from_name: Ian Monroe

body:
On 5/30/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I see Gerard's vision as being based in the need for technical solutions
> for machine translations.  In theory with his method one should be able
> to look up a word in one's own language and immediately be able to find
> a corresponding term in whatever other language one desires.  I at least
> agree with him that such an approach would require far more
> sophisticated software than what we now employ.  Much of what he
> proposes appears to be very highly dependent on templates and technical
> codification rather that plain language editing, and I'm afraid that
> that would scare away many potential new contributors who don't feel
> comfortable with the more technical approach.

I think its a safe assumption that it isn't for machine translation.
Plenty of crappy machine translators already :). The problem with
Wiktionary as it stands is that there's really one way to view it - as
a web page. If you want to query it (translations of the word 'mouse',
all Romanian nouns) you can't really. Its not 'machine readable'
(perhaps what you meant). Its not flexible, if there's desire to
change the formatting of the articles (entry formating is a much less
obvious and more complicated job then in Wikipedia) it would be a huge
undertaking. We'd have to see it to judge it obviously. It should be
decided that it is the way to go or that it is not... we shouldn't
ever have two competing Wiktionaries.

> For my part translation is a secondary function of a dictionary.
> Documenting the history of a word, citing quotations that support uses
> of the word, and commentary on the usages of a word are more interesting
> and important.  I recently did a little of this to raise awareness of
> the divergence of  [[gourmand]]  in English and French.  I find our
> present software essentially adequate for the task.
>
> Gerard has been talking about his Ultimate Wiktionary for a long time,
> but so far I have not seen examples of what Gerard's Wiktionary will
> look like, how it will work or how it will be editable.  Perhaps if he
> presented more concrete examples attitudes could change.
>
> I guess "old-school" is probably a good term.  I have very little
> involvement on the technical side of things.  I do find it a chore to
> insert a picture or a table, but I figure it out when I have to.  When
> templates appear in an article that I am editing, I need to make extra
> effort just to track where some of them come from or what they mean.  If
> I, as a person who has been here for over three years, am having trouble
> with this, it must be worse for a non-technical person who just wants to
> indulge his love of words.
>
> Ec
>


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 10:46:13PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
> On 29/05/05, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> >
> > Say what?  If you're so convinced you know what my opinions are and how
> > I'll respond, perhaps you should just write a bot with my name and have
> > a conversation with that instead of me.
>
> If I knew a programming language, perhaps I would. But that would
> probably be an enormous waste of time.

That was sorta my point.

>
> > All of that seems to indicate positive evolution of the language.
>
> "Positive"? What do you mean?? That "snotor" just plain doesn't make
> sense as a word meaning "wise"? That phonetic spelling is bad (that is
> actually how those words were pronounced at the time - the spelling
> used in the original _is_ phonetic)? Or something else that makes more
> sense?

I mean that changes that arise because of a need rather than because a
bunch of people start misspelling things due to a lack of education are
positive.  By contrast, then, changes that arise because people are
uneducated and don't know how to use a dictionary are negtive.

As far as I'm concerned, anything that arises from willful ignorance is
a "negative".

>
> See, "corruption" is where I believe you're wrong, and what is
> essentially the problem between descriptivists and prescriptivists
> (more like proscriptivists).

Maybe people with the attitude you're trying to ascribe to me are not
actually "prescritivists".  Maybe you should be referring to
"proscriptivists" instead.

>
> You characterise all those letter-droppings and corruptions of
> perfectly good existing words and improper usages which got the
> language from Proto-Indo-European all the way to Modern English as
> "good" and "making sense", yet anything that occurs _now_ is bad,
> ignorant, "corrupt", and "incorrect". Except, of course, the things
> that happened before you were born, which you accept as prized
> innovations (contractions, for example - they save oh-so-much time!
> the fact is that contractions have always been used, they have just
> been kept to speech most of the time)

No, actually, I don't.  I do, however, object to the addition of a K to
the word "renowned" just because some critical mass of people who can't
spell all make the same mistake on a regular basis.  The same goes for
use of "infer" to mean something that is almost precisely its opposite.
I don't much care when it happens: if it's a good change, it's a good
change, and if it's a bad change, it's a bad change.  The coining of the
neologism "cyberspace", which did indeed occur within the span of my
life, is a good thing.  So, too, is the arrival of terms like "Linux"
and "wiki" in the English language.

To judge by the descriptivist approach, though, we should start calling
it "The Wikipedia", rather than "Wikipedia", because so many people call
it "The Wikipedia" out of ignorance.  By the same token, "Perl" should
be changed to "PERL", "Linux" should start being pronounced "Lynucks"
(the spelling soon to follow), and Internet Explorer should be called
"The Internet" now.

>
> The simple fact is that prescriptivists, in any language at any time,
> have been saying the same thing. You can find it in the Appendix Probi
> - it's _bad_ to use anything other than the most proper Latin! But
> then through the magic of language change, the same language
> one-and-a-half millenia later is being praised by French
> prescriptivists as the most logical language ever, and they want you
> to use it a certain way that would've given the author of the Appendix
> Probi a heart attack because it's such an abomination of Latin.

I'm not the most strict subscriber to prescriptivist notions in the
world, obviously, but I certainly sympathize more with the notion that
there's a "correct" way to use the language than the attitude that
supposes it's okay to confuse words with their antonyms.

>
> And finally with English. The writers of Beowulf were probably not
> prescriptivists, but they would've told you that the language we're
> using today is most certainly not "Englisc" as they knew it, or if it
> is it is a nasty vile corruption of it. Not just the spelling - no, to
> them our grammar, syntax, and usage of foreign words would sound like
> a foreigner's poor attempt at producing coherent speech.

Maybe so.  Too bad.  The change is already accepted practice in
academia.  What I'm not happy with is the acceptance of any old change
at all based on nothing more than a statistical survey among those who
don't care.

>
> > B) a given example of
> > linguistic "evolution" you presented only looked like it differed by way
> > of spelling changes.
>
> So, o snotor guma, work you use such sel words at least once a decade
> in your English  speech and writing as "bearn", "wrece", "drihtguman",
> "gebidan", or "unlifgendum"?

I meant a previous example.  I thought that was clear, since I was
talking about something I'd said prior to your example from Beowulf.

>
> Modernising their spelling doesn't help much either, seeing as they
> have no cognates in modern english and quite simply can't be
> modernised.

Words falling into disuse hardly constitute an argument against
prescriptivism, anyway.

>
> > > Now that you are so sure that Old English is only incomprehensible
> > > because of the way it's spelled, let's see how you handle some respelt
> > > Chaucer:
> >
> > When did I say that?
>
> Just now - "a given example of linguistic "evolution" you presented
> only looked like it differed by way of spelling changes."

So you're using something I said AFTER you made that assertion to
support the assertion, as though that was your justification at the
time?  That's absurd.  Furthermore, as I stated, my reference to
something only looking like it differed by way of spelling changes was
about your archaic-spelling modification of original content, not your
quote from Beowulf or Chaucer.

>
>
> > > Also, there's the use of the pronominal triplet he - him - hir meaning
> > > actually they - them - their. And words which you probably don't know
> > > at all (at least not in such a normal sense) such as "anon" which
> > > means "forthwith", and you wouldn't say "befell that" but rather "it
> > > befell that" or "it so happened".
> >
> > It's nice to see that occasionally grammatical rules that make sense
> > become more widely used.
>
> "That make sense" - can you give me, please, some examples of
> grammatical rules YOU enforce that are nonsensical? Or do you believe
> that they all make sense?

What the heck is that all about?

>
> Like any believer in any religion believes that his is the one true
> path, the only RIGHT religion, any prescriptivist from any language at
> any time believes that the form of the language HE promotes makes the
> most sense, and would like to beat to a pulp with a pencil those
> future prescriptivists who would say differently.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone suggesting a better use of the language
than the current standard who presents a reasonable method of
implementing it is welcome to do so.

>
> > > Other than those examples, to point out that prescriptivism changes...
> > > contractions are much more widely accepted today than perhaps a
> > > century ago.
> >
> > I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
> >
> >
> > >
> > > You would probably have no problem with the sentence "A girl riding on
> > > a bus", but it is quite 'wrong' because it 'should' read "A girl
> > > riding on an omnibus". You probably have no problem with "Zoology is
> > > fun", but I do. It 'should' be (and I would write it as) "Zo?logy is
> > > fun" (dieresis on the second o because it is pronounced separately -
> > > it's not z+eulogy, it's zoo+ology). You would have no problem with "A
> > > trip to the zoo" but it 'should' infact be "A trip to the zo?logical
> > > garden". This isn't having to do with the dieresis so much as the
> > > usage of "zoo" rather than the more 'proper' "zo?logical garden" which
> > > nobody would expect today.
> >
> > Since when did I express a problem with contractions and abbreviations?
>
> You never did. That's exactly my point. Had you been a prescriptivist
> of yesteryear, you would've. But you're not. So you don't. What was
> once illogical, ignorant, and incorrect, is now greasing the wheels of
> communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise terms
> from which they're derived.

