from_name: xaosflux

body:
Agreed, the current options make the most sense to me.

xaosflux
----- Original Message -----
From: "Platonides" <Platonides at gmail.com>
To: <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] How to change default options for blocking users?

> You can customize it via a JavaScript, but i think that the current
> options are OK.
>
> -> Block anonymous users only
> You usually want to stop *all* vandalism from that ip. You may want to
> soft it for proxys, but not usually.
>
> ->Prevent account creation
> Blocks without account creation are mostly useless.
>
> The default you ask allows to bypass default blocks, simply by creating an
> account (remember: it's instantaneus, you don't even need for an email)
> and vandalizing with username.
>
> "Walter Vermeir"
>> Thanks to Tim bug 550 is fixt and now it is possible to be more specific
>> who and what you like to block.
>>
>> To specify this there are 2 tick boxes with these default settings;
>>
>> [ ] Block anonymous users only
>>
>> [X] Prevent account creation
>>
>>
>> I find these are not good default settings. The default setting should
>> be the softest block possible. And that is only a block for anonymous
>> users and account creation allowed.
>>
>> So that this would be the default setting;
>>
>> [X] Block anonymous users only
>>
>> [ ] Prevent account creation
>>
>>
>> Can this be specified somewhere by a sysop on the wiki?
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-07-16

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 409 of 426 tests (96.01%) FAILED!


list: wikien-l

from_name: Sydney aka FloNight

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
---- Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Sydney aka FloNight <poore5 at adelphia.net> wrote:
> > Angela, for example, is known for a small area of her life if we go by verifiable, reliable sources. For that reason the information is best covered in another article.
> >
> The thing is, Angela has gotten involved with a number of different
> things: Wikipedia/Wikimedia, Wikia, and Ourmedia (two non-profits and
> a for-profit, all of which are relatively well-known, and all of which
> have their own Wikipedia articles).  I really don't think it makes
> sense to mention this in every single one of those articles - what
> makes sense is to have a single article which links to each.
>
> > Of course for dignity reasons, it is worse when the only thing that someone is famous for may be one small stupid mistake.
> >
> I think human dignity is certainly a factor, though I'd probably
> phrase it as right to privacy.  In fact, the first time one particular
> article went up for deletion (I think it was Jimbo, but it might have
> been Angela), I voted to delete it out of respect for their wishes.
> Wikipedia/Wikimedia has gotten a lot bigger since then (I'm not even
> sure if the latter existed at the time), as has Wikia, and at this
> point I think the public right to know outweighs the individual right
> to privacy, at least so long as the article is kept narrow.
>
> Anthony

Anthony,

Angela is mentioned in these articles even though she has an article.
Are you saying that we should take her information out of these articles?

Sydney


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] How to change default options for blocking users?

body:
You can customize it via a JavaScript, but i think that the current options
are OK.

-> Block anonymous users only
You usually want to stop *all* vandalism from that ip. You may want to soft
it for proxys, but not usually.

->Prevent account creation
Blocks without account creation are mostly useless.

The default you ask allows to bypass default blocks, simply by creating an
account (remember: it's instantaneus, you don't even need for an email) and
vandalizing with username.

"Walter Vermeir"
> Thanks to Tim bug 550 is fixt and now it is possible to be more specific
> who and what you like to block.
>
> To specify this there are 2 tick boxes with these default settings;
>
> [ ] Block anonymous users only
>
> [X] Prevent account creation
>
>
> I find these are not good default settings. The default setting should
> be the softest block possible. And that is only a block for anonymous
> users and account creation allowed.
>
> So that this would be the default setting;
>
> [X] Block anonymous users only
>
> [ ] Prevent account creation
>
>
> Can this be specified somewhere by a sysop on the wiki?


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Marketing: a question

body:
If you're already doing so, i highly encourage you to change it globally
(even if you have to specify on other place that date info). You will need
to change Mesiawiki:copyrightwarning and the copyrightpage.
The text below saying it's under GFDL won't be incorrect at all (all of it
is under GFDL), but for changing you will need to ask on bugzilla.

About translations from other wikipedias, you're supposed to be able to read
from various sources to know and then make your own text so shouldn't be so
much a problem unless you directly quote (then you could have a GFDL-only
text with dual licensed translation and modifications, quite a ? mess...).
Maybe a new template: be aware original article source is GFDL-only? Better
being creative!

Platonides


from_name: mboverload

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is forever.

body:
In the future Wikipedia will be automatically scrape information from
people's brains through "The Link" or something ([[The Outer Limits]] had a
great episode about this)

On 7/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/16/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> > are sure to be many more. I think you radically underestimate both the
> > desperation of academics for interesting topics, and the sheer value
> > (to academics) of a massive archive of primary source material.
> > Presuming Wikipedia talk page data is available in 20 to 50 to 150
> > years, I expect considerable scholarly interest in it.  As for the
>
> The internet is still only just taking off (particularly in many
> developing countries), and community projects like this one are still
> fairly rare. That won't be the case for long.
>
> > As for whether there will be a free-content, reader-editable
> > encyclopedia around in some form in 50 years - I strongly suspect (and
> > hope) so.  Will it be called Wikipedia?  No idea.
>
> Will it be based on Wikipedia's content?
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [[Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China]]:
	mainspace or not

body:
On 7/16/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well as someone living on the front lines of Wikipedia access in
> China, I do think moving the article to Wikipedia: namespace is the
> correct thing to do. It's not really appropriate for the main
> namespace. It wouldn't be appropriate for any of these either:
>
> [[Blocking_of_BBC_in_mainland_China]]
> [[Blocking_of_Blogger_in_mainland_China]]
> [[Blocking_of_HRIC_in_mainland_China]]

You do raise a good argument. I was approaching the move mainly from
the perspective of whether or not it is ok as a self-reference.
Perhaps a merge is in order then - to [[internet censorship in
mainland China]], [[Wikipedia]], or a combination of targets.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> I am curious to know whether very many people agree with me that "human
> dignity" is a valid reason for a "delete" vote in a case like this.

We need two things, really.

A sensible deletion process.

A sensible deletion review process.

I'm not saying that the current processes don't have many good, decent
and well meaning adherents.  But they don't work.  They are often
actively, perversely, resistant to commonsense decisions, they attract
trolls and people who are prone to abusing Wikipedia as a forum for
advancing their point of view. A spurious concept of concensus is
endemic, and the sheer poisonous nature of the current processes seems
(by personal reports I've had) to repel many otherwise highly involved
and motivated editors.


from_name: Giuseppe DAngelo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation policy

body:
I've decided to ask this question here because I am interested in a more international perspective.  My query relates to the use of disambiguation.  Recently a survey was conducted to determine whether Syracuse should be a disambiguation page or whether it should link directly to the original Syracuse in Italy (creating a separate Syracuse disambiguation page for the others, as often happens).  Those who were in favour of it becoming a disambiguation page were overwhelmingly American, and had in mind the fact that Syracuse, New York is today a significant city.  Indeed, many were putting forward the argument that it should own the name outright because more google hits were looking for that particular city.

  I think there is an issue here that goes beyond the original question.  Being an English language encyclopedia (and at the moment, the most international of all the wikipedias), it has to be asked how much such issues should end up being determined by the sway held by the largest group of native speakers (who, as it turns out, have both economic and technical clout).

  As it happens, the survey ended up 15 to 8 in favour of Syracuse linking directly to the orginal and more historically significant Syracuse (after which the modern New York city was named), but a particular ruling clique managed to maintain it as a disambiguation page.

  If you ask a purely American audience, they will clearly vote in favour of the link being to the New York city.  If an international audience is asked, my guess is that it would be to the original and historical one.  Making it a disambiguation page might seem the obvious and fairest solution - but for a serious encyclopedia, is that really the correct answer?

  I finish by noting that Troy currently goes directly to the historical Troy, despite the fact that there are about a dozen place names in the US called Troy (which are dealth with in a separate Troy disambiguation page).   At a minimum, I see a problem of consistency, and I simply wonder whether there is something else at play here.  I hope I have managed to  explain this clearly.
  pippu d'a

 Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

references:
<5668b2t6g8nvmutcivoaaja49qs73c55rl@4ax.com>
	<2b76523c0607141453g34b97f3eo872e9567bc964b1e@mail.gmail.com>
	<b8ceeef70607150716h7648e1f0q10fb4ab457796e20@mail.gmail.com>
	<pb0ib2dom1o71renkfvd06d8d074marfq5@4ax.com>
	<b8ceeef70607150936j185736dai66314e64a4ef56e9@mail.gmail.com>
	<qdeib21c5qsj61v387pr1aploikl5qc6k0@4ax.com>
	<42f90dc00607151551h44c3bb46u4a9e1c4928124932@mail.gmail.com>
	<n1ekb2tve5akpkahuk9s6jvos39mf7ivvf@4ax.com>

body:
I think we just need to keep everything in perspective.  Being a NOR nazi
(I'm not saying anyone is!) about jokes isn't productive.  Throw in some
jokes that everyone can get and be done with it.

mboverload


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is forever.

body:
On 16 Jul 2006, at 03:38, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>
> The soap opera: 1930 to present. The _radio_ soap opera, though,
> obviously had a much shorter life. Thirty years?

