from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Edit this section", TOC implemented

body:
Thomas Corell schrieb:

> More programers to produce more code waiting in the CVS for better days?
> Try to think about your suggestion again.

Okay, I hereby solicit to give more people access to the server. People
I personally trust not to do anything against the will of the community
(and that hopefully will keep the German Wikipedia up to date ;)) are
e.g. Erik, Thomas and Magnus.

And, could someone please set "Los" (Go) button default when you hit
enter in the search box on the German Wikipedia, disable SQL queries or
do anything else to speed the German Wikipedia up. It was often near to
unuseable in the last afternoons. We got a very nice article in a
journalism magazine and we shouldn't give such a bad impression to the
visiting journalists. I hope some of them will soon write about the
project in other magazines ...

Every new feature should be put on hold until proven that it doesn't put
more burden on the server. We should roll out the red carpet for
everybody who promises to help with the database problems. Welcome
Timwi! ;-)

Kurt


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Please help test new features

body:
On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 12:53:17 -0700 (PDT), Brion Vibber
<vibber at aludra.usc.edu> gave utterance to the following:

> [snip]
>> But not if the hierarchy is changed, and we would still have to retain
>> the
>> numbering feature for H2 dupes. Also, these anchor names could get very
>> long, especially for H4 anchors.
>
> Yes, all these are reasons why I don't like generating anchor names from
> header text. :) Whatever you do, they remain fragile. Nice explicit
> anchors would be better, though of course your fiendish table of contents
> needs automatic ones anyway, so oh well. :)
>
Does your current code ensure that anchor names only start with a letter a-
z? names starting with a number are illegal, and hyphen and underscore are
the only permissible punctuation.
--
Richard Grevers
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Announcing Wikimedia Foundation

body:
rvalles-
> - Unprivilegiation of the English wikipedia: The way it's setup now
> (http://www.wikipedia.org = english. others are ?.wikipedia.org) is totally
> discriminative , offensive and degrading for the other languages,

Hyperbole is not very helpful. It is discriminating, yes, but "offensive
and degrading" are terms that I am sure many people working on these other
Wikipedias would disagree with. Our English Main Page prominently features
links to the active Wikipedias in other languages, as well as a link to
the list of all wikis in the very first sentence. If you speak Spanish, it
is hard to miss the fact that there's a Spanish edition of Wikipedia.

Nevertheless, most of the developers agree that we want to make the switch
to a multi language portal eventually. However, I personally would find it
silly and offensive to put up an ugly plain static HTML page with just a
bunch of links instead of our current Main Page (and frankly, all the
drafts I've seen so far were ugly). Existing links to www.wikipedia.org
articles would have to keep working anyway.

A multi language portal should have the following functionality:
- meta search on several wikis
- unified login system (trivial to code, but non-trivial to synchronize
our existing accounts)
- unified interlanguage link table
- recent changes over several wikis
- auto highlight of language defined in web browser

There is still lots of work to do on more serious issues related to our
software for us to focus what is an issue that only relatively few people
have strong feelings about. However, if you and other people were to
volunteer on addressing these issues, the multilanguage portal would come
about much faster. Complaining rarely gets things done -- participating
does.

> - Migration of all wikipedias to the phase3 software.

This is non-trivial because of the vastly different data structures.
Currently there is only one person actively involved in the necessary
process. If you want to speed it up, again, help us locate active
developers who can help with the conversion, and we will certainly be as
liberal as possible in handing out access to the server.

> - More openness in general, public discusion of decisions
> before them being made.

Virtually all of our decisions have public justification, either on the
mailing list or on the wiki. Everyone working on Wikipedia has agreed that
Jimbo has the right to veto all decisions; he is the founder of the
project and has invested thousands of dollars to make it happen. He
deserves our respect and gratitude. The FDL protects us from serious abuse
of power, as your own fork demonstrates.

> -Distribution of the servers all arround the world,
> allowing every one of them to mirror backups for all the others,

While I sympathize with the idea, the Wikimedia foundation will allow us
to raise the funds necessary to operate all wikis in one place. The
aforementioned interlanguage integration will be much more difficult with
distributed wikis.

> and
> avoiding this way any kind of censorship originated by having a single
> server unther the US laws.

Arguably, US law is the most liberal in terms of freedom of speech. Few
other countries have such a strong commitment to what is the First
Amendment in the US. Of course, US politicians try to undermine it
whenever they can, but it still protects a lot of speech that is
prosecuted elsewhere. You will find it very difficult to point to examples
where content was "censored" from the English Wikipedia for reasons other
than copyright.

Distributing servers will not help in addressing censorship concerns,
since this will be viewed as merely a technical trick if the servers are
legally controlled by the Wikimedia foundation. If they are not, we are no
longer talking about an integrated project.

> Myself, I'm specially angry about the
> english-as-the-main-language-and-others-just-secoundary thing, and about it
> being not solved even after years listening to people asking so.

Years of listening? Wikipedia has been around since January 2001. What I
find very frustrating is that people like yourself complain about certain
things not being done when the cause of them not being done is not that
people have a bad attitude towards you, but that there are simply not
enough resources to complete them yet.

By forking your project, you have only worsened the problems, since now
there exist different editions of Wikipedia with different versions of the
same content, and a lot of duplicate work is done. There are different
branches of the software and different groups of users. The justification
for the fork was IMHO weak at best. Didn't you ever ask yourself why none
of the other wikis have forked?

Everyone working on Wikipedia is doing so on their free time. When
something is not getting done, the kind of "gimme" attitude that says
"Either do what we want, and do it NOW, or we will fork" is very harmful.
Above all else, people need to bring patience into a project such as ours.

> By the way, if you're interested in a spanish language free encyclopedia

There already is one. It's called the Wikipedia. If you have any content
you wish to contribute to it, let us know.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: David Friedland

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Please help test new features

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>  Articles should always be in a consistent state. Encarta or
>  Britannica have many stubs, but they don't have "stub sections". In
>  any case, I fail to see how the TOC can get in the way if there is no
>  content it can get in the way of.

I think I was unclear about what I meant by stub sections. I meant only
a section that has just one or two sentences. Some types of articles fit
into a category and there is a standard set of sections for each article
in that category, like elements or countries. When creating a new
article for one of those categories, an author should copy the template
for that type of article and try to fill in as much as much as possible.
However, that person may not know much about some subsection, and so
just puts in a sentence or two of overview of that topic. In the case of
such an article, where a few of the sections are filled out, but most
are just short one or two sentence 'stubs' a TOC would be in the way, as
most of the headings would be visible within one or two screenfuls of
the top.

> > What if there is no good way to break up a few long sections into
> > shorter ones?
>
>
>  Show me such a case and I will show you how it could be broken up. In
>  any case, a TOC of 2 or 3 sections would only look out of place, and
>  be of little help in navigating the article.

If there is an article that has a long first section and a short section
at the end, say an external links section,  a TOC would be very valuable
to someone looking for that information. You are probably right that the
long first section should be broken up, but it is conceivable that there
could be a long section that is best left intact, like a long quotation
(say a poem) or a narrative. In fact, it seems that as articles become
more in-depth articles, longer sections of prose that can't be easily
broken up will become more common. It seems arbitrary to say "TOCs are
only for articles with 4 or more headings."

Additionally, we don't want to encourage people to delete or add
sections unnecessarily just to get a particular desired TOC behavior. I
just can't believe that all articles with fewer than 4 sections should
never have a TOC and all articles with 4 or more sections should always
have a TOC. The world is not so easily quantized: there have to be
exceptions on either side. Why not leave it up to individual articles'
authors/editors?

> > I agree than in an ideal Wikipedia, every article would have
> > exactly the right number of sections of exactly the right length,
> > and the TOC algorithm would word perfectly. But in the meantime,
> > with a non-ideal Wikipedia, how can you defend the TOC feature's
> > exacerbating the situation
>
>
>  Articles that have improper sections will be fixed sooner as the
>  problems become more apparent. For example, I already noticed several
>  articles that use colons in the headings. This looks very ugly, and
>  the TOC makes it easy to detect such stylistic errors. Then, with the
>  section editing enabled, you just select the heading, edit it, and
>  save in a matter of a few seconds (OK, saving usually takes a while
>  because of terrible code in that area).
>
>  Hiding our problems, on the other hand, will not make them go away.
>  Those who are annoyed by the TOC can turn it off easily. But its
>  current implementation should work well for articles that are
>  reasonably structured.

>
>  Regards,
>
>  Erik

I agree that putting the TOC before the first heading is good. That and
having them on by default satisfy two of the concerns I had.

As for my proposal, perhaps indeed it is an unnecessary additional
burden for every article of significant length to specify whether or not
it should have a TOC, and where. I also think having a default of a TOC
in articles with 4 or more headings and not for articles with fewer is,
generally, an excellent default. I only think there should be some way
to override the default, not necessarily for any reason we can think of
now, but because there might be a reason we can't think of. I think it
is much more in keeping with wiki to allow the default to be overridden
than not. Perhaps when exceptions come up, a policy of when it should be
overridden could be discussed and then agreed upon. I am very doubtful
that most would agree upon a policy that was: if an article has more
than 3 sections, it gets a TOC, otherwise not. No exceptions.

There are _always_ exceptions.

Cheers!

- David


body:
David-
> 1. An article with many short sections would inappropriately get a TOC
> that would waste space.

Then remove some sections.

> 2. An article with just two very long sections wouldn't get a TOC but
> would be appreciably helped by one.

Then add some sections.

> 3. Sometimes a TOC would be best located not at the top of an article,
> but after a short introductory paragraph. I think some dead tree
> encyclopedias use this method.

That's the current behavior.

