list: commons-l

from_name: Richard Palmer

subject: [Commons-l] Photo Information

body:
Hi,

  I forgot about the license field, added that to example. With
digital cameras it
  should be easy to get the EXIF information from the file, with film
it would just
  take a bit longer (and you would have to keep notes when you take the photo,
  something I always forget about!). The advantage of having shutter, iso speed
  etc is you could do some sneaky searching that way, for example high ISO
  speeds photos would find nighttime/sports photography, small aperture finds
  landscapes (perhaps). Having the model information would give some indication
  to the quality of the picture, and allow for comparisions.

  So, any admin reading, is it possible to implement this?. I'd make
the changes if
  need be, to start with all that is needed is to alter the upload
form, and the script
  that reads the uploaded data to dump it into the generated file
page, should be
  fairly easy...? (Later would come EXIF parsing, displaying data on file page,
  supplying defaults set in user preferences, searching on fields, etc.)

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:18:28 +0100, notafish <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> Most digital cameras, yes. I happen not to use one ;-), yeah,
> old-fashioned and all. Well I do believe that a field to be filled on
> upload would make things much much easier for everybody.
>
> Ask for a licence is another important field, or warn that unless
> provided, the licence will be GFDL or something.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Delphine
>
>
> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 16:00:37 -0500, Benjamin Esham <bdesham at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jan 19, 2005, at 11:51 AM, Fruggo wrote:
> >
> > > I'm not sure the shutter speed / camera model are really relevant
> >
> > This information can be interesting, though... instead of asking
> > uploaders
> > to add this information themselves, it would be nice if MediaWiki could
> > extract EXIF data and display it automatically.  I'm pretty sure most
> > digital cameras support the embedding of EXIF info.
> >
> > --
> > Benjamin D. Esham        {        http://bdesham.net
> > bdesham at gmail.com        }        AIM: bdesham 1 2 8
> > Six Gmail invites -- e-mail me if you're interested.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Commons-l mailing list
> > Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Situation deadlocked, how to solve it?

body:
I think we can all agree that it's reasonable to ask Mitchell Bard to
support his citation, and you claim you have done this and he refuses to
do so.  The citation of Mitchell Bard should carry the caveat that he has
been asked to support his claim and refused to do so.  The date of the
estimate is also relevant and should be noted in the text.  If these are
factual statements about which we can all agree, fine, otherwise there may
be a bit more haggling to do.


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

body:
Hello, everybody! I like to draw your attention to the page "Estimates
of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_the_Palestinian_Refugee_flight_of_1948).
The page lists estimates of how many Palestinian refugees where
created in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. There are quite a few different
estimates out there, all diverging from each other. Therefore, and
because Jayjg insisted on inserting the number 472,000 in the article
History of Israel
(Ihttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Israel&diff=6566071&oldid=6554019),
I felt that a separate page was necessary.

Recently, that page has suffered a violent revert war, in which me,
Jayjg and Viriditas was the combatants. The issue is over the
following text:

 472,000 According to the "Progress Report of the United Nations
Mediator on Palestine", as cited by Mitchell Bard on the Jewish
Virtual Library. [1]

[1] links to this page:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf14.html#2

Jayjg insists on retaining that source, while I want it removed. Yes,
it is true that Mitchell Bard claims he is getting the estimate
472,000 Palestinian refugees from the UN document "Progress Report of
the United Nations Mediator on Palestine," but a large part of that
document is availible online, from UN:s own site:

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa?OpenDocument
That document does not mention any estimate of the total number of
refugees. However, this page:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/decade/decad170.htm

Contains some more bits of "Progress Report of the United Nations
Mediator on Palestine" which mention the number "360,000 Arab refugees
and 7,000 Jewish refugees requiring aid in that country and adjacent
States." Because of this information and the fact that the number
472,000 Palestinian refugees cannot be traced to any other source, I
doubt that the UN Mediator ever wrote it. I've also had an e-mail
conversation with Mitchell Bard and he has so far refused to quote the
full line(s) from where his number 472,000 comes from. To me, that and
the fact that he is an editor of a strongly pro-Israel site
(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org), does make his claim less believable.

That is the reason I didn't want the page Estimates of the Palestinian
Refugee flight of 1948, to tell the reader that the UN Mediator (Count
Folke Bernadotte) wrote 472,000. Because currently there is no
evidence for that, other than that Mitchell Bard has written it.
Therefore, I wanted the text to read as follows:

 472,000 According to Mitchell Bard on the Jewish Virtual Library. [1]

But if someone can provide a more definite source than Mitchell Bard,
the situation changes.

The other reason that the number 472,000 should not be attributed to
the UN Mediator's report is that it was written before September 16,
1948, many months before the conflict ended. Israel's operations in
the Galilee hadn't even begun! It is estimated that in that operation
1-200,000 Arabs were driven from their homes.

How can you make an estimate of something that hasn't occured yet?!
...

This I have told Jayjg many times
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Palestine-info/Ignoring_the_datum),
and after many days of exhausting discussion, he has changed his
paragraph a little:

 472,000 by September 16, 1948 according to the "Progress Report of
the United Nations Mediator on Palestine", as cited by Mitchell Bard
on the Jewish Virtual Library. [1]

But that is still far from factual. What Mitchell Bard really claimed
can be seen when visiting his article:

"This meant no more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become
refugees. A report by the UN Mediator on Palestine arrived at an even
lower figure -- 472,000"

This claim is made in a paragraph in which he is discussing how many
"Palestinians became refugees in 1947-1949." There is no mention of
the fact that the report was published September 16. If you read the
paragraph it becomes clear that what he is trying to do is to lure the
reader to believe that the UN Mediator estimated that 472,000
Palestinians became refugees due to the war. Therefore, the new
version that Jayjg tried with is also bad - noone but people
knowledgeable about Israeli-Palestinian history knows that a large
number (hundreds of thousands) of Palestinian refugees was created
after September 1948. They will be fooled.

And also, Mitchell Bard did definitely not claim that the UN Mediator
counted 472,000 Palestinian refugees by September 16, 1948.

To solve this dispute, I tried with a footnote:

1: Mitchell Bard alleges that the UN official record "Progress Report
of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine" estimates that the number
of refugees was 472,000. The progress report was published on
September 16, 1948, ten months before the hostilities and the refugee
flight ended. Large parts of the report is availible here
(http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa?OpenDocument).
It is estaminated that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left in
the months after September, 1948. The number 472,000 should therefore
not be seen as an estimate of the total number of refugees, rather as
an estimate on how many Palestinian refugees there were in September
1948.

This compromise was not acceptable to Jayjg who has continued to
revert. So now I'm at loss of what to do. I've posted a Request for
Comments but it hasn't helped very much. One editor said that my
attention was an attempt to skew the article to a particular POV.
Another said the number might be comparing apples to oranges.

This mail is long, probably too long for people to read. The issue
isn't very important and there are many much worse instances of POV in
Wikipedia than this one. But that is why it is so astonishing to me
that it has taken so much time to try and correct one minor POV
detail. I've tried to discuss for over three months now with Jayjg,
but it just doesn't seem to work. His editing behaviour is very
hostile - if something is even slightly POV according to his
perception he will always revert instead of trying to fix it or
working out a compromise. I've written for Wikipedia for over four
years but I've never encountered an editor quite like him.

I don't know what to do. Do you?

--
mvh Bj?rn


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Randall Loffelmacher

subject: [Wikitech-l] Lost WikiSysop password

body:
Is there a way to retrieve/reset a forgotten password for the WikiSysop
user? Or is the only alternative to do a complete re-install of the
Wiki? If a re-install is required, can someone provide an URL with some
details about how to do this?

Thanks,
Randy


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Who enabled $wgDebugLogFile on enwiki?

body:
Kate Turner wrote:
> Because you just broke the entire wiki for about an hour without documenting
> it anywhere.  Can we please not do this in future?

This has been enabled for days, whenever saves were being profiled which
has been most of the time. It looks like the log file hit 2GB and
stopped working.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: MPerel

body:
Bjourne,
If the number is sourced with all the caveats explained, I don't
understand the problem including it.  Also, "I wrote him and he didn't
answer" is not a proof that the citation is false.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal - Wikibuilder

body:
The Toki Pona debate (somehow) completely passed me by. So if in 3
years time the number of Toki Pona articles rivals the number of
artciles in the klingon or lojban wikipedias, and the number of Toki
Pona speakers had increased, and there was resonable community support
for the Toki Pona wikipedia to move back in to the foundation this
would be allowed?

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 07:35:18 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales
<jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Robin Shannon wrote:
> > i remember you saying on several occasions that you wanted to keep
> > your stuff (bormis, wikia, wikicites, <anything else i might not know
> > about>) and wikimedia seperate.
>
> Yes, this is legally and ethically necessary.
>
> > I also remember you saying that you did not think that it would be
> > appropriate for other wikis started elsewhere to merge with, or
> > become part of the wikimedia family.
>
> No, I did not say that.  It will depend on the circumstances, the
> nature of the project, the judgment of the community, and the judgment
> of myself and the other board members.
>
> I have a strong ethical obligation to the Wikimedia Foundation, and
> nothing I do will compromise that, this was my point.  I don't want
> wikicities to compete with or fork anything that's more suitable for
> the foundation.  And I would like to make wikicities available to help
> resolve problems within the foundation (for example, providing a home
> for communities like tokipona, which although perfectly fine in and of
> themselves, have been judged to be inconsistent with our overall
> language policy).
>
> --Jimbo

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: original research, sources, and verification

body:
 >> Tony Sidaway replied:
 >>
 >> You mean [[wikipedia:cite sources]] says this? Where does it say that
 >> sources should be reputable?
 >
There are three policies you should read carefully: No Original Sources;
Cite Sources; and Verifiability.

