from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
Hephaestos wrote:

> Now that account banning is installed on en: I plan
to avail of it.
> User:BuddhaInside has been trolling the 'pedia for
over two weeks
now,
> with no end in sight.
<snip>
> I don't take using an account ban lightly, so this
is your chance to
> either talk me out of it or yank my admin privileges
beforehand.  I
> intend to ban this account after another day or so.
>

Sanne said

>I'm not going to comment on  whether BuddhaInside
>should be banned, but  I do oppose it being done in
>this way.  We should only use the ban button to
>enforce hard bans (cautiously!) or cases of simple
>vandalism (If
>BuddhaInside's contributions are vandalism, then they
>can only be  described
>as *complicated* vandalism)

>Please don't do this Hephaestos, I think it would set
>a dangerous precedent.
>I don't think you (or I) should make this decision.

>Regards,

>sannse

I think this is precisely what I told Heph in the
relevant talk page. I am embarassed by the process.

Either it is Jimbo to decide as before, and the
process should be that Heph is just the hand of Jimbo
decision. In this case, we fail in the goal which was
also to remove a bottle neck, since we still rely on
Jimbo, but we are not in a hurry. I understood that
banning user name was mostly intended for Michael
multiple names management. Not for more complicated
case as this one.

Or we are big boys and girls and handle this
ourselves. In this case, it should be done by
classical discussion and consensus, just as is fit in
this wiki.
On the discussion page, most of what is discussed
about is the blanking of this buddha talk page. And
there are clearly no consensus that this is a reason
for hard ban.
I ask Heph to set a nice list of "wrongness" with
links to support his decision. But...

As I told him, is it the right way that people wanting
banning of something provide arguments and proofs for
banning. Or is the right way that people opposing a
banning have to provide arguments and proofs for it
not to happen ? Or both ? Or is the answer just "let's
ask Jimbo ?" (poor Jimbo :-))

I fear very much, that just because people were given
technological tools to fight against very very very
problematic users such as Michael, we will go solving
issues that are not dramatic by just quietly saying
"If no one speaks against, in 24 hours, I hit the
button". And accumulate in a short time, far more
banning than there ever was since the beginning of the
project, under the benevolent rule of Jimbo (was that
enough ? :-)).

I understand very much Heph tiredness. The best point
in his decision is that it allows us to realise a new
tool was provided, but that no discussion occurred
upon how using it (except for pure hard Michael
vandalism).

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] articles about Serbian history

body:
>Hallo,
>
>
>a user is currently adding dozens of articles about Serbian history. The
>content is copied from the website http://www.freesrpska.org. The
>webmaster of that site agreed to the usage under terms of the GFDL, so
>there is no copyright problem. But there is a BIG problem with the site
>itself. The page is full of blatant falsification of history. For
>instance, the article about Ratko Mladic on the website (not in Wikipedia,
>just on that site) reads: "Leader of the Serbian army in the defensive war
>that gave rise to the Republic of Srpska. It was the Army of Republic of
>Srpska, which heroically prevented mass slaughter of the Serbian
>population in former Bosnia and Herzegovina."
>
>Almost every article linked from the [[List of Serbs]] page includes a
>link to that page. Even if the information in these articles is correct, I
>feel very uncomfortable, if articles about Serbia are copies from such an
>extremist source. I regard this as a potential damage to Wikipedia's
>respectability.
>
>Do others agree, or am I too hysterical?

Yes I agree, not only about this instance but all similar users. I wouldn't
call this the tip of the iceberg, but, perhaps the tip of the ice floe.

Fred


body:
>Mirko-
>> a user is currently adding dozens of articles about Serbian history. The
>> content is copied from the website http://www.freesrpska.org. The
>> webmaster of that site agreed to the usage under terms of the GFDL, so
>> there is no copyright problem. But there is a BIG problem with the site
>> itself. The page is full of blatant falsification of history. For
>> instance, the article about Ratko Mladic on the website (not in Wikipedia,
>> just on that site) reads: "Leader of the Serbian army in the defensive war
>> that gave rise to the Republic of Srpska. It was the Army of Republic of
>> Srpska, which heroically prevented mass slaughter of the Serbian
>> population in former Bosnia and Herzegovina."
>
>NPOV is our biggest problem on Wikipedia these days. Partisans are
>everywhere and want to benefit from our high Google ranking and
>increasingly good name. While I believe that the war against Serbia was
>not justified, the material added by Nikola Smolenski is clearly too
>biased to be added in that form. He should either do basic NPOV editing
>before importing it, or not do it at all.

We shouldn't use it at all since that requires a link back to the site.

Fred


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning User:BuddhaInside

body:
John-
> Now that account banning is installed on en: I plan to avail of it.
> User:BuddhaInside has been trolling the 'pedia for over two weeks now,
> with no end in sight.  His contributions list is an almost endless
> series of revert wars; a record of some objections to his actions can
> be found at [[Wikipedia:Problem_users/BuddhaInside]] and at the
> following user talk pages which he has attempted to hide from view:
> User page
> [[User_talk:BuddhaInside/Delete6633]]

This should only be done with Jimbo's approval, but I fully support a ban
on BuddhaInside. Starting with [[List of heterosexuals]] and his user page
antics, he has done nothing but deliberately stirring up trouble.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Performance hacks

body:
Schneelocke wrote:
> Hi Brion Vibber,
>
>
>>I've temporarily disabled talk page notification for IP addresses that
>>aren't logged in, as this dumps an extra database query for every single
>>hit.
>>
>>If it doesn't make a big difference, it'll get turned back on shortly.
>
>
> It does seem to make a noticeable positive difference.
>

It's unfortunate that we have to, that's a very important feature. It
would probably be wise to advertise this in Wikipedia:Announcements,
otherwise the rate at which anonymous users are banned will suddenly jump.

May I suggest also reducing the number of update queries to sitestats? I
was going to do it myself, but I'm not going to have time for the next
week and a half. My idea was to use a shared memory location which is
incremented each time a page is viewed, and then flush it to the
database once every 100 views. If a type of shared memory can be found
which survives an apache restart, it would be very accurate. Then we
just lose 50 views once a month or so. I'm not sure how much performance
would be gained, but I'm willing to bet it's worth the effort.

-- Tim Starling.


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
From: "Anthere" <anthere6 at yahoo.com>

> I fear very much, that just because people were given
> technological tools to fight against very very very
> problematic users such as Michael, we will go solving
> issues that are not dramatic by just quietly saying
> "If no one speaks against, in 24 hours, I hit the
> button". And accumulate in a short time, far more
> banning than there ever was since the beginning of the
> project, under the benevolent rule of Jimbo (was that
> enough ? :-)).

24 hours is a very short time in the world of entitlement
decision-making.  While there may be some merit to
the argument that swift action is needed, such a drastic
action should entail some kind of discussion process
allowing for some "reasonable period" of input from
various volunteers, including the opportunity for
those providing input to revise their vote (since it
is a transparent process people should be allowed to
change their minds if the discussion demonstrates
the alternate decision, that shows that there is merit
to this kind of wiki based decisionmaking process
and it validates an fundamental advantage of using
the wiki as social software in the development of
the Association of Wikipedians (not to be confused
with the Wikimedia Foundation).

Alex756


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Suggestion for better response times

body:
Hello.

This is an enhanced version of my previous locking suggestion.

* The previous one had the unfortunate effect that the delay in the
spinlock ate up almost all the predicted reduction in response times.
This has been fixed.

* This version is starvation free, which should ensure that "maximum
response time" stays low in the benchmarks.

* This version uses file locking instead of mysql, which makes it much
more efficient. This also makes it completely independent from the rest
of the wikipedia code.

If this approach is deemed feasible, I think this version of the locking
is acceptable for a production server. Another enhancement could be to
use SysV semaphores instead, but support for them has to be compiled
into PHP and they bring their own set of problems. Also, performance is
not a problem with the current solution, so there's little need to move
to SysV semaphores.

/E23
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Locking.php
Type: text/x-delimtext
Size: 2912 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20030924/6dc3bee7/attachment.bin>


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] logo, page design

body:
I went ahead and uploaded a newer logo for the page site ..
its not good enough to be permanent but I think its
prettier than the previous one. If anyone has an idea what
would be a nice picture to put on the cover, and what color
scheme would be nice, I could hopefully make one that we
could keep long-term. I shouldn't let my degree in graphid
design go totally to pot I guess.

Also I would like to change the page layout for some select
pages, like the splash page opener for organic chemistry (
http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry ). The repeat
links at the top of the page just for these main book pages
could be eliminated and the search box moved to the side.
That would allow the page title to go top and center on the
page and give viewers a better view of the page without
scrolling down. What does anyone else think ?

-Karl

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] New RAM troubles

body:
On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 10:23, Luc Van Oostenryck wrote:
> Is there something usefull in syslog?

Like what, "kernel: hey, your expensive new memory is defective"? I
wish, then we'd know what the problem was. :P

Certainly it shows nothing userspace-segfault-related. Here's a diff
between the kernel boot messages for a regular boot and a boot with the
new memory. The differences are mostly a) more memory and b) slight
differences in timing that you'll see on every boot.

