from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] From RK about a contested article, and the responses

body:
Mav wrote:
> Blah, blah, blah Robert. You cry wolf so often that
> I just delete your messages without ever reading
> them anymore. I'm sure many other people do the same.

Your taunting is out of place, Mav. Please refrain from
using this list in that way; this list is only for
discussion of Wikipedia policy.

Further, Wikipedia users should be aware that Mav's claims
are incorrect. Just check the edit history of the article I
named.

[[Palestinian views of the peace process ]]

Its not a matter of opinion whether or not Anthere did such
editing and protection; the only opinion can be on if this
was wise.

Danny writes:
> As of today, Anthere has quite a bit more authority
> than you care to imagine. Pick your enemies wisely,
> Robert. I wouldn't go launching attacks on the Board
> if I were you.

Danny, from where I stand, those with the most power are
the ones who are most obligated to be careful in using this
power, and in making sure that Wikipedia rules are followed
in a fair manner. In fact, that is what others on this list
hae always said as well. Your letter basically implies that
we must do what the new powers that be say, "or else".
Even Anthere isn't saying this. Maybe I was a bit hot in
how I expressed my disagreement with her actions, but I was
very specific about what I considered wrong, and why.

I offered several paragraphs stating what my points were
(even if these paragraphs were written by a better writer
than myself.) People had the opportunity to read them, and
consider them on their merits. That's what this list is for
- when we think an issue isn't about an article, but about
Wikipeida policy itself. I see no reason to refrain from
doing this.

Ironically, only Anthere has actually responded to the
points in my letter to this list. And she has replied in a
modest and impartial way which gives me much hope. She
focused on the content and on the issues I raised, a lesson
for all of us. However, others have made polemical
statements or personal remarks. Thus:

(A) It looks like mediation can be made on this article,
between Anthere, Mav, Danny, myself, and others.
(B) But it depresses me that many people here refuse to
focus on the specific issues, and focus instead on personal
issues.

This is not what I expected at all, but it's interesting.

RK (Robert)

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list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Constans, Camille (C.C.)

subject: [Wikitech-l] UTF-8 on English Wikipedia?

body:
>>
>> We'd love to, but we need to either a) take it offline for a
>few days or
>> b) invent a way to convert the database without data loss or damage
>> while keeping it online.
>>
>> -- brion vibber (brino @ pobox.com)
>>
>
>I suppose most of the time will be taken to convert old.
>Shouldn't be possible to convert only cur while either leave
>old unconvert
>or mark each entrey in old as unconverted/still in iso-8859-1
>and convert
>these entries when they are needed or by a very low priority job?
>(of course the soft will need to handle the conversion flag
>when viewing on old version
>of an article, doing a diff, ...)
>
>Is this doable or still too complex?
>

It's possible. Just need to change a bit the software :) Just need to add a flag UTF-8 as the soft add a flag gzip. And tell the soft to read as it is.

Shaihulud


subject: [Wikitech-l] Hourly XML-dump of recently changed articles

body:
I  think you need the template namespace too, no ?

I will try to work on it, but dont know when....

Hi,

Is it possible and/or of interest to release some kind of hourly XML-dump of
the last changed pages in Wikipedia? I'm running a copy of the Wikipedia and are
trying to keep up with the changes. I believe a XML-dump could ease the load
on the server a little.

For my needs the XML-document must contain at least:
    cur title
    cur text (in Wiki-format, including URLs to pictures)
    last change
    Only three of the namespaces (from what i understand): NS_MAIN, NS_IMAGE
and NS_CATEGORY.
    cur is redirect
I heard there are more people than me interested in this (Yahoo ...), what
do they want?

I've spoken to Erik M?ller on the WOS in Berlin about this and he direkted
me to this list.

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list: wikien-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats as grounds for automatic termination

body:
Mark Pellegrini wrote:

>At this point, it's only a proposal. Also, it doesn't actually *do*
>anything. I'd like to suggest adopting a terminate-on-site rule -- you make
>a legal threat, and you're automatically banned. I'd like to know what
>others here think.
>
>
We already have enough excuses for banning people.  We don't need
another one.  These threats are almost always hollow.

My response to legal threats is, "Go ahead and sue."  When the person
finds out what's involved in bringing forth a suit across international
jurisdictions they quietly drop the whole thing.

This is another variation of, "Don't feed the trolls."

Ec


from_name: Fennec Foxen

body:
On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 02:04:42 -0700 (PDT), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >. I'd like to suggest adopting a terminate-on-sight rule -- you make
> > a legal threat, and you're automatically banned. I'd like to know what
> > others here think.
> Before any ban the user should be made aware of the policy first.

Yes, you should definitely drop links to this policy, and if they
continue, only start out with a 24-hour ban. And direct them to the
proper place to raise legal concerns, as well, which is... hmm, which
is it? Is Foundation-L any good?


subject: [Wikitech-l] SMILES again -- another possible renderer

body:
On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 12:31:35 +0200, Jens Frank <jeluf at gmx.de> wrote:
> Personaly, I'd like to avoid using client side Java.
> jmdraw uses the java.awt Canvas class to draw, which looks like a
> client only component to me, but I'm not that familiar with Java.

You don't need to display a java.awt.Canvas to draw upon it; it should
be available server-side without any problems. As I recall, PieSpy
(http://www.jibble.org/piespy/) also uses similar techniques to output
pretty graphs.

But if you tweak the thing around a little, I hope you can have it
making PNGs instead of GIFs, of course. :)


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Religion and Politics in India (was: Proof of ignorance)

body:
Let's change the thread name, so it sounds less like a personal attack.

Ed Poor
Mailing List Admin
English Wikipedia

-----Original Message-----
From: libertarian [mailto:libertarian at myway.com]
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 10:51 PM
To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proof of Mark Richards' ignorance

> Libertarian, if you wish to take this beyond whatever talk pages
> you and Mark have been arguing on previously, please give us some
> context. Or, preferably, don't - stick to the normal Wikipedia
> dispute resolution
> process.

Fair enough, I'll give you the context. But before that, I want you to
know that I went through the normal dispute resolution process and
submitted a list of factual errors in the existing documents and
corrections along with detailed documentation.

The counter-party did not even bother to make such a submission and this
was then buried without any resolution. I want to know why India and
Hindus should be judged by radical Communists who indulge in propaganda
and why such propaganda should be presented as FACT,
while Christian nations are judged by people who owe allegience to
Christianity and are usually from the mainstream White society.

The whole issue was about a firebombing of a train by Muslims (doing
their regular religious duty) which sparked riots in India leaving
hundreds of people dead (Hindus as well as Muslims, but naturally, the
number of Muslims who were killed was more. This is due to the fact that
Hindus outnumber Muslims.) Like any other Hindu-Muslim riot, the Muslims
start it and the number of dead Muslims outnumber the number of dead
Hindus.

The firebombing was twisted by Communists (both in India as well as by
those posting on Wikipedia) as a sudden fight which erupted because the
Hindu passengers (it turned out that many of them were women and babies)
had provoked the Muslims.

Now, anyone with even a little analytical ability will realize that 2000
strong mob doesn't collect because two people squabbled over the price
of tea. Secondly, how did they get cans of petrol and diesel which was
enough to burn down a train? All of this happened within 3 minutes for
which the train stopped at the station.

Coming to Wikipedia, the claim about some passenger squabbling over the
price of tea and then dragging a Muslim girl (unidentified of course)
into the train was circulated on the internet and that chain mail gave
the name of a journalist as the eyewitness who saw the incident. It also
had his phone number.

Some journalists who were superior phoned up the 'eyewitness' for
confirmation and were taken aback when the 'eyewitness' said that some
enemy of his had sent out that mail and he felt harassed by all the
calls and that he had actually reported the opposite! I posted the
articles which appeared in mainstream media pointing this out.
Yet, the mediators after offering to mediate and making me go through
due diligence collecting evidence and carefully documenting them, chose
to pretend that I did not exist. Perhaps they were lazy. Perhaps their
ignorance was being exploited.

The second point was a report by a self-appointed "Human Rights" group
which was a Communist organization. The key person was a person named VR
Krishna Iyer, who was a Communist and IS a Communist. I was hounded out
of Wikipedia for saying this. The 'expert' from India was a college kid
who knew nothing about Indian politics and was spewing Communist
rhetoric. That chap was bewildered when I pointed out that VR Krishna
Iyer was a Communist and the whole report was a string of allegations
against unnamed people using usual Communist rhetoric. He needed to do a
Google search to see if it was true. This is amazing because VRKI being
a Communist is similar to Bill Clinton being a Democrat. There is no
dispute here. Any Indian with half-baked knowledge will laugh at you if
you try to dispute this claim.

All my points were obfuscated with the word alleged. Take my advice, if
you are going to say that Bill Clinton is an alleged Democrat, it is
Wikipedia's reputation which will suffer. All Communist propaganda has
been presented as fact.

If VRKI's judgement of India is gospel, so too should be his judgement
of USA. I think it is fair. Why should you be judged by a different
yardstick? Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

I hope you know what Mumbai Resistance is about. It is a violent
Communist organization which had its meeting in Mumbai while the World
Social Forum meet was going on. Check out
http://www.mumbairesistance.org/

That site also has a message from VR Krishna Iyer where he extends his
support for this violent organization.
http://www.mumbairesistance.org/Messages/justice%20vrkrishna.htm

Again, I went through the regular mediation process. I was the one who
trusted the mediators. I was the one who took the trouble of explaining
the situation. I was the one who documented my claims. I would prefer
that this be sorted out in the open with trustworthy people, not people
like Angela or Brian Corr who played a game of deception.

Again, I am willing to agree to the Communists' views of India as the
one which should be put out on Wikipedia provided you agree to have
their views of "imperialist" USA as mainstream views. We'll use "facts"
about USA from the same crowd which wrote up that report. Fair enough?

