subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>>>>>Rambot articles are of disputable encyclopedicness.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Places are certainly encyclopedic.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Places are no more indisputably encyclopedic than schools or people.
>>>
>>>
>>Once more inclusionists impress me with their pedantry. By places, I
>>generically mean human settlements.
>>
>>
>You're accusing the wrong person of pedantry.  Human settlements are no more
>indisputably encyclopedic than schools or people.
>
>
Au contraire, it is often easy to find a community's website than a
school's website. Often personal webpages, because contributed to by
only one party, aren't an independent source of verifiable information,
so most vanity articles are definitely of disputable encyclopedicness.

>
>
>>>Can you point to a single encyclopedia that has articles on years?  What
>>>about non-cardinal numbers?  Lists I think are clearly unencyclopedic.
>>>
>>>
>>A definition of "Encyclopedic" should not be based on what other
>>encyclopedias do.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>Encyclopedic is not necessarily "topics most encyclopedias cover".
>>
>>
>
>On the other hand, maybe I should be pedantic, because you seem to be making
>up random definitions of words.  Unlike many other inclusionists, I think
>one can meaningfully talk about whether or not a topic is "encyclopedic",
>because I think a common definition of "encyclopedic" is "similar [in topic]
>to what traditional encyclopedias include".  But, if you're going to define
>"encyclopedic" as "something which Wikipedia should include", you should be
>aware that that term has very little useful meaning in terms of an inclusion
>argument (as it commonly turns into a fallacy of begging the question).  At
>the very least if you're going to make up a definition to fit your argument,
>make up a new term so as not to confuse people into thinking you're talking
>about the word which already has a definition.  Maybe "Wikipedic".
>
>
I believe I defined it in an earlier post as "independently verifiable
knowledge".

>>Yes, I agree. I personally have no problem with having school substubs
>>merged into their town articles.
>>
>>
>Then it seems we are in heated agreement, because I have no problem with
>this either.  In fact, in the case of substubs, that's what I *prefer* we do
>with them (and sometimes I actually favor merging and deleting).
>
>Now, you and I may disagree about what constitutes a substub, but even with
>school articles bigger than a substub I still wouldn't mind merging and
>redirecting.  I'd prefer that we keep them, so that's how I "vote", but
>would it make more sense if I just copy pasted something like "I'd prefer
>that we keep this but merging and redirecting would also be acceptable"?
>
>
Yes, it definitely would. I'd support such a measure, because I believe
that's a more reasonable manner of preserving this information.

>The amazing thing is, merging and redirecting doesn't even require an admin,
>and so it can be done without even touching VFD.  Adding to VFD has gotten
>complicated to the point where it's probably just as much work, too.
>Sometimes I wonder if the deletionists just have more fun playing on VFD,
>and that's why they choose this method to "improve Wikipedia".
>
>
Sometimes some people are malicious, but often, I think there are other
circumstances involved. (See my earlier response to Nicholas Knight.)

>>>And you want to talk about substubs?  Rambot articles have less useful
>>>information than most school articles.
>>>
>>>
>>Population, maps, location, etc. I'd say most Rambot and school articles
>>are nearly equal, but the Rambot articles at least contain some relevant
>>information.
>>
>>
>Here's what I find useful in the bare Rambot articles.  County, population,
>latitude and longitude.  Note that the bare rambot articles (and there are
>many of them) don't even have maps.  So if it were up to me, I'd strip the
>articles of all but that information (unless it was particularly atypical,
>95% white or 90% black or whatever), and then I'd merge and redirect with
>the county article and include a link to the demographics (either on the
>census site or on wikisource).
>
>But looking at school articles, most of them have at least this much useful
>information.  City, state, number of students, principal, and in many the
>ones I've verified, latitude and longitude.  The vast majority of them have
>even more information than that.
>
>So even if you're going to define "encyclopedic" as "should be in
>Wikipedia", I think almost every school article which is deleted is more
>useful than [[Mount Vernon, Illinois]].
>
>
Communities often have their own websites or have been mentioned by
other sources. Most schools haven't.

>> It's a manner of organisation. The information within is encyclopedic.
>>
>>
>
>With the year pages I can see your point, I guess.  They're similar to
>lists, which even though I think they're clearly unencyclopedic, should
>probably stay in Wikipedia anyway.  I stand by my belief that [[163
>(number)]] should be tossed, though.
>
>
The information within is independently verifiable.

>>I think the real debate here is organisation. I don't think school
>>substubs deserve a separate article - Mark Richards and anthony do.
>>
>>
>
>Actually, I don't.  But I think we have a different concept of what a
>substub is.
>
>
I think so too. So we agree to disagree then?

>
>
>>But we agree that they should be in the encyclopedia. We just disagree
>>
>>
>over
>
>
>>where they should be.
>>
>>
>
>You and I might agree with this (after all, we're both neutral, right), but
>the deletionists want this information completely removed.  That's the
>purpose of VFD, after all, not to merge things into other articles, which
>doesn't require admin powers, and which neither I nor any of the other
>"inclusionists" would likely object to.
>
>
I think that was the original purpose of VFD, but I've found VFD in
recent times to be a pretty smart idea: A place to publicise the fact
that an article is of dubious encyclopedic value, or at least doesn't
deserve its own article, but the nominator doesn't know what to do with
it, beyond delete. Publicising this leads to someone more knowledgeable
sufficiently rewriting, or merging the article appropriately. If nothing
had been done, or this was just mentioned on the talk page, I can
guarantee you that nothing would be done to fix this article up for
months, if not years.

>>Yes, deleting them will cause no harm. A school article is nice to have,
>>but if it's a substub, I see no reason for it to have its own article.
>>
>>
>
>If you mean that the information should be kept somewhere else instead, then
>we are in complete agreement.
>
>
Yes, we are.

>>I laugh at your exaggerated statement. Movies and actors - if they have
>>an entry on IMDB, they absolutely should be kept. They are verifiable.
>>
>>
>
>You're starting to sound like an inclusionist now.  Many movies and actors
>on IMDB are deleted.
>
>
Then they probably shouldn't.

>But, I actually disagree that movies and actors on IMDB are all verifiable.
>I know people with movies on IMDB, and I know what kind of verification was
>done.  Virtually none.  That said, most movies and actors on IMDB are
>verifiable.
>
>
Yup, most. If we must set a standard, probably an actor with more than
two performances should be kept.

>>If their articles are deleted, it's a shame. I think few deletionists
>>would agree [you mean disagree?] with me. Sometimes inclusionists just
>>
>>
>love giving
>
>
>>deletionists positions they don't hold.
>>
>>
>
>Movie articles are regularly *speedy deleted*.
>
They are? If they aren't worthless substubs, then it's a contravention
of policy.

>  I'm certainly not giving
>anyone a position they don't hold.  After this conversation, I'm not giving
>you any position, because I really can't figure out what your position is.
>
>
I'm just continuing a long tradition of flip-flopping. I waffle on just
about everything - my heroes are [[Linus Torvalds]] and [[Bill Gates]];
I think both the Republicans and Democrats are worthless; and I think
politicians from both the ruling party and opposition parties in
Malaysia should be shot dead. This is just another instance of me having
positions on a subject not easily classifiable into one of two partisan
sides.

>Anthony
>
John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
Argh, all I was trying to say at the time was "human settlements",
that's the word I should have used, not "places", so everything's
settled, it's my fault, right?

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

Sean Barrett wrote:

> I too find your definition of "places" as "human settlements" to be
> odd.  Antarctica is not a place?  The Marianas Trench is not a place?
> Mars is not a place?


from_name: Duncan Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Apology for "anti-US" remark

body:
The idea of letter writing isn't particularly novel:

In the Italian general election of 1948, the United States organised a
massive letter writing campaign warning the Italians of the consequences of
a Communist victory.  (10 million letters were sent).   The CIA, with
approval of the NSA and President Truman, funnelled contributions to Italy's
anti-communist candidates via diplomatic channels. The Ambassador to Italy,
Claire Booth Luce, and Joseph P. Kennedy helped raise $2 million for the
Christian Democrat Party's candidate, Alcide de Gasperi...

Dunc

>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:54:40 -0700
>From: Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org>
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Apology for "anti-US" remark
>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>Message-ID: <p0611041fbda6f6e918aa@[192.168.1.100]>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
>
>Stan Shebs wrote:
>
> >  You are talking, but are you listening? If the choice of US president
> >  matters so much to Europe, then why aren't the Europeans supporting
> >  Kerry in a way that will get him some more votes? Guardian readers
> >  lecturing Iowans in letters was a really dumb idea, I can't believe
> >  that in all the millions of Europe there isn't anyone with a better
> >  idea for two-way dialogue.
>
>Why was the Guardian's gambit a "really dumb idea"? And if you think
>it's easy to come up with a better approach, what's your proposal?
>
>There's nothing terribly intrusive about simply sending letters to
>people in the United States, and the Guardian set things up so that
>no one in Ohio would receive more than a single letter from their
>readers. In any given week, I receive dozens of unsolicited letters
>from companies trying to sell me products, organizations asking for
>my money, and campaigns trying to sell me their candidates. Getting
>one letter from someone in the UK would hardly be a burden and would
>actually be a refreshing improvement over the mail I usually get.
>
>The objection can't possibly be that we object to outside meddling,
>given the numerous ways that the United States routinely meddles in
>other countries' elections. So what's the problem?
>
>What I found most shocking about the Guardian campaign was the
>vitriolic response from Bush supporters. One person, for example,
>called the British "stupid, yellow-toothed pansies ... I don't give a
>rat's ass if our election is going to have an effect on your
>worthless little life." Other responses were full of similar
>profanity and insults. The level of overt hatred toward the British
>is all the more striking since England is in fact the best ally that
>the Bush administration has in its war in Iraq. If nothing else,
>these responses may help educate a few Brits firsthand about the ugly
>depths to which American politics has fallen, which in turn might put
>some additional pressure on the Labour Party to change course.
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1329858,00.html

_________________________________________________________________
It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today!
http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: NSK

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: sysop vs. admin

body:
On Thursday 28 October 2004 17:28, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> In a new system it's much easier to set ground rules like that from the
> beginning.  Most users of the net understand that each system has it's
> own definitions and jargon.  They adjust.  The sort of terminology that
> is bound to get you into trouble would be anything counter-intuitive
> where it conflicts with a usage that they commonly find in their normal
> life.

