from_name: Milos Rancic

body:
I am implementing the transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin for
Serbian Wikipedia. I am not sure that Serbian or Belarussian
transliteration can pass "live transliteration" without problems.

Chinese situation is almost clean: One set of characters should be
changed into another set. If they use Latin (or Cyrillic) alphabet
(for referencing) or Arabic numbers, they would not change it during
transliteration.

Transliteration between Cyrillic and Latin alphabets is complicated
because of a number of problems (Serbian Latin and Cyrillic
ortographies have some differences, too): If Latin alphabet in
Belarussian has equal status (such as in Serbian, almost) with
Cyrillic, you can't forbid writing in Latin. And if you want to
transliterate from Latin to Cyrillic, you'll have a lot of English
words transliterated in Cyrillic. Also, what about referencing in
Cyrillic? If you add some Russian bibliography, you'll have Russian
text transliterated into Latin.

So, I started to build some (static) infrastructure (using
pywikipediabot) for Serbian. As the situation is similar for
Belarussian, we can do it together (or you can use my code when I
finish it for Serbian Wikipedia).

On Mar 25, 2005 6:58 PM, monk at zoomcon.com <monk at zoomcon.com> wrote:
> Hello wikitech-l,
>
>   Belarusian language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_language)
>   has now two quite widely used alphabet versions - Cyrillics and Latin
>   (actually, it also has Arabic alphabet, but it is too rarely used).
>
>   For now, be: wikipedia uses Cyrillics. But we really need Latin
>   version for those, who prefers to use this alphabet. We have strict
>   bidirectional rules to transform any text between Cyrillics <-> Latin.
>
>   We are interested in creating of a "live mirror" (automatic
>   translator) between Cyrillics and Latin alphabets for be: Wikipedia.
>   I mean, it would be great, if anyone could read and submit any article
>   in either alphabet.
>
>   As far as i know, something similar was created for different
>   alphabets of Chinese language, so this issue should be worked over
>   already.
>
>   I'm myself an experienced PHP+MySQL developer, so I can directly
>   participate in this project.
>
>   Can anyone provide their thoughts and any help about this issue? It
>   is surely interesting and quite important thing.
>
>   Thank you.
>
> --
> Best regards,
>  Monk ([[en:User:Monkbel]]                  mailto:monk at zoomcon.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image metadata in database

body:
On Apr 11, 2005 7:22 PM, Daniel Wunsch <the.gray at gmx.net> wrote:
> On Monday 11 April 2005 09:22, Magnus Manske wrote:
>
> > Nice! While you're at it, would it make sense to include a field for the
> > media type (not the file type) as well? Like, "image", "audio", "video",
> > coded as integer values.
>
> mimetypes?

Well, the first half thereof: "media type (not the file type)" :p.
I'm guessing Magnus was thinking ints would take up less space, and be
easier to manipulate (since the aim was to avoid text-matching
queries)?

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Rahul Sinha

subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed Authentication

body:
Hi there,

Drupal has a distributed authentication system
(http://drupal.org/node/312) that allows any holder of an account from
a participating site to log into another participating site using his
original login (preventing namespace collision via user at sitename for
the other sites).

Given the vast number of Wikipedia account holders, might not this
system be useful to MediaWiki sites?  Adding in some PKI to prevent
"remote.spammers.biz" from entering the network (requiring
participating sites to "register" with a "auth.mediawiki.org") and
ideally making this protocol in concert with, and thus compatible with
Drupal (why not after all; the creation of a standard cross-server
authentication mechanism would be nice, no?), the smaller sites could
benefit from the speed bump to vandals that registration implies
without actually deterring potential contributors.

Any thoughts?
-RS


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: unable to access my wiki outside my private
	network

body:
On Apr 11, 2005 10:19 PM, Byortek wiki <wiki at byortek.com> wrote:
> When the browser calls smallpc.dyndns.org/wiki, somehow mediawiki
> tells the browser (through apache) to redirect (status 301) the call
> to the private url smallpc.home/wiki

Aha; I think you need to add a line in your "LocalSettings.php" file
defining $wgServer; otherwise it will be automatically detected each
time from the apache settings (I think). e.g.

$wgServer = "http://smallpc.dyndns.org";

[AFAICS, it will still be auto-detected in DefaultSettings.php, but
this will then override it since LocalSettings.php is evaluated
later.]

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Sj

subject:
[Wikitech-l] A comprehensive list of en.wikipedia.org article
	topics

body:
Hi Andy :)  Preparing for the Mystery Hunt already?

On Apr 11, 2005 7:54 PM, Andy Sisson <andy.sisson at gmail.com> wrote:

> It occurred to me that the 500k+ english language article topics would
> by themselves be a fairly broad index of the vocabulary and zeitgeist
> of the english speaking world - which would, in turn, potentially be

A little Wiki-Zeitgeist project, that caches each day the most popular
new articles, the most edited articles, the most popular searches
(which is slightly useful anyway for caching), and perhaps lists the
titles of the last thousand new articles and images, would be a fine
thing to have linked from the main page.

SJ


subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed Authentication

body:
I have to admit, I very much hope this takes off; are "the developers"
on this list or is there somewhere else I should go to advance this
idea?

-RS

On 11 Apr 2005, at 11.36 PM, Ryan wrote:

> That would be an idea, something for the developers to consider.
>
>
> --
> Ryan
>
>
> On 4/11/05 8:32 PM, "Rahul Sinha" <quidire at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> Drupal has a distributed authentication system
>> (http://drupal.org/node/312) that allows any holder of an account from
>> a participating site to log into another participating site using his
>> original login (preventing namespace collision via user at sitename for
>> the other sites).
>>
>> Given the vast number of Wikipedia account holders, might not this
>> system be useful to MediaWiki sites?  Adding in some PKI to prevent
>> "remote.spammers.biz" from entering the network (requiring
>> participating sites to "register" with a "auth.mediawiki.org") and
>> ideally making this protocol in concert with, and thus compatible with
>> Drupal (why not after all; the creation of a standard cross-server
>> authentication mechanism would be nice, no?), the smaller sites could
>> benefit from the speed bump to vandals that registration implies
>> without actually deterring potential contributors.
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>> -RS
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Ryan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed Authentication = Single-user-login

body:
Looks like it.

--
Ryan

On 4/12/05 12:15 AM, "Thomas Gries" <mail at tgries.de> wrote:

>
> Rahul Sinha schrieb:
>
>> Drupal has a distributed authentication system
>> (http://drupal.org/node/312) that allows any holder of an account from
>> a participating site to log into another participating site using his
>> original login (preventing namespace collision via user at sitename for
>> the other sites).
>
> Is this, what is called on mediawiki "Single-user-login" see
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUL ?
> Tom
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] copyright question about data

body:
On Apr 11, 2005 11:42 PM, Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron at gmail.com> wrote:
> As far as I understand it, these figures would be derivative works from
> public domain works... and their author would get copyright !
>
> Cordialement,
>
> Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Doctorant
> CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2
> http://soufron.free.fr
>

Yes, that is right, the person/organisation that compiled the data
gets credit for their work - it is in the public domain but we still
need to reference the source. The same goes for graphs - a
representation of data is itself copyright, though you can make your
own graph from the data and refer to the source, ie. World Bank, UNDP
or whatever. Correct me if I am wrong..
Cormac

> Le 11 avr. 05, ? 23:42, Edward Peschko a ?crit :
>
> > hey all,
> >
> > sorry if this is a FAQ - and I'm not sure if this question belongs in
> > this
> > mailing list - but since it concerns the legal side of the fence wrt
> > wikipedia contributions here goes:
> >
> > What's the legal status of data retrieved from non-public domain
> > sources?
> >
> > I understand that text that is retrieved from copyrighted materials is
> > copyrighted, but how about data and figures that deal with common
> > interest
> > topics? Can you really copyright the amount of wheat grown in a year in
> > bangladesh, or the number of accidents in a year on california roads?
> >
> >
> > And how about graphs? Is data that is extrapolated from graphs and
> > used in derivative graphs considered a 'creative work' of its own?
> >
> >
> > I'd think so, but I just want to be sure..
> >
> > Ed
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Juriwiki-l

body:
I tried to post to the foundation-news-l list yesterday and this also
did not get through, even though I am subscribed. Has anyone else
tried to post to that list?
Cormac

On Apr 11, 2005 7:01 PM, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 5, 2005 10:42 AM, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > A new mailing list was opened this week. Its name is Juriwiki-l at mail.wikimedia.org. Its moderator is Soufron.
> > Who can post to the list ?
> > Anyone may post to this list (at least, until we begin to have spamming issues)
>
> I don't know why but posts are seemingly being automatically
> discarded, so no one but those subscribed to juriwiki can post to the
> list. If anyone has tried to send anything there, please note that it
> did not get through and has been permanently lost. You may want to try
> emailing board at wikimedia.org instead so a member of board can forward
> your mail to the list until this is fixed.
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Juriwiki-l


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

body:
As far as I understand it, these figures would be derivative works from
public domain works... and their author would get copyright !

Cordialement,

Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Doctorant
CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2
http://soufron.free.fr

Le 11 avr. 05, ? 23:42, Edward Peschko a ?crit :

> hey all,
>
> sorry if this is a FAQ - and I'm not sure if this question belongs in
> this
> mailing list - but since it concerns the legal side of the fence wrt
> wikipedia contributions here goes:
>
> What's the legal status of data retrieved from non-public domain
> sources?
>
> I understand that text that is retrieved from copyrighted materials is
> copyrighted, but how about data and figures that deal with common
> interest
> topics? Can you really copyright the amount of wheat grown in a year in
> bangladesh, or the number of accidents in a year on california roads?
>
>
> And how about graphs? Is data that is extrapolated from graphs and
> used in derivative graphs considered a 'creative work' of its own?
>
>
> I'd think so, but I just want to be sure..
>
> Ed
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Alphax

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Internal Radio System (Re:
	Foundation news)

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
>
>
>>Not a real internet radio. Only one "program" of a couple of minutes
>>every week. That is important, that there is always on a fix date a new
>>version. If not it will be dead very soon.
>>
>>
>
>Heh - Jimbo could have is weekly radio address right after GWB. :)
>
>-- mav
>
This is a test of the internal radio service. This is only a test. Were
this a real message, you could edit it.