> 4. If displaying TOCs is off by default,

It is enabled by default.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Peter Gervai

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] Announcing Wikimedia Foundation

body:
On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 08:17:13AM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Gareth Owen wrote:
> > WWW stands for World Wide Web - three *english* words.  If other
> > languages wish to replace there language codes with the equivalent
> > abbreviation in their own language, I'm sure no-one will mind.
> > (lwm.wikipedia.org for "le web mondial", peut-?tre?)
>
> I don't really agree with this argument.  'www' is known worldwide as
> the indicator for the 'main' website of any organization.  So although
> 'www' has its roots in English, it's really quite general.

I'm sure he was joking. Ha-ha-ha.

:-/

But the argument is overreacted by all means, All langauges are on the
startin pages, <countrycode>.wikipedia.org/ leads to the national page, I'm
very satisfied with this way of handling.

cya,
grin
Hungary


body:
David-

>> Then remove some sections.

> A growing article with many stub sections should have those stubs
> removed then, so the TOC doesn't get in their way?

Stub sections are evil. They are a form of meta comment like "is this
really true?" insertions in articles and should be avoided whenever
possible. Wiki is a means to an end, not an end in itself -- Wikipedia is
first and foremost an encyclopedia, not a scratchpad. If you want to talk
about an article's potential future structure, use the talk page.

Articles should always be in a consistent state. Encarta or Britannica
have many stubs, but they don't have "stub sections". In any case, I fail
to see how the TOC can get in the way if there is no content it can get in
the way of.

>> Then add some sections.

> What if there is no good way to break up a few long sections into
> shorter ones?

Show me such a case and I will show you how it could be broken up. In any
case, a TOC of 2 or 3 sections would only look out of place, and be of
little help in navigating the article.

> I agree than in an ideal Wikipedia, every article would have exactly the
> right number of sections of exactly the right length, and the TOC
> algorithm would word perfectly. But in the meantime, with a non-ideal
> Wikipedia, how can you defend the TOC feature's exacerbating the
> situation

Articles that have improper sections will be fixed sooner as the problems
become more apparent. For example, I already noticed several articles that
use colons in the headings. This looks very ugly, and the TOC makes it
easy to detect such stylistic errors. Then, with the section editing
enabled, you just select the heading, edit it, and save in a matter of a
few seconds (OK, saving usually takes a while because of terrible code in
that area).

Hiding our problems, on the other hand, will not make them go away. Those
who are annoyed by the TOC can turn it off easily. But its current
implementation should work well for articles that are reasonably
structured.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikien-l

from_name: Adam

from_email: Adam

subject: [WikiEN-l] jimbo and lir and the wiki too!

body:
The only reason my email name says Adam, is because one of the reasons I was banned, was that a few of you didn't like the fact that my email name didnt say Adam. I dunno why, but Im sure you have some very "good" reasons.

I have already apoligized for numerous actions, it is a lie to say I have not. I am sure that you will be disagreeable at my insinuation that you are not being honest; but I have apoligized and if you don't know that - its because you have chosen not to know. I have apoligized, and you have decided not to accept my apology. This has occurred on numerous occasions, spanning the past 8 months. I have apoligized, you have not accepted the apology. Please stop acting as if I have failed to apoligize.

I am sorry that you feel I have "publically lied" about why I was banned, there is little I can do to refute your allegations that I have some evil agenda. I have a right to try and understand I was banned, and part of that right involves my attempting to explain, in my own words, why I was banned:

As I understand it, I was banned for:

* suggesting that there might be latent racism behind certain naming conventions
* calling mav a fuckhead for not acting in what I felt was a reasonable manner
* making Zoe upset
* stepping on Larry Sanger's toes
* attacking RK for being a Jew
* attacking Clutch for telling the truth
* not making enough friends, leaving me without a substantial defense
* alleging that there might be a cabal arrayed against me
* suggesting that the position of a "benevolent monarch" was totalitarian
* engaging in an edit war over the name of an Italian and a spot in Vietnam
* making too many suggestions for changes, thus "stirring up trouble"
* not using the minor edits flag enough
* not using the major edits flag enough
* making too many edits, on the same article, in too short of a time period
* and not taking the time to go back over my edits and fix errors, instead leaving them for other editors to fix
* too frequently using POV in articles
* too frequently using NPOV in articles
* not using the name which certain users felt I should use
* creating a user page which was not considered "tasteful" or "well formatted"
* causing an amount of vandalism such that the wiki will not recover during this decade
* lying and twisting words and the truth to fit my own needs
* trolling constantly
* etc

Im sure there are many more reasons.

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ideas on a methodology

body:
Erik wrote:
>In my opinion, Wikipedia should be the
>unstable version of Nupedia, a bit like
>Debian has a permanent unstable section.
>Things in Wikipedia can be complete
>nonsense, but they are always up to date.

I agree completely except for the name of the "stable" Wikipedia distribution;
that, IMO, should be the slightly different "GNUpedia." Of course the GNU
people esp RMS would have to sign off on our use of the "GNU" brand. If they
do not feel comfortable with that then we can use Nupedia. My reasoning is
simple; Nupedia is/was a very different project and we should have a
different name if possible (and Wikimedia already owns both gnupedia.org and
gnupedia.com).

I also like the "gnu" because it emphasizes the open content nature of such a
project (since that would be the most prominent difference between it and any
other static encyclopedia; the most prominent feature of Wikipedia, however,
is that it is a wiki).

>We may add a team certification model to
>Wikipedia eventually, but I'd be happy to see
>a simple Sifter solution as envisioned by Magnus
>(without the limit to certified experts as reviewers
>which I think is what Larry wanted). IMHO  it would
>make perfect sense to use the Nupedia name and
>domain for that project.

Like I've said before; Sifter, team certification and a "stable" distribution
of Wikipedia are all basically the same thing in that they are trying to
accomplish similar goals. To be viable we should make one project that
encompasses the best aspects of all three ideas.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] We can say what we like about...

body:
Jimmy-
> In any event, I'll gladly agree that you remain banned on my say-so,

That is incorrect. Since several users have objected to banning Lir under
his current incarnation ("Pizza Puzzle"), I have refrained from doing so
for the time being, and will not ban him unless you explicitly ask me to
override these objections.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Over the weekend...

body:
JT wrote:
> ...The reason why I suggested Jimbo, Brion
> and Mav was because Jimbo  . . . well in his
> case the reason is obvious, Brion is our number
> 1 software guy and Mav is someone widely
> respected who has shown on the whole great
> tact, is a consensus builder and is someone whom
> from what I have seen is not likely to have a 'head
> the posse' approach but would approach the issue
>demanding a high level of proof.

I'm flattered to be nominated to your vision of a Triumvirate but IMO if
anybody is going to have the power you suggest it should be the whole Senate
(that is, all Admins).

BTW, I've been accused of being an archetypical "maverick" before with a
tendency to be a "cowboy" and "shoot from the hip" so your nomination may
have been misplaced. ;-)

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Lightning

subject: [Wikitech-l] memcached

body:
I noticed yesterday that Danga Interactive has released php bindings for
memcacheD, which is well, really cool. memcacheD is a in-memory caching
system for any tipe of data. It acts as a middle man in between the
application and the db, and transparently cache's objects. Its currently
being used in Livejournal and if you are a lj user you might have noticed
the big speedup it caused. Its pretty cool how it works, and I think that
wikipedia could really benefit from it since db load seems to be our main
bottleneck. I can see memcached storing pretty much all the curr versions,
which would cut down db use on reads a whole lot. I just don't know if there
is enough memory to run this, maybe if a 3d server is ever aquired?
wikipedia is growing fast, and so is the traffic, and the number of edits
per day. This is great for the project, but its apparently killing the
servers. There is a lot of hacks right now to reduce load (non-dynamic
caching, miser mode). But I believe that this application could cut out a
lot of the server load whithout reducing any functionality. Any thoughts
anyone?

Lightning

http://www.danga.com/memcached/

________________________________________________
This mail was sent by UebiMiau 2.5


from_name: Timwi

body:
Hi,

> Okay, I hereby solicit to give more people access to the server.
> People I personally trust not to do anything against the will of the
> community (and that hopefully will keep the German Wikipedia up to
> date ;)) are e.g. Erik, Thomas and Magnus.

Who does have access to the German Wikipedia server currently?

> We should roll out the red carpet for everybody who promises to help
> with the database problems. Welcome Timwi! ;-)

Hahaha! :-) ... I haven't promised anything yet, though. :-)

Greetings,
Timwi


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turning on automated processes

body:
webmaster wrote:

>Recently, I have seen multiple requests for pages that were once autimatically updated, like Orphaned pages, to be updated.  It is my understanding, that the automatic updating of these pages was turned off because the server was running slowly.  Since then, we have gotten a second server.  So could someone please turn these services back on?
>
They're still very slow and take the wiki to its knees for minutes at a
time.

These functions need to be rewritten in an efficient manner before
they'll be reenabled on the big, slow English wiki.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: james duffy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Over the weekend...

body:
> >Toby Bartels wrote:
>

>I guess that I just want the system be clear and above-board.
>Even if only Jimbo, Brion, and mav (all of whom /I/ universally respect
>^_^)
>are the only people with access to the witch-huniting software,
>I still think that any hunting that they do should be publicly logged.
>Exactly what this entails would depend on the system, of course.
>Maybe I don't grasp what you're thinking of in enough detail?
>
I agree. It needs to be carefully organised, not haphazard. The reason why I
suggested Jimbo, Brion and Mav was because Jimbo  . . . well in his case the
reason is obvious, Brion is our number 1 software guy and Mav is someone
widely respected who has shown on the whole great tact, is a consensus
builder and is someone whom from what I have seen is not likely to have a
'head the posse' approach but would approach the issue demanding a high
level of proof. And having three rather than one or two allows for occasions
when someone is off wiki or on holidays. It is unlikely that all three would
disappear from wiki at the same time.

