from_name: Ken Arromdee

body:
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007, Anthony wrote:
> But apparently the rules say otherwise.  So if you want to know why
> the rules prohibit one but not the other, ask the people who made the
> rules - it wasn't me.

Then what's your point?  We're talking about what the rules *should* say.
If you're only willing to discuss what the rules do say, you're not really
discussing at all.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Sharon, Lois Bram

subject: [WikiEN-l] An Open Letter to Mr. Wales

body:
Dear Mr. Wales.

I don't know if you will read this. I don't even know if you care what goes
on in "your" encyclopedia, but I feel I must at least try to reach you.

My wikipedia username was "One Elephant went out to play...". I chose this
username because my young cousins have really liked the tapes that my
parents made for me of the Nickelodeon television show "elephant show",
which I had been a fan of, and I wanted to bring that mentality - one which
delights in learning, which delights in getting along with people - when I
edited. Logging in with the first line of the song reminded me of that.

When I started editing, I had two troubles. At first, I did not understand
the logging in system, and I created a second account before realizing that
I did not need to wait for a confirmation email before I could log in.
Someone named Betacommand blocked the username as well claiming it was a
violation of your username policies, which I contested and Mike Rosoft
agreed with me and allowed me to start editing. I never wound up using the
second account, and as far as I know it has been deleted.

I edited on a number of articles, sometimes finding things I was interested
in and sometimes clicking randomly. I learned about and tried to read the
policy pages, I asked for help when I could not figure things out.

A couple weeks later, I saw something I thought was wrong. User Bastique had
reverted the "National Council of La Raza" page, where I had previously left
a note asking users to calm down and not edit war, and then locked it to his
own preferred version. I thought this was wrong, so I left him a note
explaining why I was reverting it back. He started attacking and threatening
me from that point forward, and I reported him to the WP:ANI page, only to
be continually attacked by more of his friends it seems as they constantly
violated WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA guidelines, I assume trying to provoke me into
doing likewise.

I brought the question to this mailing list, and was given some better
responses, and I was half convinced to return to Wikipedia by that point.
Some users on Wikipedia had left me messages and email requesting I give
Wikipedia a second chance, even a couple users I had not entirely agreed
with, and remembering my earlier situation when people had been helpful, I
wanted to give the project the benefit of the doubt.

Today, however, I was called a "troll" by someone on this list, and then my
account was set back to moderation. This proved to me that there is
something wrong on wikipedia, and I resolved to leave. I set my user page in
order, left one final help request to set my goodbye message properly (which
A Train kindly assisted with), and began leaving notes so that those I had
interacted with would know not to expect responses from me.

When I tried to leave a note for Mike Rosoft in thanks for his kind
assistance in the past, I found myself banned entirely from the project by
user JzG, who called me a "troll." I saw him going around removing my
goodbye notes as well.

I requested assistance in a help template, and user Steel359 who had been
one of Bastique's earlier incivil supporters not only removed it but locked
my talk page as a blank, removing my goodbye message. He then left a lie on
my user page, claiming I am someone named runedchozo that I have never even
heard of before.

Sir, if this is how your administrators behave then it is no wonder the
project no matter how noble its goals is failing.

Goodbye.


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
On 15/03/07, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
> Oldak Quill wrote:
> > On 15/03/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I am curious about the practicality of trying to prosecute someone for
> >> vandalism of a wiki. Andrew Schlafly seems to think it's possible, given the
> >> warning on the Conservapedia main page.
> >>
> >> "Conservapedia claims that posting obscene material or vandalizing the site
> >> is illegal, and could result in a jail sentence of ten years. It makes these
> >> claims on the basis of Title 18 of the United States Code, specifically 18
> >> USC ? 1470 (with respect to obscenity) and 18 USC ? 1030 (with respect to
> >> vandalism)."
> >>
> >> (From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia)
> >>
> >> How would the courts look at vandalism when you have given someone the
> >> ability to edit the site?  Unlike Wikipedia, Conservapedia only allows
> >> logged-in editing.  Does that mean that we have a stronger case to complain
> >> about vandalism (since, literally, anyone can edit, so we aren't "approving"
> >> the vandals) or a weaker case (since, literally, anyone can edit)?
> >>
> >
> > Probably not the best approach to making the wiki a comfortable place
> > for people to edit.
> >
> > If you don't get 10 years for vandalising public places obscenely, why
> > would you get 10 years for vandalising a wiki? The latter is far
> > easier and less expensive to reverse.
> >
> > Do they have a user agreement that specifically states that vandals
> > will be prosecuted?
> >
> >
> IMNAL, but it appears to me that 1) they may be making threats they
> cannot possibly carry out, 2) if they can it may not be worth the
> effort, and 3) not seeing where we should care much what they do.

A bit of common sense where common sense was due :) That said, I'm not
sure you're right about 3 - litigation against vandalism is not
something Wikimedia should engage in (at least, I can't think of a
scenario where Wikimedia could justifiably use the threat of
prosecution against vandals), but it is still interesting to consider
how the law would treat wiki vandalism.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Miguel A. Cuesta

subject: [Wikitech-l] How to announce a MediaWiki translation

body:
Hi.

We created a translation file of MediaWiki and would like to spread
it. It's not based on the very last version, but on a previous one.

I've been reading
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_localization
shall we create a patch for that version and then submit it to
'MediaWiki bugzilla'?

Is there any method to announce the creation of this new translation?

Thank you very much.

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

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


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
For what language did you make a localisation ?
Thanks,
    GerardM

On 3/15/07, Miguel A. Cuesta <cuesta at alianzo.com> wrote:
>
> Hi.
>
> We created a translation file of MediaWiki and would like to spread
> it. It's not based on the very last version, but on a previous one.
>
> I've been reading
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_localization
> shall we create a patch for that version and then submit it to
> 'MediaWiki bugzilla'?
>
> Is there any method to announce the creation of this new translation?
>
> Thank you very much.
>
> --
> Miguel A. Cuesta
> Alianzo Networks
> "We make social networks"
>
> tel: (+34) 944 371 684 - skype me: cuesta-alianzo
> mailto:cuesta at alianzo.com - IM/MSN: cuesta at alianzo.com
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] MediaWiki:<meta> Labels in dumps cause interwiki
 errors

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

Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> The inclusion of MediaWiki:<meta> pages in the base Article, templates,
> etc. dumps, such as the English Wikipedia, cause major
> problems if you are trying to import these dumps into a Wikipedia
> enabled for another language.  Many of the navigation menu's
> get trashed and corrupted when these MediaWiki labels for the English
> Wikipedia are included in the base article and template dumps.

Please describe "trashed and corrupted" by giving specific examples.
Also try to describe what "enabled for another language" means.

Does it mean you have configured the wiki to a language different from
the language you are importing? Can you explain why you would do this?
It sounds like a simple configuration error on your part. The obvious
result would be that both articles and customized messages will appear
in the language you imported (eg English) instead of the language you
set it to.

If you simply want to look at the menu in another language, you probably
want to just change your user preference, not the wiki-wide content
language.

> It certainly is ok to include them in the dumps which supposedly
> contains "everything"  (the .7z dumps) but they shoud be stripped out
> of the base dumps which are supposed to just contain the articles and
> templates for the articles.

Will consider making that change.

Note that you can exclude a namespace from your import using mwdumper by
using the namespace filter, for instance:

  --filter=namespace:\!NS_MEDIAWIKI

(You can also use mwdumper to filter the XML and feed it into
importDump.php or another tool to do the actual import, if you prefer
using another tool.)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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list: foundation-l

from_name: Robert Horning

subject:
[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back
 a	proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 15/03/07, luke brandt <shojokid at gmail.com> wrote on foundation-l:
>
>
>> Any views from the Foundation, or others, in light of the discussion and
>> straw vote:-
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Credential_Verification#Straw_poll_on_each_proposal
>> This needs to be resolved quickly (if public interest is to be taken
>> into account) But only one proposal seems to be garnering significant
>> support in the EN community - luke
>>
>
>
> I note particularly these comments from User:Armed Blowfish -
>
>
>     I believe that any credential or identity verification system will
> increase systemic bias against people from developing countries,
> people without documentation, and people too poor to get a good
> education, if any education at all. UNICEF estimates that one third of
> the world's population do not even have a birth
> certificates.(http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0098-7921%28199809%2924%3A3%3C659%3AUODBRI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6&size=LARGE)
> (http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/media_35255.html) The economic
> inability to get a good education, as is common in developing
> countries, does not make someone less intelligent.
>
I would have to add here that I believe that even the distinction of an
asumption that if you are from a "developed" country that you have money
oozing out of your orafices is one that also has to be shot down, and
killed completely.  Even in so-called developed countries, there are
many individuals who don't have college educations due to circumstances
and a decided lack of opprotunity.  Certainly it is easier to get one
from a country who has a pervasive attitude of encouraging their
citizens to get a college education and provides that opportunity where
possible, but there still are "working poor" even in the most
enlightened and developed countries of the world.

