subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

body:
Members,

     I have a number of pages that were
cut/pastes ...but from documents written by myself. This
covers Japanese Language, Linear algebra, Mathematical
Groups, parts of the ADA (the rest of public law) and
more.
These are subjects that I would not be happy just
tossing up. I don't think anyone should remove a page,
until they can show it was a cut/paste from someone
else, not free domain. Further this is an
administrators' job, it would seem. I think members
should report such problems to an administrator.

     I find this whole post insulting, whether you are
referring to my work or not.

            As Ever,

              Ruth Ifcher

--

> hi all.
>
> I have a bit of a moral dilemma here: some articles on wikipedia seem to
> pop-up non-wikified and written slightly 'too well'. It seems obvious that
> it is a copy/paste job from another source. What should we/I do in such a
> case? Delete it? It could be from a free source or someone's work for
> work/uni/school that he just wishes to share with the community... Plz help
> me out on this one.
>
> regards
>
> WojPob
>
> ps. who subscribes to this list anyway? could mailman give us a list of
> members?
>
> ----
> Wojciech Pobratyn
> Wirtschaftsuniversit?t Wien
> mailto:wojciech.pobratyn at wu-wien.ac.at
>
> "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"
>                              H.P. Lovecraft
>
> "Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle and quick to
> anger"
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

body:
Members and Mr. Crocker,

     I was responding directly to the post by Mr.
Pobratyn. He said:

I have a bit of a moral dilemma here: some articles on
wikipedia seem to pop-up non-wikified and written
slightly 'too well'. It seems obvious that
it is a copy/paste job from another source. What should
we/I do in such a case? Delete it?

     I take plagiarism extremely seriously and many
members of Nupedia, at least, know that. For the same
reason, I take an unsupported claim of plagiarism
extremely seriously and consider it a dangerous move.

     Mr. Pobratyn cited as the basis for his suspicions,
articles that appear, I guess, full-blown, unwikified,
and written "too well."

     I reacted to this, because I have posted articles
that way, although I usually wikify them, somewhat. As I
said, this is because they are literally copied from my
own work.

     On a more general level, these symptoms in an
article or entry are not a basis to delete them. This
requires proof that the entry has been "borrowed" from
a copyrighted source.

     If you gentlemen have some particular author/s in
mind, I suggest you put your heads together and try to
find the source. But to delete them out of hand,
implying they are plagiarised, to me. is assuming guilt
until one proves oneself innocent. I think a better
approach, and the one that supposedly prevails in the
U.S.A., is to assume someone is innocent until proven
guilty.

     As far as my insulting the original poster, I say
them let him speak for himself. I really prefer not to
get involved in what you, Mr. Crocker, think that the
original poster feels. Only he can say whether he found
my post insulting. C'est ca.

            As Ever,

               Ruth Ifcher

--

> The fact that you would consider an honest and concerned post
> personally insulting to you is absurd, and is itself insulting to the
> original poster who was obviously sincere and interested in solving a
> real problem, and didn't mention any names (in fact, I'm almost
> certain I know who he _was_ referring to, and it wasn't you--and I'm
> not going to say more than that).
>
> The problem itself (of discovering and removing copyrighted material)
> is real, serious, and needs to be dealt with.  Sure, you and I may
> copy and paste only from our own or public domain material because we
> understand the law, but many people on Wikipedia HAVE copied
> copyrighted material, and that's a problem.
>
> There is no such thing as an "administrator" in Wikipedia in the
> sense of someone responsible for its content, nor should there be.
> Nupedia has those (and should); Wikipedia just has us, and we are
> just as responsible for its content as anyone else.  It does have a
> few folks to set policy, but even they have been very respectful of
> the community process of content creation and not tried to subvert it
> by establishing "control" or "ownership".  Further, it is obviously
> impractical to have an infintely scalable content-creation method
> with non-scalable editing and expect to keep up.  Wikipedia CANNOT
> work unless EVERYONE is an editor and administrator as well as an
> author.
>
> The suggestion of looking for phrases on the web is useful; it does
> often turn up the copyrighted source of a cut-and-paste job.  I would
> further suggest that when you find the source of the material,
> document it; i.e., make a talk page or editing comment along the
> lines of "Delete copyrighted material from ...", so that everyone
> else benefits from your research and knows why it was deleted.
>
> But if you can't find the source, I think you do have to give an
> author the benefit of the doubt--especially logged-in authors.  If
> the work _is_ copyrighted, removal upon notification by the copyright
> holder is sufficient to avoid legal penalties.
0


from_name: Larry Sanger

subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

body:
From: <rose.parks at att.net>
>      I was responding directly to the post by Mr.
> Pobratyn. He said:
>
> I have a bit of a moral dilemma here: some articles on
> wikipedia seem to pop-up non-wikified and written
> slightly 'too well'. It seems obvious that
> it is a copy/paste job from another source. What should
> we/I do in such a case? Delete it?
>
>      I take plagiarism extremely seriously and many
> members of Nupedia, at least, know that. For the same
> reason, I take an unsupported claim of plagiarism
> extremely seriously and consider it a dangerous move.
>
>      Mr. Pobratyn cited as the basis for his suspicions,
> articles that appear, I guess, full-blown, unwikified,
> and written "too well."

For fear of seeming not to let other people speak for themselves, I won't
presume to interpret anyone else, but just give my own opinions.  My own
opinions happen to be very close to the way I'd interpret what Wojcek wrote,
though.  Basically, I regard one of my basic "jobs" (never assigned by
anyone except myself, though) on Wikipedia to check for plagiarism/copyright
infringement.  How do I do this?  Basically, I look at the RecentChanges
page, and if there are any new names or numbers there, I check their work
fairly carefully.  Very often, it's obvious that what they wrote wasn't
cribbed from somewhere else ("Why would anyone post to the web what they
have written?  It's not too good").  But sometimes, particularly from new
people, I'll see a full-blown article appear, written quite well, and that
makes me instantly suspicious.  :-)  Why?  Just because too often in the
past we've seen new people posting copyrighted articles.  **Obviously**,
it's not because I think no one writing for Wikipedia is capable of writing
anything very good.

So what I do when I come across a good article from a new person is just
what Jimbo does--check it on Google by finding a string of words unlikely to
appear in any other article, pasting it into the Google search form
(surrounded by quotes).  I do that with two or three different strings of
words, just to be sure.  If I find nothing, then I grudgingly admit that the
article was probably not plagiarized from an online source.

Of course, even if an article is (1) good and (2) copied from another
source, that doesn't mean that it is plagiarized.  Someone might have copied
it from her own work, for example.  Grand!  Wonderful!  Thanks!  None of the
above-described procedure and (quite prudent, I'd say) supporting opinions
controvert the wonderfulness of that practice.

Now, suppose I do find an instance where an article was obviously copied
from an Internet source.  Do I immediately scream plagiarism?  Almost
always, but not necessarily: I try to make a point of checking to see if the
original was released under some sort of open content license, or was public
domain.  Usually, of course, there's no indication that it was, so I do
scream plagiarism.

Who should remove the plagiarism spotted?  Whoever spots it first.  Might
this not constitute an insult to the person who put the article up on
Wikipedia?  What if that person wrote the original?  Well, that's
interesting.  It could happen.  We could, I suppose, make a habit of asking
politely, "Say, did you just happen to plagiarize this article?"  But many
plagiarists are too embarrassed by being caught, too clueless, or too just
outright dishonest, so it seems reasonable not to expect an answer to such a
question.  So suppose we have a dozen plagiarized articles on Wikipedia with
polite questions, "Say, did you plagiarize this?" appended to them.  I'd
rather have a dozen removed articles, with notices saying, "I found this
article at [URL].  I found no evidence that it was free or public domain.  I
am assuming that this was an instance of copyright infringement.  Please do
not paste copyrighted material into Wikipedia!"

This is something that anyone can and should do.  I *totally* agree with
what Lee Crocker said here:

> > There is no such thing as an "administrator" in Wikipedia in the
> > sense of someone responsible for its content, nor should there be.
> > Nupedia has those (and should); Wikipedia just has us, and we are
> > just as responsible for its content as anyone else.  It does have a
> > few folks to set policy, but even they have been very respectful of
> > the community process of content creation and not tried to subvert it
> > by establishing "control" or "ownership".  Further, it is obviously
> > impractical to have an infintely scalable content-creation method
> > with non-scalable editing and expect to keep up.  Wikipedia CANNOT
> > work unless EVERYONE is an editor and administrator as well as an
> > author.

In the last four days, it has been difficult (to say the least) for me to
get on the net.  (Actually, it would have been rather easy, if I had known
what to do!)  I, and other people responsible for making sure Bomis doesn't
get into legal trouble over copyright violation, was relying on Wikipedia
participants to keep the steady stream of new people honest.

Notice, there is no one claiming to be editor-in-chief or even editor of
Wikipedia.  A wiki, by its design, doesn't need one.  Wikipedia needs people
to act as "gardeners" (in Jimbo's metaphor).  The reason Wikipedia is so
successful at creating content is that there aren't any editors standing in
the way of content creation.  This means there's a lot of garbage that needs
cleaning up, and the whole thing is a work-in-progress, but a lot work *is*
done, and we *do* have a lot of very good articles and many that are
improving.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] new language wikis

body:
When you've done what Jimbo says, can you post an anouncement on
Wikipedia-L?  I want to post a big announcement about it on Interpret-L.
This is going to be very cool...