11,12c11,12
< pliny kernel:  BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000007ff80000 (usable)
< pliny kernel:  BIOS-e820: 000000007ff80000 - 0000000080000000 (reserved)
---
> pliny kernel:  BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 00000000e3f80000 (usable)
> pliny kernel:  BIOS-e820: 00000000e3f80000 - 00000000e4000000 (reserved)
16c16
< pliny kernel: 1151MB HIGHMEM available.
---
> pliny kernel: 2751MB HIGHMEM available.
23c23
< pliny kernel: On node 0 totalpages: 524160
---
> pliny kernel: On node 0 totalpages: 933760
26c26
< pliny kernel: zone(2): 294784 pages.
---
> pliny kernel: zone(2): 704384 pages.
36c36
< pliny kernel: Detected 1533.402 MHz processor.
---
> pliny kernel: Detected 1533.397 MHz processor.
39c39
< pliny kernel: Memory: 2068800k/2096640k available (1559k kernel code, 27452k reserved, 646k data, 112k init, 1179136k highmem)
---
> pliny kernel: Memory: 3687924k/3735040k available (1559k kernel code, 46728k reserved, 646k data, 112k init, 2817536k highmem)
41,43c41,43
< pliny kernel: Inode cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes)
< pliny kernel: Mount-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
< pliny kernel: Buffer-cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
---
> pliny kernel: Inode cache hash table entries: 262144 (order: 9, 2097152 bytes)
> pliny kernel: Mount-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
> pliny kernel: Buffer-cache hash table entries: 262144 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes)
68c68
< pliny kernel: Calibrating delay loop... 3060.53 BogoMIPS
---
> pliny kernel: Calibrating delay loop... 3067.08 BogoMIPS
73c73
< pliny kernel: Total of 2 processors activated (6121.06 BogoMIPS).
---
> pliny kernel: Total of 2 processors activated (6127.61 BogoMIPS).
83,88c83,88
< pliny kernel: ..... CPU clock speed is 1533.3984 MHz.
< pliny kernel: ..... host bus clock speed is 266.6779 MHz.
< pliny kernel: cpu: 0, clocks: 2666779, slice: 888926
< pliny kernel: CPU0<T0:2666768,T1:1777840,D:2,S:888926,C:2666779>
< pliny kernel: cpu: 1, clocks: 2666779, slice: 888926
< pliny kernel: CPU1<T0:2666768,T1:888912,D:4,S:888926,C:2666779>
---
> pliny kernel: ..... CPU clock speed is 1533.4162 MHz.
> pliny kernel: ..... host bus clock speed is 266.6811 MHz.
> pliny kernel: cpu: 0, clocks: 2666811, slice: 888937
> pliny kernel: CPU0<T0:2666800,T1:1777856,D:7,S:888937,C:2666811>
> pliny kernel: cpu: 1, clocks: 2666811, slice: 888937
> pliny kernel: CPU1<T0:2666800,T1:888912,D:14,S:888937,C:2666811>
115a116,117
> pliny kernel: keyboard: Timeout - AT keyboard not present?(ed)
> pliny kernel: keyboard: Timeout - AT keyboard not present?(f4)
133c135
< pliny kernel: blk: queue f7b96018, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
---
> pliny kernel: blk: queue f7af1a18, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
164c166
< pliny kernel: blk: queue f7b59018, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
---
> pliny kernel: blk: queue f7ac5a18, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
167c169
< pliny kernel: blk: queue f7b58018, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
---
> pliny kernel: blk: queue f7ac0a18, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
183c185
< pliny kernel: IP: routing cache hash table of 16384 buckets, 128Kbytes
---
> pliny kernel: IP: routing cache hash table of 32768 buckets, 256Kbytes
207a210
> pliny kernel: keyboard: Timeout - AT keyboard not present?(f4)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: David Friedland

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Table markup + lists?

body:
I was experimenting with the table markup on test and ran into a
situation which I didn't seem to be able to solve using the table markup.

There is a page I have been working on [[List of words of disputed
pronunciation]] onto which I have put pronunciations in IPA and SAMPA.
The way I have them now is just one after another, separated by nubers
in parentheses (as a label for each pronunciation) and commas.

After some discussion on talk, it seems there needs to be different
versions of each pronunciation, IPA vs. SAMPA, AmE vs. BrE, etc. Such a
matrix of pronunciations is tabular information perfectly suited for a
table. Unfortunately, each word is in an unordered list (lines starting
with *) and the syntax for those lists requires all text for each item
be placed on one line. Thus it seems impossible to mix the wiki syntax
for unordered lists and for tables.

So:

(1) Should there be a way to mix lists and tables using wiki syntax?
(2) Should a different approach to organizing this page be taken?

I suppose it would be possible to put everything in a giant wiki table,
but that would be using tables for layout and not for just tabular
information, which seems like the wrong approach.

- David [[User:Nohat]]


from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning User:BuddhaInside

body:
Hephaestos wrote:

> Now that account banning is installed on en: I plan to avail of it.
> User:BuddhaInside has been trolling the 'pedia for over two weeks now,
> with no end in sight.
<snip>
> I don't take using an account ban lightly, so this is your chance to
> either talk me out of it or yank my admin privileges beforehand.  I
> intend to ban this account after another day or so.
>

I'm not going to comment on  whether BuddhaInside should be banned, but I do
oppose it being done in this way.  We should only use the ban button to
enforce hard bans (cautiously!) or cases of simple vandalism (If
BuddhaInside's contributions are vandalism, then they can only be described
as *complicated* vandalism)

Please don't do this Hephaestos, I think it would set a dangerous precedent.
I don't think you (or I) should make this decision.

Regards,

sannse


subject: [Wikitech-l] New RAM troubles

body:
On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 12:15, Luc Van Oostenryck wrote:
> Not too old processor can report some errors to the kernel:
>    Machine Check Exception: CONFIG_X86_MCE

That's on...

> Have you or Jason a mean to test the chips separately?

Well, I'm nowhere near the place so all I can do is log in if the
machine is up or call Jason and complain while he's trying to get it
back online. ;)

We don't have any other machines that can take those chips right now, so
until the other parts come the only way to test them would be to take
pliny offline again, put the chips in, and run memtest86 until either it
dies or we're satisfied that there's not a problem.

When the new parts are in, we can instead test them in larousse, which
can be taken offline without interrupting wiki access too badly, since
pliny can take over larousse's job but not vice-versa.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageDe.php

body:
On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 13:30, Thomas Corell wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have put a new LanguageDe.php in the CVS, added the hidden input for
> the google search, like done in Language.php.

I've put in also the search term, removed the lagnuage list, and copied
it into the stable branch with 'Export' taken out of the special pages
list.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Mirko-
> a user is currently adding dozens of articles about Serbian history. The
> content is copied from the website http://www.freesrpska.org. The
> webmaster of that site agreed to the usage under terms of the GFDL, so
> there is no copyright problem. But there is a BIG problem with the site
> itself. The page is full of blatant falsification of history. For
> instance, the article about Ratko Mladic on the website (not in Wikipedia,
> just on that site) reads: "Leader of the Serbian army in the defensive war
> that gave rise to the Republic of Srpska. It was the Army of Republic of
> Srpska, which heroically prevented mass slaughter of the Serbian
> population in former Bosnia and Herzegovina."

NPOV is our biggest problem on Wikipedia these days. Partisans are
everywhere and want to benefit from our high Google ranking and
increasingly good name. While I believe that the war against Serbia was
not justified, the material added by Nikola Smolenski is clearly too
biased to be added in that form. He should either do basic NPOV editing
before importing it, or not do it at all.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Banning User:BuddhaInside

body:
John Robinson wrote:
> Now that account banning is installed on en: I plan to avail of it.
> User:BuddhaInside has been trolling the 'pedia for over two weeks now,
> with no end in sight.  His contributions list is an almost endless
> series of revert wars; a record of some objections to his actions can be
> found at [[Wikipedia:Problem_users/BuddhaInside]] and at the following
> user talk pages which he has attempted to hide from view:
> User page
> [[User_talk:BuddhaInside/Delete6633]]
>
> User talk page
> [[User_talk:BuddhaInside/Delete3091]]
> [[User_talk:BuddhaInside/Delete5253]]
> [[User_talk:BuddhaInside/Delete0655]]
> [[User_talk:BuddhaInside/Delete4368]]
>
>  From his/her actions, it's clear this is someone who has used the
> system extensively before the account was made, either someone wanting a
> "Hyde"-type personality to cause trouble for fun, or a previously banned
> user.
>
> I don't take using an account ban lightly, so this is your chance to
> either talk me out of it or yank my admin privileges beforehand.  I
> intend to ban this account after another day or so.
>
> -Hephaestos

My understanding of the current consensus policy on banning is:

"As of September 2003, it is now possible for sysops to block usernames.
It is important to note that sysops are not authorised to decide whether
a particular case of vandalism warrants banning by username. The ability
to ban by username has been made available for the purposes of enforcing
a ban already approved by Jimbo. It may be used to block obvious
reincarnations of hard-banned users."

This paragraph is present at [[Wikipedia:Bans and blocks]] and
[[Wikipedia:Administrators]].

So you need to talk Jimbo into it; it's not our job to talk you out of it.

-- Tim Starling.


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [Textbook-l] logo, page design

body:
--- Karl Wick <karlwick at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I went ahead and uploaded a newer logo for the page
> site ..
> its not good enough to be permanent but I think its
> prettier than the previous one. If anyone has an
> idea what
> would be a nice picture to put on the cover, and
> what color
> scheme would be nice, I could hopefully make one
> that we
> could keep long-term. I shouldn't let my degree in
> graphid
> design go totally to pot I guess.

I like that logo. I think that you should put the new
Wikipedia logo on the cover once it is chosen
tomorrow.
>
> Also I would like to change the page layout for some
> select
> pages, like the splash page opener for organic
> chemistry (
> http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry ). The
> repeat
> links at the top of the page just for these main
> book pages
> could be eliminated and the search box moved to the
> side.
> That would allow the page title to go top and center
> on the
> page and give viewers a better view of the page
> without
> scrolling down. What does anyone else think ?
>
> -Karl
>
There's nothing wrong with the organic chemistry book,
but don't you think it's a bit narcissistic to say
that you have the best organic chemistry textbook on
the web? I think you should change it to something
like the best wiki-produced organic chemistry
textbook, or aspires to be the best organic chemistry
textbook on the web. There is probably a finished
organic chemistry textbook on the web, sorry.
LDan

PS. Can you move your organic chemistry pages to the
Organic chemistry: namespace?

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


body:
> We shouldn't use it at all since that requires a
> link back to the site.
>
> Fred

I think that's irrelevant. We take tons of information
from MeatballWiki, FOLDOC, and the Jargon File with
permission, and we have notices on all of those.
LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject:
[Wikitech-l] More WikimediaFoundation.org files ready;
	there has to be a better way!

body:
Brion (or whoever), please make this
http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/a/ae/WikimediaHome.htm
display at http://wikimediafoundation.org and change
the "Wikimedia Foundation" link at
http://wikimedia.org to point to
http://wikimediafoundation.org .