And I believe you can get very meaningful contributions from many of
these same individuals who certainly don't have a PhD.  The difference
in the success of Wikipedia vs. Nupedia is a very clear example that
having a PhD is not necessarily a manditory prerequisite to developing
an outstanding reference work.  Least anybody forget, it was clearly
stated that degrees mattered with Nupedia contributions, and it was felt
that only somebody with a PhD *in that very subject* could contribute
what we would call a featured article class Wikipedia article today.
Somebody with only a mere bachelor's degree would only be capable of
making what would be called a stub.  While certainly people who possess
the knowledge level of a PhD can (and do!) make meaningful and
substantial contributions to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects,
they are not the most exclusive set of individuals who contribute to
featured articles.

It would be interesting to go through the FA articles and see just how
many involved major contributions that even mentioned educational
credentials at all, or where it even was mentioned in the first place.
While I havn't done this sort of statistical analysis, I would think the
results of any such search would reveal a decided lack of educational
credentials on most subjects by its primary contributors.  And FA class
articles would be on the statistical tail where I think you would be
more likely to find educational credentials brought up in serious
discussions.

-- Robert Horning


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.10 mostly working on SQL Server 2000

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

DJ Bauch wrote:
> Hi,
> I've been working on running MediaWIki on SQL Server 2000. It's mostly
> working and it feels close to all working, but I still have a few major
> wrinkles to iron out.
> 1. Almost nothing that involves a "pager" is working yet, with just a couple
> of exceptions.

For that, make sure the LIMIT and OFFSET clauses (or equivalent) are set
up right.

These below are probably unrelated to the database:

> 2. Interlanguage links are showing up at the end of the pages instead of in
> a sidebar as on Wikipedia.

You need to set up the interwiki table to include the links you want to use.

> 3. Template documentation that's referenced from a template as {{/doc}}
> doesn't get transcluded.

This depends on the subpage settings; that the namespace of the pages
you're working in is set in $wgNamespacesWithSubpages.

> 4. Some tags generated by templates that are obviously meant to be
> interpreted as HTML are instead getting interpreted as text (for example, if
> I use the text & templates of the page [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] from
> Wikipedia, I will see <small/> under Arnold's picture within the infobox at
> the top of the page).

Various templates on Wikipedia rely on some currently undefined behavior
which differs between the default state and the state when $wgUseTidy is
enabled (to use the external 'tidy' program to do HTML scrubbing).

You may need to enable it to match Wikipedia's rendering of such templates.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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=7huu
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is a work in progress

body:
On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_a_work_in_progress
>
> Great essay by User:Qxz. "So, if you rely on Wikipedia in its current
> state, that's your problem. We're not done with it, and we never said
> it would be any good ? we only said it would be free. If you aren't
> satisfied with it now, help improve it, or come back in another six
> years and take a look then. It'll be better. We promise."

I agree, great essay.  Wikipedia is not in itself primarily a project
to put an encyclopedia up on the web - it's a project to CREATE one.
Lots of things are imperfect.

Only thing is, one of the best ways to get contributors is to attract
readers.  If we get readers, we do have to be a little careful about a
few things - libellous howlers in biographies of living people, for
instance - but not overall paranoia about hiding the mess under the
bed.

-Matt


from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Why cutting'n'pasting from Wikipedia is not a good
	idea

body:
On 3/15/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Skyring wrote:
>
> >I'd like to suggest something which I think should work. Whenever an
> >administrator edits an article, that version automatically becomes the
> >"stable" version that an unregistered reader will see. And it won't have
> >"edit" links all over it. Sure, it might have mistakes and it might have
> >POV, but the odds are that if an admin has had even a glance at it, it's
> >probably good.
> >
> I find this attempt to give admins even more power objectionable.  There
> are plenty of us who have been around for a long time without having
> become admins.  Many operate in limited non-controversial areas.  The
> result would be a huge number of articles that will need to be edited by
> admins; these articles previously managed quite well without involvement
> of admins.

Isn't it neat watching how bureaucracies form drip by drip through the
accumulation of a thousand authoritarian impulses?


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
On 3/15/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
> I think the practical problem would be to find a prosecutor who cared.
> Real-world graffiti costs significant money and time to remove, plus
> there are constituents (read: voters) calling City Hall to do something
> about it. For wiki vandalism, exactly which elected official are you
> going to complain to?
>
> A crafty approach might be to create bios on all prosecutors, and then
> just wait for those to be vandalized. :-)

So its a wiki (free, open) that avoids Wikipedias "complex copyright
rules",  bases its community policing on threats, misconstrues our
usage of "vandalism" to be equivalent to the legal usage, follows SPOV
(Schlafly POV), and considers parodies to be encyclopedic.

Uncyclopedia has a run for its money.

-Stevertigo


from_name: DJ Bauch

body:
Thanks Brion, two of the issues were a snap to fix after your help -- and I
suspect that the 'tidy' issue will be easy also.

The problem with the "pagers" is actually related to some issues in the PHP
database library I'm using, which is the 3rd party ADOdb. Without getting
into a long story, MSSQL, ODBC, and PDO all had problems that I couldn't get
around until I found ADOdb -- primarily relating to the TEXT columns. ADOdb
has minimal support for scrolling cursors -- even though they should work,
since the recordsets are retrieved with client-side static cursors. That's
why I'm convinced I'll get them working -- even though I'll be in PHP up to
my elbows.

On 3/15/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> DJ Bauch wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I've been working on running MediaWIki on SQL Server 2000. It's mostly
> > working and it feels close to all working, but I still have a few major
> > wrinkles to iron out.
> > 1. Almost nothing that involves a "pager" is working yet, with just a
> couple
> > of exceptions.
>
> For that, make sure the LIMIT and OFFSET clauses (or equivalent) are set
> up right.
>
> These below are probably unrelated to the database:
>
> > 2. Interlanguage links are showing up at the end of the pages instead of
> in
> > a sidebar as on Wikipedia.
>
> You need to set up the interwiki table to include the links you want to
> use.
>
> > 3. Template documentation that's referenced from a template as {{/doc}}
> > doesn't get transcluded.
>
> This depends on the subpage settings; that the namespace of the pages
> you're working in is set in $wgNamespacesWithSubpages.
>
> > 4. Some tags generated by templates that are obviously meant to be
> > interpreted as HTML are instead getting interpreted as text (for
> example, if
> > I use the text & templates of the page [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] from
> > Wikipedia, I will see <small/> under Arnold's picture within the infobox
> at
> > the top of the page).
>
> Various templates on Wikipedia rely on some currently undefined behavior
> which differs between the default state and the state when $wgUseTidy is
> enabled (to use the external 'tidy' program to do HTML scrubbing).
>
> You may need to enable it to match Wikipedia's rendering of such
> templates.
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
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> KMsU6PdBNsmI4nuC+mOaBCA=
> =7huu
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
Hi.

We translated it into Basque. Regards,
--Miguel

On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 14:37, GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> For what language did you make a localisation ?
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> On 3/15/07, Miguel A. Cuesta <cuesta at alianzo.com> wrote:
>         Hi.
>
>         We created a translation file of MediaWiki and would like to
>         spread
>         it. It's not based on the very last version, but on a previous
>         one.
>
>         I've been reading
>         http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_localization
>         shall we create a patch for that version and then submit it to
>         'MediaWiki bugzilla'?
>
>         Is there any method to announce the creation of this new
>         translation?
>
>         Thank you very much.
>
>         --
>         Miguel A. Cuesta
>         Alianzo Networks
>         "We make social networks"
>
>         tel: (+34) 944 371 684 - skype me: cuesta-alianzo
>         mailto:cuesta at alianzo.com - IM/MSN: cuesta at alianzo.com
>
>
>
>         _______________________________________________
>         Wikitech-l mailing list
>         Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>         http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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

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


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
The notorious anti-Zionist Jimbo Wales and his ruthless cabal of
Wikifascists is in the news again (for values of news which may
include blogs pretending to be news agencies):
www.israelnewsagency.com/wikipediaterrorismiranrussialeninisraelcensorship4877031407.html

It's good to know that defamation on Wikipedia is restricted to
explicitly pro-Israeli subjects, I'll let the biography Wikiproject
know, they can stop watching the others.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 15/03/07, Miguel A. Cuesta <cuesta at alianzo.com> wrote:
> I've been reading
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_localization
> shall we create a patch for that version and then submit it to
> 'MediaWiki bugzilla'?

Please do!

> Is there any method to announce the creation of this new translation?

Hm, in general, no. You could announce it on the village pumps (or
equivalent) of the Wikimedia projects involved, and perhaps on
foundation-l, etc.

Localisation changes go into the release notes for the MediaWiki
software, so third-party users will know about it, if they bother to
read them. ;)

> Thank you very much.

Thank *you*. :)

Rob Church


from_name: phoebe ayers

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Air-l] unesco Community Multimedia Centres
	programme evaluation

body:
Perhaps of interest to those who were talking about this earlier; there's an
evaluation of the UNESCO Community Media Center program out now.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jeremy Hunsinger <jhuns at vt.edu>
Date: Mar 15, 2007 7:53 AM
Subject: [Air-l] unesco Community Multimedia Centres programme evaluation
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org

some of you might be interested in this:

The UNESCO supported "Community Multimedia Centers" are community-
based facilities offering both community radio broadcasting and
telecenter services. Radio broadcasts by local people in local
languages are now possible at low cost due to the development of
small, inexpensive, easy-to-operate broadcast facilities. In Africa
and other regions, where languages are spoken and national broadcast
networks are weak, community radio provides a new and important
medium for communication of news, information, and entertainment. The
radio not only informs, educates and entertains, but it also empowers
the community by giving a strong public voice to the voiceless, and
thus encouraging greater accountability in public affairs.
This UNESCO initiative showing the world the power of CMCs is in its
fifth year of operation, with 39 pilot CMCs established in
communities across Latin America/Caribbean, Africa and South Asia.