--
Alphax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Edward Peschko wrote:

>On Mon, Apr 11, 2005 at 05:38:42PM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Andre Engels wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Apr 11, 2005 11:42 PM, Edward Peschko <esp5 at pge.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>What's the legal status of data retrieved from non-public domain sources?
>>>>
>>>>I understand that text that is retrieved from copyrighted materials is
>>>>copyrighted, but how about data and figures that deal with common interest
>>>>topics? Can you really copyright the amount of wheat grown in a year in
>>>>bangladesh, or the number of accidents in a year on california roads?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>No, you cannot copyright the data itself. What is copyrighted is the
>>>*representation* of the data, while the *selection* of the data MIGHT
>>>be copyrighted.
>>>
>>>
>>This is a very important distinction.  The selection issue can be
>>difficult, and is most applicable when you are using the same subset of
>>data as someone else.  If you and the other person are providing
>>complete data that is not a breech since there is only one way to have
>>everything. :-)  Also an obvious form of representation of the material
>>(such as alphabetical order) is not copyrightable.
>>
>>
>How about augmented data? Ie: say someone has a set of data that you'd like
>to keep in its entirety, but you add some features that text cannot possibly
>have (like, say links to supporting papers for important datapoints,
>or zoom-in on graphs). Is that considered copyright infringement?
>
>
Augmenting data helps to establish the fact that you are not limiting
yourself to the original author's selection process..  In many of these
cases determining whether there has been a breech of copyright will
never be a black and white situation.  We really are looking at a
balance of probabilities.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed Authentication

body:
This is more or less the right list; though it would also be
appropriate to mediawiki-l , the list for all mediawiki developers.

You might also take a look at what the Identity Commons is doing.  I
don't understand all of the standards involved, but it involves a
richer API than just distributed authentication...
   http://idcommons.net/technology.html

+sj+
 _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...]


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Internal Radio System
	(Re:Foundation news)

body:
> >I propose it be entirely in Klingon so that there are approximately
> >equal numbers of people from each Wikipedia who can understand it.
> >
> >Rather than what you propose, why not a full-time internet radio? We
> >can have programs such as "Let's trim our hair in the Wikipedian
> >fashion", "Jimbo Wales' Birthday Celebration", "Biography of Jimbo
> >Wales" (who was born atop Encyclopedia Mountain, and who has never
> >lied and always lived in accordance with the Wikipedian ideal),
> >newsfeeds (with such news as "Imperialist Britannicans planning
> >nuclear attack on Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales counters with declaration of
> >the Wikimedia Foundation's nuclear capabilities"), and slogan hour
> >(where prominent Wikipedians shout out Klingon-language slogans about
> >Wikipedia, Jimbo, and related topics)
> >
> >Mark
>
> Funny Mark, but you're going too far. You are comparing Jimbo with Kim Yong
> Il or some other absurdly glorified dictator. Moreover, I think this attemp
> is not as moribund as you suggest.

First of all, it's "Kim Jong Il".

> I appreciate most of your contributions and I share your sympathy for
> demographic minorities, but I can't really get your point in this. It
> reminds me very much of your earlier e-mail in which you requested two kinds
> of American English, Jimbonian and Nodelian. What's your point with jokes
> like these?

Since you may be excluded from the tradition practiced in some
countries on April 1 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day
), I shall bring to your attention that not only does this tradition
exist, but the message in question was sent on April 1 (or at least
timestamped as such - it certainly wasn't April 1 in all timezones),
and it was all in good fun (and it did appear to provide a bit of
amusement for some other listmembers).

These jokes don't have a "point". If you scour the list for all
messages, you will find that I am not the only one who has a sense of
humour and knows how to make jokes. In fact, this extends to Ant, Mav,
Jimbo, etc. who can occasionally be found to be making a joke on this
list.

I don't know how it is with you, but as far as I know the point of
humour is to lighten up a situation, and only occasionally to make a
point.

Mark


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Re: unable to access my wiki outside
	my	privatenetwork

body:
Byortek wiki wrote:
> You'll see that when the client requests the public adress (smallpc.dyndns.org),
> the apache server redirects it to the private adress (smallpc.home) and,
> on next call, redirects it to the public adress (smallpc.dyndns.org) !!!

Did you set the ServerName directive correctly in httpd.conf (or your
<VirtualHost> section)?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Well, the new work is copyrighted but the works it's using are still
public domain and can be re-used at will.

Cordialement,

Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Doctorant
CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2
http://soufron.free.fr

Le 12 avr. 05, ? 01:21, Cormac Lawler a ?crit :

> On Apr 11, 2005 11:42 PM, Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> As far as I understand it, these figures would be derivative works
>> from
>> public domain works... and their author would get copyright !
>>
>> Cordialement,
>>
>> Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Doctorant
>> CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2
>> http://soufron.free.fr
>>
>
> Yes, that is right, the person/organisation that compiled the data
> gets credit for their work - it is in the public domain but we still
> need to reference the source. The same goes for graphs - a
> representation of data is itself copyright, though you can make your
> own graph from the data and refer to the source, ie. World Bank, UNDP
> or whatever. Correct me if I am wrong..
> Cormac
>
>
>> Le 11 avr. 05, ? 23:42, Edward Peschko a ?crit :
>>
>>> hey all,
>>>
>>> sorry if this is a FAQ - and I'm not sure if this question belongs in
>>> this
>>> mailing list - but since it concerns the legal side of the fence wrt
>>> wikipedia contributions here goes:
>>>
>>> What's the legal status of data retrieved from non-public domain
>>> sources?
>>>
>>> I understand that text that is retrieved from copyrighted materials
>>> is
>>> copyrighted, but how about data and figures that deal with common
>>> interest
>>> topics? Can you really copyright the amount of wheat grown in a year
>>> in
>>> bangladesh, or the number of accidents in a year on california roads?
>>>
>>>
>>> And how about graphs? Is data that is extrapolated from graphs and
>>> used in derivative graphs considered a 'creative work' of its own?
>>>
>>>
>>> I'd think so, but I just want to be sure..
>>>
>>> Ed
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> foundation-l mailing list
>>> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Juriwiki-l

body:
On Apr 12, 2005 1:31 AM, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> I tried to post to the foundation-news-l list yesterday and this also
> did not get through, even though I am subscribed. Has anyone else
> tried to post to that list?
> Cormac

That list is moderated. I don't think it is meant to be used for
discussion, but just for announcements, which is why only Sj and
Anthere can actually post to it.

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] Juriwiki-l


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
On Apr 11, 2005 11:42 PM, Edward Peschko <esp5 at pge.com> wrote:
> hey all,
>
> sorry if this is a FAQ - and I'm not sure if this question belongs in this
> mailing list - but since it concerns the legal side of the fence wrt
> wikipedia contributions here goes:
>
> What's the legal status of data retrieved from non-public domain sources?
>
> I understand that text that is retrieved from copyrighted materials is
> copyrighted, but how about data and figures that deal with common interest
> topics? Can you really copyright the amount of wheat grown in a year in
> bangladesh, or the number of accidents in a year on california roads?

No, you cannot copyright the data itself. What is copyrighted is the
*representation* of the data, while the *selection* of the data MIGHT
be copyrighted.

> And how about graphs? Is data that is extrapolated from graphs and
> used in derivative graphs considered a 'creative work' of its own?

Yes, I would not see what 'creative work' in making the graph would be
included in such data. The copyright on the graph is not on the data
represented, but in the representation (e.g. the width-to-height
ratio, the colours used, etcetera).

Note: I am not even close to being a lawyer

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikitech-l] Lucene search

body:
There's been some sort of memory leak in the MWDaemon running on
Vincent. After a few hours it starts swapping, and the daemon has to be
restarted to free up the memory.

In some quick testing on my own box (running Ubuntu with a Linux 2.6
kernel) I haven't been able to reproduce leaking; memory usage seems to
stay fairly constant at least over a few minutes of grueling testing.

Vincent is running Debian-testing, and for some reason was installed
with a 2.4 kernel. Differences in threading behavior of the older kernel
might or might not be related to the leak, so I figured it'd be worth
giving it an upgrade. I installed the 2.6 kernel package, poked briefly
at the grub menu to make sure it looked right, and restarted. The
machine either hasn't come back up or hasn't reconnected to the network,
and it's either not on the serial console server or isn't responding
(and its port isn't labeled), so it'll need to be checked out at some point.

In the meantime, I'm setting up a second Lucene search server on
Isidore, the other experimental machine which is running FreeBSD 5.3.
The GCC build is slightly broken on FreeBSD so this required a little
patching and pain, but we'll see how it goes.

While the index is building, the search is offline.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] ENotif and EAuthent for REL1_4 will be published
	tomorrow

body:
Dear all:
ENotif and EAuthent for REL1_4 (1.4.1) will be published tomorrow; it's
ready and stable.
Allow one more day for testing.
Tom

http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=454
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=866


subject: [Foundation-l] Expanding CheckUser permissions

body:
Requests have recently been made to the Board asking for verification
that a user is sockpuppeting on one of the larger Wikipedias. At least
two of the developers felt this was a matter for the Board or for an
arbitration committee (although that Wikipedia doesn't have an
arbcom), and were therefore not happy to give out details about the IP
address of this user. Checking IPs is no longer a developer-only task
since a new feature allows sockpuppet checks.

