subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>tarquin wrote:
>
>>Do any UK writers wish to create articles on [[Milly Downling]], or the
>>[[Soham girls]]? Both those cases got plenty of media coverage here.
>>
>I, for one, would be fascinated to read such an article.
>
>Perhaps it's very uncool to not look down my nose at media sensations,
>but I found the Elizabeth Smart case to be fascinating from many
>perspectives, and followed it quite avidly at the time.  Learning more
>about similar cases in other countries (even if the similarity is
>primarily in the media sensationalism) would be valuable to me.
>
I didn't pay any attention at all to the Elizabeth Smart case when it
was happening.  But just because I wasn't interested in it doesn't mean
that others aren't.  Occasional UK cases do get mentioned; the one a few
years ago (Bolger?) where two 11-year olds kidnapped and killed a 4-year
old received a lot of mention in the news.

At other times a true sordid affair gets turned into a popular movie
like "Chicago", and it is gown completely out of proportion.

Clifford Olson was from the Vancouver area, and known for having
kidnapped and murdered some 10 kids.  I heard of his arrest on a TV news
report while visiting in the Philiippines.

>My point is that lots and lots of things are interesting to only a
>small number of people.  Wikipedia need not avoid those things, so
>long as there is confirmability.
>
With many of the things that we are taliking about now, confirmability
is not a big problem.  The sensational crimes get more than their share
of media reporting.

>Now, later on, when there's a formal 'drive to 1.0', some of those
>things may need to be left out, assuming that there are space
>constraints on 1.0 (for print).
>
This is where the idea of "Wikipedia is not paper" comes in, or in other
words, "Wikipedia is not a static medium."  With 1.0, whether on paper
or CD, we will be producing something on a static medium.

Ec


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> More than a little of the ancient history that we know has been
> painstakingly
> reconstructed from reports of sensational but ephemeral events; those
> reports
> often give us bits of cultural insight that the ancient scholars didn't
> understand well enough to describe in their encyclopedias and histories.

A lot of archaeological excavations take place in ancient garbage dumps.
 We don't study what these societies treasured, but what they threw
away. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>So what happens when readers from other countries write up articles on
>every single kidnap victim?
>Do any UK writers wish to create articles on [[Milly Downling]], or the
>[[Soham girls]]? Both those cases got plenty of media coverage here.
>
>No problem. It's like the Elephant Man....Might make a move someday.
>
Right!  "Move" or "movie"? ;-)

Ec


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [Wikipedia-l] mirror sites?

body:
--- Chuck Smith <msochuck at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hey, sorry to keep bugging you all, but I think I've
> missed like a few months worth of messages here and
> I'm trying to catch up.  Anyway, is there any mirror
> site for Wikipedia where you can just read the
> Wikipedia?  Basically, I want a place to go where I
> can read the Wikipedia when the server is
> sloooooooooooooooooooow.  If not, it might be a good
> idea to set one up.  Perhaps
> http://www.wikipedia-imitation.org/ ?  ;-)
>
> Thanks,
> Chuck

There are several mirror sites for Wikipedia but they
are all hopelessly out of date. There's the legal
nationmaster.com, the semi-legal 4reference.com, and
the illegal typeencyclopedia.com. I am trying to write
something in Python that works as just a Wikipedia
reader from the database (so it can be updated more
frequently), either on your computer or over the
internet. Several other people are working on client
software, too. Theirs are much further along, but I
don't think any of them have the goal of creating
wikipedia mirror software.
LDan

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from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
--- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:

> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
> >Ah, but "a woman's right to choose" makes a much more effective
> slogan
> >than "the right of a mother to kill her own baby".
> >
> >
> >
> it's not a "baby" until it is born.

I'm going to have to agree with both of you.
It's not a baby yet because the state does not recognize it as a
human being. (try applying for SSN Number or opening a bank account
under an unborn baby's name).

So since it's not a baby, we could say: The 3-8 pounds of flesh that
most likely will become a human being but is still technically just
part of the woman's body.

Yes "the woman's right to choose" is a much better slogan.

Because her choice is not killing, but rather eliminating, or
terminating, a process that is taking place in her own body.

Does a man get charged with a crime if he decides to castrate
himself? It's his body, his choise, damaging or removing flesh which
in most cases can produce a baby.

can a woman have her uterus surgically removed? It it has no baby in
it?

Why should the state have this much say in what goes on inside
someone's body? Where do we draw the line?

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

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] mirror sites?

body:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Chuck Smith <msochuck at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Hey, sorry to keep bugging you all, but I think
> I've
> > missed like a few months worth of messages here
> and
> > I'm trying to catch up.  Anyway, is there any
> mirror
> > site for Wikipedia where you can just read the
> > Wikipedia?  Basically, I want a place to go where
> I
> > can read the Wikipedia when the server is
> > sloooooooooooooooooooow.  If not, it might be a
> good
> > idea to set one up.  Perhaps
> > http://www.wikipedia-imitation.org/ ?  ;-)
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Chuck
>
> There are several mirror sites for Wikipedia but
> they
> are all hopelessly out of date. There's the legal
> nationmaster.com, the semi-legal 4reference.com, and
> the illegal typeencyclopedia.com. I am trying to
> write
> something in Python that works as just a Wikipedia
> reader from the database (so it can be updated more
> frequently), either on your computer or over the
> internet. Several other people are working on client
> software, too. Theirs are much further along, but I
> don't think any of them have the goal of creating
> wikipedia mirror software.
> LDan

Oops, I hadn't read that tinyweb mail when I sent
this. I can't get it to run, though.
LDan

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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Public Library of Science GFDL Compatible

body:
On Thursday, Oct 30, 2003, at 15:17 US/Pacific, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> There is not single "Creative Commons" license. The project allows you
> to pick the attributes you want, and then gives you a license that
> covers them. In the case of the PLoF, they have only chosen to require
> attribution. A summary of their license is here:
> http://www.plos.org/journals/license . It allows modifications for any
> purpose, and since they have not opted for a copyleft clause,
> derivative
> works can be released under any license, including the GFDL.

Jimmy raised the question of paragraph 4(a) of the CC-Attributions
license, which is the one PLoF uses:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/legalcode

===========================
4. Restrictions. The license granted in Section 3 above is expressly
made subject to and limited by the following restrictions:

a. You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly
digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this License, and
You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for,
this License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute,
publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform.  You
may not offer or impose any terms on the Work that alter or restrict
the terms of this License or the recipients' exercise of the rights
granted hereunder.  You may not sublicense the Work.  You must keep
intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of
warranties. You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform,
or publicly digitally perform the Work with any technological measures
that control access or use of the Work in a manner inconsistent with
the terms of this License Agreement.  The above applies to the Work as
incorporated in a Collective Work, but this does not require the
Collective Work apart from the Work itself to be made subject to the
terms of this License. If You create a Collective Work, upon notice
from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the
Collective Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author,
as requested.  If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any
Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the
Derivative Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author,
as requested.
===========================

It appears on its face to a non-lawyer like myself to not be compatible
with relicensing under the GFDL -- a more restrictive license -- at
all. Can anyone clarify this?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pol Pot (was: Major Correction)

body:
On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> > So if I can't say that Pol Pot was a genocidal maniac responsible for the
> > murder of over 2 million of his own people and have to instead dryly state
> > that "During his rule up to two million Cambodians were killed",
>
> Is that a specific example?  I don't think that there would be much
> controversy in attributing those deaths to Pol Pot's decisions and
> policies, would there?  Even Noam Chomsky would likely admit that
> much.
>
Actually, I did encounter a writer who claimed that there was no factual
& objective basis for the Khmer Rouge's systematic murder of their own
people. (It was in the Portland, Oregon _Willamette Week_, stated as part of
a summary of the movie "Swimming to Cambodia".) I remember it quite well
because I wrote a scathing letter to the editor about that claim -- which
was published, to my surprise. The writer was given some room to respond,
& claimed that he had based his statement on an article that suggested
that the PTB in Washington were attempting to blacken Pol Pot's name &
avoid responsibility for events in Cambodia in _The Nation_ . . .
written by Noam Chomsky.

I guess Revisionist History also includes Cambodia, despite uncountable
eyewitness accounts there too. :-(

Geoff


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
tarquin wrote:

> So can I write about the cat that was stuck up a tree in the next
> street from me? The local press gave in plenty of coverage!

I think there's *some* threshold below which it's too trivial.  But
something avidly followed by 50-100 million people is definitely above
the threshold.  Heck, there's probably more people who followed the
Elizabeth Smart case than there are people who follow some of the more
obscure Australian football sides, yet we don't insist *those* are just
media-manufactured nonsense we don't need to write about.

-Mark


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
HITLER

There, I mentioned Hitler and now we have to talk about something else.

Unless, of course, my intent (to end this thread) is a misuse of Godwin's
Law and therefore doesn't trigger the associated cessation of discussion...

You be the judge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

-----
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


list: textbook-l

from_name: Sanford Forte

subject: [Textbook-l] high textbook prices article

body:
> Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> > I think I'm a bit unclear about Wikibooks' goals. Are
> > we going to eventually send this to a publisher, or
> > will this always be online?
>
> I think we'll just create the content and leave those kinds of
> decisions for the future.  However, I think that all textbooks created
> should be created with paper distribution firmly in mind.  We're a
> long way from a world in which schools don't use paper books.
>
> >If we do send it to a publisher, how will that all work? Will we
> >self-publish? How will distribution work? Will we just let someone
> >else print Wikibooks?
>
> All of these things can be left open for the future.  If there's a
> market for it, and we're in a position to do it, we could do it
> ourselves, I personally think that would be great.  But if not, then
> we can let other parties "play RedHat" and put this stuff together for
> print.
>
> Sanford wants the State of California to actually publish the books
> itself.  I oppose that profoundly, but after we argued about it for a
> long time, we came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter at all for
> what we're doing here.
---------------------
Following more deep thinking - and inquiring - about the latter option
(California publishing its own textbooks), I've concluded (for many reasons)
that the most likely way these books will get published and distributed in
print will result from the distribution efforts of a private publishing
group (e.g., per Jimbo's suggestions above). However, there is nothing that
could stop California's educational bureaucracy from subcontracting the
print function themselves (which is something they currently do with many
other materials), if it chose to do so.  btw, my current stance on this is
completely neutral.

