list: wikien-l

from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Harm reduction techniques

body:
On Fri, 2003-05-02 at 15:34, martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
> Hi all.
>
> This whole (long) post is going to go at [[meta:bans]], for people who prefer to have
> the "edit this page" button available:
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans
>
> It seems to me that our current "zero tolerance" policy towards "banned" users does
> not have a success rate that we can particularly brag about. We've got Lir (and co),
> DW (and co), 142.177.etc, Michael (and co), and so it goes on. We ban 'em, they
> come back under new names and laugh at us. But what are we trying to achieve?
>
> * Are we trying to ensure the integrity of the banning system?
> * Are we trying to punish racists for being evil people?
> * Or are we trying to build an encyclopedia?
>
All very well thought out.

An additional suggestion: require summaries on non-minor edits. That
will help all of us in general, and help patrol trolls as an ancillary
benefit.


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Chat about Wikipedia performance?

body:
> (Nick Reinking <nick at twoevils.org>):
>
> I'm actually in the middle of a C project to reduce the wikitext
> parser to a two-pass parser...

Don't stop working on it, but be aware that when our performance
issues are lessened for a while, I plan to go back to some work
I had been planning for a long time to simplify and formalize
wikitext syntax while adding some powerful features to it, so make
sure your code is open and modular enough that it can be changed.

The first plan was to unify link syntax; rather than having
[http://xxx zzz] for external links and [[xxx|zzz]] for internals,
I want to unify on [[xxx|zzz]] for both, and treat "http", "ftp",
etc. as special namespaces that makes external links.

The ''''' thing has /never/ worked correctly, and still doesn't.
Part of the problem is that there's no precise, formal definition
of what it /should/ do, and no obvious "best" choice. I want to
nail that down soon.

I really want to implement styles with the {{class}} syntax I
detailed earlier. That will let HTML gurus produce effects that
will be much easier for novices to edit than the current mess.

Finally, I want to do something about a wikitext syntax for tables,
probably using || characters.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: Andrew Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Zog is back as Anti-Zog

body:
Before our good friend started logging in there were edits from the
University of South Florida on very similar themes which I can't believe
weren't made by the same person. Presumably someone is able to find out the
IP addresses of Zog et al, if they are all USF then I'd be in favour of
trying to get USF to find out who it is and them giving he/she a Strong
Talking To. There's a newly rededicated statue of Martin Luther King at USF
( http://www.usf.edu/hppic_entry11.html ) so I assume they probably take a
pretty dim view of racism (and of mis-use of college networks etc.).
Pointing out the fact that if their IPs keep being blocked then their
students will lose this resource may be of interest to them.

On the other hand if they're just some nutcase not affiliated to any
institution then I guess Jimbo's answer below is all we can do.

Andrew (Ams80)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 4:24 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Zog is back as Anti-Zog

> The Cunctator wrote:
> > I don't understand what the problem is. Aren't people just deleting the
> > content when it comes on line?
>
> Yes, but it takes a lot of time.  If we're going to delete everything
> he writes (and we are), then it makes sense to raise the cost of
> persistence to him, and lower the cost of persistence to us.  Username
> and ip bans are very effective for that, forcing him to dialup over
> and over, and login again and again.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Finding PHP hotspots

body:
On Fri, 2003-05-02 at 16:21, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > (David A. Wheeler <david_a_wheeler at yahoo.com>):
> >
> > Of course, an alternative could be to run gprof itself against
> > the Apache daemon (including PHP).  Perhaps there's a hotspot
> > in the underlying Apache/PHP implementation; fixing that would
> > help Wikipedia and probably many others too.
> >
> > Anybody have a test platform willing to run the profile?
> > Again, I don't have such a setup :-(.
>
> I have a good test setup, and there already are some basic
> profiling statements in the PHP code that should be usable to
> tell us more specific information about where it's spending
> its time.
>
*cough* perl *cough*

Sorry, couldn't resist. A C lexical parser, if well written, could help
a lot.


from_name: Neil Harris

body:
David A. Wheeler wrote

>
>
>>Potential downsides:
>>* some articles are linked by 1000s+ of pages (like the pages linked
>>by
>>auto-generated articles). Hitting these could cause a significant
>>pause
>>as the cache is invalidated -- or will it?
>>
>>
>
>No, it shouldn't be a problem in normal circumstances.
>An HTML cache should only be changed if
>the EXISTENCE of a cached page changes. If an article is
>linked to by 1000s+ of pages, it almost certainly already exists,
>so no cache (other than the one edited article) would be invalidated.
>
>
By "hitting" in this case, I meant "deleting or creating". Sorry for the
ambiguity.
Take a look at something like [[census]], which is linked by about
36.000 articles.

>If an article is created (and didn't exist before), or completely
>deleted from the database, I think the usual case is that it would
>have have relatively few links (say, 0-10).
>Thus, you'd only have a few cache invalidations.
>
>The NON-normal case would actually be interesting.
>If an article was widely linked - but didn't exist - then it's
>likely that someone finally created "the article everybody wanted".
>If that's so, a small hick-up to store a widely-desired article would
>be reasonable - people would be glad for the article!
>In practice, I doubt there'd be many - the people who monitor the
>"most requested" article lists will create article before too many
>people link to the non-existent article.
>Altenernatively, perhaps all those links are a creation from a
>vandalizing bot - in which case, you'd like to know about it.
>If an article is deleted, and MANY pages refer to it, I'd
>worry - that could signal serious vandalism.
>

I agree. This is interesting to think about.

>
>Just to be clear: I'm specifically talking about
>caches of stored generated HTML in this email.
>This could be done by "front end" web servers inside their
>filesystem, without touching MySQL, as long as the web servers
>were told when to invalidate their caches.
>Say, via a separate process that simply get told via broadcast to
>"invalidate cache of article X" - it then removes the
>corresponding file (there's a risk of getting "old" articles in
>some circumstances - whether or not that's a problem is worth
>discussion). You can even imagine, say, 4-5 front-end
>webservers, with caches of article to serve read requests,
>and only talking to the database when updates occur.
>
>
This is how I think things will end up eventually: but there are lots of
data integrity and race condition / transaction issues to be thought
about before any of this can be implemented. Let's finish splitting the
system into two machines, DB and WWW, before any re-architecture is
performed.

>A separate issue is the possibility of storing _all_ of the article
>text in the filesystem, instead of MySQL.
>If that's done, a cache may or may not be useful; it depends on
>how much it takes to render the HTML from the wikitext.
>If the rendering to HTML is sufficiently fast, it's possible that
>the memory pressure from having both cached & original text will
>cause the system to be less efficient than if it regenerated the
>text each time.  I suspect caching would still be useful, even
>if the original text is in the filesystem; sendfile() and friends
>are blazingly fast, while PHP working to render the HTML
>simply can't be.
>
>It'd be possible to store both the original wikitext and the
>rendered HTML in the filesystem.  If you did that, perhaps they
>should be in separate directories,
>to simplify moving to multiple front-ends if that's desired later.
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>
>
>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Harm reduction techniques

body:
> -Martin "MyRedDice" Harper
> Or "Keep good edits, revert bad"

This *exactly* summarize my own opinion.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


from_name: root

subject: [Wikitech-l] New server

body:
This message comes from the new server...  It should now be accessible at 130.94.122.199 to all those people who have accounts on the old server.  It is a basic REDHAT 9.0 install, I didn't do anything with the kernel or the like.  I didn't install MySQL, PHP, or APACHE, as I assume that we have special needs in these programs.

The machine is a p3 866 WITH 1 gig of ram (2 512meg chips, 2 empty slots.  The board is an SMP board, but only has one processor at the moment.  The board has bios option for console redirection to a serial port.  I have tunred that option on and connected the first serial port of the two wikipedia macines together, for anybody that cares.

That's that...  I'm going to bed.

Jason (From the new server)


from_name: Dreyer, Jason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Finding PHP hotspots

body:
> Jens Frank wrote:
> On Fri, May 02, 2003 at 01:15:21PM -0700, David A. Wheeler wrote:
> > Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> posted some nice stats,
> > showing that the CPU usage is primarily in the Apache daemons.
>
> Yes, and the vmstat showed that the CPU is even idle while disk
> I/O is rather high. It's not mysql doing nothing. It's mysql
> waiting for the disk. The new server, how many disks will it
> have?

Breakthrough! Improving disk throughput for the database would probably do
wonders for Wikipedia performance.

Is it possible for you, hardware wise, to leave Apache and PHP on the
current server and move the database to a system with a higher performance
controller and multiple disks? If the database is will continue on the
current server, a controller upgrade may be in order.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Finding PHP hotspots

body:
> > Yes, and the vmstat showed that the CPU is even idle while disk
> > I/O is rather high. It's not mysql doing nothing. It's mysql
> > waiting for the disk. The new server, how many disks will it
> > have?
>
> Breakthrough! Improving disk throughput for the database would probably do
> wonders for Wikipedia performance.

Well it's not quite that simple--just because the machine is
waiting for disk I/O, that doesn't mean the speed of the disks
is necessarily the problem. Memory use could be affecting the
ability to cache, interference between Apache filesystem access
and MySQL access could be making seeks inefficient, etc.

But that does bring up the point that when we get the new server,
there's really nothing constraining which one we use for the
database and which for Apache, so we can make that decision
based on the hardware available to each.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL 4.0 boolean search

body:
I just did some more testing of MySQL 4.0.12, particularly
the boolean search. It didn't affect the speed of simple
searches at all, and it only sped up boolean ones a small
amount (maybe 5%, which could be within the variance of one
run to the next).