Hold on: [[The Archers]] is a radio soap opera, and its been going 55
years
so far.

Justin


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/16/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> > I am curious to know whether very many people agree with me that "human
> > dignity" is a valid reason for a "delete" vote in a case like this.
>
> We need two things, really.
>
> A sensible deletion process.
>
> A sensible deletion review process.
>
> I'm not saying that the current processes don't have many good, decent
> and well meaning adherents.  But they don't work.  They are often
> actively, perversely, resistant to commonsense decisions,

Well of course. Common sense has no rational philisophical basis in
any of the more popular systems.

--
geni


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/16/06, Sydney aka FloNight <poore5 at adelphia.net> wrote:
> ---- Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > I think human dignity is certainly a factor, though I'd probably
> > phrase it as right to privacy.  In fact, the first time one particular
> > article went up for deletion (I think it was Jimbo, but it might have
> > been Angela), I voted to delete it out of respect for their wishes.
> > Wikipedia/Wikimedia has gotten a lot bigger since then (I'm not even
> > sure if the latter existed at the time), as has Wikia, and at this
> > point I think the public right to know outweighs the individual right
> > to privacy, at least so long as the article is kept narrow.
> >
> > Anthony
>
> Anthony,
>
> Angela is mentioned in these articles even though she has an article.
> Are you saying that we should take her information out of these articles?
>
> Sydney
>
No, that's not what I'm saying.  I was saying I think we should
mention her in each of those articles, and then bring it all together
in the article on her.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/15/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> G'day Anthony,
>
> > Calling 911 to get a date is boneheaded.  Trying to force yourself
> > sexually onto a child is more than just boneheaded.
>
> Writing an article to punish its subject is pretty boneheaded in itself.
>   That the subject is "boneheaded" (or worse) is no reason to write a
> bad article on someone, even people you think are attempted rapists.
>
I never suggested that the reason to write an article was to punish
its subject.  The reason to write an article on [[Brian Peppers]] is
that there are an enormous number of people looking for information on
him.

And I never suggested writing a bad article on anyone.

> We attempt to have neutral, unbiased articles about the utter dregs of
> humanity, the worst scum the human race has produced.  We don't say
> (sorry) "Mr Hitler was a bad man, so we don't need to follow NPOV" ---
> we say "Let's write a good article about that Hitler chap, and be
> watchful, because he was such a bad man that other people will no doubt
> come along and try to POV-push there."  If we can do that for history's
> greatest criminals, why are we even *thinking* of saying "Mr Peppers is
> a bad man, so basic human dignity doesn't apply here"?
>
I don't think this is a matter of basic human dignity.  I think it's a
matter of personal privacy, which I fully agree with Jimbo is one
legitimate factor to consider.  But I don't think anyone is suggesting
that we don't have any articles on living people, so the question is
where do we draw the line.

When is an article about a living person acceptable?  I think one
situation is where they have convicted of the felony attempted gross
sexual imposition.  You might disagree with me, but please stop
mischaracterising my point of view.

Anthony


from_name: GerardM

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation policy

body:
Hoi,
There is no way you can determine what people expect. The only thing you can
be certain off is that you will be wrong for a significant percentage of
users. Disambiguation pages are there ONLY for people who come to Wikipedia
from elsewhere. It is for these people that disambiguation is needed. It can
even be argued that it is beneficial to ALWAYS have disambiguation pages
because it helps people realise how ambiguous a language is.
When you go the route of "the more important/relevant/whatever
whatshallwecallit" you arguable go into a POV dead-end where your
important/relevant/whatever is not the important/relevant/whatever of those
that think different. The fact that these things have to be decided so often
by vote is what condemns this policy in the first place as a fallacy.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 7/16/06, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
>
>
> Giuseppe DAngelo wrote:
> > I've decided to ask this question here because I am interested in a more
> international perspective.  My query relates to the use of
> disambiguation.  Recently a survey was conducted to determine whether
> Syracuse should be a disambiguation page or whether it should link directly
> to the original Syracuse in Italy (creating a separate Syracuse
> disambiguation page for the others, as often happens).  Those who were in
> favour of it becoming a disambiguation page were overwhelmingly American,
> and had in mind the fact that Syracuse, New York is today a significant
> city.  Indeed, many were putting forward the argument that it should own the
> name outright because more google hits were looking for that particular
> city.
> >
> >   I think there is an issue here that goes beyond the original
> question.  Being an English language encyclopedia (and at the moment, the
> most international of all the wikipedias), it has to be asked how much such
> issues should end up being determined by the sway held by the largest group
> of native speakers (who, as it turns out, have both economic and technical
> clout).
> >
> >   As it happens, the survey ended up 15 to 8 in favour of Syracuse
> linking directly to the orginal and more historically significant Syracuse
> (after which the modern New York city was named), but a particular ruling
> clique managed to maintain it as a disambiguation page.
> >
> >   If you ask a purely American audience, they will clearly vote in
> favour of the link being to the New York city.  If an international audience
> is asked, my guess is that it would be to the original and historical
> one.  Making it a disambiguation page might seem the obvious and fairest
> solution - but for a serious encyclopedia, is that really the correct
> answer?
> >
> >   I finish by noting that Troy currently goes directly to the historical
> Troy, despite the fact that there are about a dozen place names in the US
> called Troy (which are dealth with in a separate Troy disambiguation
> page).   At a minimum, I see a problem of consistency, and I simply wonder
> whether there is something else at play here.  I hope I have managed
> to  explain this clearly.
> >   pippu d'a
> >
> >
> >
> >  Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
> >  http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>    As someone who use to do a bit of disambiguation link repair, I can
> think of at least one factor that you left out that might be useful in
> making these decisions.  If it is a disambiguation page, of the links
> that point to it (or the ones that did point to it before they were
> fixed) what percentage went to which article?
>
>    If you point it to the historical city is it going to be a case where
> the majority of people who link to it (without checking where that link
> is going) are sending people to the wrong place?  Granted I don't think
> these sorts of numbers should in all cases be the deciding factor, but
> they should be taken into account.
>
>    I try to view the disambiguation pages as technical rather than
> editorial.  They are navigation aids to the reader and editor, and I
> think there function as such should be taken into account.  TO me the
> question is not "which city is more important" but "what will get people
> to the page the intended".
>
> Dalf
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Essjay

body:
Platonides wrote:
> You can customize it via a JavaScript, but i think that the current options
> are OK.
>
> -> Block anonymous users only
> You usually want to stop *all* vandalism from that ip. You may want to soft
> it for proxys, but not usually.
>
> ->Prevent account creation
> Blocks without account creation are mostly useless.
>
> The default you ask allows to bypass default blocks, simply by creating an
> account (remember: it's instantaneus, you don't even need for an email) and
> vandalizing with username.
>
For those who want to do this, the following javascript works. Add it to
User:YourUsername/monobook.js (no guarantees about other skins).

To check "block anonymous users only":

// Always check "block anons only" on Special:Blockip //

addOnloadHook(function(){ var x; if (x=document.getElementById('wpAnonOnly')) {x.checked=true;} });

To uncheck "Prevent account creation":

// Always uncheck "Prevent account creation" on Special:Blockip //

addOnloadHook(function(){ var x; if (x=document.getElementById('wpCreateAccount')) {x.checked=false;} });

That should fix the problem. Credit goes to User:Lupin who worked it up
at my request.

Essjay

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Borderline notable bios (yes, again)

body:
On 7/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> > [[Chang and Eng Bunker]]
> > [[General Tom Thumb]]
> > [[Lavinia Warren]]
> > [[Zip the Pinhead]]
> > [[Myrtle Corbin]]
> > [[Frank Lentini]]
> > [[Jane Barnell]]
> > to a degree [[Sarah Biffen]]
> > [[The Doll Family]]
> > [[Johnny Eck]]
> > [[Elizabeth Green the Stork Woman]]
>
> In some cases --- particularly Sarah Biffen --- these people are famous
> in their own right.  For the rest, although they were indeed famous only
> for their deformities, they were *so* famous that they're still
> well-known a hundred years later.

They're also all - as far as I can tell - dead. So human dignity
doesn't really come into it.

Strangely, many of them don't have any useful categories beyond
"sideshow attractions" that would actually tell you that they had
physical deformities. I guess [[Category:Freaks]] got voted out?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is forever.

body:
On 7/16/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> are sure to be many more. I think you radically underestimate both the
> desperation of academics for interesting topics, and the sheer value
> (to academics) of a massive archive of primary source material.
> Presuming Wikipedia talk page data is available in 20 to 50 to 150
> years, I expect considerable scholarly interest in it.  As for the

The internet is still only just taking off (particularly in many
developing countries), and community projects like this one are still
fairly rare. That won't be the case for long.

> As for whether there will be a free-content, reader-editable
> encyclopedia around in some form in 50 years - I strongly suspect (and
> hope) so.  Will it be called Wikipedia?  No idea.