Frankly, if I thought there was a way to rewind that, I might actually
like to do so.  I have the language I currently have, though, and I'll
work with it.  Contractions are a mixed bag, though.  It's difficult to
determine whether or not they're for the best, at least from where I'm
sitting.

I certainly try to avoid them in most formal essays.

>
> > They grease the wheels of communication without invalidating the more
> > lengthy and precise terms from which they're derived.
>
> If I said "I go store tomorrow in blue bus with Jenny", that would
> certainly be more compact than "I'm going to go to the store tomorrow
> in the blue bus with Jenny", and in that way it would grease the
> wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and
> precise rules from which it was derived, but would you allow it or
> would you look down your nose at it and scoff at its ignorance, lack
> of education, etc etc etc?

Compactness that actually violates grammatical rules by omitting terms
useful to clarity of meaning are not particularly good.  Compactness
is not the sole point of measure for the worth of a contraction or
abbreviation.  Your first example in that paragraph is actually
confusing and lacks clarity of meaning due to the structure of the
sentence, even after staring at it for a while.  For one thing, "store"
has more than one meaning.  Replacing "store" with, say, "supermarket"
would make it clearer in that one instance, but it still creates a
structure that fails when other words are substituted.  As such, it's a
net loss as an "evolution" of the language.

>
> >  On the other
> > hand, I am a little disappointed that in cases where longer terms are
> > appropriate people have chosen to eschew accuracy without any particular
> > good reason.  Then, of course, other people have chosen to chronicle the
> > abbreviated terms as "official" parts of the language.  The word "zoo"
> > was, orginally, an abbreviation of "zoological [noun]" (modify spelling
> > as necessary to make it strictly accurate, using the correct character
> > set -- which I apparently don't have installed on this computer).  A
> > dictionary reference to "zoo" as a slang term is appropriate when zoo
> > enters common usage, and ultimately removing the "slang" reference might
> > be appropriate as well, but including (for instance) reference to
> > "imply" as a synonym of "infer" in the dictionary is absolutely NOT
> > appropriate.  Given a couple decades, however, it might end up being an
> > accepted synonym for a significant portion of the population because
> > dictionary editors have started making unironic reference to this
> > supposed synonymous meaning.
>
> "because" dictionary editors have? In a century, imply will probably
> mean the same thing as infer even according to the most conservative
> of prescriptivists, and the fact that they once meant what they
> supposedly do now (I must admit, I use them "correctly" and am
> irritated when they're used "incorrectly", but I am irritated with my
> irritation because I know it's silly since language change is natural)
> will be an interesting footnote in the long history of English.

Yes, because dictionary editors (and others in similar positions) do
that sort of thing.  If it was never acceptable to educators (whether by
trade or by accident), it would never become common practice.  Do you
really think it's a good idea to reverse the meanings of words like that
and declare it official?  How confusing do you think it would be to be
commanded to refrain from touching something because it's hot if
"refrain" and "hot" both had alternate meanings that made perfect sense
within the context of that sentence?  What if that confusion led you to
third-degree burns on your hand?

Communication is important, and accurate communication moreso.  Giving
"infer" both its proper meaning and the meaning of "imply" strips
communication of all that value of accuracy.

>
>  > That's a brief explanation of how your attempted characterization of my
> > intent missed the mark, and how I actually feel on the matter.  I want
> > accuracy and precision, not stultifying adherence to tradition.
>
> Like this sentence because not long but still accurate? (Do you like
> this sentence, because it is not long, yet it is still accurate?)

Like?  No, not particularly.  Accept, because this is a casual
conversation and not likely to be taken as a canonical example of proper
English?  Well, sure.  You may note that my adherence to strictly proper
use of language has slipped a bit here and there in this discussion, but
this isn't exactly a textbook, either.  Slang and colloquialism have
their places.  Textbooks meant to teach a language aren't those places.

Some of your later examples of shortened sentences, on the other hand,
ARE really bad.  They modified the meanings of the sentences, which
isn't really even acceptable for casual, colloquial conversation.  The
mere omission of the word "may" is a clear example of that.

>
> > Essentially, as far as I'm aware, prescriptivism is about defining the
> > language according to its rules, and descriptivism is about defining the
> > language according to the way people who don't know, or ignore, the
> > rules use it.  As far as I'm aware, neither one is trying to say that
> > the language did or did not evolve from any given set of standards,
> > though they may say that it should or should not have evolved the way it
> > did.
>
> No, it's about who is competent.
>
> Presciptivism takes those nose-in-the-clouds approach and says that
> only people who study "rules" which are not based on modern usage
> "know the rules of the language", while descriptivism takes the
> down-to-earth approach and says that any native speaker who is fluent
> in the language "knows the rules of the language".

I reject your definitions of prescriptivism and descriptivism on the
grounds that they don't even seem to apply to observed behavior of
prescriptivists and descriptivists, let alone their self-described
purposes.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Dori

subject: [Wikitech-l] Very simple thumbnail bug + patch

body:
On 5/30/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> David Benbennick wrote:
> > Given an image of width say 100, the code "[[Image:Name|100px]]"
> > causes MediaWiki to generate a 100px thumbnail.  Besides wasting disk
> > space, this bug is annoying since the thumbnail is often larger than
> > the original image.
> >
> > Attached is a 1-character patch against CVS head that should fix the problem.
>
> First, you need to define the problem.
>
> Is the problem that a thumbnail is generated for a size of 100px? That's
> not a problem; that's a deliberate feature! Transferring a 4 megabyte
> photograph instead of a 70kb thumbnail doesn't make a lot of sense.

Not having looked at the patch or the code, I think he was saying that
a thumb would get generated even if the width of the image is the same
as the would-be thumb.


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Muke Tever

subject: [Wiktionary-l] GNU-FDL and Ultimate Wiktionary

body:
Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> For my part translation is a secondary function of a dictionary.
> Documenting the history of a word, citing quotations that support uses
> of the word, and commentary on the usages of a word are more interesting
> and important.  I recently did a little of this to raise awareness of
> the divergence of  [[gourmand]]  in English and French.  I find our
> present software essentially adequate for the task.
>
> Gerard has been talking about his Ultimate Wiktionary for a long time,
> but so far I have not seen examples of what Gerard's Wiktionary will
> look like, how it will work or how it will be editable.  Perhaps if he
> presented more concrete examples attitudes could change.

I agree.  As I have said ... probably many times now, 99% of Wiktionary
articles are stubs.[1]  Taking these as a model for a stricter dictionary
format may relegate the "Ultimate" Wiktionary to the status of a mere
glossary.  But without even having had a mock-up of what the product will
look like or how it will work, noone can tell.  A lot of the work for
this is apparently being done by a small few behind closed doors, which is
not very encouraging at all.

	*Muke!
[1] And having five thousand one-word translations attached to each won't
make them any less stubby.
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikitech-l] More about lag

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

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

When service gets this bad PLEASE lock the database from edits until service
improves.

-- mav

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new Resources site
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/


from_name: David Gerard

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

body:
Kate Turner (keturner at livejournal.com) [050530 08:37]:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc:

> > As a result our database contains large quantities of violating
> > material.

> my understand of the relevant US law is that we are not required to
> aggressively remove copyright violations until requested by the copyright
> holder.

If someone ever codes the facility to zap old revisions easily, we could
deal with such without great pain. The main barrier at present is that
zapping old revs entails deleting the article then restoring all revs
except the offender. On a heavily-trafficked page this present obvious
logistical problems.

Our proactive approach, though, does stand us in good stead should we ever
end up in a courtroom. Generally the copyvio page is *rabid* and that's
good. Even if on many occasions the author of a given text has to point out
they're the editor that added it to Wikipedia ;-)

- d.


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [Wikitech-l] Personal frustration level linear to replication lag

body:
Dear developers,

I've been doing RC patrolling on de.wikipedia this morning using the
great CrytoDerk's Vandal Fighter 2.1. I find myself in a difficult
situation.

 From 1 to 2 out of 10 clicks on diffs of recent changes, I get an error
stating that the version I just clicked on does not exist. The reason
seems to be obvious, it's the replication lag on some servers.

While the technical issues are I guess fully present in your minds, I
would like to point to to a different side effect of this software
behaviour: I am loosing any motivation for RC patrolling.

This morning, I more or less made 50 reverts to vandalism in
de.wikipedia. I am sure there were more vandal edits but I was unable to
keep myself concentrated on that topic.

It's not about losing 5 seconds for the replication to keep up, it is
simply a frustrating experience. When I do rc patrolling, I like to idea
of "doing good work".

Whatever you do, please keep in mind to avoid situations where an klick on

http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lucas_Cranach_der_%C3%84ltere&diff=0&oldid=6123802

reveals that:

Fehler
aus Wikipedia, der freien Enzyklop?die
Der Text f?r den Artikel ?Lucas Cranach der ?ltere (Diff: 6123802, 0)?
wurde nicht in der Datenbank gefunden. Wenn es sich um eine alte Version
eines Artikels handelt, kann es sein, dass sie wegen einer Verletzung
von Urheberrechten gel?scht wurde. Es ist auch m?glich, dass es ein
Problem mit dem Zugriff auf die Datenbank gibt. In diesem Fall versuche
es sp?ter bitte noch einmal.