Finally, Jimbo's right in that who, or how, or in what media format the
materials get distributed really doesn't matter at all for what we're doing
at the moment. The important thing here is to get the project going and
finished in a way that lends credibility to educationally-based open source
content for K-12, and get these materials made in the hands of all at the
K-12 level who want to use it - worldwide - no matter how distribution
realizes itself.

Sanford

Sanford


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eskimo and Inuit

body:
Martin Harper wrote:
>An entry about the /term/ "Eskimo" should be at
>Wiktionary. An enrty about the /term/ "Inuit" should
>be at Wiktionary. Meanwhile, [[Eskimo]] should be an
>orphan redirect to [[Inuit]], where we should have an

>article on the people who live in the North, \
>with links to the relevant Wiktionary articles.

No - Wiktionary is not an encyclopedia so encyclopedic
information about the term (NOT word!) Eskimo would
not be appropriate there. For example the history of
the term's use and the controversy surrounding its use
and how Inuits feel about its use /would not/ be
appropriate for Wiktionary.

--mav

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from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Elizabeth Smart

body:
Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> writes:

> No, let's not.  Just because it's a topic that doesn't interest you doesn't
> make it unworthy of discussion.  I have no interest in the over-my-head
> mathematics subjects, but I don't suggest THEY be deleted.

That doesn't answer the question.  That maths is here to stay
-- its true today and its true tomorrow.  Its got a long shelf life.
--
Gareth Owen
I'm very enamoured of the idea of meta-content markup ...
there are a lot of cool possibilities. But we should be reluctant to tamper
much with a system that totally works in an amazing way. -- Jimmy Wales


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Need developers

body:
On Thursday, Oct 30, 2003, at 16:36 US/Pacific, Chris Seaton wrote:
> I tried to start developing, but found myself largely ignored. I asked
> for suggestions as to where to start, what were the areas that needed
> work, but was just vaguely pointed towards the bug reports.
>
> If someone had said you can do X - something attainable within a few
> hours - I would have probably been hooked.

What we need are bug fixes and performance improvements. Unfortunately
this isn't very sexy; you need to have some familiarity with the code
to understand how it works and track down the bits that don't work
right or don't run well, and that's work:

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

Instead, newcomers tend to want to add sexy new features that scratch
their personal itches. These can be neat, but they also introduce new
bugs and new slowdowns. We don't need new features right now. We need
ugly, unpleasant grunt work that no one wants to do.

> I made one commit to CVS, but it still hasn't gone onto the English
> Wikipedia (it was only one line).

We're *all* overworked. If something isn't getting done, you have to
either do it yourself or speak up. In this case, speak up.

> My pointers:
> - Be very enthusiastic when someone comes forward
> - Give them something to get hooked on
> - Access to a test server

A public test server that won't wipe out our live server if something
goes wrong would be great. Who wants to set that up? Lee at least did
provide access to his server for this purpose, I don't know if that's
still going on.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Need developers

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Is there anyone out there who has considered
> contributing to the
> MediaWiki PHP script, but decided it against for
> reasons such as:
>
> * Don't know PHP/MySQL
> * Poor documentation, can't understand the code
> * Wouldn't know where to start
> * Don't have a test server
> * Don't have CVS/server access, and you find
> contributing otherwise to
> be tedious and frustrating
>
> Or perhaps you've contributed on occasion but you're
> deterred from
> contributing again for reasons such as those above?
>
> If so, please speak up! What areas could we improve
> to make it easier to
> contribute?
>
> If you prefer, you can contact me privately at
> tstarlingphysicsunimelbeduau.
>
> -- Tim Starling.

I tried to learn PHP because I wanted to help program
MediaWiki, but I couldn't figure out how to configure
Apache and the internet resources for it weren't good
enough.
LDan

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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Ah, but "a woman's right to choose" makes a much more effective slogan
than "the right of a mother to kill her own baby".

Some people might think I'm a bit of a prick to keep
pointing this out, but a major component of shaping public
opinion is The Choice Of Words. Which would you rather
have, a segment of muscle tissue from an immature
castrated bull? Or a nice, thick, juicy steak?

Inconveniently,

Ed Poor


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Wikitech-l] Need developers

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> Is there anyone out there who has considered contributing to the
> MediaWiki PHP script, but decided it against for reasons such as:
>
> * Don't know PHP/MySQL

Yes, but this would a good excuse to learn it. Poring over raw object files
all day can get tiresome... :-)

>
> * Poor documentation, can't understand the code
> * Wouldn't know where to start

Yes.

>
> * Don't have a test server

Presumably I could set one up on one of my machines?  A chance to see if
OS X
lives up to its billing... :-)

But my chief obstacle will be that I need to get Apple to relinquish
rights to
any MediaWiki code I write - my current list of exempted projects
predates WP!

In the meantime I can start fooling around, although it will steal from
content
creation cycles...

Stan


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers

body:
--- Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> > I tried to learn PHP because I wanted to help
> program
> > MediaWiki, but I couldn't figure out how to
> configure
> > Apache and the internet resources for it weren't
> good
> > enough.
> > LDan
>
> On Windows? What if someone wrote an installation
> package, which
> installed and configured Apache, PHP and MediaWiki
> on Windows? Click
> next a few times and it thinks for a while then
> opens a browser window
> for you. Would that help?

Yes, that would help.
>
> And which internet resources did you mean: PHP, or
> Apache?
>
> -- Tim Starling

I couldn't install PHP.
LDan

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers

body:
On Thursday, Oct 30, 2003, at 17:26 US/Pacific, Tim Starling wrote:
> There are a fair few sorely needed features which won't slow down
> there server. For example, a warning when people overwrite images, or
> the ability to access the source of protected pages.

True enough; these are "bite-sized" and would be nice to have.
Furthermore they "should" be fairly simple. :)

> Lee's server is still around, although it's a bit broken. The database
> schema needs to be updated, for one thing. I seem to remember I either
> didn't know how to fix the database, or I didn't have the required
> password. Possibly both. Also, the installed software needed updating
> -- texvc and memcached and all that. I was also put off by a long
> network lag. It was all very annoying, so I basically stopped
> developing until I had my own test server.

I'll take a look at it, but I may not have the necessary permissions
either. I haven't touched it a long time, since I use my own local test
server.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Need developers

body:
On Thursday, Oct 30, 2003, at 17:23 US/Pacific, Stan Shebs wrote:

>> * Don't have a test server
>
> Presumably I could set one up on one of my machines?  A chance to see
> if OS X
> lives up to its billing... :-)

MediaWiki does run on my PowerBook (under 10.2, I haven't installed
Panther yet) with the stock Apache and PHP installed from source. I
haven't tried messing with TeX yet, though.

(There could conceivably be problems with case-insensitivity in the
HFS+ filesystem, but I haven't run into any yet. Most of our filesystem
storage -- images and the html cache -- chops up the space by hashes...
assuming the hashing puts out randomish results, and we're using 8 bits
of that, we can expect to see 1/65536 of case-colliding names colliding
in the filesystem.)

> But my chief obstacle will be that I need to get Apple to relinquish
> rights to
> any MediaWiki code I write - my current list of exempted projects
> predates WP!

Oh, it's okay if they own the copyright to your contributions so long
as they let them be GPL-licensed. :)

> In the meantime I can start fooling around, although it will steal
> from content
> creation cycles...

Con...tent? Wait -- there's *text* is this here wiki thing!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Plucker

body:
So, I've seen the TomeRaider format downloads available for
en.wikipedia.org and ilk, but I'm wondering: has anyone done any work
on making Wikipedia (or, uh, other MediaWiki-based sites (*cough*
*cough*)) work with Plucker?

          http://plkr.org/

I haven't used it, but it looks real real cool, and it's Free
Software, too. So, y'know. Free and stuff. As in Freedom.

Anyways, I have some ideas for doing Plucker stuff with Wikitravel,
and I wanted to see if I'm treading over old territory. I think that
the TomeRaider stuff is pretty cool, but it's kinda heavyweight.

Because travellers usually have some inkling of where they're going,
they don't really need the world-wide travel guide: just the articles
for their destinations. I think for Wikitravel we'd want something
like a "Plucker version" link next to the "Printable version", or
something similar.

Anyways, just testing the waters.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
On 10/30/03 5:51 PM, "tarquin" <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:

>
>
> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>> Ah, but "a woman's right to choose" makes a much more effective slogan
>> than "the right of a mother to kill her own baby".
>>
>>
>>
> it's not a "baby" until it is born.
>
Please, please, let's not get into this here. It was bad enough that Poor
felt obligated to be helpfully controvertial to make an obvious point about
semantics. Don't make it worse by rising to the bait.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Tarquin wisely analyzed Ed's trenchant observation:

->Ah, but "a woman's right to choose" makes a much
->more effective slogan than "the right of a mother
->to kill her own baby".

>it's not a "baby" until it is born.

Of course. That's why advocates of the [[partial-birth abortion]] law,
like Michael Fumento, are so outraged. They say that pulling out the
fetus, feet first, then sucking out its brains to collapse the skull, is
tantamount to murder. They reason that if the doctor pulled the head
out, the fetus would be "born" and thus a "baby" with "personhood" and
human rights.

Don't get me wrong: I have no position whatsoever on the subject; I am
just reporting the reasoning of others.