Read the recent evaluation of the UNESCO program.
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/files/22129/11477736959CMC_Evaluation_Final.pdf/CMC+Evaluation_Final.pdf


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Hoi,
For Basque there is already a localisation of the MediaWiki software..
It is generally available. What is the difference between your version
and the version that is already there ??
Thanks,
     GerardM

Miguel A. Cuesta schreef:
> Hi.
>
> We translated it into Basque. Regards,
> --Miguel
>
> On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 14:37, GerardM wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> For what language did you make a localisation ?
>> Thanks,
>>     GerardM
>>
>> On 3/15/07, Miguel A. Cuesta <cuesta at alianzo.com> wrote:
>>         Hi.
>>
>>         We created a translation file of MediaWiki and would like to
>>         spread
>>         it. It's not based on the very last version, but on a previous
>>         one.
>>
>>         I've been reading
>>         http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_localization
>>         shall we create a patch for that version and then submit it to
>>         'MediaWiki bugzilla'?
>>
>>         Is there any method to announce the creation of this new
>>         translation?
>>
>>         Thank you very much.
>>
>>         --
>>         Miguel A. Cuesta
>>         Alianzo Networks
>>         "We make social networks"
>>
>>         tel: (+34) 944 371 684 - skype me: cuesta-alianzo
>>         mailto:cuesta at alianzo.com - IM/MSN: cuesta at alianzo.com
>>
>>
>>
>>         _______________________________________________
>>         Wikitech-l mailing list
>>         Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>         http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>
>
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] How many editors are there?

body:
Yet again I have a journalist question: "How many editors are there on
Wikipedia?"

I can't find any solid numbers on this. I recall a graph showing that
activity per person is a power law graph, meaning there's no
sharply-definable answer.

Does anyone have any idea?

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] How many editors are there?


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
On 15/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> The notorious anti-Zionist Jimbo Wales and his ruthless cabal of
> Wikifascists is in the news again (for values of news which may
> include blogs pretending to be news agencies):
> www.israelnewsagency.com/wikipediaterrorismiranrussialeninisraelcensorship4877031407.html

The blog of a banned editor, no less. See if you can guess why he was banned.

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Edit toolbar images are hardcoded

body:
On 15/03/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> My recommendation would be to run the path through a method on the skin;
> by default it would return the common directory.
>
> A custom skin with its own images could override it.

I'm getting that BugZilla-deja-vu feeling on this one; sure it's an
open request somewhere.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] How many editors are there?

body:
On 15/03/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yet again I have a journalist question: "How many editors are there on
> Wikipedia?"
>
> I can't find any solid numbers on this. I recall a graph showing that
> activity per person is a power law graph, meaning there's no
> sharply-definable answer.
>
> Does anyone have any idea?

Do you mean registered users or anons too? Also, do you want stats for
English-language Wikipedia or Wikipedia as a whole?

Sadly, Erik Zachte's stats haven't been updated in 6 months. As of
September 2006 there were 285866 registered Wikipedians
(http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaZZ.htm).

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


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

Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>> # Recent changes
>> 'changes' => '???????',
>> 'recentchanges' => '??? ???????',
>> 'recentchanges-url' => '????:Recentchanges',
>> 'recentchangestext' => '???? ?  ???? ??? ??????? ?  wiki ?? ?? ????.',
>
>> "recentchanges-url" and other utrl tags end up mapping to their
>> translated constructs as the internal representation. i.e.
>> recentchanges-url ends up rendering as "??? ???????-url" as the page
>> link INTERNALLY rather than
>> "recentchanges-url", even though the internal variable is named
>> something else. This causes the page linking to
>> "????:Recentchanges" to end up pointing to a non-existent link. All of
>> the -url variables end up getting corrupted
>> this way.

It sounds to me like your problem is that you're running some sort of
automated translation on the *contents* of MediaWiki:Sidebar as though
it were article text, thus producing a useless, corrupt entry.

In other words, the problem is not that you imported MediaWiki:Sidebar;
the problem is that you imported a version of MediaWiki:Sidebar which is
meaningless. "Garbage in, garbage out." :)

Can you confirm?

I would recommend excluding such software configuration pages from your
translation tool.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFF+a+PwRnhpk1wk44RAs4yAJ9q4oxqT9hbE5oi50GZVruU+DJodgCgi8oC
HK6LKfi3VxRbJkK0x+fx6Hk=
=wL/Y
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] How many editors are there?

body:
On 15/03/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:

> Do you mean registered users or anons too? Also, do you want stats for
> English-language Wikipedia or Wikipedia as a whole?
> Sadly, Erik Zachte's stats haven't been updated in 6 months. As of
> September 2006 there were 285866 registered Wikipedians
> (http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaZZ.htm).

I don't mean usernames - that count is meaningless because of spambots
and vandalbots. I mean how many actual people there are who could
meaningfully be called editors.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
On 15/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> The notorious anti-Zionist Jimbo Wales and his ruthless cabal of
> Wikifascists is in the news again (for values of news which may
> include blogs pretending to be news agencies):
> www.israelnewsagency.com/wikipediaterrorismiranrussialeninisraelcensorship4877031407.html
>
> It's good to know that defamation on Wikipedia is restricted to
> explicitly pro-Israeli subjects, I'll let the biography Wikiproject
> know, they can stop watching the others.
>
> Guy (JzG)

"In response, I really scratched my head in bewilderment. Especially
given that some of those who attempt to attack and discredit Israelis
and Israel organizations are Jewish and Israeli."

I don't think we should worry about racist, nationalist articles like this.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] How many editors are there?

body:
On 15/03/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:

> On http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm there are the numbers of
> editors with at least 5 or at least 100 edits in a given month. For the
> English Wikipedia those numbers were around 45.000 and around 4000 in
> September; for all Wikipedias taken together (with people editing in more
> than one language counted double) 80.000 and 10.000.

Exactly what I was after, thank you!

- d.


body:
I am using the ADOdb Database Abstraction Libary for PHP and Python
available from SourceForge at http://adodb.sourceforge.net
I tried using both the ODBC and MS-SQL APIs from the PHP distribution and
was not satisfied with either one. Although they both worked partially,
neither one worked completely -- especially when it came to TEXT columns.
I have had to comment out one line of code in the ADOdb distribution in
order to get it working correctly for me. That line had something to do with
supporting some obscure Oracle feature, but was wreaking havoc for
non-Oracle. I'll have details about that on my blog
http://mediawikiworker.blogspot.com, when I get around to updating my blog.
Later, I had to make one other change to the ADOdb distribution in order to
enable scrolling cursors -- but since I don't have the scrolling cursors
working in all cases yet, I'm not ready to comment on what other changes
must be made to make the cursors work. This really only has much
significance on some of the Special: namespace pages.

On 3/15/07, River Tarnell <river at attenuate.org> wrote:
>
> DJ Bauch:
> > I've been working on running MediaWIki on SQL Server 2000.
>
> are you using ODBC or the MS SQL-specific API?
>
>        - river.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Simetrical

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20490]
	trunk/phase3/includes/SpecialUpload.php

body:
On 3/15/07, aaron at svn.wikimedia.org <aaron at svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Revision: 20490
> Author:   aaron
> Date:     2007-03-15 07:39:51 -0800 (Thu, 15 Mar 2007)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
> *Check $image->exists() rather that getArticleID() to avoid extraneous warning (bug 9019)
>
> Modified Paths:
> --------------
>     trunk/phase3/includes/SpecialUpload.php

And RELEASE-NOTES?


body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_a_work_in_progress

Great essay by User:Qxz. "So, if you rely on Wikipedia in its current
state, that's your problem. We're not done with it, and we never said
it would be any good ? we only said it would be free. If you aren't
satisfied with it now, help improve it, or come back in another six
years and take a look then. It'll be better. We promise."

- d.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Accountability: bringing back
 a	proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 15/03/07, luke brandt <shojokid at gmail.com> wrote on foundation-l:
>
>> Any views from the Foundation, or others, in light of the discussion and
>> straw vote:-
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Credential_Verification#Straw_poll_on_each_proposal
>> This needs to be resolved quickly (if public interest is to be taken
>> into account) But only one proposal seems to be garnering significant
>> support in the EN community - luke
>
> I note particularly these comments from User:Armed Blowfish -

The discussion appears to have been removed. Anyone know if discussion
of credentialism is going on anywhere else? I've transitioned from
ambivalence to disapproval of this idea and wouldn't mind tossing my two
cents in if there's still a chance of something like it being implemented.


from_name: luke brandt

subject:
[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a
 proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> geni wrote:
>> On 3/5/07, Erik Moeller wrote:
>>> 1) Any user can ask for his or her professional credentials to be verified.
>>>
>>
>> Creates work for office or simular that doesn't result in much benefit.
>
> I think the process should not be related in any way to the office if
> there is any way at all to avoid it.  It should not proceed through a
> bottleneck of a committee or designated person.  It should be highly
> distributed and networked like all successful wikipedia processes.
>
> --Jimbo

Any views from the Foundation, or others, in light of the discussion and
straw vote:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Credential_Verification#Straw_poll_on_each_proposal

This needs to be resolved quickly (if public interest is to be taken
into account) But only one proposal seems to be garnering significant
support in the EN community - luke


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Does anyone want to help me build a digg/reddit
	style wikipedia filter?

body:
On 3/15/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
> > Would the devs regard loading the Wikipedia page in a frame as live-mirroring?
>
> They don't need to. Unless you're logged in and had set wgBreakFrames to
> false, the wiki will escape itself from the frame jail.

wgBreakFrames is set to false on Wikipedia.