[[Special:CheckUser]] allows a user with "checkuser" permissions to
find all the IP addresses used by a particular logged in user, and to
show all the contributions from a given IP address, including those
made by logged in users.

Currently the only people with the necessary permissions to use
CheckUser are Tim Starling (who wrote the code for this) and David
Gerard (who uses it on behalf of the English Wikipedia Arbitration
Committee).

This data is only stored for one week, so edits made prior to that
will not be shown via CheckUser. A log is kept of who has made which
queries with the tool. This log is available to those with the
checkuser permissions.

I would personally like to see this feature be made available to more
communities than just the English Wikipedia, but I am concerned about
potential misuse of it, and the violation of privacy for users who
have not been disruptive. I would appreciate any comments about this
feature, and answers to the questions below, either here or on on Meta
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser>.

Do you think this feature should be made more widely available?

If so, who should be given access to it?

Should it be limited to stewards, or to wikis with arbitration committees?

Does the privacy policy
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy> need be adjusted to
allow the use of this feature?

Angela.

--
Angela Beesley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angela


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Expanding CheckUser permissions


from_name: Faraaz Damji

body:
Agreed: it is becoming increasingly important to be able to check
sockpuppets, and it would be beneficial to both the Wikipedia community
(in all wikipedias) as well as the developers if the ability was made
more widely available.

One feature that might be important in [[Special:CheckUser]] is to see
matches in the class c subset (is that what the last few digits are
called?)...IMO it should be able to do this if implemented.

There isn't too much violation of privacy since:
a) User contributions are already made publicly available
b) Their IP address isn't actually shown (or is it?)

But I would definitely understand that there might be some problems with
it, and I think making it admin-only would be preferred.

Blog: http://frazzydee.ca

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCS d? s:- a--- C+++ UL++ P+ L+ E---- W++ N+ o+ K+ w+
O? M-- V? PS++ PE Y PGP++ t 5-- X+ R tv b++ DI++ D+
G++ e- h! !r !z
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Angela wrote:
> Requests have recently been made to the Board asking for verification
> that a user is sockpuppeting on one of the larger Wikipedias. At least
> two of the developers felt this was a matter for the Board or for an
> arbitration committee (although that Wikipedia doesn't have an
> arbcom), and were therefore not happy to give out details about the IP
> address of this user. Checking IPs is no longer a developer-only task
> since a new feature allows sockpuppet checks.
>
> [[Special:CheckUser]] allows a user with "checkuser" permissions to
> find all the IP addresses used by a particular logged in user, and to
> show all the contributions from a given IP address, including those
> made by logged in users.
>
> Currently the only people with the necessary permissions to use
> CheckUser are Tim Starling (who wrote the code for this) and David
> Gerard (who uses it on behalf of the English Wikipedia Arbitration
> Committee).
>
> This data is only stored for one week, so edits made prior to that
> will not be shown via CheckUser. A log is kept of who has made which
> queries with the tool. This log is available to those with the
> checkuser permissions.
>
> I would personally like to see this feature be made available to more
> communities than just the English Wikipedia, but I am concerned about
> potential misuse of it, and the violation of privacy for users who
> have not been disruptive. I would appreciate any comments about this
> feature, and answers to the questions below, either here or on on Meta
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser>.
>
> Do you think this feature should be made more widely available?
>
> If so, who should be given access to it?
>
> Should it be limited to stewards, or to wikis with arbitration committees?
>
> Does the privacy policy
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy> need be adjusted to
> allow the use of this feature?
>
> Angela.
>
> --
> Angela Beesley
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angela
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: zhengzhu

subject: [Wikitech-l] Different alphabets for the same language

body:
On Apr 11, 2005 5:27 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am implementing the transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin for
> Serbian Wikipedia. I am not sure that Serbian or Belarussian
> transliteration can pass "live transliteration" without problems.
>
> Chinese situation is almost clean: One set of characters should be
> changed into another set. If they use Latin (or Cyrillic) alphabet
> (for referencing) or Arabic numbers, they would not change it during
> transliteration.
>
> Transliteration between Cyrillic and Latin alphabets is complicated
> because of a number of problems (Serbian Latin and Cyrillic
> ortographies have some differences, too): If Latin alphabet in
> Belarussian has equal status (such as in Serbian, almost) with
> Cyrillic, you can't forbid writing in Latin. And if you want to
> transliterate from Latin to Cyrillic, you'll have a lot of English
> words transliterated in Cyrillic. Also, what about referencing in
> Cyrillic? If you add some Russian bibliography, you'll have Russian
> text transliterated into Latin.

The Chinese wikipedia has similar problems, although for different
reasons. For example, sometimes people's names shouldn't be converted
at all no matter what variant is in use, sometimes different variants
translates foreign words differently. So there is a user customizable
dictionary for each language variant that can be used to define such
special conversion rules. There is also a special markup that can be
used in the text to define specific conversion rules just for that
piece of text.

In the case of converting Latin to Cyrillics, I think the same thing
can be used. The conversion table can be augmented with words and
phrases that should not be converted to Cyrillics under any condition.
Those words that can both be English and Serbian (or Belarussian) can
be manually marked up in the text.

--
zhengzhu


subject: [Wikitech-l] Language conversion

body:
I have started to write some documentation about the Chinese
conversion system at meta:

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

People interested in implementing conversion systems for other
languages should take a look at it. Note that most features
implemented are not Chinese specific.

--
zhengzhu


from_name: Edward Peschko

body:
> >>
> >Augmenting data helps to establish the fact that you are not limiting
> >yourself to the original author's selection process..  In many of
> >these cases determining whether there has been a breech of copyright
> >will never be a black and white situation.  We really are looking at a
> >balance of probabilities.
> >
> >Ec
> >
> >
> I am not a lawyer, but, in the United States at least, isn't Feist v.
> Rural relevant?
>

very relevant.. thanks much for the pointer.

just for the record:

	http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/499_US_340.html

for once, the law seems to be in line with common sense.. ;-)

Ed


body:
> 1. I can just guess what is written in Chinese interface, so how did
> you cover article names? Do you have both names: in Simplified and
> Traditional Chinese?

In most cases titles are converted using the same conversion system,
i.e. using the conversion table and do a strtr(). For wierd
situations, there is also support for manually specifying title
conversion inside the article body, using this syntax:
 -{T|zh-cn:foo; zh-tw: bar}-

Also built in is the ability to find articles that are written in
different variants when wikilinking.

Here is an example: Let's say that in the conversion table, "foo" in
zh-cn is converted to "bar" in zh-tw and vice-versa. Now someone
writing in zh-cn wrote an article titled "foo". When someone with
zh-tw preferred sees the article, "bar" will be shown as the article
title. Further, say someone using zh-tw edited some article which has
a link [[bar]]. The system will identify that the article "foo" should
be used for linking, if "bar" is not already created as a redirect.

btw, you should be able to change the interface at zh after you
register an account;)

>
> 2. I think MediaWiki should have one general module for
> transliteration with extensions for specific languages. General module
> should be based on Chinese module.  Is it possible to start to work in
> such way?

Indeed. I have always anticipated that the Chinese system can be
generalized to other languages. Most of the code for the Chinese
system is not specifically tied to the Chinese language, and some code
refactoring can be done to provide better support for different
languages. Please watch CVS HEAD for the next couple weeks for this to
happen.

>
> 3. Also, we should try to make system clever: Some formal and some
> statistic methods can help in recognizing should we transliterate
> something or not (i.e.: if system find some non-Serbian Cyrillic
> letters, it should not transliterate it into Latin and vice versa).
>
That's certainly doable within the current system framework, but will
require more specialized algorithms.

--
zhengzhu


body:
Rahul Sinha schrieb:

> Drupal has a distributed authentication system
> (http://drupal.org/node/312) that allows any holder of an account from
> a participating site to log into another participating site using his
> original login (preventing namespace collision via user at sitename for
> the other sites).

Is this, what is called on mediawiki "Single-user-login" see
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUL ?
Tom


body:
Neil Harris wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Edward Peschko wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 11, 2005 at 05:38:42PM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>> Andre Engels wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Apr 11, 2005 11:42 PM, Edward Peschko <esp5 at pge.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> What's the legal status of data retrieved from non-public domain
>>>>>> sources?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I understand that text that is retrieved from copyrighted
>>>>>> materials is
>>>>>> copyrighted, but how about data and figures that deal with common
>>>>>> interest
>>>>>> topics? Can you really copyright the amount of wheat grown in a
>>>>>> year in
>>>>>> bangladesh, or the number of accidents in a year on california
>>>>>> roads?
>>>>>
>>>>> No, you cannot copyright the data itself. What is copyrighted is the
>>>>> *representation* of the data, while the *selection* of the data MIGHT
>>>>> be copyrighted.
>>>>
>>>> This is a very important distinction.  The selection issue can be
>>>> difficult, and is most applicable when you are using the same
>>>> subset of data as someone else.  If you and the other person are
>>>> providing complete data that is not a breech since there is only
>>>> one way to have everything. :-)  Also an obvious form of
>>>> representation of the material (such as alphabetical order) is not
>>>> copyrightable.
>>>
>>> How about augmented data? Ie: say someone has a set of data that
>>> you'd like
>>> to keep in its entirety, but you add some features that text cannot
>>> possibly
>>> have (like, say links to supporting papers for important datapoints,
>>> or zoom-in on graphs). Is that considered copyright infringement?
>>
>> Augmenting data helps to establish the fact that you are not limiting
>> yourself to the original author's selection process..  In many of
>> these cases determining whether there has been a breech of copyright
>> will never be a black and white situation.  We really are looking at
>> a balance of probabilities.
>
> I am not a lawyer, but, in the United States at least, isn't Feist v.
> Rural relevant?

Definitely.  For those interested see
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=499&invol=340

Ec


list: wikien-l

from_name: Blair P. Houghton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 21, Issue 43

body:
Seth Ilys wrote:

>We're a wiki. Why mess with success?
>
>
Interesting definition of success you have.