We need to *understand* the reasoning of others with whom we disagree.
In fact, when I write Wikipedia articles on controversial subjects, I
usually try to explain the POV of the side I *disagree* with first. I
get a much more easily balance article that way.

Neutrally,

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
At some point, I'm sure, Jimbo is going to insist
that we take this to [[talk:abortion]] -- but, to
answer Christopher's question,

"Why should the state have this much say in what
goes on inside someone's body? Where do we draw
the line?"

If it were legally established that inside *your*
body was another living, breathing human being with
"personhood" and a "right to life", then you would
have a degree of responsibility to avoid killing
it. On the other hand, you could not be forced
endure a process with an unacceptably high risk
of killing *you* either.

It all hinges on whether a fetus is a "human being".
Luckily for me, I have no axe to grind on this
point. So I consider myself the ideal editor for
a writing project aiming at creating a series of
neutral (NPOV) articles on the topic.

In fact, the only obstacle I can see is that I might
(as the Cunctator suggests) have too high an opinion
of my own "neutrality". But since more people come
running to me for mediation than to any other
contributor, I guess I'll have to do it :-)

Modestly,

Ed Poor


from_name: Matthew J. Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Dante Alighieri wrote:

> There, I mentioned Hitler and now we have to talk about something else.
>
> Unless, of course, my intent (to end this thread) is a misuse of Godwin's
> Law and therefore doesn't trigger the associated cessation of discussion...

As I recall, the original Godwin's Law was that every Internet flamewar
ended up devolving to an argument involving Hitler and Nazis.  That
mention not actually ending the flamewar; merely ending any hope of
further sane discourse.  The cessation of discussion meaning not quiet,
but rather the war becoming nothing but noise.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Tarquin's question raises an interesting point:

> How many "pro-lifers" support abortion for
> foetuses with say, Down's Syndrome or cerebral palsy?

The problem with the 'abortion' issue is similar to the
conflict between creationists and evolutionists: the
lack of middle ground.

For the 45% of Americans who are Creationists, there's
no way they can accept evolution in the slightest: the
[[fossil record]] has to be explained away, etc. For
the 10% or more of Americans who are evolutionists,
there's no way they can accept any supernatural
intervention that might give rise to new species. They
can't even talk to each other, without the sparks
flying. And whenever one side has had enough power,
it used the force of law to muzzle the opposition.
Used to be, teaching evolution was illegal; now, kids
who speak out in class against (what they see as)
scientific errors or arrogance can be penalized.

Likewise, many American pro-lifers equate abortion with
murder. Period. They make no exception for birth defects
(it's God's will!), some make no exception for rape and
incest, and maybe some even want women to return to the
days when women had a 1 out of 10 chance of dying in
childbirth. I dunno. I'm just glad I'm not in any such
dopy church...

And many American "pro-choicers" look on "anti-abortion"
advocates as some kind of medieval woman-hating kooks
who want to turn all females into unwilling baby
factories (keep 'em barefoot and pregnant).

Fortunately for me, I'm not in either camp. I know a
bit more about the arguments of the so-called "pro-life"
side, but I know how to find the NARAL website...

Ed


subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> For the 45% of Americans who are Creationists

Off topic, but is it really this high?  I'd heard lower.  I guess like all
surveys and statistics, it depends how you ask the question and how you
work the data ...

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
I can't resist one more parting shot:

Think about how many times will a pregnant woman be asked this:

"So, when is your baby going to be born?"

Rather than:

"So, when will that fetus growing inside your body turn into a human
being?"

("Oh, it's not human yet -- just a blob of biological tissue.")

Uncle Ed ==> thinks those blobs are real cute, anyway


subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, tarquin wrote:

> So can I write about the cat that was stuck up a tree in the next street
> from me? The local press gave in plenty of coverage!

That's the 'slippery slope' fallacious argument, and you know better than
that, tarquin.

That's asserting that we can't have judgement about such things, but of
course we can.  If we didn't have any judgment, then it's all a slippery
slope from the ability to create an article on down.  We should just give
up this Wikipedia project entirely if we can't.

The slippery slope argument says that if we don't have absolutes, then
each time a small step further down is challenged it will be indefensible;
thus, by induction, allowing the smallest step is tantamount to allowing
the lot.  This is generally fallacious, since peoples' resistance goes up
the further the accepted policy goes from the consensus on rationality.

-Matt


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:
> HITLER
>
> There, I mentioned Hitler and now we have to talk about something else.
>
> Unless, of course, my intent (to end this thread) is a misuse of
> Godwin's Law and therefore doesn't trigger the associated cessation of
> discussion...

Nope.  Doesn't work.  Deliberate attempts to invoke Godwin's Law are
moot -- you have to /call/ someone Hitler or a Nazi with the intent to
insult rather than to end the thread.


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> As far as I know, this is not true. Creative Commons only allows spreading
> under the same license, not with more or less rights. Since the GNU/FDL is
> not the same license, it is not allowed to go from CC to GNU/FDL - or vice
> versa.
>
> I'd love it if someone proved me wrong, and either showed that there is a
> loophole (intended or unintended) that can be used and/or could get the
> "those licenses require basically the same things but in different wording,
> so no harm is done by cross-licensing" argument into something that would
> be juridically valid.

There is not single "Creative Commons" license. The project allows you
to pick the attributes you want, and then gives you a license that
covers them. In the case of the PLoF, they have only chosen to require
attribution. A summary of their license is here:
http://www.plos.org/journals/license . It allows modifications for any
purpose, and since they have not opted for a copyleft clause, derivative
works can be released under any license, including the GFDL.

That said, we still probably won't be able to include much. PLoS
publishes journals, and journals publish new research. As an
encyclopedia, it is beyond our scope to publish research that has not
yet gone through extensive peer review.

Stephen G.


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
No, it isn't.  Morality is hardly "permissable" or not "permissable", but what the person in question values.

RickK

Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:
Rick wrote:

> Because nobody is an "abortion supporter" except those setting up
> straw men to attack the pro-choice position.

The phrasing of it as "choice" is a bit odd too though, because whether
it's a choice or not isn't the real issue; whether it's morally
permissible is the issue. Thus in my quick perusal of the Journal of
Applied Ethics, the terms people who think abortion should be legal seem
to self-apply include things like "supporter of legalized abortion" or
"defender of the moral permissibility of abortion". So articles are
entitled "A Defense of Abortion" (a particularly famous one), not the
more newspeak-sounding "A Defense of a Woman's Right to Choose Abortion".

-Mark

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from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Elizabeth Smart

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
>
>
>>let's just get a grip and wipe the article.
>>take the long-term view -- will anyone remember this
>>in twenty years' time?
>>
>>
>
>Maybe not outside of the US, but probably within it. I
>still vividly remember when Jessica McClure ("Baby
>Jessica") fell down that well in Texas in 1987. She
>should have an article too.
>
>
>
They are both ephemeral.
Children are abducted all over the world.
Just because the US media gave it so much coverage does not make it
worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia which should be taking the
long-term view.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Articles about Jessica McClure, Bridey Murphey and [[Mike (headless
> chicken)]]  are all perfectly appropriate.

So what happens when readers from other countries write up articles on
every single kidnap victim?
Do any UK writers wish to create articles on [[Milly Downling]], or the
[[Soham girls]]? Both those cases got plenty of media coverage here.

> In science and technology there are any number of attempts that might
> have worked but were superceded by a more practical idea that
> wasdiscovered before the old plan could be put into operation.  Thus
> the Collins International Telegraph Company scheme to lay a telegraph
> wire from New York to London via Alaska and Siberia, quashed by the
> undersea cable laid by the "Great Eastern".  Also the 1920s plan to
> put a series of floating airports as refueling stops across the
> Atlantic, which quickly lost its appeal after Lindbergh's famous flight.
>
Now *that* I would find interesting!


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
>So can I write about the cat that was stuck up a tree in the next street
>from me? The local press gave in plenty of coverage!

Liberal limits don't include everything.

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
>Fred Bauder wrote:

>>
>>No problem. It's like the Elephant Man....Might make a move someday.
>>
>Right!  "Move" or "movie"? ;-)
>
>Ec

Typical typo for me, leaving final letters off. But yes a bunch of these
sensational ephemeral stories are just that, good stories.

Fred


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mis à jour

body:
On Fri, Oct 24, 2003 at 03:19:11AM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
> [fr]
> Nouveux dans stable:
> * tra?ter des URLs en 'Media:' comme 'Image:'
> * invalidiser cache pour pages Image: quand on fait un lien (pour voir
> les backlinks)
> * lien de dons ($wgSiteSupportPage; allmessages['sitesupport'])
> * $wgExtraSubtitle
> * $wgDebugDumpSql
> * $wgDisableSearchUpdates (quand on n'utilise pas le moteur de
> recherche, comment lui mettre ? jour?)

Skribu esperante. Kiu parolablus france ;)


body:
>There is not single "Creative Commons" license. The project allows you
>to pick the attributes you want, and then gives you a license that
>covers them. In the case of the PLoF, they have only chosen to require
>attribution. A summary of their license is here:
>http://www.plos.org/journals/license . It allows modifications for any
>purpose, and since they have not opted for a copyleft clause, derivative
>works can be released under any license, including the GFDL.
>
>That said, we still probably won't be able to include much. PLoS
>publishes journals, and journals publish new research. As an
>encyclopedia, it is beyond our scope to publish research that has not
>yet gone through extensive peer review.
>
>Stephen G.

The article I did, What Controls Variation in Human Skin Color,  was more a
summary of other research than original research.