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-15

body:
On 3/15/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, there's not. Yesterday one more test was added, but there isn't
> any failing test now passing (in that case a new line would appear
> noting it).

One was fixed within the past few days.  Don't remember which.


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> The alternative, though, is to start going down the route of
> editcountitis or verifiable expertise, neither of which is
> particularly attractive either.

How about making the "approval" trigger simply be an edit by a user
who's been registered for more than four days? If it's good enough for
preventing vandalism on semiprotected pages I imagine it's probably good
enough to limit the vandalism elsewhere.


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2007/3/15, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
>
> Yet again I have a journalist question: "How many editors are there on
> Wikipedia?"
>
> I can't find any solid numbers on this. I recall a graph showing that
> activity per person is a power law graph, meaning there's no
> sharply-definable answer.
>
> Does anyone have any idea?
>

On http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm there are the numbers of
editors with at least 5 or at least 100 edits in a given month. For the
English Wikipedia those numbers were around 45.000 and around 4000 in
September; for all Wikipedias taken together (with people editing in more
than one language counted double) 80.000 and 10.000.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
On 15/03/07, Sharon, Lois Bram <oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/15/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > "In response, I really scratched my head in bewilderment. Especially
> > given that some of those who attempt to attack and discredit Israelis
> > and Israel organizations are Jewish and Israeli."
> >
> > I don't think we should worry about racist, nationalist articles like
> > this.
> That seems to be a very strong misstatement you make about the website,
> possibly crossing into libel.

I said nothing about the website. I was expressing my opinion about
the article. Can you tell me how I'm wrong?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Maximum wikien-l message size now 10 kilobytes

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>I've just turned the maximum message size down to 10KB (previously
>32KB). This should knock out quite a lot of the spam, since much of it
>is email worms of 20-30KB.
>
>I don't *think* this will knock out many human messages, though if it
>does we can turn it back up. Or you could split your epic treatise
>into two ;-)
>
Another option is to avoid excessive quoting. O:-)

Ec


subject:
[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a
	proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

body:
On 15/03/07, luke brandt <shojokid at gmail.com> wrote on foundation-l:

> Any views from the Foundation, or others, in light of the discussion and
> straw vote:-
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Credential_Verification#Straw_poll_on_each_proposal
> This needs to be resolved quickly (if public interest is to be taken
> into account) But only one proposal seems to be garnering significant
> support in the EN community - luke

I note particularly these comments from User:Armed Blowfish -

    I believe that any credential or identity verification system will
increase systemic bias against people from developing countries,
people without documentation, and people too poor to get a good
education, if any education at all. UNICEF estimates that one third of
the world's population do not even have a birth
certificates.(http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0098-7921%28199809%2924%3A3%3C659%3AUODBRI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6&size=LARGE)
(http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/media_35255.html) The economic
inability to get a good education, as is common in developing
countries, does not make someone less intelligent.

    According to overpopulation.com
(http://www.overpopulation.com/articles/2001/000050.html), "In 1950
there were two people in developing countries for every person living
in the developed world. By 2050, there will be six people living in
developing countries for every person in the more developed world."
Look, I am not advocating affirmative action, I just don't want to
make it impossible for any of these people to become administrators,
checkusers, and all that, considering how sadly under-represented they
already are.

I agree. It really doesn't fit in too well with our attempts to
counter systemic bias to deliberately introduce a new one.

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Accountability: bringing back a
	proposal I made nearly 2 years ago


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
On 3/15/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a limited patience for that sort of thing.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
>

Also it was deleted through AFD rather than out of process or whatever:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Israel_News_Agency_%283rd_nomination%29

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
On 15/03/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:

> I said nothing about the website. I was expressing my opinion about
> the article. Can you tell me how I'm wrong?

Please don't feed the troll.

- d.


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

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Wiki" wins a place in Oxford English Dictionary


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
Guettarda wrote:

>I am curious about the practicality of trying to prosecute someone for
>vandalism of a wiki. Andrew Schlafly seems to think it's possible, given the
>warning on the Conservapedia main page.
>
>"Conservapedia claims that posting obscene material or vandalizing the site
>is illegal, and could result in a jail sentence of ten years. It makes these
>claims on the basis of Title 18 of the United States Code, specifically 18
>USC ? 1470 (with respect to obscenity) and 18 USC ? 1030 (with respect to
>vandalism)."
>
>(From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia)
>
>How would the courts look at vandalism when you have given someone the
>ability to edit the site?  Unlike Wikipedia, Conservapedia only allows
>logged-in editing.  Does that mean that we have a stronger case to complain
>about vandalism (since, literally, anyone can edit, so we aren't "approving"
>the vandals) or a weaker case (since, literally, anyone can edit)?
>
It would be great if they actually filed such a case.  If they do we
should make a public show of support. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 12:18:34 -0500, "Sharon, Lois Bram"
<oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:

>I don't think that this is what the writer of that article is saying at all.

I do.  That and bitching about being banned for spamming and bias and
attacks, of course.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
On 3/15/07, Sharon, Lois Bram <oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:
> Guy,
>
> I don't think that this is what the writer of that article is saying at all.
> I think that twisting words like this is not good nor is it honest, and that
> trying to paint someone in this manner because of your own personal views is
> a terrible way to be behaving.

The article was written by a complete and utter crackpot. Anyone can
see that. I mean, the headline was "Does Wikipedia Support Terrorism".
You know what the legions of supergeeky people sitting hours and hours
behind a computer screen, writing articles and fixing stuff for no pay
so that there will be an amazing free resource of knowledge for
everyone really are like? They're pure Qaida! Believe me, I know lots
of them.

If you take this article seriously in any way, shape or form it says a
whole lot more about you than it does about anything else.

--Oskar


from_name: Platonides

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Does anyone want to help me build a digg/reddit
 style wikipedia filter?

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Would the devs regard loading the Wikipedia page in a frame as live-mirroring?

They don't need to. Unless you're logged in and had set wgBreakFrames to
false, the wiki will escape itself from the frame jail.


body:
Jim Wilson wrote:
>> 17 still FAILING test(s) :(
>
> Hey - that's one less than yesterday! Yay! :)

Sorry, there's not. Yesterday one more test was added, but there isn't
any failing test now passing (in that case a new line would appear
noting it).


from_name: Earle Martin

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Oops (or,
	be careful when quoting Wikipedia in your newspaper, part 2)

body:
London has a free daily newspaper called [[thelondonpaper]]. Every
day, on the puzzles page, there's a little factoid at the top of the
page. Today it said:

    [in Big Type:] 670.6
    The number of miles per hour at which light travels.
    source: en.wikipedia.org

Oh dear. I think the word "million" went missing somewhere. From
[[speed of light]]:

    "Converted to imperial units, the speed of light is
approximately... 670,616,629.384 miles per hour, or almost one foot
per nanosecond."

I just hope that people realise the error was on their part, not ours.
(Probably, considering that they also had a story today titled "Jolie
Adopts Fourth Child", which began "Angelina Jolie today adopted a
third child...")

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


from_name: K P

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
  Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com>    to English
 show details
 10:47 am (9 hours ago)      On 3/15/07, Sharon, Lois Bram <
oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:
> Guy,
>
> I don't think that this is what the writer of that article is saying at
all.
> I think that twisting words like this is not good nor is it honest, and
that
> trying to paint someone in this manner because of your own personal views
is
> a terrible way to be behaving.

The article was written by a complete and utter crackpot. Anyone can
see that.
Not such a complete and utter crackpot that the article rated not being read
and passed along.  KP


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 13/03/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> I wonder sometimes if we ought to mark non-live and non-article pages
> somehow visually, to flag up that they're not quite right. I'm not
> sure how - a red bar at the top under the pagename?
>
> This is an archived draft of the article {{PAGENAME}}. It may contain
> inaccuracies or errors not present in the [[{{PAGENAME}}|current
> version]].

This is now pretty much live, except it's still appearing small and
grey. Comments appreciated...

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as a primary source

body:
On 14/03/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem is that we can't make it publicly accessible; this is
> mainly for privacy reasons - there's no guarantee they didn't leave
> nonpublic comments in the same email, giving their address is
> essential to make it "verifiable" but really not a good idea given the
> Sort Of Odd People we sometimes attract.

