body:
I'd like to know if I'm alone in being quite tired of the current
Wikipedia logo (as used on en: and most of the non-English pedias). There
are several things I do not like about it:

1) It is a ball of hard to read, monochrome text, with two lines of text
under it. Since most of our content is text, it would be nice to have a
logo that has at least some pictographic elements. I personally do not
find it aesthetically pleasing either. IMHO, the absence of the textball
from the Cologne Blue skin is one of the key reasons why many people find
it more attractive.

2) The Hobbes citation itself is cute, but too subtle and pretentious; it
is also not particularly useful to readers unfamiliar with Wikipedia.

3) It is an English text, making it a bad choice for the international
Wikipedias.

4) It cites one specific philosopher and one specific quote, establishing
that particular point of view quite securely. While Wikipedia itself is
mostly neutral, the logo is clearly not. And just to make clear that its
text is far from uncontroversial, the Hobbes quote states that "man is
distinguished, not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion
[curiosity] from other animals". This is a highly anthropocentric view
with the classical animal/human distinction that is increasingly eroded by
our understanding of other highly intelligent and curious animals such as
chimpanzees, bonobos, whales and dolphins. Of course, that is not to say
that a more modern view should be taken; in fact, none should be taken at
all.

Wikipedia has thousands of highly creative users, many hundreds more than
when Cunctator originally created the logo. I think a logo contest on
Meta, officially promoted on all the main pages, could produce very
satisfying results: a visually pleasing logo which is international and
can therefore be used by all our editions.

Just a few ideas:
- an alphabet letter which also looks like a construction site
- a green tree with some interesting fruit (letters, pages or something
like that)
- several book volumes standing next to each other, with an inkwell
sitting on the top
- a flower or planet within a pair of double square brackets.

But maybe it's just me and everyone else loves the textball. I'd like to
hear some feedback on this. Just as a quick demo I have hacked together
the last idea from the ones above and put it at

http://www.scireview.de/wiki/Main_Page.html

in the context of the current Main Page. Note that this logo is just a
quick hack and I do not suggest that it should actually be used, but I
think that the colorful picture looks better than what we have now. Still
I admit that I have *no* artistic skills whatsoever. That's why I'd really
like to see what could come out of a large logo contest.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert

in_reply_to:
<BAY7-F102qXLFfJNwPm0005d13f@hotmail.com> (Menchi Zh-En's
 message of "Fri, 13 Jun 2003 20:29:08 -0700")

body:
"Menchi Zh-En WP" <ebeins at hotmail.com> writes:

> Rollbacks are easily abused, especially by those banned users: L-, M-,
> and their split personalities.

It's impossible to "ban" users and it is not wise trying to do so
nevertheless.

Problems usually vanish once you stop imposing power.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |    _-\_<,
ke at suse.de (work) / keichwa at gmx.net (home)               |   (*)/'(*)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert

body:
Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

> Yes. But it doesn't do anything more than any user -- logged in or not
> -- can do with three extra clicks.

I as a regular user feel be punished.  Or say it in different words:
it's a sad story that I cannot help fixing bad edits without three
extra clicks.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |    _-\_<,
ke at suse.de (work) / keichwa at gmx.net (home)               |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert and query tips ?

body:
>I understand very well you feel punished as
>a regular user.
>I feel that when I look at the POV english
>main page news :-)
>I feel that when a personal page stays listed
>for 2/3 weeks before being deleted. Imho,
>everyone should have the right to delete pages
>in her user space :-)
>I feel that when I can't rename an article just
>because there is a redirect with no history under
> the name I want to give to the new article :-)
>I feel that when I can't look at the content of a
>very recently deleted article :-)

If you are doing all that and feeling that way then you need to either become
an Admin or stop complaining. I'm sick of hearing complaints that you can't
do certain things and then you refuse to become an Admin so that you can do
those things. This makes zero sense!

If /anyone/ is dong so much Wikipedia work that they feel a need to have Admin
powers then just ask. Bing! You are an Admin. Wow - was that so hard? You can
now do all the things which cannot be trusted to random people (or to the
Lirs and Micheals of the world).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Templates for tables and more

body:
We could avoid most of the hassle of HTML tables with a relatively simple
template system. The user of a template would just have to enter key/value
pairs and the software would do the rest.

Let's take the country tables as an example. This is a table that
essentially looks the same on every country page, with different contents.
So we could have

[[Template:Country table]]

which would contain the table with a special syntax for variable
dentifiers and conditional expressions:

<<Flag && Coat of arms??

::Flag::

::Coat of arms::

>>
<<Flag && !Coat of arms??

::Flag::

>>

Official language

::Language::

<<President?

President

::President::

>>
...........

The above contains two important elements:

* variables (enclosed in ::name::)
These contain text that is defined by the template user and inserted into
the template when it is used.
* condition blocks (enclosed in <<..?? .. >>)
These determine under which conditions the respective text from the
template is to be inserted; that is, which variables have to be set or
unset.

Now any country page could use the template defined above like this:

<Template:Country table>
Flag:: [[Image:Flag_germany.jpg]]
Coat of arms:: [[Image:Coat_of_arms_Germany.jpg]]
Language:: German
President:: Johannes Rau
...
</template>

Similarly for taxonomy tables

<Template:Taxonomy table>
Name:: Amaryllis
Kingdom:: Plantae
Division:: Magnoliophyta
Class:: Lilliopsida
...
</template>

For navigation tables:

<Template:British Monarch navigation>
Preceded by:: George VI
Heir apparent:: Charles, Prince of Wales
</template>

This is easy to use and easy to edit, but generates nice looking,
correctly aligned tables. It could also be used for general image
formatting:

<Template:Image right>
Image:: Foo.jpg
Width:: 420
Caption:: My image
</template>

using the following template, for example:

[[Image:::Image::]]

''::Caption::''

Most of the code required for this feature is simple search/replace stuff,
only the conditional expression parsing is somewhat more complex, but also
offers a lot of power to handle subtle variations in tables. The template
syntax could also provide functionality for iterations, or these could be
implicitly generated by simply repeating a variable during the template
use:

[[Template:List table]]

<<Item??

::Item::

>>

->

<Template:List table>
Item::Foo
Item::Bar
Item::Baz
</template>

->

Foo

Bar

Baz

That is, the conditional expression Item?? would automatically run an
iteration of the enclosing block if there is more than one item (whereas
without the conditional expression, only one item would be used).

Syntax likes and dislikes aside, I'd be interested in what you think about
such a system.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] my last message (was Re: Admins: Revert and query tips ?)

body:
Replace "dong" with "doing" and replace "If you are doing all that and feeling
that way then you need to either become an Admin or stop complaining." with
"If you are doing all that and feeling that way then you need to become an
Admin, no?"

My typo generation rate increases and the shortness of my temper decreases
with every hour over 20 without sleep. On hour 24 now - time for several
hours of sleep.

-- mav


list: wikien-l

from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>If Edupedia follows the model that Sifter was planning on,
>>the main database would remain in one place, at Wikipedia.
>>Any separate Edupedia database would only have to specify
>>which Wikipedia pages (and maybe which versions)
>>are included in the various categories that it supports.
>>To some extent, a <www.edupedia.org> domain
>>will necessitate a separate web interface,
>>but of course it could be very similar to Wikipedia's.
>>The bulk of the data, in any case, would be together.

>Jimbo already said (I think) that he would be willing
>to host a project like edupedia. And we certainly
>can't have the reviewing and viewing on the same
>domain, because that would defeat the purpose. Plus,
>edupedia wouldn't follow the same model at all. We'd
>actually make a blacklist, not a whitelist like
>sifter. That's kinda a non-sequetor, though.

I don't think that the colour of the list
is a great difference in principle,
although you're right that it's not quite the same.
I'm not sure what you mean by "reviewing and viewing".
The sifters that review Wikipedia content for Edupedia
would need special permissions on Edupedia to do this;
ordinary users could see only the accepted content
(that is those pages that weren't blacklisted),
unless they switch over to the other site, Wikipedia.
Ordinary users of Edupedia might also edit Wikipedia,
by editing Edupedia, which would send the results to Wikipedia.
(But they couldn't edit a blacklisted page.)

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Diffs (Was: Admins: Revert)

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote in part:

>3) New UseModWiki, e.g.
>http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?action=history&id=SocialSoftware

>  [_]  [_]  Version 17 .. date by user
>  [_]  [_]  Version 16 .. date by user
>   COMPARE

>Where you mark the radio buttons for any two versions you want to
>compare, and then click COMPARE.

Ooh, ooh! I want that!

Now I do it by cutting and pasting portions of URLs.

-- Toby


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
On Fri, Jun 13, 2003 at 08:56:30PM -0700, Geoffrey Thomas wrote:
> I normally wouldn't say this, because I am quite Christian myself,
> but I agree we need a 'pedia with NO religion entries, except for
> historical articles on the religion as one would find in a history
> textbook, and in the same vein NO explicit topics, or anything of
> that sort - we should have a separate, school-topics-only Wiki
> encyclopedia for use at schools or other filtered environments.

Bullshit. I can accept that American schools may not indoctrinate
a religion to their pupils. But that they may not even mention
religion is stupid. Saying "There are people who believe in divine
beings. Jews, Christians and Moslems believe in only one God while
Hindus believe in many Gods" is just facts. Schools shouldn't have
a problem with the neutral presentation of facts.

If an article isn't neutral, it has to be refactored. But not
censored. What about the "free speech" principle so many of you
have defended? In an American's eye it is OK to say "No Jews
have been gased during WWII" but you may not say "There are
people believing in a divine being" ??

I have been working in some school projects as a technical tutor,
and I learned that pupils should not be confronted with the Internet
without the supervision of a teacher. No matter how good your
content filter might be, pupils find a way to content not supposed
for youngsters.

Don't censor wikipedia. It's the responsibility of the teacher to
do so.

Regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Categories: An implementation

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>I'm very weary of allowing just anybody to create any category since from a
>database management perspective it would be easy for people to create many
>different variants for the same intended category ([[category:biology]],
>[[category:life sciences]], [[category:life science]], [[category:living
>things]], [[category:the study of living things]] etc). And having too many
>categories will be very difficult for people to remember and very unwieldy
>for people to choose from in a category search. Let the lists stay for the
>obscure stuff.
>
Wow! Just like article titles. Maybe we should let only sysops name
articles, then everyone else can fill in the information.

But, they might repeat information or organize it badly. Better to let
sysops define the structure of the article, then everyone else can fill
in the bodies of the paragraphs.

Having category aliases (just like redirects) and letting categories
include other categories would make this "problem" moot.

I am very strongly against a category scheme that is limited or
sysops-only. I *want* my obscure sub-categories.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

[stuff]

>Syntax likes and dislikes aside, I'd be interested in what you think about
>such a system.

I'm generally in favour of this.

-- Toby


body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> I still have the code of *my* implementation in the test wiki, if that's
> what you mean. I just can't find the database structure anymore :-(

Isn't it defined in maintenance/build-intl-wiki.sql?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sysop nomination (was: Admins: Revert)

body:
On Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 07:48:30AM +0200, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:
>
> > Yes. But it doesn't do anything more than any user -- logged in or not
> > -- can do with three extra clicks.
>
> I as a regular user feel be punished.  Or say it in different words:
> it's a sad story that I cannot help fixing bad edits without three
> extra clicks.

That's easy to fix. You've proven not to be a vandal, so you can
become a sysop. Any objections anyone?

	Regards,

		JeLuF


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Sysop nomination

body:
Jens Frank <JeLuF at gmx.de> writes:

> That's easy to fix. You've proven not to be a vandal, so you can
> become a sysop. Any objections anyone?

No, that's not what I want ;-) Such a change would not fix the problem
for all the other (anonymous) editors.  Perhaps it's just the title
("sysop") I don't like.  I would agree with something called "advanced
editor" or "senior editor", though.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |    _-\_<,
ke at suse.de (work) / keichwa at gmx.net (home)               |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Do we need a new logo contest?

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>I'd like to know if I'm alone in being quite tired of the current
>Wikipedia logo (as used on en: and most of the non-English pedias). There
>are several things I do not like about it:
>
I haven't thought much about the Logo, so I don't have a lot of strong
feelings about either keeping or changing it.  I can only promise an
open mind on the subject.  Erik does make some strong arguments for his
proposal.

Colour does make it look sharper, but there still needs to be enough
contrast for the benefit of those who receive or prefer to receive
monochrome downloads.

>Wikipedia has thousands of highly creative users, many hundreds more than
>when Cunctator originally created the logo. I think a logo contest on
>Meta, officially promoted on all the main pages, could produce very
>satisfying results: a visually pleasing logo which is international and
>can therefore be used by all our editions.
>
>Just a few ideas:
>- an alphabet letter which also looks like a construction site
>
That begs the question:  From which alphabet?  It would be centred too
much on one language or group of languages.

>- a green tree with some interesting fruit (letters, pages or something
>like that)
>
This may have scalability problems, given the relative sizes of trees
and fruits.

>- several book volumes standing next to each other, with an inkwell
>sitting on the top
>
"Wikipedia is not paper."  Too retro.  I think there is a need to
incorporate the future formats of knowledge in this kind of logo.
 Perhaps someone else has an idea about how to include the concept of
electronic media into a logo.

>- a flower or planet within a pair of double square brackets.
>
>But maybe it's just me and everyone else loves the textball. I'd like to
>hear some feedback on this.
>
Even if this doesn't lead anywhere it does merit some consideration

>Just as a quick demo I have hacked together
>the last idea from the ones above and put it at
>
>http://www.scireview.de/wiki/Main_Page.html
>
>in the context of the current Main Page. Note that this logo is just a
>quick hack and I do not suggest that it should actually be used, but I
>think that the colorful picture looks better than what we have now. Still
>I admit that I have *no* artistic skills whatsoever. That's why I'd really
>like to see what could come out of a large logo contest.
>
It IS attractive, especially with its use of bright yellow with its
suggestion of new life.

Ec


from_name: Anthere

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >I understand very well you feel punished as
> >a regular user.
> >I feel that when I look at the POV english
> >main page news :-)
> >I feel that when a personal page stays listed
> >for 2/3 weeks before being deleted. Imho,
> >everyone should have the right to delete pages
> >in her user space :-)
> >I feel that when I can't rename an article just
> >because there is a redirect with no history under
> > the name I want to give to the new article :-)
> >I feel that when I can't look at the content of a
> >very recently deleted article :-)
>
> If you are doing all that and feeling that way then
> you need to either become
> an Admin or stop complaining. I'm sick of hearing
> complaints that you can't
> do certain things and then you refuse to become an
> Admin so that you can do
> those things. This makes zero sense!

zero sense to your opinion. Please allow me to have a
different opinion.

> If /anyone/ is dong so much Wikipedia work that they
> feel a need to have Admin
> powers then just ask. Bing! You are an Admin.

Bong if they don't fit to the current mindframe. Even
if they do a lot of work, and even if they feel the
need. Be honest please Mav :-)
But, you are right somehow. The more admins there are,
the less likely there will be a frame mind...hum

Wow -
> was that so hard? You can
> now do all the things which cannot be trusted to
> random people (or to the
> Lirs and Micheals of the world).

Random people ?
Regular people are "random people" ???

OOOOOOOOkey.

Then, I give up all my hopes on this topic. And yes,
it is hard. Please make me a sysop.

But Mav, be aware of one thing : there are some people
who are *set* to complain :-) there are some people
who are by nature worried about abuse, worried about
the power the big powerful ones have over the
"masses", upset when similar-minded people just reject
the lonely little ones. I can't help it.
And I won't stop complaining. I will just complain on
other topics perhaps.

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


body:
--- Thomas Corell <T.Corell at t-online.de> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
> > On that topic, could someone give us a query to
> list
> > "protected pages" ?
>
> SELECT cur_title,cur_restrictions,cur_namespace from
> cur where
> cur_restrictions!=''

this is the right one yes.

So, we have protected
* 1 upload log page
* 5 deletion log pages (current and history)
* Aoineko user page
* most wanted page
* FAQ administration (a mistake I guess)

> > Could someone also give me a tip how to know
> precisely
> > the list of articles in one given space (meta
> pages
> > more exactly ?)
>
> SELECT count(cur_title) from cur where
> cur_namespace=4
>
> I hope I understood your questions the right way.
> (e.g. meta -> Wikipedia:
> - namespace).

euh, no. This is the right namespace I think (334 ?)

But, this is giving the number of articles. What I
would like is the names of these pages. I think
perhaps many of them are long lost.

------

Please, I also would like a query giving me the name
of users, who have made at least n articles (say 200)
and been there for at least m months (say 3).

Thank you very much for your help smurf (isnot that
the translation of schtroumpf ?)

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Sysop nomination

body:
Karl-
> Jens Frank <JeLuF at gmx.de> writes:

>> That's easy to fix. You've proven not to be a vandal, so you can
>> become a sysop. Any objections anyone?

> No, that's not what I want ;-) Such a change would not fix the problem
> for all the other (anonymous) editors.

Ugh. Rollback ability for sysops is there to *create* an imbalance of
power, i.e. to reduce the cost for sysops to undo vandalism. Giving this
ability to everyone would defeat the whole point -- vandals could react
just as quickly as we could revert their edits. The question is: Is this
privilege likely to be abused? It's not - sysops are not allowed to engage
in edit wars any more than everyone else.

> Perhaps it's just the title
> ("sysop") I don't like.  I would agree with something called "advanced
> editor" or "senior editor", though.

That would be highly misleading. Sysops are *not* editors, they are not
responsible for moderating content, they merely deal with vandalism and
carry out the requests of the users (e.g. votes for deletion).

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Thomas Corell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert

body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:
>>Yes. But it doesn't do anything more than any user -- logged in or not
>>-- can do with three extra clicks.
> I as a regular user feel be punished.  Or say it in different words:
> it's a sad story that I cannot help fixing bad edits without three
> extra clicks.

And I (as sysop at de) can say: I'm usually faster with the 4 click method --
because reverting implies looking at the diffs, and before I start to
remember where I can find this ''rollback''-button, I start editing the
diff, which is the page I currently view.

There are exacly 3 things a sysop can do of interest:

1.) Removing an arcicle / Restoring a removed arcticle:
I think thats a good idea to restrict this function, and it is not very
important. Every reason for a deletiion can be solved by a normal user much
better by rewriting the article or extend it. It's for wikipedia a much
better solution than deleting it. That leaves misspelled titles which
should be removed - <irony>it's a great valuable add on for this supirior
sysop class</irony>

2.) Editing protected pages.
 From 35327 pages in the german Wikipedia are exactly:
  total: 16 protected

          4 log Files (File/remove)
          5 new versions of MainPage (don't ask me why - I think that's a
copy and paste error)
          1 Homepage of a sysop (don't ask me why thats protected - I
propose he found the button once;)
          2 Pages in Wikipedia-Namespace (only one of it needs the
protection IMHO)
          4 Pages in acricle-namespace, one of it the MainPage.

Thats not very much, if you remove the ''don't ask me why's'', and the log
files, I think you agree that's ok if they are protected, that's 5 (five)
pages. What a revolt for 5 pages.

3.) Database Reuests.
I need them as a developer, not for my sysop activity. And normaly there's
''developer'' as additional admin class, for this.

4.) Ban IP's.
We both agree about the value of this feature ( 0, 00 EUR).

Sorry but I realy don't see why a normal user feels punished about that.

