from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Mediation and community building (was: Danger to the
	community)

body:
Grandfather,

Thank you for your thoughtful remarks on mediation. After a tussle with
another user on the mailing list recently, I began to research mediation
and community-building.

I find that I am sorely lacking in my ability to contribute in these two
areas. I thought that my dedication to "truth" and/or "NPOV" was
sufficient.

I look forward to learning from others how to improve as a mediator and
community builder. I am open to suggestions from anyone who can teach
me.

Uncle


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Danger to the community

body:
Matthew J. Brown wrote:
> Very much agreed.  However, an idea I've seen used before is to flag users
> 'in a role' with a different (but non-anonymous) username, to make the
> point that this is user A acting in the role of X, rather than just as
> their regular selves.  This is sometimes useful.
>
> I'm not sure it is going to be useful on Wikipedia, but IF we ever have
> officially anointed anythings (mediators, arbitrators, whatever) then it
> is probably a good idea for edits made 'under that role' to be flagged as
> such.

Ok, this I can see. I could definitely get behind a flag/label scheme. I
don't know that mediators need official designation, given the nature of
mediation... but maybe. Good to have a list of the known willing and able,
anyway. But arbitrators, etc... yeah. 'Soandso (Arbitrator)', 'mav
(Treasurer)' (notice how once the idea gets out, it's like it's official or
inevitable or something? I'm just making an example...)

> I'd be loath to give up Wikipedia's relatively flat and uncomplicated
> structure for such a thing.  We currently have a 4-level structure (anon
> IP -> logged-in user -> admin -> Jimbo (if one considers developer status
> 'outside' this system)) but we have over time set up a system where a very
> few powers are (by consensus or fiat) assigned to Jimbo and everything
> else is pushed out as far as we can.  Anon IP users can do almost
> everything a logged-in user can do and (by consensus) the power of admins
> extends only so far as some extra housekeeping/janitorial functions a
> little too dangerous to hand out to everyone, plus the power to block
> vandals in extremis.
>
> Creating another special class of users is not IMO required; keeping a
> list of people willing to step in and mediate / arbitrate controversial
> issues on a basis of no real extra power is probably good enough.

Well, I foresee a level between admin and Jimbo at /some/ point- basically,
representatives from each language, including English, rather than
representatives /to/ English - no rush, however. And you're right, developer
is orthogonal to this. No need for mediators/arbitrators to have any special
powers (though arbitrators will need to be operating under mandate and
within clear boundaries).

> I certainly strongly oppose the User:Mediator idea of a solitary,
> unknown-to-everyone mediator.  A solitary known-to-few anonymous-to-most
> is not AS bad, but I still don't like it.  Do we need an empowered
> anonymous 'Voice-of-Jimbo' individual?  I'd rather have known,
> non-anonymous individuals take up tasks.  There is, as suggested by some,
> a problem with people not accepting mediation by someone they think has
> ideological 'baggage', but the fact remains: they might be RIGHT in their
> rejection of such a person.

Bingo. I agree on all counts. (Though a Metatron account makes for some
interesting ideas... hmmm)

-- Jake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wait a minute here...

body:
Anthere, wait. Banning YOU is neither intentional nor permanent. Why the
hurry? As near as I can see, someone just readded the block on the Mediator
account, since it shouldn't be used... and the username block automatically
blocked IP as well.. Did you not see Jimbo saying 'Anthere is good.' No one
wants to ban you. It's just a technical glitch, so why all this about
leaving? I really don't understand...

-- Jake


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mediators (Was: Danger to the community)

body:
Matt wrote in part:

>Creating another special class of users is not IMO required; keeping a
>list of people willing to step in and mediate / arbitrate controversial
>issues on a basis of no real extra power is probably good enough.

For mediation, I agree.  For arbitration, I'm not so sure.
See, an arbitrator makes a decision which must be obeyed;
this must be agreed to ahead of time, and be enforceable.
So an arbitrator ought to have some degree of power-endowed-by-Jimbo.

That said, I'd like the mediator bit to start up before the arbitrator bit.
Who knows, maybe it'll be sufficient!  So I agree with your broad point,
that we don't need to -- hence shouldn't -- unflatten the hierarchy.

>I certainly strongly oppose the User:Mediator idea of a solitary,
>unknown-to-everyone mediator.

Of course, that's a bad idea.
I'm not one to reject ideas just because 142 came up with them,
but jeez.

>There is, as suggested by some,
>a problem with people not accepting mediation by someone they think has
>ideological 'baggage', but the fact remains: they might be RIGHT in their
>rejection of such a person.

True, I think that there are situations where Ed should not mediate,
and probably even people that he shouldn't mediate conflicts among;
because of Ed's few passionate positions and the few users that dislike him.
This is /despite/ the fact that I HEREBY NOMINATE ED POOR FOR MEDIATOR,
since he seems to be good at this sort of thing, almost all of the time.

But we should have more than simply a list of volunteer mediators.
The mediators, in volunteering, should make a study of mediation;
and Wikipedia (or the English Wikipedia) should have some ideas
about how mediation ought to be done, discussed and written down.
Ed recently wrote that he has a lot to learn about mediation;
and this does not surprise me, but I believe that he can learn it.

It may take a certain kind of personality to understand well
the kind of detachment that a mediator should take;
a mediator can't try to get /their/ opinion chosen,
but has to focus on resolving the /disputants'/ positions.
Accordingly, I HEREBY NOMINATE MAVERIC FOR MEDIATOR,
since this sort of thing is right up his INTJ alley.

-- Toby


from_name: Louis Kyu Won Ryu

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Bannie donc partie

body:
What happened?  Did someone ban Anthere?  Or did her IP get banned when
she logged in with User:Mediator?

This is ridiculous.  Maybe we need some tighter controls on the use of
the "ban a user id or ip range" feature.  Like, three sysops have to
approve the ban for it to take effect.

Will someone please do something about this right away so that Anthere
can edit, and will the responsible party please step forward and apologize?

The last thing we need to do is antagonize each other.

Louis


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [Wikitech-l] Soft ban on IP range

body:
On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 19:33:05 +0100, sannse <sannse at delphiforums.com> gave
utterance to the following:

> Erik wrote:
>
>> Poor,-
>> > How hard would it be to create a "soft ban" on certain IP number
>> ranges?
>> > To thwart a troll, we may have occasion to block, say, all IP's from
>> > 142.177.0.0 to 142.177.255.255 -- to prevent someone like EofT from
>> > posting anonymously to Wikipedia and thereby evade a hard ban.
>>
>> If necessary, can be done using a small script, but I'm strongly opposed
>> to it. That's the IP of an entire large Canadian ISP with thousands of
>> customers. I also find it a bit problematic how easily it is assumed
>> these
>> days that two users with somewhat similar IP numbers are the same
>> person.
>> Let's try to establish strong standards of evidence here.
>
> I feel the same.  It always worries me to see people accused of being a
> repeat account on what appears to be very circumstantial evidence.  But
> /are/ there any ways to improve this?  Presumably ISPs could give exact
> identities - but I guess they are difficult (and maybe expensive?) to
> persuade to help in IDing problem users.
>
> So what other options are there?
>
In New Zealand at least nothing short of a police request or warrant will
persuade the ISP's to divulge such information - we have strong Privacy
laws.
--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 24

body:
Well, I'm not going to get into a "no, he didn't, yes he did," argument with you, but it WAS the reason he was eventually banned.

RickK

Bj?rn_Lindqvist <bjrn.lindqvist at telia.com> wrote:
> Please recall that, in his guise as EntmootsOfTrolls, he made threats to sic Palestinian terrorists on RK. Death threats are not grounds for reinstatement.
>
> RickK

No he didn't.

BL

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from_name: steven l. rubenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] Danger to the community (Poor, Edmund W, Jimmy Wales)

body:
Some of you may have noticed that, seeing my name nominated for the
mediator committee, I posted a comment on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mediator/candidates
If that comment isn't clear enough, I want to be especially clear about this:
1) I have not been following the list-serve discussions closely lately, for
a variety of personal reasons.  When I saw the "proposal" for this
committee I (incorrectly) assumed that it is an idea you all have been
kicking around; I also (incorrectly) understood "mediator" to refer to
Jimbo, not to another specific user.  To whatever extent my comment on that
talk-page is positive, it is because of these incorrect assumptions.
2) In that comment I expressed my own wariness at any anonymous,
institutionalized, committee of mediators.
For the record, I agree entirely with Ed and Jimmy's recent comments.  If
this proposal is the work of one user (let alone a formerly banned one),
and was not the product of a considered discussion on these pages, I think
serious action against that page should be considered.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Ne pas allez, ma cherie!

body:
Anth?re,

I'm sorry I caused you heartache, ma cherie. Please don't go because of my hasty, thoughtless remarks!

You are NOT banned, and the "policy" you referred to was NEVER meant to apply to you. The old Mediator passed on the account to you; and you, in good faith, began to use it for the common good of the community.

It would be a cruel joke on all of us if EofT got you to leave: this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I feared might happen!!

Please do not go, and please stay in touch if you need a break...

Avec remorse,

Edmond Le Pauvre


subject: [WikiEN-l] one more thing

body:
Non. Absolument pas.

Please stay with us, and forgive me for my mistaken words. I beg of you
(T.T)

Humbly & desperately,

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Danger to the community

body:
Don't you remember Jimbo's message in which he said that, because of EoT, he's being very careful about opening packages?  Isn't that scary enough for you?

RickK

Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote:
On Wednesday 15 October 2003 20:00, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Why can't people who want to mediate, simply do so under their own
> names? Or just create a dummy account and mediate under that (each with
> his own dummy account)? I worry that there's some trickery or treachery
> brewing: EofT is very smart, and he scares me. I don't like or trust
> what's happening now.

I believe that he is following this list, so you have just told him that you
are afraid of him. What is the next thing that you will do for him? :)

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from_name: Alex BATKO

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Email me a new password" button

body:
Hi.

