answer indicates that we
> > are to blame ourselves when we "call it a bunch of lies" when we do not
> > discuss methodology when we have a chance. I hope that you will find that I
> > have questioned why the interviews are to be limited to US American
> > residents only. I also hope you will find that I have indicated why cost is
> > not the factor that was suggested.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> > On 3/22/07, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 3/22/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Hoi,
> > > > When this study hits the Washington Post and we look at it and consider
> > > it a
> > > > bunch of lies, we are to blame when we did not speak up when we had the
> > > > chance to do so.
> > > >
> > > > When you consider peer review, it is always done after the fact. It is
> > > much
> > > > better to have input before a study is started. Those issues that are
> > > > obvious can be addressed before time and money is wasted. It also leads
> > > to
> > > > better science.
> > > >
> > > > If there is one study I would like to see done, is a wikipedia with a
> > > large
> > > > ex-pat community and see how that affects the NPOV of the project.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >     Gerard
> > >
> > >
> > > Calling a study "a bunch of lies" before it's even been carried out is
> > > very bad faith. It's absolutely fine to question methodology - but we
> > > need to be friendly as well as critical - and I hope Benjamin has been
> > > inspired rather than turned off by the many comments and questions on
> > > these lists. I've been meaning to comment myself, but Phoebe's just
> > > said pretty much everything I was going to say. :-)
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Cormac
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.


from_name: Claudi Meneghin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Automatically showing contents from other wikis

body:
Hello,
is it feasible to show contents from a wikipedia in another one, please?
That is to say, could we e.g. show contents from the English village pump in the Lombard one and so on?
Another application could be to show the English or French news, since at present we do not have strenght enough to drive a news departement. To state it better, we would like to create news contents taken from different projects, one project a day.
For a while, we could also use the ''today featured article'' as a ''today proposed translation'' (not necessarily in the main page).
Thank you.
Best regards,
Claudi

---------------------------------
 D?couvrez une nouvelle fa?on d'obtenir des r?ponses ? toutes vos questions ! Profitez des connaissances, des opinions et des exp?riences des internautes sur Yahoo! Questions/R?ponses.


from_name: Bence Damokos

body:
Dear Foundation!
I would like to ask the Foundation, is it intentional that
http://wikisource.com doesn't redirect to http://wikisource.org the same way
wikipedia.com and wiktionary.com does?
Also I would like to know why doesn't the "Wiki does not exist" page at
wikisource.com suggest the project Wikisource, and why is Wiktionary so
prominently featured?
I hope this is just a mistake, and my letter helps correct it.
Regards,
Bence Damokos


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
> But there's no real way to repair this without adding processcruft to
> BJAODN, so I suspect we should just call it a day and worry about
> bigger things.
>
Actually that would the *perfect* addition to the top of BJAODN - a long
section describing the addition and deletion rules in great depth,
complete with voting and ultimately recourse to the "ArbCom", short for
the "Arbitrary Commensalists". Plus make all the wikilinks in the
section connect to appropriate Uncyclopedia articles, to help those not
getting the hint.

:-)

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re:  BJAODN

references:
<3cu703p1rm865ed4p4in1beod2chbrdivl@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140703230926g49db616bp4b0b1e237387c57a@mail.gmail.com>
	<k438035bhlcbf8i0pjkpvn8k524ct1huj7@4ax.com>
	<200703231245.30856.kmw@armory.com>
	<mb5803h4rimqmn9qhgn8m3vju8d2d87jlg@4ax.com>
	<9c97dc780703231114i20ce4d2anf85441acbf44c01b@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:14:40 -0800, "Silas Snider"
<swsnider at gmail.com> wrote:

>> It promotes the idea that we celebrate childish vandalism.  What is
>> good about that, exactly?
><snip />

>Actually, it promotes the idea that we are willing to recognize humor
>where it lies -- note that your definition of most of it as childish
>is inherently subjective -- I often find the humor of the people
>around me 'childish'. Since they are more mature than I, I must assume
>that it is a problem with me rather than them.

>Remember that one oft cited complaint about bureaucracy is that it is humorless.