--
Smurf

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


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Making it easier to become a sysop

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Karl Eichwalder:
>
>
>>I as a regular user feel be punished.  Or say it in
>>different words: it's a sad story that I cannot help
>>fixing bad edits without three extra clicks.
>>
>>
>
>If you want to help fix vandal edits real easy then become a sysop. Our only
>real criteria is that a person known enough not to be a vandal and isn't
>likely to abuse sysop powers. I hereby nominate you.
>
>But we cannot let any random user have this ability; Vandals /will/ use it to
>constantly revert every edit by users that show up in Recent Changes.
>
>-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>
>
I think the point that needs to be reiterated is that sysops do not have
any special status as regards editing or creating content.  More sysops
are better, and the best way to point out that ''any'' well-behaved user
can be a sysop is to make it easier to become one, and publicise this.
Perhaps we need a "how to become a sysop" page, that explains this, and
a "requests for sysop status" page where you can nominate yourself.

Neil


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Sysop nomination

body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
>
> No, that's not what I want ;-) Such a change would not fix the problem
> for all the other (anonymous) editors.  Perhaps it's just the title
> ("sysop") I don't like.  I would agree with something called "advanced
> editor" or "senior editor", though.

Well, the "sysop" is a code-word used in the DB. As well as "developer" or
"bot".

How that's called inside the Wiki depends of all those interested users, no
  reason exists not to change the 'title'. We can use e.g. 'slave' (annonym
user),  'folk' (reg. Users), 'public servant'* (sysop) etc. or something
else. Or "clueless editor", "advanced editor", "senior editor" as you seems
to prefere ;)

Don't bother about this small details.

*I miss the Translation for the german 'Arsch vom Dienst'.
--
Smurf

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


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Anthere wrote:
>>Anthere wrote:
> You just suggest that we give up some of wikipedia
> openness and very concept, just for the fear of an
> event that could very well be handled through peer
> pressure and votes for deletion.

Not at all, as (almost) anyone can become sysop.
I did not suggest "sysop only" to take some rights from the unwashed
masses, merely as a practical measure. I don't insist on that.

Suggestion: Limit creating categories to sysops for, say, two month
after installing the category system. After that, anyone can create
categories. The idea is that once we have some category scheme that
works, people will rather stick to the existing system than trying to
invent a new one, e.g. by adding a "people from Novosibirsk that made
U.S. president" ;-)

IMHO deleting categories should be resrticted, until there's an
"undelete" option. No doubt, my implementation needs work; renaming and
merging categories will be important. Easy to implement, and I
volunteer, but not until I get a "go" ;-)

> Depends. If we only provide the tool, and end users
> (such as a school) decide what is to put on the
> "censored list", only one category is necessary. If
> Wikipedia itself set the content of the "sexually
> explicit" list, I think we will need dozens of lists.
> Because clearly not everyone here will agree on what
> has to be on the list, and what has not to be.

There could also be categories for large groups, like U.S. schools. "Not
suitable for U.S. schools"? Or rather "Not Republican approved"? ;-]

> And I did not understand the filtering option had been
> decided really.

It wasn't. I just remember a few mails where Jimbo seemed to embrace the
idea of a filtering option for wikipedia.

Magnus


body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> I think the [[List of XXX topics]] categories are very useful, and
> having a pointer from the category list to the article is the natural
> way to do it: it also handles the case of making a category for a
> non-existent article.
>
> But it would also be nice to flag an article for membership in a
> category list by adding a back-link.

My implementation makes it easy to show backlinks to the (then
automated) category pages. Source is already written and in place, just
not turned on.

Suggestion: We could easily import the existing lists into my
implementation.

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Sysop nomination

body:
On Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 11:09:55AM +0200, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Jens Frank <JeLuF at gmx.de> writes:
>
> > That's easy to fix. You've proven not to be a vandal, so you can
> > become a sysop. Any objections anyone?
>
> No, that's not what I want ;-) Such a change would not fix the problem
> for all the other (anonymous) editors.  Perhaps it's just the title
> ("sysop") I don't like.  I would agree with something called "advanced
> editor" or "senior editor", though.

On irc, they are called the regulars. But whatever you call it, it has
a small touch of elitism. But I fear it has to. Some features are very
usefull, but can also be easily abused. The "regular crew" should have
a little advantage against the vandals. That's why they get some tools
the unknown user doesn't get. In the past, "move this page" was reserved
to sysops. It was found useful, and later, the possible harm  was
considered minor. So it was made available to any logged in user. Not
logged in users don't have this feature.

Reverting anything in an User's Contribution list can drive people mad.
It's a very hard thing to do. Using the revert-feature, I can undo
a whole day's work of a user in less than a minute, generating a very
high system load and lots of new versions in the database.

I think this feature should be reserved for proven non-vandals.
This could be done by a 100-edits-rule or something, but the current
agreed upon procedure is to have a four-level hierarchy:

- Not logged in:
  Can edit.
- Logged in:
  Can edit, move, make minor edits.
- Op/Regular/Senior:
  Can edit, move, make minor edits, delete, revert automatically,
  ban not logged in users.
- Developer:
  Can edit, move, make minor edits, delete, revert automatically,
  ban any user,  permanently delete, change the software and
  mess up everything to a degree I don't want to imagine.

There is a fifth attribute, "bot", that's the same as a logged
in user whose edits don't appear in recent changes.

I personally think this are enough levels. Logged in users who
have proven to be reliable shall become Op/Regular/Senior and
have all those features available. No Salami-tactic.

	JeLuF


from_name: Menchi Zh-En WP

subject: [Wikipedia-l] How to Rollback Fast?

body:
I've tried rollback process several times on my own test pages, but it is
always around 15 seconds, not 5 seconds like mav. I think I'm doing
something wrong.

* Registered: Recent Changes -> User home page -> Contribution list ->
[rollback]
* Anon: Recent Changes -> IP address (directly take you to contrib list) ->
[rollback]

This takes just the same amount of time and steps as before:

* Revision history -> Old date -> Edit this page -> Save

I think I missed something, big.

Menchi Zh-En

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


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert

body:
Thomas Corell wrote:
> And I (as sysop at de) can say: I'm usually faster with the 4 click method --
> because reverting implies looking at the diffs, and before I start to

Talking of diffs, what is your opinion about the current "(cur)
(last)" links in the history display?  Is it intuitive and productive?
It is different from the original UseModWiki (example 2, below), but
it is also different from the new UseModWiki (3, below).

For a different project (online proofreading, not wiki), I implemented
the new UseModWiki (3) based on RCS, e.g.
http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/rc.pike?action=history&src=nfch/0412

Does the current Wikipedia model (example 1, below) have any obvious
advantages over the new UseModWiki (3)?

1) Current Wikipedia, e.g.
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Shadow_government&action=history

   (cur) (last)  date .. user
   (cur) (last)  date .. user

2) Original UseModWiki, e.g.
http://hu.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=history&id=HomePage

  Version 17  View  Diff .. date by user

where View shows that version, and Diff makes a diff towards the
current version.

3) New UseModWiki, e.g.
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?action=history&id=SocialSoftware

  [_]  [_]  Version 17 .. date by user
  [_]  [_]  Version 16 .. date by user
   COMPARE

Where you mark the radio buttons for any two versions you want to
compare, and then click COMPARE.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se/


from_name: Stevertigo

body:
    "I worry about my child and the Internet all the time, even though she's
too young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry about. I worry that 10
or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you
when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?'"
    --Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation

-SM


from_name: Lee Pilich

body:
At 14:07 14/06/2003 +0200, Smurf wrote:
>>I think the point that needs to be reiterated is that sysops do not have
>>any special status as regards editing or creating content.  More sysops
>>are better, and the best way to point out that ''any'' well-behaved user
>>can be a sysop is to make it easier to become one, and publicise this.
>>Perhaps we need a "how to become a sysop" page, that explains this, and a
>>"requests for sysop status" page where you can nominate yourself.
>
>A page to nominate yourself exists e.g. in german wikipedia. You en guys
>are late ;)

I said about ten years ago that I was going to make a page on en for this,
and then didn't. I'm going to do it now before I forget again.

Lee (Camembert)


from_name: Graham Burnett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop request-Quercus robur

body:
Can I therefore also request sysop powers in order to be able to clear up
vandislm without always having to bother somebody else via the votes for
deletion page?

Cheers Graham (quercus robur)

> If you want to help fix vandal edits real easy then become a sysop. Our
only
> real criteria is that a person known enough not to be a vandal and isn't
> likely to abuse sysop powers. I hereby nominate you.
>
> But we cannot let any random user have this ability; Vandals /will/ use it
to
> constantly revert every edit by users that show up in Recent Changes.
>
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>


body:
Neil Harris wrote:

> I think the point that needs to be reiterated is that sysops do not have
> any special status as regards editing or creating content.  More sysops
> are better, and the best way to point out that ''any'' well-behaved user
> can be a sysop is to make it easier to become one, and publicise this.
> Perhaps we need a "how to become a sysop" page, that explains this, and
> a "requests for sysop status" page where you can nominate yourself.

A page to nominate yourself exists e.g. in german wikipedia. You en guys
are late ;) Oh, Karl Eichwalder is nominatate there for about a month I think.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion%3AAdministratoren

--
Smurf

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]]

body:
After much sweat and toil, I have made this page:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_adminship

I mentioned my intention to create this page some time ago, and nobody
shouted "NO! Don't do it!" so now I've finally done it.

My hope is that it will be an easier way for people to request adminship,
to comment on such requests, and to keep track of what requests have been
made and granted. I've linked it from [[Wikipedia:Administrators]], I'm
sure there are other pages it needs linking from also - I'll check for
those when I have a little more time.

[[Wikipedia:Administrators]] now reads: "If you would like sysop access,
either send an e-mail to the English Wikipedia mailing list (WikiEN-L)
giving your Wikipedia login name and requesting access or add your name to
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship." I'd like to think that eventually the
option of writing to the mailing list can be removed, but I've not done so
yet, as I don't what everybody else (particularly Erik, who I think is the
only person currently creating sysops) thinks about it.