Of course, it didn't slow anything down, so it's a big win
in terms of functionality. Also, this preliminary test was only
with a small database; I'll do some more tests with a more
fully loaded one to see if that changes things.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Harm reduction techniques

body:
Hi all.

This whole (long) post is going to go at [[meta:bans]], for people who prefer to have
the "edit this page" button available:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans

It seems to me that our current "zero tolerance" policy towards "banned" users does
not have a success rate that we can particularly brag about. We've got Lir (and co),
DW (and co), 142.177.etc, Michael (and co), and so it goes on. We ban 'em, they
come back under new names and laugh at us. But what are we trying to achieve?

* Are we trying to ensure the integrity of the banning system?
* Are we trying to punish racists for being evil people?
* Or are we trying to build an encyclopedia?

Our aim shouldn't be to "crack down" on trolls, for the sake of cracking down.
Instead, we should practice [[harm reduction]]. When usenet lore talks of "don't feed
the trolls" it means ignore them - not deliberately seek them out in order to ban them
or revert them. People have talked of the time burden from Zog's ~150 edits. Let's
look at some harm reduction ideas for how to reduce that burden.

==Harm reduction techniques==

I'm just thinking though some of this stuff, so my past actions are liable to be
inconsistent with this! :)

Some edits were reverted under the concept that one should revert all edits made by
a banned/troublesome user, including good edits. For example, edits to [[Chaco
War]] and [[Amarya]] were reverted. We can improve efficiency by not bothering to
revert reasonable edits. Plus, the encyclopedia will then improve slightly in quality.
I'm not saying that you *have* to check every edit before reverting. I'm saying that if
you do notice that an edit seems reasonable, there's no need to revert it.

A substantial number of edits were made to the user pages, such as [[user:Zog]], etc.
Less harm is caused by bad stuff here. So, we could be more efficient here by
simply waiting a week, and then reverting the whole lot in one go. If Zog edits his
user page five times a day, and we wait a week before reverting, then we've
magically become 35 times more efficient, just by being lazy.
In any case, getting into an edit war with Zog over a non-essential page like
[[user:Zog]] encourages hir to come back.

By quickly making a [[/ban]] page we can save more time. No need to have the
same discussion on a dozen pages, plus the mailing list. As a bonus, if the user in
question wants to reform then such a page clues them in to what they're doing at no
extra cost. Which means we don't have to waste time telling them what they're doing
wrong, which brings me nicely on to the next header:

== Troll talk ==

Here's another way of reducing the time we spend dealing with trolls - don't talk to
them. "Why don't you go find another sandbox to stomp in?" says one Wikipedian -
every second spent writing that sentence was wasted time. Heck, it asked a banned
user a question - it practically *invited* hir to respond. And, unsurprisingly, respond
sie did - several times - and we wasted more time reverting hir. And then reverting
hir deletion of the "sandbox" question a few times.

Flames of trolls are pointless too. We all know that trolls troll in order to receive
flames. Therefore, telling them to "go away, Lir" is likely to be counter-productive. Is
there any evidence that Lir will go away if asked? Perhaps somehow Lir has got the
mistaken impression that he's welcome here, and all we ever had to do was suggest
that he should depart and he'd pack up his trouble in his old kit bag and leave, leave,
leave? Lir may be evil, but saying "Get thee behind me Satan" won't have a high
success rate.

Ignore trolls. Don't flame them. Don't ask them questions. If you must communicate
with them, to so calmly and briefly. If they flame you, take the fire out of their
comment by rewording it - and then ignore it or give a minimal "thanks for your
feedback" response. Alternatively, take their flame, cut and paste it onto the /ban
page and say "this is not acceptable" - and then proceed to ignoring it. If it's a case
of mistaken identity, then this'll become clear in due time, and then you can answer
the question. If not, you've lost nothing.

== In five words or less ==

"Ignore trolls, don't ban them"
Or "Keep good edits, revert bad"

-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


from_name: Jens Frank

body:
On Fri, May 02, 2003 at 06:46:08AM +0200, Thomas Corell wrote:
> >
> >In the evening (1:00 AM GMT), I see:
> >MemTotal:      2059088 kB
> >MemFree:         93096 kB
> >MemShared:          40 kB
> >Buffers:         14892 kB
> >SwapTotal:     2047992 kB
> >SwapFree:      1289140 kB
> >
> >That's pretty heavy swap usage (33%), and heavy memory usage.
>
> I hope you know that this values are very useless. You have to know the
> ratio of pagefaults to pagehits. Linux often has a lot of nearly never used
> things in swapspace.

That's the basic point. We have one symptom: Wikipedia is slow.
We have lots of ideas what might be the cause.
We don't have any useful statistics about what hits the server:
- Swapping activity
- Processes memory allocation
- Disk I/O ratio

What Lee Daniel's and my benchmarks have indicated is that the
effect of checking links or checking for stubs is probably minor.
The cause must be somewhere else.


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Zog is back as Anti-Zog

body:
>From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
>Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Zog is back as Anti-Zog
>Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 04:33:20 -0700
>
>I think we need to revisit having the ability for sysops to ban logged
>in users.  Maybe the wiki way of doing this is to put the ability into
>the software, but all sysops must agree to use it *only* to ban
>*certain* variants on a known banned troll.
>
>In the current case, it seems clear to me that banning Zog, Anti-Zog,
>Baboon Mouth, JamesERay, and so on, should be done virtually
>instantly, so as to discourage the behavior.

I agree. But how do we implement it? We could create the concept of a
"trusted user", perhaps defined in terms of number of edits and joining
date. If a user is not "trusted", a sysop can ban him/her. But ideally the
sysop should be able to also block the IP address. Here's an idea: maybe the
IPs of users could be available to sysops, but in encrypted form. So instead
of banning 152.163.189.233, we ban 675C4216 (possibly using slightly better
encryption than that).

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.?Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


from_name: Tony Wilson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Zog is back as Anti-Zog

body:
Jimbo is right. There are users who make a complete joke of our
"enforcement" procedures. Right now, Zog has headed one of his user
talk pages with a picture of a Klan ritual, complete with text: "Look
out niggers the Klan is getting bigger!!!"

Either we figure out a way to deal promptly with scum like this, or we
quit pretending that we are trying.
Tony Wilson
(Tannin)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: julien tayon

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Server overload?

body:
> Its amazingly simple what needs to be done:

I always fear and like simplicity at the same time :)
>
> either
>
> software wise:
> make wikipedia less database reliant, namely, most of wikiepedia's CPU
> time is being wasted on relational operations for ultimately simple
> queries. EG, when you go to a page, it hits the Database, this is
> clearly unnaccetable for a site of this scale. Simple solution is to
> dump out current versions of articles to file for orders of
> performance increase. And you could even have pre-prepared edit pages
> as well.  And im even told that the database is still being hit
> for"recent-changes", whereas it should be dumped to file every 1-5
> minutes.

The cache  strategy is the most used nowadays in dynamic website, so to
say the commit mechanism could both add an article in the db and commit
a pure html version in a cache that would be accessed by everybody.
After, if there is a space disk constraint you can choose to cache the
more than 1000 hits in the last week page or something like that .

>
> hardware wise:
[...]

Before buying harware, maybe conceiving the architecture could be a + !)

And last but not least, I guess it has already be done but there could
be some tuning on the servers :
- filesystem
- web server in itself
- db
- changing some transparent component,

and last but not least there could be a mirror strategy :
http://mirror1.fr.wikipedia.org =>  read only for instance and the edit
option would bring to the core server :)

--
Julien Tayon
http://www.tayon.net/			       http://libroscope.org/
Si la v?rit? est une femme, essayons de la s?duire avant de la saisir.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Finding PHP hotspots

body:
On Fri, May 02, 2003 at 01:15:21PM -0700, David A. Wheeler wrote:
> Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> posted some nice stats,
> showing that the CPU usage is primarily in the Apache daemons.

Yes, and the vmstat showed that the CPU is even idle while disk
I/O is rather high. It's not mysql doing nothing. It's mysql
waiting for the disk. The new server, how many disks will it
have?

Regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Show preview before edit box and not after it

body:
Could we please, please mark this option per default (and for anons)?
People keep reporting that the preview button doesn't work ...

This has been requested before (by me or others, I don't remember
anymore) and nobody disagreed.

Kurt


subject: [WikiEN-l] it looks like DW is back again

body:
Check out User:Janet Dayton

Seem familiar?

Tony Wilson
(Tannin)


from_name: Jay Bowks

subject: [Wikitech-l] New server

body:
Thanks Jason for the hard work,
and the well "rooted" brand new
server, may good things grow
out of it.

And restfull dreams ;-)

Sincerely,
Jay B.

----- Original Message -----
From: "root" <root at localhost.localdomain>
> This message comes from the new server...  It should now be accessible at
130.94.122.199 to all those people who have accounts on the old server.  It
is a basic REDHAT 9.0 install, I didn't do anything with the kernel or the
like.  I didn't install MySQL, PHP, or APACHE, as I assume that we have
special needs in these programs.
> The machine is a p3 866 WITH 1 gig of ram (2 512meg chips, 2 empty slots.
The board is an SMP board, but only has one processor at the moment.  The
board has bios option for console redirection to a serial port.  I have
tunred that option on and connected the first serial port of the two
wikipedia macines together, for anybody that cares.
> That's that...  I'm going to bed.
> Jason (From the new server)


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conventions and movie vs. film

body:
james duffy wrote:

>
>>
>> On Thu, 2003-05-01 at 09:35, The Cunctator wrote:
>> > We actually did have a big discussion about this and film ended up
>> being
>> > nixed because of the problem of digital videa replacing actual film
>> as the
>> > medium for "films". Thus, "movie".
>
> If that is the case, then surely 'movie', a word linked with the
> silent world of moving pictures, should be replaced on wiki by 'talkie'.
>
> And if the Cunctator's assertion is correct, then we need to change
> it. Non-Americans do not generally use the word 'movie'. It is a word
> only occasionally used outside the US and usually applied to heavily
> Americanised Hollywood-ised blockbusters; Bruce Willis saves the
> world, gets the girl and wisecracks his way to the conclusion, with
> the promise of 5 sequels and billions of dollars of merchandising to
> come. In fact 'movie' is used internationally in relation to 'film'
> the way 'fast food' is used in relation to 'cuisine'. Stuff by Quentin
> Tarantino is often described as 'film' whereas something with Arnie,
> Sly or that genre is invariably a 'movie'. And anyone ever heard of a
> 'movie noir'?