No, I have no problem at all with humour.  Or humor.  As long as it is
actually funny - but 99% of what's on the BJAODN pages is not. Not
even remotely so.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

body:
This is not possible without a bot copying the data from the other
wiki. What you really want is interwiki template transclusion. See
bugzilla:

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2047
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1126
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4547

Bryan

On 3/23/07, Claudi Meneghin <clamengh at yahoo.fr> wrote:
>
> Hello,
> is it feasible to show contents from a wikipedia in another one, please?
> That is to say, could we e.g. show contents from the English village pump in the Lombard one and so on?
> Another application could be to show the English or French news, since at present we do not have strenght enough to drive a news departement. To state it better, we would like to create news contents taken from different projects, one project a day.
> For a while, we could also use the ''today featured article'' as a ''today proposed translation'' (not necessarily in the main page).
> Thank you.
> Best regards,
> Claudi
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>  D?couvrez une nouvelle fa?on d'obtenir des r?ponses ? toutes vos questions ! Profitez des connaissances, des opinions et des exp?riences des internautes sur Yahoo! Questions/R?ponses.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] zomg POTD RSS!

body:
Hello all,

Thanks to Duesentrieb being a legend, we now have RSS feeds for the
Picture of the Day. :D

Let's have a bit of a celebration and see if we can get a bit of hype
up. Our POTY results were 'dugg' (
http://digg.com/tech_news/Wikimedia_Chooses_Picture_of_the_Year ) and
that was without even trying.

With RSS I hope we soon see the best of our content spread far and wide.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/Picture_of_the_Day_RSS

^^^^^ edit this as you see fit, and then someone on Monday can "?nnounce" it?

cheers!
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


from_name: Michael Santora

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia - An infinite number of lists

body:
The number of articles which Wikipedia can have is
limited by the number of at least marginally notable
and verifiable things which exist.  After every
notable person, place, movie, scientific topic, and so
on have their own article, we'll run out of things to
write about.  Whether this will happen at 2 million, 3
million, 4 million, it will happen.

On the other hand, the potential number of lists is
almost infinite, as there are a virtually unlimited
number of ways of slicing up portions of reality.

For example, one could make a "List of birds native to
the Chicago area".  If it were nicely wikified and
contained a reasonable number of items on it, it would
certainly not be deleted.

However, what you've actually done is create the first
example of "List of X's native to the Y area", where X
is any one of dozens or hundreds of types of
creatures... insects, mammals, amphibians, trees,
flowers, and so on, while Y is any one of tens of
thousands of towns, cities, states, counties,
countries, provinces, geographic areas, and so on.

Multiply 100 X's by 50,000 Y's, and you get 5 million
lists.

Take the roughly 500,000 of our article topics which
have been mentioned enough times in popular culture to
make up a list, and you get 500,000 "X in popular
culture" articles.

Take every one of the tens of thousands of diseases
which exist, find evidence of notable people who have
had the disease, and you get 25,000 "List of people
who have had disease X" articles.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

Even removing the obvious silly and ridiculous lists,
like "List of blind left-handed Canadians who have
worn blue jeans" still leaves us with more reasonable
sounding lists than any of ever imagined we would
have.

End result: en.Wikipedia, in the year 2050, will have
5 million articles, and 500 million lists.

____________________________________________________________________________________
No need to miss a message. Get email on-the-go
with Yahoo! Mail for Mobile. Get started.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/mail


from_name: Andries Krugers Dagneaux

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reverting banned users,	and users who engage

body:
>> The merits aside, again... it's specifically for if we know its them
>>(they
>> announce it is them) or fits the  standard form for a puppet/sock,
why
>> shouldn't they be nuked on sight?

>They should be, to discourage banned editors from violating their
>bans. It takes some pretty bad behavior to warrant a banning on
>Wikipedia, and a great deal of effort to get a ban.

>Jay.

Jay, if you mean to include topic-banned users then I disagree. I was
topic-banned from [[Sathya Sai Baba]] by the arbcom though they
described my editing behavior there as "generally responsible". I have
repeatedly but unsuccessfully requested several members of the arbcom
(Kyril, Fred, UninvitedCompany) to provide diffs that show that I engage
in activism or disruptive editing on that article.