Will it be based on Wikipedia's content?

Steve


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

references:
<5668b2t6g8nvmutcivoaaja49qs73c55rl@4ax.com>
	<2b76523c0607141453g34b97f3eo872e9567bc964b1e@mail.gmail.com>
	<b8ceeef70607150716h7648e1f0q10fb4ab457796e20@mail.gmail.com>
	<pb0ib2dom1o71renkfvd06d8d074marfq5@4ax.com>
	<b8ceeef70607150936j185736dai66314e64a4ef56e9@mail.gmail.com>
	<qdeib21c5qsj61v387pr1aploikl5qc6k0@4ax.com>
	<b8ceeef70607151406k7b9dd766hb2a84582ff530bbb@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 23:06:29 +0200, "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

>Honestly, I don't find creating original examples to be in violation
>of NOR. An article about an element of musical theory would not be in
>violation if an editor created an original piece of music that
>demonstrated that theory.

Difference is, *everybody* thinks they are a comedian.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikitech-l] Parsing Wikitext in perl

body:
Mark Clements (HappyDog) wrote:
> Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at ...> writes:
>
>> Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
>>
>>> 3) Has anyone ever done a (semi-)formal specification of MWT?
>>>
>> Only the code.  There have been attempts, but there mostly
>> out-of-date. There's a bug report for this:
>> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7
>>
>>
>
> Some work has been going on at mediawiki.org
> (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Markup_spec and
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Markup_spec/BNF/).  It's early days and any input
> would be appreciated, but it might help.
>
> --
> Mark Clements (HappyDog)
>
>
>
Excellent! Note that there should be no need for the BNF grammar to be
unambiguous; this is what [[packrat parser]]s are for.

-- Neil


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
G'day Matt,

> On 7/15/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:36:15 +0200, "Steve Bennett"
>><stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Honestly, I don't really see much need for a reliable source for a
>>>joke. If we say that a joke has a premise, a genre, a punchline etc,
>>>then we give an example that meets the criteria - I don't really see
>>>the harm if we invented the joke on the spot. If a better example
>>>comes along, so much the better.
>>
>>Policy means nothing here, then?  We can allow OR and subjective
>>judgments as to which jokes do or don't represent the genre?

[Guy: a wise man once said, "Fuck policy!"  If we get worked up over an
action that violates policy, it must be because that action is a Bad
Thing on its own merits, not merely because "policy says so".  Otherwise
those of us who care about Wikipedia are looking at a life of enforcing
bureaucratic nonsense, eventually leading to madness and an early grave.]

> I don't think we require that illustrations need citations to prove
> they're representative, do we?  We do allow subjective judgments on
> Wikipedia.

I'm sure I've seen diagrams filled to overflowing with references, and
I'm quite heartened that someone's bothered to go to that much effort.
People like to see virtue in others, so long as it doesn't mean we have
to do anything ourselves ;-)

> That said, academic citations would be cool - I'm sure there are
> academic papers on jokes.

There was that "scientific survey" a few years back that was all over
the world's papers, which asked: "What is the funniest joke?  How do
different countries respond to humour?"  The various articles I read on
the subject all included examples.  An AP article about that would make
an excellent source for jokes, if we got to arguing over which ones were
representative and which weren't.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


body:
G'day geni,

> On 7/13/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>>How many articles do we have on people known only for their
>>deformities?  The only one I can think of is Joseph Merrick.
>
> articles on people famious for thier phyical abnormalities include
>
> [[Chang and Eng Bunker]]
> [[General Tom Thumb]]
> [[Lavinia Warren]]
> [[Zip the Pinhead]]
> [[Myrtle Corbin]]
> [[Frank Lentini]]
> [[Jane Barnell]]
> to a degree [[Sarah Biffen]]
> [[The Doll Family]]
> [[Johnny Eck]]
> [[Elizabeth Green the Stork Woman]]

In some cases --- particularly Sarah Biffen --- these people are famous
in their own right.  For the rest, although they were indeed famous only
for their deformities, they were *so* famous that they're still
well-known a hundred years later.

I'll make you a deal.  If Brian Peppers is famous in 2090 (and we're all
still alive and still contributing), I'll write the damn article myself.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
G'day Anthony,

> Calling 911 to get a date is boneheaded.  Trying to force yourself
> sexually onto a child is more than just boneheaded.

Writing an article to punish its subject is pretty boneheaded in itself.
  That the subject is "boneheaded" (or worse) is no reason to write a
bad article on someone, even people you think are attempted rapists.

We attempt to have neutral, unbiased articles about the utter dregs of
humanity, the worst scum the human race has produced.  We don't say
(sorry) "Mr Hitler was a bad man, so we don't need to follow NPOV" ---
we say "Let's write a good article about that Hitler chap, and be
watchful, because he was such a bad man that other people will no doubt
come along and try to POV-push there."  If we can do that for history's
greatest criminals, why are we even *thinking* of saying "Mr Peppers is
a bad man, so basic human dignity doesn't apply here"?

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Double Edit Trick

body:
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First of all, I believe rollbacks already revert all edits by the same
user. But as I explain below, it's easy to bypass.

I'd just like to say this could be fixed by consulting the history tab.
I don't like or use the (diff) link at all.  But this takes more time
and resources, and is unmanageable if you need to check more a lot of
revisions.

Sum of diffs for one user would only partially solve the problem.  The
vandal would simply create two accounts, one of them vandalising and one
of them innocent.  With a little extra editing, the correlation could be
made to be as cloudy as possible: valid editor in the wrong places at
the wrong times, or vandal's assistant making good edits only?  And if
the vandal's assistant is indeed making /good/ edits, would there be any
way to block them?  (Someone's bound to make a mistake sooner or later).

I would push for the implementation of an "All Changes Since Last View"
option for users.  By encouraging users to check the last twenty edits,
rather than just the last edit, they click the link, as usual, but
instead see a comprehensive profile of changes and can selectively
revert if necessary.  Multiple diffs on one page would be nice too.

Selective reversion is a time-consuming process though, and would not
work for RC-patrol.

This is from a social perspective.  Technically speaking, I'm sure all
of these features have been filed in Bugzilla, and that all of them have
technical problems that make them undesirable performance wise.
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subject: [Wikitech-l] The Double Edit Trick


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is forever.

body:
G'day Dan,

<many snips/>

> Barring a total catastropic collapse of civilization (and possibly
> even then), it's likely that some copy of some portion of some
> version of Wikipedia will survive somewhere, given its wide
> dissemination.  Such a thing will likely be an imporant resource for
> future historians / archeologists / anthropologists / etc.
> researching human culture of the early 21st century.

Leading 22nd/23rd/24th/whenever historians to be the first of their kind
with the chance to rely on a reasonably accurate picture of the culture
they're studying.

Imagine people one, two, three hundred years from now looking back at
what we're doing now; studying what Wikipedia has to say about YTMND and
so on and concluding that it's pretty much all that university-aged
males like Yours Truly were doing in the early 21st Century.

Thank God I'll be dead by then, and not have to face the embarrassment
of explaining what my fellow humans were doing in my lifetime.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>> I don't even see what's so undignified about this particular incident
>> that anyone would argue it on that basis in the first place. Everyone
>> does boneheaded things from time to time.
>
> Yes, but usually they do not end up being permanently presented in what
> is arguably the most important encyclopedic record of our time.
> Usually, such things come and go, a little blip in the news.

If the event in question is just a "little blip in the news", then we
would already reject an article about it based on existing notability
guidelines.

This was really a bad example to discuss this issue based on, IMO. I had
to assume for sake of argument that there was something significant
about the 911 call case to make it worth having an article about in the
first place, but now the incident's triviality is brought up again to
modify the "human dignity" matter. This example makes it impossible to
reasonably address the real issue in isolation.

> Even
> today, when tons of information does get archived on the Internet, the
> power of wikipedia, and the breadth of it, means that for many
> borderline or non-notable people the #1 hit in google is going to be to
> the Wikipedia article.
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=brian+chase&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hl=en-US&client=firefox-a

Why is this not a good thing? Our articles are NPOV and verifiable, and
easily corrected should errors in them be found. What would be a better
site to have as the #1 hit?

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:51:23 -0700, "Matt Brown" <morven at gmail.com>
wrote:

>I don't think we require that illustrations need citations to prove
>they're representative, do we?  We do allow subjective judgments on
>Wikipedia.

[[WP:NOR]] suggests otherwise...

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:08:19 +1000, Mark Gallagher
<m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:

>a wise man once said, "Fuck policy!"

I think that was "fuck process" actually...

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On 7/16/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:51:23 -0700, "Matt Brown" <morven at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I don't think we require that illustrations need citations to prove
> >they're representative, do we?  We do allow subjective judgments on
> >Wikipedia.
>
> [[WP:NOR]] suggests otherwise...

Then either that page incorrectly describes policy as applied, or
you're misreading policy.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is forever.

body:
On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 07:42:23 +0100, Justin Cormack
<justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:

>> The soap opera: 1930 to present. The _radio_ soap opera, though,
>> obviously had a much shorter life. Thirty years?