On Oct 14 2003, at 23:24, I created an entry for "KDM" using the
username "Alexbatko".

Some minute ealier, I had created that account (Alexbatko), but in
the heat of the moment my mouse went nuts and it must have pasted
the wrong set of characters into the password field.

So the problem is that I can't log back into my account because I
don't know what characters were pasted into the password text box.

I realised this once I was logged in, but at that point I had
already cleared the mouse buffer.  To try to resolve the problem, I
went into preferences and saw that my email address
"abatko at cs.mcgill.ca" was set.  So I tried to email the password to
myself by using the corresponding "Mail me a new password" button on
the main login page.

Unfortunately I still haven't received the email.

I've also posted a bug report on sourceforge (bug id# 823808), but
the problem is still unresolved, and i really want to access the
account.

Is it at all possible that someone could manually reset the password
and send it to me?

Thanks a lot!


subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm gone

body:
I can't be part of this community without Anthere.

This is goodbye.

Sorrowfully,

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>With more and more people participating in the VfD process (which is good)
>we need a clear and well defined policy for what to do when the 7 days are
>over and a sysop needs to decide whether a page should be deleted or not.

>I see two possible solutions:

>1) Set a formal threshold for deletion, maybe 75%.

I suspect that option 1 would exacerbate the ballot stuffing problem.
If ballot stuffers advertising on Usenet (which is awful!)
know exactly what goal they need to reach, then they'll be more motivated.

>2) Allow sysops to ignore votes by people who
> a) are not regular Wikipedia authors (less than 20 edits)

>There seems to be a lot of ballot stuffing, going so far that some people
>post to Usenet and ask people in a group to support non-deletion of a
>page. We can prevent this by allowing only people with a track record to
>participate.

If this is something that would often be relevant,
then I think that we /definitely/ should adopt it.
It seems like a no-brainer to me.

> b) have not expressed any opinion beyond "keep" or "delete" and have not
>made any edit to the page in question.

This isn't a good idea unless it's well advertised and well understood;
otherwise, people that might write a comment would instead be quiet
on the grounds that somebody else has already given their argument.
In it's not clear to all that this is imposed, then it's unfair.

OTOH, if we adopt this, then how do we stop people from simply
adding some boilerplate opinion like "I agree with what [[User:---]] said."
or "Deleting this would violate fundamental Wikipedia principles."?
If it's clear to all that this is imposed, then they'll work around it.

So you're right that people should give more opinions! --
I just can't tell how to make it both fair and effective.

>This might help to address the problem that some people oppose almost
>every deletion on priniciple, making consensus very hard to reach.

I don't pay attention to most things on VfD now (haven't for a long time).
Thus I have no idea what the answer to this question is, so I'll ask:
If you were to ignore violators of 2)a) and all opposers-on-principle,
then how far would you be from consensus in the sort of situation
that is now causing you to suggest these modifications?

>I would like to ask Jimbo to make a formal declaration of policy so that
>sysops won't be accused of overstepping their bounds when deleting pages.
>Solution 2) would making deleting considerably harder than it is now
>(because right now, although we *say* we work by consensus, we often do
>not), whereas 1) would largely formalize what is currently going on. I
>have no strong opinion either way, but we need to have clear rules.

Summary: I suspect that 1) would exacerbate 2)a) and that 2)b) is unworkable,
but 2)a) itself seems obviously correct, so let's start with that.

And tell complainers about [[WP:Votes for undeletion]]; it's their friend!
^_^

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
I agree we need clear policy here.

Yes, we can shorten the waiting time. 5 days would be fine, 3 would be too
short, I think- easy to miss it on a weekend, for example. Votes are rarely
added in the last couple of days.

I'd say 20 valid article edits to vote. 10's low-ish, but not out of the
question. 200 is way too high, creating more issues about arbitrary "rank",
plus at that size, it's hard to judge which are good edits and which are
just junk... and we'd see people making an edit for each and every character
they change, so as to boost their edit count. Yes, those do tend to show,
but it leads to too many special rules to define what should and shouldn't
be counted.

I'd allow simple Keep/Delete votes - if we (as I think is wise) go to a
percentage system, it really is a vote like any other. Also, I don't believe
having edited the article should in any way give someone's vote extra
currency- quite the opposite. It means they're much more biased about it.

I'd prefer 80% to 75%. And if it passes the n days waiting time and doesn't
have that many favoring deletion, it doesn't go to the undecided, it simply
stays.

I'd also suggest that pages that were listed and kept cannot be listed again
on VFD within a given time period: say, 2 weeks since the end of the last
vote.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion policy needed

body:
There are nontrivial issues involving policy and project goals involved
in what seems like a simple procedural matter.

Most impassioned VfD discussions result from disagreements over the
fundamental goals of the project, hence the general criteria for
inclusion of material, and as something of a side effect, the impact on
any particular article.  Imposing a voting system will not solve that,
and the trouble with ballot-box stuffing will only get worse.
[[Meatball:VotingIsEvil]]

I believe that a healthy discussion of project goals, the sort of
articles we want, the sort of articles that have no place --- would take
us a long way towards building consensus on deletion matters generally.

As others have pointed out, some participants genuinely believe that an
article with any information content at all belongs at Wikipedia, even
those that have only a sentence or two; these people have a broad view
of the project as an information source for most anything.  Others see
Wikipedia as closer to a print encyclopedia, to varying degrees.

I suggest that an attempt to better understand (if not resolve) these
fundamental issues should occur before any changes to deletion policy.

Louis


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
I strongly oppose 2b.  I don't see that that's particularly useful.

RickK

Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

1) Set a formal threshold for deletion, maybe 75%.

2) Allow sysops to ignore votes by people who
a) are not regular Wikipedia authors (less than 20 edits)

There seems to be a lot of ballot stuffing, going so far that some people
post to Usenet and ask people in a group to support non-deletion of a
page. We can prevent this by allowing only people with a track record to
participate.

b) have not expressed any opinion beyond "keep" or "delete" and have not
made any edit to the page in question.

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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mozilla 1.5 and <hr>

body:
On Wednesday, Oct 15, 2003, at 13:30 US/Pacific, Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Wednesday, Oct 15, 2003, at 13:14 US/Pacific, Allan Crossman wrote:
>> Mozilla 1.5 (Windows version at least) seems to have toasted support
>> for
>> however Wikipedia is implementing the
 tag...
>>
>> A problem with Mozilla or with our HTML/CSS?
>
> There was a bug in older versions of Mozilla which trashed our
s
> once the code was fixed up to use "standards-compliant" rendering
> instead of "quirks" mode; there's a hackish workaround that forces the
> rendering of
 back to the quirks version, but I'm told it messes
> things up again on the latest greatest Mozilla, where allegedly the
> bug is fixed.

I haven't managed to reproduce the old bug yet, so I've just removed
the hack for now. If anyone sees weird problems with the
 tags in
older versions of Mozilla, give a yell.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Brian Corr

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
I think that Angela's suggestions and Erik's slight revisions are excellent.

Thanks, Brian


from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed (Buffer)

body:
*Buffer*
Strange that nobody's mentioned the
[[Wikipedia:Cleanup]] page that Cimon had the good
sense to start up.  I dislike the layout that Cimon
chose as well as the "required anonymity" but other
than that it seems to be on its way to working
--particularly to take a load off of VFD. And its
getter far more ATTN than the clumsily titled
Wikipedia:Pages needing attention ... (which Ive never
seen on RC )

For those NITK, Cleanup was designed to be a buffer
for everything.  If youre a newbie, or just not in the
mood to do deal with VFD you can throw it there, and
someone else can deal with it.  Its not just for VFD
-- its there because the binary notion that an article
needs thumbs up/thumbs down only applies to the
minority.  Most cases VFD is more akin to a
battleground for NPOV disputes, or to get the
attention of the person who didnt spend enough time on
it. Usually these are anons, and rough VFD treatment
is not a pleasant experience for a newbie. <strange
analogy> You dont make your new hotel guests through
the kitchen and by the trashbin to get to their
rooms.</strange>

But the fundamental flaw of VFD --I'll point it out
now: It takes a certain mentality to deal with VFD
--Deletionists love VFD, and hang out there all the
time.  Anti-Deletionists tend to like to actually deal
with articles, and as such dont have time to check VFD
to make a defense for a particular article that
someone wants to chop.  As such, there may be a
problem mentality associated with a thumbs up/down
approach if its not mitigated by the use of a clearing
house.

A placement on Cleanup can mean that the article gets
some consensus attention *before* its submitted to the
Ugnauts at VFD.  <metaphor-analogy>Instead of sending
something straight to the Scrapyard, you let people
try to sell it at the Thrift Store first.</meta>

*Limits of Wiki*
To me the fact that the Pump and VFD would get too
crowded all seems quite basic, and is just the tip of
the iceberg when it comes to finding out the limits of
traditional post-it style wiki to keep up to speed.

Wiki may work in the general sense, but for high-use
pages like the Pump and such, wiki is far too slow --
I like someone's suggestion of using a chat forum like
they have on craigslist.  But this may be too easy
--and does not deal with the problem of making a
document of the discussion --though this may not be
necessary for the Pump anyway.

In short, I think that for the pages that people might
scramble to beat someone else to the submit button
--there needs to be something better.  It may be wiki
or not.  If something is not done about this in the
next several months, this *may negatively affect the
30% upward curve Wikipedia has on Alexa.

~S~

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from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Blocking logged in users in the non-english wikis

body:
I've crossposted this to intlwiki-l. The thread started on wikitech-l.

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Aoineko wrote:
>
>>Instead, I don't understand why admin can't ban logged user!?
>
>
> Admins on the English Wikipedia can. But this is a very new feature, maybe it
> is not installed on fr.wikipedia yet. Try to ban your own user name to see if
> it works.