I am unable to provide a technical solution for that (why don't you
delay rc messages until the replication is done?) but I am willing to
give any feedback nescassary to help to abolish this situation where
vandalizing something is easier than fixing it.

Thanks,
Mathias


list: foundation-l

from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] The elections have begun!

body:
Hello

The elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation are now
open. In order to accommodate all projects, every effort will be made to
translate the election notice into all of the languages used by the Foundation.
As such, we are asking that everyone pitch in to ensure that the Election
regulations are translated before candidates issue their statements. Please see
_http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Elections_for_the_Board_of_Trustees_of_the_Wikim
edia_Foundation%2C_2005/En_
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Elections_for_the_Board_of_Trustees_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation,_2005/En)
for more details.
Qualified individuals may submit their candidacies
from Tuesday, 0:00 June 7, 2005 (UTC)
to   Monday, 24:00 June 27, 2005 (UTC)
The voting will take place:
from Tuesday, 0:00 June 28, 2005 (UTC)
to   Monday, 24:00 July 11, 2005 (UTC)
On behalf of the election organizers, I want to wish all of the candidates
the best of luck in this election. We are confident that the election will be
conducted in the spirit of fairness and goodwill that are hallmarks of our
projects' success.

Bjarte, Britty (Aphaia), Danny, Datrio


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Probl�me de copyright dans l'usage de vos sources Wikipedia

body:
Hello,

Thank you for your efforts Ulrich. We appreciate.

Best regards

Florence Devouard

--- Ulrich Schwanitz <uschwanitz at izynews.com> wrote:

> Thank you for your note which we only received
> today. I apologize for the delayed response.
>
> > D'une part, vous remplacez ? de nombreux endroits
> le
> > terme "Wikipedia" par "encyclopedie", ce qui d'une
> > part ne garantie pas correctement le respect de la
> > citation de la source...
>
> We are currently discussing this issue with
> respected members of the Dutch wikipedia community.
> Once we reach a consensus, we will implement across
> the different languages. We hope you will find this
> a satisfactory solution as well.
>
> > Le deuxi?me probl?me a trait avec la licence de
> nos
> > images. Contrairement au texte qui est toujours
> sous
> > GFDL, nos images peuvent ?tre de diff?rentes
> licenses,
> > par domaine public ou variations des creative
> commons.
>
> We have tentatively implemented new description
> pages and presented them to the Dutch wikipedia
> community. So far, we have not heard any objections.
> Once the solution is generally accepted, we will
> implement across languages.
>
> Hope this addresses your concerns,
>
> Best regards,
> Ulrich Schwanitz
> for IzyNews
>

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] More on multilingualism and the press

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

> The story is about an author whose Wikipedia biography was apparently
> falsified, and the information "verified" by somebody impersonating the
> author on Wikipedia. The Post is written in English, and does not
> identify the Wikipedia language involved (the incident, it seems, took
> place on the Hebrew Wikipedia).

I just had a quick look at google and I could not find a page on
he.wikipedia about him (maybe I did the transscription the Hebrew
letters wrong).

However, the article says "Jacont realized something was seriously wrong
in 2003, when the entry about him in the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia,
which can be edited by any of its readers, was altered to include false
criminal details about his past".

2003 was far from wikipedia's "breakthrough" in public awareness. So I
really would like to see the history or the article. After all, this
article is about people who lied and a book "L for lies" :)


list: wikien-l

from_name: Charles Matthews

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

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote

> It's perfectly acceptable to say that an idea is insane, but not that the
> person putting forth the idea is insane.

It is utter madness to say that it is perfectly acceptable to say that an
idea is insane.

I wrote that, of course, without prejudice to the question of Ray's sanity.
But how does it read in practice?  A little of the 'transferred epithet'?
Ideas of course do not enjoy mental health, good or otherwise.

Charles


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikitech-l] More about lag

references:
<B37C88960D2C80439C12E9D5FE373FF703343C0B@red.microlink.lt>	<d7eqdm$2is$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d7f3su$vmh$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

>I should add, queueing would be an appropriate response to cluster-wide
>lag times of up to a few seconds. The request could be queued until a
>slave with zero lag time becomes available. Serving an error message
>only becomes appropriate when the expected queueing time is long enough
>that the user would want an explanation.
>
>
As one (frequent) user, I prefer the queueing response to slowness
(which seems to be what used to happen) to the error-message response
(which seems to happen fairly regularly now).  I've talked to a few
other people who feel similarly, though I don't know what the most
common preference would be.  If there's queueing, at least you know your
request will get served eventually, even if you have to go get a cup of
coffee first; with the error-message responses, you just have to keep
hitting reload, which is more irritating.

-Mark


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

body:
Andries Krugers Dagneaux wrote

> I hope that editors who read this will help to distract attention of
> other editors from the main articles to the ancillary articles to enable
> the overall better quality of Wikipedia.

I definitely agree with the main point.  The basic task of Wikipedia at
present seems to be to extend its coverage, of good average articles, to the
point where it really can be called 'comprehensive'.  There are still many
topics, for example, taught at undergraduate level at universities, that
have scanty or no explanation.  I have noticed, to my pleasure, that short
articles in the humanities (where I have no particular expertise) that I
have contributed to, do tend to be upgraded, on a time scale of six months
or so.  Still, we need much more.

On the specific matters of people nit-picking in main articles, and trying
to push their points of view, that is to some extent just human nature (or
at least Wikipedian nature).  Main articles afford a measure of recognition
to authors, too.  With the expansion of WP, there is less
recognition-per-person, I think.  Therefore I don't such 'fixation' can
easily be removed.

Charles


from_name: Domas Mituzas

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

body:
Hello!

> I am unable to provide a technical solution for that (why don't you
> delay rc messages until the replication is done?) but I am willing to
> give any feedback nescassary to help to abolish this situation where
> vandalizing something is easier than fixing it.

Our special.ops site operation team currently
is dealing with lots of issues, with main one being relieving
stockholder and user frustration levels.

Replication lag means that servers have to deal
with too much data under too much of load.

First of all, new db servers are coming soon.
They have been planned quite long time ago, and ordered at
the beginning of this month. We are running on same DB server
setup as we were running on December. This will quite increase
our database capacities, and we will be able to work with other
bottlenecks.

On the other hand, since December deployment of MediaWiki 1.4,
there has been great deal of work in software development.
MediaWiki 1.5 will have lots of cosmetic changes, some nice
features,  but most important of all, it will be a bigger pleasure for
DBA to maintain the environment. It will have less data to shuffle,
less data to scan, less data to work with. What would mean better
scalability and performance. It has data rearrangement. But still,
before going live with 1.5, we'll have to take site offline (or readonly),
and restructure it.

Moreover, we're moving archive data out from our expencive DB servers
into small and neat apaches. This way we won't have to deal with large
arrays of data sitting in forgotten history and will have much more
effective DB space/cache/performance usage. In future it will be even
better if we could solve our current file storage bottleneck this way.
Extracts from p0rn movies renamed into some classic symphonies do take
quite a lot of space on our single image server. There are efforts now
here as well - we already can sync our image servers and make other nice
stuff.

With less data and more requests we will sure face other bottlenecks,
but... haha, that's what Wikimedia Operations Team is for! :)

No frustration, no vacation, total world domination! To WebServe and Protect!

Cheers,
Domas


from_name: Mark Williamson

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

body:
Hi,

Do you have any plans for any other Russian minority languages?

Obviously the Tatar Wikipedia doesn't exactly need such a boost, but
the Chuvash Wikipedia could use it (60-something articles right now I
think), as could the Chechen, Abkhaz, etc.

Mark

On 29/05/05, V. Ivanov <amikeco at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2005/5/29, Guaka <guaka at no-log.org>:
> > Reading this thread... An idea that pops up right now... Communities
> > could be provided with one or more computers, under the condition they
> > regularly write new Wikipedia articles. An internet connection is
> > probably too expensive at such places. This way people can be provided
> > with lots of valuable information in languages some people can
> > understand while at the same time working on information in their native
> > language.
> > Make computer usage free for people who contribute to Wikimedia projects
> > (or localization, documentation, development of free software, free
> > information projects), and people who don't contribute can choose to pay
> > a small sum that pays the electricity, and possibly the internet
> > connection...
>
> Buying a computer and transferring it to Tskhinval may cost at least
> 100 USD. We cannot afford it now, as we have 1000 RUR (about 37 USD)
> in our fund. Maybe we'd better run the project as it already runs now:
> but nothing really prohibits us to dream of a couple of computers for
> the editors in South Ossetia.
>
> Sl. / Amikeco
>
> --
> Esperu cxiam!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