I would disagree with the description of what I am suggesting as
'witchhunting' software. The whole idea is to avoid witchhunts and allow for
three of the most responsible people on wiki to quietly keep an eye on the
IP range associated with Michael, DW or a similar character. Both Michael
and DW tend to leave 'footprints' both in their editing style and in their
treatment of other wikipedians. DW in particular is a serious threat to
wiki; from raising possible serious legal difficulties over copyright
photos, to threatening to sue anyone who 'outs' him, to scaring off newbies
and not so new-bies with his behaviour.

The rules should be:

/Only/ multiple banned users will a history of causing actual or potentially
serious damage to wiki should be capable of being checked out;
If evidence is found when examining a suspicious user's behaviour that they
are
(a) editing in the style and manner of a banned user;
(b) acting towards wikipedian in a manner consistent with the behaviour of
the multiple banned user;
(c) come from the IP range of that banned user

then a report detailing the transgressions of the user and the strong
suspicion as to the identity of the user, should be brought to general
attention, along the lines of  - 'this is the evidence we have found. Your
opinions sought on the next step'. That could be done on the wiki list,
along the lines of - 'please express your opinions. If there are serious
doubts, please express them within next 48 hours'. Unless it is clear that
the consensus opinion on the list is not to do anything and let the issue
drop, the information would ''go live'' on a special wiki page. So the whole
process should operate on three stages: quiet check, list discussion, full
public debate on wiki, with at each stage acting as a system of checks and
balances to protect the innocent and require a high standard of evidence. So
if Jimbo, Brion and Mav find no evidence, the issue is dropped. If they have
strong suspicions but the list says 'no' the issue is dropped. If
Jimbo/Brion/Mav and the list think 'there is something serious happening
here' then the details go on /full/ public record on wiki, for a time
limited debate and a decision by everyone.

All that would be the 'active' stage. As a protection, there would also be
the 'archive' stage, where all wikipedians could find out whether checks had
been going on, etc. So a /public/ record should be kept of all 'checks'.
That record should be accessible to all users. But it should be time
delayed. The last thing we need is DW to check the revelant page to see if
he has been rumbled and is /currently/ being checked. So a report on each
month's checks should be put into the open one calendar month after a
particular month' searches. So searches carried out in June, for example,
would be posted on 1st August, July on 1st September. That time delay would
ensure that whatever searches were carried out will have ceased and won't be
ungoing (though if one was, a note could be put saying that an ongoing check
was continuing and the details will be posted as soon as it reaches a
conclusion).

The odds are that most of the time there will be no checks of any sort. But
in the event of a serious problem arising, wiki should have a team in place
with access to additional software so that they can review suspicious
behaviour of the sort that seems to be orchestrated and if not caught could
damage wiki and all our work. A system of checks and balances should exist
to halt the process at any stage if the consensus was that the suspicions
are wrong or the evidence doesn't add up. And transparency would be achieved
by having details of all checks available, though with a time delay to
enable checks to be carried out in the first instance in privacy and so
avoiding witchhunts or letting DW or whomever know they are being checked
out, so allowing them to play cat and mouse by changing IPs, changing
identities, or disappearing for a few days until the coast was clear.
Personally I don't think we need to be told " [[User:Slugman]] checked
out'', simply ''a user within xyp IP range was checked out amid suspicions
that they were a multiple banned user. No evidence was found to substantiate
the suspicion."

This process would not replace the standard hard banning procedure. It would
simply add another line of defence for dealing with /the/ most extreme
behaviour of the sort we have /enjoyed/ from DW and which we can no doubt
expect to experience on occasion from him and others in the future. It might
also act as a defence which wiki can use if someone as DW did starts
throwing around legal threats, given that the process would have plenty of
checks and balances; 3 people doing the preliminary work, its approval on
the list and its discussion on wiki. So they could not claim they were the
victim of a witchhunt but of a careful process of examination and thorough
review involving three different parts of wiki.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Intro for readers of this list

body:
On Wed, 2 Jul 2003 16:21:15 -0700, Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> gave utterance to the following:

> Richard Grevers wrote:
>
>> In fact - links to disambign articles are a perfect use. You can make it
>> clear what sense of a word you are linking to.
>
> Erm ... why would you ever /deliberately/ link to a disambig page like
> this?
> Why not just link to the page that that section of the disambig page
> links to?
> The purpose of disambig pages is almost entirely
> to catch links that /don't/ go where they really ought to go.
>
> Perhaps you mean links to articles that have
> several brief discussions that are separated by horizontal rules?
> That makes some sense.

Yes - if you look at the page for [[Pitch]] for example, not all contexts
link to articles (most have wiki links, but in some cases the target
article is very broad and will be lucky to mention the word pitch once.
>
>
> -- Toby
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Richard Grevers
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence


from_name: Mirko Thiessen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Please help test new features

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> This is a bit of a philosophical question. IMHO sections should not be as
> short as they are in the Donau-Ries article. The text is only 6400 bytes,
> yet there are 11 sections, that's 580 bytes per section.

You are of course right. I created these sections for testing purposes
only. The original article has less sections.

> With longer sections, you don't want the [edit] link to
> load all the text within that section and subsections, because you'll have
> the same problem as before: too large blocks of text.

You are probably right.

Mirko (Cordyph)


from_name: Luc Van Oostenryck

subject: [Wikitech-l] DE-Wikipedia slow and fr: also

body:
Thomas Luft wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> at the moment (17:00 CEST) the German Wikipedia is very slow, fr, too.
> The English Wikipedia is running fine. Could someone have a look at this?
> Thanks
>
> Thomas aka Urbanus
>

Yes, on fr: also. Last days an RC&limit=50 can sometimes take several minutes!

Luc Van Oostenryck aka Looxix


from_name: tarquin

references: <8opxJEqCpVB@erik_moeller> <3F00B1EB.50201@gmx.net> <3F00A725.2040707@corell.dyndns.org> <3F045AB7.70103@gmx.net>

body:
Kurt Jansson wrote:

> Thomas Corell schrieb:
>
>> More programers to produce more code waiting in the CVS for better
>> days? Try to think about your suggestion again.
>
>
> Okay, I hereby solicit to give more people access to the server. People
> I personally trust not to do anything against the will of the community
> (and that hopefully will keep the German Wikipedia up to date ;)) are
> e.g. Erik, Thomas and Magnus.

I would like server access to work on the skins & stylesheets.
I can keep language files updated too (I've learnt from the HUGE mistake
I made last time!)

If some tells me where I can find the code that handles image markup, I
may look into that too.


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 06:59 PM 7/3/03 -0700, Adam von [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
>The only reason my email name says Adam, is because one of the reasons I
>was banned, was that a few of you didn't like the fact that my email name
>didnt say Adam. I dunno why, but Im sure you have some very "good" reasons.

Are you still denying that your name is Adam? If you aren't Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons],
why are you using his name? If you are, why do you deny being named Adam?

><snip>
>
>As I understand it, I was banned for:
>
>....
>* attacking RK for being a Jew

This in itself is reason enough that I think you don't belong on the
Wikipedia, and that I have no reason to believe your apologies.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


body:
Jimmy-
> I have a personal promise directly from Adam/Lir/Bridget or whatever
> he or she prefers to be called that he will not edit the wikipedia
> under any username.  So, as a courtesy, I do not believe that Pizza
> Puzzle and Adam/Lir/Bridget are the same person.  I trust that,
> whatever differences we may have, a direct violation of a personal
> promise is not the sort of thing that he would do.

You are a very funny person, Jimbo. :-)

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Benjamin Esham

body:
On Thursday, July 3, 2003, at 11:49  PM, Brion Vibber wrote:

> webmaster wrote:
>
>> Recently, I have seen multiple requests for pages that were once
>> autimatically updated, like Orphaned pages, to be updated.  It is my
>> understanding, that the automatic updating of these pages was turned
>> off because the server was running slowly.  Since then, we have
>> gotten a second server.  So could someone please turn these services
>> back on?
>
> They're still very slow and take the wiki to its knees for minutes at
> a time.
>
> These functions need to be rewritten in an efficient manner before
> they'll be reenabled on the big, slow English wiki.

What if we cached each of the pages (as we do now), updating the cache
each day during the times of lowest traffic?  That would keep the pages
reasonably up-to-date, while at the same time adding only a little to
the server strain.

--
Benjamin D. Esham      {      http://bdesham.net
bdesham at iname.com      }      AIM: bdesham 1 2 8


body:
David-
> I think I was unclear about what I meant by stub sections. I meant only
> a section that has just one or two sentences. Some types of articles fit
> into a category and there is a standard set of sections for each article
> in that category, like elements or countries.

This is a fair point, but in these cases of templates I would prefer it if
authors commented out individual section titles until there is enough text
to fill them (<!--foo-->). Editors will still see them, but the TOC will
no longer be triggered.

> If there is an article that has a long first section and a short section
> at the end, say an external links section,  a TOC would be very valuable
> to someone looking for that information. You are probably right that the
> long first section should be broken up, but it is conceivable that there
> could be a long section that is best left intact, like a long quotation
> (say a poem) or a narrative.

We usually do not like long quotations because we are not a source text
repository. Even if we do have them, we should comment individual parts of
the quotation, which again allows us to make a logical break. Can you
explain what you mean with narrative? I would really like to see specific
examples.

> In fact, it seems that as articles become
> more in-depth articles, longer sections of prose that can't be easily
> broken up will become more common. It seems arbitrary to say "TOCs are
> only for articles with 4 or more headings."

Well, it is less arbitrary than it looks. E.g. Mary Evans writes in "Web
Design: An Empiricist's Guide":

        Regardless of structure most experts agree that users should not
        have to go through more than three jumps to find the information
        they need.  They added that users will become frustrated if
        presented with more levels of pages acting as tables of contents
        rather than providing content.