In which case a disambiguator of '(movie)' is totally appropriate
for the works of which you're contemptuous, eh?  In fact, people
could tell from the use of '(film)' vs '(movie)' in the article
title whether it's one that you approve of, and thus know how
to evaluate the worthiness of the article before reading it.

But seriously, there are a hundred ways that I could look down
my nose at, say, Ireland and the Irish, yet you don't see me spewing
those out at every opportunity.  So cool it with the cultural
superiority guff - nobody is actually interested in your opinion
on what kind of material they should admire.

Of course, you're welcome to try to convince people to
disambiguate with '(film)', but let me give you a hint - they'll
be a lot easier to convince if you treat them with respect.

Stan


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Disk performance

body:
I (sometimes) use Mandrake Linux, which is based on RedHat. The hdparm
command did work - well, not wonders, but improved speed a bit. Try

http://pierre.mit.edu/compfac/linux/Securing-Optimizing-Linux-RH-Edition-v1.3/chap6sec74.html

for a quick-and-dirty manual.

Magnus


subject: [WikiEN-l] Harm reduction techniques

body:
On Sat, 2003-05-03 at 19:51, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Cunc-
> > An additional suggestion: require summaries on non-minor edits. That
> > will help all of us in general, and help patrol trolls as an ancillary
> > benefit.
>
> Bad idea. People will then flag the minor edit checkbox for major edits to
> avoid running into this restriction. Either make the summary mandatory, or
> don't. But do not create an incentive for cheating.
>
If they do that, they will be punished. It doesn't create an incentive
for cheating. It makes acts of cheating explicit.


from_name: james duffy

body:
>
>On Thu, 2003-05-01 at 09:35, The Cunctator wrote:
> > We actually did have a big discussion about this and film ended up being
> > nixed because of the problem of digital videa replacing actual film as
>the
> > medium for "films". Thus, "movie".

If that is the case, then surely 'movie', a word linked with the silent
world of moving pictures, should be replaced on wiki by 'talkie'.

And if the Cunctator's assertion is correct, then we need to change it.
Non-Americans do not generally use the word 'movie'. It is a word only
occasionally used outside the US and usually applied to heavily Americanised
Hollywood-ised blockbusters; Bruce Willis saves the world, gets the girl and
wisecracks his way to the conclusion, with the promise of 5 sequels and
billions of dollars of merchandising to come. In fact 'movie' is used
internationally in relation to 'film' the way 'fast food' is used in
relation to 'cuisine'. Stuff by Quentin Tarantino is often described as
'film' whereas something with Arnie, Sly or that genre is invariably a
'movie'. And anyone ever heard of a 'movie noir'?

JT

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] New server

body:
> > This message comes from the new server... It should now be accessible at
> 130.94.122.199 to all those people who have accounts on the old server.

After a bit of downtime, both servers seem to be alive and well. I've
compiled and installed everything on the new machine, and ran some tests.
Now I have to reconfigure to point to the database on the old server,
do some more tests, and then switch over the IPs/DNS.

Based on the specs of the new server, it appears that our original plan
of putting Apache on the new machine and the database on the old one is
still the right plan. Moving things like Apache logs and backups onto the
new disk should help.

Stay tuned...

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Harm reduction techniques

body:
We don't want a big punishment sytem for people who
simply don't write summaries on their edits. If you
really need to know what was changed, just look in
Page History. If you require edits, some people might
just write "a" (or something similar) in the summary
box to evade writing a summary. Summaries really
aren't that important.

--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> > Bad idea. People will then flag the minor edit
> checkbox for major edits to
> > avoid running into this restriction. Either make
> the summary mandatory, or
> > don't. But do not create an incentive for
> cheating.
> >
> If they do that, they will be punished. It doesn't
> create an incentive
> for cheating. It makes acts of cheating explicit.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


body:
--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> james duffy wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2003-05-01 at 09:35, The Cunctator wrote:
> >> > We actually did have a big discussion about
> this and film ended up
> >> being
> >> > nixed because of the problem of digital videa
> replacing actual film
> >> as the
> >> > medium for "films". Thus, "movie".
> >
> > If that is the case, then surely 'movie', a word
> linked with the
> > silent world of moving pictures, should be
> replaced on wiki by 'talkie'.
> >
> > And if the Cunctator's assertion is correct, then
> we need to change
> > it. Non-Americans do not generally use the word
> 'movie'. It is a word
> > only occasionally used outside the US and usually
> applied to heavily
> > Americanised Hollywood-ised blockbusters; Bruce
> Willis saves the
> > world, gets the girl and wisecracks his way to the
> conclusion, with
> > the promise of 5 sequels and billions of dollars
> of merchandising to
> > come. In fact 'movie' is used internationally in
> relation to 'film'
> > the way 'fast food' is used in relation to
> 'cuisine'. Stuff by Quentin
> > Tarantino is often described as 'film' whereas
> something with Arnie,
> > Sly or that genre is invariably a 'movie'. And
> anyone ever heard of a
> > 'movie noir'?
>
> In which case a disambiguator of '(movie)' is
> totally appropriate
> for the works of which you're contemptuous, eh?  In
> fact, people
> could tell from the use of '(film)' vs '(movie)' in
> the article
> title whether it's one that you approve of, and thus
> know how
> to evaluate the worthiness of the article before
> reading it.
>
> But seriously, there are a hundred ways that I could
> look down
> my nose at, say, Ireland and the Irish, yet you
> don't see me spewing
> those out at every opportunity.  So cool it with the
> cultural
> superiority guff - nobody is actually interested in
> your opinion
> on what kind of material they should admire.
>
> Of course, you're welcome to try to convince people
> to
> disambiguate with '(film)', but let me give you a
> hint - they'll
> be a lot easier to convince if you treat them with
> respect.
>
> Stan

This whole debate is pointless. Who cares if we use
movie or film. Neither one is ambiguous. Neither is
really that "uncultured". It doesn't matter. Just make
redirects from one to another (since some use movie
and others film) or else pick one and adopt it as a
standard. Pick a number 1 or 2. One of them is movie,
the other film. It really doesn't matter which one is
used. Will one of them detract from our goal of
creating an encyclopedia? Just think of that when
debating these pointless issues.
-LittleDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


body:
Let's give DW's latest incarnation another chance. He
hasn't done any damage yet, and he/she might do well
this time.

--- Tony Wilson <list at redhill.net.au> wrote:
> Check out User:Janet Dayton
>
> Seem familiar?
>
>
> Tony Wilson
> (Tannin)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


from_name: bedingt at dellepro.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop Rights

body:
To Whom It May Concern:

My login is NBtarheel33 and I am requesting Sysop rights.

Thanks,

NBtarheel33
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030504/2c4bc6c3/attachment.htm


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Harm reduction techniques

body:
Cunc-
> An additional suggestion: require summaries on non-minor edits. That
> will help all of us in general, and help patrol trolls as an ancillary
> benefit.

Bad idea. People will then flag the minor edit checkbox for major edits to
avoid running into this restriction. Either make the summary mandatory, or
don't. But do not create an incentive for cheating.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
We did this and we chose movie.

Fred

>
> This whole debate is pointless. Who cares if we use
> movie or film. Neither one is ambiguous. Neither is
> really that "uncultured". It doesn't matter. Just make
> redirects from one to another (since some use movie
> and others film) or else pick one and adopt it as a
> standard. Pick a number 1 or 2. One of them is movie,
> the other film. It really doesn't matter which one is
> used. Will one of them detract from our goal of
> creating an encyclopedia? Just think of that when
> debating these pointless issues.
> -LittleDan


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 09:13 AM 5/4/03 +0100, JT wrote:

>Chill out, Stan. I was what is known in Ireland as 'taking the piss', a
>bit of ironic mockery. (Oh God, you are not one of these boring people who
>don't 'do' irony and are to a sense of humour what George W. Bush is to
>linguistic dexterity?)

Taking the piss means you were being rude to him, and now think you're
allowed to be
rude because he didn't think it was funny. No. Taking the piss, like many
forms of humor,
only works if all involved agree. The phrase you're looking for is "I'm
sorry, Stan, I didn't
mean to offend you."
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: koyaanis qatsi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: film vs. movie

body:
> Put bluntly, Stan, this is wikipedia, not
> americopedia. If you want respect
> from non-Americans, show their language and
> spellings some respect. And get a sense of humour.

I'm a movie/film buff myself, and, yes, an American,
though that's an unfashionable thing to be these days
outside of the U.S..  I don't like (movie) as a
disambiguator but I'm using it also, because that's
what we decided on.  I don't remember ''why'' we
decided what we decided, but that is what we decided,
so I'm going with it.  Otherwise we end up with two
articles about one movie, and who needs that?