Nice reply and I think you are correct. Thanks.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
On Thursday 28 October 2004 18:56, Mark Richards wrote:
> I called the idea stupid, not you.

I think it would be beneficial to the discussion and perhaps to some people if
I communicate my beliefs on this issue.

Every person is (or should be) an entity separate from his/her ideas and
opinions.

For example, if someone says to me: "your idea/suggestion/opinion is
nonsense/stupid/damaging/whatever", then I do not feel offended, because what
was called stupid was an idea/opinion that just happened to be transmitted
through my brain.

I know that some people feel different and they so much identify themselves
with their ideas or opinions that they feel offended personally if someone
calls their opinion stupid. In my understanding, these people haven't
understood that their personal existence and consciousness is totally
independent than the ideas that just happen to flow in their brain (i.e.
interneural interactions).

Would you feel offended if I called a specific interneural interaction to be
stupid? No. But some people feel offended if that particular interaction
happened to take place in their brains. So, it is a matter of maturity: Some
people are mature and experienced enough to understand their consciousness
without referring to their ideas, but others aren't.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


list: foundation-l

from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia France

body:
Hi,

The election took place tonight.

The results are:
* President: Ryo
* Secretary: Yann
* Treasurer: Shaihulud

Thanks to all,
Yann

Le Sunday 24 October 2004 01:19, Anthere a ?crit :
> Hello,
>
> The french association Wikim?dia France was officially
> created today in Paris.
...
> On thursday, on irc again, all board members will
> elect their president, secretary and treasurer.
>
> Anthere

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


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia France


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen

body:
NSK wrote:
> On Thursday 28 October 2004 00:46, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>>I'm taking a week off from Wikipedia. Too much stress.
>
>
> I am sorry for saying that, but if Wikipedia creates stress to its members,
> then something doesn't work in the right way.
>

NSK, nothing is really broken except world-politics and people in
general. The reason for some many conflicts and so much wikistress is
because people have their own POV, and would like to make it the
dominant one. Other people feel differently. And NPOV crusaders like Ed
Poor get burnt out because they are stuck in the middle, trying to be
peacekeepers yet remain objective. Simple as that.

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: More anti-US bias in Current Events

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:
> Ed,
>
> I wish you'd stop referring to real or percieved liberal bias as anti-US
> bias, it only makes matters worse. You don't have to be anti-US to be
> against Bush's little Iraq escapade.

I agree. This smacks of "you're either for us or against us" with the
implication that I'm as bad as terrorists. After all, I'm not a
terrorist, and I'm not against the entirity of the U.S. I just don't
like their foreign policy, and I don't like the invasion of Iraq for
reasons other than were originally stated - WMD (which my own government
is participating in).

Polarising comments like the one above are not helpful and only cause
problems.

TBSDY


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Arbitration committe and content

body:
On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 10:57:41 -0600, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Believe it or not, we still don't enough active involved editors in many
> areas. I think many things will work out when we have more input from a
> broader base. For example about 4 people regularly edit the Tibet article,
> they fight a bit, but a few dozen actual Tibetans would change the mix.
> Likewise the half dozen who edit in the communist area would face a new
> dynamic if a few dozen who actually lived under communism weighed in.
>
> This is true of our administrative and policy areas too, a very thin group
> in terms of numbers and diversity of viewpoint.

Still, it's a mixed blessing. Getting more editors from different POVs
helps getting towards good, balanced and extensive articles if they
want it - but it also increases the likelihood of conflicts between
them. And it's not easy to sort out the mess afterward.

Andre Engels


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Sheldon Rampton wrote:
 >
> Speaking from outside the US, it's easy to see how the country becomes
> identified with its current president, and George W. Bush has left an
> impression on citizens of other countries that quickly becomes an
> impression of the United States.  He has given the world a magnifying
> glass with which to look at the United States' faults.  In the course of
> a Canadian Broadcating Corporation program on the US election it
> reported on a survey of whom Canadians would vote for if they could.
> 80% favored Kerry.  That's an astounding ratio, but I suspect that a
> similar result would be found in many countries.  The damage that Bush
> has done to the reputation of the United States may take at least a
> generation to repair.  No US president has been so widely reviled around
> the world as the current one.  The opportunities which the 9/11 tragedy
> afforded him to improve international co-operation he has turned into a
> disastrous legacy of bitterness, hatred and resentment.  The platitude
> about keeping America strong does not win friends anywhere, because at
> anywhere law applies equally to the ultra powerful.

It wasn't just Canada. The Sydney Morning Herald, and numerous other
International papers did the same poll and got similar results. I can
find the article if you want because I read it just the other day. It
was on the front page!

TBSDY


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
Mark Richards wrote:

>Exactly - this is a straw man.
>
>
I don't see how it is a straw man at all.  You said explicitly that
there are no criteria besides verifiability that are acceptable.  The
entire contents of my local newspaper are verifiable, as they keep
archives.  Therefore, *anything* in my encyclopedia is a valid Wikipedia
article, and if on a whim I decide to add anything from it, no matter
how non-notable, you have no basis to delete it, because you reject
notability as a criterion.

And there are many articles on Wikipedia like this that get deleted.
There have been articles about college students who made Dean's List,
which is verifiable from the University's website; articles about
members of high school marching bands, which are verifiable from
published lists of marching band members; etc.  These all get deleted
anyway, due to non-notability.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

references:
<clepkm$tqe$1@sea.gmane.org> <clqci7$edo$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<4180BE31.5080200@gawab.com>

body:
John Lee wrote:
> Wow, no inclusionist's jumped on you for that yet? Inclusionists believe
> anything *verifiable* should be in an encyclopedia, notability be damned.
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])

That was not helpful.

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Drive-by deletion

body:
NSK wrote:
> On Thursday 28 October 2004 09:35, csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote:
>
>>More links:
>
>
> Thanks! I bookmarked the links and will write a short article when I have
> time.
>

OK. I'm kinda interested what you write! I think your project has merit,
by the way, however its goals are not compatible with Wikipedia's. Send
a message to my talk page with the link for the article though, will you?

Cheers!

TBSDY


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Apology for "anti-US" remark

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Sheldon Rampton wrote:

>> Why was the Guardian's gambit a "really dumb idea"? And if you think
>> it's easy to come up with a better approach, what's your proposal?

> People do not like to be told by those in other countries who to vote
> for.  This is a fairly universal phenomenon: I guarantee that if some
> non-Greek newspaper set up a letter-writing campaign to Greeks
> supporting a particular side in their elections, the other side would
> gain a boost in support.  (Possibly a Cypriot paper could get away with
> this, but not beyond that.)

I think it's blindingly obvious the Guardian was trolling for coverage
in the right-wing blogosphere. Look at the carefully-selected letters of
response they printed.

- d.


body:
Stan Shebs wrote:
> You are talking, but are you listening? If the choice of US president
> matters so much to Europe, then why aren't the Europeans supporting
> Kerry in a way that will get him some more votes? Guardian readers
> lecturing Iowans in letters was a really dumb idea, I can't believe
> that in all the millions of Europe there isn't anyone with a better
> idea for two-way dialogue.
>
> Stan

Perhaps because those same European nations don't think they should
directly influence the democratic elections of other countries? Naive I
know, but my point here is that would YOU be happy with another country
interfering in your elections?! I wouldn't. I wasn't when George Bush
decided to comment on Mark Latham before the Australian elections, and
at that point I was going to have voted against Latham.

Diplomtically it would be a bad idea to favour one party over the other.
Countries should respect the people's votes for democratically elected
governments!!!

Now I've said all that - in what way did you want European nations to
support an opposition leader?

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Interwiki Cooperation; NSK

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:
> Your apparent definition of "troll" is completely at odds with any I am
> familiar with. NSK has merely tried to be helpful, and has been entirely
> cordial.
>
> You are being incredibly hostile for no discernable reason other than
> you happen to disagree with some of the things NSK has said. Others have
> also disagreed with some of the things NSK has said (I disagree with
> some of them myself), but none have been rude or hostile except for you,
> and there is no reason to be rude or hostile.

I totally agree. NSK should be heard, though his idea should not
necessarily be implemented.

TBSDY


body:
Rick wrote:
> So, tell me again that he hasn't conducted a campaign of personal abuse.
>
> And this doesn't even discuss his "ideas" about changing Wikipedia into a "knowledge base" into of an encyclopedia, which he denigrates.
>
> I'm also sick and tired of being attacked for making person attacks, when the people on the other side who also make the personal attacks get a free ride.
>
> RickK

I'm sorry. When did you get the right to respond in kind to personal
attacks? Please, try not to make any personal attacks on the mailing
list AT ALL. It makes you look bad, and it makes it difficult to get
sensible, sane and moderate conversation flowing.