Usually, menus should contain about eight items; that is the amount of
information that most people can process relatively quickly. However, we
cannot set such a high requirement, of course, because we have shorter
articles which would nevertheless benefit from a TOC. But if we have only
two or three items, we can have unforunate results:

For long articles, menu items will be too broad to accurately describe the
content they describe. Users will find it difficult to use this
navigational tool except for the most obvious sections (e.g. external
links). Is the information about Albert Einstein I need in the "Life" or
in the "Work" part? With so few sections, having no TOC at all would make
more sense.

For short articles, users will be frustrated because they perceive the TOC
as another navigation level, which may not have been necessary since the
information they seek is readily available.

As a general principle, navigation aids should be added only when they are
truly useful and can save user time; otherwise they can end up being only
an annoyance. Making tables only visible at four items automates this to
some extent, although user intelligence is still required to set up the
sections properly.

> Additionally, we don't want to encourage people to delete or add
> sections unnecessarily just to get a particular desired TOC behavior.

Absolutely, if the TOC behavior is wrong, it either needs to be corrected,
or as you say, overridden. I'm open to both a "NOTOC" or "FORCETOC" option
should that ever turn out to be an issue. I'm also focusing mostly on
Wikipedia's and Wiktionary's use right now and not considering what other
uses of our software might pop up.

Let's wait how this TOC experiment turns out and how user experiences are
until drawing any further conclusions. My current belief is that the way
the TOC is set up, it will encourage positive changes to the way articles
are structured.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] A couple of links

body:
Jimmy, Robert-
> RK, you're a longtime contributor, highly valued, but I'd like to ask
> you to tone it down a notch.  Referring to the contributions of others
> as "Neo-Nazi-like revisionism" is not kind, and it causes people to
> get very upset, and with good reason I think.

Unfortunately, RK is frequently very confrontational or even insulting
without provocation, and he uses accusations of anti-Semitism and
vandalism a lot. We all give him a little leeway because he has made many
excellent contributions. But he has often turned disagreements that could
have been addressed rationally into highly emotionalized flamefests.

I'm not sure what the best way to deal with this is. Martin sometimes
removes personal attacks from the comment pages, which on the one hand is
a beautiful use of wiki's strength, on the other hand can be perceived as
intrusive. Should we officially condone this kind of editing? If we made
it policy, maybe more people would do it and discussions would
automatically take on a reasonable tone. On the other hand, people could
perceive Wikipedia as an excessively PC place, and the editing policy
might be abused for the purpose of "sanitizing" comments. We would have to
be very careful to limit it to personal attacks, and to avoid any
extension to controversial statements. I'd like to hear opinions on this
specifically.

Of course, the obvious thing to do is to ask Robert to review and change
his behavior. The cynic in me says "Yeah, right".

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ideas on a methodology

body:
Jimmy-
> What I'd like to do is sit and explore Britannica and Wikipedia,
> comparing and contrasting our strengths and weaknesses, with an eye
> towards my REAL project for the week, which is to put together a
> "Roadmap to 1.0" for Wikipedia.

In my opinion, Wikipedia should be the unstable version of Nupedia, a bit
like Debian has a permanent unstable section. Things in Wikipedia can be
complete nonsense, but they are always up to date. We may add a team
certification model to Wikipedia eventually, but I'd be happy to see a
simple Sifter solution as envisioned by Magnus (without the limit to
certified experts as reviewers which I think is what Larry wanted). IMHO
it would make perfect sense to use the Nupedia name and domain for that
project.

Nevertheless, a "State of Wikipedia" document would be useful. We should
create this for the English Wikipedia specifically, and describe reviewing
methodologies. I've done such reviews myself, first with Microsoft Encarta
and recently with Britannica. In both cases, Wikipedia often had much more
and more accurate material. It suffers especially in the foreign politics
department for countries that few people know about. Much of our
information there is still the CIA text. Our history section has
substantial gaps or contains old Britannica content, but we have many,
many history buffs who are very active correcting this.

A good approach to see where we have weaknesses is to take a look at the
"Oldest articles" list (from the Special pages menu). These are the ones
that people apparently don't look at, or cannot contribute anything to. It
would be useful to compare the quality of those to the quality of articles
in another encyclopedia.

Eventually we may want to create a [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Patchwork]]
specifically to address our weaknesses. This would not be a "let's get
ready for 1.0" thing, but a permanent improval process. The 1.0 release
for CD-ROMs etc. would be prepared by the Nupedia editors.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Thomas Corell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Server access

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I'd like to approve Erik, Magnus, and Tarquin for server access, if
> that is something they'd like to do, and if that's something that we
> think would be useful.

As developer I can only see the duration changes need from the CVS to the
live wiki. Only the persons doing this job know if manpower is missing. I
hope it helps :)

> There are probably others who I've overlooked, but if lack of people
> with direct server access is a bottleneck, we should do something
> about that.
> In general, even developers don't really need direct server access.
> As long as we have enough people to update the live site from CVS at
> appropriate times, and enough people to give the machines a kick in
> the pants when needed...

I agree with that.
>
> Direct server access is a matter of great trust, not just in terms of
> character, either.  Lots and lots of people have excellent character
> and I would trust them on those grounds with server access.  But there
> is a 'technical' component to it, i.e. knowing how to get around in
> Unix without breaking anything.

Well, this will be seen usually very fast. And it's like making 'sysops' in
the wiki's, if it fails remove them fast. In the hope only persons agree to
do the job, have appropriate experiences.

> And I guess there's a personality component, since the server setup
> isn't like a wiki where lots of people should be on there willy-nilly
> reconfiguring things.  :-)
>
> But it seems like this is sort of a bottleneck, and the solution is
> pretty simple.

*keepingfingers crossed*

--
Smurf

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


body:
OK, look how hideously disgusting this is:

http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_Main_Page

It would be /real/ nice to be able to disable the TOC on a page by page basis.

--mav


subject: [Wikitech-l] Please help test new features

body:
Timwi-

>> Because we need to do manual numbering anyway, to keep the numbers
>> consistent with those used by the auto-numbering for headers (which is
>> a user preference).

> Will this numbering ever be different from that of ol/li?

Not sure if we can get 1.2.3 formatting with
 at all. In any case, the
numbering is different with inversely nested headlines (a higher level
being introduced after a lower one).

>> Also, it was easier to get all the margins right and avoid unnecessary
>> whitespace this way.

> The major reason I want to use
 is because if you have a really long
> heading, it will render like this:
>
>   1 This is a really
>   long heading

We can use the table to fix that.

1	Heading
. Then we can also put the
link on only the heading text.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] How to unsubscribe from this list

body:
At 01:52 AM 7/4/2003, you wrote:
>umm soz to send this to everyone but how do i unsubscribe to this?
>
>G_Prime

You click on the link that should be part of the headers of every message
that you receive from the list. I've copied it here for your convenience.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l  (put your email
address in at the very bottom of the page)

Alternatively, click on the following link and just send the message that
pops up.

mailto:wikien-l-request at wikipedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ideas on a methodology

body:
Daniel-
> Erik wrote:
>> In my opinion, Wikipedia should be the
>> unstable version of Nupedia, a bit like
>> Debian has a permanent unstable section.
>> Things in Wikipedia can be complete
>> nonsense, but they are always up to date.

> I agree completely except for the name of the "stable" Wikipedia
> distribution; that, IMO, should be the slightly different "GNUpedia." Of
> course the GNU people esp RMS would have to sign off on our use of the "GNU"
> brand. If they do not feel comfortable with that then we can use Nupedia.

Even if they do (which I somewhat doubt unless we more openly endorse or
participate in the GNU project), this would link us strongly to the GNU
philosophy. That is a somewhat controversial move, since some contributors
do not agree with that philosophy, at least not entirely, or with the
organization which represents it. GNU also carries connotations of
openness and collaborative development, much like wiki, but we want to
distinguish the two. The Nupedia name has the benefit of neutrality, and
is already associated with the connotation of quality.

Jimbo should have the final word on this. My vote goes to Nupedia.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: WikmediaOne login (was Re: Development tasks)

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>My thinking is that for the foreseeable future, wikimedia.org will
>just be a page describing the foundation, with nice pretty pictures of
>all the Ivy-covered buildings on our expansive campus, and information
>about how our billion dollar endowment is invested.  Oh, wait, I'm
>dreaming, sorry.
>
Hmm!  I wonder if we could adapt Vaughan Monroe's #1 hit from 1949 to
"Ghost Writers in the Sky" as a theme song. ;-)
Ec


from_name: Jimmy Wales

in_reply_to: <20030704015945.47594.qmail@web14711.mail.yahoo.com>; from cddvdlenscleaner@yahoo.com on Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 06:59:45PM -0700

body:
Adam von [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
> The only reason my email name says Adam, is because one of the
>reasons I was banned, was that a few of you didn't like the fact that
>my email name didnt say Adam. I dunno why, but Im sure you have some
>very "good" reasons.

One of the things that you do that contributes to your ongoing
problems is simply _lying_ about why you were banned.  We've been over
this many times before, publicly and privately.  The name given by
your email software never had anything to do with it at all, and
furthermore, you know this.

> I am sorry that you feel I have "publically lied" about why I was
>banned,

And I'm sorry that you've done it again, in this very email!

> * lying and twisting words and the truth to fit my own needs
> * trolling constantly

Those are the most important, yes.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ideas on a methodology

in_reply_to: <8pCyKkVxpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Fri, Jul 04, 2003 at 04:52:00AM +0200

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Jimbo should have the final word on this. My vote goes to Nupedia.

I agree with Erik's reasons, mostly, but my only concern is that we
don't want to offer anything that seems like a slight against or lack
of respect for Wikipedians.

