from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] icp reply agent

body:
Hey,

I've written an ICP responder, that would help a lot in squid-apache web server cluster balancing. It does delay requests to frontend caches at high loads, sends immediate responses at idle cpu capacity and might be remotely turned on or off at emergencies. Right now due to Linux kernel scheduler granularity it works at 0/10/20/..ms steps, therefore it does not achieve my design goals (milisecond-level delays), but still, it works with superior functionality, and does not need hacked squids installed on apaches.

Source location
CVS:extensions/icpagent
wm:~midom/extensions/icpagent

Docs: http://wp.wikidev.net/ICP_agent

Cheers,
Domas


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Categories indexed for largest wikipedias

body:
Erik Zachte wrote:

>I created category trees from the Dec 30 2004 dumps for the largest
>wikipedias (en/de/ja/fr/pl/nl)
>
>
Very interesting! I take it the article counts are simple sums
of cat and subcats, and don't account for an article appearing
in several subcategories?

Stan


list: wikien-l

from_name: Charles Podles

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Silverback autoblock needs to be manually removed,
	it should have expired 6 minutes ago

body:
On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 00:25:47 +0100, Jens Ropers <ropers at ropersonline.com> wrote:
> WITHOUT commenting on the Silverback affair per se, would it maybe be a
> good idea to notify every temp-blocked user of the current technical
> issues as regards unblocking?
>
> I'm just thinking that telling people in advance that, yes there's a
> known problem, no it's not meant to humiliate them, yes it does affect
> everybody who's currently getting blocked -- that extra bit of info may
> reassure folks a bit and might just prevent some peeps from going over
> the edge.
>
> Or is that already being done?
>
> -- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
>      www.ropersonline.com

Good idea. I've added a note to the block message
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Blockedtext ) explaining the
current problem.

--Charles P. ([[en:User:Mirv]])


list: foundation-l

from_name: j kuma

subject: [Foundation-l] External Link with RTSP?

body:
Hi,

Is there a way to create external links like,
rtsp://www.example.com/media.rm?  http, ftp, and
mailto seem to work, but not rtsp.  Is there a file I
can edit to enable this?

Thank you for your help.

Jim K.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo!
http://my.yahoo.com


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] External Link with RTSP?


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Seperate list to discuss issues related to
	languages

body:
Mark Williamson a ?crit:
> Gerard, this list actually existed previously.
>
> Assuming people like Jimbo, Anthere, and Angela would be subscribed to
> it, I don't see why important issues couldn't be discussed on it.

Hi Node.

I was definitly an activist in the *disappearance* of intl-l.
I would be most displeased to see it appear again.

However, if you convince enough people to restore it, that is fine by
me. I am not sure I will read it very often though, and am not convinced
at all I will be able to see the results of discussion over there as
consensus because I do not expect many people to join it.

Generally, when lists are splitted too much, it results either in
* people not joining many lists, hence missing discussions. Unhappiness
resulting from decisions taken by too small a group of people
* or people cc their mails to two or more lists, as they are not sure
they reach all the good people by sending the mail to only one list.
This confusion leads to the multiplication of mails.

The best I would recommand is to keep the number of lists low, and to
use gmane to read your mail instead than receiving it in your mail box.
Anyone not interested in a discussion thread can easily avoid reading
the whole thread.

My opinion.

Anthere

> People who are interested in contributing to a consensus are welcome
> to join, obviously. If they don't, that's their choice, as is the case
> with any consensus reached at Wikipedia.
>
> So if there is a consensus on intlwiki-l and it isn't opposed by the
> board, I don't see what's wrong with it having effect on real issues
> (ie, splitting Wikis, merging Wikis, script conversion, new language
> Wikis, problems arising in interlanguage situations).
>
> If you are concerned that you won't be a part of this consensus, then
> you are welcome to join this list (if it is in fact created).
>
> The purpose of this isn't to create some place where everybody will
> agree with me (on the contrary, there are quite a few people who would
> definitely be interested in the list that probably wouldn't agree with
> my opinion a lot of the time), but rather to solve the problem of
> people getting e-mails that they don't want.
>
> Mark
>
> On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 01:18:27 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>>Mark,
>>On the one hand I favour the idea of a seperate mailing list about
>>languages and all the huha that goes with it. It would mean that some
>>people could talk to each other endlessly. FINE.
>>
>>However, however much is discussed there, what does it amount to except
>>for things having been discussed on this list. What do you expect that a
>>"consensus" reached on this list means outside of this list ?? The
>>wikipedia-l is about issues that transcend the concerns of any
>>particular wikipedia project and therefore things NOT discussed on this
>>mailinglist and/or on META do not have enough exposure to amount to
>>something that signify a relevant and adequate consensus.
>>
>>So, have this list if you must but do consider its worth.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>   GerardM
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: A creole translation

body:
Pascale a ?crit:

> Linguistic shoes that creole are languages witrh specific structures and
> you know all  romanian langauges are "creolisation" of the latin
> language. So all, thes arguments can be evaluate with an historical and
> scientifical position. The issue is politic or not. But there is no
> troubles with R?unionnais in the French area. I am positive.

Dieu merci, je commen?ais ? avoir quelques inqui?tudes ? lire cet
?change. Bienvenue parmi nous Pascale :-)

Anthere


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] icp reply agent

body:
On Jan 3, 2005, at 8:28 AM, Domas Mituzas wrote:
> I've written an ICP responder, that would help a lot in squid-apache
> web server cluster balancing. It does delay requests to frontend
> caches at high loads, sends immediate responses at idle cpu capacity
> and might be remotely turned on or off at emergencies. Right now due
> to Linux kernel scheduler granularity it works at 0/10/20/..ms steps,
> therefore it does not achieve my design goals (milisecond-level
> delays), but still, it works with superior functionality, and does not
> need hacked squids installed on apaches.

Cool... I tried it out for a few minutes while we were playing with
slow things. Haven't really got comprehensive stats; I think the
capping of high load is more or less working, but at the low-end load
we still have a great deal of unevenness as the minimum network delay
results in bad distribution.

Also there was a bit where it kind of freaked out, but this may have
been a restart or something.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikitech-l] source || books

body:
On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 13:53:34 +0530, shantanu oak <shantanu.oak at gmail.com> wrote:

> Will all the languages at wikisource get their own
> sub-domains?

Currently, there appears to be a lack of support within the Wikisource
community for this. Please see the discussion and vote at
http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium/Language_domain_proposal

Angela.


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How to join the cabal

body:
TOP SECRET MEMO TO JIMBO:

I have reliable information that an over-zealous Australian is about
to launch a coup to gain control of the wikimedia cabal (and hence all
international commerce, and politics). I am told that he goes by the
code name of Ta bu shi da yu (which may well contain demonic anagrams,
several super-computers from wikimedia's secret service are currently
working on the problem). I attach a letter i recently intercepted
where he goes so far as to claim that control is all ready his; this
suggests that he believes a sizable number of editors will join him in
his rebellion.

[[User:The bellman]] (leader of the Ministerium f?r Staatssicherheit)

On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 00:35:48 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au
<csherlock at ljh.com.au> wrote:
> Gentlemen.
>
> As the leader of the Cabal, I must ask you to all shut up because you
> are ruining it for the rest of us!
>
> Ta bu shi da yu

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


from_name: Jens Ropers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Query admin powers

references:
<c36bd2f905010309071b3529c3@mail.gmail.com>
	<BDFECC29.A253%fredbaud@ctelco.net>
	<550ccb8205010309507ab57b3f@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Nas, Fred et al.:

To my mind the disagreement at hand is mostly rooted in mutual
misunderstanding rather than anything else.

* It occurs to me that Fred merely meant to say that this is an
imperfect world: While preferential treatment for well-known figures or
"old pals" may be unjust, it is also very human for people to on
balance lean towards committing such errors -- that's just how humans
tend to behave and Wikipedia isn't immune against it. That being a
given, it  might turn out to be wise and/or useful to not be overly
insistent on one's rights, but instead to voluntarily sit down in a
lower room than one's rank would actually warrant because good things
will happen to people who thus understate their position (cf. Bible,
NT, Luke 14:8). Also, while a claimant may have justice on their side,
loud screaming and complaining may -- in this imperfect world --
neither help their cause (however just) nor necessarily make them lots
of friends.

* On the other hand, if Nas feels that favoritism is unacceptable as a
matter of principle and ought to be vigorously opposed on all fronts,
then I am very sympathetic towards that view as well.

Meanwhile, the [[Gough Whitlam]] article has been unprotected and Peter
has indicated his willingness to talk. I think the matter is closed on
that front.
As for resolving the remaining (IMHO) misunderstanding, maybe we can
all agree on this:

1. Favoritism isn't nice, and if it takes place within Wikipedia that
isn't nice either.
2. We should continue to uphold comeback mechanisms such as this
mailing list, which will help to ensure favoritism won't get out of
hand if it occurs.
3. If an affected person themselves (despite their right to insist on
equal treatment) is happy to voluntarily take a backhanded approach and
give an admin who may have overstepped their authority slightly a
chance to realize their error and gracefully mend their ways, then
that's all the better.
4. It's ok to informally tell someone about the utility of taking the
backhanded approach.
5. No one should ''order'' anyone to do take this approach though, as
such would be tantamount to confirming and codifying injustice.
6. Care should be taken to avoid a friendly hint about the utility of
taking the backhanded approach to wrongly come across as an order to
put up and shut up.

Sounds fair?