Thanks,

TBSDY


from_name: phil hunt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion as POV

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:32:11 -0700 (PDT), Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>So is every building in the world, every park in the world,
>every street in the world, every tree in the world.
>Should we have articles on every one of those things?
>
>RickK

I can *easily* imagine us eventually having every street in the
world -- especially when WP gets integrated with an open source GIS
system. Every building, perhaps eventually.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Solving the US-centrism problem

body:
On Friday 29 October 2004 00:42, Matt Brown wrote:
> What is being discussed, I believe, is not advertising ON wikipedia,
> but advertising BY wikipedia?

Yes, for example in Google AdWords.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Advertisements in MediaWiki

body:
Hi,

Has anyone modified MediaWiki to include advertisements via <script> or <img>
html tags? Not in the main article text but, for example, under the
navigation box. Any advice?

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
On Friday 29 October 2004 02:38, Phil Sandifer wrote:
> calling someone's ideas stupid is, well, unhelpful.

Sometimes it can be helpful to avoid implementing stupid ideas.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Drive-by deletion

body:
On Thursday 28 October 2004 16:48, csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote:
> OK. I'm kinda interested what you write! I think your project has merit,

It will be there:

http://jnana.wikinerds.org/index.php/You_sad_bastard

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
On Friday 29 October 2004 04:35, Phil Sandifer wrote:
> a rational and non-inflammatory explanation of
> the flaws in the idea.

Yes, that's much more better.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] voting is now open

body:
John Lee wrote:

> Just FYI the list, voting on [[Wikipedia:Preliminary Deletion]] has
> commenced. Those concerned can vote at [[Wikipedia:Preliminary
> Deletion/Vote]].

Thanks for mentioning the vote on this list.

Too many votes happen with proper notification ever having gone out to
the extent that all sorts of things are adopted without the majority
knowing that it has happened.

I would propose that no vote would create valid official policy unless
the vote has been properly sanctioned.  To do so:
    1. It must have at least five nominees.
    2. It must have broad application.
    3. It must be clear and unambiguous.
    4. It must have a minimum voting period of at least 14 days.
    5. Any amendment while the voting is in process would restart the
14-day voting period.
    6. Where a proposed policy provides alternative policies, the
winning alternative must do so in its own right.
    7. The proposal should be listed on a list of active votes
throughout the active voting period.  That listing would include the
bare text of the resolution, and the ending date and time for the vote.
It should also be time-stamped to ensure that the 14 day period is
respected.
    8. The active vote list should be accessible from the side-bar.
    9. The active vote list should be published daily on the relevant
mailing list(s).
    10. The passage of a vote for one project does not imply its passage
on any other project.

This would not restrict the occurrence of preliminary, informal or
limited application votes.  The result of these would simply not be
binding on the entire community.  I have purposely avoided any mention
of "winning margins" in the above, as this could be the subject of
further debates, and the margins could vary with the circumstances.

Several of the above clauses could be open to debate or clarification.
If there is broad support this could be the first one adopted under
these rules.  It could then be followed by a systematic review of
policies to ensure that all policies have been properly adopted.

Can the process of putting the active vote list on the mailing list be
automated?

Ec


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] whistleblowing on NSK

body:
Try using your real name... Unless you have some actual reason for
confidentially. Create a new account under your new name then ask for the
history to be added to that account, if it matters.

[[User:Fred Bauder]]

> From: NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org>
> Organization: Wikinerds
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 15:10:44 +0300
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] whistleblowing on NSK
>
> On Friday 29 October 2004 14:07, Jens Ropers wrote:
>> NSK appears to be [[en:User:Npc]].
>
> I wonder how you found that.
>
>> These link insertions may be (or may not be) perceived
>> as inappropriate, but others be the judge of that.
>
> I would never include an inappropriate link in Wikipedia or anywhere. All the
> links have useful content to offer and are never promotional.
>
> Most links contain more information on some subject. It may be GFDL or not. If
> it isn't and you want it to be incorporated in Wikipedia, you can ask me to
> relicense parts of it under GFDL.
>
>> there's a public interest; no offense to NSK.
>
> I doubt the public interest is legitimate. Why should people care what my
> username is?
>
> BTW now that you published my wikiname, you have the responsibility to protect
> me from unjustified bans etc. :)
>
> Anyway, that username (Npc) is referring to http://www.nerdypc.org which is a
> wiki knowledge base on computer hardware and software where anyone can
> contribute. However I would like to have a more general username. Do you know
> how I can change it to something better?
>
> --
> NSK
> Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
> Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
> Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] IP privacy

body:
"Using an encrypted or hashed IP would mean that sysops would be unable to
identify proxy servers or dynamic IP pools. This information is vital when
tracking vandalism or blocking users." -
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=556

The IP should be visible to sysops but not to users and the general web
audience. You need to implement a "Show IP" sysop-only special page with a
form where a sysop can paste the encoded text and get the IP corresponding to
it.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


from_name: Paul Fierro

subject: [Wikitech-l] Off-site replication?

body:
On 10/29/2004 3:54 AM, NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org> wrote:

> On Friday 29 October 2004 11:14, Thomas R. Koll wrote:
>> I don't think that you are allowed to give the user-table away anyways.
>
> Of course you aren't.

I don't think Magnus was referring to the mysql.user table.

Paul


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
Folks, stop.

I don't care about litigious definitions of what is a "personal
attack." The level of discourse disintegrated when the word "stupid"
was carted out.

Please take this to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado) and a WikiEN-L admin

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:12:16 -0500, Guanaco <guanaco at cox.net> wrote:
> This is clearly targeting on RickK's ideas about deletion, and Mark did
> not personally attack him in any way.
>
> Mark Richards wrote:
>
> He is pointing out how stupid and inconsistant your
> ideas of 'notablity' and 'encyclopedic' are.
>
> If it had been "He is pointing out how stupid and inconsistant you are,"
> *that* would have been a personal attack.
>
> Guanaco
>
>
>
> Rick wrote:
>
> >Calling me stupid isn't a personal attack?
> >
> >RickK
> >
> >Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >I'm sorry Rick, I don't see the personal attack.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >--- Rick wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Personal attack by Mark Richards. Who's going to be
> >>the first to jump on the "Mark, you should stop
> >>making personal attacks" bandwagon? Wanna bet not a
> >>single solitary person? Where's the admin
> >>suggesting that Mark stop posting about this? I
> >>refrained for several days, because I was asked to,
> >>but I'm not going to keep refraining when I'm the
> >>subject of attacks like this and NSK's, and dont'
> >>have the right to defend myself, and when Mark keeps
> >>churning out the same arguments.
> >>
> >>RickK
> >>
> >>Mark Richards wrote:
> >>
> >>He is pointing out how stupid and inconsistant your
> >>ideas of 'notablity' and 'encyclopedic' are.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Andrew Lih
andrew.lih at gmail.com


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
RickK wrote

> The Guardian published several profanity-filled letters in response to
their silly campaign.  Were they so naive as to think that anybody,
including Americans, would be open to having people from other countries
lecturing them about whom to vote for?

UK newspapers and magazines, are full of columns by non-UK citizens,
particularly partisans of the Murdoch/Black anti-EU school, telling UK
citizens all about their domestic politics.  See for example the [[Mark
Steyn]] article for an egregious example.

I don't know about 'naive' - I live in what is an 'open economy' for
political ideas.  I open a newspaper or switch on the TV, and it may well be
that I see or read a hectoring neo-con, Michael Moore, a British Muslim or
ex-far left Blairite, or Romano Prodi.

Charles


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: sysop vs. admin

body:
Rowan Collins wrote:
> its own craziness. ;) [Hm, there's a thought: what term(s) do other
> languages use?]

The Dutch use 'moderator' and some feel that this has led to some
confusion and trouble, even though the role is generally the same as
everywhere else.  I don't know if they are going to try to change it
or not, and of course once a word becomes habitual it's just part of
language and hard to change even with conscious effort.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Off-site replication?

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> * set up an additional MySQL replication slave at our site
> * probably without the passwords, or scramble them
> * have others (like freenet.de) replicate from that slave

I am in talks with a company (GuruNet) who would like to use our
content via exactly this sort of system.  They are willing to pay for
this as a service, at a price which would reflect not just the cost to
us, but also a generous goodwill contribution back to the community.

They actually called me yesterday just to let me know that they did a
test with a remote slave to a mysql server (on their own network) and
stress tested it.  They said it worked just fine, which is an
encouraging sign, although of course the devil is in the details.

--Jimbo


from_name: chmarndt at online.de

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Sortable tables

body:
As an experiment I implemented spreadsheet functionality on a wiki
whereby the calculation is carried out by OpenOffice/Calc:

How does it works?

1. The wiki parser checks for tables like

 {| <Calc>
 |= 90+12*sin(0.5)
 |-
 |=A1*A1
 |-
 |=sum(A1:A2)
 |}

2. This table is converted into a  html table using the function
   dotablestuff.
3. The html table is stored into a special directory.
4. Now the wiki waits.

5. An OpenOffice vb-script checks every second for a table in said
   directory.
6. The table is imported into a spreadsheet and the calculation is
   automatically done.
7. The vb-script exports a html table.

8. The wiki parser opens the html table and the  ?{| <Calc> ... ?-table
   is replaced by the html table served by OpenOffice/Calc

Having this done it would also be possible to use all the other features
of OpenOffice/Calc like sorting, goal seek, filter, ...

Greetings M. Arndt


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
It's a straw man because you are taking the case in
dispute (schools) and claiming that if we keep
schools, we will have to keep an article on each
school band member.

There are existing rules to deal with vanity articles,
and to the extent that we have a problem with them,
they have been deleted as vanity.

Let's not confuse the issues of schools with some
hypothetical deluge of articles about cheerleaders or
dead cats.