Andries Krugers Dagneaux
User:Andries


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.9.3 under DOS Attacks

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> Wikigadugi.org has been under a massive Bot-Net generated denial of
> service attack since late yesterday.  The IP addresses are from China,
> Korea, Turkey, and Russia.  Blocking at the firewall or proxy just
> results in more spawned attacks from hundreds of new and unrelated IP
> addresses.  I found one solution which was limit the number of
> connections httpd allows concurrently and this seems to allow legitimate
> users to access the system though the attacks persist.  The attack
> pattern seems very specific to MediaWiki behavior.    It attempts to
> load an article then aborts the HTTP request while MediaWiki is churning
> through the database, then immediately issues another request for
> another article.  It in essense shotguns through the entire name space
> of articles rapidly.  It has trouble taking MediaWiki to its knees but
> had no trouble taking squid down to a crawl on the proxies and choking
> the network with garbage.
>
> What do you guys do to deal with these zombie bot-net attacks on this scale?

Block all involved IPs at the firewall. It's a workable solution as long
as you can identify the problem requests in your logs. It's entirely
feasible to block thousands of IP addresses in this way. Per-IP limits
such as apache's mod_throttle will also help, as will system optimisation
and caching.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
On 3/23/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> and funny ones, which was the point.  I also feel that some editors
> deliberately introduce nonsense in the hope of making BJAODN, but
> that's an aside.

The existing material is a good example of what not to write and
should stay as long as there is no chance that it could be mistaken
for real WP content but to address your last point, perhaps it might
be a good idea to "freeze" BJAODN. We already have enough bullshit
thank you very much.

If someone wants to archive future WP:BULLSHIT, then let them start
their own wiki for it or perhaps uncyclopedia would be interested in
it.


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 23/03/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r at gmail.com> wrote:
> I wouldn't find this useful.  However, if each extension had its own
> RELEASE-NOTES, this might help.

I for one tend to have a README file for the extensions I've written
and "published", and maintain a change log in that. I'm standardising
the documentation format for mine on MediaWiki.org and including a
decent change log there, too, e.g.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Username_Blacklist.

Whether or not all extension writers could be encouraged to do the
same is another matter.

Rob Church


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20643]
	trunk/phase3/includes/Parser.php

body:
On 23/03/07, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> mkroetzsch at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
> > Added parser hook InternalParseBeforeLinks, closes Bug#8578. The hook is relevant for all parser extensions that want templates, nowiki, etc. to
> > be taken care of before they do their magic.
>
> New hook? Don't forget to update documentation in hooks.txt...

And the release notes.

Rob Church


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
I think there's some point here - there's a lot of junk on BJAODN
that's just, well, junk. For instance, I don't think much of anyone
is going to find much to recommend "CHUCK IS AN EVIL MAN WHO EATS
TENNIS BALLS! HE JUST EATS THEM WITH MANGO SALSA!!!!" as humor.

On the other hand, "The Secretary-General of the UN can be
distinguished from the General-Secretary of the UN in that whilst one
is in charge of the entire world, the other types letters and answers
phone calls." is in fact a bit funny.

But there's no real way to repair this without adding processcruft to
BJAODN, so I suspect we should just call it a day and worry about
bigger things.

Best,
Phil Sandifer
sandifer at english.ufl.edu

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

 >


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway?

body:
on 3/23/07 6:45 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton at gmail.com wrote:

> since
> Jimbo's opinion holds a lot of sway with most Wikipedians, Jimbo's
> suggestions for policy generally have consensus.
>
> In other words, if you go against Jimbo, you are generally going
> against the community, and that is what gets you banned.

You are saying a great deal here. Isn't it time to take a critical look at
this?

Marc Riddell


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Court judgements (and, for that matter, court filings by the disputants,
>>and even trial transcripts) are a matter of public record.  This is an
>>important component to maintaining the transparency of the judicial
>>system.  Privacy should not be a factor with this kind of material.
>>
>>
>I think the point about privacy is that (as far as I know) there is a
>general consensus that someone sysematically going through court records
>to write articles about people who were convicted of drunk driving, or
>who were involved in a lawsuit, is a bad idea.
>
The lawsuit here is not a matter of having been so unfortunate as to be
caught driving drunk pure and simple.  The issues relate to how Langan
presents himself to the world in relation to those issues and
organizations which make him encyclopedic and/or notable.  The
references to the judgements may very well havew come from his opponents
in the case, but that is not the same as systematically sifting through
court records to find dirt on the guy

>We need to have some
>kind of independent verification (i.e. WP:NOR) that the incident or
>lawsuit is notable and worthy of inclusion in an article, and that in
>the case of people of very minor notability, there is no very good
>reason to include it.
>
I've taken time to think about this before answering, and I keep
arriving at the conclusion that it is not correct to suppress this
information.  I had never heard of Langan before this came up.  Going
through the long talk page attached to his article I get the impression
that this guy is a streetfighter who is ready to do whatever it takes to
win his point.