Oh, and Peter -- about your uncanny observation:

On 3 Jan 2005, at 18:50, Skyring wrote:
> an all-in brawl was being
> waged over the clitoris article, of all things! I hadn't imagined that
> there could be much dispute over such a thing, but there it is. As I
> hastily scurried away from the battlefield it seemed to me that all of
> the contestants were male, which perhaps says a great deal about the
> level of debate. Perhaps, as Murphy Brown once suggested, the
> participants could drop their pants, measure themselves against a
> plastic ruler, and sort out arguments that way.
>
> Which brings me back to rankism, I guess!

Well, in a word, --- BRAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHA! LOL! ROTFL! (heh! pant!) ;-D

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com

PS: Err, Peter: Which ''measurement'' are we talking? "Flaccid" or
"fully armed"? I think I used to have a plastic ruler there
somewhere... Note to self: Must respond to one of them offers in me
inbox. Want to get a good score. Anything worth doing's worth doing
well.


from_name: Edward Peschko

subject: [Wikitech-l] licensing issues, BSD doc license vs GNU

body:
hey all,

I've been looking (cross-eyed) at the number of different licensing
schemes out there for my wiki (or series of wikis, based off of mediawiki),
and have pretty much narrowed it down to two:

    1) GNU Free Documentation License
    2) Free BSD Documentation License

My primary intent for my wiki is to use it as a springboard for others
to either cite in publications up-to and/or including text passages,
as long as acknowlegment of this fact is given in the printed or non-printed
work.

Both seem to fit the bill pretty well, but the GNU FDL seems to have a
lot more 'strings attached' which I'm not particularly fond of - but
on the other hand, wikipedia itself uses the GNU FDL, so the following
questions come to mind. If I used the FreeBSD documentation license:

    1) would I be able to encorporate GNU FDL content as long as
       citations were given?

    2) would this prevent said wiki being eventually merged with
       mediawiki (under, say wikibooks, or in its own category)?

I see that at 'http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html' they
list the Free BSD license as 'compatible' with the GPL, but I'm
not exactly sure what that means...

Ed


from_name: Dori

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising Drive, January 2005

body:
I don't think it would be a good idea to have a fundraising drive so
close to the tsunami disaster (not likely to be successful or seen in
a good light due to the visibility of Wikipedia articles on it)

--
[[en:User:Dori]]


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bot status

body:
On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 12:56:19 +0100, BRIOSCHI Elfrida Consultant
<Elfrida.BRIOSCHI at consultant.vodafoneomnitel.it> wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm urgently searching someone who can give to the it.wiki user
> [[Utente:ZeroBot]] the bot status.
> Anyone can help me?
> Thanks,
> Frieda
Read and follow the instructions at [[Wikipedia:Bots]], or the
equivalent for whatever language Wikipedia you wish to run it on.

--Slowking Man


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Query admin powers

body:
As stated on my user page, I'm not much of a one for writing new
articles, but I like to hunt down and correct errors. And to update
articles where new facts come to light.

Over recent days Cabinet documents relating to the 1974 Whitlam
government in Australia have been released under the 30-year rule, and
as much of the material is relevant to and sheds new light on Gough
Whitlam's actions at the time, I turned to the Gough Whitlam article.

Amongst other things, I noted that the article itself was heavily
biased towards a partisan point of view. One of the many areas that
needed correcting was the mention of the Patrick Field affair, where
the Labor Party's nominee for a casual Seante vacancy caused by a
death in office was rejected by the Country Party Queensland State
Premier in favour of a Labor member who was strongly critical of
Whitlam, an event which had far-reaching consequences in Australian
political history.

As I have numerous relevant texts ready to hand, I checked a few facts
and rewrote the paragraph, removing obviously partisan statements for
which I could find no source, and adding factual material. I made a
note on the discussion page explaining my actions and citing my main
source.

Soon afterwards, user AdamCarr reverted my edit to the previous
partisan version. He responded on the discussion page with a list of
points which I rebutted, citing exact sources and noting that many of
his claims were incorrect. He admitted that he could not currently
check his statements. I asked that he refrain from reverting my edits
until he could either provide sources or give others a chance to
comment.

Shortly after this, PMelvilleAustin again reverted my changes and
protected the article, stating on the discussion page that AdamCarr
and I should come to an agreement. As AdamCarr himself points out he
is on holiday overseas and unable to cite his sources. Other editors
are presumably available to discuss and edit the article until a
consensus is reached, but as the article is now protected, they are
unable to participate in the normal Wiki fashion.

PMelvilleAustin seems to be using his admin powers to prevent edits to
an article in which he is personally involved, and which should be
available for modification in the light of the recent release of
pertinent cabinet documents.

--
Peter in Canberra


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal for Wikikids

body:
On 3 Jan 2005, at 20:31, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Achim Raschka wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I want to start a new Wikiproject called Wikikids.
>> (...)
>
> One major problem that is not mentioned, is how do you know when
> someone is between 8 and 16 years old, except when they tell you.  I
> am long past 16, but what's to prevent me from saying that I qualify.
> How can this be reconciled with the right to edit anonymously, which
> is one of the important features of a wiki.
>
> Ec

Yea.
Plus, there's the danger of pedophiles happily (ab)using such a place
as a grooming ground.
It's bad enough that Wikipedia had to face past (or still ongoing?)
onslaughts by POV crusading pedophiles seeking to sneak their sexually
deviant views into the mainstream. Or am I too paranoid and
pessimistic?

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal for Wikikids


from_name: Magosányi Árpád

subject: [Foundation-l] Forking the Wiki

body:
A levelez?m azt hiszi, hogy Ray Saintonge a k?vetkez?eket ?rta:
> Magos?nyi ?rp?d wrote:
> >>
> >I cannot see what should be the difference between words in wikipedia and
> >wiktionary beyond that wiktionary should have links to other words in
> >other languages, which can easily put into wikipedia in a
> >non-obstructive manner.
> >
> The difference is between what the words mean and the stories
> surrounding them.  For a dictionary writer it is enough guide a person
> to describe and document how that word might be used in writing.

False assumption. You won't be able to use a word properly until you
learn exactly what it means. And there are no two words which have
the exact same meaning in any language. What you traditionally put
into a dictionary and into a lexicon is just specific aspects of
the same word, same idea. (The problem is actually worse because one word
labels more ideas, sometimes very distinct ones.)

Separating these different views so far away makes exploring it more
difficult. I think that ideas should be described in the whole wikimedia
in a way which makes easy to wander through them in the same way as we
process ideas in our brain. We don't know much about the latter, but
it would be fruitful if we would use the information we do have.

> If we
> approach a hot-button word like "terrorist" we would offer a definition,
> and show how it would have been used by various authors, but we would
> have no need to attach that label to anybody.  This allows us to look at
> the word more objectively.  We don't need to get into an NPOV battle
> over it.

I haven't yet found myself in a wikipedian NPOV battle, but I guess they
are about just some aspects of an entry, involving a few sentences.
If it would be about some dictionary example of the use of word
"terrorist", one side would use it as "Bush is a terrorist", the other
would use it as "Bin Laden is a terrorist", and I could still figure
out how to use this world to label someone as a terrorist. (And would
agree with both sides;)

I see only one potential problem by presenting all the relevant aspects
as one entry: volume of information. But this could be handled easily
by presenting it in a well thought-out manner.

But I can make a long list of problems arising because disconnectedness.

> >Think about yourself. If you are asked to instruct, you will instruct.
> >If you are asked for information, you will give it. If you are using a
> >word, you will be aware a lot of concepts attached to that word:
> >other ideas, events, pieces of art, quotations, forms of it in another
> >languages, etc.
> >
> Precisely so.  Words have denotations (specific dictionary meanings) and
> connotations (supplementary impressions that are as much derived from
> their context).  Words like "miserly" and "frugal" have very similar
> denotations but their connotations are worlds apart.  When we look at
> specific contexts, the word as a tool of the writer can easily be
> overwhelmed.
[]

> If I wanted to write in Hungarian I would at
> least need to refer back to the Hungarian Wiktionary to learn the
> difference; this would also be the case of I were translating material
> from Hungarian.  Translating by just using a dictionary can give some
> strange results.

I think this supports my POV.

> A "dog" in English can also mean an "andiron", and it
> could very well seem strange for a Hungarian to find a "kutya" sitting
> in a fireplace holding up logs.   In any event, a person who wants to
> know about the word "dog" may not be particularly interested in such
> things as its biological history or about how it is used to herd sheep
> in Scotland, or about children being killed by vicious breeds of dog.
> These ideas are more suited to an encyclopedia.

But if the person interested can easily find the interesting aspect,
and when it proves to be too scant, can refer to the whole, this is
much better than what we have now.

> On Arthur Conan Doyle, I was disappointed that the person who began that
> project on Wiktionary went away before he could take it further.

I was just referring to his book "The Hound of the Baskervilles",
because its title contains a dog. Did not know about such project
on Wiktionary (I am a newbie here), but you made me curious.

> >Our favourite wiki have never taken an art or literature class.
> >If it did, it would have a lot of asociations on each Wikisource items.
> >Also, when I have taken high school, our math, physics and chemistry
> >classes have been built upon each other. If they had been Wiki pages,
> >there would have been a lot of references.
> >
> This is all very fine, but what it comes down to is much work.  As
> valuable as these references may be it still takes someone to do the
> work of creating all those links.  If each one is to be checked properly
> the work will be very slow.

Such a work would be of great value.

And now think about references between different wikies, like
wiktionary, wikispecies and wikipedia. As the current structure
encourages disconnectednes, such work now is not just slow;
it is _impossible_: the number of disconnectednesses grow larger
than the reconnections.