Overall, I think that 'Nupedia' is a much better name than
'Wikipedia', and I sort of wish now that we had simply opened
Wikipedia under the name 'Nupedia wiki'.

One advantage of doing a 'drive to 1.0' under the Nupedia brand is
that it instantly dispels likely concerns on the part of Wikipedians
that we're going to eliminate the openness and so on and turn inward
with a cabal of 'credentialed experts'.

I'm not sure which of these concerns is really valid, since I think
people shouldn't worry about such things in the first place.  :-)

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Over the weekend...

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> I'm flattered to be nominated to your vision of a Triumvirate but IMO if
> anybody is going to have the power you suggest it should be the whole Senate
> (that is, all Admins).

Of course, one qualification for having such power is not wanting it.  :-)

--Jimbo


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] nested URLs

body:
I have an idea on how to do the URLs for the Textbook wiki.

As much of textbook structure is divided into chapters and
subsections, and this structure lends itself well to the
web, maybe we could reflect this in the URLs of the
textbooks. I know that this was not appropriate for the
general nature of the WP but as we move into the specific
nature of the textbook subsite it could work.

http://textbook.wikipedia.org/organic_chemistry/foundational_concepts/history_of_organic_chemistry/vital_force

could be the full nested URL of a section on the vital
force historical idea of organic chemistry. The name of the
page would be only the words after the last slash, here,
"Vital force".

Maybe the page could have a series of links at the top to
each level of the heirarchy:

Organic chemistry > Foundational concepts > History of
organic chemistry > Vital force

All of the sections of the book on organic chemistry would
be housed under
http://textbook.wikipedia.org/organic_chemisry/ and the
software to compile the "next" page function for each
module could just read thru the URLs nested in the
/organic_chemistry/ section. If someone wanted to create a
different book on the same subject they could just come up
with a slightly different opener, like /ochem/ or
/organic123/ etc.

Check out the link I sent once before,
http://test.wikipedia.org/Organic_textbook , for an idea of
how a book could be structured, it shouldnt hold any big
surprises.

The software could also have the feature of telling after
each link of the total number of links nested below so the
reader can have a relative idea at each step of where the
bulk of the content lies.

One final idea is to use an idea similar to that employed
by the Yahoo briefcase where you can copy modules from one
folder to another, for example to create a derivative
textbook or just take a couple of modules from one to
another without having to open each page and copy out the
code.

The idea of using nested URLs will also help us get around
funky URLs and/or page names for pages with common names
like "Problem set". Plus this structure of URL hierarchy
should be familiar to most internet users already so there
is little learning curve.

--Karl

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Fwd: failure delivery (wikidown)

body:
http://test.wikipedia.org is not responding and the email I
just sent to wikidown at wikipedia.org was just returned to
me.

--Karl

--- MAILER-DAEMON at yahoo.com wrote:
> Date: 4 Jul 2003 15:38:08 -0000
> From: MAILER-DAEMON at yahoo.com
> To: Karl Wick
> Subject: failure delivery
>
> Message from  yahoo.com.
> Unable to deliver message to the following address(es).
>
> <wikidown at wikipedia.org>:
> 130.94.122.197 does not like recipient.
> Remote host said: 550 5.1.1 <wikidown at wikipedia.org>...
> User unknown
> Giving up on 130.94.122.197.
>
> --- Original message follows.
>
> Return-Path: Karl Wick
> Message-ID:
> <20030704153807.87929.qmail at web13802.mail.yahoo.com>
> Received: from [156.63.242.29] by web13802.mail.yahoo.com
> via HTTP; Fri, 04 Jul 2003 08:38:07 PDT
> Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 08:38:07 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Karl Wick <mrkarlofthewickfamily at somhiddendomain.com>
> Subject: its the test.wikipedia.org subdomain at least
> ... wont open up
> To: wikidown at wikipedia.org
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>OK, look how hideously disgusting this is:
>
>http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_Main_Page
>
>It would be /real/ nice to be able to disable the TOC on a page by page basis.
>
>
>
Better the other way round: *request* it on a page-by-page basis.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vicki Rosenzweig is just plain wrong

body:
Are you still denying that your name is Adam? If you aren't Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons],
why are you using his name? If you are, why do you deny being named Adam?

Here we come to issue #1 of why I was banned, Im banned because I just can't please everyone. Some people want me banned because I don't use the name Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons], others want me banned for using it! No matter what name I use, somebody will argue that my usage of said name is clear reason for banning.

He then noted that I was banned for "* attacking RK for being a Jew" and that my forthright honesty (a lack thereof for which I am too be banned) is ALSO grounds for banning me, Vicki cares not the least for whether RK is truthful, for whether I am innocent or guilty of attacking RK, of whether others who have (or allegedly have) attacked RK are banned -- all he cares is that I am to be banned for any reason whatsoever simply because.

---------------------------------
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SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo says that my name is unimportant

body:
And how many posts have been placed both on this list, and on the wiki itself, harrassing, belittling, and attacking me because, apparently, my name is Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] (or so the cabal says) and that I should be banned for not using that name. Jimbo can say all he wants that my name was not a factor in banning me, but the history of the mailing list says otherwise. Perhaps he didn't read all the mailing list posts.

---------------------------------
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SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
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body:
Erik wrote:
> Daniel -
>> It would be /real/ nice to be able to disable the TOC
>> on a page by page basis.
>
>Please give other examples than the Main Page.

Eh? The en.wiki Main Page and Main Page's of each of the other languages are
the most visited and visible pages. If their formatting is broken by the
automatic TOC then that is a big problem - no need to state other examples
but I'm sure there will be.

All I am asking for is an off switch that can be used on a case-by-case basis.
And shouldn't the burden of proof be on the person wanting to make the
change? Shouldn't they be the one proving that the major change they are
trying to push through will do no harm and in fact be an enhancement?

>Anyway, the TOC is not displayed on the Main Page.

Is that from a lack of having more than three headings or a special setting?
If it is a special setting then at least my major issue with the TOC has been
taken care of already. But if the reason why there is no TOC on the test wiki
is simply from a lack of headings then we are going to have problems with the
real wikis which /do/ have many headings.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ideas on a methodology

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Like I've said before; Sifter, team certification and a "stable" distribution
>of Wikipedia are all basically the same thing in that they are trying to
>accomplish similar goals. To be viable we should make one project that
>encompasses the best aspects of all three ideas.
>
>
>
Yup.

I see it as a collection of "pointers" to particular revisions in
Wikipedia -- at least while we're working online.


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ideas on a methodology

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:

> Overall, I think that 'Nupedia' is a much better name than
> 'Wikipedia', and I sort of wish now that we had simply opened
> Wikipedia under the name 'Nupedia wiki'.

I don't think I agree.

A name is a name is a name. It is what the name represents that
matters. Coke and Dell are recognized and brand names, but not
because in and of themselves the names are descriptive or "cute".
They have come to represent great products as well as dynamic and
innovative companies. The W is getting great name recognition already
(dang, even my wife knew of it), so I think at this point, changing
the name of the product would be detrimental to the project and to
its potential impact.

Some people are sticklers for terminology, and that is good in
science and engineering, but marketing is a different beast.

Take the example of Linux. What a crappy name in and of itself...
What does it mean? Hard to figure how to pronounce. Hard to write if
you just hear it. Yet, in the last 13 years, it's become the talk of
the e-town.

I would rather have a unique name that clearly lets the product stand
out than a catchy name that becomes generic.

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

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


body:
--- Peter Gervai <grin at tolna.net> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 08:17:13AM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > Gareth Owen wrote:
> > > WWW stands for World Wide Web - three *english* words.  If
> other
> > > languages wish to replace there language codes with the
> equivalent
> > > abbreviation in their own language, I'm sure no-one will mind.
> > > (lwm.wikipedia.org for "le web mondial", peut-?tre?)
> >
> > I don't really agree with this argument.  'www' is known
> worldwide as
> > the indicator for the 'main' website of any organization.  So
> although
> > 'www' has its roots in English, it's really quite general.
>
> I'm sure he was joking. Ha-ha-ha.
>
> :-/
>
> But the argument is overreacted by all means, All langauges are on
> the
> startin pages, <countrycode>.wikipedia.org/ leads to the national
> page, I'm
> very satisfied with this way of handling.
>
> cya,
> grin
> Hungary
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

I personally would like to see a global page at www.wikipedia.com,
one  that shows the global reach of the product (for example a world
map of languages rather than countries) stats about the project,
number of contributors, articles in each language, as well as links
to each of the language wikis.

This, I think, would really separate the project from all other book
or web based encyclopedias: none are multilingual to the extent of
the W.

Effectively, this would put the pressure on other encyclopedia to
match our multilingual "feature", but of course they couldn't.

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

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Erik wrote:
>
>
>>Daniel -
>>
>>
>>>It would be /real/ nice to be able to disable the TOC
>>>on a page by page basis.
>>>
>>>
>>Please give other examples than the Main Page.
>>
>>
>
>Eh? The en.wiki Main Page and Main Page's of each of the other languages are
>the most visited and visible pages. If their formatting is broken by the
>automatic TOC then that is a big problem - no need to state other examples
>but I'm sure there will be.
>
Mav, if you'd _read_ Erik's message you'd have noted he said that the
TOC is *not* displayed when showing the main page, which is why you need
to give other examples.

(But it only knows it's the main page if it's on the regular main page's
title; a copy of the main page under a different title will not trigger
the detection.)

Me, I'm all in favor of being able to manually suppress automatic
functions that aren't always appropriate for particular tasks.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Daniel-
> OK, look how hideously disgusting this is:

> http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_Main_Page

Test.wiki seems to be broken right now. Anyway, the TOC is not displayed
on the Main Page.

> It would be /real/ nice to be able to disable the TOC on a page by page
> basis.

Please give other examples than the Main Page.