I do not think any one of these uses the word reputable.  I do not want to
get into an argument about semantics though -- I don't see any reason to
take everything so literally.  If you read these three policies carefully,
there is a clear understanding that sources vary in quality, and a clear
expectation that the sources should be of high quality.  One of these
policies provides as an example peer-reviewed journal articles.  This is
only an example, but I think it is an example of what I meant by "reputable."

It is true that there is debate over what constitutes a
reputable/non-dubious/authoritative source, and we will never agree on a
single standard.  But I think we do all agree that we need to discriminate
between authoritative, non-authoritative but useful, and unacceptable sources.

And yes, as Slim pointed out, this is generally in reference to secondary
and not primary sources.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


subject: [Wikitech-l] Case-insensitive article titles

body:
I was wondering if there's a feature in MediaWiki which allows for
article titles to be case-insensitive. We have a problem right now where
a user creates an article for, say, RFID. Another user will spell it
Rfid instead and we end up with duplicate articles.

I was hoping there would be a switch somewhere that can enable this
feature. So far I have not found any such setting. We're running the
following versions:

    MediaWiki (http://wikipedia.sf.net/): 1.3.3
    PHP (http://www.php.net/): 4.1.2 (apache)
    MySQL (http://www.mysql.com/): 3.23.49-log

I noticed wikipedia.org has article titles which are case-insensitive,
so I wonder if this capability is buried deep in the configuration.

Thanks,
Randy


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject: [Foundation-l] a weird one, i guess, but...

body:
Reuven R. wrote:

> a general idea - what if there was a patent-wiki? to write down
> softwere(mostly) patents which u want to keep availible to the public
> - providing proof of their existance before any other registration
> attempt? and serving as a lisintg of availible methods and such...
>
> this could be an idea for the preservation(or something?) wiki which
> suggested writting down how things work before the end of the
> civilization as we know it.. ;p

I like it. I wouldn't restrict just to software though. What sort of
licence did you have in mind.

> and who'd thought that we'll need http://www.petitiononline.com/rjw23/
> ,eh?

"When performing a search for the word "Jew" on google.. the first
result is a site that has been notorious for being anti-semitic.. the
site is called jewwatch.com"

Have you noticed which site is actually number one these days?

Christiaan


from_name: James Rosenzweig

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Mediation Committee

body:
I am writing this here because I don't know where else
to write it -- perhaps [[Wikipedia talk:Mediation
Committee]] would be preferable, but judging from the
situation I am about to describe, the page doesn't
seem to be particularly closely watched at present.

The MC is currently in an apparent standstill: there
are several requests for mediation that have evidently
gone without response from a mediator for weeks, half
the committee has left for the AC, and the committee's
chair (Bcorr, a fine contributor and mediator) is
seemingly on indefinite leave (certainly he's been
away from mediation for a number of weeks, and I
haven't seen an anticipated return date).  To remedy
this situation, which was obviously critical as long
as a month ago, several users (myself included)
presented ourselves as candidates in mid- to late
December.  Several of us have, as yet, received
nothing but support votes from the MC and outside
voters.  No action, however, has been taken to promote
us....I suspect it is because there is no Chair active
to declare decisions final.

I am, of course, very hesitant to say anything about
this for fear of sounding as though I am grasping for
a role on the MC -- I don't want anyone to have the
impression I'm desperate for power (frankly, the break
following the AC elections has been wonderful).  But
mediation needs to be fixed and soon, especially
because AC cases have been refused for not following
dispute resolution steps -- not having an active MC
makes dispute resolution extremely difficult.

I am hoping this note sparks someone's attention to
get the ball rolling.  Obviously, as a candidate, I
can't really "be bold" and promote a bunch of us, and
if mediation is alive and well (presumably on a page
other than Wikipedia:Requests for mediation), I hope
someone will tell me.  But something needs to be done
before we have too many users (who are apparently open
to mediation) who get entrenched in opposition to each
other because a window of opportunity is lost.  Sorry
to be alarmist.  Best wishes to all,

James R.
en:User:Jwrosenzweig

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


subject:
[WikiEN-l] The Nature of a Wiki, was agenda promotion,
 was:Re: Original Research versus Point of View

body:
>Wikipedia can be considered an exercise in participatory democracy engaged
>in the task of creating an encyclopedia. Its purpose is not to refine and
>perfect particatory demococracy, but wiki software is premised on wide and
>more or less equal participation by the publics.
>
>One may change that premise, but one should know that is what you are
>discussing doing.
>
>Fred

Very well-said, Fred.  I am among many who believe that the participatory
element is essential to Wikipedia.  I don't mean to be dismissive of Robert
Dodier's opinionl, but if he thinks (his view of) encyclopedic quality
should trump the open editing policy, then I suggest he consider applying
for a job at Encyclopedia Britannica.

As you all know I advocate a committee that can mediate especially
contentious and long-lasting disputes over content, which I admit means
creating a little more bureaucracy and control.  But I believe very
strongly that if this were ever instituted, it should only be a matter of
last resort and a means of resolving a dispute -- and should never be given
daily or more lasting control over any page.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikitech-l] Proxy scanning: a suggestion

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Neil Harris (usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk) [050121 22:55]:
>
>
>
>>I've noticed increasing levels of vandalism via anonymizing proxies. We
>>turned off the automatic proxy-scanning some time ago because of
>>complaints by the clue-deficient who saw this as potential attacks.
>>However, it might be a good idea to do the following:
>>* whenever an admin _blocks_ a user, the IP they were editing from
>>should be automatically proxy-scanned, and blocked indefinitely if it is
>>an open proxy (_in addition to_ the username/IP block that would have
>>been applied)
>>By restricting proxy scans to proven vandals, this will reduce the rate
>>of proxy scans to a few dozen a day (from tens of thousands before), and
>>result in a proportionately trivial level of complaints which can safely
>>be auto-replied or ignored. It will also allow the reply to be very
>>clear: "we detected abuse from your user, verified that it was coming
>>from an unsecured proxy on your network, and took appropriate action".
>>
>>
>
>
>Oh, yes *please*!
>
>
>- d.
>
>
>
And I've just realized that this will also have another advantage:
legitimate policy-compliant users using open proxies (for whatever
reason) won't get automatically banned: they will still be able to edit,
so we default to being permissive. The moment that proxy is used for
abuse, though, that's another open proxy blocked for good.

More possible heuristics: scan editing IPs for open proxies if the page
they are editing has been protected in the recent past, or if the admin
revert function has recently been used on that page. This will catch
proxy-hopping users who engage in edit wars (Israel/Palestine, Fascism,
GW Bush...), but again only add a very small number of scans to the
overall total.

As in earlier proposals, we can add a recent-scans record, so an IP
won't be scanned more than say once a day, no matter what happens.

-- N.


body:
>"Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>
>Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV. We're supposed to be
>writing NPOV articles.
>A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population projections
>that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is fine and NPOV. A
>caveat such as "the claims at this site are patently incorrect" is POV and
>superfluous. Otherwise rely on the general site content disclaimer and
>the reader's commonsense.

I believe this misrepresents our policy.  NPOV is very important as a guide
to both content and behavior.  But it is not our only policy.  Nor original
research, verifiability, and cite sources are equally important
policies.  Moreover, those policies make clear that differences in the
nature and reliability or repute of sources must be taken into account and
acknowledged in articles.

If this were not the case, and if NPOV were the only policy, or a policy
that trumps all others, then Wikipedia would not be an encyclopedia, it
would be a bulletin board for everyone's views on everything -- more like
Everything2, maybe.  I oppose this.

I understand that the two policies -- say, NPOV and Verifiability -- may
come into conflict.  On such occasions we need to be very careful as we
attempt to negotiate an outcome that is, as best possible, in accordance
with the spirit of both policies.  But one cannot absolutely trump the other.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


body:
Neil Harris wrote: (re proxy-scanning on demand)

>
> And I've just realized that this will also have another advantage:
> legitimate policy-compliant users using open proxies (for whatever
> reason) won't get automatically banned: they will still be able to
> edit, so we default to being permissive. The moment that proxy is used
> for abuse, though, that's another open proxy blocked for good.
>
> More possible heuristics: scan editing IPs for open proxies if the
> page they are editing has been protected in the recent past, or if the
> admin revert function has recently been used on that page. This will
> catch proxy-hopping users who engage in edit wars (Israel/Palestine,
> Fascism, GW Bush...), but again only add a very small number of scans
> to the overall total.
>
> As in earlier proposals, we can add a recent-scans record, so an IP
> won't be scanned more than say once a day, no matter what happens.
>
> -- N.
>
>
Here are two final, but possibly less safe, heuristics:
* do an open proxy scan on any IP that does a page move
* do an open proxy scan on any IP that commits edits at faster than a
certain rate

Those might well put a spoke in certain determined vandals' activities.