--
GNU GPL: csak tiszta forr?sb?l


subject: [Foundation-l] Forking the Wiki


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wikitech-l] source || books

body:
Hi,

Le Monday 3 January 2005 20:37, Angela a ?crit :
> On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 13:53:34 +0530, shantanu oak <shantanu.oak at gmail.com>
wrote:
> > Will all the languages at wikisource get their own
> > sub-domains?
>
> Currently, there appears to be a lack of support within the Wikisource
> community for this. Please see the discussion and vote at
> http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium/Language_domain_proposal

On Wiktionary and Wikibooks, I?supported the idea to create subdomains for
each language. However I don't think this is a good idea for Wikisource.
There is no overlap of article title in Wikisource like in other projects.

In Greek: http://wikisource.org/wiki/?????
In English: http://wikisource.org/wiki/The_Iliad
In French: http://wikisource.org/wiki/L'Iliade

Moreover I?want to have all documents, whatever the language, in one project.
With the new localised interface, most of the arguments for subdomains are
gone. Now you can read the Rigveda in Sanskrit or the Iliad in Greek with the
language interface of your choice.

> Angela.

Regards,
Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms - Project
	Has Been Around For A While

body:
Having references at the end of every article may give the apperance
of being more credible.

However, many sources I might quote might have incorrect information,
or could be fabricated.

Many people seem to feel more comfortable with print media and seem to
think that if it's in print, it must be true, but in reality you
shouldn't trust print articles and books anymore than you trust their
Internet counterparts.

Mark

On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 23:43:45 -0500 (EST), Shaun MacPherson
<shaun_macpherson2001 at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> Sorry I forgot to invite you all to use
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check)
> as an area for us to discuss this issue.  The
> Wikitechs will beat you there now ;).
>
> Shaun MacPherson
>
>  --- Shaun MacPherson <shaun_macpherson2001 at yahoo.ca>
> wrote:
> > Larry Sanger believes that the solution to make
> > Wikipedia more credible are with experts.  You can
> > see
> > a good article descriping his criticisms here (
> >
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/03/144207&tid=95&tid=1
> > ) posted on Jan 3, 2004.
> >
> > I think the easiest way to make Wikipedia more
> > credible is with a Fact and Reference Project, which
> > the community has been developing over a period of
> > more than a few months now: (
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check
> > ).
> >
> > The thing holding this project back, and ultimately
> > Wikipedia from sheading the skin of being
> > 'noncredible' is the lack of intelligent foot/end
> > notes.  A way to format an article with
> > autonumbering
> > endnotes for crossreferencing is lacking.  I am sure
> > with this feature programmed in this project can be
> > on
> > its way to cross referencing all facts on Wikipedia.
> >
> > You can see some examples offoot/endnote formatting
> > template here.  JesseW has put much effort into
> > trying
> > to create a formating guide here (
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes )
> > and
> > another guide here (
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cite_sources
> > ).
> >  Examples are here (
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check/Example_2/
> > ).
> >
> > How credible will Wikipedia be if each fact is
> > crossreferenced with 5, 10, 20 external sources like
> > academic journals, encyclopedias, books? Very.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> ______________________________________________________________________
> >
> > Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Achim Raschka

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal for Wikikids

body:
Hello again

>One major problem that is not mentioned, is how do you know when someone
>is between 8 and 16 years old, except when they tell you.  I am long
>past 16, but what's to prevent me from saying that I qualify.  How can
>this be reconciled with the right to edit anonymously, which is one of
>the important features of a wiki.
>
>Ec

I really don?t see this problem. adults should work in that Wiki but they
don?t have to get the control of it, that?s the point. There is no problem
if some adults write articles for the project. You will always have the
problem of Trolls and other folk, but I think it can be managed if enough
"normal" users will control the Wiki. In my opinion it?s easier to handle
than the NPOV-problem in Winkinews or the non-scientitific systematics in
Wikispecies (sorry, I?m phylogenist).

>Yea.
>Plus, there's the danger of pedophiles happily (ab)using such a place
>as a grooming ground.
>It's bad enough that Wikipedia had to face past (or still ongoing?)
>onslaughts by POV crusading pedophiles seeking to sneak their sexually
>deviant views into the mainstream. Or am I too paranoid and
>pessimistic?
>
>-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
>      www.ropersonline.com

I think, this way to look at the project ist too paranoid, but you?re right
if you say we need a mechanism to handle the chance of sexual and perverse
stuff. I think, there are great differences in how to handle in the
different languages so germans normally are very liberal with Sex. There
has to be a discussion about the problem and there has to be a result to
handle it, but I don?t see that it isn?t to handle. Maybe I?m too optimistic?

Greetings
Achim aka Necrophorus


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal for Wikikids


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Wikipedia-l] EasyTimeline charts indexed for all wikipedias

body:
I created an index of all EasyTimeline charts that have been produced so
far:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TimelinesIndex.htm

The index and wikipedia specific files are generated by the weekly stats
job.
All charts, images and code, are listed here.

If you haven't tried EasyTimeline yet:
It does take a while to get used to the syntax, and creating a new chart
from scratch may be a bit of a puzzle at first, but extending, correcting
and translating existing charts is really simple, hence the name.

For most purposes you can now find a suitable example as a starting point,
copy and modify.

Erik Zachte


from_name: Roman Maurer

body:
Erik Zachte pravi:

> If you haven't tried EasyTimeline yet:
> It does take a while to get used to the syntax, and creating a new chart
> from scratch may be a bit of a puzzle at first, but extending, correcting
> and translating existing charts is really simple, hence the name.

Is it possible to use non-Latin-1 (ie. Unicode) characters in those
charts?  Without this feature, unfortunately, this is not useful for
many Wikipedias.
--
	Pozdrav,
	  Roman


from_name: Shaun MacPherson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms - Project Has
	Been Around For A While

body:
Larry Sanger believes that the solution to make
Wikipedia more credible are with experts.  You can see
a good article descriping his criticisms here (
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/03/144207&tid=95&tid=1
) posted on Jan 3, 2004.

I think the easiest way to make Wikipedia more
credible is with a Fact and Reference Project, which
the community has been developing over a period of
more than a few months now: (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check
).

The thing holding this project back, and ultimately
Wikipedia from sheading the skin of being
'noncredible' is the lack of intelligent foot/end
notes.  A way to format an article with autonumbering
endnotes for crossreferencing is lacking.  I am sure
with this feature programmed in this project can be on
its way to cross referencing all facts on Wikipedia.
You can see some examples offoot/endnote formatting
template here.  JesseW has put much effort into trying
to create a formating guide here (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes ) and
another guide here (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cite_sources ).
 Examples are here (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check/Example_2/
).

How credible will Wikipedia be if each fact is
crossreferenced with 5, 10, 20 external sources like
academic journals, encyclopedias, books? Very.

______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca


subject:
[Wikitech-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms - Project Has
	Been Around For A While

body:
Larry Sanger believes that the solution to make
Wikipedia more credible are with experts.  You can see
a good article descriping his criticisms here (
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/03/144207&tid=95&tid=1
) posted on Jan 3, 2004.

I think the easiest way to make Wikipedia more
credible is with a Fact and Reference Project, which
the community has been developing over a period of
more than a few months now: (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check
).

The thing holding this project back, and ultimately
Wikipedia from sheading the skin of being
'noncredible' is the lack of intelligent foot/end
notes.  A way to format an article with autonumbering
endnotes for crossreferencing is lacking.  I am sure
with this feature programmed in this project can be on
its way to cross referencing all facts on Wikipedia.
You can see some examples offoot/endnote formatting
template here.  JesseW has put much effort into trying
to create a formating guide here (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes ) and
another guide here (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cite_sources ).
 Examples are here (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check/Example_2/
).

How credible will Wikipedia be if each fact is
crossreferenced with 5, 10, 20 external sources like
academic journals, encyclopedias, books? Very.

Please feel welcome to use
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check)
as an area for us to discuss this issue.

Shaun MacPherson

______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca


body:
I created category trees from the Dec 30 2004 dumps for the largest
wikipedias (en/de/ja/fr/pl/nl)

You'll find them at http://eza.gemm.nl/index.html#Categories
Beware. Some of the files are huge!

Each category is listed along its shortest path to the top of the hierarchy.
Other branches that contain this category link back to there.

Circular references are detected and listed at the bottom of the page.
E.g. 'Travel > Tourism > Travel'

Separate trees exist because some categories are not categorized themselves
(or were not at Dec 30).

I might generate these trees for all wikipedias as part of the weekly stats
job, after the database changes are over (Mediawiki 1.5), which will involve
major maintenance on the stats scripts anyway.

Erik Zachte


body:
Sorry I forgot to invite you all to use
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check)
as an area for us to discuss this issue.  The
Wikitechs will beat you there now ;).

Shaun MacPherson

 --- Shaun MacPherson <shaun_macpherson2001 at yahoo.ca>
wrote:
> Larry Sanger believes that the solution to make
> Wikipedia more credible are with experts.  You can
> see
> a good article descriping his criticisms here (
>
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/03/144207&tid=95&tid=1
> ) posted on Jan 3, 2004.
>
> I think the easiest way to make Wikipedia more
> credible is with a Fact and Reference Project, which
> the community has been developing over a period of
> more than a few months now: (
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check
> ).
>
> The thing holding this project back, and ultimately
> Wikipedia from sheading the skin of being
> 'noncredible' is the lack of intelligent foot/end
> notes.  A way to format an article with
> autonumbering
> endnotes for crossreferencing is lacking.  I am sure
> with this feature programmed in this project can be
> on
> its way to cross referencing all facts on Wikipedia.
>
> You can see some examples offoot/endnote formatting
> template here.  JesseW has put much effort into
> trying
> to create a formating guide here (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes )
> and
> another guide here (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cite_sources
> ).
>  Examples are here (
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check/Example_2/
> ).
>
> How credible will Wikipedia be if each fact is
> crossreferenced with 5, 10, 20 external sources like
> academic journals, encyclopedias, books? Very.
>
>
>
>
______________________________________________________________________
>
> Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca


body:
> Is it possible to use non-Latin-1 (ie. Unicode) characters in those
> charts?  Without this feature, unfortunately, this is not useful for
> many Wikipedias.