Thus far the discussion of this matter seems to have dragged in every
major policy imaginable.  I've already referred to privacy  Court
decisions are public documents.  Even if they are not published they are
at least available in court registries for those who may be interested
or who want to make copies.

Whwther the decision is important enough to mention is a different
issue.  I would not want to mix that in with notability policy.
Notability policy has a very high degree of subjectivity, and
traditionally relates to whether we should have an article at all.
Expanding such a policy to the point where it is an argument for
including varous bits of data within an article gives that already
overworked policy too much work.

It has also been mentioned that we should consider the policies on
Biographies of Living Persons.  This policy is rightly there so that we
can better avoid untruths about living person.  Incidentally to that we
also avoid lawsuits for libel.  Langan needs to know that citing a
judge's decison is not libellous unless the citation grossly distorts
the decision.  The point here is that the fact of a legal decision, and
what it says is verifiable.

NPOV has not apparently been violated.  If there are errors of
interpretation they can be fixed in the spirit of NPOV.  A judge's
decision is by it's very nature NPOV; it's a judges's job to distill the
arguments of the parties to come up with a fair judgement.  We can
examine a judge's decision in the hopes of derving an even more neutral
result, but in the absence of provable bias the onus is on those raising
questions to point out errors.  Langan appears to object  to the fact
that the default judgement was granted ex parte.  The natural
presumption in a default judgement is that the defendant does not really
care to defend himself, and that he has no case.  He generally has ample
opportunity to respond, and in this regard it differs significantly from
other ex parte actions.

Finally, is the information about the court case original research?  I
think that this concept has migrated significantly from its original
intent of keeping crackpot theories manageable.  When we run around in
circles trying to determiine whether a source is primary or secondary I
really don't think we accomplish anything.  Saying that we cannot accept
information contained in a priimary source until it has been properly
distorted by a secondary source does not strike me as a fair path to an
accurate article.  A secondary source must still properly reflect its
own sources, and a dilligent researcher will make certain of that.

I think that some mention of the legal actions is properly included in
the article, though I hesitate to say how much.

Ec


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/23/07, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
>    Is this an honest assessment?  Could a non-admin (or even a single
> admin) go against him and not get banned?  Honestly?

Yup done it.

--
geni


from_name: Angela Beesley

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Advisory Board - two new members

body:
Two new members have been added to the Wikimedia Advisory Board; Teemu
Leinonen and Debbie Garside. This brings us up to 20 members.

Full bios of the new members can be found at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board

In summary, Debbie Garside is based in Wales and involved with ISO
639-6, GeoLang Ltd, the World Language Documentation Centre, ccNSO-GAC
IDN Joint WG, IETF, and the British Standards Institute. Debbie has
been involved in language standards for over 5 years. She is also a
board member of the Multilingual Internet Names Consortium and is
project leader for the South Slavic Culture and Trade Engine in
partnership with OmegaWiki. Debbie is Managing Director and Chief
Executive Officer of two other companies, one offering translations,
marketing and market research and the other offering entrepreneurship
and ICT training as part of a European funded project.

Teemu Leinonen is based in Helsinki and leads the Learning
Environments research group of the Media Lab, University of Art and
Design Helsinki. The group is internationally recognized from its open
source virtual learning environment called Fle3, MobilED audio wiki
platform, and LeMill web community for finding, authoring and sharing
learning resources. Teemu holds over a decade of experience in the
field of research and development of web-based learning, computer
supported collaborative learning, online cooperation, educational
planning and educational politics.

Angela

--
Angela Beesley
Wikimedia Advisory Board, Chair


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote

> Slim Virgin wrote:
>
> >On 3/23/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:

> >>Wikipedia is a big enough topic that it attracts all kinds of
> >>reporters, all kinds of criticism and all kinds of praise. Overall, I
> >>think it has gotten fairly sympathetic press.