Also, please update
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising with
http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/6/68/Fundraising.html
and upload
http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/7/74/GNU_FDL.html and
make it display at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/GNU_FDL.html .

A better (more wiki) way to manage the foundation's
website would be nice eventually. If forms were
enabled on meta (at least on protected pages) the HTML
could be served at http://wikimediafoundation.org
(with white, not gray backgrounds) as if that website
were a regular (non-wiki) website (people have already
done something similar with the print versions of our
pages). This would be a killer MediaWiki feature that
any organization could use to manage their current
websites.

An inferior IMO, but more simple solution, however,
would be to just install a wiki with full HTML support
at http://wikimediafoundation.org and have all the
pages protected (or maybe just the ones that need
forms and other potentially dangerous stuff).

But for now the static HTML pages we already have
should do.

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


from_name: Mirko Thiessen

body:
Hallo,

a user is currently adding dozens of articles about Serbian history. The
content is copied from the website http://www.freesrpska.org. The
webmaster of that site agreed to the usage under terms of the GFDL, so
there is no copyright problem. But there is a BIG problem with the site
itself. The page is full of blatant falsification of history. For
instance, the article about Ratko Mladic on the website (not in Wikipedia,
just on that site) reads: "Leader of the Serbian army in the defensive war
that gave rise to the Republic of Srpska. It was the Army of Republic of
Srpska, which heroically prevented mass slaughter of the Serbian
population in former Bosnia and Herzegovina."

Almost every article linked from the [[List of Serbs]] page includes a
link to that page. Even if the information in these articles is correct, I
feel very uncomfortable, if articles about Serbia are copies from such an
extremist source. I regard this as a potential damage to Wikipedia's
respectability.

Do others agree, or am I too hysterical?

Mirko (User Cordyph)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
--- "Alex R." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> From: "Anthere" <anthere6 at yahoo.com>
>
> > I fear very much, that just because people were
> given
> > technological tools to fight against very very
> very
> > problematic users such as Michael, we will go
> solving
> > issues that are not dramatic by just quietly
> saying
> > "If no one speaks against, in 24 hours, I hit the
> > button". And accumulate in a short time, far more
> > banning than there ever was since the beginning of
> the
> > project, under the benevolent rule of Jimbo (was
> that
> > enough ? :-)).
>
> 24 hours is a very short time in the world of
> entitlement
> decision-making.  While there may be some merit to
> the argument that swift action is needed, such a
> drastic
> action should entail some kind of discussion process
> allowing for some "reasonable period" of input from
> various volunteers, including the opportunity for
> those providing input to revise their vote (since it
> is a transparent process people should be allowed to
> change their minds if the discussion demonstrates
> the alternate decision, that shows that there is
> merit
> to this kind of wiki based decisionmaking process
> and it validates an fundamental advantage of using
> the wiki as social software in the development of
> the Association of Wikipedians (not to be confused
> with the Wikimedia Foundation).
>
> Alex756

What are you talking about? I think that the process
is too bureaucratic. It usually takes 2 weeks to a
month to ban someone. EntmootOfTrolls was discussed
atleast 2 weeks ago, maybe before that. Same with
BudhaInside. And those people haven't even been banned
yet.

I am, however, worried about the trigger-finger
banning of anonymous users. These vandalizations
(unless they're trolls) are almost always a one-time
thing.
LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject:
[Wikitech-l] More WikimediaFoundation.org files ready; there
	has to be a better way!

body:
On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 16:23, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> An inferior IMO, but more simple solution, however,
> would be to just install a wiki with full HTML support
> at http://wikimediafoundation.org and have all the
> pages protected (or maybe just the ones that need
> forms and other potentially dangerous stuff).

Very temporarily I've got it serving the raw source of certain pages
extracted from meta stuck into a slight template:

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fundraising_page
at http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_home_page
at http://wikimediafoundation.org/

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_GNU_FDL
at http://wikimediafoundation.org/GNU_FDL

These pages are protected, or should be.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] I want a bot too

body:
> I agree that bots can serve a good purpose.
>
> However, the problem I see is that they can insert a
> lot of trivial
> information into the W. (For example, who needs the
> *exact* number of
> residents in any particular town?)

Well, should they round it? If so, why should they? Is
there anything inherently wrong with knowing precice
statistics as opposed to approximate ones? Will
readers brains be overloaded with information?
>
> I think bots can be used to do busywork (for this is
> why compter
> programs (and computers) were created in the first
> place)) but that
> they must mark their passage and make it easy to
> re-bot the info. For
> example, they might segregate the botted info like
> <bot id="120">
> some data in xhml or xml</bot>

That would be nice, but it would be kinda useless
after Rambot.
LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] EntmootsOfTrolls still causing severe problems

body:
--- Jake Nelson <jnelson at soncom.com> wrote:
> > Call the FBI. That's what we pay them to do. Tell
> them that death
> > threats were made against you in a public forum.
> >
> > Surprisingly, they are very efficient at tracing
> people, especially
> > if it's related to terrorism.
> >
> > Now, if you feel your life is threatened, I would
> personally "get out
> > of dodge", figuratively, or not.
> >
> >
> >
> > =====
> > Christopher Mahan
> > chris_mahan at yahoo.com
> > 818.943.1850 cell
> > http://www.christophermahan.com/
>
> Sound advice. This -is- illegal behavior, and the
> FBI would be interested.
> Last I knew, we knew EoT's IP. With that, there's
> really no 'tracing'
> necessary: it's basically one phone call for them.
> I'd direct them to a page
> (preferably one the address of which can be said
> over the phone without too
> much trouble...) where all his threats against
> people are listed... most
> especially those that involve militant Islamic
> groups, as that'll especially
> get their attention.
>
> --Jake

If a simple call to the FBI gets something to happen
to EoT, that would be very Orwellian, but probable
after the Patriot Act. Keep in mind that everythink
EoT says is an empty threat.
LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


body:
> We really don't want links to this particular site
> because of its agenda.
>
> Fred

Well, then that's just because of its POV. We link to
POV sites.
LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


from_name: Delirium

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>>We really don't want links to this particular site
>>because of its agenda.
>>
>>Fred
>>
>>
>
>Well, then that's just because of its POV. We link to
>POV sites.
>
>
I still think it's a bit sketchy, and things like this may hurt
Wikipedia's credibility.  If, for example, the initial version of the
Martin Luther King article was taken from a KKK site (under the GFDL),
people would be rightfully skeptical of our editorial stance if it said
at the bottom "this article incorporates text originally from [a KKK
site]".  This seems likewise a bad idea to me, since it makes it far too
easy for people, seeing the cited source, to simply dismiss Wikipedia as
highly biased, even if the text has in fact been NPOVed in the meantime.

-Mark


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> I think that the process
> is too bureaucratic. It usually takes 2 weeks to a
> month to ban someone. EntmootOfTrolls was discussed
> atleast 2 weeks ago, maybe before that. Same with
> BudhaInside. And those people haven't even been banned
> yet.

Well, in case anyone else missed the announcement, EofT is
banned.  Except, oh, I didn't actually do anything, I just
proclaimed.  Perhaps someone kind will do the sql commands
for me?

> I am, however, worried about the trigger-finger
> banning of anonymous users. These vandalizations
> (unless they're trolls) are almost always a one-time
> thing.

Yes, it's a tough problem -- I've generally deliberately tried to be
"too slow" on the banning process, which has it's costs of course.

Basically, if we're too slow, we risk alienating good users who have
to put up with too much.  And if we're too fast, we run the very real
risk of creating more trouble than we're solving.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Banning processus

body:
I agree.  He was all heated up and probably frustrated with me for not
doing anything.

How about this?  Could someone let BuddhaInside know that I'm asking
him to chat with me privately about this, and/or come to the mailing
list to discuss these issues?  And that if he doesn't take some action
to modify his behavior, I'm asking him to move along to another
website?

(And of course, there's always the possibility of banning if he really
wants to keep it up.)

I'm *swamped*.

Tim Starling wrote:

> Regarding Hephaestos's statement of his intention to ban BuddhaInside:
>
> There's really no need for everyone to jump on Hephaestos for going
> against policy. Hephaestos emailed me shortly after my original
> response, saying that he had no problem with waiting for Jimbo's
> approval. He clearly made an honest mistake and misunderstood the
> banning policy, although perhaps it would have been nice to see an
> acknowledgment of that to this list.
>
> -- Tim Starling.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
>> We shouldn't use it at all since that requires a
>> link back to the site.
>>
>> Fred
>
>I think that's irrelevant. We take tons of information
>from MeatballWiki, FOLDOC, and the Jargon File with
>permission, and we have notices on all of those.
>LDan
>

We really don't want links to this particular site because of its agenda.

Fred


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mirroring (was Re: Fundraising)

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Tim Starling wrote:
> > logged-in users, that way most edits go to a web server which is close
> > to the master DB.
>
> Would it not be better to keep the mirrors read-only, and have them redirect
> to the master for write-access? To have writing in several places causes
> significant overhead in avoiding edit conflicts and such.

There is a lot of hypothesis and discussion here.  Have you considered
that there are some 40-60 page views for every single edit? What about
using some real statistics instead of guessing?  (Just my hypothesis.)

Plus the tech discussion should be on wikitech-l, not wikipedia-l.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics reports 40 views per
edit, as an average since July 2002.  More recently, the English
Wikipedia has received:

   Month      Edits per month      Page views   views/edit
   ---------  ---------------      ----------   ----------
   July, 2003          212K             9.9M        46
   Aug, 2003           248K            13.0M        52
   Sept 1-24, 2003     227K            13.9M        61

As a comparison, the fast response time susning.nu wiki features 100
page views per edit.  A faster Wikipedia would receive more page
views, probably 30M per month.  The number of edits per month would
also increase, but perhaps not as much.

The Wikipedia statistics are spread out over too many places, and none
of these pages are wiki-editable, so I cannot add cross-reference
links.