If you want to change the convention, instead of
making emotional accusations, you could put forth a
calmly reasoned argument for why it should be changed,
and we could start the discussion in earnest from
there.

kq

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


body:
Chill out, Stan. I was what is known in Ireland as 'taking the piss', a bit
of ironic mockery. (Oh God, you are not one of these boring people who don't
'do' irony and are to a sense of humour what George W. Bush is to linguistic
dexterity?)

The point I was making is that it is American arrogance in the extreme to
think - ' we use the word 'movie' therefore wikipedia must use the word
'movie' and any references to the word film we will replace with the 'right'
(ie American) word'. Some people use movie, some use film, as with British
English versus American English, leave it in whatever language the original
author used. Some time ago, a European wikian wrote about a film made in
Europe that because of legal problems never got a release in the US. It
never have been released there, but still someone tried to call it a (movie)
not a (film) until a group of bored Europeans, inspired by GWB, decided to
wage their own war for the liberation of the word 'film', collectively
telling the annoying renamer to shag off and Americanise something else. And
he reacted to their defence of a non-US title the way George W. reacts to
anything french these days. He hit the roof with a stream of 'how bloody
dare you . . . ' type responses.

Put bluntly, Stan, this is wikipedia, not americopedia. If you want respect
from non-Americans, show their language and spellings some respect. And get
a sense of humour.

JT.

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus


from_name: Andrew Smith

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Grevers" <lists at dramatic.co.nz>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2003 6:26 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Conventions and movie vs. film

> On Sat, 3 May 2003 21:58:43 -0700 (PDT), Daniel Ehrenberg
> <littledanehren at yahoo.com> gave utterance to the following:
> >
> > This whole debate is pointless. Who cares if we use
> > movie or film. Neither one is ambiguous. Neither is
> > really that "uncultured". It doesn't matter. Just make
> > redirects from one to another (since some use movie
> > and others film) or else pick one and adopt it as a
> > standard. Pick a number 1 or 2. One of them is movie,
> > the other film. It really doesn't matter which one is
> > used. Will one of them detract from our goal of
> > creating an encyclopedia? Just think of that when
> > debating these pointless issues.
> > -LittleDan
> >
> I was about to raise my hand in favour of movie for the reason that film
is
> ambiguous but movie isn't.
>
> As to usage, movie is one word I don't regard as an americanism (it
> probably arrived in NZ with the troops during WWII). New Zealanders will
> say they are going to the movies, to see a movie, to the pictures, but
they
> will seldom say "to a film" or "to the cinema". I think "the flicks" has
> almost died out as a term.
>

I'm with LittleDan on this, I don't think either term is ambiguous. I really
can't believe that anyone could be left perplexed by either Dirty Dancing
(movie) or Dirty Dancing (film). And even if they were, spending 10 seconds
reading the article's first paragraph would make it clear.

Like most English people (I think) the word I use is 'film' but I think we
should leave the articles at (movie), or if people prefer then make both
endings acceptable.

Andrew (Ams80)


from_name: Abe Sokolov

subject: [WikiEN-l] administrator's status

body:
I?d like to apply for administrator's status. [[User:172|172]]

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030504/14b6a3ab/attachment.htm


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL password for wikiuser needs to be changed

body:
If the PHP function mysql_pconnect cannot connect to the database, it
produces a warning, divulging MySQL username and password to the world.
This should be switched off if possible. Right now, the MySQL password
for wikiuser needs to be changed immediately, because the world knows
:-)

Axel

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] empty articles shown as nonexistent

body:
A long time ago someone suggested that links to empty (but not deleted)
articles should be shown as if the article wouldn't exist (strictly
speaking: red). If I remember correctly this would take to much time.

But now that the software and database are redesigned I wanted to remind
you about the idea. A real deletion of an article often isn't required,
and the benefits would be:
* less work for sysops
* less cause for discussion about the deletion of pages
* less cause for mistrust against sysops who delete pages

I cant see any disadvantages (besides a little more crap in some
article's history), maybe someone else can.

(In case you implement it: A little reminder that an article is empty at
the moment, but has some information in it's history would be nice.)

Kurt


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
james duffy wrote:

>
> Chill out, Stan. I was what is known in Ireland as 'taking the piss',
> a bit of ironic mockery. (Oh God, you are not one of these boring
> people who don't 'do' irony and are to a sense of humour what George
> W. Bush is to linguistic dexterity?)

George III's linguistic dexterity may be seen as the product of a
bisinistrally forked tongue.

Ec


body:
YES is not the password, just the standard error message.

Fred

> From: Axel Boldt <axelboldt at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 12:48:41 -0700 (PDT)
> To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL password for wikiuser needs to be changed
>
> If the PHP function mysql_pconnect cannot connect to the database, it
> produces a warning, divulging MySQL username and password to the world.
> This should be switched off if possible. Right now, the MySQL password
> for wikiuser needs to be changed immediately, because the world knows
> :-)
>
> Axel
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
> http://search.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


body:
james duffy wrote:

> 'Taking the piss' means ironic teasing. It is something done the world
> over, understood the world over. If Stan is incapable of understanding
> the difference between ironic teasing and being deliberately rude,
> that is a reflection on him and his humour bypass. But no, Stan, I did
> not mean to offend you. And if you misunderstood what I was saying as
> being offensive then I apologise, but that was not what I was doing. I
> was being sarcastic and ironic, using a standard form of humour in
> Europe that people do not usually take offence at, they 'getting' the
> joke.
>
> I was making a standard joke which is made all the time about how
> movie is used to imply Hollywood blockbuster, film is often used to
> refer to arthouse film or film with intellectual content or a film is
> in itself a quality piece of work. So 'Dumb and Dumber' is often
> described as a movie in Europe, Casablanca, The Dead, Schindler's
> List, American Beauty, The Big Chill, etc are described as films. It
> is subjective opinion by definition. In any case 'movie' is generally
> seen as an American term (though it is used occasionally outide the
> US), film as a worldwide one.  There is no one 'right' term unlike
> formal names or definitions. I think it unacceptable that wiki wants
> to use an American term that most non-americans don't use, or if they
> do, they use it as a code for bland, Hollywoodized, heavily
> merchantised produce.
>
> JT
>
>> Taking the piss means you were being rude to him, and now think
>> you're allowed to be
>> rude because he didn't think it was funny. No. Taking the piss, like
>> many forms of humor,
>> only works if all involved agree. The phrase you're looking for is
>> "I'm sorry, Stan, I didn't
>> mean to offend you."
>
If JT was taking the piss out, I'm afraid he was doing it up wind.

I just reviewed the phrase where it appears in Eric Partridge's
"Dictionary of Slang" as ambiguous.  On the one hand it is indeed used
as JT declares, but Partridge also notes that it is more commonly
applied to jeer at someone's bladder of conceit.

The action of "taking the piss" is surely a world-wide phenomenon, but
that specific term is not universally used.  Do we have here the
antecedent Hibernian imperialism that once infected the gangs of New
York, and which would one day be the model for a whole nation?
 Presidents John IV and Ronald I really did have reason to be thankful
for their Irish roots.  We have it proposed that a "fillum" should be
distinguished from a movie on the basis of intellectual content, and
that "Dumb and Dumber" is no longer a quality piece of work to reflect
the true nature of the American psyche.  Perhaps it is our very pisser
who should be "passed the catheter."

Ec


from_name: Richard Grevers

body:
On Sat, 3 May 2003 21:58:43 -0700 (PDT), Daniel Ehrenberg
<littledanehren at yahoo.com> gave utterance to the following:
>
> This whole debate is pointless. Who cares if we use
> movie or film. Neither one is ambiguous. Neither is
> really that "uncultured". It doesn't matter. Just make
> redirects from one to another (since some use movie
> and others film) or else pick one and adopt it as a
> standard. Pick a number 1 or 2. One of them is movie,
> the other film. It really doesn't matter which one is
> used. Will one of them detract from our goal of
> creating an encyclopedia? Just think of that when
> debating these pointless issues.
> -LittleDan
>
I was about to raise my hand in favour of movie for the reason that film is
ambiguous but movie isn't.

As to usage, movie is one word I don't regard as an americanism (it
probably arrived in NZ with the troops during WWII). New Zealanders will
say they are going to the movies, to see a movie, to the pictures, but they
will seldom say "to a film" or "to the cinema". I think "the flicks" has
almost died out as a term.

--
Richard Grevers
Christchurch, New Zealand


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL connect error

body:
> 	Warning: mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES) in /usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on line 28
> 	Could not connect to DB on 127.0.0.1
>
> 	Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES)

I assume whatever this was has been long since taken care of, as I have
no trouble accessing the wiki at present.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20030504/a524d9be/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Zoe

body:
This is nonsense.  I'm sorry, JT, but we have a
standard that was worked out several months ago, and
to change it now is only because the Americans are
using it, and we can't have that, can we?

To me, at least, I can't speak for all Americans, the
use of the term "film" has a sort of preciousness to
it (though I have to admit I have used it in the
articles I've written.)

Zoe

--- james duffy <jtdirl at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >On Thu, 2003-05-01 at 09:35, The Cunctator wrote:
> > > We actually did have a big discussion about this
> and film ended up being
> > > nixed because of the problem of digital videa
> replacing actual film as
> >the
> > > medium for "films". Thus, "movie".
>
> If that is the case, then surely 'movie', a word
> linked with the silent
> world of moving pictures, should be replaced on wiki
> by 'talkie'.
>
> And if the Cunctator's assertion is correct, then we
> need to change it.
> Non-Americans do not generally use the word 'movie'.
> It is a word only
> occasionally used outside the US and usually applied
> to heavily Americanised
> Hollywood-ised blockbusters; Bruce Willis saves the
> world, gets the girl and
> wisecracks his way to the conclusion, with the
> promise of 5 sequels and
> billions of dollars of merchandising to come. In
> fact 'movie' is used
> internationally in relation to 'film' the way 'fast
> food' is used in
> relation to 'cuisine'. Stuff by Quentin Tarantino is
> often described as
> 'film' whereas something with Arnie, Sly or that
> genre is invariably a
> 'movie'. And anyone ever heard of a 'movie noir'?
>
> JT
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection
> with MSN 8.
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


body:
No.