This is still on my to do list, but will stay there for a while, I'm afraid.

The rendering engine for EasyTimeline, Ploticus, does support unicode input
and truetype fonts (via freetype library). However Ploticus still needs to
be tweaked, as it has no support for wiki-like inline links that are used in
EasyTimeline. With proportional fonts the current workaround falls apart.

I've been working on complete redesign of TomeRaider scripts for TR3 since
August, and will soon need to start with upgrading stats scripts for
database scheme change. After that possibly a wikivacation and then I'll
gladly resume ET work.

Erik Zachte


from_name: Vegard Aukrust

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Old norse

body:
I will use the modified latin alphabeth. Old norse is not so different from
modern icelandic and often mistaken as that, but I want to use the same
language the one you find in Norwegian texts from the 12th, 13th and 14th
centuries. I don't find it more strange than latin, anglo-saxon or a lot of
other old langiages. The letters which are not used in modern English are as
follows: ?, o, ? and ? (but not ?, ?, ? or ? as in modern scandinavian).

Vegard Aukrust

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Williamson" <node.ue at gmail.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 11:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Old norse

> *cough*
>
> I'm not sure the current environment is the best place for a request
> regarding Old Norse. But anyhow, I have a question: will you use the
> runic script, or the latin script?
>
> Anyhow, my suggestion is that you first write a few articles off-site,
> and if you can try to find people who will help build the Wikipedia.
>
> Mark
>
> On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 16:57:03 +0100, Vegard Aukrust <vegara at stud.ntnu.no>
> wrote:
>> I want to start a Wikipedia page in old norse (gamalnorska), and I
>> suggest the language code "gno".
>>
>> Vegard Aukrust
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Query admin powers

body:
On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 05:43:26 -0700, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I would just wait for him to return from vacation. While seniority does not
> exist on Wikipedia officially, in practice it does and certain editors such
> as Adam Carr have a degree of favor. Other mechanisms for solving the
> problem such as negotiating with him or mediating will also require his
> presence.

Adam may be on holiday, but he has made several changes to the article
and the discussion page, where he states that he "can't check his
references" at the moment. One might ask why he feels he is able to
revert my edits, which I have backed up by some authoritative and
readily available texts on the matter, if he is without access to
reference material.

In any case, he is flat out wrong on several points. No appeal to
seniority or rankism can justify a stubborn insistence on untruths.

Gough Whitlam and the events of the 1975 dismissal are well enough
known that I can be sure that there are other editors available who
are supplied with the standard texts, such as Paul Kelly's definitive
text "November 1975".
--
Peter in Canberra


body:
WITHOUT commenting on the Silverback affair per se, would it maybe be a
good idea to notify every temp-blocked user of the current technical
issues as regards unblocking?

I'm just thinking that telling people in advance that, yes there's a
known problem, no it's not meant to humiliate them, yes it does affect
everybody who's currently getting blocked -- that extra bit of info may
reassure folks a bit and might just prevent some peeps from going over
the edge.

Or is that already being done?

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com


list: commons-l

from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Commons-l] Re: This list as News

body:
Josh Gerdes schreef:
> Hello everyone!
>
> Is there a way to subscribe to this mailing list as a newsgroup? I know
> that WikiEN-l and Wikipedia-l have that feature, but I can't find any
> mentions of it for this the Commons mailing list.
>
> Thanks,
> Josh Gerdes (User:JoshG)

The normal way;
gmane.org.wikimedia.commons

To find the Wikipedia-lists on gmane search for "wikipedia" and
"wikimedia" on nntp://news.gmane.org

Most, if not all list can use that way
--
[[w:nl:gebruiker:walter]]


from_name: Charles Fulton

subject: [WikiEN-l] RfA/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily

body:
It was brought to my attention that Ruy Lopez twice reverted the
article on Joseph Stalin without discussing said reverts on the talk
page.  According to remedy #4 of the aforementioned arbcom case
"Gzornenplatz, Shorne, and VeryVerily, and Ruy Lopez are required to
discuss all reverts on the relavant talk page, with the goal of
finding mutually acceptable compromises."  This he did not do.

The enforcement section states that:
1) If Gzornenplatz, Shorne, or VeryVerily should revert a page more
than once per day, an administrator may ban him for up to 24 hours.

2) If Gzornenplatz, Shorne, or VeryVerily should revert a page without
discussing it on the relevant talk page, an administrator may ban him
for up to 24 hours.

This is an impossible situation. If there is no option for
enforcement, then remedy #4 cannot apply to Ruy Lopez.  I am concerned
about what I think is a serious oversight on the part of the
Arbitration Committee.  I blocked Ruy Lopez for 24 hours based on my
interpretation of arbcom's intent.  If I should not have done this I
apologize in advance and will unblock Ruy post-haste.  I felt it
necessary to bring this matter to the community's attention as quickly
and publicly as possible.

-Charles Fulton


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Old norse

body:
Let's see. How many requests have I posted to this list? Two.

How many languages were badly received? Quite a few.

Please stop slandering me. That the point.

Mark

On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 08:48:04 +0100, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> Le Tuesday 4 January 2005 00:25, Mark Williamson a ?crit :
> > What I meant is that now isn't really a good time for language
> > proposals - they don't seem to be well-recieved, especially if they're
> > for "dead" languages.
> >
> > Mark
>
> Please stop spreading FUD.
> Requests are not well received when they are sent by YOU, that the point.
>
> Regards,
> Yann
> --
> http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
> http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
> http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
>


from_name: Pascale

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Old norse

body:
Hello,

As for me, i think it would be wonderfull to have  a free, open and rich
old Norsk basis like Wikipedia. I have been  trying to learn Islandic in
France, because I want to learn Old Norks and read the eddas in their
own language ( I am fon dof philology) and it is quite difficult to find
books or resorces in this old language. You know Tolkien started to
learn Old norsk when he was 32 old, as a curious human spirit, and what
he learn, cumulated to his large knwoledge in German and English
families of language, permitted to cr?ate a new fantastic world : his
own historico-imaginative world.
Borg?s, too, learn old Norks, and his dream of a Babel Library is a
metaphore of  what the internet is actualyy for a part, and what he
could be :)
So, it would be a pity not to use internet and Wikipedia to support
thos luck to approach wonderfull old language an d perhaps fertilize the
futur with human transformation.

Languages are not dead if there is on human who gets pleasure to
pronounce, read, write with it...It can become esoteric for most people
but internet could serve to give another luck to many languages and many
human cultures.

Best regards

Pascale

Mark Williamson a ?crit :

>What I meant is that now isn't really a good time for language
>proposals - they don't seem to be well-recieved, especially if they're
>for "dead" languages.
>
>Mark
>
>On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 00:02:25 +0100, Vegard Aukrust <vegara at stud.ntnu.no> wrote:
>
>
>>I will use the modified latin alphabeth. Old norse is not so different from
>>modern icelandic and often mistaken as that, but I want to use the same
>>language the one you find in Norwegian texts from the 12th, 13th and 14th
>>centuries. I don't find it more strange than latin, anglo-saxon or a lot of
>>other old langiages. The letters which are not used in modern English are as
>>follows: ?, o, ? and ? (but not ?, ?, ? or ? as in modern scandinavian).
>>
>>Vegard Aukrust
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Mark Williamson" <node.ue at gmail.com>
>>To: <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
>>Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 11:53 PM
>>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Old norse
>>
>>
>>
>>>*cough*
>>>
>>>I'm not sure the current environment is the best place for a request
>>>regarding Old Norse. But anyhow, I have a question: will you use the
>>>runic script, or the latin script?
>>>
>>>Anyhow, my suggestion is that you first write a few articles off-site,
>>>and if you can try to find people who will help build the Wikipedia.
>>>
>>>Mark
>>>
>>>On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 16:57:03 +0100, Vegard Aukrust <vegara at stud.ntnu.no>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I want to start a Wikipedia page in old norse (gamalnorska), and I
>>>>suggest the language code "gno".
>>>>
>>>>Vegard Aukrust
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania - Update

body:
Hi,

After one conference is finished, we can now move to the preparations
for the next one. In Berlin we had a round of talks about the planning
of wikimania and I'll try to summarize here what is done and what needs
to be done the next weeks.

Before christmas, we did the reservation for the Haus der Jugend, 300
beds and most of their conference rooms from 4th to 8th August 2005.
Mark this date in red or '''bold''' in your calendar ;-)

Brion created a mailinglist for the planning of wikimania. I'd like to
invite everyone willing to help with the organisation to join:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-planning-l

For next week a meeting on IRC is planned - there was some confusion
about the date, so I propose the 12th or 14th January 20:00 UTC.
Comment on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Main_Page when you
have time. I'll fill the agenda during the next days.

At the 21C3 we had a brainstorming about planned sessions and which
speakers to invite. Sj has the informations on his notebook and will
start to work on it when he is back home.

For this, I encourage everyone to help drafting the call for papers and
when finished, translating it in as many languages as possible:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Call_for_papers

Ideas for speakers and panels are welcome on:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Speakers

On the 21C3 we also found someone willing to help us finding
interpreters for the conference so that we can make it truely multilingual.

There are several concurring banner versions on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Banner
Please comment on it - there should be only one official banner we later
spread.

Next steps are:
* budget plan (jimbo & elian)
* contacting potential sponsors and getting money (danny & jimbo)

Thanks to Patrick from german wikipedia, the German Library Association
will lend us their support. We are already in contact with some other
organisation, too.