Fred


body:
>On Thursday, Oct 30, 2003, at 15:17 US/Pacific, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>> There is not single "Creative Commons" license. The project allows you
>> to pick the attributes you want, and then gives you a license that
>> covers them. In the case of the PLoF, they have only chosen to require
>> attribution. A summary of their license is here:
>> http://www.plos.org/journals/license . It allows modifications for any
>> purpose, and since they have not opted for a copyleft clause,
>> derivative
>> works can be released under any license, including the GFDL.
>
>Jimmy raised the question of paragraph 4(a) of the CC-Attributions
>license, which is the one PLoF uses:
>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/legalcode
>
>===========================
>4. Restrictions. The license granted in Section 3 above is expressly
>made subject to and limited by the following restrictions:
>
>a. You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly
>digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this License, and
>You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for,
>this License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute,
>publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform.  You
>may not offer or impose any terms on the Work that alter or restrict
>the terms of this License or the recipients' exercise of the rights
>granted hereunder.  You may not sublicense the Work.  You must keep
>intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of
>warranties. You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform,
>or publicly digitally perform the Work with any technological measures
>that control access or use of the Work in a manner inconsistent with
>the terms of this License Agreement.  The above applies to the Work as
>incorporated in a Collective Work, but this does not require the
>Collective Work apart from the Work itself to be made subject to the
>terms of this License. If You create a Collective Work, upon notice
>from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the
>Collective Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author,
>as requested.  If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any
>Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the
>Derivative Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author,
>as requested.
>===========================
>
>It appears on its face to a non-lawyer like myself to not be compatible
>with relicensing under the GFDL -- a more restrictive license -- at
>all. Can anyone clarify this?
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

I gather you are focusing on the restriction, "You may not sublicense the
Work." You could argue that since you continue to state that the work falls
under the Creative Commons license and provide the link to the license,
that you have not in fact relicensed the work despite the more general GFDL
notice. That specific language overrides general language is a generally
accepted rule of contruction.

Fred


subject: [Wikitech-l] Need developers

body:
>Is there anyone out there who has considered contributing to the
>MediaWiki PHP script, but decided it against for reasons such as:
>
>* Don't know PHP/MySQL
>* Poor documentation, can't understand the code
>* Wouldn't know where to start
>* Don't have a test server
>* Don't have CVS/server access, and you find contributing otherwise to
>be tedious and frustrating
>
>Or perhaps you've contributed on occasion but you're deterred from
>contributing again for reasons such as those above?
>
>If so, please speak up! What areas could we improve to make it easier to
>contribute?
>
>If you prefer, you can contact me privately at tstarlingphysicsunimelbeduau.
>
>-- Tim Starling.

The lack of comments on what the purpose of most of the code is pretty much
precludes almost anyone who didn't write it from participating. All changes
together with comments should also be dated.

Fred


subject: [Wikitech-l] Need developers

body:
>A public test server that won't wipe out our live server if something
>goes wrong would be great. Who wants to set that up? Lee at least did
>provide access to his server for this purpose, I don't know if that's
>still going on.
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

I have been given at ibiblio a test server but so far have just been trying
to get a version of the more recent software to work, and have been stymied
by the failure of the math to compile, but this could be used by the whole
group if we agreed to it and that way I could get up to speed (as it would
all presumably work on the ibiblio software.)

Actually I have two test servers, a dev and a prod one in addition to the
one internet-encyclopedia runs on.

But they would probably just give you one of your own if you asked. (these
are virtual servers)

Fred


from_name: Chuck Smith

subject: [Wikipedia-l] CNN video disappeared

body:
Hey, I just noticed that

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/kristie.lustout/video/wikipedia.wmv

is no longer there.  No big surprise.  Does anyone
have a local copy of it who could upload it to
Wikipedia and then indicate the address to me?

Thanks,
Chuck

=====
Learn a cool language for free!
http://www.lernu.net/

__________________________________________________________________

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from_name: Martin Harper

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eskimo and Inuit

body:
> an article about the /term/ "Eskimo" would be at [[Eskimo]].

An entry about the /term/ "Eskimo" should be at Wiktionary. An
enrty about the /term/ "Inuit" should be at Wiktionary. Meanwhile,
[[Eskimo]] should be an orphan redirect to [[Inuit]], where we should
have an article on the people who live in the North, with links to the
relevant Wiktionary articles.

imo, ymmv, etc
-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


subject: [Wikipedia-l] mirror sites?

body:
Hey, sorry to keep bugging you all, but I think I've
missed like a few months worth of messages here and
I'm trying to catch up.  Anyway, is there any mirror
site for Wikipedia where you can just read the
Wikipedia?  Basically, I want a place to go where I
can read the Wikipedia when the server is
sloooooooooooooooooooow.  If not, it might be a good
idea to set one up.  Perhaps
http://www.wikipedia-imitation.org/ ?  ;-)

Thanks,
Chuck

=====
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http://www.lernu.net/

__________________________________________________________________

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Logos und Klingelt?ne f?rs Handy bei http://sms.yahoo.de


subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
Matthew J. Brown wrote:

>On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, tarquin wrote:
>
>
>
>>So what happens when readers from other countries write up articles on
>>every single kidnap victim?
>>Do any UK writers wish to create articles on [[Milly Downling]], or the
>>[[Soham girls]]? Both those cases got plenty of media coverage here.
>>
>>
>
>If someone wants to write about them, go right ahead.  Wiki is not paper,
>and all that.  I can't see as such articles detract from Wikipedia.
>
>
>
So can I write about the cat that was stuck up a tree in the next street
from me? The local press gave in plenty of coverage!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Ah, but "a woman's right to choose" makes a much more effective slogan
>than "the right of a mother to kill her own baby".
>
>
>
it's not a "baby" until it is born.


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: mirror sites?

body:
Chuck Smith wrote:

> Hey, sorry to keep bugging you all, but I think I've
> missed like a few months worth of messages here and
> I'm trying to catch up.  Anyway, is there any mirror
> site for Wikipedia where you can just read the
> Wikipedia?  Basically, I want a place to go where I
> can read the Wikipedia when the server is
> sloooooooooooooooooooow.  If not, it might be a good
> idea to set one up.  Perhaps
> http://www.wikipedia-imitation.org/ ?  ;-)
>
> Thanks,
> Chuck
>

http://download.wikipedia.org/wikipedia-standalone_en_20031022.tar.bz2

experimental offline version of the English Wikipedia, text only.

Walter


subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>We need to *understand* the reasoning of others with whom we disagree.
>In fact, when I write Wikipedia articles on controversial subjects, I
>usually try to explain the POV of the side I *disagree* with first. I
>get a much more easily balance article that way.
>
>
>
very true!

One thing I wonder: how many "pro-lifers" support abortion for foetuses
with say, Down's Syndrome or cerebral palsy?


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Major Correction

body:
"Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> schrieb:

> [[Eskimo]] would be about the /use/ of the word and
> the controversy surrounding its use (not really about
> the word itself). Similar to our article [[fuck]].

The use of a word is still dictionary rather than encyclopedic.
The controversy indeed not, but I still would not think an
article about that to be in place. On the other hand, the current
mentioning on the [[Inuit]] page I completely agree with.

Andre Engels


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] shell account

body:
On Wednesday, Oct 29, 2003, at 12:18 US/Pacific, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I don't know E23, but if others do, I have no objections.  I'm just
> not the right person to ask in this case.

E23 (goes by 'snok' in the irc channel) seems to know what stuff is
about. He contributed some experimental code for limiting the number of
active wiki rendering processes running which although I didn't find it
to help in my tests was at least an interesting approach. :)

I've set him up an account on pliny.

> The main requirement for being a developer, is knowing that developer
> status has *zero* to do with editing, and also knowing enough about
> Linux/Apache/Php to not do any harm.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Tomos at Wikipedia

subject:
[Wikilegal-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Public Library of Science GFDL
	Compatible

body:
If I am not mistaken, the important part of CC licenses is that they are not
necessarily viral.

For example, CC-by (aka CC-Attribution license) allows the authors of
derivative works to change the license terms, as I understand. If you modify
the work, you should still make an attribution. But you do not have to
license that derivative work you created under the same (CC-By) license. You
can fully copyright it, or you can release it under GFDL.

CC-by-sa (CC-Attribution-Share Alike)  is a different story. That is viral
and requires derivative works to be released under the same licenese. This,
I think is clear when one compares two license terms, especially the part
4-b.
And here are the links:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/legalcode

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/legalcode

Sorry if I am mistaken. But if I'm right, you can create some derivative
work first, and you can release it under GFDL. I hope someone else can
double check the legal code on this point.

regards,

Tomos

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from_name: Nikola Smolenski

subject: [Wikitech-l] suggestion to developpers : Google search form

body:
On Saturday 25 October 2003 18:40, Luc Van Oostenryck wrote:
> The Google search form is in fact independent of the language.
> Is it possible to remove it from the "searchdisabled" text so that only the
>     "
Full-text search has been temporarily disabled due
>      to high server load; we hope to get it online again after some
> hardware upcoming upgrades. In the meantime, you can search via
> google:
" remain?

Actually, it's not. See Serbian:

"searchdisabled" => "
??????! ???? ???????? ?????? ?? ??????????
???????????, ???? ????? ???? ??????????. ????????????, ?????? ????????? ?????
???????? ?????, ???? ???? ???? ?????????.

<FORM method=GET action=\"http://www.google.com/search\">

<INPUT TYPE=hidden name=hl value=sr>
<INPUT TYPE=hidden name=ie value=UTF-8>
<INPUT TYPE=hidden name=oe value=UTF-8>
<INPUT TYPE=text name=q size=31 maxlength=255 value=\"\">
<INPUT type=submit name=btnG VALUE=\"????? ????????\">

<input type=hidden name=domains value=\"{$wgServer}\">
<input type=radio
name=sitesearch value=\"\"> WWW <input type=radio name=sitesearch
value=\"{$wgServer}\" checked> {$wgServer}

</FORM>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Maybe we should try to reach a consensus

body:
Taw>>RedHat doesn't have CJK LaTeX which is needed for texvc to be
>>able to generate math with CJK characters, what was requested by some
>>people from Japanese Wikipedia.