How many threats and villifications must we accept?

Zoe, who has been the target of all-too-many of DW's
diatribes.

--- Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Let's give DW's latest incarnation another chance.
> He
> hasn't done any damage yet, and he/she might do well
> this time.
>
> --- Tony Wilson <list at redhill.net.au> wrote:
> > Check out User:Janet Dayton
> >
> > Seem familiar?
> >
> >
> > Tony Wilson
> > (Tannin)
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
> http://search.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


body:
You don't see the irony of saying that because
Americans use the word, we aren't allowed to us it on
Wikipedia?  That because it's an Americanims, it's de
facto wrong?  Sounds like anti-American arrogance, to
me.  This is really, really, really, getting old.
Fine, you don't want Americopedia.  What about
anti-Americopedia?  Why don't you go off to your
little corner of Europe and start your own?

Zoe

--- james duffy <jtdirl at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Chill out, Stan. I was what is known in Ireland as
> 'taking the piss', a bit
> of ironic mockery. (Oh God, you are not one of these
> boring people who don't
> 'do' irony and are to a sense of humour what George
> W. Bush is to linguistic
> dexterity?)
>
> The point I was making is that it is American
> arrogance in the extreme to
> think - ' we use the word 'movie' therefore
> wikipedia must use the word
> 'movie' and any references to the word film we will
> replace with the 'right'
> (ie American) word'. Some people use movie, some use
> film, as with British
> English versus American English, leave it in
> whatever language the original
> author used. Some time ago, a European wikian wrote
> about a film made in
> Europe that because of legal problems never got a
> release in the US. It
> never have been released there, but still someone
> tried to call it a (movie)
> not a (film) until a group of bored Europeans,
> inspired by GWB, decided to
> wage their own war for the liberation of the word
> 'film', collectively
> telling the annoying renamer to shag off and
> Americanise something else. And
> he reacted to their defence of a non-US title the
> way George W. reacts to
> anything french these days. He hit the roof with a
> stream of 'how bloody
> dare you . . . ' type responses.
>
> Put bluntly, Stan, this is wikipedia, not
> americopedia. If you want respect
> from non-Americans, show their language and
> spellings some respect. And get
> a sense of humour.
>
> JT.
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months
> FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


body:
So Stan should apologize to you because you insulted
him?

Zoe

--- james duffy <jtdirl at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> 'Taking the piss' means ironic teasing. It is
> something done the world over,
> understood the world over. If Stan is incapable of
> understanding the
> difference between ironic teasing and being
> deliberately rude, that is a
> reflection on him and his humour bypass. But no,
> Stan, I did not mean to
> offend you. And if you misunderstood what I was
> saying as being offensive
> then I apologise, but that was not what I was doing.
> I was being sarcastic
> and ironic, using a standard form of humour in
> Europe that people do not
> usually take offence at, they 'getting' the joke.
>
> I was making a standard joke which is made all the
> time about how movie is
> used to imply Hollywood blockbuster, film is often
> used to refer to arthouse
> film or film with intellectual content or a film is
> in itself a quality
> piece of work. So 'Dumb and Dumber' is often
> described as a movie in Europe,
> Casablanca, The Dead, Schindler's List, American
> Beauty, The Big Chill, etc
> are described as films. It is subjective opinion by
> definition. In any case
> 'movie' is generally seen as an American term
> (though it is used
> occasionally outide the US), film as a worldwide
> one.  There is no one
> 'right' term unlike formal names or definitions. I
> think it unacceptable
> that wiki wants to use an American term that most
> non-americans don't use,
> or if they do, they use it as a code for bland,
> Hollywoodized, heavily
> merchantised produce.
>
> JT
>
> >Taking the piss means you were being rude to him,
> and now think you're
> >allowed to be
> >rude because he didn't think it was funny. No.
> Taking the piss, like many
> >forms of humor,
> >only works if all involved agree. The phrase you're
> looking for is "I'm
> >sorry, Stan, I didn't
> >mean to offend you."
> >--
> >Vicki Rosenzweig
> >vr at redbird.org
> >http://www.redbird.org
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> >http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
>
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

>Jtdirl wrote:

>>>The Cunctator wrote:

>>>>We actually did have a big discussion about this and film ended up being
>>>>nixed because of the problem of digital video replacing actual film as the
>>>>medium for "films". Thus, "movie".

>>If that is the case, then surely 'movie', a word linked with the
>>silent world of moving pictures, should be replaced on wiki by 'talkie'.

???  Talkies still move, so talkies are still movies.
*And* silent films (even silent digital videos) are still movies.
So only "movie", not "talkie" nor "film", is most general.

>>And if the Cunctator's assertion is correct, then we need to change
>>it. Non-Americans do not generally use the word 'movie'. It is a word
>>only occasionally used outside the US and usually applied to heavily
>>Americanised Hollywood-ised blockbusters; Bruce Willis saves the
>>world, gets the girl and wisecracks his way to the conclusion, with
>>the promise of 5 sequels and billions of dollars of merchandising to
>>come. In fact 'movie' is used internationally in relation to 'film'
>>the way 'fast food' is used in relation to 'cuisine'. Stuff by Quentin
>>Tarantino is often described as 'film' whereas something with Arnie,
>>Sly or that genre is invariably a 'movie'. And anyone ever heard of a
>>'movie noir'?

Apparently, "movie" is used in NZ as well as in the US.
So I don't think that we can make a general distinction like
?"movie" is used *only* in the US, but "film" is used everywhere else.?.
Thus we should say that both terms are acceptable in running text,
and pick a naming convention for titles rather arbitrarily.
The arbitrary choice that was made some time ago is "movie".

>In which case a disambiguator of '(movie)' is totally appropriate
>for the works of which you're contemptuous, eh?  In fact, people
>could tell from the use of '(film)' vs '(movie)' in the article
>title whether it's one that you approve of, and thus know how
>to evaluate the worthiness of the article before reading it.

Where did this come from?  Did I miss an earlier post by jtdirl
where he said that he agreed with snobbish Eurotrash about American movies?
If that's how the terms are in fact interpreted in Ireland,
then you can't blame jtdirl for reporting it.

(And Tarantino's movies *are* better than Willis' movies. ^_^
In particular, Pulp Fiction is Tarantino's worst and Willis' best.
Both are Americans, of course.)

-- Toby


body:
'Taking the piss' means ironic teasing. It is something done the world over,
understood the world over. If Stan is incapable of understanding the
difference between ironic teasing and being deliberately rude, that is a
reflection on him and his humour bypass. But no, Stan, I did not mean to
offend you. And if you misunderstood what I was saying as being offensive
then I apologise, but that was not what I was doing. I was being sarcastic
and ironic, using a standard form of humour in Europe that people do not
usually take offence at, they 'getting' the joke.

I was making a standard joke which is made all the time about how movie is
used to imply Hollywood blockbuster, film is often used to refer to arthouse
film or film with intellectual content or a film is in itself a quality
piece of work. So 'Dumb and Dumber' is often described as a movie in Europe,
Casablanca, The Dead, Schindler's List, American Beauty, The Big Chill, etc
are described as films. It is subjective opinion by definition. In any case
'movie' is generally seen as an American term (though it is used
occasionally outide the US), film as a worldwide one.  There is no one
'right' term unlike formal names or definitions. I think it unacceptable
that wiki wants to use an American term that most non-americans don't use,
or if they do, they use it as a code for bland, Hollywoodized, heavily
merchantised produce.

JT

>Taking the piss means you were being rude to him, and now think you're
>allowed to be
>rude because he didn't think it was funny. No. Taking the piss, like many
>forms of humor,
>only works if all involved agree. The phrase you're looking for is "I'm
>sorry, Stan, I didn't
>mean to offend you."
>--
>Vicki Rosenzweig
>vr at redbird.org
>http://www.redbird.org
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963


subject: [WikiEN-l] DW/Black Widow is back

body:
(Sorry if this comes twice, Yahoo gave me errors the
first time.)

DW/Black Widow is now posting on Wikipedia as
[[User:Sonya L]]

Zoe

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


from_name: Luc Van Oostenryck

subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL connect error

body:
Hi listers,

last ten minutes I recived several times the following error message:

	Warning: mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES) in /usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on line 28
	Could not connect to DB on 127.0.0.1

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

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

Just to be sure you are aware of this.

--
Luc Van Oostenryck aka User:Looxix


from_name: K Forstner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Could not connect

body:
What is this??

KF

Warning: mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Access denied for user:
'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES) in
/usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on line 28
Could not connect to DB on 127.0.0.1
Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password:
YES)

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


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL connect error

body:
Luc Van Oostenryck schrieb:
> last ten minutes I recived several times the following error message:
>
> 	Warning: mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES) in /usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/DatabaseFunctions.php on line 28
> 	Could not connect to DB on 127.0.0.1
>
> 	Access denied for user: 'wikiuser at localhost.localdomain' (Using password: YES)
>
> 	If this error persists after reloading and clearing your browser cache, please notify the Wikipedia developers.

Grrr, this is really annoying.

Kurt


body:
>So Stan should apologize to you because you insulted
>him?

jtdirl's post never said that.