Brion volunteered for programming the registration system. There are a
few points to discuss first and I encourage your input:
 From the Haus der Jugend, we got a fixed price for all the beds
irregarding if double rooms or 8-bed rooms.
There are several questions: shall we just set up a fixed fee or rate
rooms in several categories?
I'd also like to know what you think about having fees for the
conference - although the final decision probably depends on our budget
plan and the sponsorship agreements. Personally, I wouldn't mind if the
conference makes some profit in the end - we can use the money for more
servers ;-)

I put some notes on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Register

The wikimania website will be probably best located at
wikimania.wikimedia.org (the domain wikimania.org is already taken and
I'm not sure if we need an extra domain for the conference)

Friends of mine from the CCC will help us with the network. Planning for
this started at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Network
The most pressing problem is still the last mile - the connection to the
Haus der Jugend. We tried to get a radio link but the leaders of the
Haus der Jugend don't seem to happy about this and it would need some
official permission. @akl: any news about this?

Last thing: in Berlin the idea came up for a next mediawiki developer
meeting, to do some hacking together in the days before or after the
conference. I just want to mention it here that we can include this in
the planning (we probably need to book a workshop room & some beds for
these days, too).

greetings,
elian


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania - Update


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Proposal for Wiki Project

body:
Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se) [050103 21:51]:

> During my 22 years of programming, I have shifted operating systems
> and programming languages many times, but only once (in 1990) have I
> shifted character sets (from ASCII to ISO 8859-1).  Soon I will shift
> again to Unicode/UTF-8, which I hope to use for the rest of my life.
> If I had saved them and copied them to my next computer, I could still
> read the plain text files I wrote in 1982.  Actually, I still keep
> some print-outs from 1984 and I should retype them before the ink
> fades away. I still have saved e-mails from 1986 on my current disk.

Just scan them in - the scans will take proportionately about as much disk
space as the printouts would have on a floppy of the era ;-)

- d.


from_name: Jens Ropers

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal for Wikikids

body:
On 4 Jan 2005, at 01:19, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> We are dealing with two different groups here.  The POV warrior, the
> troll and the pornographer want their effort to be seen.  For some the
> thrill is in the fight.  It's quite the opposite for the pedophile.
> His editing activity will avoid controversy. On matters of interest to
> children he will want to blend in as a cool member of the community
> providing just the kind of information that kids want. He wants to
> build confidence so that the kids will feel at ease to meet him when
> he's ready.
>
> Ec

True, but there's also those pedophile editors who (probably under a
different user identity than they would use for grooming) persistently
seek to insert their a POV into relevant articles. These kind of
pedophiles seek to promote memes sympathetic to their sexual deviance.
A pedophile contributor might for example promote views such as: "if a
minor consents, then no harm is being done" or "children may say 'no'
but not really mean it" [1]. Their aim is to make their sexual
aberration socially acceptable. Which means they have an agenda. In
other words: they are POV warriors. However, a pedophile POV warrior
may try to take the *sneaky* rather than the head-on dispute approach.
If I recall correctly, there were precisely such problems (with
pedophile POV edits) in the past -- in fact, a cursory check reveals
that [[Childlove movement]] currently has a "disputed neutrality"
disclaimer on it and a rather long talk page.

----
[1] I made up these quotes though; a real pedophile POV inserter would
probably never put things that bluntly--far too easily detected.

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal for Wikikids


subject: [WikiEN-l] Query admin powers

body:
Skyring (skyring at gmail.com) [050104 00:21]:
> On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 05:43:26 -0700, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> > I would just wait for him to return from vacation. While seniority does not
> > exist on Wikipedia officially, in practice it does and certain editors such
> > as Adam Carr have a degree of favor. Other mechanisms for solving the
> > problem such as negotiating with him or mediating will also require his
> > presence.

> Adam may be on holiday, but he has made several changes to the article
> and the discussion page, where he states that he "can't check his
> references" at the moment. One might ask why he feels he is able to
> revert my edits, which I have backed up by some authoritative and
> readily available texts on the matter, if he is without access to
> reference material.
> In any case, he is flat out wrong on several points. No appeal to
> seniority or rankism can justify a stubborn insistence on untruths.

I would say this is absolutely not what page protection is for. I went to
unprotect it myself but someone else got there first.

I'm sure when Adam gets back differences can be sorted out on the Talk
page, though.

- d.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Query admin powers

body:
Jens Ropers wrote:

> Nas, Fred et al.:
>
> To my mind the disagreement at hand is mostly rooted in mutual
> misunderstanding rather than anything else.
>
> * It occurs to me that Fred merely meant to say that this is an
> imperfect world: While preferential treatment for well-known figures
> or "old pals" may be unjust, it is also very human for people to on
> balance lean towards committing such errors -- that's just how humans
> tend to behave and Wikipedia isn't immune against it. That being a
> given, it  might turn out to be wise and/or useful to not be overly
> insistent on one's rights, but instead to voluntarily sit down in a
> lower room than one's rank would actually warrant because good things
> will happen to people who thus understate their position (cf. Bible,
> NT, Luke 14:8). Also, while a claimant may have justice on their side,
> loud screaming and complaining may -- in this imperfect world --
> neither help their cause (however just) nor necessarily make them lots
> of friends.
>
> * On the other hand, if Nas feels that favoritism is unacceptable as a
> matter of principle and ought to be vigorously opposed on all fronts,
> then I am very sympathetic towards that view as well.
>
> Meanwhile, the [[Gough Whitlam]] article has been unprotected and
> Peter has indicated his willingness to talk. I think the matter is
> closed on that front.
> As for resolving the remaining (IMHO) misunderstanding, maybe we can
> all agree on this:
>
> 1. Favoritism isn't nice, and if it takes place within Wikipedia that
> isn't nice either.
> 2. We should continue to uphold comeback mechanisms such as this
> mailing list, which will help to ensure favoritism won't get out of
> hand if it occurs.
> 3. If an affected person themselves (despite their right to insist on
> equal treatment) is happy to voluntarily take a backhanded approach
> and give an admin who may have overstepped their authority slightly a
> chance to realize their error and gracefully mend their ways, then
> that's all the better.
> 4. It's ok to informally tell someone about the utility of taking the
> backhanded approach.
> 5. No one should ''order'' anyone to do take this approach though, as
> such would be tantamount to confirming and codifying injustice.
> 6. Care should be taken to avoid a friendly hint about the utility of
> taking the backhanded approach to wrongly come across as an order to
> put up and shut up.
>
In this debate I think that Fred forgot that he was walking on eggshells
long enough to put his foot in his mouth.

The sociological phenomenon that he described is one of the pillars of
systemic bias.  Some of us who have been here a little longer can still
see both sides of the problem.  We need to be hesitant about using our
seniority as an argument, but there are occasions when that can become
necessary.  My tendency would be to reserve it for very limited
occasions.  It needs to be applied with a much broader view in mind than
what can be contained in a single article.

People do develop reputations, good and bad.  It is still dangerous to
let that reputation override a documented alternative to what the
article already expresses.  The person with the reputation does not earn
vacation time by virtue of that reputation.

Ec


body:
Stan wrote:

"Very interesting! I take it the article counts are simple sums
of cat and subcats, and don't account for an article appearing
in several subcategories?"

Indeed. The number behind each category is the total number of pages in that
category and all of its subcategories.

Of course if you add up the pages counts for all level 2 categories you will
get a multitude of the total number of articles in Wp,
since one category will often appear as node in several branches.

Erik Zachte


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Cafepress shop updated

body:
Hi,

I've updated the Wikipedia/Wikimedia shop at
http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia

There's a few new Wikipedia products, including an updated tile coaster
with the new skin. There's also a new section of products featuring the
Wikimedia Foundation logo.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Cafepress shop updated


from_name: Allan Crossman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Evercat v. Libertas

body:
I'm gonna get in some pre-emptive retaliation since I expect this might
be about to be discussed...

I've been accused by User/Troll Libertas of being all "creepy" since I
revealed "her" location after 172 asked me to investigate whether "she"
might be User:Reithy. Libertas claims I've repeatedly revealed "her"
location. This is sort of true. I did indeed look up "her" location and
reveal it.

(I use "her" throughout since "she" claims to be female, but I distrust
trolls...)

I did not use any special powers to find Libertas' IP address. Of
course, mere sysops have no such powers. Libertas revealed "her" IP
address by editing logged out. 172 then gave me it, and asked me to
investigate. I had never been involved with Libertas before.

As far as I recall (the Wiki is much too slow right now to check, so
possibly I'm forgetting something), I mentioned the location on the
following occasions:

I initially mentioned it on 172's talk page, noting that it differed
from Reithy's. I restored it a few times when Libertas edited it
(because I don't like my comments being edited) and mentioned it once
more in a stupid debate (that Libertas started, by complaining about
something I wrote on my userpage about reincarnation) over whether
userpages can contain controversial claims.

I regret the last occurence (the gist of which was that if "she" really
was from said location, it didn't make sense that "her" userpage was so
pro-American, so it looked like it was that way just to stir things up);
but I was discounting the possibility of an American living in said
place. So that was stupid of me.

Anyway, this culminated in a big blowout on IRC. I don't have a log,
alas, but it involved "her" repeatedly claiming that I was acting
creepy, behaving like a thug, and threatening "her". "She" also seemed
to claim that I knew "she" was female (I didn't) and that this made my
discussion of "her" location more disturbing. Curiously, Libertas was
happy to reveal "her" location to everyone on IRC during this discussion.

I did apologise on IRC for the last occurence.

But "she" kept on with "her" insults, and finally, becoming Really
Bloody Furious (tm) I blocked "her". This was possibly another mistake.
I'll step down as a sysop, if people feel I should, but "she" seems like
an obvious troll to me.

