from_name: Heimermann, Asher

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia events

body:
Hi,

  My name is Asher Heimermann. I live here in Sheboygan, Wisconsin USA. I would to help with Wikimedia Events. I could even start a event here in my hometown of Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

  Please have someone get back to me. Thanks!

  Asher Heimermann
  Wikimedia Supporter

===============
  Hello everybody,

As you all know, Wikimania is only in one place in the world. And
well, lots of people are unable to attend. On #wikimedia , we had a
healthy discussion about the possibilities of side-events. Both
national as continental events had supporters, but the biggest contra
was that it could be a competitor for the WIkimania. That is why this
idea came up:

1) A annual world wide Wikimania, about august

2) Lots of national events, as far as countries or parts of countries
of groups of countries care to orginize them: about october, november

3) Continental Events, about march. Of cource as far as the
continents feel ok to orginize them. Only one event per continent of
this size.

The big advantage of this is of course that they will be as least as
possible competetors of eachother. People dont have to drop one
meeting to join the other one. Further it will be as much as possible
possible to share people in the organizations, so that more poeple
will get experience, but also that the people who have already
experience, will be able to help with the number of events.

That national events are wanted, is proven already numerous times by
Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Nederland and also in China, Poland
and other countires. People like to meet eachother, and have a good
conference in their own language. They can speak much more freely,
mostly about a smakker group of projects, and share thoughts more
easily.

The continental events could be like wikimania, so a conference mainly
for the active contributors, but could also get another character. The
orginizers should really think well about this. What kind of public do
you want to attrack, what kind of event do you want it to become. The
major pro for this event is that the travelcosts will be reletively
low, and people will go somewhere with somehow, minor or less, the
same culture.

The big Wikimania would mainly be for the world wide public, would be
for sharing thoughts such as "how do you guys do this, and you?".
People from all the communities could meet eachother, and a lot of
mixing of thoughts could happen. However, it is very well possible
that Wikimania would change it's identity over the years, as the
tradition is not that old. Time will learn.

Of course it is quite impossible to have a Euromania-like event
already in march, (name is already trademarked, btw) so this would
comply starting from august 07. I think this should not be a fixed
think of the foundation but more like an advice to the orginizing
parties. Try to plan your conferences a bit like this, that way we
won't be obstacles to eachother. We will be the least competitors this
way.
I think it would be very good to start thinking about a
Euromania/Asiamania for 2008 march (the european is already nicked as
Stroopwafelmania i heard, [[m:Talk:ASA]] ) but I think a lot of
chapters etc are thinking about setting up a national conference
already. We did in the Netherlands to my view successfully last
september 2nd, but one of the evaluationpoints was that there was
still too much competition with the Wikimania in Boston. I think this
proofs somehow that we should indeed think about spreading, and lean
from the experiences we had. at the dutch conference we had problems
with the organization, but also with the public and speakers, because
of Boston. People were busy with that too, and were unable ot less
able to spend time at Wikimedia Conference Netherlands.

Please, I'd like to invite everybody involved or willing to be
involved with events to discuss this, and maybe we can make some sense
out of this too long writing. (sorry Improv)

Hoping to hear mostly constuctive reactions,

Lodewijk Gelauff, Effeietsanders
(fellow-orginizer Wikimedia Conference Netherlands 2006)
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

---------------------------------
Get your email and see which of your friends are online - Right on the  new Yahoo.com


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia events


list: foundation-l

from_name: Gordon Joly

subject: [Foundation-l] UMP Convention

body:
At 19:15 -0400 5/10/06, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
>On 10/5/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  Using the self-selected and inherently bogus Alexa numbers, Wikipedia
>>  is still slowly climbing in page rank and steadily increasing in page
>>  views per million. Are you quite sure about that slowing? Is it the
>>  first derivative or the second derivative that's going down?
>>
>>  (I mention only Wikipedia here, not any other project, because Alexa
>>  goes by domain.)
>
>Speaking of which: our daily page rank seems to have jumped up to 11
>today. ;-)
>

The Netcraft Toolbar ranks en.wikipedia.org at 23, fr.wikipedia.org
at 428 and de.wikipedia.org at 221 (to add to our collection of
meaninglessness??).

http://www.netcraft.com

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


subject: [Foundation-l] UMP Convention


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special page names case-insensitive and localisable

body:
Hi!

>  Certainly having English as the default
> UI is a good thing, but it does not help a seven year old French
> girl to
> find a picture of a "cheval".

Example of commons is really worst you could pick. First of all, we
shouldn't use mediawiki for image repository at all ;-)

> So it does cost but is there an alternative, an alternative that
> provides us with the required functionality ??

I did hear about technology in the works, that will make all
translations magic - puff, it is all in there.
No, there is no other technology. Hence it is question of
functionality, sometimes.

--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
> Hi!
>
>
>>  Certainly having English as the default
>> UI is a good thing, but it does not help a seven year old French
>> girl to
>> find a picture of a "cheval".
>>
>
> Example of commons is really worst you could pick. First of all, we
> shouldn't use mediawiki for image repository at all ;-)
>
I agree up to a point. The thing is however that we use MediaWiki for
Commons; it is no use crying over spilled milk. The question therefore
is how to make Commons work using MediaWiki and technology that makes
the content available not hindered by the current insistence on English
and Latin. That is a challenge I think the WiktionaryZ technology is
getting ready to address,
>
>> So it does cost but is there an alternative, an alternative that
>> provides us with the required functionality ??
>>
>
> I did hear about technology in the works, that will make all
> translations magic - puff, it is all in there.
> No, there is no other technology. Hence it is question of
> functionality, sometimes.
There is no technology that will make the need for translations
disappear. What Multilingual MediaWiki will do is make it possible to
have content indicated as being of a language at the article level in
stead of at the database level. Then again, you may have read the
specifications of Meta. FYI development on MLMW had to start all over
again because of health issues that made it impossible for the first
developer to finish it. MLMW is again under way and there have been some
private showings of where it is currently at.

WiktionaryZ already shows content based on the language selected as the
User Interface; this is triggered when the language of content and the
language of the UI are the same. When a DefinedMeaning does not provide
a definition or an Expression in the language of the UI, the content
will be shown in English. When there is no English, you will get
whatever is available. The functionality to show the language names in
the language of the UI has been programmed, it just needs to be
activated. This is for Erik to do.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: James Hare

subject:
[Foundation-l] Sep11Wiki cleanup effort closed;
	wiki locked again

body:
Jeff, thank you very much for doing this.

On 10/30/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
> Database import of the 10-29-06 XML dumps completed. Image
> Synchronization and import completed.
> MediaWiki import and setup completed.
>
> The sep11.wikipeda.org website has now been fully mirrored and an active
> mirror is up at:
>
> www.sep11memories.org
>
> Jeff
>
>
> >Domain www.sep11memories.org has been reactivated.
> >Site has been fully upgraded to MediaWiki 1.8.2 and is active. I will
> >post the
> >XML dumps identified by Erik at the next pass of the database dumps.
> >
> >Jeff
> >
> >
> >Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Erik Moeller wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Thanks to the amazing efforts of many volunteers -- Fang Ali,
> >>>Timichal, Timrem, Draicone, Lorenzarius, Ore4444, Trodel, Cool Cat,
> >>>and possibly others -- the Sep11Wiki has been pushed into a shape that
> >>>I think it can be published independently as a static website,
> >>>including a new logo. As I've mentioned before, Jeff Merkey has
> >>>volunteered to host it at sep11memories.org. Hopefully, the wiki will
> >>>be moved in the next few days; it is now again locked for editing.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Erik
> >>
> >>The new wiki and domain can be brought online immediately as soon as you
> >>direct
> >>me to do so.
> >>
> >>I am ready to receive the content and will post the newest dump. Please
> >>let me know
> >>which XML dump to post and I will move and maintain the site
> >>indefinitely. Also,
> >>I will mail the WikiSysop passwords to Danny, Brad, and yourself and you
> >>may appoint
> >>others at your discretion to oversee and manage the site remotely if
> needed.
> >>
> >>Jeff
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>foundation-l mailing list
> >>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >foundation-l mailing list
> >foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Sep11Wiki cleanup effort closed; wiki locked again

body:
Thanks to the amazing efforts of many volunteers -- Fang Ali,
Timichal, Timrem, Draicone, Lorenzarius, Ore4444, Trodel, Cool Cat,
and possibly others -- the Sep11Wiki has been pushed into a shape that
I think it can be published independently as a static website,
including a new logo. As I've mentioned before, Jeff Merkey has
volunteered to host it at sep11memories.org. Hopefully, the wiki will
be moved in the next few days; it is now again locked for editing.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sep11Wiki cleanup effort closed; wiki locked again


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Cross-posted to wikipedia-l and wikitech-l, I suggest you reply to wikitech-l.

I've just committed a change to make special page names case-insensitive and
localisable. The default name for a special page can be changed, but a
redirect from the English name will always be kept. At present, there are no
local sets of names committed, although one has been proposed for German. I
have created a wiki page for discussion and coordination of this task:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special_page_names

The following is for developers, everyone else can stop reading here.