You can already ban logged in users on fr:, it's just that no-one
bothered to tell the French that. It's just a matter of translating the
interface. For example where it used to say "blocked IP addresses", it
should now say "blocked users" or "blocked usernames and IP addresses".

To block someone right now, go to [[fr:Special:Blockip]], and type their
username into the IP box. It's pretty likely that this is the situation
on all the non-English wikis.

I should reiterate that this feature should only be used for preventing
"simple vandalism", or enforcing bans approved by Jimbo.

-- Tim Starling.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] "New" logo JIMBO, PLEASE INTERVENE

body:
Dante-
> That's all well and good. There's just one problem.

Again, are there any specific changes you would like to see made to the
logo?

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

body:
> I've crossposted this to intlwiki-l. The thread started on wikitech-l.
>
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > Aoineko wrote:
> >
> >>Instead, I don't understand why admin can't ban logged user!?
> >
> >
> > Admins on the English Wikipedia can. But this is a very new feature,
maybe it
> > is not installed on fr.wikipedia yet. Try to ban your own user name to
see if
> > it works.
>
> You can already ban logged in users on fr:, it's just that no-one
> bothered to tell the French that. It's just a matter of translating the
> interface. For example where it used to say "blocked IP addresses", it
> should now say "blocked users" or "blocked usernames and IP addresses".
>
> To block someone right now, go to [[fr:Special:Blockip]], and type their
> username into the IP box. It's pretty likely that this is the situation
> on all the non-English wikis.
>
> I should reiterate that this feature should only be used for preventing
> "simple vandalism", or enforcing bans approved by Jimbo.
>
> -- Tim Starling.

Thank you, this can help (when necessary).

Aoineko


subject: [WikiEN-l] one more thing

body:
I too have appreciated Anthere's contributions; since I have made a couple
of hasty comments on the whole "mediator" thing, I just want to add that my
previous comment was not intended in any way to question Anthere's
intentions or status in the community.  I definitely welcome discussion
concerning a mediator committee.  Personally, I have serious reservations
about the anonymity.  For now, my only objection is that I think it is
premature to begin a call for nominations to such a committee, unless there
has first been a thorough discussion of the idea.  I am still a little
confused -- I apologize, I just do not have the time to back-track and
reconstruct the history of the matter, so I am not sure whether it was
Jimbo, Anthere, or someone else who first asked for nominations or
suggestions.  I just don't think there should be nominations until
something close to a working consensus on the existence and nature of the
committee develops.

Steve

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

subject: [WikiEN-l] Danger to the community

body:
On Wednesday 15 October 2003 20:00, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Why can't people who want to mediate, simply do so under their own
> names? Or just create a dummy account and mediate under that (each with
> his own dummy account)? I worry that there's some trickery or treachery
> brewing: EofT is very smart, and he scares me. I don't like or trust
> what's happening now.

I believe that he is  following this list, so you have just told him that you
are afraid of him. What is the next thing that you will do for him? :)


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Link style vote

body:
I would like to ask you to vote on whether you prefer links to be
underlined by default or not. There has been some discussion on the German
list about this recently, and also some discussion here, so I would like
this matter to be resolved once and for all. I believe changing the
default could greatly increase our aesthetic appeal, but make up your own
mind, please:

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_style_vote

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Björn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: "New" logo JIMBO, PLEASE INTERVENE

body:
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] "New" logo JIMBO, PLEASE INTERVENE

>>We voted on a concept. That concept has been greatly refined and polished.
>>More tweaking is still welcome as far as I am concerned (the new version is
>>much better the the original, but it still is missing something....).
>
>
> With all due respect mav, this is bs. No one voted for the logo that is
> currently on the 'pedia. I'd like to ask Jimbo to step in at this point and
> make some sort of  decree from on high... this logo thing is getting out of
> hand.

That's true but it's also true that everyone who wanted to have say in
the refinement process had one.

BL


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Logo confession

body:
Jimmy-
> I have a standing promise to read every message on wikipedia-l,
> wikien-l, wikiintl-l, and wikitech-l.
> But I just deleted 100 messages about the logo.

I'm shocked and appalled by this confession. What will be next? Will you
tell us that you won't get involved in the debate about offensive
usernames? Really, Jimbo, sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle
Motion. Er, Wikipedia.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Tomoaki Watanabe

subject: [Wikitech-l] installing mediawiki

body:
Hi. I and others are trying to install a mediawiki into iBiblio's server for
a project, and I would like to get some help.

It seems that installation requires command-line php, which is not available
at their server.

Is there any quick work-around that I am missing? Or is this the way it is?
(Or am I simply wrong?) I would appreciate any input.

Best regards,

Tomoaki  aka Tomos (on wikipedia)

_________________________________________________________________
Enjoy MSN 8 patented spam control and more with MSN 8 Dial-up Internet
Service.  Try it FREE for one month!   http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup


from_name: Allan Crossman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mozilla 1.5 and <hr>

body:
Hi,

Mozilla 1.5 (Windows version at least) seems to have toasted support for
however Wikipedia is implementing the <hr> tag...

A problem with Mozilla or with our HTML/CSS?

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


from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Destructive short term unilateral bans

body:
We need -something- along those lines... your proposal sounds like a basic
web-of-trust system... which isn't a bad idea...

-- Jake


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Link style vote

body:
Thomas-
> Oh, no... voting again. Ask Jimbo! Or throw a dice!

Alright, I've thrown a dice and the result is .. no underlining! I'm sure
nobody will protest as I change the default configuration of all the
wikis, right?

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Martin Harper

subject: [WikiEN-l] re: user:mediator

body:
> It looks like Martin unbanned it, which was a bad idea.

Not I. Anthere unblocked the account, after receiving the password to it from our
anonymous friend in some manner. She tells me that she's changed the password to
lock him out: see user:mediator for her explanation. Anthere's a bona fide
contributor, so I don't think we need to be fearful about the issue.

It might help if we relaxed a little. I intend to lead the way in this by opening a can of
beer. Mmm, intoxicating. :)

> We can talk about the idea of role accounts *here*

Well, we can, but it would make more sense to me to use

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_account

for the concept in general, and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:mediator

for the specific proposed account. Most of the discussion has been going on there so
far. I continue to dislike the idea, but since Anthere and Eclecticology, both of whom
I respect, think it has merit, I think it's wise to wait and see where they go with it
before dismissing it [sic].

WikiLove
-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
With more and more people participating in the VfD process (which is good)
we need a clear and well defined policy for what to do when the 7 days are
over and a sysop needs to decide whether a page should be deleted or not.
The current deletion policy describes the process of a page listed on VfD
as follows:

 It will remain there for a time, giving other users the chance to comment
 on whether they think deletion is in fact appropriate. At some point an
 administrator will come by the page and decide to remove it for you.
 Unless someone else comes by and decides not to agree with you, of
 course!

This is a woefully inept description of the deletion process -- it does
not even mention the word "consensus", let alone define it. Several pages
have been deleted on the basis that a large majority (70-80%) voted for
deletion, in spite of the fact that a minority (20-30%) strongly
protested. I think we can agree that this is not consensus by any
reasonable definition.

I see two possible solutions:

1) Set a formal threshold for deletion, maybe 75%.

2) Allow sysops to ignore votes by people who
 a) are not regular Wikipedia authors (less than 20 edits)

There seems to be a lot of ballot stuffing, going so far that some people
post to Usenet and ask people in a group to support non-deletion of a
page. We can prevent this by allowing only people with a track record to
participate.

 b) have not expressed any opinion beyond "keep" or "delete" and have not
made any edit to the page in question.

This might help to address the problem that some people oppose almost
every deletion on priniciple, making consensus very hard to reach.

I would like to ask Jimbo to make a formal declaration of policy so that
sysops won't be accused of overstepping their bounds when deleting pages.
Solution 2) would making deleting considerably harder than it is now
(because right now, although we *say* we work by consensus, we often do
not), whereas 1) would largely formalize what is currently going on. I
have no strong opinion either way, but we need to have clear rules.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>I suspect that option 1 would exacerbate the ballot stuffing problem.
>>If ballot stuffers advertising on Usenet (which is awful!)
>>know exactly what goal they need to reach, then they'll be more motivated.

>Maybe. But ballot stuffing isn't our only problem and there are reasonable
>ways to detect it.

If you mean 2)a) -- length of contribution history -- then I agree.
So if the problem with ballot stuffing nevertheless exists,
then that suggests that some admins are reluctant to apply 2)a).
Which brings us to ...

>Sysops not having clear directions what to do is the
>other problem. [...] It is absolutely important
>that everyone can follow the same standard, and I think the most
>reasonable course of action is for Jimbo to set such a standard.

So I would advise Jimbo to start by setting the standard to apply 2)a).

This doesn't mean that no other standards can necessarily apply.
That simply seems like an obvious place to start --
as I said, it seems like a no-brainer to me.

-- Toby


from_name: David Friedland

subject: [WikiEN-l] OT: VFD

body:
Stevertigo wrote:

<lots of snips>
> mood to do deal with VFD you can throw it there, and
> someone else can deal with it.  Its not just for VFD
> minority.  Most cases VFD is more akin to a
> it. Usually these are anons, and rough VFD treatment
> But the fundamental flaw of VFD --I'll point it out
> now: It takes a certain mentality to deal with VFD
> --Deletionists love VFD, and hang out there all the
> Ugnauts at VFD.  <metaphor-analogy>Instead of sending
> To me the fact that the Pump and VFD would get too

I just wanted to say that I love that a page with as much mystery,
confusion, debate, and emotion is called V.F.D. Lemony Snicket would be
pleased. In fact, I think we should rename the page "Very Fine Doilies".