-libertarian

_______________________________________________
No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com


from_name: Nikola Smolenski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: experimental whysiwyg/syntaxhighlighted	editor	for wikimedia

body:
On Tuesday 15 June 2004 01:59, Jim Higson wrote:
> On Monday 14 June 2004 16:28, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> > There are WYSIWYG HTML editors built into the two main browsers, which
> > have been used successfully for a few CMS servers. This is probably a
> > more fruitful path to follow than developing a custom Java applet.
>
> I think I'm going to have to try it and see how far I get. Personally I
> don't like the idea of relying on the user having one of the two main
> browsers (is that MSIE and moz?).

Of course, even when WYSIWYG editor is deployed, what is there now should
still be the default.


subject:
Leo Trollstoy - still no evidence presented. Re: [WikiEN-l] Yes,
	A Reincarnation

body:
On Tuesday 15 June 2004 03:45, Mark Richards wrote:
> Erm, no, this would be like imprisoning black people
> because you think they are more likely to commit
> crimes anyway.

Well, no. It would be like, if in a small city there is one known criminal,
and if a crime happens soon after he's released, detaining him.


from_name: Mark Richards

body:
Well, I think one way to do this would be to have a
policy that no discussion of lawsuits could take place
on the wiki, that is to say that, once a user has
declared their intention to take legal action
surrounding Wikipedia or its users, the policy would
be to block that user and anyone else who discussed
it, because of the potential for incrimination /
liability etc. Ban them, and direct them to raise the
issue offline with the foundation's legal
representative.
Most companies and non-profits have a similar rule
that their employees and volunteers are not empowered
to discuss legal aspects.
If they drop the case, or it is settled, then allow
them back.
Mark

--- Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
> I don't know if many of you are aware, but last week
> we had a user in here
>
(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Fel
> ix_F._Bruyns) who was on a personal crusade to make
> wikipedia 'family
> friendly' - IE, by censoring our articles. Needless
> to say, it didn't go
> over very well. Long story short, he ended up
> threatening to sue several
> contributors -
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Raul654&diff=3853204&oldid=3852747,
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Moriori&diff=3853177&oldid=3852828
>
> I started digging through our policies, and found
> this dusty relic:
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats
>
> At this point, it's only a proposal. Also, it
> doesn't actually *do*
> anything. I'd like to suggest adopting a
> terminate-on-site rule -- you make
> a legal threat, and you're automatically banned. I'd
> like to know what
> others here think.
>
> --Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [Wikitech-l] update record

body:
LS, I have been trying for two days to change one record in nl:wiktionary. The update ends with
******
Sorry- we have a problem...
The wikimedia web server didn't return any response to your request.
To get information on what's going on you can visit #wikipedia.
An "offsite" status page is hosted on OpenFacts.
Generated Tue, 15 Jun 2004 06:52:10 GMT by wikipedia.org (squid/2.5.STABLE4-20040219)
*******
the new content should be
====''[[WikiWoordenboek:Zelfstandig naamwoord|Zelfstandig naamwoord]]''====
the article is [[Sjabloon:-noun-]]

Thanks,
 GerardM7d41c42515401cc--


from_name: Charles Podles

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re:RK's interminable whinging

body:
--- Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mav wrote:
> > Blah, blah, blah Robert. You cry wolf so often
> that
> > I just delete your messages without ever reading
> > them anymore. I'm sure many other people do the
> same.

Robert wrote:
<snip>

> Further, Wikipedia users should be aware that Mav's
> claims
> are incorrect. Just check the edit history of the
> article I
> named.
>
> [[Palestinian views of the peace process ]]
>
> Its not a matter of opinion whether or not Anthere
> did such
> editing and protection;
> the only opinion can be on if this was wise.

Like I said before, RK, Anthere's sole edit to the
article was
to add the protection message, and the only opinion
she has ever
expressed about it is, "reversion war was not a very
good choice".
Ergo her actions do not violate [[Wikipedia:Protection
policy]]
in letter or in spirit. Ergo Mav is right: you are
crying wolf.

That nobody else has seconded your complaint, and that
several people
have agreed that Anthere's actions were entirely
correct, might
have told you something. One can only hope.

Robert wrote:
> Ironically, only Anthere has actually responded to
> the
> points in my letter to this list. And she has
> replied in a
> modest and impartial way which gives me much hope.
> She
> focused on the content and on the issues I raised, a
> lesson
> for all of us. However, others have made polemical
> statements or personal remarks. Thus:

I responded too, RK, albeit without the same
remarkable patience
Anthere demonstrated in response to your hysterics.
And your complaint about "polemical statements [and]
personal remarks" is a
bit rich; have you forgotten your original email
so quickly?

Robert wrote:
>She has picked one version of an article which
>deleted and censored all info which did not agree
with her her
>anti-Zionist views, and then she protected the page.
> <snip>
>If your hatred of Israel gets in the way of
>following NPOV, then I would suggest working on other
>articles.

And much else besides, but I think I've made my point.

Robert wrote:
> (A) It looks like mediation can be made on this
> article,
> between Anthere, Mav, Danny, myself, and others.

Or you could *discuss the article on its talk page*
with those who have shown an interest
in doing so (currently MyRedDice and myself). How does
that sound?

--C. Podles ([[en:user:Mirv]])

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list: foundation-l

from_name: jheiskan at welho.com

subject: [Foundation-l] Election results?

body:
Lainaus Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>:

> I wrote:
> > But I do see that Erik and Florence were nearly in a dead heat when
> voting
> > stopped. Might I suggest to the elected trustees that they consider
> changing
> > the draft bylaws to allow for one more trustee and for Erik to fill that
> > position? I think this is important due to the fact that two of the
> current
> > trustees don't seem to be active Wikimedians (Tim Shell was at one time,
> > however). Although I do note that that is not a requirement for life,
> > sustaining, or corporate members. I'm just concerned about the level of
> > activity we can except from Tim Shell and Michael Davis and that most of
> the
> > trustee work will go to just three people.
>
> I stand corrected on Tim. He has made almost 100 edits so far this year. I
> still think that Erik should become the sixth trustee though.
>
> --mav
>
>

FWIW, and at the risk of writing a second "me too" post in a row:

I agree that it wouldn't be mischaracterization to call Eriks and Florences
competition a virtual dead heat.

I might modify mavs suggestion though. As there is a potential problem of vote
ties if one trustee or another cannot participate in board votes (if any); why
not hold Eric as a substitute trustee (assuming he is willing). Attending all
meetings, and being a voting trustee on those occasions that only four of the
trustees can be in on the meeting. I do not know how feasible this would be in
regard the laws and bylaws; so if that would not be feasible, in that case mavs
suggestion sounds quite as good, even though perhaps suffering from the
possibility of tied votes; which might have to be addressed.

----
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Election results?


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] update record

body:
On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 09:19:20AM +0200, Gerard.Meijssen wrote:
> LS, I have been trying for two days to change one record in nl:wiktionary. The update ends with
> ******
> Sorry- we have a problem...
> The wikimedia web server didn't return any response to your request.
> To get information on what's going on you can visit #wikipedia.
> An "offsite" status page is hosted on OpenFacts.
> Generated Tue, 15 Jun 2004 06:52:10 GMT by wikipedia.org (squid/2.5.STABLE4-20040219)
> *******
> the new content should be
> ====''[[WikiWoordenboek:Zelfstandig naamwoord|Zelfstandig naamwoord]]''====
> the article is [[Sjabloon:-noun-]]

When saving a template, all pages using the template are "touched" so that they
will be updated the next time they are rendered. Having zillions of pages using
that template, this takes a long time. Probably too long.

Regards,

JeLuF


subject: [Wikitech-l] adapt database from Version 1.2.6 to phase3

body:
On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 10:41:50AM +0200, Guido Holz wrote:
> Hi guys...
>
> Exist an adapt-script or workaround from mediawiki 1.2.6 to pahse3? So
> in phase3 are more tables and columns as in 1.2.6...
>
> Thanks for any help..

The install script updates the database.

JeLuF


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikitech-l] SMILES again

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> I saw a nice command line utility which can generate GIFs from SMILES,
> a simple chemical markup language. Examples can be found here:
> http://www.daylight.com/dayhtml/tests/test-smi2gif.html
>
> Can anyone find out
> * if this is PD/GPL
> * how to integrate it into wikipedia (SMILES->GIF->PNG???)
>
> I would really like to have that one.
>
> Magnus
>
>
No, smi2gif appears to be proprietary closed-source software. Quote:
"The program is a combination of the Daylight SMILES, DEPICT, and DCGI
toolkits and the CEX gif-formatting utility."

On the other hand, _this_ Java-based project:
http://jmdraw.sourceforge.net/ _does_ appear to be what we want. Quote:
"The JMDraw/SMILESViewer project was started by Christoph Steinbeck
<http://www.ice.mpg.de/%7Estein> from the ChemoInformatics group
<http://www.ice.mpg.de/departments/ChemInf/> at the Max-Planck-Institute
of Chemical Ecology <http://www.ice.mpg.de> in Jena. It is an Open
Source project, the sources are published under GNU Lesser General
Public License, LGPL <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html>. " Next
question -- can it be run on an entirely open-source infrastructure?