If I have presented my case as an extreme one, then I
have misrepresented my aims. I certainly do not
support an article on each high school band member. I
doubt that you could really write a verifiable and
factual article on them that was not a vanity page
anyway.

It's not that these people are not notable, they
certianly are to some people, it is the fact that
these would be vanity articles, I am not proposing to
remove this criteria for deletion.

Mark

--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> Mark Richards wrote:
>
> >Exactly - this is a straw man.
> >
> >
> I don't see how it is a straw man at all.  You said
> explicitly that
> there are no criteria besides verifiability that are
> acceptable.  The
> entire contents of my local newspaper are
> verifiable, as they keep
> archives.  Therefore, *anything* in my encyclopedia
> is a valid Wikipedia
> article, and if on a whim I decide to add anything
> from it, no matter
> how non-notable, you have no basis to delete it,
> because you reject
> notability as a criterion.
>
> And there are many articles on Wikipedia like this
> that get deleted.
> There have been articles about college students who
> made Dean's List,
> which is verifiable from the University's website;
> articles about
> members of high school marching bands, which are
> verifiable from
> published lists of marching band members; etc.
> These all get deleted
> anyway, due to non-notability.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
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from_name: Thomas R. Koll

body:
On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 03:12:52AM +0300, NSK wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Has anyone modified MediaWiki to include advertisements via
+
+

+

--
== Weblinks ==
* http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Off-site replication?

body:
The German wikipedia was approached by freenet.de, who have been very
kind hosting the German wikipedia CD image for us, about setting up a
wikipedia.de mirror within their pages.

Nothing unusual there, but I had a thought: Wouldn't it be easier in the
long run for us and other parties to
* set up an additional MySQL replication slave at our site
* probably without the passwords, or scramble them
* have others (like freenet.de) replicate from that slave

All they'd have to do would be to set up a read-only MediaWiki, probably
edit the skin to match their preferences, set the database to their
replication server, and be done. They'd practically get a real-time
mirror (maybe lacking a few minutes, but so what) without any maintenance.

Also, that would create an effective off-site backup of our db, very
up-to-date, excluding the user passwords, which should be
reconstructable from a "normal" dump for most users.

Alternatively, we could improve encryption of the passwords, and just
have them replicate everything. Or, we just replicate the cur table (if
that's possible) and write a "kiosk" mode into MediaWiki which ignores
everything involving users, old versions, etc.

What do you think?

Magnus


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Uploading MIDI files

body:
On Thu, 28 Oct 2004, Mikhail Abraham wrote:

>I have been directed by User:IMSoP to contact this mailing list in regards
>to uploading MIDI files for use on wikipedia. See:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Sound#Trying_to_upload_MIDIs
>
>At least two wikipedians (including myself) would like to be able to add and
>use MIDI files on wikipedia, as was the capability in the past. We believe
>they are a common format and allow for smaller file sizes. It has been
>suggested by User:Raul654 that MIDI files are unsuitable because their
>performance is unpredictable, and by User:Camembert that they are not
>currently allowed for security issues.

I strongly support the use of MIDI files. Is a very common standard that
almost every computer out there can play, and can be easily converted into
a staff. It's optimal to implement things like national anthems and song
snippets.

Alfio


subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm too trusting

body:
Try this history of [[Al Qa'qaa high explosives controversy]]

Fred

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 11:57:37 -0400
> To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm too trusting
>
> Well, it finally happened. For the first time, someone has managed to
> delete an article I labored more than 4 hours over, in such a way that I
> cannot retrieve it even with sysop powers.
>
> My original [[Missing explosives in Iraq]] article is gone, with a
> highly biased version in its place.
>
> Please, someone find and e-mail me the original text. I trusted you
> guys.
>
> A crestfallen Uncle Ed
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Off-site replication?

body:
On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 09:33:17AM +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:
> Alternatively, we could improve encryption of the passwords, and just
> have them replicate everything. Or, we just replicate the cur table (if
> that's possible) and write a "kiosk" mode into MediaWiki which ignores
> everything involving users, old versions, etc.

I don't think that you are allowed to give the user-table away anyways.
A kiosk would also make less traffic, and if you update only hourly
you can skip many versions for often edited articles of fast deletitions.

Is the deletition log already a table?

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm too trusting

body:
Also the page history of [[Al-Qaqaa weapons facility]]

Fred

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 11:57:37 -0400
> To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm too trusting
>
> Well, it finally happened. For the first time, someone has managed to
> delete an article I labored more than 4 hours over, in such a way that I
> cannot retrieve it even with sysop powers.
>
> My original [[Missing explosives in Iraq]] article is gone, with a
> highly biased version in its place.
>
> Please, someone find and e-mail me the original text. I trusted you
> guys.
>
> A crestfallen Uncle Ed
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
John,

See [[Wikipedia:Vanity page]] and [[Wikipedia:Criteria
for inclusion of biographies]] - there are exceptions
to the rule of verifiability and factuality in current
policy.

To be clear, I am not advocating repealing these
policies, simply for keeping factual, verifiable
articles on places that are of interest to, and
involve many thousands of people.

I can't help but feel that you are caricaturing my
position.

Mark

--- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:

> Sorry, I don't understand - why would vanity pages
> be eligible for
> deletion if the information therein was 100%
> verifiable and factual?
> Delirium said that this isn't a strawman because *we
> get 100% verifiable
> articles such as vanity pages which are deleted*.
> You argue in favour of
> their deletion, because they are vanity pages - what
> constitutes a
> vanity page? A page written by someone seeking
> glorification? But, why,
> the information's verifiable! Isn't Wikipedia
> supposed to be a
> compendium of human knowledge? I honestly don't
> understand your
> paradoxical - dare I say, hypocritical - stance on
> this.
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
>
> Mark Richards wrote:
>
> >It's a straw man because you are taking the case in
> >dispute (schools) and claiming that if we keep
> >schools, we will have to keep an article on each
> >school band member.
> >
> >There are existing rules to deal with vanity
> articles,
> >and to the extent that we have a problem with them,
> >they have been deleted as vanity.
> >
> >Let's not confuse the issues of schools with some
> >hypothetical deluge of articles about cheerleaders
> or
> >dead cats.
> >
> >If I have presented my case as an extreme one, then
> I
> >have misrepresented my aims. I certainly do not
> >support an article on each high school band member.
> I
> >doubt that you could really write a verifiable and
> >factual article on them that was not a vanity page
> >anyway.
> >
> >It's not that these people are not notable, they
> >certianly are to some people, it is the fact that
> >these would be vanity articles, I am not proposing
> to
> >remove this criteria for deletion.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Mark Richards wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Exactly - this is a straw man.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>I don't see how it is a straw man at all.  You
> said
> >>explicitly that
> >>there are no criteria besides verifiability that
> are
> >>acceptable.  The
> >>entire contents of my local newspaper are
> >>verifiable, as they keep
> >>archives.  Therefore, *anything* in my
> encyclopedia
> >>is a valid Wikipedia
> >>article, and if on a whim I decide to add anything
> >>from it, no matter
> >>how non-notable, you have no basis to delete it,
> >>because you reject
> >>notability as a criterion.
> >>
> >>And there are many articles on Wikipedia like this
> >>that get deleted.
> >>There have been articles about college students
> who
> >>made Dean's List,
> >>which is verifiable from the University's website;
> >>articles about
> >>members of high school marching bands, which are
> >>verifiable from
> >>published lists of marching band members; etc.
> >>These all get deleted
> >>anyway, due to non-notability.
> >>
> >>-Mark
> >>
> >>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
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from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] voting is now open

body:
> I would propose that no vote would create valid official policy unless
> the vote has been properly sanctioned.

Votes don't create official policy.  Official policy is created through
consensus (or less often through declarations by Jimbo, the Board, or the
Arb committee).  Surveys are simply something people can point at to say
"see, we have consensus for this".

Having lots of voters, broad application, clarity, a decent voting period, a
static question during the full time of the voting period, and adeqate
public notice are things that can be done to increase acceptance of a poll
as properly reflecting the will of Wikipedians.  You may want to mention
some of these things at [[Wikipedia:Survey Guidelines]].

Incidently, VFD polls generally fail at the vast majority of these points.
Sometimes they are clear, and there is somewhat adequate public notice, but
there are rarely many voters, broad application, a decent voting period, and
a static question during the full time of the voting period (the latter
being since the article generally changes during the voting period).

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion as POV

body:
Well, that would place a strain on our indexing
abilities, and if people were able to write a factual
article that contained truly unique and verifiable
data on the street, we might have to make that
decision when and if the situation arises.

I am not sure that I would actively work against
someone writing articles on every street. I think
there would be ways to manage it.

But again, really, it's a straw man. We are not
talking about streets, because no one is writing a lot
of articles about streets. We do have some articles
about streets, just as we have articles about trees,
parks and buildings.

If the articles are really verifiable and factual, and
contain information that is not simply generic to that
class of things, then I don't see the problem.

Mark

--- phil hunt <zen19725 at zen.co.uk> wrote:

> On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:32:11 -0700 (PDT), Rick
> <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >So is every building in the world, every park in
> the world,
> >every street in the world, every tree in the world.
>
> >Should we have articles on every one of those
> things?
> >
> >RickK
>
> I can *easily* imagine us eventually having every
> street in the
> world -- especially when WP gets integrated with an
> open source GIS
> system. Every building, perhaps eventually.
>
> --
> "It's easier to find people online who openly
> support the KKK than
> people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on
> Wikipedia
> (Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [Wikitech-l] if

body:
On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 12:39:28PM +0300, NSK wrote:
> How does that <!--[if IE]>...<![endif]--> thing works?