Well, Taw, I appreciate that you remember my request. Some people at
Japanese
wikipedia indicated that being able to use Japanese in TeX would be good.

I personally do not know much about how good, or how crucial, it is. But I
have
seen japanese wikipedians mentioning to it multiple times, and one time I
specifically
asked if I should make a request to others (outside japanese wikipedia).
Some wikipedians responded that that would be nice. So I believe it is at
least somewhat
meaningful thing for math and other TeX-intensive articles.

Regards,

Tomos

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from_name: Pedram Messri

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers

body:
Yes, same here. I have apache and PHP running on FreeBSD, and I had lots
of trouble getting Wikimedia installed using the install.php script that
it comes with. I have heard that it may be buggy, so I am waiting maybe
for a newer release, or until Brion may reply to this email :)

Thanks,
Pedram

I go by 'kerx' on freenode, and lurk around #wikipedia every so often,
or you can usually catch me on #c #ai or #math.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jake Nelson
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 12:01 AM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers

Tim Starling wrote:
> On Windows? What if someone wrote an installation package, which
> installed and configured Apache, PHP and MediaWiki on Windows? Click
> next a few times and it thinks for a while then opens a browser window
> for you. Would that help?

Would help me. I've got Apache and PHP running here, but I couldn't get
MediaWiki functional. I mean, I made /progress/, and got it to display
different errors as various things were fixed (not easy, I don't know
Apache
or PHP), but no go.
If I can get MediaWiki running on my box, I'd be able to really start
hacking at it and figuring out its innards (learning PHP as I go, but
hey,
that's how I always learn languages).

-- Jake

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Chris Seaton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Need developers

body:
On Fri, 2003-10-31 at 00:29, Tim Starling wrote:
> Is there anyone out there who has considered contributing to the
> MediaWiki PHP script, but decided it against for reasons such as:
>
> * Don't know PHP/MySQL
> * Poor documentation, can't understand the code
> * Wouldn't know where to start
> * Don't have a test server
> * Don't have CVS/server access, and you find contributing otherwise to
> be tedious and frustrating
>
> Or perhaps you've contributed on occasion but you're deterred from
> contributing again for reasons such as those above?

I know PHP, MySQL, CVS, HTML et cetera all to a reasonable standard, and
thought you would all be gagging for me.

I tried to start developing, but found myself largely ignored. I asked
for suggestions as to where to start, what were the areas that needed
work, but was just vaguely pointed towards the bug reports.

If someone had said you can do X - something attainable within a few
hours - I would have probably been hooked.

I made one commit to CVS, but it still hasn't gone onto the English
Wikipedia (it was only one line).

That's why I gave up trying. Anyway, that was the summer holidays. Now I
at Uni with much less free time.

My pointers:
- Be very enthusiastic when someone comes forward
- Give them something to get hooked on
- Access to a test server

> If so, please speak up! What areas could we improve to make it easier to
> contribute?
>
> If you prefer, you can contact me privately at tstarlingphysicsunimelbeduau.
>
> -- Tim Starling.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers

body:
On Friday, Oct 31, 2003, at 00:29 US/Pacific, Pedram Messri wrote:

> Yes, same here. I have apache and PHP running on FreeBSD, and I had
> lots
> of trouble getting Wikimedia installed using the install.php script
> that
> it comes with. I have heard that it may be buggy, so I am waiting maybe
> for a newer release, or until Brion may reply to this email :)

Well, I never use the install script personally so I can't guarantee
anything about it. I would appreciate some details on the error
messages though, hopefully it can be resolved.

I posted some manual install instructions on mediawiki-l a couple weeks
ago:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-l/2003-October/000004.html

One of my test boxes is running FreeBSD 5.1, and things generally work.
I've got apache 2 installed from ports, and PHP installed from source
with some extra options. The only trouble I recall having has been with
TeX; texvc itself compiles (ocaml is conveniently in ports/devel) but
something fails in the series of things that get called to produce
output from the wiki.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: AW: [Wikitech-l] Maybe we should try to reach a consensus

body:
On Friday, Oct 31, 2003, at 00:40 US/Pacific, Dufrenoy, Alexis wrote:
> In fact the question is no more the choice between Debian, RedHat and
> SuSE,
> but only between RedHat and SuSE, since Debian does not really fit on
> Athlon
> 64 for the moment. So this software, which could be an interesting
> feature
> for Wikipedia could make a difference, isn't it ?

I can't imagine any reason to replace the SuSE that ships with the
machine.

Also note that this machine will be running the database only, not the
web servers, so the TeX packages don't make any difference here.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: James Duffy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
>
>Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>>Ah, but "a woman's right to choose" makes a much more effective slogan
>>than "the right of a mother to kill her own baby".
>>
>>
>Tarquin wrote it's not a "baby" until it is born.

The only trouble, Tarquin, is that that is a point of view. Some people in
their language distinguish between what the call an 'unborn baby' (or
pre-birth baby) and 'post-birth baby'. Accepting the argument of /either/
side, that abortion is a right or abortion is wrong, that a woman has a
right to choose or a foetus has a right to live, violates Wikipedia's NPOV
policy.

The nightmare with the abortion debate is that right the way through it you
have two diametrically opposed theories on rights, on life and on language.
That divergence is implicit even in the two key words of the protagonists;
'life' and 'choice', implying that the other side are 'anti-choice' or
'anti-life'. The biggest problem of all is that /both/ sides imply the
existence of absolutes where they don't exist. The 'right to life' isn't
absolute; society accepts that sometimes the taking of life is acceptable in
some extreme circumstances, (hence armies, executions, etc.) Nor is there
simply a 'right to choose', as society operates on the principle of the
right to restrict choice; libel and defamation laws deny the 'right to
choose' to say what you want; laws deny a 'right to choose' to kill someone
except in extreme cases; laws deny people the 'right to choose' to
discriminate on the basis of gender, race, orientation etc etc. So both
sides speak of absolute /rights/ in society that should be reflected in
abortion, in a spin that deliberately hides the fact that even if one
accepts that a foetus has a right to life, it doesn't mean an /absolute/
right to life, that even if women have a right to choose in many areas, it
does not automatically mean a right to choose the continuation or
termination of a pregnancy.

Society /chose/ to define a right of choice as applying in the area of
pregnancy, a 'right' of choice denied in many other areas of society. Some
believe in that instance it was a right that deserved to be awarded. Others
argued that in that area, like others, no such right should exist.

Wikipedia has to be careful in dealing with a complex issue like abortion
not to accept, in implicit or explicit language, that one or other side of
the argument is /of course/ right and to understand the underlying
principles and perspectives that shape both sides of this divisive and
controversial debate. The only trouble is that if one takes out the loaded
terminology of both sides, is there actually language that is
agenda-neutral? Even the medical community, depending on its views on the
issue, loads phrases with meanings to support their agenda, in the view of
one side 'sanitising' the procedure, in the view of the other 'emotionally
loading' the procedure, a case in point being whether one can use 'partial
birth abortion' without appearing anti-abortion/pro-life. But as many
wikipedians in the past experienced, any attempt to neutralise terminology
in the abortion article can at best lead one to be attacked by whichever
side feel the language being removed told the 'truth' (ie, /their/ side of
the article, or at worst leading to attacks from both sides who revert any
changes because the article isn't pro-choice/pro-life enough in a neutral
form, if one could find a neutral form.

No wonder one of the first bits of advice I got when I joined wikipedia was
to feel free to edit anything /but the abortion article/, the longstanding
wikipedian telling me that touching that article was the ultimate nightmare,
with "bigoted fanatics" (her words) standing guard like centurions over it,
screaming 'right to life'/'right to choose' rants if a comma was out of
place, lest a comma in some sentence be seen to be a 'pro-life' comma or a
'pro-choice' comma, ie that one wrongly placed commas would lead the
fanatics on both sides to see a hidden agenda in the edit and accuse you of
'defending baby murdering' or 'attacking women's rights'.

While wikipedia has many strengths, I doubt if any open edit sourcebook
/can/ achieve NPOV on this topic with so many people passionately biased on
the topic, convinced that their side are /of course/ right, and determined
to use abortion as a plank in a wider ideological debate, whether it is the
'decline of the family' or the 'undermining of the liberation of women'.
Abortion I fear is one topic that is beyond wikipedia, and has the potential
to place rows of the name of Gdansk, Mother Teresa, anti-semitism, the
Middle East and everything else in the halfpenny place, making them look
like minor, easy to heal squabbles compared to the dreaded, divisive and
daunting a-word, 'abortion'.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Rick wrote:

> No, it isn't.  Morality is hardly "permissable" or not "permissable",
> but what the person in question values.

That's not true under any definition of morality I've heard.  Morality
(or Ethics, if you prefer) is the study of what is required, what is
permissible, and what is optional.  For example, most moral theories
hold that it is *impermissible* to rape people.  This is not even
remotely close to saying that I personally do not value rape.

-Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] getting wikipedia.wmv

body:
> On Thursday, Oct 30, 2003, at 12:56 US/Pacific,
> Chuck Smith wrote:
> > Hey, I just noticed that
> >
> >
>
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/kristie.lustout/video/
>
> > wikipedia.wmv
> >
> > is no longer there.  No big surprise.  Does anyone
> > have a local copy of it who could upload it to
> > Wikipedia and then indicate the address to me?
>
> We don't have the legal right to redistribute it, of
> course, without
> CNN's permission.
>
> You can probably order a copy of the program on
> videotape, which will
> be higher quality anyway:
> https://orion.fdch.com/forms/orcnn.html

How about getting a not-quite-so-legal copy?  If
someone has it, please email me privately (but DON'T
attach any files, please).