>Hold on: [[The Archers]] is a radio soap opera, and its been going 55
>years so far.

I'd like to know which TV soap opera supposedly predates The Archers.

Dum di dum di dum di dum....

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


list: foundation-l

from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] ..

body:
Yes, this is the second empty message to the foundation mailing list.

On 7/16/06, Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com> wrote:
>
> If you've written a message, I can't see it.
>
> On 16/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
>         ?Xyrael
>                 sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] ..


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 36, Issue 62

body:
On Jul 16, 2006, at 1:42 PM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:

> Message: 8
> Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 18:15:25 +0100
> From: Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID: <q0tkb21rukdmdep48cko5popk9j2n3if5d at 4ax.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 18:01:34 +0100, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> Really?  How many?  Within ten percent or so.
>> About the same as Gandi:
>> http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C
>> +gandi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
>
> Trend seems downward. Let's see where that is in a year...
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Gandi?

body:
>>> The reason to write an article on [[Brian Peppers]] is
>>> that there are an enormous number of people looking for
>>> information on
>>> him.
>>
>> Really?  How many?  Within ten percent or so.
>>
>> Guy (JzG)
>
> About the same as Gandi:
>
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C
> +gandi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
> --
> geni

You don't, by any chance, mean Mahatma _Gandhi_?

http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C
+gandhi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Wikitech-l] Custom left nav per namespace?

body:
A semi-related question... is it possible to implement different
sidebars depending on the user's language settings? This would be
useful on the Commons, where not all languages have a Village pump
(for example), so it would be good it we could just link it for the
ones that do.

Brianna
en.wp,commons:User:pfctdayelise


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 7/15/06, Mick Monaghan <mickmon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> Is it possible to have a custom left navigation for a custom namespace?
>
> Or is 'MediaWiki:Sidebar' applied to all pages in a wiki, regardless of
> the namespace?

MediaWiki:Sidebar is applied to all pages. Of course there's no reason
that the sidebar can't itself display customised information, since
you can put ParserFunctions stuff in it. What sort of custom
information are you thinking about displaying?

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Anthony,
>
>> Calling 911 to get a date is boneheaded.  Trying to force yourself
>> sexually onto a child is more than just boneheaded.
>
> Writing an article to punish its subject is pretty boneheaded in itself.
>   That the subject is "boneheaded" (or worse) is no reason to write a
> bad article on someone, even people you think are attempted rapists.
>
> We attempt to have neutral, unbiased articles about the utter dregs of
> humanity, the worst scum the human race has produced.  We don't say
> (sorry) "Mr Hitler was a bad man, so we don't need to follow NPOV" ---
> we say "Let's write a good article about that Hitler chap, and be
> watchful, because he was such a bad man that other people will no doubt
> come along and try to POV-push there."  If we can do that for history's
> greatest criminals, why are we even *thinking* of saying "Mr Peppers is
> a bad man, so basic human dignity doesn't apply here"?
>

Whatever happened to [[WP:HOLE]]? If the guy is completely unremarkable,
why should we have an article on him?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
On 7/16/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> A semi-related question... is it possible to implement different
> sidebars depending on the user's language settings? This would be
> useful on the Commons, where not all languages have a Village pump
> (for example), so it would be good it we could just link it for the
> ones that do.
>
> Brianna
> en.wp,commons:User:pfctdayelise

Should be able to do this in-wiki with ParserFunctions, let me take a look.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Ideas for faster MediaWiki startup

references:
<e97k44$15i$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e983j7$grn$1@sea.gmane.org>	<e985si$ojr$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e98at6$b2a$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<04F2BA3D-F75B-4B27-9705-20158E1CDAEB@gmail.com>

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

Domas Mituzas wrote:
> Well, if you stated reasons for your choice, it would be easier for
> us to think about it.
> Did you try xdebug2 with visualization tools?

Nope. (see below)

> You may find this interesting:
> http://dammit.lt/2006/01/18/mediawiki-graphic-profile/

Wow, that's really cool.  Extremely cool.  (puts blog into RSS reader)
I need to read the blogs of Wikimedia developers more often.

BTW, from the diagram, it looks like cleanup takes up the largest amount
of time.  Unavoidable?

> Um, press 'show more', then you'll be shown with more than 50 events.

Yeah, I did press show more.  What I meant was that a lot of the profile
points are not Setup.php related, the one's that have Setup.php prefixed
are only in the dozens.  Then again, I just realized that I really don't
know anything about optimizing MediaWiki.

> I'm not sure if we have any private information in traces, probably
> we may disclose some of them from time to time for systematic
> analysis anyone wants to do.

If the traces provide the parameters passed to the functions, probably
yes.  I can't see APD style calltrees (no parameters at all) having
private info, but you guys use XDebug...
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l7HDFrq52L5uopKcJhZJZSU=
=dRlx
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from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Israel News Agency

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> Matt Brown wrote:
>>On 7/9/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>I'm startled that Google News finds "Israel News Service" worthy of
>>>inclusion among its sources.
>>
>>I'm not so sure Google News has much of a bar to inclusion.
>
> Their bar to inclusion is that they've spidered it.

It's slightly higher than that: they don't usually accept single-person
news sources (read: blogs), and there are apparently some odd technical
requirements as well.  But yes, the bar is rather low.  It seems the
fact that some of the INA stories have bylines other than Leyden's is
enough to qualify it as "not a blog" as far as Google News is concerned.

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 06:03:35 -0700, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com>
wrote:

>I think we just need to keep everything in perspective.  Being a NOR nazi
>(I'm not saying anyone is!) about jokes isn't productive.  Throw in some
>jokes that everyone can get and be done with it.

I'm not trying to be a Nazi about it, just to avoid the inevitable
addition of poorer and poorer quality jokes.  You know perfectly well
that if there is a knock-knock joke in there, the next passing school
kid replace it with a ''scatalogical'' knock-knock joke, because after
all any joke with rude words in is inherently that much funnier.  Or
not.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:32:20 +1000, Mark Gallagher
<m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:

>We attempt to have neutral, unbiased articles about the utter dregs of
>humanity, the worst scum the human race has produced.  We don't say
>(sorry) "Mr Hitler was a bad man, so we don't need to follow NPOV"

Last time I checked, Mr Hitler was (a) dead and (b) dead famous.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject:
[Wikitech-l] The Double Edit Trick (was: Borderline notable
	bios (yes, again))

body:
On 7/16/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> (At the risk of [[WP:BEANS]], I'd like to note that there is another
> related problem; if a vandal blanks the section of an article containing
> the interlanguage links, a bot will often quickly show up to restore
> them, as a side effect hiding the vandalism itself from the watchlist.
> Making the bots smarter would help, but I'm not sure what can be done to
> solve this problem in general, beyond hiding bot edits from the
> watchlist by default and making the feature actually do what it should
> do -- i.e. show the last non-bot edit instead.)

Any anonymous user reducing the byte size of an article by more than
100 bytes should automatically set alarm bells off. The software
should detect this (and similar patterns of probable abuse) and add
them to a to-do list of dubious changes to be checked.

I'm vary wary of assigning important tasks like this to bots, as you
never know when a bot will check any page, or when it will be down, or
running on out of date data or whatever. Performing a couple of quick
heuristic checks at the time the edit is made would be the best...

Steve

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 08:53:44 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
wrote:

>The reason to write an article on [[Brian Peppers]] is
>that there are an enormous number of people looking for information on
>him.

Really?  How many?  Within ten percent or so.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject:
[WikiEN-l] The Double Edit Trick (was: Borderline notable bios (yes,
	again))

body:
[Crossposted to wikien-l and wikitech-l.]

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:09:22 -0500, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
> wrote:
>
>>When I met Seth, he explained to me how this happened.  The vandal used
>>a classic trick... the double edit.  The first edit was the vandalism,
>>the second edit was innocent.  So if you checked the diffs incorrectly,
>>you would not see the attack paragraph.
>
> Hell yes.  I see that a lot.

Presumably this is something that could be countered by technical fixes.
  Admin rollback already automatically reverts multiple consecutive
edits from the same editor; the manifest usefulness of this feature
would be one more argument for granting rollback privileges to
non-admins.  But _seeing_ the sum of the edits should definitely be made
easier: I think that the diff links in the watchlist, at least, should
automatically show all the combined edits made by the last editor.

It'd also be nice if the diff view showed how many edits there are
between the two revisions being compared; besides being, IMO, a good
thing in general, this would help make the change I proposed above less
confusing.

I don't think this should be particularly hard to implement.  What I'd
like is comments on whether this would actually be a good idea, and
suggestions on where else, besides the watchlist, it should be applied.

(At the risk of [[WP:BEANS]], I'd like to note that there is another
related problem; if a vandal blanks the section of an article containing
the interlanguage links, a bot will often quickly show up to restore
them, as a side effect hiding the vandalism itself from the watchlist.
Making the bots smarter would help, but I'm not sure what can be done to
solve this problem in general, beyond hiding bot edits from the
watchlist by default and making the feature actually do what it should
do -- i.e. show the last non-bot edit instead.)