> >Yes, indeed, though I sense that's coming to an end.

> Yeah.  The alternative would be for the reporters to learn what putting
> Wikipedia in proper perspective means.  They might even have to check
> their facts. That would not be the easy way out for them. :-)

Sheldon is talking good sense, Sarah and Ray are not. The press will print bad-news stories about WP, but that's because such stories are _news_. As David Gerard has just said, the hacks like WP and are well disposed towards us. That doesn't mean they are obliged to make propaganda for WP. If you take open-source software as a comparison, I doubt mainstream journalism has ever had the slightest interest in putting that in "proper perspective". With that as baseline, WP has already done well. A single story about citation in college work probably will have more thoughtful content than you could find about Linux distributions in a month of Sundays.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 23/03/07, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:

>    Is this an honest assessment?  Could a non-admin (or even a single
> admin) go against him and not get banned?  Honestly?  That is not a
> measure of respect or even deference except perhaps by a majority of admins.

Um, yes. Frequently.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
On 23/03/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Sheldon is talking good sense, Sarah and Ray are not. The press will print bad-news stories about WP, but that's because such stories are _news_. As David Gerard has just said, the hacks like WP and are well disposed towards us. That doesn't mean they are obliged to make propaganda for WP. If you take open-source software as a comparison, I doubt mainstream journalism has ever had the slightest interest in putting that in "proper perspective". With that as baseline, WP has already done well. A single story about citation in college work probably will have more thoughtful content than you could find about Linux distributions in a month of Sundays.

I think our media coverage is mostly pretty nice. Our press is good
when decently informed, only bad when it isn't. TV is a *lot* more
soundbitey. Radio is not nearly as bad, if it's live rather than
prerecorded (thinking of that recent NPR where ten minutes was cut
down to one sentence out of context).

- d.


body:
stevertigo wrote

> Is the community *not to be trusted
> with certain policy changes? And is Jimbo therefore expected to take a
> more direct of formalized role in this area?

I don't think 'formalizing' anything helps. After all we spend a high proportion of this list's bandwidth on typical 'hard cases make bad law' objections to more formal formulations of well known WP principles, and that tends to be hot air.

We have had Bagehot already, the theorist of the stage machinery of the British constitution. I think another and more up-to-date analogy is the [[golden share]]. We have the "voting is evil" version of that. De facto things can happen on enWP that Jimbo really doesn't agree with; but de jure one can't call that a consensus. It is kind of indicative when a discussion about whether there is consensus on a policy page change turns into a massive debate ...

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
>    Is this an honest assessment?  Could a non-admin (or even a single
> admin) go against him and not get banned?  Honestly?  That is not a
> measure of respect or even deference except perhaps by a majority of admins.

Probably depends on what you mean by "go against him". Disagreeing
with Jimbo is not a bannable offence (I expect Jimbo would unblock
anyone blocked for such a reason). Going against policy, as defined by
consensus, is a bannable offence (or at least can be), and since
Jimbo's opinion holds a lot of sway with most Wikipedians, Jimbo's
suggestions for policy generally have consensus.

In other words, if you go against Jimbo, you are generally going
against the community, and that is what gets you banned.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:22:37 -0700, "Silas Snider"
<swsnider at gmail.com> wrote:

>This was the other point of my email: Who are you (and I mean this
>without acrimony) to decide what is and what is not funny? What are
>your credentials in this area?

I, sir, am an Englishman, resident in the BRITONS' Britain, and
possessed of the Englishman's sense of humour, plus an education from
a thousand-year-old school with a Pope as an alumnus.

That and the fact that most of it really is crap, honestly.  Have you
looked?  Really?  The emphasis really is on nonsense.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Sue Anne Reed

subject: [WikiEN-l] Looking to interview Wikipedians

body:
Benjamin,

If you're still looking for folks, I'm game. I'm 18+, a U.S. resident
and an admin at Wikipedia.