- N.


body:
Neil Harris wrote:

>
> Here are two final, but possibly less safe, heuristics:
> * do an open proxy scan on any IP that does a page move
> * do an open proxy scan on any IP that commits edits at faster than a
> certain rate
>
> Those might well put a spoke in certain determined vandals' activities.
>
Did I say final?

* Do an open proxy scan on any IP that blanks a page (ie reduces it in
size by >80%, after blank-trimming is taken into account -- a very
common form of idiot vandalism)
* Do an open proxy scan on any IP that triggers the spam-detector (as
link-spammers will often work their way round open proxy lists)

Those will auto-catch more categories of idiot vandals operating over
open proxies, without too much added scan/complaints load.

Please critique and/or add to the list of plausible heuristics, with the
general idea that it is never a bad idea to block an open proxy, but it
is not good to scan every IP all the time.

-- N.


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] original research, sources, and verification

body:
>Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
>Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV.  We're supposed to be
>writing NPOV articles.
>A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population projections
>that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is fine and NPOV.

I doubt it would be fine according to the people who happen to believe those
projections are correct.  You sentence seems anything but NPOV.

Jay.


body:
>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>
>That site is clearly not authoritative on the activities of the younger
>Bush.  It is, however, authoritative on the expressed opinions of the
>anonymous kook who wrote that piece.

It's clearly not authoritative on Bush to you and me.  But to the person who
cites this (or similar) articles, it is no doubt quite authoritative on
Bush, and everything else as well.  This problem doesn't go away simply
because you feel comfortable making pronouncements on what a specific
website is authoritative on.

Jay.


body:
>I think we can all agree that it's reasonable to ask Mitchell Bard to
>support his citation, and you claim you have done this and he refuses to
>do so.  The citation of Mitchell Bard should carry the caveat that he has
>been asked to support his claim and refused to do so.  The date of the
>estimate is also relevant and should be noted in the text.  If these are
>factual statements about which we can all agree, fine, otherwise there may
>be a bit more haggling to do.

The date of the estimate is in the text.  As for Bard's "refusal to support
his claim", aside from the fact that it is un-verified, I don't see exactly
why Bard (or any other person) would be obligated to respond to every
anonymous individual who e-mailed him on the internet demanding information,
or how his response (or lack thereof) would be relevant to a well-cited
reference.

Jay.


body:
>Thank you for posting this. It nicely addresses the case of references
>being
>used which when you check them out, turn out to not actually support the
>information which they supposedly support. The advancement of references to
>support information implies that when the supposed reference is consulted
>you will find (and not by exhaustive search) information which backs up the
>information inserted in Wikipedia; not a confused and ambiguous situation.

Hold on there, I don't think it shows anything of the kind.  He hasn't seen
the source itself, he merely claims to have written Bard, and not received a
response that was to his liking.  That's quite a different thing.

>As we offer no alternatives to you other than giving up or breaking
>Wikipedia rules yourself, the problem must be solved using our dispute
>resolution procudure. Your request for comment is a good start, as is
>continued discussion with Jayjg. If those actions do not result in
>agreement, you may try mediation. If mediation fails after a good faith
>effort (or if it is refused or not engaged in with good faith) you can then
>request arbitration (hopefully the mediation committee itself will do that
>in such cases).

I that an even better start would be for Bjorn to actually post some of the
information he has on the Talk: page, rather than simply reverting the
article and bringing his evidence (such as it is) here instead.

>Jayjg has been the "victor" in a recent arbitration since the other party
>aggressively broke most Wikipedia policies.

I didn't feel victorious; the whole experience (and that with Alberuni) made
me seriously consider leaving Wikipedia.  Other editors did leave.

>However it has long been
>observed that there are problems with bias in the articles which concern
>the
>Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I will not support anti-Semitism masquerading
>as "balance" but I will welcome responsible insistance on our Neutral Point
>of View policy. Hopefully the rest of the Arbitration Committee is of the
>same mind.

Well, I'm certainly of the same mind.

Jay.


body:
>JAY JG wrote:
>
>>>>Hmm, Historical revisionist seems a bit too easy.  How would you
>>>>characterize that link I gave in the earlier e-mail, in way that warned
>>>>people what kind of site it was, but the people running it could agree
>>>>with?
>>>
>>>"The people running this website claim to reveal the truth about
>>>everything".
>>
>>LOL!  Good answer!
>
>Sarcasm is still POV pushing.

Oh, come on, that was funny!


subject: [Wikitech-l] The AOL problem

body:
We have a long-standing problem with AOL, which is that they insist on
being a single giant cluster of anonymizing proxies. Should we consider
sending a cookie to AOL browsers which issue edit requests, to give them
some kind of identity? This would, of course, mean some loss of privacy,
but no more than that of any other IP user who is not behind an
anonymizing proxy.

We could simply give them a random number, generated from a high-quality
PRNG, and send it to them as a resonably long-lived cookie when they
make their first edit request. This could then be used in lieu of an IP
address. So, we would have three types of name:

* IP addresses (with addresses in dotted-quad or IP6 notation) for
normal anons
* Logged-in users (names starting with a capital letter)
* Anons with cookies (dotless strings starting with a digit, say,
generated from a _hash_ of the cookie we sent)

Note that we only display a hash of the cookie contents. This allows us
to verify that the cookie is a genuine one sent by us, making spoofing
very hard to do. This could be as simple as keeping a table of valid
cookies; alternatively, some digital-signature scheme could be used to
remove the need for a database lookup. This would also prevent
mischevious users from impersonating AOL users by stealing their cookie.

All of this could be done with very little change to the code, if I
understand correctly how it works. This would let us watch and block AOL
users in much the same way as logged-in or IP users. The downside is
that we would probably have to block AOL users without cookies set from
editing to get the full benefit from this policy. We could easily send
them a message "Dear AOL user: you currently have cookies disabled; you
will need to enable cookies to edit this page. See here for more
information...".

Benefits:
* we can track AOL users for vandalism, at last
* they can still browse without needing cookies set
* no need for extra user interaction, if they have cookies set (which
they do by default)
* no other anons need to have cookies set at all
* this scheme can be extended to other totally anonymising ISPs, if
needed, including schools/colleges with proxy servers

Downside:
* AOL users lose a bit of anonymity (but, hey, that's the upside, too!).
* highly clueful AOL users could still work around this somewhat by
technical means, but: re-read the first clause of this sentence -- and
it will still deal with 99%.of the problem

Note that they are still _pseudonymous_, so there's no way of tracing
through to their real identities save through the AOL abuse department,
so we are still protecting their privacy.

So, this provides a nice tier between 'open' and 'blocked' that should
go a long way towards preventing the need for indiscriminate range-blocks.

How about it?

-- N.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: recipes

body:
Mark Williamson (node.ue at gmail.com) [050121 11:39]:
> On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:19:16 +1100, David Gerard
> <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > Mark Williamson (node.ue at gmail.com) [050121 08:21]:

> > > There are many different encyclopedias. If I write "Encyclopedia of
> > > All the Molecules in Jimbo Wales' body, with a detailed biography and
> > > label for each", does that mean each article in there deserves a spot
> > > in Wikipedia? Heavens no.

> > Recipe encyclopedias are not equivalent to this hypothetical example. Do
> > you have any real examples?

> 1. I never said they were. I just said that there are many different
> encyclopedias, and illustrated that it was not practical to use what
> is included in a single encyclopedia as a criterium for inclusion,
> especially when the encyclopaedia isn't one of general knowledge.
> 2. Can you prove they're not equivalent?

You're the one making the assertion that they are, not me.

> 3. If you can prove they're not equivalent, can you prove they're not analogous?

And again. Your argument goes "1. I compare it to this ridiculous idea. 3.
Therefore it is ridiculous." As the one making the argument, it's up to you
to substantiate "2. It is equivalent or analogous to this ridiculous idea."

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
Michael Snow (wikipedia at earthlink.net) [050121 14:33]:

> Also, the way we traditionally handle certain types of POV - one of the
> main complaints about recipes - is by attributing that POV to a credible
> source (not by removing it entirely). A recipe from a standard cookbook
> for a given style of cuisine, or from a noteworthy cook (not your Aunt
> Tillie, in other words), can satisfy this angle too.

I think I am about to go wild with my (precioussssss) Bee Nilson.

(The new edition is complete crap. Save your old one. I'm tempted to scan
ours and put it up. Samizdat cookbooks!)

- d.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Robin Shannon <robin.shannon at gmail.com> wrote:
> ok then, how about wikilabs AT wikicites, just so that we can keep all
> the wikimedia trails/betas/alphas together in one place, so they can
> easily feed off each others (and our) user base. And also, if there
> was some other wiki (that we hadnt started, but which wanted to join
> the foundation), then it could be moved to wikilabs (at wikicities)
> first, and then (if there is consensus) it could join us.

You'll have to ask the Wikicities people about that, but I think it is a great
idea.

-- mav

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


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I am just hoping for a responsible editor.

Fred

> From: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>, English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:59:23 +0100
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Situation deadlocked, how to solve it?
>
>> Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I will not support anti-Semitism masquerading
>> as "balance"
>> but I will welcome responsible insistance on our Neutral Point of View
>
> I hope this comment about veiled anti-Semitism is not directed against
> me. If it is, it is a very strong and offensive insult. Not to
> mention, entierly baseless.


subject: [Wikitech-l] The AOL problem, part 2

body:
Neil Harris wrote:

> We have a long-standing problem with AOL, which is that they insist on
> being a single giant cluster of anonymizing proxies. Should we
> consider sending a cookie to AOL browsers which issue edit requests,
> to give them some kind of identity?