Please use your search machine first:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/ccomment_ovw.asp
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/condcom.html

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


from_name: NSK

body:
Hi, thank you very much! For typical reasons, I wanted to ask you whether you
have any copyright/patent/whatever claims over the method of this advertising
inclusion in MediaWiki? I want to incorporate something similar in a GPLed
redistribution of MW1.3.7/8. Thank you, NSK.

On Friday 29 October 2004 10:25, Thomas R. Koll wrote:
> *** xhtml_slim.pt.~1~   2004-09-24 23:05:13.000000000 +0200
> --- xhtml_slim.pt       2004-10-28 08:11:02.000000000 +0200
> ***************
> *** 131,136 ****
> --- 131,152 ----
>

>

>

> +

> +
Advertisement

> +

> +
> +
> +

> +

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [Wikitech-l] Off-site replication?

body:
On Friday 29 October 2004 11:14, Thomas R. Koll wrote:
> I don't think that you are allowed to give the user-table away anyways.

Of course you aren't.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm too trusting

body:
Well, it finally happened. For the first time, someone has managed to
delete an article I labored more than 4 hours over, in such a way that I
cannot retrieve it even with sysop powers.

My original [[Missing explosives in Iraq]] article is gone, with a
highly biased version in its place.

Please, someone find and e-mail me the original text. I trusted you
guys.

A crestfallen Uncle Ed


subject: [Wikitech-l] Off-site replication?

body:
Thomas R. Koll wrote:

>I don't think that you are allowed to give the user-table away anyways.
>A kiosk would also make less traffic, and if you update only hourly
>you can skip many versions for often edited articles of fast deletitions.
>
>Is the deletition log already a table?
>
>
>
Here's another thought (damn, more of these;-) :
* have a PHP script in a cronjob (hourly, as you said), running on our
to-be "outgoing replication master" that
** add/updates all changes to a cur table, since last "sync"
** removes all pages in the deletion log since last "sync", excluding
those that have later dates in the add/update list above

So, not have a MySQL replication for out MySQL master, but rather out
own software. That ensures
* nothing we don't want can go through that door
* it won't get out of sync even if the master is down for a while
* probably requires less bandwidth/database stress than MySQL
replication, since we would only sync the cur table
* could serve as an update server for future CD/DVD-based wikipedia versions
* could manage information about changed images (so these can be synced
if needed)
* could provide "reformatted" information like a list of authors for
each article (more useful than a complete "old" table, and required by
GFDL anyway)

Magnus


subject: [Wikitech-l] if

body:
/templates/xhtml_slim.pt :

    <!--[if IE]><style type="text/css" media="all">@import
"${stylepath}/${skinname}/IEFixes.css";</style>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="${stylepath}/IEFixes.js"></script>
    <meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no" /><![endif]-->

-----------

How does that <!--[if IE]>...<![endif]--> thing works?

I want to:
1. Add a <!--[if ad]>...<![endif]--> feature to allow the webmasters to add
advertisements in my future MediaWiki distribution. The ads could be
displayed, for example, in the left menu or in the page footer or at the
beginning of a page.
2. Make the webinstaller ask whether ads would be enabled or not
3. Incorporate a new setting in DefaultSettings.php and LocalSettings.php to
enable/disable the advertisements. $ads = true;
4. So when $ads is true, the [if ad] thing will be parsed, otherwise it won't.
5. There will be an "ads" mysql table holding the data regarding
advertisements. The software will load the html/script/whatever code from
there. Alternatively an $ad_data variable could be used in php. The contents
of that table/variable need to be editable through the webinstaller and a
special page or in case of the variable through LocalSettings.php

The relevant code changes will be available online and released under GPL, so
anybody who needs ads in mediawiki can benefit from it. I am sure it will be
of great help to students/smallbusinesses which run MW but need ads to pay
their webhost costs.

I would appreciate any help regarding which files reference/use this [if IE]
feature and how I can accomplish what I want and which files needs to be
changed.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikitech-l] IE bug?

body:
On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 14:54:13 +0300, NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org> wrote:
> I realised on Internet Explorer 4 or 5 the footer of MediaWiki does not appear...

Please report bugs only at http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/ since they
can not be tracked properly if you report them to this mailing list.

Thank you.

Angela.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion as POV

body:
phil hunt wrote:

>On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:32:11 -0700 (PDT), Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>So is every building in the world, every park in the world,
>>every street in the world, every tree in the world.
>>Should we have articles on every one of those things?
>>
>>RickK
>>
>>
>
>I can *easily* imagine us eventually having every street in the
>world -- especially when WP gets integrated with an open source GIS
>system. Every building, perhaps eventually.
>

So can I, but I'm not going to create articles in anticipation of that
situation.  It would be a waste of my own time.  If others start doing
it I'm not going to get overly concerned about it.

I view the Wiki universe as one big fractal Mendelbrot with odd things
springing up all over, but never in a specific and predictable place.
That's all natural, just like seacoasts are irregular in shape.  Humans
are the only creature capable of perverting geography by drawing
straight lines on maps.

Rc


from_name: Jens Ropers

subject: [WikiEN-l] whistleblowing on NSK

body:
As there was genuine, repeated interest in NSK's user identity and NSK
has AFAIK still not clarified his identity himself, I will "blow the
whistle", that is, I will relay the relevant info (which is, after all,
freely and openly available):

NSK appears to be [[en:User:Npc]].
He has been active since October 23 and as of this writing has made 96
edits.
A certain share of his contributions are insertions of links to his own
wiki projects. These link insertions may be (or may not be) perceived
as inappropriate, but others be the judge of that. Not all of NSK's
contributions are such link insertions and IMHO some of his
contributions are quite ok.

Sorry to be the one to "blow the whistle" but I feel there's a public
interest; no offense to NSK.

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

http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?
collection=independent_news&collectionid=Mosh


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: sysop vs. admin

body:
On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:10:34 +0800, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> The two terms (sysop and admin) are used interchangeably in the
> Wikipedia user space. They both mean someone who as gone through
> [[Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship]] successfully, and can delete and
> protect pages, and block IPs/names.

I have long thought it to be a Bad Thing that these terms are both
used, since it often leads to confusion. The historical reason seems
to be that the software developers called the status flag in the
database "sysop", but the community (simultaneously?) settled on the
term "administrator" for the same status. I've actually seen people
stating that "An admin is someone with sysop status." as though this
in some way justified the existence of both terms.

However, a discussion a few months ago aimed at choosing a single
official term (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Administrators#Remove_all_sysops)
led to a straw poll which for one thing got very silly, and for
another demonstrated nothing approaching consensus (even after tidying
up the silliness).

As for whether the usage should be emulated elsewhere, I would suggest
doing what seems sensible on your project, and leaving en.wikipedia to
its own craziness. ;) [Hm, there's a thought: what term(s) do other
languages use?]

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
I see nothing wrong with his position.  There are multiple deletion
criteria available.  Each has its own definition.  We can define a
vanity page in terms of self-promotion or self-glorification.
Verifiability is a different and independent criterion.  Using the
description of one criterion to determine the applicability of a
different one is illogical.

Ec

John Lee wrote:

> Sorry, I don't understand - why would vanity pages be eligible for
> deletion if the information therein was 100% verifiable and factual?
> Delirium said that this isn't a strawman because *we get 100%
> verifiable articles such as vanity pages which are deleted*. You argue
> in favour of their deletion, because they are vanity pages - what
> constitutes a vanity page? A page written by someone seeking
> glorification? But, why, the information's verifiable! Isn't Wikipedia
> supposed to be a compendium of human knowledge? I honestly don't
> understand your paradoxical - dare I say, hypocritical - stance on this.
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
>
> Mark Richards wrote:
>
>> It's a straw man because you are taking the case in
>> dispute (schools) and claiming that if we keep
>> schools, we will have to keep an article on each
>> school band member.
>>
>> There are existing rules to deal with vanity articles,
>> and to the extent that we have a problem with them,
>> they have been deleted as vanity.
>>
>> Let's not confuse the issues of schools with some
>> hypothetical deluge of articles about cheerleaders or
>> dead cats.
>>
>> If I have presented my case as an extreme one, then I
>> have misrepresented my aims. I certainly do not
>> support an article on each high school band member. I
>> doubt that you could really write a verifiable and
>> factual article on them that was not a vanity page
>> anyway.
>>
>> It's not that these people are not notable, they
>> certianly are to some people, it is the fact that
>> these would be vanity articles, I am not proposing to
>> remove this criteria for deletion.
>


from_name: Bill Clark

subject: [Wikitech-l] LDAP Authentication

body:
On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 15:52:37 -0500, Lane, Ryan <laner at navo.navy.mil> wrote:

> I have added LDAP authentication to MediaWiki.

I recently added authentication against a webserver (which we're using
here to verify users against our Kerberos servers using mod_auth_kerb
in Apache).  We should probably combine our changes.

While (like you) i originally made my modifications to
SpecialUserLogin.php. I later realized it made more sense to modify
the User::checkPassword() function in User.php.

Since your code includes more robust error messages and such, I'm
going to copy much of it to modify my existing code, and (if possible)
try to abstract out some of the commonalities so that we don't end up
cluttering up User:checkPassword() too much.

You can email me directly at my work address at bclark at ldc.upenn.edu,
if you'd like to discuss this collaboration/integration some more.

-Bill Clark


from_name: Paul Fierro

subject: [Wikitech-l] Off-site replication?

body:
On 10/29/2004 12:23 PM, Thomas R. Koll <tomk32 at gmx.de> wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 08:42:08AM -0700, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>> They actually called me yesterday just to let me know that they did a
>> test with a remote slave to a mysql server (on their own network) and
>> stress tested it.  They said it worked just fine, which is an
>> encouraging sign, although of course the devil is in the details.
>
> Though I wouldn't prefer a mysql-only solution, it would increase security
> for our data/mysql-server if we maintain a single machine for only this
> purpose which would not include stuff like old and user tables.