Thank you,
Chuck

=====
Learn a cool language for free!
http://www.lernu.net/

__________________________________________________________________

Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - http://mail.yahoo.de
Logos und Klingelt?ne f?rs Handy bei http://sms.yahoo.de


subject: [Wikitech-l] Need developers

body:
On Fri, 2003-10-31 at 00:59, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Thursday, Oct 30, 2003, at 16:36 US/Pacific, Chris Seaton wrote:
> > I tried to start developing, but found myself largely ignored. I asked
> > for suggestions as to where to start, what were the areas that needed
> > work, but was just vaguely pointed towards the bug reports.
> >
> > If someone had said you can do X - something attainable within a few
> > hours - I would have probably been hooked.
>
> What we need are bug fixes and performance improvements.

What we need are developers. To do that you have to get people
interested. When I asked what I could do and people sent me to the bug
reports page it was like starting dumping a pile of work on my desk. I
didn't know where to start.

> Unfortunately
> this isn't very sexy; you need to have some familiarity with the code
> to understand how it works and track down the bits that don't work
> right or don't run well, and that's work:
>
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_tasks
>
> Instead, newcomers tend to want to add sexy new features that scratch
> their personal itches. These can be neat, but they also introduce new
> bugs and new slowdowns. We don't need new features right now. We need
> ugly, unpleasant grunt work that no one wants to do.

And it won't get done unless people encourage new developers.

>
> > I made one commit to CVS, but it still hasn't gone onto the English
> > Wikipedia (it was only one line).
>
> We're *all* overworked. If something isn't getting done, you have to
> either do it yourself or speak up. In this case, speak up.
> > My pointers:
> > - Be very enthusiastic when someone comes forward
> > - Give them something to get hooked on
> > - Access to a test server
>
> A public test server that won't wipe out our live server if something
> goes wrong would be great. Who wants to set that up? Lee at least did
> provide access to his server for this purpose, I don't know if that's
> still going on.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
--
Chris Seaton

chris at chrisseaton.com
http://www.chrisseaton.com/


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] NPOV disputes in Polish-German
	articles

body:
On Tue, Oct 28, 2003 at 06:48:00PM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Delirium wrote:
> > I think that the major dispute isn't over the German and Polish
> > Wikipedias, but over place names in the English Wikipedia: when and how
> > prominently to use the historic German names versus the modern Polish
> > names (for example, Danzig vs. Gdansk).
>
> Oh, I thought the original post was about something going on at
> de.wikipedia, my mistake.
>
> Perhaps we can form a general policy of how to do it, something made
> in the abstract that covers all the general cases, without reference
> to German or Polish, and then go from there...
>
> For example, when referring to a place at a time in the past, prefer
> the name of that time while parenthetically pointing out the current
> name if the clarification will be helpful to the reader.  When
> referring to a place at a time in the present, prefer the present name
> while parenthetically pointing out the past name, blah blah blah.
>
> I can't help but suppose that there's a tedious wikipedia policy wiki
> page on this somewhere.  :-)

You have wrong idea about the problem. The disputed area wasn't exclusively
Polish or exclusively German at that time. Usually, it's hard to even decide who was
the "majority", as we don't have detailed data from the epoch, and it's known
to differ from town to town. It's also not possible to tell what was the official
language - the concept of "official language" is a recent one - then some mix of
Latin and local languages was used, depending on context. Also, the name of a city
could be the same in both German and Polish at that time, only to diverge later
with phonological changes. "Torun'" is example of a name which isn't originally Polish
nor originally German. According to modern etymology it was Polish name equivalent to
"Tarno'w", later to be imported to German language during times of the Teutonic Order,
then to be reimported to Polish in significantly changed version. "Warta Boleslawiecka"
is another such example, except that reimporting happened after the Second World War.

The only sensible policy is to consequently use contemporary names, with possibly
versions in the other languages parenthesized.


from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> On Windows? What if someone wrote an installation package, which
> installed and configured Apache, PHP and MediaWiki on Windows? Click
> next a few times and it thinks for a while then opens a browser window
> for you. Would that help?

Would help me. I've got Apache and PHP running here, but I couldn't get
MediaWiki functional. I mean, I made /progress/, and got it to display
different errors as various things were fixed (not easy, I don't know Apache
or PHP), but no go.
If I can get MediaWiki running on my box, I'd be able to really start
hacking at it and figuring out its innards (learning PHP as I go, but hey,
that's how I always learn languages).

-- Jake


subject: [Wikitech-l] Need developers

body:
On Friday, Oct 31, 2003, at 02:44 US/Pacific, Alfio Puglisi wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Fred Bauder wrote:
>> The lack of comments on what the purpose of most of the code is
>> pretty much
>> precludes almost anyone who didn't write it from participating. All
>> changes
>> together with comments should also be dated.
>
> Same argument here: when writing my toy wiki parser, I checked out
> phaseIII software from CVS to get ideas from the code. I was amazed at
> the
> lack of comments - given a target to search for, finding the right bit
> is
> very time-consuming, unless you already know where to look at.
> (disclaimer: I'm not a PHP expert, but I thought that I could parse it
> quite well)

A great project for someone who'd like to get into MediaWiki
development would be going through the code and documenting it, asking
"what the HECK does this spaghetti code do?" to the list whenever
needed.

Not only would this be a great learning exercise, but it should help
identify a lot of problem spots with dead, duplicated, or dangerous
code.

In addition to the missing in-code documentation, there's some meagre
docs on meta that need to be beefed up:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Test server idea

body:
On Friday, Oct 31, 2003, at 03:30 US/Pacific, Tim Starling wrote:
> Perhaps we could set up test.wikipedia.org as an ISP-style user script
> directory, i.e. with open_basedir and disable_functions and all that.
> We could then make a simple upload form which allows people to upload
> scripts to it using a web interface.
>
> I'm not suggesting someone else do this, I'm suggesting someone try to
> talk me out of it, if there's any reason it won't work.

Part of my concern is simply load management. A script gone wild can
thrash through a big database and eat up memory and CPU cycles, while
we're _trying_ to serve Wikipedia to the world at large.

Security-wise, in addition to files there's the database and memcached;
memcached has no application-level security, so we'd probably want a
separate daemon for it. Also the memcached daemon would need to be
restarted for some tests to clear out bad data, which again would be
better if it didn't interfere with the main servers.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
>how about wikipedia-legal, folks? it's fun to watch players debating
>laws without being a lawyer, but doesn't help much.
>
>I think this, you think that; unless someone KNOWS, would be nice to cease
>fire. Or ask the EFF.
>
>grin

That isn't how law works. An experienced lawyer (at least on questions like
this) doesn't KNOW and would distrust any opinion that purports to be
final. The object is to craft solutions which avoid disputes, do not result
in litigation (expensive and stressful even if you win) and move the
project forward, in this case permitting use of the material if possible
and not too risky.

Since I have used the material I think I will next run it by the Creative
Commons folks and see if they think I have it right (and perhaps by the
original author too). That gives a clue as to what might be the response
should more uses be made of other material under the license.

One only knows after review by a court of last resort, in this case the
United States Supreme Court and even then a slight change in the facts
might produce a different result.

This sort of knowledge is not encouraged by the Court and is gained at
great expense and trouble.

Fred


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] [jfiske@nac.net: Alger Hiss]

body:
----- Forwarded message from Jeffrey Fiske <jfiske at nac.net> -----

From: "Jeffrey Fiske" <jfiske at nac.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 23:13:23 -0500
To: <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Alger Hiss

Hello,

You might want to update your information on Alger Hiss.  There is now hard evidence that he was involved with the KGB.

Jeffrey Fiske

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


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Matthew-
> On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>> For the 45% of Americans who are Creationists

> Off topic, but is it really this high?  I'd heard lower.  I guess like all
> surveys and statistics, it depends how you ask the question and how you
> work the data ...

About 50% of Americans believe in Extrasensory Perception, about 42% in
haunted houses (58% among 18-29 year-olds), and about 36% in telepathy:

http://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/logic/gallup.html

Education in the US isn't exactly top-notch, and Hollywood movies do their
part to shape perception. In comparison, similar beliefs are far less
wide-spread in western Europe. In Germany, for example, only 8% believe in
ghosts (3% in Eastern Germany), and only slightly more than half believe
in God. Those who believe in God also accord him some role in the
evolutionary process, but the creationism/evolution controversy is largely
an American phenomenon.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> So what about replacing RedHat with something else on other machines
>too ?

Well, for the production servers this is essentially out of the
question right now.  They're heavily in use, and changing the OS would
be quite the big ordeal!  And so far as I know, if the issue is just
CJK latex, that should be easier to resolve by updating LaTex rather
than completely changing the OS.

RedHat is perfectly good, I like RedHat.

--Jimbo


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I can't imagine any reason to replace the SuSE that ships with the
> machine.

O.k., I think this is the developed consensus.  We'll stick with
SuSE unless someone comes up with a real blockbuster.

1.  SuSE is already on the machine (very important)

2.  SuSE has CJK Latex (not so important, since this is the db
machine, but still nice)

3.  SuSE has a reputation for solid 64 bit work.

4.  Anyhow, SuSE and Redhat are very very similar in most ways,
i.e. RPM based, etc., so although Debian is preferred by some, there
doesn't seem to be any reason to strongly prefer RedHat to SuSE *for
our purpose*.

5.  And Debian would be popular here, but it isn't ready for 64 bit
yet.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creationists (was: Following up -)

body:
We should move this offlist.

Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Off topic, but is it really this high?  I'd heard lower.
> I guess like all surveys and statistics, it depends how you
> ask the question and how you work the data ...