Some comments to make this clearer:
* we detect AOL users by IP address range, not browser user-agent
* when I say "hash", I mean "keyed hash with a secret key"

We can also generate the cookie values nicely by generating them as

"seed" + hash(key1 + "seed" + key1)

where + is string concatenation, key1 is a secret key only our server
knows, and the seed is a random string.

By the nature of the hash algorithm, it is hard to discover key1, but we
(who know key1) can trivially verify whether it is a genuine cookie or
not without doing a database lookup, which will scale nicely for the
long-term future. Making the strings at least 512 bits  (64 chars) long
and using a good hash will effectively frustrate brute-force attacks on
the key.

* we can re-use the blocking subsystem to do this, by giving it a
variety of policies which can be enforced in the blocking table, eg
"block" or "force-anon-cookie"

To generate the user pseudonyms, after checking that

hash(key1 + "seed" + key1) is the same as the second part of the cookie

we then generate

hash(key2 + "seed" + key2)

where key2 is another secret key, and truncate it to some reasonable
length. Note that we don't need the authenticating hash from the cookie
string, as it is simply dependent on the seed and adds no greater
security once it has been verified.

A nicer way of showing the hashes of the cookie-strings might be as
strings with a leading hash thus:  #ekls9fjr5i39 (using base-36 encoding
using [a-z][0-9]). For added revelatory power, we could even present it
as #aol:ekls9fjr5i39, so that the originating ISP information was not lost.

Note that even though the actual keyed hash of the cookie string may be
512 bits long, we only need use the first 8 base-36 encoded characters
as a user pseudonym to have less than one chance in 2 * 10^12 of an
accidental collision, so using 12 as shown above is plenty.

So, the cost of doing this is mostly the cost of hashing, at two hashes
per edit, one to verify the cookie and one to generate the pseudonym
string. On a modern processor, each hash will take roughly 2 or 3
milliseconds to execute, which is trivial at Wikipedia's current edit
rate of an edit every 2 or 3 seconds. (We could also memo-cache verified
cookie -> name lookups in memcached, if we wanted to accelerate things
further, thus eliminating the hashing entirely in most cases except for
the first time, but that's probably too much complexity for too little
gain).

-- N.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Skype

body:
Hoi,

Sorry to bother you with this; many wikimedians use skype for Voice over
IP (internet telephony) it is great software. It is really cool to be
able to speak to someone in Australia and it costing nothing. Anyway,
there is a new version for both the Macintosh and the Windows platform.
The quality of service has improved.

If you already use skype, look under help and check if there is a newer
version.

If you do not have skype, give it a spin. It is cool.

Thanks,
   GerardM
   skype: gerardmeijssen


subject: [Wikitech-l] Skype


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Skype


from_name: zero 0000

body:
The dispute about Mitchell Bard, the number of
Palestinian refugees, and the report of the
UN Mediator (prepared 24 hours before his
assassination), is a good example of the
difficulties faced by editors who must rely on
secondary or tertiary sources of doubtful veracity.
Personally I would not mention Bard's claim
because he obviously doesn't know what he is
talking about.  For example he claims results
of a British census in 1945 when everyone
knows that the last census was in 1931.  Worse
than that, his failure to note that the date of the
Mediator's report meant that it was only a partial
count is proof of his dishonesty; no nicer way to
put it.

Nevertheless....I offer to consult the original UN
documents (if I have them; I think I do) to see if the
472,000 figure appears there and in what context.
If the number is not there, I'll refute the claim that
it is.  If it is there, I'll quote it in context.

Zero.

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] The AOL problem

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>Before going to far-fetched solutions, we should first agree that
>there actually is a problem. Is there any actual evidence that there
>are AOL-users vandalising us in such amounts that it becomes
>bothersome from ever-changing IP addresses?
>
>
>
In a word: yes. I speak from personal experience here.

Because of the way that AOL runs their network, even a single user in a
single session will appear to edit from a wide number of different IPs.
More than this, they deliberately hide the IP addresses of their
customers, by not revealing it in the proxy headers. Even if you go to
HTTPS, you will still get a proxied connection. In effect, AOL is a
giant anonymizing server farm for its users - and some of them know it.

AOL hosts quite a lot of good users, as well as a fair few relatively
simple-minded vandals. However, it also hosts some seriously badly
behaved users who respond very badly to feedback, as they have not only
not been exposed to the idea of netiquette, but believe that once
they've bought the AOL service, they own the Internet. They then behave
in ways that would result in instant banning (edit warring, personal
abuse, threats), were they from any other ISP. This then wastes a lot of
admin time, as they struggle to clean up the mess generated by these
by-now incorrigible users. I've seen this scenario played out many times.

This makes it much more difficult to track down their edits; you have to
memorize the multiple AOL netblocks and grep recent changes for edits by
IP addresses within them, then inspect edits one by one until to try to
tell whether they are edits by the vandal, or by legitimate AOL users
(whose edits may also be coming via the same IP). This means that
vandal-wrangling against a determined AOL vandal is easily ten times
harder than that against a normal anon IP.

The same is true of recent cases of edits from schools networks, where
individual good editors are accompanied by vandals, and where the only
alternatives are to check edits one-by-one or to block the proxy or
whole netblock.

Implementing a scheme such as the one suggested (which is probably about
200 lines of code, assuming there is already native support for
something like SHA-1 in PHP) would greatly reduce the amount of admin
time and effort taken up in dealing with these problems.

We could also do similar forced cookie identification for networks
containing persistent vandals on dial-up or cable networks with dynamic
addressing.

-- N.


from_name: Johannes Schindelin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Livejournal

references:
<loom.20050119T230716-645@post.gmane.org>
	<csnmmr$qbf$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<41EF65E3.7030202@myrealbox.com> <csnu6f$e73$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<41EF98DB.90202@tonal.clara.co.uk>
	<loom.20050120T202305-721@post.gmane.org>

body:
Hi,

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Dan100 wrote:

> I'm just suggesting that to avoid such situations in future, people let
> us know what's happening.

If people don't respond at once, it might be that they're busy...

Ciao,
Dscho


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
David Gerard a ?crit:

> I like the Spanish solution a whole lot. Andre, Anthere, what do you think?
>
>
> - d.

But David... of course I would agree with it.

This was basically the essence of my proposal last october :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ARecipes_proposal

It was not supposed to be a rule, but only a set of guidelines.

But there could be no final agreement on it since

* there were some people strongly in favor of full removal of all
recipes. So they opposed it in principle (Gentgeen and Andre I suppose
would)

* there were some people strongly in favor of keeping them all in Wikipedia.
So they opposed it because they feared some recipes would be moved
(Jamesday for exemple)

* and many people who just generally agreed.

But since there were people willing to keep it all and others willing to
delete it all, nothing got out of it.

Conclusion : all recipes were removed, according to Gentgeen by
consensus. His consensus.

What else to say ?

All I felt I could do was at least to remove a rule which is obviously
not making consensus amongst ourselves. I think it is ridiculous to have
rules which were never voted for and are clearly not agreed upon. Only
on anarchic Wikipedia could we find such a situation :-)))) Funny Wikipedia.

Anthere


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] The AOL problem

body:
Before going to far-fetched solutions, we should first agree that
there actually is a problem. Is there any actual evidence that there
are AOL-users vandalising us in such amounts that it becomes
bothersome from ever-changing IP addresses?

Andre Engels


from_name: Jakob Voss

subject: [Foundation-l] proof reader needed

body:
Hi!

I am currently writing a research paper about Wikipedia I want to submit
to a conference. I am in a hurry and looking for one or two interested
native speakers for proof reading my paper. There are some new
statistics but I can't make it all public before submission. There are 8
pages and I am working on 5-8 more. Anyone interested please mail me.

Thanks a lot!
Jakob


subject: [Foundation-l] proof reader needed


body:
Randall Loffelmacher wrote:

>I was wondering if there's a feature in MediaWiki which allows for
>article titles to be case-insensitive. We have a problem right now where
>a user creates an article for, say, RFID. Another user will spell it
>Rfid instead and we end up with duplicate articles.
>
>I was hoping there would be a switch somewhere that can enable this
>feature. So far I have not found any such setting. We're running the
>following versions:
>
>    MediaWiki (http://wikipedia.sf.net/): 1.3.3
>    PHP (http://www.php.net/): 4.1.2 (apache)
>    MySQL (http://www.mysql.com/): 3.23.49-log
>
>I noticed wikipedia.org has article titles which are case-insensitive,
>so I wonder if this capability is buried deep in the configuration.
>
>Thanks,
>Randy
>
Hoi,
There is a setting that allows you to set of capitalisation of article
names. Many wiktionaries are happy with this feature as it allows them
to describe the words as they are written. Some wiktionaries think the
conversion effort is too big a task (it is a big task that can propably
be aided by a bot).

When someone calls an article rfid and another RFID, you are still
having duplicate articles..


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject:
[WikiEN-l] The Nature of a Wiki, was agenda promotion,
	was:Re: Original Research versus Point of View

body:
steven l. rubenstein wrote

> As you all know I advocate a committee that can mediate especially
> contentious and long-lasting disputes over content, which I admit means
> creating a little more bureaucracy and control.