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at aristotle.bomis.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 12:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] new language wikis

> The proper thing to do, it was decided, is to use the 'language codes'.
You
> can find this in the discussion on wikipedia, or...
>
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm
>
> The two letter codes should be preferred, but the 3 letter codes should
probably
> just magically work if someone happens to use one of them.
>
> Jason Richey wrote:
>
> > Toan and I added 9 new other-language wikis to the mix.  So, now you
> > are all welcome to use:
> >
> > catalan.wikipedia.com
> > chinese.wikipedia.com
> > esperanto.wikipedia.com
> > french.wikipedia.com
> > deutsche.wikipedia.com
> > hebrew.wikipedia.com
> > italian.wikipedia.com
> > japanese.wikipedia.com
> > portuguese.wikipedia.com
> > spanish.wikipedia.com
> > russian.wikipedia.com
> >
> > We are aware that the naming convention is wrong.  Why use "Deutsche"
> > instead of "German" in one place, and "Spanish" instead of "Espanol"
> > in another?  Simple.  We just don't know the correct words or even the
> > characters to use in many cases.  So, tell us what it *should* be, and
> > we'll make it so...
> >
> > --
> > "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
> >
> > [Wikipedia-l]
> > To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> > http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
> --
> *************************************************
> *            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
> *      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
> *************************************************
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

body:
Maybe if the website seems slow to others, they too could report the
problem.  For what it's worth, it does not seem to be any slower for me, and
I'm using a dialup connection in Russia!  It would make sense for Jimbo or
Toan or whoever to look into the problem.

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at promail.pl>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 10:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

> On 12-05-2001, Wojciech Pobratyn wrote thusly :
> > I have a bit of a moral dilemma here: some articles on wikipedia seem to
> > pop-up non-wikified and written slightly 'too well'. It seems obvious
that
> > it is a copy/paste job from another source. What should we/I do in such
a
> > case? Delete it? It could be from a free source or someone's work for
> > work/uni/school that he just wishes to share with the community... Plz
help
> > me out on this one.
> > ps. who subscribes to this list anyway? could mailman give us a list of
> > members?
> I do subscribe to the list but regettably I am not likely to contribute
> any more to Wikipedia since the new server has become so horribly slow
:-((
> Regards,
> kpj.
> --
> Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Z jednego systemu nie wydob?dziemy si?
d?ugo:
> Czestochowa, Poland ...       | ze s?onecznego. Stanis?aw Jerzy Lec
> Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

body:
I was not aware of this slowness.  We can do something about this,
most likely.  Are other people experiencing this?

Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:

> On 12-05-2001, Wojciech Pobratyn wrote thusly :
> > I have a bit of a moral dilemma here: some articles on wikipedia seem to
> > pop-up non-wikified and written slightly 'too well'. It seems obvious that
> > it is a copy/paste job from another source. What should we/I do in such a
> > case? Delete it? It could be from a free source or someone's work for
> > work/uni/school that he just wishes to share with the community... Plz help
> > me out on this one.
> > ps. who subscribes to this list anyway? could mailman give us a list of
> > members?
> I do subscribe to the list but regettably I am not likely to contribute
> any more to Wikipedia since the new server has become so horribly slow :-((
> Regards,
> kpj.
> --
> Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Z jednego systemu nie wydob?dziemy si? d?ugo:
> Czestochowa, Poland ...       | ze s?onecznego. Stanis?aw Jerzy Lec
> Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

in_reply_to: <200105160115.SAA22200@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Tue, May 15, 2001 at 06:15:39PM -0700

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> There is no such thing as an "administrator" in Wikipedia in the
> sense of someone responsible for its content, nor should there be.
> Nupedia has those (and should); Wikipedia just has us, and we are
> just as responsible for its content as anyone else.  It does have a
> few folks to set policy, but even they have been very respectful of
> the community process of content creation and not tried to subvert it
> by establishing "control" or "ownership".

Let me say that I agree with this 100%.  The only thing that holds
wikipedia "on course" is "rough consensus and running code".

By my decree, Larry and I have a special position only with respect
to legal issues (i.e. I won't let anyone use Wikipedia as a forum
for trying to "napsterize" content -- not because of my own opinions
about copyright, but because it's not consistent with our central
mission) and that's it.

We'd also be ultimately responsible for making a decision about what
to do if someone comes in who is aggressively abusive to the community
process.

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

in_reply_to: <20010516144506.A16478@aristotle.bomis.com>; from jwales@aristotle.bomis.com on Wed, May 16, 2001 at 02:45:06PM -0500

body:
On 16-05-2001, Jimmy Wales wrote thusly :
> I was not aware of this slowness.  We can do something about this,
> most likely.  Are other people experiencing this?
The situation (for me) is exactly the opposite of what it was before the
change to www2.wikipedia.com.
Then 'Recent Changes' for three days loaded in a couple of seconds and now
it dies on the header. (I'm on a dial-up connection from Poland)
I think I should have done a traceroute research of the two servers before
posting, though. Sorry about that.
I know it might be a nuisance for people with fast connections but I just
love the Wikipedia so much... :-)
Regards,
kpj.
> Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
> > On 12-05-2001, Wojciech Pobratyn wrote thusly :
> > > I have a bit of a moral dilemma here: some articles on wikipedia seem to
> > > pop-up non-wikified and written slightly 'too well'. It seems obvious that
> > > it is a copy/paste job from another source. What should we/I do in such a
> > > case? Delete it? It could be from a free source or someone's work for
> > > work/uni/school that he just wishes to share with the community... Plz help
> > > me out on this one.
> > > ps. who subscribes to this list anyway? could mailman give us a list of
> > > members?
> > I do subscribe to the list but regettably I am not likely to contribute
> > any more to Wikipedia since the new server has become so horribly slow :-((
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | W?r?d ludzi jest wi?cej kopii ni? orygina??w.
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Pablo Picasso
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Deutsche Wikipedia

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20010517/1584853f/attachment.diff


from_name: Sonic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Deutsche Wikipedia

body:
Hi!

I'm trying to write some stuff for deutsche Wikipedia, but have run into some
trouble:

- The software appears to have one error: When you make a new page, all links
to that page will not appears as links, but stay as though the page didn't
exist yet (i.e. with a clickable question mark that lets you edit the page.
The text you entered before will still appear, though). Editing existing
pages still works, but hey, there are only a handful at the moment.

- Whenever you are trying to use a German umlaut (ä ö ü
ß) in a link, Wikipedia doesn't make it a link. I know this is not
really a bug, but it is quite annoying and will lead to numerous
complications. Is it possible to create some sort of auto-conversion for
that, or do we really have to tell everybody to avoid using umlauts (which is
quite frustrating, as they are used regularly)?

Bye,

A.f.


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: new language wikis

in_reply_to: <20010511172737.A16730@aristotle.bomis.com>; from jasonr@aristotle.bomis.com on Fri, May 11, 2001 at 05:27:37PM -0500

body:
I made it a bit more sensible.  You can now access these wikis by
using their two character or three character identifiers, as defined
in the ISO 639 standard (http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm).
Note that I have not added all of the languages from te webpage above,
only thos listed below.  You can now access the pages at any one of
many different urls.  For example, the chinese wiki is available at
zh.wikipedia.com, zho.wikipedia.com, chi.wikipedia.com, and
chinese.wikipedia.com.  They all point to the same data, so any url is
as good as the nex.  However, the "official" url is the one with the
two character code (zh.wikipedia.com in this example).  Hope this
works for everyone.

Jason

Jason Richey wrote:

> Toan and I added 9 new other-language wikis to the mix.  So, now you
> are all welcome to use:
>
> catalan.wikipedia.com
> chinese.wikipedia.com
> esperanto.wikipedia.com
> french.wikipedia.com
> deutsche.wikipedia.com
> hebrew.wikipedia.com
> italian.wikipedia.com
> japanese.wikipedia.com
> portuguese.wikipedia.com
> spanish.wikipedia.com
> russian.wikipedia.com
>
> We are aware that the naming convention is wrong.  Why use "Deutsche"
> instead of "German" in one place, and "Spanish" instead of "Espanol"
> in another?  Simple.  We just don't know the correct words or even the
> characters to use in many cases.  So, tell us what it *should* be, and
> we'll make it so...
>
> --
> "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
>

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems parsing markup

body:
On http://ru.wikipedia.com/ , I tried to add a little markup (<br>, <i>) and
the markup was displayed, not parsed.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems parsing markup

body:
This is also true of http://eo.wikipedia.com , so I guess it's true of all
the language wikis.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: new language wikis

body:
Hey Jason, good work.

I've added a few words to each of the new wikis, including a link back to
the English-language "how to edit a page" instructions.

I've also completely changed the "International Wikipedia" page:

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/International_Wikipedia

and I've created several subpages of that page on which I hope we'll discuss
a few issues about policy.  E.g., should we encourage the French Wikipedia
to translate the English articles, if they exist already?  Should we
encourage efforts to coordinate, generally?  Should we encourage the
language wiki just to focus on issues related to their respective languages,
cultures, histories, etc.?  (To the latter, I think no.)  Etc.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems parsing markup

body:
Larry Sanger schrieb:
> This is also true of http://eo.wikipedia.com , so I guess it's true of all
> the language wikis.
>

I just tried de.wikipedia, and at least <b> tags seem to work, but the link
issue I described for deutsche.wikipedia still exists. (once you've made a
new page all links to that page remain edit links.

Bye,

A.f.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems parsing markup

in_reply_to: <002401c0df77$97a8d3a0$cfc20ed9@mshome.net>; from lsanger@nupedia.com on Fri, May 18, 2001 at 01:49:26PM +0500

body:
There is a setting in the configuration file to permit the use of markup.
Jason or Toan should go through each configuration file and turn it on.

Larry Sanger wrote:

> On http://ru.wikipedia.com/ , I tried to add a little markup (<br>, <i>) and
> the markup was displayed, not parsed.
>
> Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems parsing markup

body:
This is a problem that seems to exist only for day-old links.  I wish the
guys would fix it on www.wikipedia.com, but I'm not sure they know how.
Anyway, this bug doesn't render the website unusable.

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sonic" <sonic at arcormail.de>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Problems parsing markup

> Larry Sanger schrieb:
> > This is also true of http://eo.wikipedia.com , so I guess it's true of
all
> > the language wikis.
> >
>
> I just tried de.wikipedia, and at least <b> tags seem to work, but the
link
> issue I described for deutsche.wikipedia still exists. (once you've made a
> new page all links to that page remain edit links.
>
> Bye,
>
> A.f.
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems parsing markup

body:
Larry Sanger schrieb:
> This is a problem that seems to exist only for day-old links.  I wish the
> guys would fix it on www.wikipedia.com, but I'm not sure they know how.
> Anyway, this bug doesn't render the website unusable.

Hm. I don't know about the English version, but in the German version, even
links that are one week old are not displayed as proper links. Magnus Manske
posted his translation of the Polymerase Chain Reaction article last
Saturday, but the link still doesn't work. The only links that work are the
ones you made yourself (the one to www.wikipedia) and some very old ones I
made about a month ago (Nupedia-Deutsch-L-Sektion, but they worked right
after I made them). Is it possible that someone changed the configuration in
the meantime?

Bye,

A.f.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] International wiki notes

body:
Hey Jason and Toan, please look at
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/International_Wikipedia
for notes/complaints.  :-)

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: International wiki notes

body:
See esp. "I have just noticed the fact that the top and bottom bars are in
english. Can something be done about that?"

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] new version of the wiki software

body:
Apparently, wikipedia is not running the latest version of the wiki
software.  This is a shame, because the newest version adds better
support for multiple language wikis.  Consequently, I will be updating
the newest wikis with the newest software.  I will take special
precautions to assure "zero loss" of data and minimal loss of uptime.
Thank you for your patience in this matter.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Searching for /Talk pages

body:
How do we search for numbers of /Talk pages?  Just type "Talk" or "/Talk"?
(Does the search form include the title of a page in the text searched?)

If searching on "Talk" returns all /Talk pages (and pages with "Talk" in
them), then we have 636 talk pages--a lot fewer than I thought!

--Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Upgrading the wikis

body:
I'll be upgrading many of the wikis with the latest wiki software
today.  The main (english) wiki will probably not be updated today,
but I think that I will get the international wikis taken care of.
Please let me know if you experience any trouble with the wikis in the
next few days.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Upgrading the wikis

body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Upgrading the wikis

body:
Jason Richey schrieb:
> I'll be upgrading many of the wikis with the latest wiki software
> today.  The main (english) wiki will probably not be updated today,
> but I think that I will get the international wikis taken care of.
> Please let me know if you experience any trouble with the wikis in the
> next few days.

de.wikipedia still suffers from the link problem, but apart from that, it
seems okay

Bye,

A.f.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia is almost useful!

body:
In my opinion, Wikipedia is almost to the point where someone could come to
it half-expecting to find *some* relevant information on some basic topics.

With this in mind, I think it's becoming reasonably important to move the
search form to the top of the page and to speed up and otherwise improve the
search function.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] International Wikipedias are growing!

body:
The Spanish wiki has the most participants so far:

http://es.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?CambiosRecientes

How about that...some progress!

The German wiki is growing too, but a bit more slowly:

http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?RecentChanges

And the Swedish wiki is growing...mainly due to the dogged efforts of Linus
Tolke.

I think at this point if someone were to announce these wikis on the
appropriate wikis and mailing lists, etc., they'd take off a bit more.
Maybe a lot more.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Upgrading the wikis

body:
Jason, Lee, Andreas, what is the latest on this?  Can we get this fixed soon
if it's not yet?

I was surprised to see diacritical marks in the titles and in the *URLs* on
sv.wikipedia.com, which I thought was very cool.  And the URLs worked!

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: <lcrocker at nupedia.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 10:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Upgrading the wikis

> >> I'll be upgrading many of the wikis with the latest wiki software
> >> today.  The main (english) wiki will probably not be updated today,
> >> but I think that I will get the international wikis taken care of.
> >> Please let me know if you experience any trouble with the wikis in
> >> the next few days.
>
> I don't see any change in either the Spanish or German Wikis.  It
> still produces links in the form ".../wiki/Kurt_G?del", which still
> don't work.0


body:
Larry Sanger schrieb:
> The Spanish wiki has the most participants so far:
>
> http://es.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?CambiosRecientes
>
> How about that...some progress!
>
> The German wiki is growing too, but a bit more slowly:
>
> http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?RecentChanges
>
> And the Swedish wiki is growing...mainly due to the dogged efforts of Linus
> Tolke.
>
> I think at this point if someone were to announce these wikis on the
> appropriate wikis and mailing lists, etc., they'd take off a bit more.
> Maybe a lot more.

Please don't announce de.wikipedia yet. As long as this link issue isn't
resolved, this will disappoint more people (like the one/s who posted on
de.wikipedias main page). If you want to, I'll announce the project on
Nupedia's Deutsch-L (in German), but not right now. When the link issue is
resolved, work will start. At the moment, de.wikipedia is just frustrating.
(BTW: Last time I checked, it was even unreachable. Is that something serious
or just the usual network congestion?)

Bye,

A.f.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Today's anniversaries

body:
Hello all,

Wouldn't it be cool to add "Today's anniversaries" link on the Home Page of
Wikipedia ?
Please share your thoughts.

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D kpjas at ceti.pl
http://www.medleksykon.phg.pl
http://www.cytaty.phg.pl - najlepsze w polskiej sieci


from_name: Wojtek POBRATYN

subject: [Wikipedia-l] international wikipedia

body:
dear wikipedia techies;-)

Thanks for making the international wikis work!

A few requests:

1. RecentChanges -- could the IP adress of the posters be shown instead of
the full domain, i.e. 195.193.10.XXX
2. <title> tags -- could you please change them to xx.wikipedia, or
something along these lines so that one can distinguish the wikis in the
browser history window and bookmarks.

regards,

WojPob

----
Wojciech Lukasz Pobratyn
Wirtschaftsuniversitaet Wien

"Thanks for all the fish"
              -- Douglas Adams


from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for moderator action

body:
I started a [[Baseball statistics]] section, (thinking to do some stuff on
Sabremetrics amongst others), but its kind of expanding toward all baseball
terminology.  Can someone rename them by fiat to [[baseball/foo]] from
[[baseball statistics/foo]]?
--
Gareth Owen


subject: [Wikipedia-l] international wikipedia

body:
Maybe someone could paste these into [[International Wikipedia]] and/or
[[Feature requests]]?  (That is, if they aren't done immediately.)

--Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wojtek POBRATYN" <wojtek at pobratyn.com>
To: "Wikipedia_l" <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2001 1:31 AM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] international wikipedia

> dear wikipedia techies;-)
>
> Thanks for making the international wikis work!
>
> A few requests:
>
> 1. RecentChanges -- could the IP adress of the posters be shown instead of
> the full domain, i.e. 195.193.10.XXX
> 2. <title> tags -- could you please change them to xx.wikipedia, or
> something along these lines so that one can distinguish the wikis in the
> browser history window and bookmarks.
>
> regards,
>
> WojPob
>
> ----
> Wojciech Lukasz Pobratyn
> Wirtschaftsuniversitaet Wien
>
> "Thanks for all the fish"
>               -- Douglas Adams
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Today's anniversaries

body:
My 60 kopecks (about $0.02):

We could also add "today's news"; "today's almanac"; "today's new articles";
etc.  But then we would be making Wikipedia "My Wikipedia", you know, like
Yahoo has a "My Yahoo" page that serves as news, weather, etc. orientation.

Here's my conclusion.  It's a dandy idea--if someone actually maintains it
and does a good job with it.  But that's hard work!  If someone *did* write
a "today's anniversaries" page that was really good, then sure, it would
deserve a link from the front page.

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at promail.pl>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 1:20 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Today's anniversaries

>
> Hello all,
>
> Wouldn't it be cool to add "Today's anniversaries" link on the Home Page
of
> Wikipedia ?
> Please share your thoughts.
>
> Regards,
> kpj.
> --
> Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D kpjas at ceti.pl
> http://www.medleksykon.phg.pl
> http://www.cytaty.phg.pl - najlepsze w polskiej sieci
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Today's anniversaries

in_reply_to: <02d601c0e9cb$f95e17a0$f6c20ed9@laptop>; from lsanger@nupedia.com on Thu, May 31, 2001 at 05:12:05PM +0500

body:
On 31-05-2001, Larry Sanger wrote thusly :
> My 60 kopecks (about $0.02):
Pronunciation fails you but your contribution is welcome ;-)
> We could also add "today's news"; "today's almanac"; "today's new articles";
> etc.  But then we would be making Wikipedia "My Wikipedia", you know, like
> Yahoo has a "My Yahoo" page that serves as news, weather, etc. orientation.
I see your point. So maybe a page in its own right.
> Here's my conclusion.  It's a dandy idea--if someone actually maintains it
> and does a good job with it.  But that's hard work!  If someone *did* write
> a "today's anniversaries" page that was really good, then sure, it would
> deserve a link from the front page.
Some misunderstanding I meant some script or tweaking of the wiki.cgi to
translate the today's date into a link :
http://www2.wikipedia.com/wiki/Historical_anniversaries/May_31

Bye,
kpj.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at promail.pl>
> To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 1:20 PM
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Today's anniversaries
>
>
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> > Wouldn't it be cool to add "Today's anniversaries" link on the Home Page
> of
> > Wikipedia ?
> > Please share your thoughts.
> >
> > Regards,
> > kpj.
> > --
> > Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D kpjas at ceti.pl
> > http://www.medleksykon.phg.pl
> > http://www.cytaty.phg.pl - najlepsze w polskiej sieci
> > [Wikipedia-l]
> > To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> > http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | M??czyzna rozpoczyna ?ycie rozpust?, przechodzi
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | przez mi?o?? i ko?czy ma??e?stwem, kobieta
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Today's anniversaries

body:
From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at promail.pl>
> > Here's my conclusion.  It's a dandy idea--if someone actually maintains
it
> > and does a good job with it.  But that's hard work!  If someone *did*
write
> > a "today's anniversaries" page that was really good, then sure, it would
> > deserve a link from the front page.
> Some misunderstanding I meant some script or tweaking of the wiki.cgi to
> translate the today's date into a link :
> http://www2.wikipedia.com/wiki/Historical_anniversaries/May_31

Is that what you meant?  Well, *that's* very interesting, sure!  Why don't
you put it on [[feature requests]]?

--Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Spanish Wiki down?

body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Int'l wikipedias fixed?

body:
It looks to me like the linking problem are fixed (I tested this on two of
the wikis), and the new wikis are using the parentheses.  Could you help us
test this by going there and writing something (with parentheses)?

Larry


from_name: Rybo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary Why not?

body:
 Hi all,

 Larry Sanger wrote in WikiPages: W is not a dictionary!

 Well, this is true or should be in one way.
 On the other hand: it would be nice to have one.
 I would like to support the following:

 Dictionary and encyclopedia should be understood as distinct
 but a dictionary is nice to have one.
 And this wikithing software is ideal to build up a complete
 international ever uptodate dictionary.
 And would be to use much more easier than any of these big books.
 Just type in, have short explanation and look up for a proper translation.
 Why cant we set up a project aside wikipedia called wiktionary or alike
 (what you cannot beat(?) you have to integrate)

mit freundlichen Gruessen
Stefan

StefanRybo in Wikipedia
apologies for any language errors (please correct)


subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Int'l wikipedias fixed?

body:
> Betreff: [Wikipedia-l] Int'l wikipedias fixed?
>
> It looks to me like the linking problem are fixed (I tested this on two of
> the wikis), and the new wikis are using the parentheses.  Could
> you help us
> test this by going there and writing something (with parentheses)?
>
> Larry
>
I have tested several Items on DE-Wiki with parentheses
like Madonna (Religion) and Madonna (Music)
and one with German umlaute with () as well.
It works very well.

Is this part of an official Wiki policy or recommodation
for solving ambiguity problems?
(Which would have my support.)

Rule would be:  Item (Most general but still distinctive identifier)
like
Delphi (place), Delphi (software), Delphi (mythology)(?)

mit freundlichen Gruessen
Stefan

StefanRybo in Wikipedia
apologies for any language errors (please correct)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] policy content and its navigation

body:
 Hello all,

 is there a wiki policy about content and navigation into it?

 What I have in mind is that I feel this huge link lists a little bit
disturbing. Often they are intermixed with text (content).
How can someone print this? A few lines and then pages full of links?
Shouldn't there be a separation of content and navigation items?
(as content being true nodes like in a computer data tree)
An idea for this to handle would be (first idea):
 That a singularity of an item defines its type, that is class definition,
its description being its content.
 That a plurality of items (cannot describe type) describe an entry which
leads or actually is the navigation trough the collective of its
representative examples or its members.
Example:
 filmstar  describes what a filmstar is (if one wants to know this)
 filmstars collect the set of all described filmstars (according to
descripton what a filmstar is) and will likely contain a huge tree

 What do you think?

 mit freundlichen Gruessen
Stefan

StefanRybo in Wikipedia
apologies for any language errors (please correct)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] subpaging

body:
 Hi all,

 I have a question about subpaging.

 It it offically invoked by
   a)  [[/subpage]]    or
   b)  /subpage

 I see both functioning. I prefer a) to be standard.

mit freundlichen Gr?ssen
Stefan


subject: [Wikipedia-l] (no subject)

body:
Hi all,

 I would like to propose another help page for wikipedia users
 which I wrote in DE section:

 Similar to 'How does one edit..' but ordered on application items
 and to copy edit code directly from browser into editbox
 I have listed useful code examples there.

 E.g. a user can seach on style examples and bulleted list and
 will find an example of some list as it appears in WP
 and how to code it.

 Appear in de.wikipedia.com as 'Formatvorlagen'

 mit freundlichen Gruessen
Stefan

StefanRybo in Wikipedia
apologies for any language errors (please correct)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] subpaging

body:
>  It it offically invoked by
>    a)  [[/subpage]]    or
>    b)  /subpage

" /" will make a sub-page of whatever character string follows it, up to the
first space.  "[[/...]]" will make a with the name of "Original page/...",
regardless of how many spaces are in "...".


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary Why not?

body:
Please see the list archives for a discussion of this.  I forget what our
conclusion was, exactly, if any...

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rybo" <rybox at wtal.de>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2001 3:47 AM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary Why not?

>
>  Hi all,
>
>  Larry Sanger wrote in WikiPages: W is not a dictionary!
>
>  Well, this is true or should be in one way.
>  On the other hand: it would be nice to have one.
>  I would like to support the following:
>
>  Dictionary and encyclopedia should be understood as distinct
>  but a dictionary is nice to have one.
>  And this wikithing software is ideal to build up a complete
>  international ever uptodate dictionary.
>  And would be to use much more easier than any of these big books.
>  Just type in, have short explanation and look up for a proper
translation.
>  Why cant we set up a project aside wikipedia called wiktionary or alike
>  (what you cannot beat(?) you have to integrate)
>
>
> mit freundlichen Gruessen
> Stefan
>
> StefanRybo in Wikipedia
> apologies for any language errors (please correct)
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Int'l wikipedias fixed?

body:
From: "Rybo" <rybox at wtal.de>
> I have tested several Items on DE-Wiki with parentheses
> like Madonna (Religion) and Madonna (Music)
> and one with German umlaute with () as well.
> It works very well.
>
> Is this part of an official Wiki policy or recommodation
> for solving ambiguity problems?
> (Which would have my support.)

I think nearly everyone agrees that parentheses are a very acceptable
solution to ambiguity problems.

> Rule would be:  Item (Most general but still distinctive identifier)
> like
> Delphi (place), Delphi (software), Delphi (mythology)(?)

Yes, good idea.  When it's implemented on the main (English) Wikipedia, I
(we) will thoroughly update [[naming conventions]] and related pages.

Larry


body:
From: "Rybo" <rybox at wtal.de>
>  is there a wiki policy about content and navigation into it?
>
>  What I have in mind is that I feel this huge link lists a little bit
> disturbing. Often they are intermixed with text (content).

I find this delightful, myself.  In any event, the whole thing is supposed
to be maximally useful to someone who is surfing Wikipedia.

Also, remember--sometimes, a list of links *is* content.  Personally, I
prefer it when people add some "content" (i.e., descriptive prose) to a list
of links (e.g., the [[actresses]] article would be a grand place to give
some general discussion about actresses, the first female actors
(actpeople?), some of the greatest Hollywood actresses, the "starlet"
syndrome, the sex symbol phenomenon, etc.

> How can someone print this? A few lines and then pages full of links?

We aren't writing Wikipedia to be printed out yet.  We're writing it to have
fun making an encyclopedia.  If someone wants to print something out, he
could simply copy and paste what he wants to print.  Eventually, when
there's a lot more content, we might make systematic, community-agreed-upon
changes to format--but, I imagine, only after we have experienced the
enormous benefits of *self-organizing* content-creation.

> Shouldn't there be a separation of content and navigation items?

But Wikipedia is hypertext!  See http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Hypertext .

Larry Sanger


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Linus and Stefan work alone.  This is not right!

body:
Linus Tolke on sv.wikipedia.com and Stefan Rybo on de.wikipedia.com are
working largely alone.  What commitment!  What determination!  :-)

My recommendation to you guys...something I wish I had time to do
myself...is to go to various other places on the internet (e.g., Swedish and
German language mailing lists) looking for people to help out on your wikis.
In the time it takes you to write ten new pages, you might be able to find
five people who can write 50 new pages.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Linus and Stefan work alone. This is not right!

body:
Larry Sanger schrieb:
> Linus Tolke on sv.wikipedia.com and Stefan Rybo on de.wikipedia.com are
> working largely alone.  What commitment!  What determination!  :-)

Stefan isn't working alone entirely, but de.wikipedia seems to be forgetting
my username. Is this a known problem (happened some months ago on
Wikipedia.com too)?

Bye,

A.f.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright forking

body:
 Hi all,

 I have just wandered trough some text of mine in order to detect
what probably could be postetd into the wikipedia project.
Some text might be of interest to other people.
It belongs to a work which I began and gave up for some other reason but I
am not not sure if I will continue on that later on.

Question: Is there a way to spend excerpts from it to GNU and at the same
time hold open a way to use the original text in classic copyrighted sense.
Larry, do you still have a version (or the original version) of Larrys Text
with your own copyright, so that if you ever depart from the project could
publish as a book without interfering GNU rights?
This might be of interest to other text spenders.

mit freundlichen Gruessen
Stefan

StefanRybo in Wikipedia
apologies for any language errors (please correct)


subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Linus and Stefan work alone. This is not right!

body:
> Stefan isn't working alone entirely, but de.wikipedia seems to be
> forgetting
> my username. Is this a known problem (happened some months ago on
> Wikipedia.com too)?
>
Ich hatte das auch am Anfang.... nachdem ich mehrmals meine Daten in
Preferences eingegeben habe klappte es dann.

mit freundlichen Gruessen
Stefan

StefanRybo in Wikipedia
apologies for any language errors (please correct)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright forking

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from_name: Clifford Adams

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit locks

body:
> We've been having edit lock problems this afternoon:
> ...

    Just as a reminder--all users can do the "unlock" action to clear out bad
edit locks.  For instance, on the main wikipedia, just visit:

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=unlock

    Any user can do this (not just admins).  Eventually a future wiki release
should automatically remove stuck locks.

            --Cliff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit locks

body:
We've been having edit lock problems this afternoon:

Software error:
Could not get editing lock at /home/wiki/work-http/wiki.cgi line 3044.
For help, please send mail to the webmaster (jwales at bomis.com), giving this
error message and the time and date of the error.

--Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright forking

in_reply_to: <009c01c0f1a9$2a5a4560$c6c20ed9@laptop>; from lsanger@nupedia.com on Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 05:30:37PM +0500

body:
Larry Sanger wrote:
> Since I've posted the original text (which has since been modified) on
> Wikipedia, I no longer own the rights to the text.  It is now released under
> the GNU FDL.

As a technical point, it is very much possible to both "own the rights"
*and* release something under the GNU FDL.

Many authors of software, for example, donate their copyright to the
Free Software Foundation.  The GNU license is (presumably) as legally
enforceable as Microsoft's license.

To license something, under more or less restrictive terms, is not the
same as to give up ownership.

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright forking

body:
> Larry, do you still have a version (or the original version) of Larrys
Text
> with your own copyright, so that if you ever depart from the project could
> publish as a book without interfering GNU rights?
> This might be of interest to other text spenders.

Hi Stefan,

Since I've posted the original text (which has since been modified) on
Wikipedia, I no longer own the rights to the text.  It is now released under
the GNU FDL.  Personally, I don't care much about what anyone does with it,
though I would be a bit miffed if someone started making a bunch of money
from it.  I'd be mad at myself, though, not at the profiteer.  :-)

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit locks

in_reply_to: <002e01c0f1d5$139da340$10da82d1@oemcomputer>; from caadams@frontiernet.net on Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 01:45:00PM -0400

body:
I propose that we add a quick fix...

If the lock is older than 5 minutes, then we can display a link to
action=unlock so that the user can click on it.

If the lock is younger than 5 minutes, we should probably leave it
there because there might be a good reason for it.

Does that sound sensible enough, Cliff?

Clifford Adams wrote:

> > We've been having edit lock problems this afternoon:
> > ...
>
>     Just as a reminder--all users can do the "unlock" action to clear out bad
> edit locks.  For instance, on the main wikipedia, just visit:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=unlock
>
>     Any user can do this (not just admins).  Eventually a future wiki release
> should automatically remove stuck locks.
>
>             --Cliff
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Webmail headers?

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Move to a database ?

body:
Hello all,

I wonder if at some point in future a move to a database concept wouldn't
be necessary ?
It might also improve some operations like searching. I know I know now it
is suprisingly fast but with 100,000 entries ?

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Cud nad cudami - niegadatliwa mi?dzy
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | niewiastami. Przys?owie polskie
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Navigation system, architecture

body:
Hello all,

I'd like to hear your opinion about some kind of navigation system of
wikipedia.
It is also linked with the architecture of Wikipedia.
Are we making the future 100,000 pages totally flat ?
One level of subpages is surely not enough but this is a usemod technology
stumbling block, not so easily overcome.
What hypertext is all about is linking to other parts of information pool
but without a navigation system (and search system) we are going round in
circles.

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Wolno?ci nie mo?na symulowa?. Stanis?aw Jerzy
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Lec
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Controversial thoughts

body:
Hello all,

I might sound totally blasphemous so be patient.
Wikipedia and wiki concept is really great but the WWW is a global
Wikipedia without the end-user editing facility.
Aren't we in a cul-de-sac ?
WWW is full of brilliant pages and sites entangled in a sea of rubbish.
I doubt that we can outdo most sites, commercial or personal. Wouldn't it
be better to do a critical review of the whole web with some additions of
our own ?

Another point worth discussing is the role of a wikipedian.
In my opinion he/she is a 21st century counterpart of an 18th encyclopedist.
A knowledgeable, open-minded, rational, impartial person (not a scientist)
whose mission is to gather knowledge. Wikipedia should be a global
knowledge base rather than a collection of personal essays on subject one
can find in a normal encyclopedia.

Editorial board.
Are we for a democracy or freedom/anarchy ?
At some point when Wikipedia reaches a critical mass there should be some
democratic Editorial Board. It could even freeze some pages for some time.
If you say no to the Editorial Board some democratic rules should be set in
stone.

End point.
Can someone please tell me what's the end point/goal of Wikipedia ?
Don't tell there no end-point and this is eternal task ;-)

RDF
Wikipedia - patchy with some articles for students, some for laymen and
some for university professors ?
Or branch out into Kid's Wikipedia, Regular Wikipedia, Highbrow Wikipedia.

I am really enthusiastic about Wikipedia - I contribute regularly and am
determined to to so in future. These are just my thoughts.
Please bear in mind I have _no_ intention to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty,
doubt) about Wikipedia's functioning and goals.
I hope Wikipedia will flourish.

Best regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Wszystko jest w rekach czlowieka. Dlatego
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | nalezy je czesto myc. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
Wiecej cytatow : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Tempating scripts

body:
Hello all,

Is there a need for tempating CGI scripts ?
A form with fields that must be completed and and textarea field with the
rest of the article.

Title
keywords
author
web links
related subjects
etc..

this might be an option like this
http://www2.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=edit&id=Porcupine&form=yes

When will we see spell-checking script that would highlight or list
suspected words ?

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Rzuci? palenie ? To ?atwe. Robi?em to ze sto
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | razy. Mark Twain
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Templating scripts

body:
Hello all,

Is there a need for tempating CGI scripts ?
A form with fields that must be completed and and textarea field with the
rest of the article.

Title
keywords
author
web links
related subjects
etc..

this might be an option like this
http://www2.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=edit&id=Porcupine&form=yes

When will we see spell-checking script that would highlight or list
suspected words ?

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | I brak precedensu jest precedensem. Stanis?aw
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Jerzy Lec
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


body:
Hello all,

I'd like to hear your opinion about some kind of navigation system of
wikipedia.
It is also linked with the architecture of Wikipedia.
Are we making the future 100,000 pages totally flat ?
One level of subpages is surely not enough but this is a usemod technology
stumbling block, not so easily overcome.
What hypertext is all about is linking to other parts of information pool
but without a navigation system (and search system) we are going round in
circles.

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Im s?absze cia?o, tym silniej nami rz?dzi. Jean
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Jaques Rousseau
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


body:
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
> Are we making the future 100,000 pages totally flat ?
> One level of subpages is surely not enough but this is a usemod technology
> stumbling block, not so easily overcome.

Well, adding more layers wouldn't be that difficult, technologically speaking.

But I'm not sure that they would be a good idea.  "Accidental linking" is important.
Having page names like "Humanities/Philosophy/Existentialism/Sartre" might have some
appeal, but they would cut down on the ease of use for new authors, which is very
important.

> What hypertext is all about is linking to other parts of information pool
> but without a navigation system (and search system) we are going round in
> circles.

Circles aren't bad, are they?

I do agree that the search engine is going to have to be improved substantially,
and soon.  It's getting slower and slower, and the results aren't ranked in any
particularly clever way.

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Controversial thoughts

body:
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
> Are we for a democracy or freedom/anarchy ?
> At some point when Wikipedia reaches a critical mass there should be some
> democratic Editorial Board. It could even freeze some pages for some time.
> If you say no to the Editorial Board some democratic rules should be set in
> stone.

While I'm a much bigger fan of freedom and anarchy, I'm also in favor of Wikipedia
being run for the benefit of the community of authors, which means that we should
work in a friendly way to reach a consensus about where we want to go and how we
want to control the community in the long run.

Probably _the_ most astounding fact about Wikipedia is that it is so
good without any formal rules or restrictions at all.  There are
social customs and social pressures that do a really good job of
keeping things in line.

But someday, we will have to move beyond that.  As the site gets more popular,
it will attract vandals, and so we'll need to lock down the front page, or somehow
*gently* raise the barriers to entry... but we'll want to be very cautious to not
upset the "wiki magic".

> End point.
> Can someone please tell me what's the end point/goal of Wikipedia ?
> Don't tell there no end-point and this is eternal task ;-)

One answer -- and maybe not a very satisfactory one -- is that the
goal of Wikipedia is fun for the contributors.  If something cool
emerges out of our playing with knowledge, all the better.  But if it
isn't fun for the contributors, it will die.

This (along with the free license) that guarantees that I'll continue to
be a "benevolent" monarch to the project.  If I decided unilaterally to make
some changes that upset the contributors, that'd pretty much kill the growth
of the project.  My goal is to prevent fragmentation or "forking" by working
hard to keep as many people happy as I can.

> RDF
> Wikipedia - patchy with some articles for students, some for laymen and
> some for university professors ?
> Or branch out into Kid's Wikipedia, Regular Wikipedia, Highbrow Wikipedia.

I think these are great ideas.

> I am really enthusiastic about Wikipedia - I contribute regularly and am
> determined to to so in future. These are just my thoughts.
> Please bear in mind I have _no_ intention to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty,
> doubt) about Wikipedia's functioning and goals.
> I hope Wikipedia will flourish.

I like your ideas.

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Missed searches ?

body:
Hello Wikipedians,

Do we have a list of all missed searches ordered by number top-down
somewhere ?
If not - there should be one. In this way we could see what the users
need.

BTW What do you think about user's perpective of Wikipedia ?
Now we look at it as authors. Do we have users comments ? Do we need polls
about Wikipedia development (for authors) and Wikipedia quality (for users)
?

Bye,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Dzi?ki szata?skiej pysze jednych nie s?ucham,
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | drugich nie s?ysz?. Jan Sztaudynger
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How to help the international Wikipedias along

body:
Here's an idea that I will conclude (at the end of the post) isn't such a
good idea.  But it's worth thinking about.

As an extra line of links at the bottom of *every* page on *every*
Wikipedia, have this:

Read and edit an article on this topic in:
English -- Castellano -- Deutsch -- Francais -- German -- [etc.; the various
languages we have]

One simpleminded suggestion would have it that at the bottom of
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Foo , these links would be to, for example,
http://es.wikipedia.com/wiki/Foo and http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki/Foo , etc.

The problem of course is that "Foo" is not a word in Spanish.  :-)  Or if it
is, it probably means "rutabaga" or is very rude.  It requires very
specialized knowledge, which cannot be automated, to know where those links
should point.

So *can* we interlink similar pages between the various international
Wikipedias, in order to foster cross-pollination?  If so, how?  Well, I have
an idea that requires *minimal* programmer involvement (always a plus for
overworked programmers!).

Describe the new page here.

[Castellano] -- [Catalan] -- [Deutsch] -- [English] --
[Esperanto] -- [Fran?ais] -- [Hanyu] -- [Italiano] -- [Ivrit] --
[Nihongo] -- [Portugu?s] -- [Russkiy] -- [Svensk]

Note, the names are given in their own languages, so the text can be used
with all new language wikis; we'd could use this same text for all the
wikis.

What I'd like to have is some commented-out instructions right before the
list of languages (and *that* would have to be translated) but I'm not sure
there is any way to write comments in wiki-markup!  But, anyway, we'd have
something like this:

Even if this comment notice can be added, the one big problem with this sche
me is that people just won't go to the trouble of putting in all the links.
In fact, that's probably the case--enough that perhaps we shouldn't go to
the trouble of doing this.

But maybe I'm not thinking of something here...maybe what's needed is a new
text box with special bells and whistles, but that's not going to happen
anytime soon, I'm sure.

Anyway, so my conclusion is that we shouldn't do anything along these lines
yet (unless someone can think up something brilliant), but eventually, we
might...

Well, one idea is just to make links on the [[Foo]] page point to a
corresponding [[Foo]] page on the other wikis; then, on those other wikis,
redirect [[Foo]] to the correct word in the other language.  In THAT case,
we should change the commented-out notice above.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Replies

body:
Replying to Krzysztof's posts, which raise some interesting points.

From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at promail.pl>
> A form with fields that must be completed and and textarea field with the
> rest of the article.

This is how Nupedia works, by the way.

As long as we chose the fields very, very carefully, I think they might be
useful.  Right now, they don't seem absolutely necessary for the system to
work, but there might be advantages to at least some "hard-wired" forms.

Don't forget making the "talk" page automatic (and uncounted!) for all
pages.  I think that's a very groovy idea.

> When will we see spell-checking script that would highlight or list
> suspected words ?

Please see [[feature requests]], where this issue was raised.

> I'd like to hear your opinion about some kind of navigation system of
> wikipedia.
> It is also linked with the architecture of Wikipedia.
> Are we making the future 100,000 pages totally flat ?
> One level of subpages is surely not enough but this is a usemod technology
> stumbling block, not so easily overcome.
> What hypertext is all about is linking to other parts of information pool
> but without a navigation system (and search system) we are going round in
> circles.

This (and Jimbo's reply) inspired a column on Wikipedia, which I hope you
will read:

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Larry_Sanger/Columns

> WWW is full of brilliant pages and sites entangled in a sea of rubbish.
> I doubt that we can outdo most sites, commercial or personal. Wouldn't it
> be better to do a critical review of the whole web with some additions of
> our own ?

Well, that's not what we're doing...you are simply describing a different
project, not the one we all signed up for.

> At some point when Wikipedia reaches a critical mass there should be some
> democratic Editorial Board. It could even freeze some pages for some time.
> If you say no to the Editorial Board some democratic rules should be set
in
> stone.

I don't know what a Wikipedia editorial board would *do*, exactly, and I
agree with Jimbo that it's important not to upset the wiki "magic."

I'm suspecting that you might be happier devoting your energies to Nupedia,
since Nupedia has implemented some of your suggestions (like this one)--and
it *might* add a wiki article editing system too!

> Can someone please tell me what's the end point/goal of Wikipedia ?
> Don't tell there no end-point and this is eternal task ;-)

To organize, summarize, and eventually fully exposit the sum total of human
knowledge about everything, following roughly the same standards that are
followed in any high-quality encyclopedia.  That's the *goal* (as I see it),
but most contributors don't care about the goal, or whatever the goal might
be, I imagine.

Wikipedia is a wiki as well as an encyclopedia.  It is precisely what its
contributors make of it.  You can't control it--you can try to influence it
(and I unashamedly do), you can argue strenuously, but you can't say, "This
is how it will be," because as soon as you do that, the nature of the
project changes entirely.  It seems that a lot of your objections are along
the lines of, "Wikipedia is disorganized.  This is alarming!  We should
organize it and direct it!"  But consider this--perhaps one main reason why
Wikipedia works so well is *that* it is disorganized.  People *know* that
they can come in and contribute, and they're welcomed to do so with open
arms.  That's a main reason why they do come in and contribute.  As soon as
you change that, you propose to change the essence of Wikipedia--and from
the sounds of it, you are trying to push it in the direction of Nupedia.  If
that's correct, then, I recommend that you spend more time on Nupedia (I'll
see you there, too!).

> RDF
> Wikipedia - patchy with some articles for students, some for laymen and
> some for university professors ?
> Or branch out into Kid's Wikipedia, Regular Wikipedia, Highbrow Wikipedia.

This isn't a bad idea, actually.  The easiest way to make a Children's
Wikipedia would be to adapt fully-mature Wikipedia articles.

Jimbo, one thing we could do is to create http://kids.wikipedia.com , and
display an "Edit the children's version of this page!" link somewhere, which
would simply point from http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Foo to
http://kids.wikipedia.com/Foo .

We could do this right now, and I'll bet it would take all of a half-hour.

Something like this might, or might not, be a good idea for the
international Wikipedias, by the way.  I'll explain on a separate page.

> I am really enthusiastic about Wikipedia - I contribute regularly and am
> determined to to so in future. These are just my thoughts.

That's good enough for me!

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Controversial thoughts

body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Controversial thoughts

in_reply_to: <200106142213.PAA01631@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Thu, Jun 14, 2001 at 03:13:32PM -0700

body:
>> What do you think about web democracy in the form of online
> polls ?

LDC wrote:
> Ick.  And double ick.

I agree completely.

I think that the best thing to do for wikipedia is "rough consensus and running code".
We can add some features (I especially like the idea of templates for certain standard
'types' of pages) when we all pretty much agree that it's a good idea, but we also
shouldn't force anything (much) on anyone.

If and when we have problems with vandals (and I predict that someday, we will), then
we'll have to find solutions that satisfy the people who really matter, that is, we'll
have to find a "rough consensus" among the authors.  Some will lean towards anarchy,
others will lean toward control, and we'll try to stumble through some middle path
that attempts to preserve the best of both.

Is that vague?  Yes, but I think it will work.

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright forking

body:
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]Im Auftrag von
> lcrocker at nupedia.com
> Gesendet am: Sonntag, 10. Juni 2001 14:13
> An: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Betreff: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright forking
>
>
> Stefan,
>
> No copyright license ever restricts the rights of the original
> author; ...

Thank you (and others) for this very precise statement.
Let me recall it in my own words.

The question of copyrights is not related to a specific piece of work alone.
Instead every publication is packaged with a new set of rights in a license.
So from the view of an author one has to take care that in every publication
of some documents one has to be sure what rights to give to this package.


subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] How to help the international Wikipedias along

body:
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]Im Auftrag von Larry Sanger
> Gesendet am: Donnerstag, 14. Juni 2001 11:08
> An: Wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Betreff: [Wikipedia-l] How to help the international Wikipedias along
> ..
> As an extra line of links at the bottom of *every* page on *every*
> Wikipedia, have this:
>
> Read and edit an article on this topic in:
> English -- Castellano -- Deutsch -- Francais -- German -- [etc.;
> the various
> languages we have]
The idea to make articles of other languages usable to one's own language is
a very good idea. How to do this? You mentioned the problem of
misinterpreted words according to the different meaning they might have in a
different language and other things.
I found that I switch very often to the international pages just to read new
content. I wanted to have this at the same time as I browse through the
German version.

(1) ?? All mixing into one version
Problems:
-Users cannot read the other language
-Users misinterpret other content as to be corrected content and change it
(in their own language)
-Users feel uncomfortable with ever switching
=> Mixing without users affirmation on this is a bad idea
=> already cancelled. The separation we have is good working.

(2) ?? Some kind of linking (as you proposed)
Problems:
-Authors dont take the right linking
 WELL, that is a problem that is general to every item crosslang or not
-Users dont understand that linking like in (1)

(3) ?? Some kind of automated linking
Problems:
-What kind of institution will organize it (queued to the international
court of translation yesterday)?
-That is not in the spirit of wikipedia..

Proposal from me:

(Calm down Larry.)
Make a dictionary entry according to every item in wikipedia
if an author likes to have one (!) on a subpage
called WB (W?rterbuch in German, 'word book' (dictionary), 'wiki bridge' for
Larry) which contains dictionary descriptions (spelling,sound,wordtype..)
AND which contains translations of this word.
The translations are (or can be) linked to the international
version of wikipedia.
The only problem arises that in case of switching -which should be indicated
by appropriate means (flag, title)- the user has to know that he is in a
different language version.
But he or she should notify it because
* the layout words is different.
* he or she has chosen the translated word
One should have then (and this is the only automation there is, I think) a
BACK TO ONE'S OWN LANGUAGE (written in started language).

Example:

 I read an article about 'car'. In German 'Auto'.

  Since German wikipedia is always behind, the author
of 'Auto' has inspected article 'car' in int. Version.
He writes a subpage (he should write anyway) [Auto/WB].
Auto/WB contains dictionary info about the *word* 'Auto'.
..........
'Auto'
wordtyp: Substantiv,
Singular: Auto, Plural: Autos
Synonym(e): Automobil, Kraftfahrzeug, PKW
..
Translation
  English: [[car]]
  Svensk:
  ..
.........

Now the procedure might go like this:
Instead one writes:
Translation
  English: [[english:car]]

I might then switch to international entry 'Car' which tells me something
about Model T and alike.
On top I read: 'ZUR?CK IN DIE DEUTSCHE VERSION'.
After reading 'car' I switch back by click on it and get 'Auto/WB'  again.

This would give a universal mechanism to relate to other sections or
versions (like childens encyclopedia) and it would make sense in proposal I
outlined above. Just to make the content of others useful.
Having at the same time the reader made conscious about switching to another
area.

Consense has to be made there about coding language sections. We could use
the international language codes for that. So tcrosslang refs would be:
[[us:car]] [[de:auto]] [[sv:??]]

Programmers have then to prepare a mechanism that stores the LAST PAGE in
one's home language (if any) to make the 'BACK TO INITIAL  VERSION' (?)
Button work. [If user changes to a different section, source section
prepares the message given to the destination section printed on top.]

Would do you think?

mit freundlichen Gruessen
Stefan

StefanRybo in Wikipedia
apologies for any language errors (please correct)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Controversial thoughts

body:
On 13-06-2001, Jimmy Wales wrote thusly :

Thank you for your voice in the discussion, Jim. I think we should talk more
about Wikipedia structure and functioning. I have a funny feeling that we
might be overwhelmed by the project's magnitude some time in the future.
> Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
> > Are we for a democracy or freedom/anarchy ?
> > At some point when Wikipedia reaches a critical mass there should be some
> > democratic Editorial Board. It could even freeze some pages for some time.
> > If you say no to the Editorial Board some democratic rules should be set in
> > stone.
> While I'm a much bigger fan of freedom and anarchy, I'm also in favor of Wikipedia
> being run for the benefit of the community of authors, which means that we should
> work in a friendly way to reach a consensus about where we want to go and how we
> want to control the community in the long run.
>
> Probably _the_ most astounding fact about Wikipedia is that it is so
> good without any formal rules or restrictions at all.  There are
> social customs and social pressures that do a really good job of
> keeping things in line.
This is a second wonderful thing about Wikipedia, next to "wiki magic".

> But someday, we will have to move beyond that.  As the site gets more popular,
> it will attract vandals, and so we'll need to lock down the front page, or somehow
> *gently* raise the barriers to entry... but we'll want to be very cautious to not
> upset the "wiki magic".

For the time being all pitfalls of large collaborative projects have been
bypassed. What do you think about web democracy in the form of online
polls ?

> > End point.
> > Can someone please tell me what's the end point/goal of Wikipedia ?
> > Don't tell there no end-point and this is eternal task ;-)
> One answer -- and maybe not a very satisfactory one -- is that the
> goal of Wikipedia is fun for the contributors.  If something cool
> emerges out of our playing with knowledge, all the better.  But if it
> isn't fun for the contributors, it will die.
Are you saying Wikipedia is a toy thing and Nupedia the real one ???
>
> This (along with the free license) that guarantees that I'll continue to
> be a "benevolent" monarch to the project.  If I decided unilaterally to make
> some changes that upset the contributors, that'd pretty much kill the growth
> of the project.  My goal is to prevent fragmentation or "forking" by working
> hard to keep as many people happy as I can.

> > RDF
> > Wikipedia - patchy with some articles for students, some for laymen and
> > some for university professors ?
> > Or branch out into Kid's Wikipedia, Regular Wikipedia, Highbrow Wikipedia.
> I think these are great ideas.
Larry Sanger addressed this in a separate thread and it is beginning to
take shape.
Target audience - should be redirected :
Kid's Wikipedia
Wikipedia - normal people ;)
Nupedia - Highbrow Wikipedia (BTW what kind of relation is there between Nupedia and Wikiepdia ? Is Nupedia going to take over content of Wikiepdia
and put under editorial scrutiny ? )

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Rada graniczy z nagan?. Aleksander Fredro
Czestochowa, Poland ...       |
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Other scripts ?

body:
Hello all,

A short question.
Are there any other CGI scripts apart from wiki.cgi on Wikipedia ?
Do you think there should be ?
It might be useful to fish in the growing pond of information.

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Si?gaj po laur, ale nie z cudzej g?owy.
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Stanis?aw Jerzy Lec
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


body:
Stefan, I think the problem with your suggestion is that automated
translation is a very inexact science at best (I have this direct from a
linguist friend who does it for a living), and there would have to be a huge
amount of user input/editing to make sure the links were correct.

Here's an idea.  Instead of trying to link directly to the article in the
other language, just link to a (to-be-created) *search page* on the other
wiki.  So we'd simply be creating new links below or above each article,
like this:

    Search for a different-language version of this article:
    [[Deutsch]] -- [[Francais]] -- [etc.]

and then we'd also have to create the search pages (which is mainly just a
matter of copying code, I guess).  We'd also have to translate the
above-indented text into the other languages...

Here's yet another idea: don't do anything right now, but when the wikis are
all built up as they should be within a few years, go in and *add* (by hand,
or partially automated) links to the other-language versions of all pages.
That would be a huge amount of work, but it's probably the only practical
way to achieve a direct-link scheme.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Missed searches ?

body:
From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at ceti.pl>
> Do we have a list of all missed searches ordered by number top-down
> somewhere ?
> If not - there should be one. In this way we could see what the users
> need.

Good idea--please add it to [[feature requests]]!

> BTW What do you think about user's perpective of Wikipedia ?
> Now we look at it as authors. Do we have users comments ? Do we need polls
> about Wikipedia development (for authors) and Wikipedia quality (for
users)
> ?

My first reaction is: I would not draw a distinction between users and
authors on Wikipedia, or that is the ideal.  The /Talk pages are for
comments, by everyone...that's how they're used, in fact.

But eventually, we are going to have a lot of readers, and many more readers
than writers.  So then it would be important to think about the reader's
experience.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] To redirect or not ?

body:
Hello all,

What do you think ?
I am in a dilemma :

We have 'Vitamin C' and 'Ascorbic acid' that are exactly the same thing
so is it better :

1. to create entry for 'Ascorbic acid' and redirect 'Vitamin
C' entry to the page
2. to create entries for both 'Ascorbic acid' and 'Vitamin C' and from the
'Vitamin C' page, which is just a note, link to 'Ascorbic acid'
3. the other way round

It is open for debate what should be the fundamental entry -
'Ascorbic acid' is the chemical name but most people recognize the name
of 'Vitamin C'. So...

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Lekarz leczy chorob?, a zabija pacjenta.
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Francis Bacon
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] To redirect or not ?

body:
Not knowing much about this stuff, I don't know if one could say a
significant amount about Vitamin C-qua-Vitamin C that would not be covered
in an ascorbic acid article.  *However*, in this case, I wouldn't use
redirects at all, and here is why: when you use a redirect for anything not
totally trivial (e.g., misspellings), you miss the opportunity to explain
then and there for the reader what the relationship between A and B, when
you want to redirect to A to B.  So, I'm guessing most of the relevant
information should go under "ascorbic acid," but at Vitamin C we should have
at least a line that says "''Vitamin C'' is the common name for [[ascorbic
acid]], q.v."  I (at the risk of irritating Jimbo) use "q.v." because this
expresses to the reader the author's intention that this isn't *all* we want
you to know about Vitamin C (I mean, it doesn't help much just to be told
that it's also called "ascorbic acid")--we really do want you to follow the
link, so "quod vide."

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at promail.pl>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2001 4:39 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] To redirect or not ?

>
> Hello all,
>
> What do you think ?
> I am in a dilemma :
>
> We have 'Vitamin C' and 'Ascorbic acid' that are exactly the same thing
> so is it better :
>
> 1. to create entry for 'Ascorbic acid' and redirect 'Vitamin
> C' entry to the page
> 2. to create entries for both 'Ascorbic acid' and 'Vitamin C' and from the
> 'Vitamin C' page, which is just a note, link to 'Ascorbic acid'
> 3. the other way round
>
> It is open for debate what should be the fundamental entry -
> 'Ascorbic acid' is the chemical name but most people recognize the name
> of 'Vitamin C'. So...
>
> Regards,
> kpj.
> --
> Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Lekarz leczy chorob?, a zabija pacjenta.
> Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Francis Bacon
> Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Sunfall to-Ennien

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bizarre "bug"?

body:
--- Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> wrote:
> On http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Civil_engineering
> there are two phrases that are properly wikified:
>
>   [[environmental engineering]]
>   [[applied mathematicians]]
>
> But both phrases appear with double brackets *displayed* and without a
> clickable question mark.  What's even more bizarre to me is that the above
> phrases appear alongside other such phrases that are structurally identical,
> and those other phrases *are* shown with clickable question marks!  For
> example, this
>
>         Other parts of civil engineering include [[transportation
>         engineering]], [[environmental engineering]], and [[construction
>         management]].
>
> is displayed like this:
>
>         Other parts of civil engineering include [transportation
>         engineering]?, [[environmental engineering]], and [construction
>         management]?.
>
> Help?

You probably already got this response, but looking at the source, it seems to have line breaks in
between each of the words in those tags.  I just deleted the pagebreaks and saved the edit, and
they look proper now.

Phil the ever-lurking

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Spot the hottest trends in music, movies, and more.
http://buzz.yahoo.com/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bizarre "bug"?

body:
On http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Civil_engineering
there are two phrases that are properly wikified:

  [[environmental engineering]]
  [[applied mathematicians]]

But both phrases appear with double brackets *displayed* and without a
clickable question mark.  What's even more bizarre to me is that the above
phrases appear alongside other such phrases that are structurally identical,
and those other phrases *are* shown with clickable question marks!  For
example, this

        Other parts of civil engineering include [[transportation
        engineering]], [[environmental engineering]], and [[construction
        management]].

is displayed like this:

        Other parts of civil engineering include [transportation
        engineering]?, [[environmental engineering]], and [construction
        management]?.

Help?

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bizarre (non) "bug"?

body:
You're right, of course!  Sorry for even suggesting that it was a bug in
Cliff's very, very fine code!