- David [[User:Nohat]]

P.S. Hint: _A Series of Unfortunate Events_


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion policy needed

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>>1) Set a formal threshold for deletion, maybe 75%.
>
>
> I suspect that option 1 would exacerbate the ballot stuffing problem.
> If ballot stuffers advertising on Usenet (which is awful!)
> know exactly what goal they need to reach, then they'll be more motivated.
>

Why not just set the limit to be users whose accounts existed and had a
first edit _before_ the page was listed on VFD? Then this problem
essentially goes away as no one who wasn't around before it got listed
can participate in the debate.

-- David [[User:Nohat]]


from_name: Thomas Corell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Link style vote

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I would like to ask you to vote on whether you prefer links to be
> underlined by default or not. There has been some discussion on the German
> list about this recently, and also some discussion here, so I would like
> this matter to be resolved once and for all. I believe changing the
> default could greatly increase our aesthetic appeal, but make up your own
> mind, please:
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_style_vote

Oh, no... voting again. Ask Jimbo! Or throw a dice!

--
Smurf

smurf at AdamAnt.mud.de
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Bannie donc partie

body:
Brion wrote:
> I don't see an IP block on en that would hit
> Anthere; I presume it's
> already been removed if there was an autoblock to
> her IP.

That is because I removed two automatic IP blocks that
I assumed were Anth?re's.

Angela.

________________________________________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion policy needed

body:
David Friendland wrote:
> Why not just set the limit to be users whose accounts existed and had a
> first edit _before_ the page was listed on VFD? Then this problem
> essentially goes away as no one who wasn't around before it got listed
> can participate in the debate.

*blink* Hey, that's a damn good thought. Let's do that. (I might still say n
(where n=10 or 20) valid article edits as well, however.)

-- Jake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
That is incredibly similar to what I just wrote on
[[Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion]]. Repeated here
for those who prefer to discuss these things on the
list:

There are two choices - change the page or change the
policy.

1) Change the page - daily subpages, or split some
other way, like by what the problem is (we already
have copyvio and foreign split off, why not other
topics?)

2) Change the policy

*Reduce the waiting time (there is vast support for
this idea)

*Delete things after three days where no-one has
objected.

*Stop anyone with less than (for example) 200 edits
from commenting. This might get around the issue of a
huge number of supposed users voting whose only
contribution ever is to the VfD page, and once the
page is deleted or kept, that user is never heard of
again. I strongly believe ballot stuffign is becoming
a real problem here. Without it, there would be way
less discussion and a much smaller page.

*Stop attacking people who try to help on the page. I
don't deny that I have made controversial deletions,
but I am attacked for absolutely non-controversial
ones

*Give up on the idea of attaining consensus and set an
actual percentage of votes required to delete (75%
sounds good). This makes everything more clear-cut and
more people will be willing to take action if backed
up by a policy that isn't interpreted differently by
everyone reading it.

Angela

________________________________________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Destructive short term unilateral bans

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Come to think of it, a simple, plainly visible log probably would have
> prevented the whole situation in this case. I assume Anthere unbanned
> "Mediator" before she started using it. If Ed had known Anthere's
> reasons for doing that, perhaps this wouldn't have happened.
>
> Maybe the "web of trust" can be second priority.
>
Very true. A public record, say [[Wikipedia:Ban log]] for consistency with
the other logs... this would be a Good Thing.

-- Jake


subject: [Wikitech-l] Stuck db processes, uninterruptible sleep, wonky i/o

body:
I managed to catch one of our little database-stuck spells (where a
bunch of db threads get stuck in "statistics state") and got vmstat
running on it.

The notable things are that the number of processes in uninterruptible
sleep (the 'b' column) is bigger than usual (0-1 with an occasional 2
is normal), a few processes are even swapped out ('w' column), and i/o
has gone all wonky; some unusually low input ("bi") and very unusually
high output ("bo").

There's nothing reported about SCSII oddities in the system logs, nor
anything in the mysql log. It may be something as mundane as the
flushing of journal buffers for the filesystem or the database, in
which case some tweaking may be possible, or there may be darker forces
at work (mwoo-ha-ha-haaaaa!) Apache seems to have died around this time
as well, apparently a failed restart. Apache is set to restart on pliny
every hour at 34 minutes to keep a memory leak from getting too bad.
It's possible that the exiting Apache freed up a big hole in memory
that other things suddenly tried to fill?  I don't know.

[brion at pliny brion]$ vmstat 5
    procs                      memory    swap          io     system
     cpu
  r  b  w   swpd   free   buff  cache  si  so    bi    bo   in    cs  us
  sy  id
  0  5  3 799988   7380  39108 1227312  44  27    84   140   60    16
23   5  72
  0  3  3 799988  10464  38600 1224112   6   1    84  8077  523   306
16   4  80
  0  3  3 799988  10552  38400 1223784   2   4  1749  6151  751   524
13   5  82
  0  3  3 799988  10556  37316 1224252   0  27   307  6257  672   363
23   5  72
  0  2  4 799988   5588  36804 1229240   6  60  1127  7719  783   523
14   3  83
  1  1  3 799988   8324  36196 1226936   6   5   402 19343  368   393
14   6  81
  1  2  4 799976   6416  35664 1228536   0  91   277 15835  390   405
35   7  58
  1  2  4 799976   8360  35340 1227040   0 105   344 10632  489   414
39   8  52
  4  2  3 799976   8192  34656 1228296   0  14   288 12609  490   507
40   8  52
  4  2  3 799984  10360  32700 1234596   0   2  1373 14228  586   743
41   9  50
  1  3  4 799984   8204  30808 1246252   0  57   566 16876  357   546
41   9  50
  1  3  4 799980   8484  29568 1244496   0   1    40 16054  241   399
39   7  54
  2  9  4 799980   8360  28312 1244432   0   1    75 18043  262   422
41   8  50
  0  2  5 797896  10092  28376 1243996   0   0    42 15818  377   298
23   4  73
  0  2  3 797896   9572  28376 1244072   0   0    15 15003  795   146
0   2  98
  0  2  3 797896   9232  28400 1244136   0   0    13 14039  716   123
0   3  96
  0  2  3 797896   8732  28408 1244208   0   0    14 14344  642   154
0   2  98
  0  2  3 797896   8324  28416 1244280   6   0    21 13928  543   129
0   1  99
  0  3  2 797896   7868  28424 1244364   0   0    17 16170  487   135
0   2  98
  0  3  2 796852   7272  28432 1244464  10   0    30 17208  441   138
0   1  98
  0  1  0 786380  10376  28516 1246020 115   0   534 11009  553   641
1   3  96

here things become more normalish.

    procs                      memory    swap          io     system
     cpu
  r  b  w   swpd   free   buff  cache  si  so    bi    bo   in    cs  us
  sy  id
  0  1  0 786380   8336  28608 1247252 346   0  5020   435 1145  1244
7   2  91
  0  0  0 786380   8208  28664 1249480 290   0  1961   430  810   770
2   1  97
  0  3  0 786380   8436  28760 1249292   0   0  2494   233  649   648
3   2  95
  0  1  0 786380  12096  28820 1244136 275   0  1524    64  627   596
4   2  95
  0  0  0 786380   8224  28900 1247824  18   0  1338   326  691   588
2   2  95
  0  0  0 786380   8192  28968 1247780   0   0   427    28  520   389
2   0  98
  0  0  0 786380   8304  29092 1247968   0   0   283   870  420   243
1   1  98
  0  0  0 786380   8292  29156 1248000   0   0   211    26  268   117
0   0 100
  0  0  0 786380  11208  29288 1245092   2   0   174   764  398   226
0   1  98
  0  0  0 786380   9124  29368 1247100   0   0   402    38  422   220
1   1  98
  0  2  1 786380   8176  29460 1248032   1   0   246   681  657   433
1   1  98
  0  0  0 786380   8152  29556 1248024   0   0   357    99  377   197
0   1  99
  0  0  0 786380   8416  29716 1247720   0   0   829    39  411   239
1   0  99
  0  0  0 786380  11880  29824 1243912  54   0   570   193  518   355
1   1  98
  0  0  0 786380  12288  29896 1243236  55   0   507    82  421   247
1   0  98

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikitech-l] usemod "del " url

body:
What is the usemod del-url?

(I have the admin passwd)

Walter


from_name: Alex R.

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [OT by now (maybe not)] Re: "Mental Health Service
	Consumer" Trolls

body:
 From: "Toby Bartels" <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu>
 > Alex756 wrote:
>
> >Toby Bartels wrote:
>
> >>Alex756 wrote:
...
>
> If these groups, whatever they are (you mentioned NAMI)
> think that they can stop us from being marginalised by
> using new terminology, then they are badly mistaken.

This is a good point, but perhaps they can get a few points for
trying.
...
> I don't appreciate it when organisations (much less organisations
> that claim to represent my interests) try to change words,

My father was a "service provider," otherwise known as a
psychologist, and he was very distressed when these terms
came in. He told me that he felt that these groups were trying
to create voices for individuals who were not even represented
and did not necessarily agree with the points set forth by these
groups lobbying for social change, however the administrators
of the agency he worked for actually wrote memos to all the
"service providers" about using the correct terminology. They
were forbidden to call their clients by any other term than
consumers! Most of my father's clients were very confused by
the terminology and could not understand what the problem
was as the term "client" did not seem pejorative to them at all.

>
> I'll keep NAMI's opinion in mind; and I hope that you'll keep in mind
> /my/ opinion, the opinion of somebody that doesn't want to be referred to
> except by terms that literally (or figuratively) actually mean
> something that actually applies to me.

I agree with you, actually, and I think that we have demonstrated a problem
that may exist with any so-called official naming policy or a politically
sensitive approach that makes sure that no one is ever allowed to use
a name that someone else might have a problem with. Those who might
yell the loudest and say they represent a group may only represent
a small part of that group. They might even call their decision
making consensus decisionmaking, and it may be so in that group,
 but the group in the context of a larger community may be mistaken
about who they represent and what their "policies" are meant to
accomplish. It might be better to have fewer policies and more
dialogue.

