subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki Classical Dictionary

body:
Yes, it would probably make more sense for them to say that the site
retains copyright, but then licenses out each contributor's
contributions back to them free of charge or something.

Steve

On 2/13/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmm...I wonder how they do 'each contributor retains copyright' if anyone is
> free to edit?
>
> Couldn't you say that by editing someone's work, I am building a derivative
> work of their copyrighted text?
> Also, which part of the article is copyright to whom, and how long would it
> take to find that out using the history for large articles?
>
> On 2/13/06, STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA <wizzard_bane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > I know. People already answered me. Thanks, tho.
> >
> > --- charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote
> > >
> > >
> > > > Can we use material from Wiki Classical
> > > Dictionary?
> > >
> > > No. It says 'Material submitted retains your
> > > copyright, and cannot be used
> > > elsewhere by anyone except you.'  Therefore no one
> > > is licensed to use their
> > > pages.
> > >
> > > Charles
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ~Ilya N.
> http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
> http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Announce-l] Wikizine - number: 13

body:
The latest edition of wikizine said:
> [No Tinyurl] On Meta there is a global
> blacklist of domains. Url's of domains listed
> there can not be posted on any Wikimedia wiki.
> This is an anti-spam function of Wikimedia.
> The widely used domain "tinyurl.com" is now
> added to the blacklist. Tinyurl.com is a free
> redirect service to make a very long url very
> short. This service has been abused by
> spammers to link sites already on the blacklist.

Is there any evidence that this service has been abused by spammers?
Since tinyurl links wouldn't increase the page rank of a spammer's
site, I don't see why they'd bother using it, especially since most
wiki spam is now hidden from humans in invisible div tags, meaning the
only aim can be to influence search results.

The Spam Blacklist is shared by a lot of non-Wikimedia sites, so we
need to be sure the URLs listed there are really spam, and not
something which is going to cause problems for valid links on other
wikis.

Angela.


from_name: Travis Miller

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Customizing the navigation bar/toolbox in MediaWiki
	1.4.3

body:
Hi all -

I'm trying to customize the nav bar in my out-of-the-box installation of
MediaWiki 1.4.3. I just want to add an "Upload file" link to the
toolbox, as seen on wikipedia.org and mediawiki.org.

I've checked the documentation at mediawiki.org, but it hasn't been any
help. I'm sure I'm just missing something; I hope someone can help.

All of the documentation on mediawiki.org says that, to customize the
nav bar in MediaWiki 1.4, you must modify an array named
$wgNavigationLinks, found in /includes/defaultsettings.php and/or
/localsettings.php. However, the files specified in the docs do not
contain any reference to a variable by this name. In fact, I've searched
my entire webroot and all subfolders, and *no* files in my installation
mention this variable.

I've also looked at the docs for other versions of MediaWiki, but none
of those seem to apply to my installation; they all refer to files which
don't exist in my webroot.

Any suggestions?

Travis Miller
IT Department
The Herald-Mail Company
travism at herald-mail.com
301-733-5131 x2028


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Why was 'fixBrokenLinks' function removed?

body:
thomas Armstrong wrote:
> I've just downloaded MediaWiki v1.5.6, and found out that
> /includes/LinksUpdate.php has been modifified and 'fixBrokenLinks'
> function removed.
>
> I used this function to hack every new page created.

You'd probably be better off using a hook function; see docs/hooks.txt

> How is now this function implemented?

In the old schema, we had two different tables to represent the set of
page-to-page wiki links:

* links listed links to pages that did exist
* brokenlinks listed links to pages that didn't exist

The two separate tables were problematic and created performance problems:

* When you created or deleted a page, you had to switch records between the two
tables. On an often-linked page this could be tens of thousands of records,
which is painful for a large, busy database.

* When you renamed a page, you had to switch around the entries for both the old
and new names. Again, very painful for an often-linked page title.

Since 1.5, we've combined these into a single pagelinks table, which doesn't
have to be updated that way.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060214/3ef335db/attachment.pgp>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

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

I want to point out a marvelously apt comment from [[User:Aaron
Brenneman]] amid the votes on [[Wikipedia:Articles for
deletion/Cart00ney]].

	"Regarding the process that brought this here: The
	''second'' an article sticks its head into main
	space it's fair game. We tell neophytes this all
	the time, experianced editors should know it well
	enough."  (Emphasis on ''second'' in the original.)

Clearly Aaron agrees with the moral I've drawn from this little
imbroglio, but I particularly love his imagery.  Those articles can
skulk around outside if they want, but just let one raise its head, and
BANG, all consideration, support, and even hesitation is gone.
Everyone, newbies as well as old-timers, should know that article-space
is a free-fire zone.

Which, of course, is emphasized by his most telling phrase, "fair game,"
taken from hunting.  Fair game can be legally shot and killed.

Well put!
- --
 Sean Barrett     | We completely deny the allegations, and
 sean at epoptic.org | we're trying to identify the alligators.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFD8jqWMAt1wyd9d+URApCnAJ9dbuk2xt2VorFNVtpJqUDKf+zuYACfUH6y
TqMrnsIKAyOD6knUTTi4QN4=
=RHUz
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: problems with one address on wikien-l

body:
Arwel Parry wrote:
> "The reason it is being held:
>
>      Message has implicit destination"

Hint: look at your message!

To: Wikimedia developers <public-wikitech-l-AeOJrEpdGNeGglJvpFV4uA at ciao.gmane.org>

That's not the list address.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060214/3c182708/attachment.pgp>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] File format policy

body:
Works for me. Windows 2000 SP4, Firefox 1.5

Alfio


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: SJ

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:PROD and AFD culture

body:
On 2/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> somewhere else to take the obvious 95% would be a damn fine thing as
> it would set up a new space for a hopefully less embittered culture to
> emerge. Also, it'll take a lot of the strain off AFD so people here
> have more time to take more care. Win-win-win, I hope.

Yes yes yes.

> (On Uncyclopedia, with the advent of {{NRV}} largely replacing VFD,

I thought on Uncyclopedia, articles deleted YOU...


from_name: henna

body:
On 2/14/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > A huge amount of streaming video on the Web requires codec downloads,
> > but Windows Media player will autodownload most of them, although it
> > will not autodownload theora this is why the en vogue video glurge
> > sites use flash based players.
> >
> > If you want mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
> > you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
> > certantly possible).
>
> Fluendo's got a GPL'd Java applet player that can play streaming Ogg Vorbis and
> Theora. I've tossed up a quick test page using a random short video clip I
> grabbed off of Commons:
>
> http://test.leuksman.com/video/
>
> Seems to work for me in:
> * Mac OS X 10.4: Safari 2
> * Mac OS X 10.4: Firefox 1.5
> * Windows XP SP2: IE 7
> * Windows XP SP2: Firefox 1.5
>
> I haven't tested other systems extensively but would like to see some
> compatibility feedback.
>
> NullC reports it works with gcjwebplugin on Linux/Firefox, though perhaps slowly.
>
> Unfortunately the market penetration of Java on Windows and Linux isn't what it
> was at the peak of the browser wars; Microsoft no longer seems to bundle Java
> and many Linux distributions still aren't shipping a Java plugin. So it may
> require some people to separately download and install Java.
>

Java seems to be popluar for things like onilne banking, so lots of
ppl have it anyways. At least I've never seen it not isntalled on my
parents comps even tho I can't remember that I installed it.

henna


body:
works for me, apart from green flashes of the screen sometimes

on:
Windows XP (don't think I installed any service packs)
  -internet explorerer 6
  -firefox 1.5.0.1

Linux (Gentoo)
  -firefox (blackdown installed)

henna

On 2/14/06, Daniel Schwen <lists at schwen.de> wrote:
> Works ok, minor video artifacts. The demo on the fluendo website even has
> working sound.
> * Debian Sid: Konqueror 3.5.1 (Blackdown j2re1.4)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
"Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but
unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"
http://hekla.rave.org/cookbook.html - my crossplatform dieet/recipe app


from_name: thomas Armstrong

body:
Hi.

I've just downloaded MediaWiki v1.5.6, and found out that
/includes/LinksUpdate.php has been modifified and 'fixBrokenLinks'
function removed.

I used this function to hack every new page created. How is now this
function implemented?

Thank you very much.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Fun development task: Java media player integration
	for Commons

body:
I mentioned in the file formats thread trying out Fluendo's "Cortado" ogg
Vorbis/Theora player Java applet:

http://test.leuksman.com/video/

Would anyone be interested in a fun project of integrating this player into the
wiki's file display?

Infrastructure:
* Check the file headers for presence of audio and/or video streams, and the
width/height of the video
* Set up the <applet> with appropriate parameters
* (?) add some JS widgets to pause/play/restart if the applet can't be coerced
into showing such widgets itself
* Have JS to check for missing Java plugin and degrade gracefully to a
documentation message

Wiki integration, easy:
* Integrate the player into ImagePage display of the file

Wiki integration, advanced:
* Integrate the player into inline display in wiki pages (Not sure if this is a
good idea)

Note that Java applet security limitations mean that the applet can only load
files from the server the applet came from, so it may have to be embedded in an
<iframe> or something to run off upload.wikimedia.org.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060214/da81618d/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Wikitech-l] How to set permissions to certain Wiki pages?

body:
Hi.