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject:
[Wikitech-l] The Double Edit Trick (was: Borderline notable bios
	(yes, again))


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/16/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 08:53:44 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
> wrote:
>
> >The reason to write an article on [[Brian Peppers]] is
> >that there are an enormous number of people looking for information on
> >him.
>
> Really?  How many?  Within ten percent or so.
>
> Guy (JzG)

About the same as Gandi:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C+gandi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
--
geni


from_name: Puppy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>> Why is this not a good thing? Our articles are NPOV and verifiable, and
>> easily corrected should errors in them be found. What would be a better
>> site to have as the #1 hit?
>
> That's a good point.  Given that we don't, currently, provide any
> information on Brian Peppers, I'm glad, for the sake of human dignity,
> that Snopes does (and actually outranks us on Google).  Because if they
> didn't, the next sites down the list are Wikitruth and YTMND.
>
> Reference: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22brian+peppers%22
>
The YMTD wouldn't be bad, if it weren't for the awful music.
-kc-


subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 19:07:22 +0200, "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

>WP:NOR says: don't attempt to formulate new theories that most experts
>in the field wouldn't agree with. It doesn't say, don't attempt to
>draw diagrams or write jokes that most people would find
>representative.

Most people?  Define most people.  How do we tell if "most" people
would choose one example over another?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 18:01:34 +0100, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Really?  How many?  Within ten percent or so.
>About the same as Gandi:
>http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C+gandi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Trend seems downward. Let's see where that is in a year...

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

references:
<C0DD5CA1.128A6%travis@gpsports-eng.com>
	<44B82251.3020305@wikia.com> <44B83652.5080502@shaw.ca>
	<f30e42de0607150146i3efd211el3366dcde52ac1921@mail.gmail.com>
	<71cd4dd90607150706j622a44b4hf89e157a50ada3e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<44B99724.6000203@student.canberra.edu.au>
	<71cd4dd90607160553l4fe0a05bt517b2df272ad7a0a@mail.gmail.com>
	<ngrkb2daltlhu84nhph7cm8dpdc0o5k8mi@4ax.com>
	<ngrkb2daltlhu84nhph7cm8dpdc0o5k8mi-e09XROE/p8c@public.gmane.org>
	<f80608430607161001u4cef7ebdxeeca6b89c42442a1@mail.gmail.com>

body:
In message
<f80608430607161001u4cef7ebdxeeca6b89c42442a1 at mail.gmail.com>, geni
<geniice-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>On 7/16/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG
><guy.chapman-0XdUWXLQalXR7s880joybQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 08:53:44 -0400, Anthony
>><wikilegal-d6AYu9+njizYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >The reason to write an article on [[Brian Peppers]] is
>> >that there are an enormous number of people looking for information on
>> >him.
>>
>> Really?  How many?  Within ten percent or so.
>>
>> Guy (JzG)
>
>About the same as Gandi:
>
>http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C+gandi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

But far fewer than are looking on information for Gandhi. It does help
to spell the person's name correctly.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C+gandhi&ctab=0&geo=all&dat
e=all

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/16/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/16/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > About the same as Gandi:
> >
> > http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C+gandi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
>
> Try
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22Brian+Peppers%22%2C+gandhi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
>
> Better example:
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22Brian+Peppers%22%2C+%22Jimmy+Wales%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
>
> The search volume does seem genuine, given that it's highly
> concentrated in Ohio, Peppers' place of residence.
>

A better one would "Brian Peppers", "Tom Thumb", "Zip the Pinhead"

> Of course, if we go by that criterion, there's a bunch of porn sites
> we really need articles for.
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex.com

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/16/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Of course, if we go by that criterion, there's a bunch of porn sites
> > we really need articles for.
> >
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex.com
>
Or indeed most of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Erotica_websites

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On 7/16/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:51:23 -0700, "Matt Brown" <morven at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I don't think we require that illustrations need citations to prove
> >they're representative, do we?  We do allow subjective judgments on
> >Wikipedia.
>
> [[WP:NOR]] suggests otherwise...

WP:NOR says: don't attempt to formulate new theories that most experts
in the field wouldn't agree with. It doesn't say, don't attempt to
draw diagrams or write jokes that most people would find
representative.

Steve


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/16/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> About the same as Gandi:
>
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2C+gandi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Try
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22Brian+Peppers%22%2C+gandhi&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Better example:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22Brian+Peppers%22%2C+%22Jimmy+Wales%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

The search volume does seem genuine, given that it's highly
concentrated in Ohio, Peppers' place of residence.

Of course, if we go by that criterion, there's a bunch of porn sites
we really need articles for.

Erik


from_name: Sean Whitton

subject: [Foundation-l] ..

body:
If you've written a message, I can't see it.

On 16/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
	?Xyrael
		sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net


subject: [Foundation-l] ..


subject: [Foundation-l] ..

body:
Ah, okay. Thanks for clearing that up.

On 16/07/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, this is the second empty message to the foundation mailing list.
>
> On 7/16/06, Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com> wrote:
> >
> > If you've written a message, I can't see it.
> >
> > On 16/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> >         ?Xyrael
> >                 sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
	?Xyrael
		sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net


subject: [Foundation-l] ..


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
stevertigo wrote:
> --- Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
>>Several months ago, I actually found myself confronting a person who
>>didn't think Wikipedia should acknowledge that the [[LGM-118A
>>Peacekeeper]] is called the "Peacekeeper."
>
> Context flag: Objects and documents are finite, and names applied to
> them are understood to be of arbitrary value.  Events, of which we are discussing,
> can be classified as "operations," even if they violate every principle of man
> since the dawn of the human age.

...wot?

Either what you wrote above is incoherent, or you're using jargon I'm
not familiar with.  Either way, I can't figure out what you're trying to
say or how it's supposed to relate to the discussion.  Could you please
clarify?

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject:
[Wikitech-l] AOL proxies, etc. (re-sent,
	this time without the attachments)

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

I don't have the expertise to comment on the results, but I think that
Brion fixed XFF headers during the MARMOT case.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEutRxqTO+fYacSNoRAsteAJ9X2/o6K6siqgNa+bX3mzKMHaz+FwCfayxX
RfVu++SA43W2+wyWgbWuWjA=
=tqvo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Anthony wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On 7/14/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>" ...Wikimedia doesn't transfer the ownership of anything, and there is no
>>>>>rental, lease, or lending. But then again, by that definition
>>>>>*nothing* distributed over the Internet is published, and I doubt a
>>>>>court would agree with that...."
>>>>>
>>>>>Because of the way the GFDL works, ownership is transferred to every person
>>>>>that receives it.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Ownership of what?  The ownership of copyright doesn't get
>>>>transferred.  Copies of the work don't get transferred.  What gets
>>>>transferred?  Bits?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I agree with you on this.  GFDL is a licence, not a transfer of ownership.
>>>
>>>
>>It transfers rights tantamount to ownership (all of this GNU crap does).
>>And may qualify
>>as a transfer of copyight since it conveys "RIGHT TO COPY" == COPYRIGHT.
>>People just for some reason are not able to get this. Go read the licence. If
>>you grant someone unlimited
>>RIGHT TO COPY under the Doctrine of Esstoppel, after they do it for some
>>period of time, it may qualify as a transfer of copyright.
>>
>>There is case law that backs up this view -- Copyrights can be
>>transferred on the back of a bubble gum
>>wrapper according to one ruling by the Circuit courts when you give
>>someone UNLIMITED RIGHT TO COPY something.
>>
>What makes this position possibly valid is the fact people state the
>content under such licenses is "FREE". When you say
>something is FREE it implies a transaction or transfer occurred. "I did
>not pay for this new hat, it was free and part of
>a promotion, but it was given to me for FREE, and now it's MY PROPERTY".
>I think you can see the logic. If folks
>want to make claims they hold copyrights on materials under any of these
>GNU licenses, the words "FREE" should not
>be used and replaced with "LICENSED AT NO CHARGE FOR EDUCATIONAL
>PURPOSES" and the words
>"RIGHT TO COPY" replaced with "LICENSED UNDER THE TERMS."
>
>
It's more subtle than that.  It's free distribution not free contents.
Free is an adjective, and as such does not stand in isolation.  If
someone gives you a new hat with a logo on it the right to reproduce the
logo does not come with ownership of the hat.  Intangible properties
such as rights are not treated the same way as tangible properties such
as hats.

GFDL allows for downstream reuses by all persons, not just for
educational purposes.  It is also not an unconditional granting of
rights.  It requires users to pass those same conditions on to
subsequent users, and provides that derivative works also be licensed in
the same way.  In simple terms a user who does not do this is in breach
of license.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


subject: [Foundation-l] [[m:Meta:MetaProject_Awareness]]

body:
I'd like to draw the readers of this list to a new MetaProject that
has been started to sit above a WikiProject on the English Wikipedia
in an attempt to spread the usage of the Foundation's projects and to
highlight the capability to edit freely amoung communities in the real
world. I openly invite users of other projects to start a branch of
this movement locally and then link it back to the main MetaProject
(page layout for this will appear if any subprojects start).