Could we not publish edited extracts of those emails on a Foundation
site somewhere and link to those from the articles, rather than a
private resource which will be of no use to 99% of editors? Each of
those extracts could refer to the original email in OTRS, for checking
if necessary.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is editted by PAYED professionals and experts

body:
Someone came to Wikipedia's defense today:

http://www.conservapedia.com/
Talk:Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia#Wikipedia_about_twice_as_non_religiou
s_as_Americans

"Wikipedia is a GLOBAL source. Edited by GLOBAL users, who all are
supposed to be submitting factual information or for controversial
subjects, both possible sides (or all possible sides if more than
two). So no-matter what, the end-result on Wikipedia, after it is
editted by its PAYED professionals and experts, is factual
information and non-biased articles. Wikipedia, and any other site
should not have to cater to the religious just because there are more
of them in America. There are other countries too, and nobody is
attempting to cater to them. There are other points of view, but
nobody is catering to them. Facts are facts are facts, they remain
the same whether they support religious claims or not. 100% of
America could be Creationists, yet Wikipedia would still show every
possible side of things, not ONLY the creationist part, if you
understand what I mean. Every statistic that is used to try and show
that Wikipedia has biased is 100% irrelevant in every way."

No, I do not think this is a joke. (Although on Conservapedia it is
always hard to be sure. A new piece of jargon has emerged on
Conservapedia, one which I don't think I've ever seen on Wikipedia:
the phrase "parody vandal.")

I wish my reaction to this could be something simple, like, "You tell
'em kid! I stutter!" But that "PAYED professionals" part disturbs me.

How many other Wikipedia readers think this?

As nearly as I can guess at his thinking, it must go something like
this:

1a) Wikipedia must be reliable, because it's at the top of so many
Google searches, and "they" wouldn't put it at the top if it weren't.

Or (more sophisticated version of same)

1b) Wikipedia's being at the top of so many Google searches proves
that a lot of people use it, so it must be reliable.

2) The only way for an information source to be reliable is to be
"editted by PAYED professionals and experts."

3) Therefore, Wikipedia must be "editted by PAYED professionals and
experts."

Fortunately, Wikipedia's mission is to be a free encyclopedia,
because if its mission was to make some point about the virtue of non-
authoritarianism and the sterility of "expertise," it's not getting
through.

I wonder how many Wikipedia readers even think of the possibility
that they could be looking at a page during the minute or so that it
contains unreverted vandalism?


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] How many editors are there?

body:
"David Gerard" wrote

> I can't find any solid numbers on this. I recall a graph showing that
> activity per person is a power law graph, meaning there's no
> sharply-definable answer.
>
> Does anyone have any idea?

I've been telling the media that WP is equivalent to about 1000 full time editors. That's sort of plausible (all languages). Article creation at around 30000/week?  Creating six new short articles a day is a full time job.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Why cutting'n'pasting from Wikipedia is not a good
	idea

body:
On 15/03/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13/03/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I wonder sometimes if we ought to mark non-live and non-article pages
> > somehow visually, to flag up that they're not quite right. I'm not
> > sure how - a red bar at the top under the pagename?
> >
> > This is an archived draft of the article {{PAGENAME}}. It may contain
> > inaccuracies or errors not present in the [[{{PAGENAME}}|current
> > version]].
>
> This is now pretty much live, except it's still appearing small and
> grey. Comments appreciated...

...at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Viewing_old_revisions

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: River Tarnell

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.10 mostly working on SQL Server 2000

body:
DJ Bauch:
> I've been working on running MediaWIki on SQL Server 2000.

are you using ODBC or the MS SQL-specific API?

	- river.


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 15/03/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > So its a wiki (free, open) that avoids Wikipedias "complex copyright
> > rules",  bases its community policing on threats, misconstrues our
> > usage of "vandalism" to be equivalent to the legal usage, follows SPOV
> > (Schlafly POV), and considers parodies to be encyclopedic.
> > Uncyclopedia has a run for its money.
>
>
> Yer not wrong:
>
>
> http://untravel.blogspot.com/2007/03/conservapedia-testing-russells-law.html

Wow - I actually picked the wrong one.


from_name: Samuel Klein

body:
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007, Robert Horning wrote:

> And I believe you can get very meaningful contributions from many of
> these same individuals who certainly don't have a PhD.  The difference

Is anyone disputing this? If so, that should be the subject of its own
thread.

Accountability should have nothing to do with confirming or verifying the
quality of contributions; it is just like a Real Names policy -- a
question of a community's standards for trust.

> credentials on most subjects by its primary contributors.  And FA class
> articles would be on the statistical tail where I think you would be
> more likely to find educational credentials brought up in serious
> discussions.

When this comes up in serious discussions, does it carry weight?
I wouldg greatly appreciate references to where this carries weight on
Wikipedia.

SJ


from_name: Gary Kirk

body:
Its free. You get what you pay for.

(of course Wikipedia and open source stuff is different -
thelondonpaper isn't collaboratively written :P)

Personally I enjoy reading this paper on the train when I'm up town,
but I guess I should take it with a pinch of salt :)

On 15/03/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps they should higher a toddler to do the counting for them.
> I know a few who could do a better job counting than they've done...
>
> Mgm
>
> On 3/15/07, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> >
> > London has a free daily newspaper called [[thelondonpaper]]. Every
> > day, on the puzzles page, there's a little factoid at the top of the
> > page. Today it said:
> >
> >     [in Big Type:] 670.6
> >     The number of miles per hour at which light travels.
> >     source: en.wikipedia.org
> >
> > Oh dear. I think the word "million" went missing somewhere. From
> > [[speed of light]]:
> >
> >     "Converted to imperial units, the speed of light is
> > approximately... 670,616,629.384 miles per hour, or almost one foot
> > per nanosecond."
> >
> > I just hope that people realise the error was on their part, not ours.
> > (Probably, considering that they also had a story today titled "Jolie
> > Adopts Fourth Child", which began "Angelina Jolie today adopted a
> > third child...")
> >
> >
> > --
> > Earle Martin
> >             http://downlode.org/
> > http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:10:13 +0000, "Earle Martin"
<wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:

>London has a free daily newspaper called [[thelondonpaper]].

I'd dispute the word "news" in there...

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:49:21 -0800, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>I find this attempt to give admins even more power objectionable.  There
>are plenty of us who have been around for a long time without having
>become admins.  Many operate in limited non-controversial areas.  The
>result would be a huge number of articles that will need to be edited by
>admins; these articles previously managed quite well without involvement
>of admins.

I agree.  As an idea, giving content powers to admins sucks badly.  I
hardly get to write any content these days, for which I can only blame
myself, and I am certainly no more authoritative an editor (often much
less authoritative) than anyone else.

The alternative, though, is to start going down the route of
editcountitis or verifiable expertise, neither of which is
particularly attractive either.  Or featured article style reviews
(bring shrubberies) or the ludicrous pretence which is the Good
Article system.  All suck.

I suspect this is why stable versions has not happened yet...

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: James Redmond

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
On Mar 15, 2007, at 8:41 AM, Guettarda wrote:

> I am curious about the practicality of trying to prosecute someone for
> vandalism of a wiki. Andrew Schlafly seems to think it's possible,
> given the
> warning on the Conservapedia main page.
>
> "Conservapedia claims that posting obscene material or vandalizing
> the site
> is illegal, and could result in a jail sentence of ten years. It
> makes these
> claims on the basis of Title 18 of the United States Code,
> specifically 18
> USC ? 1470 (with respect to obscenity) and 18 USC ? 1030 (with
> respect to
> vandalism)."
>
> (From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia)
>
> How would the courts look at vandalism when you have given someone the
> ability to edit the site?  Unlike Wikipedia, Conservapedia only allows
> logged-in editing.  Does that mean that we have a stronger case to
> complain
> about vandalism (since, literally, anyone can edit, so we aren't
> "approving"
> the vandals) or a weaker case (since, literally, anyone can edit)?

IANAL, but 18 USC ? 1030 is irrelevant unless somebody uses the wiki
in question to leak classified information, commit fraud, or
compromise a "protected computer".

Jim Redmond
jim at scrubnugget.com


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 3/15/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Mar 2007, Anthony wrote:
> > But apparently the rules say otherwise.  So if you want to know why
> > the rules prohibit one but not the other, ask the people who made the
> > rules - it wasn't me.
>
> Then what's your point?  We're talking about what the rules *should* say.
> If you're only willing to discuss what the rules do say, you're not really
> discussing at all.
>
It seems to me that you're the one who keeps bringing up what the
rules say, and that's precisely the part I'm not interested in
discussing.

Anthony


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
Individual editors do anything ranging from promotion of racism and
terrorism and simply childish vandalism.
This 'article' clearly doesn't see the difference between Wikipedia and POV
warriors. Wikipedia isn't attacking anyone.

Mgm

On 3/15/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> The notorious anti-Zionist Jimbo Wales and his ruthless cabal of
> Wikifascists is in the news again (for values of news which may
> include blogs pretending to be news agencies):
>
> www.israelnewsagency.com/wikipediaterrorismiranrussialeninisraelcensorship4877031407.html
>
> It's good to know that defamation on Wikipedia is restricted to
> explicitly pro-Israeli subjects, I'll let the biography Wikiproject
> know, they can stop watching the others.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Perhaps they should higher a toddler to do the counting for them.
I know a few who could do a better job counting than they've done...

