subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

body:
I don't think brushing the issues under the carpet
help. The RK issues keep on coming up. Telling
everyone to stop discussing them doesn't solve the
problem.

Angela.

>There's another option. Jimbo, from on high, declares
that this situation
>is OVER. No discussion, no nothing. No one mentions
it, it's gone, done,
>in the past. The first person who violates this fiat
gets tossed out on
>his/her ear. ;)

__________________________________________________
Yahoo! Plus - For a better Internet experience
http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/yplus/yoffer.html


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>--- Angela <sloog77 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>I don't think brushing the issues under the carpet
>>help. The RK issues keep on coming up. Telling
>>everyone to stop discussing them doesn't solve the
>>problem.
>>
>>
so let's see the paper trail.
if RK really is a problem, let's air the laundry.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Update to gfdl copyright notice needed

body:
Michael Becker wrote:
>So the new and improved notice will read: "All content is
>available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
>License. See Wikipedia:Copyrights for suggested practices."

There is one problem with this; it is a lie. Wikipedia has many photos that
are used under "fair use" or "non-commercial use" doctrines.

-- mav


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: distributing 1.0

body:
Kurt Jansson wrote:

>
>
> BTW, there is some kind of social underground movement in Germany (I'm
> sure in other contries too) where people are founding Umsonstl?den
> ("gratis shops"). You can bring things you don't need any more to them
> or take-away things you need - for free. It's meant as an alternative
> to market economy or barter economy. Some of them also have a PC where
> you can copy the latest Linux distros. I think we should consider
> using them as distribution centers.

that sounds interesting!
write us an article about them! :)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 01:15:59PM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> We've already done quite well in accomodating British and American
> English in one Wikipedia.  Contrariwise the Yugoslavs have chosen to
> have separate projects for languages that are not very different.  Each
> group has to sort that out for itself

Y'know, if Americans used Cyrillic and British Latin ...
On the other hand what is "Bosnian" Wikipedia for ...


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Michael Becker wrote:
>>So the new and improved notice will read: "All content is
>>available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
>>License. See Wikipedia:Copyrights for suggested practices."
>
>
> There is one problem with this; it is a lie. Wikipedia has many photos that
> are used under "fair use" or "non-commercial use" doctrines.

If the above is a lie by that argument, so is claiming that "all text"
is under the FDL when some portions of that text at any given time may
be copyright violations cut-n-pasted by a newbie.

Any non-FDL-compatible images, just as non-FDL-compatible text, are
mistakes that need to be removed when they are found to be such.

On another front, it is often alleged that _true_ "fair use" of some
non-FDL material (both text and images) _is_ compatible with the FDL.
_If_ we accept this as true, then those ought not to affect the argument
above, as only compatible ones are to be kept, and they're compatible.
_If_ we reject it as false, then we throw out more images, and the above
argument again does not change.

That's a question for the lawyers in the house, though, of which I'm not
one.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Robert Graham Merkel

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Video policy discussion

body:
Hi everyone,

After a question being asked on the English Wikipedia's Village Pump about
video recently, I've sketched some thoughts about the topic on meta at

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/video_policy

It's probably a rather long-winded way of getting to the bleeding obvious,
but even so I'd like some feedback, because in the longer term I'd like to
do a bit of home video making to improve the sport articles.

--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                           Robert Merkel
                                          rgmerk at mira.net
The only time an aircraft has too much fuel on board is when it is on fire.
  -- Sir Charles Kingsford Smith
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


from_name: root

body:
Hi Brion, I just re-read your response regarding changing the copyright
notice. I have a solution to the "text" problem. We can change "text" to
"content."

So the new and improved notice will read: "All content is available
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. See
Wikipedia:Copyrights for suggested practices."