"A lot of stuff works most of the time" isn't success for a reference.

A metaphorical analogy:  Wikipedia isn't an encyclopedia, it's a city
with large, unbroken walls on which the grafitti artists are encouraged
to stick to the facts; and then the little old ladies having lunch and
discussing how wonderful the idea is are surprised when the grafitti
artists don't stick to the facts.

There's no way to stop the vandalism if you don't institute some sort of
security measure to preempt it.  And since the latter is not a design
feature of wikipedia, vandalism will always be a part of the system, and
this "graffitopedia" will always have a percentage of uselessness noise
on its walls.

And while you're tut-tutting a little vandalism, POV and fallacy are
polluting the majority of the pages.

--Blair


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Poland

body:
--- Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
> Right now, we're gathering info and informing users on the good and
> the bad sides of having a more "legal" way of operating the Polish
> projects.

Chapters are not charged with operating projects. They most certainly are not
charged with operating specific language versions of projects. The purpose of
chapters is to provide a legal presence in a nation and to help organize *all*
Wikimedia-related activities in that nation.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Poland


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Angela (beesley at gmail.com) [050412 13:43]:
>
>
>
>>Currently the only people with the necessary permissions to use
>>CheckUser are Tim Starling (who wrote the code for this) and David
>>Gerard (who uses it on behalf of the English Wikipedia Arbitration
>>Committee).
>>
>>
>I should also point out that I *barely* use it - its availability to the Ac
>directly is somewhat controversial, but I've some experience of net-abuse
>tracing and know what the results mean or don't, and I only use it when
>there's clearly some important issue. (Last use was to check on an apparent
>sock of Rienzo. Use before that was to check the zillion abusive socks in
>the Baku Ibne arb com case.) I get a lot of people asking me to check
>something casually and I have to say "no". Although if people on en: think
>it's relevant to an arb com case, the "Requests for clarification" section
>on WP:RFAr is the right place to suggest. The edit evidence had better be
>there, though, I'm not going on fishing expeditions.
>
This sounds like a wise approach.  Some ultra-zealous vandal chasers are
much too quick to jump to conclusions when finding fault.

Ec


from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Expanding CheckUser permissions

body:
On Apr 12, 2005 8:35 AM, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> > ...invasion of privacy by potentially removing anonymity from the use of
> > Wikipedia. Please let this tool be a last resort in serious cases.
>
> Precisely. That's why anyone using it needs to have an awareness of these
> issues and proceed with extreme caution.
>
>
> - d.
>

Guarantees of restraint from the current users of this feature are
fine, I'm sure that Tim and David are trustworthy, but that's the here
and now. The feature needs some built in oversight.

Users should be notified when CheckUser is run on them (something like
a message notice, that only they can see).   Waerth noted that this
will cause some controversy with users when they see they have been
investigated, which is true. But this makes a good deterrent of abuse.
 Anyone who runs it will have a damn good reason, knowing that they
may have to explain themselves.  Also, many requests for sockpuppet
checks are public, so informing the users who were checked isn't any
different in these cases.

Waerth also notes on, meta, that 90% of the checks will be on innocent
users. If this is the case, then I have to question how solid the
reasoning is for checking those 90%.

Finally, notifying a registered user when their identity is checked is
just a decent thing to do.


from_name: Byortek wiki

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Re: unable to access my wiki outside my
	privatenetwork

body:
From: "Rowan Collins" <rowan.collins at gmail.com>
> On Apr 11, 2005 10:19 PM, Byortek wiki <wiki at byortek.com> wrote:
> > When the browser calls smallpc.dyndns.org/wiki, somehow mediawiki
> > tells the browser (through apache) to redirect (status 301) the call
> > to the private url smallpc.home/wiki
>
> Aha; I think you need to add a line in your "LocalSettings.php" file
> defining $wgServer; otherwise it will be automatically detected each
> time from the apache settings (I think). e.g.
>
> $wgServer = "http://smallpc.dyndns.org";

It's not working if the hostname remains a private url. The final adress
will be the $wgServer adress but in between the apache will redirect to
the private url. So,  the public client cannot access the wiki because
it can't reach the in-between private adress.

I've made a test, see below.

You'll see that when the client requests the public adress (smallpc.dyndns.org),
the apache server redirects it to the private adress (smallpc.home) and,
on next call, redirects it to the public adress (smallpc.dyndns.org) !!!

There's two apache redirections !!

Here are the configuration and the trace dump:

-- configuration --
private url of the server: smallpc.home
public  url of the server: smallpc.dyndns.org
apache server on port 8081
linux server hostname: smallpc.home
$wgServer = "http://smallpc.dyndns.org:8081";
------------

Here is the simplified etherreal trace dump of a private client http request:
browser adress: http://smallpc.dyndns.org:8081/wiki
C = Client
S = Server
C->S GET /wiki HTTP/1.1 Host: smallpc.dyndns.org:8081
S->C HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently <blah blah>  Location: http://smallpc.home:8081/wiki
C->S GET /wiki HTTP/1.1 Host: smallpc.home:8081
S->C HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently <blah blah>  Location: http://smallpc.dyndns.org:8081/wiki/index.php/Accueil
C->S GET wiki/index.php/Accueil HTTP/1.1 Host: smallpc.dyndns.org:8081
S->C <the wiki page ...>
------------

Finally it works if I set the hostname to a public adress. However I'm still
concerned because I wonder how it will behave in a shared hosting environment.
If I cannot change the hostname, I may not be able to host my wiki ....

Thanks for help
Eric


from_name: Rahul Sinha

body:
Hello all

On 12 Apr 2005, at 3.15 AM, Thomas Gries wrote:
>
> Is this, what is called on mediawiki "Single-user-login" see
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUL ?
> Tom

They do look similar; the document does not specify a means to achieve
this, but rather a definition of the user-side requirements.  So I
don't know if this is some centrally managed authentication mechanism,
which would be entirely appropriate for WikiMedia's projects and ...
less so for the other uses of MediaWiki, or whether it does imply a
similar system to Drupal's.

While I can see how there is a high convenience factor to just having
the MediaWiki community "piggyback" off of WikiMedia's infrastructure,
I would submit that making this framework on that can be used on other
publishing systems (other wikis, CMSes, blogging systems, etc) would
have several benefits:
? to users who interact with many different publishing systems, one
identity that is both secure and omnipresent is obviously beneficial
? specifically to users who might only encounter each publishing system
in one installation each, the resistance to registering to contribute
is high; they are far more likely to participate in any of those sites,
any of those systems, if the "speed bump" which is creating an account
presents a more compelling value proposition
? to site developers who need/want the features of two different
publishing systems for different parts of the site, a user experience
involving multiple accounts internal to their site would be quite
unacceptable; a unified framework would be one large step towards
allowing the site dev to provide a seamless user experience
? this may be a little naive, but it would seem that this is only the
first of many issues where some communication between the various
publishing system development staffs would lead to benefits all around
(for system devs reuse of code and "more eyeballs", for site devs more
features and greater interoperability, and finally for end-users,
again, a more seamless experience, and the ability to leverage their
knowledge of how to interact with one publishing system meaningfully to
get more out of the others they might work with.

Thanks
-RS


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Foundation-l] Comment on Copyright Orphans

body:
We should be making an official comment on the issue of copyright orphans
now before the U.S. Copyright Office. The deadline is May 9.

>From http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/:

The Copyright Office seeks to examine the issues raised by ?orphan works,?
i.e., copyrighted works whose owners are difficult or even impossible to
locate. Concerns have been raised that the uncertainty surrounding ownership
of such works might needlessly discourage subsequent creators and users from
incorporating such works in new creative efforts or making such works
available to the public. The Office is now seeking written comments from all
interested parties. Specifically, the Office is interested in whether there
are compelling concerns raised by orphan works that merit a legislative,
regulatory or other solution, and what type of solution could effectively
address these concerns without conflicting with the legitimate interests of
authors and right holders.

See this story: http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67139,00.html for
details.

Procedure for sending comment:

Send to orphanworks at loc.gov a message containing the name of the person
making the submission, his or her title and organization (if the submission
is on behalf of an organization), mailing address, telephone number, telefax
number (if any) and e-mail address. The message should also identify the
document clearly as either a comment or reply comment. The document itself
must be sent as a MIME attachment, and must be in a single file in either:
(1) Adobe Portable Document File (PDF) format (preferred); (2) Microsoft
Word 2000 or earlier; (3) WordPerfect 8.0 or earlier; (4) Rich Text File
(RTF) format; or (5) ASCII text file format.

This is clearly something the Wikimedia Foundation should officially weigh
in on.


body:
But I hope you will agree that there is a huge difference between a
joke about all homosexuals should be executed (I don't even get the
joke there... where is it?) and a joke that includes some mild
elements which might liken Jimbo to Jim Jong Il.

While I don't personally believe Jimbo can be considered a dictator
(and most certainly not a self-obsessed one), I think that there is a
sort of personality cult about him, and certainly on IRC I have seen
people who seem more interested in him than perhaps I would be
comfortable with in Jimbo's position. Of course this isn't "approved
by Jimbo" - on the contrary, AFAIK he doesn't like that sort of thing
- but I have definitely seen some people who it would only be going a
little bit further for them to watch a television broadcast of his
birthday, and even I would watch his biography if it were on
television.