There are a few practice changes associated with this change, for both core
and extension developers.

Instead of
     Title::makeTitle( NS_SPECIAL, 'Contributions' );
use
     SpecialPage::getTitleFor( 'Contributions' );

Instead of
     Title::makeTitleSafe( NS_SPECIAL, "Blockip/$ip" );
use
     SpecialPage::getSafeTitleFor( 'Blockip', $ip );

Instead of
     ($title->getNamespace() == NS_SPECIAL &&
      $title->getDBkey() == 'Userlogout')
use
     $title->isSpecial('Userlogout')

Only the last of these three changes is compulsory for extensions;
recognition of core special page names must be migrated. Old titles will
continue to work, so the first two changes are optional for extensions and
can be done at your leisure. All three changes should be considered
compulsory for core code.

Extension special pages can provide local special page names using the
LangugeGetSpecialPageAliases hook.

Hard-coded special page names in messages should be changed simultaneously
when the special page names themselves are changed. Special page names are
language-dependent, not site-dependent, so there should be no need for a
{{SPECIALNAME:xxx}} function.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Report from Frankfurt - October 2006

body:
geni wrote:

> On 10/29/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Actually, we have always had them. As a not fo profit in the United
>> States,
>> we are required to have a mission statement, because we are
>> accepting  money.
>> People have a right to know what they are giving money to, and that
>> is  laid
>> out in the mission statement.
>
> You can legally have informal ones (that is what Michael Snow's
> comments suggest exists at the moment)?

Legally, a nonprofit organization must have a purpose, and the purpose
has to be lawful and not for pecuniary profit. The law may require that
this purpose be set forth in the incorporating documents, and I assume
that's the sort of thing Danny is referring to. There's a statement of
purpose in the current Wikimedia Foundation bylaws. It has, however,
never really been meaningfully adopted by the community, which is why
I'm suggesting a referendum on the vision and mission statements.

Vision and mission statements aren't formal legal documents themselves,
although they can be incorporated into such documents. I think there's
general agreement that the bylaws are badly in need of updating, and
that issue was noted at the retreat as a high priority. In conjunction
with that, community-adopted vision and mission statements could help
provide guidance to the board (especially the elected representatives,
but also the others). Right now, I don't see much that would convey to
Florence or Erik what the community wants from them. They can pay
attention to various individual voices according to their own
preferences, of course, but otherwise they're divining the tea leaves of
consensus like the rest of us.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Raimond Spekking

subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN:  [17300] trunk/phase3

body:
tstarling at svn.wikimedia.org schrieb:
> Revision: 17300
> Author:   tstarling
> Date:     2006-10-29 22:25:31 -0800 (Sun, 29 Oct 2006)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------

> * Used special page subpages in a few more places, instead of query parameters

Sorry for the stupid question: But what subpages are now possible?

Raymond.

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body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>> Hard-coded special page names in messages should be changed simultaneously
>> when the special page names themselves are changed. Special page names are
>> language-dependent, not site-dependent, so there should be no need for a
>> {{SPECIALNAME:xxx}} function.
>
> Tim, can you clarify what you mean here?
>
> If special page names are dependent on the content language, then
> messages absolutely must *not* hardcode the *localized* special page
> names or you'll get broken links when using a non-default UI language.
>
> As with namespaces in links, a message should either use the canonical
> form (which will always work) or a magic variable which will be replaced
> with the proper localized form.

Sorry, yes, I should clarify. What I *meant* to say was exactly what you
said, or at least I would have done, had I thought of it. Plus what Domas
said. We can add a parser function, but encourage use of the redirects,
since they will likely be faster.

Note that the sidebar already has some special-case code to display the
local default name, if an alias was specified. All the links generated by
the skin will display the local default, this is only an issue for
hard-coded special page links in messages.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Ian M.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quitting wiki

body:
I don't know you.

But having run into your open letter I can relate.

Those who shouldn't have the power have it, and the few who should and do
cannot do enough to stop them.

I respect your choice, and fully understand.

I just wanted to chime in and say that there are others out there. I've been
there, hold on.

If you haven't given up I think this is worth fighting and bringing into the
open. All I want is a few details and permission. I don't care if they ban
me and remove it. Let them try. It's not like IP addresses are hard to come
by.

If you disagree with that action I will respect your choice and go back to
trying to fix what these maniacs have been up to.

_________________________________________________________________
Try the next generation of search with Windows Live Search today!
http://imagine-windowslive.com/minisites/searchlaunch/?locale=en-us&source=hmtagline


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Changes to accesskeys and tooltips

body:
Pretty soon, likely within the next week, I'll be moving all
accesskeys and tooltips out of Monobook.js and implement them
server-side.  This may affect personal scripts that implement custom
accesskeys; they'll have to be revised a bit to find the elements
themselves rather than relying on their presence in the "ta" array,
but it shouldn't be difficult.  Sites that have modified Monobook.js
should not have their global changes affected by this directly,
although they may have to rework them when the id's are changed.

The tooltip for any given element that has a tooltip will be stored in
a message "tooltip-x", where x is the element's HTML id, and can be
modified as usual by sysops.  The accesskey, likewise, will be stored
in a message "accesskey-x".

For developers: currently this is in a branch, branches/simetrical/.
Help converting over the language files would be greatly appreciated
(via commits or, for non-devs, patches), but I'll do it myself if
necessary.  I'll make this concurrent with reworking the id's/classes,
just for simplicity.


from_name: effe iets anders

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia events

body:
Hello everybody,

As you all know, Wikimania is only in one place in the world. And
well, lots of people are unable to attend. On #wikimedia , we had a
healthy discussion about the possibilities of side-events. Both
national as continental events had supporters, but the biggest contra
was that it could be a competitor for the WIkimania. That is why this
idea came up:

1)  A annual world wide Wikimania, about august

2) Lots of national events, as far as countries or parts of countries
of groups of countries care to orginize them: about october, november

3)  Continental Events, about march. Of cource as far as the
continents feel ok to orginize them. Only one event per continent of
this size.

The big advantage of this is of course that they will be as least as
possible competetors of eachother. People dont have to drop one
meeting to join the other one. Further it will be as much as possible
possible to share people in the organizations, so that more poeple
will get experience, but also that the people who have already
experience, will be able to help with the number of events.

That national events are wanted, is proven already numerous times by
Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Nederland and also in China, Poland
and other countires. People like to meet eachother, and have a good
conference in their own language. They can speak much more freely,
mostly about a smakker group of projects, and share thoughts more
easily.

The continental events could be like wikimania, so a conference mainly
for the active contributors, but could also get another character. The
orginizers should really think well about this. What kind of public do
you want to attrack, what kind of event do you want it to become. The
major pro for this event is that the travelcosts will be reletively
low, and people will go somewhere with somehow, minor or less, the
same culture.

The big Wikimania would mainly be for the world wide public, would be
for sharing thoughts such as "how do you guys do this, and you?".
People from all the communities could meet eachother, and a lot of
mixing of thoughts could happen. However, it is very well possible
that Wikimania would change it's identity over the years, as the
tradition is not that old. Time will learn.

Of course it is quite impossible to have a Euromania-like event
already in march, (name is already trademarked, btw) so this would
comply starting from august 07. I think this should not be a fixed
think of the foundation but more like an advice to the orginizing
parties. Try to plan your conferences a bit like this, that way we
won't be obstacles to eachother. We will be the least competitors this
way.
I think it would be very good to start thinking about a
Euromania/Asiamania for 2008 march (the european is already nicked as
Stroopwafelmania i heard, [[m:Talk:ASA]] ) but I think a lot of
chapters etc are thinking about setting up a national conference
already. We did in the Netherlands to my view successfully last
september 2nd, but one of the evaluationpoints was that there was
still too much competition with the Wikimania in Boston. I think this
proofs somehow that we should indeed think about spreading, and lean
from the experiences we had. at the dutch conference we had problems
with the organization, but also with the public and speakers, because
of Boston. People were busy with that too, and were unable ot less
able to spend time at Wikimedia Conference Netherlands.

Please, I'd like to invite everybody involved or willing to be
involved with events to discuss this, and maybe we can make some sense
out of this too long writing. (sorry Improv)

Hoping to hear mostly constuctive reactions,

Lodewijk Gelauff, Effeietsanders
(fellow-orginizer Wikimedia Conference Netherlands 2006)


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia events


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

body:
Good work, guys, and Erik I believe it's Fang Aili, with the i after the A.
:P

--NSLE/Chacor

On 31/10/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> Thanks to the amazing efforts of many volunteers -- Fang Ali,
> Timichal, Timrem, Draicone, Lorenzarius, Ore4444, Trodel, Cool Cat,
> and possibly others -- the Sep11Wiki has been pushed into a shape that
> I think it can be published independently as a static website,
> including a new logo. As I've mentioned before, Jeff Merkey has
> volunteered to host it at sep11memories.org. Hopefully, the wiki will
> be moved in the next few days; it is now again locked for editing.
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>
> DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel of organisations or just individuals

body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 10/29/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Simon Blandford wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I'm a little unclear on this from reading Wikipedia's policy on libel.
>>>
>>>It seems concerned only with libel of individuals. What is the policy
>>>with regards to organisations? In the UK the libel laws cover
>>>organisations as well as individuals.
>>>
>>>
>> From what I remember last time libel was a hot button issue, there is
>>little regard given to UK laws as there are no assets in the UK. I was
>>told people weren't overly worried about the UK law, only US law as that
>>is where the servers are held.
>>
>>
>There are US laws regarding defamation of organizations too.  In fact,
>several US states even have laws against defamation of food.
>
But Oprah did win her case when she was sued in Texas for badmouthing beef.

