subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
Hear hear! A great message, there must be at least a dozen quotable
lines to immortalize on policy pages somewhere.

Mr. Mouse's claim that he has to be anonymous in order not to be
hounded off the list is just not borne out by the archives - we've
had many spirited debates among reasonable people, even said things
we regretted later and apologized for them, and nobody got banned
from anywhere for it.

Stan

Phil Sandifer wrote:

> Oh for god's sake.
>
> The technical evidence against Cranston is a slam dunk. He's a troll.
> He's a vicious, sockpuppeting troll who uses sockpuppets to try to
> generate fake consensus. He's the sort of user we routinely shoot on
> sight, and it's a good thing we do, because we have too damn many of
> them, and every time one manages to generate the headache that this
> has become, good users get driven off. Kudos to every admin who
> blocked him, everyone who called for his removal from this list, and
> everybody who tried to shut this mess down.
>
> As for those who want to plead for more leniency and say that people
> were dismissive of him, wake up. This project is huge. Huge projects
> attract idiocy. They attract idiocy of the page vandal sort, and
> idiocy of the far more insidious sort. People who come to the project
> for their own ego, people who come to the project to advance their
> own agendas, and people who want to cause the project harm and who
> are actually good at doing it.
>
> Expansion kills online communities. Fundamentally, eternal growth is
> a perpetual strain. We understand this from a technical perspective,
> but we don't understand it socially. We are continually wasting our
> breath and energy debating things that need to be slam dunks. If
> every Cranston Snerd gets this much debate - hell, if one Cranston
> Snerd out of 10 gets this much debate, it's a disaster. We're only
> going to get more Cranston Snerds. Just like we'll get more Lirs,
> more  CheeseDreams, more Alberunis, and more of every other sort of
> bad user. We cannot keep them from coming in. All we can do is get
> very, very good at shooting them as soon as we see them. This means
> being unrelenting. This means being swift and figuring out the story
> later. And this means that people who immediately assume there's some
> conspiracy against them instead of just sending a polite note to the
> effect of, "I'm sorry, I seem to have done something wrong and gotten
> blocked, do you mind telling me what it is so I can avoid it" get run
> off. You know what? Fine. We've got lots of people. We can afford to
> accidentally run some off.
>
> This doesn't mean we don't welcome new users. It doesn't mean we
> treat everybody with suspicion. But it means that we learn to call a
> spade a spade, and we stop feeling bad about coming down like a ton
> of bricks on people who are disrupting the project. We do not need to
> care why. We need to be willing to make social decisions with the
> same dispassionate "What will make this situation better" eye that we
> handle our articles with. If a user is breaking articles and making
> it so people can't edit, we shoot them.
>
> That's it. That's all that's going to work. If we do not learn to
> come down on Cranstons with fury and speed, over time, this community
> will implode. One need only look at nearly every other Internet
> community to figure that one out.
>
> Good job David. Good job SlimVirgin.
>
> -Snowspinner
>
> On May 30, 2005, at 10:51 PM, A Nony Mouse wrote:
>
>> I have been watching the last week's events with dismay. I have  been
>> trying to compose this email for two hours, but every time I  get
>> close, something else comes up.
>>
>> I have decided to make this anonymous. I do not know how some of  you
>> would react and I do not wish to take any chance that I would  be
>> harassed for this.
>>
>> There are two cases that bother me. Jack Lynch aka Sam Spade and
>> Cranston Snord aka Enviroknot. Both of these cases scare me because
>> of the precedent that they have set.
>>
>> In the case of Jack, there was a question of a block war.
>> Administrators were fighting over what to do with him. This is not  a
>> good thing for Wikipedia editors no matter who they are. It
>> indicates that the user is less of a concern than something between
>> the two Administrators.
>>
>> It is the case of Cranston Snord aka Enviroknot that worries me
>> more. This is the case that has made me take the drastic step of
>> sending an email to the list anonymously. I had originally been
>> trying to type up a response to Cranston's concerns about being
>> blocked. I believe that SlimVirgin violated policy by doing so.
>> Unfortunately for me, such an email would likely now be a day late
>> and a dollar short.
>>
>> Cranston was a disruption to the list, but much of that disruption
>> was caused by other people on this list treating him with  incredible
>> disrespect. I was taken aback by his accusations against
>> administrators but having looked at the cases in hand I believe  that
>> he has a point.
>>
>> There were emails on this list asking whether anyone was taking him
>> seriously. This is the height of arrogance, and it is something  that
>> frightens me. Administrators should never be acting as if  ordinary
>> editors do not matter.
>>
>> As for his complaints about being blocked, the dismissiveness on
>> this board hurt me. No matter who it is making a complaint, we have
>> a duty to investigate it. We are listed as the last resort for  users
>> who have been wronged. I took the time to investigate  SlimVirgin's
>> blocking of Enviroknot, and I believe that it is not  valid.
>>
>> By the time I got to the discussion, it was a good series of emails
>> long, and despite the number of list members who had posted, none
>> save SlimVirgin had bothered to address Enviroknot's concerns on  the
>> block in any way. SlimVirgin herself made a bad judgement call.  An
>> edit made in good faith should never be considered a reversion,  even
>> if it contains some content that is included in a later  reversion.
>>
>> Instead of acknowledging this fact, the list members were
>> universally dismissive of Enviroknot from the first email. One went
>> so far as to demand that the term "rogue admin" not be used,  without
>> addressing the reasons that it had been brought up in  multiple cases
>> recently.
>>
>> We have a problem with administrators exceeding their authority on
>> Wikipedia. We have a problem with administrators not applying  policy
>> correctly. And we have a problem with arrogance on these  lists, with
>> administrators believing that they are somehow better  than others.
>>
>> With the increased power of administrator access comes a
>> responsibility to use it fairly and adhere to the established
>> procedures and policies. The actions of an Administrator should
>> themselves be NPOV. We have stated policy that when a user is found
>> to be violating policy, if they return and do not break policy,
>> their previous transgressions should not be held against them.
>>
>> There are a number of administrators who are failing in that
>> responsibility, and they are present on this list. One of them,
>> rather than addressing Enviroknot's concerns in a calm tone and
>> actually going over policy, chose to kickban Enviroknot entirely.
>>
>> I have never until today been ashamed to be a part of Wikipedia,  but
>> there it is. Take it as you will.
>>
>> A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.
>>
>> _________________________________________________________________
>> Create the ultimate online companion - meet the Meegos! http://
>> meegos.msn.ie
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
It's very hard for someone like Enviroknot to gain any sympathy when
they are obviously, blatantly lying.  The odds that two unrelated
people would get the same IP address and decide to edit the same
Wikipedia articles one after the other are vanishingly slim.  If
Enviroknot is not the same person as KaintheScion/ElKabong - something
I personally doubt - the two of them are very closely related.  Yet
Enviroknot denies even that.

Someone who dives into Wikipedia and instantly goes to a contentious
article is either a sockpuppet or someone who is responding to a call
to arms by someone else.  Someone who instantly knows all the rules
and how to skirt them is not some innocent.

-Matt (User:Morven)


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Intended changes to namespace management

body:
On 30/05/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> As part of Wikidata, I'm rather fundamentally redesigning the namespace
> logic of MediaWiki, and I'd like to invite input, specifically on
>
> 1) whether I should try to get these changes ready for 1.5, or commit
> them to a separate branch,

Well, I believe Brion is keen to see 1.5 ready sooner than later -
according to http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-April/028899.html
he was hoping it would be in beta a month ago, so landing a change as
fundamental as this is unlikely to be popular with him. And for the
record, I think he's right - if the unstable branch stays unstable for
too long at a time, features that are fully mature take ages to see
the light of day.

> 2) whether there are objections or suggestions regarding any of the below.
>
> Simply put, I am moving namespaces from the language files and from
> Namespace.php into the database. In my present implementation, the
> namespaces are loaded from the DB on every request, but I will add
> support for memcached as well.

Seems reasonably sensible so far.

> (ns_target is a new feature I'm working on which allows you to specify a
> default "destination prefix" for any link from within that namespace.
> This can be an InterWiki link or a namespace. That will be useful in a
> variety of contexts, for example, within a Wikibooks module, all links
> could point to pages within the namespace by default; within a Wikidata
> page, all links could go to Wikipedia by default, etc.)

That sounds like something a lot of people will like - not so much
often-requested, as often-misunderstood-that-it-already-works. One
thing occurs to me though - can the "main" namespace have synonyms
(or, perhaps, be removed altogether)? This is important because in the
Wikibooks scenario (see also something like the Mozilla Wiki, which
uses namespaces more-or-less in this idiom), having [[foo]] always
point to something completely different to [[:foo]] may not be an
ideal way of distinguishing those two pages.

> This means that the default namespace name is "File", and that "Image",
> "Video" and "Sound" redirect to it. No more "Image" prefix for sound
> files! It's quite a pleasure to see this working. There can be an
> arbitrary number of namespace synonyms for any namespace.

That's another feature that could be very useful, if used carefully -
as well as that situation, there are sites where it would be nice for
"Project", "Wikipedia", *and* a translated name *all* to work. I've
also considered it would be useful to have abbreviated versions of
namespace names - so "WP:" could be an alias for "Wikipedia:"; the
existing "shortcuts" could be "Wikipedia:VP" etc but still work, and
you could type "WP:Glossary" without anyone having created a shortcut
for it.

Of course, as with InterWiki prefixes, the danger is that as soon as
someone *removes* such a synonym, all links using it instantly break
(or, more confusingly, not instantly, because of caching).

> The major part of the effort is getting this to work properly with all
> language files.

This is mildly off-topic, but why do all language files override
methods which differ only in a reference to a global array? Why not
just have the array a member variable and use inheritance properly?
(The reason I discovered this was identifying a hack in
LanguageFr.php::getNsIndex() that was accidentally copied to
LanguageOc.php, which makes "Wikipedia:" a synonym for the actual
translated name) I believe Special pages do something similar,
defining global functions rather than just overriding an inheritted
one. Is this because of a flaw in PHP's OOP model, or is it just bad
design? [Or am I wrong and this is actually *good* design in some
way?]

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] More about lag

body:
I wrote:
> My current thinking on replication lag is that lagged servers shouldn't
> serve any read requests at all, until they catch up. I've said that it
> would be nice if this was implemented with creative thread scheduling
> within MySQL, but we can get pretty close at the application level. We
> can just send requests to any up-to-date server, and if there are no
> up-to-date servers besides the master, automatically switch the wiki to
> read only and serve error messages for most reads. The approach Jamesday
> was recommending, i.e. making do with lagged data wherever possible,
> just seems to exacerbate the problem, because the read load extends lag
> times.

I should add, queueing would be an appropriate response to cluster-wide
lag times of up to a few seconds. The request could be queued until a
slave with zero lag time becomes available. Serving an error message
only becomes appropriate when the expected queueing time is long enough
that the user would want an explanation.

Of course then there's the tricky question of when and where to queue
requests. In ordinary operation, connection counts are a useful
indication of load, and limits on connection count can be used for
example to prevent apache from out-competing memcached for CPU time.
Queueing while waiting for some external resource inflates connection
counts, causing limits to be prematurely hit, thus encouraging sysadmins
to set a compromise limit, which may be too high during normal operation.

The other problem is that 500 apache threads waiting for the database
does not constitute a queue. It's more like the start line at a fun run.
When the gun goes off (i.e. a server reaches zero lag), the poor slave
will be swamped, and the replication thread will again be out-competed
until the batch of read requests are completed.

Perhaps the solution is a strict limit on database query concurrency.
Apache threads could call SHOW STATUS, and wait until Threads_running is
sufficiently low. They could also use Threads_connected as an estimate
of the number of other apaches polling the same variable. They could
adjust their polling interval accordingly, to prevent swamping when the
number drops low enough.

The algorithm would look something like this:

do {
    $nonLaggingServer = $wgLoadBalancer->getRandomNonLaggingServer();
    if ( $nonLaggingServer ) {
        $running = $nonLaggingServer->threadsRunning();
        $connected = $nonLaggingServer->threadsConnected();
        if ( $running > $maxRunning ) {
            $sleepTime = $sleepTime = 5ms * $connected;
        } else {
            $sleepTime = 0;
        }
    } else {
        $sleepTime = 500ms;
    }
    sleep( $sleepTime );
} while ( ( !$nonLaggingServer || $running > $maxRunning ) &&
          !$wgUser->lostPatience() );

Note that if a single overloaded server is non-lagging, the threads
won't get stuck waiting for it. When a second non-lagging server becomes
available, half of them will switch to waiting for that instead.

I don't have any answers for the problem of controlling apache load at
the moment.

-- Tim Starling


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Wikimedia Operations Team saves the Day,
 [was: Personal frustration level linear to replication lag]

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
>>* Give them the PROCESS privilege
>
> Would work.
>
>
>>* Upgrade to MySQL 4.1. Not easy due to the need to dump and reimport,
>>and we don't need to do it for any other reason.
>
> Would we _really_ need that? Sure, downtimes will happen with altering column collations and stuff...

That's what Jamesday says, he says format changes aren't documented
properly so if you want to avoid data loss you should dump and reimport.

>>* Use "SELECT max(rc_timestamp)" like servmon.
>>It wouldn't work well for a site like wikicities
>>but it should work for us most of the time.
>
>
> We could run 'pinger' process on master, that would
> simply update some HEAP table with current timestamp
> every second (or every half of it).

Interesting idea.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Rob Lanphier

subject: [Wikitech-l] Terminology on user levels

body:
Hi all,

The new user levels functionality in 1.5 looks pretty cool (referring to
this):
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:User_levels

One small concern I have is regarding terminology. This appears to be a
w:Role-Based Access Control
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-Based_Access_Control> system, but
with different terminology. See Role Based Access Controls at NIST
<http://csrc.nist.gov/rbac/> for the gory explanation.

Here's what I see as the difference:

Current MediaWiki 1.5 	RBAC
Level 	Permission
User Group 	Role

Is my assessment of the situation correct? If so, it'd be nice to move
toward using more standard terminology. It's not something worth slowing
down a 1.5 release, but it'd be good to eventually align this

Rob


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Intended changes to namespace management

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> ns_default is the namespace all other namespace names for that ns_id
> will redirect to.

I would have called it "ns_canonical" or even "ns_is_canonical", but
with sufficient documentation it shouldn't make much difference :)

> This means that the default namespace name is "File", and that "Image",
> "Video" and "Sound" redirect to it.

How is this going to tie in with the [[Image:...]] syntax being special
because it inserts an image rather than linking to it? That needs to be
internationalised too. :) Oh, and don't forget about the [[Media:...]]
syntax, which is also special.

> * don't allow it to delete a namespace that contains pages
> * don't allow it to create a namespace if there are existing pages with
> that prefix (avoid conflicts with pseudo-namespaces)

Just a suggestion, but if it isn't too much work:
* when deleting a namespace that contains pages, offer to change all
   those pages' names to be prefixed (i.e. turn it into a
   pseudo-namespace)?
* when creating a namespace if there are existing pages with that
   prefix, offer the option of "importing" those pages into the new
   namespace?

Greetings,
Timwi


from_name: Stacey Greenstein

subject:
[WikiEN-l] And the bad faith continues from Wikipedia. ALL ADMINS
	are Rogue Admins

body:
I fancied being a Wizard, but then we'd end up being an offshoot of
LambdaMOO.

Stacey

On 5/31/05, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
> Cranston Snord wrote:
>
> > Apparently, for following Wikipedia policy and bringing my complaints,
> > I have been blocked.
> >
> > I am not going to swear at you, despite SlimVirgin's lies and David
> > Gerard's profanity.
> >
> > But I hope you are happy. I now know why Wikipedia isn't worth
> > anything. It's because Wikipedia policy isn't worth the electrons used
> > to store it.
> >
> > All Wikipedia Admins ARE Rogue Admins.
>
> Personally I favor being a Barbarian Admin, although
> Archaeologist Admin is good for a change of pace, and
> Valkyrie Admin has its equipment advantages at lower
> levels.
>
> Stan
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The harmful "Main article fixation" phenomenon

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:
>
> There are still many topics, for example, taught at undergraduate
> level at universities, that have scanty or no explanation.

Does this imply that traditional encyclopedias tend to cover all
undergraduate university topics?

Please don't take this to mean that I think Wikipedia should follow
their example, or indeed anything else I haven't said.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What we need now are a few good inclusionist jerks!

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> Can't we nominate some consistent wikipedia inclusionist to allow to
> delete, say, any article less than a month old or with less than two
> edits, they they believe would be a unanimous delete vote on VFD?
> Articles that they don't choose to delete would continue go through
> the normal VFD process. If they delete something they shouldn't it can
> be VFUD or speedy UD by another admin.

To balance the inclusionist with the "license to speedy-delete", we
would need a corresponding deletionist with the "license to
speedy-undelete". ;-)


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
Oh for god's sake.

The technical evidence against Cranston is a slam dunk. He's a troll.
He's a vicious, sockpuppeting troll who uses sockpuppets to try to
generate fake consensus. He's the sort of user we routinely shoot on
sight, and it's a good thing we do, because we have too damn many of
them, and every time one manages to generate the headache that this
has become, good users get driven off. Kudos to every admin who
blocked him, everyone who called for his removal from this list, and
everybody who tried to shut this mess down.

As for those who want to plead for more leniency and say that people
were dismissive of him, wake up. This project is huge. Huge projects
attract idiocy. They attract idiocy of the page vandal sort, and
idiocy of the far more insidious sort. People who come to the project
for their own ego, people who come to the project to advance their
own agendas, and people who want to cause the project harm and who
are actually good at doing it.

Expansion kills online communities. Fundamentally, eternal growth is
a perpetual strain. We understand this from a technical perspective,
but we don't understand it socially. We are continually wasting our
breath and energy debating things that need to be slam dunks. If
every Cranston Snerd gets this much debate - hell, if one Cranston
Snerd out of 10 gets this much debate, it's a disaster. We're only
going to get more Cranston Snerds. Just like we'll get more Lirs,
more  CheeseDreams, more Alberunis, and more of every other sort of
bad user. We cannot keep them from coming in. All we can do is get
very, very good at shooting them as soon as we see them. This means
being unrelenting. This means being swift and figuring out the story
later. And this means that people who immediately assume there's some
conspiracy against them instead of just sending a polite note to the
effect of, "I'm sorry, I seem to have done something wrong and gotten
blocked, do you mind telling me what it is so I can avoid it" get run
off. You know what? Fine. We've got lots of people. We can afford to
accidentally run some off.

This doesn't mean we don't welcome new users. It doesn't mean we
treat everybody with suspicion. But it means that we learn to call a
spade a spade, and we stop feeling bad about coming down like a ton
of bricks on people who are disrupting the project. We do not need to
care why. We need to be willing to make social decisions with the
same dispassionate "What will make this situation better" eye that we
handle our articles with. If a user is breaking articles and making
it so people can't edit, we shoot them.

That's it. That's all that's going to work. If we do not learn to
come down on Cranstons with fury and speed, over time, this community
will implode. One need only look at nearly every other Internet
community to figure that one out.

Good job David. Good job SlimVirgin.

-Snowspinner

On May 30, 2005, at 10:51 PM, A Nony Mouse wrote:

> I have been watching the last week's events with dismay. I have
> been trying to compose this email for two hours, but every time I
> get close, something else comes up.
>
> I have decided to make this anonymous. I do not know how some of
> you would react and I do not wish to take any chance that I would
> be harassed for this.
>
> There are two cases that bother me. Jack Lynch aka Sam Spade and
> Cranston Snord aka Enviroknot. Both of these cases scare me because
> of the precedent that they have set.
>
> In the case of Jack, there was a question of a block war.
> Administrators were fighting over what to do with him. This is not
> a good thing for Wikipedia editors no matter who they are. It
> indicates that the user is less of a concern than something between
> the two Administrators.
>
> It is the case of Cranston Snord aka Enviroknot that worries me
> more. This is the case that has made me take the drastic step of
> sending an email to the list anonymously. I had originally been
> trying to type up a response to Cranston's concerns about being
> blocked. I believe that SlimVirgin violated policy by doing so.
> Unfortunately for me, such an email would likely now be a day late
> and a dollar short.
>
> Cranston was a disruption to the list, but much of that disruption
> was caused by other people on this list treating him with
> incredible disrespect. I was taken aback by his accusations against
> administrators but having looked at the cases in hand I believe
> that he has a point.
>
> There were emails on this list asking whether anyone was taking him
> seriously. This is the height of arrogance, and it is something
> that frightens me. Administrators should never be acting as if
> ordinary editors do not matter.
>
> As for his complaints about being blocked, the dismissiveness on
> this board hurt me. No matter who it is making a complaint, we have
> a duty to investigate it. We are listed as the last resort for
> users who have been wronged. I took the time to investigate
> SlimVirgin's blocking of Enviroknot, and I believe that it is not
> valid.
>
> By the time I got to the discussion, it was a good series of emails
> long, and despite the number of list members who had posted, none
> save SlimVirgin had bothered to address Enviroknot's concerns on
> the block in any way. SlimVirgin herself made a bad judgement call.
> An edit made in good faith should never be considered a reversion,
> even if it contains some content that is included in a later
> reversion.
>
> Instead of acknowledging this fact, the list members were
> universally dismissive of Enviroknot from the first email. One went
> so far as to demand that the term "rogue admin" not be used,
> without addressing the reasons that it had been brought up in
> multiple cases recently.
>
> We have a problem with administrators exceeding their authority on
> Wikipedia. We have a problem with administrators not applying
> policy correctly. And we have a problem with arrogance on these
> lists, with administrators believing that they are somehow better
> than others.
>
> With the increased power of administrator access comes a
> responsibility to use it fairly and adhere to the established
> procedures and policies. The actions of an Administrator should
> themselves be NPOV. We have stated policy that when a user is found
> to be violating policy, if they return and do not break policy,
> their previous transgressions should not be held against them.
>
> There are a number of administrators who are failing in that
> responsibility, and they are present on this list. One of them,
> rather than addressing Enviroknot's concerns in a calm tone and
> actually going over policy, chose to kickban Enviroknot entirely.
>
> I have never until today been ashamed to be a part of Wikipedia,
> but there it is. Take it as you will.
>
> A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Create the ultimate online companion - meet the Meegos! http://
> meegos.msn.ie
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Blocked after making several edits - accused of
	"vandalism"?!

body:
advert wrote:
> I did not realise this was even a requirement to register in order to
>  make changes to an entry.

There isn't such a requirement.

> I was unaware that editing a page was somehow an offense worth
> blocking

It isn't.

> I have been accused of "vandalism" and blocked:

People have attempted to communicate with you on your IP's talk page:

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:165.247.46.74

In particular, they have attempted to point out to you the NPOV policy:

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV

You were only blocked for one week (personally I would have thought 24
hours would be more appropriate), so don't get too worked up over it.
Read the NPOV policy and other policies, and please feel free to
continue editing within these guidelines once your block expires.

Greetings,
Timwi


from_name: Ed W

subject: [Wikitech-l] Feature addition to the gallery

body:
Hi, I would like to add some code to allow changing some options on the
gallery.  In particular I would like to change the thumb size and
perhaps also the number of columns (and perhaps also add a caption

I have traced through the relevant bits of code of the parser to where
we extract the attributes, but it looks as though the parser right now
doesn't allow for attributes in the "<gallery>" tag.

For example if I wanted something like <gallery
thumb=150px;cols=1;header="My gallery heading"> then I don't think this
extra stuff is parsed out right now?

Any suggestions on the cleanest way to implement this?  Will it be
accepted for inclusion...?

Thanks

Ed W


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Mediawiki 1.5 imminent (was Intended changes to
	namespace management)

body:
Brion:
... 1.5 (which will be going live within a week or two).

Can we have a fresh dump just before the first database is converted to 1.5,
so that I can run stats. I most probably won't be doing work on wikistats
for 1.5 during summer,
so June stats will be there for a while.

Erik Zachte


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] going 1.5 & Enotif

body: bugzilla 2014 should not be forgotten


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> The idea is to avoid VFD for something that would be unanimous or
> near-unanimous, and anything that an admin would bother to undelete
> would count as not unanimous. :)

Unfortunately, by their very definition, "inclusionist jerks" and
"deletionist jerks" don't tend to have a very clear mind about what
other people -- especially those on the opposite side of the spectrum --
will think (or vote), and are therefore likely to go "ah well, this is
gonna be unanimous anyway" more often than it actually would.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Guaka

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Paid-for-articles WPs in smaller languages
	(was: bambara)

body:
> This kind of innovation is important.  The fact that you outline
> unsuccessful strategies, and what was done to find alternative
> techniques is highly instructive.  How old were the computers that were
> put in the community school?  How stable is electrical power in Bamako?

I think it's a bunch of P1s and P2s, with the horsepower coming from a
central server, which is a >1 GHz Athlon or something. The server is
running Skolelinux.
Bamako's electricity is pretty okay. Only when there's heavy rain it can
falls out for longer periods. Short ruptures do occur, but are not very
common.

k'an be!


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sam Spade/Report rogue admin

body:
See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Apologies

I had the page deleted, feeling it was causing more hard than good.

Jack

On 5/31/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Charles Matthews wrote:
>
> > Ray Saintonge wrote
> >
> >> It's perfectly acceptable to say that an idea is insane, but not that
> >> the person putting forth the idea is insane.
> >
> > It is utter madness to say that it is perfectly acceptable to say that
> > an idea is insane.
> >
> > I wrote that, of course, without prejudice to the question of Ray's
> > sanity. But how does it read in practice?  A little of the
> > 'transferred epithet'? Ideas of course do not enjoy mental health,
> > good or otherwise.
>
> In practice it reads as convoluted double-talk.
>
> I suppose your thesis is right to the ultra-literalist.  Perhaps those
> who transfer epthets should learn to read.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

body:
On Mon, 2005-05-30 at 15:55 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:

> > This is mildly off-topic, but why do all language files override
> > methods which differ only in a reference to a global array? Why not
> > just have the array a member variable and use inheritance properly?

> The original design was borken and it hasn't been changed yet.

I think I had a hangover that day...

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] One last word about user genders (was:sco/fiu-vroin
	danger..)

body:
On 5/29/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:

> And of course, if you want to be sure your sex is not misinterpreted, you
> can use your real name as user name. I don't think I would consider a
> Delphine male at any time, no matter how drunk I may be...
>

You would not...but what gender would a notafish be? ;-) The name is
pronounced like dolphin in at least Spanish and German, which leads to
yet other gender confusions... You're right, Delphine is not-a-man,
just as the dolphin is not-a-fish ;-)

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Paid-for-articles WPs in smaller languages

body:
> If I wanted to give to such a place delivery could be a big problem.  If
> you send cash or if you send the computers there will always be too many
> open hands between you and the recipient.  If you use mainstream NGOs
> money also gets wasted sending the cameraman to take pictures of the NGO
> agent doing his good deeds.  In the early stages you need someone there
> whom you can trust to distribute the funds properly.

First of all, 30% or so is already "wasted" on administration in
developed countries. Then there's often conditions on the use of the
money. For instance, USAID has the policy that its money should be spent
on American products, where possible. That often means more expensive
products. Then there's often the urge to finish the budget. If "this
year's budget" isn't finished, next year's budget will be less. Often
money is wasted like that.
Then there's often incompetence, stupidity and/or the urge to use the
highest-tech available. It's much cooler - for the NGO and for the local
mayor - to show off a big shiny satellite dish (compared to a modem
+telephone line). even if the satellite connection will cost the village
300 US$ every month. 300 dollars that will be paid to an American or
European company, and that will have to be earned by the village
population.

These days 'everyone' has a digital camera, so cameramen aren't really
needed anymore, unless you're big time stuff like UNESCO...

"In Cambodia, over half of the international aide goes to 740
'international consultants' working in the country. In 2002 those 740
people were paid just as much as all the 160.000 people working in the
Cambodian public sector."
http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=299724 (in French)


from_name: A Nony Mouse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
I have been watching the last week's events with dismay. I have been trying
to compose this email for two hours, but every time I get close, something
else comes up.

I have decided to make this anonymous. I do not know how some of you would
react and I do not wish to take any chance that I would be harassed for
this.

There are two cases that bother me. Jack Lynch aka Sam Spade and Cranston
Snord aka Enviroknot. Both of these cases scare me because of the precedent
that they have set.

In the case of Jack, there was a question of a block war. Administrators
were fighting over what to do with him. This is not a good thing for
Wikipedia editors no matter who they are. It indicates that the user is less
of a concern than something between the two Administrators.

It is the case of Cranston Snord aka Enviroknot that worries me more. This
is the case that has made me take the drastic step of sending an email to
the list anonymously. I had originally been trying to type up a response to
Cranston's concerns about being blocked. I believe that SlimVirgin violated
policy by doing so. Unfortunately for me, such an email would likely now be
a day late and a dollar short.

Cranston was a disruption to the list, but much of that disruption was
caused by other people on this list treating him with incredible disrespect.
I was taken aback by his accusations against administrators but having
looked at the cases in hand I believe that he has a point.

There were emails on this list asking whether anyone was taking him
seriously. This is the height of arrogance, and it is something that
frightens me. Administrators should never be acting as if ordinary editors
do not matter.

As for his complaints about being blocked, the dismissiveness on this board
hurt me. No matter who it is making a complaint, we have a duty to
investigate it. We are listed as the last resort for users who have been
wronged. I took the time to investigate SlimVirgin's blocking of Enviroknot,
and I believe that it is not valid.

By the time I got to the discussion, it was a good series of emails long,
and despite the number of list members who had posted, none save SlimVirgin
had bothered to address Enviroknot's concerns on the block in any way.
SlimVirgin herself made a bad judgement call. An edit made in good faith
should never be considered a reversion, even if it contains some content
that is included in a later reversion.

Instead of acknowledging this fact, the list members were universally
dismissive of Enviroknot from the first email. One went so far as to demand
that the term "rogue admin" not be used, without addressing the reasons that
it had been brought up in multiple cases recently.

We have a problem with administrators exceeding their authority on
Wikipedia. We have a problem with administrators not applying policy
correctly. And we have a problem with arrogance on these lists, with
administrators believing that they are somehow better than others.

With the increased power of administrator access comes a responsibility to
use it fairly and adhere to the established procedures and policies. The
actions of an Administrator should themselves be NPOV. We have stated policy
that when a user is found to be violating policy, if they return and do not
break policy, their previous transgressions should not be held against them.

There are a number of administrators who are failing in that responsibility,
and they are present on this list. One of them, rather than addressing
Enviroknot's concerns in a calm tone and actually going over policy, chose
to kickban Enviroknot entirely.

I have never until today been ashamed to be a part of Wikipedia, but there
it is. Take it as you will.

A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.

_________________________________________________________________
Create the ultimate online companion - meet the Meegos! http://meegos.msn.ie


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Ed W wrote:
> Do you mean this bug:
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=684
>
> What's wrong with the code as is?  Looks great to me?
>
> Please advise what's wrong and I will fix it up - seems great for my
> purpose

Please read the comments on the bug.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: More about lag

body:
> --- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>> I've talked to a few  other people who feel similarly, though I
>> don't know what the most common preference would be.  If there's
>> queueing, at least you know your  request will get served
>> eventually, even if you have to go get a cup of coffee first; with
>> the error-message responses, you just have to keep hitting reload,
>> which is more irritating.

When demand outstrips supply, it's pretty arbitrary how long you wait
before you serve the error message, it's going to happen eventually. In
such a situation, the idea of serving error messages is to discourage
further traffic. I know it's irritating, but there comes a point where
the only option is to deny service and hope people find some other way
to get the information they want. Using a mirror is the obvious option.

The situation is different with writes, in that it's better if we let
the user know that there is a problem before they go to the trouble of
making the edit. If we have to reduce write load, the best way to do it
is with read-only mode. That way we don't end up with hundreds of edits
queued up in the master database, with no-one able to retrieve diffs for
them or review them in any way. That, remember, was Presroi's original
complaint.

Queueing reads for 10 minutes before serving an error message does
no-one any good.

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Also irritating is the fact that nobody seems to care about locking
> the database from edits when things slow down like this. So those who
> are are on RC patrol have the choice of letting vandalism through,
> or sitting there frustrated seeing all their rollbacks fail 3 or 4
> times before sticking. Everybody else gets frustrated as well ;
> seeing their edits fail.
>
> When service gets this bad PLEASE lock the database from edits until
> service improves.

Maybe you didn't notice, part of my proposal was to do that automatically.

Timwi wrote:
> With several thousands requests per second, how is any server ever
> going to "catch up" completely?  The way I understand replication,
> the servers are always out of date at least by the time it takes for
> the master to send an update to all the slaves?

1500 requests per second at the squid, but only 50 updates per second
and 6 inserts per second (as I type this post). The slaves spend a
significant proportion of their time with their replication thread in
"waiting for master" mode. And we can always add a grace period of a few
hundred milliseconds, if necessary.

Timwi also wrote:
> Personally, I would think that serving an error message only becomes
> appropriate when there is an error.  Extreme slowness is not an
> error. I would prefer for a request to take half an hour to complete
> than to have to reload every five minutes for half an hour, and the
> request still hasn't completed because it keeps timing out.

Sorry, we can't queue read requests forever due to the apache connection
limit problem I described in the previous post.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
Whether he is "barely" deserving of a fair treatment or otherwise, nobody
here has given him a fair treatment by any stretch of the imagination.

That won't do.

I also have Phil's "circle the wagons" rant up above. He thinks expansion
kills online communities. I think he's right.

Expansion kills online communities because of people like Phil who won't
admit that they need to let go and they need to deal with the new people
coming in fairly. People like Phil who think that "shoot them all unless
they are exactly like us and make no noise whatsoever" is the way to go
about dealing with newbies.

Now you know why I went anonymous. If I didn't Phil would be leading a
charge to have me removed right now for saying that.

David and SlimVirgin's behaviour in this matter has been sub-par. So has the
behaviour of the rest of you on this list. This doesn't just affect that one
user. It affects everyone they tell about Wikipedia. It affects everyone who
agreed with them on one topic or another at Wikipedia. I've only looked at
the Enviroknot profile for any length of time but based on its list of
contributions there was potential for a good editor. Solid edits were made
and backed up on talk pages, edit summaries and wikipedia policies were
properly referenced.

The only offense I can see in the Enviroknot profile is a pair of 3RR
violations. The one SlimVirgin put in tonight is totally unjustified. The
one earlier when people were claiming Enviroknot was also another IP address
is pushing your luck.

Meanwhile, editors and administrators alike have been hounding that profile
looking for any excuse to attack it. None of you bothered to set aside your
feelings long enough to look at the situation.

That isn't right. The behaviour of all of you in this scenario is making me
sick to my stomach. I thought you were better than this. If that's really
Phil's attitude, then there's no way he should be given power at Wikipedia.
If the rest of you share that attitude, then Wikipedia is doomed.

A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.

>From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
>To: tempforcomments at hotmail.com
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on
>Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 23:11:03 -0400
>
>While I agree with your points with respect to admin behavior, I
>wanted to point out that Enviroknot edits from the same IP as a known
>block evading pest who keeps creating socks to support his position.
>
>I think everyone deserves a fair treatment, but Enviroknott has made
>that very difficult with his accusations, and is probably only barely
>deserving of a fair treatment considering that it's almost certain
>that he is a sock as claimed by others.
>
>On 5/30/05, A Nony Mouse <tempforcomments at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > I have been watching the last week's events with dismay. I have been
>trying
> > to compose this email for two hours, but every time I get close,
>something
> > else comes up.
> >
> > I have decided to make this anonymous. I do not know how some of you
>would
> > react and I do not wish to take any chance that I would be harassed for
> > this.
> >
> > There are two cases that bother me. Jack Lynch aka Sam Spade and
>Cranston
> > Snord aka Enviroknot. Both of these cases scare me because of the
>precedent
> > that they have set.
> >
> > In the case of Jack, there was a question of a block war. Administrators
> > were fighting over what to do with him. This is not a good thing for
> > Wikipedia editors no matter who they are. It indicates that the user is
>less
> > of a concern than something between the two Administrators.
> >
> > It is the case of Cranston Snord aka Enviroknot that worries me more.
>This
> > is the case that has made me take the drastic step of sending an email
>to
> > the list anonymously. I had originally been trying to type up a response
>to
> > Cranston's concerns about being blocked. I believe that SlimVirgin
>violated
> > policy by doing so. Unfortunately for me, such an email would likely now
>be
> > a day late and a dollar short.
> >
> > Cranston was a disruption to the list, but much of that disruption was
> > caused by other people on this list treating him with incredible
>disrespect.
> > I was taken aback by his accusations against administrators but having
> > looked at the cases in hand I believe that he has a point.
> >
> > There were emails on this list asking whether anyone was taking him
> > seriously. This is the height of arrogance, and it is something that
> > frightens me. Administrators should never be acting as if ordinary
>editors
> > do not matter.
> >
> > As for his complaints about being blocked, the dismissiveness on this
>board
> > hurt me. No matter who it is making a complaint, we have a duty to
> > investigate it. We are listed as the last resort for users who have been
> > wronged. I took the time to investigate SlimVirgin's blocking of
>Enviroknot,
> > and I believe that it is not valid.
> >
> > By the time I got to the discussion, it was a good series of emails
>long,
> > and despite the number of list members who had posted, none save
>SlimVirgin
> > had bothered to address Enviroknot's concerns on the block in any way.
> > SlimVirgin herself made a bad judgement call. An edit made in good faith
> > should never be considered a reversion, even if it contains some content
> > that is included in a later reversion.
> >
> > Instead of acknowledging this fact, the list members were universally
> > dismissive of Enviroknot from the first email. One went so far as to
>demand
> > that the term "rogue admin" not be used, without addressing the reasons
>that
> > it had been brought up in multiple cases recently.
> >
> > We have a problem with administrators exceeding their authority on
> > Wikipedia. We have a problem with administrators not applying policy
> > correctly. And we have a problem with arrogance on these lists, with
> > administrators believing that they are somehow better than others.
> >
> > With the increased power of administrator access comes a responsibility
>to
> > use it fairly and adhere to the established procedures and policies. The
> > actions of an Administrator should themselves be NPOV. We have stated
>policy
> > that when a user is found to be violating policy, if they return and do
>not
> > break policy, their previous transgressions should not be held against
>them.
> >
> > There are a number of administrators who are failing in that
>responsibility,
> > and they are present on this list. One of them, rather than addressing
> > Enviroknot's concerns in a calm tone and actually going over policy,
>chose
> > to kickban Enviroknot entirely.
> >
> > I have never until today been ashamed to be a part of Wikipedia, but
>there
> > it is. Take it as you will.
> >
> > A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Create the ultimate online companion - meet the Meegos!
>http://meegos.msn.ie
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >

_________________________________________________________________
More features, more fun, still absolutely FREE - get Messsenger 7.0!
http://messenger.msn.co.uk


subject: [Wikitech-l] Persistent MySQL error

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> Since yesterday evening, on different machines, I keep getting MySQL
> errors on de.wikipedia for some pages. Others are fine.
>
> 	"1053: Server shutdown in progress (10.0.0.2)"

The "Server shutdown in progress" message means the query was killed,
probably by our servmon monitor process which watches for long-running
non-vital threads and kills them to keep things running.

10.0.0.2 is ariel, the main server.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Terminology on user levels

body:
Rob Lanphier wrote:
> Here's what I see as the difference:
>
> Current MediaWiki 1.5     RBAC
> Level     Permission
> User Group     Role
>
> Is my assessment of the situation correct?

I think that's more or less how it's supposed to work, but last I looked
the system's pretty flaky as far as actually functioning. Terminology
seems a secondary concern... :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wikitech-l] Picture doesn't show up

body:
Thank you Rowan,

I will do this during the day :-)

Best wishes,

Sabine

>To be used within the wiki like this, the images have to be uploaded
>through the wiki's "upload file" form - so that they can have
>appropriate records in the database etc.
>
>This, in turn, requires uploads to be enabled on the wiki - set
>"$wgDisableUploads = false;" in your LocalSettings.php file; comments
>included in that file should explain some of the related options you
>might want to also set. [In general options are set in
>LocalSettings.php; some more rarely needed ones are not included by
>default, and should be copied from includes/DefaultSettings.php as
>needed; but do not edit DefaultSettings.php directly]
>
>See also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Uploading_files and then
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Image
>
>
>

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Timwi:
>> ns_default is the namespace all other namespace names for that ns_id
>> will redirect to.

> I would have called it "ns_canonical" or even "ns_is_canonical", but
> with sufficient documentation it shouldn't make much difference :)

The behavior is different from what is currently called "canonical". The
current canonical namespaces are essentially synonyms which always
redirect to the local form. This, on the other hand, is the local form
that all synonyms redirect to -- and one of these synonyms can be
canonical, i.e. available in all languages by default.

> How is this going to tie in with the [[Image:...]] syntax being special
> because it inserts an image rather than linking to it? That needs to be
> internationalised too. :) Oh, and don't forget about the [[Media:...]]
> syntax, which is also special.

In my opinion, any special functionality associated with the image
namespace and its synonyms should be unrelated to the name you are
using. Instead, the code should check what type of file it is dealing
with, and make a decision based on that how to deal with it (embed as
sound, image, video). Even different image types are not treated the
same way (SVG is rendered to PNG first).

Whether we should create synonyms beyond the simple Image=>File redirect
when we don't have special ways of dealing with these file types yet is
arguable. The current behavior would be that [[Sound:soundfile.ogg]]
would link to the file description page for that file, but not embed it
(so would [[Image:soundfile.ogg]]). But it might be enough to have
[[File:Soundfile.ogg]] for this purpose for now.

> Just a suggestion, but if it isn't too much work:
> * when deleting a namespace that contains pages, offer to change all
>   those pages' names to be prefixed (i.e. turn it into a
>   pseudo-namespace)?

Can you give me an example scenario where I might *want* a
pseudo-namespace? They mostly seem to be used as a kludge when real
namespaces are too hard to make. Personally, I strongly dislike them
because they look like namespaces without acting like them; I would
rather not create them in some transparent way.

> * when creating a namespace if there are existing pages with that
>   prefix, offer the option of "importing" those pages into the new
>   namespace?

Yes, that shouldn't be too hard in the new database schema since there
is only one row for each page to update.

Best,

Erik


body:
Rowan:

> Well, I believe Brion is keen to see 1.5 ready sooner than later -
> according to http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-April/028899.html
> he was hoping it would be in beta a month ago, so landing a change as
> fundamental as this is unlikely to be popular with him. And for the
> record, I think he's right - if the unstable branch stays unstable for
> too long at a time, features that are fully mature take ages to see
> the light of day.

That makes sense. Depending on when I'm finished, I'll either commit to
a separate branch or ask for 1.5 itself to be branched.

> That sounds like something a lot of people will like - not so much
> often-requested, as often-misunderstood-that-it-already-works. One
> thing occurs to me though - can the "main" namespace have synonyms
> (or, perhaps, be removed altogether)? This is important because in the
> Wikibooks scenario (see also something like the Mozilla Wiki, which
> uses namespaces more-or-less in this idiom), having [[foo]] always
> point to something completely different to [[:foo]] may not be an
> ideal way of distinguishing those two pages.

Interesting point. Redirecting pages with no prefix to a namespace might
be possible, would that have the result you want? Are there any
particular problems that would have to be dealt with in such a scenario?

> Of course, as with InterWiki prefixes, the danger is that as soon as
> someone *removes* such a synonym, all links using it instantly break
> (or, more confusingly, not instantly, because of caching).

Yes. One major reason to move namespaces into the DB is that we can do
proper validations before mucking about with them -- that is almost
impossible when it's all done in variables in the configuration files.
For example, it's currently completely possible to inadvertently hide
InterWiki prefixes or pseudo-namespaces by adding an extra namespace, or
to break links by changing one.

One problem that will have to be dealt with is that a change of the
language code will require new namespace names to be used. A "Load from
language file" link on Special:Namespaces might be a reasonable
temporary solution, but in the long run, it would probably be desirable
to move site-wide preferences like this into the DB as well, so we can
validate changes and trigger certain effects. I recall there was some
work on this a while ago, hopefully it can be revived at some point.

Best,

Erik


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
Skyring wrote

>Somewhere along the way, Wikipedia seems to have lost something
valuable. I look at this list and just about everything I see is one
group of editors bickering with another group.

We gained ... an encyclopedia: 500000 articles in March, 10% added smoothly
since then.

Nobody should kid themselves that there was ever a golden time when there
was no 'bickering'.  If you look at the traffic numbers you see huge growth.
Every month or so an asocial user kicking up a fuss about the way things are
handled... it's the price we pay for being a radically open community.
Remember, this is a big volunteer project; all that happens is that some
people simply make it too hard for them to be accepted as volunteers.

Charles


from_name: Joseph Reagle

subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
On Tuesday 31 May 2005 03:46, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > I personally don't like the idea, because it does create a sense of
> > "I have a PHD in Astrophysics and you don't so stfu" that I don't
> > think would be conducive to the exercise of wikilove.
>
> I do agree that this is a danger to be considered.

Another possible outcome is that it helps make it clear the extent to which
"non-experts" make useful contributions. For much of their history
encyclopedias were compiled by the learned, but not necessarily "experts"
-- the very notion is a modern innovation. In any case, even then, useful
contribution were made by folks outside of their field [1], such as Thomas
Young [2].

[1] [[ Unpublished
However, to claim that reputation motivated contributions is not to state
that all participants were simply seeking fame. In fact, Thomas Young, the
natural philosopher who worked on the wave theory of light while also
deciphering the Rosetta Stone by 1840, agreed to contribute to the
Britannica, but required anonymity in any subject "not immediately
medical"; Young did not want scientific controversies to weaken the
confidence the public had in his capacities as a physician (Yeo 2001:265).
]]
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Young_(scientist)

In fact, I think the compilation of materials by the competent but
non-expert has a usefulness related to what I call the Feynman notion of
simplicity: "His principle was that if a topic could not be explained in a
freshman lecture, it was not fully understood yet" [3].

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman


from_name: Milos Rancic

body:
There are a lot of Roma people in Serbia and they are very very poor.
Maybe it is better to organize some stipendies for some of them to
study and work on Wikipedia? Average salary in Serbia is around
$350/month, but I think it would be enough $100 for some yung Roma who
study high school or university. Romas in high school are very rare,
so it can be the target population. (I would waste a lot of time to
find some Roma who is studing something on university.)

I don't think that it is bad idea. Almost all of us are working on
Wikipedia in his/her free time, but a lot of small ethicities are
living very poor and they don't have enough of free time.

Wikipedia became important global cultural movement. And Wikipedians
should start to thinkg about helping other people to become a part of
their movement.

On 5/28/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> V. Ivanov wrote:
> >
> > The idea is not absolutely new. We use the absolutely similar
> > approach at the Ossetic Wikipedia (we call it "Project <<Tskhinval
> > Teachers>>". The essence of the project is paying teachers from South
> > Ossetia a 2,5-USD equivalent for every article (up from 2500
> > characters).
>
> Aw man! I would gladly pay that sum to anyone who can write articles in
> some of my favourite exotic languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Navajo, Nahuatl,
> Hmong -- all of these are million-speaker languages).
>
> Maybe we should make this concept better known globally.  Maybe we
> should organise a list of Wikipedians who are prepared to give money to
> poor people in return for an article in a language that has an inactive
> Wikipedia.  The Wikipedians would be able to specify any conditions, but
> once their conditions are fulfilled, they should be legally obliged to
> pay out the money they offered.
>
> Of course, for that to work, there needs to be a way of getting the
> message (and later, the money) to the people.  Maybe someone has a few
> ideas?
>
> > http://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B6%D1%83%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B9%D1%82%D1%8B_%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%84%D0%B8
> > http://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B7%D1%83%D1%86%D1%86%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8B_%D0%A5%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B7%D1%8B-%D0%9C%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82
>
> Maybe someone should add interwiki links to these.  :-)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] cool it

body:
On 5/31/05, steven l. rubenstein <rubenste at ohiou.edu> wrote:
> I am no one to throw stones, so let's just say that I know perfectly well
> what it is like to lose my temper and to be unable to fight the urge to use
> harsh, even insulting language.  Fortunately, when this happens there are
> usually plenty of people who tell me to stop, or even to apologize.
>
> Can we please stop using the phrase "rogue admin," especially in the
> subject space for the e-mail.
I couldn't have said it better myself.

--Mgm


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article rating topics - consolidated form

body:
[sent to wikien-l and wikimedia-l]

    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/En_validation_topics#Consolidated_proposal

This is a fantastic piece of work from [[User:Beland]], who has taken the
assorted rambling proposals elsewhere on that page and put them into a form
with half a chance of people bothering to fill it out sensibly.

The only problem I can see is whether people will bother filling in that
many questions. OTOH, this is the experimental phase. (What a useful excuse
that is ;-)

Since this is a very useful piece of work and saves others (e.g. me) from
doing the job of making sense of this stuf, you can assume the thing at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/En_validation_topics#Response_page is more
or less what will be visible when people hit the tab marked "Validate" (or
"Rate this page" or translation thereof), at least on en:.

So please look through it and flag any serious problems you see with it
(other than sheer length) and if any attributes could be reasonably cut.

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Article rating topics - consolidated form


from_name: Stacey Greenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
Yes, please!

[[User:UtherSRG]]

On 5/31/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>
> Okay, the troll has had his fun. Could we block all his email addresses
> now?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] cool it

body:
steven l. rubenstein (rubenste at ohiou.edu) [050531 09:28]:

> Can we please stop using the phrase "rogue admin," especially in the
> subject space for the e-mail.

I think we need to get the [[GIMP]] out and turn up the red on all the
admins on [[Wikipedia:Facebook]]. I have taken care to make the link
[[Wikipedia:Rouge admin]] redirect appropriately. (Shortcut: [[WP:ROUGE]])

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] cool it

body:
steven l. rubenstein (rubenste at ohiou.edu) [050531 09:28]:

> This isn't about the fact that I think SlimVirgin is a dedicated editor who
> has added much to Wikipedia.  We can discuss questions of improper action,
> or possible reasons for it, here or more appropriately at the Admin
> bulletin board, incident report page, whatever.  But it doesn't matter who
> you are talking about.  This phrase "rogue admin" is inflammatory,
> unnecessarily insulting, and has no place at Wikipedia.  If we as a
> community or some body representing the community decides that a sysop
> should be de-sysopped, okay, we de-sysop the person.  But until that
> happens, they are an administrator.  Period.  If you don't like what that
> administrator has done, fine, but focus on the action.  And certainly don't
> go around calling someone a rogue administrator -- this insults the whole
> community because the person using this phrase is abrogating the authority
> to decide who is or is not a legitimate administrator.  You may not like
> what they did, you may not like them personally, but as long as they are
> administrators, call them that, or don't call them anything at all.

More seriously, I will point out that when we *have* had an administrator
apparently go batshit, they get desysopped on an emergency basis in pretty
short order - someone typically goes to the dev IRC channel and lets them
know, someone with the relevant power takes a look, and if they look at the
edits and blanch the sysop bit is switched off until we know WTF is going
on. So actual "rogue admins" are dealt with on a sharp and effective basis.

- d.


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject:
[Wikitech-l] 	Re: broken e-mail notification on testwiki - who
	knows, why ?

references:
<42986491.1030903@tgries.de>	<d7a0r0$koe$1@sea.gmane.org>	<d7c3f6$l00$1@sea.gmane.org>	<d7ca27$3ru$1@sea.gmane.org>	<d7cpa6$6vq$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d7e643$cev$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> My suggestion for dealing with this problem was to split the cluster, to
> dedicate small amount of hardware to the smaller projects, and then have
> a more liberal access policy for that dedicated hardware. However Jimbo
> was strongly against it.

My mind could be changed about this, if there was consensus that it is a
good way to move forward.  Certainly this rationale makes a lot of sense
to me, and it was a rationale that I never really understood before.

The one major downside I see to splitting the cluster comes if we have a
divergence of management practices across different clusters.  It's
pretty efficient to have a single cluster managed by a single team.  In
practice I'm hoping that as we add more datacenters they will be
accessible to developers in a nearly transparent way -- it doesn't make
sense to me that some people are responsible for managing one cluster
and some people for another, if it means a lot of duplication of effort
in things like writing scripts, etc.

There are obviously some upsides as well.  If different projects are on
different hardware, then a crash doesn't take everything out
simultaneously.  If different projects are on different hardware, we can
relax *a little bit* about who has shell access, since we could in
theory have people who have access only to their own specialty.

I can't be certain, but I can be almost certain, that we are in
uncharted territory here.  I don't think there is any other web serving
organization pushing this many web pages out of this much hardware with
volunteers self-organizing in the crazy wiki way that we do things.

So we're pretty much on our own in figuring out the social and technical
ways to keep scaling... we can't really look to any other organization
for the answers.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
> I think that it could be a good idea, especially if stretched to crediting
> authors for their articles if they have a real name (via a template at the
> top of the talk page, or bottom of the article possibly). The problems are,
> obviously, that this causes problems for younger Wikipedians in that they
> could never have a degree at the age of 15, or whatever.

Yes, indeed.  Of course we should never require credentials and we
should maintain a culture of welcoming to those 15 year old contributors
who are doing great work.

--Jimbo


from_name: Lane, Ryan

subject: [Wikitech-l] LDAP Authentication and Mediawiki 1.5

body:
I've added my latest LDAP Authentication patch to bugzilla:

http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=814

I will update my corresponding documentation to match the current patch
level.
This documentation is located here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LDAP_Authentication

Is this still being considered to be added to mediawiki 1.5? I'm almost
positive
all of the changes to the core code that are required for all of my planned
functionality have been added. Almost all of the changes that were made were
hooks, the rest were for security. If there are any required changes,
bugfixes,
or security concerns, let me know.

At this time, the LDAP patch has support for:

* Simple authentication through SSL using direct binds, or
proxy-authentication
** Note: proxy authentication is not currently working using multiple
domains.
Also, you will not be able to add LDAP users when using proxy authentication
yet. This will be added next version.
* Storage/Retrieval of some user preferences
* Ability to add new users to LDAP from Mediawiki
* Ability to change LDAP passwords through Mediawiki
* Ability to mail a temporary password so that users can change their LDAP
password
* Ability to do all of the above on multiple domains (including the local
database)

Future versions will eventually have the following functionality:

* A custom schema for LDAP
* Access control using security groups (Authentication only)
* Ability to use smart cards, or CAC cards to login to mediawiki using
certificates
* Ability to use LDAP as a complete backend for user information using a
single,
or multiple domains (or a combination of LDAP and the local database as
cache or
backup)

If anyone can think of other features that should be added, let me know.

V/r,

Ryan Lane
NAVOCEANO


subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
Delirium wrote:
> This sounds intriguing, but when you say "a process to confirm their
> credentials", do you mean we're actually going to verify them, e.g. by
> requesting official copies of diplomas from university registrars,
> copies of IDs so we know someone is who they claim they are, and so on?
> In the general case, confirming credentials is a *huge* hassle, even for
> organizations who exist largely to confirm credentials, like university
> admissions departments.

Yes, it would be a big job.

Now, our standards for confirmation would not need to be as rigorous as
those for a university admissions department, since someone who somehow
fools us with fake credentials isn't really doing a lot of damage.
Obviously if we let anyone make up any credential at all, with no
process of verification at all, then the whole thing would be a joke.

> An even bigger problem is that it's unclear which credentials we should
> care about.  Is a purported physics degree from a mail-order university
> a legitimate "degree in physics" credential?  Etc.

I would imagine that community standards could be created to resolve
this sort of trouble.  It is a complicated matter but we are pretty good
at detailed analysis of complicated matters.

> Not to say it's necessarily a better approach, but it's interesting that
> we're not the first organization to sell ourselves mainly on the
> strength of our organization as a whole rather than advertising the
> credentials of our individual contributors.  As [[en:The Economist]]
> points out, the well-respected _Economist_ newsmagazine goes one step
> further than us and doesn't credit authors at all---it almost never has
> bylines for its articles, and the name of its editor isn't mentioned
> anywhere in the magazine (not even on the copyright page).  It seems to
> work well enough for them, although in many ways their situation is
> dissimilar...

I agree with you on every aspect of this.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
> --- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>>I had an idea the other day while I was on a radio interview.
>
>
> I personally don't like the idea, because it does create a sense of
> "I have a PHD in Astrophysics and you don't so stfu" that I don't
> think would be conducive to the exercise of wikilove.

I do agree that this is a danger to be considered.

> I would say that userpages are a great place for this sort of
> information. If you have a degree in Engineering from CalTech, put
> the year you graduated. If you have 12 years experience in laying
> Italian marble, say so. If you're been working for the Japanese
> Consulate in Los Angeles for 9 years, write it down.

Yes, but the point is to make this kind of information available in a
format that is more usable to our readers.

> I think that very little of the world's knowledge and expertise is
> accurately captured by academia's diplomas.

I agree, and I think that our view of credentials should be fairly
expansive.

> I would also say, as someone pointed out, that the very lack of
> prominent information about authors leads people to contribute who
> don't want to be in the limelight of controversy, something which I
> think is the plague of most other online content systems.

And this is a good reason to never require it.

> I think that when professionals come in to look at wikipedia and see
> the articles in their area of expertise, and see the quality of the
> writing, the clarity in which ideas are expressed, and the
> accuntability of the system, they immediately realise that this is
> not  usenet.

Yes, but "not usenet" is a fairly low aspiration. :-)

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
Angela wrote:
> On 5/24/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>>People could *optionally* go through a process to confirm
>>their credentials.  When you do this, a small icon appears by your name
>>in the edit history, and when you click on it, you get to a new tab of
>>the user page, which contains a list of the confirmed credentials.
>
>
> I think this is going to give the idea that the community is *less*
> credentialed that it actually is, since many people are not going to
> bother going through any complicated process of finding old
> certificates and proof of their qualifications and sending them to
> whoever is suppose to validate that these are real. Therefore, the
> credentials pages would show very few credentialed users, surely
> leading to more criticism of Wikipedia rather than less. I certainly
> don't intend to go looking through my parents' attic for old
> certificates (I assume that's where they probably ended up) just to
> make my edits on Wikipedia look more impressive. It's fairly easy for
> people to write on their user pages what they are qualified or
> experienced in, but it's a lot harder for them to actually prove that.

I think this is an excellent objection.

Hmm....

/me thinks.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
Andrew Venier wrote:
> To me it appears to be quite a display of cognitive dissonance.
>
> "We (wikipedia in the aggregate) don't think that credentials carry any
> weight. At least, not enough to influence our content or policies in any
> meaningful way.   However, because other people value credentials, we
> have trouble building credibility without them, so we would like to
> advertise them in order to enhance our reputation.  We're happy to
> trumpet our contributor's qualifications, as long as it's clear that
> they mean nothing to us and in no way affect our process."

I think that's a fairly accurate summary, but I don't know why you call
it cognitive dissonance.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> It's obvious that Jimbo has thrown out this idea for discussion, and not
> as some kind of policy statemt.  Yet it would not surprise me if six
> months hence one of our random morons cited his comments as evidence
> that Jimbo was advocating rigid proof of credentials for any contributor.

Yes.  It's just an idea which I hoped would lead to interesting
discussion, which it has. :-)

So far (and I'm still not finished reading the thread), I am finding
Angela's objection compelling, i.e. that this would make us look a lot
less credentialed than we actually are, because most people won't bother
with the dreary process of proving credentials.

I still think there's something we can do in this area.  But we'll have
to mull it over some more.

--Jimbo


from_name: ultrablue at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] cool it

body:
The "user is blocked" message says: "If you believe that our blocking
policy was violated, you may discuss the block publicly on the
WikiEN-l mailing list." This does not mean you have the absolute right
to disrupt the mailing list by spamming it with numerous demands to be
unblocked.

As usual, there is a lone voice bleating away about administrators
being 'rogue' and being "more interested in hiding what they do and
preventing users from reporting them than they are in following
policy". Of course, we could be authoritarian and point out to these
users that nobody has "the right" to edit Wikipedia, except where
allowed by the Wikimedia Foundation. We could point out that it is the
administrators who, day in, day out, have to delete the tonnes of
vandalism, block the spambots and deal with petulant wankers with too
much time on their hands and decide to pass the time by disrupting
Wikipedia as much as possible. But people probably wouldn't care.

Wikipedians don't take kindly to insults, against ourselves or against
other decent users. Enviroknot has blown his chance to get any
sympathy or recourse from the mailing list by making wild accusations
and failing to address the actual reasons behind his or her actual
block.

~Mark Ryan
WikiEN-l administrator

On 5/31/05, Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Well, there's a vote for Wikipedia policy meaning nothing.
>
> I bring complaints to this list because it is my only recourse under
> Wikipedia policy. The fact that you are talking about blocking me off
> indicates only that you are a Rogue Admin as well.
>
> She broke policy. Good-faith edits are never reverts, and she knows that,
> but she did it anyway because she intends to persecute me.
>
> -Enviroknot
>
> >From: Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com>,English Wikipedia
> ><wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >To: slimvirgin at gmail.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] cool it
> >Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 17:16:11 -0700
> >
> >On 5/30/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Anyone who wants to check this block is welcome to do so. The details
> > > are at [[WP:AN/3RR]] under [[User:Enviroknot]].
> >
> >I truly hope that the only reason he is being permitted to mail to
> >this list is because of the amusement factor.  I seriously doubt
> >anyone, except the usual suspects, is giving his accusations any
> >serious consideration.
> >
> >-Matt (User:Morven)
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now!
> http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: David Iberri

subject: [Wikitech-l] link to within referenced article wanted

body:
On 5/31/05, John Prieur <john2000 at ijsolve.com> wrote:
> I would like wiki to have the capability to create a [[link]] to a specific point inside another (or the same) article.  This would be analogous to the HTML syntax as in...   href="www.somewhere#specificPointInside".

MediaWiki already provides this functionality. To link to a section
within the current article, use "[[#Section]]". For a section within
another article, use "[[Article#Section]]". For more, see

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_help#Links_and_URLs

-- David Iberri


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
Man, Everyking, if you're gonna go anonymous, change your writing
style a bit.

-Snowspinner

On May 31, 2005, at 1:30 AM, A Nony Mouse wrote:

> Whether he is "barely" deserving of a fair treatment or otherwise,
> nobody here has given him a fair treatment by any stretch of the
> imagination.
>
> That won't do.
>
> I also have Phil's "circle the wagons" rant up above. He thinks
> expansion kills online communities. I think he's right.
>
> Expansion kills online communities because of people like Phil who
> won't admit that they need to let go and they need to deal with the
> new people coming in fairly. People like Phil who think that "shoot
> them all unless they are exactly like us and make no noise
> whatsoever" is the way to go about dealing with newbies.
>
> Now you know why I went anonymous. If I didn't Phil would be
> leading a charge to have me removed right now for saying that.
>
> David and SlimVirgin's behaviour in this matter has been sub-par.
> So has the behaviour of the rest of you on this list. This doesn't
> just affect that one user. It affects everyone they tell about
> Wikipedia. It affects everyone who agreed with them on one topic or
> another at Wikipedia. I've only looked at the Enviroknot profile
> for any length of time but based on its list of contributions there
> was potential for a good editor. Solid edits were made and backed
> up on talk pages, edit summaries and wikipedia policies were
> properly referenced.
>
> The only offense I can see in the Enviroknot profile is a pair of
> 3RR violations. The one SlimVirgin put in tonight is totally
> unjustified. The one earlier when people were claiming Enviroknot
> was also another IP address is pushing your luck.
>
> Meanwhile, editors and administrators alike have been hounding that
> profile looking for any excuse to attack it. None of you bothered
> to set aside your feelings long enough to look at the situation.
>
> That isn't right. The behaviour of all of you in this scenario is
> making me sick to my stomach. I thought you were better than this.
> If that's really Phil's attitude, then there's no way he should be
> given power at Wikipedia. If the rest of you share that attitude,
> then Wikipedia is doomed.
>
> A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.
>
>
>> From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
>> Reply-To: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
>> To: tempforcomments at hotmail.com
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on
>> Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 23:11:03 -0400
>>
>> While I agree with your points with respect to admin behavior, I
>> wanted to point out that Enviroknot edits from the same IP as a known
>> block evading pest who keeps creating socks to support his position.
>>
>> I think everyone deserves a fair treatment, but Enviroknott has made
>> that very difficult with his accusations, and is probably only barely
>> deserving of a fair treatment considering that it's almost certain
>> that he is a sock as claimed by others.
>>
>> On 5/30/05, A Nony Mouse <tempforcomments at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > I have been watching the last week's events with dismay. I have
>> been trying
>> > to compose this email for two hours, but every time I get close,
>> something
>> > else comes up.
>> >
>> > I have decided to make this anonymous. I do not know how some of
>> you would
>> > react and I do not wish to take any chance that I would be
>> harassed for
>> > this.
>> >
>> > There are two cases that bother me. Jack Lynch aka Sam Spade and
>> Cranston
>> > Snord aka Enviroknot. Both of these cases scare me because of
>> the precedent
>> > that they have set.
>> >
>> > In the case of Jack, there was a question of a block war.
>> Administrators
>> > were fighting over what to do with him. This is not a good thing
>> for
>> > Wikipedia editors no matter who they are. It indicates that the
>> user is less
>> > of a concern than something between the two Administrators.
>> >
>> > It is the case of Cranston Snord aka Enviroknot that worries me
>> more. This
>> > is the case that has made me take the drastic step of sending an
>> email to
>> > the list anonymously. I had originally been trying to type up a
>> response to
>> > Cranston's concerns about being blocked. I believe that
>> SlimVirgin violated
>> > policy by doing so. Unfortunately for me, such an email would
>> likely now be
>> > a day late and a dollar short.
>> >
>> > Cranston was a disruption to the list, but much of that
>> disruption was
>> > caused by other people on this list treating him with incredible
>> disrespect.
>> > I was taken aback by his accusations against administrators but
>> having
>> > looked at the cases in hand I believe that he has a point.
>> >
>> > There were emails on this list asking whether anyone was taking him
>> > seriously. This is the height of arrogance, and it is something
>> that
>> > frightens me. Administrators should never be acting as if
>> ordinary editors
>> > do not matter.
>> >
>> > As for his complaints about being blocked, the dismissiveness on
>> this board
>> > hurt me. No matter who it is making a complaint, we have a duty to
>> > investigate it. We are listed as the last resort for users who
>> have been
>> > wronged. I took the time to investigate SlimVirgin's blocking of
>> Enviroknot,
>> > and I believe that it is not valid.
>> >
>> > By the time I got to the discussion, it was a good series of
>> emails long,
>> > and despite the number of list members who had posted, none save
>> SlimVirgin
>> > had bothered to address Enviroknot's concerns on the block in
>> any way.
>> > SlimVirgin herself made a bad judgement call. An edit made in
>> good faith
>> > should never be considered a reversion, even if it contains some
>> content
>> > that is included in a later reversion.
>> >
>> > Instead of acknowledging this fact, the list members were
>> universally
>> > dismissive of Enviroknot from the first email. One went so far
>> as to demand
>> > that the term "rogue admin" not be used, without addressing the
>> reasons that
>> > it had been brought up in multiple cases recently.
>> >
>> > We have a problem with administrators exceeding their authority on
>> > Wikipedia. We have a problem with administrators not applying
>> policy
>> > correctly. And we have a problem with arrogance on these lists,
>> with
>> > administrators believing that they are somehow better than others.
>> >
>> > With the increased power of administrator access comes a
>> responsibility to
>> > use it fairly and adhere to the established procedures and
>> policies. The
>> > actions of an Administrator should themselves be NPOV. We have
>> stated policy
>> > that when a user is found to be violating policy, if they return
>> and do not
>> > break policy, their previous transgressions should not be held
>> against them.
>> >
>> > There are a number of administrators who are failing in that
>> responsibility,
>> > and they are present on this list. One of them, rather than
>> addressing
>> > Enviroknot's concerns in a calm tone and actually going over
>> policy, chose
>> > to kickban Enviroknot entirely.
>> >
>> > I have never until today been ashamed to be a part of Wikipedia,
>> but there
>> > it is. Take it as you will.
>> >
>> > A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.
>> >
>> > _________________________________________________________________
>> > Create the ultimate online companion - meet the Meegos! http://
>> meegos.msn.ie
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > WikiEN-l mailing list
>> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>> >
>>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> More features, more fun, still absolutely FREE - get Messsenger
> 7.0! http://messenger.msn.co.uk
>
> _______________________________________________
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>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
May I ask what communities these are? Particularly the one with
hundreds of thousands of members.

-Snowspinner

On May 31, 2005, at 1:44 AM, Skyring wrote:

> On 5/31/05, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>
>> That's it. That's all that's going to work. If we do not learn to
>> come down on Cranstons with fury and speed, over time, this community
>> will implode. One need only look at nearly every other Internet
>> community to figure that one out.
>>
>
> Why not look at the Internet communities that DO work? I'm a member of
> two such communities that have been running for years, and include the
> sort of members who are well-educated, well-spoken, intelligent and
> fun to be with.
>
> Both of them have very few rules and are largely run by the members.
> And above all, they are polite. Both of them are large communities
> that have dealt with growth in a plain common sense fashion, by
> recognising that new users don't have the same knowledge as "the old
> guard" and finding ways to deal with this.
>
> Somewhere along the way, Wikipedia seems to have lost something
> valuable. I look at this list and just about everything I see is one
> group of editors bickering with another group.
>
> For what it's worth, I'm an admin on one of these communities, a
> community with hundreds of thousands of members, and though I have
> power to add, delete, or modify just about anything on the site, my
> duties don't involve settling disputes or acting as an umpire, because
> there is very little of that to be done - my job mainly involves
> sorting out forgotten passwords or tracking down and correcting
> incorrectly entered information. It's a large but polite community,
> and I cannot help but contrasting it with the often poisonous
> atmosphere here on Wikipedia.
>
> I'm also a moderator on a list very much like this, but again, I don't
> have to deal with members throwing bricks at each other - I mainly
> work at keeping out the spam merchants.
>
> On the face of it, Wikipedia should be a place where co-operation and
> sharing drive an atmosphere of comradeship, where admins exist to help
> members rather than act as corporate police, and where the atmosphere
> is that of Utopia rather than 1984.
>
> --
> Peter in Canberra
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] cool it

body:
Matt Brown (morven at gmail.com) [050531 10:16]:
> On 5/30/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Anyone who wants to check this block is welcome to do so. The details
> > are at [[WP:AN/3RR]] under [[User:Enviroknot]].

> I truly hope that the only reason he is being permitted to mail to
> this list is because of the amusement factor.  I seriously doubt
> anyone, except the usual suspects, is giving his accusations any
> serious consideration.

Oh, it was useful hearing from a Roadrunner user just how often they
actually change the DHCP addresses, i.e. not for months at a time.

- d.


from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wantedpages

body:
On 5/30/05, Robert Jones <bob at jones-cliffe.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Sorry if this is an old question, but is there a way to recalculate the
> Special:Wantedpages on a private mediawiki installation? I've corrected many
> of the listed wanted paged by adding them or changing the links in the pages
> that were linking to them but they don't seem to recalculate, perhaps
> because some of the links are within templates.

There are two separate issues, I do not know which one is the problem here.

1. If you have $wgMiserMode set to true (in your LocalSettings.php),
some of the special pages are served from cache (it is indicated by a
message "The following data is cached and may not be completely up to
date." shown at the top of each cached special page). To update the
cache, run maintenance/updateSpecialPages.php.

2. If you change a template without changing the pages that use the
template, the links are not recalculated. It means that changing
category in a template does not work, "what links here" does not work,
and all those special pages based on links do not work. This is a
known bug in MediaWiki (see
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939) and there is
nothing you can do about that; the only way to update the tables is to
edit every page that uses the template. (A dummy edit, i.e. just click
"edit this page" and "Save page" immediately without changes, is
enough.) Well, you might also run a complete update of the link tables
using a script in maintenance (ahmm... refreshLinks.php or something
like that), but it could be a long-running process depending on the
size of your database.

HTH,

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] And the bad faith continues from Wikipedia. ALL
	ADMINSare Rogue A

body:
"Cranston Snord" <wikipediaisstupid at hotmail.com>

I would probably have blocked this email address from the mailing list on
sight.  Hotmail permits a user to choose his username and this can have
been chosen for no other purpose than to annoy.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Copyright violations at download.wikimedia.org

body:
Roger Luethi wrote:

>On Mon, 30 May 2005 09:02:12 +1000, David Gerard wrote:
>
>
>>Our proactive approach, though, does stand us in good stead should we ever
>>end up in a courtroom. Generally the copyvio page is *rabid* and that's
>>good. Even if on many occasions the author of a given text has to point out
>>they're the editor that added it to Wikipedia ;-)
>>
>>
>Based on my experience in patrolling WP.en I think you are a tad
>over-optimistic. What you see on WP:CP may only be the tip of the
>iceberg.
>
>I find plenty of copyvios that are several days old, and I've had to
>undo the work of weeks or months because some people just copy and
>paste stuff from other web sites (no, not WP mirrors) without being
>caught. That is a very unpleasant experience for everyone involved,
>especially if other editors kept working on the text in good faith.
>
>The longer a copyvio remains unchallenged, the harder it becomes to
>catch it after several copyedits changed bits and pieces of it. That
>doesn't fix the copyvio, though. I had a case just yesterday where
>my reverting a copyvio was reverted again, and editors started
>"refactoring" the text to "mitigate" the problem.
>
Refactoring may completely remove the problem, not just mitigate it.
Copyright applies to the way something is expressed, and not to what is
expressed.  So what's the difference between a copyvio text that has
been refactored, and the same refactored text being added from the
bbeginning?

>Some comments on [[m:Avoid Copyright Paranoia]] ain't exactly helping.
>
But the fundamental idea there is still an excellent rule of thumb.

Ec


from_name: Arkady Rose

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050531 20:13]:
>
>
>>David and profanity? Maybe I missed it. I can't keep up with all these emails.
>>What did he say?
>
>
>
> I called him a "lying fuck". Which he is, but it's still unseemly. I have
> taken away my biscuit.

Now now, children. Play nice.

-a

--
Imagination is just intelligence having fun.

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 267.3.0 - Release Date: 30/05/2005


from_name: V. Ivanov

body:
2005/5/30, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> Do you have any plans for any other Russian minority languages?
> Obviously the Tatar Wikipedia doesn't exactly need such a boost, but
> the Chuvash Wikipedia could use it (60-something articles right now I
> think), as could the Chechen, Abkhaz, etc.

I've been trying to change things about the Komi WP (kv), sending
letters to the local university, etc. The activity had now respond,
though. :)

I've also advertised the Caucasian wikipedias (ab, av, az, ce, hy, ka,
os)  at several Caucasian fora, but the effect was not that great,
accept more often changes at ab and some stupid vandalism at av.

Surely, the whole thing is worth trying on.

Sl. / Amikeco

--
Esperu cxiam!


from_name: Guaka

body:
> I've been trying to change things about the Komi WP (kv), sending
> letters to the local university, etc. The activity had now respond,
> though. :)

>From my experience with both the Limburgish and the Bambara Wikipedia
nearly all existing institutes won't really bother as long as there's
not a basic amount of articles.

I _did_ attend to a UNESCO multilingualism conference, and 3 different
speakers mentioned the Bambara Wikipedia, on the second day only.
However, none of these people added something themselves, or incited
others to add something. And unfortunately I was feeling too sick to
partake in serious active networking.

bye!