Agencies, institutions and groups get "captured" all the time
by forces that may appear to be democratic and egalitarian
in origin, but then turn to represent small minorities that have
some specific agenda. It is important to keep the process of dialogue
open and flexible and to keep any procedures to a minimum
(bet you never thought you would here that from a lawyer)
so that an institution can continue to respond to its developing
community, otherwise it will likely become irrelevant in some
manner (even though it may continue to exist long after it
has become locked into particular behaviour patterns).

Alex756


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
Toby-

> I suspect that option 1 would exacerbate the ballot stuffing problem.
> If ballot stuffers advertising on Usenet (which is awful!)
> know exactly what goal they need to reach, then they'll be more motivated.

Maybe. But ballot stuffing isn't our only problem and there are reasonable
ways to detect it. Sysops not having clear directions what to do is the
other problem. Some delete when there is a 2/3 majority, some do not
delete when the author of the page protests. It is absolutely important
that everyone can follow the same standard, and I think the most
reasonable course of action is for Jimbo to set such a standard.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia, MediaWiki logos uploaded

body:
Wikimedia (our umbrella organization) and MediaWiki (our software) now
have official logos, namely the second and third place submissions from
our contest. I have used the second place design by User:Neolux as the
more important Wikimedia logo. I think it looks very nice on the Wikimedia
Foundation page, please do take a look:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/

My sunflower logo, which came in third place, seems well suited for the
software. The square brackets give it a technical look, which may be
inappropriate elsewhere, but is a nice reference here. I've also added a
little slogan to the logo. You can see it here:

http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/

(We may want to move the project to mediawiki.sourceforge.net, but that's
not a priority.)

I for one am happy with the logo situation now. I think our projects
altogether have a far more professional look than when we started.

All best,

Erik


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
Erik wrote:
>Wikimedia (our umbrella organization) and MediaWiki
>(our software) now have official logos, namely the
>second and third place submissions from our contest.
>I have used the second place design by User:Neolux
>as the more important Wikimedia logo. I think it looks
>very nice on the Wikimedia Foundation page, please
>do take a look:
>
>http://wikimediafoundation.org/

Yes! That looks very nice. However please remove "Home" from the sidebar; the
logo makes it redundant since it links to the home page.

It also seems very reasonable that the second and third place logos get these
"consolation prizes." This way many more people see their favorite logo used
somewhere important.

>My sunflower logo, which came in third place, seems
>well suited for the software. The square brackets give
>it a technical look, which may be inappropriate elsewhere,
>but is a nice reference here. I've also added a little slogan
>to the logo. You can see it here:
>
>http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/

Nice!

>(We may want to move the project to mediawiki.sourceforge.net,
>but that's not a priority.)

Longer term; perhaps to mediawiki.org?

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Andrew

subject: [WikiEN-l] automated vote tabulation

body:
Hmm... I wrote a program to do semi-automatic vote tabulation for large votes such as [[List of people who have denied being gay]] on vfd. It's not perfect by any stretch.. but it works... I dunno, just incase anyone wants to use it (or hopefully improve it) it's at http://imthesponge.tripod.com/wikivtal.zip .
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from_name: Richard Grevers

body:
On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:28:39 -0700, Dante Alighieri
<dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com> gave utterance to the following:

> At 08:10 AM 10/15/2003, Erik wrote:
>
>> At the point the logo was updated, there was virtually unanimous
>> consensus
>> that the Nohat variant was an improvement (20 in favor, 2 against). This
>> satisfied the condition of the last stage of our contest, namely,
>> optimization by consensus. As in all such consensus discussions, only
>> interested parties participate. If you had looked around on Meta, you
>> would have noticed that these discussions have been going on since Oct
>> 1.
>> What do you think where the variant submissions came from? The variant
>> process was broadly advertised at least on the English Wikipedia.
>
> That's all well and good. There's just one problem. The submission of
> logos was announced on the main page of the Wikipedia. The voting for
> logos was announced on the main page of the W. The second round of
> voting was announced on the main page of the W. The final selection was
> announced on the main page of the W.
>
> Where was the revision process announced?

On the main page of the Wikipedia. Otherwise I woudn't have found it.

--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried


from_name: Stevertigo

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> It also seems very reasonable that the second and
> third place logos get these
> "consolation prizes." This way many more people see
> their favorite logo used
> somewhere important.

I think they each suit their purposes well. Id still
like to see them go each through a quick round of
final touch up on meta though. (When time permits)

~S~

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subject: [WikiEN-l] AstroWikipedia

body:
On Wednesday 15 October 2003 21:47, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Nikola Smolenski wrote:
> >NAI ;) But, could WIkipedia be trademark at all as it is generic term?
> > Noone can trademark "Cherry Jam" as a name for cherry jam, could anyone
> > trademark "Wikipedia" as a name for a Wiki encyclopedia?
>
> The claim that "Wikipedia" is a generic term presupposes that others
> have used it before. Please name some.

It doesn't, it only presupposes that it is obvious term for a certain kind of
product. Probably noone used the term "cucumber jam" for a jam made of
cucumbers, because such a jam does not exist, but if it would be made it
could not be sold under name "Cucumber Jam" or "Cucumberjam" or "Jam of
Cucumbers" etc.

I, of course, agree with Jimbo that if coca-cola is not generic, so isn't
Wikipedia...


subject: [WikiEN-l] AstroWikipedia

body:
On Wednesday 15 October 2003 22:08, Jake Nelson wrote:
> >NAI ;) But, could WIkipedia be trademark at all as it is generic term?
> Noone
> >can trademark "Cherry Jam" as a name for cherry jam, could anyone
> > trademark "Wikipedia" as a name for a Wiki encyclopedia?
>
> Yes. You already said what the generic is: "Wiki encyclopedia". Anyone can
> say they're one of those. Wikipedia is not generic.

It just seems as obvious abbreviation to me.


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] AstroWikipedia

body:
--- Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote:
> On Wednesday 15 October 2003 22:08, Jake Nelson
> wrote:
> > >NAI ;) But, could WIkipedia be trademark at all
> as it is generic term?
> > Noone
> > >can trademark "Cherry Jam" as a name for cherry
> jam, could anyone
> > > trademark "Wikipedia" as a name for a Wiki
> encyclopedia?
> >
> > Yes. You already said what the generic is: "Wiki
> encyclopedia". Anyone can
> > say they're one of those. Wikipedia is not
> generic.
>
> It just seems as obvious abbreviation to me.

Xerox is also an abbreviation for xerography, but it's
still a trademark. (I think the fact that the word
'xerox' is in common use is irrelavent to this
analogy)
LDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
--- Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I strongly oppose 2b.  I don't see that that's
> particularly useful.
>
> RickK

I agree. Often, the opinions you have have already
been written and it would be pointless to repeat them.
LDan

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from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: "Email me a new password" button

body:
Alex BATKO wrote:
> Hi.
>
> On Oct 14 2003, at 23:24, I created an entry for "KDM" using the
> username "Alexbatko".
>
> Some minute ealier, I had created that account (Alexbatko), but in
> the heat of the moment my mouse went nuts and it must have pasted
> the wrong set of characters into the password field.
>
> So the problem is that I can't log back into my account because I
> don't know what characters were pasted into the password text box
>
> I realised this once I was logged in, but at that point I had
> already cleared the mouse buffer.  To try to resolve the problem, I
> went into preferences and saw that my email address
> "abatko at cs.mcgill.ca" was set.  So I tried to email the password to
> myself by using the corresponding "Mail me a new password" button on
> the main login page.
>
> Unfortunately I still haven't received the email.
>
> I've also posted a bug report on sourceforge (bug id# 823808), but
> the problem is still unresolved, and i really want to access the
> account.
>
> Is it at all possible that someone could manually reset the password
> and send it to me

Strange, it worked for me. I just changed your registered email address
to my address, clicked "mail me a new password", and the new password
arrived instantly. I'll forward the email to you.

The email address you have registered with Wikipedia is indeed the same
one you used to send this post.

-- Tim Starling.


from_name: Alex BATKO

body:
Thank you for your help!  I am able to log in with the new password,
but the "new password" emails are still not arriving.

The emails are still being rejected by our server:

reject: RCPT from larousse.wikipedia.org[130.94.122.199]: 450
<apache at localhost.localdomain>: Sender address rejected: Domain not
found; from=<apache at localhost.localdomain> to=<abatko at cs.mcgill.ca>
proto=ESMTP helo=<localhost.localdomain>

You need to set the proper domain name.

> Strange, it worked for me. I just changed your registered email
> address to my address, clicked "mail me a new password", and the
> new password arrived instantly. I'll forward the email to you.
>
> The email address you have registered with Wikipedia is indeed
> the same one you used to send this post.
>
> -- Tim Starling.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy Cleanup

body:
If there is to be a new deletion policy workup, there
ought be a focused community decision -- a front page
blurb to the meta page, and some kind of temporary
sanction for the Wikipedia:Cleanup page -- which is
under attack on VFD simply because it was sort of
"imposed on the community."

Again, wiki is limited in terms of what you can do on
a single page, this is why its important to have a
process by which pages dont go directly to the
Dump/dump not to be fought over but instead go Cleanup
or PNA. In some ways Cleanup might be PNA with a
different name, but I think that PNA would better be
used for longer term items, while cleanup (with
extremely limited comment) can be used to draw some
attention to something that should be on a
track--either to the trash, for a redirect, etc.  I
can see how some see it as a bypassing of VFD -- but
given that pages can be restored if they are deleted
too quickly (ie nonsense pages), but thats not what
its for-- again its to deal with articles in a general
sense leaving VFD for those where there is actually
some debate.

~S~

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subject: [WikiEN-l] AstroWikipedia

body:
This discussion should probably be taken over
to the new legal discussion list wikilegal-l at wikipedia.org
so I am cross posting my response there.

It is generally true that words are not protected under
trade mark law, but fanciful concatenation of words parts
are "pedia" is not a word, and some might say that neither
is "wiki" (though it probably has an emerging meaning when
combined with software as in wiki software).