Sue Anne

Benjamin Keith Johnson wrote:
> I am a researcher seeking to interview Wikipedia contributors of any and all
> levels of experience and involvement.  In-depth, one hour interviews will be
> conducted over the phone or email beginning March 27.  Compensation for your
> time will be provided: a $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com.  Must be 18+
> and U.S. resident.  Contact Benjamin Johnson, Department of
> Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media, Michigan State University,
> by email at john2429 at msu.edu or by phone at 517.230.1272.
>
> Thanks!
> Benjamin
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


from_name: James Farrar

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re: [Possible spam]Re: BJAODN

body:
On 23/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:22:37 -0700, "Silas Snider"
> <swsnider at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >This was the other point of my email: Who are you (and I mean this
> >without acrimony) to decide what is and what is not funny? What are
> >your credentials in this area?
>
> I, sir, am an Englishman, resident in the BRITONS' Britain, and
> possessed of the Englishman's sense of humour, plus an education from
> a thousand-year-old school with a Pope as an alumnus.
>
> That and the fact that most of it really is crap, honestly.  Have you
> looked?  Really?  The emphasis really is on nonsense.

You're giving us a bad name... :-)

Yeah, there's an awful lot of nonsense. But most of the nonsense does
at least tend to elicit a response of "you what?", for me anyway. YMMV
of course.

And the "Real Life" article was *fantastic*.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
darthvader1219 at gmail.com wrote:

>On 3/21/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>With regards to Carmen's age I'm assuming that the question of her
>>editing her own article is not a factor, and that here _claim_ to be 19
>>is properly documented to be a claim.  I'm also assuming that there is
>>no direct statement that she lied about her age, and all that is really
>>said is that her birth certificate establishes her age as 26.
>>
>>It strikes me as unethical to retain information which we know to be
>>wrong simply because the document which establishes the correct
>>information is not in an acceptable format.  If we are to remove the
>>information about her correct age we must also remove the information
>>about the age which we know to be false.
>>
>>
>Would the information really be wrong though? We're stating that she claims
>she's 19. Our having direct knowledge of the fact that she's 26 does not
>alter the fact that she claims that she is 19, so I don't see how the
>inclusion of the statement is any more unethical than it was before it was
>verified false, so long as it is phrased "Carmen is 19 according to <insert
>link to interview or some other source>" and not "Carmen is 19". People lie
>all the time; if we quote anyone what we're quoting is only as reliable as
>the you would consider the person to be.
>
As long as we need to engawge in circumlocutions to express doubt about
some fundamental fact we can't consider ourselves reliable.  As much as
I agree in the principle of verifiable facts, there still comes a point
where a strict literal interpretation of rules leaves us hoisted on our
own absurdity.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
John Lee wrote:

>Basically, as I understand it, the reason we ought not to have included the
>lawsuit is not because it's a novel interpretation of the facts, but because
>the facts have not been published by a secondary source. In theory, we could
>have articles about every lawsuit ever filed, but I think many people, even
>inclusionists, would balk at that - and for good reason.
>
Really?  We could put the text of all these lawsuits in Wikisource.  At
least in North America they are all in the public domain.

>Like it or not,
>"notability" still plays a role (albeit a rather undefined one) in how we
>think about the encyclopaedia. And although we may not say it outright, it
>seems the present established status quo is that we establish sufficient
>notability by the existence of secondary sources. If it hasn't been covered
>by a secondary source, it probably isn't worth writing about. Encyclopaedias
>are tertiary sources.
>
We would do better to separate issues of notability from tose of
sourcing.  Inclusion in a secondary source can imply notability, but it
does not mean that absence from secondary sources implies lack of
notability.

Ec


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
On 23/03/07, Kurt Maxwell Weber <kmw at armory.com> wrote:

> > The harm is sixty pages of childish vandalism promoted as a Good
> > Thing.  And yes, the last sentence is speculation, explicitly so.
>
> How is that "harmful"?
>
> Your assertion does not make it so.
>
> Looks like you're just looking for an excuse to power-trip.

I know anecdotally of a couple of complaints where malicious vandalism
had been kept on BJAODN, and the subjects had stumbled across it...

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>The section consists of what appears to be meticulously
>referenced one-sided statements about a dispute that this fellow was in,
>giving the impression of importance and leading the reader to a
>conclusion that is not contained elsewhere.
>
We don't want to overemphasize the other side, but if Langan refuses to
defenf his position in the courts, and gets a default judgement he needs
to accept the consequences of his own actions.

>Additionally, the section in question is quite controversial, with 4
>editors having objected to it, as well as the subject of the biography,
>who wrote a rather long rebuttal on the talk page.
>
He wrote a long raint, not an effective rebuttal.  He is as much
responsible for making this a controversy as anyoone else.