-- Neil


body:
Neil Harris wrote:

> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>> I saw a nice command line utility which can generate GIFs from
>> SMILES, a simple chemical markup language. Examples can be found here:
>> http://www.daylight.com/dayhtml/tests/test-smi2gif.html
>>
>> Can anyone find out
>> * if this is PD/GPL
>> * how to integrate it into wikipedia (SMILES->GIF->PNG???)
>>
>> I would really like to have that one.
>>
>> Magnus
>>
>>
> No, smi2gif appears to be proprietary closed-source software. Quote:
> "The program is a combination of the Daylight SMILES, DEPICT, and DCGI
> toolkits and the CEX gif-formatting utility."
>
> On the other hand, _this_ Java-based project:
> http://jmdraw.sourceforge.net/ _does_ appear to be what we want.
> Quote: "The JMDraw/SMILESViewer project was started by Christoph
> Steinbeck <http://www.ice.mpg.de/%7Estein> from the ChemoInformatics
> group <http://www.ice.mpg.de/departments/ChemInf/> at the
> Max-Planck-Institute of Chemical Ecology <http://www.ice.mpg.de> in
> Jena. It is an Open Source project, the sources are published under
> GNU Lesser General Public License, LGPL
> <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html>. " Next question -- can it
> be run on an entirely open-source infrastructure?
>
> -- Neil
>
You can test it online at
http://jmdraw.sourceforge.net/SMILESViewerDemo.html Also, the parser for
the open source project is the SSMILES subset language only.

A bit more Googling has now turned up:

   http://structure.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html

(Java again) which is based on

   http://octet.sourceforge.net/

This does seem to understand more than just the SSMILES subset of
SMILES, if my reading of the screenshot examples is right.

-- Neil


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] SMILES again

body:
I saw a nice command line utility which can generate GIFs from SMILES, a
simple chemical markup language. Examples can be found here:
http://www.daylight.com/dayhtml/tests/test-smi2gif.html

Can anyone find out
* if this is PD/GPL
* how to integrate it into wikipedia (SMILES->GIF->PNG???)

I would really like to have that one.

Magnus


subject: [Wikitech-l] update record

body:
Jens Frank wrote:

>On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 09:19:20AM +0200, Gerard.Meijssen wrote:
>
>
>>LS, I have been trying for two days to change one record in nl:wiktionary. The update ends with
>>******
>>Sorry- we have a problem...
>>The wikimedia web server didn't return any response to your request.
>>To get information on what's going on you can visit #wikipedia.
>>An "offsite" status page is hosted on OpenFacts.
>>Generated Tue, 15 Jun 2004 06:52:10 GMT by wikipedia.org (squid/2.5.STABLE4-20040219)
>>*******
>>the new content should be
>>====''[[WikiWoordenboek:Zelfstandig naamwoord|Zelfstandig naamwoord]]''====
>>the article is [[Sjabloon:-noun-]]
>>
>>
>
>When saving a template, all pages using the template are "touched" so that they
>will be updated the next time they are rendered. Having zillions of pages using
>that template, this takes a long time. Probably too long.
>
>Regards,
>
>JeLuF
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>
>
>
Is this the case in all the Wikipedias? Could this be an explanation of
some of the recent performance problems -- some of the templates must be
used on thousands, if not tens of thousands, of pages?

-- Neil


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Site broken due to unstable code in HEAD

body:
Jens Frank wrote:
> Hi,
>
> currently the site is updated from cvs HEAD, not from a branch
> of it. Despite this, new features are still going into HEAD, too.
> Today, the rc_ip changes Tim announced to the ML went live. The
> database did not contain a rc_ip column, though. This broke
> saving articles for about 15 minutes.
>
> Can we please use another branch for the main site than HEAD?
> Else this will happen again. We need different branches for
> production and development. It was OK to have only one branch
> for the first week or two that 1.3 was running in production.
> It's time to switch.

Sorry, I should have announced this and switched the live site to the
1.3 branch when I made the commit. By the way, the feature is currently
disabled pending results of community discussion. It's just saving blanks.

-- Tim Starling


body:
Mark Richards wrote:

>Well, I think one way to do this would be to have a
>policy that no discussion of lawsuits could take place
>on the wiki, that is to say that, once a user has
>declared their intention to take legal action
>surrounding Wikipedia or its users, the policy would
>be to block that user and anyone else who discussed
>it, because of the potential for incrimination /
>liability etc. Ban them, and direct them to raise the
>issue offline with the foundation's legal
>representative.
>Most companies and non-profits have a similar rule
>that their employees and volunteers are not empowered
>to discuss legal aspects.
>If they drop the case, or it is settled, then allow
>them back.
>Mark
>
>
If any of them were serious they would be advised by their own lawyers
not to discuss the case.

Most of these people have not seriously declared their intention;
they've only threatened it.  Until a case has been filed there is no
case to discuss or drop.  I can't see why you are so intent on
suppressing free speech.

Ec


from_name: Jim Higson

subject: [Wikitech-l] SMILES again

body:
Is there a policy on client-side code (such as applets) on the wiki when doing
something that can't be done on the server.

For example, visit any of the links from here
http://jmol.sourceforge.net/preview/

I find this kind of thing simply stunning, and the kind of thing an electronic
encyclopedia should use to take advantage of over paper ones.

IMO a 3D, rotatable view of a molecule gives far greater and easier
understanding of the structure, especially to a newcomer.


body:
I don't think that it's a question of what the Foundation has the legal
right to do.  Most of these "threats" of legal action are just a matter
of blowing off steam.  Many of these "disputes" don't come near to being
a part of arbitration procedure. Do you really want to make more work
for yourself than you already have? :-)

Ec

Fred Bauder wrote:

>What I want to do is to create an agreement that all disputes will be
>handled through our arbitration procedure, thus precluding any legal action
>other than possible appeal of an arbitration decision.  I don't think folks
>realize that we can legally do that.
>
>Fred
>
>
>
>>From: Ray Saintonge
>>
>>
>>Mark Pellegrini wrote:
>>
>>
>>>At this point, it's only a proposal. Also, it doesn't actually *do*
>>>anything. I'd like to suggest adopting a terminate-on-site rule -- you make
>>>a legal threat, and you're automatically banned. I'd like to know what
>>>others here think.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>We already have enough excuses for banning people.  We don't need
>>another one.  These threats are almost always hollow.
>>
>>My response to legal threats is, "Go ahead and sue."  When the person
>>finds out what's involved in bringing forth a suit across international
>>jurisdictions they quietly drop the whole thing.
>>
>>This is another variation of, "Don't feed the trolls."
>>
>>


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
I suppose it would just be too easy to note that threats of legal
action are already listed in "No personal attacks," wouldn't it?

-Snowspinner

On Jun 15, 2004, at 10:41 AM, Mark Richards wrote:

> Well, I think one way to do this would be to have a
> policy that no discussion of lawsuits could take place
> on the wiki, that is to say that, once a user has
> declared their intention to take legal action
> surrounding Wikipedia or its users, the policy would
> be to block that user and anyone else who discussed
> it, because of the potential for incrimination /
> liability etc. Ban them, and direct them to raise the
> issue offline with the foundation's legal
> representative.
> Most companies and non-profits have a similar rule
> that their employees and volunteers are not empowered
> to discuss legal aspects.
> If they drop the case, or it is settled, then allow
> them back.
> Mark
>
> --- Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
>> I don't know if many of you are aware, but last week
>> we had a user in here
>>
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:
> Contributions&target=Fel
>> ix_F._Bruyns) who was on a personal crusade to make
>> wikipedia 'family
>> friendly' - IE, by censoring our articles. Needless
>> to say, it didn't go
>> over very well. Long story short, he ended up
>> threatening to sue several
>> contributors -
>>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:
> Raul654&diff=3853204&oldid=3852747,
>>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:
> Moriori&diff=3853177&oldid=3852828
>>
>> I started digging through our policies, and found
>> this dusty relic:
>>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats
>>
>> At this point, it's only a proposal. Also, it
>> doesn't actually *do*
>> anything. I'd like to suggest adopting a
>> terminate-on-site rule -- you make
>> a legal threat, and you're automatically banned. I'd
>> like to know what
>> others here think.
>>
>> --Mark
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 10:51:41AM +0100, Neil Harris wrote:
> Neil Harris wrote:
>
> >Magnus Manske wrote:
> >
> >>I saw a nice command line utility which can generate GIFs from
> >>SMILES, a simple chemical markup language. Examples can be found here:
> >>http://www.daylight.com/dayhtml/tests/test-smi2gif.html
> >>
> >>Can anyone find out
> >>* if this is PD/GPL
> >>* how to integrate it into wikipedia (SMILES->GIF->PNG???)
> >>
> >>I would really like to have that one.
> >>
> >>Magnus
> >>
> >>
> >No, smi2gif appears to be proprietary closed-source software. Quote:
> >"The program is a combination of the Daylight SMILES, DEPICT, and DCGI
> >toolkits and the CEX gif-formatting utility."
> >
> >On the other hand, _this_ Java-based project:
> >http://jmdraw.sourceforge.net/ _does_ appear to be what we want.
> >Quote: "The JMDraw/SMILESViewer project was started by Christoph
> >Steinbeck <http://www.ice.mpg.de/%7Estein> from the ChemoInformatics
> >group <http://www.ice.mpg.de/departments/ChemInf/> at the
> >Max-Planck-Institute of Chemical Ecology <http://www.ice.mpg.de> in
> >Jena. It is an Open Source project, the sources are published under
> >GNU Lesser General Public License, LGPL
> ><http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html>. " Next question -- can it
> >be run on an entirely open-source infrastructure?
> >
> >-- Neil
> >
> You can test it online at
> http://jmdraw.sourceforge.net/SMILESViewerDemo.html Also, the parser for
> the open source project is the SSMILES subset language only.
>
> A bit more Googling has now turned up:
>
>   http://structure.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html
>
> (Java again) which is based on
>
>   http://octet.sourceforge.net/
>
> This does seem to understand more than just the SSMILES subset of
> SMILES, if my reading of the screenshot examples is right.

Personaly, I'd like to avoid using client side Java.
>From my impression, Octet only provides an ASCII output renderer?
jmdraw uses the java.awt Canvas class to draw, which looks like a
client only component to me, but I'm not that familiar with Java.