Feel free to mess around with the wording and structure of
[[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]] and feel free to change the name to
[[Wikipedia:Being a place to enquire as to the possibility of being raised
to the status which carries that name Administrator]] or whatever you like
- I won't complain.

Lee (Camembert)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Thomas Corell wrote:
>
>>And I (as sysop at de) can say: I'm usually faster with the 4 click method --
>>because reverting implies looking at the diffs, and before I start to
> Talking of diffs, what is your opinion about the current "(cur)
> (last)" links in the history display?  Is it intuitive and productive?

I have no problem with it, if I have to look at a diff I usually need the
last diff (95% I guess). And if that do not help (don't shows what i'm
looking for) I go 'down'. Comparing three version before with current
version, may be interessting, but I can't remember used it. But there are
others working diffrent than me, I'm sure about that. If there is the
possibiity, it will be used.

First impression I got about comparing Wikipedia to the new UseModWiki, was
that the radio buttons would look well in the 'cologe blue'
skin(wikipedia), the current Wikipedia (cur) model fits better in the
standart skin. Thats only a 'style' think, nothing to do with funcionality,
becouse the radio buttons look a bit more 'modern'.

>
> Does the current Wikipedia model (example 1, below) have any obvious
> advantages over the new UseModWiki (3)?

No realy advantages, IMHO. What I realy think about as a problem, are these
long 'lines'. I only get diffs for a complete paragraph and have to look
for an change like 'forx' -> 'for' in an paragraph with 20 lines, thats
usually stupid work.

--
Smurf

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


from_name: Ilya N.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Problems with redirects

body:
I've been having problems with redirecting a wiki

I put this text:

#REDIRECT [[turn-based gaming]]

this text gives me:

1. REDIRECT turn-based gaming
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-based_gaming>

can someone please help me?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030614/8c319e98/attachment.htm


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems with redirects

body:
I've been having problems with redirecting a wiki

I put this text:

#REDIRECT [[turn-based gaming]]

this text gives me:

1. REDIRECT turn-based gaming
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-based_gaming>

can someone please help me?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20030614/8c319e98/attachment.htm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop request-Quercus robur

body:
At 13:55 14/06/2003 +0100, Graham (quercusrober) wrote:
>Can I therefore also request sysop powers in order to be able to clear up
>vandislm without always having to bother somebody else via the votes for
>deletion page?
>
>Cheers Graham (quercus robur)

I'll second Graham - he'll be a great sysop.

I'll also add him to [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]] - now we've got
it, it may as well be used.

Lee (Camembert)


body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
>Good.  Let's remove the rollback feature
>completely, it looks dangerous.  Yes, that's
>meant seriously by me.

That's not going to happen. Rollback is a very useful tool and before it cam
along fighting vandals was a difficult task. If you want to help fight
vandals the easy way then become an Admin. Oh, and before Rollback there were
far many more IPs that were blocked and the rollback is the only effective
means to fight logged-in vandals.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Zoe

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Admins: Revert

body:
--- Karl Eichwalder <ke at gnu.franken.de> wrote:
> "Menchi Zh-En WP" <ebeins at hotmail.com> writes:
> It's impossible to "ban" users and it is not wise
> trying to do so
> nevertheless.
>
> Problems usually vanish once you stop imposing
> power.

Realy?  What problems have vanished under this
technique?  Please cite examples.

Zoe

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


body:
Anthere wrote:
> --- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
>>Suggestion: Limit creating categories to sysops for,
>>say, two month
>>after installing the category system.
>
> The time to set things clear. Yes. That is an option.
> But the names and types of categories should be
> decided together.

The decision for the (initial) categories should be made by all
wikipedians. Limiting the actual creation to sysops is only to prevent
someone from enforcing his POV by just going ahead and implementing it.
(Uhh... bad trap ;-)

> But imho, no deletion should be possible without an
> undeletion

Deleting is for test purposes at the moment. No problem turning it off.

> But I think there are two things quite different that
> could be set with your proposition. Better management
> of lists and filtering. These are conceptually very
> different.

They are. All I propose is to use the same technical system for making
them possible.

A future sifter system (which will come, I have no doubt) will be based
on the wikipedia software, and it will have categories and filters as a
standard, that I have no doubt. How we use it at wikipedia (completely,
not at all, filters but no categories etc.) is another decision.

Magnus


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop request-Quercus robur

body:
--- Graham Burnett <grahamburnett at blueyonder.co.uk>
wrote:
> Can I therefore also request sysop powers in order
> to be able to clear up
> vandislm without always having to bother somebody
> else via the votes for
> deletion page?
>
> Cheers Graham (quercus robur)

I second Quercus's nomination as a sysop.

Zoe

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


body:
--- Karl Eichwalder <ke at gnu.franken.de> wrote:

> Good.  Let's remove the rollback feature completely,
> it looks
> dangerous.  Yes, that's meant seriously by me.

That's ridiculous.  If you don't want to use it, don't
use it, but there's no need to remove something that
other people use frequently.

Zoe

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


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
Brion sarcastically wrote:
>Wow! Just like article titles. Maybe we should let only
>sysops name  articles, then everyone else can fill in
>the information.
>
>But, they might repeat information or organize it badly.
>Better to let sysops define the structure of the article,
>then everyone else can fill in the bodies of the
>paragraphs.

I was proposing a voting scheme so why the straw man? I know and accept we are
a wiki but do we allow the wiki process to drive our software developement?
Isn't forming relations in a database that a SORT command could operate on
more of a software thing? Wiki is not a panacea and we are treding into
uncharted waters - I'm not aware of another wiki implementing a category
scheme successfully. Are you?

Either way, I am not advocating a "sysop-only" system on top of some broad
staring categories - at least until we establish a framework for how a
category system will work. Once that is set-up and working well, then we can
consider whether or not it is wise to open up the floodgates and let people
make weird little sub-categories the wiki-way.

>Having category aliases (just like redirects) and letting
>categories include other categories would make this
>"problem" moot.

Perhaps - so long as we have an RC that can be effectively managed. Of the
3000 edits made a day on en.wiki I review about 1000. Most people review far
less and only at certain times of the day. There is great potential for
categories to become nearly as numerous as articles real fast. That will
clutter the articles (or their meta namespace) and not represent an effective
way for people to sort articles.

>I am very strongly against a category scheme that
>is limited or sysops-only. I *want* my obscure sub-categories.

I've ALREADY stated that I want to just start small, at the top level, then
phase-in voting to increase the number of categories and THEN consider
opening it up further. Please do not mischaracterize what I stated - I DID
NOT say that this would be something limited to only sysops. Voting includes
everyone who is interested.

Also, how is anybody else going to know what the categories are? Person A
creates a bunch of really obscure sub-categories for a time. Then moves onto
other things. Not knowing about the work of person A, person B creates a
bunch more very similar sub-categories in a similar area. Now there two very
similar categories. Then person C does a sort based on person A's
subcategories (assuming person C could guess what those might be).

This could get out of hand if we do not first devise a way for us to find out
what different categories are. Different people will categorize things in
different ways and soon nobody will be able to remember what syntax they used
for a category. This happens all the time in badly created databases; Bay
Area Rapid Transit, Bay Area Rapid Transit District, BART, bartd are all the
same thing in the real world but to the database they are each different.

Category redirects would help here but before that we would have to establish
naming conventions to minimize duplicates in the first place and maybe a flag
on RC to indicate that somebody just categorized an article. Then there needs
to be a centralized place for all categories to reside so they can be
mangaged there.

How such a system would work needs to be made clear and we need people who are
familiar with how the system works so that they can effectively manage such a
system. A phased approach is needed - that is all.

This is adding a great deal of complexity to what we already have and exposes
many non-database-oriented people to the complexities of database design so
pardon me if I'm a bit weary about us just jumping-in head first on this.

KQ has already expressed many reservations about the ugly filtering issues
that a category scheme raises. I'm just trying to make sure that if such a
system were established that we do it right and minimize negative
side-effects.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


body:
Anthere wrote:

> On that topic, could someone give us a query to list
> "protected pages" ?

SELECT cur_title,cur_restrictions,cur_namespace from cur where
cur_restrictions!=''

> Could someone also give me a tip how to know precisely
> the list of articles in one given space (meta pages
> more exactly ?)

SELECT count(cur_title) from cur where cur_namespace=4

I hope I understood your questions the right way. (e.g. meta -> Wikipedia:
- namespace).
--
Smurf

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


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
At 12:52 AM 6/14/2003, you wrote:
>Bullshit. I can accept that American schools may not indoctrinate
>a religion to their pupils. But that they may not even mention
>religion is stupid. Saying "There are people who believe in divine
>beings. Jews, Christians and Moslems believe in only one God while
>Hindus believe in many Gods" is just facts. Schools shouldn't have
>a problem with the neutral presentation of facts.

Well, as I recall, they don't. I went to public school in California, and
there was no ban on the mention of religion.

>If an article isn't neutral, it has to be refactored. But not
>censored. What about the "free speech" principle so many of you
>have defended? In an American's eye it is OK to say "No Jews
>have been gased during WWII" but you may not say "There are
>people believing in a divine being" ??

Well, you certainly can't say, in schools, that no Jews were gassed in
WWII. And since you can say /either/ in a general setting, and either would
be protected by freedom of speech, I'm not certain that your point here is
on target.