On 29/05/05, V. Ivanov <amikeco at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2005/5/29, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com>:
> > > The one thing that is not mentioned in the discussion is who would fund
> > > this proposal.  Is there a rich Ossetian benefactor willing to pay for
> > > this idea?  There are many other languages that could benefit from this
> > > approach, but it should not be the responsibility of the general
> > > community to pay for such things in other languages either.
>
> > This is not a proposal, it already exist.
> > It is currently funded by individuals, who may or may not be
> > contributors. I just do not know.
>
> It seemed to me, I've mentioned the benefactors in my previous
> messages: there are *four individuals* both in Moscow and Vladikavkaz
> who have already paid 1000 RUR (~20 articles) for the project and are
> going to help it from time to time so that we will be able to pay at
> least 100 quality articles a year.
>
> Sure, if the idea of Anthere will be realized, we will be able to use
> the money of foreign benefactors as well: also for popularizing the
> encyclopedia at the universities. I believe, people would pay articles
> in a smaller language more willingly, if the see the project in work
> and having real results. But also without external help it runs
> already, using the fact that the Ossetian speakers are rather
> diversified by income: some live in poorer South, some in more
> successful North.
>
> Anyhow, I agree with Ray that Wikimedia Foundation should not fund
> projucts like that -- it is not a smaller languages supporting
> organization after all.
>
> Sl. / Amikeco
> --
> Esperu cxiam!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: _feeling at tin.it

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Help

body:
Hi,

I'm not able to create a new account in the Italian page.
Though I used  the same "user name" into your English page
and for registering in Wikipedia, then on the Italian page I always
get an "error". Even if I use different "user name" the site doesn't
accept it !
Since I'm an Italian people I only should work on the Italian page,
so please help me replying to:

_feeling at tin.it


from_name: Timwi

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Personal frustration level linear to replication
	lag

body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
>
> While the technical issues are I guess fully present in your minds, I
> would like to point to a different side effect of this software
> behaviour: I am losing any motivation for RC patrolling.

While I can surely understand your frustration with the error message, I
am not entirely sure I understand why it makes you lose your motivation
for the entire patrolling task.  What browser are you using?  I hope
that you are using some browser that has tabbed browsing features (i.e.
not IE).  If I were to do such a patrolling task, which I sometimes do
for [[Special:Newpages]], I would open all the diff links in separate
tabs.  Whenever I get the error message, I would just press Reload and
move on to the next tab immediately; by the time I have patrolled all
the other tabs, it will have reloaded.


from_name: rb_wikitonary at boult.mailshell.com

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Alarmed at finding out about the ultimateWiktionary

body:
>>>Are there objections from old-school wiktionarians to the ultimate
wiktionary plans?  Is it possible that we could address these objections
through code?

I've been an active administrator on Wiktionary for some months now. But
only recently subscribed to the mailing list - only just noticing that such
a thing exists.

So this discussion of the Ultimate Wiktionary comes as a complete surprise
to me.

Which is even more alarming as somewhere in Wiki-.org land there is clearly
a policy that all changes etc must be notified and approved through the web
site. The mailing list is only an ancillary means of communication.

So I would suggest whoever is managing the idea of change needs to lift
their game in keeping the active Wiktionary community informed.

Richardb

rb_wikitonary at boult.mailshell.com

This mail message is not intended to receive a reply to the address used to
send it. The address used for sending it will not accept replies.

The content may reveal an address you can use.


body:
>>>Are there objections from old-school wiktionarians to the ultimate
wiktionary plans?  Is it possible that we could address these objections
through code?

I've been an active administrator on Wiktionary for some months now. But
only recently subscribed to the mailing list - only just noticing that such
a thing exists.

So this discussion of the Ultimate Wiktionary comes as a complete surprise
to me.

Which is even more alarming as somewhere in Wiki-.org land there is clearly
a policy that all changes etc must be notified and approved through the web
site. The mailing list is only an ancillary means of communication.

So I would suggest whoever is managing the idea of change needs to lift
their game in keeping the active Wiktionary community informed.

Richardb

rb_wiktionary at boult.mailshell.com

This mail message is not intended to receive a reply to the address used to
send it. The address used for sending it will not accept replies.

The content may reveal an address you can use.


from_name: Cranston Snord

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to an Admin

body:
I sent a response to this to the en-l mailing list yesterday, but it has not
appeared. I am attempting to send it again.

If I do not see it this time, I will assume that one of you has taken the
step of removing me from the list for rightfully bringing my complaints.
This would be expected from the power-mad admins who seem to be in control.

On to David Gerard's laughable assertions:

As for same pages of interest, no, we don't, as my edits will attest:
second, even if we did, Wikipedia has policy regarding that, which I have
already pointed out.

As for the IP, David Gerard insists that Roadrunner keeps users on the same
IP "for months": actually, my record time for keeping an IP has been two
weeks. Your IP only stays static if your cable modem stays online, and
thanks to large-scale construction in my area, we are regularly hit with
brownouts and blackouts, not to mention cable service downtimes.

If a "Cranston Snerd" has edited Wikipedia, I'd like to see a reference.
Since I only edit with one account (named Enviroknot), that is obviously a
fake account set up by someone who is reading this list and attempting to
discredit me.

I also want Mel Etitis, his puppet Yuber, and whichever else of you have
been defacing my user page to stop it. I have already warned Etitis and
Yuber repeatedly.

-Enviroknot

>From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to an Admin
>Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 22:19:27 +1000
>
>David Gerard (fun at thingy.apana.org.au) [050529 22:16]:
>
> > ElKabong matches with KaintheScion firstly on writing style and pages of
> > interest, and secondly they both edited [[Talk:George W. Bush]] in the
>same
> > hour from the same IP. (I sent a list of the edits and their times to
>him
> > and he emailed back saying I must have made that up.) KaintheScion and
> > Enviroknot have the same pages of interest and edit from the same IP,
> > starting as the IP and then as Enviroknot the moment I blocked Kain as a
> > sockpuppet of ElKabong (who I unblocked - the problem is abusing a
> > sockpuppet to pretend to be two people, not running a second account per
> > se). Which is a DSL theoretically on DHCP, but I know Roadrunner often
> > keeps people on the same IP for ages. Certainly this one.
>
>
>Oh - and as well as Enviroknot's home IP matching Kain's, "Cranston Snerd"
>has edited (and signed "Cranston Snerd") from the same two IPs favoured by
>ElKabong. Thus completing the circle.
>
>
>- d.
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
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from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
>
> Ray Saintonge a ?crit:
> > V. Ivanov wrote:
> >
> >> 2005/5/28, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net>:
> >>
> >>> Maybe we should make this concept better known globally.  Maybe we
> >>> should organise a list of Wikipedians who are prepared to give
> money to
> >>> poor people in return for an article in a language that has an
> inactive
> >>> Wikipedia.  The Wikipedians would be able to specify any conditions,
> >>
> >> Say, offer a preferable topic or even a certain article (or article
> set).
> >>
> > I would be wary of any scheme to pay people for articles.  We have
> > prided ourselves on an all volunteer production in all languages.
> >
> > The one thing that is not mentioned in the discussion is who would fund
> > this proposal.  Is there a rich Ossetian benefactor willing to pay for
> > this idea?  There are many other languages that could benefit from this
> > approach, but it should not be the responsibility of the general
> > community to pay for such things in other languages either.
>
> Hi Ec
>
> This is not a proposal, it already exist.
> It is currently funded by individuals, who may or may not be
> contributors. I just do not know.
>
> We do not have to say anything about this, it exists, it is
> independant and anyone should be free to find a way to help promote
> one language. I think the best *we* can do as *editors*, is to help
> them in their organisation, and also help them transform these
> teachers in more permanent editors in the long term (feeling proud of
> a good article featured on home page is one of these ways... there are
> others...). Typical limitation could be "we offer you money for a good
> article, but for no more than xx articles".

I'm satisfied to know that the funding for this is local.  As long as
it's clear that the funding for this sort of thing comes from a local
organization there can be no liability by WMF in general for unkept
promises or other legal problems.  Perhaps it would be good to have a
written policy by the Board disclaiming responsibility for local
activity, which would be the subject of local law.

The more positive attitude that I have is that funding from people
directly interested in a language will do more for that Wikipedia (or
Wiktionary) than any kind of advocating that someone like Mark would
do.  Those of us who to whom Ossetian and Bambara are nothing more than
entries in a dictionary of languages can do nothing practical about the
development of Wikis in those languages.  Local organizations should
also feel free to seek government funding for work on their own
language.  African governments are notoriously poor, and cannot be
expected to do much, but even they can gain better support from their
own population by investing small amounts in the right places.  Small
amounts invested by an African government to protect local culture from
aggressive foreign languages may be more productive than anything that
Mr. Chirac can sapend in support of his own seriously endangered language.

> But you raise an important issue, which is whether *we* as an
> *organisation* should financially help similar ideas (ie, paying
> editors). Of course, this requires specific requirements (such as
> control, validation of final quality, starting language with few
> editors expected, local organisers etc...), but on the concept, should
> we or should we not ?

No minor language project can succeed unles it has at least one highly
dedicated who can guide the project through its infancy, and begin to
attract others to the project.  The down side of this is that a new
project may express a strong POV on such delicate subjects as Ossetian
independance.  Beyond those early days when the need is to develop
functioning software, the next test becomes how it deals with other
personalities that have an equally strong butdifferent POV.

> You are perfectly allright : till now, editors have always been
> volunteers. Which could be the consequences that start paying some,
> even if it is on a small and little know language ?