Discussions on the English fork have developed several rough ideas for
the spreading of ideas but nothing has been really started yet - you
are encouraged to come and join us in moving forward.

I hope that through this we can spread Wikimedia further and
accomplish our goals.

--
	?Xyrael
		sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net


from_name: ScottL

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>> Why is this not a good thing? Our articles are NPOV and verifiable, and
>> easily corrected should errors in them be found. What would be a better
>> site to have as the #1 hit?
>
> That's a good point.  Given that we don't, currently, provide any
> information on Brian Peppers, I'm glad, for the sake of human dignity,
> that Snopes does (and actually outranks us on Google).  Because if they
> didn't, the next sites down the list are Wikitruth and YTMND.
>
> Reference: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22brian+peppers%22
>

[this is not so much a direct reply to this post as a general feeling
about this thread]
   Others have pointed this out I am sure but it seems to me that many
of these less notables, especially the meme ones, quickly become less
so.  To the point that the most notable thing about them is that they
have a wikipedia article, because otherwise they would have been
forgotten.  The "Human dignity" is a value judgment and is therefore POV
argument is, to me at least somewhat specious, since notability is also
a value judgment (that is why not include any thing that can be verified
even if its not notable).

   As a community we have established standards for what is
encyclopedic.  Some have historical precedent others less so, but they
all are ultmatly derived from value judgments.  That said I think the
most compelling argument against this sort of article is not human
dignity (though its a good one), its just that we really do seem to have
let the bar of notability fall to a level that I think harms the project.

Dalf


body:
On 7/16/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ilmari,
>
> Thanks for alerting me to the List of Internet Phenomena.
>
> I will be removing Brian Peppers name from that list as well. My personal
> view is that he is not nearly significant enough to be on that list and we
> should not further attack him by adding him to the list.
>
> I have no doubt that it will be reverted and I won't enter into an edit war
> over it. My view is that the decision was taken by Jimbo to remove mention
> of Brian Peppers for at least a year. My assumption is that this included
> reference to him in other articles.
>
> Regards
>
> Keith Old

Jimbo's responce to the italian article suggests otherwise.

--
geni


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/14/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity".  A full explanation would be:
> For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.
>

I agree with what you are trying to express here, but I want you to
reconsider whether you want the phrase "human dignity" to be overused on
Wikipedia to the point that it becomes a meaningless platitude, the way NPOV
has. Some terms are rarely invoked because they are meant to have a powerful
and specific meaning, and not one of generic policy jargon.

Ryan


body:
Keith Old wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>The simplest answer to why is that there are a lot of people who want
>>to know about him.  Also, there is a lot of misinformation going
>>around.
>
> Where is the evidence that a lot of people want to know about him?

http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22

For some comparisons:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22linus+torvalds%22
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22ghyslain+raza%22
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22brian+peppers%22%2C%22jimmy+wales%22%2C%22john+seigenthaler%22

As it happens, we do have a fairly reasonable entry on Peppers in [[List
of Internet phenomena]]; it says:

"Brian Peppers ? An Ohio sex offender with a facial malformity whose
photo in the Ohio eSORN (Electronic Sex Offender Registration and
Notification) database became widespread. Snopes has since confirmed the
photograph to be real [8]"

I think much of the perpetual debate surrounding the issue could be
alleviated simply by replacing the "this page is deleted" notice
currently at [[Brian Peppers]] with a redirect to [[List of Internet
phenomena]].  That way, we wouldn't be telling every single person who
googles for the name that "HEY, LOOK, WIKIPEDIA USED TO HAVE AN ARTICLE
ABOUT THIS GUY BUT IT WAS DELETED BECAUSE JIMBO SAID SO! SEE!"

Of course, the other alternative would be to fix MediaWiki so that we
can _actually_ protect a deleted page, rather than having to fake it
with a template saying, in effect, "This page is intentionally blank."
This would be a desirable feature in general, and I hope to see it
implemented some day in any case, whether by me or by someone else.
It's not even particularly complicated, it just happens to require some
significant changes to the database schema.

(I'm cc'ing this directly to Jimbo, since I'd like to hear his personal
opinion on this.  Of course, I could just be bold and make the page a
redirect myself, but in my experience this is one of the situations
where such a change, if done unilaterally, would be likely to be quickly
reverted with the summary "no, Jimbo decreed this" regardless of its
actual merit or lack thereof.)

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Domas Mituzas

references:
<e97k44$15i$1@sea.gmane.org> <e983j7$grn$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e985si$ojr$1@sea.gmane.org> <e98at6$b2a$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Hi!

> Hmm, I've tried XDebug for profiling and I didn't like it very
> much. You
> may want to try APD.

Well, if you stated reasons for your choice, it would be easier for
us to think about it.
Did you try xdebug2 with visualization tools?

You may find this interesting:
http://dammit.lt/2006/01/18/mediawiki-graphic-profile/

This explains the method used. Windows people may choose to use
WinCachegrind.

> The report only offers a few dozen or so high-level functions.
> Could we
> further break them down to see if it's a dumb inefficiency and not
> systematic (for instance, Setup.php-misc2 takes 15% of Setup.php
> processing. I wonder what it does?)

Um, press 'show more', then you'll be shown with more than 50 events.

> A function breakdown, even if its only performed once, would be
> interesting to see. (of course, I could run the profiling myself, but

I'm not sure if we have any private information in traces, probably
we may disclose some of them from time to time for systematic
analysis anyone wants to do.

Cheers,
Domas

--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


from_name: Sam Pointon

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 16/07/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> stevertigo wrote:
> > Context flag: Objects and documents are finite, and names applied to
> > them are understood to be of arbitrary value.  Events, of which we are discussing,
> > can be classified as "operations," even if they violate every principle of man
> > since the dawn of the human age.
>
> ...wot?
>
> Either what you wrote above is incoherent, or you're using jargon I'm
> not familiar with.  Either way, I can't figure out what you're trying to
> say or how it's supposed to relate to the discussion.  Could you please
> clarify?

Attempted translation: Names can mean exactly jack shit. You could
call a mass genocide an 'operation' if you wanted, just like you can
label every living thing 'a jumble of particles that reproduces'.

--Sam


references:
<e97k44$15i$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e983j7$grn$1@sea.gmane.org>	<e985si$ojr$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e98at6$b2a$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<04F2BA3D-F75B-4B27-9705-20158E1CDAEB@gmail.com>
	<e9e66o$ck2$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Hi!

> Wow, that's really cool.  Extremely cool.  (puts blog into RSS reader)
> I need to read the blogs of Wikimedia developers more often.

Yeah, once a year we do post something.

> BTW, from the diagram, it looks like cleanup takes up the largest
> amount
> of time.  Unavoidable?

That diagram is one year old ;-) Cleanup is also outputing data to
skin, etc.
We fixed lots of stuff there already.

I'll probably put some fresh png's soon, would be especially cool if
there was some batch way to produce them.
The interesting part is that you can click on any node in graph and
get detailed information about it - who calls it (and time spent from
every caller), what is being called (and again, time spent for each
callee), etc.

> Yeah, I did press show more.  What I meant was that a lot of the
> profile
> points are not Setup.php related, the one's that have Setup.php
> prefixed
> are only in the dozens.  Then again, I just realized that I really
> don't
> know anything about optimizing MediaWiki.

The profiling we have there, is kind of real time one (php sending
udp messages to collection daemon, hehe, http://dammit.lt/2006/01/11/
profiling-web-applications/ ;-)
It is more designed for us to deal with global scope of things going
on. Stuff like detailed analysis of every request, all calls, etc,
can be done using per-request profiling.

On the other hand, per-request profiling may disclose funny stuff -
like now I'm looking at the fact that edit tools are spending like...
up to 40% of edit page rendering, because of multiple calls to
charinsert plugin.
Edittools are deterministic - they won't change at different pages,
so rendering them is not required. It would be really nice if we
could cache stuff like that, but on the other hand, it may be less
than 1% of total cluster time.

That is where we add general profiling hooks and try to figure out
what may need serious attention.

Right now anyone on cluster can poke files at srv55:/tmp/traces/ ;-)

> If the traces provide the parameters passed to the functions, probably
> yes.  I can't see APD style calltrees (no parameters at all) having
> private info, but you guys use XDebug...

Our traces don't have parameters now, though, it would be pretty
interesting to check with parameters some day :)
Hehe, I'll discuss the idea of providing public traces. Few gigabytes
of them (that is... a minute run of single apache server) may provide
interesting set of data, wouldn't it? :)

BR,
Domas

--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
geni wrote:
> On 7/16/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Better example:
>>http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22Brian+Peppers%22%2C+%22Jimmy+Wales%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
>>
>>The search volume does seem genuine, given that it's highly
>>concentrated in Ohio, Peppers' place of residence.
>
> A better one would "Brian Peppers", "Tom Thumb", "Zip the Pinhead"

I'd expect most of the searches for "Tom Thumb" are for the folklore
character or for the grocery store chain.