 - Webalizer graphs, http://www.wikipedia.org/stats/
 - Article count, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics
 - Erik Zachte's edit count, http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/
   older version at http://members.chello.nl/epzachte/Wikipedia/Statistics/EN/Sitemap.htm

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Mirroring (was Re: Fundraising)


from_name: Luc Van Oostenryck

subject: [Wikitech-l] New RAM troubles

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> The new CPUs are still waiting to be shipped, but the RAM upgrade (4gig)
> for pliny is in, and Jason took down the server for a bit to get it
> installed.
>
> Unfortunately, whether the problem is software or hardware, it didn't
> work. :(  With the new memory in, mysqld would crash instead of
> running... Attached log output from the last try.
>
> The old memory (2gig) is back for now.
>
> We don't currently have another machine which can hold the ram to sit
> and run a memory tester program, and more downtime isn't really
> acceptable just now.
>
> The kernel (2.4.20) is configured with CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G and
> CONFIG_HIGHMEM, and everything's lovely at 2 gig.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>

Is there something usefull in syslog?

-- Looxix


from_name: Jurriaan Schulman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Templates / duplication of information and meta data

body:
After writing some articles on animals I noticed two things which I would
like to discuss. I would like to know how I can help to improve them.

1) wikipedia seems to duplicate a lot of information which could be avoided.
2) there currently seems to be no way to change information in more than one
article at once.

I would like to give a few examples to illustrate this:

Ad 1: Most articles on animals use some kind of table, which is duplicated
for each article. Also, many articles may use the same references which are
duplicated on many pages. This is seen in a lot of other articles too and is
a huge waste of hard disk space and performance.

Ad 2: when I write many articles about closely related species, I may use
one article as a template and copy parts of it. If I discover a typo in this
copied part, I have to change it for each article by hand.
Another example would be if we decide to change the background colour of the
table used by most articles on animals. This may be no problem for a few
articles, yet with hundreds or thousands of articles it is a huge waste of
human resources.

The solution would probably be to use meta data. I tried to discuss this on
wikipedia, but the discussion was moved to feature requests. An argument
against the use of meta data and templates was that it would make it harder
to contribute to wikipedia. An Argument which I do not really understand.

So my real questions are: who is currently working on the database schema
for wikipedia and who decides if it would be useful to change this schema?

Cheers,

Jurriaan


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] BuddhaInside must go NOW

body:
He just redirected his Talk page to the Main Page.

RickK

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030924/cdd05c18/attachment.htm


subject: [WikiEN-l] BuddhaInside must go NOW

body:
Angela has corrected me.  What he did was to MOVE the Main Page to his Talk page.

RickK

Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
He just redirected his Talk page to the Main Page.

RickK

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030924/74477c1a/attachment.htm


from_name: Mark Jeays

subject: [Wikitech-l] rss feed

body:
Hello,

Apologies in advance if this isn't "tech" enough for wikitech-l.

I have written a perl script which parses
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Announcements and creates an RSS
file suitable for a news aggregator. This was purely to scratch an itch: I'm
not a hugely regular contributor but I like to keep up-to-date on the
various announcements and found myself visiting that page a lot. Anyway,
this file is available at http://jeays.net/wikipedia/announcements.xml and
is updated 4 times a day (therefore only adding 4 page views a day to the
server). If you don't have a news aggregator or similar software, the feed
might look something like this:
http://jade.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/feed/build.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fjeays.net
%2Fwikipedia%2Fannouncements.xml&chan=yes&num=0&desc=yes&date=yes&preview=pr
eview+the+feed

Of course, since it's a wiki-editable page, it could well "break" every so
often. I've tried to make it reasonably robust, but I'm not expecting this
feed to be used for making earth-shattering decisions and I will try to fix
it if I notice it breaks.

I'm open to ideas / suggestions or different directions for this. I'm
perfectly willing to share what code I have, or update the RSS feed on the
wikipedia server instead, or other possibilities. However, I have a
reasonable amount of bandwidth per month available on my server, so I could
certainly handle a fair number of subscribers.

Regards,

Mark Jeays (Dze27 on Wikipedia)


from_name: John Robinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Banning processus

body:
You bet I was heated up, I still am.  However, after having read Tim's
response and after some discussion I realized it was best to wait until
Jimbo could get to the list and read the thread before continuing.
Sorry for not bringing that to the list earlier.

I find it interesting though that of all the objections to banning this
account I've seen here on the list and on various talk pages have been
based solely on procedure.  I find nothing anywhere along the lines of
"this person doesn't deserved to be banned, this person's not a troll,
this person's a fine contributor"; what I mainly see is "we haven't
discussed it enough yet."

But we -have- discussed it, and at length, for over two weeks!  And to
be perfectly honest, if the blocking mechanism had been in place on
September 7, and the caveats not established for its use, I would have
banned this account then, when it became perfectly obvious that the
person behind it was in no way interested in anything but disrupting
the Wikipedia.  (Maybe some recall my "hurry-up" email to the list on
that date.) BuddhaInside's actions have changed not a bit since then,
while we have been sitting back discussing and discussing.

Our method of ridding the system of users that are clearly out for
nothing but destruction needs a serious overhaul.  I understand now
that the new code was implemented more or less specifically to deal
with Michael's accounts.  On the other hand, I've told Michael
flat-out, "if you'll quit acting like that, you'll be allowed in."
Realistically, there is no way to know if someone is a banned user
except by their actions.  If Michael were to log in under a generic AOL
IP and begin editing articles in a responsible manner, we'd have to let
it slide, because there is no way to know whether it was him.  And if I
logged in and started editing like Michael, I'd be almost immediately
(and rightfully!) blocked.

The point I'm trying to make here is that we can't ban -people-, only
-actions-.  If someone is -acting- like a banned user, they should -be-
banned, regardless of who they are, because we have no way of knowing
who they are.  (And of course, concessions should be made for new
contributors, which BuddhaInside clearly is not.) If they then want to
make another account and start acting responsibly, great.  If they make
another account and do the same thing, ban them again.

And as I type this, BuddhaInside continues his/her silly antics, as we
continue ours.  I sincerely hope it doesn't take another two weeks to
come to a conclusion on this.

-Hephaestos


from_name: Alex Tievsky

body:
======= At 2003-09-24, 17:44:00 Daniel Ehrenberg wrote: =======

>> We really don't want links to this particular site
>> because of its agenda.
>>
>> Fred
>
>Well, then that's just because of its POV. We link to
>POV sites.
>LDan
>

This is different, however.  We're not adding POV links to our NPOV articles (which is OK since the opinons at those sites are not Wikipedia's), but the articles from the POV site are being dumped right into Wikipedia.

-Alex Tievsky
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Basil Fawlty


subject: [WikiEN-l] BuddhaInside must go NOW

body:
Rick wrote:

> Angela has corrected me.  What he did was to MOVE the Main Page to his
> Talk page.

Are protected pages movable by non-sysops then, despite not being
editable by them?  If so, perhaps that should be changed.

-Mark


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
Anthere wrote in part:

>I understand very much Heph tiredness. The best point
>in his decision is that it allows us to realise a new
>tool was provided, but that no discussion occurred
>upon how using it (except for pure hard Michael
>vandalism).

There was /some/ discussion, and Jimbo said this:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-September/006242.html

----- Begin complete quotation -----

Toby Bartels wrote:
> AFAICT, it's so far authorised only for Michael.
> But it will probably be expanded as soon as Jimbo pronounces something.

Yes, that's right.  I suppose it's for Michael or what we have
traditionally called blatant vandalism (goatse.cx, etc.).  Certainly
it would be a *grave* abuse to use it in any case other than that.

We'll also want to take reasonable care that we not ban logged-in
users who aren't really Michael.  Mistaken identity is worse than a
few random idiot edits on his part.

> I would advise that it be used just as for IPs,
> which means that new usernames doing only vandalism can be blocked.
> But established user names can't be blocked for new errors,
> just as IPs that have done more than vandalism can't be.

That's right.

--Jimbo

----- End complete quotation -----

My citation here should not be interpreted as an opinion one way or another
as to whether the user BuddhaInside should be hard-banned or not;
it is only about "processus". ^_^

-- Toby,
   Who has not had very much time at all lately
   but happened to notice this post
   that I had just the citation to answer!


subject: [Wikitech-l] New RAM troubles

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 10:23, Luc Van Oostenryck wrote:
>
>>Is there something usefull in syslog?
>
>
> Like what, "kernel: hey, your expensive new memory is defective"? I
> wish, then we'd know what the problem was. :P

He, we can always hope!
Not too old processor can report some errors to the kernel:
   Machine Check Exception: CONFIG_X86_MCE
and kernel errors can certainly induce SEGFAULT in applications.
I think that ECC memory errors can be reported in this way,
but I don't know if the memory are ECC.

> Certainly it shows nothing userspace-segfault-related. Here's a diff
> between the kernel boot messages for a regular boot and a boot with the
> new memory. The differences are mostly a) more memory and b) slight
> differences in timing that you'll see on every boot.

yes, no difference concerning this problem.

Have you or Jason a mean to test the chips separately?
Is it possible to test the chips with memtest86 (http://www.memtest86.com/)?

I hope it will be OK on the new hardware.

Thanks for the info.

-- Looxix


subject: [WikiEN-l] BuddhaInside must go NOW

body:
On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 21:05, Flockmeal wrote:
> Yes, this is true, and has just been brought up by others in the
> Wikitech-l mailing list.

It's been fixed.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Wikiquote.org needs forwarding and minor mod of
	wikimedia.org needed

body:
Jason - could you forward wikiquote.org and wikiquote.com to
http://quote.wikipedia.org and send Brion the access info to manage those
domains? We are going to be distributing a press release that mentions and
links to Wikiquote via http://wikiquote.org next week.

Brion - could you change the "Wikipedia Foundation" link at
http://wikimedia.org to point to http://wikimediafoundation.org and get rid
of the "Coming soon..." text?

And what the heck is up with http://www.nupedia.org/ ? Who is "THE TV
CLUBHOUSE"? Please, if Nupedia is dead can we de-link it from the
wikimedia.org page?

Thank you both! :-)

FYI: I'm leaving for a four day field study in the morning and won't be
responding to email until early Monday UTC.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
If you don't think it's a good idea to give someone 24-hour notice
before they're banned, I think I agree with you to a point.