Use of generic words in a TM is also allowable, thus
Midas Muffler is a trademark because combined together
Midas (name of a god) and Muffler have a fanciful meaning
that identifies a company, product, good or service.
There are many examples of TMs being created by
combination of words.

It is true that a word can become so associated with a particular
thing that its use may become generic, this happened with
xerox when the term xerox entered the language to mean
a copy. It was also once true for Singer which had meant
"sewing machine" at one time (no longer true) as in "I am
going to fix your torn skirt on my singer."

This can only happen with widespread usage of the term
 that becomes uncontrollably commonplace. This is not
happening for Wikipedia. The Russian folks stopped using
the English Wikipedia name (now they have their own Russian
name that sort of has a similar meaning, and that may
also be protected by the Wikipedia TM).

The only other use has been the term as discovered by LittleDan,
that is currently under discussion, i.e. AstroWikipedia. Hopefully
we can convince the people who are using Wikipedia that they desist
using the name and adopt a different name or become formally
associated with Wikipedia. (after we learn what their claim to
the name might be).

Alex756

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nikola Smolenski" <smolensk at eunet.yu>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 2:04 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] AstroWikipedia

On Wednesday 15 October 2003 21:47, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Nikola Smolenski wrote:
> >NAI ;) But, could WIkipedia be trademark at all as it is generic term?
> > Noone can trademark "Cherry Jam" as a name for cherry jam, could anyone
> > trademark "Wikipedia" as a name for a Wiki encyclopedia?
>
> The claim that "Wikipedia" is a generic term presupposes that others
> have used it before. Please name some.

It doesn't, it only presupposes that it is obvious term for a certain kind
of
product. Probably noone used the term "cucumber jam" for a jam made of
cucumbers, because such a jam does not exist, but if it would be made it
could not be sold under name "Cucumber Jam" or "Cucumberjam" or "Jam of
Cucumbers" etc.

I, of course, agree with Jimbo that if coca-cola is not generic, so isn't
Wikipedia...
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
Here's a proposal I made on [[Wikipedia talk:Administrators]], one week
ago. I think that given recent events, it's probably a good idea for me
to give it a bit more publicity.

To blame Anthere's current distress solely on the banning system would
be grossly missing the point. However I think it was naive of me to
think that allowing sysops to ban logged in users would have no
political effects. Clearly policy alone is insufficient to maintain the
situation we had before user bans came in.

This was part of a discussion regarding the danger of hijacked sysop
accounts.

--START QUOTE--

Perhaps we could use another model. The model I'm thinking of would be
equally applicable to banning and desysoping. We need a method of
enforcing the consensus model without leading to destructive short-term
unilateral bans. Perhaps a sysop should be able to pre-register their
support for a given user, and if any sysop (other than themselves) is
supporting the user, they cannot be banned or demoted. This "support"
would expire shortly after the supporting user logs off, so if the
situation changes suddenly, we won't be left with the situation of
frantically trying to contact sleeping Wikipedians. -- Tim Starling
03:22, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)

--END QUOTE--

I've been thinking since I wrote that, that perhaps the expiry time
should be a bit longer, say 24 hours.

A bit of background: ordinary editing works by the consensus model,
because any disgruntled individual is free to revert an article. For a
reasonably stable article to result, there has to be a consensus. In the
meantime, the article fluctuates to alternately reflect the opinions of
the different parties involved.

Sysops can block logged in users, and sysops can also unban logged in
users, hence on the surface it seems as if the situation is the same.
For a stable user status to arise, there must be a consensus among sysops.

However, in the meantime, the user in question may be banned for short
periods of time. This is emotionally very trying for the user involved.
In fact, the two times it has happened so far, it has led to a
contributor becoming very angry and leaving immediately.

Short term bans of users with an emotional investment in Wikipedia are
extremely destructive. They cause contributors to leave. They should be
prevented at all costs. We need a system for ensuring that there is a
consensus in favour of such an action, before it takes place.

My model is certainly not the only one. It would be possible, for
example, to require quorum or petition of sysops in order to create a
ban. However, this slows down response times, which is bad for
preventing Michael-style vandalism. In choosing the size of the quorum,
there is a trade-off between speed, and the danger of allowing cliques
or factions to act arbitrarily.

My scheme assumes that a ban of a known contributor will occur after
some debate. Sysops involved in the debate who disagree with banning
should register their support of the user in question, before those in
favour of the banning tire of the discussion and decide to act
unilaterally.

If a sysop acts unilaterally very early in the debate, or without any
discussion at all, I imagine this would be seen by the community not as
an attempt to circumvent a technical control, but as a reprehensible
unilateral action with no community support.

Finally, I'll quote the only real response to my proposal on [[Wikipedia
talk:Administrators]]:

--START QUOTE--

:: Nice idea, but I'd want to be sure that '''all''' sysops have a
working email contact address. Talking about such issues publically
might severely inflame the situation. If X knows sie's about to be
banned... ouch. [[User:MyRedDice|Martin]] 19:22, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

--END QUOTE--

In response: I would hope that people would use the "support" function
frivolously, on a whim. They shouldn't have to explain themselves. It
could be used whenever bad things are said about a user, just to
indicate emotional support. During a debate, some contributors feel as
if everyone's against them. They begin to feel emotionally spent and may
even consider leaving. I think wordless registration of support from a
wide range of users could help morale.

-- Tim Starling.


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bannie donc partie

body:
Let me clarify something, Anthere is not banned in any way shape or
form, and absolutely no ill will towards her was meant by my blocking
the 'Mediator' account.

I also regret saying that the "Mediator role account" idea is
"stupid".  That was unfair and prejudicial of me.  I should say that I
do highly doubt if there could be a community consensus for such an
idea, and that until there is, that account should be held in reserve
and not used.

Anthere wrote:
> Since I am someone who tend to obey rules, I will of
> course comply. So, I will not edit wikipedia any more
> from now on. I dearly hope that at least one user will
> ask upon what motive I was banned, and that Martin
> will update the policy pages upon banning accordingly.

You are not banned!  You were not banned!  You have never been
banned.  You have never been even remotely in danger of a ban!

I regret this misunderstanding deeply.  I do not want the 'Mediator'
account to be used until such time as we decide as a matter of policy
to have 'role accounts'.  And I think we are not likely to decide
that, but I do think that if there's support for a discussion of the
concept, we should discuss the concept.  I will try to find the merit
in it.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Bannie donc partie

body:
I want to make sure that Anthere understands what happened!

Anthere, do you see?  There was no intent to ban you.  You are not
banned.

Angela wrote:

> Brion wrote:
> > I don't see an IP block on en that would hit
> > Anthere; I presume it's
> > already been removed if there was an autoblock to
> > her IP.
>
> That is because I removed two automatic IP blocks that
> I assumed were Anth?re's.
>
> Angela.
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Want to chat instantly with your online friends?  Get the FREE Yahoo!
> Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Jake Nelson wrote:
> We need -something- along those lines... your proposal sounds like a basic
> web-of-trust system... which isn't a bad idea...
>
> -- Jake

Come to think of it, a simple, plainly visible log probably would have
prevented the whole situation in this case. I assume Anthere unbanned
"Mediator" before she started using it. If Ed had known Anthere's
reasons for doing that, perhaps this wouldn't have happened.

Maybe the "web of trust" can be second priority.

-- Tim Starling.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Baghdad Museum Mediawiki

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> http://www.baghdadmuseum.org/usace/
>
> "The Baghdad Museum Project is a public-private partnership dedicated
> to preserving, protecting and further cultivating the cultural
> heritage of the people of Iraq through multi-sector and
> multi-disciplinary dialogue and exchange."
>
> John Simmons of the project has approached us asking for assistance
> setting up a MediaWiki for their project.  I don't have the time
> myself, but I did offer them that I would make a pitch for them here
> on wikitech-l.
>
> Perhaps one of the developers will find their project interesting
> enough to lend them some support?
>
> At the present time, all of their work is being done on a voluntary
> basis, as they are seeking at this point to develop a seed of their
> project to potentially leverage into private or public grants of
> support.  So, they can't pay you.
>
> --Jimbo

Presumably this would just be an hour or two of installing and
configuring, and maybe an occasional bit of maintainance. I'll consider
it. Jimbo, can you forward any additional information you have to me,
and I'll contact Mr Simmons.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
 From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" <littledanehren at yahoo.com>
>
> --- Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I strongly oppose 2b.  I don't see that that's
> > particularly useful.
> >
> > RickK
>
> I agree. Often, the opinions you have have already
> been written and it would be pointless to repeat them.
> LDan
>

Here. Here. (or Hear, hear!)

It appears that 2 b) would be hard to enforce: what is an edit?
If someone adds or subtracts a simple sentence? Or is
a word or typo correction enough. If it is a content edit,
who determines what relevant content might be? It seems
this opens the door to the slippery slope that Angela
mentions  i.e. the policy will be open to interpretation
and we'll be back discussing who decides what an edit is
or is not and not dealing with the real issue. A streamlined
process that clears out useless clutter is what is needed,
not a Consitutional Convention dealing with the meaning
of every possible way of reaching some kind of agreement
on relatively uncontroversial deletions. The process should
not be hijackable (is that a word?) by anyone who comes
along with some kind of weird, idiosyncratic complaint
about the process.

Alex756


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion policy needed

body:
David Friedland wrote:

>Why not just set the limit to be users whose accounts existed and had a
>first edit _before_ the page was listed on VFD? Then this problem
>essentially goes away as no one who wasn't around before it got listed
>can participate in the debate.

[Note this is really about 2)a), although David's post quoted 1).]

Yeah, that's pretty smart!

-- Toby


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Now back on topic] Re: "Mental Health Service Consumer"
	Trolls

body:
Alex756 wrote in part:

>Most of my father's clients were very confused by
>the terminology and could not understand what the problem
>was as the term "client" did not seem pejorative to them at all.