Regards,

Erik


body:
tarquin-

> Better the other way round: *request* it on a page-by-page basis.

No way. See my detailed response to David.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
brion vibber
>Mav, if you'd _read_ Erik's message you'd
>have noted he said that the TOC is *not*
>displayed when showing the main page,
>which is why you need to give other examples.

Brion, if you'd _read_ the rest of my message you'd have noted that I did read
that part of Erik's message and asked if the lack of a TOC was due to a lack
of headings or a hidden software switch. ;-)

I could have checked this out myself but test.wiki is down.

>Me, I'm all in favor of being able to manually
>suppress automatic functions that aren't always
>appropriate for particular tasks.

So am I. Alternatively we could turn this around and /only/ have TOCs
displayed when something like [[special:TOC]] is inserted into an article.

But my main concern was with the Main Page and I won't grumble much so long as
the TOC is off for all Main Pages.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ideas on a methodology

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Overall, I think that 'Nupedia' is a much better name than
> 'Wikipedia', and I sort of wish now that we had simply opened
> Wikipedia under the name 'Nupedia wiki'.

Hm. Our two major defining characteristics are 1) We let anybody edit at any
time (that is, we are a wiki) and 2) we are an encyclopedia.

The "Nu" in Nupedia means next to nothing other than to be phonetically
similar to "New." A new encyclopedia. So what? GNU, however, means free as in
content freedom. Now /that/ would be a central defining characteristic of a
static distribution of Wikipedia.

-- mav


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>brion vibber
>
>
>>Mav, if you'd _read_ Erik's message you'd
>>have noted he said that the TOC is *not*
>>displayed when showing the main page,
>>which is why you need to give other examples.
>>
>>
>
>Brion, if you'd _read_ the rest of my message you'd have noted that I did read
>that part of Erik's message and asked if the lack of a TOC was due to a lack
>of headings or a hidden software switch. ;-)
>
Dammit, I'm supposed to win these things! ;)

Nevermind.

>I could have checked this out myself but test.wiki is down.
>
It's up now.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: James D. Forrester

body:
On Friday, 04th July, 2003, at 10:31, Tarquin wrote:

> Daniel Mayer wrote:

[Snip]

> > It would be /real/ nice to be able to disable the TOC on a page by
page
> > basis.
>
> Better the other way round: *request* it on a page-by-page basis.
>

Indeed. As I see it, right now, to avoid the mess created by a TOC which
is
inapplicable in many situations, an editor either has to know how to
disable
said TOC, or (often substantially) refactor the article; both of these
form
an imposition on the editor. Personally, I think TOCs should be a
visibly
available and recommended feature, *but* should not be enabled by
default.
There are too many articles to implement such a one-size-fits-all
policy.

On the semi-related note of inter-article sub-linking ([[a#x]]) as
opposed
to intra-article sub-linking ([[#x]]), I also think that having support
for
this (the former) is a Bad Thing(tm); given that we are so set against
it
being used, adding the deprecated functionality to the system is
(highly)
illogical, IMO.

[Snip]

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
<mailto:jon at eh.org> | <mailto:csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk>
<mailto:jamesdforrester at hotmail.com> | <mailto:james at jdforrester.org>


from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] German Wikipedia announcing 20.000 article

body:
The German Wikipedia has reached it's 20.000 article. We will send out a press
info soon. So I'd like to ask all the admins to not use heavy database
queries and not to do system updates the next few days - A heavy loaded
server is not the best thing to have when journalists are coming to look at
the project!

Thanks a lot
Uli


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On Fri, 2003-07-04 at 05:30, tarquin wrote:
>
>
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> >OK, look how hideously disgusting this is:
> >
> >http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_Main_Page
> >
> >It would be /real/ nice to be able to disable the TOC on a page by page basis.
> >
> >
> >
> Better the other way round: *request* it on a page-by-page basis.

It simply should be a user-pref option, turned off by default.


from_name: Cafemusique - Scott Rollins

body:
On Fri, 4 Jul 2003, Benjamin Esham wrote:

> What if we cached each of the pages (as we do now), updating the cache
> each day during the times of lowest traffic?  That would keep the pages
> reasonably up-to-date, while at the same time adding only a little to
> the server strain.

Perhaps, to build on this idea, if they are too much of a strain to do all
at once, have a rotation, so that they never become too out-of-date.

Scott Rollins
User:Cafemusique
wikipedian at vivace.homelinux.net


from_name: Brendan Kelly

subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
umm soz to send this to everyone but how do i unsubscribe to this?

G_Prime
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body:
On Fri, 2003-07-04 at 15:09, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Cunc-
>
> > It simply should be a user-pref option, turned off by default.
>
> It *is* a user preference, and it should be enabled by default, because it
> is a navigational tool that is especially useful for readers who will
> never create an account.
>
It should be turned off by default, because it is awkward and interferes
with the flow of the entries--moreover, it is not editable by
Wikipedians. Such programmer-imposed "features" shouldn't be in the
default.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Terrible new design

body:
While the new happy post-it-note styling of the homepage is a cute and
enterprising experiment in design, it's amateurish, arbitrary, and busy.

This is why we have skins! Please make this an optional skin only.


body:
On Fri, 2003-07-04 at 17:51, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Cunc-
> > It should be turned off by default, because it is awkward and interferes
> > with the flow of the entries
>
> It is only displayed in articles with more than three headings.
>
> > --moreover, it is not editable by
> > Wikipedians.
>
> Nor is a lot of other stuff displayed on every Wikipedia page.
>
What of that is in the "article" space? None.


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fwd: failure delivery (wikidown)

body:
> http://test.wikipedia.org is not responding and the email I
> just sent to wikidown at wikipedia.org was just returned to
> me.
>
> --Karl

Posting approved. Subcribe to the list please  http://wikitech.wikipedia.be

Wikipedia TEST works now.

The emailadres to report a down Wikipedia is wikidown at bomis.com

Walter Vermeir

--
+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net +++

Jetzt ein- oder umsteigen und USB-Speicheruhr als Pr?mie sichern!


subject: [Textbook-l] organic textbook progress

body:
http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_textbook

I have the basic structure down now and navigational
hierarchy .. maybe y'all could give me some constructive
feedback. Except for the last sections, which we have not
gone over yet in class so I have no idea.

PS Thanks Toby for the hand with some corrections.

Also thanks to whoever got the test.wikipedia server back
up and running today, it was a great workday for me today
because of it.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


body:
On 7/4/03 6:35 PM, "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> Cunc-
>> What of that is in the "article" space? None.
>
> Actually, the subpage backlinks are a good comparison. They are also
> displayed by default, in roughly the same location, and a navigational
> structure that is not directly editable. And they're not a user
> preference.
>
And are there subpage backlinks in the Wikipedia article space? No.


from_name: Timwi

body:
03.07.2003 23:46:23, David Friedland <david at nohat.net> wrote:

> I am very doubtful that most would agree upon a policy that was: if an
> article has more than 3 sections, it gets a TOC, otherwise not. No
> exceptions.

> There are _always_ exceptions.

I know I'm new and all, and I probably don't have a lot of say in this,
but I agree with David here. It seems arbitrary to define such a rule
that cannot be overwritten by article authors. It would be more 'wiki'
to create a small tag that can be inserted in an article to generate a
TOC.

My 2?,
Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Server access

body:
>In general, even developers don't really need direct server access.
>As long as we have enough people to update the live site from CVS at
>appropriate times, and enough people to give the machines a kick in
>the pants when needed...

Well, but developers would need write access to CVS then.

Timwi


body:
Daniel-
> Eh? The en.wiki Main Page and Main Page's of each of the other languages are
> the most visited and visible pages. If their formatting is broken by the
> automatic TOC then that is a big problem - no need to state other examples
> but I'm sure there will be.

I'm not sure. The Main Page is really an exception because all kinds of
strange formatting is allowed there to make it look good, and because it's
an entry page. That's why I have disabled the TOC generation for the Main
Page (which is defined in Language.php for each language). So no, it's not
because of the number of headings, but if you move it to a non-Main Page
name, it will get the TOC again.

> And shouldn't the burden of proof be on the person wanting to make
> the change?

You can't prove a negative. If you think the TOC can be harmful in some
instances, please provide evidence.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Timwi-

> I know I'm new and all, and I probably don't have a lot of say in this,
> but I agree with David here. It seems arbitrary to define such a rule
> that cannot be overwritten by article authors.

I can live with an override function. I am strongly opposed to making
authors have to insert a TOC tag manually into articles. For the time
being, howeevr, I would like to see examples where the TOC is
inappropriate before I implement the override, to avoid having unnecessary
added complexity.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Cunc-

> It simply should be a user-pref option, turned off by default.

It *is* a user preference, and it should be enabled by default, because it
is a navigational tool that is especially useful for readers who will
never create an account.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ideas on a methodology

body:
Daniel-
> The "Nu" in Nupedia means next to nothing other than to be phonetically
> similar to "New." A new encyclopedia. So what? GNU, however, means free as
> in content freedom.

It also means GNU, that is, the GNU project (www.gnu.org). And that brings
with it a whole baggage of other connotations. Nupedia is bland. That can
be a good thing sometimes.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
[in objection to table of contents display]

>The content of the Wikipedia pages below the title and above the links at
>the bottom has always been entirely user-configurable. To change that
>summarily is not something to be taken lightly.
>
An admirable sentiment, perhaps, but it doesn't make sense here.

1) The TOC is created only by the addition of headings to an article by
human hands. (Even Ram-bot articles are based on a template written by a
human!) If the TOC is unmanageable, it's because a human has gone mad
with the headings, and any human can fix it by refactoring the page.

2) An article long enough for multiple headings to be appropriate would
benefit from a table of contents in usability improvements. While some
people may well like to read every article from beginning to end, many
people are actually searching for specific information, and would be
better able to find it in long articles by getting an overview of
section headings.