Please, let everybody settle down!
No more posts until you've waited 10 minutes
(after reading the post that you're replying to).

-- Toby


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikitech-l] Finding PHP hotspots

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> But that does bring up the point that when we get the new server,
> there's really nothing constraining which one we use for the
> database and which for Apache, so we can make that decision
> based on the hardware available to each.

Jason can give a report in detail, but as I recall, the current wikipedia
machine is our best machine.  The new wikipedia machine is a hand-me-down
taken out of service at bomis, a nice machine to be sure, but not as nice
as the current wikipedia machine.


in_reply_to: <BAY1-F92rRjbDt3HvoF0000617c@hotmail.com>; from jtdirl@hotmail.com on Sun, May 04, 2003 at 09:13:53AM +0100

body:
james duffy wrote:
> The point I was making is that it is American arrogance in the
> extreme to think - ' we use the word 'movie' therefore wikipedia
> must use the word 'movie' and any references to the word film we
> will replace with the 'right' (ie American) word'.

If anyone actually held that opinion, it would indeed be American
arrogance in the extreme.  But I don't see any evidence that anyone
here has said or implied anything of the sort.

I'm actually personally leaning towards 'film', but I don't see any
reason to think that 'movie' is a horrible choice that insults the
world.

Let's cut each other some slack.  :-)

--Jimbo


body:
Zoe wrote:
> You don't see the irony of saying that because
> Americans use the word, we aren't allowed to us it on
> Wikipedia?  That because it's an Americanims, it's de
> facto wrong?  Sounds like anti-American arrogance, to
> me.  This is really, really, really, getting old.
> Fine, you don't want Americopedia.  What about
> anti-Americopedia?  Why don't you go off to your
> little corner of Europe and start your own?

Zoe,

Please don't act this way, it isn't helpful.

Everyone please remember -- we're all individuals working together out
of a love for the project.  Don't make the mistake of letting our
personal interactions track world sentiment.  This means...

If you're mad at George Bush, don't take it out on Americans.  If
you're mad at Jacques Chirac, don't take it out on the French.

The fact that world tensions are high between some American and some
European politicians really has very close to zero relevance to our
lives here on Wikipedia.

Assume the best of others, so that they may assume the best of you.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: film vs. movie

in_reply_to: <20030504160958.76593.qmail@web14710.mail.yahoo.com>; from obchodnakorze@yahoo.com on Sun, May 04, 2003 at 09:09:58AM -0700

body:
koyaanis qatsi wrote:
> If you want to change the convention, instead of
> making emotional accusations, you could put forth a
> calmly reasoned argument for why it should be changed,
> and we could start the discussion in earnest from
> there.

Absolutely!

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] [SaRiNnA220@aol.com: !!!!!]

body:
I love messages like this.  I always feel bad for about 10 seconds,
and as a good honest businessman, my first instinct is to refund their
money.  An unhappy customer deserves to get their money back, after
all!

And then I remember...

----- Forwarded message from SaRiNnA220 at aol.com -----

From: SaRiNnA220 at aol.com
Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 15:45:28 EDT
To: wikidown at bomis.com
Subject: !!!!!

Well, yea, I don't mean to be rude but I'm kind of trying to do a project
here and your site just kind of SHUT DOWN on me. This is a little ridiculous,
you can put it back up now, you know, any time would be nice.

~ A Very Perturbed User

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


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] Finding PHP hotspots

body:
The new server has a single disk (IBM SCSI Ultra-320 80-pin 34 Gig
10,000 RPM, ??? seek time).  The drive is brand new, and ther is room
in the server case for one more 80-pin SCSI drive.

Also, there is 1 Gig of RAM (using 2 of 4 memory slots).  The board
requires ECC Registered PC133 SDRAM (The ones that are in there now
are made by CORSAIR, currently).  It will take up to 1 Gig chips.

Jason

Jens Frank wrote:

> On Fri, May 02, 2003 at 01:15:21PM -0700, David A. Wheeler wrote:
> > Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> posted some nice stats,
> > showing that the CPU usage is primarily in the Apache daemons.
>
> Yes, and the vmstat showed that the CPU is even idle while disk
> I/O is rather high. It's not mysql doing nothing. It's mysql
> waiting for the disk. The new server, how many disks will it
> have?
>
> Regards,
>
> 	JeLuF
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [WikiEN-l] administrator's status

body:
Are there any objections?

Abe Sokolov wrote:

>
> I?d like to apply for administrator's status. [[User:172|172]]
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.


subject: [Wikitech-l] [jasonr@bomis.com: Re: [msochuck@yahoo.com: please fix vikipedio.com redirect  (estis: Helpon ! la vikipedio malaperis.)]]

body:
----- Forwarded message from Jason Richey <jasonr at bomis.com> -----

From: Jason Richey <jasonr at bomis.com>
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 10:31:27 -0700
To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Re: [msochuck at yahoo.com: please fix vikipedio.com redirect  (estis: Helpon ! la vikipedio malaperis.)]

this doesn't make sense.  These domains already point to the new
server, which is already configured to answer for that hostname...
Wait, there is a problem...  There must be some freaky rewriteRule or
something that is "Stealing" the opportunity to serve this page.  I've
been looking at the httpd.conf for a while, and I'm not sure what the
deal is (and I'm a little nervous about restarting the apache on this
bogged-down server).

Still looking...

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> ----- Forwarded message from Chuck Smith <msochuck at yahoo.com> -----
>
> From: Chuck Smith <msochuck at yahoo.com>
> Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 21:29:27 +0200 (CEST)
> To: jwales at bomis.com
> Subject: please fix vikipedio.com redirect  (estis: Helpon ! la vikipedio malaperis.)
>
> Jimbo,
>
> Please make www.vikipedio.com a redirect to
> eo.wikipedia.org.  Thanks!
>
> Bonvolu farigi www.vikipedio.com plusendilon al
> eo.wikipedio.org.  Dankon!
>
> Chuck
>
>  --- Paul Ebermann <Paul-Ebermann at gmx.de> a ?crit?: >
> De: "Paul Ebermann" <Paul-Ebermann at gmx.de>
> > ?: <wikieo-l at wikipedia.org>
> > Objet: Re: [WikiEO-l] Helpon ! la vikipedio
> > malaperis.
> > Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 19:37:23 +0200
> >
> > "Arno Lagrange" skribis:
> >
> >
> > > Kio okazas ? La e-o vikio tute malaperis. Kiam mi
> > volas aliri al
> > > eo.vikipedio.org aux eo.vikipedio.com mi nur
> > atingas cxu la angla-lingvan,
> > > cxu iun komercan pagxon kun nomo wikipedia.com.
> > > Kio estas tiu fusxajxo ?
> > > Sxajnas ke tamen la alilingvaj plu funkcias.
> >
> >
> > http://eo.wikipedia.org/, http://www.vikipedio.org/,
> > http://www.vikipedio.com/, http://eo.vikipedio.com/
> >
> > direktas (por mi) al la esperanta vikipedio.
> >
> > http://www.vikipedio.com/
> >
> > montras la anglalingvan.
> >
> >
> > Pauxlo
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEO-l dissendolisto
> > WikiEO-l at wikipedia.org
> > http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikieo-l
>
> =====
> Learn Esperanto! - http://www.lernu.net/
> My homepage - http://www.ikso.net/~chuck
> Enciklopedio - http://eo.wikipedia.org/
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
> Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>

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


body:
Don't pay any attention to this...  I was off base when I said this.
It was a DNS issue that just wasn't evident through register.com's
interface.  I should have "dig"ed for the information first...

Jason

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> ----- Forwarded message from Jason Richey <jasonr at bomis.com> -----
>
> From: Jason Richey <jasonr at bomis.com>
> Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 10:31:27 -0700
> To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
> Subject: Re: [msochuck at yahoo.com: please fix vikipedio.com redirect  (estis: Helpon ! la vikipedio malaperis.)]
>
> this doesn't make sense.  These domains already point to the new
> server, which is already configured to answer for that hostname...
> Wait, there is a problem...  There must be some freaky rewriteRule or
> something that is "Stealing" the opportunity to serve this page.  I've
> been looking at the httpd.conf for a while, and I'm not sure what the
> deal is (and I'm a little nervous about restarting the apache on this
> bogged-down server).
>
> Still looking...
>
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> > ----- Forwarded message from Chuck Smith <msochuck at yahoo.com> -----
> >
> > From: Chuck Smith <msochuck at yahoo.com>
> > Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 21:29:27 +0200 (CEST)
> > To: jwales at bomis.com
> > Subject: please fix vikipedio.com redirect  (estis: Helpon ! la vikipedio malaperis.)
> >
> > Jimbo,
> >
> > Please make www.vikipedio.com a redirect to
> > eo.wikipedia.org.  Thanks!
> >
> > Bonvolu farigi www.vikipedio.com plusendilon al
> > eo.wikipedio.org.  Dankon!
> >
> > Chuck
> >
> >  --- Paul Ebermann <Paul-Ebermann at gmx.de> a ?crit?: >
> > De: "Paul Ebermann" <Paul-Ebermann at gmx.de>
> > > ?: <wikieo-l at wikipedia.org>
> > > Objet: Re: [WikiEO-l] Helpon ! la vikipedio
> > > malaperis.
> > > Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 19:37:23 +0200
> > >
> > > "Arno Lagrange" skribis:
> > >
> > >
> > > > Kio okazas ? La e-o vikio tute malaperis. Kiam mi
> > > volas aliri al
> > > > eo.vikipedio.org aux eo.vikipedio.com mi nur
> > > atingas cxu la angla-lingvan,
> > > > cxu iun komercan pagxon kun nomo wikipedia.com.
> > > > Kio estas tiu fusxajxo ?
> > > > Sxajnas ke tamen la alilingvaj plu funkcias.
> > >
> > >
> > > http://eo.wikipedia.org/, http://www.vikipedio.org/,
> > > http://www.vikipedio.com/, http://eo.vikipedio.com/
> > >
> > > direktas (por mi) al la esperanta vikipedio.
> > >
> > > http://www.vikipedio.com/
> > >
> > > montras la anglalingvan.
> > >
> > >
> > > Pauxlo
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEO-l dissendolisto
> > > WikiEO-l at wikipedia.org
> > > http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikieo-l
> >
> > =====
> > Learn Esperanto! - http://www.lernu.net/
> > My homepage - http://www.ikso.net/~chuck
> > Enciklopedio - http://eo.wikipedia.org/
> >
> > ___________________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
> > Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
> >
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> --
> "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
>
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


from_name: Hunter Peress

body:
Good good. The idea of a wikitext parser in a register level language like C makes a lot of sense
Im very excited for this, in the style of a apache mods, it would be like having a mod_wikitext