Mgm

On 3/15/07, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
>
> London has a free daily newspaper called [[thelondonpaper]]. Every
> day, on the puzzles page, there's a little factoid at the top of the
> page. Today it said:
>
>     [in Big Type:] 670.6
>     The number of miles per hour at which light travels.
>     source: en.wikipedia.org
>
> Oh dear. I think the word "million" went missing somewhere. From
> [[speed of light]]:
>
>     "Converted to imperial units, the speed of light is
> approximately... 670,616,629.384 miles per hour, or almost one foot
> per nanosecond."
>
> I just hope that people realise the error was on their part, not ours.
> (Probably, considering that they also had a story today titled "Jolie
> Adopts Fourth Child", which began "Angelina Jolie today adopted a
> third child...")
>
>
> --
> Earle Martin
>             http://downlode.org/
> http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Do messages that clock in over the maximum get bounced with a descriptive
error message to the sender?

Mgm


subject:
[Wikitech-l] MediaWiki:<meta> Labels in dumps cause interwiki
	errors

references:
<45F96C34.8020506@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<45F99283.5020201@pobox.com>	<45F99549.8050902@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<45F9AF8F.4060902@pobox.com>
	<45F9A1AA.9050008@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> I leave it to your call if you feel the dumps should exclude some of the
> MediaWiki settings.  Personally, I would advise
> against it since it is always possible someone could inadvertantly
> insert some text or content that could create a security
> exploit or problems with other MediaWiki versions, but as I said, this
> is your call.  I think documenting and understanding
> there could be a potential issue down the road or if someone uses the
> MediaWiki software to import dumps across
> languages there could be compatibility issues.

I doubt users would inadvertantly insert a security exploit for older
versions. More likely, you may get javascript errors. And if you remove
the messages, you will get people complaining of NavFramem
RealTitleBanner, featured articles Interwikis... not working


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] cache images once for everybody?

body:
On 3/15/07, Dan Jacobson <jidanni at jidanni.org> wrote:
> Say, do the boilerplate images always present on every Mediawiki page
> have enough Expires and/or etc. headers to keep them cached around the
> network for a long time? (Can't tell here offline with images turned
> off anyway). Seems like optimizing that would need messing with the
> apache etc. configuration as it is beyond what one can do with php as
> they are <img src=...>.

WMF images are generally served with instructions to cache for 30
days, IIRC.  Nevertheless, a fairly large percentage of hits are cache
misses for the images, is my impression.  Cache-Control can specify
maximum cache ages, but not minimum.


from_name: Philippe Beaudette

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
My understanding is that the Arb Comm has to make a finding, then we have to establish consensus.

Philippe
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Daniel M?hkeri
  To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
  Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 10:16 PM
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

  > The article was written by a complete and utter
  > crackpot. Anyone can see that. I mean, the headline
  > was "Does Wikipedia Support Terrorism".

  Yes, that article was bloody typical of the infidels,
  eh? I call for jihad.

  Now, I didn't follow that other thread, did we decide
  that Jimbo can still issue fatwas, or do we now have
  to go through the bureaucracy?

  Cheers,
  Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri

  __________________________________________________
  Do You Yahoo!?
  En finir avec le spam? Yahoo! Courriel vous offre la meilleure protection possible contre les messages non nollicit?s
  http://mail.yahoo.ca Yahoo! Courriel

  _______________________________________________
  WikiEN-l mailing list
  WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
  To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
  http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 15/03/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> Do messages that clock in over the maximum get bounced with a descriptive
> error message to the sender?

I've no idea! I'm sure we'll find out ...

- d.


from_name: Daniel Méhkeri

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
> The article was written by a complete and utter
> crackpot. Anyone can see that. I mean, the headline
> was "Does Wikipedia Support Terrorism".

Yes, that article was bloody typical of the infidels,
eh? I call for jihad.

Now, I didn't follow that other thread, did we decide
that Jimbo can still issue fatwas, or do we now have
to go through the bureaucracy?

Cheers,
Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
En finir avec le spam? Yahoo! Courriel vous offre la meilleure protection possible contre les messages non nollicit?s
http://mail.yahoo.ca Yahoo! Courriel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
On 15/03/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:

> So its a wiki (free, open) that avoids Wikipedias "complex copyright
> rules",  bases its community policing on threats, misconstrues our
> usage of "vandalism" to be equivalent to the legal usage, follows SPOV
> (Schlafly POV), and considers parodies to be encyclopedic.
> Uncyclopedia has a run for its money.

Yer not wrong:

http://untravel.blogspot.com/2007/03/conservapedia-testing-russells-law.html

- d.


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Restricting the GFDL license to the namespace

body:
On 3/15/07, Kusma <kusma.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That wouldn't be very practical. It happens quite often that content
> is moved between namespaces. For example, articles about Wikipedia are
> sometimes moved from the main to the Wikipedia: namespace when they
> are seen as not notable enough for a general audience, but interesting
> enough for Wikipedians to keep. Users also sometimes work
> collaboratively on a draft in user space. All these useful
> cross-namespace moves become license violations when different
> namespaces use different licenses. Even worse, transclusion of some
> namespaces in others would have to be disabled, or the result will be
> a confusing mixed-license mess.

That's the most important reason why all content must be published
under the GFDL.

I take the view that the distinction drawn between "the encyclopaedia"
and "the other stuff" is really an artificial one anyway. Wikipedia is
not merely a sum of the article namespace; rather, it's content plus a
record of how that content was created.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:45:26 -0700, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com>
wrote:

>So its a wiki (free, open) that avoids Wikipedias "complex copyright
>rules",  bases its community policing on threats, misconstrues our
>usage of "vandalism" to be equivalent to the legal usage, follows SPOV
>(Schlafly POV), and considers parodies to be encyclopedic.
>Uncyclopedia has a run for its money.

Nah.  Uncyclopedia is actually funny.

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Umpires

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-16

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20506).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  17 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 494 of 511 tests (96.67%)... 17 tests failed!


from_name: Vee

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is editted by PAYED professionals and
	experts

body:
>
> Someone came to Wikipedia's defense today:
>
> http://www.conservapedia.com/
> Talk:Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia#Wikipedia_about_twice_as_non_religiou
> s_as_Americans
>
> "Wikipedia is a GLOBAL source. Edited by GLOBAL users, who all are
> supposed to be submitting factual information or for controversial
> subjects, both possible sides (or all possible sides if more than
> two). So no-matter what, the end-result on Wikipedia, after it is
> editted by its PAYED professionals and experts, is factual
> information and non-biased articles. Wikipedia, and any other site
> should not have to cater to the religious just because there are more
> of them in America. There are other countries too, and nobody is
> attempting to cater to them. There are other points of view, but
> nobody is catering to them. Facts are facts are facts, they remain
> the same whether they support religious claims or not. 100% of
> America could be Creationists, yet Wikipedia would still show every
> possible side of things, not ONLY the creationist part, if you
> understand what I mean. Every statistic that is used to try and show
> that Wikipedia has biased is 100% irrelevant in every way."
>
> No, I do not think this is a joke. (Although on Conservapedia it is
> always hard to be sure. A new piece of jargon has emerged on
> Conservapedia, one which I don't think I've ever seen on Wikipedia:
> the phrase "parody vandal.")
>
> I wish my reaction to this could be something simple, like, "You tell
> 'em kid! I stutter!" But that "PAYED professionals" part disturbs me.
>
> How many other Wikipedia readers think this?
>
> As nearly as I can guess at his thinking, it must go something like
> this:
>
> 1a) Wikipedia must be reliable, because it's at the top of so many
> Google searches, and "they" wouldn't put it at the top if it weren't.
>
> Or (more sophisticated version of same)
>
> 1b) Wikipedia's being at the top of so many Google searches proves
> that a lot of people use it, so it must be reliable.
>
> 2) The only way for an information source to be reliable is to be
> "editted by PAYED professionals and experts."
>
> 3) Therefore, Wikipedia must be "editted by PAYED professionals and
> experts."
>
> Fortunately, Wikipedia's mission is to be a free encyclopedia,
> because if its mission was to make some point about the virtue of non-
> authoritarianism and the sterility of "expertise," it's not getting
> through.
>
> I wonder how many Wikipedia readers even think of the possibility
> that they could be looking at a page during the minute or so that it
> contains unreverted vandalism?
>

 I wish people would stop giving credence to anything said on
Convservapedia. The [[Talk:Conservapedia]] page is ridiculous.

And in answer to your question, I don't think as many people are clueless as
to the way Wikipedia works as Wikipedians seem to think. But I guess there
are some out there. I see an awful lot of comments on talk pages to the tune
of "Why does [article] say [stupid thing]??? This is totally incorrect!!!"
without seeming to realise that it's just vandalism, can be reverted by
anyone, including themselves, and that things like this are bound to happen
where anyone can edit... I suppose from this it also follows that the same
people are reading less obvious vandalism (i.e. a case where a vandal has
changed all the dates in the article, or the subject's place of birth or
something) and accepting it as truth because 'they' wrote it. Is there a
disclaimer anywhere obvious on Wikipedia that points out that as any can
edit, information may not be accurate and the page that they are viewing may
have been vandalised? I don't recall seeing one. I remember before I started
editing WP at the instigation of a friend I mentally blocked out all the
'edit' buttons and cleanup tags encouraging me to improve the articles, etc.

(this is my first post to the mailing list.. hope i've done it right)


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

body:
On 3/16/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've no idea! I'm sure we'll find out ...

Why don't you just copy the entire text of Anna Karenina (or AN/I,
about the same size) into an email and try to send it? We know it wont
reach the list, and you'll see what kind of reply you get.