I'm trying to set permission to certain pages in order not to allow
some users to
edit them (for instance, the main page).

Is it possible to do with MediaWiki? Thank you very much,
--Thomas


from_name: Rob Church

body:
At a basic level, it can be done with protection. You can protect
pages so that normal users can't edit them. At a more complex level,
this would require stronger access control which isn't supported by
the MediaWiki software.

Rob Church

On 14/02/06, thomas Armstrong <tarmstrong at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I'm trying to set permission to certain pages in order not to allow
> some users to
> edit them (for instance, the main page).
>
> Is it possible to do with MediaWiki? Thank you very much,
> --Thomas
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Guy Chapman

subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
> As noted earlier in this thread, that is exactly the moral I've learned.
> Wikipedia has no tolerance for works in progress.

Up to a point, Lord Copper.  You can work up an article in your sandbox or
user space, but once it goes into the main article space it really ought to
be at least a decent stub.  Lots of poeple patrol recent changes and newly
created articles looking for junk, a lot of it gets nominated for deletion,
and most of that, goes.  Some gets fixed up, some gets userfied (which is
what I do with most autobiographies nominated for speedy deletion).  But in
the end what is in the main article space *is* Wikipedia, and you don't
publish half a sentence and a "back in ten" notice in a paper encyclopaedia.
So you must concede, I think, that there is at least some right on their
side.  And after all, there's nothing stopping you from simply adding it
again.

If you need access to the deleted content there are plenty of admins who
will help you out.

Guy
[JzG]


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Parser HTML compliance testing

body:
> We definitely care! The parser should never produce invalid HTML output, if it
> does that's a bug.

Well, if you're serious about this, I'd like to propose a
mutually-beneficial swap: something small that will help you, in
exchange for something small that will help me.

What I would like is a fix for
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3693 to be checked into
the tree (and in particular, to be made available on the English
Wikipedia). This is a small bug/feature request that :
* Already has a patch attached.
* The patch is one line long.
* The patch restores previously existing behaviour (albeit
unintentional behaviour).
* The previous behaviour was useful, and was used (by me at least).
* I am not aware of any security problems introduced by restoring this
behaviour.

What I am offering in return is a bit of testing software that is:
* Written in PHP.
* About 200 lines long.
* That will find invalid HTML output bugs in the Parser code.

To demonstrate that I am serious and that I am not wasting your time,
I have included below five small examples, all found by the test
software, of wiki text that produces invalid XHTML output.

The output was generated using MediaWiki 1.5.6 (which I believe is the
latest version tarball you can get) *without* tidy enabled, using PHP
4.1.2, and MySQL 3.23. Also reproduced when running PHP 4.4.2, and
MySQL 5.0.18. Any browser behaviour I describe was observed in Firefox
1.5.0.1.

* Example 1)

Wiki Text input:
=====================================
<s>a
{|
=====================================

Current invalid XHTML output:
=====================================

<s>a

=====================================

Suggested valid XHTML output:
=====================================

<s>a</s>

=====================================
Result: Invalid XHTML, and when rendered has the effect of striking
all content from the page, including footers, headers, basically
everything, as the <s> tag is not closed.
View output: http://nickj.org/index.php?title=MediaWiki/Parser1

If you want to see a fun variant of this, with hiding almost all of
the text on the page, then check this out:
=====================================
a
{|
=====================================
This has the potential to seriously confuse less techie people running
small wikis, most especially if applied to the main page.
View output: http://nickj.org/index.php?title=MediaWiki/Parser1-hidden

* Example 2)

Wiki Text input:
=====================================
a
c
=====================================

Current invalid XHTML output:
=====================================

a
c

=====================================

Suggested valid XHTML output:
=====================================

a

c

=====================================
Result: Renders fine, but page is invalid XHTML.
View output: http://nickj.org/index.php?title=MediaWiki/Parser2

* Example 3)

Wiki Text input:
=====================================
b
;
=====================================

Current invalid XHTML output:
=====================================

b

=====================================

Suggested valid XHTML output:
=====================================

b

=====================================
Result: Renders fine, but page is invalid XHTML.
View output: http://nickj.org/index.php?title=MediaWiki/Parser3

* Example 4)

Wiki Text input:
=====================================
;
a
=====================================

Current invalid XHTML output:
=====================================

a

=====================================

Suggested valid XHTML output:
=====================================

a

=====================================
Result: Renders fine, but page is invalid XHTML.
View output: http://nickj.org/index.php?title=MediaWiki/Parser4

* Example 5)

Wiki Text input:
=====================================
;

=====================================

Current invalid XHTML output:
=====================================

=====================================

Suggested valid XHTML output:
=====================================

=====================================
Result: Invalid XHTML, and results in the page appearing to be a bit
stuffed up, with the page's text font several sizes smaller than
usual, and the article/discussion/edit/history links being shifted
upwards and leftwards.
View output: http://nickj.org/index.php?title=MediaWiki/Parser5

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Modify modifiy

body:
There is a list of all customisable interface messages at Special:Allmessages.

Rob Church

On 14/02/06, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Where can I modify and rename the label
> > [edit]
> > which is on each section of a page ?
>
> For the "edit" at the top of the page, assuming you're running 1.5, go
> to your wiki, and open "MediaWiki:Edit". Change it from "Edit" to
> "Modify" (or whatever you want to call it).
>
> For the edit in section headers, change "MediaWiki:Qbedit".
>
> No idea what "MediaWiki:editsection" changes, but you should probably
> change it too.
>
> I just found these by trial and error, but does anyone know if they
> are documented anywhere?
>
> All the best,
> Nick.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] problems with one address on wikien-l

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

Mail from Arwel Parry (arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk) keeps ending up in
the moderation queue. It shouldn't - he's a member of the list and
comes up unmoderated in Mailman. What could be causing this?

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] problems with one address on wikien-l


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
On Tue, 2006-02-14 at 06:44 -0800, Sean Barrett wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Gareth Hughes stated for the record:
>
> > And the moral of the story is: don't press that 'Save page' button
> > until your article looks like it's going somewhere good.
>
> As noted earlier in this thread, that is exactly the moral I've learned.
>  Wikipedia has no tolerance for works in progress.
>
> I'm thinking of putting together another Web site where people will have
> a chance to collaborate in a friendly environment on incrementally
> improving articles.  We might submit finished articles to the Wikipedia
> Editorial Board for their professional, well-credentialed approval.
> Then again, we might adopt an incompatible license....

Wikipedia is a work in progress, and has great tolerance.

If new articles dont look bad they wont get deleted.

If they do, rewrite them so they make sense to other people.

Its not personal.

I entirely agree that this particular article did not establish
notability, and that people should not look at the edit history
of the people who write articles to establish that.

And its now been on AfD for quite a while and still doesnt establish
notability. Forget 9 minutes, its 4 days later and the article is
still pretty much the same, but with more references. It should
go to wiktionary - it is not encyclopedic in any way at all.

Trolling about a friendly environment is just trolling.

Justinc


subject: [Wikitech-l] fatal error (wrong list at first)

body:
Useless without even a URL.

Rob Church

On 13/02/06, Carl F?rstenberg <azatoth at gmail.com> wrote:
> *Fatal error*: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to
> allocate 23040 bytes) in */usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5
> /includes/Image.php* on line *333*
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Tom "TK" Kuegler

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: E-Mail Capabilities

body:
Yes... you are correct...  I made the adjustment to the PHP and it works
like a charm.

Thanks,

TK

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Platonides
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2006 1:21 PM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: E-Mail Capabilities

You're probably running that wiki on a server that doesn't allow you to send
email. It (probably) has nothing to do with your install, but with the PHP
config.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom "TK" Kuegler"
<tk-/3iGZp7K0TcWLprN/DKmJNBPR1lH4CV8 at public.gmane.org>
Newsgroups: gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2006 4:57 PM
Subject: E-Mail Capabilities

> Hello:
>
>
>
> I have been running wikimedia for a little while.  But I have had a
> problem
> getting the email components of the system to work.  None of the email
> notifications work for users and emails are never sent from the system.
> And
> in the preferences a user gets : Error sending mail: mail() has been
> disabled for security reasons
>
>
>
> I have the settings set to "true" in the localsettings.php, but that does
> not seem to be helping. Is there something I am missing?
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> TK

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


from_name: Gareth Hughes ([[User:Garzo]])

body:
I think my posts are ending up in the queue too, and I believe I'm a member.

Gareth Hughes.

On 14/02/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> [sent to wikitech-l and wikien-l]
>
> Mail from Arwel Parry (arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk) keeps ending up in
> the moderation queue. It shouldn't - he's a member of the list and
> comes up unmoderated in Mailman. What could be causing this?
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ilya N.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Renaming of Users / GNU-FDL

body:
I don't think the GFDL has anything to say about it as long as the user gets
credited for any 'contributions'

On 2/14/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Have you read [[Username]]? I think the short answer is you're
> supposed to warn them if it's really offensive, and if they don't
> change it themselves, it's ok to change it for them.
>
> Steve
>
> On 2/14/06, Heinz <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:
> > Sometimes username are quite offending and or provoking e.g. by
> > including another username or theme.
> >
> > Under wich circumstances it is allowed to rename usernames/useraccounts
> > without asking the user?
> >
> > Heinz
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Thomas

body:
Hello everyone,

As Delphine told you a few days ago, my baby boy born
nearly 7 days ago. His name is Thomas Gabriel Luc.