But I'm tired, and upset, and angry, and going to bed now.

Evercat
--
Allan Crossman - a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
The Moon is Waning Crescent (45% of Full)


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Query admin powers

body:
On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 10:17:14 -0700, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> No, you should not shrug your shoulders, but you should also not get into a
> tizzy over predictable phenomena. If you think there "ought to be a rule",
> please go and make one to the effect that rules are to uniformly applied,
> and so on although that is already part of the unwritten rules under which
> the Arbitration Committee proceeds. We'll enforce it best we can, but
> remember the old Russian proverb: "Laws are like spiderwebs, they catch
> flies, not bumblebees."
>
> I fear I'm breaking a rule now, "Don't feed the trolls."

No, don't stop. I'm glad to hear some frankness, and it's good to hear
two points of view.

Fred, you appear to be condoning rankism - a concept described and
talked about at some length by Robert W Fuller in his book "Somebodies
& Nobodies" - as if it were something like racism or sexism that
happens and we should learn to live with it. I can see the point you
are making, but it's not something I'm comfortable with.

Nas, you are right to express amazement that this is being brought out
in the open. I must confess that I was likewise astonished to see
something like this stated so bluntly and, well, honestly.

I'm new here, and I'm kind of at a loss to know what else to say in a
discussion that I seem to have inadvertently sparked. I must confess
that I had hoped that Wikipedia would be something where if the
absolute truth could not be laid down, then at least, like a reputable
newspaper, all sides of the story could be given proper respect. But
so much of the activity of the site seems to be taken up with trivia.
A couple of weeks ago I looked at one of the pages that dealt with
recent edits and I was perplexed to see that an all-in brawl was being
waged over the clitoris article, of all things! I hadn't imagined that
there could be much dispute over such a thing, but there it is. As I
hastily scurried away from the battlefield it seemed to me that all of
the contestants were male, which perhaps says a great deal about the
level of debate. Perhaps, as Murphy Brown once suggested, the
participants could drop their pants, measure themselves against a
plastic ruler, and sort out arguments that way.

Which brings me back to rankism, I guess!

--
Peter in Canberra


body:
After rereading my explanation about the article counts, it still seems a
bit vague.
Let me try again:

One a first pass through the database all categories and their mutual
relations are collected.

On a second pass a list is compiled for each article of all categories that
are named in the article and of their supercategories, duplicates are
removed. Then all categories in the list have their counter incremented by
one.

Erik Zachte


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms -
	Project Has Been Around For A While

body:
Larry Sanger NEVER cited a reference for any information he placed in
Wikipedia. His attitude was that he had mastered the field of philosophy and
using his expertise could determine what was to be in the article or
excluded from it. Withering contempt was directed at anyone who tried to
contest his assertions.

That said, we all, both in our fields of expertise and in areas we have from
time to time taken an interest in, need to regularly cite authority both for
our edits and for our assertions that something ought not to be included.

Fred

> From: Shaun MacPherson <shaun_macpherson2001 at yahoo.ca>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 23:40:07 -0500 (EST)
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms - Project Has
> Been Around For A While
>
> Larry Sanger believes that the solution to make
> Wikipedia more credible are with experts.  You can see
> a good article descriping his criticisms here (
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/03/144207&tid=95&tid=1
> ) posted on Jan 3, 2004.
>
> I think the easiest way to make Wikipedia more
> credible is with a Fact and Reference Project, which
> the community has been developing over a period of
> more than a few months now: (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check
> ).


subject: [WikiEN-l] Evercat v. Libertas

body:
Other than refering to her as "User/Troll Libertas" I see no problem here as
you seem to understand your errors and how you were led into them. I have
had the same problem as I wondered about whether this or that POV editor was
a sockpuppet of 172. (None of them seemed to be after investigation and I
just made a fool out of myself speculating on it).

Fred

> From: Allan Crossman <a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2005 04:47:08 +0000
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Evercat v. Libertas
>
> I'm gonna get in some pre-emptive retaliation since I expect this might
> be about to be discussed...
>
> I've been accused by User/Troll Libertas of being all "creepy" since I
> revealed "her" location after 172 asked me to investigate whether "she"
> might be User:Reithy. Libertas claims I've repeatedly revealed "her"
> location. This is sort of true. I did indeed look up "her" location and
> reveal it.
>
> (I use "her" throughout since "she" claims to be female, but I distrust
> trolls...)
>
> I did not use any special powers to find Libertas' IP address. Of
> course, mere sysops have no such powers. Libertas revealed "her" IP
> address by editing logged out. 172 then gave me it, and asked me to
> investigate. I had never been involved with Libertas before.
>
> As far as I recall (the Wiki is much too slow right now to check, so
> possibly I'm forgetting something), I mentioned the location on the
> following occasions:
>
> I initially mentioned it on 172's talk page, noting that it differed
> from Reithy's. I restored it a few times when Libertas edited it
> (because I don't like my comments being edited) and mentioned it once
> more in a stupid debate (that Libertas started, by complaining about
> something I wrote on my userpage about reincarnation) over whether
> userpages can contain controversial claims.
>
> I regret the last occurence (the gist of which was that if "she" really
> was from said location, it didn't make sense that "her" userpage was so
> pro-American, so it looked like it was that way just to stir things up);
> but I was discounting the possibility of an American living in said
> place. So that was stupid of me.
>
> Anyway, this culminated in a big blowout on IRC. I don't have a log,
> alas, but it involved "her" repeatedly claiming that I was acting
> creepy, behaving like a thug, and threatening "her". "She" also seemed
> to claim that I knew "she" was female (I didn't) and that this made my
> discussion of "her" location more disturbing. Curiously, Libertas was
> happy to reveal "her" location to everyone on IRC during this discussion.
>
> I did apologise on IRC for the last occurence.
>
> But "she" kept on with "her" insults, and finally, becoming Really
> Bloody Furious (tm) I blocked "her". This was possibly another mistake.
> I'll step down as a sysop, if people feel I should, but "she" seems like
> an obvious troll to me.
>
> But I'm tired, and upset, and angry, and going to bed now.
>
> Evercat
> --
> Allan Crossman - a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
> The Moon is Waning Crescent (45% of Full)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Angela

body:
The fundraising drive for this quarter will be held later this month,
possibly to coincide with "Wikipedia Day" (January 21) as Daniel
proposed last month.

Before this launches, it would be nice to have some more responses to
the questions I put at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_drive and also additions of
any other fundraising ideas at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_ideas

The way the site notice is used could be improved before the next
drive. The message used was very bland and could be made more
motivational. This should be decided very soon to allow time for
translations to occur before the drive starts. Will it be possible to
have a real-time display of donations during the drive? Are any
developers willing to work on this before mid-January?

How the drive is going to be advertised besides the site notices needs
to be considered. Will it be possible to combine this with a press
release? Perhaps something about the fourth anniversary of Wikipedia?

We hope to have a system of membership set up by this date so that, as
well as making donations, people can become members of the Foundation,
and choose to make regular payments if they wish. Tim Starling is
currently working on creating the database we need for this, along
with membership options in the user preferences. The budget for this
quarter will also be created before the fundraising drive, with
details of proposed hardware purchases so donors know where their
money is going.

Improvements to the fundraising pages at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising are also welcome.
Comments can be made at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_site_feedback since the page
is not openly editable.

Angela.


body:
 --- Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Having references at the end of every article may
> give the apperance
> of being more credible.
>
> However, many sources I might quote might have
> incorrect information,
> or could be fabricated.

That is true, this issue was brought up and discussed
in our project a while back so I have the benefit of
knowing the answer :).  Hopefully after the first step
of acutally getting the intelligent foot/end notes
working (intelligent meaning it autonumbers,
autoquotes, autobrings you to the passage when clicked
etc) we can go onto the second step of a verification
system for the actual references.

One way to prevent people from citing phony facts is
to have people being able to verify a fact by signing
it.  Multiple people would be able to look up a fact,
say in a book, and sign to the fact that it exists.
You'd then have a system that looks like this:

Fact 1 - Reference from source 1 - Person A says it
exists
Fact 1 - Reference from source 1 - Person B says it
exists
Fact 1 - Reference from source 2 - Person A says it
exists
Fact 1 - Reference from source 2 - Person C says it
exists

Obvisally if someone says the reference exists, and
someone else says the reference does not that is a
large issue, but one easily solved (i.e. a committe
will go and look for the book / article / etc. to
verify it).  Conflicts of references can be arbitrated
on by this committe, with fakers being quickly weeded
out.