Regards,

	JeLuF


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database and upgrade issues: 1.2.x  to 1.3

body:
On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 07:33:32PM +1000, Tony wrote:
> Guido Holz asked how to adapt the database from mediawiki 1.2.6 to phase3, as there are more tables and columns in
> Phase 3 than in 1.2.x.
>
> JeLuF replied: The install script updates the database.
>
> Nope. Not always.
>
> Despite considerable effort, I was unable to get the install script
> to work with an existing 1.2.x database. The problem *may*
> be to do with not having the right permissions. Or it may be something else entirely.
>
> [...]
>
> If you are installing a version that uses the same database format
> as your previous install (e.g., old install and new install are
> both 1.2.4 - probably OK with any pair of 1.2.x versions), you can
> simply restore your backup over the top of your brand-new
> empty database and everything works fine. (You may have to hit SHIFT-RELOAD
> in your browser to clear the caches before
> it looks right).
>
> If your backup is from 1.2.x and you have installed 1.3.x, then a restore
> will promptly crash and burn. (Trust me: I've tried it.)
> You need to transform the database to the new format first! At present,
> this does not seem to be possible for non-SQL gurus.

The installer converts the database only if it already exists. So restore your
database first (to the empty DB) and call the installer afterwards, pointing
it to the DB.

JeLuF


from_name: KNOTT, T

subject: [WikiEN-l] [wik1234@fastmail.fm: Quagga's vandalism]

body:
Am I right in thinking that Wik is currently not banned?  (his 7 days
are up?)If that is the case can the very first thing we do is
permanently ban him for making this threat? Do we need the AC for that?
It's simple vandalism in my book.

>If it is possible to tie user Quagga to the ongoing activity on those
>pages, then Quagga should be banned as well, not because of Wik's
>threats but because the behavior is simple trolling.

But Quagga is a sockpuppet so what would that achieve?
I'm happy to block any IP that trolls. I'm happy to block Quagga too if
it can be proved that the anons were him, but I'm worried about what
Wik's next move would be. Would he make more demands?

>Myself, I wonder if Wik is not just trolling himself in order to
>harass us.  One can never tell -- it seems that people will go to
>extreme lengths when the point at stake is completely trivial,
>juvenile, stupid and pointless.

I don't know but his motives are kind of besides the point. Let him try
to harass us all he likes. He has IMO a rather over inflated sense of
his own destructive ability. We can weather any storm he throws at us.

Theresa

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

From: wik1234 at fastmail.fm
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 21:47:21 UT
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 13:47:21 -0800
To: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Quagga's vandalism

The vandalism goes on and on:

06:09, 14 Jun 2004 Isomorphic deleted "User talk:Wik/Talk/Wik" (trolling
by some anon)
06:09, 14 Jun 2004 Isomorphic deleted "User:Wik/temp" (trolling by some
anon)
06:09, 14 Jun 2004 Secretlondon deleted "User talk:User talk:Wik"
(content was: 'I have sucked hairy balls for most of my life. i enjoy
wathing elephants have sex because incase you didnt know, the elephant
penis is the size of my ...')

I made the mistake of trusting your word; you gave a supposedly final
warning to Quagga, but didn't follow up on it. Therefore I'll now give
you the final warning: if Quagga isn't banned within 24 hours, I'll
start a script which does everything automatically including changing
proxies as needed, so don't hope that I will tire of it; nor is there
anything else you can do against it. It will run until Quagga is banned.
Too bad you don't understand any other language.

----- End forwarded message -----
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> What I want to do is to create an agreement that all disputes will be
> handled through our arbitration procedure, thus precluding any legal action
> other than possible appeal of an arbitration decision.  I don't think folks
> realize that we can legally do that.

That is already part of the submission standards that Alex drafted a while ago.
We should look back into that and make it official (along with the terms of use
he wrote up as well).

-- mav

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


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
What I want to do is to create an agreement that all disputes will be
handled through our arbitration procedure, thus precluding any legal action
other than possible appeal of an arbitration decision.  I don't think folks
realize that we can legally do that.

Fred

> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 07:27:44 -0700
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats as grounds for automatic termination
>
> Mark Pellegrini wrote:
>
>> At this point, it's only a proposal. Also, it doesn't actually *do*
>> anything. I'd like to suggest adopting a terminate-on-site rule -- you make
>> a legal threat, and you're automatically banned. I'd like to know what
>> others here think.
>>
>>
> We already have enough excuses for banning people.  We don't need
> another one.  These threats are almost always hollow.
>
> My response to legal threats is, "Go ahead and sue."  When the person
> finds out what's involved in bringing forth a suit across international
> jurisdictions they quietly drop the whole thing.
>
> This is another variation of, "Don't feed the trolls."
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Tony wrote:
> Guido Holz asked how to adapt the database from mediawiki 1.2.6 to phase3, as there are more tables and columns in
> Phase 3 than in 1.2.x.

A terminology note: phase 3 *is* MediaWiki. All versions of MediaWiki
have been phase 3, since before it was called MediaWiki.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Of course.  But the plaintiff will have to lay down his money first.
That, as they say, will separate the men from the boys.  For a lawyer to
take it on a contingency basis, he will need to see that the pockets are
deep enough to make it worth his while.

Nobody here has come near to threatening me with a law suit.  If they
tried to pull that, my reaction would be, "I dare you."
Ec

Fred Bauder wrote:

>I want to forstall filing of law suits, especially in federal courts (which
>can be quite arbitrary). A simple, essentially bogus, legal action in a
>federal court with associated appeal can easily cost the defendant $100,000
>or more.
>
>Fred
>
>
>
>>From: Ray Saintonge
>>
>>I don't think that it's a question of what the Foundation has the legal
>>right to do.  Most of these "threats" of legal action are just a matter
>>of blowing off steam.  Many of these "disputes" don't come near to being
>>a part of arbitration procedure. Do you really want to make more work
>>for yourself than you already have? :-)
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>Fred Bauder wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>What I want to do is to create an agreement that all disputes will be
>>>handled through our arbitration procedure, thus precluding any legal action
>>>other than possible appeal of an arbitration decision.  I don't think folks
>>>realize that we can legally do that.
>>>
>>>Fred
>>>
>>>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Problems with mediawiki

body:
Viktor Rosenfeld wrote:
> After that the page stops.  There is no LocalSettings.php in the config
> directory.  This happens with both 1.2.4 and 1.2.6.

If you can, please try to debug this. Make sure PHP's error logging is
on (set logging to a file in php.ini and restart apache).

> 2) The TeX support does not work.  I compiled texvc and put it into
> /var/www/wiki/math directory.  Now I get the following error message,
> when using the <math>-Tag:
>
> 	PNG conversion failed; check for correct installation of latex, dvips, gs, and convert
>
> All those programs are installed and known to work.

Please make sure that all programs are in the PATH that apache sees. You
can do a putenv() in your LocalSettings.php if necessary.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: Erik as backup trustee (was Re: [Foundation-l] Election results?)

body:
Daniel-
> This way Erik becomes a trustee, gets to do all the work required of a
> trustee (attend meetings, head and work in committees, etc) but normally
> does not get to vote

Sounds great ;-).

What I can definitely say at this point is this: I am not interested in
any kind of "official title" type position as Anthere suggested. Being
constantly at the mercy of the board for easy disposal if need be is not
how I can work. I would feel chained and muzzled at the same time.

Almost as many people expressed their trust in me as in Anthere with a
difference of 11 out of 1088 votes. Knowing this is important because,
let's face it, Anthere is about the exact opposite of me in many ways. She
can't replace me and I can't replace her.

In a political election this doesn't matter - the winner takes it all and
the loser spends a year in a secluded mountain cabin and grows a full
beard. That's what happened with Bush v. Gore, anyway.

As a non-profit organization with a tradition of finding mutually
acceptable solutions, we have other options to accommodate the wishes of
the voters. I do agree with Anthere and others that simply adding another
seat to the board would undermine the legitimacy of this election and lead
to ties during important votes. Also, 11 votes are 11 votes and this
should be expressed in the result. So this solution seems to be out of the
question.

I am willing to serve as a non-voting substitute trustee if that means
that I will advance to full trustee should any sitting trustee resign from
the board (over the duration of the term). As I understand the Bylaws, in
that case the trustees can elect an interim replacement, so no post-vote
change to the Bylaws is required to make this happen.

However, given that the position of "non-voting substitute trustee" was
not on the ballot, it would be important to find a consensus on this
solution, at least among the board members and candidates. A brief
community-wide ratification vote would be another way to add legitimacy.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Viktor Rosenfeld

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problems with mediawiki

body:
Hi there,

I'm having two problems with my mediawiki installation.

1) The inplace install does not work.  After I fill out all the fields
and hit "Install!" a new page appears.  It reads:

    * PHP 4.3.4 ok
    * PHP server API is apache; ok, using pretty URLs (index.php/Page_Title)
    * Have zlib support; enabling output compression.
    * Found ImageMagick: /usr/bin/convert; image thumbnailing will be enabled if you enable uploads.
    * Installation directory: /var/www/wiki2
    * Script URI path: /wiki2

After that the page stops.  There is no LocalSettings.php in the config
directory.  This happens with both 1.2.4 and 1.2.6.

I managed to manually install a 1.2.4 version, but it is somewhat
borked.

2) The TeX support does not work.  I compiled texvc and put it into
/var/www/wiki/math directory.  Now I get the following error message,
when using the <math>-Tag:

	PNG conversion failed; check for correct installation of latex, dvips, gs, and convert

All those programs are installed and known to work.  When I run e.g.