The key issue for me is not whether, ultimately, there will be some
'control' - I think in the end there will have to be a way of dealing with
the most contentious issues.  But whether control is of content or of
editors.  I believe 'problem content' is to mis-say.

There are problem editors, and control should mean control of those.  In
effect, those who can or will  not voluntarily break out of well-established
patterns of POV editing will have to be restrained.  If others step up to
take their place, likewise (and more rapidly).  No excuses about 'balance'.

None of this implies anyone sitting in judgement over article content, with
any greater rights than the ordinary wikizen.

Charles


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia at SoCal Linux Expo - volunteers needed

body:
There's going to be a Wikimedia/Wikipedia booth in the exhibition hall
at the Southern California Linux Expo, coming up on February 12-13, 2005
at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

More information on the expo in general: http://socallinuxexpo.com/

We'll have a computer set up for visitors to marvel at Wikipedia, and
perhaps trundle out some fliers or a few CD-Rs of goodies. If you'd like
to help out manning the booth, *please* sign yourself up here:

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

and drop me an e-mail. So far there's only one other guy listed and I
have no contact information for him.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
There's going to be a Wikimedia/Wikipedia booth in the exhibition hall
at the Southern California Linux Expo, coming up on February 12-13, 2005
at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

More information on the expo in general: http://socallinuxexpo.com/

We'll have a computer set up for visitors to marvel at Wikipedia, and
perhaps trundle out some fliers or a few CD-Rs of goodies. If you'd like
to help out manning the booth, *please* sign yourself up here:

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

and drop me an e-mail. So far there's only one other guy listed and I
have no contact information for him.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia at SoCal Linux Expo - volunteers needed

body:
There's going to be a Wikimedia/Wikipedia booth in the exhibition hall
at the Southern California Linux Expo, coming up on February 12-13, 2005
at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

More information on the expo in general: http://socallinuxexpo.com/

We'll have a computer set up for visitors to marvel at Wikipedia, and
perhaps trundle out some fliers or a few CD-Rs of goodies. If you'd like
to help out manning the booth, *please* sign yourself up here:

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

and drop me an e-mail. So far there's only one other guy listed and I
have no contact information for him.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
There's going to be a Wikimedia/Wikipedia booth in the exhibition hall
at the Southern California Linux Expo, coming up on February 12-13, 2005
at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

More information on the expo in general: http://socallinuxexpo.com/

We'll have a computer set up for visitors to marvel at Wikipedia, and
perhaps trundle out some fliers or a few CD-Rs of goodies. If you'd like
to help out manning the booth, *please* sign yourself up here:

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

and drop me an e-mail. So far there's only one other guy listed and I
have no contact information for him.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
There's going to be a Wikimedia/Wikipedia booth in the exhibition hall
at the Southern California Linux Expo, coming up on February 12-13, 2005
at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

More information on the expo in general: http://socallinuxexpo.com/

We'll have a computer set up for visitors to marvel at Wikipedia, and
perhaps trundle out some fliers or a few CD-Rs of goodies. If you'd like
to help out manning the booth, *please* sign yourself up here:

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

and drop me an e-mail. So far there's only one other guy listed and I
have no contact information for him.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia at SoCal Linux Expo - volunteers needed

body:
There's going to be a Wikimedia/Wikipedia booth in the exhibition hall
at the Southern California Linux Expo, coming up on February 12-13, 2005
at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

More information on the expo in general: http://socallinuxexpo.com/

We'll have a computer set up for visitors to marvel at Wikipedia, and
perhaps trundle out some fliers or a few CD-Rs of goodies. If you'd like
to help out manning the booth, *please* sign yourself up here:

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

and drop me an e-mail. So far there's only one other guy listed and I
have no contact information for him.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Matt Brown

body:
I may (have to check my schedule & commitments) be able to help, but
do I have to pay the $65 or so for admission in order to do so?  I'm
pretty broke-ass this month.

-Matt (User:Morven)

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:35:52 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> There's going to be a Wikimedia/Wikipedia booth in the exhibition hall
> at the Southern California Linux Expo, coming up on February 12-13, 2005
> at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
>
> More information on the expo in general: http://socallinuxexpo.com/
>
> We'll have a computer set up for visitors to marvel at Wikipedia, and
> perhaps trundle out some fliers or a few CD-Rs of goodies. If you'd like
> to help out manning the booth, *please* sign yourself up here:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Southern_California_Linux_Expo
>
> and drop me an e-mail. So far there's only one other guy listed and I
> have no contact information for him.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] agenda promotion,
	was: Re: Original Research versus Point of View

body:
Geoff Burling (llywrch at agora.rdrop.com) [050121 20:31]:

> I had much the same thought today. After all, we mark a number
> of articles with {{NPOV}} or {{disptued}}, so why not create
> a category for articles where the normal rules of behavior
> on Wikipedia are replaced with more stringent ones actively
> monitored to enforce compliance?
> Articles would then be moved in & out of that category much as
> we vote on articles at {{VfD}} or for Featured Article status.
> The more stringent rules would then be set up with the goal of
> hammering out compromise language & ending these interminable
> disputes -- while adhering to the goals of NPOV.
> At the same time, this new approach should only be done if it
> adds a negligible amount -- or no -- extra burden to the ArbCom.

I must say I've been tempted to propose that all edits on en: from the
Middle East in general be blocked ...

(though it turns out the worst POV-warriors edit from the US. Bah!)

> I've spun out a few different mechanisms for how these zones
> could work, but it's far more important to see if there's a
> consensus on Wikipedia that this is an idea worth trying first.
> And I have to admit I'm not entirely keen on the idea myself:
> telling people that certain parts of Wikipedia are under
> "martial law" somehow just doesn't fit with the image *I* have
> for this  project.

Per-article would lead to article forks (even tho' forks get a rapid
"redirect or delete" response from VFD).

Per-category is susceptible to people removing an obvious categorisation.

Per-topic is a bit subjective; the ArbCom places such restrictions on
troublesome individuals as needed, but not as yet on given topics even for
well-behaved editors.

Having (whatever)s voted in and out of such restrictions is an interesting
and plausible idea, though. If we can work out a way to do it.

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
Michael Snow (wikipedia at earthlink.net) [050121 18:09]:
> David Gerard wrote:

> >I think I am about to go wild with my (precioussssss) Bee Nilson.

> Who in the world is Bee Nilson, and why isn't there a Wikipedia article
> about her when I want to look her up?

The book I'm referring to is 'The Penguin Cookery Book', 1952, some 1970s
updates. Nilson died some time ago and Penguin has done a recent edition,
but it's crap. The book synopsises basic British cooking (of the old-school
lard is good, boil until the stone goes soft sort). It 's the sort of book
people keep in their kitches forever. My wife's copy was given to her as a
girl; we still use it. I can't say how annoyed I am at Penguin doing a new
crap edition rather than just reprinting the old. If there could be a high
standard reference for British cooking, Bee Nilson is the one.

>  I think a lot of the
> visceral objection to recipes is based on the fact that they frequently
> overwhelm the remaining content of the article, especially if the
> instructions are given in significant detail.

I like the Spanish solution a whole lot. Andre, Anthere, what do you think?

- d.


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

body:
Thank you all for your replies.

Yes, it may have been a mistake of me not to mention my efforts to
verify Bard's claim. But I have referred Jayjg to the text of the
document in question at UNISPAL. Plus, I have also mentioned that that
document (which Bard gets his 472,000 claim from) states that there
were "some three hundred thousand Arab refugees." In short, I have
tried very hard to explain why I think the way Jayjg wants the source
to be written is bad. I have written all this multiple times at the
talk page.

But I should have mentioned my e-mail conversation with Bard on the
talk page. The reason I hesitated to do so, is that I wanted to give
Bard enough time to answer. I didn't want to embarras myself by first
saying that Bard is a liar and then have to withdraw that if he shows
me his sources. After my 24 hour ban is up I will post it. Personally,
I very strongly doubt that he has ever looked at the documents he
purports to be citing from. A common technique when you write
something that has to fit a particular view is to use second hand
sources. Search for "472,000" and "UN Mediator" on Google and you will
see what I mean. Hundreds of articles, forum messages and mailing-list
postings, all claiming to be citing the UN Mediator. But how many of
them have taken a look at the original documents?

Here are some more sites I've used trying to locate the missing source:

http://documents.un.org/welcome.asp?language=E
http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf
http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/
http://lib-unique.un.org/

> As we offer no alternatives to you other than giving up or breaking Wikipedia rules
> yourself, the problem must be solved using our dispute resolution procudure. Your
> request for comment is a good start, as is continued discussion with Jayjg. If those
> actions do not result in agreement, you may try mediation. If mediation fails after
> a good faith

I'm prepared to try mediation as the revert wars are not limited to
"Estimates of the Palestinain Refugee Fligt of 1948," are present on
other pages as well that I and Jayjg has edited. Or rather, that I
have edited and Jayjg reverted.

> Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I will not support anti-Semitism masquerading as "balance"
> but I will welcome responsible insistance on our Neutral Point of View

I hope this comment about veiled anti-Semitism is not directed against
me. If it is, it is a very strong and offensive insult. Not to
mention, entierly baseless.