Caching wiki to file is something i always whine about. whine++

lee: tables...see: http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/demo/en/OldStyleTablePlugin for inspiration.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lee Daniel Crocker  wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
Fri, 2 May 2003 16:50:35 -0500

> (Nick Reinking <nick at twoevils.org>):
>
> I'm actually in the middle of a C project to reduce the wikitext
> parser to a two-pass parser...

Don't stop working on it, but be aware that when our performance
issues are lessened for a while, I plan to go back to some work
I had been planning for a long time to simplify and formalize
wikitext syntax while adding some powerful features to it, so make
sure your code is open and modular enough that it can be changed.

The first plan was to unify link syntax; rather than having
[http://xxx zzz] for external links and [[xxx|zzz]] for internals,
I want to unify on [[xxx|zzz]] for both, and treat "http", "ftp",
etc. as special namespaces that makes external links.

The ''''' thing has /never/ worked correctly, and still doesn't.
Part of the problem is that there's no precise, formal definition
of what it /should/ do, and no obvious "best" choice. I want to
nail that down soon.

I really want to implement styles with the {{class}} syntax I
detailed earlier. That will let HTML gurus produce effects that
will be much easier for novices to edit than the current mess.

Finally, I want to do something about a wikitext syntax for tables,
probably using || characters.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] administrator's status

body:
172 is pretty much a left wing version of Helga. An historical revisionist.
That said, I haven't paid much attention to his editing in other contexts.

Fred

> From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 10:13:56 -0700
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] administrator's status
>
> Are there any objections?
>
> Abe Sokolov wrote:
>
>>
>> I?d like to apply for administrator's status. [[User:172|172]]
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------
>> Do you Yahoo!?
>> The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: cprompt

subject: [WikiEN-l] administrator's status

body:
172 is a solid contributor, and writes much for the Wikipedia. However,
he sometimes does not notice his own text has POV, and aggressively
attacks anyone who edits his text. With sysop powers, he might be
further intolerant of edits. I wanted to remain neutral, but I figure if
I don't mention this now, I won't really get a chance.

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Are there any objections?
>
>Abe Sokolov wrote:
>
>
>
>>I?d like to apply for administrator's status. [[User:172|172]]
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------
>>Do you Yahoo!?
>>The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I love messages like this.  I always feel bad for about 10 seconds,
> and as a good honest businessman, my first instinct is to refund their
> money.  An unhappy customer deserves to get their money back, after
> all!

When the server is heavily loaded, you should show a screen that says
"game over, insert new coin".  (Hmm... suddenly heavy load becomes a
solution, not a problem.)

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Transition to new server

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> The glitch: images. Those are written to the filesystem rather
> than to the database, so images uploaded on one server will
> appear in the database of both, but only on one filesystem.

Isn't this true: for all images already uploaded, there is no problem.
Only when a new image is uploaded, it will go to one or the other
filesystem?

I think this could be tolerable if we disable image uploading on the
"old" server (now the "database server"), just to make sure nothing
gets uploaded there.

If a few images look broken for 24 hours while DNS propagates, it's no
biggie.

> Another way to do it is a more traditional switchover that will
> turn off the scripts on the old server when we enable to new one,
> and put up a static page that points people to the new server
> under a name other than "www" while their caches are still live.

That's good, too.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Transition to new server

body:
I think that the database server should have it's IP changed to
130.94.122.199 (That's what the new server is currently using).  We
can then change the new server to use the current wiki IP.

This way, the upgrade is complete and immediate, and we don't have DNS
issues, which we know can be more pain than they're worth.

Of course, there is the one scary question:  "What if they don't come
up with the right IP's and we can't do anything about it?".  That
would be bad, but I don't think it would be a problem if we just
changed the IP's in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0, and did
a reboot when we were ready.

Either way, I'll try to set the TTL to a low value.

Jason

Of, course, we can do whatever.  I just think that this will be the
least painful for everyone involved.

Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

>
> The new server is up and has all the software installed on it,
> so now we need to come up with a plan for moving the systems to
> the new setup.
>
> It will /almost/ be possible to do it cleanly with DNS without
> anyone noticing--just bring apache up on the new server, whose
> scripts will read and write the database on the old server, and
> switch "www" to point to it. During the time when user's DNS
> caches are still live, some will point to the old server, but
> it will be sharing the same database, so both systems can run
> concurrently with no problem.
>
> The glitch: images. Those are written to the filesystem rather
> than to the database, so images uploaded on one server will
> appear in the database of both, but only on one filesystem.
>
> One way to fix this is to NFS-mount the image filesystem on
> both machines, but NFS is not terribly reliable and will increase
> network traffic.
>
> Another way to do it is a more traditional switchover that will
> turn off the scripts on the old server when we enable to new one,
> and put up a static page that points people to the new server
> under a name other than "www" while their caches are still live.
>
> Another thing to consider is moving "test" over first, pointing
> to the old database, and try the transition method on that before
> we try it on "www".
>
> Jason, regardless of which way we go, you can start by reducing
> the lifetime of "test" and "www" in DNS, and make entries for
> "pliny" and "larousse". We also need to change the canonical
> name of ww to pliny--I can do that, but I'm not sure what else
> that might effect, so I haven't done it yet.
>
> --
> Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
> are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
> for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Transition to new server

body:
I am only in control of wikipedia.com, I don't know who can change the
TTL on wikipedi.org subdomains.

Jason

Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

>
> Jason, regardless of which way we go, you can start by reducing
> the lifetime of "test" and "www" in DNS, and make entries for
> "pliny" and "larousse". We also need to change the canonical
> name of ww to pliny--I can do that, but I'm not sure what else
> that might effect, so I haven't done it yet.
>
> --
> Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
> are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
> for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Transition to new server

body:
Jason's suggestions (of an ip number swap) sounds totally
straightforward and appropriate to me.  It means we don't have
to fiddle with the vagaries of DNS, it's instant, and it's easily
reversible.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Transition to new server

body:
Oops...  I was wrong here...  I guess I've only messed around with the
.com names in the past.  Don't mind me...  Something is wrong with my
brain today.

Jason

Jason Richey wrote:

> I am only in control of wikipedia.com, I don't know who can change the
> TTL on wikipedi.org subdomains.
>
> Jason
>
> Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
> >
> > Jason, regardless of which way we go, you can start by reducing
> > the lifetime of "test" and "www" in DNS, and make entries for
> > "pliny" and "larousse". We also need to change the canonical
> > name of ww to pliny--I can do that, but I'm not sure what else
> > that might effect, so I haven't done it yet.
> >
> > --
> > Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
> > "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
> > are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
> > for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> > http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
> --
> "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
james duffy wrote:

>
> Chill out, Stan. I was what is known in Ireland as 'taking the piss',
> a bit of ironic mockery. (Oh God, you are not one of these boring
> people who don't 'do' irony and are to a sense of humour what George
> W. Bush is to linguistic dexterity?)

On the contrary, if you look at my work, you'll see there are quite a
few jokes in
my comments.  I've even put a couple jokes in wikipedia itself, but
they're so subtle
it will probably be years before anybody finds them.  And indeed I'm
familiar with
'taking the piss', but when the Irish I know do it, they put a big grin
on their faces
at some point, and unless you're a net newbie, you should know that if
you're not
intending to be taken seriously, you need to add the smiley face.  I've
been on the
net for 21 years now, and I have *never* seen any writer so deft that
he/she could
be ironic without using a smiley face and not have it be misinterpreted.

In addition, you have a habit of arguing passionately and at length
about issues
so picayune that I find myself thinking "he's got to be kidding" and
looking for
a smiley face somewhere in the comment, but no, you're apparently completely
serious.  So my conclusion is that when you sound rude and arrogant, you
really
mean to be heard that way, and that you're not sufficiently aware of
other cultures
to realize that what might be OK to say over a pint in the pub sounds a
lot different
to someone on the other side of the planet reading it on a Monday morning.

>
> The point I was making is that it is American arrogance in the extreme
> to think - ' we use the word 'movie' therefore wikipedia must use the
> word 'movie' and any references to the word film we will replace with
> the 'right' (ie American) word'. Some people use movie, some use film,
> as with British English versus American English, leave it in whatever
> language the original author used. Some time ago, a European wikian
> wrote about a film made in Europe that because of legal problems never
> got a release in the US. It never have been released there, but still
> someone tried to call it a (movie) not a (film) until a group of bored
> Europeans, inspired by GWB, decided to wage their own war for the
> liberation of the word 'film', collectively telling the annoying
> renamer to shag off and Americanise something else. And he reacted to
> their defence of a non-US title the way George W. reacts to anything
> french these days. He hit the roof with a stream of 'how bloody dare
> you . . . ' type responses.