Again, to have a sucessful project the initiative must come from those
who would belong to that project, not from those of us sitting in our
rich country idealism.  We can make them aware of the possibilities; we
can even supply hardware.  Beyond that it's up to them.  A football team
that does not kick the ball does not win.

> As a reminder, only 3 people have till now financially directly making
> benefits. Larry initially, now Brion and Chad Perrin. Another person
> should soon be welcome as well to help with the paperwork. The three
> last people concerned, paid by or soon to be paid by the Foundation,
> have received the approval from Jimbo, Angela and myself... and that
> the three are americans exclusively. Other benefits made in terms of
> "personal income" were non direct (such as development contracts with
> other organisations).

Larry was probably a necessary wet nurse in his time.  While Jimbe
likely needed to more directly spend time with the infrastructure then,
engineering a working model of the intellectual structure was a big
job.  The initiator of a new project should not need to worry about
infrastructure or the development of a working model.  He can be more
quickly involved with content. Brion and Chad are not being paid for
content, but for more technical services that couldn't be done
otherwise.  We can accomodate dilletantes among content providers where
we have many.  There are as many dilletantes in the world of software
development, often with many ideas and little practical experience.  In
that environment a hired cat-herder is very important.

I'm not up-to-date on the need for a paperwork person, but it's easy to
imagine that need in an organisation that's so big.  I appreciate your
point about the positions being filled by Americans.  For Chad's
position I don't think that other viable options were available, and
Brion is probably the best person for the job, nationality
notwithstanding.  I can't comment on the paperwork person, because I
don't know exactly what needs to be done, though I suspect much of it
may have to do with preparing reports to comply with American laws.  The
role of Americans in many international situations is a very sensitive
issue with many competing facets that go beyond our little project.  It
would be unwise for me to go further down that road at this time.

> Given that the goal of the Foundation is "to encouraging the growth,
> development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to
> providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public
> free of charge", I would say that supporting such projects (ie, paying
> editors in certain specific conditions) is within our area of action.
> What I do not know is whether it would be acceptable to do it with
> donation money, or if grants should be seek (sought ?) to support such
> an involvement. I would really welcome opinions on this. In the past
> year, I have seen little criticizing (as opposed to supporting)
> comments related to the way the Foundation money should be spent, but
> for comments saying (a year ago) that developers should get paid in
> priorities before Angie and my costs be reimbursed, or comments saying
> (early 2005) that with all the money we got, the website should be
> more accessible.

Since you raised the point, "sought" is the correct usage there.

I oppose a general policy of paying editors.  The effect of that is to
set up two classes of editors, and that results in quite a different
dynamicamong the editors.  Even if it becomes necessary to pay someone
to provide organizational coherence to a specific project, it should be
made clear that he is not being paid to edit.  Such paid jobs should
have a limited duration with no possibility of rehiring for a period of
time that is at least twice as long as the job lasted.

Reimbursing someone for her proper expenses is completely different from
paying that person for the job that she does.  I think that the comments
that you cite are made out of ignorance by someone who has never had to
do business.  If you need to travel somewhere as an official
representative of the  WMF you certainly should not need to pay for your
own plane fare

> So, I am not sure whether it would be globally acceptable, borderline
> but acceptable, or frankly unacceptable to the editors or not.
>
> Perhaps a beginning of an answer would be that current developers do
> not seem overall to be mad with the idea of Chad and Brion be paid,
> while they are not. It may be because they consider Brion has been
> working a lot for the project and deserve to be partially paid by the
> Foundation, it may be because they consider that Chad work is required
> and can not be done any more by Jimbo. In short, it is acceptable
> because one is known and loved, and acceptable because the other is
> seen as doing a mandatory job. I am not sure, not being in the
> developer team. I suppose participation to such project will be
> possibly acceptable to editors if they can see where the benefits
> stands. Just thoughts. Waiting for all of yours.

There are two aspects of such hiring decisions: do we need to fill such
a position, and who should be that person.  If we don't need to hire
somebody it is pointless to look for somebody to hire.  The job needs to
be defined first.

Ec


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Jimbo interview on NPR Friday?

body:
--- Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

> There are only about 160 language spoken by more than a million.

Doh'

/me slaps forehead.

/me reminds himself to check wikipedia before pulling numbers out of
dark areas.

Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to an Admin

body:
Given that you were accusing me of being Sam Spade earlier, I'm just going
to have a good laugh at your expense right now.

-Enviroknot

>From: Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to an Admin
>Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 13:04:53 -0400
>
>So your assertion is that  there's a large nexus of users with  identical
>editing patterns all clustered in the same geographical  area, on the same
>ISP, and they all happen to be getting each other's  IPs when their cable
>modems disconnect?
>
>Because I think it's the ice weasels, personally.
>
>-Snowspinner
>
>On May 30, 2005, at 12:54 PM, Cranston Snord wrote:
>
>>I sent a response to this to the en-l mailing list yesterday, but  it has
>>not appeared. I am attempting to send it again.
>>
>>If I do not see it this time, I will assume that one of you has  taken the
>>step of removing me from the list for rightfully bringing  my complaints.
>>This would be expected from the power-mad admins who  seem to be in
>>control.
>>
>>On to David Gerard's laughable assertions:
>>
>>As for same pages of interest, no, we don't, as my edits will  attest:
>>second, even if we did, Wikipedia has policy regarding  that, which I have
>>already pointed out.
>>
>>As for the IP, David Gerard insists that Roadrunner keeps users on  the
>>same IP "for months": actually, my record time for keeping an  IP has been
>>two weeks. Your IP only stays static if your cable  modem stays online,
>>and thanks to large-scale construction in my  area, we are regularly hit
>>with brownouts and blackouts, not to  mention cable service downtimes.
>>
>>If a "Cranston Snerd" has edited Wikipedia, I'd like to see a  reference.
>>Since I only edit with one account (named Enviroknot),  that is obviously
>>a fake account set up by someone who is reading  this list and attempting
>>to discredit me.
>>
>>I also want Mel Etitis, his puppet Yuber, and whichever else of you  have
>>been defacing my user page to stop it. I have already warned  Etitis and
>>Yuber repeatedly.
>>
>>-Enviroknot
>>
>>
>>
>>>From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>>>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to an Admin
>>>Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 22:19:27 +1000
>>>
>>>David Gerard (fun at thingy.apana.org.au) [050529 22:16]:
>>>
>>> > ElKabong matches with KaintheScion firstly on writing style and  pages
>>>of
>>> > interest, and secondly they both edited [[Talk:George W. Bush]]  in
>>>the same
>>> > hour from the same IP. (I sent a list of the edits and their  times to
>>>him
>>> > and he emailed back saying I must have made that up.)  KaintheScion
>>>and
>>> > Enviroknot have the same pages of interest and edit from the  same IP,
>>> > starting as the IP and then as Enviroknot the moment I blocked  Kain
>>>as a
>>> > sockpuppet of ElKabong (who I unblocked - the problem is abusing a
>>> > sockpuppet to pretend to be two people, not running a second  account
>>>per
>>> > se). Which is a DSL theoretically on DHCP, but I know Roadrunner
>>>often
>>> > keeps people on the same IP for ages. Certainly this one.
>>>
>>>
>>>Oh - and as well as Enviroknot's home IP matching Kain's,  "Cranston
>>>Snerd"
>>>has edited (and signed "Cranston Snerd") from the same two IPs  favoured
>>>by
>>>ElKabong. Thus completing the circle.
>>>
>>>
>>>- d.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today -  it's
>>FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/ direct/01/
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>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
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>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
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body:
I'm not sure if you intended that as an attack on me, but regardless I
want to remind you:

Without my advocacy, the Sicilian Wikipedia which is now at nearly
1000 articles would probably never have been created, the Friulian one
may never have been created (though, unlike with Sicilian, there were
already Wikipedians who wanted a Wikipedia in their language), and the
Sardinian one would probably have been requested just a couple of
weeks ago.

I am also confident that in some way or another my advocacy helped in
the development of the Georgian, Armenian, Maltese, Bangla, Sami,
Chuvash, and other Wikipedias where I suggested to people that they
request sysop status and translate the interface.

Despite all that though, for every single one of those Wikipedias,
most of the work that got them to where they are now was done by
dedicated native speakers - I didn't have much of a role in any of
them after the very beginning (though Pippu D'Angelo and I still
correspond sort of).

Sending out 100 e-mails letting people know that there is a Wikipedia
in their language generally gets me about 10 responses, and if I am
lucky 1 or 2 actual long-term contributors.

But it doesn't cost anybody any money.