	./texvc tmp out '\Phi' iso-latin1

I have to C-d the program.  It then writes some hashcode to stdout
(c571286850423e91db6d2802a4857bf03&Phi) and places some files in tmp.
The file texput.log reads:

	This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2C 7.4.5) (format=latex 2004.4.29)  15 JUN 2004 14:44
	**tmp/15593_571286850423e91db6d2802a4857bf03.tex

	! Emergency stop.
	<*> tmp/15593_571286850423e91db6d2802a4857bf03.tex

	End of file on the terminal!

	Here is how much of TeX's memory you used:
	 3 strings out of 95854
	 52 string characters out of 1196101
	 44491 words of memory out of 1000001
	 3030 multiletter control sequences out of 10000+50000
	 3640 words of font info for 14 fonts, out of 500000 for 1000
	 14 hyphenation exceptions out of 1000
	 0i,0n,0p,1b,6s stack positions out of 1500i,500n,5000p,200000b,5000s
	No pages of output.

I can manually compile the created tex file in tmp and it will show a
Phi symbol in gs, so I think that the problem lies within the mediawiki
source and not with my toolchain.  This is with 1.2.4 as I couldn't
get 1.2.6 installed.

I'm on Debian unstable and do all my browsing with Konqueror.

Thanks for help,
Viktor
--
GnuPG-Fingerprint: E292 4D89 A5F1 16EC 2795  35AC 9162 34E8 2331 4340
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from_name: Fennec Foxen

body:
On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 12:27:17 -0500, Phil Sandifer
<sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I suppose it would just be too easy to note that threats of legal
> action are already listed in "No personal attacks," wouldn't it?

What of threats against the Wikimedia foundation?


body:
I want to forstall filing of law suits, especially in federal courts (which
can be quite arbitrary). A simple, essentially bogus, legal action in a
federal court with associated appeal can easily cost the defendant $100,000
or more.

Fred

> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 12:07:58 -0700
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats as grounds for automatic termination
>
> I don't think that it's a question of what the Foundation has the legal
> right to do.  Most of these "threats" of legal action are just a matter
> of blowing off steam.  Many of these "disputes" don't come near to being
> a part of arbitration procedure. Do you really want to make more work
> for yourself than you already have? :-)
>
> Ec
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> What I want to do is to create an agreement that all disputes will be
>> handled through our arbitration procedure, thus precluding any legal action
>> other than possible appeal of an arbitration decision.  I don't think folks
>> realize that we can legally do that.
>>
>> Fred


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] China blocks Wikipedia?

body:
I presume that it was blocked for 'trolling'.
Mark

--- phil hunt <zen19725 at zen.co.uk> wrote:
> Apparently, the Chinese government is blocking
> Wikipedia. See:
> <http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1087234431.html>,
>
<http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/06/15/0122201.shtml?tid=153&tid=158&tid=99>
>
> I suppose that's recognition, in a way.
>
> --
> "It's easier to find people online who openly
> support the KKK than
> people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on
> Wikipedia
> (Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
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subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: experimental whysiwyg/syntax highlighted
	editor for wikimedia

body:
Would having an out-of-browser editor like this help bypass some of
the rendering and reduce the load on the Apaches? Could something like
this be used for general browsing as well as editing? It would be
effectively offloading some of our processing power to users'
machines...

All the better to beat up the database with! :)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia language

body:
Jens Frank wrote:

>On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 06:43:44PM +0000, Ian Mackinnon wrote:
>
>
>>Well, not really a new language, but I'm frustrated that Traditional
>>Chinese is lumped into the  Simplified Chinese version of Wikipedia. The
>>problem with this is the main page is only in Simplified Chinese and when
>>looking up articles, it does not go directly to the page but gives the
>>option to choose whether you want to go to the simplified or the
>>traditional version.
>>
>>I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be
>>given it's own language space, tw.wikipedia.org would be better. It should
>>be common sense that these 2 styles of writing should not be combined
>>together. Overseas Chinese and non-China born/educated persons who studied
>>traditional Chinese writing have difficulty reading the simplified version.
>>The current configuration just makes it frustrating to browse articles.
>>
>>A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have
>>simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into
>>en.wikipedia.org? I hope you see what I'm talking about and split
>>zh.wikipedia.org and tw.wikipedia.org so there's no more confusion for
>>Chinese readers of wikipedia.org
>>
>>
>
>tw is the ISO-639-2 code for the language "twi".
>
>
Interlanguage links are already done with [[zh-tw:]] and [[zh-cn:]], so
perhaps we could simply split zh.wikipedia.org into zh-cn.wikipedia.org
and zh-tw.wikipedia.org, with zh.wikipedia.org being a disambiguating
portal?  Of course, this is more up to Chinese-speakers than it is to
myself; just a suggestion that would be consistent with our current
usage.  Having separate interlanguage links going to one encyclopedia
that is effectively written in a mixture of two writing systems that are
often not mutually intelligible is more than a little bit odd.

-Mark


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: update record

body:
Jens Frank wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 09:19:20AM +0200, Gerard.Meijssen wrote:
>
>>LS, I have been trying for two days to change one record in nl:wiktionary.
>>the article is [[Sjabloon:-noun-]]
>
> When saving a template, all pages using the template are "touched" so that they
> will be updated the next time they are rendered. Having zillions of pages using
> that template, this takes a long time. Probably too long.

Did whoever came up with that think about the performance implications? o.O


from_name: yuan mingli

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New info about China's blockage

body:
We, administrators of Chinese Wikipedia, had contacted our ISP today,
and they confirmed the block is responsible for the Chinese government,
and one of them can help us to send an application to the officials who
are in charge of the blockage. We had sent the application, and now we
are waiting for the result. If this attempt is failed, we?ll try another
way. We make efforts to change the situation at present.

I had see mav?s comment at foundation-l
( http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2004-June/000365.html ),

I think mav's approach is thoughtful.

--Mountain

_________________________________________________________________
?????????????? MSN Messenger:  http://messenger.msn.com/cn


subject: [Foundation-l] Election results?

body:
jheiskan at welho.com wrote

>I agree that it wouldn't be mischaracterization to call Eriks and Florences
>competition a virtual dead heat.
>
>I might modify mavs suggestion though. As there is a potential problem of vote
>ties if one trustee or another cannot participate in board votes (if any); why
>not hold Eric as a substitute trustee (assuming he is willing). Attending all
>meetings, and being a voting trustee on those occasions that only four of the
>trustees can be in on the meeting. I do not know how feasible this would be in
>regard the laws and bylaws; so if that would not be feasible, in that case mavs
>suggestion sounds quite as good, even though perhaps suffering from the
>possibility of tied votes; which might have to be addressed.
>
>
>
The bylaws say that the Board can do whatever it wants. However an
ad-hoc interpretation of the voting results after the vote has concluded
would hardly fill me with confidence. If you want a 6th board member,
have another vote, with well-defined rules.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] Election results?


from_name: Guillaume

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 5 templates per page limit

body:
Hi all,
There a security limit that prevent to use more than 5 times the same
template in the same page.
Waiting to found a better solution, I'd like to set this limite to 100 for
template less than 256 bytes.
(256 * 100 = maximum 25 Kb)
I can do it myself in source, but no objection ?

Aoineko


list: textbook-l

from_name: David Degner

subject:
[Textbook-l] Until we have Free Textbooks let at least have cheap
	textbooks

body:
This is a shameless advertisement for another open source project that I
think would interest some people here.

Since my teachers haven't started assigning WikiTextbooks I wanted to at
least buy and sell textbooks cheaper without the bookstore markup.  I
stumbled upon
phpbookexchange:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bookexchange/ .
Code for students to post the books they have for sale and the buy books
from other students.
 From that code I made a few improvements and came up with:
http://www.westernbookexchange.com/
It cost me about $30 to set up the site but I saved about $100 on my
next semester of books.

Now I am working on an improved version at
http://www.westernbookexchange.com/test/books
It is easier to theme and it has many user improvements
You can download the code from the sourceforge page but it still doesn't
work so I posted my code at:
http://www.westernbookexchange.com/phpBookEx.rar
just change the variables in mysqlinfo.php and your ready to go.
I hope this might help a few schools

David Degner


from_name: Ian Mackinnon

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia language

body:
Well, not really a new language, but I'm frustrated that Traditional Chinese
is lumped into the  Simplified Chinese version of Wikipedia. The problem
with this is the main page is only in Simplified Chinese and when looking up
articles, it does not go directly to the page but gives the option to choose
whether you want to go to the simplified or the traditional version.

I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be
given it's own language space, tw.wikipedia.org would be better. It should
be common sense that these 2 styles of writing should not be combined
together. Overseas Chinese and non-China born/educated persons who studied
traditional Chinese writing have difficulty reading the simplified version.
The current configuration just makes it frustrating to browse articles.

A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have
simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into
en.wikipedia.org? I hope you see what I'm talking about and split
zh.wikipedia.org and tw.wikipedia.org so there's no more confusion for
Chinese readers of wikipedia.org

Thanks!

_________________________________________________________________
It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today!
http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger


from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

subject: [Foundation-l] Election results?

body:
Am Dienstag, 15. Juni 2004 10:07 schrieb Daniel Mayer:
> --- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> > The bylaws say that the Board can do whatever it wants. However an
> > ad-hoc interpretation of the voting results after the vote has concluded
> > would hardly fill me with confidence. If you want a 6th board member,
> > have another vote, with well-defined rules.
>
> If there is a consensus to do this, then there is no need for another vote.

Actually there is, unless you want to make a farce out of the last voting.

Uli


subject: [Foundation-l] Election results?


from_name: yuanml

subject: [Foundation-l] New info about China's blockage

body:
We, administrators of Chinese Wikipedia, had contacted our ISP today,
and they confirmed the block is responsible for the Chinese government,
and one of them can help us to send an application to the officials who
are in charge of the blockage. We had sent the application, and now we
are waiting for the result. If this attempt is failed, we?ll try another
way. We make efforts to change the situation at present.