Vision-impaired users using text-to-speech software, with less ability
to scroll-n-skim, should certainly benefit from the up-front TOC and
ability to jump directly to relevent sections of the text. (Some
browsers support jumping directly from heading to heading, but I gather
not all. I'd appreciate if any accessibility experts lurking around
might be able to shine more light on this.)

3) Anyone mortally offended by it can disable it in their preferences.

Separately, the present implementation does look dreadful in my opinion.
It takes up too much space and is rather distracting, and I'm offended
by the markup used to render it. ;) However this is an implementation
detail, and does not discredit the concept.

Thoughts:

* It would be fairly trivial to add a JavaScript goodie to hide the
table of contents with a click in most modern browsers. Where JavaScript
is disabled or unavailable, or for the wackos running Netscape 4 or
something ;) well, they'll just have to log in won't they?

* It would be less trivial, but not impossible, to have some support for
display preferences stored in a browser-local cookie instead of a
logged-in user account. I don't know if this is desirable or not.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Cunc-
> It should be turned off by default, because it is awkward and interferes
> with the flow of the entries

It is only displayed in articles with more than three headings.

> --moreover, it is not editable by
> Wikipedians.

Nor is a lot of other stuff displayed on every Wikipedia page.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Cunc-
> What of that is in the "article" space? None.

Actually, the subpage backlinks are a good comparison. They are also
displayed by default, in roughly the same location, and a navigational
structure that is not directly editable. And they're not a user
preference.

Regards,

Erik


body:
On 7/4/03 8:17 PM, "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> The-
>> On 7/4/03 6:35 PM, "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>>> Cunc-
>>>> What of that is in the "article" space? None.
>>>
>>> Actually, the subpage backlinks are a good comparison. They are also
>>> displayed by default, in roughly the same location, and a navigational
>>> structure that is not directly editable. And they're not a user
>>> preference.
>>>
>> And are there subpage backlinks in the Wikipedia article space? No.
>
> Define "Wikipedia article space". They are right below the subtitle, where
> the TOC was initially placed. Sure, we have subpages disabled for the main
> namespace, but that is for an entirely different reason, and irrelevant to
> your argument, which is bogus anyway, since there is no "sacred article
> space" which must not be violated.

I find it difficult to defend the "sacred article space" claim. You must be
right.

Oh wait, that's a straw man you constructed, as I never claimed there was a
"sacred article space".

Funny, that.

The content of the Wikipedia pages below the title and above the links at
the bottom has always been entirely user-configurable. To change that
summarily is not something to be taken lightly.


body:
The-
> On 7/4/03 6:35 PM, "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

>> Cunc-
>>> What of that is in the "article" space? None.
>>
>> Actually, the subpage backlinks are a good comparison. They are also
>> displayed by default, in roughly the same location, and a navigational
>> structure that is not directly editable. And they're not a user
>> preference.
>>
> And are there subpage backlinks in the Wikipedia article space? No.

Define "Wikipedia article space". They are right below the subtitle, where
the TOC was initially placed. Sure, we have subpages disabled for the main
namespace, but that is for an entirely different reason, and irrelevant to
your argument, which is bogus anyway, since there is no "sacred article
space" which must not be violated.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Tarquin's interlanguage link feature & dynamic dates

body:
Tim-
> What's the standard procedure from here?

We don't have one. I'm working on one. Stay tuned.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: james duffy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Michael claiming identity of actor Ahmed Best

body:
I said before that Michael and Adam's 'trolling' of wiki, whatever one may
think of it, never raised the problems including serious legal issues (ie
possible copyright abuse) thrown up by DW. I'd like to amend that to suggest
that Michael could potentially be raising another legal nightmare.

A couple of times lately he has assumed the names of ''real people'' and
claimed to be them when editing wiki. He apparently has now assumed the
identity of actor Ahmed Best. Not knowing anything about Star Wars (I'm more
of a Trekkie!) I know nothing of Mr. Best, including whether he does exist.
But he does feature in wiki articles that seem to have been created by other
genuine contributors, so I presume he must.

According to the page of [[User:Jar Jar Binks]] (the character on Star Wars
played by Best), Michael wrote:

Hi there, I'm the real [[Jar Jar Binks]] ([[Ahmed Best]]).
I heard this website is a tough place for a banned user that I don't know.
I played in all [[Star Wars]] sequals from 1998 to 2003.

Going by editing style, topics picked and past behaviour, not to mention the
banned user jibe, Jar Jar Binks has generally been presumed to be Michael
and Infromation reverted all JJB's edits (which in any case were strikingly
typical of Michael).

If [[User:Jar Jar Binks]] is not the actor he purports to be:

What are the possible legal problems if any that might follow if someone not
merely uses a real person's name but purporting to be him/her while
contributing to wiki. While our NPOV policy should ensure that nothing
written in articles could damage the reputation of the real person whose
identity has been 'stolen', what of 'personal' comments, including abusive
or threatening one, placed on users talk pages?

While Michael has in the past used the real names of minor rock stars, using
Ahmed Best is potentially more dangerous.

i. Actors' names and identities are ruthlessly guarded by the actors' union,
Equity;
ii. Actors' agents and lawyers are also ruthless in their efforts to protect
the name and reputation of an actor.

This is understandable. An actor's employability rests on their reputation.
Should someone in the movie business look at wiki and find comments of an
abusive or threatening nature coming not merely from someone called ''Ahmed
Best'' but supposedly from the Ahmed Best who starred in Star Wars, they
could form the impression that Best is someone they should avoid employing.
As a result, the name and reputation of an actor, being central to their
employability, is ruthlessly guarded from exploitation by Equity, their
agents and lawyers.

The issue isn't what they purportedly said to 'x' or 'y' on wiki, but how
what they supposed said reflects on them and their reputation.

Even if Equity, the actor or his lawyers chose not to act, or were unaware
of it, the use of the username Jar Jar Binks is also a potential legal
minefield. Using a username is perfectly OK. But as the above quote shows,
this supposed user claims a direct association with the star wars films. The
chances are the /character/ JAR JAR BINKS is almost certainly the copyright
property of George Lucas's company. The company might take considerable
offence at the usage what they might see as not the use of a name but of a
character. That could have implications for Ahmed Best, whom they might see
as abusing their copyright by using a character of theirs which he played on
screen in his private life off-screen, to gain attention, notoriety, etc.
And that in turn might lead Equity or Best to raise the issue with wiki.
Even if there was no legal case, it could be used by him to publicly attack
wiki (to get publicity!), in the process of damaging our reputation. After
all a serious encyclop?dia hardly needs in the public mind with the
impression that one of its contributors is someone who 'steals' actors
identities and copyright names.

Two final points: If Michael is willing to steal a real life actor's name
and a copyright film character, having previously stolen the identity of
some singers in some minor rock bands, whose identity will he steal next?
Bono? Some senior politician? Someone in the media? The bigger the name, the
greater the likelihood that someone will take offence turn to their lawyers
or go public and damage wiki.

Finally, how do we stop Michael doing this and so potentially doing wiki
damage?

I have in the meantime removed all reference to Ahmed Best and Star Wars
from the [[User:Jar Jar Binks]] page and protected the page to prevent
Michael reinserting it. As of now, all the page does is use the user name in
isolation, which should kill off any danger of copyright breach.

Because Ahmed Best, Equity or Lucasfilm does not act in this case does not
mean that if Michael continues to use real names of prominent people
someone, next week, next month or tomorrow will not react. We need to know
what if any legal problems could arise, and what PR problems could arise,
should Michael continue on this course. And we need to find some way of
stopping Michael before Michael seriously damages wiki.

JT

PS: The great thing about Ireland is that it is so small we all tend to know
each other (or know someone who knows someone who . . . ) If Michael uses
Bono's name, I'll have a word with him and try to stop him from suing wiki.
(I know his wife Ali!)  :-)

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikitech-l] New Installation

body:
Would some of you please look at the new installation at:

http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org

And see if you have any ideas regarding how to fix the bugs in it. It is
using NewCodeBase, not Phase 3.

Note that on the main page that the top portion of the page is dead, that is
the links for the first few inches don't work.  Also the popdown menu (when
you have in in a stylesheet that does work) always sends you back to the
main page rather than doin what you selected.

Thanks, Fred Bauder


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New Installation

body:
The links in question are to the wikipedias in languages other than English
which are affiliated with Wikipedia.

There will be another section of on-line encyclopedias which are
independent.

Fred

> From: Tobin Richard <t.l.c at vic.australis.com.au>
> Reply-To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2003 23:44:58 +1000
> To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New Installation
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>> Would some of you please look at the new installation at:
>>
>> http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org
>>
>> Thanks, Fred Bauder
>
> Just a quick question, should *Affiliated with Wikipedia* be on your
> Main Page?
>
> That seems to suggest that your site is some kind of official partner to
> Wikipedia (which, unless I'm very much mistaken, it isn't).
>
> Tobin Richard.
>
> ----
> Cunnan, ye olde wiki.
> http://www.sca.org.au/cunnan/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] New Installation

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Would some of you please look at the new installation at:
>
>http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org
>
>And see if you have any ideas regarding how to fix the bugs in it. It is
>using NewCodeBase, not Phase 3.
>
>Note that on the main page that the top portion of the page is dead, that is
>the links for the first few inches don't work.
>
The stylesheet is missing, so it's only got the bits of style that are
output directly by the script based on default preferences. The path
given is:

http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/style/wikistandard.css

which just brings up the main page... Either you've got the 404 message
set to show the main page, or your rewrite rules are a little weird. :P

If you've got it somewhere else, make sure the LocalSettings reflect this.