I was told he would be a big fat boy, but nope !
He born 3,4 kg (plain average weight) and just hit
back the 3 kilos, so I am finally home !

He is quite naturally the prettiest one (though, let's face
it, he's got some white pimples on the face...), and
looks very much like myself (two eyes, one nose, one
mouth and a double chin). Actually, he looks very much
like his older brother, so I keep calling him William
:-)

We are both fine now. The most powerful lesson of my
third child birth would be :

"do not pick up the fruit when it is not ripe yet".

After more than 2 weeks going three times per week to
the hospital for full check up due to preeclampsia
disorder, the docs decided to chemically induce the birth.
2 days in a row, they applied a cervical prostaglandin
gel, which caused very very very frequent contractions.
A more natural way of doing this is referred to as the "italian
technique" (the male sperm does contain this prostaglandin, so having
love moments with partner is often recommanded to gently induce child
birth... Right, I mention this only because it is Valentine's day :-))

In my case, no such delicacy. I had the dubious pleasure to spend two
full days in the childbirth area (not exactly 4 stars
hotel), with basically no food, screaming women all day and night long,
electronic gear on chest, arms, hands and tummy.
I *hated* it.
And hated even more when after two days, nothing was
occuring but painful very frequent contractions.

At that point, I was so tired they gave me something
to actually *slow down* contractions so I could rest a
bit! And decided to rupture the amniotic sac, telling
me I had 12 hours in front of me before the c-section
if nothing was happening.

It may have scared my body badly... in hardly more than 60
mn, I went through the 10 cm dilation, the expulsion
of the child and finally placenta. It was quite
explosive :-)

For the wikicommons addicts, no pictures of the
delivery itself were taken :-) Even if we had wanted
to, there would have been no time to do it. So, no bloody pictures of
delivery will be uploaded ;-) sorry...

I put a few pictures on yahoo to share with family and
friends.

http://fr.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fdevouard/album?.dir=550d&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//fr.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fdevouard/my_photos

So, everything is fine :-)
I do have hundred of emails pending, not counting RC to check and
mailing lists to go through. And odd sleeping patterns right now. So,
I'll go slowly through all pending issues. If there is something urgent,
please notify it to me specifically.

Also, thank you for all the congrats left on my user talk pages, ml and
private emails.

Cheers

Anthere

PS : Did I mention I was happy ? I am :-)


subject: [Foundation-l] Thomas


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Thomas


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
On 2/14/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> Clearly Aaron agrees with the moral I've drawn from this little
> imbroglio, but I particularly love his imagery.  Those articles can
> skulk around outside if they want, but just let one raise its head, and
> BANG, all consideration, support, and even hesitation is gone.
> Everyone, newbies as well as old-timers, should know that article-space
> is a free-fire zone.

I suppose we should create [[Wikipedia:How not to be seen]], then?

Kirill Lokshin


subject: [Wikitech-l] How can I disable the link on the pictures ?

body:
> How can I disable the link on the pictures ?

Discussed at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=539#c11
You can vote for that bug if you like, or you can dig through the code
to modify the bit that makes links on images.

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: So much for GFDL compatibility with cc-by-sa

body:
Philip Welch wrote:
>>> ...or like supposing the whole of Scotland is either covered in  snow or
>>> pouring with rain :-)
>>
>>
>> That, of course, would be Wales.
>
>
> Jimbo's either covered in snow or pouring with rain? He seems pretty
> dry in most of the pictures I've seen.
>

You know the photo where he's kneeling in front of the pool?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 556 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060214/cc204af1/attachment.pgp


subject: [Wikitech-l] Modify modifiy

body:
> Where can I modify and rename the label
> [edit]
> which is on each section of a page ?

For the "edit" at the top of the page, assuming you're running 1.5, go
to your wiki, and open "MediaWiki:Edit". Change it from "Edit" to
"Modify" (or whatever you want to call it).

For the edit in section headers, change "MediaWiki:Qbedit".

No idea what "MediaWiki:editsection" changes, but you should probably
change it too.

I just found these by trial and error, but does anyone know if they
are documented anywhere?

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:PROD and AFD culture

body:
A lot of the problem is that AFD has an culture of stalemated trench
warfare between notional "inclusionists" and "deletionists". Having
somewhere else to take the obvious 95% would be a damn fine thing as
it would set up a new space for a hopefully less embittered culture to
emerge. Also, it'll take a lot of the strain off AFD so people here
have more time to take more care. Win-win-win, I hope.

(On Uncyclopedia, with the advent of {{NRV}} largely replacing VFD,
there's a lot less angst and the article count on the wiki is actually
going *down*. And the quality when you hit 'Random page' is actually
going up. W00t!)

- d.


body:
If it's just been set up, scrap it and install the latest MediaWiki
1.5.6 which contains the new schema, saving upgrade time later, and a
lot more features, incl. security fixes.

As to the upload link; you need to enable uploading and be logged on
as a registered user before you'll see it.

Rob Church

On 14/02/06, Travis Miller <TravisM at herald-mail.com> wrote:
> Hi all -
>
> I'm trying to customize the nav bar in my out-of-the-box installation of
> MediaWiki 1.4.3. I just want to add an "Upload file" link to the
> toolbox, as seen on wikipedia.org and mediawiki.org.
>
> I've checked the documentation at mediawiki.org, but it hasn't been any
> help. I'm sure I'm just missing something; I hope someone can help.
>
> All of the documentation on mediawiki.org says that, to customize the
> nav bar in MediaWiki 1.4, you must modify an array named
> $wgNavigationLinks, found in /includes/defaultsettings.php and/or
> /localsettings.php. However, the files specified in the docs do not
> contain any reference to a variable by this name. In fact, I've searched
> my entire webroot and all subfolders, and *no* files in my installation
> mention this variable.
>
> I've also looked at the docs for other versions of MediaWiki, but none
> of those seem to apply to my installation; they all refer to files which
> don't exist in my webroot.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Travis Miller
> IT Department
> The Herald-Mail Company
> travism at herald-mail.com
> 301-733-5131 x2028
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Repeated vandalism?

body:
Hi,
  Silly question perhaps, but why don't you use a user account rather
than editing anonymously? Your chances of being mistaken for a vandal
would be a lot less...

On 2/14/06, Griffin Watkins <agriffinw at gmail.com> wrote:
> My info is as follows:
> IP: *68.180.65.172*
> Name: Griffin Watkins

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR

body:
Hi,
  I know nothing about this event, but I believe one of the important
facets of 3RR is that it applies equally to good faith editors as bad
faith ones, as it's hard to know the difference. Naturally you believe
you were working for the good of the page, but clearly someone
disagreed. Regardless of who was right, edit wars are so destructive
and potentially hurtful that the rule was adopted to nip them in the
bud.

In any case, presumably the block will be lifted tomorrow.

Steve

On 2/12/06, Nathan <nathanr at home.nathanr.com> wrote:
> I've been blocked from editing articles due to violation of 3RR.
>
> On that end, I'm actually working with a member of "LJ Drama" (the
> article I kept altering - I was actually deleting heresay but nobody
> seemed to care about that) to post a more truthful version of events.
>
> It seems pretty ridiculous that I can't even edit my own user page.
>
> I petition for the block to be lifted. As I'm working with one of the
> people in 'LJ Drama', I have no reason to modify the post. I'll leave
> that up to him.
>
> Thank you,
> Nathan Richards (nathanr)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
On 2/14/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> > And the moral of the story is: don't press that 'Save page' button
> > until your article looks like it's going somewhere good.
>
> As noted earlier in this thread, that is exactly the moral I've learned.
>  Wikipedia has no tolerance for works in progress.

I believe you're blurring an important distinction: a stub that does
not demonstrate that its subject matter could be an interesting and
useful article, and an article that is simply not yet interesting and
useful. If I create a stub that says "Magic power is a recently
discovered scientific breakthrough which has been proven to produce
100 times as much energy from a given amount of matter than nuclear
power" it is in the latter category, not the first.

The first category should be wiped, but do you think the second are as
well? There's a policy somewhere about that says that unfinished
articles are to be cherished... [[wikipedia:editing policy]] ?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
On 2/11/06, David Carson <dcarson at iinet.net.au> wrote:
> I don't believe the nominator ever said it was crap. He said it was a
> non-notable neologism, and thus the _topic_ was not suitable for
> Wikipedia (the topic was crap, if you like). This is a completely
> separate issue to the quality of the article's content (which was
> excellent, probably higher than 99% of the first saved versions of
> articles).

Reminds me of my recent proposal on this list which scored a grand
total of one reply :) Quick reminder:
Split AFD into two halves:
Request for subject blocking: Community decides the subject is NN or
not interesting etc, deletes the page and prevents a new article being
created on the topic
Request for page wiping: Community decides the subject is potentially
interesting, but the current text is libellous, copyvio etc. Page is
hacked down to a stub, or wiped altogether (but not blocked).

Misunderstandings and confusion of this sort would be vastly reduced
if the nominator had to actually think for a second what he was
objecting to exactly.