I had see Mav?s comment at foundation-l
( http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2004-June/000365.html ),
I think mav's approach is thoughtful.


body:
We, administrators of Chinese Wikipedia, had contacted our ISP today,
and they confirmed the block is responsible for the Chinese government,
and one of them can help us to send an application to the officials who
are in charge of the blockage. We had sent the application, and now we
are waiting for the result. If this attempt is failed, we'll try another
way. We make efforts to change the situation at present.

I had see Mav's comment at foundation-l
( http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2004-June/000365.html ),
I think mav's approach is thoughtful.


from_name: Viajero

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Erik as backup trustee

body:
But is it true, Erik, that you favor abandoning support for non-English wikis because you think everyone should communicate in English?

V.


from_name: Tony

body:
Guido Holz asked how to adapt the database from mediawiki 1.2.6 to phase3, as there are more tables and columns in
Phase 3 than in 1.2.x.

JeLuF replied: The install script updates the database.

Nope. Not always.

Despite considerable effort, I was unable to get the install script to work with an existing 1.2.x database. The problem *may*
be to do with not having the right permissions. Or it may be something else entirely.

The only way that I have found to make the 1.3 install script work is as follows. I'll spell it out in detail in case this is helpful to
others. (My hosting service provides all-bells-and-whistles GUI-based control panel, but no shell access. If your arrangements
are similar, this may help.)

Unzip the 1.3.x into a folder. Rename it to something sensible, such as "wiki"

FTP that folder and all subfolders to your server. Leave LocalSettings.php strictly alone. You can fix that stuff later.

Now,  use your MySQL administration tool to create a new database, and to create a user for that database. Give that user
all rights. You *must* create the database before running the install script, or the installation will fail.

Now you can run the install script. Leave the root password at the very bottom of the form BLANK. You don't need root
access via the WikiMedia install script as you have ALREADY created the new database, and made yourself a user.

On completion of the install script, you now have a working wiki with no content.

If you are installing a version that uses the same database format as your previous install (e.g., old install and new install are
both 1.2.4 - probably OK with any pair of 1.2.x versions), you can simply restore your backup over the top of your brand-new
empty database and everything works fine. (You may have to hit SHIFT-RELOAD in your browser to clear the caches before
it looks right).

If your backup is from 1.2.x and you have installed 1.3.x, then a restore will promptly crash and burn. (Trust me: I've tried it.)
You need to transform the database to the new format first! At present, this does not seem to be possible for non-SQL gurus.
There is a script at maintenance/archives/convertdb.php but the text of it reads:

> This script is obsolete!
> It is retained in the source here in case some of its
> code might be useful for ad-hoc conversion tasks, but it is
> not maintained and probably won't even work as is

The README says that they probably need to be run from the command line - so if you don't have shell access, they
probably won't work even if they do still work in theory.

For my 1.2.4 to 1.3 beta 2 upgrade, I used brute force. I backed up the existing database, installed a second copy of 1.2.4 in
a test folder, restored the backup to there and checked that everything still worked. Then I used cut & paste to recreate the
articles. That took maybe a couple of hours. Obviously, it wouldn't be practical if you have a larger database. Equally
obviously, I lost the page histories (which didn't matter in this case) and the users. I created new users with the previous
usernames and temporary passwords, recreated their user page as if I was them, then hacked
MediaWiki:Passwordremindertext and hit the "Email me a new password" button in Special:Userlogin to mail them a new
password. (Again, not something you could do with a working full-scale wiki, but OK for this test install, where I know all the
users and have their email addresses.)

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that a script to upgrade the database would be a HUGE improvement. It should be
capable of running *either* from the command line *or* from a web interface. I lack the expertise to write it myself, but I'd be
happy to help with testing it before general release.

Tannin (twilson_a_ncable;net;au)

Tannin (Tony Wilson)


from_name: Denni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re. Legal threats

body:
When we were little, we offered to tell our moms on the kids we didn't
like. Usually, that was the end of it, and even if we did tell our moms,
what ever happened? We're just dealing with bigger kids here. "Talk to
the hand..." Denni


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
Jimbo seems to have already provided this: "The usual.  The threat here
is direct and warrants a permanent ban.  I can confirm this email to be
that of user Wik, because he emailed me using this account before he
was banned, etc.  The two are adequately
associated"

-Snowspinner
On Jun 15, 2004, at 7:48 PM, Fennec Foxen wrote:

> On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 00:36:36 +0100, Lee Pilich
> <lee at audiblerecords.com> wrote:
>> I don't have an opinion on what we should do. This is just for
>> information.
>
> For one, can we have an official-type *decree* from someone that Wik
> is *hard-banned* for life, under the same terms as Michael, 142, etc?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quagga's Revenge

body:
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URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20040615/3709d359/attachment.htm


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Election results?

body:
On 06/15/04 10:14, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> The reason I think that the numbers are not so meaningful is that I
> think that a lot of people agreed with the idea of having a more
> international board.  So I think some of the Americans got fewer votes
> not because they were thought to be unsuitable, but rather than when
> people felt that two candidates were otherwise equal, they tended to
> vote European.

I dunno about that. I was very pleased it was ticky-box for as many
candidates as you like, rather than PICK ONE. So I ticked the boxes
for every candidate I was familiar with and knew was clueful in their
Wikipedia work to date.

> It is no big deal either way, but of course I understand that it is a
> Wikipedia tradition to make a huge deal out of everything. ;-)

Battles to the death for insanely low stakes!

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Election results?


from_name: Finlay McWalter

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: experimental whysiwyg/syntax highlighted editor
	for wikimedia

body:
Jim Higson wrote:

>>It's a noble idea, but doing it properly (where it could replace the
>>normal mode of editing on a mature wiki like wikipedia) is *hard*.
>
> Agreed, but I've got a year and want a good hard project :)

:)

I'm not sure the result would be worth the effort, but I'm sure you'll
learn all kinds of interesting things along the way (and hopefully
produce some useful modules doing so too).

>>Doing basic wysiwyg stuff (bold, italic, links, paragraphs) is fairly
>>straightforward (particularly if classpath's implementation of swing's
>>rich text edit thingy is in good shape).  Byt wysiwyg editing of hard
>>stuff like floating images and tables essentially entails reimplementing
>>rather a lot of the browser's display code in java.
>
> It all depends how intact the GNU classpath is, but the javax.swing.text
> packages are very full for this kind of thing, floating images shouldn't
> really be a problem. There are quite a few ways I could tackle it.
>
> When I was first researching the idea (when I saw 'export as XML' on the wiki)
> I thought the wikitext must be converted to an intermediatory XML format, and
> then to HTML/PDF/whatever via XSL. I see that this isn't the case, which
> makes the applet a lot harder, I'd have to reproduce the function of the PHP
> in Java and can't help but be a step behind.

Not to boss you around, but *do that bit first* :)

I'm really not convinced a wysiwyg editor is really all that necessary
(we have lots of technically challenged contributors banging aware
regardless).  But a decent java parser that takes mediawiki markup and
builds a nice JDOM (or whatever) tree - that would have all kinds of
handy uses (and I think your editor will need it anyway).

Well, best of luck.
FIn

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
W.Finlay McWalter   [[User:Finlay McWalter]]   http://www.mcwalter.org
"With the thoughts you'd be thinkin', You could be another Lincoln..."


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Viajero-
> But is it true, Erik, that you favor abandoning support for non-English
> wikis because you think everyone should communicate in English?

No, that's not true, Viajero. What I do think is that English should be
the *preferred* language of choice when discussing project-wide policy
matters because it reaches the most diverse and, on the Internet, the
largest possible audience. Quite the opposite of what you say, in fact - I
am interested in *maximizing* support for the non-English wikis (with the
possible exception of Klingon *cough*).

I fail to see what this has to do with this thread.

Erik


from_name: phil hunt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proof of my ignorance

body:
On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 18:48:26 -0700 (PDT), Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>Erm, while I'm the first to admit my ignorance on many
>matters, can someone fill me in on the purpose of this
>thread? I don't believe I have ever come across this
>user.

I've never come across him on the Wikipedia either, but judging from
his writing style, I would tend to side with anyone he's in
disagreement with.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)


subject: [WikiEN-l] China blocks Wikipedia?

body:
Apparently, the Chinese government is blocking Wikipedia. See:
<http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1087234431.html>,
<http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/06/15/0122201.shtml?tid=153&tid=158&tid=99>

I suppose that's recognition, in a way.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)


from_name: Fennec Foxen

body:
On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 00:36:36 +0100, Lee Pilich <lee at audiblerecords.com> wrote:
> I don't have an opinion on what we should do. This is just for information.

For one, can we have an official-type *decree* from someone that Wik
is *hard-banned* for life, under the same terms as Michael, 142, etc?


from_name: Mark Pellegrini

subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats as grounds for automatic termination

body:
"I can't see why you are so intent on suppressing free speech."

As the meatball wiki article says, threatening to sue someone does exactly
that - it prevents people from discussing things freely. Putting this rule on
the books would effectively do the opposite.

--Mark

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body:
On 06/15/04 01:45, Mark Richards wrote:

> Erm, no, this would be like imprisoning black people
> because you think they are more likely to commit
> crimes anyway.

My God, you're RIGHT! It's EXACTLY the same!

Er, no it isn't. It's nothing of the sort.

- d.


from_name: Delirium

subject:
[Foundation-l] announcement: german wikimedia association (verein)
	founded

body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

> On sunday 13th of June German wikipedians founded a local wikimedia
> association in Berlin: the ''Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur
> F?rderung Freien Wissens'' (''Wikimedia Germany - society for the
> promotion of free knowledge''). We had 34 founding members - among
> them friends of wikipedia and of course a lot of people of the german
> wikipedia.
>
> A board of trustees with ten members was elected, among them Kurt
> Jansson as chairman.