Anyway, I doubt Google Trends is much use in gauging the relative
notability of "people with congenital deformations".  For comparing
"internet memes", however, it is probably a fairly good estimate.

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
> Why is this not a good thing? Our articles are NPOV and verifiable, and
> easily corrected should errors in them be found. What would be a better
> site to have as the #1 hit?

That's a good point.  Given that we don't, currently, provide any
information on Brian Peppers, I'm glad, for the sake of human dignity,
that Snopes does (and actually outranks us on Google).  Because if they
didn't, the next sites down the list are Wikitruth and YTMND.

Reference: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22brian+peppers%22

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
G'day Guy,

> On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:08:19 +1000, Mark Gallagher
> <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>a wise man once said, "Fuck policy!"
>
> I think that was "fuck process" actually...

I think you're right.  I also think a truly wise man would say the same
about both ;-)

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] ..

body:
Sean Whitton wrote:

>If you've written a message, I can't see it.
>
>On 16/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wkipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
Sorry,

I upgraded my desktop system to ES4 and the utility to import mail
folders did a "send unsent mail" after I completed the upgrade (when
there wasn't any unsent mail in the first place).  Got to love open
source ...

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] ..


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Anthony wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>On 7/14/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>" ...Wikimedia doesn't transfer the ownership of anything, and there is no
>>>>>>rental, lease, or lending. But then again, by that definition
>>>>>>*nothing* distributed over the Internet is published, and I doubt a
>>>>>>court would agree with that...."
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Because of the way the GFDL works, ownership is transferred to every person
>>>>>>that receives it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>Ownership of what?  The ownership of copyright doesn't get
>>>>>transferred.  Copies of the work don't get transferred.  What gets
>>>>>transferred?  Bits?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>I agree with you on this.  GFDL is a licence, not a transfer of ownership.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>It transfers rights tantamount to ownership (all of this GNU crap does).
>>>And may qualify
>>>as a transfer of copyight since it conveys "RIGHT TO COPY" == COPYRIGHT.
>>>People just for some reason are not able to get this. Go read the licence. If
>>>you grant someone unlimited
>>>RIGHT TO COPY under the Doctrine of Esstoppel, after they do it for some
>>>period of time, it may qualify as a transfer of copyright.
>>>
>>>There is case law that backs up this view -- Copyrights can be
>>>transferred on the back of a bubble gum
>>>wrapper according to one ruling by the Circuit courts when you give
>>>someone UNLIMITED RIGHT TO COPY something.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>What makes this position possibly valid is the fact people state the
>>content under such licenses is "FREE". When you say
>>something is FREE it implies a transaction or transfer occurred. "I did
>>not pay for this new hat, it was free and part of
>>a promotion, but it was given to me for FREE, and now it's MY PROPERTY".
>>I think you can see the logic. If folks
>>want to make claims they hold copyrights on materials under any of these
>>GNU licenses, the words "FREE" should not
>>be used and replaced with "LICENSED AT NO CHARGE FOR EDUCATIONAL
>>PURPOSES" and the words
>>"RIGHT TO COPY" replaced with "LICENSED UNDER THE TERMS."
>>
>>
>>
>>
>It's more subtle than that.  It's free distribution not free contents.
>Free is an adjective, and as such does not stand in isolation.  If
>someone gives you a new hat with a logo on it the right to reproduce the
>logo does not come with ownership of the hat.  Intangible properties
>such as rights are not treated the same way as tangible properties such
>as hats.
>
>GFDL allows for downstream reuses by all persons, not just for
>educational purposes.  It is also not an unconditional granting of
>rights.  It requires users to pass those same conditions on to
>subsequent users, and provides that derivative works also be licensed in
>the same way.  In simple terms a user who does not do this is in breach
>of license.
>
>Ec
>
>
The way it's worded in GPL2 (and GPL3) its ambiguous. I've also been
following the FSF and
their litigation strategy over the years, and to be honest they wilt
away like chaff in the wind
on a certain class of GPL violators -- big software companies who pinch
GPL code then use it.

They onyl go after folks with little or no litigation resources. I Think
they know if this thing got in front
of a court and someone bankrolled 20 mil into costs, it may not stand up
... just a theory.

Jeff

>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
James Hare wrote:

>It also should be noted we shouldn't have to inundate common people with
>complex logical arguments about something as boring as copyright law.
>
>Jimmy Wales was from Alabama, he had a thirst for knowledge. He studied
>finance at Auburn University -- that's where options trading caught his
>eyes. After a bout of that and Internet porn, he realized: he wanted to live
>like common people; he wanted to live and drink with common people. So he
>decided to dump a lot of money in a website -for- the common people because
>he just liked it that much.
>
>All in all, Wikipedia is for common people, and they'd prefer simple terms
>like "free encyclopedia" than "GFDL general and specialized knowledge
>provider licensed for free and educational use." Common people is what
>Wikipedia is all about.
>
>
>
I agree with all of this. "Free" is fine with me and I agree I don't
think anyone cares
about copyright issues on GFDL text.

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: Peter Adams

subject: [Wikitech-l] How to tell if a Feed is being requested?

body:
Hi Folks -

Is there a global that tells one if the request is for an RSS/Atom
feed? I'm hoping to avoid looking for $_GET['feed']...
Thanks in advance.

-P-

/**
   * Peter Adams  <peter at openwebanalytics.com>
   *
   * Open Web Analytics - the open source web analytics framework.
   *    Blog >>   http://www.openwebanalytics.com/
   *    Wiki >>    http://wiki.openwebanalytics.com
   */


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
James Hare wrote:

>Right... we tell the people that our encyclopedia is free -- for use, and
>for distribution. When they're interested in distribution -- that's when
>they're basically asking for legal terminology.
>
>
Well, I am distributing it, and making lots of money off of it promoting
it, and I am keeping it free (the knowledge
and software part, anyway -- hardware always costs money). :-)

Jeff

>On 7/17/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>James Hare wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>It also should be noted we shouldn't have to inundate common people with
>>>complex logical arguments about something as boring as copyright law.
>>>
>>>Jimmy Wales was from Alabama, he had a thirst for knowledge. He studied
>>>finance at Auburn University -- that's where options trading caught his
>>>eyes. After a bout of that and Internet porn, he realized: he wanted to
>>>
>>>
>>live
>>
>>
>>>like common people; he wanted to live and drink with common people. So he
>>>decided to dump a lot of money in a website -for- the common people
>>>
>>>
>>because
>>
>>
>>>he just liked it that much.
>>>
>>>All in all, Wikipedia is for common people, and they'd prefer simple
>>>
>>>
>>terms
>>
>>
>>>like "free encyclopedia" than "GFDL general and specialized knowledge
>>>provider licensed for free and educational use." Common people is what
>>>Wikipedia is all about.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I agree with all of this. "Free" is fine with me and I agree I don't
>>think anyone cares
>>about copyright issues on GFDL text.
>>
>>Jeff
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-07-17

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 409 of 426 tests (96.01%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On 7/16/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
> >
> > Why is this not a good thing? Our articles are NPOV and verifiable, and
> > easily corrected should errors in them be found. What would be a better
> > site to have as the #1 hit?
>
> That's a good point.  Given that we don't, currently, provide any
> information on Brian Peppers, I'm glad, for the sake of human dignity,
> that Snopes does

Indeed, this is a very powerful moral argument on which I'd
particularly like to hear Jimmy's thoughts: Isn't a neutral summary
better than the rubbish of fark.com and so forth? At least in cases
where the damage is already done? (If anything, we've pushed the meme
further by arguing endlessly about it.)

My immediate response would be: Yes, if we permanently semi-protect
it. Otherwise Wikipedia will in fact be used _like_ fark.com or
YTTMAND or whatever its name is, and as a visitor, there will be a
good chance that the article will have been recently abused the moment
you look at it.

In the future this would be a candidate for what I call "quality
protection", where you only ever get to see the latest "stable
version". [*] This is not something that I ever would like to see for
_all_ articles, but for the very same subset which are currently
permanently semi-protected, effectively further weakening protection
(but possibly slightly enlarging the subset).

Erik

[*] I'm not convinced that the concept of a "stable version" as
currently debated makes sense for anything but very basic assertions
about quality, though it would already be a great leap forward
(*cough*) from not distinguishing obvious vandalism from non-vandalism
at all.


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Peter Adams wrote:
> Hi Folks -
>
> Is there a global that tells one if the request is for an RSS/Atom
> feed?

Nope. That's up to the code handling the request.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Heema Khan

body:
There is a general consesus at the Urdu wiki  to remove the Qur'anic verse from the
Sitenotice. Nobody opposed it. Some Steward should do it now,
because the admin we contacted and who could
do it has gone Inactive and refuesd to do it himself.
This was the part of the last message by him:

"I think Quranic verses from site notice should be removed.
 since it is a disputed issue im not going to remove it myself."