However, when it's been over two weeks of disruption, I don't think a
24-hour "call the question" is out of order.

This person just moved the Main Page to his/her talk page.  You (or any
other admin) are capable of banning this account, right now.  It's your
call.

- Hephaestos


from_name: Steve Vertigum

body:
--- Mirko Thiessen <mt at mirko-thiessen.de> wrote:
> For
> instance, the article about Ratko Mladic on the
> website (not in Wikipedia,
> just on that site) reads: "Leader of the Serbian
> army in the defensive war
> that gave rise to the Republic of Srpska. It was the
> Army of Republic of
> Srpska, which heroically prevented mass slaughter of
> the Serbian
> population in former Bosnia and Herzegovina."
>
> Almost every article linked from the [[List of
> Serbs]] page includes a
> link to that page. Even if the information in these
> articles is correct, I
> feel very uncomfortable, if articles about Serbia
> are copies from such an
> extremist source. I regard this as a potential
> damage to Wikipedia's
> respectability.
>
> Do others agree, or am I too hysterical?

No, thats a rather Serbian POV look at history -- Im
sure Muslim Croats and Albanians would take issue with
those chracterizations.

~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Intlwiki-l] 300,000 draws near...

body:
Update: I now propose a press release distribution date of Wednesday October
1. Hopefully the servers will be upgraded by then. If not we could wait until
3rd or the 6th for the non-English distribution (whatever day is chosen, the
English version will follow one week after).

I wrote before:
>Things that, IMO, have to be done before we distribute
>the press release:
>
>1) http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/6/68/Fundraising.html
>needs to be finalized by the community and approved by
>Jimbo.

It really isn't "finalized" or "approved" but it is done. Thanks Alex!

>2) Fundraising.html needs to be displayed at
>http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising/

Done. Thanks Brion!

>3) http://wikiquote.org and http://wikiquote.com need
>to be forwarded to http://quote.wikipedia.org

Still waiting for Jason....

>4) A minimal webpage needs to be created for the
>Wikimedia Foundation and displayed at
>http://wikimediafoundation.org

It's ugly and a bit sad, but it does exist.

>(http://wikimedia.org should continue to be a
>portal to the different Wikimedia projects; the only change that is needed is
a link to the foundation's website).

Things that would be real nice but not absolutely
necessary, IMO:

1) Upgrade Pliny (our webserver) and Larousse (our
database server). I'm tempted to move this item up...
2) Translated/different language versions of
Fundraising.html created.
3) Move Wikibooks to http://wikibooks.org
4) Move Wikiquote to http://wikiquote.org
5) Either revive Nupedia.org (the website) or remove
all mention of it from the Wikimedia.org page. We will
still have to decide what to do with this comatose
project. But not today.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
(Oh, and for the umpteenth time, this person doesn't need any leeway to
"learn the system"; this person blithely talks about "how things were
in 2001."  This is -not- a newbie.)

-H


from_name: Thomas Corell

subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageDe.php

body:
Hi,

I have put a new LanguageDe.php in the CVS, added the hidden input for
the google search, like done in Language.php.

Greetings Smurf
--
Smurf
Human brain has no ECC and looses more data than silicon based memory.
smurf at AdamAnt.mud.de
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


from_name: James D. Forrester

subject: [Wikitech-l] New RAM troubles

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

On 24 September 2003 09:32, Brion VIBBER wrote:

> [...] the RAM upgrade (4gig) for pliny is in, and Jason took down
> the server for a bit to get it installed.
>
> Unfortunately, whether the problem is software or hardware, it didn't
> work. :(  With the new memory in, mysqld would crash instead of
> running...

Have you tried plugging half of the new DIMMs in (to give 2GB with the new modules)? This would seem to be a useful way of identifying if it's a problem with the operating system... Rotating the DIMMs to check all 4 (?) would also help to see if there's a problem with an individual DIMM. Of course, there could be a problem with timing with the four DIMMs if they're not perfectly matched (see ftp://ftp.tyan.com/manuals/m_s2462_100.pdf - it is a Tyan Thunder K7, isn't it? - for suchlike information). Of course, all of these would require taking Pliny down; running a memory checker on them might be a better option, or at least good first step.

[Snip]

Yours,
- --
James D. Forrester
<mailto:jon at eh.org> | <mailto:csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk>
<mailto:jamesdforrester at hotmail.com> | <mailto:james at jdforrester.org>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 8.0

iQA/AwUBP3IQOpJ95FMWcicdEQLUXQCdEPzX+bCLs1tPuat7XtX/fSHavkgAnRMF
iNdG1OAo+DNWx423MaaQZdKb
=ggfO
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" <littledanehren at yahoo.com>

>
> What are you talking about? I think that the process
> is too bureaucratic. It usually takes 2 weeks to a
> month to ban someone. EntmootOfTrolls was discussed
> atleast 2 weeks ago, maybe before that. Same with
> BudhaInside. And those people haven't even been banned
> yet.

Hephaestos stated (and Anthere replied) that he was going
to ban Mr/Ms.. Inside in 24 hours from a notice he posted here
and on the corresponding problem user page and that unless
anyone objected he would do so.

Any time periods for making such a decision should be
taken from some point. I was stating that Heph.'s  24 hour
consulation period is way too short and thus I am agreeing
with you and the process. Indeed it is Jimbo that must
do the banning not Hephaestos and maybe his statement
to that effect gets the ball rolling, but I do not think it is
a good idea for someone to give a 24 hour deadline
as a time frame to create a consensus. That is not a
sufficient period of time to give the whole community
notice for any kind of decison making.

I should point out, however, that I find the activity of
the person in question to be very frustrating and
time consuming and understand Heph's frustration
and his need to make such a demand  to the community.
But up to this point many have seen Mr/Ms.. Inside as
being a problem user, not someone who necessarily
needed to be banned. I think that creates a difference
in the minds of some people. It certain seemed to me
that s/ he is a problem user, but maybe s/he was just just
a newbie with a very unique idea of Wikipedia. I too
think the user in question should be banned as a
recidivist troublemaker (at least temporarily until
s/he gets some perspective on what Wikipedia is
all about).

Alex756


subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageDe.php

body:
Brion Vibber schrieb:

> On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 13:30, Thomas Corell wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I have put a new LanguageDe.php in the CVS, added the hidden input for
>>the google search, like done in Language.php.
> I've put in also the search term, removed the lagnuage list, and copied
> it into the stable branch with 'Export' taken out of the special pages
> list.

Thanks. The search term I 'searched' but in current CVS version of
Language.php I still miss it (or I need some new glasses).

Good to have you around, Brion!

Greetings Smurf
--
Smurf

smurf at AdamAnt.mud.de
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] 300,000 draws near...

body:
On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 22:56, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> >5) Either revive Nupedia.org (the website) or remove
> >all mention of it from the Wikimedia.org page.
>
> Unless we started a new project called the TV ClubHouse without my noticing, I
> think we have a cyber squatter at http://www.nupedia.org/ now.

Mav, that's one of Bomis.com's sites. (See the Bomis.com logo in the
sidebar?) It's apparently the one thing running on that server that's up
right now, and the virtual host mappings aren't straightened out yet.

Whatever its future, I've removed Nupedia from the wikimedia.org front
page since the link is still dead.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Flockmeal

subject: [WikiEN-l] BuddhaInside must go NOW

body:
Delirium wrote:

> Rick wrote:
>
>> Angela has corrected me.  What he did was to MOVE the Main Page to
>> his Talk page.
>
>
> Are protected pages movable by non-sysops then, despite not being
> editable by them?  If so, perhaps that should be changed.
>
> -Mark

Yes, this is true, and has just been brought up by others in the
Wikitech-l mailing list.

-Flockmeal


from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
> If a simple call to the FBI gets something to happen
> to EoT, that would be very Orwellian, but probable
> after the Patriot Act. Keep in mind that everythink
> EoT says is an empty threat.
> LDan

Basically, in my experience, it goes like so:
A) Call is made to FBI
B) FBI calls ISP, gets account details
C) FBI visits suspect (or calls if they're far enough from a field office to
make it inconvenient), says what they're doing is not a good idea.
D) FBI keeps an eye on suspect's doings, if the suspect keeps doing these
things, action is taken against them.

Generally, the FBI showing up at your door and telling you to stop doing
something... makes you stop doing something. Now, if he's done this sort of
thing before, well, there might be an abrupt end to his edits.

-- Jake


from_name: cprompt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Banning processus

body:
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 01:01, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I'm *swamped*.

Perhaps you should delegate someone to handle all banning issues. May I
recommend Ed Poor, if he's still around?


subject:
[Wikitech-l] More WikimediaFoundation.org files ready;	there
	has to be a better way!

body:
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 02:12, tarquin wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> >Brion (or whoever), please make this
> >http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/a/ae/WikimediaHome.htm
> >display at http://wikimediafoundation.org and change
> >the "Wikimedia Foundation" link at
> >http://wikimedia.org to point to
> >http://wikimediafoundation.org .
> >
> >
> That document has no <TITLE> element. :(
> Please fix.

I assume you refer to the uploaded file, which is obsolete.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/ has a <title> element.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
Jake wrote:
>Basically, in my experience, it goes like so:
>A) Call is made to FBI
>B) FBI calls ISP, gets account details
>C) FBI visits suspect (or calls if they're far enough from a
>field office to make it inconvenient), says what they're doing
>is not a good idea.
>D) FBI keeps an eye on suspect's doings, if the suspect
>keeps doing these things, action is taken against them.
>
>Generally, the FBI showing up at your door and telling you
>to stop doing something... makes you stop doing something.
>Now, if he's done this sort of thing before, well, there might
>be an abrupt end to his edits.

The guy lives in Canada (Toronto area IIRC). Since when can the FBI harass our
friends to the north?

--mav


subject: [Textbook-l] logo, page design

body:
KNOTT, T wrote:
>LDan wrote:
>I like that logo. I think that you should put the new
>Wikipedia logo on the cover once it is chosen
>tomorrow.
>
>That's a good idea!