Mark

On Apr 12, 2005 10:08 AM, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >From: Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk>
> >Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Internal Radio
> >Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 18:03:09 +0100 (BST)
> >
> >--- Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > >From: Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk>
> > > >Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > >To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > >Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Internal Radio
> > > >Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 17:54:44 +0100 (BST)
> > > >
> > > >--- Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > >Wouter wrote:
> > > > > > > Suppose, by comparision, that I suggested for fun that orthodox
> > > >Muslims
> > > > > >were
> > > > > > > right in saying homosexuals should be executioned. I don't think
> > > >that
> > > > > >would
> > > > > > > make you smile; in your position, I would ask for immediate
> >removal
> > > >of
> > > > > >the
> > > > > > > offender from the mailing list and permanent blocking on
> >Wikipedia.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >Why on earth should such a person be blocked?
> > > > > >
> > > > > >-- Matt
> > > > >
> > > > > Because I would take it serious and don't want people with this and
> > > >similar
> > > > > views to edit Wikipedia.
> > > >
> > > >Why shouldn't people with such views edit Wikipedia? What about NPOV
> > > >(Neutral
> > > >Point of View)?
> > >
> > > NPOV has its limits, Matt. Such persons would probably start modfiing
> >pages
> > > like [[Homosexuality]], [[Sexuality]], [[Osama bin Laden]], [[George
> >Bush]]
> > > etc etc, just because extremists cannot distinguish fact and opinion. Of
> > > course, they cannot be removed after a lot of such violations.
> >
> >We should welcome extremists modifying such pages, as long as they follow
> >our
> >policies (like NPOV). I don't see how we should exclude editors because of
> >what
> >they think. We can exclude them if they edit in violation of our policies,
> >of
> >course. But remember that it is quite possible for editors to hold extreme
> >views, even views that you may find obnoxious, and yet still be a moderate
> >and
> >valuable Wikipedia contributor.
> >
> I guess you're right. As long as they write according to NPOV, it doesn't
> matter. Actually my original point was not that people with certain
> persuations /should/ be blocked, but that a joke like the one I sketched
> earlier today would make me so angry that I would ask for the person's
> immediate removal and blocking. This will do.
>
> Wouter
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Gebruik MSN Webmessenger op je werk en op school
> http://webmessenger.msn.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Neil Harris

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Edward Peschko wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Apr 11, 2005 at 05:38:42PM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Andre Engels wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Apr 11, 2005 11:42 PM, Edward Peschko <esp5 at pge.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> What's the legal status of data retrieved from non-public domain
>>>>> sources?
>>>>>
>>>>> I understand that text that is retrieved from copyrighted
>>>>> materials is
>>>>> copyrighted, but how about data and figures that deal with common
>>>>> interest
>>>>> topics? Can you really copyright the amount of wheat grown in a
>>>>> year in
>>>>> bangladesh, or the number of accidents in a year on california roads?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> No, you cannot copyright the data itself. What is copyrighted is the
>>>> *representation* of the data, while the *selection* of the data MIGHT
>>>> be copyrighted.
>>>>
>>>
>>> This is a very important distinction.  The selection issue can be
>>> difficult, and is most applicable when you are using the same subset
>>> of data as someone else.  If you and the other person are providing
>>> complete data that is not a breech since there is only one way to
>>> have everything. :-)  Also an obvious form of representation of the
>>> material (such as alphabetical order) is not copyrightable.
>>>
>>
>> How about augmented data? Ie: say someone has a set of data that
>> you'd like
>> to keep in its entirety, but you add some features that text cannot
>> possibly
>> have (like, say links to supporting papers for important datapoints,
>> or zoom-in on graphs). Is that considered copyright infringement?
>>
>>
> Augmenting data helps to establish the fact that you are not limiting
> yourself to the original author's selection process..  In many of
> these cases determining whether there has been a breech of copyright
> will never be a black and white situation.  We really are looking at a
> balance of probabilities.
>
> Ec
>
>
I am not a lawyer, but, in the United States at least, isn't Feist v.
Rural relevant?

-- Neil


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Internal Radio
	System(Re:Foundation news)

body:
>From: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>,wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Internal Radio
>System(Re:Foundation news)
>Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 01:14:32 -0700
>
> > >I propose it be entirely in Klingon so that there are approximately
> > >equal numbers of people from each Wikipedia who can understand it.
> > >
> > >Rather than what you propose, why not a full-time internet radio? We
> > >can have programs such as "Let's trim our hair in the Wikipedian
> > >fashion", "Jimbo Wales' Birthday Celebration", "Biography of Jimbo
> > >Wales" (who was born atop Encyclopedia Mountain, and who has never
> > >lied and always lived in accordance with the Wikipedian ideal),
> > >newsfeeds (with such news as "Imperialist Britannicans planning
> > >nuclear attack on Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales counters with declaration of
> > >the Wikimedia Foundation's nuclear capabilities"), and slogan hour
> > >(where prominent Wikipedians shout out Klingon-language slogans about
> > >Wikipedia, Jimbo, and related topics)
> > >
> > >Mark
> >
> > Funny Mark, but you're going too far. You are comparing Jimbo with Kim
>Yong
> > Il or some other absurdly glorified dictator. Moreover, I think this
>attemp
> > is not as moribund as you suggest.
>
>First of all, it's "Kim Jong Il".
>
> > I appreciate most of your contributions and I share your sympathy for
> > demographic minorities, but I can't really get your point in this. It
> > reminds me very much of your earlier e-mail in which you requested two
>kinds
> > of American English, Jimbonian and Nodelian. What's your point with
>jokes
> > like these?
>
>Since you may be excluded from the tradition practiced in some
>countries on April 1 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day
>), I shall bring to your attention that not only does this tradition
>exist, but the message in question was sent on April 1 (or at least
>timestamped as such - it certainly wasn't April 1 in all timezones),
>and it was all in good fun (and it did appear to provide a bit of
>amusement for some other listmembers).
>
>These jokes don't have a "point". If you scour the list for all
>messages, you will find that I am not the only one who has a sense of
>humour and knows how to make jokes. In fact, this extends to Ant, Mav,
>Jimbo, etc. who can occasionally be found to be making a joke on this
>list.
>
>I don't know how it is with you, but as far as I know the point of
>humour is to lighten up a situation, and only occasionally to make a
>point.
>
>Mark

Sorry, I quite overlooked it was an april fool's joke, since I had laid my
mail box to rest for a few days. I am not excluded from this tradition (many
Dutchmen even think it was born in the Netherlands in 1572, quod non),
moreover, I put a non-news fact myself on the "Curent Events" page of "my
own" Limburgic Wikipedia, namely the just declared independence of the
Republic of Limburg. Moreover, the hostile takeover by Brittannica made me
laugh, not smile, as well. But after April 1st I am no longer expecting
anyone to make Apil Fool's jokes, three guesses why.

Second, as long as humor is pointed at any person, I expect them to be
intended to make a point, certainly since you pointed two against the same
person within one week. To me it looked like there was a serious tone in
both of them, namely that Jimbo was too authoritarian. Certainly on e-mail,
where nuances can be expressed merely by words, there is a big risk that
people take you more seriously than you yourself.

Finally, however it was intended, your joke was too hard in my view, to
compare our very arch father with the most rotten dictators on earth.
Suppose, by comparision, that I suggested for fun that orthodox Muslims were
right in saying homosexuals should be executioned. I don't think that would
make you smile; in your position, I would ask for immediate removal of the
offender from the mailing list and permanent blocking on Wikipedia.

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Webmessenger: altijd en overal beschikbaar http://webmessenger.msn.com/


from_name: mbecker ™

body:
I feel that this tool should be rarely if ever used to find sock
puppets. If this tool simply tells you which accounts have been used
from which ip address this is not enough evidence to prove the use of
"sock puppet" accounts. I for instance access Wikipedia via a machine
which has no real ip address but rather shares a real ip address with
several hundred machines. I know for a fact that other people on my
network use Wikipedia, and I have no doubts that some of them will be
browsing similar pages as me. So, while this tool might be helpful, I
feel that it provides far too much opportunity for abuse if it were to
be allowed to be used by the general population. Admins already block
IPs in similar ranges when fighting "vandals" often blocking
legitimate users. Also, this tool could and would provide a huge
invasion of privacy by potentially removing anonymity from the use of
Wikipedia. Please let this tool be a last resort in serious cases.

On Apr 11, 2005 11:42 PM, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Requests have recently been made to the Board asking for verification
> that a user is sockpuppeting on one of the larger Wikipedias. At least
> two of the developers felt this was a matter for the Board or for an
> arbitration committee (although that Wikipedia doesn't have an
> arbcom), and were therefore not happy to give out details about the IP
> address of this user. Checking IPs is no longer a developer-only task
> since a new feature allows sockpuppet checks.
>
> [[Special:CheckUser]] allows a user with "checkuser" permissions to
> find all the IP addresses used by a particular logged in user, and to
> show all the contributions from a given IP address, including those
> made by logged in users.
>
> Currently the only people with the necessary permissions to use
> CheckUser are Tim Starling (who wrote the code for this) and David
> Gerard (who uses it on behalf of the English Wikipedia Arbitration
> Committee).
>
> This data is only stored for one week, so edits made prior to that
> will not be shown via CheckUser. A log is kept of who has made which
> queries with the tool. This log is available to those with the
> checkuser permissions.
>
> I would personally like to see this feature be made available to more
> communities than just the English Wikipedia, but I am concerned about
> potential misuse of it, and the violation of privacy for users who
> have not been disruptive. I would appreciate any comments about this
> feature, and answers to the questions below, either here or on on Meta
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser>.
>
> Do you think this feature should be made more widely available?
>
> If so, who should be given access to it?
>
> Should it be limited to stewards, or to wikis with arbitration committees?
>
> Does the privacy policy
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy> need be adjusted to
> allow the use of this feature?
>
> Angela.
>
> --
> Angela Beesley
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angela
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Michael Becker


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Expanding CheckUser permissions

body:
Simply from a technical point of view, the wide use of this tool as it
is currently implemented would probably involve synchronization issues
resulting in the corruption of the log (I had a similar experience
with the paypal donations script I've worked on).