Ec


from_name: Chris Picone

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bill Knapp's slaughter

body:
Hey, i didn't know lack of notability was valid CSD.

On 10/27/06, Gregory Kohs <thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am interested to see what the expert community thinks about this scenario:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bill_Knapp%27s_Restaurant&diff=83975735&oldid=83975411
>
> Relatively new user "Ipthief" (about 20 seemingly clueful edits between July
> 17 and October 25) decided that there ought to be an article in Wikipedia
> about the Bill Knapp's restaurant chain (now closed, but a verifiable
> "institution" in Michigan for decades -- and 900+ Google hits).  So, Ipthief
> set out at 2:36 PM, writing the first forms of a stubby article.
>
> Two minutes later, user "Diez2" lands on the page, throws up a {{db-bio}} on
> the page.  In the next moment, Diez2 informs Ipthief's Talk page of the
> advice, "If you can indicate why Bill Knapp's Restaurant is really notable,
> you can contest the tagging."
>
> Is it too much to expect someone to either (a) wait a little longer than 2
> minutes before calling for a speedy delete, or (b) look up something on
> Google to get some gauge of notability . . . before making such an
> adversarial, deletionist move?  Or, is everyone on such a red-alert for spam
> (even of companies that are now bankrupt and out of operation), that this
> will be the standard procedure?
>
> --
> Gregory Kohs
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l]  Sep11Wiki cleanup effort closed; wiki locked again

body:
On 30 Oct 2006 at 17:35, "Erik Moeller" <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> As I've mentioned before, Jeff Merkey has
> volunteered to host it at sep11memories.org. Hopefully, the wiki will
> be moved in the next few days; it is now again locked for editing.

Is that the Jeff Merkey who keeps suing people, making whacked-out
attacks on Wikipedia and Wikipedians on his website, and generally
showing a mental disconnect from reality?

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: luke brandt

subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?

body:
On 10/26/06, luke brandt <shojokid at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have mentioned this a couple of times, but as yet no one seems
interested.
> The idea is to coordinate Wikipedia policy over different languages as
much
> as possible, so it becomes easier to amalgamate, to the benefit of all,
with
> just translation needed. Then issues of formatting, layout, image policy
etc
> etc should already have been sorted. Comments?

Documenting practices on Meta -- possibly combined with subjective
analysis and commentary -- seems like a good idea to me. You don't
need to start a new project or ask for anyone's permission to do this;
just start writing and structuring your thoughts.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

I think it seems one of the strengths of the Project is its diversity, so -
going by the feedback - it's probably best to aim at coalescing around the
idea of a 'world compendium' rather than 'knocking heads' etc. Maybe in a
Wikia wiki we could suggest good articles from all parts of the globe for
inclusion. Because in most cases I bet we agree on what's good.

peace out
luke


subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia events

body:
effe iets anders wrote:

>Hello everybody,
>
>As you all know, Wikimania is only in one place in the world. And
>well, lots of people are unable to attend. On #wikimedia , we had a
>healthy discussion about the possibilities of side-events. Both
>national as continental events had supporters, but the biggest contra
>was that it could be a competitor for the WIkimania. That is why this
>idea came up:
>
>1)  A annual world wide Wikimania, about august
>
>2) Lots of national events, as far as countries or parts of countries
>of groups of countries care to orginize them: about october, november
>
>3)  Continental Events, about march. Of cource as far as the
>continents feel ok to orginize them. Only one event per continent of
>this size.
>
In principle this is fine, and setting the date and place of Wikimania
sooner would make that kind of planning easier.  Below that, the
continental and national levels of organization are likely to be
different in each continent.  In North America, a national conference
miight as well be continental with a day set aside for the three nations
to meet separately to deal with their own special concerns.  Where
Europe would have national conferences, we here would be inclined to
less formal regional meetups.  It is certainly more convenient for me to
drive two hours to Seattle for such a thing than to go to Eastern
Canada, and yet the combined area of Oregon, Washington and the southern
10% of British Columbia is a big as the largest European country.

>That national events are wanted, is proven already numerous times by
>Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Nederland and also in China, Poland
>and other countires. People like to meet eachother, and have a good
>conference in their own language. They can speak much more freely,
>mostly about a smakker group of projects, and share thoughts more
>easily.
>
Language based conferences may require a different level of
organization, and a different time slot. (End of December perhaps?)  It
is not a problem for English since Wikimania is primarily conducted in
English anyways.  Spanish, Portuguese, French, Chinese and Arabic are
all spoken over a large geographical area.  Even Russian remains as a
common tie for much of the former Soviet Union, but for that we could
have our own definition of continent.  I don't know how the Dutch would
handle Surinam and Cura?ao.

>The continental events could be like wikimania, so a conference mainly
>for the active contributors, but could also get another character. The
>orginizers should really think well about this. What kind of public do
>you want to attrack, what kind of event do you want it to become. The
>major pro for this event is that the travelcosts will be reletively
>low, and people will go somewhere with somehow, minor or less, the
>same culture.
>
Essentially yes

>The big Wikimania would mainly be for the world wide public, would be
>for sharing thoughts such as "how do you guys do this, and you?".
>People from all the communities could meet eachother, and a lot of
>mixing of thoughts could happen. However, it is very well possible
>that Wikimania would change it's identity over the years, as the
>tradition is not that old.
>
The role of Wikimania does need to be reviewed.  In some respects it's a
PR showcase, and media event that draws attention from the entire
world.  It did that very well at both Frankfurt and Boston.  It also
does a good job of presenting a big picture of what is happening in
Wikimedia around the world.

In addition, it should have part of it's time closed to all but active
Wikimedians.  That should be the major policy and planning event of the
year.  It should be able to do almost everything that the Frankfurt
retreat did, but without leaving the impression that this event is only
for the invited few.  Those who are interested in that kind of thing
would still need to find their way to Taipei or wherever the conference
is held in future years, and a preference for continental rotation of
Wikimania would insure that policy is not overwhelmingly influenced by
the views of one continent.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia events


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

body:
Erik,

I have unlocked the database. I saw this problem also and was going to
ask how to fix
the interwiki links.

I fixed the page. I will leave the Wiki unlocked until you ask me to
lock it again. Please feel free
to modify any other areas which need cleanup and/or assign editors.

Jeff

Erik Moeller wrote:

>Jeff,
>
>since the database is locked, could I ask you for a quick fix? On the
>frontpage, it says
>
>"Part of the content here was originally uploaded to
>[[en:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]]."
>
>It should say:
>
>"Part of the content here was originally uploaded to
>[[:en:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]]."
>
>Without the leading colon before the "en:", it is interpreted as an
>interlanguage link (which is why there's a link to the Wikipedia
>article "Wikipedia" in the sidebar, and the text after "uploaded to
>.." is hidden). Could you unlock, edit and relock?
>
>Thanks again for all your work on this.
>
>
>
>
>


body:
Oops. I just read your second email.

Sorry for posting to the list.

:-)

Jeff

Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

>Erik,
>
>I have unlocked the database. I saw this problem also and was going to
>ask how to fix
>the interwiki links.
>
>I fixed the page. I will leave the Wiki unlocked until you ask me to
>lock it again. Please feel free
>to modify any other areas which need cleanup and/or assign editors.
>
>Jeff
>
>Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>
>
>>Jeff,
>>
>>since the database is locked, could I ask you for a quick fix? On the
>>frontpage, it says
>>
>>"Part of the content here was originally uploaded to
>>[[en:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]]."
>>
>>It should say:
>>
>>"Part of the content here was originally uploaded to
>>[[:en:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]]."
>>
>>Without the leading colon before the "en:", it is interpreted as an
>>interlanguage link (which is why there's a link to the Wikipedia
>>article "Wikipedia" in the sidebar, and the text after "uploaded to
>>.." is hidden). Could you unlock, edit and relock?
>>
>>Thanks again for all your work on this.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Earle Martin

subject:
[WikiEN-l] User responds to personal talk in three places at
	once

body:
On 31/10/06, Simon Blandford <simon at bkinfo.net> wrote:
> I just issued an NPA warning to a user on their talk page. They
> responded with a rant and posted the exchange on (1) their talk page,
> (2) my talk page and (3) an article discussion page.
>
> I am sure it doesn't need to be in three places at once...