No - that would be a bad idea since we ain't Wikipedia! If anything it would
be the yet to be created Wikimedia logo but I still like the concept in the
Staff lounge better.

-- mav


from_name: Allan Crossman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Moving protected pages

body:
It seems non-sysops can move protected pages. ie via typing the following URL
in manually, User:BuddhaInside seems to have been able to move the Main Page on
the English Wikipedia:

http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Movepage&target=Main_Page

Can this be fixed please? :-)

--
Allan Crossman - http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
PGP keys - 0x06C4BCCA (new) || 0xCEC9FAE1 (compatible)


body:
> >The guy lives in Canada (Toronto area IIRC). Since when can the FBI
harass
> >our
> >friends to the north?
>
> They probably can (and I'll spare us all a political rant at this point),
but
> the appropriate agency to call in this case would be the RCMP.
>
Doh. One of these days I'll learn not to make assumptions (or rely upon
others'...). So yes, RCMP if that's true. It's worth noting that if his
location were unknown, a call to the FBI would still make sense: there's
issues about location of forum and target... and they're pretty experienced
with calling up the RCMP (or any other relevant authority) about
cross-border cases.

-- Jake


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 04:02 AM 9/25/03 -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>Jake wrote:
> >Basically, in my experience, it goes like so:
> >A) Call is made to FBI
> >B) FBI calls ISP, gets account details
> >C) FBI visits suspect (or calls if they're far enough from a
> >field office to make it inconvenient), says what they're doing
> >is not a good idea.
> >D) FBI keeps an eye on suspect's doings, if the suspect
> >keeps doing these things, action is taken against them.
> >
> >Generally, the FBI showing up at your door and telling you
> >to stop doing something... makes you stop doing something.
> >Now, if he's done this sort of thing before, well, there might
> >be an abrupt end to his edits.
>
>The guy lives in Canada (Toronto area IIRC). Since when can the FBI harass
>our
>friends to the north?

They probably can (and I'll spare us all a political rant at this point), but
the appropriate agency to call in this case would be the RCMP.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: articles about Serbian history

body:
On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Mirko Thiessen wrote:

> LittleDan wrote:
> >
> > Well, then that's just because of its POV. We link to
> > POV sites.
> > LDan
> >
> There may be some instances, where it is justified to link to a propaganda
> source. For example, if you have an article about Serbian history, I would
> not protest against having a link to freesrpska, provided that a comment
> explains the nature of that site. But we don't need to have this link on
> every page about a detail of Serbian history. Take for example the article
> "Skull Tower"; it is a quite short article, but it is followed by three
> (!) links to the freesrpska page, among them a subpage pretending to
> explain the "Islamic conflict on the Balkan" (see
> http://www.freesrpska.org/en/prevare/islam.html for that blatant
> propaganda). Our readers will click on these links and read all this
> garbage.
>
Both of you define different sides to an issue I've been wondering about
myself: just how should we judge the quality of the material pointed to
in the external links part of our articles?

For example, if I were aggressive in my criticism towards these links,
I would remove many of the several URLs in the [[King Arthur]] article
because I feel, frankly, that they link to material that read like a
mediocre high school essay. But I haven't touched them because
(1) I wonder if my insistence on a scholarly approach to the material
isn't promoting a POV that I'm not aware of; and (2) they
do include material on the later Romance of King Arthur that isn't
sufficiently developed in the article as it stands.

Or, to put it another way, is deleting external links that one doesn't
like similar to deleting material in the Talk: pages one doesn't like?

Geoff


from_name: KNOTT, T

subject: [Textbook-l] logo, page design

body:
>I like that logo. I think that you should put the new
Wikipedia logo on the cover once it is chosen
tomorrow.

That's a good idea!
>
>There's nothing wrong with the organic chemistry book,
but don't you think it's a bit narcissistic to say
that you have the best organic chemistry textbook on
the web? I think you should change it to something
like the best wiki-produced organic chemistry
textbook, or aspires to be the best organic chemistry
textbook on the web. There is probably a finished
organic chemistry textbook on the web, sorry.

I disagree. I think you're trying to be NPOV which isn't really necessary on
wikibooks. The title may be a bit grand at the moment but once it starts
getting edited by a number of contributors it will soon become the best.

>PS. Can you move your organic chemistry pages to the
Organic chemistry: namespace?

Have namespaces been definitely decided on as the way to go? Because I've
been naming pages on GCSE science "foobar (GCSE science)".

Theresa

__________________________________


subject: [Textbook-l] logo, page design

body:
>Also I would like to change the page layout for some select
>pages, like the splash page opener for organic chemistry (
>http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry ). The repeat
>links at the top of the page just for these main book pages
>could be eliminated and the search box moved to the side.
>That would allow the page title to go top and center on the
>page and give viewers a better view of the page without
>scrolling down. What does anyone else think ?

I don't think it's strictly necessary to do that. The title pages are, at
the moment designed in a similar way to an ordinary book cover page. But
books are usually portrait. Monitors on the other hand are landscape. I
think a redesign taking this into account would be better.

Theresa


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] BuddhaInside banned

body:
The vandalism of the Main Page was the last straw. I have banned
BuddhaInside. This should not require Jimbo's approval since it was a case
of simple and obvious vandalism.

I hope we can get rid of all these Deletexxxx pages he idiotically created
now.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] BuddhaInside must go NOW

body:
Rick wrote:

> Angela has corrected me.  What he did was to MOVE the Main Page to his
Talk page.
>
> RickK

Now that I *would* call simple vandalism.

sannse


from_name: Mirko Thiessen

body:
LittleDan wrote:
>
> Well, then that's just because of its POV. We link to
> POV sites.
> LDan
>

There may be some instances, where it is justified to link to a propaganda
source. For example, if you have an article about Serbian history, I would
not protest against having a link to freesrpska, provided that a comment
explains the nature of that site. But we don't need to have this link on
every page about a detail of Serbian history. Take for example the article
"Skull Tower"; it is a quite short article, but it is followed by three
(!) links to the freesrpska page, among them a subpage pretending to
explain the "Islamic conflict on the Balkan" (see
http://www.freesrpska.org/en/prevare/islam.html for that blatant
propaganda). Our readers will click on these links and read all this
garbage.

Nikola (the author of the articles) offered to provide a comment next to
all these links, reading "be warned that some of other articles on this
site might be propagandistic and biased" - but I consider it dangerous to
have these links at all.

Mirko


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] BuddhaInside banned

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> The vandalism of the Main Page was the last straw. I
> have banned
> BuddhaInside. This should not require Jimbo's
> approval since it was a case
> of simple and obvious vandalism.
>
> I hope we can get rid of all these Deletexxxx pages
> he idiotically created
> now.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

How did he vandalize the main page? It's protected.
LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] De-lurk for swamp-clearing

body:
After several months of blissful peace, I've decided to rejoin the mailing list -- at least for the English Wikipedia. I had stayed off because there's just too much volume, too many words to read. I thought I could just scan the occasional talk comment at wikipedia.org -- but when I found out that Jimbo is "swamped" and cprompt recommended delegating someone to handle all banning issues, I decided to de-lurk.

I hate banning, as I think I've made clear at several times and places on the website. I prefer peer pressure and education as motivational tools. But sometimes you have to draw the line.

What is the line? I guess it's for people who refuse to "get with the program".
*Repeatedly needling other users with personal remarks (EofT vs. RK)
*Nonsense that takes endless time to undo (Lir)
*Utter lack of comprehension of NPOV policy (Helga, if anyone remembers back that far)

Honest differences of opinion on how articles should be organized, titling schemes, formats, etc. should never rise to the level of "bannable offenses" - that's dumb. Even NPOV disputes ought to be handled without recourse to "Ban this troll, his ideas are wacky".

What I propose to do - the service I offer to the WikiCommunity - is to analyze any on-going disputes and attempt to intervene in a way that defuses the conflict. If that fails, I may take action like demoting a sysop or even banning an account -- any such action to be reported to this mailing list, of course.

I don't expect my position to carry any more weight than any one else's, except to the extent that my judgment seems sensible and trustworthy. I will listen carefully to old hands like Mav, Eloquence, Martin, Anth?re (just to name a few).

But I'm not just going to seek a consensus: at times I will take or press for immediate action, based on my own subjective assessment of what's best for Wikipedia.

Jimbo, as always, will have the final say.

Ed Poor, aka "Uncle Ed"

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030925/0586443c/attachment.htm


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Mirroring (was Re: Fundraising)

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Andre Engels wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Tim Starling wrote:
>>
>>>logged-in users, that way most edits go to a web server which is close
>>>to the master DB.
>>
>>Would it not be better to keep the mirrors read-only, and have them redirect
>>to the master for write-access? To have writing in several places causes
>>significant overhead in avoiding edit conflicts and such.

I've decided that Andre may be right about this. Editors should be
redirected to larousse when they log in, and anonymous users should be
redirected when they click edit. If people were allowed to log in to the
mirrors, you'd have to use HTTP redirects in order to log them in to
larousse when they started editing.

> There is a lot of hypothesis and discussion here.  Have you considered
> that there are some 40-60 page views for every single edit? What about
> using some real statistics instead of guessing?  (Just my hypothesis.)

Statistics are pretty useless without profiling/benchmarking. We know
that there are many more views than edits, but we don't know the load on
the server for each. Edits are far more expensive than views, for a
number of reasons.

Would it be possible to generate some profiling data for the live wiki?
Say, turning on $wgProfiling for one in every thousand requests to
wiki.phtml?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: tarquin

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Brion (or whoever), please make this
>http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/a/ae/WikimediaHome.htm
>display at http://wikimediafoundation.org and change
>the "Wikimedia Foundation" link at
>http://wikimedia.org to point to
>http://wikimediafoundation.org .
>
>
That document has no <TITLE> element. :(
Please fix.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
>Both of you define different sides to an issue I've been wondering about
>myself: just how should we judge the quality of the material pointed to
>in the external links part of our articles?
>
>For example, if I were aggressive in my criticism towards these links,
>I would remove many of the several URLs in the [[King Arthur]] article
>because I feel, frankly, that they link to material that read like a
>mediocre high school essay. But I haven't touched them because
>(1) I wonder if my insistence on a scholarly approach to the material
>isn't promoting a POV that I'm not aware of; and (2) they
>do include material on the later Romance of King Arthur that isn't
>sufficiently developed in the article as it stands.
>
>Or, to put it another way, is deleting external links that one doesn't
>like similar to deleting material in the Talk: pages one doesn't like?
>
>Geoff

One can go too far; but one should edit external links for a mix of points
of view and degrees of difficulty. The King Arthur article is an excellent
example. A few high school level links are fine as are those to literary
sites that consider the later literature as well as links to sites that
examine the slight historical evidence.