Shaun MacPherson

> Many people seem to feel more comfortable with print
> media and seem to
> think that if it's in print, it must be true, but in
> reality you
> shouldn't trust print articles and books anymore
> than you trust their
> Internet counterparts.
>
> Mark
>
> On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 23:43:45 -0500 (EST), Shaun
> MacPherson
> <shaun_macpherson2001 at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> > Sorry I forgot to invite you all to use
> >
>
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check)
> > as an area for us to discuss this issue.  The
> > Wikitechs will beat you there now ;).
> >
> > Shaun MacPherson
> >
> >  --- Shaun MacPherson
> <shaun_macpherson2001 at yahoo.ca>
> > wrote:
> > > Larry Sanger believes that the solution to make
> > > Wikipedia more credible are with experts.  You
> can
> > > see
> > > a good article descriping his criticisms here (
> > >
> >
>
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/03/144207&tid=95&tid=1
> > > ) posted on Jan 3, 2004.
> > >
> > > I think the easiest way to make Wikipedia more
> > > credible is with a Fact and Reference Project,
> which
> > > the community has been developing over a period
> of
> > > more than a few months now: (
> > >
> >
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check
> > > ).
> > >
> > > The thing holding this project back, and
> ultimately
> > > Wikipedia from sheading the skin of being
> > > 'noncredible' is the lack of intelligent
> foot/end
> > > notes.  A way to format an article with
> > > autonumbering
> > > endnotes for crossreferencing is lacking.  I am
> sure
> > > with this feature programmed in this project can
> be
> > > on
> > > its way to cross referencing all facts on
> Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > You can see some examples offoot/endnote
> formatting
> > > template here.  JesseW has put much effort into
> > > trying
> > > to create a formating guide here (
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes
> )
> > > and
> > > another guide here (
> > >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cite_sources
> > > ).
> > >  Examples are here (
> > >
> >
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check/Example_2/
> > > ).
> > >
> > > How credible will Wikipedia be if each fact is
> > > crossreferenced with 5, 10, 20 external sources
> like
> > > academic journals, encyclopedias, books? Very.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
______________________________________________________________________
> > >
> > > Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > >
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
>
______________________________________________________________________
> > Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca


body:
Angela-
> The fundraising drive for this quarter will be held later this month,
> possibly to coincide with "Wikipedia Day" (January 21) as Daniel
> proposed last month.

Wikipedia Day is January 15. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Day

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Query admin powers

references:
<BDFE8BFE.A235%fredbaud@ctelco.net>	<41D97296.6040707@runawaynet.com>
	<crd4pf$5q0$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote:
> Fred Bauer is an arbitrator? Huh?

... Yes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration#Active


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: inter project links (was Patrol feature)

body:
Anthere-
> http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=708
> Erik proposed himself to write it for release 1.4.
> What is this status ?

I'll code it soon. The biggest open question is what syntax to use. I
think I'll go for [[Sidebar:Wiktionary:Bla]] (where "Sidebar:" would have
to be localizable).

If I understand him correctly, Brion has argued that these links should be
automagically displayed if there is an article with the same title on a
sister project wiki. That would be nice, but harder to implement.

Regards,

Erik


body:
No way, an anonymous editor can cite references as well as anyone else and
it is not his bona fides that makes the reference good but the reputation
and authoritativeness of the reference. Anyone who has attended institutions
of higher learning is fully aware that formal qualifications mean next to
nothing and has probably learned that those who cite their degrees and
position as authority in the course of an argument rather than focusing on
evidence which might support their position do so because they are unable to
prevail using the evidence available to them.

Fred

> From: NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org>
> Organization: Wikinerds
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 13:50:05 +0200
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms - Project
> Has Been Around For A While
>
> On Tuesday 04 January 2005 06:40, Shaun MacPherson wrote:
>> I think the easiest way to make Wikipedia more
>> credible is with a Fact and Reference Project
>
> It sounds like a good idea.
>
> But it's not enough: You should also limit somehow the anon contributions and
> employ maintainers for each article (this is what I do on most of my
> projects). The names (full names) of the authors and maintainers must be
> visible in the article, together with 1 or 2-line short bios demonstrating
> their expertise (degrees or work experience), as well as a References section
> (which should be long - very long).
>
> See my policy here:
>
> http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Help:Editing_process
>
> --
> NSK
> The Wikinerds Community Federation of Science Wikis
> Owner of the Wikinerds Portal http://portal.wikinerds.org
> Owner of the NerdyPC IT Wiki http://www.nerdypc.org
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Query admin powers

body:
Nicholas Knight (nknight at runawaynet.com) [050104 03:28]:

> Blocking work on an article because Adam finds it inconvenient to do
> research is not acceptable, no matter what his informal status is.

Seconded.

- d.


from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] patrolled edits?

body:
What's a patrolled edit? I looked at a new page on jbo: and it asked me if I
wanted to mark the page as "patrolled". I looked in the glossary on en: and
other places on en: and meta and didn't find an explanation.

phma
--
Now I need a magnifier to find my eyeglasses!
	-Les Perles de la m?decine


subject: [WikiEN-l] Query admin powers

references:
<c36bd2f905010309071b3529c3@mail.gmail.com>
	<BDFECC29.A253%fredbaud@ctelco.net>
	<c36bd2f9050103100140abcf20@mail.gmail.com>

body:
nas ral (jewishneoconipod at gmail.com) [050104 05:01]:

> What has been going on in the ArbCom! Unwritten rules! Policy is
> formed by wikipedia community consensus, not by admins. Or is that
> just something that can be ignored by some people?  When did admins
> start thinking that they have increased authority, not just increased
> responsibility?

No, the 'unwritten rules' are called 'having a Clue' or
[[Wikipedia:Semi-policy]].

A sociological observation for you: a rigid formal rules structure is not
useful when getting volunteers to do things, unless you actually want to
favour system-gamers over contributors.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Query admin powers

references:
<c36bd2f905010309071b3529c3@mail.gmail.com>
	<BDFECC29.A253%fredbaud@ctelco.net>
	<550ccb8205010309507ab57b3f@mail.gmail.com>
	<EF9B0AE8-5DC1-11D9-A2D7-0003931DCE20@ropersonline.com>

body:
On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 20:59:11 +0100, Jens Ropers <ropers at ropersonline.com> wrote:
>
> Oh, and Peter -- about your uncanny observation:
>
> On 3 Jan 2005, at 18:50, Skyring wrote:
> > an all-in brawl was being
> > waged over the clitoris article, of all things! I hadn't imagined that
> > there could be much dispute over such a thing, but there it is. As I
> > hastily scurried away from the battlefield it seemed to me that all of
> > the contestants were male, which perhaps says a great deal about the
> > level of debate. Perhaps, as Murphy Brown once suggested, the
> > participants could drop their pants, measure themselves against a
> > plastic ruler, and sort out arguments that way.
> >
> > Which brings me back to rankism, I guess!
>
> Well, in a word, --- BRAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHA! LOL! ROTFL! (heh! pant!) ;-D

Sometimes it helps to put things in perspective by raising a
ridiculous point. <g>

> -- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
>     www.ropersonline.com
>
> PS: Err, Peter: Which ''measurement'' are we talking? "Flaccid" or
> "fully armed"?

Is Wickipedia no help on this score? Perhaps we can inch our way
towards an agreement if no ruling currently stands.

--
Peter, placing himself firmly in the hands of the Arbitration Committee


subject: [WikiEN-l] Evercat v. Libertas

body:
nas ral wrote:

> Your last act as an admin should be to get another admin to block you
> for the exact same time that Libertas was erroneously blocked. Its a
> shame, since you seem like a nice person, and this may have been an
> unfortunate lapse.

I really don't think we need to actively punish admins for being human.
He was baited, and absent a pattern of abusive behaviour, combined with
his clear understanding that his actions were improper and what led to
them, Allan needs some sort of pseudo-formal scolding. He doesn't need
to be stripped of his adminship or banned.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Server problem?

body:
AndyL wrote:
>  Is it just me or is wikipedia incredibly slow to load these days? Can
> anything be done about this?

I believe the infrastructure admins have been doing some sort of
server-overloading maintenance/database-compression during off-peak
hours (or as off-peak as you can get with something like Wikipedia). The
Wikipedia Status page on openfacts has some stuff about it.

http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status


from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Evercat v. Libertas

body:
It looks to me like the block on Libertas should be removed immediately, Evercat has pretty much admitted he abused his powers in blocking her..  His IRC communications are irrelevant to his wikipedia actions.  He could have ignored the talk page issues and let them settle down.

However, I don't think he did anything wrong using info available to all, to figure out and speculate on a talk page about who libertas, was, wasn't or might be.  That is the risk we take when we use the internet.  If he had used sysop powers to violate pseudonym privacy that would be a different matter.  I know I don't expect my IP address and information discoverable from it, to be private.

            -- Silverback

-------------- Original message --------------

> I'm gonna get in some pre-emptive retaliation since I expect this might
> be about to be discussed...
>
> I've been accused by User/Troll Libertas of being all "creepy" since I
> revealed "her" location after 172 asked me to investigate whether "she"
> might be User:Reithy. Libertas claims I've repeatedly revealed "her"
> location. This is sort of true. I did indeed look up "her" location and
> reveal it.
>
> (I use "her" throughout since "she" claims to be female, but I distrust
> trolls...)
>
> I did not use any special powers to find Libertas' IP address. Of
> course, mere sysops have no such powers. Libertas revealed "her" IP
> address by editing logged out. 172 then gave me it, and asked me to
> investigate. I had never been involved with Libertas before.
>
> As far as I recall (the Wiki is much too slow right now to check, so
> possibly I'm forgetting something), I mentioned the location on the
> following occasions:
>
> I initially mentioned it on 172's talk page, noting that it differed
> from Reithy's. I restored it a few times when Libertas edited it
> (because I don't like my comments being edited) and mentioned it once
> more in a stupid debate (that Libertas started, by complaining about
> something I wrote on my userpage about reincarnation) over whether
> userpages can contain controversial claims.
>
> I regret the last occurence (the gist of which was that if "she" really
> was from said location, it didn't make sense that "her" userpage was so
> pro-American, so it looked like it was that way just to stir things up);
> but I was discounting the possibility of an American living in said
> place. So that was stupid of me.
>
> Anyway, this culminated in a big blowout on IRC. I don't have a log,
> alas, but it involved "her" repeatedly claiming that I was acting
> creepy, behaving like a thug, and threatening "her". "She" also seemed
> to claim that I knew "she" was female (I didn't) and that this made my
> discussion of "her" location more disturbing. Curiously, Libertas was
> happy to reveal "her" location to everyone on IRC during this discussion.
>
> I did apologise on IRC for the last occurence.
>
> But "she" kept on with "her" insults, and finally, becoming Really
> Bloody Furious (tm) I blocked "her". This was possibly another mistake.
> I'll step down as a sysop, if people feel I should, but "she" seems like
> an obvious troll to me.
>
> But I'm tired, and upset, and angry, and going to bed now.
>
> Evercat
> --
> Allan Crossman - a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
> The Moon is Waning Crescent (45% of Full)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: licensing issues, BSD doc license vs GNU