On Apr 12, 2005 8:39 AM, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
*SNIP*
> I put the log in a flat file on NFS
> (/home/wikipedia/logs/checkuser.log)
*SNIP*
>
> -- Tim Starling
*SNIP*

--
Michael Becker


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Yann Forget wrote:

>Hi,
>
>Le Tuesday 12 April 2005 16:35, The Cunctator a ?crit :
>
>
>>We should be making an official comment on the issue of copyright orphans
>>now before the U.S. Copyright Office. The deadline is May 9.
>>
>>From http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/:
>>
>>
>(...)
>
>
>>This is clearly something the Wikimedia Foundation should officially weigh
>>in on.
>>
>>
>I totally agree with this.
>
I already put my previous submissions into the mailing list.  It's No.
697 in the records of the Copyright Office.  All 714 submissions may be
read as pdf files.  Is there a way to do a text search for all those pdf
files to see if any other submissions used the string "wiki"?

The current round of submissions is for responses to what has already
been submitted.  In the sampling that I have looked at there seems to be
a very strong something-needs-to-be-done trend.

One observation that I have made about the submissions favouring the
status quo is the emphasis on the rights of current authors, and seem
not to mention the rights of the author's descendants at all.  Having
Life + 70  really doesn't do anything for the authors themselves.  More
ironic is their tendency to view proposed changes to the copyright
regime as attempts by corporate interests to undermine the rights of
authors and artists.  It seems to me that the corporate interests have
sold them a bill of goods.

Another important article to read from "Wired" is this by Julian
Dibbell: http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/linux.html
There is a lot for many of us to learn from what is going on in Brazil.

Ec


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protecting "Today's Featured Article"

body:
Seth Ilys wrote:

>On Apr 12, 2005 11:32 AM, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>>No-one seemed to care...
>>
>
>Not quite true.
>
>You cared.
>
>And one person is all it takes. That's why we have succeeded thus far;
>because it's easier to revert vandalism than to cause it.
>
This strategy breaks down when the number of vandals is
considerably larger than the number of serious editors.
A couple times I've caught front page vandalism and noticed
that the vandalism had been up for several hours already.
Likewise, I must be the only person watching some articles,
because there's been a number of cases where the vandalism
got by me when it happened, and I only noticed the *second*
watchlist appearance when it was fixed by a kind anon, after
several days of being in a trashed state. How many other
articles have been trashed without any regular editor
noticing?

I don't have any great strategies of my own, but I don't
think we should just assume that everything is fine, and that
we don't need to be thinking about new ways to keep the
"free encyclopedia" part working without needing tireless
vigilance by tired editors, because of the "wiki" part.

Stan


from_name: Seth Ilys

body:
On Apr 12, 2005 11:32 AM, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
> No-one seemed to care...

Not quite true.

You cared.

And one person is all it takes. That's why we have succeeded thus far;
because it's easier to revert vandalism than to cause it.

Also keep in mind that some featured articles ([[heavy metal umlaut]]
comes to mind) *do* get significantly improved over the course of
their day on the main page.

We're a wiki. Why mess with success?

--
Seth Ilys
   email: seth.ilys at gmail.com
   IM (aol, msn, yahoo): JehanneDaix
   blog: http://somewhereindurham.blogspot.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] templates boxes: multiplying like rabbits

body:
Viajero wrote:

> For example, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erskine_Hamilton_Childers
>
> Five template boxes, and then of course the categories.
>
> Are all these really necessary? Given the space they take up, the
> template boxes appear more important than the text itself.
>
> Does anyone else feel this feature is getting out of hand?

Yep. Perhaps not surprising, since it's much easier to create
templates and categories than to write original text or do
library research. It's like we have a whole little army of
people who continually rearrange the books in the library, but
who never actually open any of them. :-)

There's been a couple proposals floating around to require
multi-person agreement for category and template creation,
don't think they have a lot of support though, being rather
unwiki and all.

Ironically, the excessive templates create huge numbers of
cross-links and may thus improve page rank for Google...

Stan


from_name: Brian

subject: [Wikitech-l] new servers and log processing

body:
I saw mention on our tentative hardware order [1] of disk space for log
files, although not specifically the traffic logs. I believe Kate mentioned
we generate around 2GB per day, which means we have around ~360GB of these
sitting around waiting to be processed. Would it be possible to purchase or
set aside a server or two to take care of this, with the (perhaps pipedream)
goal of then running webalizer every day?

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_ordered_March_2005

/Alterego


from_name: moink

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia - first with the news

body:
Since '''a talk page''' was linked by the mainstream media, I'm very
glad that everyone involved with the sourcing and discussion of that
news was so polite.  No revert wars, no calling anyone idiots, just
civilized discussion about whether or not we could verify it.  Yay us!

On Apr 12, 2005 10:49 AM, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> This item
> [http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/internet/2005/04/12/wikipedia_first_with_the_news.html]
> from todays' Guardian notes that we had the correct details for [[Andrea
> Dworkin]]'s death date over 24 hours before the mainstream media, and
> also points to the discussion on the talk page when we weren't sure if
> the rumours were true.
> ---
> "Imagine an encyclopedia," wrote blogger Joe Gratz, "that had someone's
> death noted in their biography before the first major news outlet had
> even published an obituary." The death was that of feminist writer and
> campaigner Andrea Dworkin, the encyclopedia Wikipedia, and Gratz was
> absolutely correct.
>
> Guardian Unlimited reported Dworkin's death, confirmed by her agent,
> shortly before 1800 GMT yesterday, the first major news outlet to do so.
> Though the correct date of her death was posted at the top of her
> Wikipedia biography at least 24 hours earlier.
>
> Wikipedia's discussion page explains how it happened. The news was
> circulating on feminist mailing lists shortly after Dworkin died in her
> sleep on Saturday, and from there it found its way to the encyclopedia
> and some blogs. But a lack of corroboration from the press and certainty
> over the source - again gone over on the discussion page - meant the
> Wikipedia writers and some of their readers could not decide if it was
> true. The correct date was taken down at least once, and the item hardly
> pushed.
>
> One British blogger, Lisa Rullsenberg, found the situation "very
> curious"; it caused confusion here too, unused as we were to researching
> a news story and finding Wikipedia the sole supporting published source,
> breaking the news in its own quiet and understated manner.
>
> --
> Arwel Parry
> http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sj

subject: [Foundation-l] TheWorldForum.org adds Wikinews logo

body:
Yes, M. Vasquez managed to polish a vaguely worrisome logo into a
world-class one. And with the wikinews skin redesign approaching...
the *fully operational* wikistar will be beautiful as well.

SJ

> (On a related note, I feel that David Vasquez has done an excellent job
> refining the logo. It looks much more optimistic and welcoming than the
> logos of most news sites.)

Does anyone know of other uses of a globe icon rotated to that longitude?


from_name: Milos Rancic

body:
Yes, problems can be solved after some time of work. I just think that
we are far a way of live transliteration (like in Chinese). But static
transliterations can be test for future live transliteration.

Markup language is a good idea, but I am not sure how often would be
used. Some people would not use because they don't know how to use,
some people would not use because they don't like other alphabet (the
second problem is very real in Serbian culture :) ). However, it would
be useful if MediaWiki would support something like "don't touch
marking" (for example "---"; or something like that). For the
beginning it would be used for the bot parsing; but when algorithm
become stable, it should be used by MediaWiki engine.

At the page [[:sr:????????:Millbot/?????????]]
(http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA:Millbot/%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%98%D0%B8)
can be found bot's reports during it's work one and half month ago.
(I stopped with transliteration because I have to make some other
parts of bot's infrastructure.)

You can find that part of bot's source code at
http://millosh.org/software/ltafos/pos/ (use version 0.3.2; I have
some newer on my laptop, but it is not stable). Unpack pywikipediabot
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywikipediabot/, unpack pos, go to
the pos directory and link all of pywikipediabot files into pos
directory. Note that pos is in something like alpha stage and you
should be careful when use it. There are some documentation in
English, but Serbian documentation is better (as you are Belorussian,
I think you can understand documentation in Serbian).

In this moment I am working on some other bot's tasks, but I'll finish
it in month or two and I'll continue to work on transliteration. Bot
Millbot should be the system with IRC and pywikipediabot parts. It
should monitor channels like #srrc.wikipedia and work according to
informations which it gets there: When someone make some change in
Cyrillic text, it should immediately implement changes into Latin text
and vice versa.

At the first stage of transliteration Millbot would make changes and
synchronization only according to Cyrillic texts. When it become more
clever, it should work with Latin texts, too. But it is a long time
task.

Also, Bosnian Wikipedia has almost the same situation as Serbian. They
starts from Latin and, according to their culture (and their Main
Page), they should have Cyrillic pages, too. When I implement
Latin->Cyrillic transliteration for Serbian, it would be
Latin->Cyrillic transliteration implementation for Bosnian, too.

And, one more thing: I think we should move our talk to pywikipediabot list.


from_name: monk at zoomcon.com

body:
Hello Milos,

Tuesday, April 12, 2005, 12:27:27 AM, you wrote:

> I am implementing the transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin for
> Serbian Wikipedia. I am not sure that Serbian or Belarussian
> transliteration can pass "live transliteration" without problems.
Problems obviously exist, but they are solvable.

> Transliteration between Cyrillic and Latin alphabets is complicated
> because of a number of problems (Serbian Latin and Cyrillic
> ortographies have some differences, too): If Latin alphabet in
> Belarussian has equal status (such as in Serbian, almost) with
> Cyrillic, you can't forbid writing in Latin. And if you want to
> transliterate from Latin to Cyrillic, you'll have a lot of English
> words transliterated in Cyrillic.
Here is suggestion to put some edit-time markup around non-convertable Latin
words.

> Also, what about referencing in
> Cyrillic? If you add some Russian bibliography, you'll have Russian
> text transliterated into Latin.
Here is the problem no solution was found for yet. I think we will end
up with some markup just in database in the end.