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Banning processus

body:
Regarding Hephaestos's statement of his intention to ban BuddhaInside:

There's really no need for everyone to jump on Hephaestos for going
against policy. Hephaestos emailed me shortly after my original
response, saying that he had no problem with waiting for Jimbo's
approval. He clearly made an honest mistake and misunderstood the
banning policy, although perhaps it would have been nice to see an
acknowledgment of that to this list.

-- Tim Starling.


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] BuddhaInside banned

body:
I give my retroactive stamp of approval for this.  Recall, I had asked
that someone have him email me or come to the mailing list to chat,
but vandalizing the Main Page is extreme and certainly falls under the
standard 'emergency' exception to our general rule against sysops
banning people who have a username.

--Jimbo

Erik Moeller wrote:

> The vandalism of the Main Page was the last straw. I have banned
> BuddhaInside. This should not require Jimbo's approval since it was a case
> of simple and obvious vandalism.
>
> I hope we can get rid of all these Deletexxxx pages he idiotically created
> now.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: David Friedland

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Table markup + lists?

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> So, you want an unordered list of tables, right? But what, exactly,
> makes that different from a single table? You'll have table rows stacked
> upon each other either way; the only difference would be getting rid of
> the bullet things, which doesn't strike me as particularly bad in this
> context.
>
> It will also make the wiki source more readable.

Not quite what I was thinking: What I want is an unordered list with a
mix of text and a table in each item. Something similar to this:

* apricot
   +-----+---------------+---------------+
   |     | AmE           | BrE           |
   +-----+---------------+---------------+
   | (1) | ["{.pr at .kAt]  | ["{.pr at .kQt]  |
   | (2) | ["eI.pr at .kAt] | ["eI.pr at .kQt] |
   +-----+---------------+---------------+

   Both (1) and (2) are standard and are listed in most dictionaries.

* arctic
   +-----+------------+------------+
   |     | AmE        | BrE        |
   +-----+------------+------------+
   | (1) | ["Ar.tIk]  | ["A:.tIk]  |
   | (2) | ["Ark.tIk] | ["A:k.tIk] |
   +-----+------------+------------+

   The debate is whether or not the <ct> cluster is pronounced [kt] or
   just [t]. M-W lists both, with (1) first, but OED only lists (2).
   Generally, the same pronunciation for the <ct> cluster is used for
   both ''artic'' and ''antarctic''. However, M-W lists (2) first for
   ''antarctic''.

The wiki syntax for tables will prove to be most useful in many
circumstances, I am sure. However,

* Tables are supposed to only be used for presenting tabular
information, not for layout. I don't think that the word itself and the
description are tabular information, and so they shouldn't be in a table.
* Do we really want tables that extend across the entire page?
* This solution also requires using the colspan= option for first and
last row in the table for each word, which arguably decreases the
readability of the wiki source.
* Would make every cell holding a pronunciation as wide as the longest
pronunciation.
* If we can embed tables in tables, why shouldn't we be able to embed
tables in unordered lists?

I think, in general, being able to extend the content of a list item
across multiple lines of wiki source would be convenient. For example,
on the current page I have a <br> between the pronunciations and the
description text, but I think the wiki source would be more readable if
I just put it on a separate line.

As for how to implement it, maybe the syntax could be that if a line
containing a list item ends in a \, then the next line is also part of
that list item, and if the next line begins a table, the whole table is
part of that list item. I haven't studied the PHP for processing wiki
syntax, so I don't know how hard that would be to implement, though.

I just want to reiterate that I think the wiki syntax for tables is a
really great idea! I just wish I could use them on this page. Magnus,
again, thanks for taking the initiative and making tables available in
wiki syntax.

-- David [[User:Nohat]]

> David Friedland wrote:
>
>> I was experimenting with the table markup on test and ran into a
>> situation which I didn't seem to be able to solve using the table markup.
>>
>> There is a page I have been working on [[List of words of disputed
>> pronunciation]] onto which I have put pronunciations in IPA and SAMPA.
>> The way I have them now is just one after another, separated by nubers
>> in parentheses (as a label for each pronunciation) and commas.
>>
>> After some discussion on talk, it seems there needs to be different
>> versions of each pronunciation, IPA vs. SAMPA, AmE vs. BrE, etc. Such
>> a matrix of pronunciations is tabular information perfectly suited for
>> a table. Unfortunately, each word is in an unordered list (lines
>> starting with *) and the syntax for those lists requires all text for
>> each item be placed on one line. Thus it seems impossible to mix the
>> wiki syntax for unordered lists and for tables.
>>
>> So:
>>
>> (1) Should there be a way to mix lists and tables using wiki syntax?
>> (2) Should a different approach to organizing this page be taken?
>>
>> I suppose it would be possible to put everything in a giant wiki
>> table, but that would be using tables for layout and not for just
>> tabular information, which seems like the wrong approach.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
Alex R. wrote:
> Indeed it is Jimbo that must do the banning not Hephaestos

This has always been our rule, and it likely will be for some time to
come, but I want to be on record as a critic of this method who only
grudgingly accepts that it's the best way that we have right now.

1.  It's a bit dangerous to have a custom where a single person
makes the final decision, in case that person acts capriciously.

2.  I can make decisions, but in order for them to really mean
anything given the state of the software and our intense desire for
openness, those decisions have to have _credibility_, i.e. people have
to be prepared to say "Well, I didn't agree in every detail with that
decision, but the decision had to be made and Jimbo does a very good
job of it."

3.  The combination of (1) and (2) mean that I have to act
deliberately, fairly, cautiously, and too slowly for many people's
tastes.  Doing so is the only way for me to avoid the dangers of (1)
and to maintain the personal credibility that I need in order to make
these bans "stick" in (2).

4.  I find it all fairly unpleasant.  Part of it is that each ban is a
cause for sadness, sadness that someone is so incredibly anti-social
that there's just no way for us to continue working with them.  We can
be cheered by the fact that they are 1 in 10,000 or rarer.  I would
have guessed before Wikipedia that we'd see many more jerks.  But even
so, the weight of the responsibility of balancing competing interests
is not fun.  (It'd be more fun to be a tyrant and ban everyone who
doesn't agree with me.  But then my vision of a free encyclopedia
would not be possible!)

------------

The bottom line is that I think that in the future, not right away,
but after we've slowly taken some cautious steps towards organically
creating some more 'collective' decision making methods (voting, that
sort of thing), we will move towards a system of banning that's very
different from what we have now.

There's actually a great irony here.  Most people who get banned
likely feel that I've been unilateral and unfair, and that if only we
had true democracy (or true X, whatever that person prefers), they
would have succeeded in the Wikipedia community.  But the truth is,
if we voted on these things, I suspect we'd have a lot more banning
overall, and a lot faster than my tedious and timid way of doing it!
:-)

--Jimbo


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Lars Aronsson wrote:

> Andre Engels wrote:
> > On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Tim Starling wrote:
> > > logged-in users, that way most edits go to a web server which is close
> > > to the master DB.
> >
> > Would it not be better to keep the mirrors read-only, and have them redirect
> > to the master for write-access? To have writing in several places causes
> > significant overhead in avoiding edit conflicts and such.
>
> There is a lot of hypothesis and discussion here.  Have you considered
> that there are some 40-60 page views for every single edit? What about
> using some real statistics instead of guessing?  (Just my hypothesis.)

And what does that have to do with my point? Are you saying that the overhead
does not matter because it will only occur in a small percentage of cases?
Then I will answer that redirecting people elsewhere for editing does not
matter either, because it is just as small a percentage of cases.

I have no idea what 'real statistics' could either strengthen or weaken the
point I am making. There are no 'real statistics' about the amount of time
it costs to make edits on all machines as opposed to doing all on one. There
has been no Wikipedia implementation on either.

Andre Engels


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Would it be possible to generate some profiling data for the live wiki?
> Say, turning on $wgProfiling for one in every thousand requests to
> wiki.phtml?

You only need to profile the slow requests.  That's what I do on
susning.nu.  It works for me.

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Mirroring (was Re: Fundraising)


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Table markup + lists?

body:
So, you want an unordered list of tables, right? But what, exactly,
makes that different from a single table? You'll have table rows stacked
upon each other either way; the only difference would be getting rid of
the bullet things, which doesn't strike me as particularly bad in this
context.

It will also make the wiki source more readable.

Magnus

David Friedland wrote:

> I was experimenting with the table markup on test and ran into a
> situation which I didn't seem to be able to solve using the table markup.
>
> There is a page I have been working on [[List of words of disputed
> pronunciation]] onto which I have put pronunciations in IPA and SAMPA.
> The way I have them now is just one after another, separated by nubers
> in parentheses (as a label for each pronunciation) and commas.
>
> After some discussion on talk, it seems there needs to be different
> versions of each pronunciation, IPA vs. SAMPA, AmE vs. BrE, etc. Such a
> matrix of pronunciations is tabular information perfectly suited for a
> table. Unfortunately, each word is in an unordered list (lines starting
> with *) and the syntax for those lists requires all text for each item
> be placed on one line. Thus it seems impossible to mix the wiki syntax
> for unordered lists and for tables.
>
> So:
>
> (1) Should there be a way to mix lists and tables using wiki syntax?
> (2) Should a different approach to organizing this page be taken?
>
> I suppose it would be possible to put everything in a giant wiki table,
> but that would be using tables for layout and not for just tabular
> information, which seems like the wrong approach.
>
> - David [[User:Nohat]]
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [roy_q_royce@hotmail.com: --A Request RE a WIKI
	Article--]

body:
I know too little about physics to have anything helpful to say here.
Reading between the lines here, I'm guessing that Mr. Royce's views
are not mainstream?  Is there any helpful accomodation that could be
made here?