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

Edward Peschko wrote:
> hey all,
>
> I've been looking (cross-eyed) at the number of different licensing
> schemes out there for my wiki (or series of wikis, based off of mediawiki),
> and have pretty much narrowed it down to two:
>
>     1) GNU Free Documentation License
>     2) Free BSD Documentation License
>
> My primary intent for my wiki is to use it as a springboard for others
> to either cite in publications up-to and/or including text passages,
> as long as acknowlegment of this fact is given in the printed or non-printed
> work.
>
> Both seem to fit the bill pretty well, but the GNU FDL seems to have a
> lot more 'strings attached' which I'm not particularly fond of - but
> on the other hand, wikipedia itself uses the GNU FDL, so the following
> questions come to mind. If I used the FreeBSD documentation license:
>
>
>     1) would I be able to encorporate GNU FDL content as long as
>        citations were given?
>
>     2) would this prevent said wiki being eventually merged with
>        mediawiki (under, say wikibooks, or in its own category)?
>
>
> I see that at 'http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html' they
> list the Free BSD license as 'compatible' with the GPL, but I'm
> not exactly sure what that means...
>
> Ed

Hello Ed,

MW: MediaWiki is the software and is published under GPL.
WP: WikiPedia is the free encyclopedia project
WM: WikiMedia is a foundation that host several projects (including
WikiPedia).

Now you can use the mediawiki software to publish copyrighted content,
public domain content or whatever content you want to publish :o) My
email client for example probably use a Mozilla / GPL license, yet this
email is not placer under such license.

cheers,

- --
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
Servers in trouble ? noc (at) wikimedia (dot) org
"This signature is a virus. Copy me in yours to spread it."
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Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFB2kPjpmyHQ2O4INERAqCqAJ0beKiDJCzU+amfEBkzwRWdzKa0eACgr5Fm
vHkFsH2WaS0H6R523qv1GxQ=
=2/ti
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Anthere-
>
>
>>http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=708
>>Erik proposed himself to write it for release 1.4.
>>What is this status ?
>>
>>
>
>I'll code it soon. The biggest open question is what syntax to use. I
>think I'll go for [[Sidebar:Wiktionary:Bla]] (where "Sidebar:" would have
>to be localizable).
>
>If I understand him correctly, Brion has argued that these links should be
>automagically displayed if there is an article with the same title on a
>sister project wiki. That would be nice, but harder to implement.
>
>Regards,
>
>Erik
>
Hoi,
It is not a good idea to have automagic links; the reason for this is
that it does not take into account that there are these disambiguation
pages and consequently namaes that do not match, it does not take into
account that wiktionary has both lower and upper case characters. As to
the syntax, why not a short IPL for InterProject Link. It would also be
nice it the shorthand like w: and wikt: would be possible as well.

One nice feature would be, if you have a link one way to have it
automagically also the other way. Another point is, do we allow for
IPL's that cross a language divide (this would ask for [[IPL:w:en:Bla]])  ??

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Old norse

body:
Hi Mark,

Le Tuesday 4 January 2005 00:25, Mark Williamson a ?crit :
> What I meant is that now isn't really a good time for language
> proposals - they don't seem to be well-recieved, especially if they're
> for "dead" languages.
>
> Mark

Please stop spreading FUD.
Requests are not well received when they are sent by YOU, that the point.

Regards,
Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


from_name: Snowspinner

body:
I think the two most telling things about Larry Sanger's criticisms are
his unwillingness to contribute volunteer time to Wikipedia, and his
seeming belief that Nupedia was the way to go, despite obvious factual
evidence to the contrary.

Which is to say, if he was right, I suspect it would have manifested in
some actual success for Nupedia.

-Snowspinner

On Jan 4, 2005, at 5:53 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:

> Larry Sanger NEVER cited a reference for any information he placed in
> Wikipedia. His attitude was that he had mastered the field of
> philosophy and
> using his expertise could determine what was to be in the article or
> excluded from it. Withering contempt was directed at anyone who tried
> to
> contest his assertions.
>
> That said, we all, both in our fields of expertise and in areas we
> have from
> time to time taken an interest in, need to regularly cite authority
> both for
> our edits and for our assertions that something ought not to be
> included.
>
> Fred
>
>> From: Shaun MacPherson <shaun_macpherson2001 at yahoo.ca>
>> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>> Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 23:40:07 -0500 (EST)
>> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms -
>> Project Has
>> Been Around For A While
>>
>> Larry Sanger believes that the solution to make
>> Wikipedia more credible are with experts.  You can see
>> a good article descriping his criticisms here (
>> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/03/144207&tid=95&tid=1
>> ) posted on Jan 3, 2004.
>>
>> I think the easiest way to make Wikipedia more
>> credible is with a Fact and Reference Project, which
>> the community has been developing over a period of
>> more than a few months now: (
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:
>> WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check
>> ).
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Evercat v. Libertas

body:
BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:

> Even though it is very easy to track someones location from their IP,
> most people do not know that. They feel that their privacy is being
> violated when someone "reveal" in which nation/city they live and
> which ISP they use. Therefore I think it is best to respect people's
> (illusional) privacy and not make them feel violated by revealing
> personal details.

You're not doing anyone any favours by contributing to such an illusion.
In fact, you may actually be putting them in real danger.


from_name: j kuma

subject: [Foundation-l] RE: External Link with RTSP?

body:
To the list members,

I am sorry this was the wrong place to post this type
of question.  Forgive me.

Jim K.

P.S. I figured out the posted question.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Send holiday email and support a worthy cause. Do good.
http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Old norse

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>Let's see. How many requests have I posted to this list? Two.
>
>How many languages were badly received? Quite a few.
>
>Please stop slandering me. That the point.
>
>Mark
>
>
>
Mark,
You are like an old record, stuck in the same phrases time and again.
You have annoyed and insulted many people and you are unappologetic
about it. Slander is also a bit much, you may not like what Yann said
about you, but similar things have been said by many. As to you
proposing new languages, even that is not really the whole point. When a
language is proposed you have to weigh in every time with what you think
is the opinion of the people on the list and give it no time to form
about what is asked/proposed. When you ask questions as you did about
how the old Norse will be written etc they are often good and valid
questions. Take some time to build some credit and try to be nice, not
insult people.

Another thing you could do is appreciate the positions of others. People
do not have to agree with you and they may still achieve things that
even you think are worthwhile.

Thanks,
    GerardM

>On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 08:48:04 +0100, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Hi Mark,
>>
>>Le Tuesday 4 January 2005 00:25, Mark Williamson a ?crit :
>>
>>
>>>What I meant is that now isn't really a good time for language
>>>proposals - they don't seem to be well-recieved, especially if they're
>>>for "dead" languages.
>>>
>>>Mark
>>>
>>>
>>Please stop spreading FUD.
>>Requests are not well received when they are sent by YOU, that the point.
>>
>>Regards,
>>Yann
>>--
>>http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
>>http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
>>http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
>>http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: Robert Dodier

subject: [WikiEN-l] Evercat v. Libertas

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> Please don't. Just avoid being manipulated and provoked in the
> future. Experience is a bit too good of a teacher, if this sort
> of comedy of errors is to knock you out of the game completely.

Agreed 100% -- no need for Evercat to resign over this incident.

I'm puzzled that someone suggests resignation is appropriate,
and that Evercat apparently agrees. This incident is simply
being blown way out of proportion.

Fwiw,
Robert Dodier
(Wile E. Heresiarch)

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


body:
NSK wrote:

>On Tuesday 04 January 2005 17:55, Traroth wrote:
>
>
>>Does your proposition mean that only experts will be
>>authorized to contribute ? That's a major change in
>>the Wikipedia spirit, and I desagree totally.
>>
>>
>
>Non-experts contribute text, provided they give their full legal name and
>contact details. Experts contribute text and check the non-experts'
>contributions.
>
Let's hope not!

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Evercat v. Libertas

body:
Please don't. Just avoid being manipulated and provoked in the future.
Experience is a bit too good of a teacher, if this sort of comedy of errors
is to knock you out of the game completely.

Fred

> From: Allan Crossman <a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2005 16:33:24 +0000
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Evercat v. Libertas
>
> BJ?rn Lindqvist writes:
>
>> stepping down sounds like a good idea.
>
> Very well. I'll put in a request for de-sysoping.
> --
> Allan Crossman - a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
> The Moon is Waning Crescent (40% of Full)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [Wikitech-l] Dupes in the Database

body:
Hi,
today I started playing with the SQL dump from de.wikipedia and I got a
little confused.

It appears that there are some ids which have the same cur_title such as

12706 and 117948 (both: A.D.)
37325 and 37320
20033 and 53747 ACPI

and so on.

there seem to be quite a lot of them.

I guess this is not a wanted feature.

Mathias


from_name: Sean Barrett

body:
NSK stated for the record:

> Non-experts contribute text, provided they give their full legal name and
> contact details. Experts contribute text and check the non-experts'
> contributions.

The trivial matter of whether those fully-exposed non-experts survive
the resulting attacks by the loons, trolls, and death-threat-issuing POV
warriors is of no concern, of course.

--
  Sean Barrett     | Mal'bruk v pokhod sobralsia.
  sean at epoptic.com |


from_name: AndyL

subject: [WikiEN-l] Server problem?

body:
 Is it just me or is wikipedia incredibly slow to load these days? Can
anything be done about this?

Andy