According to a survey released the other day, "half the atheists and
agnostics surveyed believed that everyone had a soul, that heaven and
hell existed and that there was life after death. One in eight
atheists and agonistics believe that accepting Jesus Christ as savior
probably makes life after death possible."

http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-heaven1024,0,7895415.story

So, you know, not to disparage anyone's personal beliefs or anything,
but really it seems that people believe all manner of, ah, interesting
things.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
tarquin wrote:
> So can I write about the cat that was stuck up a tree in the next
> street from me? The local press gave in plenty of coverage!

Are there links?  Would it be possible for others to confirm the
story?

I hope people don't waste much time writing such pages, but it strikes
me as much more of a waste to fight against someone who wanted to
include them.  I have no problem with a social stigma against writing
such pages (just as there is and should be a social stigma against
writing articles about ourselves), but a policy of deletion that goes
beyond confirmability seems to me to invite more conflict than it
would be worth.

Such pages...

1.  Do not belong in Wikipedia 1.0 (paper edition), because such will
be selected with an eye towards the cost of production

2.  Ought not to be linked from the front page (which is
space-constrained to deal with only big events and major conceptual
topics)

But other than that, what's the harm?

One possible objection I can imagine is cluttering the search results.
But the best solution to that, I think, would be to have a refined
search engine that limits the impact of minor pages.  There are a
number of ways to do that, but in any event, it seems unlikely to
be a huge problem anyway just because people aren't going to be so
interested in writing that many pages of this type.

And that's especially true if we more or less just ignore the
practice.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> At some point, I'm sure, Jimbo is going to insist
> that we take this to [[talk:abortion]]

Consider it done.  Please take this offlist.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Mailing list guidelines

body:
The amount of traffic on wikipedia-l and wikien-l is getting way out
of hand, and so I'd like to propose the following voluntary
guidelines.  By 'voluntary' I mean that I'm not about to start
moderating the lists or kicking people off for failing this, but I do
ask that everyone have consideration for others and try to remember
these.

(And, I should say up front: I've been bad about this myself, and I
admit it, so don't call me a hypocrite!)

1.  Wikipedia-l should be used for *policy* discussions that have
*global* implications, stuff about the general theory of NPOV, stuff
about how the software impacts our actual practices, etc.  There will
often be overlap with topics on wikien-l, but we should still try to
keep wikipedia-l global in scope.

2.  Wikien-l should be used for *policy* discussions that have
implications primarily on en.wikipedia.org.  This includes limited
discussion of individual articles, discussion of particular disputes,
discussion of policies and practices that have arisen solely on en
rather than globally.  Discussions of actual _content_ of articles is
fine, but should be tied as much as possible to a discussion of
general principles -- the place to talk about articles is the article
talk pages!

3.  The distinction between wikipedia-l and wikien-l is sometimes
fuzzy, so let's cut people some slack if they don't do it precisely
the way we would do it.

-------

For *both* lists, check twice before sending -- could your message be
better sent to just one or two people?  Is it just a joke?  If it is
just a joke, it is so funny that you have to crack it to everyone?
(Sometimes this is fine, I'm just saying let's keep ourselves under
control.)

Is your post likely to hurt feelings?  Is it likely to make a bad
situation worse?  Is there a way to rephrase a few words to be kinder,
and to have a better chance of swaying good people to your point of
view?  Are you simply antagonizing a jerk?  Are you simply being a
jerk?

The main thing is: let's keep the lists focussed on our mission, and
keep extraneous junk to a bare minimum.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mailing list guidelines


body:
>On Fri, Oct 31, 2003 at 04:44:49AM -0700, Fred Bauder wrote things.
>
>My only question is: are you a lawyer?

I am a retired lawyer. I am not holding out that I did legal research and
have formed an opinion you can rely on (and then sue me if I'm wrong).
Anyone who uses material that is under the Creative Commons license needs
to take responsibility for what they are doing.
>
>If you are not, then it's just a guess.

Anyone's thoughtful look at this language is useful to us. Anyone who can
read well has the basic talent needed. An opinion from an attorney could
fairly be described as an informed considered guess.

>
>If CC say "you can change our license of the derivated work to anything else
>you like" then it's solved, change it to GFDL.

Don't think it says that in so many words.
>
>If not, I'm pretty sure *GPL/GFDL denies conflicting sublicensing.

So you think the problem may lie with GFDL rather than with Creative
Commons? What language supports that view?
>
>And IANAL. Go, check CC folks about it. Don't debate my knowledge since I
>have none. :-)

A good idea. Trying out one or two articles and then seeing their reaction
might also be useful.
>
>And summarize the results here. If there's any.

Heh, our discussion is not likely to result in a useful summary unless
there is a pretty clear cut reaction from Creative Commons. But remember it
is the copyright holder, the author, that has standing to sue for
infringement, and they need only to make some reasonable construction of
the license which would give legal grounds and and you can be in court.
(but realistically they are more likely to demand removal of the material)

Part of what we are doing here is building a record of carefully
considering whether or not material under the Creative Commons copyright
can somehow be used on Wikipedia or other sites under the GFDL. This can
help if trouble does result. Our attitude toward the matter is relevant,
did we just bull ahead or try to carefully figure out what we can legally
and ethically do.
>
>g

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] [jfiske@nac.net: Alger Hiss]

body:
>----- Forwarded message from Jeffrey Fiske <jfiske at nac.net> -----
>
>From: "Jeffrey Fiske" <jfiske at nac.net>
>Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 23:13:23 -0500
>To: <jwales at bomis.com>
>Subject: Alger Hiss
>
>Hello,
>
>You might want to update your information on Alger Hiss.  There is now
>hard evidence that he was involved with the KGB.
>
>Jeffrey Fiske

This and similar matters are troublesome as most American scholars of
American Communism are fairly revisionist and tend to discount the material
that is coming out of KGB archives. So its not hard at all to find
authority which contradicts or minimizes such material.

Fred


subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP parser made twice as fast

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Okay, you may shower me with praise now.

Dude, you rock.

I hereby decree, in my usual authoritarian and bossy manner, that
today (10/31) shall forever be known as Tim Starling Day. Wikipedians
of the distant future will marvel at the day when the new parsing
algorithm dawned upon us. Tonight at dinner, every Wikipedian should
say a toast to Tim and his many inventions.

In countries that celebrate Halloween, children will first say "Trick
or Treat" and then, when they get the candy, they will say "Secure and
Split" and run away, in honor of Tim's work in this area.

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AMagnus_Manske_Day

(Some may ask: but when is Brion Vibber day?  Ah, but you should know
by now: *every day* is Brion Vibber day!)

--Jimbo


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] NPOV disputes in
	Polish-German	articles

body:
On Wed, Oct 29, 2003 at 07:03:56PM -0800, Delirium wrote:
> This makes sense for some of the names, but I don't think for all.  For
> example, "Danzig" was until 1945 the generally accepted English name for
> that city, so I think speaking of someone like Arthur Schopenhauer (a
> German born in 1780) being "born in Gdansk" is a little bit
> anachronistic, and speaking of him being "born in Danzig (modern-day
> [[Gdansk]], [[Poland]])" is more accurate.  I think we should generally
> use the name that would've been used by the person if it's clear, and
> otherwise prefer the modern name.  So, Constantinople (not Istanbul) for
> the Byzantines; Danzig (not Gdansk) and Koenigsberg (not Kaliningrad)
> for 18th-century Germans, but Warsaw for everyone in all time periods, etc.
>
> The main impetus behind this suggestion is that it seems odd to say
> someone was born in a city that they wouldn't have called by that
> name--if Schopenhauer thought he was born in Danzig, and in fact
> mentioned Danzig in his writings, then that's what we should call his
> birthplace.
>
> However, I do think your argument has convinced me to use the modern
> names when discussing the general history, if former names are unclear,
> which I think is how it currently is: [[Gdansk]] refers to the city by
> that name throughout the history section, including the
> 16th/17th/18th/19th centuries.  That seems fine to me.  It's be wrong to
> refer to 16th-century [[Kaliningrad]] though.
>
> So perhaps unfortunately we need to do it on a case-by-case basis?

Gdansk definitely was never a "German" city. Its Slavonic name is original,
and Slavonic inhabitants of that city has been always calling it that way.
That Germans living there used different name doesn't matter much (it wasn't a "different"
name, it was just a phonetical transformation of Slavonic name). It'd be silly
to use the name "Gdansk" for period from medieval times to about XVIII century,
when it was taken over by Prussia, switch to "Danzig" for XIX and early XX century,
and then back to Slavonic name in XX century back - people living there
didnt't all suddenly turn German. And it's completely idiotic
to use name "Danzig" before it existed. "Poznan'"/"Posen" is in similar situation,
but it was even less German than Gdansk.

But Kaliningrad is completely different matter - it wasn't a Russian city before
after the Second World War. But it had a Polish name of "Kro'lewiec" too.


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, tarquin wrote:
>
> Matthew J. Brown wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, tarquin wrote:
> >
> >>So what happens when readers from other countries write up articles on
> >>every single kidnap victim?
> >>Do any UK writers wish to create articles on [[Milly Downling]], or the
> >>[[Soham girls]]? Both those cases got plenty of media coverage here.
> >>
> >If someone wants to write about them, go right ahead.  Wiki is not paper,
> >and all that.  I can't see as such articles detract from Wikipedia.
> >
> So can I write about the cat that was stuck up a tree in the next street
> from me? The local press gave in plenty of coverage!
>
I've been trying to determine for myself a good rule of thumb to answer
this very question: when is something too trivial for inclusion in
Wikipedia?

An obvious example for exclusion that I believe all of us can agree on
are the occasional articles that pop up about average people & promptly
get deleted. Likewise, there are thousands of individuals mentioned in
historical records only once, & of whom nothing more can be known or
guessed.