Mark

On 30/05/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Ray Saintonge a ?crit:
> > > V. Ivanov wrote:
> > >
> > >> 2005/5/28, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net>:
> > >>
> > >>> Maybe we should make this concept better known globally.  Maybe we
> > >>> should organise a list of Wikipedians who are prepared to give
> > money to
> > >>> poor people in return for an article in a language that has an
> > inactive
> > >>> Wikipedia.  The Wikipedians would be able to specify any conditions,
> > >>
> > >> Say, offer a preferable topic or even a certain article (or article
> > set).
> > >>
> > > I would be wary of any scheme to pay people for articles.  We have
> > > prided ourselves on an all volunteer production in all languages.
> > >
> > > The one thing that is not mentioned in the discussion is who would fund
> > > this proposal.  Is there a rich Ossetian benefactor willing to pay for
> > > this idea?  There are many other languages that could benefit from this
> > > approach, but it should not be the responsibility of the general
> > > community to pay for such things in other languages either.
> >
> > Hi Ec
> >
> > This is not a proposal, it already exist.
> > It is currently funded by individuals, who may or may not be
> > contributors. I just do not know.
> >
> > We do not have to say anything about this, it exists, it is
> > independant and anyone should be free to find a way to help promote
> > one language. I think the best *we* can do as *editors*, is to help
> > them in their organisation, and also help them transform these
> > teachers in more permanent editors in the long term (feeling proud of
> > a good article featured on home page is one of these ways... there are
> > others...). Typical limitation could be "we offer you money for a good
> > article, but for no more than xx articles".
>
> I'm satisfied to know that the funding for this is local.  As long as
> it's clear that the funding for this sort of thing comes from a local
> organization there can be no liability by WMF in general for unkept
> promises or other legal problems.  Perhaps it would be good to have a
> written policy by the Board disclaiming responsibility for local
> activity, which would be the subject of local law.
>
> The more positive attitude that I have is that funding from people
> directly interested in a language will do more for that Wikipedia (or
> Wiktionary) than any kind of advocating that someone like Mark would
> do.  Those of us who to whom Ossetian and Bambara are nothing more than
> entries in a dictionary of languages can do nothing practical about the
> development of Wikis in those languages.  Local organizations should
> also feel free to seek government funding for work on their own
> language.  African governments are notoriously poor, and cannot be
> expected to do much, but even they can gain better support from their
> own population by investing small amounts in the right places.  Small
> amounts invested by an African government to protect local culture from
> aggressive foreign languages may be more productive than anything that
> Mr. Chirac can sapend in support of his own seriously endangered language.
>
> > But you raise an important issue, which is whether *we* as an
> > *organisation* should financially help similar ideas (ie, paying
> > editors). Of course, this requires specific requirements (such as
> > control, validation of final quality, starting language with few
> > editors expected, local organisers etc...), but on the concept, should
> > we or should we not ?
>
> No minor language project can succeed unles it has at least one highly
> dedicated who can guide the project through its infancy, and begin to
> attract others to the project.  The down side of this is that a new
> project may express a strong POV on such delicate subjects as Ossetian
> independance.  Beyond those early days when the need is to develop
> functioning software, the next test becomes how it deals with other
> personalities that have an equally strong butdifferent POV.
>
> > You are perfectly allright : till now, editors have always been
> > volunteers. Which could be the consequences that start paying some,
> > even if it is on a small and little know language ?
>
> Again, to have a sucessful project the initiative must come from those
> who would belong to that project, not from those of us sitting in our
> rich country idealism.  We can make them aware of the possibilities; we
> can even supply hardware.  Beyond that it's up to them.  A football team
> that does not kick the ball does not win.
>
> > As a reminder, only 3 people have till now financially directly making
> > benefits. Larry initially, now Brion and Chad Perrin. Another person
> > should soon be welcome as well to help with the paperwork. The three
> > last people concerned, paid by or soon to be paid by the Foundation,
> > have received the approval from Jimbo, Angela and myself... and that
> > the three are americans exclusively. Other benefits made in terms of
> > "personal income" were non direct (such as development contracts with
> > other organisations).
>
> Larry was probably a necessary wet nurse in his time.  While Jimbe
> likely needed to more directly spend time with the infrastructure then,
> engineering a working model of the intellectual structure was a big
> job.  The initiator of a new project should not need to worry about
> infrastructure or the development of a working model.  He can be more
> quickly involved with content. Brion and Chad are not being paid for
> content, but for more technical services that couldn't be done
> otherwise.  We can accomodate dilletantes among content providers where
> we have many.  There are as many dilletantes in the world of software
> development, often with many ideas and little practical experience.  In
> that environment a hired cat-herder is very important.
>
> I'm not up-to-date on the need for a paperwork person, but it's easy to
> imagine that need in an organisation that's so big.  I appreciate your
> point about the positions being filled by Americans.  For Chad's
> position I don't think that other viable options were available, and
> Brion is probably the best person for the job, nationality
> notwithstanding.  I can't comment on the paperwork person, because I
> don't know exactly what needs to be done, though I suspect much of it
> may have to do with preparing reports to comply with American laws.  The
> role of Americans in many international situations is a very sensitive
> issue with many competing facets that go beyond our little project.  It
> would be unwise for me to go further down that road at this time.
>
> > Given that the goal of the Foundation is "to encouraging the growth,
> > development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to
> > providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public
> > free of charge", I would say that supporting such projects (ie, paying
> > editors in certain specific conditions) is within our area of action.
> > What I do not know is whether it would be acceptable to do it with
> > donation money, or if grants should be seek (sought ?) to support such
> > an involvement. I would really welcome opinions on this. In the past
> > year, I have seen little criticizing (as opposed to supporting)
> > comments related to the way the Foundation money should be spent, but
> > for comments saying (a year ago) that developers should get paid in
> > priorities before Angie and my costs be reimbursed, or comments saying
> > (early 2005) that with all the money we got, the website should be
> > more accessible.
>
> Since you raised the point, "sought" is the correct usage there.
>
> I oppose a general policy of paying editors.  The effect of that is to
> set up two classes of editors, and that results in quite a different
> dynamicamong the editors.  Even if it becomes necessary to pay someone
> to provide organizational coherence to a specific project, it should be
> made clear that he is not being paid to edit.  Such paid jobs should
> have a limited duration with no possibility of rehiring for a period of
> time that is at least twice as long as the job lasted.
>
> Reimbursing someone for her proper expenses is completely different from
> paying that person for the job that she does.  I think that the comments
> that you cite are made out of ignorance by someone who has never had to
> do business.  If you need to travel somewhere as an official
> representative of the  WMF you certainly should not need to pay for your
> own plane fare
>
> > So, I am not sure whether it would be globally acceptable, borderline
> > but acceptable, or frankly unacceptable to the editors or not.
> >
> > Perhaps a beginning of an answer would be that current developers do
> > not seem overall to be mad with the idea of Chad and Brion be paid,
> > while they are not. It may be because they consider Brion has been
> > working a lot for the project and deserve to be partially paid by the
> > Foundation, it may be because they consider that Chad work is required
> > and can not be done any more by Jimbo. In short, it is acceptable
> > because one is known and loved, and acceptable because the other is
> > seen as doing a mandatory job. I am not sure, not being in the
> > developer team. I suppose participation to such project will be
> > possibly acceptable to editors if they can see where the benefits
> > stands. Just thoughts. Waiting for all of yours.
>
> There are two aspects of such hiring decisions: do we need to fill such
> a position, and who should be that person.  If we don't need to hire
> somebody it is pointless to look for somebody to hire.  The job needs to
> be defined first.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to an Admin

body:
So your assertion is that  there's a large nexus of users with
identical editing patterns all clustered in the same geographical
area, on the same ISP, and they all happen to be getting each other's
IPs when their cable modems disconnect?

Because I think it's the ice weasels, personally.

-Snowspinner

On May 30, 2005, at 12:54 PM, Cranston Snord wrote:

> I sent a response to this to the en-l mailing list yesterday, but
> it has not appeared. I am attempting to send it again.
>
> If I do not see it this time, I will assume that one of you has
> taken the step of removing me from the list for rightfully bringing
> my complaints. This would be expected from the power-mad admins who
> seem to be in control.
>
> On to David Gerard's laughable assertions:
>
> As for same pages of interest, no, we don't, as my edits will
> attest: second, even if we did, Wikipedia has policy regarding
> that, which I have already pointed out.
>
> As for the IP, David Gerard insists that Roadrunner keeps users on
> the same IP "for months": actually, my record time for keeping an
> IP has been two weeks. Your IP only stays static if your cable
> modem stays online, and thanks to large-scale construction in my
> area, we are regularly hit with brownouts and blackouts, not to
> mention cable service downtimes.
>
> If a "Cranston Snerd" has edited Wikipedia, I'd like to see a
> reference. Since I only edit with one account (named Enviroknot),
> that is obviously a fake account set up by someone who is reading
> this list and attempting to discredit me.
>
> I also want Mel Etitis, his puppet Yuber, and whichever else of you
> have been defacing my user page to stop it. I have already warned
> Etitis and Yuber repeatedly.
>
> -Enviroknot
>
>
>
>> From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to an Admin
>> Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 22:19:27 +1000
>>
>> David Gerard (fun at thingy.apana.org.au) [050529 22:16]:
>>
>> > ElKabong matches with KaintheScion firstly on writing style and
>> pages of
>> > interest, and secondly they both edited [[Talk:George W. Bush]]
>> in the same
>> > hour from the same IP. (I sent a list of the edits and their
>> times to him
>> > and he emailed back saying I must have made that up.)
>> KaintheScion and
>> > Enviroknot have the same pages of interest and edit from the
>> same IP,
>> > starting as the IP and then as Enviroknot the moment I blocked
>> Kain as a
>> > sockpuppet of ElKabong (who I unblocked - the problem is abusing a
>> > sockpuppet to pretend to be two people, not running a second
>> account per
>> > se). Which is a DSL theoretically on DHCP, but I know Roadrunner
>> often
>> > keeps people on the same IP for ages. Certainly this one.
>>
>>
>> Oh - and as well as Enviroknot's home IP matching Kain's,
>> "Cranston Snerd"
>> has edited (and signed "Cranston Snerd") from the same two IPs
>> favoured by
>> ElKabong. Thus completing the circle.
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today -
> it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/
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>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Merlin

subject: [Wikitech-l] How huge is old wikipedia de?

body:
Hi there,

I just tried to insert the old table for the german wiki. It failed due
to a lack of storage.
There was 22 GB available while the sql file is about 16GB. Can anybody
tell how much disk space the table needs on a mysql 4.x installation?