>  Also the popdown menu (when
>you have in in a stylesheet that does work) always sends you back to the
>main page rather than doin what you selected.
>
These go through a bounce script, which is currently set to be:

http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/redirect.phtml

Again, this shows the main page, presumably a product of a missing or
moved file and your server settings.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
The dynamic date code now seems to be working satisfactorily. Thanks to
Patrick and Wapcaplet for sorting me out on punctuation use.

Additionally, I've implemented Tarquin's "quick hack" to make linking many
translations together easier. Specifically, self links are ignored, so you
can just copy the same block of text to every language.

What's the standard procedure from here? How long are new features usually
left on the test server before updating the real one? Note that the dynamic
dates feature has already been discussed, and even announced at the village
pump, so the only reason to wait before uploading is to check for bugs.

Oh, I almost forgot. In fact I did forget to put it in the CVS summary. I
fixed that <pre>\0</pre> bug I reported at the village pump. In the
replacement string of preg_replace, backslashes need to be escaped, not just
dollar signs.

-- Tim Starling.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] CYD for admin (was Crackpot articles)

body:
Michael Becker wrote:

>I also want to urge Tim to go forward with his plan to get some
>involvement from the skeptic community, we need some informed skeptics
>to provide some balance on this issue.
>
>>I'd like to point out a number of crackpot articles recently
>>contributed by the user Reddi:
>>
><snip>
>
>>Any suggestions about what to do?
>>
>
>We have to keep an eye on him. Note that most of his contributions need
>copyediting anyway, since his English isn't too good. Reddi seems to be
>a pleasant, courteous guy, so he's never going to get banned.
>
The suggestion that anyone might be banned for supporting
"pseudoscience" is frightenining.  Copyediting someone's English is in a
different league.  It is always a great exercise in the practice of NPOV
to take an article with which you strongly disagree, and copyedit the
English without changing the substantive intent of the author.

>After coming across [[reciprocal system of theory]] for the first time
>just recently, and after personally spending a great deal of time on
>[[neutrosophy]] and other articles, I have a feeling we're losing the
>war on pseudoscience, mainly due to an insufficient number of motivated
>skeptical contributors. I've been giving serious thought to advertising
>our cause on the major skeptical community forums.
>
Sometimes it seems that the greatest boost to pseudoscience is from
ill-informed and self-appointed sceptics.  Having more of them would
only make the situation worse.  They are often at such pains to disprove
something that they extract a straw man from the proponent's material,
and beat it to death.  The proponent then sees the straw man taken out
of context, and feels the need to defend his views.  The sceptic's
efforts end up as a parallel to feeding the trolls.

>I don't really see any other way to do this, other than plain
>old-fashioned manpower. If any of these theories are truly
>idiosyncratic, we'll be able to save a lot of time if we can get them
>deleted. Other than that, we've just got to do the research, present the
>flaws, and contextualise.
>
Wrong!!  The burden of proof for a scientific (or pseudoscientific)
hypothesis lies with its proponent.  Similarly, in a judicial
environment the person making a complaint has the burden of proof,
failing which he loses his case.and the defendant is under no obligation
to say a word.  The sceptic who chooses to make a direct attack assumes
a burden of proof that did not exist prior to the initiation of his attack.

With most of these articles a simple respectful statement that the
practice or topic is often regarded as idiosyncratic or unproven, etc.
(intentionally avoiding the polemical word "pseudoscientific") is all
that is required.  Any further detail adds fuel to the fire.  The place
for many of these theories is as quaint and often amusing footnotes to
the history of science.  If a "scientist" feels that he is wasting a lot
of time disproving these theories, he has no-one to blame but himself.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikitech-l] New Installation

body:
> From: Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>
> Reply-To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2003 10:49:44 -0700
> To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] New Installation
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> Would some of you please look at the new installation at:
>>
>> http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org
>>
>> And see if you have any ideas regarding how to fix the bugs in it. It is
>> using NewCodeBase, not Phase 3.
>>
>> Note that on the main page that the top portion of the page is dead, that is
>> the links for the first few inches don't work.
>>
> The stylesheet is missing, so it's only got the bits of style that are
> output directly by the script based on default preferences. The path
> given is:
>
> http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/style/wikistandard.css
>
>
> which just brings up the main page... Either you've got the 404 message
> set to show the main page, or your rewrite rules are a little weird. :P
>
> If you've got it somewhere else, make sure the LocalSettings reflect this.

If I understand you correctly it should work if I have the file
wikistandard.css in the /style directory and have LocalSettings at
$wgStyleSheetPath   = "$wgServer/style";

I have that file set chmod 777. I tried:
http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/fishhead and it returns the main page
too, needless to say there is no file or directory, "fishhead". So somehow
that server is set to return the mainpage come hell or high water. It just
doesn't access any file below the main level.

I'll have to take it up with the crew that controls the server.

Thanks very much,

Fred

>> Also the popdown menu (when
>> you have in in a stylesheet that does work) always sends you back to the
>> main page rather than doin what you selected.
>>
> These go through a bounce script, which is currently set to be:
>
> http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/redirect.phtml
>
> Again, this shows the main page, presumably a product of a missing or
> moved file and your server settings.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikitech-l] article on heise.de

body:
Okay, there's an article on heise.de about the German Wikipedia (20.000
articles). And our speed is going doooowwwwwn. Please do what you can to
speed things up. Please!

Kurt


from_name: Geoff Burling

body:
On Sat, 5 Jul 2003, james duffy wrote:
>
> I said before that Michael and Adam's 'trolling' of wiki, whatever one may
> think of it, never raised the problems including serious legal issues (ie
> possible copyright abuse) thrown up by DW. I'd like to amend that to suggest
> that Michael could potentially be raising another legal nightmare.
>
> A couple of times lately he has assumed the names of ''real people'' and
> claimed to be them when editing wiki. He apparently has now assumed the
> identity of actor Ahmed Best. Not knowing anything about Star Wars (I'm more
> of a Trekkie!) I know nothing of Mr. Best, including whether he does exist.
> But he does feature in wiki articles that seem to have been created by other
> genuine contributors, so I presume he must.
>
I've found the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com) a very useful
reference. Although it is now owned by Amazon, IIRC, it was originally created
& hosted by some folks in Wales.

> According to the page of [[User:Jar Jar Binks]] (the character on Star Wars
> played by Best), Michael wrote:
>
> Hi there, I'm the real [[Jar Jar Binks]] ([[Ahmed Best]]).
> I heard this website is a tough place for a banned user that I don't know.
> I played in all [[Star Wars]] sequals from 1998 to 2003.
>
> Going by editing style, topics picked and past behaviour, not to mention the
> banned user jibe, Jar Jar Binks has generally been presumed to be Michael
> and Infromation reverted all JJB's edits (which in any case were strikingly
> typical of Michael).

I'm always more than a little concerned when a user is said to be a
reincarnation of one of Wikipedia's Most Unwanted. Wikipedia will always
attract (at least I hope) new contributors, & we must expect some will
(hopefully out of ignorance) act in the same way as these people -- & thus
find themselves treated far more harshly than they should be. Because of
that, I hope when something reports a sighting of one of these banned
people, we carefully verify the identification. (Although re-reading
James' argument & the quotation supplied, I think there is a preponderance
of proof that this Ahmed Best is Michael.)
>
> If [[User:Jar Jar Binks]] is not the actor he purports to be:
>
> What are the possible legal problems if any that might follow if someone not
> merely uses a real person's name but purporting to be him/her while
> contributing to wiki. While our NPOV policy should ensure that nothing
> written in articles could damage the reputation of the real person whose
> identity has been 'stolen', what of 'personal' comments, including abusive
> or threatening one, placed on users talk pages?
>
> While Michael has in the past used the real names of minor rock stars, using
> Ahmed Best is potentially more dangerous.
>
> i. Actors' names and identities are ruthlessly guarded by the actors' union,
> Equity;
> ii. Actors' agents and lawyers are also ruthless in their efforts to protect
> the name and reputation of an actor.

Here we face another problem: why can't we trust that if someone says
she/he is a celebrity, that person is telling the truth? After all, celebrities
*do* participate on the Internet (Wil Wheaton is one example, but the woman
who used the name Brandy Alexander in several porn movies also was a regular
on alt.sex.movies for many years.) And I hope that some of these actors &
actresses eventually come to Wikipedia & make useful contributions.

I'd recommend that we trust people to be whom they say they are: if
someone creates the user account of Jennifer Lopez or Gus van Sant (for
example), we take them at face value until it's clear that they aren't
whom they say they are (e.g. "Jennifer Lopez" doesn't understand Spanish,
or "Gus van Sant" clearly has never been to Portland, Oregon in his life),
at which point they are told to change their user name or face being
banned.

Otherwise, we trust that Equity will tell us when someone is not one of
these celebrities, & require better documentation that Equity is whom
they say they are (e.g., a certified letter with a lawyer's letterhead with
a valid phone number will always trump email), & give the user the choice
of either changing their username (unless it's clear that they have been
a nuisence in more ways than this) or be banned. There's an infinite
number of possible usernames out there: I see no profit to Wikipedia in
condoning identify theft.
>
> Two final points: If Michael is willing to steal a real life actor's name
> and a copyright film character, having previously stolen the identity of
> some singers in some minor rock bands, whose identity will he steal next?
> Bono? Some senior politician? Someone in the media? The bigger the name, the
> greater the likelihood that someone will take offence turn to their lawyers
> or go public and damage wiki.
>
> Finally, how do we stop Michael doing this and so potentially doing wiki
> damage?
>
At some point, we must needs talk to his ISP & force them to discipline
him. Even if Michael is using someone like AOL or MSN who are at best
indifferent to Wikipedia, I assume we have enough Wikipedians from those
domains who would be willing to complain about how he is pissing in their
swimming pool, & make even those ISPs realize that he's not worth ignoring.

Geoff