I'd say replace the copies on your talk page and the article
discussion with links to the user's talk page. Replying to all three
is inviting a forest fire.

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


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Wikitech-l] Doing backups and avoiding downtime

body:
On 10/31/06, Travis Derouin <travis at wikihow.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> We've been using mysqldump to do daily full database backups in case
> our hardware on our DB server fails. This causes some problems because
> for a short period of 4 minutes or so, the site in inaccessible
> because mysqldump has the db locked.
>
> I'm not too familiar with the maintenance/dumpPages.xml script, but
> this script doesn't backup the whole db, including user accounts,
> recent changes, links, etc, does it? And if it does, it probably
> doesn't avoid the problem of having to lock the DB for a few minutes,
> right?
>
> Is there any reason why Squid is reporting this error to anonymous
> users for pages that should be cached? Squid does seem to be caching
> pages properly.
>
> If mysqldump is still the answer,(I'm using the --quick option) are
> there any other ways we can avoid this brief downtime to capture a
> backup? How does Wikipedia do this?

This may be an argument for using PostgreSQL instead of MySQL for your site
- the PostgreSQL "pg_dump" command doesn't cause a read or write lock on the
database, so nobody using it gets blocked.  Things do slow down a bit, but
you can keep right on reading or updating through the dump.

Even mysqlhotcopy has a moderate lock window.

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


from_name: Travis Derouin

body:
Hi Ron,

Thanks. it says here that mysqlhotcopy can only be used on MyISAM tables.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysqlhotcopy.html

Mediawiki tables are all InnoDB, did you find a work around for this?

Thanks,
Travis


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 10/31/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> disappear. What Multilingual MediaWiki will do is make it possible to
> have content indicated as being of a language at the article level in
> stead of at the database level. Then again, you may have read the

Only at the article level, and not at some section or even paragraph
level? Pity, because already at commons there are lots of articles
that have individual paragraphs labelled "de: " or "fr: " or whatever.
Some clever way of only showing one of multiple translations based on
preferences would be cool...

Steve


body:
On 10/31/06, Travis Derouin <travis at wikihow.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Ron,
>
> Thanks. it says here that mysqlhotcopy can only be used on MyISAM tables.
>
> http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysqlhotcopy.html
>
> Mediawiki tables are all InnoDB, did you find a work around for this?

 With innodb, you can do mysqldump --single-transaction --quick

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


body:
Hi,

We've been using mysqldump to do daily full database backups in case
our hardware on our DB server fails. This causes some problems because
for a short period of 4 minutes or so, the site in inaccessible
because mysqldump has the db locked.

I'm not too familiar with the maintenance/dumpPages.xml script, but
this script doesn't backup the whole db, including user accounts,
recent changes, links, etc, does it? And if it does, it probably
doesn't avoid the problem of having to lock the DB for a few minutes,
right?

Is there any reason why Squid is reporting this error to anonymous
users for pages that should be cached? Squid does seem to be caching
pages properly.

If mysqldump is still the answer,(I'm using the --quick option) are
there any other ways we can avoid this brief downtime to capture a
backup? How does Wikipedia do this?

Thanks a lot,
Travis


from_name: Ron Hall

body:
Travis Derouin wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> We've been using mysqldump to do daily full database backups in case
> our hardware on our DB server fails. This causes some problems because
> for a short period of 4 minutes or so, the site in inaccessible
> because mysqldump has the db locked.
>
We backup every day at 4h00 - here is the "sophisticated" mechanism we use.

#!/bin/sh
#
# Get the date as a timestamp
#
date=`date '+%Y%m%d'`
#
# Make a hot copy of the MySQL DB
#
/usr/bin/mysqlhotcopy -h bushido.mcgill.ca -u root wikidb /tmp
#
# Make a tar of the DB files
#
cd /tmp
tar cf /opt/DB/wikidb$date.tar wikidb
#
# Make a tar of the wiki files
#
cd /opt
tar cf /opt/DB/wikifiles$date.tar mediawiki
#
# Clean up old files
#
rm -rf /tmp/wikidb
cd /opt/DB
gzip *.tar

enjoy - the hot backup is really short.

r


from_name: Felipe Ortega

subject: [Wikitech-l] Dump recovery robust against errors?

body:
I apologise for following myself....

I've seen some previous messages in the list pointing out the same problem. Some of them used import.php, which is not my case.

Did anyone noticed these problems of duplicate key entries with mwdumper?

Of course, I've correctly initialized de database tables with the last tables.sql.

We use MySQL 4.0 and no InnoDB tables.

All the best.

Felipe.

Felipe Ortega <glimmer_phoenix at yahoo.es> escribi?: During a massive dump import proccess (with mwdumper), which involves the top 10 wikipedias,  I've found some 'odd' errors like, for example, this one recovering itwiki latest dump (2006-10-21, reports as OK):
.....
478,834 pages (154.138/sec), 4,603,000 revs (1,481.718/sec)
ERROR 1062 at line 2955: Duplicate entry '103-Matematica' for key 2
479,091 pages (153.95/sec), 4,604,000 revs (1,479.44/sec)
.....
.
 From that point on, the recovery process fails and no more data gets into MySQL database..

I've made a little check out method to test if the total number of pages and revisions fits with the online hints in the web page, but sometimes I don't know how to manage this errors in other way than downloading the next dump backwards, till one of them works fine (because all dumps report to be OK).

If you're not very careful you'd think that the import process did its job, because an aprox. 85% of pages was in the DB... Any way to solve this non-config errors?

BTW, I don't chase Brion at all.... He does his best with the dump process and mwdumper.

Thanks, all the best.

Felipe.

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

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_______________________________________________
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http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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

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Llamadas a fijos y m?viles desde 1 c?ntimo por minuto.
http://es.voice.yahoo.com


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 29/10/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/29/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > Actually, we have always had them. As a not fo profit in the United States,
> > we are required to have a mission statement, because we are accepting  money.
> > People have a right to know what they are giving money to, and that is  laid
> > out in the mission statement.
> >
>
> You can legally have informal ones (that is what Michael Snow's
> comments suggest exists at the moment)?

I think "placeholder" may be more accurate than "informal" -
incorporating with an official aim that says "to do good stuff in a
really really general way" and then going back to firm up the details
later.

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


body:
On 10/31/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 12:04:26PM -0800, George Herbert wrote:
> > This may be an argument for using PostgreSQL instead of MySQL for your
> site
> > - the PostgreSQL "pg_dump" command doesn't cause a read or write lock on
> the
> > database, so nobody using it gets blocked.  Things do slow down a bit,
> but
> > you can keep right on reading or updating through the dump.
>
> While still preserving coherence between all the table's it's backing
> up, right?

Yep.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Sep11 Wiki corrected interwiki links; database locked

body:
I have run Wikitrans accross the XML dumps for the sep 11 wiki and added
the :en: interwiki links directly into the
XML dump to correct the XMl interwiki links back into wikipedia.  I have
reimported and rebuilt the 911 memories
site with this modified dump and relocked the database.  If anyone has
further changes please contact Erik Moeller
and I will unlock the database on the site for any further edits needed
to correct the site.

Jeff


subject:
[Foundation-l] Sep11 Wiki corrected interwiki links;
 database locked

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

The corrected XML dump with modified interwiki links for mirroring and
hosting off the
Wikipedia namespace has been posted to:

ftp://www.wikigadugi.org/wiki/xml/sep11wiki-20061031-pages-meta-history.xml.bz2

Jeff

>I have run Wikitrans accross the XML dumps for the sep 11 wiki and added
>the :en: interwiki links directly into the
>XML dump to correct the XMl interwiki links back into wikipedia.  I have
>reimported and rebuilt the 911 memories
>site with this modified dump and relocked the database.  If anyone has
>further changes please contact Erik Moeller
>and I will unlock the database on the site for any further edits needed
>to correct the site.
>
>Jeff
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Platonides

body:
"Tim Starling" wrote:
> The overhead can mostly be removed by introducing a pre-cache transform of
> messages -- essentially a preprocessing stage with a reduced set of
> functions. Even default installs have a message cache, but we don't use it
> nearly as well as we could.
>
> -- Tim Starling

I had been thinking about the same. They could be stored half-parsed on the
message cache, so all {{ns: }} {{special: }} etc. (some tamplates may also
be included) wouldn't need extra work.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with mwdumper or the last frwiki dump

body:
You shouldn't need to specify a -classpath argument for mysql-connector.

mwdumper. jar works fine simply calling the JRE 1.5 with the appropiate .bz2 archive.

Try exactly the command in the README file, or in:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MWDumper

All the best.

Felipe.

Emmanuel Engelhart <emmanuel at engelhart.org> escribi?: HI

I have downloaded the last frwiki dump, in particulary:
http://download.wikimedia.org/frwiki/latest/frwiki-latest-pages-meta-history.xml.bz2

I have checked the md5.