----- Forwarded message from Roy Royce <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com> -----

From: "Roy Royce" <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 13:58:58 -0600
To: jwales at joey.bomis.com
Subject: --A Request RE a WIKI Article--

Dear Mr. Wales,

Your primary policy "You can edit this page right now" hopefully applies to
the
addition of facts to an article, especially important facts. However, it
seems to
be impossible to (permanently) add just three simple - but critical - facts
to the
Wiki special relativity article.

I cordially invite you to check out the validity of the following statements
for
yourself (these are the three facts of which I spoke above):

[1] No one has yet used two clocks to measure the speed of light (one way).

[2] Since we have long had the necessary technology, the reason for the lack
of a one-way light speed measurement must be the physical impossibility of
making such a measurement. (In other words, there cannot be a one-way
version of the Michelson-Morley experiment, and scientific minds should
wonder
why not - because the implications are grave for special relativity!)

[3] The famous equation E=mc^2 does not support special relativity.
(This is stated explicitly by the imminent physicist John Wheeler on page
148
of his famous book _Spacetime Physics_ {1963}, wherein he noted the fact
that Einstein presented an SR-free derivation of E=mc^2 in order not to
have this famous and important fact associated with a mere theory.)

The above three critical facts are currently not mentioned in the Wiki ;
indeed, fact [3] is denied.

My request is that someone please add these facts to the Wiki special
relativity article because pertinent facts are important to any
encyclopedia.

Thank you very much for listening!

Sincerely,
Roy Royce

_________________________________________________________________
Get MSN 8 Dial-up Internet Service FREE for one month.  Limited time offer--
sign up now!   http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup

----- End forwarded message -----


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 2, Issue 50

body:
> I hope we can get rid of all these Deletexxxx pages
he idiotically
created
> now.
> > Regards,
> > Erik

After trying so much for the pages precisely not being
deleted ?

This is spicy :-)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: cprompt

subject: [WikiEN-l] De-lurk for swamp-clearing

body:
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 14:07, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> because there's just too much volume, too many words to read. I
> thought I could just scan the occasional talk comment at wikipedia.org
> -- but when I found out that Jimbo is "swamped" and cprompt
> recommended delegating someone to handle all banning issues, I decided
> to de-lurk.
Welcome back, fellow lurker.
> I hate banning, as I think I've made clear at several times and places
> on the website. I prefer peer pressure and education as motivational
> tools. But sometimes you have to draw the line.
One of the reasons I thought you'd be good at handling these kinds of
cases.

> *Nonsense that takes endless time to undo (Lir)
Heh, did you know that Lir was unbanned? :-)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fair use and inline links

body:
>I would like to support making impossible to make
some
>inline links on all wikipedias; not english only.

>I understood the en took that decision because of
>goatce.However, as you say, it is not nice for the
>webmaster and the other web site. Besides, the link
>may die. Plus, the reader does not know whether he
may
>benefit the ressource. He might come to believe he
can
>just copy the image, and that one be GFDL. It is
>misleading and dangerous to other one.

>Finally, Alex and
>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_v._Arriba_Soft_Corporation
>indicated that it was not necessarily a good idea to
>use this type of linkage.

So deep is the silence around this proposition of
mine, that I suppose that everybody is in agreement.

So...Brion...could you please remove the possibility
of making online linking from the international
wikipedias please ?

It is a consensus reached by those who worked clearing
up the topic these past 10 days. With no opposing
voices. Thanks.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


body:
Geoff Burling wrote:
> Or, to put it another way, is deleting external links that one doesn't
> like similar to deleting material in the Talk: pages one doesn't like?

I have no firm position on what external link requirements we should
have, nor can I say exactly what deleting external links _is_ like,
but I think it's safe to say that external links at the bottom of an
article are part of the article, and deleting them is not like
deleting material from a Talk: page.

I suspect that we could flesh it out a lot better than I'm about to
say it, but isn't a link just a proposition like any other?  It can be
disclaimed like any other, it can be irrelevant like any other, it can
be removed or added like any other.

Some links we should have, but disclaim.  Some links we should not
have, if for no other reason than sheer irrelevancy to the topic at
hand.  Some links we should have, and no special disclaiming other
than 'link to external site' is necessary.

I'd say that in the example you gave, it's perfectly legitimate to
remove the link, and a perfectly legitimate reason is "the site sucks"
or "the link is irrelevant to this page".

--Jimbo


from_name: james duffy

body:
>From: Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com>
>Reply-To: Discussion list for English-language Wikipedia
><wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: Discussion list for English-language Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Please, please, PLEASE shut up
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 16:27:56 -0700
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Received: from mail.wikipedia.org ([130.94.122.197]) by mc9-f2.hotmail.com
>with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); Wed, 17 Sep 2003 16:28:05 -0700
>Received: from pliny.wikipedia.org (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])by
>mail.wikipedia.org (Postfix) with ESMTPid D17FDB820; Wed, 17 Sep 2003
>23:28:02 +0000 (UTC)
>Received: from hosting335.com (hosting335.com [203.194.209.177])by
>mail.wikipedia.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 229ECB81Bfor
><wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>; Wed, 17 Sep 2003 23:27:59 +0000 (UTC)
>Received: (qmail 9389 invoked from network); 17 Sep 2003 23:28:29 -0000
>Received: from unknown (HELO mungo.digitalgrapefruit.com) (12.235.79.143)by
>hosting335.com with SMTP; 17 Sep 2003 23:28:29 -0000
>X-Message-Info: vAu4ZEtdRih6do40Swdyrb9tfLfr3yJE
>X-Original-To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>Delivered-To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>Message-Id: <6.0.0.22.2.20030917162535.01cb54a0 at digitalgrapefruit.com>
>X-Sender: dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com
>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.0.0.22
>In-Reply-To: <3F68D5CE.5050901 at apple.com>
>References:
><20030917210954.45789.qmail at web80707.mail.yahoo.com><3F68D5CE.5050901 at apple.com>
>X-BeenThere: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2
>Precedence: list
>List-Id: Discussion list for English-language
>Wikipedia<wikien-l.Wikipedia.org>
>List-Unsubscribe:
><http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>,<mailto:wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>List-Archive: <http://pliny.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l>
>List-Post: <mailto:wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>List-Help: <mailto:wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org?subject=help>
>List-Subscribe:
><http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>,<mailto:wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org?subject=subscribe>
>Sender: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>Errors-To: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>Return-Path: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 17 Sep 2003 23:28:08.0026 (UTC)
>FILETIME=[59F22BA0:01C37D73]
>
>At 02:44 PM 9/17/2003, you all wrote:
> >WAY TOO MUCH
>
>OK, please stop. I'm getting more emails about a bot to generate Israel
>articles (and it's not even a particularly descriptive subject heading
>anymore) than I am ads for Viagra. That's a bad sign. PLEASE take this to
>the 'pedia on some obscure talk page where the rest of us don't have to be
>bothered by it?
>
>-----
>Dante Alighieri
>

Hear hear. This stuff is tiresome, irritating and and a pain in the
posterior. Please bin this infernal issue for ever before half of wiki are
driven to jump over the nearest cliff out of frustration  with it.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Welcome back Adam

body:
>On Sat, 2003-09-20 at 16:16, Lee Pilich wrote:
> > Erik wrote:
> >  >Allan-
> >  >> So, is this happening? What username is Adam editing under?
> >  >
> >  >Contrary to his promise to use the name "Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]", Adam is again
> >  >editing under the name Pizza Puzzle <snip>
> >
> > I don't think any such promise was made: see Jimbo's post at
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-September/006469.html
> > Quoth he: "I don't really care what name he uses as long as it's
>consistent."
> >
>Speaking of consistency, I'm not sure if he reads this list anymore, but
>he told me that he's planning on requesting the password for "Lir" and
>using that, since it was his original username. I think he might be
>using Pizza Puzzle in the interim.

But Adam isn't PP!!! After all he swore to Jimbo that he wasn't. Maybe he
just /found/ the PP page unused and just happened to find the password and
by chance picked it to use. <G>

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963


subject: [WikiEN-l] BuddhaInside banned

body:
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 16:51, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>
> How did he vandalize the main page? It's protected.
> LDan
>
Previously, it was possible to move protected pages.

My understanding is that Brion fixed it so you cannot do this anymore.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fundraising

body:
Jake Nelson wrote:

>Reminds me. There really should be a Wikimedia-l, imho. Wikimedia is more
>than just the 'pedia, after all! (Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote...) I'd
>kind of like to get in on WM planning discussions- I worked for a nonprofit
>(in education, at that) for 5 years, was at one point in charge of
>reorganizing all the documentation and policy for it, have dealt with a lot
>of this stuff before.
>
I agree.  I too have had my share of experience with nonprofits.
 Unfortunately a vast majority of members (however you may define that)
of such organizations are blissfully ignorant when it comes to corporate
documentation.  They usually avoid meetings that discuss by-laws or the
election of officers, and when things go wrong use that as an excuse to
absolve themselves of all responsibility. Judging by the lack of
response when these matters are raised, Wikimedia is no different.

Eclecticology


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>
>I assume you refer to the uploaded file, which is obsolete.
>http://wikimediafoundation.org/ has a <title> element.
>
cool.
I assumed http://wikimediafoundation.org/ was just some sort of Apache
redirection to the upload file. apologies.


body:
> doubtful.
> That article seems to draw in the crackpots like
> {insert image of choice
> here}.
> It is a waste of our time to go over their theories
> with them (the guy
> who said measuring with a stick was a "more direct
> way of measuring"
> wasted HOURS of my time).
>
> I have recently been tempted to wipe most of that
> article's talk page
> and leave only discussion about the article itself,
> and add a big notice
> saying "WIKIPEDIA IS NOT THE PLACE FOR YOUR OWN
> THEORIES".

I think wiping talk pages is against Wikipedia policy
unless they're copyvios, but I also think that
existing policy dictates that wikipedia can't hve new
theories on it via the original research provision.
LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com