>I have been working in some school projects as a technical tutor,
>and I learned that pupils should not be confronted with the Internet
>without the supervision of a teacher. No matter how good your
>content filter might be, pupils find a way to content not supposed
>for youngsters.
>
>Don't censor wikipedia. It's the responsibility of the teacher to
>do so.
>
>Regards,
>
>
>         JeLuF

I agree with you here. First of all, filtering and censoring just plain
doesn't work. People will always be able to get around them, usually
without much trouble. Second of all, I agree that it is the responsibility
of those concerned with what children might see to undertake the filtering
and censoring. As an encyclopedia for a wide audience (i.e., not just
children) we must allow parent/teachers/clergy to undertake whatever acts
that they see fit to "protect" their charges from the content on Wikipedia.

I also think that any attempt to block the Wikipedia (on the part of local
schools, for example) would only serve to help the project as the negative
publicity that would likely be generated would probably force the school to
unblock Wikipedia and garner us a good deal of free press in the process.

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

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop request-Quercus robur

body:
At 03:20 PM 6/14/2003, you wrote:

>--- Graham Burnett <grahamburnett at blueyonder.co.uk>
>wrote:
> > Can I therefore also request sysop powers in order
> > to be able to clear up
> > vandislm without always having to bother somebody
> > else via the votes for
> > deletion page?
> >
> > Cheers Graham (quercus robur)
>
>I second Quercus's nomination as a sysop.
>
>Zoe

I third it.

-----
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


from_name: Geoffrey Thomas

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
JeLuF saith:
>On Fri, Jun 13, 2003 at 08:56:30PM -0700, Geoffrey Thomas wrote:
>> I normally wouldn't say this, because I am quite Christian myself,
>> but I agree we need a 'pedia with NO religion entries, except for
>> historical articles on the religion as one would find in a history
>> textbook, and in the same vein NO explicit topics, or anything of
>> that sort - we should have a separate, school-topics-only Wiki
>> encyclopedia for use at schools or other filtered environments.
>
>B*******. I can accept that American schools may not indoctrinate
>a religion to their pupils. But that they may not even mention
>religion is stupid. Saying "There are people who believe in divine
>beings. Jews, Christians and Moslems believe in only one God while
>Hindus believe in many Gods" is just facts. Schools shouldn't have
>a problem with the neutral presentation of facts.

Yes. I said, "except for historical articles on the religion[, such]
as one might find in a history textbook". This is just for basic
content. But even though we _may_ mention religion, do we _need_ to?
I'm thinking on the lines of a science-and-math-topics 'pedia -
religious articles, despite their legality, wouldn't be relevant.

>If an article isn't neutral, it has to be refactored. But not
>censored. What about the "free speech" principle so many of you
>have defended? In an American's eye it is OK to say "No Jews
>have been gased during WWII" but you may not say "There are
>people believing in a divine being" ??

Apparently so. Free speech, though constitutionally guaranteed,
is not practically guaranteed - just look at the [[Dixie Chicks]]
after they said something unfortunate.

We're not looking at _legal_ constraints (the Wikipedia is
perfectly legal) - we're just looking at what would schools have
problem with on the Wikipedia. Profanity is perfectly "legal" -
but that's the first target of filtering software.

>I have been working in some school projects as a technical tutor,
>and I learned that pupils should not be confronted with the Internet
>without the supervision of a teacher. No matter how good your
>content filter might be, pupils find a way to content not supposed
>for youngsters.

They don't understand that yet. Remember, they're politicians whose
job is to make it _look_ like something's being done, not actually
_do_ something.

>Don't censor wikipedia. It's the responsibility of the teacher to
>do so.
>
>Regards,
>
>	JeLuF

And if the teacher or school board nukes the whole thing? I'm thinking
based on the axiom _someone's_ going to censor the Wikipedia. We have
the ability to do it ourselves - filter the main site, fork to a filter,
fork a filtered version, etc. The schools don't have as much control
over censoring as we do, and they'll no doubt choose false positives
(even if there are false negatives they haven't found yet).

Also, Stevertigo saith:
>OF the two choices - a split portal system to the same DB - or an endless
>serious of mindnumbing "alternatives" to the REAL DEAL - then what the hell
>do you think is going to happen?

A split portal system. I wrote my message before I saw that possibility.
It's much superior to a complete article fork.

Just, can we have a few articles forked, e.g., [[Anagram]] which contains
some questionable examples?

-[[User:Geoffrey]] Thomas

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


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

body:
Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com> writes:

> I basically never used the rolled back feature. I prefer to check the
> content first.

Good.  Let's remove the rollback feature completely, it looks
dangerous.  Yes, that's meant seriously by me.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |    _-\_<,
ke at suse.de (work) / keichwa at gmx.net (home)               |   (*)/'(*)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Sysop nomination

references:
<Pine.GSO.4.33.0306131540490.23234-100000@aludra.usc.edu>
	<shhe6t5pna.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de> <3EEA98B7.5080406@pobox.com>
	<sh7k7p5hw1.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>
	<20030614083620.GW5102@jeluf.mine.nu>
	<shhe6t3tzw.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>
	<20030614104533.GX5102@jeluf.mine.nu>

body:
Jens Frank <JeLuF at gmx.de> writes:

> - Not logged in:
>   Can edit.
> - Logged in:
>   Can edit, move, make minor edits.
> - Op/Regular/Senior:
>   Can edit, move, make minor edits, delete, revert automatically,
>   ban not logged in users.
> - Developer:
>   Can edit, move, make minor edits, delete, revert automatically,
>   ban any user,  permanently delete, change the software and
>   mess up everything to a degree I don't want to imagine.
>
> There is a fifth attribute, "bot", that's the same as a logged
> in user whose edits don't appear in recent changes.

Thanks for the overview!  And there is the direct SQL access, AFAIK.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |    _-\_<,
ke at suse.de (work) / keichwa at gmx.net (home)               |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

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

Geoffrey Thomas wrote:
| Apparently so. Free speech, though constitutionally guaranteed,
| is not practically guaranteed - just look at the [[Dixie Chicks]]
| after they said something unfortunate.

Wow!  I hadn't heard that the Federal government punished them.  What
was their sentence?

</sarcasm>  Here's a clue for any products of the American public
education industry: the Bill of Rights is a list of things the
/government/ is not allowed to do.  It says /nothing whatsoever/ about
what individuals may or may not do.  I can tell you to shut up if I want
to, I can choose to not buy your CD if I want to, and if I am a business
owner, I can decline to do business with you.  None of those actions is
an infringement of your right to free speech.  What happened to the
Dixie Chicks was the free market in action, not government censorship.

| And if the teacher or school board nukes the whole thing? I'm thinking
| based on the axiom _someone's_ going to censor the Wikipedia.

You're right, and when they do, it will be a /good/ thing.  We can then
laugh and point and shout, "Hah hah, look at the asinine school board!
They're so stupid, they're censoring an /encyclopedia/!"

The only force observed to regularly get school boards to change what
passes for their minds is public ridicule.  I would be /delighted/ if a
school board censored the Wikipedia, and the more false positives we can
mock them for, the better.

- --
~ Sean Barrett     | Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in
~ sean at epoptic.com | rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQE+68kxv/8xpnvE6M8RAtt4AJ0RPKvfIEfS/yMkDWBI0Ln5eKhY9wCgoz+o
dOFmTyvlOQpj9bhwtyCHHJU=
=eGcI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

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

Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
| At 06:17 PM 6/14/03 -0700, Sean Barrett wrote:
|
|> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
|> Hash: SHA1
|>
|> Geoffrey Thomas wrote:
|> | Apparently so. Free speech, though constitutionally guaranteed,
|> | is not practically guaranteed - just look at the [[Dixie Chicks]]
|> | after they said something unfortunate.
|>
|> Wow!  I hadn't heard that the Federal government punished them.  What
|> was their sentence?
|>
|> </sarcasm>  Here's a clue for any products of the American public
|> education industry: the Bill of Rights is a list of things the
|> /government/ is not allowed to do.  It says /nothing whatsoever/ about
|> what individuals may or may not do.
|
|
| In your eagerness to make a point, you may have overlooked that you
| are the only person to mention the Bill of Rights in this context.

I did not overlook the mention of "constitutional guarantee[s]" in the
message I replied to.  The Bill of Rights is the part of the
Constitution that discusses "free speech."

| If the result of my stating position X is that large corporation Y takes
| actions that cost me large amounts of money, when said corporation
| has no business reason for doing so, *that is retaliation*. Being
| legal doesn't make it right, and doesn't mean it's not an attempt to
| prevent me--or the Dixie Chicks--from promoting that position.

In your opinion, it is not right.  In my opinion, it is both right and
/vastly/ superior to any alternative I can think of.  Do you really
think that people should be forced at gunpoint to host the Chicks and to
buy their CDs whether they want to or not?

- --
~ Sean Barrett     | Aperientur oculi vestri et eritis
~ sean at epoptic.com | sicut dii scientes bonum et malum.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQE+69Ghv/8xpnvE6M8RAud/AJ45rsJeusoBmbkz3Jk8cHHcShrt7QCeOgCq
KMk+F1l41YXw7v59zUW3iB0=
=4LJI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
Sean Barrett wrote in large part:

>Geoffrey Thomas wrote:

>>Apparently so. Free speech, though constitutionally guaranteed,
>>is not practically guaranteed - just look at the [[Dixie Chicks]]
>>after they said something unfortunate.

>Here's a clue for any products of the American public
>education industry: the Bill of Rights is a list of things the
>/government/ is not allowed to do.  It says /nothing whatsoever/ about
>what individuals may or may not do.  I can tell you to shut up if I want
>to, I can choose to not buy your CD if I want to, and if I am a business
>owner, I can decline to do business with you.  None of those actions is
>an infringement of your right to free speech.  What happened to the
>Dixie Chicks was the free market in action, not government censorship.

Certainly it was not *government* censorship --
and therefore it didn't violate the US Constitution --
but there was censorship by private institutions
(such as Clear Channel IIRC).

>The only force observed to regularly get school boards to change what
>passes for their minds is public ridicule.  I would be /delighted/ if a
>school board censored the Wikipedia, and the more false positives we can
>mock them for, the better.