--
mvh Bj?rn


body:
Tony Sidaway (minorityreport at bluebottle.com) [050121 21:31]:

> Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV.  We're supposed to be
> writing NPOV articles.
> A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population projections
> that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is fine and NPOV.  A
> caveat such as "the claims at this site are patently incorrect" is POV and
> superfluous.  Otherwise rely on the general site content disclaimer and
> the reader's commonsense.

Yes. I feel sufficient trepidation at separating external links into pro
and con.

- d.


body:
Matt Brown wrote:
> I may (have to check my schedule & commitments) be able to help, but
> do I have to pay the $65 or so for admission in order to do so?  I'm
> pretty broke-ass this month.

An exhibition-only pass is $10, but lemme check with the coordinators on
whether that's necessary if you're working with an exhibitor.

(Also, the full admission that lets you go to the seminars is half-off
for students, if that helps anyone else...)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: blankfaze

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Mediation Committee

body:
On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 14:46:47 +1100, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been concerned about this myself, and I'd have gone ahead and
> added most of the new applicants to the list (as I suggested we do
> about a month ago), but as I'm no longer a mediator, I can't. We
> *really* need to get these applicants in, and appoint a new chair
> (considering that sannse was effectively filling in in Bcorr's
> absence, and sannse has now left for the AC). This has been made all
> the more urgent since the departure of Ed Poor, who, to my knowledge,
> had been handling a significant percentage of incoming mediation
> cases. I know I mentioned something along these lines when he applied
> for the committee, but once someone gets around to clearing up these
> requests, I think Jwrozenzweig would be an ideal chair.
>
> -- ambi

I agree.  Jwrosenzweig is the best possible person I can think of for
the job, whether it's as a new permanent chair or an interim one.

~blankfaze


body:
Neil Harris (usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk) [050121 22:55]:

> I've noticed increasing levels of vandalism via anonymizing proxies. We
> turned off the automatic proxy-scanning some time ago because of
> complaints by the clue-deficient who saw this as potential attacks.
> However, it might be a good idea to do the following:
> * whenever an admin _blocks_ a user, the IP they were editing from
> should be automatically proxy-scanned, and blocked indefinitely if it is
> an open proxy (_in addition to_ the username/IP block that would have
> been applied)
> By restricting proxy scans to proven vandals, this will reduce the rate
> of proxy scans to a few dozen a day (from tens of thousands before), and
> result in a proportionately trivial level of complaints which can safely
> be auto-replied or ignored. It will also allow the reply to be very
> clear: "we detected abuse from your user, verified that it was coming
> from an unsecured proxy on your network, and took appropriate action".

Oh, yes *please*!

- d.


body:
BJ?rn Lindqvist (bjourne at gmail.com) [050121 22:10]:

>  Because of this information and the fact that the number
> 472,000 Palestinian refugees cannot be traced to any other source, I
> doubt that the UN Mediator ever wrote it. I've also had an e-mail
> conversation with Mitchell Bard and he has so far refused to quote the
> full line(s) from where his number 472,000 comes from. To me, that and
> the fact that he is an editor of a strongly pro-Israel site
> (www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org), does make his claim less believable.

You know, it really would have been more convincing if you'd actually
mentioned your efforts to check the reference on the talk page, rather than
just reverting without doing so. This would also have avoided 3RR blocks.

>  I've tried to discuss for over three months now with Jayjg,
> but it just doesn't seem to work. His editing behaviour is very
> hostile - if something is even slightly POV according to his
> perception he will always revert instead of trying to fix it or
> working out a compromise. I've written for Wikipedia for over four
> years but I've never encountered an editor quite like him.

Did you inform him of your efforts to verify the reference with Mitchell
Bard?

> I don't know what to do. Do you?

Detailing your correspondence with Bard on the talk of the article strikes
me as a good start!

- d.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
Miriam Perel said:
> Regarding Slim's problem w/LaRouche, and building on Steve
> Rubenstein's comments about the lack of a mechanism to deal with
> violations of content guidelines, perhaps we should have a new
> category of special editors in addition to admins and bureaucrats and
> arbitrators.  We could promote certain editors to "Expert" if they have
> recognized expertise in a certain topic area, so that they could
> arbitrate content disputes.

Why?  There are already experts who don't let a few trolls and ignoramuses
put them off.  The quality of content on Wikipedia is surprisingly good.
I think this means we're doing something right.


from_name: Chip Berlet

body:
Hi,

Tony Sidaway sez:

===

 *do not engage in an edit war*

And if and when there is a discussion. *listen* to what people say.
Everybody loves to be listened to.
And then, when you've done enough listening, if you're still sure that
your edit enjoys so much support that it's the right thing to do, *ram
that sucker in again* and *invite people to revert it if they think that
is the right thing to do.*
If this doesn't work for you, it's probably because you haven't yet
learned how to build a consensus.

===

This works 99% of the time. But the LaRouche supporters are not interested in consensus. They firmly believe that LaRouche is the world's greatest economist and thinker.  They are on a mission.  They believe that everyone who has ever written an article critical of LaRouche is part of a conspiracy that began in ancient Babylon.

As Winston Churchill said: "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

The material the LaRouche supporters post is overwhelmingly from LaRouche publications. They make fantastic claims. The repeatedly engage in personal attacks. They make claims that are false simply based on their one statements on the Talk pages. They will lose some text in a discussion and it appears a few days later, or they arbitrarily delete text that is appropriate. In my case they keep claiming I have invented, misrepresented, or cooked quotes. I have posted whole blocks of text online to show the context, and then they demand that I post an image file to make sure I am not lying.

On the page explaining NPOV it states "Many POV battles would be made much easier through the practice of good research. Facts are not points of view in and of themselves. So an easy way to avoid making a statement that promotes a point of view is to find a reputable source for a fact and cite the source. This is an easy way to characterize a side of a debate without promoting a view. The trick is to find the best and most reputable source you can. "

LaRouche material should be cited when appropriate, but it is taking over page after page on Wikipedia without proper balance or clear discussion of what reputable majority views are about LaRouche and his group. We can be fair to the LaRouche point of view but only if there is some way to resist their constant bullying. I invite everone to visit the LaRouche-related pages and see what is going on.  It is not a situation created because we have not "learned how to build a consensus."

Chip Berlet

(Cberlet)

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
Stan Shebs said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> For example, every scholar of the subject agrees that the
> "Augustan History" is full of errors, and should not be trusted.
> Is that POV? Sure, but the "N" means "neutral", not "no", and it's
> perfectly valid to say "low-quality source" when that is the
> consensus of the experts. Saying that the "reader should use
> common sense" in such a situation is not only a complete abdication of
> our responsibility to uphold scholarly standards, but is an
> insult to the workers who've spent their lives studying the
> material in order to tell us which parts are the most believable.
>
You mean you don't trust me as a reader to figure out that we don't know a
whole lot about what happened a long time ago?  Too bad, you do me a
disservice.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 18, Issue 65

body:
zero 0000 said:
> For example he claims results
> of a British census in 1945 when everyone
> knows that the last census was in 1931.

Tony Sidaway replied:
> Well actually there was an extraordinary census in 1939, so the
> information for 1945 wasn't entirely useless.  Only somewhat useless,
> given the intervening war and the associated rapid social changes.

There were only two censuses, in 1922 and 1931.  There was no
census of the general population in 1939.  All figures for the overall
population published by the British after 1931 were adjustments to
the 1931 figures derived from counting of births, deaths and
migration.  One of the sources of dispute regarding the number
of Palestinian refugees in 1948 is an Israeli claim that the British
population figure for Arabs was too high by 6%, which the British
denied.

Zero.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


body:
steven l. rubenstein said:
>
> It is true that there is debate over what constitutes a
> reputable/non-dubious/authoritative source, and we will never agree on
> a  single standard.  But I think we do all agree that we need to
> discriminate  between authoritative, non-authoritative but useful, and
> unacceptable sources.

Absolutely. it's fun to give people instructions on which policy
documentsthey are supposed to reread, and perhaps less fun to read the
examples they give.  I think the examples I gave illustrate well the
difference between "authoritative" and "non-authoritative"--it's a matter
of context.  As far as I'm aware, there are no useless or unacceptable
sources (even /dev/random has a value in the right context), only useless
and unacceptable citations.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Lost WikiSysop password

body:
Randall Loffelmacher wrote:
> Is there a way to retrieve/reset a forgotten password for the WikiSysop
> user? Or is the only alternative to do a complete re-install of the
> Wiki? If a re-install is required, can someone provide an URL with some
> details about how to do this?

WikiSysop is not special; it's just like any other user account as
regards passwords. There's a 'mail me a new password' button on the
login page.

If you didn't set your e-mail address, you can go in the database and
set it manually:

   UPDATE user
   SET user_email='myaddress at example.com'
   WHERE user_name='My username' LIMIT 1;

If e-mail doesn't work on your server, you'll have to manually generate
a new password and stick it in the database. The stored password hash is
the MD5 hash of the concatenation of the user_id number, a hyphen ('-'),
and the MD5 hash of the plaintext password. Something like this should
do it:

   UPDATE user
   SET user_password=MD5(concat(user_id,'-',MD5('new password')))
   WHERE user_name='My username' LIMIT 1;

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Randall Loffelmacher wrote:
> I was wondering if there's a feature in MediaWiki which allows for
> article titles to be case-insensitive.

No, there is no such ability at present.