This is more a general issue, not specifically related to the Wikimedia
Deutschland meeting, but it came up so I figured this was a good time to
mention it.  I'd personally prefer if important things, like votes for
foundations, not take place at "in-person" meetings, because not all of
us have sufficient funds to attend such meetings.  Internet elections
are much more inclusive.  An exception would be if it were a local-only
organization, such as a "Wikimedia Amsterdam chapter", in which case
having a local meeting in Amsterdam would suffice.  But in this case it
seems to be a Germany-wide organization, which would bias it against
Germans who live far from Berlin and don't have much money to spend on
traveling to such meetings.  Or am I misunderstanding the setup?

-Mark


from_name: Nathan Russell

body:
On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 20:48:07 -0400, Fennec Foxen <fennec at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 00:36:36 +0100, Lee Pilich <lee at audiblerecords.com> wrote:
> > I don't have an opinion on what we should do. This is just for information.
>
> For one, can we have an official-type *decree* from someone that Wik
> is *hard-banned* for life, under the same terms as Michael, 142, etc?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

I don't know if WIk deserves a life ban, that seems a bit extreme...
however, if he is resorting to simple vandalism, maybe it's needed in
this case.


from_name: Jim Higson

body:
On Tuesday 15 June 2004 20:17, Finlay McWalter wrote:
> Jim Higson wrote:
> >>It's a noble idea, but doing it properly (where it could replace the
> >>normal mode of editing on a mature wiki like wikipedia) is *hard*.
> >
> > Agreed, but I've got a year and want a good hard project :)
> >
> :)
>
> I'm not sure the result would be worth the effort, but I'm sure you'll
> learn all kinds of interesting things along the way (and hopefully
> produce some useful modules doing so too).

Yep. This is for the final project of my degree, so I've tried to find
something academically acceptable that has a chance of being used in the real
world.

>
> Not to boss you around, but *do that bit first* :)

Good point, wouldn't want to fall into the Java Trap :)
I'll probably develop the RTE as I need it.

> I'm really not convinced a wysiwyg editor is really all that necessary
> (we have lots of technically challenged contributors banging aware
> regardless).  But a decent java parser that takes mediawiki markup and
> builds a nice JDOM (or whatever) tree - that would have all kinds of
> handy uses (and I think your editor will need it anyway).

Yes, my plan is to go:

wikitext --Java--> XML(to a wikitext expressive w3c XML schema) --XSL--> XHTML

So even if the editor isn't used, the XSL could be rewritten in future and the
code used to translate wikitext to PDF client side. (ie for a printed version
or 'export to PDF' function)

--
Jim


body:
On Tuesday 15 June 2004 21:21, Fennec Foxen wrote:
> Would having an out-of-browser editor like this help bypass some of
> the rendering and reduce the load on the Apaches? Could something like
> this be used for general browsing as well as editing? It would be
> effectively offloading some of our processing power to users'
> machines...

Well I suppose in theory it wouldn't take much work to expand it to a
wikipedia-specific standalone thick client independent of any browser, but
that kind of thing is waaay out of fashion.

It then *could* reduce server load because a thick client could be delievered
sent plain wikitext instead of making html pages, but I doubt it's really
worth it, IMO a seperate program just to look at + edit a wiki is too much
fuss.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] IP lookups for stewards

body:
--- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > >Speaking of which, it would be nice for stewards to have the ability to
> check
> > >those logs in these cases. Our developers seem to be overworked as it is.
> > >-- mav
>
> If a new system is implemented whereby IPs are stored in the database
> and not just in the log files, I would have no objection to stewards
> having access to these. However, until then, I do not support stewards
> being given access to the same logs that the developers currently have
> to check for IPs. Firstly, it would be largely a waste of time as they
> are too large to search through efficiently, and secondly, they
> include details of not only page saves, but also page views. This
> would be too much of a privacy violation if stewards had that sort of
> information.

Goodness no - I wasn't thinking about giving stewards the key to the castle -
(they would probably get lost and break the fine china). Just a viewing room
(which I hope some developer will build for us -- which reminds me of my tip
jar idea and Erik's software bounty concept...).

-- mav

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


from_name: sannse

body:
(Appologies if this comes through twice - I have concerns about my e-mail
service)

I feel very strongly that we should not change the rules after the election.
We voted for two board members and we have two.  If it's decided that we
need another then we should vote again.  There is every possibility that the
results will change with the changed situation - for example, it's been
pointed out that many people felt that there should be a non-en. board
member.  As Anthere is a member already this may influence votes.   I for
one think that a U.S. user representative would be a balance in the current
board.

Regards

 sannse


body:
--- Fennec Foxen <fennec at gmail.com> wrote:
> For one, can we have an official-type *decree* from someone that Wik
> is *hard-banned* for life, under the same terms as Michael, 142, etc?

No he is not hard banned for life. He will, however, probably get a month ban
the moment he comes back due to the fact that he broke the terms of his
week-long ban a few times. That is in the enforcement section of our (the AC's)
ruling on the issue.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] IP records of page views?

body:
Angela - can you explain / point to where this is
explained? Having this information more readily
available seems a lot more sinister.
Mark

--- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > >Speaking of which, it would be nice for stewards
> to have the ability to check
> > >those logs in these cases. Our developers seem to
> be overworked as it is.
> > >-- mav
>
> If a new system is implemented whereby IPs are
> stored in the database
> and not just in the log files, I would have no
> objection to stewards
> having access to these. However, until then, I do
> not support stewards
> being given access to the same logs that the
> developers currently have
> to check for IPs. Firstly, it would be largely a
> waste of time as they
> are too large to search through efficiently, and
> secondly, they
> include details of not only page saves, but also
> page views. This
> would be too much of a privacy violation if stewards
> had that sort of
> information.
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia language

body:
Although I would favour choice through user preferences, I find it
unfortunate that this matter should come up at a time when a segment of
the interested people are being blocked from the 'pedia.

Ec

Jiong Sheng wrote:

>I thought Chinese Wikipedians have reached consensus at the beginning
>of the Chinese Wikipedia project two years ago that traditional and
>simplified Chinese should be put together, because essentially they
>are one language, with the same grammar and vocabulary. The difference
>between traditional and simplified Chinese sometimes is even subtler
>than the difference between American and British English.
>
>Most native speakers of the Chinese language can read both sets of
>writing system. No one has yet complained that they cannot read
>simplified Chinese or traditional Chinese. Our ultimate goal is to
>develop an auto conversion script that would display simplified or
>traditional Chinese according to users' preference. Progress is slow,
>but efforts have been put in.
>


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia language

body:
On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 06:43:44PM +0000, Ian Mackinnon wrote:
> Well, not really a new language, but I'm frustrated that Traditional
> Chinese is lumped into the  Simplified Chinese version of Wikipedia. The
> problem with this is the main page is only in Simplified Chinese and when
> looking up articles, it does not go directly to the page but gives the
> option to choose whether you want to go to the simplified or the
> traditional version.
>
> I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be
> given it's own language space, tw.wikipedia.org would be better. It should
> be common sense that these 2 styles of writing should not be combined
> together. Overseas Chinese and non-China born/educated persons who studied
> traditional Chinese writing have difficulty reading the simplified version.
> The current configuration just makes it frustrating to browse articles.
>
> A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have
> simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into
> en.wikipedia.org? I hope you see what I'm talking about and split
> zh.wikipedia.org and tw.wikipedia.org so there's no more confusion for
> Chinese readers of wikipedia.org

tw is the ISO-639-2 code for the language "twi".

Regards,

JeLuF


from_name: Jerome Jamnicky

subject: [Wikitech-l] squid varyEvaluateMatch warnings

body:
JeLuF recently set up the Wikimedia servers to send their syslogs to zwinger,
and we noticed that from each of the squids, messages like the following are
regularly appearing in /var/log/messages:

Jun 15 11:00:53 coronelli squid[1192]: varyEvaluateMatch: Oops. Not a Vary
match on second attempt, 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_grav
ity' 'accept-encoding="gzip,%20deflate",
cookie="enwikiSession%3dd01e31dd136539b2bdd41027d84368c8"'
Jun 15 11:00:55 coronelli squid[1192]: clientProcessHit: Vary object loop!

I've switched the messages off for now by adding "debug_options 33,0" to
squid.conf on each squid, because they were repetitive and drowning out
anything else in the log.  Gabriel, do you have any idea what's wrong here?


from_name: Lee Pilich

body:
Wik wrote (in a post forwarded by Jimbo):
 >I made the mistake of trusting your word; you gave a supposedly final
 >warning to Quagga, but didn't follow up on it. Therefore I'll now give
 >you the final warning: if Quagga isn't banned within 24 hours, I'll
 >start a script which does everything automatically including changing
 >proxies as needed, so don't hope that I will tire of it; nor is there
 >anything else you can do against it. It will run until Quagga is banned.
 >Too bad you don't understand any other language.

So you all know, there is vandalism going on right now which has the
following characteristics:

*the entire content of a page is replaced with the content: "==Stop
vandalism, or suffer it yourself.=="
*said edits are made to prominent community pages including the village
pump, VfD and Goings-on, and to the talk and user pages of several
prominent users (Jimbo, Heph, RickK) as well as Quagga
*the edits are being made a more-or-less regular intervals, not all in a
splurge - I'd guess they're in the region of about one per minute
*each edit is made by under a different username
*blocking the usernames is having no effect (I suppose because a different
IP is being used for each edit)

Clearly, this could be related to the Wik-script mentioned here.

The vandalism itself is quite easy to spot and rollback, but if it really
is a script and this goes on for hours or days, it's going to get supremely
irritating.