I'm not surprised.  If my psychiatrist called me a "consumer",
then I wouldn't know what he meant (I would now, thanks to this thread).

>It might be better to have fewer policies and more dialogue.

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>It is important to keep the process of dialogue
>open and flexible and to keep any procedures to a minimum
>(bet you never thought you would here that from a lawyer)

Actually, you're in the best position to have seen the reasons first hand.
If we were paying you, then it might not be in your interest to say this;
but as you are honest, I'm not surprised at all to hear it.

-- Toby


body:
> Again, they voted for the *concept* - an unfinished
> puzzle ball that gave the impression of many
> languages
> (Erik kept on saying that the
> concept-implementations
> can and and should be improved). A great many people
> simply *hated* the particular PM implementation of
> that concept, so it was improved by a professional
> designer. Still the same concept.
>
Many people (including me, and probably others) liked
the "concept" of the unfinished puzzle-piece globe
best in the original impimentation. No offence to
Nohat, but just because a profesional did it doesn't
necessarilly mean it's better.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-October/012323.html
> (wikipedia-l post by Erik)
>
To be realistic, WikiEN-l really acts as the list for
dealing with most issues. Many fewer people subscribe
to Wikipedia-l than do WikiEN-l, and most of the
issues we discuss here have to do with the project as
a whole.

> And uh, the announcements page, perhaps?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Announcements
>
> Before that it was on the Main Page for a while but
> I
> moved it to the announcements page (one of the Nohat
> logos was already "live" at that point; see my
> complaint below).
>
> Making announcements is what the announcements page
> is
> there for! Only very major announcements go on the
> Main Page. Improving the logo is not major enough to
> warrant that, IMO, but choosing the concept was.
>
> Its also been on the Main Page of
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/ for some time.
>
> Alas, it should have been also inputted into
> Wikimeida
> News.
>
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_News
>
> If you are concerned about meta issues and policy
> then
> you should pay attention to Wikipedia-l (*cough*
> Erik's post) and meta (Main Page link). If you are
> concerned with general Wikipedia-related issues then
> read the Wikipedia Announcements page (*cough* link
> to
> meta page on this issue). Also, the word
> "Announcements" is bolded on RC whenever there is a
> new announcement.
>
No matter how many places it was announced, only
around 1/6 of the people that voted for one of the
main logos ended up voting for the revisions. Only the
people that didn't like the logo voted on the
revisions, mostly. And there was no way to vote for
the original one, only the modifications! Very
recently, that has changed, but very few people have
voted for or against the original yet. And of those
that actually did vote for or against the original
logo, all of them voted for it.

> I was also a bit surprised that Nohat's logo found
> its
> way on en.wikipedia so fast. I would have preferred
> to
> have the nohat logo go onto test.wikipeida.org first
> so that people could see how it looked on a
> MediaWiki
> installation (same for the original PM winning
> logo).

There wasn't enough time for people to vote on it.
Someone is pushing this process too fast.

> It is simply bad form and looks amateurish to keep
> changing the logo on a website with over 200,000
> pages
> - as if some type of 'logo variant war' were going
> on.
> Even the most recent version of the nohat logo can
> and
> probably will be swapped for another, even better
> version.
>
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

But the Nohat logo doesn't have any *words* on it! No
matter how many minor modifications are made, it still
won't have words. Wikipedia is about words, not just
letters.

Why weren't these modifications in the original logo
vote like other modifications were?
LDan

PS. About a week and a half ago, I posted some
complaints about the logo, but my comments were
deleted by an anon. I'm really mad at him/her, but I
can't do anything about it.

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from_name: Rick

body:
You haven't noticed that there are many votes on Votes for Deletion to DELETE [[Wikipedia:Cleanup]], have you?  Nor the many voices against it on its own Talk page.  Cleanup is a massive bureaucracy just waiting to impose itself on Wikipedia, and is not only incomprehensible, but unworkable.

RickK

Stevertigo <utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com> wrote:
*Buffer*
Strange that nobody's mentioned the
[[Wikipedia:Cleanup]] page that Cimon had the good
sense to start up. I dislike the layout that Cimon
chose as well as the "required anonymity" but other
than that it seems to be on its way to working
--particularly to take a load off of VFD. And its
getter far more ATTN than the clumsily titled
Wikipedia:Pages needing attention ... (which Ive never
seen on RC )

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion policy needed

body:
I agree with both of these proposals.  These are both useful.

RickK

Jake Nelson <jnelson at soncom.com> wrote:
David Friendland wrote:
> Why not just set the limit to be users whose accounts existed and had a
> first edit _before_ the page was listed on VFD? Then this problem
> essentially goes away as no one who wasn't around before it got listed
> can participate in the debate.

*blink* Hey, that's a damn good thought. Let's do that. (I might still say n
(where n=10 or 20) valid article edits as well, however.)

-- Jake

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from_name: Jay Bowks

body:
From: "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de>
> Wikimedia (our umbrella organization) and MediaWiki (our software) now
> have official logos, namely the second and third place submissions from
> our contest.

I love 'em! Kudos!

> I for one am happy with the logo situation now. I think our projects
> altogether have a far more professional look than when we started.

Definitely so! Could we call this some
sort of major step towards consensus?

I'd definitely ok with these choices.
Kudos to all the artists and their hard
work, and to all the techies shouldering
the heavy loaded servers. Growth is good!
More editors more articles, and less to
argue about which design is the best
logo. I'm putting that behind and
concentrating on more growth in
the WikiP's I frequent.

w/ regards,
Jay B.


from_name: Amiradil Matahari

subject: [WikiEN-l] FROM INDONESIA

body:
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body:
> Rick (the Giants fan?) said:
>  You haven't noticed that there are many votes on
> Votes for Deletion to
> DELETE [[Wikipedia:Cleanup]], have you?  Nor the
> many voices against it on
> its own Talk page.  Cleanup is a massive bureaucracy
> just waiting to impose
> itself on Wikipedia, and is not only
> incomprehensible, but unworkable.

I dont see you answering my points -- by point, nor do
I see you saying anything that: 1. I dont know
already; 2. Is supported by any meaningful or
thoughtful commentary.
Correct these problems please. (Go Giants)

~S~

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subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Stuck db processes, uninterruptible sleep,
	wonky i/o

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I managed to catch one of our little database-stuck spells (where a
> bunch of db threads get stuck in "statistics state") and got vmstat
> running on it.
>
> The notable things are that the number of processes in uninterruptible
> sleep (the 'b' column) is bigger than usual (0-1 with an occasional 2 is
> normal), a few processes are even swapped out ('w' column), and i/o has
> gone all wonky; some unusually low input ("bi") and very unusually high
> output ("bo").
>
> There's nothing reported about SCSII oddities in the system logs, nor
> anything in the mysql log. It may be something as mundane as the
> flushing of journal buffers for the filesystem or the database, in which
> case some tweaking may be possible, or there may be darker forces at
> work (mwoo-ha-ha-haaaaa!) Apache seems to have died around this time as
> well, apparently a failed restart. Apache is set to restart on pliny
> every hour at 34 minutes to keep a memory leak from getting too bad.
> It's possible that the exiting Apache freed up a big hole in memory that
> other things suddenly tried to fill?  I don't know.

If bo is high, it means it is reading from the disk, correct?

By adding up that column and multiplying by 5, I get a total quantity of
about 1300MB. Which is a lot.

I had another look at the log from my monitor program which was recorded
before the system crash at ~4:30, 13 Oct. I have output from SHOW
PROCESSLIST every 5 seconds for the 5 minute duration of the event. The
only interesting feature I've picked out of it yet is that for the
entire 5 minutes, there was a query in the "removing tmp table" state.
It was definitely one query, because the thread ID was constant. It's a
watchlist query:

$sql = "SELECT
   cur_namespace,cur_title,cur_comment,
   cur_user,cur_user_text,cur_timestamp,cur_minor_edit,cur_is_new
   FROM watchlist,cur USE INDEX ($x)
   WHERE wl_user=$uid
   AND $z
   AND wl_title=cur_title
   $docutoff
   ORDER BY cur_timestamp DESC";

I don't know which of the two indices it was using.

Can I have a copy of the slow query log? I think it's in the
/usr/local/mysql/var directory, which I don't have access to.

-- Tim Starling.


body:
>Jake Nelson <jnelson at soncom.com> wrote:
> Indeed. I don't like the listing of it for deletion,
> VFD is far overtaxed as
> it is... but I found Cleanup entirely unreadable.

I agree.

FYI: The basic idea that Cimon Avaro on a Pogo Stick
and I agree on is that comment needs to be limited. I
think that sigs (without timestamps) should work fine.
 Cimon thought that the whole thing should work on
anonymity. His idea was to de-politicize it by
removing any names, so that people would'nt go
quarrelling with each other --instead, they would just
take care of business.   I dont agree with him, but I
now understand his reasoning, and I appreciate the
depth to which he gave it thought.  That said, I think
that *that* aspect of our experiment failed --because
its just not interesting if its not personalized.
People like personally making contacts and such --
maintained and trusted identies facilitate progress.

To say that dealing impersonally with people would
make things run smoother, is really not workable with
human beings. Robots maybe.  The sig represents a
whole identity we can make up in our heads -- I have
no idea how people here picture me, but you all do
have a picture, nonetheless, though all youve seen is
my words.  so... First change on Cleanup -- allow
sigs. no timestamp. (Three ~ only.)

Second, come up with some way to deal with headers --
as they are used for breaks.  Maybe just a ===*===
between each entry. I dunno. If only there was a way
to insert numbered breaks.  If only there was a way to
insert an *hourstamp ( no minutes) as a break header.

Third, a cleanup for the cleanup page process needs to
be put into motion. We cant have week old stuff laying
around. The original idea was to have it be there only
a day. this may be too fast.  Three might be better,
and again-- each page can get the attn it needs --
limited the number sent to VFD to seriously
controversial deletions.