> I noticed wikipedia.org has article titles which are case-insensitive,
> so I wonder if this capability is buried deep in the configuration.

It certainly doesn't, but we do have a manual redirect capability.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> There is a setting that allows you to set of capitalisation of article
> names.

That makes the first letter case-sensitive which is the _opposite_ of
case-insensitive. (Normally the first letter is forced to
capitalization, which gives a small degree of case-insensitivity in that
[[asteroid]] and [[Asteroid]] go to the same place.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject:
Original Research versus Point of View,
	was Re: [WikiEN-l] The3RR policy sho

body:
Slim Virgin wrote
>
> The only reason this stuff hasn't spread like wildfire throughout
> Wikipedia is because a number of editors have opposed them since they
> first started last May (not always the same group of editors, because
> editors get worn out and give up) and so the material is reasonably
> contained. But it's an exhausting job. If you want to join in, you are
> more than welcome, because one or two of us could do with a break.
>
David Gerard will be able to verify that I'm not talking out of my hat
when I say I do have some experience of dealing with this kind of stuff,
and in a much, much less sympathetic forum.  I was involved in some of the
early alt.religion.scientology skirmishes but threw in the towel after
I appreciate the work that you do.

As you're probably aware, I've joined in.  Just think of me as the backup
guy.  I don't want wikipedia to lose people like you.


body:
Ray Saintonge said:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>>Tony Sidaway (minorityreport at bluebottle.com) [050121 21:31]:
>>
>>
>>>Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV.  We're supposed to
>>>be writing NPOV articles.
>>>A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population
>>>projections that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is fine
>>>and NPOV.  A caveat such as "the claims at this site are patently
>>>incorrect" is POV and superfluous.  Otherwise rely on the general site
>>>content disclaimer and the reader's commonsense.
>>>
>>>
>>Yes. I feel sufficient trepidation at separating external links into
>>pro and con.
>>
>>
> But in the first example the words "proven" and "in error" make POV
> assertions.  Better: "Warning: this source relies on population
> projections that have been severely questioned."
>
No, in the original example it should be taken for granted that the
population projections have been falsified.  For instance, if I cited
Malthus.


body:
steven l. rubenstein said:
>
>>"Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>>
>>Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV. We're supposed to be
>>writing NPOV articles.
>>A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population projections
>>that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is fine and NPOV. A
>>caveat such as "the claims at this site are patently incorrect" is POV
>>and superfluous. Otherwise rely on the general site content disclaimer
>>and the reader's commonsense.
>
> I believe this misrepresents our policy.

Could you be more specific?


body:
David Gerard said:
> Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050122 00:33]:
>
>> As we offer no alternatives to you other than giving up or breaking
>> Wikipedia rules yourself, the problem must be solved using our dispute
>> resolution procudure.
>
>
> Which starts with the talk page. Please, put the results of reference
> hunting work on the talk page rather than revert warring!

You know, I'm new here, just three-and-a-bit months, but I have some
rules.  I didn't originate them, I kinda absorbed them. I recommend them
to all.  And you know what? I quite often follow them myself!
The best one is this:  if you have good reason to believe that somebody is
going to have a problem with your edit, *make a posting on the talk page
describing the edit, explaining why you're making it, and inviting all
other editors to revert if they want.  Make it plain that you will not
under any circumstances be drawn into an edit war.  Invite all and sundry
to discuss the edit.  *Then do the edit on the article*.
If the edit is reverted, *do not engage in an edit war*.

And if and when there is a discussion. *listen* to what people say.
Everybody loves to be listened to.
And then, when you've done enough listening, if you're still sure that
your edit enjoys so much support that it's the right thing to do, *ram
that sucker in again* and *invite people to revert it if they think that
is the right thing to do.*
If this doesn't work for you, it's probably because you haven't yet
learned how to build a consensus.


body:
JAY JG said:
>>Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>>Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV.  We're supposed to
>>be writing NPOV articles.
>>A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population projections
>>that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is fine and NPOV.
>
> I doubt it would be fine according to the people who happen to believe
> those  projections are correct.  You sentence seems anything but NPOV.
>
If there still existed people who believe that the projections are
correct, then this would not be an acceptable caveat.  There are no
established facts, only foreseeable objections to factual claims and ways
of allaying those objections.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Ray Saintonge said:
>
>
>>David Gerard wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Tony Sidaway (minorityreport at bluebottle.com) [050121 21:31]:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV.  We're supposed to
>>>>be writing NPOV articles.
>>>>A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population
>>>>projections that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is fine
>>>>and NPOV.  A caveat such as "the claims at this site are patently
>>>>incorrect" is POV and superfluous.  Otherwise rely on the general site
>>>>content disclaimer and the reader's commonsense.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Yes. I feel sufficient trepidation at separating external links into
>>>pro and con.
>>>
>>>
>>But in the first example the words "proven" and "in error" make POV
>>assertions.  Better: "Warning: this source relies on population
>>projections that have been severely questioned."
>>
>>
>No, in the original example it should be taken for granted that the
>population projections have been falsified.  For instance, if I cited
>Malthus.
>
>
One does not build a very solid case if one starts to take things for
granted.
Ec


body:
JAY JG said:
>>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>>
>>That site is clearly not authoritative on the activities of the younger
>>Bush.  It is, however, authoritative on the expressed opinions of the
>>anonymous kook who wrote that piece.
>
> It's clearly not authoritative on Bush to you and me.  But to the
> person who  cites this (or similar) articles, it is no doubt quite
> authoritative on  Bush, and everything else as well.  This problem
> doesn't go away simply  because you feel comfortable making
> pronouncements on what a specific  website is authoritative on.

I think you're mistaking Wikipedia for a website that has unprecedented
control over the ability of the reader to make a judgement.  If I stated
"Ruby Smith of Fatfield County Durham has written an article in which she
claims that George Bush is a termite" and cited an article in which a
person identifying herself as Ruby Smith living in Fatfield, County Durham
and gave a means of verification, then I think most readers would accept
this as good evidence that there exists a place in England called County
Durham, and in that place there exists a district called Fatfield, and in
that district there dwells a woman called Ruby Smith, and the words in the
article represent words that she has typed into her computer.
The existence of Ruby Smith and her locale can be verified independently.
You can phone her up (or whatever) and arrange to meet her and discuss her
weird views.
So what do you get from that?  That there exists a woman in Fatfield who
believes that George W. Bush is a termite.
And that's it.  Someone who is predisposed to believe the statements of
random bozoes on the net will read it one way, the rest of us will read it
 another way.  That seems reasonable to me.


body:
JAY JG said:
>
> I
> don't see exactly  why Bard (or any other person) would be obligated to
> respond to every  anonymous individual who e-mailed him on the internet
> demanding information,  or how his response (or lack thereof) would be
> relevant to a well-cited  reference.
>
Well if as I have done one has gone to the UN report on the UN website
(which is probably incomplete because its author was assassinated by
Jewish renegades very shortly after sending part of it) and failed to find
the full text, and nevertheless found conflicting texts on (for instance)
Avalon, it is absolutely imperative that the citation, which is ''de
facto'' incorrect, either be remedied by the originator or omitted
entirely.  Be a good chap, remove your claim or modify it to conform with
the known facts.


body:
MPerel said:
> Bjourne,
> If the number is sourced with all the caveats explained, I don't
> understand the problem including it.  Also, "I wrote him and he didn't
> answer" is not a proof that the citation is false.

The fact that is most relevant is that attempts to verify this secondary
source against the primary source (from the copy on the UN site) have not
proven successful because the UN site is missing the relevant section.
Avalon has a purported quote from Part three of the UN mediator's report,
but really we should be talking to the UN, not third parties.
And soon.  Before the people who remember that period die.


body:
zero 0000 said:
> For example he claims results
> of a British census in 1945 when everyone
> knows that the last census was in 1931.

Well actually there was an extraordinary census in 1939, so the
information for 1945 wasn't entirely useless.  Only somewhat useless,
given the intervening war and the associated rapid social changes.


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050122 00:33]:

> As we offer no alternatives to you other than giving up or breaking
> Wikipedia rules yourself, the problem must be solved using our dispute
> resolution procudure.

Which starts with the talk page. Please, put the results of reference
hunting work on the talk page rather than revert warring!

- d.


from_name: Kate Turner

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Case-insensitive article titles

body:
Randall Loffelmacher wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:

> We're running the following versions:

>     MediaWiki (http://wikipedia.sf.net/): 1.3.3

You should upgrade to MediaWiki 1.3.9 ASAP, as earlier versions contain
various security issues.

Kate.


subject: [Wikitech-l] The AOL problem

body:
Neil Harris (usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk) [050122 06:06]:

> Because of the way that AOL runs their network, even a single user in a
> single session will appear to edit from a wide number of different IPs.
> More than this, they deliberately hide the IP addresses of their
> customers, by not revealing it in the proxy headers. Even if you go to
> HTTPS, you will still get a proxied connection. In effect, AOL is a
> giant anonymizing server farm for its users - and some of them know it.
> AOL hosts quite a lot of good users, as well as a fair few relatively

The real problem is not its anonymising nature - we have several known
special-case ISP proxies which are effectively unblockable to avoid
collateral damage, including one current en: Arbitration Committee case -
but its sheer size. AOL has 30% of all Internet users. That's one hell of a
special case!