--heema

----- Original Message ----
From: Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com>
To: Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com>; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 10:56:05 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Israel article (was: Quran in Sitenotice)

Okay, perhaps we should just wait for this discussion to pan out, to
see what comes of it before we do anything else. This would seem
sensible to prevent any kind of conflict or unwelcome pressure.

On 14/07/06, Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I can definitely do that. If you provide me the exact text.
> But it seems that a steward already contacted an administrator yesterday
>
> http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:%D8%B3%DB%8C%D9%81_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%DB%81#MediaWiki:Sitenotice
>
> There is a new discussion, where it is a
> general agreement to remove the Qur'anic verse
> from the Sitenotice but to display it on the main
> page in any case. There is still an argument going on
> in favour and against this new proposition.
>
> --heema
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com>
> To: Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com>; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 10:13:21 AM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Israel article (was: Quran in Sitenotice)
>
> So, are we okay to post one of those notices? Heema, are you willing
> to translate and post both? I think we need to at least open
> discussion on the wiki as we're just repeating ourselves here on the
> list, it seems.
>
> On 13/07/06, Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> > To: andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> > Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 11:20:50 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Israel article (was: Quran in Sitenotice)
> >
> > >No one sane?
> >
> > >It has been edited by:
> > >http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%D8%AE%D8%A7%D9%88%D8%B1
> >
> > >One of the buracrats on that wikipedia.
> >
> > this guy argued that if you are against Qur'anic verses in the Sitenotice
> >  means you are against Qur'an.
> >
> > >It was created by:
> > >http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%D8%B3%DB%8C%D9%81_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%DB%81
> >
> > >The admin we have contected over the sitenotice issue.
> >
> > Doesn't surprise me, because he added the Quranic verse into the Sitenotice
> > in the first place.
> >
> > --heema
> >
> > On 7/13/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi all.
> > >
> > > (I apologise this won't show up in threading - I've only just
> > > subscribed and I'm reading old mesages through the archives)
> > >
> > > Heema Khan:
> > >
> > > > On Urdu Wikipedia, article on Israel is very short:
> > > > http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A6%DB%8C%D9%84
> > > > I can translate it:
> > > > "Israel, a palce where jews live. In addition to Pakistan there are many other
> > > > countries that do not recognize this place of Jews as a country.
> > > > Majority of the Urdu speaking public believes that there
> > > > is no country by the name of Israel exists. But there is
> > > > a country named Palestine, whose some part is captured
> > > > by Jews and they call it Israel. And the English speaking
> > > > world says that in a country called Israel some
> > > > Palestenians want to create a country called Palestine."
> > > >
> > > > This is the whole article. Quite extraordinary, nothing to add more.
> > >
> > > In this specific case, if my reading of the page is right, this
> > > article has had a grand total of 21 edits, the ten most recent of them
> > > in a single three-day period in June. Every single bit of the content
> > > has been contributed by one single registered user; all anon edits
> > > have been vandalism (well, one was pageblanking, that might count as
> > > justified!) No discussion page, of course.
> > >
> > > On the whole, while it's still a pretty terrible article, it scares me
> > > less once I know that it's the work of one guy and it's just that
> > > no-one sane has managed to look at it yet...
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
>     ?Xyrael
>         sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
    ?Xyrael
        sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net


subject: [Foundation-l] Israel article (was: Quran in Sitenotice)


subject: [Foundation-l] Rogets Thesaurus Cherokee Translation and Lexicons

body:
Wikigadugi has now reached 99.1% complete conversion with the Native
Language Machine Translator.   I have added a link
grammar parser for English and the next run against Wikipedia dumps will
also include a Latin-Cherokee and Scientific
Language to Cherokee Lexicon and Dictionary which should push to 99.8%
complete translation.

I am writing a complete grammar reference for the Cherokee Language
which will allow anyone to learn, write and
speak it rapidly.   The grammar reference will be out in the fall.

Roget's Thesaurus translations and the new Otali dialect lexicon version
is at:

ftp.wkigadugi.org/wiki/lexicon

If anyone is interested in incorporating it into Wiktionary.

Jeff


subject:
[Foundation-l] Rogets Thesaurus Cherokee Translation and
	Lexicons

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Wikigadugi has now reached 99.1% complete conversion with the Native
>Language Machine Translator.   I have added a link
>grammar parser for English and the next run against Wikipedia dumps will
>also include a Latin-Cherokee and Scientific
>Language to Cherokee Lexicon and Dictionary which should push to 99.8%
>complete translation.
>
>I am writing a complete grammar reference for the Cherokee Language
>which will allow anyone to learn, write and
>speak it rapidly.   The grammar reference will be out in the fall.
>
>Roget's Thesaurus translations and the new Otali dialect lexicon version
>is at:
>
>ftp.wkigadugi.org/wiki/lexicon
>
>
Might help if I spell it correctly.

ftp.wikigadugi.org/wiki/lexicon

Jeff

>If anyone is interested in incorporating it into Wiktionary.
>
>Jeff
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

references:
<e98jf0$9c4$1@sea.gmane.org>	<e692861c0607141029l23cc4176i88d09ece0bf74f61@mail.gmail.com>	<e98kg6$cbi$1@sea.gmane.org>	<44B7DADA.10404@KillerChihuahua.com>
	<e98mt4$kni$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
>
> My observation on this mailing list is that the actual behaviour in
> practice causes a large amount of editors to become disgruntled.

Just to put the number of complaints in perspective, about 5271 new user
accounts were registered this Saturday (EDT).  I know, since I happened
to be logging the RC feed for debugging purposes.  That's about 3.7 new
accounts per minute.  During the same period, 217 accounts and 98 IPs
were blocked, 4 of them indefinitely.  Over the last 16 hours (I didn't
start logging new pages before that), 1294 new user talk pages were
created, at about 1.3 per minute.

Given that we have new users coming in at a rate of more than one each
minute, one new complainant a day on the mailing list doesn't seem like
much -- and I believe that's rather an overestimate.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
It also should be noted we shouldn't have to inundate common people with
complex logical arguments about something as boring as copyright law.

Jimmy Wales was from Alabama, he had a thirst for knowledge. He studied
finance at Auburn University -- that's where options trading caught his
eyes. After a bout of that and Internet porn, he realized: he wanted to live
like common people; he wanted to live and drink with common people. So he
decided to dump a lot of money in a website -for- the common people because
he just liked it that much.

All in all, Wikipedia is for common people, and they'd prefer simple terms
like "free encyclopedia" than "GFDL general and specialized knowledge
provider licensed for free and educational use." Common people is what
Wikipedia is all about.

On 7/16/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
> >Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Anthony wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>On 7/14/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>" ...Wikimedia doesn't transfer the ownership of anything, and there
> is no
> >>>>>rental, lease, or lending. But then again, by that definition
> >>>>>*nothing* distributed over the Internet is published, and I doubt a
> >>>>>court would agree with that...."
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Because of the way the GFDL works, ownership is transferred to every
> person
> >>>>>that receives it.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>Ownership of what?  The ownership of copyright doesn't get
> >>>>transferred.  Copies of the work don't get transferred.  What gets
> >>>>transferred?  Bits?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>I agree with you on this.  GFDL is a licence, not a transfer of
> ownership.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>It transfers rights tantamount to ownership (all of this GNU crap does).
> >>And may qualify
> >>as a transfer of copyight since it conveys "RIGHT TO COPY" == COPYRIGHT.
> >>People just for some reason are not able to get this. Go read the
> licence. If
> >>you grant someone unlimited
> >>RIGHT TO COPY under the Doctrine of Esstoppel, after they do it for some
> >>period of time, it may qualify as a transfer of copyright.
> >>
> >>There is case law that backs up this view -- Copyrights can be
> >>transferred on the back of a bubble gum
> >>wrapper according to one ruling by the Circuit courts when you give
> >>someone UNLIMITED RIGHT TO COPY something.
> >>
> >What makes this position possibly valid is the fact people state the
> >content under such licenses is "FREE". When you say
> >something is FREE it implies a transaction or transfer occurred. "I did
> >not pay for this new hat, it was free and part of
> >a promotion, but it was given to me for FREE, and now it's MY PROPERTY".
> >I think you can see the logic. If folks
> >want to make claims they hold copyrights on materials under any of these
> >GNU licenses, the words "FREE" should not
> >be used and replaced with "LICENSED AT NO CHARGE FOR EDUCATIONAL
> >PURPOSES" and the words
> >"RIGHT TO COPY" replaced with "LICENSED UNDER THE TERMS."
> >
> >
> It's more subtle than that.  It's free distribution not free contents.
> Free is an adjective, and as such does not stand in isolation.  If
> someone gives you a new hat with a logo on it the right to reproduce the
> logo does not come with ownership of the hat.  Intangible properties
> such as rights are not treated the same way as tangible properties such
> as hats.
>
> GFDL allows for downstream reuses by all persons, not just for
> educational purposes.  It is also not an unconditional granting of
> rights.  It requires users to pass those same conditions on to
> subsequent users, and provides that derivative works also be licensed in
> the same way.  In simple terms a user who does not do this is in breach
> of license.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit