subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Problems on the Kashmiri Wikipedia

body:
1. I don't have a pet monkey. I only have pet rabbits, who live in a
(fairly large) cage, and a desert tortoise, who lives outside.

2. Regardless, she also asked me what I had to say for myself, and I
told her I didn't do it. She told me it was from the same IP, but I
still said it wasn't me, because, well, it wasn't. Even if she "knows"
it was me, she still could've said something like "He says it wasn't
him, but the IP address matches and blah blah blah..."

> > On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:12:36 +0000, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>An additional problem on this Wikipedia is that Node-ue has been
> >>editing under various sockpuppet accounts, and also anonymously. He
> >>managed to deceitfully gain adminship for two days after creating the
> >>account "User:Akka Akka" which was desysopped after complaints about
> >>his behaviour. He is also editing under the account "User:Bbbbbbbbb"
> >>and being generally abusive to the other user on the wiki.

Just today, I checked the behaviour of these two users, neither of
whom is me, as well as the other registered users on this Wikipedia.

Bbbbbbbbb ("Bs"?) and rk_kaul got into a heated argument regarding
which script should be used, and both of them were fairly abrasive and
hurled insults at each other.

It is very long and very unpleasant to read, but I will summarise it:

An anonymous user posted content in the Devanagari script (used
predominantly by Hindus to write the language), mostly stubs about
countries and US States. Bbbbbbbbb then converted most of this content
to the Roman script. The Roman script is used in a couple of different
varieties by some people in Kashmir to write the language, the main
reasons being: neutrality (whereas Arabic and Devanagari are both
used, for the most part, depending on the religion of the user),
easier to learn (exactly how I am not sure, unless that means for
foreign students who may be more familiar with the Roman alphabet),
more international recognisability, and not using a script tied to
either country (Pakistan or India).

However, Bbbbbbbbb was not using the most widely used variant of Roman
used for Kashmiri, but instead what appears to be the ISO standard for
(language-independent) Romanisation of Devanagari.

The amount of time between his/her individual edits makes it seem
likely that these transliterations were done with a computer.

Bbbbbbbbb gave an additional reason as justification: that he was
writing a program to convert between the different scripts, using the
ISO devanagari romanisation as an interscript (a go-between script
between Arabic and Devanagari), which he expected to have out in two
months, and he hinted that it was some sort of official Wikimedia
project or something.

Another user, rk_kaul (someone told me I am him, too. where will this
stop?), appears to have been the anonymous user who added most of this
content, and is able to read and write all four scripts used to write
Kashmiri, although he noted Devanagari comes most naturally to him. He
was frustrated by Bbbbbbbbb's converting all the content he wrote into
'gibberish', and asked Bbbbbbbbb to stop.

It started out fairly friendly, but when both refused to compromise
(it should be noted however that rk_kaul added a little bit of content
in the Arabic script) things descended into chaos, with quite a few
pages being turned into revert war zones, including the Main Page (at
first rk_kaul wanted it in Devanagari, but later he made a
language-neutral mainpage linking to different mainpages for each
script). Both users used some abusive language, and both accused each
other of not speaking Kashmiri and both accused the other of vandalism
and both threatened to report the other to authorities.

Akka Akka had very few contributions, and he appears to have mostly
been trying to mediate but added no new content in Kashmiri.

Another user called Khaqsar has only 4 edits, but one was user page
vandalism, and another was deleting all the content of the page.

A compromise has been reached where I am not allowed to go to the
Kashmiri Wikipedia for 2 months, and all the people I am accused of
being will be banned which although I believe is unfair is OK since
that doesn't include all the major contributors of content.

Note however that doesn't mean I admit to doing it - compare it to
being falsely accused of robbing a jewelry store, having all the
evidence against you, and then finding that the sentence is only
community service. It makes so little of a difference to me directly
(I cannot register at ks: for two months) that I don't mind taking it.

mark


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual wikipedia

body:
On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:56:51 -0500, Stephen Forrest
<stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've seen essentially two problems as is:
> - links to new translations don't get added everywherewikipedia
> - erroneous cross-language links can persist even after being
> corrected somewhere
>
> Robots can solve the first problem but not the second.  An example of
> the second is 'Germanic languages'.  There are not too many wikipedias
> that have any entry for this topic specifically.  However, someone had
> linked a number of them to the equivalent for 'German language' in
> other wikipedias, probably not realizing the difference.
>
> I don't see how a robot could solve this problem without semantic
> knowledge of the equivalents of 'Germanic language' in various
> languages.

As a bot writer and operator, I can say that bots _could_ help in
finding this kind of cases. We might go work more on it (the bot
notices it if it can get to two pages on the same language - in this
case "Germanic languages" and "German language"). There's quite a
number of such problems; a common cause is that when a page turns into
a disambiguation page on some Wikipedia, the interwiki links to it are
usually not changed.

Andre Engels


list: wikien-l

from_name: J.F. de Wolff

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

body:
Rebbecca, you forgot the vanity disease or vanity medical sign! See the Vfd
of [[White's sign]] and [[White's butterfly sign]].

User:Jfdwolff


from_name: Mattis Manzel

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual wikipedia

body:
NSK schrieb:

>On Wednesday 03 November 2004 19:08, Mattis Manzel wrote:
>
>
>>Hopefully this wouldn't require a fork of Mediawiki.
>>
>>
>
>I am working (a bit slowly, but still working) on a redistribution of
>mediawiki1.3.7 with some new features. If you are interested you can join me
>and add the features you want.
>
>
>
hi NSK,

 where?

mattis


from_name: NSK

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual wikipedia

body:
On Wednesday 03 November 2004 19:08, Mattis Manzel wrote:
> Hopefully this wouldn't require a fork of Mediawiki.

I am working (a bit slowly, but still working) on a redistribution of
mediawiki1.3.7 with some new features. If you are interested you can join me
and add the features you want.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual wikipedia

body:
Ray Saintonge schrieb:

> Mattis Manzel wrote:
>
>> I'd like to propose a new Wikipedia: "the multilingual wikipedia"
>>
>> Some ideas about how to do that are on
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multilingual_communication
>>
>> I would be very interested in getting the multilingual features of
>> oddmuse (the colored background, the language filters) ported to
>> Mediawiki and then start working on two things:
>>
>> A) Elaborate the engine to make it work for multilingual pages:
>> language filters also in the edit mode, inclusion of automatic
>> pretranslation in a new translate-mode, etc.
>> B) Start making the "multilingual wikipedia". Kinda getting people
>> into the fun of translation.
>>
>> Hopefully this wouldn't require a fork of Mediawiki. Unfortunately I
>> have a vage feeling that it does. In that case I propose as a name
>> for the multilingual Mediawiki engine: MMediawiki ;)
>>
>> But who knows?  Maybe things are easier than I think?
>
>
> Or more difficult.  I think the idea is full of na?ve optimism about
> translation in general, and machine translation in particular.  Begin
> with an English text and translate it into another language.  Have
> someone else, who cannot see the original, translate it back into
> English.  Compare the two English versions.  The difference can be
> amazing.
>
> On another level, articles on the same subject are often separately
> developed in each language.  This can often result in having stable
> NPOVs in each language that are different, frequently in the wake of
> careful negotiation over the exact meaning of a word.  Reconciling
> these could be extremely difficult.  I can easily imagine that
> attitudes toward US foreign policy might not be as conflicted when
> written in many languages other than English.
> En
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
So, is it multiple worlds or do we live in one world? Do the elections
in the US concen us here in Europe or do they not? Does it makes sense
to effecivate wiki by making it a global thing instead of the thing of a
signle langage pool like English or German or not? When we can (try) so?

So does NPOV existt at all or is it but a crusaders dream? Multiple
point of view. MPOV, Coexistance and collaboration. ;) In short: terms wiki.


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requests for new Wikipedias?

body:
Hi Lars,

I will try to post less but first I would like to try to give an
excuse so I can try to get out of the responsibility for something
that really is my fault ;)

No, really, just really quickly: I'm sorry for posting so much. I
guess I started to get carried away and began treating wikipedia-l as
a forum, and perhaps it wasn't a good idea to respond to *every single
message* that was in response to something I said.

mark

On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 05:20:43 +0100 (CET), Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > Are you fed up with the requests from me for new Wikipedias? Why?
>
> Yesterday I posted one message to this list, the statistics.  Now is a
> new day where I live, and today I will also only post one message, not
> to wear out the patience of all list members who have to read this.
> So I must think carefully about which topic to use this message for.
> This is it: I'm going to tell Mark (node) about my problem with him.
>
> Mark, I have no problem with you requesting new Wikipedias.  I have a
> problem with you posting too many messages with too little substance.
> It's at the point where I look at the sender and say "oh, it's just
> node again" and then I skip the message entirely.  It's almost like
> filtering away spam.  And I don't like to do that on a list.  Now,
> Brion Vibber posts even more often than you do, but I don't skip his
> messages, because his are useful.
>
> My whole point with posting the statistics was to make you and some
> other frequent posters realize this yourself, but apparently you
> failed to do so, because today you are posting more than ever and with
> less to say.  So I'm using today's message from me to the list to tell
> you this.  I apologize to the list for wasting their patience and I
> will probably be silent for the rest of the week.  I don't have much
> to say.  You have a lot of energy in you, and that is good, but I
> think you should spend more of it on useful projects and less on the
> list.  Why not try my exercise of limiting your own posting to one
> message per day per list. It's a little like chess playing, shifting
> to a lower gear, less motion, more force.
>
> If you comment this message, which you don't have to, I will probably
> not answer back.
>
> --
>   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
>


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

body:
One last message for this thread from me unless it turns into a hot topic again:

I really am sorry for getting so irritated. This is just something I
really deeply care about, and people on IRC have in a couple of cases
failed to understand that even when I tried to explain.

I hope it doesn't rule out the possibility of a future Friulian
Wikipedia created under different circumstances, and I hope even more
that the rule changes discussed in this thread are not made.

Apologetically yours,
Mark

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:51:34 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> In addition, from what I've found the enthusiasm grows gradually, at
> first people being excited but after they work on it a bit more,
> they're really into it and are more committed by then.
>
> Thus most Wikis don't get off the ground with a commitment, or if they
> do, it's often a commitment from one or two people.
>
> So far I cannot think of any Wikipedia that is empty and has fallen to
> vandalism that was started with a commitment from at least one fluent
> speaker to work on it, except na: which shouldn't count because it
> wasn't in the language it claimed to be (and even so, it hasn't fallen
> to petty vandalism yet)
>
> Speaking of the Nauruan Wikipedia, are we ever going to do something
> about it, or is it just going to sit there? If any *real* Nauruan
> speakers come and want to write, it will be very discouraging to have
> that content there the way we do now.
>
>
>
> mark
>
> On 03 Nov 2004 23:17:00 +0100, Till Westermayer <till at tillwe.de> wrote:
> > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
> >
> > >Wait, let me get this straight.
> >
> > >You think it makes sense to require 5 users pledged to start a
> > >Wiki when our 3rd biggest Wiki, the Japanese Wikipedia, wouldn'tve
> > >met this requirement itself, and the German Wikipedia would not
> > >have until its second month of existance?
> >
> > Maybe they would have had if they had to? Maybe a rule like the proposed
> > would lead to an extended "supporters search" phase, starting the
> > wikipedia proper only afterwards?
> >  __ .
> >  / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
> > . .
> >   . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
> >   . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
> >   . . . . .
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> >
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>


from_name: Till Westermayer

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

>Wait, let me get this straight.

>You think it makes sense to require 5 users pledged to start a
>Wiki when our 3rd biggest Wiki, the Japanese Wikipedia, wouldn'tve
>met this requirement itself, and the German Wikipedia would not
>have until its second month of existance?

Maybe they would have had if they had to? Maybe a rule like the proposed
would lead to an extended "supporters search" phase, starting the
wikipedia proper only afterwards?
 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


from_name: Henry H. Tan-Tenn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Requests for new Wikipedias?

body:
Mark Williamson ti 2004/11/3 EP 08:50 sia-kong:
> The thing is though, it's not like I sent 20 messages in a row asking
> for a Friulian Wikipedia, I wrote one, and responded to peoples
> questions and objections. To not do that might seem like I no longer
> want it created.

Unfortunately perception is not necessarily a rational process.  Ideally
those 20 or so messages should have come from, say, a couple posters
other than yourself, of whom at least one should claim to be a
proficient speaker.  (A certain moral authority is thrown in when that
proficient speaker further claims to be a native speaker, or at least
belong to the language's associated ethnicity.  This appeals to
deep-rooted notions of ethnolinguistic essentialism as encouraged by the
same nation-states whose policies have directly or indirectly
contributed to the destruction of many languages and dialects in the
name of unity -- see [[en:List of state mottos]].)

Regardless, your enthusiasm/advocacy for linguistic diversity is not
only admirable but supported by a number of international institutions
or movements (Declaration of Linguistic Rights [UNESCO]; International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [UN, section 27]; European
Charter for Regional or Minority Languages; European Bureau for
Lesser-Used Languages [EU], etc).  Of course, Wikimedia is not bound by
them in any way (not at least until Jimbo has succeeded in taking over
the world ;) ) No, but it's nice to know Wikimedia is not merely being
silly or sentimental.

Anyway, for better or worse, it'd help if Friulian speakers are here to
argue the case.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: John Collison

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Asksql

body:
Hi
When will SQL queries be enabled again? I've only started trying to use
them, so I don't know how long they've been disabled or if they're
semi-permenantly off.

Cheers
Ludraman


from_name: Jens Ropers

body:
On 3 Nov 2004, at 23:48, Mark Williamson wrote:

> Hi all
>
> I had gathered that people were getting fed up with requests from me
> for new Wikipedias, and now somebody has said it to my face.
>
> It's really a bit weird from where I am though because I have
> requested only two new Wikipedias, the first one having been created
> and now growing steadily, and the second one (Friulian) with popular
> support from speakers of the language that is surer than it was for
> Sicilian (people committed for Sicilian, but they weren't Wikipedians
> already).
>
> Now, in this message I don't want to ask your opinion about policy or
> about whether or not a certain Wikipedia should be created, I just
> want to know this:
> Are you fed up with the requests from me for new Wikipedias? Why?

Yes, I am "fed up" (as you say).
I put it to you that you have no reason to push for new Wikipedias
other than hoping that in the future you'll be able to claim being the
"founder" of said Wikipedias.

> I realise I may not be a fluent speaker of either of the languages I
> requested, but the way people are talking (somebody referred to me
> "flooding" this list with requests) makes it sound like I am selecting
> languages at random from a list and requesting them at a rate of 10
> per week or something, when in fact I had already asked fluent
> speakers if they would be interested, got a commitment, and so far
> have only requested two Wikipedias (a few months ago, I asked Brion to
> create sc: on IRC [but not this list!], and I recognise now that was
> probably a mistake)
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
One thing that gets me irritated is that you do not use 1 or 2
messages for Friulian, but over 20 already. That quickly destroys any
wish to support you. After 3 or 4 messages, the reaction changes to
"we know that already". At least for me.

Andre Engels

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:48:10 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I had gathered that people were getting fed up with requests from me
> for new Wikipedias, and now somebody has said it to my face.
>
> It's really a bit weird from where I am though because I have
> requested only two new Wikipedias, the first one having been created
> and now growing steadily, and the second one (Friulian) with popular
> support from speakers of the language that is surer than it was for
> Sicilian (people committed for Sicilian, but they weren't Wikipedians
> already).
>
> Now, in this message I don't want to ask your opinion about policy or
> about whether or not a certain Wikipedia should be created, I just
> want to know this:
> Are you fed up with the requests from me for new Wikipedias? Why?
>
> I realise I may not be a fluent speaker of either of the languages I
> requested, but the way people are talking (somebody referred to me
> "flooding" this list with requests) makes it sound like I am selecting
> languages at random from a list and requesting them at a rate of 10
> per week or something, when in fact I had already asked fluent
> speakers if they would be interested, got a commitment, and so far
> have only requested two Wikipedias (a few months ago, I asked Brion to
> create sc: on IRC [but not this list!], and I recognise now that was
> probably a mistake)
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual wikipedia

body:
On Wednesday 03 November 2004 22:09, Mattis Manzel wrote:
>  where?

Here: http://maatworks.wikinerds.org/index.php/WikiAnt

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


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Are you fed up with the requests from me for new Wikipedias? Why?

Yesterday I posted one message to this list, the statistics.  Now is a
new day where I live, and today I will also only post one message, not
to wear out the patience of all list members who have to read this.
So I must think carefully about which topic to use this message for.
This is it: I'm going to tell Mark (node) about my problem with him.

Mark, I have no problem with you requesting new Wikipedias.  I have a
problem with you posting too many messages with too little substance.
It's at the point where I look at the sender and say "oh, it's just
node again" and then I skip the message entirely.  It's almost like
filtering away spam.  And I don't like to do that on a list.  Now,
Brion Vibber posts even more often than you do, but I don't skip his
messages, because his are useful.

My whole point with posting the statistics was to make you and some
other frequent posters realize this yourself, but apparently you
failed to do so, because today you are posting more than ever and with
less to say.  So I'm using today's message from me to the list to tell
you this.  I apologize to the list for wasting their patience and I
will probably be silent for the rest of the week.  I don't have much
to say.  You have a lot of energy in you, and that is good, but I
think you should spend more of it on useful projects and less on the
list.  Why not try my exercise of limiting your own posting to one
message per day per list. It's a little like chess playing, shifting
to a lower gear, less motion, more force.

If you comment this message, which you don't have to, I will probably
not answer back.

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


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Special:Asksql

body:
John Collison wrote:
> Hi
> When will SQL queries be enabled again? I've only started trying to use
> them, so I don't know how long they've been disabled or if they're
> semi-permenantly off.
>
> Cheers
> Ludraman

Hello,

Special:Asksql will not be reenabled on WikiMedia server farm. It is
both a security and a stability trouble.

Instead there is a meta page to ask developpers for SQL queries:
   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_queries

They are completed as time allow.

cheers,

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


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I had gathered that people were getting fed up with requests from me
> for new Wikipedias, and now somebody has said it to my face.
>
> It's really a bit weird from where I am though because I have
> requested only two new Wikipedias, the first one having been created
> and now growing steadily, and the second one (Friulian) with popular
> support from speakers of the language that is surer than it was for
> Sicilian (people committed for Sicilian, but they weren't Wikipedians
> already).
>
> Now, in this message I don't want to ask your opinion about policy or
> about whether or not a certain Wikipedia should be created, I just
> want to know this:
> Are you fed up with the requests from me for new Wikipedias? Why?
>
> I realise I may not be a fluent speaker of either of the languages I
> requested, but the way people are talking (somebody referred to me
> "flooding" this list with requests) makes it sound like I am selecting
> languages at random from a list and requesting them at a rate of 10
> per week or something, when in fact I had already asked fluent
> speakers if they would be interested, got a commitment, and so far
> have only requested two Wikipedias (a few months ago, I asked Brion to
> create sc: on IRC [but not this list!], and I recognise now that was
> probably a mistake)
>
> Mark

Hello Mark,

I am not "fed up" with your messages cause I almost completly ignore
threads requesting new languages.

It is a good things to get more people interested in wikipedia, either
in already existing language (en, de, ja) or a plain new language. You
seems to be highly motivated in the second.

Maybe you can try to gather people that are interested, give them a good
overview of wikipedia and explain them how THEY can request a new
wikipedia :o)

This way we have new languages coming in and less messages coming only
from you. Asking for the creation of 4 languages is a bit suspect :p

Just to make things clear: I have nothing against new languages, it is
just the way they are requested by only one highly motivated person.

cheers,

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


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: make user pages uneditable

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Anthere&action=history

My page is nowhere from perfect, but I love it that way.
The last major addition was the offering of a corruption flower by
Dysprosia.

Tim Starling a ?crit:

> I suggest we regularly edit each others' user pages in an attempt to
> break this bizarre perception of ownership.
>
> -- Tim Starling

Does not that beautiful flower offer not make it worth it ?


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales

I just added this text:

=You Can Edit This Page=

Really, you can.

This is my user page. I like to keep it a certain way. But, the thing
is, I trust you. I trust that you'll add something here that makes me
smile, that informs me, or that helps to inform others. If I have
things in a certain format, I trust that you'll respect that format.

Actually, scratch that. Since this page is so simple and ugly, my
ultimate dream is that some person who thinks it is fun will come
along and make it look as perfect as Angela's user page.

Anyhow: see that link up there? 'edit this page'. Go for it, it's a
wiki.

Jimbo Wales 16:28, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)


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

body:
I have no very strong opinion right now on the linguistic reasons for
this proposal.  It's a very curious case, and it would take some time
for me to understand it well.

But I think the most important part of this proposal was this part,
which worries me a bit:

> Another reason to break out of the old Wikipedia for Norwegian, is
> that there have been complaints about certain administrators there
> abusing their power to block other users from introducing changes
> that contradict the personal views of those administrators.  (I have
> not experienced this, but some indignant users have turned to me for
> help.)  Rather than quarreling about this or start accusing people,
> I thought I'd offer to start a new encyclopedia where there will be
> no censorship (as long as the texts are in bokm?l and not downright
> offensive), and where democratic guidelines regarding content are
> adhered to, as well as the principle of neutrality.

If there's a social problem, then I would say that splitting is very
much the wrong solution.  I'm sure there are two sides (or more :-))
to this story, but if your version is correct, then the outcome will
be that the existing wikipedia will continue to work under a bad set
of policies that don't work properly to ensure due process.

I do appreciate the attitude, I should add, of "not quarreling or
accusing people".  Very valuable.  But it need not be a quarrel or
accusations to talk in general terms about how to improve things going
forward.

--Jimbo


from_name: Stephen Forrest

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual wikipedia

body:
On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 12:19:21 +0100, Peter Gervai <grin at tolna.net> wrote:
> One question worths investigating is whether there is any case when links
> are not desired to be two-way: Article A1 links to B2 but B2 doesn't want to
> link back to A1 (or wants to link to A2 instead). I don't know whether there
> is such a case, maybe someone of you knows one.

I could see someone making a case for linking to 'near-equivalents'.
Using my previous example, if I'm interested in reading about Germanic
languages in Danish, but no such article exists, I might be willing to
settle for reading an article about the German language.

I don't like this idea.  I think when one adds an interwiki link one
should be implicitly saying that the linked page covers exactly the
same subject as the current page (not necessarily with the same
content).  To use mathematical terminology, the act of
interwiki-linking should be an equivalence relation.

Steve


from_name: Rick

body:
Do you people not understand how much disgusting (pornographic, name-calling) vandalism goes on on User pages?  It's one of the main reasons for blocking anons.  The Talk page is for editing.  The User page is for a person's philosophy, who they are, what they are.  Why do you feel the need to do that?  What's wrong with just editing the Talk page and leaving the User page alone?

RickK

"KNOTT, T" <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:

I suggest we regularly edit each others' user pages in an attempt to
break this bizarre perception of ownership.

-- Tim Starling

:I agree. I actively encourage people editing my (my? It's wikimedia's
isn't it?) user page by stating a feel free to edit this page note on
it.

Theresa

_______________________________________________
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http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Editing mediawiki so only certain users can edit
	certain pages

body:
On Nov 4, 2004, at 9:19 AM, Robert Jones wrote:
> I want it to work so that  if a person's username contains a colon
> (e.g.
> FOO:Bob) then they can only edit and create pages that are in the form
> FOO:Page_Name, FOO:Main_Page etc. I want it to treat users with
> usernames
> that don't contain a colon normally. E.g.

You need to edit Title.php, Title::userCanEdit().

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Rick wrote:
> Do you people not understand how much disgusting (pornographic,
>name-calling) vandalism goes on on User pages?  It's one of the main
>reasons for blocking anons.  The Talk page is for editing.  The User
>page is for a person's philosophy, who they are, what they are.  Why
>do you feel the need to do that?  What's wrong with just editing the
>Talk page and leaving the User page alone?

I think for some people, protecting the user page is a reasonable
choice.  You would likely fit into that category, because you've done
so much work to fight vandals (which is very much appreciated, of
course), that you're now a target from a lot of very dimwitted people.

But there's no reason to do it for everyone, and no reason for people
to do it unless there's a major vandalism problem.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual wikipedia

body:
Ah yes, if what you meant to say is that this system is better, I
definitely agree with you. It's an idea that has been floating around
more. Only problem is the amount of coding it would take, and that one
would need to get information from more than one database to show a
single page.

Andre Engels

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:48:22 -0500, Stephen Forrest
<stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 20:11:36 +0100, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > As a bot writer and operator, I can say that bots _could_ help in
> > finding this kind of cases. We might go work more on it (the bot
> > notices it if it can get to two pages on the same language - in this
> > case "Germanic languages" and "German language"). There's quite a
> > number of such problems; a common cause is that when a page turns into
> > a disambiguation page on some Wikipedia, the interwiki links to it are
> > usually not changed.
>
> I see your point that bots can help; my point was that they can't do
> so automatically.  A bot would have to inform a human that both
> 'Germanic language' and 'German language' were encountered, and the
> human would have to take action based on this.
>
> What I suggest is to have a language-independent 'linker' page
> maintained in a separate namespace.  (Maybe 'meta' or something new,
> e.g. 'interwiki').  All it would consist of is a list of interwiki
> links, with the meaning that any page named on the linker page was to
> be taken to be an equivalent for any other named page.
>
> Under this new scheme, suppose I'm reading the English wikipedia
> article on 'Germanic languages''.  If I then notice a link to
> [[da:Tysk sprog]] and fix it, I will be editing this linker page.  If
> the previous error had been propogated into other wikipedias, they
> will have their link corrected immediately, without having to wait for
> a bot or human to spot the bad link and fix it.
>
> Some more advantages:
>
> 1) Since interwiki changes would then be changes to the linker page,
> they would not add volume to the changelist history of linked pages.
>
> 2) There would be fewer anonymous edits to wikipedias.  Right now, if
> I want to add an interwiki link to a language I don't speak, I won't
> bother creating an account, because I wouldn't particularly benefit
> from having one.  In this proposed system, I would merely need to have
> an account on 'meta' or 'interwiki'.
>
> 3) The bloat factor of interwiki links on pages would be reduced.
>
> 4) The problems with broken interwiki links caused by a wikipedia
> munging foreign characters entered as literals in the input would be
> more easily fixed.  I've seen a few interwiki links to Cyrillic
> wikipedias appear as, for example, [[bg:????????]], probably because
> someone tried to copy-paste a literal character from one page to
> another, and their system didn't support the character set.
>
> Hmm, that was a bit longer than I intended. :)  Again, please feel
> free to give me feedback on the above idea, or redirect me to the
> appropriate forum to post it if this isn't it.
>
> regards,
>
> Steve
>


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Do you people not understand how much disgusting (pornographic, name-calling)
> vandalism goes on on User pages?  It's one of the main reasons for blocking
> anons.  The Talk page is for editing.  The User page is for a person's
> philosophy, who they are, what they are.  Why do you feel the need to do
> that?  What's wrong with just editing the Talk page and leaving the User page
> alone?

There is nothing wrong with fixing links and adding barnstars and such. But I
do agree that overall editorial control over user pages should be with users.
That said, I do not at all support the default protection of user pages. Many
admins feel the need to protect their user pages; I don't, but I don't take
issue with those that do.

Live and let live and all that happy crap people!

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Ulf Lunde

body:
I'd like to request a new Wikipedia for the Norwegian language.

I realize that there already exist two Norwegian Wikipedias, but I
think we need a third,
and possibly a fourth.  No, I am not joking.  Please read on to see
why I propose this.

Background
-----------------

The Norwegian language has two official written forms: nynorsk and bokm?l.
(Note: The names of languages are never capitalized in Norwegian.)

One should be aware that neither bokm?l nor nynorsk is a *spoken*
language in itself
(except in official news broadcasts, poetry and theatre plays), as
they are two separate
*written* forms (Norwegian: "m?lform") of the same spoken language, *norsk*.

Both nynorsk and bokm?l have exactly the same status as official
written languages
of Norway.  The grammars and vocabularies are distinct, but not
completely different.
They differ more than e.g. British English from American English, but
are not more
different from each other than e.g. Swedish and Danish, meaning that
if you *master*
one of them, you can also *understand* the other.  (Furthermore, all
Norwegians have
studied both written forms in school.)

There is also a third way to write norsk, called *riksm?l*, which,
although abandoned as
an official form in 1929 because it was considered too conservative,
still has quite a few
users.

The Current Wikipedia Situation
----------------------------------------------

There exists a Wikipedia in norsk: http://no.wikipedia.org/
but since Wikipedia is inherently written and not oral, that Wikipedia
a mixture of
all three written forms of Norwegian, which can sometimes be confusing.

The front page there states:
  M?LFORM
  ? Bidragsytere kan skrive p? alle norske m?lformer
  (bokm?l, riksm?l og nynorsk).
In English:
  LANGUAGE FORM
  ? Contributors may write in all Norwegian written language forms
  (bokm?l, riksm?l, and nynorsk).

The articles (even the help and instruction pages) are randomly
written in three different
ways, sometimes even mixed, creating a somewhat chaotic impression.
(What's more,
this certainly makes that Wikipedia difficult to read for foreigners
who have learned only
one written form of the Norwegian language.)

In July this year a separate Wikipedia in pure nynorsk was started:
http://nn.wikipedia.org/
It has already received more than a thousand articles.

But still there is no Wikipedia in bokm?l, nor in riksm?l, although
both are used
(together with nynorsk) in the norsk Wikipedia.  This situation is not fair.

My request
-----------------

I request a new Wikipedia in only bokm?l, at the address
http://nb.wikipedia.org/
(The ISO code for bokm?l is "nb" [or "nb_no"].  For nynorsk it is "nn"
[or "nn_no"].)
Today, http://nb.wikipedia.org/ just points to http://no.wikipedia.org/

(I do not know if riksm?l has its own ISO language code, and since I
am not a user
of riksm?l, I will leave it to others to request a Wikipedia
exclusively for riksm?l.)

As I see it, it will not be necessary to translate all articles
between nynorsk and bokm?l;
we can use #REDIRECT or similar means to bind them together, since all
Norwegians
are able to read both written language forms (as well as English,
Swedish, and Danish).
But at least the user interface will be pure bokm?l in one Wikipedia,
pure nynorsk in the
other, giving users a real choice.

I see the creation of a bokm?l Wikipedia as the logical next step to
take, especially
now that a separate nynorsk Wikipedia has been established and is thriving.

Why not just use the existing Wikipedia?
------------------------------------------------------------

One could propose to "clean up" the norsk Wikipedia by moving all
nynorsk articles to
the nynorsk Wikipedia, but I am sure that this would require a long
and heated debate
among the users.  And what about the riksm?l parts?  I think it best
to leave the norsk
variant alone (allowing both nynorsk and riksm?l there as well as
bokm?l), start separate
bokm?l and nynorsk Wikipedias, and use links and #REDIRECTs to make it
navigation
easier in the beginning.

Another reason to break out of the old Wikipedia for Norwegian, is
that there have been
complaints about certain administrators there abusing their power to
block other users
from introducing changes that contradict the personal views of those
administrators.
(I have not experienced this, but some indignant users have turned to
me for help.)
Rather than quarreling about this or start accusing people, I thought
I'd offer to start
a new encyclopedia where there will be no censorship (as long as the
texts are in bokm?l
and not downright offensive), and where democratic guidelines
regarding content are
adhered to, as well as the principle of neutrality.

Who I am
--------------

I am a Web programmer by profession, and I have created several wikis,
both in my
work and in my spare time, although never a Wikipedia before.  I am
also an active
contributor to existing Wikipedias, especially the Esperanto variant:
http://eo.wikipedia.org/

I am very familiar with CVS and other ways of collaboration on
distributed software projects.

I am prepared to do the translation of the interface (should be easy,
since I can base it
on two existing Norwegian Wikipedias).  I am also prepared to be an
administrator of
a bokm?l Wikipedia, write guidelines, participate in discussions, and
offer my assistance
to new users.  I will gladly accept anybody's help with the
administration, if some of the
norsk (or nynorsk) Wikipedia administrators would like to become
bokm?l Wikipedia
administrators, too.

Sincerely,
Ulf Lunde


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual wikipedia

body:
Mattis Manzel wrote:

> Ray Saintonge schrieb:
>
>> Mattis Manzel wrote:
>>
>>> I'd like to propose a new Wikipedia: "the multilingual wikipedia"
>>>
>>> Some ideas about how to do that are on
>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multilingual_communication
>>>
>>> I would be very interested in getting the multilingual features of
>>> oddmuse (the colored background, the language filters) ported to
>>> Mediawiki and then start working on two things:
>>>
>>> A) Elaborate the engine to make it work for multilingual pages:
>>> language filters also in the edit mode, inclusion of automatic
>>> pretranslation in a new translate-mode, etc.
>>> B) Start making the "multilingual wikipedia". Kinda getting people
>>> into the fun of translation.
>>>
>>> Hopefully this wouldn't require a fork of Mediawiki. Unfortunately I
>>> have a vage feeling that it does. In that case I propose as a name
>>> for the multilingual Mediawiki engine: MMediawiki ;)
>>>
>>> But who knows?  Maybe things are easier than I think?
>>
>> Or more difficult.  I think the idea is full of na?ve optimism about
>> translation in general, and machine translation in particular.  Begin
>> with an English text and translate it into another language.  Have
>> someone else, who cannot see the original, translate it back into
>> English.  Compare the two English versions.  The difference can be
>> amazing.
>>
>> On another level, articles on the same subject are often separately
>> developed in each language.  This can often result in having stable
>> NPOVs in each language that are different, frequently in the wake of
>> careful negotiation over the exact meaning of a word.  Reconciling
>> these could be extremely difficult.  I can easily imagine that
>> attitudes toward US foreign policy might not be as conflicted when
>> written in many languages other than English.
>> Ec
>>
> So, is it multiple worlds or do we live in one world? Do the elections
> in the US concen us here in Europe or do they not? Does it makes sense
> to effecivate wiki by making it a global thing instead of the thing of
> a signle langage pool like English or German or not? When we can (try)
> so?
>
> So does NPOV existt at all or is it but a crusaders dream? Multiple
> point of view. MPOV, Coexistance and collaboration. ;) In short: terms
> wiki.

The NPOV principle remains.  Our Muslim Wikipedians would never support
a crusader's dream. ;-) .  There may be an ideal of one overall NPOV but
there are a lot of social and cultural bridges to cross before we get
there.  When we have terms like "German language" and "Germanic
language" it is relatively easy to identify, define and fix the
problem.  It is quite a different thing when values are involved.  In
the past we have had ongoing debates about what to name the rivers on
the boundary between Germany and Poland.  Those who participate on the
German and Polish Wikipedias can rapidly reach their own respective
though different NPOV consensus.  When a third language must be thrown
into the mix the result there is not so clear.

Of course US elections are of concern to Europe.  But Americans might
well respond, "It's our elections, so mind your own business?"  Those
Americans, however, who would argue in favour of the divine right of
their President George III may find themselves at a disadvantage when
they must do so in a peasant language.  There is much to be reconciled
there, but doing so will require much more than a software solution.

Ec


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for new Wikipedia: bokm ål

body:
Might it not be better to move the current Wikipedia to nb, and move
the Nynorsk-articles in it to nn? It seems confusing to me to have
both "multi-language" and "single language" Wikipedias for the same
language group.

Andre Engels

On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:53:52 +0100, Ulf Lunde <ulf.lunde at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd like to request a new Wikipedia for the Norwegian language.
>
> I realize that there already exist two Norwegian Wikipedias, but I
> think we need a third,
> and possibly a fourth.  No, I am not joking.  Please read on to see
> why I propose this.

[snip]


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I generally agree that user pages should be respected.  Perhaps the only
> circumstance where I would feel justified in editing another user's page
> would be to fix a broken link that I created because of an edit that I
> did elsewhere.

I once changed the "picture of the day" template to fix a problem with
link table corruption. To complete the fix, I updated the inclusion code
on all the user pages that used it. One of the users whose page I edited
gave me this earful on my user talk page:

= Markup Editing on MY PAGE! NO! ==

As requested on [[User:JediMaster16|my page]], please do not edit
my page without permission. Its annoying. Very annoying.

THANK YOU

[END QUOTE]

I suggest we regularly edit each others' user pages in an attempt to
break this bizarre perception of ownership.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Peter Gervai

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual wikipedia

body:
One question worths investigating is whether there is any case when links
are not desired to be two-way: Article A1 links to B2 but B2 doesn't want to
link back to A1 (or wants to link to A2 instead). I don't know whether there
is such a case, maybe someone of you knows one.

I believe we use en: as the planned interwiki repository: if a link gets
into en: then bots propagate it around. Bad links in en: propagate, too. If
there was a single repository of interlanguage links these errors could be
fixed easily. Now it's pretty hard, even with scripts and bots; usually
needs a natural unintelligence machine (a Human Being(Tm)).

grin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for new Wikipedia: bokmaal

body:
On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 12:11:34 +0100, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:

 > It seems confusing to me to have both "multi-language" and "single
language" Wikipedias
 > for the same language group.

I agree.  I think that over time, either the "mixed norsk" variant or
the "pure" variants will
gradually go out of use.  But I do not want to dictate which ones
should live and which ones
should die.

Both variants should contain an explanation of the situation and links
to the alternative.
In a year or two we can let usage statistics tell us what best fits
the public's needs, and
propose that remaining unique articles on the "unpopular" Wikipedia be
moved to the
prefered one.

Anyhow, the current situation is asymmetrical and therefore unfair.
Something ought to be done about that.

Ulf Lunde


body:
Hello Mark:
Isn't it simply a question of being able to recognize when your proposal
is getting it nowhere, or at least that the time isn't right for it?  I
agree that you were responding to questions and objections, but there
are also times when silence is the best response.  That response may
even help in selling your point when you raise it again six months or a
year later.  A mosquito who takes her fill of blood and flies away has a
better chance of survival than one who persists in buzzing around your head.

Ec

Mark Williamson wrote:

>The thing is though, it's not like I sent 20 messages in a row asking
>for a Friulian Wikipedia, I wrote one, and responded to peoples
>questions and objections. To not do that might seem like I no longer
>want it created.
>
>--node
>
>On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 01:01:01 +0100, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>One thing that gets me irritated is that you do not use 1 or 2
>>messages for Friulian, but over 20 already. That quickly destroys any
>>wish to support you. After 3 or 4 messages, the reaction changes to
>>"we know that already". At least for me.
>>
>>Andre Engels
>>
>>


body:
Mark Williamson wrote in part:
> On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:12:36 +0000, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>>An additional problem on this Wikipedia is that Node-ue has been
>>editing under various sockpuppet accounts, and also anonymously. He
>>managed to deceitfully gain adminship for two days after creating the
>>account "User:Akka Akka" which was desysopped after complaints about
>>his behaviour. He is also editing under the account "User:Bbbbbbbbb"
>>and being generally abusive to the other user on the wiki.

> I resent this accusation.
>
> As I have told Angela before, I am neither of these users.

Oh, so it was your pet monkey was it? Both users were at
ip24-251-242-236.ph.ph.cox.net. That's the IP address you use to access
IRC, so it couldn't be an HTTP proxy.

Angela asked me to confirm your identity before she posted this. She's
not prone to making unsubstantiated allegations.

-- Tim Starling


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> I did however get a positive response from Brian Stowell (prominent
> Mec Vannin activist) that gave me the impression he and/or other Manx
> ultranationalists will soon turn gv: from dead to not-dead.

I don't know anything about Brian Stowell, I'm sure he's a wonderful
person.  But it makes me nervous to think about "ultranationalists"
eager to create a wikipedia as part of a wider project which involves
both language and cultural preservation (both good things) and
possibly as well some nationalist political agenda (maybe good, maybe
bad, but certainly not neutral).

--Jimbo


body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> One of the users whose page I edited gave me this earful on my user
> talk page:
>
> = Markup Editing on MY PAGE! NO! ==
>
> As requested on [[User:JediMaster16|my page]], please do not
> edit my page without permission. Its annoying. Very annoying.
>
>
>
 background-color:black; line-height:150%;">THANK YOU

>

Jedi Master, the Force was not with you that day. :-)

Ec


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> You think it makes sense to require 5 users pledged to start a Wiki
> when our 3rd biggest Wiki, the Japanese Wikipedia, wouldn'tve met this
> requirement itself, and the German Wikipedia would not have until its
> second month of existance?

It is not sensible to apply a rule which is designed to help deal with
borderline cases and very small language groups to cases of major
languages with tens of millions of speakers.

It was perfectly safe to start de.wikipedia.org and ja.wikipedia.org
secure in the confidence that people would get involved quickly
enough.  This is much less true for very small language groups.

> And regarding the fourth point, ARE YOU CRAZY!?!!!!?!!?!?!

If you wonder why people find you annoying, you might think about how
your yelling at people makes them feel.

> If any of these measures get passed, the fork which I previously
> mentioned and was serious about pursuing but not too enthusiastic
> about will really become a priority and I will put lots of time and
> effort into it, and it may well attract other Wikipedians shocked at
> new linguistically-opressive policies.

Good luck with that.  "Not yelling at people" is a critical trait of
leadership in an all volunteer project.

--Jimbo


from_name: Andy Rabagliati

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Putting wikipedia down in schools

body:
Folks,

	http://www.wizzy.org.za/article/articlestatic/23/1/2/

  Just a heads-up on my experience putting wikipedia down in schools.

  Recently, I have been working with the Shuttleworth Foundation,

	http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/
	http://www.slug.org.za/

  who put Linux Thin Client (K12LTSP) classrooms down in South African
  township schools. I augment their install by adding internet (email,
  offline web cache) and wikipedia. I have done 14 schools to date.

  I still install the Mar2004 version. It takes long enough, and it is (only) five CDs.

  To recap, wikipedia needs:-

  * The software (mediawiki - currently Andy's RPM, tiny, needs apache, php)
  * a mysql server with snapshot (the text, which I install as a binary file for speed,
     but is distributed as a mysql database dump - compressed)
     I also package this as an RPM.
  * the pictures (optional) - 256 RPMs, to be able to pack it on CDs.

  It (Mar2004) will fit on one DVD. It is all (to first order of magnitude) pictures.

  The mysql database dump is CD-sized, probably until January 2005.

  Wikipedia, in 6 months, has doubled in size - db/pics from 700M/2.5G to
  1.2G/5G. Rapidly moving out of CD space, passing through DVD space, it
  is now a (mailed) hard drive.

  I am now putting the database on the main LTSP server (at a school),
  because I think it belongs there. However, I /really/ want the whole
  thing to be on one computer, so I am running tests - one school has
  the mysql server on the main (dual P4, 2Ggig), another has the DB on
  the (smaller, P3, 256M) wizzy server.

  At both schools, mediawiki and the pictures are on the wizzy server.

  The pictures (currently) must reside on the computer running the php
  software - mediawiki. Though they take a lot of space, it is not a
  difficult job - easily handled by a small computer with enough disk
  (Mar2004 needs about 4Gig).

  Mediawiki (as supplied) does a full text search on the database if
  there is not a hit on the encyclopedia article. This is (incredibly)
  expensive, and I turn it off now.

  I envisage a computer hard drive, mailed to people/schools, that you put
  into your (old) computer. It boots, discovers hardware, (like kudzu,
  open source from redhat) at boot, and delivers a wikipedia snapshot.

  An upgrade is:-

    * find another school/home/computer for an old one (hard disk)
    * get your new one

  I dual-boot to Ubuntu now - I am most impressed. The Shuttleworth
  Foundation will be moving over to Ubuntu in the future, so I
  need to learn how to make .debs.

  I am keen to grab the wikipedia front page, do a minor edit to
  add a BASE tag to <HEAD> to redirect links to the local wikipedia
  installation.

Cheers,     Andy!

http://wizzy.org.za/


from_name: KNOTT, T

body:
I suggest we regularly edit each others' user pages in an attempt to
break this bizarre perception of ownership.

-- Tim Starling

:I agree. I actively encourage people editing my (my? It's wikimedia's
isn't it?) user page by stating a feel free to edit this page note on
it.

Theresa


body:
Look What I just did below. I used a colon to indent my reply to Tim on
an email. At least I didn't sign my name ~~~~ (Which is something I
regularly do on emails including work and personal emails, but I usually
manage to spot it before I hit the send button.)

Theresa

-----Original Message-----
From: KNOTT, T
Sent: 04 November 2004 13:40
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: make user pages uneditable

I suggest we regularly edit each others' user pages in an attempt to
break this bizarre perception of ownership.

-- Tim Starling

:I agree. I actively encourage people editing my (my? It's wikimedia's
isn't it?) user page by stating a feel free to edit this page note on
it.

Theresa

_______________________________________________
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WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: James R. Johnson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request to add ang to tracking

body:
Hello,

            I'd like to request that the ang wikipedia be added to the
tracking that the other wikipedias now enjoy (users, pages, edits, etc.).

Thanks,

James


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] sq wiktionary is off capitalisation

body:
Hoi,
The sq: or Albanian wiktionary has just been changed off capitalisation
of the first character of a new article.
Thanks,
    Gerard


from_name: Rich Holton

body:
Ok, what about giving non-admins the right to
protect/unprotect their own user page?

-Rich Holton  (user Rholton)

--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Do you people not understand how much disgusting
> (pornographic, name-calling)
> > vandalism goes on on User pages?  It's one of the
> main reasons for blocking
> > anons.  The Talk page is for editing.  The User
> page is for a person's
> > philosophy, who they are, what they are.  Why do
> you feel the need to do
> > that?  What's wrong with just editing the Talk
> page and leaving the User page
> > alone?
>
> There is nothing wrong with fixing links and adding
> barnstars and such. But I
> do agree that overall editorial control over user
> pages should be with users.
> That said, I do not at all support the default
> protection of user pages. Many
> admins feel the need to protect their user pages; I
> don't, but I don't take
> issue with those that do.
>
> Live and let live and all that happy crap people!
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com


from_name: Robert Jones

body:
Hello, I am new to the list - I have a question I hope you can help me with.

I have installed a wiki where users cannot sign up themselves (I assign
usernames) I want to restrict users on my installation to only editing
specific sections of the wiki. I think the file to edit is
includes\EditPage.php

I want it to work so that  if a person's username contains a colon (e.g.
FOO:Bob) then they can only edit and create pages that are in the form
FOO:Page_Name, FOO:Main_Page etc. I want it to treat users with usernames
that don't contain a colon normally. E.g.

1) Someone with the username FOO:Bob can edit FOO:Page_Name but not
BAR:Main_Page.

2) Someone with the username Bob can edit FOO:Page_Name and BAR:Main_Page
and Main_Page

I'm happy for this edit to take the form of an edit converting "you must
login to edit this page" to "you must login and have the right permissions
to edit this page". I think that EditPage.php would need to be edited twice
in the areas containing the text:

if ( !$wgUser->getID() && $wgWhitelistEdit ) {
        $this->userNotLoggedInPage();
        return;
}

I have sought an answer to this question for a while and posted in various
other forua without success.

Hope you can help.

Many thanks,

Robert Jones


subject:
[Wiktionary-l] tr:wiktionary is now off first character
	capitalisation

body:
Hoi,
I have asked for the tr:wiktionary to be changed to have first character
capitalisation turned off . Shaihulud was happy to do it for you. New
articles can be created with the proper case.

This is the second wiktionary today to change over :)

Thanks,
    Gerard

funda wrote:

>Hi guys,
>
>Could you forward the following request to the tech-list?
>
>Thank you for all your help!
>:::::::::
>
>We would like to have our case sensitivity function activated in
>order to be able to particpate in the inter-wiki project.
>
>I also have a problem gaining access to the mailing lists. (Have
>subscribed 2 weeks ago, recieved no word). Could you please subscribe
>funda90 at yahoo.com to the wiktionary mailinglist?
>
>Regards,
>Funda Yilmaz Admin, Wiktionary-TR
>
>
>
>
>>There are a few people who can amend this - you just need to ask
>>for it
>>on the tech list. Or tell us and we will forward your request.
>>
>>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>
>
>


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Editing mediawiki so only certain users can
	editcertain pages

body:
Thank you for pointing me the this section. I am a novice, so could you
please explain which bits of this section need to be edited and how so that
users with a colon in their username can only edit pages that begin in the
same way as their username?

Many thanks.

> On Nov 4, 2004, at 9:19 AM, Robert Jones wrote:
> > I want it to work so that  if a person's username contains a colon
> > (e.g.
> > FOO:Bob) then they can only edit and create pages that are
> in the form
> > FOO:Page_Name, FOO:Main_Page etc. I want it to treat users with
> > usernames
> > that don't contain a colon normally.
>
> You need to edit Title.php, Title::userCanEdit().
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>


from_name: Guanaco

body:
> Well, I just protected my page today, after it had been vandalised for
> the 10th time in 8 weeks by the same bastard, using a range of IP
> addresses so individual short-term blocks had no effect.
>
> I strongly support the proposal to restrict the editability of user
> pages to the user concerned in normal circumstances.
>
Ten edits in eight weeks by one vandal is nothing. It could be easily
rolled back, and you are just redirecting the vandalism to articles. The
only time protecting user pages is useful is when there is a vandalbot
that attacks a given list of pages.


body:
I'm afraid I can't access the site you mention as it is "not responding". I
also think that changing the software is a bit of an extreme solution (I'd
rather just find out how to edit mediawiki). Sorry for being a pain.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of NSK
> Sent: 04 November 2004 20:30
> To: Wikimedia developers
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Editing mediawiki so only certain
> users can editcertain pages
>
>
> On Thursday 04 November 2004 19:19, Robert Jones wrote:
> > usernames) I want to restrict users on my installation to
> only editing
> > specific sections of the wiki.
>
> You might want to check the Wikka Wakka Wiki software that
> http://www.openformats.org uses.


body:
Clarification:

Basically I want to prohibit editing in two circumstances, and deal with
whether it is allowed or not it as per the normal rules other circumstances.

1) if the username contains a colon AND the page name doesn't contain a
colon then editing is prohibited.
2) if the username contains a colon AND the page name contains a colon AND
the text before each colon doesn't match then editing is prohibited.
3) otherwise the existing rules apply.

I'm trying to do this by editing includes/Title.php

Many thanks.


from_name: Yann Forget

subject:
[Wiktionary-l]kn.wiktionary is now off first character
	capitalisation

body:
Hi,

So is also the Kannada Wiktionary : http://kn.wiktionary.org
So that makes 3 today.

Yann

Le Thursday 4 November 2004 18:46, Gerard Meijssen a ?crit :
> Hoi,
> I have asked for the tr:wiktionary to be changed to have first character
> capitalisation turned off . Shaihulud was happy to do it for you. New
> articles can be created with the proper case.
>
> This is the second wiktionary today to change over :)
>
> Thanks,
>     Gerard

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Deactivate Cache for a site

body:
Joel Wiesmann wrote:
> Hi there
>
> I've coded a calendar which I can include in any wikipage. Now there's
> just one problem: the calendar has a function, that allows to "change
> date". So I can click on an arrow, to go to the next month. Really cool
> I thought.. but the problem is, that it won't change as long as I don't
> do a shift-reload (the informations are passed by 2 GET-variables and I
> catch them with $wgRequest->getVars). I suppose that's the
> caching-function :/. Now is there a way, to force a refresh of the
> cache? Or even deactivate it for a wikipage?
>
> I'm using the latest stable mediawiki out of the box - I did no special
> configuration to the caching feature. I've implemented the calendar the
> same way, as the TOC or CURRENTMONTH were implemented.

It's not a very elegant solution, but you can suppress client-side
caching with

global $wgOut;
$wgOut->enableClientCache(false);

You could run this from the parser whenever your calendar tag is
present. The problem with that is that the parser currently works even
if $wgOut is not defined or if another OutputPage object is being used,
this would break that behaviour. That shouldn't cause any observable
effects in the current version, but I certainly wouldn't accept it into
the main line of development.

We seem to have lost the mContainsOldMagic functionality at some stage.
A long-term solution would be to put it back in. Caching information
should be stored in the ParserOutput object. OutputPage::addWikiText and
similar functions would retrieve the caching information and use it to
set appropriate flags in the OutputPage object.
OutputPage::sendCacheControl() and the parser cache would use this
information.

It's important for Wikipedia that we are able to cache pages containing
{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}, {{CURRENTDAYNAME}}, etc., because these variables
are often used on the main page and other heavily-visited pages. A
global option to make caching more aggressive may be useful.

Joel, will you be publishing your modification under the GPL?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Rhobite

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reithy is a problem

body:
I apologize if this is the wrong place to go with this. The user
Reithy is becoming a real problem in terms of edit warring, locking
articles, and harassing users on talk pages. He pores through my edits
looking for ways to nitpick, his latest act was a veiled legal threat
on a fair use image I uploaded:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Image_talk:Doughty_Rockity_Roll.jpg&diff=7114277&oldid=7113911

The image is a low-res album cover, clearly fair use, but he said "I
will send an email to the record company, if you like to ask whether
they agree with you." I take this as a legal threat.

He is of course the user who repeatedly vandalized libertarian-related
articles a couple weeks ago. He has since become more stealthy about
flagrant violations, but continues to harass me on my talk page. He
has a current open request for arbitration. No offense, but I'd like
to get things moving here. He's a troll. Everything he does is acting
in bad faith. He has even removed charges from his own RFAr, and
removed links from his evidence page. In my opinion, he should be long
gone.

Thank you,

Paul (User:Rhobite)


from_name: sannse

body:
I don't really want to duplicate the discussion that's already on the
talk page, but you only have to look at the history of [[User:Sannse]]
and [[User:Theresa knott]] to see that we know /exactly/ what sort of
vandalism goes on.  But I don't agree that this vandalism is a good
reason to make pages generally uneditable by the majority of decent editors.

I acknowledge that there may be particular situations where protection
is necessary, but this should be limited as much as possible - just as
it is for articles.

--sannse

Rick wrote:
> Do you people not understand how much disgusting (pornographic, name-calling) vandalism goes on on User pages?  It's one of the main reasons for blocking anons.  The Talk page is for editing.  The User page is for a person's philosophy, who they are, what they are.  Why do you feel the need to do that?  What's wrong with just editing the Talk page and leaving the User page alone?
>
> RickK
>
> "KNOTT, T" <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:
>
> I suggest we regularly edit each others' user pages in an attempt to
> break this bizarre perception of ownership.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
> :I agree. I actively encourage people editing my (my? It's wikimedia's
> isn't it?) user page by stating a feel free to edit this page note on
> it.
>
> Theresa
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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>  Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.  www.yahoo.com/a
> _______________________________________________
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> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: NSK

body:
On Thursday 04 November 2004 19:19, Robert Jones wrote:
> usernames) I want to restrict users on my installation to only editing
> specific sections of the wiki.

You might want to check the Wikka Wakka Wiki software that
http://www.openformats.org uses.

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


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: Usability (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Compendium)

body:
Why do you think I think this needs to be kept? Perhaps it does, after all, there might be some concievable utility to it. I would keep it if anyone made a cogent case for why it might be useful.
Mark

Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
OK, so then please explain the "usability" of [[List of externally visible animal parts]] and why it deserves to be kept.

RickK

Mark Richards wrote:
Aha, perhaps something new in this debate - I like
this - is 'usability' something that we can agree on,
a perhaps move forward with?
Mark

--- "Eric B. and Rakim"
wrote:

> >An ironic thing about schools vs species is that I
> could write an
> >article about a species that has only ever been
> observed by one
> >scientist, has only one paper about it in an
> obscure journal, and
> >only one specimen in a jar somewhere, and yet no
> one would dream of
> >deleting the article for non-notability (in fact we
> have a number
> >of such articles already), while an article about
> the largest high
> >school in Cleveland would probably cause a furious
> VfD debate. Is
> >the obscure species, which is of interest to maybe
> a few dozen
> >specialists, really more notable than the high
> school and its
> >thousands of students?
>
> This is very interesting. I think it proves that the
> notability criterium is
> out of whack. It seems like when "the deletionists"
> say "notability" of
> information, they instead mean "usability" of
> information. Because noone can
> claim that one specimen of one species documented in
> one academic journal is
> more notable than any high school in Cleveland.
> However, the information
> about the specimen might well be more useful than
> that about the school....
>
> .... to biologists!
>
> But not to anyone else. Is it so that the deletions
> is a symptom of the fact
> that many wikipedians see the target audience as
> something else than many
> other wikipedians see it? If we assume that
> Wikipedia HAS a limited number
> of target audiences, then I can understand that
> people want to delete
> factual, verifiable information. It doesn't make
> sense to have an article
> about a school in Cleveland if Wikipedia's target
> audience is not
> Clevelanders (or foreign exchange students..) It
> also makes sense to delete
> [[Melissa Doll]]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_Doll if
> Wikipedia's
> target audience is not fans of Melissa Doll/people
> interested in porn
> actors.
>
> And so on. So maybe Wikipedia's *only* target
> audience is the target
> audience that Encyclopaedia Brittanica has. But I
> don't think so. I'm a
> member of the community and I has a say in what goes
> into Wikipedia too. So
> does everyone else that has ever written something
> in Wikipedia. We are all
> authors and contributors.
>
> For every article ever witten someone has thought "I
> know this and I think
> this is useful for someone else." Which means that
> everything ever written
> has passed someones test of usability. That doesn't
> mean that it has to be
> included in Wikipedia, but I think more thought
> should be spent on that fact
> than currently is.
>
> To summarize. Don't delete articles because they
> aren't "notable", delete
> articles because they aren't usable. Delete
> information about someones bank
> account number because, while it might be verifiable
> at an ATM machine, it
> isn't usable to a large enough audience. Keep
> information about Cleveland's
> high schools because that information is usable to
> thousands of students.
> Delete information about some random street because
> nothing interesting has
> ever happened there. Keep information about US
> President's dogs because
> thousands of people do find that information useful.
>
> -- Eric B. and Rakim
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN
> Search!
> http://search.msn.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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 Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.  www.yahoo.com/a


from_name: Anthere

body:
Rick a ?crit:
> Do you people not understand how much disgusting (pornographic, name-calling)

vandalism goes on on User pages?  It's one of the main reasons for
blocking anons.

The Talk page is for editing.

The User page is for a person's philosophy, who they are, what they are.

Why do you feel the need to do that?

What's wrong with just editing the Talk page and leaving the User page
alone?

------

I have a slightly different perspective of what a user page is (but I
agree your perpective is the most common one).

"The User page is for a person's philosophy, who they are, what they are. "

This is true.
But to be most relevant, "who I am" or "what I am" is something best
described by several points of view. Not only mine.

I can describe what I think I am. You can describe what you think I am,
or what you think I think I am. I do not exist only through my
perception, but through what all you perceive of me.

So, this is fine that you write on my user page, as long as it is only
about me. The user page is not MY page, it is a page about ME :-)


body:
On Thursday 04 November 2004 22:51, Robert Jones wrote:
> I'm afraid I can't access the site you mention as it is "not responding".

Strange, it shouldn't be. Can you access it now?

Perhaps you can use the Wikka ACL (access control lists) code in MediaWiki to
do what you want.

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


from_name: Joel Wiesmann

body:
Hi Tim

Hmm.. I'll try to find a proper way to implement this feature. Yet I'm
pretty new to the whole mediawiki framework so I'm sure, that my code is a
little bit unorganized. The calendar works but is very modified to meet my
requirements (it also does a URL-fopen to include preg_matching -
informations from other pages and so on) but I'll try to modify it so far,
that it could be used with mediawiki and send you the code.

Of course I will publish the results under the GPL - no question ;-). At
least if the code is good enough! If not, I'll do a mediawiki-section in my
homepage with some hacks so people with low-hit-wiki's could implement the
calendar.

Regards
Joel

Tim Starling wrote:
> It's not a very elegant solution, but you can suppress client-side
> caching with
>
> global $wgOut;
> $wgOut->enableClientCache(false);
>
> You could run this from the parser whenever your calendar tag is
> present. The problem with that is that the parser currently works even
> if $wgOut is not defined or if another OutputPage object is being used,
> this would break that behaviour. That shouldn't cause any observable
> effects in the current version, but I certainly wouldn't accept it into
> the main line of development.
>
> We seem to have lost the mContainsOldMagic functionality at some stage.
> A long-term solution would be to put it back in. Caching information
> should be stored in the ParserOutput object. OutputPage::addWikiText and
> similar functions would retrieve the caching information and use it to
> set appropriate flags in the OutputPage object.
> OutputPage::sendCacheControl() and the parser cache would use this
> information.
>
> It's important for Wikipedia that we are able to cache pages containing
> {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}, {{CURRENTDAYNAME}}, etc., because these variables
> are often used on the main page and other heavily-visited pages. A
> global option to make caching more aggressive may be useful.
>
> Joel, will you be publishing your modification under the GPL?
>
> -- Tim Starling


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Jens Ropers wrote:

> * Admins should be able to override the protection and "police" cases
> where users might be abusing their own user page -- eg. using it as a
> non-Wikipedia related home page, posting slurs or legal threats or
> other content that would never be tolerated by the community. (That's
> because Wikipedia is not a home page provider. User pages are pages
> ''about'' the individual Wikipedian and not for posting absolutely
> anything which that natural person pleases.)

A user should have the widest possible latitude in what he does on his
own user page.  It doesn't bother me if a person uses that page to
engage in self-promotion or in what appears to be a home page.  It's
only one page.  Determining whether he has done so is completely
subjective, and for a single page we don't need to get into that kind of
argument.  Even if a person engages in slurs and legal threats he says
more about himself than anyone else.  Limiting someone's right to free
speech there should be the extreme exception there.

> * Users should NEVER be allowed to protect their Talk page.

There are always exceptions, such as when one is beset by a persistent
vandal attacker.  In those circumstances he may want to protect for a
few days until things settle down.

Ec


from_name: uninvited at nerstrand.net

subject: [Wikitech-l] Lilypond 2.4.0

body:
We have for quite some time talked about using Lilypond for embedded
music markup.  There is a real need.  At present, those music articles
that have music notation in them are using .png files.  There is no
effective means of editing these files, and many music editors lack the
technical facility to install lilypond, run it, and upload the png.
Lilypond is the obvious choice, for us, for music notation, because it
has the widest following of any of the GPL'ed notation programs.

I see that Lilypond 2.4.0 is out.

It purports, at least, to have a safe mode for use in web servers.  This
has been one of the objections to using it here in the past.

I am willing to do some of the work on this.  I have used lilypond for a
number of projects and am familiar with it, and have a local wp mirror.

Any interest?

UninvitedCompany


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Some errors in nl: ?

body:
Yann Forget wrote:

>Hi,
>I think I found some errors in the Dutch Wiktionary (wrong language):
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catalee (not Marathi)
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/????? (not Tamil)
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catal_Ke (not Bihari)
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Denmark (not Malayalam)
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/air (not Malayalam)
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ingraji (not Marathi)
>
>
This seems like an awfully difficult problem to police.  We are
basically at the mercy of the person who puts up this kind of material.
Although I'm very active on the English Wiktionary I seldom touch the
translations except for matters affecting formatting.  This is because I
have absolutely no idea whether most of these are correct.  Often these
translations are imported from some other source without any attempt at
fact checking whatsoever; some people seem to take pride in having the
longest possible lists of translations.  Having persistently dead wrong
information can affect credibility even more than rampant POVs.  At
least with a POV issue there is a recognition that there is more than
one way to look at a subject.

A possible solution might be to forbid the inclusion of translations unless
    1. There is an active Wiktionary in that language, or
    2. A source has been cited for a particular translation.
Are there any other fairly easy ways for us to fact-check this kind of
information?

Ec


from_name: Peter Danenberg

subject: [Wikitech-l] Lilypond 2.4.0

body:
> Any interest?

     Indeed;  WikiTeX  supports  Lilypond  and  can be found
here:

     http://wikisophia.org/wiki/Wikitex#Music

which we're in the process  of  integrating  into  the  main
MediaWiki branch.

     Do  you  mind  having  a look and seeing if it fits the
bill?

--
Peter Danenberg                                           .
wikisophia.org                                           ..:


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reithy is a problem

body:
Rhobite wrote:
> The image is a low-res album cover, clearly fair use, but he said "I
> will send an email to the record company, if you like to ask whether
> they agree with you." I take this as a legal threat.

I don't think of it as a legal threat, but it is a fairly silly
remark.  For fair use, the whole point is that it doesn't matter if
the record company agrees or not: their copyright rights do not extend
so far as to prevent this kind of reuse.

As to the rest, I haven't looked into it, so I offer no opinion, but
if your report is correct, then I agree with you completely.

We've got a longstanding disease of putting up with more nonsense than
we should.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Lilypond 2.4.0

body:
>     http://wikisophia.org/wiki/Wikitex#Music

I looked through it and the related documentation.

The one page limitation is bound to become a problem sooner or later.
But then, even with the one-page limit, having lilypond markup at all
would be a cause for celebration among the music editors.
http://www.mutopiaproject.org is a repository for full-length scores,
and those are better suited to their mission than ours.  Some
orchestral works, because of the number of parts, could break over one
page just for an excerpt of the main theme, though.

Another concern is that Wikitex appears to be using a two-year old
version of Lilypond (an experimental 2.0 version).  This is
particularly a problem because the Lilypond maintainers have not
maintained backwards compatability in the input grammar.  Therefore,
input written for 2.0 can fail with syntax errors in 2.4.  I suspect
(hope?) that the grammar will begin to stabilize, at least as far as
the more commonly used features are concerned.

IIRC, 2.0 had some security holes in it (includes from an arbitrary path
for example) that, at best, would require a chroot jail to run on a
server of any consequence.

UninvitedCompany


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Lilypond 2.4.0

body:
> The one page limitation is bound to become a problem sooner or later.

Indeed; that's one of our most immediate concerns.

> This is particularly a problem because the Lilypond maintainers have
> not maintained backwards compatability in the input grammar.

Good,  then,  that  usage has been local; we'll start at 2.4
when it hits main distribution.

--
Peter Danenberg                                           .
wikisophia.org                                           ..:


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
You don't need to answer each single message for that. Most objections
were very similar, you could have answered just one of them and
consider all of them 'done'. Saying your opinion once is useful,
saying it twice might well be, but if people haven't heard you after
that, saying it more often will not help either.

Andre Engels

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 18:50:04 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> The thing is though, it's not like I sent 20 messages in a row asking
> for a Friulian Wikipedia, I wrote one, and responded to peoples
> questions and objections. To not do that might seem like I no longer
> want it created.


from_name: Nicholas Knight

body:
Jens Ropers wrote:
> Is a majority of list posters opposed to that here? (Is there a
> reason/rationale for the strong aversion?)

A: Top posting.
Q: What's the most annoying thing on USENET?


from_name: JAY JG

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy is a
	problem)

body:
>From: Rhobite <rhobite at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Rhobite <rhobite at gmail.com>,English Wikipedia
><wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Reithy is a problem
>Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 22:02:40 -0500

While I don't know the details of this particular case, I think it does
raise the issue of a larger problem on Wikipedia that I've mentioned before.
  For a while now schemes for "freezing" pages in various stable states have
been bandied about on this list.  In my opinion one of the reasons this is
becoming an issue is because Wikipedia's dispute resolution mechanisms are
broken, to the extent that editors who repeatedly and deliberatly violate
Wikipedia rules (e.g. regarding NPOV, personal attacks, civility, etc.)
operate with near impunity.  Unless they unambiguously commit outright
vandalism, for which they can be blocked, little or nothing is done about
them.  Request for Comment is a useless quagmire; partisans on each side of
the issue line up their votes, and nothing is accomplished.  Requests for
mediation take weeks or months, with mixed results at best.

However, the worst issue is requests for arbitration.  The arbitration
process is the only one which actually has any "teeth"; yet it is almost
completely disfunctional.   Again, not commenting on the merits of the
cases, the Avala, Lance6wins, and Rex071404 cases have dragged out for 4
months or more now.   The three month old Cantus vs. Guanaco case is still
in the Evidence stage!  Many other cases are two or three months old, with
every indication that they are in for more months of little or no action.
"Justice delayed is justice denied."

Frankly, Wikipedia has plenty of trolls on it who would, under any
functional system, have been hard banned within a couple of weeks of their
arrival.  As it is, though, Arbcom only manages to ban, what, two or three
users a year? Sysops and bureaucrats have commented to me privately that
they ignore all of these mechanisms, since they are almost completely
useless.  The ultimate outcome is that good editors, not wanting to get into
fights, avoid the articles being trolled, and eventually abandon the
project.  When the administrators of the project have no faith in its
processes, and when good editors are being driven away, then these processes
need to be fixed.

Jay.


body:
Jens Ropers wrote:

> Charles Matthews wrote:
>
>> See [[top-posting]] on Wiki-en, [[de:TOFU]].
>
> Ah.
> It appears that this is yet another proxy fight for the old "M$ vs. Open
> Source software" war.

Has nothing to do with Microsoft or open source except in so much as
Microsoft is guilt of poor design. I was first informed of how annoying
top-posting was years before I'd even heard of open source and by
someone who was, if anything, pro-Microsoft.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: amount of availible (LA)TEX commands in
	<math>-formulas

body:
> Indeed, there are no excluded commands I'd need. However, I get an
> error message [...] when trying to use any of these[:] \text,
> \textsuperscript, \pod, \nolimits and \sideset.

     Your  LaTeX is false, Ncik; you'll notice that the fol-
lowing produces senseless (but correct) output using all  of
the above:

     <math>
     \text{text}\textsuperscript{super}
     \iint\nolimits
     \pod{2}
     \left[\sideset{_**}{_**}
     \prod_k\qquad\sideset{}{}\sum_{0\le i\le m}E_i\beta x\right]
     </math>

Does it work?

--
Peter Danenberg                                           .
wikisophia.org                                           ..:


subject: [Wikitech-l] Downloading archives of en.old

body:
Recently I downloaded the old table for en.  I would like to keep a
reasonably up-to-date copy of it around for history queries.  You can
see [[Wikipedia:Another list of Wikipedians by date of arrival]] for
the sort of stuff that interests me.  I think it helps the project.

Anyway, I know the subject of incremental updates has come up in the
past, and has been ignored because it's fiddly to do and no one cares
much.

It would, however, be extremely helpful to me if even the minor measure
of splitting the files before compression rather than after were taken.
 That way I could download the last file or two, and cut and paste the
files based on oldid.  Please....

Thanks

UninvitedCompany


from_name: Jens Ropers

body:
I would favour giving every user a preferences ''option'' where they
can choose whether or not to protect their own user page.

This in part for the reasons Tim gave (below). Also, views about
whether or not others should be allowed to edit someone's own user page
tend to differ, so introducing such an option respects and reflects
such differing views. I don't think non-abusive users who feel that
their user page is "for them to control" should be ''forced'' to keep
it open for community editing. Finally, as was observed previously,
user page vandalism is a bigger problem with some users (and less with
others), so leaving that one up to the individual user just makes
sense.

However:
* Admins should be able to override the protection and "police" cases
where users might be abusing their own user page -- eg. using it as a
non-Wikipedia related home page, posting slurs or legal threats or
other content that would never be tolerated by the community. (That's
because Wikipedia is not a home page provider. User pages are pages
''about'' the individual Wikipedian and not for posting absolutely
anything which that natural person pleases.)
* Users should NEVER be allowed to protect their Talk page.

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

On 5 Nov 2004, at 17:24, Tim Starling wrote:

> ...there's certainly a good argument in favour of protecting user
> pages. There's certain cases where editing someone else's user page
> would be desirable, but it's rarely done anyway for philosophical
> reasons. Two French users, Anthere and Hashar, were kind enough to
> respond to my post by editing my user page, and I responded in kind by
> correcting mistakes in their English on their en user pages. Head did
> the same for me once, correcting my machine-translated German at
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Tim_Starling . These actions
> could only be considered to be a good thing.
>
> However, it's perfectly clear that the vast bulk of user page edits,
> say 99%, are malicious. That's partly because good users don't fix
> mistakes on other peoples' user pages out of courtesy, but vandals
> wishing to make a personal attack are not so inhibited.
>
> So maybe 90% of edits to articles are made in good faith, but only 1%
> of edits of other peoples' user pages. There's an argument to be had
> for reducing that 1% of good edits by putting up barriers, in exchange
> for removing the need to revert the other 99%.
>
> Despite what I said in my hasty first post, I'm actually undecided.
>
> -- Tim Starling


from_name: Andreas Voellmy

body:
Does anyone know if MediaWiki will add ACL-based control on pages and
media in the future? Is this slated for an upcoming release?

Andreas

On Nov 4, 2004, at 3:30 PM, NSK wrote:

> On Thursday 04 November 2004 19:19, Robert Jones wrote:
>> usernames) I want to restrict users on my installation to only editing
>> specific sections of the wiki.
>
> You might want to check the Wikka Wakka Wiki software that
> http://www.openformats.org uses.
>
> --
> NSK
> Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
> Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
> Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Josiah

body:
I concur. Many users have had their user pages vandalized by others opposed
to their POV's.

Josiah
User:Yoshiah_ap

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.788 / Virus Database: 533 - Release Date: 11/1/2004


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
Tim Starling wrote

> If we protect user pages, we can
> expect vandals to vandalise talk pages instead.

Right.  The graffiti, if that is what they are, migrate.  Of course if they
are nasty personal attacks and repeated, user pages can rightly be
protected, and sanctions applied.  Proposal: do _not_ make user pages
uneditable as default.  This is the 'soft security' approach, which
generally has served wikis well: don't try to block out all the user
problems, because you won't.

Charles


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Some errors in nl: ?

body:
Hi,

I think I?found some errors in the Dutch Wiktionary (wrong language):
* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catalee (not Marathi)
* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/????? (not Tamil)
* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catal_Ke (not Bihari)
* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Denmark (not Malayalam)
* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/air (not Malayalam)
* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ingraji (not Marathi)

Yann

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Reithy

body:
Sadly, Rhobite is, for the most part, right about Reithy; though I agree
with Jimbo that threatening to write to a record label regarding album
art hardly rises to the level of a "legal threat."

Reithy joined us three weeks ago and has made over 500 edits.

The edits have been to roughly a dozen articles, most of them related to
[[United States Libertarian Party]], to talk pages of these articles and
those who oppose his edits, and to RFC/RFA related pages where he has
answered (after a fashion) various complaints about his behavior.

There really is no reason we should have to go through the slow,
deliberate [[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution]] process with someone who
has never been a good-faith contributor to the project.  The safeguards
present therein are intended to provide a means of cooling off for
Wikipedians who have contributed in the past and are likely to do so in
the future.

The present arbitration framework is serving to do nothing but give this
joker another soapbox.  Rhobite is being subject to undue scrutiny as a
result of his conflict with Reithy, and I imagine that the AC will, in
an effort to be evenhanded and "fair" find a bone to pick with one or
another of his comments or edit summaries.

If Reithy is banned, as seems likely to occur at some point, I imagine
he'll return with an army of sockpuppets, and those admins who seek out
fairness to accused sockpuppets will revert any attempts to block them.

This isn't some obscure corner of the 'pedia, folks, like [[Iridology]]
or [[Instructional capital]].

This is about the article on one of the largest minor political parties
in U.S. politics, on the 300th largest web site in the world.

Is it time to do something about bad-faith users yet?

UninvitedCompany


subject: [Wikitech-l] (no subject)

body:
> It might be faster to generate that list using a sql query directly
> on one of wikimedia database server, additionaly tt will save some bandwith.

That's a great idea, IMO, for exactly the reasons you cite.  The page
need not be updated frequently.

The query does take over 12 hours to run, albeit on a machine of limited
resources.  While I am not an expert on query optimization, I doubt that
much can be done to speed it up.

FWIW there is presently a three month backlog of queries to be run, on
the list on the meta.

UninvitedCompany


body:
Sorry for asking what are possibly some horrendously daft questions,
but I'm seeing some "top-post aversion" reference for the second or
third time now.
Does "top posting" simply refer to having the previous emails below the
more recent post (as with this email)?
Is a majority of list posters opposed to that here? (Is there a
reason/rationale for the strong aversion?)
Or do the majority actually prefer "top-posting"?

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

On 5 Nov 2004, at 14:32, Tim Starling wrote:

> <snip>
>
> ARRGGHH TOP-POST KILL KILL
>
> -- Tim Starling
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Reithy

body:
uninvited at nerstrand.net wrote:

>This isn't some obscure corner of the 'pedia, folks, like [[Iridology]]
>or [[Instructional capital]].
>
>This is about the article on one of the largest minor political parties
>in U.S. politics, on the 300th largest web site in the world.
>

Your POV is showing.  The second part is true in itself, but the
comparison with two other ideas merits mentioning.  Controversial as it
may be , iridology does have a certain following.  Many of these might
place the Libertarian Party in an obscure corner.  It is a matter of
pure speculation for the followers of the one to say that the followers
of the other are in an obscure corner.

Instructional capital is probably less well known, but that is probably
only because econo-social theories in general attract less attention.

Ec