Ec


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-24

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20658).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  17 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 494 of 511 tests (96.67%)... 17 tests failed!


subject: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia

body:
David Gerard wrote:

><charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Sheldon is talking good sense, Sarah and Ray are not. The press will print bad-news stories about WP, but that's because such stories are _news_. As David Gerard has just said, the hacks like WP and are well disposed towards us. That doesn't mean they are obliged to make propaganda for WP. If you take open-source software as a comparison, I doubt mainstream journalism has ever had the slightest interest in putting that in "proper perspective". With that as baseline, WP has already done well. A single story about citation in college work probably will have more thoughtful content than you could find about Linux distributions in a month of Sundays.
>>
>>
>I think our media coverage is mostly pretty nice. Our press is good
>when decently informed, only bad when it isn't. TV is a *lot* more
>soundbitey. Radio is not nearly as bad, if it's live rather than
>prerecorded (thinking of that recent NPR where ten minutes was cut
>down to one sentence out of context).
>
The problem with the press comes when they use some article without
checking their facts.  Most of the time the articles will be good, but
when they use stupidities there tends to be a backlash when they make a
fuss and use this as an example of just how bad Wikipedia is.

Ec


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] BJAODN

body:
[[WP:BEANS]]?

On 24/03/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 23/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>
> >   We are both still of the opinion
> > that keeping copies of many hundreds of decisively atrocious edits,
> > the majority of which do not rise above the level of childish, is
> > probably not worth the server resources committed to it.  Plus, the
> > insane mountain of crap makes it hard to sot the genuinely creative
> > and funny ones, which was the point.  I also feel that some editors
> > deliberately introduce nonsense in the hope of making BJAODN, but
> > that's an aside.
>
>
> You haven't quantified any actual harm, and your last sentence is so
> far speculation. Got any hard info?
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: nilfanion wiki

subject: [Commons-l] Sexually explicit content

body:
Sexually explicit imagery is a problem for Wikimedia in general, and we have
had child pornography uploaded to Commons (and presumably other projects) in
the past. We can't prevent the upload of underage imagery, but we should do
our best. See further discussion at the Village Pump:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#US_Section_2257_and_Wikimedia

We may not be able to meet the legal requirements of that US law, and if we
cannot we certainly should have a disclaimer stating that - I've had an
attempt at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nilfanion/2257 At the very
least, such a disclaimer helps downstream users of our content avoid legal
issues of their own.

Even if we cannot create records satisfactory for legal purposes, we have a
moral obligation to confirm as best we can. To that end, it might be
beneficial to create a special OTRS queue; we could then have a record
asserting that the image is legal. That way we will know to our own
satisfaction, which given the nature of many of the penis pics on Commons is
a lot better than the status quo.

To avoid fragmentation of the discussion, it is probably best to discuss
this on-wiki at the VP.

Thanks,

Nilfanion
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from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
* Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I think the point about privacy is that (as far as I know) there is a
> general consensus that someone sysematically going through court records
> to write articles about people who were convicted of drunk driving, or
> who were involved in a lawsuit, is a bad idea.  We need to have some
> kind of independent verification (i.e. WP:NOR) that the incident or
> lawsuit is notable and worthy of inclusion in an article, and that in
> the case of people of very minor notability, there is no very good
> reason to include it.

I cringe when I see people equating 'primary sources' with 'original
research'. What they are really talking about is a concept of 'notability
of facts'... if a scientific theory is notable/relevant then it logically
will have been judged so by neutral third-parties. If (to address THIS
instance) a court case is notable/relevant then it would presumably be
reported on by the media.

It is (I hope obviously) a bad idea for Wikipedia to promote information
more widely/prominently than any other source has done. We are not
disseminators (and thereby perforce arbiters) of 'truth' or 'relevance',
but rather recorders of things which OTHERS have judged to be worthy of
note. When we place ourselves in the position of saying, 'this information
is important to make known... even though no one else has done so' we are
inherently tossing 'neutral point of view' out the window.