- d.


body:
Randall Loffelmacher (Randall at rga.com) [050122 06:15]:

> I was wondering if there's a feature in MediaWiki which allows for
> article titles to be case-insensitive. We have a problem right now where
> a user creates an article for, say, RFID. Another user will spell it
> Rfid instead and we end up with duplicate articles.

On en:, this is usually dealt with by a nest of redirects. I hardly ever
create an article without making a thicket of redirects for it as well.

- d.


from_name: Robin Shannon

body:
ok then, how about wikilabs AT wikicites, just so that we can keep all
the wikimedia trails/betas/alphas together in one place, so they can
easily feed off each others (and our) user base. And also, if there
was some other wiki (that we hadnt started, but which wanted to join
the foundation), then it could be moved to wikilabs (at wikicities)
first, and then (if there is consensus) it could join us.

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:34:45 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Christiaan Briggs <christiaan at last-straw.net> wrote:
> > Put is this way: the problem with starting, say, [[Wikibuilder]] off as
> > a Wikibook is one, for technical reasons, but two, because there is no
> > natural base of editors who are builders and architects, etc (compared
> > to programmers and scientists, etc.). To have [[Wikibuilder]] being
> > developed in its early stages under "Wikilabs" would allow for 'instant
> > recognition of potential,' whereas under Wikibooks the potential isn't
> > so obvious (especially to designers and builders who just happen across
> > the site). A "Wikilabs" [[Wikibuilder]] project is a very easy concept
> > to grasp and would be something a lot of people would be willing to get
> > their teeth into. A [[Wikibuilder]] under Wikibooks is a nice idea...
> > hope it does well, kinda thing.
>
> Wikilabs isn't needed at all due to the existence of Wikicities. After being
> hosted at Wikicities for some time we can then see if Wikibuilder is 1) a
> viable idea and 2) if it is something that will fit with our mandate.
>
> -- mav
>
>
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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedia standards

body:
I think what is needed is some leading by example, which if you do, others,
who may not share your background, can follow. Much depends, of course, on
whether you can do that gracefully.

Fred

> From: apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 09:46:57 -0000
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedia standards
>
> The application of encyclopaedia standards must surely depend on the
> quality and experience of the editors. There does not seem to be a
> clear way of assessing this. I come to Wikipedia by way of writing
> for biographical dictionaries, working for a publisher of academic
> books, as well as researching and writing academic articles and books
> my field of the history of technology. I therefore automatically
> apply those standards to my contributions to Wikipedia. I can also
> apply those standards to pages which might need tweaking. When more
> editors with my kind of background can be persuaded to contribute on
> a regular basis then encyclopaedic standards will spread.
>
>
>
> Tony Woolrich
> Canal Side, Huntworth, Bridgwater, Somerset UK
> Phone (44) 01278 663020
> Email apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk
>
>
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from_name: apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedia standards

body:
The application of encyclopaedia standards must surely depend on the
quality and experience of the editors. There does not seem to be a
clear way of assessing this. I come to Wikipedia by way of writing
for biographical dictionaries, working for a publisher of academic
books, as well as researching and writing academic articles and books
my field of the history of technology. I therefore automatically
apply those standards to my contributions to Wikipedia. I can also
apply those standards to pages which might need tweaking. When more
editors with my kind of background can be persuaded to contribute on
a regular basis then encyclopaedic standards will spread.

Tony Woolrich
Canal Side, Huntworth, Bridgwater, Somerset UK
Phone (44) 01278 663020
Email apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Mediation Committee

body:
 > Jwrosenzweig is the best possible person I can think of for
> the job, whether it's as a new permanent chair or an interim one.
>
> ~blankfaze

Strong support from me too.
In this situation there is likely to be little opposition to promoting
the currently well-supported candidates. We should do that this weekend,
and deal with any issues that arise afterwards (if any).

Pete


subject: [Wikipedia-l] culture - recipes and other stuff

body:
On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 12:40:51 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> But the thing with a recipie is that there are infinite possibilities,
> and different people make it different ways. As I said before, we
> should describe what makes it what it is and how it is made, but be
> vague enough that we include every possibility for that food. This
> isn't a recipie.

On the other hand, we can ILLUSTRATE with sample recipes, just as we
can illustrate with sample photographs.  Sometimes vagueness is too
vague; sometimes what is needed is a specific as an example.  So long
as we note that variations do exist and this is just an example, we're
fine.  Just as we illustrate, say, an article on Persian cats with a
picture of a specific cat; we do have to point out the possible
variations and that this is just an example, not the definition.

-Matt (User:Morven)


from_name: Kevin Puetz

subject: [Wikitech-l] rsync and compression

body:
I was looking at MediaWiki, and came across this note about rsync being
fairly ineffective (because of the compression).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#Rsync

So, just in case you weren't aware of it, there is (at least) one
compression program that doesn't have this drawback. There is a gzip patch
implementing a special --rsync (or, in older versions of the patch,
--rsyncable) mode in which it restarts its dictionaries according to the
behavior of a running checksum. This does reduce the compression ratio
slightly (generally somewhere near 2%), but it also results in unchanged
sections being unchanged after compression as well, which means rsync can
skip them effectively.  The resulting files are fully compatible with
existing decompressors. Debian's gzip includes this patch (as do many other
distros, I think) and it is planned for inclusion upstream soon.

I don't know how badly gzip fares vs bzip2 on your content, but if it's not
a landslide having rsync work well might be worthwhile...


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
But the thing with a recipie is that there are infinite possibilities,
and different people make it different ways. As I said before, we
should describe what makes it what it is and how it is made, but be
vague enough that we include every possibility for that food. This
isn't a recipie.

Mark

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:16:46 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Andre Engels wrote:
>
> >On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:56:05 +0100, Sabine Cretella
> ><sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>So some of you say: a recipe is not part of culture and has nothing to
> >>do with encyclopedias .... hmmmm ...
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I don't see anyone saying that.
> >
> >
> >
> >>If you say a description of a dish is OK, but not the recipe then from
> >>this article
> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Night
> >>Lyrics should be taken to wikisource
> >>
> >>There's no difference between the description of a song and the lyrics
> >>and the description of a dish and the recipe. Now you say: but lyrics
> >>are unique - this is not true - Silent Night in Italian has three
> >>different versions of lyrics ... so three recipes for the same dish (music)
> >>
> >>
> >
> >That's three. That's not a different one for everyone making it, often
> >several per person.
> >
> >Andre Engels
> >
> Andre,
> Expect a typical recipy, perhaps add a few significant varieties and
> that is what you will find. I cannot foresee that everyone will want to
> write how they want their eggs in the morning. As far as I am concerned,
> I like mine with a kiss (to quote the song). :)
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: recipes

body:
Perhaps it could simply exclude those parts of him which weren't,
well, part of him? ie, that would be gone soon. It shouldn't be that
hard to simply ignore them. Although, if it's an accurate description,
I don't see why we shouldn't note that he was full of shit at the time
of the cataloguing process.

Mark

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:59:51 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >But really, how many people would be interested in cataloguing
> >molecules of an individual's body? I think it would be better done by
> >nanotechnology of some sort, but it would be difficult to get very far
> >because beyond the outermost layer, there is very little information
> >you could get without some sort of invasive procedure (digestive
> >system, perhaps, but this still excludes important organs). ;p
> >
> >
> What goes on in the digestive system is constantly changing.  This
> implies that in describing the "Encyclopaedia jimboensis" one must take
> into account what he included in his last meal.  The project should
> probably be based on a time after defecation.  This avoids having the
> encyclopedia describe him as full of shit.
>
> Ec
>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recipe

body:
What I like about your observations is that they serve only your own
side of the debate.

Mark

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:03:06 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski wrote:
>
> >MS> Sorry, playing the ignorant American for a bit there. But this just
> >MS> illustrates how woefully undercovered cooking topics are, along with
> >MS> almost all other traditionally "domestic" subjects, which is partly why
> >MS> we're having this whole debate over recipes for the nth time now. If we
> >MS> had decent encyclopedia articles about these things, which is almost
> >MS> never the case, then it would be less of an issue. I think a lot of the
> >MS> visceral objection to recipes is based on the fact that they frequently
> >MS> overwhelm the remaining content of the article, especially if the
> >MS> instructions are given in significant detail.
> >MS> --Michael Snow
> >
> >Well, I wouldn't have anything against recipes in Wikipedia - except
> >that we have Wikibooks now, which is far more suited for that kind of
> >information.
> >
> I am amazed about the amount of words that has been used on this
> subject. To me a few things stand out.
>
> *There are inclusionists and deletionists.
> * Many arguments about why we should NOT have arguments do not cut it as
> we have plenty of room. Hard disks are cheap nowadays.
> *The importance of food is culturally indicated, therefore people who do
> not get "it", are not likely to get "it", this makes the discussion
> pointless.
> *Spain has an excellent modus vivendi and I would really urge people to
> adopt it so that we can move on. In essence no recipies on their own,
> only in combination with a whole article.
> *The idea that there is a consensus for deleting recipies has been
> proven a fallacy, the only arguments to the contrary I can think of are
> formalistic.Wiki is not much on formality.
>
> The suggestion of using wikibooks has some merits except that we do not
> have our interproject links yet. Without these we will get the old
> quarrel of no outside references again. My personal opinion is that you
> want at least one recipy that is typical for the dish. Variations can
> then be in wikibooks.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
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