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sunfall to-Ennien" <pwcast at yahoo.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 10:23 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Bizarre "bug"?

>
> --- Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> wrote:
> > On http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Civil_engineering
> > there are two phrases that are properly wikified:
> >
> >   [[environmental engineering]]
> >   [[applied mathematicians]]
> >
> > But both phrases appear with double brackets *displayed* and without a
> > clickable question mark.  What's even more bizarre to me is that the
above
> > phrases appear alongside other such phrases that are structurally
identical,
> > and those other phrases *are* shown with clickable question marks!  For
> > example, this
> >
> >         Other parts of civil engineering include [[transportation
> >         engineering]], [[environmental engineering]], and [[construction
> >         management]].
> >
> > is displayed like this:
> >
> >         Other parts of civil engineering include [transportation
> >         engineering]?, [[environmental engineering]], and [construction
> >         management]?.
> >
> > Help?
>
> You probably already got this response, but looking at the source, it
seems to have line breaks in
> between each of the words in those tags.  I just deleted the pagebreaks
and saved the edit, and
> they look proper now.
>
> Phil the ever-lurking
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Spot the hottest trends in music, movies, and more.
> http://buzz.yahoo.com/
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server Bug?

body:
 Hi All,

 whats going on on the wikipedia Site ????

 I cannot go to any page anymore except for the Homepage of the Int.WP.

 When I analyzed it it is the case that all pages
 which show up as (or called by)a path e.g. www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Item are
not available.
 All pages which are somehow called by www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Item
  ARE avaliable.
 I've tested that the other way round on one German page too.
 Server rights changed?

  Gruesse
  StefanRybo

mit freundlichen Gruessen
Stefan

StefanRybo in Wikipedia
apologies for any language errors (please correct)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violation warning

body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] License question

body:
Re http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?25_Etudes_op.60

I have a few questions:
# What is the nature of http://musicaliberata.org/ 's license?
# Did MarkVdB get permission from musicaliberata.org to get the images of
the music from their server from our server?
# Shouldn't we set up some protocol on Wikipedia whereby this constantly
recurring issue can be systematically resolved?

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server Bug?

in_reply_to: <000001c0f862$eda87ea0$5f48fea9@millenium>; from rybox@wtal.de on Tue, Jun 19, 2001 at 03:55:34AM +0200

body:
Very interesting.  THis must be fixed immediately.

Rybo wrote:

>
>  Hi All,
>
>  whats going on on the wikipedia Site ????
>
>  I cannot go to any page anymore except for the Homepage of the Int.WP.
>
>  When I analyzed it it is the case that all pages
>  which show up as (or called by)a path e.g. www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Item are
> not available.
>  All pages which are somehow called by www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Item
>   ARE avaliable.
>  I've tested that the other way round on one German page too.
>  Server rights changed?
>
>   Gruesse
>   StefanRybo
>
> mit freundlichen Gruessen
> Stefan
>
> StefanRybo in Wikipedia
> apologies for any language errors (please correct)
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server Bug?

body:
The weird thing is that this works fine for me.

Rybo wrote:

>
>  Hi All,
>
>  whats going on on the wikipedia Site ????
>
>  I cannot go to any page anymore except for the Homepage of the Int.WP.
>
>  When I analyzed it it is the case that all pages
>  which show up as (or called by)a path e.g. www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Item are
> not available.
>  All pages which are somehow called by www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Item
>   ARE avaliable.
>  I've tested that the other way round on one German page too.
>  Server rights changed?
>
>   Gruesse
>   StefanRybo
>
> mit freundlichen Gruessen
> Stefan
>
> StefanRybo in Wikipedia
> apologies for any language errors (please correct)
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


body:
Dear translators,

We would like to solicit your help, hoping that some of you might be
interested.

On our "International Wikipedia" wikis, we have not yet translated the
copyright warning into the target languages.  This is very important,
because we want to do what we can to prevent people from uploading
copyrighted content.  This could be damaging to Bomis legally and therefore
to both Nupedia and Wikipedia.

Here is the text of the warning:

Please notice that all contributions to Wikipedia are considered to be
released under the GNU Free Documentation License.  If you don't want your
writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't hit
submit.  You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied
it from a public domain resource.  DO NOT USE COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT
PERMISSION!

Here are the languages we need this in:
http://ca.wikipedia.com/ Catalan (Catalan)
http://zh.wikipedia.com/ Chinese (Hanyu)
http://de.wikipedia.com/ German (Deutsch)
http://eo.wikipedia.com/ Esperanto
http://fr.wikipedia.com/ French (Fran?ais)
http://he.wikipedia.com/ Hebrew (Ivrit)
http://it.wikipedia.com/ Italian (Italiano)
http://ja.wikipedia.com/ Japanese (Nihongo)
http://pt.wikipedia.com/ Portuguese (Portugu?s)
http://ru.wikipedia.com/ Russian (Russkiy)
http://es.wikipedia.com/ Spanish (Castellano)
http://sv.wikipedia.com/ Swedish (Svensk)]

Please, send translations of this very important text to jasonr at bomis.com.
Thanks!

Thanks and best regards,
Larry Sanger


subject: [Wikipedia-l] License question

body:
Generally speaking, it is poor etiquette to "hotlink" images.  It may also be illegal
if the hotlinked images are copyrighted and not under an open license.

This is the license for musicaliberata:
http://musicaliberata.org/oal/

I haven't read it in great detail, but it does seem to be open enough.  (However
there are attribution requirements that it may be hard to meet and maintain in a
public wiki.  But we can do it.)

Separately, though, we probably shouldn't "hot link" their images unless they say
somewhere that they don't mind it.  The reason is that the images are pulled from
their server, costing them money for bandwidth.  They shouldn't have to pay for
the bandwidth of wikipedia, Bomis should.

Larry Sanger wrote:

> Re http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?25_Etudes_op.60
>
> I have a few questions:
> # What is the nature of http://musicaliberata.org/ 's license?
> # Did MarkVdB get permission from musicaliberata.org to get the images of
> the music from their server from our server?
> # Shouldn't we set up some protocol on Wikipedia whereby this constantly
> recurring issue can be systematically resolved?
>
> Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


from_name: Larry Olin Horn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] image hotlinks

body:
This is related to images....

I have an ancient copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (book doesn't even
have a date or copyright page).

The text itself is available from Project Gutenberg.  The illustrations (75
b/w images, about 1MB total, for the "First Edition" of the RoOK) I've
scanned in for my own use. I'd be glad to transfer both the text and the
images to WP if you don't see any copyright problems with the images.  You
can see what I'm talking about here:

   http://www.lohnet.org/~hornlo/misc/rubaiyat/

(still a draft; I've not proofed all the text markup yet).  I'm working on
the assumption that since the book (text) copyright is out, so too for the
images.  Please let me know if this is suitable for WP.

loh


from_name: Timothy Shell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] image hotlinks

body:
A search on \.jpg reveals 12 instances of hot linking to images.

A search on \.gif shows 25 instances.

Tim


subject: [Wikipedia-l] image hotlinks

body:
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subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violation warning

body:
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]Im Auftrag von Larry Sanger
> Gesendet am: Dienstag, 19. Juni 2001 08:28
> An: Wikipedia-l at nupedia.com; Interpret-L
> Cc: Jason Richey
> Betreff: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violation warning
>
> Dear translators,
>
> Here is the text of the warning:
>
> Please notice that all contributions to Wikipedia are considered to be
> released under the GNU Free Documentation License.  If you don't want your
> writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't hit
> submit.  You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied
> it from a public domain resource.  DO NOT USE COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT
> PERMISSION!
>

"Bitte beachten Sie, dass vorausgesetzt wird, dass alle Beitr?ge zur
Wikipedia unter der GNU Free Documentation License (GNU Freie Dokumentations
Lizenz) ver?ffentlicht werden. Falls Sie nicht w?nschen, dass das von Ihnen
Geschriebene unbarmherzig ge?ndert und nach Belieben weiterverteilt wird,
d?rfen Sie nicht auf Submit oder Save dr?cken. Durch Dr?cken von Submit oder
Save erkl?ren Sie verbindlich, dass Sie den Beitrag eigenh?ndig verfasst
haben oder Ihn aus einer urheberrechtsfreien Quelle kopiert haben. VERWENDEN
SIE NIEMALS COPYRIGHT-GESCH?TZTES MATERIAL OHNE EINWILLIGUNG DER
RECHTEINHABER!"

Some notes:

I propose to change first sentence to
   "Please notice that _Your_ contributions to Wikipedia are considered to
be..
which would be translated to
  "Bitte beachten Sie, dass vorausgesetzt wird, dass Ihre Beitr?ge zur
Wikipedia ..

I translated 'mercilessly' with 'unbarmherzig', which I hope is correct; if
you  want to use such a strong word. On the other hand is it describing what
happens very well.

I added "Save" to "submit" because in de-version there is a button save
only.

'public domain resource' -> 'public domain' is known but not to every one.
It is known however that not all people have a clear understanding of this
law terms. They cannot distinguish between 'public domain', 'freeware' and
alike. The precise German law term as far as I know is 'gemeinfreie  Werke',
e.g. works of a person lived some centuries ago. Although 'gemeinfrei' would
be the right thing I wrote 'urheberrechtsfrei' ('copyrightfree') because I
assume that this is correct on one hand and will be understood at a maximum
number of people.

VERWENDEN SIE NIEMALS COPYRIGHT-GESCH?TZTES MATERIAL is a compromise. Legal
term would be VERWENDEN SIE KEIN URHEBERRECHTLICH GESCH?TZTES MATERIAL, but
COPYRIGHT  is mor common, although a bit misleading since (in Germany) the
status of copyrights does not depend on the existence of a copyright notice
(Urheberrechtsvermerk). But is in most cases easier to detect.

mit freundlichen Gruessen
Stefan

StefanRybo in Wikipedia
apologies for any language errors (please correct)