> So, I started to build some (static) infrastructure (using
> pywikipediabot) for Serbian. As the situation is similar for
> Belarussian, we can do it together (or you can use my code when I
> finish it for Serbian Wikipedia).
Great, could you show test site or something? could you explain the
idea of your work, especially why do you use pywikipedia?

--
Best regards,
 monk                            mailto:monk at zoomcon.com


body:
I believe I mentioned this to one of these lists recently, but there
are two people at the National Bureau of Economic Research
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBER) here in Cambridge, Jr.  who are
excited about helping produce more frequent and more comprehensive
Wikipedia statistics.  (they want to use them in academic studies; see
[[Wikipedia:Wikiproject Wikidemia]]).

Clearly, log files would have to be processed securely within the
server cluster, but some of the script writing and testing could
perhaps be offloaded to an NBER programmer (for instance, I believe
that certain key webalizer stats aren't accurate due to the current
setup, and have to cleverly handle requests from the fr: squids).

What older stats scripts, aside from webalizer, need to be rewritten?
What scripts aren't run often because of the amount of time they take?
 Is there anything non-Foundation developers can do to speed up the
process of getting a dedicated machine to process logs?

SJ

On Apr 12, 2005 11:08 AM, Brian <reflection at gmail.com> wrote:
> I saw mention on our tentative hardware order [1] of disk space for log
> files, although not specifically the traffic logs. I believe Kate mentioned
> we generate around 2GB per day, which means we have around ~360GB of these
> sitting around waiting to be processed. Would it be possible to purchase or
> set aside a server or two to take care of this, with the (perhaps pipedream)
> goal of then running webalizer every day?
>
> [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_ordered_March_2005
>
> /Alterego
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> Seth Ilys wrote:
>
>> On Apr 12, 2005 11:32 AM, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> No-one seemed to care...
>>
>> Not quite true.
>>
>> You cared.
>>
>> And one person is all it takes. That's why we have succeeded thus far;
>> because it's easier to revert vandalism than to cause it.
>
> This strategy breaks down when the number of vandals is
> considerably larger than the number of serious editors.
> A couple times I've caught front page vandalism and noticed
> that the vandalism had been up for several hours already.

The problem there may be because many serious editors bypass the front
page when they log on.

Ec


body:
On Apr 12, 2005 12:29 PM, Blair P. Houghton <blair at houghton.net> wrote:
> Seth Ilys wrote:
>
> >We're a wiki. Why mess with success?
> >
> >
> Interesting definition of success you have.

Are you denying that Wikipedia has been successful?

What has made us one of the top 100 sites on the 'net if we aren't
doing *something* well?

--
Seth Ilys
   email: seth.ilys at gmail.com
   IM (aol, msn, yahoo): JehanneDaix
   blog: http://somewhereindurham.blogspot.com/


from_name: John Fader

subject: [Wikitech-l] Documentation for the TimeLine template

body:
On Apr 12, 2005 12:58 PM, avi aharon <avi.aharon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I am looking for documentation for the <timeline> template.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Project_Time_Charts
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:EasyTimeline_syntax#

--
John Fader


body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> There has been a lot of discussion about the use of this tool. When a
> community does NOT have this tool available, you will get yourself
> into funny situations as well. At this moment we have a person who has
> been banned because everyone believes this person to have used a sock
> puppet. He has been banned for a month. There is no willingness to
> have this person unblocked prior to the end of this period. The person
> banned insists that he is not the same person as the sock puppet.

Simply using a sockpuppet to circumvent the time limit on a ban should
not give rise to the use of this tool.  If the sockpuppet edits
responsibly he may not even be noticed.  In practice they tend to repeat
their crimes, and it is this repetition that will give rise to just
cause.  Simply suspecting that a person is reappearing before expiry of
the ban is not enough.

> The insistence of the primarily English oriented community to give it
> to the arb comm or not all means that there is no solution for this
> situation. The consequence is that either this person is correctly
> banned or is not correctly banned. With the CheckUser permissions
> given to Stewards or Bureaucrats, there are some selected people who
> can discreetly check out these situations and say that yes/no two
> persons are likely the same person.

A positive correlation will not always be definitive; a negative one
will almost certainly exonerate the suspect.  In the latter case it
should be enough to report back to the claimant that the inquiry found
no match, and to do so without providing any further details.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: TheWorldForum.org adds Wikinews logo

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

>Sj wrote:
>
>
>>Does anyone know of other uses of a globe icon rotated to that longitude?
>>
>>
>An amusing example:
>
>http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/fe-scidi.htm
>
>"Uncle Joe (Stalin), Churchill, and Roosevelt laid the master plan to
>bring in the New Age under the United Nations," Johnson discloses with
>confidence. "The world ruling power was to be right here in this
>country. After the war, the world would be declared flat and Roosevelt
>would be elected first president of the world. When the UN Charter was
>drafted in San Francisco, they took the flat-earth map as their symbol."
>
LBJ could only wish so much.

Some of his successors still believe that they have been elected leaders
of the free world.

Ec


from_name: avi aharon

body:
Hi,
I am looking for documentation for the <timeline> template.

Thanks,
Avi


body:
On Apr 12, 2005 2:06 PM, zhengzhu <zhengzhu at gmail.com> wrote:
> The Chinese wikipedia has similar problems, although for different
> reasons. For example, sometimes people's names shouldn't be converted
> at all no matter what variant is in use, sometimes different variants
> translates foreign words differently. So there is a user customizable
> dictionary for each language variant that can be used to define such
> special conversion rules. There is also a special markup that can be
> used in the text to define specific conversion rules just for that
> piece of text.
>
> In the case of converting Latin to Cyrillics, I think the same thing
> can be used. The conversion table can be augmented with words and
> phrases that should not be converted to Cyrillics under any condition.
> Those words that can both be English and Serbian (or Belarussian) can
> be manually marked up in the text.

1. I can just guess what is written in Chinese interface, so how did
you cover article names? Do you have both names: in Simplified and
Traditional Chinese?

2. I think MediaWiki should have one general module for
transliteration with extensions for specific languages. General module
should be based on Chinese module.  Is it possible to start to work in
such way?

3. Also, we should try to make system clever: Some formal and some
statistic methods can help in recognizing should we transliterate
something or not (i.e.: if system find some non-Serbian Cyrillic
letters, it should not transliterate it into Latin and vice versa).


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Internal Radio

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>But I hope you will agree that there is a huge difference between a
>joke about all homosexuals should be executed (I don't even get the
>joke there... where is it?) and a joke that includes some mild
>elements which might liken Jimbo to Jim Jong Il.
>
Regrettably irony is not always an effective tool in this crowd.  Jim
Dong Ill doesn't always carry a big stick when he can't get it up.

>While I don't personally believe Jimbo can be considered a dictator
>(and most certainly not a self-obsessed one), I think that there is a
>sort of personality cult about him, and certainly on IRC I have seen
>people who seem more interested in him than perhaps I would be
>comfortable with in Jimbo's position. Of course this isn't "approved
>by Jimbo" - on the contrary, AFAIK he doesn't like that sort of thing
>- but I have definitely seen some people who it would only be going a
>little bit further for them to watch a television broadcast of his
>birthday, and even I would watch his biography if it were on
>television.
>
This kind of hero-worship begins with Christians who find it more chic
to parrot Christ's words than to live them.  In our context this
translates into using "Jimbo said ..." as an argument that would stop
all debate.  I can understand perfectly when his enterring a discussion
would have the effect of stopping the discussion even when that his not
his intent.

Ec


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] download archive link does not work

body:
> If you could post temporarily the previous 2-3 dumps of the English datatabase that would help me a lot. Thanks! bj.
Right now we've got high usage on server holding March dump, if you can use dumps provided by community, that'd ease a bit our and hardware work on server side.

Cheers,
Domas


from_name: Blair P. Houghton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 21, Issue 44

body:
Sorry about the subject lines...this mailing list really needs to be turned into a newsgroup.

Anyway...

Seth Ilys <seth.ilys at gmail.com>
>On Apr 12, 2005 12:29 PM, Blair P. Houghton <blair at houghton.net> wrote:
>> Seth Ilys wrote:
>>> >We're a wiki. Why mess with success?
>
>> Interesting definition of success you have.
>
>
>Are you denying that Wikipedia has been successful?
>
>What has made us one of the top 100 sites on the 'net if we aren't
>doing *something* well?

Now you're changing your definition of success from success as a reference to "doing something well".

And you're applying the fallacy of Appeal to Popularity.

Wikipedia has not been successful.  It's a mess.  It will remain a mess so long as fallacy and POV exist within it, and more of a mess so long as vandalism is permitted and only reverted upon random discovery.

"Charles Matthews" wrote:
>Blair P. Houghton wrote:
>> And while you're tut-tutting a little vandalism, POV and fallacy are polluting the majority of the pages.

>That would be majority as in 50%?  So we have at least 260000 pages with at least a fallacy or a POV problem?

Sounds like a reasonable ballpark figure.  I know I've edited over half of the pages on which I know something of the subject matter, and I expect those on which I am ignorant have enough errors that someone who does know the subject matter would be happy to fix them.  Sadly, Featured Articles are among the worst offenders of my academic sensibilities.

Ever since I started editing the Wikipedia, I've decided it's fun to edit and might be useful as a source of information to research further, but I'll never cite it as a reference in any reviewable work.

--Blair


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Re: unable to access my
	wiki	outsidemy	privatenetwork

body:
Byortek wiki wrote:
> From: "Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com>
>>Did you set the ServerName directive correctly in httpd.conf (or your
>><VirtualHost> section)?
>
> I haven't set the ServerName nor any <VirtualHost> section.

Then Apache will probably be autodetecting your hostname (smallpc.home)
and using that.

> However I placed a simple test.html file in the wiki dir and
> apache returned that page immediately. There is not these two
> redirections of the wiki main page.