Steve


from_name: Michael Bimmler

body:
Quick remark:
When a mail goes to the mod-queue, you normally get a mail like "Your
mail is moderated because..." (e.g. post by non-member)
Also list-moderators get a notice (this can be disabled afaik), that a
mail has been held for moderation. There, the reason is also
indicated.
Last but not least, in mailman-moderator-interface
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/admindb/LISTNAME), in the right
column, where you see subject, size etc. of the queued mail, a reason
is indicated.
Could you tell, what is told as reason by mailman in this case?
Michael

On 2/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> [sent to wikitech-l and wikien-l]
>
> Mail from Arwel Parry (arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk) keeps ending up in
> the moderation queue. It shouldn't - he's a member of the list and
> comes up unmoderated in Mailman. What could be causing this?
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Regards
Michael Bimmler


subject: [Wikitech-l] Mirroring article onto another website

body:
> I want to be able to mirror an article from our wiki onto a separate
> website, leaving out the navigation links, tabs and other material
> that isn't specific to my article. Is there a technique for doing this?

Not that I am aware of, but (depending on how badly you want this
behaviour), and assuming you always want the latest "live" version,
you could perhaps have the separate website call Special:Export (e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export/test ), then parse the
XML, to get the raw wiki text, and then manually remove any links, and
then display it in the way that you want.

e.g. in PHP you could do all of the above apart from removing the
links and the displaying like so:
======================================
function getWebArticleText($title) {
    // build the URL
    $url = "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export/" . $title;

    // init CURL resource
    $ch = curl_init();

    // set url to pull
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);

    // return pulled web text into a variable.
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

    // retrieve the web text.
    $str = curl_exec ($ch);

    // if we encountered an error, then log it, and exit.
    if (curl_error($ch)) {
        trigger_error("Curl error #: " . curl_errno($ch) . " - " .
curl_error ($ch) );
        print "Curl error #: " . curl_errno($ch) . " - " . curl_error
($ch) . " - exiting.\n";
        exit();
    }

    // close the CURL resource
    curl_close ($ch);

    // just want article wiki text found in via [[Special:export]] XML output
    xml_parse_into_struct(xml_parser_create('UTF-8'), $str, $val, $ind);

    // if we got valid data.
    if (isset($ind['TEXT'][0])) {
        $text = $val[$ind['TEXT'][0]]['value'];
    }
    // otherwise we got invalid data (most likely article was deleted,
or possibly wikipedia may be malfunctioning)
    else {
        $text = "";
    }

    // return the article's wiki text.
    return $text;
}
======================================
Then you'll need some regexes to remove the links, and then have to
work out how to display it (given that it's wiki text, and you want
HTML presumably).

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Miguel A. Cuesta

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki translation into Basque

body:
Hi.

We are working on the translation of MediaWiki into Basque (Euskara). We
are working with the last 'Language.php' file, and made a lot of
progress.

If anybody want to collaborate, don't hesitate to drop me a line.

Regards. Gero arte.

--
Miguel A. Cuesta
Alianzo Networks
"We make social networks"

tel: (+34) 944 371 684 - skype me: cuesta-alianzo
mailto:cuesta at alianzo.com - IM/MSN: cuesta at alianzo.com


from_name: Arwel Parry

body:
In message
<353e9f360602140942r6c60c343wba291c03adc55267 at mail.gmail.com>, Michael
Bimmler <mbimmler-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>Quick remark:
>When a mail goes to the mod-queue, you normally get a mail like "Your
>mail is moderated because..." (e.g. post by non-member)
>Also list-moderators get a notice (this can be disabled afaik), that a
>mail has been held for moderation. There, the reason is also
>indicated.
>Last but not least, in mailman-moderator-interface
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/admindb/LISTNAME), in the right
column, where you see subject, size etc. of the queued mail, a reason
is indicated.
Could you tell, what is told as reason by mailman in this case?
Michael

"The reason it is being held:

      Message has implicit destination"

Whatever that means....

On 2/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> [sent to wikitech-l and wikien-l]
>
> Mail from Arwel Parry (arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk) keeps ending up in
> the moderation queue. It shouldn't - he's a member of the list and
> comes up unmoderated in Mailman. What could be causing this?
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Regards
Michael Bimmler
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l-AeOJrEpdGNeGglJvpFV4uA at public.gmane.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbcom has completely lost its mind

body:
On 2/10/06, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> The law was added to be our school ma'arm.  The bible says 'I did not
> know sin, except the law said "Thou shalt not covet"'; in other words,
> without rules to give direction, we're lost.

Romans 2, if anyone's looking for a source.

However, Paul actually goes on to say that you can sin both inside and
outside the law.  This appears to be the bibical version of IAR.

--
Sam


from_name: Jovana Milicevic

subject: [Foundation-l] German Wikipedia

body:
Newspapers from Belgrade, Mikro News, published that German Court
abolished German  Wikipedia. I confute that and sent them an email in
which I sad that that information was not true. German Court didn't
and couldn't abolish Wikipedia, because Wikipedia's domen and servers
are in USA. The truth is that German Court took away domen
wikipedia.de which transfers users to the main site de.wikipedia.org.

Jovana Milicevic
Wikimedia Serbia and Montenegro


subject: [Foundation-l] German Wikipedia


subject: [Foundation-l] German Wikipedia

body:
(crossposted to vereinde-l to ensure correctness)
This was true until the main hearing before the court, when the
injuction was rejected.
The original injunction stated, that Wikimedia Germany may not forward
wikipedia.de to de.wikipedia.org as long as in de.wikipedia.org the
full real name of the hacker "Tron" is mentioned. Refer to vereinde-l
people for further information.
Michael

On 2/14/06, Jovana Milicevic <jovana at vikimedija.org> wrote:
> Newspapers from Belgrade, Mikro News, published that German Court
> abolished German  Wikipedia. I confute that and sent them an email in
> which I sad that that information was not true. German Court didn't
> and couldn't abolish Wikipedia, because Wikipedia's domen and servers
> are in USA. The truth is that German Court took away domen
> wikipedia.de which transfers users to the main site de.wikipedia.org.
>
> Jovana Milicevic
> Wikimedia Serbia and Montenegro
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Regards
Michael Bimmler


subject: [Foundation-l] German Wikipedia


subject: [WikiEN-l] Repeated vandalism?

body:
On 2/14/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Steve, he wasn't blocked for his own actions, but because Fred Bauder
> placed a range block on a whole /16. From Special:Ipblocklist:

I've never been quite sure about how blocks affect registered users. I
gather consensus is that it should work like this [1]:

1. User A in IP range x has an account
2. User B in IP range x does not have an account
3. User B vandalises
4. IP range x is blocked
5. User A can still edit, user B can't.
6. User B cannot create an account.

In other words, registered users should only be blocked by the user
name itself being banned. Preventing blocked IP addresses creating
accounts stops the obvious loophole.

I also gather that it doesn't quite work like this. Anyone know how it
actually works, and why it doesn't work as described?

[1] consensus = I think it should work like that, and I recall seeing
one post somewhere once that agreed with me :D

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:PROD and AFD culture

body:
On 2/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> A lot of the problem is that AFD has an culture of stalemated trench
> warfare between notional "inclusionists" and "deletionists". Having
> somewhere else to take the obvious 95% would be a damn fine thing as
> it would set up a new space for a hopefully less embittered culture to
> emerge. Also, it'll take a lot of the strain off AFD so people here
> have more time to take more care. Win-win-win, I hope.

I agree. AFD seems to set up a structured battlefield on every
article, whether or not it's actually controversial or not. It's like
the way you can start any argument you like simply by asking people to
state their opinion without hedging. Pick two of the opposing opinions
and pretty soon there's a fight :)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
On 2/14/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Part of the reason I started contributing to Wikipedia was the (then)
> tolerance for good-faith works in progress.
>
> I still believe the rate of addition of new articles is not so great
> that we cannot stop and check a few things before nominating for
> deletion.  I feel a good proportion of the problem is that patrolling
> new pages attracts the immediateist and impatient above the
> eventualist and patient contributor.

Hang on, are we now actually having a discussion about deleting
well-written stubs on good topics? No one's really proposing that are
they?

Steve


from_name: Heinz

subject: [WikiEN-l] Renaming of Users / GNU-FDL

body:
Sometimes username are quite offending and or provoking e.g. by
including another username or theme.

Under wich circumstances it is allowed to rename usernames/useraccounts
without asking the user?

Heinz


from_name: David Newton

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Juriwiki-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
We have a really significant problem here. As with AFD copyright is a
system-wide problem that needs to be addressed.

Ray Saintonge wrote:

>One needs to understand the decision making dynamics around the wikis.
>A lack of responses  does not equate to disinterest or agreement.  Most
>people don't feel like carrying on discussions ad nauseam when it
>doesn't affect what they are personally doing.  Most policy discussions
>are inconclusive and very, very tedious.  When you change a "policy"
>page, most people don't notice it.

I fully understand the decision-making processes around the wikis
since I have been an active participant with this project for over two
and half years. In some circumstances, especially when care has been
taken to let people know about what is going on then a lack of
response certainly DOES equate to disinterest. In a decision situation
it can also be interpreted to mean agreement.

This is an immensely serious issue since it exposes Wikipedia,
Wikisource and the Wikimedia Foundation, not to mention the
contributors to the sites, to legal liability. I wanted a definitive
statement over copyright and I did not get that statement.
Consequently I went the wiki way and tried to get a consensus over
what to do. Besides, the opinions of "most" people weren't what I was
after. I was after a policy statement about copyright on a Wikimedia
Foundation project. That concerns the board and they should be (and
for the most part are) directly concerned with matters of high policy
like this.

>>I suggest that you be the one to make the policy clear on Wikisource.
>>I also suggest that you be the one to tag the hundreds of UN
>>resolution copyvios on there for deletion. If this is to be the
>>confirmed policy I will remove work that I have done on starting to
>>put some British legislation online, which is under Crown copyright
>>and hence incompatible with the GFDL. Prepare for a storm of protest,
>>particularly about the UN resolutions (although I happen to agree that
>>they are copyvios in that case).
>>
>>If Wikisource is not to be a repository of works that are freely
>>reproducable, but not compatible with the terms of the GFDL then I
>>think starting something on Wikicities would be in order. I originally
>>intended to use the Wiki format to create copies of the original
>>legislation online and then create amended copies of them as they
>>appeared at various points. Since the promised British Government
>>statute law database is currently mired in developmental purgatory
>>that seemed a very useful thing to do and perfect for Wikisource.
>>
>The copyright status of statutes is highly debatable.  The US believes
>that its own statutes should be freely reproducible, but this is not the
>case in many other countries.  I am not familiar enough with the case
>law for this in those countries to make an informed comment on how such
>arguments would turn out.   Suffice it to say that there is an important
>public policy issue involved that would not be relevant to most other
>allegations of coyright infringement.

You may think that there is something that is highly debateable about
the copyright status of foreign statutes but that does not necessarily
make it so. The status of Federal statutes is clear in USC 17. Case
law deals with state and county statutes in the US. Applying that case
law to foreign statues is very likely incorrect. Remember that in
common law jurisdictions courts very often make distinctions when
ruling on similar cases that, for example, differ in having a private
individual suing a private individual and a private individual suing a
public authority on much the same facts of a case. Such actions can
cause big problems. When talking about foreign and domestic statute
copyright status we are talking about things that would have a strong
chance of being distinguished by a court.

Other countries have public domain laws etc, and some, like the UK,
have essentially waived copyright in statutes. That does not mean that
those countries that do claim copyrights on their laws cannot enforce
those copyrights in the United States. One of the fundamental bases
for the case law on US statutes is to let all people have access to
the law that governs them. When in the United States and talking about
foreign law that basis does not exist.

>>
>To say that these activities are wilfull violations is an improper
>accusation.  There can be no wilfull violation when there is significant
>doubt that an action is a violation in the first place.

Yes there can be wilful infringement if the people concerned have been
warned about what they are doing. Someone can believe that there is
significant doubt over their actions when in fact there is no doubt at
all. If that person is warned about their actions and still continues
those actions that takes things to a whole different level. I say
there is wilful infringement because the people concerned have been
warned about their actions likely not being fair use and have still
continued to take those actions. They have also been told why those
actions are likely not fair use.

In the same vein if I were to continue to post Crown copyright
legislation on Wikisource after the clear policy statement of the
board I would be in wilful violation of that policy. I might think
that there was significant doubt over my actions, but there would not
be in reality.

I hope the UN doesn't come after us for posting texts of resolutions.
I don't know how likely to sue they are. If they do come after
Wikisource and those who posted the resolution texts then it cannot be
said that those posting the texts were not warned.

David Newton


subject: [WikiEN-l] Renaming of Users / GNU-FDL

body:
Have you read [[Username]]? I think the short answer is you're
supposed to warn them if it's really offensive, and if they don't
change it themselves, it's ok to change it for them.

Steve

On 2/14/06, Heinz <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:
> Sometimes username are quite offending and or provoking e.g. by
> including another username or theme.
>
> Under wich circumstances it is allowed to rename usernames/useraccounts
> without asking the user?
>
> Heinz
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Thomas

body:
Anthere schreef:
> Hello everyone,
>
>
> As Delphine told you a few days ago, my baby boy born
> nearly 7 days ago. His name is Thomas Gabriel Luc.
>
[cut]

Somehow this is still news to me.

Congratulations Anthere. Nice to get some really good news. That happens
not every week. Take care.

All the best,
Walter

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 2/14/06, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> I want to be able to mirror an article from our wiki onto a separate
> website, leaving out the navigation links, tabs and other material
> that isn't specific to my article. Is there a technique for doing this?

If you don't mind the horrible horrible effects of screen scraping,
you can just request the page with "?action=render" on the end. You
just get the (already rendered as HTML) content, without all the
navigation stuff.

Those other techniques are good though if you want the wikitext.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Marius Treitz

subject: [Foundation-l] German Wikipedia

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

More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Floricic#Current_controversy

//mmtux

Jovana Milicevic wrote:
> Newspapers from Belgrade, Mikro News, published that German Court
> abolished German  Wikipedia. I confute that and sent them an email in
> which I sad that that information was not true. German Court didn't
> and couldn't abolish Wikipedia, because Wikipedia's domen and servers
> are in USA. The truth is that German Court took away domen
> wikipedia.de which transfers users to the main site de.wikipedia.org.
>
> Jovana Milicevic
> Wikimedia Serbia and Montenegro
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFD8mZdequHI9JC/OERArY3AJ96sGwP0fVQNppSNTVnV+rwS/MlBQCfaL2v
2OYZommKPqZ6UidmVZj+P8E=
=wkqs
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Foundation-l] German Wikipedia


subject: [WikiEN-l] Bounties

body:
Hello all,
Everyone seen this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Bounty

At first glance, it looks rather brilliant. Both focusing energy on
improving articles, and donating money to the foundation.

Just thought I'd bring it to your attention.

Steve


body:
Brion Vibber schreef:
[cut]
> I haven't tested other systems extensively but would like to see some
> compatibility feedback.
>
> NullC reports it works with gcjwebplugin on Linux/Firefox, though perhaps slowly.

I works but I had to reload some times. The buffing was difficult. The
fist times it showed 2 seconds of video and did not load the other part
of the video. My connection is not very fast.

Ubuntu 5.10, FireFox 1.0.7. - J2re1.4-mozilla-plugin

This seems to me a very usefull function to include to the wiki, also
for audio.

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
On 2/14/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> Gregory, there is a big difference between "free content" as with a
> copyleft license, and using a patent-free format for delivering said
> content. The former talks about the legality of copying and altering
> the work, and the latter is only about the technical delivery
> mechanism. So I think in this case, free has a triple chance of
> confusion - free as in freedom (to copy), free as in beer and free as
> in delivery payload (implementation regarding patents).
>
> In short - they're not the same.

I don't agree. If I take some content, place it in a safe, and make it
illegal for people to open the safe unless they agree to pay me money
and abide by certain other conditions, and then distribute it
widely... Well..  I can *claim* all I want that the 'content' is free,
but that would a meaningless claim. The content would be just as
unfree as if I'd added an oddball license which places odd
restrictions on the next hop of the distribution chain.

The difference between putting a file in a proprietary format and
putting it behind DRM is slim indeed. Both inhibit the uses for the
file for which you'd be naturally entitled, and both can be
circumvented by someone with special authority or someone who is
willing to ignore the law.

Not only is the outcome similar, but there may be little difference
legally: Modern compression schemes are a far more complex
transformation than the constant addition in GF(2^8) used Adobe's
early ebook reader... which someone was brought up on DMCA
circumvention charges over.  As far as I'm aware, none of the
conventional legal players for the suggested formats offer a 'save to
non-proprietary-format' button... I would not be shocked to see
someone make an argument that using ffmpeg2theora is circumvention.

> We have to recognize honestly that Theora installations lag far far
> behind QT, Real and WM by a large margin and the user experience is
> not the same to find and download the player/codec.

We give people two click access from our media help page to a number
of solutions. How can you claim that theora is fundamentally harder to
install for someone already at our site?

Now, perhaps the media help page could use some improvement. But based
on the discussion here it doesn't seem like the people complaining
have even looked at it.

> One cannot reasonably think the number of folks with Theora codecs
> installed even closely approaches the number with Quicktime or Real.
> Even for the lesser Quicktime, every iPod owner who installs iTunes
> (nearly all) by necessity installs Quicktime. (Over 30 million iPod
> units shipped in 2005.) Real Networks has been around since the dawn
> of the dotcom industry (1993) with tons of legacy content and new
> content being generated. So it is a bit of a stretch to draw
> equivalence between Theora and the other non-WMP codecs.

Well a real player from 1993 (or 2004 for that matter) won't likely
play content released for real today. ... But, I never argued that
there was as many qt or real users.. Just that the number of
QT/Real/Xvid/etc codec users is *far* fewer than the number of Windows
desktops because Windows doesn't usually ship with them.... and
moreover, that installing theora is just as easy as installing
QT/Real/etc.

If a user has QT/Real/ or whatever third party video players/codecs
installed there are few reasons why they couldn't install the theora
codecs.

> > The complexity of getting working players to users is high enough that
> > a great many video sites such as video.google.com and youtube are
> > using flash and java based players.
>
> This is certainly true, and they've recognized the value of a smooth
> user experience.

They also prioritize financial gain over all other interests, do you
think that Wikipedia should be on the same path?


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] German law and wikiquote

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> The legal study ordered by the German Wikimedia e.V. is mostly a
> summary of the current German law. While that has value in itself,
> those who have followed the relevant discussions will not find much
> new information in it. A more interesting study would be one of
> loopholes and ways to do an end run around copyright and trademark law:
>
> - How to cheat museums which try to steal public domain content by
> forbidding photographs.
> - How to get coat of arms images under a free or semi-free license.
> - How to phrase Wikiquote pages so that they fall under the fair use
> equivalent of German law.
> - How to use the fact that Wikimedia servers are in the United States
> to our advantage.
>
> In short, instead of asking "What does the law say?", we should ask
> "How can we do what we want to do?". If the answer is "We can't", then
> we should actively work to change the laws to our advantage. If we
> want to survive, we need to be creative in the way we deal with the
> law, especially in Germany, where, tolerated by the government, a
> substantial subset of lawyers are criminals who terrorize grandmothers
> and 15-year-old webmasters with illegal demands for money (google
> "Abmahnung").
>
> If your perception is that, legally speaking, you are standing on a
> small island, then you will not even notice as the protections that
> the law grants you are eroded away by the ocean around you. We have to
> actively claim the ground that rightfully belongs to us, and not let
> lobbyists and corrupt governments get away with making information
> ever more proprietary.

This kind of ultra-concervative approach to the law by lawyers does not
surprise me.  A lawyer that is truly a benefit to his client should be
looking for ways that the law can be interpreted that will help his
client to achieve desired goals within the law.  Simply being a parrot
that quotes the law has a very limited value.  It's not even a matter of
doing an end run or looking for loopholes, but of looking at how the law
can serve us as it is.

I would not call taking surreptitious photographs in museums "cheating";
I would be more inclined to characterize the activities of those museums
in that way.  The rules that they might have about taking photographs
are not a copyright issue except in a few limited cases where they
actually own the copyright .

Using our funds to lobby for changing the law can affect the tax-free
charitable status in some places, but using the existing law to our best
advantage should come first anyway.

Your general conclusion about law is accurate.  The ones who benefit
from the law are those who play it close to the edge.  Exciting new
ideas such as Wikipedia itself have not progressed by being more safe
than sorry.  Gold medallists in sport are the ones who take that extra
chance; they know that they could crash but are not paralyzed by that
fear.  It just takes a little courage.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] German law and wikiquote


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>I don't agree. If I take some content, place it in a safe, and make it
>illegal for people to open the safe unless they agree to pay me money
>and abide by certain other conditions, and then distribute it
>widely... Well..  I can *claim* all I want that the 'content' is free,
>but that would a meaningless claim.
>
That's not even remotely close to the case here, though.  We're not
talking about having content *only* in patent-encumbered formats, but in
offering a user the option to receive it in a patent-encumbered formats
while also having it available in a non-encumbered format as the
preferred format.

That is more analogous to taking some content, putting one copy of it up
freely on the internet, and the other copy in a safe.  The fact that you
have a copy in a safe does not make the copy on the internet less free.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
On 2/15/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> That's not even remotely close to the case here, though.  We're not
> talking about having content *only* in patent-encumbered formats, but in
> offering a user the option to receive it in a patent-encumbered formats
> while also having it available in a non-encumbered format as the
> preferred format.
>
> That is more analogous to taking some content, putting one copy of it up
> freely on the internet, and the other copy in a safe.  The fact that you
> have a copy in a safe does not make the copy on the internet less free.

Lets not get too carried away with the metaphors... We're not talking
about putting it away where it will not effect the outside world.

Would you support the foundation distributing a DRM inhibited copy of
Wikipedia so long as there was a free copy available somewhere?

If we were to permit encumbered formats what would ensure that there
was always a non-encumbered version available if the content was not
lost entirely?


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


body:
David Newton wrote:

>We have a really significant problem here. As with AFD copyright is a
>system-wide problem that needs to be addressed.
>
Try not to make it a bigger problem.

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>One needs to understand the decision making dynamics around the wikis.
>>A lack of responses  does not equate to disinterest or agreement.  Most
>>people don't feel like carrying on discussions ad nauseam when it
>>doesn't affect what they are personally doing.  Most policy discussions
>>are inconclusive and very, very tedious.  When you change a "policy"
>>page, most people don't notice it.
>>
>>
>I fully understand the decision-making processes around the wikis
>since I have been an active participant with this project for over two
>and half years. In some circumstances, especially when care has been
>taken to let people know about what is going on then a lack of
>response certainly DOES equate to disinterest. In a decision situation
>it can also be interpreted to mean agreement.
>
For the most part people will admit that they do not have enough
background in copyright law to take a meaningful position.  You can't
properly call something a "decision situation" when very few people are
able to participate.

>This is an immensely serious issue since it exposes Wikipedia,
>Wikisource and the Wikimedia Foundation, not to mention the
>contributors to the sites, to legal liability. I wanted a definitive
>statement over copyright and I did not get that statement.
>Consequently I went the wiki way and tried to get a consensus over
>what to do. Besides, the opinions of "most" people weren't what I was
>after. I was after a policy statement about copyright on a Wikimedia
>Foundation project. That concerns the board and they should be (and
>for the most part are) directly concerned with matters of high policy
>like this.
>
Asking for a definitive statement is asking for the impossible.  The law
is simply not as clear as you believe it to be.  The best policy would
be to use common sense with support for neither flagrant copyright
infringement nor copyright paranoia.  As a whole the Wikimedia
Foundation needs to look after its own interests to be sure, and it
needs to determine how much risk it is willing to accept.  I suppose
that accepting that there is a wide grey area is a form of policy
statement.  How wide that grey area should be will vary according to
specific circumstances; it's a pragmatic approach.

As for individual contributors, they need to accept the proper
consequences of their actions on an individual basis.  I accept the
legal consequences of anything that I post, but then I whatever I
contribute is done in full consciousness of the legalities involved.

>>>I suggest that you be the one to make the policy clear on Wikisource.
>>>I also suggest that you be the one to tag the hundreds of UN
>>>resolution copyvios on there for deletion. If this is to be the
>>>confirmed policy I will remove work that I have done on starting to
>>>put some British legislation online, which is under Crown copyright
>>>and hence incompatible with the GFDL. Prepare for a storm of protest,
>>>particularly about the UN resolutions (although I happen to agree that
>>>they are copyvios in that case).
>>>
>>>If Wikisource is not to be a repository of works that are freely
>>>reproducable, but not compatible with the terms of the GFDL then I
>>>think starting something on Wikicities would be in order. I originally
>>>intended to use the Wiki format to create copies of the original
>>>legislation online and then create amended copies of them as they
>>>appeared at various points. Since the promised British Government
>>>statute law database is currently mired in developmental purgatory
>>>that seemed a very useful thing to do and perfect for Wikisource.
>>>
>>>
>>The copyright status of statutes is highly debatable.  The US believes
>>that its own statutes should be freely reproducible, but this is not the
>>case in many other countries.  I am not familiar enough with the case
>>law for this in those countries to make an informed comment on how such
>>arguments would turn out.   Suffice it to say that there is an important
>>public policy issue involved that would not be relevant to most other
>>allegations of coyright infringement.
>>
>>
>
>You may think that there is something that is highly debateable about
>the copyright status of foreign statutes but that does not necessarily
>make it so. The status of Federal statutes is clear in USC 17. Case
>law deals with state and county statutes in the US. Applying that case
>law to foreign statues is very likely incorrect. Remember that in
>common law jurisdictions courts very often make distinctions when
>ruling on similar cases that, for example, differ in having a private
>individual suing a private individual and a private individual suing a
>public authority on much the same facts of a case. Such actions can
>cause big problems. When talking about foreign and domestic statute
>copyright status we are talking about things that would have a strong
>chance of being distinguished by a court.
>
If iit wasn't debatable we wouldn't be having this debate.  I know that
common law courts make many distinctions when they rule, but your
confused speculation about what this means does not help to resolve
anything.

>Other countries have public domain laws etc, and some, like the UK,
>have essentially waived copyright in statutes. That does not mean that
>those countries that do claim copyrights on their laws cannot enforce
>those copyrights in the United States. One of the fundamental bases
>for the case law on US statutes is to let all people have access to
>the law that governs them. When in the United States and talking about
>foreign law that basis does not exist.
>
Have any such foreign governments even tried to eforce this kind of
copyright in US courts, or are you just speculating again?

>>To say that these activities are wilfull violations is an improper
>>accusation.  There can be no wilfull violation when there is significant
>>doubt that an action is a violation in the first place.
>>
>>
>Yes there can be wilful infringement if the people concerned have been
>warned about what they are doing. Someone can believe that there is
>significant doubt over their actions when in fact there is no doubt at
>all. If that person is warned about their actions and still continues
>those actions that takes things to a whole different level. I say
>there is wilful infringement because the people concerned have been
>warned about their actions likely not being fair use and have still
>continued to take those actions. They have also been told why those
>actions are likely not fair use.
>
This is sophistry.  Warned by whom?  What makes your opinion that a text
is protected any more correct than someone else's opinion that it
isn't.  If once you have "warned" them they review the situation and
come to a different conclusion, why should your opinioin be the one to
prevail?

>In the same vein if I were to continue to post Crown copyright
>legislation on Wikisource after the clear policy statement of the
>board I would be in wilful violation of that policy. I might think
>that there was significant doubt over my actions, but there would not
>be in reality.
>
Until there is such a "clear policy statement" there can be no wilful
violation of WMF policy, but that is a different issue from violation of
law.

>I hope the UN doesn't come after us for posting texts of resolutions.
>I don't know how likely to sue they are. If they do come after
>Wikisource and those who posted the resolution texts then it cannot be
>said that those posting the texts were not warned.
>
If you are not personally posting the texts you should have nothing to
worry about.  I'm sure there is plenty enough for you to do without
violating your own rigid interpretation of copyright law.  I only
contributed one or two of them some time ago, and I assure you that I
will not use lack of warning as an excuse.

Ec


from_name: Jeremy Dunck

subject:
[Wikitech-l] mwdumper error: XML document structures must start and
	end within the same entity.

body:
I'm getting the following error while using the mwdumper from 2006-Feb-01.

tail load-progress-err
7 pages (1.396/sec), 1,000 revs (199.362/sec)
Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: XML document
structures must start and end within the same entity.
        at org.mediawiki.importer.XmlDumpReader.readDump(Unknown Source)
        at org.mediawiki.dumper.Dumper.main(Unknown Source)

I can't figure out what might be wrong w/ the XML being input, and
since the error doesn't give an offset in the stream, I'm not sure how
to troubleshoot it.

Here's the cmd line:

bzcat enwiki-20060125-pages-meta-history.xml.bz2 | ./load.sh  .. more
stuff, but nothing that knows anything about XML.  ;-)

where load.sh is:
#!/bin/bash
java -server -jar ../tools/mwdumper.jar \
  --output=stdout \
    --format=xml \
    --filter=exactlist:1000_random_titles \
    --filter=namespace:0 \
    --progress=1000 \

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be grateful.

Thanks,
  Jeremy


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] mwdumper error: XML document structures must start
	and	end within the same entity.

body:
Jeremy Dunck wrote:
> I'm getting the following error while using the mwdumper from 2006-Feb-01.

I have no problem with this dump.

1) Check md5sum.
2) Make sure bzcat works correctly.
3) Try the .7z version
4) Tell me your exact OS and Java VM version.

Checksums:
d8c08e8328c6f920fee8a517ccb8e67c  enwiki-20060125-pages-meta-history.xml.7z
234b444abf2fb1c7c1ced4bc6cfb03dc  enwiki-20060125-pages-meta-history.xml.bz2

I tested on Mac OS X 10.4.4:
$ java -version
java version "1.4.2_09"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.2_09-232)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.2-54, mixed mode)

It gets beyond 4000 revisions with no problem with the .bz2, past the point
where your test failed. (I've previously checked the full uncompressed copy of
that dump for schema validity, it's fine.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060215/64f7623b/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Wikitech-l] OTRS vs mod_perl

body:
I've disabled mod_perl on ticket.wikimedia.org, since OTRS seems violently
opposed to working correctly under it. As far as I could tell, it would start
passing the request information from some previous request to the script, so
you'd often get what someone else had loaded earlier instead of what you were
asking for.

(This is similar in effect to the bug we had long, long ago when using a
separate perl script as a RewriteMap on Wikipedia; it would sometimes get out of
sync and send the server to the different address a different client had asked for.)

I also applied this patch: http://isleo.kapsi.fi/pub/otrs/
to suppress some whiny lines in the session file decoder.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060215/1e9ae563/attachment.pgp>


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: mwdumper error: XML document structures must start
	and end within the same entity.

body:
On 2/15/06, Jeremy Dunck <jdunck at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm getting the following error while using the mwdumper from 2006-Feb-01.
>
> tail load-progress-err
> 7 pages (1.396/sec), 1,000 revs (199.362/sec)
> Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: XML document
> structures must start and end within the same entity.
>         at org.mediawiki.importer.XmlDumpReader.readDump(Unknown Source)
>         at org.mediawiki.dumper.Dumper.main(Unknown Source)

Apologies for replying to myself, but I just saw this suggestion:
"If strange XML errors are encountered under Java 1.4, try 1.5:"
here:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MWDumper

However, I already am on java 1.5:
jgd011100 at utd51523:~$ java -version
java version "1.5.0_05"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_05-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_05-b05, mixed mode, sharing)

And, this may be a stupid question, but where can I get the source for
this util?  I don't see a source link on the above page, or in the
./tools dir .

Thanks again,
  Jeremy


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 2/14/06, David Newton <davidp.newton at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is an immensely serious issue since it exposes Wikipedia,
> Wikisource and the Wikimedia Foundation, not to mention the
> contributors to the sites, to legal liability. I wanted a definitive
> statement over copyright and I did not get that statement.

Some points:

1) We're dealing with a matter of copyright law and not a basic,
everyday one.  On legal questions where there isn't a huge amount of
precedent and case law, you can't get a definitive answer.  Thus, not
many people feel qualified to comment on what the legal situation is.
2) The Foundation, I'm sure, does not want to expose itself to
liability by giving legal advice to contributors.

-Matt


from_name: Patrick, Brad

body:
They jumped the gun with the release but yes, there is a deal with Babylon pending.

--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
To: English Wikipedia; foundation-l at wikimedia.org
Sent: Wed Feb 15 07:58:54 2006
Subject: [Foundation-l] Babylon Ltd using Wikipedia - press release questions

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060214/uktu013.html?.v=48
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-14-2006/0004281390&EDATE=

  OR YEHUDA, Israel, February 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Babylon Ltd., the leading
  provider of single-click translation and information access software, and
  Wikipedia the free-content, user edited encyclopedia, today announced the
  launch of the Wikipedia as part of Babylon's solution.

    [...]

  "Our collaboration with Wikipedia is the first of its kind for Babylon".
  said Alon Carmeli, VP Sales and Marketing, Babylon Ltd.

Dropping our name so as to imply a more active collaboration than
downloading a database dump ... that seems slightly questionable
behaviour. Unless, of course, there was an active collaboration with
Babylon Ltd?

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

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer under IRS Circular 230: Unless expressly stated otherwise in this transmission, nothing contained in this message is intended or written to be used, nor may it be relied upon or used, (1) by any taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended and/or (2) by any person to support the promotion or marketing of or to recommend any Federal tax transaction(s) or matter(s) addressed in this message.

If you desire a formal opinion on a particular tax matter for the purpose of avoiding the imposition of any penalties, we will discuss the additional Treasury requirements that must be met and whether it is possible to meet those requirements under the circumstances, as well as the anticipated time and additional fees involved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Confidentiality Disclaimer: This e-mail message and any attachments are private communication sent by a law firm, Fowler White Boggs Banker P.A., and may contain confidential, legally privileged information meant solely for the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. Please notify the sender immediately by replying to this message, then delete the e-mail and any attachments from your system. Thank you.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Babylon Ltd using Wikipedia - press release
	questions


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Babylon Ltd using Wikipedia - press
	release questions


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
On 2/14/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/13/06, Ilya Haykinson <haykinson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't see this as an openness-of-content issue at all; I see it as a
> > technological problem.  Our organizational desire is to provide open
> > access to data; to some degree this means using open,
> > patent-unencumbered formats such that patent restrictions will not be
> > an obstacle to viewing our content.
> >
> > On the other hand, a large part of our organizational desire is to
> > actually provide the data.  Currently our video content is accessible
> > to a very small subset of users; just like we present our
> > database-persisted data using XHTML that is understood by web
> > browsers, we need to present video data in some format that's
> > understandable by most computers out there.
> >
> > Without compromising our stance, we could insist on all uploads to be
> > open formats (like .ogg) but transcode to common viewable formats as
> > an option for viewers who don't have OGG players. I don't see how that
> > would be in conflict with our core mission.
>
> I don't see how transcoding to a proprietary format would be much
> different than offering up our text alternative non-free license.

Gregory, there is a big difference between "free content" as with a
copyleft license, and using a patent-free format for delivering said
content. The former talks about the legality of copying and altering
the work, and the latter is only about the technical delivery
mechanism. So I think in this case, free has a triple chance of
confusion - free as in freedom (to copy), free as in beer and free as
in delivery payload (implementation regarding patents).

In short - they're not the same.

> I also see the assertion made multiple times that the number of users
> who can view this content is greatly diminished... but I've yet to see
> this substantiated with data.  If you count users who must install a
> codec as unable, then you must also realize that the proposed
> alternative proprietary formats are also not installed by default on a
> great many (a majority?) of computers.

We have to recognize honestly that Theora installations lag far far
behind QT, Real and WM by a large margin and the user experience is
not the same to find and download the player/codec.

One cannot reasonably think the number of folks with Theora codecs
installed even closely approaches the number with Quicktime or Real.
Even for the lesser Quicktime, every iPod owner who installs iTunes
(nearly all) by necessity installs Quicktime. (Over 30 million iPod
units shipped in 2005.) Real Networks has been around since the dawn
of the dotcom industry (1993) with tons of legacy content and new
content being generated. So it is a bit of a stretch to draw
equivalence between Theora and the other non-WMP codecs.

> The complexity of getting working players to users is high enough that
> a great many video sites such as video.google.com and youtube are
> using flash and java based players.

This is certainly true, and they've recognized the value of a smooth
user experience.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


from_name: Sigvat Stensholt

subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
> As noted earlier in this thread, that is exactly the moral I've learned.
> Wikipedia has no tolerance for works in progress.

I tend to agree with Guy's and Aaron's evaluation here. The article, once it
enters main namespace, is in the frontline. People making a "normal" search
for it will be able to access it. The article should be able to stand on its
own legs by then and if it doesn't it should be deleted, even if the subject
is notable and a proper article can be written in its place.

For example, the first edition we got about Robert Aumann contained

 "He won the Nobel Prize!"

Lets go through why this type of article is bad. First, the article is not
very useful to the readers. The people who are likely to look up Robert
Aumann are those who read that he had won the economics prize already. The
people who didn't know this would also find the article useless. (They would
think "Huh?, What Nobel prize? When? For what?". Second, it is an
embarrassment to Wikipedia if people look this up or follow a bluelink,
expecting to find a real article, and find this. The reader is annoyed and
decides that the reputation of Wikipedia being low quality is absolutely
true. Third, the presence of such articles, written by a veteran Wikipedian I
might add, tells newbies that they don't need to put any effort into writing
the articles (after all the vets don't), and that makes the quality of newer
articles very poor.

Therefore, that revision of the article was speedy deleted, based on the
criterion of little or no context. So when you push the save button on a new
article make sure that you have made an attempt at answering

*What/Who IS the subject?
*Why should the reader care?
*Could this article be useful to anyone?

If you plan on making a longer article for first submission and don't want to
suffer a browser crash right before you submit it, you can put work in
progress on a subpage of you userpage, and then move it off to the main
article namespace when the article is in reasonably good shape.

This is not extreme immediatism. A poorly written, or short article which is
still useful and establishes context can be included.

Sigvat Stensholt (AKA "Sjakkalle")


from_name: Chris

subject: [Wikitech-l] Fail mySql Connect to Localhost

body:
Hello,

I've set up MediaWiki successfully one other XP box, but my second can't do the
config:

Checking environment...
PHP 5.1.2: ok
PHP server API is apache2handler; ok, using pretty URLs (index.php/Page_Title)
Have XML / Latin1-UTF-8 conversion support.
PHP is configured with no memory_limit.
Have zlib support; enabling output compression.
Neither Turck MMCache nor eAccelerator are installed, can't use object caching
functions
GNU diff3 not found.
Couldn't find GD library or ImageMagick; image thumbnailing disabled.
Installation directory: C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs\wiki
Script URI path: /wiki
Warning: $wgSecretKey key is insecure, generated with mt_rand(). Consider
changing it manually.
Trying to connect to MySQL on localhost as root...
MySQL error 2003: Can't connect to MySQL server on 'localhost' (10061)

I can log into mySql with the same parameters using MySql Administrator
(localhost). What might MediaWiki be doing differently?

Thanks in advance for any tips.

Regards,
Chris


from_name: Lolo Buell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Modify modifiy

body:
Thanks a lot for your answers.
:o)


from_name: Sam Fentress (Asbestos)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bounties

body:
Wow, clever!

One userbox that I'm sure no one could object to: This user has raised $200
for Wikimedia

Sam

--
Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos

On 2/14/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
> Everyone seen this?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Bounty
>
> At first glance, it looks rather brilliant. Both focusing energy on
> improving articles, and donating money to the foundation.
>
> Just thought I'd bring it to your attention.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 2/15/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>That's not even remotely close to the case here, though.  We're not
>>talking about having content *only* in patent-encumbered formats, but in
>>offering a user the option to receive it in a patent-encumbered formats
>>while also having it available in a non-encumbered format as the
>>preferred format.
>>
>>That is more analogous to taking some content, putting one copy of it up
>>freely on the internet, and the other copy in a safe.  The fact that you
>>have a copy in a safe does not make the copy on the internet less free.
>>
>>
>
>Lets not get too carried away with the metaphors... We're not talking
>about putting it away where it will not effect the outside world.
>
>Would you support the foundation distributing a DRM inhibited copy of
>Wikipedia so long as there was a free copy available somewhere?
>
>If we were to permit encumbered formats what would ensure that there
>was always a non-encumbered version available if the content was not
>lost entirely?
>
>
I think you missed the argument I made earlier.  Often times, and
unanticipated as well, propriatory file format "owners" have pulled the
rug out from under the people who are using the data format, charging
royalties for even distributing content in that file format.  From a
purely economic standpoint, the Wikimedia Foudnation can't afford to
distribute video files for even one cent per file downloaded (other than
bandwidth costs... which is another issue altogether).  If you don't
believe that this would happen for MPEG-4 files or Real Video, you have
not paid attention to the issues for file formats like GIF, where the
spec was placed into open publication, freely distributed, and the
original creator (CompuServe) refused to collect royalties on any aspect
of file creation, distribution, or playback.  It was only when some
idiot lawyer discovered that they held a patent that covered some aspect
of the file format that royalties were changed, and it was the patent
holder, not the file format creator, who charged the royalties.

BTW, Theora (and Vorbis for that matter) are still on somewhat shaky
ground in regards to not having somebody who has done a very through job
of trying to make sure that it is not encumbered by software patents,
but at least it wasn't explictly designed to be using patented concepts,
as MPEG-4, Real Video,  and MJPEG have been.

Make sure, and check again to really make sure, that there are no
distribution costs for content in some sort of data format before it is
allowed for upload to Wikimedia servers.  Even afterward make sure that
all propritary file formats are tagged in some category so that they can
all be deleted if the terms of use change somehow, and provide clear
notice that these files will be likely deleted at some point in the
future without prior notice to the uploader or to the pages that link to
that content.  If we stick with just open file formats, this is
something that we don't have to be worrying about.

I'm not being paranoid here, I'm being realistic.  And I've been burned
too much in the past to have to see it happen all over again to those
who may not know better.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


from_name: Miguel A. Cuesta

body:
Hi SJ.

We are three people. I manage the project, and there're also other
two people translating texts: a translator and a Basque philologist.

Please write if you want to join forces.

Gero arte,
Miguel

On Tue, 2006-02-14 at 21:24, SJ wrote:
> This is cool, Miguel!  How many of you are there working on it?
>
> Cheers,
>    SJ
>
> On 2/14/06, Miguel A. Cuesta <cuesta at alianzo.com> wrote:
> > Hi.
> >
> > We are working on the translation of MediaWiki into Basque (Euskara). We
> > are working with the last 'Language.php' file, and made a lot of
> > progress.
> >
> > If anybody want to collaborate, don't hesitate to drop me a line.
> >
> > Regards. Gero arte.
> >
> > --
> > Miguel A. Cuesta
> > Alianzo Networks
> > "We make social networks"
> >
> > tel: (+34) 944 371 684 - skype me: cuesta-alianzo
> > mailto:cuesta at alianzo.com - IM/MSN: cuesta at alianzo.com
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
>
> --
> ++SJ

--
Miguel A. Cuesta
Alianzo Networks
"We make social networks"

tel: (+34) 944 371 684 - skype me: cuesta-alianzo
mailto:cuesta at alianzo.com - IM/MSN: cuesta at alianzo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for New Language on WP

body:
Thor wrote:
> Hi.  I am thinking of setting up a new Wikipedia, since we have language
> templates for Pig Latin speakers, I would like to create and run a Wikipedia
> in Pig Latin.

O-nay ay-way.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20060215/fca34e64/attachment.pgp


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
On 15 Feb 2006, at 08:00, Sigvat Stensholt wrote:
>
> If you plan on making a longer article for first submission and
> don't want to
> suffer a browser crash right before you submit it, you can put work in
> progress on a subpage of you userpage, and then move it off to the
> main
> article namespace when the article is in reasonably good shape.

Best to put a note on the talk page of the uncreated article too, just
in case someone else is working on it (if its likely).

Justinc


subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
On 15 Feb 2006, at 10:53, John Lee wrote:
>>
> Just curious...have you read the revision Sean saved? Because while
> stubby, it was far from one or two context-less sentences. (I do
> think brenneman has a point, but a lot of the messages on this
> matter seem to think Sean's initial article was crap.)

It didnt show itself to be encyclopaedic. Mind you it still doesnt so
clearly the 9 minutes wasnt really
the limiting factor in this case.

Justinc


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
On 2/15/06, Sigvat Stensholt <sigvats at mi.uib.no> wrote:
> criterion of little or no context. So when you push the save button on a new
> article make sure that you have made an attempt at answering
>
> *What/Who IS the subject?
> *Why should the reader care?
> *Could this article be useful to anyone?

I agree: the minimum standard for informativeness should be fairly
low, but rigorously enforced. I recently created [[DMExpress]], with
this line of text (plus link to website, and category):

DMExpress is an [[ETL]] tool designed primarily for performance. It
uses a proprietary database.

I think this is enough information to be usfeul for someone who just
wants to know what the hell this product is that they saw mentioned
somewhere. I might even argue that with just the first sentence it is
sufficient to tell the reader what category of software the product
is, and what makes it different.

Do others agree with this?

Steve