I have tried to upload with the following command:

/home/kelson/tools/jre1.5.0_06/bin/java -server -classpath
/home/kelson/tools/mysql-connector-java-5.0.4/mysql-connector-java-5.0.4-bin.jar:/home/kelson/tools/mwdumper.jar
org.mediawiki.dumper.Dumper
--output=mysql://localhost/frwiki?user=*******\&password=********
--format=sql:1.5 frwiki-latest-pages-meta-history.xml.bz2 >& titi

And that's what I have got on stderr :

8 pages (1,26/sec), 1000 revs (157,456/sec)
10 pages (0,712/sec), 2000 revs (142,339/sec)
16 pages (0,712/sec), 3000 revs (133,583/sec)
20 pages (0,631/sec), 4000 revs (126,267/sec)
28 pages (0,759/sec), 5000 revs (135,45/sec)
32 pages (0,744/sec), 6000 revs (139,519/sec)
Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: java.sql.SQLException:
Not a valid escape sequence:
{[Mm]sg:/{{/',530,'Orthogaffe','20040603204946',...........

Any idea what goes wrong

Kelson
_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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

LLama Gratis a cualquier PC del Mundo.
Llamadas a fijos y m?viles desde 1 c?ntimo por minuto.
http://es.voice.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?

body:
Angela wrote:
>> I think it seems one of the strengths of the Project is its diversity, so -
>> going by the feedback - it's probably best to aim at coalescing around the
>> idea of a 'world compendium' rather than 'knocking heads' etc. Maybe in a
>> Wikia wiki we could suggest good articles from all parts of the globe for
>> inclusion. Because in most cases I bet we agree on what's good.
>
> I don't understand why a separate wiki would be needed for that.
> Assuming you're just linking to good articles and not forking them,
> couldn't you just make a list on meta?
>
> Angela

Hi, I've created a World Wikipedia page on meta. If people choose say 10
good articles we should get a start :) Thanks

luke


subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikimania 2007 Hacking Days call-for-help

body:
Tian-Jian "Barabbas" Jiang at Gmail wrote:
>           o Site searching (Is there any plan to make Lucene available
>             for other languages besides English?)

It already is.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bill Knapp's slaughter

body:
On 10/31/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey, i didn't know lack of notability was valid CSD.
>

A7

Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article
about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web
content that does not assert the importance or significance of its
subject. If the assertion is controversial or there has been a
previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead. Note:
Avoid the word "vanity" in deletion summaries since it may be
insulting.

--
geni


body:
George Herbert wrote:
>
> On 10/31/06, Travis Derouin <travis at wikihow.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Ron,
> >
> > Thanks. it says here that mysqlhotcopy can only be used on MyISAM
> tables.
> >
> > http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysqlhotcopy.html
> >
> > Mediawiki tables are all InnoDB, did you find a work around for this?
>
>
>
>  With innodb, you can do mysqldump --single-transaction --quick
>
    Oddly enough it works on my system - go figure.

    r


from_name: Gatto Nero

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia events

body:
How many In Topic answers :D

I'll talk later, 'cause I've been involved in this situation, and I've
been involved in that chat on #wikimedia, and my position is quite
similar to effeblabla's one :D
But I have a question: is there a problem if someone organizes a
Eurowiki (or similar) on july/august 2007 (not in the same week of
Wikimania)?
It'd be really kind to have an *official* answer by the Foundation
about it, just to clear the field of the wrong ipothesis...

Gatto Nero

/* Beware: 'cause of the limited mental capacities of this writer,
this text could appear not-comprensihible. In that case, don't worry:
close your eyes and repeat for three times "I want to come back to
Kansas, I want to come back to Kansas, I want to come back to Kansas"
*/


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia events


subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units converstion?

body:
I just found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood

Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.

That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
conversion appropriate within the quote?

It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.

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


from_name: Simon Blandford

body:
Hi Anthony,

Thanks, that's really useful to know.

I guess the next part of the question is if there is any mileage in
following the advice on Wikipedia-Libel and me sending an email to
info-en at wikimedia.org listing all the defamatory statements in an
article that are either untrue or unproven in a court (or whatever level
of proof would normally be required before they can be stated as fact),
I obviously don't want to go down this route if it is just going to
irritate, backfire or be a time-sink to the admins or if the slow
processes of challenging each and every part of the article in the
discussion page one at a time is a more appropriate way forward.

What about allegations against an organisation in the discussion page?
There is stuff on there that is even more extreme.

Thanks,
SimonB

Anthony wrote:
> On 10/29/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>> Simon Blandford wrote:
>>
>>> I'm a little unclear on this from reading Wikipedia's policy on libel.
>>>
>>> It seems concerned only with libel of individuals. What is the policy
>>> with regards to organisations? In the UK the libel laws cover
>>> organisations as well as individuals.
>>>
>>  From what I remember last time libel was a hot button issue, there is
>> little regard given to UK laws as there are no assets in the UK. I was
>> told people weren't overly worried about the UK law, only US law as that
>> is where the servers are held.
>>
>
> There are US laws regarding defamation of organizations too.  In fact,
> several US states even have laws against defamation of food.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

body:
On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 12:04:26PM -0800, George Herbert wrote:
> This may be an argument for using PostgreSQL instead of MySQL for your site
> - the PostgreSQL "pg_dump" command doesn't cause a read or write lock on the
> database, so nobody using it gets blocked.  Things do slow down a bit, but
> you can keep right on reading or updating through the dump.

While still preserving coherence between all the table's it's backing
up, right?

Cheers,
-- jr "isn't MVCC great?" a
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


subject: [WikiEN-l] User responds to personal talk in three places at once

body:
I just issued an NPA warning to a user on their talk page. They
responded with a rant and posted the exchange on (1) their talk page,
(2) my talk page and (3) an article discussion page.

I am sure it doesn't need to be in three places at once and I am tempted
to delete the response from at least the article discussion page but
this is a delicate situation and I don't really want to make a mistake
here. Or do I post my response in the same three places? Or replace two
of the places with links.

What is the "correct" response in this situation?

Thanks,
SimonB

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from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Jeff,

since the database is locked, could I ask you for a quick fix? On the
frontpage, it says

"Part of the content here was originally uploaded to
[[en:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]]."

It should say:

"Part of the content here was originally uploaded to
[[:en:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]]."

Without the leading colon before the "en:", it is interpreted as an
interlanguage link (which is why there's a link to the Wikipedia
article "Wikipedia" in the sidebar, and the text after "uploaded to
.." is hidden). Could you unlock, edit and relock?

Thanks again for all your work on this.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
Whoops, this was meant to go only to Jeff, sorry.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Frederick "FN" Noronha

subject: [Wikipedia-l] China 'eases restrictions' on Wikipedia

body:
http://www.ioltechnology.co.za/article_page.php?from=rss_IOLTechOpenSource&iSectionId=2883&iArticleId=3495987

China 'eases restrictions' on Wikipedia
20 October 2006 at 08h46

Washington - China has eased restrictions on access to the United
States-based online encyclopedia Wikipedia after blocking the site for
nearly a year, a researcher says.

Andrew Lih, a Chinese-American researcher who has worked at Columbia
University and Hong Kong University, said in his blog this week that
Beijing authorities began opening up access October 10.

Lih said the English language version of Wikipedia was "widely
accessible" while the Chinese version had "spotty access."
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org  9822122436 +91-832-240-9490
http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/
Free Software gives you the freedom to run, study, copy and improve software!


from_name: Alek Storm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Tool for inline section editing

body:
I hope I'm posting in the right place.  I've written a javascript tool that
modifies the small edit links that appear at the right of each section
header to open the edit form for the section inline (without going to a
separate page).  The "Show preview" and "Show changes" buttons also work
exactly as they would normally.  After clicking "edit", the link changes to
a cancel button.  Clicking "Save page" has the normal result - the entire
page reloads with the changes.  To try it out, add this to your monobook.js:

  inc("User:Supadawg/secedit.js");
  inc("User:Supadawg/util.js");

  function inc(path) {
    var lt = String.fromCharCode(60);
    var gt = String.fromCharCode(62);
    document.writeln(lt+'script type="text/javascript"
src="/w/index.php?title='+path+'&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"'+gt+lt+'/script'+gt);
  }

Leaving out the inc() function if you have it already, of course.  It's
tested and working on Firefox 1.5, and not working on Internet Explorer 6.0,
and only on the English Wikipedia.  If you can read javascript, I've tried
to comment the code enough to make it understandable, but it's still a
little messy.  If anyone could give me some feedback, I'd be very grateful.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units converstion?

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>I just found this:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood
>
>Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
>to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
>
>That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
>conversion appropriate within the quote?
>
>It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.
>
It's a questionable practice.  It is in square brackets to show that
it's an addition, but I think a footnote would be better in this case.
Why too is it in km^2 instead of hectares?

Ec


from_name: Heimermann, Asher

subject: [Foundation-l] Google buys JotSpot

body:
STATEMENT FROM WEBSITE:

  We've closed off new account registrations while we focus on migrating to Google's systems. If you'd like to be notified when we re-open registration, enter your email address below.

Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
  Well, no one else seems to have mentioned it, so I guess I will.

Google bought [[JotSpot]] today for an undisclosed amount. Let's hope
they do something useful with it (1 gig free wiki hosting, anyone?)

Anthony
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

---------------------------------
Everyone is raving about the  all-new Yahoo! Mail.


subject: [Foundation-l] Google buys JotSpot


from_name: Anthony

body:
> Anthony wrote:
> >
> > There are US laws regarding defamation of organizations too.  In fact,
> > several US states even have laws against defamation of food.
> >

On 10/31/06, Simon Blandford <simon at bkinfo.net> wrote:
> Hi Anthony,
>
> Thanks, that's really useful to know.
>
> I guess the next part of the question is if there is any mileage in
> following the advice on Wikipedia-Libel and me sending an email to
> info-en at wikimedia.org listing all the defamatory statements in an
> article that are either untrue or unproven in a court (or whatever level
> of proof would normally be required before they can be stated as fact),

If you're the subject of that article (an officer of the corporation,
a member of the organization, a seller of the food, etc.) then yeah,
it seems like "the info team" (never heard of them before now) want
you to do that.

If not, then you should probably just remove the defamatory statement.

As for what level of proof is required, what's required in court I
believe would be a preponderance of the evidence.  But Wikipedia's
requirement that everything within it is "verifiable" should go well
beyond that.  If there's really any doubt at all as to whether or not
a statement is true, it should be cited *and* attributed.

Now IANAL, and I'm not an expert in libel law at all, but I believe a
statement which is properly attributed would not be libelous.

> I obviously don't want to go down this route if it is just going to
> irritate, backfire or be a time-sink to the admins or if the slow
> processes of challenging each and every part of the article in the
> discussion page one at a time is a more appropriate way forward.
>
Wikipedia policies are pretty clear that the one who should be
undergoing a slow process of challenging should be the one trying to
put a statement *in* to the encyclopedia.

> What about allegations against an organisation in the discussion page?
> There is stuff on there that is even more extreme.
>
As long as they're attributed to the person making the statement, I
personally don't have a problem with them. I believe policies are less
forgiving than I, but I'll let someone else speak to that.

Anthony

P.S., yes, Oprah won her case, but I don't think the laws got thrown
out, just that the jury found her not to have violated them.

P.P.S., it's debatable at best that Wikipedia/Wikimedia would be
subject to any of these libel laws.  They'd have a lot of defenses,
including the CDA.


references:
<mailman.5181.1162243422.9920.foundation-l@wikimedia.org>
	<4546BB5C.9010005@earthlink.net> <ei8oo1$78k$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 10/31/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Long before the retreat, I raised my concern about the "vision" and the
> "mission statement". During the retreat, both Erik and I agreed on the
> fact there was information missing about it, so we collectively drafted
> a new text.

"to provide the necessary functions for supporting the legal basis,
essential technical operations and broad financial means for the
global collaborative content communities that empower individuals
to become active participants in knowledge sharing and dissemination."

Is that the final version?

Anthony


subject: [Wikitech-l] Special page names case-insensitive and localisable

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
> Hi!
>
>> If special page names are dependent on the content language, then
>> messages absolutely must *not* hardcode the *localized* special page
>> names or you'll get broken links when using a non-default UI language.
>
> Yet another argument against non-default UI.
>
>> As with namespaces in links, a message should either use the canonical
>> form (which will always work) or a magic variable which will be
>> replaced
>> with the proper localized form.
>
> And add 20% overhead to page execution on default installs.

The overhead can mostly be removed by introducing a pre-cache transform of
messages -- essentially a preprocessing stage with a reduced set of
functions. Even default installs have a message cache, but we don't use it
nearly as well as we could.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] Google buys JotSpot

body:
Well, no one else seems to have mentioned it, so I guess I will.

Google bought [[JotSpot]] today for an undisclosed amount.  Let's hope
they do something useful with it (1 gig free wiki hosting, anyone?)

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Google buys JotSpot


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?

body:
> I think it seems one of the strengths of the Project is its diversity, so -
> going by the feedback - it's probably best to aim at coalescing around the
> idea of a 'world compendium' rather than 'knocking heads' etc. Maybe in a
> Wikia wiki we could suggest good articles from all parts of the globe for
> inclusion. Because in most cases I bet we agree on what's good.

I don't understand why a separate wiki would be needed for that.
Assuming you're just linking to good articles and not forking them,
couldn't you just make a list on meta?

Angela


subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units converstion?

body:
It's definitely pedantic beyond reason; it also gives far more
importance to the unit of measurement than the actual quote warrants.
But of course I'm sure people will crawl out of the woodwork if one
implies that if someone really needs to know how large 1,000 acres is
precisely (the implication from the sentence itself is that it is
pretty large for a farm, that's all you really need to know) that they
can convert it on their own time (which Google makes pretty easy these
days).

FF

On 10/31/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just found this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood
>
> Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
> to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
>
> That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
> conversion appropriate within the quote?
>
> It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Intellipedia the intelligence version of Wikipedia
 launched

body:
Keith Old wrote:
> Folks,
>
> C/Net reports that the US intelligence community has launched its version of
> Wikipedia.
>
> [...]
>
> I wonder what happens to vandals.
>
Medals of Freedom, apparently.

:-/

Stan (soon to be shebs at gitmo.gov)


body:
On 10/31/06, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> I'd say replace the copies on your talk page and the article
> discussion with links to the user's talk page. Replying to all three
> is inviting a forest fire.

I agree. I just removed it from the article talk page citing the same
forest fire reason.

Simon - it would help if you gave links in future to explain what
you're talking about. :)

Angela.


from_name: Gordon Joly

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia events

body:
>
>I think it would be very good to start thinking about a
>Euromania/Asiamania for 2008 march

You will no doubt attract a large number of people with bipolar
affective disorder, and possibly some unipolar types too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia events


body:
Fantastic.  Over the years there have been these recurring stories about
spies who go so caught up looking for secret information that they
forgot to take into account the information that was already available.

A few years ago it was only low ranking USAF personnel that was trying
to use Wikipedia to find out about the missiles on her base.  So now it
has reached the highest levels that Wikipedia information is superior to
what is discovered by military intelligence. ;-)

Ec

Keith Old wrote:

>Folks,
>
>C/Net reports that the US intelligence community has launched its version of
>Wikipedia.
>
>http://news.com.com/Intelligence+czar+unveils+spy+version+of+Wikipedia/2100-7348_3-6131309.html
>
>*The U.S. intelligence community on Tuesday unveiled its own secretive
>version of Wikipedia, saying the popular online encyclopedia format known
>for its openness is key to the future of American espionage.*
>
>The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced Intellipedia,
>which allows intelligence analysts and other officials to collaboratively
>add and edit content on the government's classified Intelink Web much like
>its more famous namesake on the
>Web<http://news.com.com/Study+Wikipedia+as+accurate+as+Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html?tag=nl>.
>
>A "top secret" Intellipedia system, currently available to the 16 agencies
>that make up the U.S. intelligence community, has grown to more than 28,000
>pages and 3,600 registered users since its introduction on April 17. Less
>restrictive versions exist for "secret" and "sensitive but unclassified"
>material.
>
>Intellipedia is currently being used to assemble a major intelligence
>report, known as a national intelligence estimate, on Nigeria as well as the
>State Department's annual country reports on terrorism, officials said.
>
>


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Google buys JotSpot

body:
Anthony wrote:

>Well, no one else seems to have mentioned it, so I guess I will.
>
>Google bought [[JotSpot]] today for an undisclosed amount.  Let's hope
>they do something useful with it (1 gig free wiki hosting, anyone?)
>
>Anthony
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
Schmidt is really in a panic. These recent acquisitions are reactionary,
rather than proactive. I think Google is having direction problems, despite
their glowing 10K reports.

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] Google buys JotSpot


subject: [Foundation-l] Board officers elected; Anthere is Chair!

body:
On 10/27/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> The Wikimedia Board met in Frankfurt, Germany on October 22,
> immediately following a planning retreat attended by the Board and
> more than 20 members of the Wikimedia community.  The Board voted
> unanimously to elect Florence Devouard as the Chair of the Board, Tim
> Shell as Vice-Chair, Erik M?ller as Executive Secretary, and Michael
> Davis as Treasurer.  Jimmy Wales assumes the title of Chairman
> Emeritus of the Foundation.
>

Does this mean that jimbo will not be involved in the upcoming
elections in a role other than as a voter?

Such a switch would reflect the chnageing position of arbcom and the
increaseing role of things like community bans.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Translation subcommittee issues their newsletter

body:
Aphaia wrote:

>Hello,
>We Translation subcommittee issue the newsletter, nicknamed _The Babylonians_.
>The latest version is available on translators-l at wikimedia.org archive or meta
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/Newsletter/2006-11
>
>
The tower of babel was unrelated to the civilization of babylon in the
bible, if thats what you meant.
Call it "Babelfish weekley" or something more related to the tower of
babel. Just a suggestion.