Well, let's look at that trace in detail:

C->S GET /wiki HTTP/1.1 Host: smallpc.dyndns.org:8081
S->C HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently <blah blah>  Location:
http://smallpc.home:8081/wiki

MediaWiki would never send you here; this looks like something Apache
would do, for instance if UseCanonicalName is on and it's detected
smallpc.home as the hostname. Note that you're asking for a *directory*
without the final slash; this is an action that will produce a redirect
under just about any configuration.

C->S GET /wiki HTTP/1.1 Host: smallpc.home:8081
S->C HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently <blah blah>  Location:
http://smallpc.dyndns.org:8081/wiki/index.php/Accueil

This is MediaWiki telling you to go to the main page.

C->S GET wiki/index.php/Accueil HTTP/1.1 Host: smallpc.dyndns.org:8081
S->C <the wiki page ...>

And here's the main page itself.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Arwel Parry

body:
This item
[http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/internet/2005/04/12/wikipedia_first_with_the_news.html]
from todays' Guardian notes that we had the correct details for [[Andrea
Dworkin]]'s death date over 24 hours before the mainstream media, and
also points to the discussion on the talk page when we weren't sure if
the rumours were true.
---
"Imagine an encyclopedia," wrote blogger Joe Gratz, "that had someone?s
death noted in their biography before the first major news outlet had
even published an obituary." The death was that of feminist writer and
campaigner Andrea Dworkin, the encyclopedia Wikipedia, and Gratz was
absolutely correct.

Guardian Unlimited reported Dworkin's death, confirmed by her agent,
shortly before 1800 GMT yesterday, the first major news outlet to do so.
Though the correct date of her death was posted at the top of her
Wikipedia biography at least 24 hours earlier.

Wikipedia's discussion page explains how it happened. The news was
circulating on feminist mailing lists shortly after Dworkin died in her
sleep on Saturday, and from there it found its way to the encyclopedia
and some blogs. But a lack of corroboration from the press and certainty
over the source - again gone over on the discussion page - meant the
Wikipedia writers and some of their readers could not decide if it was
true. The correct date was taken down at least once, and the item hardly
pushed.

One British blogger, Lisa Rullsenberg, found the situation "very
curious"; it caused confusion here too, unused as we were to researching
a news story and finding Wikipedia the sole supporting published source,
breaking the news in its own quiet and understated manner.

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


from_name: Alexander Sigachov

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Ossetic again (bugs, bugs, bugs...)

body:
> The interwiki link updater system seems to be broken, so it's waiting
> until somebody has the chance to go over it.

Is it posible to look at it? Where?

--
Cxion la plej helan,
Alexander Sigachov
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:.:Ajvol:.


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Poland

body:
I've wanted to inform everyone who isn't aware yet, that the Polish
Wikimedia community started to plan the upcoming of the Wikimedia
Poland community, which would act as a local chapter to the Wikimedia
Foundation.

Right now, we're gathering info and informing users on the good and
the bad sides of having a more "legal" way of operating the Polish
projects.

We need at least 15 interested people to start the organization. We
won't spend almost any money on start, apart from some basic
registration fees (a few dollars) and a domain - Wikimedia.pl.

The current list of people interested in founding the organization is
listed over on meta, to be more precise, here -
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Polska#Lista_ch.C4.99tnych

We haven't informed the local communities on anything yet. First we
want to gather more info, and when we'll actually have the first real
participants and some words of courage, we'll post the info on every
local village pump in every project.

Now, my only question is, what should we exactly do after registering
our organization, to become a local Wikimedia chapter?

I'll try to inform foundation-l on any new progress as soon as it happens.

--
Best regards,
Dariusz Siedlecki


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Poland


subject: [Wikitech-l] Different alphabets for the same language

body:
> In most cases titles are converted using the same conversion system,
> i.e. using the conversion table and do a strtr(). For wierd
> situations, there is also support for manually specifying title
> conversion inside the article body, using this syntax:
>  -{T|zh-cn:foo; zh-tw: bar}-

I am thinking about more general solution: To make database table with
exceptions. And, more general, to make some kind of interaction with
Wiktionary.

> Here is an example: Let's say that in the conversion table, "foo" in
> zh-cn is converted to "bar" in zh-tw and vice-versa. Now someone
> writing in zh-cn wrote an article titled "foo". When someone with
> zh-tw preferred sees the article, "bar" will be shown as the article
> title. Further, say someone using zh-tw edited some article which has
> a link [[bar]]. The system will identify that the article "foo" should
> be used for linking, if "bar" is not already created as a redirect.

What do you keep in database? Simplified, traditional or both?

> btw, you should be able to change the interface at zh after you
> register an account;)

I remember that I was looking few minutes at left up corner of MS
Excel when I tried to find position of "File" in Hebrew MS Office :)
(it is at right up corner). The situation with Chinese interface is
similar :)

I saw a couple of days ago that if I click on Traditional Chinese,
I'll get "ugly" link with parameter "variant=zh-tw". Is it possible
that Simplified Chinese has URL in Simplified and Traditional Chinese
in Traditional Chinese? Or mod_rewrite redirection:

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/<something in Traditional Chinese> is
shown, but http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/<something in Simplified
Chinese>...?variant=zh-tw is read?

> Indeed. I have always anticipated that the Chinese system can be
> generalized to other languages. Most of the code for the Chinese
> system is not specifically tied to the Chinese language, and some code
> refactoring can be done to provide better support for different
> languages. Please watch CVS HEAD for the next couple weeks for this to
> happen.

I knew that Chinese have two alphabets, but I didn't have in my mind
that problems are similar to Serbian :) Of course, I found it a couple
of months ago...

> > 3. Also, we should try to make system clever: Some formal and some
> > statistic methods can help in recognizing should we transliterate
> > something or not (i.e.: if system find some non-Serbian Cyrillic
> > letters, it should not transliterate it into Latin and vice versa).
> >
> That's certainly doable within the current system framework, but will
> require more specialized algorithms.

Inside of my extension to pywikipedia bot
(http://millosh.org/software/ltafos/pos/), I have statistic guesser:
algorithm gueses distance between two texts (something like so called
edit distances, but stochastic, so it can compare texts in real time,
not only words and phrases). I am using it to guess if page is in
Serbian or not. However, it can be used (in future forms) for other
kinds of stochastic guessing.


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject: [Foundation-l] copyright question about data

body:
Well, the new work is copyrighted but the works it's using are still
public domain and can be re-used at will.

Cordialement,

Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Doctorant
CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2
http://soufron.free.fr

Le 12 avr. 05, ? 01:21, Cormac Lawler a ?crit :

> On Apr 11, 2005 11:42 PM, Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> As far as I understand it, these figures would be derivative works
>> from
>> public domain works... and their author would get copyright !
>>
Cordialement,

Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Doctorant
CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2
http://soufron.free.fr
>>
>
> Yes, that is right, the person/organisation that compiled the data
> gets credit for their work - it is in the public domain but we still
> need to reference the source. The same goes for graphs - a
> representation of data is itself copyright, though you can make your
> own graph from the data and refer to the source, ie. World Bank, UNDP
> or whatever. Correct me if I am wrong..
> Cormac
>
>
>> Le 11 avr. 05, ? 23:42, Edward Peschko a ?crit :
>>
>>> hey all,
>>>
>>> sorry if this is a FAQ - and I'm not sure if this question belongs in
>>> this
>>> mailing list - but since it concerns the legal side of the fence wrt
>>> wikipedia contributions here goes:
>>>
>>> What's the legal status of data retrieved from non-public domain
>>> sources?
>>>
>>> I understand that text that is retrieved from copyrighted materials
>>> is
>>> copyrighted, but how about data and figures that deal with common
>>> interest
>>> topics? Can you really copyright the amount of wheat grown in a year
>>> in
>>> bangladesh, or the number of accidents in a year on california roads?
>>>
>>>
>>> And how about graphs? Is data that is extrapolated from graphs and
>>> used in derivative graphs considered a 'creative work' of its own?
>>>
>>>
>>> I'd think so, but I just want to be sure..
>>>
>>> Ed
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> foundation-l mailing list
>>> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] juriwiki-l : working

body:
It's working now, anybody can post to the list by simply sending an
email :)

Jean-Baptiste Soufron

Le 12 avr. 05, ? 01:36, Angela a ?crit :

> On Apr 12, 2005 1:31 AM, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I tried to post to the foundation-news-l list yesterday and this also
>> did not get through, even though I am subscribed. Has anyone else
>> tried to post to that list?
>> Cormac
>
> That list is moderated. I don't think it is meant to be used for
> discussion, but just for announcements, which is why only Sj and
> Anthere can actually post to it.
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Cordialement,

Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Doctorant
CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2
http://soufron.free.fr


subject: [Foundation-l] juriwiki-l : working


from_name: David 'DJ' Hedley

body:
It may sound non-sensical, but as images on the front page are protected, I
think Today's Featured Article should be next.

Yesterday [[Garry Kasparov]] was the featured article of the day - during
it's stay there it was subject to a large amount of vandalism, some of which
was unattended to for a number of hours. No-one seemed to care, as sneaky
vandals can seemingly do as they like at times on such articles, and not be
noticed.

This seems fair enough, as it happens everywhere, but the featured article
is a potential preview in to Wikipedia for potential contributors. If the
featured article is vandalised, many will be put off. It is ultimately a
sample of the Wiki's work which changes daily, and such a sample should be
protected, on the day it is on the front page.

The featured article will probably never be a current event, and as theres
not much that can be added to it, I can't see any dis-advantage in
protecting it on that day. As you can see from yesterday, there are a lot of
reversions and yet next to no worthy contributions to Kasparov (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Garry_Kasparov&action=history).
Before I intervened at 21:18, vandalism had been standing for two and a half
hours. Even the reverts of users were getting caught out due to the level of
vandalism.

- D. Hedley