Thanx, Merlin


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

body:
> * Give them the PROCESS privilege
Would work.

> * Upgrade to MySQL 4.1. Not easy due to the need to dump and reimport,
> and we don't need to do it for any other reason.
Would we _really_ need that? Sure, downtimes will happen with altering column collations and stuff...

> * Use "SELECT max(rc_timestamp)" like servmon.
> It wouldn't work well for a site like wikicities
> but it should work for us most of the time.

We could run 'pinger' process on master, that would
simply update some HEAP table with current timestamp
every second (or every half of it).

> * Use a daemon running as wikiadmin to pass information
> to the apache threads via memcached. Maintenance and
> administration is an issue. A variation on this is for
> the daemon to set load ratios based on lag information.

Well, if we implement load management, then it could work.
Without that feature I guess it would not be that optimal.

Domas


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Aggregating MediaWiki access control
	discussions/patches

body:
On 29/05/05, Rob Lanphier <robla at robla.net> wrote:
> 1.  I've included links to several bugs.  I'd like to file a tracking
> bug in BZ which is blocked by those bugs so that I get the benefit of
> two-way links to all of the bugs.  However, it doesn't appear that
> metabugs are standard practice here.  Is that by policy?  More to the
> point, would anyone mind if I filed an "Access control" tracking bug?

Don't take this as in any way authoritative, but my impression was
that appropriate tracking bugs are fine - there's even a rather
amusing tracking bug for tracking tracking bugs!
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2007

However, I note that there is already a tracking bug for the new "user
and group rights" system which will hopefully be finally releasable
for 1.5.0 (http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=767) which
overlaps somewhat with most discussions on access control in general.
But maybe a more general tracking bug could simply depend on 767, with
that bug reserved for issues specifically caused by that new
framework.

As you rightly say on your meta page, *authentication* is a separate
issue, which may have its own issues to deal with.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

body:
On Mon, May 30, 2005 at 02:05:02PM +0200, Merlin wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I just tried to insert the old table for the german wiki. It failed due
> to a lack of storage.
> There was 22 GB available while the sql file is about 16GB. Can anybody
> tell how much disk space the table needs on a mysql 4.x installation?

were the 22GB available before or after you put the 16GB dump onto?

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://verlag.tomk32.de/ - WikiReader Digest als Print-Ausgabe
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


from_name: Christophe Millet

subject: [Wiktionary-l] (no subject)

body:
> So I would suggest whoever is managing the idea of change needs to lift
> their game in keeping the active Wiktionary community informed.

You can find some information on the web at :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary

Hope this help,
Kipmaster


from_name: Gustav Vella

subject: [Wiktionary-l] (no subject)

body:
Hi,

I'm really glad I got this mail because I was working on a different
concept for the Maltese wiktionary.

http://mt.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:New_Dictionary_Structure

I was of the opinion that the wikidata concept had been abandoned.

Has the contract alrready been given? The Institute for Linguistic
Data Processing at the University of Cologne desiged a Dictionary
Schema for a Tamino Database which is based on the EAGLES standard and
would be willing to donate the schema to the project on the basis of
Credit i.e. citation in the documentation. It still has to be expanded
for non-european Languages and we thought maltese would be the ideal
gentle move into that complexity.

best regards
--
Gustav Vella
Linguistic Data Processing
University of Cologne - Germany
--

On 5/30/05, Christophe Millet <kipmaster at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So I would suggest whoever is managing the idea of change needs to lift
> > their game in keeping the active Wiktionary community informed.
>
> You can find some information on the web at :
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary
>
> Hope this help,
> Kipmaster
> _______________________________________________
> Wiktionary-l mailing list
> Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
>


from_name: Tim Starling

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

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

body:
Timwi wrote:
> However, I guess what actually irritates me is the combination of that
> *and* the fact that there are very few other people with the relevant
> access => the brickwall effect. I have often moaned that too few people
> have access to do the things smaller projects need to have done (this
> applies to pretty much all projects, not just tlh), and unfortunately it
> has often been misinterpreted to mean that I am insisting on receiving
> access myself. I just think that if you are going to refuse to do
> something that is in your power to do, then you should at least empower
> someone else to do it instead.

Yes, I agree with you. The problem is that to have shell access requires
a consensus of trust from several people. That's probably an appropriate
requirement considering anyone with shell access can destroy the last
week or two of edits to the site, or access private user data. I can't
in good conscience give it to anyone who wants to do something that I
don't want to do. And to search for something that I don't want to do
and then offer to do it in exchange for shell access is just bribery.

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

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Brion Vibber

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

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Again, please let me know what you think about this, if there are any
> questions, and whether I should try to get this ready for 1.5. Are we
> near/at the feature freeze stage? Is there going to be a REL1_5 branch
> soon?

This rather too experimental for 1.5 at this point (which will be going
live within a week or two).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to an Admin

body:
Whether they believe me or not, it's the truth.

As far as someone else being in my neighborhood, it's possible. The area I'm
in is heavily filled with apartments, and there have been a number of
"tiffs" with the local Mosque being caught distributing some pretty hateful
material (complete with Koranic quotations as support) recently.

I have already stated that I have no agreement on the language that
KaintheScion and/or ElKabong used. The treatment I have received at the
hands of these admins DOES give me reason to be sympathetic to those users,
and their quickness to make accusations is another reason.

Just FYI, so far I've been accused of being at least four different users. I
find that hilarious; Wikipedia policy notes that some topics bring in new
people all the time, and the first instinct of you admins and any editor
trying to tilt an article's POV is to scream "sockpuppet."

-Enviroknot

>From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>,English Wikipedia
><wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to an Admin
>Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 16:25:12 -0400
>
>On 5/30/05, Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > As for the IP, David Gerard insists that Roadrunner keeps users on the
>same
> > IP "for months": actually, my record time for keeping an IP has been two
> > weeks. Your IP only stays static if your cable modem stays online, and
> > thanks to large-scale construction in my area, we are regularly hit with
> > brownouts and blackouts, not to mention cable service downtimes.
>
>It doesn't matter how long you keep it, what matters is that you both
>used the same address.  The DHCP assigned addresses are not pooled
>with the whole world, but rather are pooled with everyone hanging off
>the same downstream CMTS port, so you'd have to be in the same city
>and probably the same neighborhood to have any chance at all.
>
>So while you claim you are unrelated for that to be true you would have to:
>1. Live in the same city, and almost certainly the same neighborhood.
>Since you claim to only know him via Wikipedia the probability that
>you also live next to each other is infinitesimal.
>2. Then you'd have to be offline at the same time... And manage to get
>each others IP. Perhaps simultaneously offline is not unlikely, but if
>a whole area went down there were many people going after addresses a
>swap would still be quite unlikely.
>3. Despite what you claim about assignment, the vast majority of
>broadband providers have their DHCP servers set to attempt to
>constantly assign an address, and when they can't they use a least
>recently used policy to assign from the pool. I have road runner
>service at my house and was offline for a few hours last night because
>I kicked out the power cable... and I still have the same IP I've had
>for months.
>
>
>I hope this explains why no one believes you.
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
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from_name: advert

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

body:
I am new to editing Wikipedia and had never previously registered. I did not realise this was even a requirement to register in order to make changes to an entry. I was blocked after trying to make several edits to the page. I was unaware that editing a page was somehow an offense worth blocking considering that there is an "edit this page" tab at the top of the entry and that is what I was doing - editing the page. Wikipedia should remove the "edit this page" link for unregistered users if that is not what it is for.

I have been accused of "vandalism" and blocked:

"Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Brian0918.
The reason given is this:
numerous repeated vandalisms
You can email Brian0918 or one of the other administrators to discuss the block..."

Please take a look at my edits for "pornography" as of 5/30/05. I don't consider that my edits were "vandalism" nor do I believe that they meet Wikipedia definition given here:

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

"for example someone replacing the entire page with profanity, or adding a page with useless or offensive content."

I did NOT replace the entire page, use profanity, or add "useless" or "offensive" content. I added a feminist perspective which I considered sorely lacking on the site entry and I deleted content that I thought was offensive. If that is considered useless or offensive content then Wikipedia had better check its own "neutral point of view".

Also, as I am completely new to editing on Wikipedia, I was  unaware of the "neutral point of view" policy until later and I don't consider the entry that I was trying to edit to have been "neutral" as it was before I started to even edit it.