Witness the public ridicule of the Kansas State Board of Education
when they removed evolution from the guidelines for science teaching --
not forbidding it, not mandating creationism, just taking it off the list.
The board members that came up for reelection next were voted out,
and the next board undid the change.

What evidence do we have that /any/ school might ban Wikipedia?
Somebody made a reference to our already being blocked somewhere;
did anybody follow that up and see if they would remove the ban?
(?We've decided that the block was in error and have removed it.?
seems to be a common response when sites speak up about these things).
Have any of the schoolkids on the mailing list (there are 2, right?)
asked their schools if they think that Wikipedia is acceptable?
(One should probably ask in a neutral way, of course:
?Do you think that <http://www.wikipedia.org/> is a safe website??,
not ?Do you think that <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felching>
is a safe webpage??.)

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Russian Wiki Sandbox

body:
Can a sysop please move the russian wiki sandbox from the name:

Wiki Sandbox

to

RuWikipedia:Sandbox (Or something like that)

Also, I noticed many int'l pages aren't [[Wikipedia:Blah Blah]] they're
just [[Blah Blah]]

so maybe these pages should be converted to RuWikipedia or PolWikipedia
or NedWikipedia FrWikipedia, etc.

Am I posting this on the right list?


subject: [WikiEN-l] psts not coming

body:
I'm not getting the posts from the mailing list, I have it set to single
emails, and I've turned mail delivery on...


subject: [Wikipedia-l] psts not coming


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Problems with Redirecting

body:
Look at the URL, is there a "redirect=no" at the end of it?
Then you are looking at a page where redirection is disabled.
You need this view to be able to edit the redirect once it is
in place.

	JeLuF

so what do I do to fix it?

-- Ilyanep


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Making it easier to become a sysop

body:
I posted a request earlier, and nobody replied

The thing is that I'd /love/ to help wikipedia in the way that sysops
can, but I never can, and if you look at my personal user contributions,
you'll see I'm not a vandal, rather a helper in all categories
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20030614/ee75e330/attachment.htm


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Do we need a new logo contest?

body:
I like the sunflower logo, and as tarquin said, it'd be nice to change
it sometimes including the earth and the eclipse, maybe a calendar on
new year's or stuff like that.

Erik makes some good points, and I stand by him


from_name: Zeno Gantner

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Possible cause of slowdowns: saving pages with
	lotsa links

body:
Am Fre, 2003-06-13 um 20.50 schrieb Axel Boldt:
> During times when Wikipedia otherwise responds promptly, saving a
> modification to [[List of mathematical topics]] takes upwards of five
> minutes, and during that time other Wikipedia searches often also
> block. (Please do *not* try it out, take my word for it.)
>
> The page contains about 4,300 links, used to keep track of changes in
> the math area with the "Related Changes" feature.

Today I experienced similar behaviour when editing the German
"Pages needing attention" ("Wikipedia:Artikel, die Aufmerksamkeit
brauchen") page, which contains lots of links (did not count them,
but maybe 500 or more).

After hitting the submit button, Wikipedia was not reachable for
minutes - at least for me - the "Recent changes" page says the next
change after this happened two minutes later.

Just before that, I edited a page with only about 100 links, and
got immediate feedback from the system

regards,
    Zeno

--
Zeno Gantner <zg at zenogantner.de>


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> What evidence do we have that /any/ school might ban
> Wikipedia?
> Somebody made a reference to our already being
> blocked somewhere;
> did anybody follow that up and see if they would
> remove the ban?
> (?We've decided that the block was in error and have
> removed it.?
> seems to be a common response when sites speak up
> about these things).
> Have any of the schoolkids on the mailing list
> (there are 2, right?)
> asked their schools if they think that Wikipedia is
> acceptable?
> (One should probably ask in a neutral way, of
> course:
> ?Do you think that <http://www.wikipedia.org/> is a
> safe website??,
> not ?Do you think that
> <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felching>
> is a safe webpage??.)
>
>
> -- Toby

Currently, Wikipedia isn't blocked in my school. If I
mentioned it, that would open up an inquiry that might
lead to its banning. I don't want to do that.
-LDan

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
--- Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> The only force observed to regularly get school
> boards to change what
> passes for their minds is public ridicule.  I would
> be /delighted/ if a
> school board censored the Wikipedia, and the more
> false positives we can
> mock them for, the better.
>
> - --
> ~ Sean Barrett     | Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi
> similes in
> ~ sean at epoptic.com | rupibus ventosissimis
> exponebantur ad necem.

You can't think in that frame of mind. If Wikipedia
were banned in school, than many kids (at least two,
we know that for sure) will loose a valuable source of
information in the short term.
-LDan

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
--- Geoffrey Thomas <geoffreyerffoeg at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Yes. I said, "except for historical articles on the
> religion[, such]
> as one might find in a history textbook". This is
> just for basic
> content. But even though we _may_ mention religion,
> do we _need_ to?
> I'm thinking on the lines of a
> science-and-math-topics 'pedia -
> religious articles, despite their legality, wouldn't
> be relevant.

No, I think all subjects should be covered, unless
there is considerable resistance to their subject
matter. Why only cover science and math when we can
cover almost everything and still get it to schools?

> A split portal system. I wrote my message before I
> saw that possibility.
> It's much superior to a complete article fork.
>
> Just, can we have a few articles forked, e.g.,
> [[Anagram]] which contains
> some questionable examples?
>
> -[[User:Geoffrey]] Thomas

I agree, it would be a good idea to fork some
articles. For example, articles such as
[[homosexuality]] should be written about, but not
with as much, uh, detail.
--LDan

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


from_name: Richard Grevers

body:
On 14 Jun 2003 07:21:00 +0200, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> gave
utterance to the following:

> I'd like to know if I'm alone in being quite tired of the current
> Wikipedia logo (as used on en: and most of the non-English pedias). There
>
> are several things I do not like about it:
>
5) The logo contains the words "carnal pleasure" which may cause some
people to want to ban Wikipedia ;-)

--
Richard Grevers
File not found - I'll load something *I* think is interesting.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
--- Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com>

> I also think that any attempt to block the Wikipedia
> (on the part of local
> schools, for example) would only serve to help the
> project as the negative
> publicity that would likely be generated would
> probably force the school to
> unblock Wikipedia and garner us a good deal of free
> press in the process.
>
> -----
> Dante Alighieri

Well, how much is that publicity worth? Is it worth
Wikipedia's being banned for a few years?
--LDan

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


body:
--- Stevertigo <stevertigo at attbi.com> wrote:
>     "I worry about my child and the Internet all the
> time, even though she's
> too young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry
> about. I worry that 10
> or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say
> 'Daddy, where were you
> when they took freedom of the press away from the
> Internet?'"
>     --Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation
>
> -SM

That comment was irrelavent. The proposed filtering
system would be ''optional''.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Problems with redirects

body:
--- "Ilya N." <ilyanep at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I've been having problems with redirecting a wiki
>
>
> I put this text:
>
> #REDIRECT [[turn-based gaming]]
>
> this text gives me:
>
> 1. REDIRECT turn-based gaming
> <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-based_gaming>
>
>
>
> can someone please help me?
>

That's what it's supposed to do. Now, if something
links to it, it will go to turn based gaming. There is
an option on the URL that says something like
'redirect=no' (without the quotes). If you remove
this, it will go properly.

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


body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> LittleDan wrote:
>
> >Toby Bartels wrote:
>
> >>If Edupedia follows the model that Sifter was
> planning on,
> >>the main database would remain in one place, at
> Wikipedia.
> >>Any separate Edupedia database would only have to
> specify
> >>which Wikipedia pages (and maybe which versions)
> >>are included in the various categories that it
> supports.
> >>To some extent, a <www.edupedia.org> domain
> >>will necessitate a separate web interface,
> >>but of course it could be very similar to
> Wikipedia's.
> >>The bulk of the data, in any case, would be
> together.
>
> >Jimbo already said (I think) that he would be
> willing
> >to host a project like edupedia. And we certainly
> >can't have the reviewing and viewing on the same
> >domain, because that would defeat the purpose.
> Plus,
> >edupedia wouldn't follow the same model at all.
> We'd
> >actually make a blacklist, not a whitelist like
> >sifter. That's kinda a non-sequetor, though.
>
> I don't think that the colour of the list
> is a great difference in principle,
> although you're right that it's not quite the same.
> I'm not sure what you mean by "reviewing and
> viewing".
> The sifters that review Wikipedia content for
> Edupedia
> would need special permissions on Edupedia to do
> this;
> ordinary users could see only the accepted content
> (that is those pages that weren't blacklisted),
> unless they switch over to the other site,
> Wikipedia.
> Ordinary users of Edupedia might also edit
> Wikipedia,
> by editing Edupedia, which would send the results to
> Wikipedia.
> (But they couldn't edit a blacklisted page.)
>
>
> -- Toby

I was thinking that people would edit the category on
Wikipedia (they could manually choose their blocking
settings, protected by a seperate password for
parents)  and edupedia would have the categories all
blocked by default (unless the categories included
unobjectionable material) with no changing of this
with accounts. The categories could only be edited on
Wikiedia, not edupedia, so no permissions would be
required.
-LDan

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


from_name: Nick Reinking

subject: [Wikitech-l] layout and stylesheet

body:
On Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 10:44:41PM +0100, tarquin wrote:
> Someone posted a really nice new layout some time ago -- what's the
> status on that?
> Does it need more work before it's ready? I'm happy to help, I have some
> free time at the moment. My only problem, still, is getting CVS access.
> (anyone have the link?)