--Oskar


from_name: Dan Jacobson

subject: [Wikitech-l] multiple wikis, single LocalSettings.php

body:
In my previous post, "multiple wikis, single MediaWiki file tree", I
demonstrated my sparkling single LocalSettings.php, AdminSettings.php,
and indeed entire MediaWiki file tree, for multiple wikis right there
on the same server.

Platonides (P) responded with a more aggressive approach that rips up
more of LocalSettings.php than I (D) dare. And in closing, he says

D> $wgDBserver="mysql.$wgServerName";

P> I suppose you know what will be happening if someone finds a way to
P> overwrite your $wgServerName variable...

How could that happen? $wgServerName is born in the safe confines of
DefaultSettings.php.


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Look Who's Using Wikipedia

body:
Jake Nelson wrote:
> Locations and events in non-English-speaking countries tend to have
> very little information, or it's badly out of date (in some cases, by
> a few centuries).

I noticed this in particular when someone mentioned that the English
Wikipedia has now grown to the point where it should focus more on
quality than quantity, since 1.x million articles is surely enough.
That seemed possible to me, although I thought there was still plenty of
obscure but important information we were missing.  But when I did some
brief surveys, it turns out we don't have to dig for anything even
remotely obscure to find articles missing.  Looking at, say, political
leaders, we don't have anywhere *close* to an article on every leader of
a sovereign country.  And it's not just that we have bad coverage of the
non-western world---the English Wikipedia doesn't even have an article
on every prime minister of Austria, to pick a European country.

So I'd be surprised if we're "done" covering even the top-tier subjects
before we get to 3 million articles, if even then.

-Mark


from_name: Jim Hu

subject: [Wikitech-l] More on creating templates

body:
I think you confused everyone here because "Template" has  a very
specific meaning in mediawiki.

I think you might be looking for something more like this:

	http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TableEdit

On Mar 16, 2007, at 2:21 AM, phpuser wrote:

> Jim Hu <jimhu at ...> writes:
>
>>
>> Hmm... I thought there was a way to preload a template with inputbox,
>> but that must have been from some discussion on the list, not in the
>> original extension.  Anyone remember if anyone got that working?
>>
>> Jim
>> =====================================
>> Jim Hu
>> Associate Professor
>> Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
>> 2128 TAMU
>> Texas A&M Univ.
>> College Station, TX 77843-2128
>> 979-862-4054
>>
>> On Mar 13, 2007, at 9:38 AM, Jim Hu wrote:
>>
>>> Look at the InputBox
>>>
>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Inputbox
>>> =====================================
>>> Jim Hu
>>> Associate Professor
>>> Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
>>> 2128 TAMU
>>> Texas A&M Univ.
>>> College Station, TX 77843-2128
>>> 979-862-4054
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 13, 2007, at 7:34 AM, phpuser wrote:
>>>
>>>> When i click xyz, a template should be created where user can enter
>>>> any
>>>> details(say schedule)
>>>> when i click abc, a different template should be created where user
>>>> can enter
>>>> some other details(say news)
>>>> This should be done using mediawiki.
>>>> i will create one page called Template:<xyz>
>>>> and another page called Template:<abc>
>>>> Should i do this in function performAction in wiki.php using switch
>>>> case 'raw'
>>>> or is it something else?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>>>> Wikitech-l at ...
>>>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>>> Wikitech-l at ...
>>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>
> Hi
> Thanks for your response.
> I dont want to create a new page everytime.
> I want to create a template using mediawiki.
> Here are the details:-
> When the user clicks a link Create Xyz
> It opens a new form/template not page
> Here user can enter xyz details (like say event details) in
> wikitext in a
> editor(somewhat similar to wordpad) and click save button
>
> When the user clicks a link Create Abc
> It should open a new form/template not page
> Here user can enter abc details (like say event details) in a editor
> (somewhat
> similar to wordpad) and click save button
>
> I can do this in php but can you let me know how i can do this
> using mediawiki?
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

=====================================
Jim Hu
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2128 TAMU
Texas A&M Univ.
College Station, TX 77843-2128
979-862-4054


from_name: phpuser

subject: [Wikitech-l] Antwort: template creation

body:
Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at ...> writes:

> What do you mean by "template"? It sounds like you might be meaning
> "form", which is a very different thing. When you say the user enters
> details, do you mean enters them in wikitext in an article like
> {{abc|details go here}}, or do you mean entering them in text boxes
> and clicking a submit button?
>
Thanks for your response first.Here are the details:
When the user clicks a link Create Xyz
It opens a new form/template not page
Here user can enter xyz details (like say event details) in wikitext in a
editor(somewhat similar to wordpad) and click save button

When the user clicks a link Create Abc
It should open a new form/template not page
Here user can enter abc details (like say event details) in a editor(somewhat
similar to wordpad) and click save button

I can do this in php but can you let me know how i can do this using mediawiki?


from_name: Dan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-15

body:
17 is less than 18. Yay.

On 3/16/07, Mark Clements <gmane at kennel17.co.uk> wrote:
>
> "Simetrical" <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com>
> wrote in message
> news:7c2a12e20703151435t23ac9c53q8b27502c61236cf7 at mail.gmail.com...
> > On 3/15/07, Platonides
> <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Sorry, there's not. Yesterday one more test was added, but there isn't
> > > any failing test now passing (in that case a new line would appear
> > > noting it).
> >
> > One was fixed within the past few days.  Don't remember which.
>
> One of the TODOs was fixed on the 14th:
>
>    1 new PASSING test(s) :)
>       * 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line  [Has never failed]
>
>    1 previously FAILING test(s) removed O_o
>       * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line  [First recorded appearance:
> 11-Nov-2006 12:40:23, 1.9alpha (r17532)]
>
>
> - Mark Clements (HappyDog)
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


subject: [Wikitech-l] More on creating templates

body:
Jim Hu <jimhu at ...> writes:

>
> Hmm... I thought there was a way to preload a template with inputbox,
> but that must have been from some discussion on the list, not in the
> original extension.  Anyone remember if anyone got that working?
>
> Jim
> =====================================
> Jim Hu
> Associate Professor
> Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
> 2128 TAMU
> Texas A&M Univ.
> College Station, TX 77843-2128
> 979-862-4054
>
> On Mar 13, 2007, at 9:38 AM, Jim Hu wrote:
>
> > Look at the InputBox
> >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Inputbox
> > =====================================
> > Jim Hu
> > Associate Professor
> > Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
> > 2128 TAMU
> > Texas A&M Univ.
> > College Station, TX 77843-2128
> > 979-862-4054
> >
> >
> > On Mar 13, 2007, at 7:34 AM, phpuser wrote:
> >
> >> When i click xyz, a template should be created where user can enter
> >> any
> >> details(say schedule)
> >> when i click abc, a different template should be created where user
> >> can enter
> >> some other details(say news)
> >> This should be done using mediawiki.
> >> i will create one page called Template:<xyz>
> >> and another page called Template:<abc>
> >> Should i do this in function performAction in wiki.php using switch
> >> case 'raw'
> >> or is it something else?
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Wikitech-l mailing list
> >> Wikitech-l at ...
> >> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at ...
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
Hi
Thanks for your response.
I dont want to create a new page everytime.
I want to create a template using mediawiki.
Here are the details:-
When the user clicks a link Create Xyz
It opens a new form/template not page
Here user can enter xyz details (like say event details) in wikitext in a
editor(somewhat similar to wordpad) and click save button

When the user clicks a link Create Abc
It should open a new form/template not page
Here user can enter abc details (like say event details) in a editor(somewhat
similar to wordpad) and click save button

I can do this in php but can you let me know how i can do this using mediawiki?


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] [daily-image-l] 2007-03-15

body:
On 16/03/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:

> Check in the archives:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/daily-image-l/2007-March/000024.html
> it worked. I received the post (via the mailing list) with the link.
> A guy reported to me that he received some emails without links
> (although he still  had the 'copyright status'). I have no idea why
> that might be, or how to fix it.

Weird - link is disappearing in Gmail. Again today as well. I may
report a bug and see if it gets anywhere.

> BTW any problems with the list can be reported directly to me rather
> than to the Commons list.

*ahem* ok :-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Maximum wikien-l message size now 10 kilobytes

body:
On 15/03/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15/03/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Do messages that clock in over the maximum get bounced with a descriptive
> > error message to the sender?

> I've no idea! I'm sure we'll find out ...

Your mail to 'WikiEN-l' with the subject

   x

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

   Message body is too big: 96053 bytes with a limit of 10 KB

Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator's decision.  If you would like to cancel
this posting, please visit the following URL:

Bah, so much for saving moderator work!

- d.


body:
On 15/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:10:13 +0000, "Earle Martin"
> <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:

> >London has a free daily newspaper called [[thelondonpaper]].

> I'd dispute the word "news" in there...

A free daily News paper. (It's a Murdoch creation.)

- d.


from_name: Ken Arromdee

body:
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007, Anthony wrote:
> > > But apparently the rules say otherwise.  So if you want to know why
> > > the rules prohibit one but not the other, ask the people who made the
> > > rules - it wasn't me.
> >
> > Then what's your point?  We're talking about what the rules *should* say.
> > If you're only willing to discuss what the rules do say, you're not really
> > discussing at all.
> >
> It seems to me that you're the one who keeps bringing up what the
> rules say, and that's precisely the part I'm not interested in
> discussing.