This is a great suggestion. A simple way to achieve this would be to have a
dedicated slave (S0) that (a) replicates from the master (M) and (b) acts as
a master for the off-site slaves (S1, S2, S3...):

M -> S0 -> S1, S2, S3...

To limit which tables the off-site slaves can replicate, use
replicate-do-table as necessary in S0's my.cnf:

replicate-do-table=wikipedia.cur

Without an intermediary slave, sensitive data could exist in the relay logs
on the off-site slaves, even if the slaves were configured to ignore certain
tables with replicate-ignore-table.

Paul


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Full nice handbag

body:
Mark Richards wrote:

>I can't help but feel that you are caricaturing my
>position.
>
>
Hmm!  That sounds like a definition of trolling.  Too bad we can't call
it that. :-)

Ec


from_name: ilooy

subject: [Foundation-l] Success! Setting up MediaWiki for use in Presentation

body:
Thanks again for all the help in getting
set up with a local install of MediaWiki.

I've just received word that one of the
sessions will have 72 people and the
other 38 for "Wiki Wiki Learning".

What do you think about approaching
Michael at the Linspire / Lindows Corp
and sharing the positive experience with
setting up MediaWiki? Could we suggest
he include the software in the Click-N-Run
Warehouse? Would this be possible and
would it be ok with the foundation and the
developers?

I'm so encouraged by the easy install and
the excellent setup that I'd be willing to
try it on an iMac... or the iBook, but only
after the conferences, the first of which
is in one more week.

With thanks to all who've responded to
my questions...

Sincerely,
Jay B.

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 20:31:26 +0000 (UTC),
wikitech-l-request at wikimedia.org <wikitech-l-request at wikimedia.org>
wrote:
>    8. Success! Setting up MediaWiki for use in Presentation     to
>       Conferences (ilooy)
> Message: 9
> Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:04:57 +0300
> From: NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Success! Setting up MediaWiki for use in
>         Presentation to Conferences
> To: ilooy <ilooy.gaon at gmail.com>,       Wikimedia developers
>         <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <200410272304.57561.nsk2 at wikinerds.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Wednesday 27 October 2004 22:50, ilooy wrote:
> > went very smoothly
>
> Good to hear that
>
> > http://localhost/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
>
> It's the same as http://127.0.0.1/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
>
> This is the IP address of your computer. There is nothing wrong with that.
>
> > http://linspiron/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
>
> That's the domain name of your computer. You choose the "linspiron" part
> during GNU/Linux installation (can be changed later).
>
> It's your computer; there is nothing wrong with that address.
>
> > somehow the ?index.php? part doesn?t seem
>
> It's right.
>
> MediaWiki uses "pretty URLs" so instead of ? it uses / to make the URL more
> beautiful.
>
> --
> NSK
> Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
> Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
> Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Success! Setting up MediaWiki for use in Presentation


subject: [Wikitech-l] very serious bug

body:
Hi,

If there is a webserver like for example http://www.wikinerds.org which hosts
many wikis with MediaWiki 1.3.x, the cookies issued by the wikis will be
mixed because they are issued on the same www sub-domain name.

A quick solution to this problem is to create subdomains and install each wiki
on its own subdomain.

However not all webhosts allow subdomains so MediaWiki should have some
cookie-related options in webinstaller or LocalSettings.php

phpBB does have these controls and you can choose the name of the cookie, its
lifetime etc.

I think this could be described as a bug and I think it should be fixed in
1.3.8 if you can.

btw can you tell me which files reference http cookies?

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [Wikitech-l] Off-site replication?

body:
On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 12:37:05PM +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:
> * it won't get out of sync even if the master is down for a while

and if the slave is down for a while it can d/l the archivied hourly or
daily dumps.

> * probably requires less bandwidth/database stress than MySQL
> replication, since we would only sync the cur table

yes, files can be cached on the squids or redistributed.

> * could provide "reformatted" information like a list of authors for
> each article (more useful than a complete "old" table, and required by
> GFDL anyway)

For usage as a slave i wouldn't consider that as important, a link
to wikipedia's history was and is enough in internet.
But we could have a second output file which only carries the authors.

If we write our own software, we could use a smaller webserver for
delivering the files (also for images), ain't there one in the kernel?

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


subject: [Wikitech-l] IE bug?

body:
Hi,

I realised on Internet Explorer 4 or 5 the footer of MediaWiki does not appear
on the very bottom, but just under the article text. The left menu may be
bigger than the page text causing it to be rendered under the footer.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [Wikitech-l] very serious bug

body:
On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 02:45:26PM +0300, NSK wrote:
> Hi,
>
> If there is a webserver like for example http://www.wikinerds.org which hosts
> many wikis with MediaWiki 1.3.x, the cookies issued by the wikis will be
> mixed because they are issued on the same www sub-domain name.

You can add a path to the cookie.
It's not in localsetting.php by default, but if you add
$wgCookiePath = "/path/to/my/wiki/";
the default / will be overwritten.
BUT you might have a problem if you have a /wiki/ and /w/ structure
like at wikipedia, so make sure that every wiki has it's very own
subdir like:
/a/
 | /a/wiki/
 + /a/w/
/b/
 | /b/wiki/
....

> btw can you tell me which files reference http cookies?

You mean in the source? grep for session or COOKIE

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


subject: [Wikitech-l] IP privacy

body:
Is there a reason you didn't just add this to the bugzilla discussion
itself? Seems a bit odd branching the discussion to here.

And if you were going to say something about public e-mail addresses
and spam (a common objection, and probably a reasonable one), note
that this list has public archives, which reveal your address, e.g.
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2004-October/026128.html

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 06:32:01 +0300, NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org> wrote:
> "Using an encrypted or hashed IP would mean that sysops would be unable to
> identify proxy servers or dynamic IP pools. This information is vital when
> tracking vandalism or blocking users." -
> http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=556
>
> The IP should be visible to sysops but not to users and the general web
> audience. You need to implement a "Show IP" sysop-only special page with a
> form where a sysop can paste the encoded text and get the IP corresponding to
> it.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [WikiEN-l] whistleblowing on NSK

body:
On Friday 29 October 2004 14:07, Jens Ropers wrote:
> NSK appears to be [[en:User:Npc]].

I wonder how you found that.

> These link insertions may be (or may not be) perceived
> as inappropriate, but others be the judge of that.

I would never include an inappropriate link in Wikipedia or anywhere. All the
links have useful content to offer and are never promotional.

Most links contain more information on some subject. It may be GFDL or not. If
it isn't and you want it to be incorporated in Wikipedia, you can ask me to
relicense parts of it under GFDL.

> there's a public interest; no offense to NSK.

I doubt the public interest is legitimate. Why should people care what my
username is?

BTW now that you published my wikiname, you have the responsibility to protect
me from unjustified bans etc. :)

Anyway, that username (Npc) is referring to http://www.nerdypc.org which is a
wiki knowledge base on computer hardware and software where anyone can
contribute. However I would like to have a more general username. Do you know
how I can change it to something better?

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


from_name: Andreas Voellmy

subject: [Wikitech-l] Export options

body:
Does anyone know what export options there are for MediaWiki? Ideally I
would like to select an article and export to pdf, word, or plain text
with the exported document containing proper formatting, including a
header image, styles, etc... Does anyone know of any projects that are
working on this feature or similar features?

Thanks, Andreas


subject: [WikiEN-l] whistleblowing on NSK

body:
On Friday 29 October 2004 15:15, Fred Bauder wrote:
> Try using your real name

My real name is a bit long for a wikiname so I usually use NSK or FreeNSK on
wikis, for example http://www.openformats.org/FreeNSK

I will create a new account now, thanks.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] whistleblowing on NSK

body:
On Friday 29 October 2004 15:15, Fred Bauder wrote:
> Create a new account under your new name

[[User:NSK]]

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Compendium

body:
So, to try to avoid the constant posturing for a
while, how does this help us to navigate the different
understandings of what should and should not go in?
Are you in favour or against schools, for example? I
can't really tell from your message.

It would seem that your definition would exclude many
RamBot articles?

Mark

--- "Daniel P.B.Smith" <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:

> > From: John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com>
> >
> > vanity page? A page written by someone seeking
> glorification? But, why,
> > Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be a
> > compendium of human knowledge?
>
> Let's take a little tour through the dictionary. I'm
> going to use AHD4
> (running the risk of being trumped by people with
> access to the full
> OED) but, here goes.
> com?pen?di?um, NOUN: Inflected forms: pl.
> com?pen?di?ums or
> com?pen?di?a (-d> -> ) 1. A short, complete summary;
an abstract.  2. A
> list or collection
> of various items. ETYMOLOGY: Latin, a shortening,
> from  compendere, to
> weigh together :  com-, com- + pendere, to weigh.
>
> In other words, the word compendium implies some
> kind of distillation
> or selection.
>
> en?cy?clo?pe?di?a A comprehensive reference work
> containing articles on
> a wide range of subjects or on numerous aspects of a
> particular field,
> usually arranged alphabetically. ETYMOLOGY:Medieval
> Latin
> encyclopaedia, general education course, from
> alteration of Greek
> enkuklios paideia, general education :  enkuklios,
> circular, general;
> see encyclical +  paideia, education (from  pais,
> paid-, child; see
> pau- in Appendix I). WORD HISTORY: The word
> encyclopedia, which to us
> usually means a large set of books, descends from a
> phrase that
> involved coming to grips with the contents of such
> books. The Greek
> phrase is enkuklios paideia, made up of enkuklios,
> ?cyclical, periodic,
> ordinary,? and paideia, ?education,? and meaning
> ?general education.?
> Copyists of Latin manuscripts took this phrase to be
> a single Greek
> word, enkuklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this
> spurious Greek
> word became the New Latin word encyclopaedia, coming
> into English with
> the sense ?general course of instruction,? first
> recorded in 1531. In
> New Latin the word was chosen as the title of a
> reference work covering
> all knowledge. The first such use in English is
> recorded in 1644.
>
> In the case of what an encyclopedia is supposed to
> cover, things are
> less clear, but there is a strong implication that
> it has something to
> do with education or teaching or school.
> Encyclopedias don't cover
> everything, they cover "book-larning." They have
> some vague connection
> (not ironical here) with the idea of being a
> universal _textbook,_
> covering those areas relevant to a _general
> education_.
>
> Now, compendium of human _knowledge:_
>
> knowl?edge 1. The state or fact of knowing.  2.
> Familiarity, awareness,
> or understanding gained through experience or study.
>  3. The sum or
> range of what has been perceived, discovered, or
> learned.  4. Learning;
> erudition: teachers of great knowledge. 5. Specific
> information about
> something.  6. Carnal knowledge.
>
> I think we can agree that "universal compendium of
> human knowledge" is
> not referring to meaning number #6. Inclusionists
> seem to feel that it
> ought to mean #3, "The sum or range of what has been
> perceived,
> discovered, or learned." But I think there is often
> an understanding
> that knowledge, _in the context of an encyclopedia,_
> has meaning number
> #4. In other words, book-larning.
>
> Naturally, we extend this quite a bit, for a number
> of reasons. Paper
> publishers are quite happy to publish an
> "encyclopedia of baseball" or
> an "encyclopedia of vaudeville" and Microsoft has
> published an "MS-DOS
> encyclopedia," and we include material of this kind
> in Wikipedia.
>
> However, business directories, gazetteers, Who's
> Who, and the American
> Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac are _never_ called
> the "encyclopedias of
> businesses," "encyclopedias of place names," "the
> Marquis Encyclopedia
> of Vanity Pages," or the "Encyclopedia of Ephemeral
> Astronomical Data
> Useful for Navigation."
>
>
> --
> Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
> "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is
> now back in print!
> Sample chapter at
> http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
> Buy it at
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
>
> > _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
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from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Regarding Wrong Encyclopedia Entries

body:
Thanks for forwarding this, Angela. I could fix this up, if I knew
what his concerns were. However, they're so vague that it's not really
possible to guess.

-- ambi

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 15:55:43 +0100, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> This was sent to the board address. Forwarded here since OTRS is down.
> Could anyone help to research these points please?
>
> Dear Sir or Madam
>
> Through books and cross-checking information of your
> encyclopedia entries:
>
> Swiad Gamsachurdia, writer, president of Georgia
> and
> Eduard Schewardnadse, USSR foreign minister, dictator
>
> I believe the information given on your site (from
> 1989 onwards) to be wrong in parts and in other parts
> wrongly interpreted. I have no time to go into details
> and leave you to research these two entries, also
> taking into account non-encyclopedic information.
>
> Yours faithfully
>
> <name removed>
>
> Switzerland
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Problematic behavior and ad hominem attacks

body:
With all respect, this is a bit of a strange comment.
At the moment, there's a handful of pro-Israeli editors, a couple of
whom are bad apples, but there's also been an influx of
pro-Palestinian edit warriors who are just as bad, if not worse, than
any of the Israelis.

Our ongoing Israeli-Palestinian article mess is a complex one, but
it's simply not true to state that the Palestinian case is
marginalised here. There's plenty of good editors, such as node_ue,
who are strongly pro-Palestinian, and there's also more recently
numerous bad apples to back them up. Furthermore, I think there's a
fair case that it's the pro-Israeli one that's getting marginalised,
because at present, it seems like Jayjg is holding out alone (perhaps
with the support of L6W, until his ban goes through, anyway).

-- ambi

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 11:20:08 -0600, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> The question is, how, with almost no Palestinian editors,
> except for a few radicallized stand-ins, could any other viewpoint be
> expressed without a special effort by advocates for Israel to ensure the
> Palestinian perspective is expressed fairly.


subject: [WikiEN-l] whistleblowing on NSK

body:
On 29 Oct 2004, at 14:10, NSK wrote:

> On Friday 29 October 2004 14:07, Jens Ropers wrote:
>> NSK appears to be [[en:User:Npc]].
>
> I wonder how you found that.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ropers#how

> BTW now that you published my wikiname, you have the responsibility to
> protect
> me from unjustified bans etc. :)

No. I. Don't. And it's not funny.

> Anyway, that username (Npc) is referring to http://www.nerdypc.org
> which is a
> wiki knowledge base on computer hardware and software where anyone can
> contribute.

More advertising.

Thanks and regards,
Jens Ropers

You gotta watch this video:
http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?
collection=independent_news&collectionid=Mosh


subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm too trusting

body:
On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 11:57:37 -0400, Poor, Edmund W
<edmund.w.poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Well, it finally happened. For the first time, someone has managed to
> delete an article I labored more than 4 hours over, in such a way that I
> cannot retrieve it even with sysop powers.
>
> My original [[Missing explosives in Iraq]] article is gone, with a
> highly biased version in its place.

Well, I have no sysop powers to see deleted versions, but a quick bit
of sleuthing turns up:
"23:40, 28 Oct 2004 Jxg (Missing explosives in Iraq moved to Al-Qaqaa
weapons facility)" [1]

which leads us to [2], which from dates and usernames suggests that
your original text (just after the move) is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Al-Qaqaa_weapons_facility&oldid=6944270

I'm sorry if I'm stating the obvious here, and that isn't actually the
text you're looking for.

To complete the story, it was then expanded slightly [3], before being
merged, albeit not very thoroughly [4] with another, already larger
[5], article on the same topic [6].

No deletion I can see, just a maze of page moves and parallel development.

==Refs==
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Missing_explosives_in_Iraq&action=history
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Al-Qaqaa_weapons_facility&action=history
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Al-Qaqaa_weapons_facility&diff=6956243&oldid=6944270
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Al_Qa%27qaa_high_explosives_controversy&diff=6958888&oldid=6956254
[5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Al_Qa%27qaa_high_explosives_controversy&oldid=6956254
[6]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Qa%27qaa_high_explosives_controversy
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: IE bug?

body:
NSK wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I realised on Internet Explorer 4 or 5 the footer of MediaWiki does not appear
> on the very bottom, but just under the article text. The left menu may be
> bigger than the page text causing it to be rendered under the footer.
>

Use an updated browser probably:
   http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Even IE6 is outdated (ex: doesnt support css2).

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Preliminary Deletion - voting is now open

body:
Just FYI the list, voting on [[Wikipedia:Preliminary Deletion]] has
commenced. Those concerned can vote at [[Wikipedia:Preliminary
Deletion/Vote]].

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Off-site replication?

body:
Thomas R. Koll wrote:
<snip>
> Is the deletition log already a table?

In 1.4 they are (as well as protection, user rights ..).

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar


from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Compendium

body:
> From: John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com>
>
> vanity page? A page written by someone seeking glorification? But, why,
> Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be a
> compendium of human knowledge?

Let's take a little tour through the dictionary. I'm going to use AHD4
(running the risk of being trumped by people with access to the full
OED) but, here goes.
com?pen?di?um, NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. com?pen?di?ums or
com?pen?di?a (-d
-------------- next part --------------
-
-------------- next part --------------
) 1. A short, complete summary; an abstract.  2. A list or collection
of various items. ETYMOLOGY: Latin, a shortening, from  compendere, to
weigh together :  com-, com- + pendere, to weigh.

In other words, the word compendium implies some kind of distillation
or selection.

en?cy?clo?pe?di?a A comprehensive reference work containing articles on
a wide range of subjects or on numerous aspects of a particular field,
usually arranged alphabetically. ETYMOLOGY:Medieval Latin
encyclopaedia, general education course, from alteration of Greek
enkuklios paideia, general education :  enkuklios, circular, general;
see encyclical +  paideia, education (from  pais, paid-, child; see
pau- in Appendix I). WORD HISTORY: The word encyclopedia, which to us
usually means a large set of books, descends from a phrase that
involved coming to grips with the contents of such books. The Greek
phrase is enkuklios paideia, made up of enkuklios, ?cyclical, periodic,
ordinary,? and paideia, ?education,? and meaning ?general education.?
Copyists of Latin manuscripts took this phrase to be a single Greek
word, enkuklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek
word became the New Latin word encyclopaedia, coming into English with
the sense ?general course of instruction,? first recorded in 1531. In
New Latin the word was chosen as the title of a reference work covering
all knowledge. The first such use in English is recorded in 1644.

In the case of what an encyclopedia is supposed to cover, things are
less clear, but there is a strong implication that it has something to
do with education or teaching or school. Encyclopedias don't cover
everything, they cover "book-larning." They have some vague connection
(not ironical here) with the idea of being a universal _textbook,_
covering those areas relevant to a _general education_.

Now, compendium of human _knowledge:_

knowl?edge 1. The state or fact of knowing.  2. Familiarity, awareness,
or understanding gained through experience or study.  3. The sum or
range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned.  4. Learning;
erudition: teachers of great knowledge. 5. Specific information about
something.  6. Carnal knowledge.

I think we can agree that "universal compendium of human knowledge" is
not referring to meaning number #6. Inclusionists seem to feel that it
ought to mean #3, "The sum or range of what has been perceived,
discovered, or learned." But I think there is often an understanding
that knowledge, _in the context of an encyclopedia,_ has meaning number
#4. In other words, book-larning.