Are you referring to this:
http://twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html

I still like it a lot, but I think it is more geared towards the average
editor, and not the average reader.  Still, I'd love to see it on the
Wikipedia site.  :)

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

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

Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
| --- Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
|>The only force observed to regularly get school boards to change what
|>passes for their minds is public ridicule.  I would be /delighted/ if a
|>school board censored the Wikipedia, and the more false positives we can
|>mock them for, the better.
|>
|
| You can't think in that frame of mind. If Wikipedia
| were banned in school, than many kids (at least two,
| we know that for sure) will loose a valuable source of
| information in the short term.
| -LDan

I am genuinely sorry that you might be inconvenienced, Li'l Dan, but I
can and do think in that frame of mind.  Quite a few kids have managed
to graduate from various sorts of educational establishments without the
benefit of Wikipedia.  If a few more have to struggle along for a few
years only being able to access it from home, I consider it a trivial
price to pay for improving the system over the long term.

To give you context: I have a five-year-old who is entering formal
school this fall.  Her future is my frame of mind.  If the current
victims of the government schools must continue to do without something
they have never had before for a little while longer to give her a
better future, I -- quite selfishly -- say "so be it."

- --
~ Sean Barrett     | Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in
~ sean at epoptic.com | rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQE+6/Vxv/8xpnvE6M8RAj+lAKC1RsSX4aAZhRjh2EMlwFpd6ujFmgCcDGfr
0gwTyuTKxoQgi9Rdx/cRtQQ=
=bvRO
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: James D. Forrester

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Sysop nomination

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

On Saturday, 14th June, 2003, Erik Moeller wrote:

> Karl-

[Snip]

> > Perhaps it's just the title ("sysop") I don't like.  I would agree with
> > something called "advanced editor" or "senior editor", though.
>
> That would be highly misleading. Sysops are *not* editors, they are not
> responsible for moderating content,

Agreed. And the semantics of the word are apparent from the explanations
already available on the Wikipedia; changing it because people can get confused
would set a precedent for leading the Wikipedia into the ground with name
changes - this is, after all, English, the language with (perhaps?) the widest
vocabulary of all. Why stop with 'sysop', when we could change other words,
such as 'developer' - doesn't this give connotations of people developing
articles to you?

> they merely deal with vandalism and carry out the requests of the users
> (e.g. votes for deletion).

Indeed. I think, given that they 'operate' the anti-vandalism 'system', we
should concatenate the two terms, so that they should be called, err, 'system
operators'. Oh, wait...

[Snip]

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

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 8.0

iQA/AwUBPuuFqpJ95FMWcicdEQJMUQCdHZUDru+lGRAbDdRYCu1Ujl0qxksAn2M4
An6ibN5ILYbsRTdupXNyiJqv
=9+SY
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How to Rollback Fast?

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

On Saturday, 14th June, 2003, at 21:20, Menchi Zh-En WP wrote:

[Snip]

The speedy roll-back is a sys-op only command at this time. And should remain so, IMHO.

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

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 8.0

iQA/AwUBPuuGCZJ95FMWcicdEQIzIgCeJdAGdkWuaOix+x0oRSNmt9xY/PEAn2Kc
uPz2NTv/086xVcJadolC1t8/
=HDAG
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems with redirects

body:
On Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 02:30:29PM -0500, Ilya N. wrote:
> I've been having problems with redirecting a wiki
>
>
> I put this text:
>
> #REDIRECT [[turn-based gaming]]
>
> this text gives me:
>
> 1. REDIRECT turn-based gaming
> <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-based_gaming>
>
>
>
> can someone please help me?

Look at the URL, is there a "redirect=no" at the end of it?
Then you are looking at a page where redirection is disabled.
You need this view to be able to edit the redirect once it is
in place.

	JeLuF


from_name: Thomas Corell

body:
Anthere wrote:
>
>>SELECT count(cur_title) from cur where
>>cur_namespace=4
>>

> euh, no. This is the right namespace I think (334 ?)

4 is Wikipedia (the others you can find in Language??.php)

> But, this is giving the number of articles. What I
> would like is the names of these pages. I think
> perhaps many of them are long lost.

Sorry I missed that. This should help you:

select cur_title from cur where cur_namespace=4 order by cur_title

> Please, I also would like a query giving me the name
> of users, who have made at least n articles (say 200)
> and been there for at least m months (say 3).

That's usually not possible, because simple sysops don't have the right to
read these values (user_touched), thats a matter of data security and privacy.

Which articles do you mean with "have made at least n articles"? New ones,
edited ones?

> Thank you very much for your help smurf (isnot that
> the translation of schtroumpf ?)

Whatever "schtroumpf " means *puzzle*. It's the english translation of the
german word "Schlumpf" and here is an example picture:

http://www.weltderkobolde.de/PapaschlumpfmitBuch.html (Wikipedia compatible
version of me ;)

--
Smurf

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


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
At 06:17 PM 6/14/03 -0700, Sean Barrett wrote:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Geoffrey Thomas wrote:
>| Apparently so. Free speech, though constitutionally guaranteed,
>| is not practically guaranteed - just look at the [[Dixie Chicks]]
>| after they said something unfortunate.
>
>Wow!  I hadn't heard that the Federal government punished them.  What
>was their sentence?
>
></sarcasm>  Here's a clue for any products of the American public
>education industry: the Bill of Rights is a list of things the
>/government/ is not allowed to do.  It says /nothing whatsoever/ about
>what individuals may or may not do.

In your eagerness to make a point, you may have overlooked that you
are the only person to mention the Bill of Rights in this context.

If the result of my stating position X is that large corporation Y takes
actions that cost me large amounts of money, when said corporation
has no business reason for doing so, *that is retaliation*. Being
legal doesn't make it right, and doesn't mean it's not an attempt to
prevent me--or the Dixie Chicks--from promoting that position.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Lee-
> After much sweat and toil, I have made this page:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_adminship

I can live with that, but since you started the page, I'd like to ask you
to continue to add sysop nominations from the mailing list to that page,
so I don't have to check two places.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Karl-
> Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com> writes:

>> I basically never used the rolled back feature. I prefer to check the
>> content first.

> Good.  Let's remove the rollback feature completely

No.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quercusrobor is a sysop

body:
This is the last time I will send a sysop announcement to the mailing
list, in the future, the page "Requests for adminship" will be updated
instead. Quercusrobor is a sysop, as per his own request and several
approvals.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How to Rollback Fast?

body:
Menchi-
> I think I missed something, big.

Rollback is for mass rollbacks, now for individual reverts. If a user is
an annoying vandal, you go to his contributions page and just rollback all
changes that are still "top". To revert the latest changes, just do a
reload and do that again. This is very efficient.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How to Rollback Fast?

body:
Typo:
> Menchi-
>> I think I missed something, big.

> Rollback is for mass rollbacks, now
                                  ^
                                  NOT

Erik


from_name: tarquin

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>I'd like to know if I'm alone in being quite tired of the current
>Wikipedia logo (as used on en: and most of the non-English pedias). There
>are several things I do not like about it:
>
>
>
Further problems with the current logo:
* the French pedia has a completely different logo, which (AFAIK) came
out of some crossed wires
* there are flag variants of it, such as the Danish pedia. We've agreed
elsewhere that languages should NOT be identified with flags of countries.

>- a flower or planet within a pair of double square brackets.
>
>

I REALLY like the sunflower and brackets!!!!!

I would be tempted to suggest we sometimes switch the circular object
inside the brackets (like Google plays with its logo too).
Switch to a planet earth from time to time, or an eclipsed sun when
there is a solar eclipse occurring.
(avoid things that represent cultural / religious festivals though ... )

It would be great if at any time EVERY pedia displayed the same logo!


subject: [Wikitech-l] layout and stylesheet

body:
I recently bookmarked Wikipedia at my local library. They have brand new
terminals with TFT screens. The resolution is fairly low.

Sadly, the main page of Wikipedia suffers from several big problems

* it's overloaded. There is too much going on and no clear indication of
what can be ignored and what must be read
* the page title comes nearly halfway down the screen. The newcomer just
sees a lot of "scary" links and form elements before any sort of content.

Compared to, say, a Certain Non-Free Encyclopedia Beginning With B...
well, we suck. Show them both to the average library-visitor who just
wants to look something up -- he'll go for the Britt.

Someone posted a really nice new layout some time ago -- what's the
status on that?
Does it need more work before it's ready? I'm happy to help, I have some
free time at the moment. My only problem, still, is getting CVS access.
(anyone have the link?)

I think we need to consider moving most of the top bar stuff down to the
sidebar. (for example, like the streamlining I did here:
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/ )

Of course, the fact that the language links are at the top is a key
argument in favour of keeping the status quo regarding the multilingual
portal. (ie, peopel who don't read english see their language
immediately). And so the Domino rally of committee debate rolls on...

-- tarquin


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Oh, there it is. Stupid me. Thanks to whoever made this (wasn't me,
unless Alzheimer's coming sooner than expected...)

Magnus

Brion Vibber wrote:
> Isn't it defined in maintenance/build-intl-wiki.sql?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Sysop nomination

body:
Kurt Jansson wrote:

>
> I already proposed "caretaker" or "plumber" on the German list, but
> nobody responded. Maybe someone else can come up with a nice name
> which is associated with physical work (that is a burden and not joyful).
>
>
garbage-handler ;)

... since we clean up the trash!


body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> Oh, there it is. Stupid me. Thanks to whoever made this (wasn't me,
> unless Alzheimer's coming sooner than expected...)

It did. I ran the thing and it blew access to all non-en databases :-(

Trying to fix it now...

Magnus


from_name: Luc Van Oostenryck

subject: [Wikitech-l] fr: is down

body:
Hi lister,

fr.wikipedia.org is down since a few minutes.
I receive isystematicaly the following message for all pages:
Warning: mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES) in /usr/local/apache/htdocs-fr/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on line 28
Connexion impossible ? la base de donn?es sur 127.0.0.1

Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES)

If this error persists after reloading and clearing your browser cache, please notify the Wikipedia developers.