I would like to be unblocked and be allowed to add a feminist perspective to the entry which I edited. I don't think the entry as it stands is "neutral".


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

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

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Paid-for-articles WPs in smaller languages
	(was: bambara)

body:
Guaka wrote:

> Reading this thread... An idea that pops up right now... Communities
>
>could be provided with one or more computers, under the condition they
>regularly write new Wikipedia articles. An internet connection is
>probably too expensive at such places. This way people can be provided
>with lots of valuable information in languages some people can
>understand while at the same time working on information in their native
>language.
>
>Make computer usage free for people who contribute to Wikimedia projects
>(or localization, documentation, development of free software, free
>information projects), and people who don't contribute can choose to pay
>a small sum that pays the electricity, and possibly the internet
>connection...
>
>I've been quite a while in Bamako now. And I've tried to get people
>interested. First with 200 CFA per article (0.3 EUR), but that didn't
>really work. I've tried with university students, but nothing really
>happened. Recently a new Geek arrived however, who has equipped a little
>community school/center with a bunch of computers, in one of the poorer
>areas of Bamako. And they are really interested. The university students
>and the more "well off" people couldn't be bothered with the 500 CFA.
>Poorer people however, don't have the money to use a cybercafe. 500 CFA
>per hour is considered cheap here, for using the internet, but is also
>unaffordable for at least 90% of the population.
>
>Yesterday, at the center, I gave out the first 500 CFA pieces, and
>people are starting to get the idea.
>
>I also installed a DICT version of Wikipedia on the computer, so they
>can access all the text from the French Wikipedia and translate that.
>
This kind of innovation is important.  The fact that you outline
unsuccessful strategies, and what was done to find alternative
techniques is highly instructive.  How old were the computers that were
put in the community school?  How stable is electrical power in Bamako?

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Trophees du libre prizes

body:
Nicolas Weeger wrote:
> Sending as a separate mail to not mess things :)
>
> At Les trophees du Libre, MediaWiki won the following prizes:
> * a nice trophy, of which i shall upload a picture at some point, and
> which'll be for someone to to you

Yay!

> * an HP laptop dual boot. I guess you guys/gals decide what to do with
> it :)

Well, it would make sense to make use of this for Wikimania: we're
planning a developers hackathon before the main convention and if
somebody's missing a laptop it could come in rather handy. If nobody
needs direct use of it, we could reserve it for infrastructure / use by
the NIC.

After Wikimania it'll need to go somewhere.... ?

(I've got a lovely laptop already, so I disclaim any technolust for it.)

> * an hosting offer "pack premium", description at
> http://nexenservices.com/product_info.php?set_lang=en&cPath=2&products_id=17
> .Once again, i guess you decide whether to accept it or not, what to do
> with it. I think the offer is for one year (but i can contact someone to
> make sure, or have more details)

Dunno what to do with this...

> * 4 subscriptions to DirectionPHP (
> http://www.directionphp.biz/a_la_une.php ).

That could be fun. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject:
PS: [WikiEN-l] Blocked after making several edits - accused
	of	"vandalism"?!

body:
I likewise suggest removing this page from Wikipedia:

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

"Don't be afraid to edit pages on Wikipedia?anyone can edit, and we encourage users to be bold! Find something that can be improved, either in content, grammar or formatting, then fix it. Worried about breaking Wikipedia? Don't be: it can always be fixed or improved later. So go ahead, edit an article and help make Wikipedia the best source for information on the Internet!"

Yeah, I did and was blocked. You might want to change that to "be careful and read the rules before you edit" instead.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: advert [mailto:advert at ziplip.com]
> Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005, 3:53 PM
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked after making several edits - accused of
> 	"vandalism"?!
>
> I am new to editing Wikipedia and had never previously registered. I did not
> realise this was even a requirement to register in order to make changes to an
> entry. I was blocked after trying to make several edits to the page. I was
> unaware that editing a page was somehow an offense worth blocking considering
> that there is an "edit this page" tab at the top of the entry and that is what
> I was doing - editing the page. Wikipedia should remove the "edit this page"
> link for unregistered users if that is not what it is for.
>
> I have been accused of "vandalism" and blocked:
>
> "Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Brian0918.
> The reason given is this:
> numerous repeated vandalisms
> You can email Brian0918 or one of the other administrators to discuss the
> block..."
>
>
> Please take a look at my edits for "pornography" as of 5/30/05. I don't
> consider that my edits were "vandalism" nor do I believe that they meet
> Wikipedia definition given here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dealing_with_vandalism
>
> "for example someone replacing the entire page with profanity, or adding a
> page with useless or offensive content."
>
> I did NOT replace the entire page, use profanity, or add "useless" or
> "offensive" content. I added a feminist perspective which I considered sorely
> lacking on the site entry and I deleted content that I thought was offensive.
> If that is considered useless or offensive content then Wikipedia had better
> check its own "neutral point of view".
>
> Also, as I am completely new to editing on Wikipedia, I was  unaware of the
> "neutral point of view" policy until later and I don't consider the entry that
> I was trying to edit to have been "neutral" as it was before I started to even
> edit it.
>
> I would like to be unblocked and be allowed to add a feminist perspective to
> the entry which I edited. I don't think the entry as it stands is "neutral".
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Sean Barrett

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

body:
advert stated for the record:

> I would like to be unblocked and be allowed to add a feminist perspective to the entry which I edited. I don't think the entry as it stands is "neutral".

Your edits were not vandalism, but they were not acceptable.  Stating as
a fact that "[p]ornography ... is the representation of the human body
or [[human sexual behaviour]] mainly from a male supremacist
perspective" is highly opinionated.  That statement represents an
extreme point of view that most editors and readers will not agree with
and will quickly edit away.

Something along the lines of "many feminists feel that pornography
represents a male supremacist perspective" would be slightly better, but
would require a definition of "male supremacist perspective."

Also, we are not interested in your personal definitions of
"pornography" and "erotica."  If those definitions were created
elsewhere, please provide references.

You may want to suggest changes on the article's talk page and ask for
help in wording them so as to conform to the (obligatory) neutral point
of view.

--
  Sean Barrett
  sean at epoptic.com


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice to an Admin

body:
On 5/30/05, Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> As for the IP, David Gerard insists that Roadrunner keeps users on the same
> IP "for months": actually, my record time for keeping an IP has been two
> weeks. Your IP only stays static if your cable modem stays online, and
> thanks to large-scale construction in my area, we are regularly hit with
> brownouts and blackouts, not to mention cable service downtimes.

It doesn't matter how long you keep it, what matters is that you both
used the same address.  The DHCP assigned addresses are not pooled
with the whole world, but rather are pooled with everyone hanging off
the same downstream CMTS port, so you'd have to be in the same city
and probably the same neighborhood to have any chance at all.

So while you claim you are unrelated for that to be true you would have to:
1. Live in the same city, and almost certainly the same neighborhood.
Since you claim to only know him via Wikipedia the probability that
you also live next to each other is infinitesimal.
2. Then you'd have to be offline at the same time... And manage to get
each others IP. Perhaps simultaneously offline is not unlikely, but if
a whole area went down there were many people going after addresses a
swap would still be quite unlikely.
3. Despite what you claim about assignment, the vast majority of
broadband providers have their DHCP servers set to attempt to
constantly assign an address, and when they can't they use a least
recently used policy to assign from the pool. I have road runner
service at my house and was offline for a few hours last night because
I kicked out the power cable... and I still have the same IP I've had
for months.

I hope this explains why no one believes you.


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked Without Cause by Rogue Admin SlimVirgin

body:
On 5/30/05, Cranston Snord <enviroknot at hotmail.com> wrote:
> SlimVirgin has blocked me without cause after Yuber started an edit war and
> falsely claimed that I broke the three revert rule at the article Dhimmi.

Enviroknot was reported on WP:AN/3RR by [[User:Yuber]] for a violation
at [[Dhimmi]].

Enviroknot reverted four times to a previous version. The previous
version is the one at 02:53 May 30. It includes the text:

"Dhimmitude is also mentioned ... in Surah 9:29 of the Koran
[http://www.submission.org/suras/sura9.html 1]:

"You shall fight back against those who do not believe in GOD, nor in
the Last Day, nor do they prohibit what GOD and His messenger have
prohibited, nor do they abide by the religion of truth - among those
who received the scripture - until they pay the due tax, willingly or
unwillingly."

Enviroknot reverted to this text another four times:: at 17:12, 20:40,
20:58, and 21:18 on May 30.

For anyone wanting to check, his contribs are here
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Enviroknot

Sarah


from_name: Timwi

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

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> My current thinking on replication lag is that lagged servers shouldn't
> serve any read requests at all, until they catch up.

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


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

body:
> 1.  I've included links to several bugs.  I'd like to file a tracking
> bug in BZ which is blocked by those bugs so that I get the benefit of
> two-way links to all of the bugs.  However, it doesn't appear that
> metabugs are standard practice here.  Is that by policy?  More to the
> point, would anyone mind if I filed an "Access control" tracking bug?

If it isn't there already then file it.