:-)

Jeff

>It is in public domain, so if your friend is interested in
>translation, please feel free to send the copy.
>
>Feedback will be welcome at
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications_subcommittees/Trans/Newsletter
>
>Cheers,
>
>
>


from_name: Jochen Magnus

subject: [Wikitech-l] dumps failed

body:
The last recent dumps (at least) for the german wikipedia are from
September 25. Unfortunatly, dump processes at October 14 and 31 failed.

I know, there is a lot of work to do, but I'm still hoping for new data
for our mirror.

Thank you in advance!

Jochen


from_name: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dream a little...

body:
On 10/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Dream big.  Imagine there existed a budget of $100 million to purchase
> copyrights to be made available under a free license.  What would you
> like to see purchased and released under a free license?
>
> Photos libraries? textbooks? newspaper archives? Be bold, be specific,
> be general, brainstorm, have fun with it.
>
> --Jimbo

Buy next to nothing. The wikiway.

Liberate publishers from the burden of having to maintain their
backlists, and replace annual book discount selling extravaganzas with
a great great great grand jubilee of manuscript manumission.

Get likeminded people from the copyleft community together to organize
it. Print gaudy red stickers to put on remainder books sold at these
events, whose rights are simultaneously released. For the authors
several types of headgear with the events logo, (think fez, baseball
cap, tourban, phrygian cap; whatever people have worn throughout the
ages as a symbol of "libre") and little emblems you can add onto them
(pins, forgetme-nots, poppies, rosettes, ribbons) for a given number
of liberated manuscripts by the author of the works and their
publisher conjointly.

This would simultaneously raise conciousness about libre content, and
allow the former keepers of copyright the goodwill and free
advertisement value that they generally do not get nearly in the same
degree from just holding book discounts.

Am I dreaming too big?

--
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Report from Frankfurt - October 2006

body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
>
>>On 10/29/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Actually, we have always had them. As a not fo profit in the United
>>>States,
>>>we are required to have a mission statement, because we are
>>>accepting  money.
>>>People have a right to know what they are giving money to, and that
>>>is  laid
>>>out in the mission statement.
>>
>>You can legally have informal ones (that is what Michael Snow's
>>comments suggest exists at the moment)?
>
>
> Legally, a nonprofit organization must have a purpose, and the purpose
> has to be lawful and not for pecuniary profit. The law may require that
> this purpose be set forth in the incorporating documents, and I assume
> that's the sort of thing Danny is referring to. There's a statement of
> purpose in the current Wikimedia Foundation bylaws. It has, however,
> never really been meaningfully adopted by the community, which is why
> I'm suggesting a referendum on the vision and mission statements.
>
> Vision and mission statements aren't formal legal documents themselves,
> although they can be incorporated into such documents. I think there's
> general agreement that the bylaws are badly in need of updating, and
> that issue was noted at the retreat as a high priority. In conjunction
> with that, community-adopted vision and mission statements could help
> provide guidance to the board (especially the elected representatives,
> but also the others). Right now, I don't see much that would convey to
> Florence or Erik what the community wants from them. They can pay
> attention to various individual voices according to their own
> preferences, of course, but otherwise they're divining the tea leaves of
> consensus like the rest of us.
>
> --Michael Snow

Earl Grey being my favorite.

Long before the retreat, I raised my concern about the "vision" and the
"mission statement". During the retreat, both Erik and I agreed on the
fact there was information missing about it, so we collectively drafted
a new text.
A referendum on this text was indeed suggested (it may have been by
Michael, I must say I forgot :-)), and I think the idea is good. I do
not think it has been formally approved though (might become quite
difficult to do a referendum given our community size now, on the other
hand, Erik is quite good at setting up referendums ;-)).

ant


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units converstion?

body:
On 31/10/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just found this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood
>
> Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
> to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
>
> That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
> conversion appropriate within the quote?
>
> It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Would we not give a conversion if a historical quote gave a distance
in furlongs? Maybe not inline, but somewhere on the page.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units converstion?

body:
On 10/31/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
> to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
>
> That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
> conversion appropriate within the quote?

In quotes, I think that units conversion should be a footnote; I'd
rather keep the integrity of the quote.  However, a conversion should
definitely be there.  People constantly complain about metric
conversions, but they're useful to the fairly large proportion of the
world's population with no conception of US traditional units (or UK
Imperial units).  1000 acres means absolutely nothing to most EU
residents, for instance.

Conversions should be rough approximations when the original figure is
an approximation, of course, as this one clearly is.

As to why km^2 instead of hectares, that was a long flamewar; suffice
to say that hectares, as a non-SI unit, are to some degree deprecated
and thus disliked by the SI-unit advocates that do most of the unit
conversion work.  There was broad consensus to use hectares in
instances where they are an officially-sanctioned unit (e.g. France)
but km^2 conversions are also used in most of those.

-Matt


from_name: Steve Summit

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Intellipedia the intelligence version of Wikipedia
	launched

body:
There's something interesting -- and a little sad -- going on
here with respect to language evolution.  Just about everyone has
heard of Wikipedia by now, but most people don't know where the
name comes from.  So they're apt to seize on the wrong part of
the word when creating derived terms.  More and more we're seeing
the stem "pedia" used to mean "an open, collaborative repository
that anyone can quickly and easily edit".  Sorry, Ward.


from_name: Travis Derouin

body:
You're right, looking at the logs, it is more like 1.5 minutes. Funny!
I still hear complaints about that small amount of downtime though.
The downtime is likely longer because the incoming connections are
likely getting backed up, and there's probably a bottleneck when the
dump has finished.

Our dump uncompressed is 1.2 GB  one wiki.


body:
On 11/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> > There's something interesting -- and a little sad -- going on
> > here with respect to language evolution.  Just about everyone has
> > heard of Wikipedia by now, but most people don't know where the
> > name comes from.  So they're apt to seize on the wrong part of
> > the word when creating derived terms.  More and more we're seeing
> > the stem "pedia" used to mean "an open, collaborative repository
> > that anyone can quickly and easily edit".  Sorry, Ward.
>
> http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
> http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/WikiFur_Furry_Central
> http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Entryway
> http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Muppet_Wiki
> http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
>
> The issue is more likely that "pedia" stuck on the end of a word tends
> to flow better than having "wiki" crowbared in.
>
In this case both sides are appropriate.  Intellipedia is a wiki, and
it's an encyclopedia.  But calling it "The Intelligence Wikipedia"
would draw ire from the trademark wonks.

Still, it's a good thing Ward isn't as bigheaded as another free
content leader.  Wiki/Intellipedia anyone?

Anthony


body:
Steve Summit wrote:

>There's something interesting -- and a little sad -- going on
>here with respect to language evolution.  Just about everyone has
>heard of Wikipedia by now, but most people don't know where the
>name comes from.  So they're apt to seize on the wrong part of
>the word when creating derived terms.  More and more we're seeing
>the stem "pedia" used to mean "an open, collaborative repository
>that anyone can quickly and easily edit".  Sorry, Ward.
>
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge!  It's hard to prevent the development of
folk etymologies.  Unless the real origins are always right there at the
top of the main page this is bound to happen.

Ec


from_name: MHart

body:
> We've been using mysqldump to do daily full database backups in case
> our hardware on our DB server fails. This causes some problems because
> for a short period of 4 minutes or so, the site in inaccessible
> because mysqldump has the db locked.

I do a full mysqldump of 100+ wikis and 25+ blogs. It takes and average of
55 seconds to dump and gzip. It auto-runs at around midnight Eastern time.
Never a problem. Saved to a RAID 1 device daily and all backups are copied
to an offsite RAID 5 device weekly.

How big is your resulting dump... and how powerful is the dumper? 4 minutes
sounds excessive. Gzipped, my backups are 156meg. Unzipped, 1.2 gig. Around
the time of the backup, I have between 17 and 21 meg of bandwidth hitting
the site: around 2600 hits, just under 1000 page views. If I adjusted my
backup time to 6am Eastern - that's when I have the least traffic - 2meg of
bandwidth usage.

- MHart


body:
Alphax wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>> Still, it's a good thing Ward isn't as bigheaded as another free
>> content leader.  Wiki/Intellipedia anyone?
>
> I didn't know that Hawaiian words could be trademarked.

Of course, it's not a trademark violation not to call something
by a certain name.


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units conversion?

body:
> George Herbert wrote:
>
>> I just found this:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood
>>
>> Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
>> to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
>>
>> That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
>> conversion appropriate within the quote?
>>
>> It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.
>>
> It's a questionable practice.  It is in square brackets to show that
> it's an addition, but I think a footnote would be better in this case.
> Why too is it in km^2 instead of hectares?

Because it's Bobblewik.

This particular editor is or has in the past been focussed on
providing SI equivalents for almost everything that doesn't have
them. I had a discussion with him on this particular point, because I
feel strongly that "hectares" is what you might call the idiomatic
metric conversion for "acres." Bobblewik is somewhat single-minded
and determined, but always courteous, well-informed, intelligent, and
willing to engage in discussion. I don't want to bother looking up
what he said at the time, but I believe he cited chapter and verse
for km^2 rather than hectares being the only true, proper, scientific
SI unit.