However, the long growing trend of seeking to exclude this kind of thing
as 'original research' is itself extremely damaging. I've seen people
argue that we have to use ONLY imprecise media accounts of scientific
discoveries because citing the actual published findings would be
'original research'. Likewise, people have actually argued that citing a
book as reference for the CONTENTS of that book is 'original research'...
you need to get a third party source to say what was in the book. In
short, it has gotten to the point where many people think 'primary
sources' are to be avoided at all costs... and that is a travesty.

Wikipedia USED to have a concept that,

"However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information
from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly
encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information
collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not
"original research"; it is "source-based research", and it is fundamental
to writing an encyclopedia."

Indeed, that text still appears in our 'No original research' policy.
However, efforts to stamp out use of 'primary sources' to spread
information that no other national (or international) 'news' / 'reporting'
entity has deemed worthy of commenting on have led to a wide-spread view
that 'primary sources' in general are bad. They aren't. Once something has
been verified as notable we should often take primary sources OVER
secondary ones.


from_name: Samuel Klein

body:
Thank you for the update.

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Angela Beesley wrote:

> Teemu Leinonen is based in Helsinki and leads the Learning
> Environments research group of the Media Lab, University of Art and

This is great news. Welcome, Teemu & Debbie.  May you get meta: accounts
soon.

SJ


from_name: John Lee

body:
On 3/24/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> on 3/23/07 6:45 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > since
> > Jimbo's opinion holds a lot of sway with most Wikipedians, Jimbo's
> > suggestions for policy generally have consensus.
> >
> > In other words, if you go against Jimbo, you are generally going
> > against the community, and that is what gets you banned.
>
> You are saying a great deal here. Isn't it time to take a critical look at
> this?
>
> Marc Riddell

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, since the laconic nature of your posts
isn't exactly always conducive to clarity. If you're saying what I think
you're saying, I don't see any point in disagreeing with Jimbo for the sake
of disagreeing with him. The reason why Jimbo's GodKingness has been around
for so long is because the community does generally agree with him.

There of course have been times when the community disagreed, and in such
cases Jimbo eventually reversed himself. (IIRC, this occurred at one point
in the userbox wheel wars when Jimbo erroneously banned a few people.) But
the point is, as a general rule, it's good to listen to Jimbo because it
somehow turns out that his views often remarkably approximate the
community's views.

Johnleemk


from_name: Robert Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Domains

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 24/03/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> BTW: Who will take care of the domains now Brad resigns?
>>
>
>
> Domain names? I thought that was already Brion's job.
>
>
> - d
In the past Jimbo was the "designated agent" for domain names in terms
of who was listed as the primary administrative contact.

Brion is clearly the "technical contact", and he is the one that deals
with the server side in terms of which IP addresses and other issues
about the domains and sub-domains are concerned, but in terms of being
legally responsible for paying the bills and making sure the legal
aspects of keeping and maintaining the domain names (and fighting off
challenges to those who might claim the domains through legal action),
that was clearly Brad's area of expertise.

Currently "wikipedia.org" lists Brad as both the administrative contact
as well as the technical contact.  See
http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=wikipedia.org&prog_id=godaddy
for some details.

Once a replacement for Brad happens, this is something that should be
dealt with.  I think Brion ought to be listed as the technical contact,
(mainly for situations like this), but that is something left to the WMF
board to decide.  The "real" person who owns the domain is the person
listed as the administrative contact.  In theory Brad could really screw
over the foundation here if he wanted, even though I seriously doubt he
is that kind of person to take advantage of this situation, not to
mention it would ruin is reputation as an attorney.

-- Robert Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Domains


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Commons-l] Getting our content out there
	(openstockphotography.org)

body:
On 3/24/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ubuntu desktops:
> http://art.ubuntu.com/main.php?g2_itemId=592
> (although 'Wikipedia Commons'... argh...almost!)

I suspect thats a battle that we're not going to win. ;)
Perhaps we should change our name to match perceptions?


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
In the fullness of time, Wikipedia or some fork of it will be
properly semantic, with a nice query interface that will let you
ask questions like "what are all the birds native to the Chicago
area?".  In the meantime, people interested in such categorization
have little choice but to create these explicit categories and
lists, silly and overspecific though they sometimes seem to be.
I don't see much harm in this, other than the dreadful waste of
time (compared to, say, the time that could be spent implementing
a proper semantic scheme once and for all) and the inevitable
incompleteness and inaccuracy of the explicit lists.