Naturally, we extend this quite a bit, for a number of reasons. Paper
publishers are quite happy to publish an "encyclopedia of baseball" or
an "encyclopedia of vaudeville" and Microsoft has published an "MS-DOS
encyclopedia," and we include material of this kind in Wikipedia.

However, business directories, gazetteers, Who's Who, and the American
Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac are _never_ called the "encyclopedias of
businesses," "encyclopedias of place names," "the Marquis Encyclopedia
of Vanity Pages," or the "Encyclopedia of Ephemeral Astronomical Data
Useful for Navigation."

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

subject: [Wikitech-l] Off-site replication?

body:
On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 08:42:08AM -0700, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
> They actually called me yesterday just to let me know that they did a
> test with a remote slave to a mysql server (on their own network) and
> stress tested it.  They said it worked just fine, which is an
> encouraging sign, although of course the devil is in the details.

Though I wouldn't prefer a mysql-only solution, it would increase security
for our data/mysql-server if we maintain a single machine for only this
purpose which would not include stuff like old and user tables.
It ain't a good feeling for me to have outsiders have access to the
same db where we store such sensible data.

ciao, tom

--
== Weblinks ==
* http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] Broken articles in the database of cs: Wikipedia

body:
Hi!

After downloading the cs: database dump and importing it to my local
MediaWiki installation, I played a little with the database and I have
found some problems. We have already known about some of them, some
others were quite surprising. We would like to clean the database, but
I don't know if this is the right place to ask.

The problems are:

Article named "kniha_nahr?vek" in Wikipedia namespace -- note the
first lowercase letter, which makes the article inaccessible. This was
a badly named entry in LanguageCs.php corresponding to the "Upload
log". Because of that, there are many duplicate copies of the article,
cur_ids: 237, 238, 365, 367, 457, 459, 461, 463, 487, 528, 529, 538,
643, 654, 656, 689, 691, 693, 698, 700, 702, 704, 708, 710, 712, 714.
We would like to get them all deleted.

Article named "kniha_nahr?vek_" in Wikipedia namespace -- in addition
to the lowercase letter, there is a space at the end. cur_id = 836,
the article should also be deleted.

" Psan?_dat" in Wikipedia namespace -- beginning with a space, which
makes it also inaccessible (automatic redirection to "Psan? dat"),
cur_id = 1265. The article should be also deleted.

Duplicate "Sirot??_str?nky" in Wikipedia namespace, cur_ids 716, 733.
One or both of them should be deleted.

Duplicate "26._??jna" in the main namespace, cur_ids 3326, 3327. One
of them should be deleted (or both, it is a simple redirect that could
be simply recreated).

"Wikipedie:Co_je_?l?nek" in the main namespace (cur_id = 49) -- note
that the czech name of Wikipedia namespace is "Wikipedie". So that its
name collides with the namespace name (it was probably created when
the namespace name was not yet translated), and its name is invalid.
The article has been deleted by a sysop, but without real success, it
still appears in e.g. Special:Uncategorizedpages etc. The article
should be deleted.

"" (empty name) in Media namespace (cur_id = 3614) -- it should
obviously be removed.

Could someone with database access please fix those problems? Or, if
there is a better place to ask these requests, just tell me.

Thanks,
[[cs:User:Mormegil|Petr Kadlec]] (sysop/bureaucrat on cs: Wikipedia)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Export options

body:
On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 03:25:35PM -0400, Andreas Voellmy wrote:
> Does anyone know what export options there are for MediaWiki? Ideally I
> would like to select an article and export to pdf, word, or plain text
> with the exported document containing proper formatting, including a
> header image, styles, etc... Does anyone know of any projects that are
> working on this feature or similar features?

try print in your browser and print to a file (don't know wether
that works on windooze, but Firefox Linux does).
with FreePDF you should create proper PDFs.
There's a wiki2pdf  http://wiki.auf-trag.de/ but it's quite useless
if it comes to tables.

If you want to have more than one article in a document I strongly
engourage you to use OpenOffice.org (1.1.1 and newer) which is almost
perfect for copy'n'paste.
I've done the 200-pages WikiReader Internet with OOo and the resulting
PDF was good enough for professional print. (see weblink below)

To MS Word, I don't think the devs will ever include such an export,
and plain text, just cut'n'paste to your simpliest editor ;-)

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


subject: [Wikitech-l] Export options

body:
For Windows, you could use this:
http://www.pdf995.com/
You will want the printer driver AND the convertor (and possibly the
edit and signature software as well).

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

http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?
collection=independent_news&collectionid=Mosh

On 29 Oct 2004, at 21:38, Thomas R. Koll wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 03:25:35PM -0400, Andreas Voellmy wrote:
>> Does anyone know what export options there are for MediaWiki? Ideally
>> I
>> would like to select an article and export to pdf, word, or plain text
>> with the exported document containing proper formatting, including a
>> header image, styles, etc... Does anyone know of any projects that are
>> working on this feature or similar features?
>
> try print in your browser and print to a file (don't know wether
> that works on windooze, but Firefox Linux does).
> with FreePDF you should create proper PDFs.
> There's a wiki2pdf  http://wiki.auf-trag.de/ but it's quite useless
> if it comes to tables.
>
> If you want to have more than one article in a document I strongly
> engourage you to use OpenOffice.org (1.1.1 and newer) which is almost
> perfect for copy'n'paste.
> I've done the 200-pages WikiReader Internet with OOo and the resulting
> PDF was good enough for professional print. (see weblink below)
>
> To MS Word, I don't think the devs will ever include such an export,
> and plain text, just cut'n'paste to your simpliest editor ;-)
>
> ciao, tom
> --
> == Weblinks ==
> * http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
> * http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
> * http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Compendium

body:
Mark Richards wrote:

>So, to try to avoid the constant posturing for a
>while, how does this help us to navigate the different
>understandings of what should and should not go in?
>Are you in favour or against schools, for example? I
>can't really tell from your message.
>
Why do you need to be able to tell? Part of the reason Dpbsmith's
attempt at discussion is helpful is because he's trying to explore
general principles _instead of_ "posturing" as either "for" or "against"
schools. If all you're interested in knowing is whether someone is *for*
or *against* whatever side you are on, it's no wonder this discussion is
deteriorating into "inclusionist vs. deletionist" factionalism and
moving no closer to consensus. Most of what I've seen for the past week
in 90% of the messages on this list (and in spite of several attempts at
calling a timeout to the flamewar) is people caricaturing their
opponents in the debate in an attempt to ridicule them into changing
sides. It should not be surprising that this is not an effective method
of persuasion, and it also does very little to get undecided observers
to support either side.

If this sounds a lot like the current political dynamics in the United
States, well ... but that's off the topic, so let's not go there.

--Michael Snow


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] whistleblowing on NSK

body:
NSK (nsk2 at wikinerds.org) [041029 22:06]:

> > there's a public interest; no offense to NSK.

> I doubt the public interest is legitimate. Why should people care what my
> username is?

I explained it to you - did you not read it?

- d.


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for new Wikipedia: Friulian

body:
Hi

I'd like to request a new Wikipedia for the Friulian language.

It has an ISO 639-2 code, although I don't recall what it is (perhaps fur?)

Friulian is spoken in Italy, and calls itself "Furlan".

As to whether I have any actual support from speakers of this language:

"Sorry for the delay in my answer. I would be very interested in
Friulian language; can you help? So far I found just another user who
wants to work on it. The main problem is that I don't have a pc
currently so I'm seldom online --Klenje 19:18, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)"

(from my talk page)

This would be my third request for an Italian minority language
Wikipedia... having requested only a few Wikis, I find it quite
strange that three of them should be Italian minority languages (1.
Sardinian sc:, 2. Sicilian scn:, 3. Friulian)

--node


from_name: James D. Forrester

subject: [WikiEN-l] Compendium

body:
On Friday, October 29, 2004 23:41, Daniel P.B. Smith wrote:

> > From: John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com>
> >
> > vanity page? A page written by someone seeking glorification? But,
> > why, Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be a compendium of human knowledge?
>
> Let's take a little tour through the dictionary. I'm going to
> use AHD4 (running the risk of being trumped by people with access to
> the full OED) but, here goes.
>
> com.pen.di.um, NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. com.pen.di.ums or
> com.pen.di.a (-d

Well you /did/ ask to be trumped:

The OED's online version (sans quotations and the date charts) has:

compendium

(k{schwa}m{sm}p{ope}nd{shti}{schwa}m)

Pl. -ums, -a.

[a. L. compendium that which is weighed together, a sparing, saving,
abbreviation, f. compend-{ebreve}re to weigh together, f. com- +
pend{ebreve}re to weigh.]

{dag} 1. A short cut; 'the near way' (J.).

      2. a. An abridgement or condensation of a larger work or treatise,
         giving the sense and substance, within smaller compass.

         b. An epitome, a summary, a brief.

         c. transf. and fig. A condensed representation, an embodiment in
            miniature; an abstract.

         d. An abbreviation whereby two or more letters are expressed by a
            single character.

{dag} 3. Sparing or saving; economy of labour, space, etc. Obs.

      4. a. A box, etc., containing or comprising several different games.

         b. A package of the stationery required for letter-writing.

HTH. ;-)

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk
IM  : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

body:
Angela wrote:
> I don't feel that one person who admits to being rarely online is
> enough to justify the creation of a new language Wikipedia.

Obviously I agree.

> I propose we adopt Wikitravel's policy of requiring at least five
> potential contributors before starting a new language. See
> http://www.wikitravel.org/en/article/Wikitravel:Language_version_policy

I think this is an excellent suggestion.

--Jimbo