Whether it's appropriate to stick strictly to best scientific
practice in unscientific topic matter is not so clear.

I think I tried to find evidence that _lay_ European readers would be
more comfortable with and more easily understand hectares than km^2
and failed to find anything crushingly conclusive.

I think the square brackets are very important here. I really detest
editors correcting spelling or grammatical "errors" in direct
quotations. But Bobblewik is very punctilious about such things.

I agree that a footnote would be better, and I suspect Bobblewik
wouldn't object to a footnote, nor object to the footnote including
both km^2 and hectares... but I don't feel like bothering about this
on an article that is not one that I work on actively.

I don't see any terrible harm in it the way it is.


body:
At 15:29 +0800 1/11/06, Andrew Lih wrote:
>On 11/1/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>  On 10/31/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>  > Long before the retreat, I raised my concern about the "vision" and the
>>  > "mission statement". During the retreat, both Erik and I agreed on the
>>  > fact there was information missing about it, so we collectively drafted
>>  > a new text.
>>
>>  "to provide the necessary functions for supporting the legal basis,
>>  essential technical operations and broad financial means for the
>>  global collaborative content communities that empower individuals
>>  to become active participants in knowledge sharing and dissemination."
>
>No I think you've been looking at a photo of my personal version of
>the mission statement.
>
>-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

Mea culpa!

??

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


subject: [Foundation-l] Google buys JotSpot

body:
At 00:21 -0700 1/11/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

[...]

>Schmidt is really in a panic. These recent acquisitions are reactionary,
>rather than proactive. I think Google is having direction problems, despite
>their glowing 10K reports.
>
>Jeff

I wonder if Amazon Web Services will offer wiki hosting (and document
sharing) in future?

http://aws.amazon.com/

It would form an obvious adjunct to the "Amazon Elastic Compute
Cloud" also known as "Amazon EC2"...

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


subject: [Foundation-l] Google buys JotSpot


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units conversion?

body:
On 11/1/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > George Herbert wrote:
> >
> >> I just found this:
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood
> >>
> >> Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
> >> to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
> >>
> >> That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
> >> conversion appropriate within the quote?
> >>
> >> It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.
> >>
> > It's a questionable practice.  It is in square brackets to show that
> > it's an addition, but I think a footnote would be better in this case.
> > Why too is it in km^2 instead of hectares?
>
> Because it's Bobblewik.
>
> This particular editor is or has in the past been focussed on
> providing SI equivalents for almost everything that doesn't have
> them. I had a discussion with him on this particular point, because I
> feel strongly that "hectares" is what you might call the idiomatic
> metric conversion for "acres." Bobblewik is somewhat single-minded
> and determined, but always courteous, well-informed, intelligent, and
> willing to engage in discussion. I don't want to bother looking up
> what he said at the time, but I believe he cited chapter and verse
> for km^2 rather than hectares being the only true, proper, scientific
> SI unit.
>
> Whether it's appropriate to stick strictly to best scientific
> practice in unscientific topic matter is not so clear.
>
> I think I tried to find evidence that _lay_ European readers would be
> more comfortable with and more easily understand hectares than km^2
> and failed to find anything crushingly conclusive.
>
> I think the square brackets are very important here. I really detest
> editors correcting spelling or grammatical "errors" in direct
> quotations. But Bobblewik is very punctilious about such things.
>
> I agree that a footnote would be better, and I suspect Bobblewik
> wouldn't object to a footnote, nor object to the footnote including
> both km^2 and hectares... but I don't feel like bothering about this
> on an article that is not one that I work on actively.
>
> I don't see any terrible harm in it the way it is.

When silly conversions are added, particularly when they mess up
quotes, and particularly when done by someone with a history of doing
this, I would simply revert them.  No amount of discussion seems to
make an impact in these sorts of situations.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units conversion?

body:
On 11/1/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> >> George Herbert wrote:
> >>
> >>> I just found this:
> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood
> >>>
> >>> Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
> >>> to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
> >>>
> >>> That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
> >>> conversion appropriate within the quote?
> >>>
> >>> It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.
> >>>
> >> It's a questionable practice.  It is in square brackets to show that
> >> it's an addition, but I think a footnote would be better in this case.
> >> Why too is it in km^2 instead of hectares?
> >
> > Because it's Bobblewik.
> >
>
> Hasn't Bobblewik been banned for mindlessly running an unauthorised bot?

I believe he's been blocked because he makes so many changes per
minute that his edits seem bot-like. He's been blocked 16 times so far
for making format/units/link edits in this way. He wants Wikipedia to
look a certain way, and it's really hard to dissuade him.

Jay.


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units converstion?

body:
On 11/1/06, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/31/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
> > to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
> >
> > That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
> > conversion appropriate within the quote?
>
> In quotes, I think that units conversion should be a footnote; I'd
> rather keep the integrity of the quote.  However, a conversion should
> definitely be there.  People constantly complain about metric
> conversions, but they're useful to the fairly large proportion of the
> world's population with no conception of US traditional units (or UK
> Imperial units).  1000 acres means absolutely nothing to most EU
> residents, for instance.
>

To make sure that my position is clear - I have no problem with a conversion
being there; I don't think it belongs within the verbatim quote.

I have removed the conversion and replaced it with a footnote below the
quoted article.

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


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
Very 'Billion Dollar Brain'.

John le Carre, of course, had his equivalent, which was an alcohol-sodden woman with cats and no life, who had apparently memorised the Circus's database.

I don't know why the spooks didn't get to wiki before WP. It's obviously ideal, when trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, to try to get NPOV pages, with Talk and sourced information.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units converstion?

body:
"Matthew Brown" wrote

> 1000 acres means absolutely nothing to most EU
> residents, for instance.

Right. If I hadn't once owned 100 of moorland myself, I'd have no real idea either. (An acre is roughly 70 yards square, but who even knows that? And Ray is right about hectares.)

But don't mess with the verbatim quote: slippery slope there.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


from_name: geni

body:
On 11/1/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I don't know why the spooks didn't get to wiki before WP. It's obviously ideal, when trying to >sort the wheat from the chaff, to try to get NPOV pages, with Talk and sourced information.

Traditionaly that would be done through a database. I suspect the main
issue is that you lose a lot of the hierarchy and seperation of areas
which causes security problems.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units converstion?

body:
On 01/11/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> It's a questionable practice.  It is in square brackets to show that
> it's an addition, but I think a footnote would be better in this case.
> Why too is it in km^2 instead of hectares?

Definitely, it would be far less disruptive to include a footnote
rather than square bracketed additions. These should probably be saved
only for things fundamental to understanding the quote.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 11/1/06, Travis Derouin <travis at wikihow.com> wrote:
>
> You're right, looking at the logs, it is more like 1.5 minutes. Funny!
> I still hear complaints about that small amount of downtime though.
> The downtime is likely longer because the incoming connections are
> likely getting backed up, and there's probably a bottleneck when the
> dump has finished.
>
> Our dump uncompressed is 1.2 GB  one wiki.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

That does sound sort of slow.

As Tim points out, the ultimate solution to this is a slave DB which you can
stop without affecting the primary which is serving to the live wiki.

Are you doing the dump-to-/tmp trick others noted early in the thread?  A
RAM disk is far better than real disk for dump speed, if you have the RAM
available... and 1.2 GB isn't all that much RAM these days.

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


body:
On 11/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> There's something interesting -- and a little sad -- going on
> here with respect to language evolution.  Just about everyone has
> heard of Wikipedia by now, but most people don't know where the
> name comes from.  So they're apt to seize on the wrong part of
> the word when creating derived terms.  More and more we're seeing
> the stem "pedia" used to mean "an open, collaborative repository
> that anyone can quickly and easily edit".  Sorry, Ward.

http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/WikiFur_Furry_Central
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Entryway
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Muppet_Wiki
http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

The issue is more likely that "pedia" stuck on the end of a word tends
to flow better than having "wiki" crowbared in.

--
geni


from_name: Aphaia

subject:
[Foundation-l] Translation subcommittees' open meeting on November
	5, 22UTC

body:
Hello,
The first Transcom open meeting is scheduled on November 5, 2006, 22
UTC at the  IRC channel, #wikimedia-translation. We invite you, all
who are interested in translation on Wikimedia project.

You are invited to list your name and items;
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/meetings#Agenda

Hoping to hear you soon,

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * ?????? ???? *


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 01/11/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> I don't know why the spooks didn't get to wiki before WP. It's
> obviously ideal, when trying to sort the wheat from the chaff,
> to try to get NPOV pages, with Talk and sourced information.

Wikis were what I'd been expecting to find on the internet for ten
years before I stumbled across enwp - they're a surprisingly elusive
concept until you've actually encountered one. And as we seem to have
become the first high-profile wiki *outside* of "people who already
knew about wikis"...

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