Fourth: As for informal deletions --its always been
controversial that sysops just go ahead and delete
stuff -- even if its fairly nonsensical.  In fact this
is may be a typical cause of some grudges between old
people and new people -- as newbies at first have no
clue whatsoever. ( I didnt).   Do we drive tender
newbies away by running roughshod over their
contributions?  I dunno.  I suggested making it a rule
that *all* deletions with at least a plausible *title
(that may stub a genuine article) be sent to Cleanup.
It may simply need a redirect, or what have you --but
these may in fact seed some development, and putting
these on Cleanup would give these items a longer life
than they have on Recent changes.

Didnt mean to go on so long....
~S~

~S~

__________________________________
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from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ne pas allez, ma cherie!

body:
--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Anth?re,
>
> I'm sorry I caused you heartache, ma cherie. Please don't go
> because of my hasty, thoughtless remarks!

Ok, now you know hasty thoughtless remarks have no place among
professionals who are trying to accomplish something which has yet
never been accomplished in human history. I hope you learn the
lesson.

> You are NOT banned, and the "policy" you referred to was NEVER
> meant to apply to you. The old Mediator passed on the account to
> you; and you, in good faith, began to use it for the common good of
> the community.
>
> It would be a cruel joke on all of us if EofT got you to leave:
> this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I feared might happen!!
>
> Please do not go, and please stay in touch if you need a break...
>
> Avec remorse,
>
> Edmond Le Pauvre
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
Rick said:
> You haven't noticed that there are many votes on Votes for Deletion to
DELETE [[Wikipedia:Cleanup]], have you?  Nor the many voices against it on
its own Talk page.  Cleanup is a massive bureaucracy just waiting to impose
itself on Wikipedia, and is not only incomprehensible, but unworkable.

Indeed. I don't like the listing of it for deletion, VFD is far overtaxed as
it is... but I found Cleanup entirely unreadable.

-- Jake


body:
Stevertigo said:
[more than would make sense to reprint]

I agree with pretty much everything in that mail.
I do see the point and idea behind Cleanup, it's a valid premise... it's
just the implementation that's bad.
I'm no fan of anonymity... I've got a strange and dodgy memory, and without
identities to associate comments with, it becomes much harder to remember
them.
Hm. Three days on (a heavily remodeled) Cleanup, if it hasn't been
rewritten, refactored, or merged enough to be satisfactory, it goes onto VFD
for, say, another 3 days? Just a thought...
I can see approval for anything with a decent title... too often, there's
issues about articles on VFD because they're at the wrong title or because
there's something that has no relevance but a good title... hm. It's
something to think about.

-- Jake


from_name: David Friedland

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New logo

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

> But the Nohat logo doesn't have any *words* on it! No
> matter how many minor modifications are made, it still
> won't have words. Wikipedia is about words, not just
> letters.

Actually, it does have words. The Chinese ideogram represents an entire
word, not just a letter. Second, Wikipedia is about articles of
information. Articles of information are made up of sections. Sections
are made up of paragraphs. Paragraphs are made up of sentences.
Sentences are made up of words. Words are made up of letters. Words are
already an abstraction far removed from the articles they represent. Why
is it so critical that words appear on the logo, and not some other
level of abstraction? Using the logic that the content of the logo
should as closely model the Wikipedia as possible, one of the logos that
had a book in it should be the logo, because words are just a part of
what makes up Wikipedia. And what about images and sound and other
multimedia?

Furthermore, the PM logo didn't really have words on it either. It had
strings of nonsense. Last time I checked, "kallo" wasn't a word. Also,
the diversity of writing systems and thus languages is much greater on
the current logo versus the PM one. The main problem most of the people
had with the PM logo was that it was too busy, and the primary cause of
that "busy" look was the fact that the words and the edges of the pieces
intersected, resulting in a mess of lines and letters. Isolating the
glyphs on the pieces solves that problem.

> PS. About a week and a half ago, I posted some
> complaints about the logo, but my comments were
> deleted by an anon. I'm really mad at him/her, but I
> can't do anything about it.

Complaints don't really help. They just serve to divide and inflame
without making progress. Like Erik said, if you have suggestions about
how to improve the logo, then that would be helpful.

- David [[User:Nohat]]

PS This comment was left on m:Talk:Logo feedback
==begin quote==
I was flipping through Wikipedia while looking something up, but the
logo caught my eye so I flipped back. The unfinished puzzle-sphere of
typography is one of the best logos I have come across. Clever without
being overly slick; and not the typically overly simplistic identities
put forth by un-aesthetic graphic designers. I actually was drawn to
click on it, and couldn't believe that I was brought to a page where I
could actually give feedback on something that so absolutely deserves
praise. Excellent design. (submitted by ricksomething)
==end quote==


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
I thank you Jimbo
I apologize to all of you collectively for my
emotional dismay, which also show me I must take a
break.
Given that I am a hopeless wikipediholic, I will try
to take holidays from the en wiki.
And focus on non controversial matters on fr
such as GMO and Moonism :-)
perhaps promotion, if we have favorable news from the
dev team.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


body:
Jake Nelson wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>
>>Come to think of it, a simple, plainly visible log probably would have
>>prevented the whole situation in this case. I assume Anthere unbanned
>>"Mediator" before she started using it. If Ed had known Anthere's
>>reasons for doing that, perhaps this wouldn't have happened.
>>
>>Maybe the "web of trust" can be second priority.
>>
>
> Very true. A public record, say [[Wikipedia:Ban log]] for consistency with
> the other logs... this would be a Good Thing.

Done, in the slow branch of CVS, so it might be a couple of weeks before
it goes live. The following messages need translation: blocklogpage,
blocklogentry, blocklogtext, unblocklogentry.

It's probably the wrong list to ask this, but is there a standard
procedure for requesting translation of the user interface?

-- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] [hardy@math.mit.edu: 25 years ago today]

body:
----- Forwarded message from Michael Hardy <hardy at math.mit.edu> -----

From: Michael Hardy <hardy at math.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 16:51:13 -0400 (EDT)
To: jwales at bomis.com
Subject: 25 years ago today

    Who runs the "Main Page"?  Is it worth mentioning in
"Week in history" that 25 years ago today a man from communist
Poland was elected Pope (and is still the incumbent)?  That
was something of a political coup.    -- Mike

--
Michael Hardy
hardy at math.mit.edu

----- End forwarded message -----


body:
Erik wrote:
> >I have used the second place design by User:Neolux
> >as the more important Wikimedia logo. I think it looks
> >very nice on the Wikimedia Foundation page, please
> >do take a look:
> >
> >http://wikimediafoundation.org/

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Yes! That looks very nice.

I like it, too.

On this point, I'll do whatever I'm told to do, because I'm not in any
mood to argue about the logo with anyone.  :-) However, I do have a
question.

Is it really sensible to have different logos for the Wikimedia
Foundation and Wikipedia itself?

I'll tell you the truth: while I *love* the new Wikipedia logo (puzzle
ball) and fully support it in every way, I *really* preferred the logo
that's now on the wikimedia foundation website (the #2 logo, the
abstract peace-person) all along.

So, I hope the answer is "Yes, of course, the Wikimedia Foundation is
an umbrella for many differently-branded products, and so just as
AOL-TimeWarner has a logo for AOL and a logo for Time Magazine, we can
and should have different logos, too.  The Microsoft logo is not the
same as the XP logo.  And so on."

But, I wonder.  We're not a huge media organization, yet.  And the
beneficial branding impact of a logo depends on people actually seeing
it a lot.

If millions of people visit Wikipedia (and they do, and they will)
then if I send a letter on Wikimedia Foundation letterhead to the Ford
Foundation, say, then if that letterhead has the Wikipedia logo on it,
there's a good chance that someone there will instantly have happy
feelings towards us, because they'll instantly know who we are and
what we do.

But if the logo is different, and on a website that we don't really
expect a lot of people to visit (as compared to Wikipedia proper),
then it'll just be an abstract thing.  They'll think "Gee, why is the
UN earth peace council sending us a letter"?  (ha ha)

So, what am I supposed to do when I print letterhead?  Should we
really do this?  Or should we use the puzzle-ball logo for everything?

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I would like to ask Jimbo to make a formal declaration of policy so
> that sysops won't be accused of overstepping their bounds when
> deleting pages.

Yes, that sounds like a good idea.  I will follow this discussion
closely and try to see what people are saying, and propose a solution
that addresses everyone's needs and concerns to the greatest degree
possible.  And then we can see if we can get consensus on that, the
old-fashioned way.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Maybe. But ballot stuffing isn't our only problem and there are
> reasonable ways to detect it. Sysops not having clear directions
> what to do is the other problem. Some delete when there is a 2/3
> majority, some do not delete when the author of the page
> protests. It is absolutely important that everyone can follow the
> same standard, and I think the most reasonable course of action is
> for Jimbo to set such a standard.

Yes, I think that's right.  On this narrow question, i.e. given the
way we are voting now, what constitutes a threshold for action, we can
all agree that it's very important that we have some sort of standard,
while leaving open the possibility that over time the details of the
standard might need to change, or that we might change the entire
process in fundamental ways.

The process actually works reasonably well now, so it would be wrong
of me to try to decree some huge change to the process.  This is a
process that has grown up 'organically' over time.  All we need *right
now* is just the tiniest bit of formulation of what the final decision
rule should be.

As such, while I'm sympathetic to the notion of excluding votes from
mysterious users who have only edited 1 time, I think that unless it's
a huge huge problem, we can safely ignore it.

(Indeed, although I don't condone people making multiple accounts in
order to cheat on a vote -- I would consider that as coming very close
to a bannable offense, and certainly it's bannable if continued after
warnings, etc. -- I *also* think that if someone is willing to go to
that much effort, we should try hard to see if there's something we
aren't seeing, something that can be accomodated.)

--Jimbo