On the other hand, sensational crimes have always been with us, & will
always attract interest. One example that deserves at least a mention in
Wikipedia (although I can't lay my hands on the proper citation) is of
actual legal cases where thieves have brought a dispute over the fair
division of their theft. (This has actually been recorded as happening
at least twice - once in Roman law, & another time in Medieval Common
law!) And the reason that a given sensational crime will be of perennial
interest is that they enter the realm of popular culture or literature,
& further allusions to them tickle the curiousity of new readers. For
example, the other night on the tv show "Law & Order" one of the characters
made a reference to "Burking", which I had to explain further to my
wife; how many people could we expect would be curious about this
murderous practice & perhaps look for an article about William Burke
(1792 - 1829) or his partner William Hare, even though their career in
crime happened almsot 200 years ago?

The point I am trying to make is this: we should keep in mind that Wikipedia,
because it is an encyclopedia, is a reference work. People will want to
consult it to answer questions about people, events or facts. This leads
to the critereon that before adding an article, one should consider whether
it would be of interest beyond a clearly limited audience.

By "clearly limited audience", I mean just that: no one outside of my
family cares to know the dates of birth, marriage & death of any of my
great-grandparents. It may be of interest beyond this limited audience
to know that I have a relative who came to the northwest (Vancouver,
Washington, to be precise) on one of the last wagon trains, but it is
clearly of interest to a wider audience if I were to state that settlers
arrived here as late as the 1880s by wagon train.

Does this offer a useful test by which we can avoid sliding down this
slippery slope of inclusion?

Geoff


body:
On Fri, 31 Oct 2003, Tomos at Wikipedia wrote:

> If I am not mistaken, the important part of CC licenses is that they are not
> necessarily viral.
>
> For example, CC-by (aka CC-Attribution license) allows the authors of
> derivative works to change the license terms, as I understand. If you modify
> the work, you should still make an attribution. But you do not have to
> license that derivative work you created under the same (CC-By) license. You
> can fully copyright it, or you can release it under GFDL.
>
> CC-by-sa (CC-Attribution-Share Alike)  is a different story. That is viral
> and requires derivative works to be released under the same licenese. This,
> I think is clear when one compares two license terms, especially the part
> 4-b.
> And here are the links:
>
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/legalcode
>
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/legalcode
>
> Sorry if I am mistaken. But if I'm right, you can create some derivative
> work first, and you can release it under GFDL. I hope someone else can
> double check the legal code on this point.

Hmmm... Actually you may be right there - given that there is a version of
the CC license which specifically states that derivative works must be under
the same license, it seems reasonable to assume that without this provision
this is NOT the case. Which in turn means that we can indeed use it in
Wikipedia - editing and merging with other material would clearly make it a
derivative work.

Even original works under CC-license (basic license and attribute license
only) could be put in Wikipedia that way - the work would be spread by
Wikipedia under the CC license 'for the time being', and then 'automatically'
revert to GNU/FDL once significant edits have been made.

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikitech-l] Need developers

body:
On Friday 31 October 2003 01:29, Tim Starling wrote:
> Is there anyone out there who has considered contributing to the
> MediaWiki PHP script, but decided it against for reasons such as:
>
> * Don't have CVS/server access, and you find contributing otherwise to
> be tedious and frustrating

I wanted to contribute to this and several other open source programs, but
"ease of use" of CVS drove me off. For some reason, I *hate* CVS, even
updating from it, and I have never even tried getting CVS access and
commiting anything. I'm particulary mad at KDE for there one must download a
whole package of programs or even two in order to work on only one program.
And then when I do something I end up with possibly unstable copy of the
program for myself or not using my features until a stable copy is released.

By the way, I installed MW at my computer, and the first thing I had to do was
to put @ in front of each is_file and is_dir. Maybe there's something wrong
with my PHP settings, but perhaps that should be done in the main sourceas
well.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers

body:
On Friday 31 October 2003 02:45, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> > On Windows? What if someone wrote an installation
> > package, which
> > installed and configured Apache, PHP and MediaWiki
> > on Windows? Click
> > next a few times and it thinks for a while then
> > opens a browser window
> > for you. Would that help?
>
> Yes, that would help.
>
> > And which internet resources did you mean: PHP, or
> > Apache?
> >
> > -- Tim Starling
>
> I couldn't install PHP.

On Windows, I used certain Gefion Lite Web Server for PHP; it comes with PHP
pre-installed.


from_name: Alex R.

subject:
[Wikilegal-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Public Library of Science
	GFDLCompatible

body:
From: "Andre Engels" <engels at uni-koblenz.de>
> On Fri, 31 Oct 2003, Tomos at Wikipedia wrote:
>
> > If I am not mistaken, the important part of CC licenses is that they are
not
> > necessarily viral.
> >
> > For example, CC-by (aka CC-Attribution license) allows the authors of
> > derivative works to change the license terms, as I understand. If you
modify
> > the work, you should still make an attribution. But you do not have to
> > license that derivative work you created under the same (CC-By) license.
You
> > can fully copyright it, or you can release it under GFDL.
> >
> > CC-by-sa (CC-Attribution-Share Alike)  is a different story. That is
viral
> > and requires derivative works to be released under the same licenese.
This,
> > I think is clear when one compares two license terms, especially the
part
> > 4-b.
> > And here are the links:
> >
> > http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/legalcode
> >
> > http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/legalcode
> >
> > Sorry if I am mistaken. But if I'm right, you can create some derivative
> > work first, and you can release it under GFDL. I hope someone else can
> > double check the legal code on this point.
>
> Hmmm... Actually you may be right there - given that there is a version of
> the CC license which specifically states that derivative works must be
under
> the same license, it seems reasonable to assume that without this
provision
> this is NOT the case. Which in turn means that we can indeed use it in
> Wikipedia - editing and merging with other material would clearly make it
a
> derivative work.

Isn't one of the conflicing provisions t between GFDL 1.1. and GFDL 1.2 a
problem?. 4.b of the CC Attributions 1.0 license requires that even
derivative
works require more credit than what is required under GFDL 1.2 sec. 4-b
(confusingly the same section number).

>From the CC-a ver. 1.0 sec. 4.b:
...
..."give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You
are utilizing by conveying the name (or pseudonym if applicable) of the
Original Author if supplied; the title of the Work if supplied; in the case
of a Derivative Work, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the
Derivative Work..."

"...Such credit may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided,
however, that in the case of a Derivative Work or Collective Work, at a
minimum such credit will appear where any other comparable authorship credit
appears and in a manner at least as prominent as such other comparable
authorship credit. "
...

Wouldn't be true that the above is equivalent to creating an invariant
section
under the GFDL, (i.e. the authors of the CC work must ALWAYS be listed,
even if they are not one of the five principal authors of the modified work)
and the original work must be cited with a credit. Ikipedia does not
accept invariant sections, no?

Alex756


subject: [Wikitech-l] Load balancing

body:
What are our plans for the network architecture as soon as the new
server arrives (sometime next week)?

At that time, we hope that larousse and pliny will both be
successfully upgraded (though I believe that Jason has not yet
successfully gotten 4 gig of RAM to work, but 2 gig each and dual
Athlon 2800+ should be do-able) and equivalent to each other.

The DB server will be the DB server, that much we know for sure. :-)

Beyond that, I think that the easiest thing to do would be to have en
served by one machine, and everything else by the other machine.
Based on total article count, which is roughly comparable for en vs
rest-of-the-world, that seems good, but is it really?  What about
traffic?

In the longer term, the right way to do this is not to load balance by
domain names, but to load balance properly.

I have had very good success in the past using iptables and a
configuration that looks a lot like this picture:

http://www.ultramonkey.org/2.0.1/topologies/lb-eg.html

Of course, I did this years ago, and the "poor man's" way -- I think
there are probably packages (like ultramonkey!) that are quick
solutions now.

The beauty of this kind of architecture is:

1.  high availability -- if one webserving node falls over, traffic
automatically goes to the ones that are still up

2.  easy expandability -- just add more webservers, at $2000 a crack
for 'good enough' machines, and install the software and there you go.

Anyhow, to really do something like this, we'd need one more machine,
but it need not be very powerful, since it's only going to be doing
NAT/IPTABLES stuff.

--Jimbo


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
Matt

> > For the 45% of Americans who are Creationists
>
> Off topic, but is it really this high?  I'd heard lower.
I guess like all surveys and statistics, it depends how you
ask the question and how you work the data ...

Hm. Reminds me of the journalist who lived on New York's
Upper West Side. She said, "No one I know voted for Reagan."
Boy, was /she/ surprised when he beat Carter by a landslide
in 1980.

Uncle Ed "There are 3 kinds of statisticians, those who can
count and those who can't."


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [WikiEN-l] [jfiske@nac.net: Alger Hiss]

body:
Fred Bauder wrote

At 07:12 AM 10/31/03 -0700, you wrote:
> >----- Forwarded message from Jeffrey Fiske <jfiske at nac.net> -----
> >
> >From: "Jeffrey Fiske" <jfiske at nac.net>
> >Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 23:13:23 -0500
> >To: <jwales at bomis.com>
> >Subject: Alger Hiss
> >
> >Hello,
> >
> >You might want to update your information on Alger Hiss.  There is now
> >hard evidence that he was involved with the KGB.
> >
> >Jeffrey Fiske
>
>This and similar matters are troublesome as most American scholars of
>American Communism are fairly revisionist and tend to discount the material
>that is coming out of KGB archives. So its not hard at all to find
>authority which contradicts or minimizes such material.

However, there is no reason that Fiske--or anyone else interested--can't
add to the Hiss article that "According to the KGB archives, [whatever they
say]....some scholars [identify if possible] question this because [reason]."
Our usual Wiki editing/NPOV approach.

>Fred
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
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