I have no idea who this person is that you're talking about.  Criticize my
statements straight-on, don't try to tarnish my reputation with somebody
else's misbehavior.

>
> Put bluntly, Stan, this is wikipedia, not americopedia. If you want
> respect from non-Americans, show their language and spellings some
> respect. And get a sense of humour.

Well, that's sure breathtakingly arrogant on your part.  Calling you on
chronic rudeness, and the excuses you make for it, is hardly the same
as disrespecting non-American language and spellings.

Stan


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] Transition to new server

body:
The new server is up and has all the software installed on it,
so now we need to come up with a plan for moving the systems to
the new setup.

It will /almost/ be possible to do it cleanly with DNS without
anyone noticing--just bring apache up on the new server, whose
scripts will read and write the database on the old server, and
switch "www" to point to it. During the time when user's DNS
caches are still live, some will point to the old server, but
it will be sharing the same database, so both systems can run
concurrently with no problem.

The glitch: images. Those are written to the filesystem rather
than to the database, so images uploaded on one server will
appear in the database of both, but only on one filesystem.

One way to fix this is to NFS-mount the image filesystem on
both machines, but NFS is not terribly reliable and will increase
network traffic.

Another way to do it is a more traditional switchover that will
turn off the scripts on the old server when we enable to new one,
and put up a static page that points people to the new server
under a name other than "www" while their caches are still live.

Another thing to consider is moving "test" over first, pointing
to the old database, and try the transition method on that before
we try it on "www".

Jason, regardless of which way we go, you can start by reducing
the lifetime of "test" and "www" in DNS, and make entries for
"pliny" and "larousse". We also need to change the canonical
name of ww to pliny--I can do that, but I'm not sure what else
that might effect, so I haven't done it yet.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [Wikitech-l] Transition to new server

body:
> (Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>):
> Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > The glitch: images. Those are written to the filesystem rather
> > than to the database, so images uploaded on one server will
> > appear in the database of both, but only on one filesystem.
>
> Isn't this true: for all images already uploaded, there is no problem.
> Only when a new image is uploaded, it will go to one or the other
> filesystem?
> I think this could be tolerable if we disable image uploading on the
> "old" server (now the "database server"), just to make sure nothing
> gets uploaded there.

Yes, that's the case; disabling uploads in the old server would
still allow uploads on the new one, and pages would look fine on
the new server, and there would be a few broken images on the
old server during transition. It would also be necessary to disable
rendering new equations on the old server as well, and that might
be more annoying that disabling uploads.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [Wikitech-l] Transition to new server

body:
> (Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>):
> Jason's suggestions (of an ip number swap) sounds totally
> straightforward and appropriate to me.  It means we don't have
> to fiddle with the vagaries of DNS, it's instant, and it's easily
> reversible.

OK, I'll just need to take a few minutes to wrap my brain around
how that will work with the software (...drawing diagrams...)

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: David A. Wheeler

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia performance: You could throw memory at it.

body:
If performance is still a problem (some time) after the second
computer is installed, there's at least one other approach that
I haven't seen emphasized here: throw RAM at the problem.
If one of the systems shows any significant paging, installing
lots of memory (so the whole DB is in memory)
is likely to make things faster.

Even relatively low-end machines have really impressive database
stats when EVERYTHING runs out of main memory :-).

Hopefully, the second machine will make all this unnecessary.
I just thought I'd post a few ideas as I think of them.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Movie v. Film

body:
John Knouse wrote:

>Whoa, here's a radical solution: use the form "Jackass
>(movie/film)".  There.  Doesn't that cover it?
>
>
Or "(film/movie)", so as to forestall charges of American
cultural imperialism because "movie" comes first. :-)

Or, use "(movie/film)" and "(film/movie)" as a subtle
method of differentiating the European-preferred from
the American-preferred works, heh-heh.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Movie v. Film

body:
Richard Grevers wrote:

> On Mon, 05 May 2003 22:11:16 -0700, John Knouse <jaknouse at frognet.net>
> gave utterance to the following:
>
>> Whoa, here's a radical solution: use the form "Jackass
>> (movie/film)".  There.  Doesn't that cover it?
>
>
> Or we could be encyclopaedic and write (motion picture) - which is
> what the movie/film industry tends to formally call itself.

Hmmm, this is certainly more professional-sounding, although I
note that Wikipedia officially favors "common usage" over formal ones, thus
we title the article "Bill Clinton" instead of "William Jefferson
Clinton".  I
like it better than "(movie/film)", which tells our readers "wikipedians
were
too stiff-necked to agree on something simpler". :-)

Perhaps the next generation of software can have more variables to
adjust for reader nationality set via preference, so you could have
"Jackass (%MOTIONPICTURE)", "labo%Ur", "theat%ERRE",
and so forth.  Makes a little more work for editors, but avoids giving
offense.

Stan
.
.
.
.
.
(See, without the :-) you weren't sure whether my last paragraph
was a serious suggestion or not, eh?  But no, I wasn't serious.)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Movie v. Film

body:
On Mon, 2003-05-05 at 22:11, John Knouse wrote:
> Whoa, here's a radical solution: use the form "Jackass
> (movie/film)".  There.  Doesn't that cover it?

<detector style="sarcasm" active="no">
Not in the least. The reason "(movie)" was used was that most of the
existing entries were already "(movie)" and it required the least amount
of renaming labor to standardize on it.

If one _were_ to define a new standard and go to the trouble of renaming
every single article about a motion picture to use it, it would make
much more sense to simply use "(film)", as most people working on the
film articles who have expressed a preference seem to prefer it.
</detector>

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030505/504078fc/attachment.pgp


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] European preference for film over movie

body:
In a message dated 5/5/2003 6:53:14 PM Eastern Standard Time,
jtdirl at hotmail.com writes:

> It seems most Americans missed the point I was making and don't grasp the
> Irish and European use of sarcasm. So let me spell it out.
>
> 1. Most non-Americans do not use the word 'movie' and see it as a word
> largely unique to America and its exclusive use on wikipedia classic
> americocentrism.
>
> 2. Most English speakers on the use 'film'. Most Americans don't.
>
> 3. Most Americans use 'movie', not film.
>
> The obvious solution is to apply the same approach as we do with British
> English and American English. Accept the form used by whoever writes the
> article. In some areas on wiki, there are definite rights and wrongs, over
> names, titles, references. But here there is no right and wrong, merely
> different terms for the same thing. Wiki may well have decided to use
> 'movie' previously, but that was when wiki was overwhelmingly American in
> terms of contributors. The longer it goes on, the more non-Americans will
> join, and it hardly helps convince people that wiki isn't americocentric if
>
> they are told they must use the American-English word in preference to
> their
> own. It is already irritating to non-Americans when they  create entries to
>
> films in foreign languages that may not have had an American release, only
> to find a French language or German language films christened 'movie'.
> Using
> 'movie' to describe a European film is as annoying to Europeans as calling
> someone from Belgium French is to a Belgian, or calling someone from
> Ireland
> 'British' is to the Irish. Or indeed presuming a Canadian is from the
> United
> States is to a Canadian. It is an causing an offence that is unnecessary
> and
> can easily avoided.
>
> As to the reference to 'movie' bring used to describe Hollywood
> blockbusters, that is done tongue in cheek by many Europeans to contrast
> big
> budget Hollywood blockbusters to arthouse films or film noir. And I was
> mentioning that in a tongue in cheek manner. It used to be said in Europe
> that 'Americans don't ''do'' irony'. Seeing the failure to grasp the fact
> that what I was saying was sarsasm, I guess that statement seems true after
>
> all. No offence was intended. Obviously we should put different concept of
> 'sense of humour' and 'irony' on a list of American and European
> differences
> on a wiki list! Wikilove.
> JT.
>

In the original debate, I voted for film, and I still contend that it is the
better term to use. However, a couple of comments to you, JT, to show you
where you are arousing some antagonism here.

1. "Most English speakers use film. Most Americans don't." And what language
is it that Americans speak?

2. These incredible overgeneralizations. Most Americans ... Most Europeans
... Actually, most Europeans don't speak English, at least as a first
language.

3. Tossing around the term Americocentric so liberally. Why is Eurocentrism
any better.

4. Irritating to find a film called a movie? I doubt most Europeans really
care that much. Some might find it amusing. Some might just go with the flow.
I really wonder how many people would be "offended" by that (oh, and I've
worked with the film and television industry in Europe--I even have a BAFTA
nomination under my belt. Yes, they prefer film, but people I know from MIP
probably wouldn't care that much).

5. As you said yourself in an earlier post, the distinction with regard to
films produced in Hollywood is highly subjective. Subjectivity is something
we should avoid.

6. You wrote: "It used to be said in Europe that 'Americans don't ''do''
irony'. Seeing the failure to grasp the fact that what I was saying was
sarsasm, I guess that statement seems true after all. No offence was
intended." For one thing, sarcasm is to irony like movie is to film. And, of
course, we have the sweeping generalizations again. It's old and it's silly.

That said, I think we should reopen the discussion. I would still prefer to
see film--we talk about indie films, film noir, art films, and it kinda jars
me to call them movies. On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for
uniformity in disambiguation. And if we do stick with uniformity--which I
hope for above all else--and if film is the chosen term, it would take a hell
of a lot of work to convert all the films to movies. Are you willing to do
that? I'm not.

So, was your Wikilove ironic or sarcastic?

Peace

Danny
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030505/6bfcf328/attachment.htm