I don't have an opinion on what we should do. This is just for information.

Lee (Camembert)


body:
Fennec Foxen wrote:
> Would having an out-of-browser editor like this help bypass some of
> the rendering and reduce the load on the Apaches? Could something like
> this be used for general browsing as well as editing? It would be
> effectively offloading some of our processing power to users'
> machines...

Are the apaches the bottleneck, though?  I'd always believed the mySQL
database was (there's only one of these, I believe, vs several apaches).

> All the better to beat up the database with! :)

Would that wikimedia's budget will stretch to an E15K for that ;(
FIn
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
W.Finlay McWalter   [[User:Finlay McWalter]]   http://www.mcwalter.org
"With the thoughts you'd be thinkin', You could be another Lincoln..."


from_name: Pablo Saratxaga

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia language

body:
Kaixo!

On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 06:43:44PM +0000, Ian Mackinnon wrote:

> I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be
> given it's own language space, tw.wikipedia.org would be better.

No, tw.twikipedia.org is for Twi language.
"zh-tw" could be a consistent choice.

> A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have
> simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into
> en.wikipedia.org?

It's not the same, the articles in en: and simple: are different, not
the same content.
The articles in zh: wikipedia are supposed to be the same on simplified
and traditional form; only some characters change (well, a lot, but
not the words).

A good comparaison would be with Serbian language, which can be written
in both latin and cyrillic, or Uzbek (but it didn't started yet), etc.
Now, in those cases, there is zero overlap, so they can coexist on a
same wikipedia if the policy is to accept both scripts;
for chinese however, there is the problem that some titles may be
written the same in traditional and simplified, and that makes hard
to disambiguate them (plus, wikimedia software didn't support (yet?)
selection of the good page when several versions of a same article
exist).

--
Ki ?a vos v?ye b?n,
Pablo Saratxaga

http://chanae.walon.org/pablo/		PGP Key available, key ID: 0xD9B85466
[you can write me in Walloon, Spanish, French, English, Catalan or Esperanto]
[min povas skribi en valona, esperanta, angla aux latinidaj lingvoj]
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from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
Hello all,

I'm sure the news is already around, but here is something like a
official announcement:

On sunday 13th of June German wikipedians founded a local wikimedia
association in Berlin: the ''Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur
F?rderung Freien Wissens'' (''Wikimedia Germany - society for the
promotion of free knowledge''). We had 34 founding members - among them
friends of wikipedia and of course a lot of people of the german wikipedia.

A board of trustees with ten members was elected, among them Kurt
Jansson as chairman. The whole board consists of:
     * Kurt Jansson (1. chairman)
     * Arne Klempert - akl (2. chairman)
     * Elisabeth Bauer - elian (secretary)
     * Henriette Fiebig (treasurer)
     * Daniel Baur (assessor)
     * Andr? Darmochwal (assessor)
     * Joachim Kerschbaumer (assessor)
     * Achim Raschka (assessor)
     * Mathias Schindler (assessor)
     * Jakob Vo? (assessor)

The first (and only) decision of the assembly after the founding act was
to declare Jimmy Wales a member of honour.

The list vereinde-l at wikimedia.org
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/vereinde-l) serves for
communications.

If someone wants to become a member (we have already international
members, this is possible), membership forms are available at
http://de.wikipedia.org/upload/3/3e/Aufnahmeantrag3.pdf

A lot of other things happened in Berlin, too: Jimbo, Erik and Sunir
Shah held impressive presentations on the panel "wikipedia and friends"
at the conference wizards of os, the wikireaders ''sweden'' and
''internet'' were sold at the improvised wikipedia boot at the
conference and all evenings ended up in great parties until dawn, on
friday many wikipedians met for the first time in real life, on saturday
we celebrated the 100,000th article of the german wikipedia.

pictures and information (in german) on:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verein
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Kurier
http://wikimedia.de
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia-Wochenende_in_Berlin

more pictures on:
http://jeluf.mormo.org/bilderbuch/20040612-WikiMedia/
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Elian/Bilder

greetings,
elian, akl, sansculotte


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: From RK about a contested article, and the responses

body:
Robert wrote:
> Mav wrote:
>
>>Blah, blah, blah Robert. You cry wolf so often that
>>I just delete your messages without ever reading
>>them anymore. I'm sure many other people do the same.
>
>
> Your taunting is out of place, Mav. Please refrain from
> using this list in that way; this list is only for
> discussion of Wikipedia policy.
>
> Further, Wikipedia users should be aware that Mav's claims
> are incorrect. Just check the edit history of the article I
> named.
>
> [[Palestinian views of the peace process ]]
>
> Its not a matter of opinion whether or not Anthere did such
> editing and protection; the only opinion can be on if this
> was wise.
>
>
> Danny writes:
>
>>As of today, Anthere has quite a bit more authority
>>than you care to imagine. Pick your enemies wisely,
>>Robert. I wouldn't go launching attacks on the Board
>>if I were you.
>
>
> Danny, from where I stand, those with the most power are
> the ones who are most obligated to be careful in using this
> power, and in making sure that Wikipedia rules are followed
> in a fair manner. In fact, that is what others on this list
> hae always said as well. Your letter basically implies that
> we must do what the new powers that be say, "or else".
> Even Anthere isn't saying this. Maybe I was a bit hot in
> how I expressed my disagreement with her actions, but I was
> very specific about what I considered wrong, and why.
>
> I offered several paragraphs stating what my points were
> (even if these paragraphs were written by a better writer
> than myself.) People had the opportunity to read them, and
> consider them on their merits. That's what this list is for
> - when we think an issue isn't about an article, but about
> Wikipeida policy itself. I see no reason to refrain from
> doing this.
>
> Ironically, only Anthere has actually responded to the
> points in my letter to this list. And she has replied in a
> modest and impartial way which gives me much hope. She
> focused on the content and on the issues I raised, a lesson
> for all of us. However, others have made polemical
> statements or personal remarks. Thus:
>
> (A) It looks like mediation can be made on this article,
> between Anthere, Mav, Danny, myself, and others.
> (B) But it depresses me that many people here refuse to
> focus on the specific issues, and focus instead on personal
> issues.
>
> This is not what I expected at all, but it's interesting.
>
> RK (Robert)

Hello Robert

I thank you for these positive thoughts and for the invitation to
discuss the article with all the other editors concerned and interested
in the topic :-)

But I must respectfully refuse the invitation, as, I already said, I
have little knowledge on these matters, so would be more a burden than help.
I will however think of reading this article from time to time, to learn
a bit more the various perspectives, as you are all working to improve
it together.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Why use so many (small) messages)

body:
Gerard.Meijssen wrote:

> LS,
> Tim Starling wondered why we want to use so many messages in
> wiktionary. The reason is that the same article can be copied to
> another wiktionary (that contains the native content for the same
> messages). This will result in a correct article for the word. As an
> example the word [[Nederlands]], [[Engels]],  [[English]] can be found
> in the Japanese wiktionary.
>
> Another example is when a translation has been added to a
> participating wiktionary, this translation can be added to all other
> participating wiktonaries. Yes, a bot needs to be written to do that,
> but that is the intention. Example; I have added _loads_ of new
> translations for the word [[English]] and [[Dutch]] on the
> en:wiktionary. (Originating from Timwi's website and then nl:wiktionary)
>
This system of messages is Gerard's pet project with which he has
carried on despite some serious questioning at Wiktionary talk:MediaWiki
custom messages
<http://en.wiktionary.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wiktionary_talk:MediaWiki_custom_messages&redirect=no>

We don't need all those messages.  The potential for Gerard's scheme
interfering with the efforts of others is too high.  A bot would only
make things worse.

Ec


subject:
[Foundation-l] announcement: german wikimedia
	association(verein) founded

body:
Arne Klempert <wikipedia at klempert.de> wrote:

On Wednesday, June 16, 2004 5:03 AM
Angela wrote:

> Delirium wrote:
>> I'd personally prefer if important things, like votes for
>> foundations, not take place at "in-person" meetings, because not all
>> of us have sufficient funds to attend such meetings. Internet
>> elections are much more inclusive.

German law requires "in-person" meetings for the setup of a "Verein".

> I don't believe on-line voting is legal in all countries, so it may
> not be possible for all of the Wikimedia chapters to do this. I do
> think that postal voting should usually be made available though, and
> the recently formed German Wikimedia Association certainly allows for
> this. ? 8.2 of the Verein's bylaws
> (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vereinssatzung) state that
> when elections are taking place, the possibility of voting remotely
> must be given to the members (by post or fax as far as I could tell).

On-line voting is possible in theory but up to now it's extremely
difficult to do this legally effective. Afaik there is only *one* german
"Verein" who did this - and there are a great many of such associations
in Germany. I'm sure this becomes more easier in the future but until
then we have to do absentee votes (as stated in the bylaws this is
necessary for board elections and changing the bylaws) by snail mail, at
least for those members who are not able or willing to come to the
annual meetings.

> Congratulations again to everyone elected, and to all those who worked
> so hard in getting this set up.

Thank you, Angela. It was a great pleasure to have you with us in
Berlin.

-akl

I concur with Mark wish for online voting, but I know it is not always possible.

We were wondering as well if it was possible for the french wikipedia local chapter, and indeed e-vote is legally acceptable now. However, it is still very recent, so little use. I hope it becomes widely legal soon.

Anyway, I am real glad that the german association was finally founded. I would be happy to discuss a bit its organisation and the roles it intends to hold with anyone involved in it. I would be like to do so, both as an interesting reference to be used for next local-chapter-to-be, and of course, to see how the Wikimedia Foundation and the local chapter could be related in the best way.

I regret I was not among you, it would have been nice to meet german wikipedians...

Florence/Anthere

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