--
Luc Van Oostenryck aka [[User:Looxix]] & [[fr:Utilisateur:Looxix]]


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Sysop nomination

body:
Erik Moeller schrieb:
> Karl-
>
>>Perhaps it's just the title
>>("sysop") I don't like.  I would agree with something called "advanced
>>editor" or "senior editor", though.
>
> That would be highly misleading. Sysops are *not* editors, they are not
> responsible for moderating content, they merely deal with vandalism and
> carry out the requests of the users (e.g. votes for deletion).

I already proposed "caretaker" or "plumber" on the German list, but
nobody responded. Maybe someone else can come up with a nice name which
is associated with physical work (that is a burden and not joyful).

Kurt


from_name: Lee Pilich

body:
At 21:45 14/06/2003 +0200, Erik wrote:
>Lee-
> > After much sweat and toil, I have made this page:
> > http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_adminship
>
>I can live with that, but since you started the page, I'd like to ask you
>to continue to add sysop nominations from the mailing list to that page,
>so I don't have to check two places.

No problem. If you're going to be checking that page, then we can get rid
of the instruction on [[Wikipedia:Administrators]] to email the list anyway.

Lee (Camembert)


subject: [Wikitech-l] fr: is down

body:
Appears to be an accident when running an old script. Sorry. I'm trying,
but no luck so far.

Magnus

Luc Van Oostenryck wrote:
> Hi lister,
>
> fr.wikipedia.org is down since a few minutes.
> I receive isystematicaly the following message for all pages:
> Warning: mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES) in /usr/local/apache/htdocs-fr/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on line 28
> Connexion impossible ? la base de donn?es sur 127.0.0.1
>
> Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES)
>
> If this error persists after reloading and clearing your browser cache, please notify the Wikipedia developers.
>
>


body:
Magnus-
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>> Oh, there it is. Stupid me. Thanks to whoever made this (wasn't me,
>> unless Alzheimer's coming sooner than expected...)

> It did. I ran the thing and it blew access to all non-en databases :-(

> Trying to fix it now...

Take your time. En: is damn fast right now, it's almost fun to use ;->

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] de-Wikuipedia is down, too

body:
This is the message I receive (and yes, I cleared my browser cache ;-):

Warning: mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Access denied for
user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES) in
/usr/local/apache/htdocs-de/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on line 28
Konnte keine Verbindung zur Datenbank auf 127.0.0.1 herstellen

Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using
password: YES)

If this error persists after reloading and clearing your browser cache,
please notify the Wikipedia developers.

--
Zeno Gantner <zg at zenogantner.de>


subject: [Wikitech-l] fr: is down

body:
On Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 11:43:31PM +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:
> Appears to be an accident when running an old script. Sorry. I'm trying,
> but no luck so far.
>
> Magnus
>

OK, thanks for the info.

--
Luc Van Oostenryck aka User:Looxix & fr:Utilisateur:Looxix


subject: [Wikitech-l] Content-encoding: gzip

body:
On Thu, Jun 12, 2003 at 11:02:37PM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
> - We could offer either as default or as an option to compress
> dynamically generated pages as well, which could shave some more
> percentage points off the bandwidth usage. Might be a help for the modem
> folks who do log in. :)  However I'm not sure how much this would affect
> CPU usage; in any case there's no urgency for this, it's just something
> we might do if we have the cycles to burn (I don't think we do just now,
> but we might one day).
>
Modem people have hardware compression in their analog modems. ISDN
people might benefit, since they normally don't have link compression.

	JeLuF


subject: [Wikitech-l] fr: is down

body:
On Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 11:43:31PM +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:
> Appears to be an accident when running an old script. Sorry. I'm trying,
> but no luck so far.
>
> Magnus
>

OK it seems to work now.
Thanks a lot.

--
Luc Van Oostenryck aka User:Looxix & fr:Utilisateur:Looxix


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: de-Wikuipedia is down, too

body:
I now found out that only the pages "Hauptseite" (''main page'') and
"Letzte ?nderungen" (''recent changes'') do not work.

best regards,
   Zeno

Am Sam, 2003-06-14 um 23.48 schrieb Zeno Gantner:
> This is the message I receive (and yes, I cleared my browser cache ;-):
>
> Warning: mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Access denied for
> user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES) in
> /usr/local/apache/htdocs-de/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on line 28
> Konnte keine Verbindung zur Datenbank auf 127.0.0.1 herstellen
>
> Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using
> password: YES)
>
> If this error persists after reloading and clearing your browser cache,
> please notify the Wikipedia developers.
--
Zeno Gantner <zg at zenogantner.de>


body:
On Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 08:06:00AM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> Syntax likes and dislikes aside, I'd be interested in what you think about
> such a system.
>

Since I proposed something similar (with a completely different syntax) in
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-May/010141.html
and
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-May/010168.html ,
you can count me as a proponent.

	JeLuF


body:
On Sat, 14 Jun 2003 13:37:04 +0100, Lee Pilich <pilich at btopenworld.com>
gave utterance to the following:

> At 14:07 14/06/2003 +0200, Smurf wrote:
>>
>> A page to nominate yourself exists e.g. in german wikipedia. You en guys
>> are late ;)
>
> I said about ten years ago that I was going to make a page on en for
> this, and then didn't. I'm going to do it now before I forget again.

I've told you a thousand times, Lee, don't exaggerate! :-)

--
Richard Grevers
File not found - I'll load something *I* think is interesting.


subject: [Wikitech-l] layout and stylesheet

body:
tarquin-
> * it's overloaded. There is too much going on and no clear indication of
> what can be ignored and what must be read

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and a wiki. As such, we have to find the
right balance between making Wikipedia easy to read for non-contributors,
and making it easy to use for contributors. I think our current balance is
pretty good already. Britannica.com does not have to inform its readers
that they can participate, and it does not have to provide the tools
(navigational structure) for doing so. It is also English only. If
Britannica was like Wikipedia, it would probably look a lot like us ;-)

I like UnrealWiki's design, but I do not like the way the wiki elements of
it are fairly hidden at the bottom of each page. This would be
unacceptable for Wikipedia IMHO.

One thing we should do is make the interlanguage link bar smaller, maybe
also reduce the font size of all navigational elements. But I do not think
any radical changes are in order. Your library should get higher
resolution screens, though. Complex webpages always tend to look somewhat
sucky on low resolutions.

> Compared to, say, a Certain Non-Free Encyclopedia Beginning With B...
> well, we suck.

I do not agree. I could write a whole essay about the suckage factors on
Britannica's frontpage.

1) text as images
2) fixed width design
3) unzoomable mini illustrations
4) "buy stuff" links all over the place
5) too many full sentences instead of short, descriptive links
6) redundancy: "browse" shows what's already on the frontpage
7) very few links directly to articles

...
312) no "edit this page" link ;-)

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
At 08:22 PM 6/14/2003, you wrote:
>--- Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com>
>
> > I also think that any attempt to block the Wikipedia
> > (on the part of local
> > schools, for example) would only serve to help the
> > project as the negative
> > publicity that would likely be generated would
> > probably force the school to
> > unblock Wikipedia and garner us a good deal of free
> > press in the process.
> >
> > -----
> > Dante Alighieri
>
>Well, how much is that publicity worth? Is it worth
>Wikipedia's being banned for a few years?
>--LDan

Well, I was thinking a few days or weeks. Surely you can hold off on
editing articles for that long. ;)

-----
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


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stallman on fair use

body:
Regarding RMS's statement that fair use materials do not pose a problem
in GFDL works, it would be good to know if he was aware or made aware
of the fact that what counts as fair use for one user in one context
may not count as fair use for some other use in some other context.

Axel

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


from_name: sannse

body:
Ilya N. wrote:

> I posted a request earlier, and nobody replied
>
> The thing is that I'd /love/ to help wikipedia in the way that sysops
> can, but I never can, and if you look at my personal user contributions,
> you'll see I'm not a vandal, rather a helper in all categories
>

This was possibly because your post was to the wrong mailing list
(Wikipedia-l rather than WikiEN-l) so it wasn't clear /which/ Wikipedia you
were interested in being a sysop for.

But anyway, I've added your name to [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]]

sannse

(p.s. to all, this isn't a seconding - I don't know Ilya's work well
enough - different time zones)


body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> We could avoid most of the hassle of HTML tables with a relatively
> simple template system. The user of a template would just have to
> enter key/value pairs and the software would do the rest.

Yes, that would be nice.

> <Template:Country table>
> Flag:: [[Image:Flag_germany.jpg]]
> Coat of arms:: [[Image:Coat_of_arms_Germany.jpg]]
> Language:: German
> President:: Johannes Rau
> ...
> </template>

I think a single colon looks a bit simpler and should be sufficient
here, if you require the whole variable text to be in one line. Or
alternatively you could use XML style arguments.

Axel

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] layout and stylesheet

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>tarquin-
>
>
>>* it's overloaded. There is too much going on and no clear indication of
>>what can be ignored and what must be read
>>
>>
>
>Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and a wiki. As such, we have to find the
>right balance between making Wikipedia easy to read for non-contributors,
>and making it easy to use for contributors. I think our current balance is
>pretty good already.
>
we already have the ability to choose different skins.
so the default skin could maybe be "lighter".
my main concern is the height stuff before the title, and also the fact
that it looks very messy.
by all means let's keep the current skin available as an option!

> Britannica.com does not have to inform its readers
>that they can participate, and it does not have to provide the tools
>(navigational structure) for doing so. It is also English only. If
>Britannica was like Wikipedia, it would probably look a lot like us ;-)
>
>I like UnrealWiki's design, but I do not like the way the wiki elements of
>it are fairly hidden at the bottom of each page. This would be
>unacceptable for Wikipedia IMHO.
>
Agreed -- that's a left-over from the UseModWIki design.

 > Are you referring to this:

http://twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html

Yup!
Actually, I'd forgotten you'd put the language links down the side already.