I'm bringing uop the rules in order to discuss how they may be changed.
You're bringing them up to say "we can't do it that way because that isn't
in the rules".


from_name: Keith Old

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd:  Oops (or,
	be careful when quoting Wikipedia in your newspaper, part 2)

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com>
Date: Mar 16, 2007 7:24 AM
Subject: Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Oops (or, be careful when quoting Wikipedia in your
newspaper, part 2)
To: "unblock-en-l at wikipedia.org" <unblock-en-l at wikipedia.org>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org>
Date: Mar 16, 2007 7:10 AM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Oops (or, be careful when quoting Wikipedia in your
newspaper, part 2)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

London has a free daily newspaper called [[thelondonpaper]]. Every
day, on the puzzles page, there's a little factoid at the top of the
page. Today it said:

    [in Big Type:] 670.6
    The number of miles per hour at which light travels.
    source: en.wikipedia.org

Oh dear. I think the word "million" went missing somewhere. From
[[speed of light]]:

    "Converted to imperial units, the speed of light is
approximately... 670,616,629.384 miles per hour, or almost one foot
per nanosecond."

I just hope that people realise the error was on their part, not ours.
(Probably, considering that they also had a story today titled "Jolie
Adopts Fourth Child", which began "Angelina Jolie today adopted a
third child...")

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

G'day folks,

The Register which has never published anything positive about Wikipedia in
its life published an interesting piece by Tom Melly (Username Tomandlu)
about The Times allegedly using Wikipedia as a source for an article on his
father George Melly.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/15/tom_melly_wikipedia_comment/

Wikipedia comes in for a fair amount of criticism these days from *El
Reg*and other publications, but I can't help wondering if we're
missing the real
point regarding its status as an encyclopedia. Most of the arguments hinge
on its accuracy, or lack of it. But if our criteria for an encyclopedia is a
guarantee of 100 per cent accuracy, then there are no encyclopaedias now,
and there never have been. So is Wikipedia an encylopedia, and, if not, can
it ever be one? Reluctantly, I think the answer is a resounding 'no', and
here's why.

This is a tale of personal experience, so a bit of background is needed. In
the first place, I am a casual editor on Wikipedia under the username
Tomandlu <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Tomandlu>. I've
contributed to articles on various novels, historical events, and so on
(including, for reasons I fail to recall, the tuberculate pelagic octopus ?
don't you hate it when that happens?). So, I like Wikipedia, I really do.
Besides, any resource that has anything as bizarre as the Death Star
talkpage <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Death_Star> gets my vote.

My father is George Melly, the British jazz-singer and writer. Needless to
say, I keep an eye on Wikipedia's article on
him<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Melly>.
I try to avoid any bias, although I did once suggest that a particular
anecdote wasn't really noteworthy or accurate. (It was a trout not a salmon,
and he didn't wank on it, just near it; besides, if a wank-adote is really
required, then there's a far better one involving cat impressions and a
plate.)

The closest I've come to censorship was when I removed "incontinence" from a
list of his health problems. I didn't lose much sleep over it - it's your
standard, old-man, incontinence, so, once again, not very noteworthy. I'd
have removed "has wrinkles" or "thinks modern music is too loud and
repetitive" on the same basis. However, lung cancer (an early member of the
list), and emphysema (a later addition) were retained.

I had some concerns about this. Nevertheless, the information was accurate ?
albeit unreferenced ? so I let it stand. At least no one else seemed to have
heard that he had also been diagnosed with early vascular dementia, and that
stayed off the list ? I certainly wasn't going to add it in.

We can now fast-forward to earlier this year, when my father came out, so to
speak, as a sufferer. I duly added "vascular dementia" to Wikipedia, and
settled down to following the various news coverage and articles on my
father's condition ? for the most part sympathetic and accurate pieces, and
often based around interviews?and then I came across an article in the
Times<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1453037.ece>by
a Dr Thomas Stuttaford.

Now, you can take my word for it, or you can take a look at the article and
compare it with the entry on Wikipedia, but large sections of it are
obviously sourced from there and I was rather shocked. This wasn't, as far
as I knew, what Wikipedia was for. Wikipedia was for... well what exactly?
Or more accurately, who?
More in story.

Regards

Keith Old


from_name: Avi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism going public yet again

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
  Another case of wiki vandalism that made headlines:

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070316/ap_on_en_ot/people_sinbad

  Count me in as one of those who thinks that we may need a PR blitz as to 1) How wiki works 2) What vandalism is 3) A training brochure in basic wiki use. (check histories and editors, etc.)

  - --Avi
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----
User:Avraham
pub 1024D/785EA229 3/6/2007 Avi (Wikipedia-related Key) <avi_wiki at yahoo.com>
    Primary key fingerprint:  D233 20E7 0697 C3BC 4445 7D45 CBA0 3F46 785E A229

---------------------------------
Don't be flakey. Get Yahoo! Mail for Mobile and
always stay connected to friends.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requesting assistance re user:Bastique PLEASE HELP

body:
On 15/03/07, Sharon, Lois Bram <oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:

> I thank you for your time but I have now been attacked on this list too,
> called a troll, and someone mean has moved me to moderation for some reason.
> There is no reason for me to continue even attempting to contribute, your
> system is obviously broken and you have some very mean, possibly evil,
> people with power.
> I am sorry to have to say this, it makes me sad because I know that there
> were good people there, but they are obviously outnumbered by the bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Council_of_La_Raza&diff=prev&oldid=113896093
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Council_of_La_Raza&diff=prev&oldid=114803164
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Council_on_American-Islamic_Relations&diff=prev&oldid=114807874

- d.


from_name: Ryan Wetherell

body:
On 3/16/07, Avi <avi_wiki at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   Another case of wiki vandalism that made headlines:
>
>   http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070316/ap_on_en_ot/people_sinbad
>
>   Count me in as one of those who thinks that we may need a PR blitz as to 1) How wiki works 2) What vandalism is 3) A training brochure in basic wiki use. (check histories and editors, etc.)
>
>   - --Avi

Count me in as well.  I heard about this on CBS news radio today.  And
they make it sound like something that was displayed front-and-center,
with Jimbo's stamp of approval.

--Ryan

--
[[en:User:Merovingian]]


from_name: Raimond Spekking

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20490]
	trunk/phase3/includes/SpecialUpload.php

body:
Simetrical schrieb:
>
> And RELEASE-NOTES?

Service of the Day: added with r20506.

Raymond.

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from_name: Mark Clements

body:
"Simetrical" <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com>
wrote in message
news:7c2a12e20703151435t23ac9c53q8b27502c61236cf7 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 3/15/07, Platonides
<Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Sorry, there's not. Yesterday one more test was added, but there isn't
> > any failing test now passing (in that case a new line would appear
> > noting it).
>
> One was fixed within the past few days.  Don't remember which.

One of the TODOs was fixed on the 14th:

   1 new PASSING test(s) :)
      * 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line  [Has never failed]

   1 previously FAILING test(s) removed O_o
      * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line  [First recorded appearance:
11-Nov-2006 12:40:23, 1.9alpha (r17532)]

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary schools - notability

body:
On 3/16/07, Erica <fangaili at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/16/07, Erica <fangaili at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > What's the going consensus on the inherent notability of primary schools?
> > >
> > > E.g.: see [[Category:Primary schools in Buckinghamshire]]
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Primary_schools_in_Buckinghamshire
> > >
> > > My understanding was that high schools were contentious, but it was
> > > generally agreed upon that middle/primary schools were not inherently
> > > notable. But I might be behind the times.
> > >
> > >
> > > Erica
> > > User:Fang Aili
>
>
> On 3/16/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Have you tried [[WP:SCHOOLS]]?
> > Even though they may not be _inherently_ notable, they could still be for
> > some specific reason.
> >
> > Mgm
> >
>
> It's currently tagged {{historical}}, but even that is contested,
> according to the history. There's no apparent consensus on the talk
> page. If there's no consensus, then that's fine, but maybe there was
> some discussion elsewhere.

There is simply no consensus.

I think we've had consensus that "if it's not notable, roll it into
the parent locality article", but not been able to get that down in a
policy, because there's no consensus on what the larger policy would
be.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: Oops (or,
 be careful when quoting Wikipedia in your newspaper, part 2)

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>We already have a disclaimer saying we shouldn't be trusted and the top of
>every page has an edit button showing everyone can edit.
>If people choose to trust anything they read without checking there's really
>nothing we can do. I speak from experience when I say that blinking red
>banners on top of pages won't work. People will just ignore them just like
>they do with warnings on all other Wikipedia pages.
>
>AFC: "Cite your sources" -> ignored
>HD: "Don't post your email address and don't ask homework questions" -->
>ignored.
>HD: "Place for questions about Wikipedia" --> How can I find DVD X? -->
>Ignored.
>
>Sure, we need to warn people but we need to draw a line too.
>
Not long ago I bought a new stepladder manufactured in the United
States.  It is full of stuck on labels warning people about dangers of
misusing the product.  For a few of us it would seem sensible not to
attempt to change the blade on a table saw while the motor is running,
but there are people who would win handsomely in court because the
manufacturer had failed to post a label warning them of an obvious
danger.  One can never underestimate the power of unfathomable stupidity.

Ec