I will be posting this suggestion to Wikipedia talk:Sites that use
Wikipedia for content.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 11.02
To: A mailing list for discussing about the technical organization of
theWikipedias
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Update to gfdl copyright notice needed

Michael Becker wrote:
> Let me quote User:Dgrant "if the link text says GFDL, few people will
> bother going to it, at least I personally wouldn't, I've already read
> the GFDL before."  He has a point, the notice is misleading in it's
> current form, and I think people are discouraged from reading the
> Copyright page b/c the link is titled "GFDL."

That sounds reasonable. Unless there's a huge objection I'll make the
change tomorrow.

As a reminder for those listening in, the suggested new version of the
notice reads:

   "All text is available under the terms of the
    [[Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License|
    GNU Free Documentation License]]. See [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]]
    for suggested practices."

thus giving explicitly separate links for the license text and our
explanation of what it means and how it applies.

(It's still got the "text" problem, but that's a separate can of worms.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Changes to server file layout

body:
I've been reorganizing things on pliny to make it easier to deal with
language additions... This stuff ought not to be user-noticable, but if
there are any new bugs, do speak up!

The new directory layout:

Each language's stuff lives under /apache/htdocs/xx (formerly
/apache/htdocs-xx). This is the case on larousse, too, but there's not
much there. ;)

However a lot of stuff has been consolidated by symlinks under
/apache/common:

php/         - all the live PHP scripts (set in the PHP include path;
                only wiki.phtml and redirect.phtml are be symlinked in)
texvc        - the texvc executable
robots.txt   - the robots exclusion file
favicon.ico  - that cute 'w' icon
style/       - the stylesheet & javascript directory
math/        - rendered TeX bits for UTF-8 wikis
math-latin1/ - rendered TeX bits for Latin-1 wikis
tmp/         - TeX temporary files
templates/   - templates for LocalSettings.php, webalizer.conf, and
                additions to the apache config file

LocalSettings.php files have been minimized by putting most of it into a
CommonSettings.php; most of them now just need to specify a language
code, a few have some overrides.

Taw assures me there is no problem with using a single temp directory to
hold texvc's temporary files, but recommends keeping the rendered output
segregated by input charset. (I'm not sure I see the chance of
collision, but he knows more about texvc than I.) Because each database
has a separate math _table_, it'll still re-render each equation the
first time it's used on any given wiki for now, but it won't store
multiple copies of the same PNG file. (Beyond duplication between the
UTF-8 and Latin-1 sections.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> Hello,
> I install the early phase III version on my remote server, configure
> "LocalSettings.php" and launch  "createdb.php". The message say : "Done." So
> I suppose it's finish. My problem now is how to acces my wiki !? There no
> index file (html, php, etc). Have I to create manulay the home page ?

wiki.phtml is the entry point for the script. If you want you can rename
it to index.php or something.

> When I try "wiki.phtml" I got an error message :
>
> Fatal error: open(O_RDWR) failed for session file. The error is No such file
> or directory (2). Please consult http://support.free.fr/web/php/php4.html in
> wiki.phtml on line 7
>
> Problem with my host server ? If it's an host problem, do you know a (free)
> host where I can install a wiki ?

Logins require session support... this stores a file in a temporary
directory on the server which is matched up with a randomly-assigned
cookie. Apparently they've done something weird with the server
configuration so the temporary directory isn't accessible. You can bug
them to fix it...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] A course of action

body:
tarquin wrote:
> so let's see the paper trail.  if RK really is a problem, let's air
> the laundry.

Jimbo wrote:
> I agree completely

Rather against my better judgement:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/RK

One incident.

Love,
-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


from_name: Jimmy O'Regan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
Delirium wrote:

> Merritt L. Perkins wrote:
>
>> What language should be used in the Encyclopedia? The English
>> language used in the UK and other parts of the world differs from
>> that used in North America. Translating an encyclopedia into another
>> language is an overwhelming project. It should be done by someone who
>> translates it into his native language. One approach might be to
>> follow each paragraph in English by the paragraph translated into the
>> other language. This could be tried out gradually, adding more and
>> more of an article and then starting on a few other articles
>>
> This brings up two separate points I think: one is which dialect of a
> language to use (where multiple exist), and the other is how to deal
> with actually different languages.
>
> Taking the second point first, the way we deal with this is to have
> separate encyclopedias.  This can be supplemented by translating from
> each other (and in fact anyone who is fluent in more than one language
> is greatly encouraged to do so), but may also simply be original
> content provided by a native speaker of that language.  Currently
> these are located at xx.wikipedia.org, where xx is a 2-letter language
> code (for example, de.wikipedia.org for the German-language
> Wikipedia).  Keeping all the languages in sync would ideally be nice,
> but in practice is nearly impossible.
>
> As for the first point, the English-language Wikipedia solves this by
> for the most part not caring whether you use British or American
> English.  Articles specifically about one or the other country
> generally are encouraged to use that dialect (for example, American
> English for the article on [[George Washington]], and British English
> for the article on [[England]]), but for most articles either is
> okay.  The policy is generally to let the author of the article use
> whichever they wish, and then to keep subsequent additions in the same
> dialect.  Some effort is also made to avoid particularly provincial
> idiom and slang; thus most Americanisms that would only be understood
> by an American are avoided if possible, as are the Gaelic-influenced
> idioms of Hiberno-English and anything particular to Australian
> idiom.  As not everyone realizes what's provincial, this is generally
> enforced by someone from a different region saying on the talk page "I
> have no idea what this sentence means," after which it is usually
> rephrased in a more generally understood manner (or explained further
> in parentheses).
>
> I do not know how other languages with dialects handle the issue.
> Perhaps someone from the French Wikipedia can comment on how that
> encyclopedia handles French as spoken in France versus French as
> spoken in Quebec; or someone from the Spanish Wikipedia might be able
> to comment on Spanish as spoken in Spain versus Spanish as spoken in
> the Americas.

 From what I've seen (admittedly little) the differences are similar to
the differences between American and British English; a better example
would be the difference between Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, as
many Brazilian Portuguese speakers can't understand European Portuguese.

>> It takes too long to read a long Encyclopedia entry while connected
>> to the Internet so there should be a way to copy it so that it can be
>> read later.
>>
>> It seems like a great idea to record the encyclopedia on a CD but by
>> the time we can make a copy (an hour) it would be out of date. When a
>> prominent person dies his article needs to be changed, when a
>> government changes or a building is destroyed the encyclopedia needs
>> to be updated.
>>
> This is a difficult problem.  If the people in question have access to
> computers, but not access to the internet, a CD is really the only
> option I can think of.  An alternate option for a computer that has
> intermittent internet access would be to set up a system of
> incremental updates, whereby the contents of the Wikipedia are
> downloading for local viewing, and periodically updated by
> re-downloading the articles changed since the last update.  For
> computers on a slow connection, the local archive might be
> jump-started by an initial CD version, so only updates need to be
> downloaded from the internet.  Such a system has not yet been
> developed, to my knowledge, partly because it's unknown how much of a
> demand there might be for it (and partly simply because nobody's
> written it).
>
You could do this User Mode Linux's COW FS, or FreeBSD's overlay FS (?)
- i.e. using support which is in the operating system, though if the
table is one file it's probably not feasible. Could be worth looking
into though.

> If it's a small number of articles, a solution is always to print them
> out for reading at a later time, or copying the text to a file on a
> computer hard drive.
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
Merritt L. Perkins wrote:

>What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you want to include
>Encyclopedia articles on all languages. There are so many obscure
>languages that you cannot expect to include them all.
>
>
So long as there are speakers, there are people who can potentially
write an article.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: logo

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>The first voting stage for the new Wikipedia logo has
begun:
>
>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote
>
>has begun. Please add your signature under up to 10
logos. The 10
logos
>with the highest number of votes will then enter the
final voting
stage.
>The deadline for the first stage is September 5,
20:00 UTC.
>
>With over 130 logos and many variants we have lots of
excellent
candidates
>to choose from. Thanks to everyone who contributed!
>
>
>
Tarquin noted

please could you enforce a byte limit for the images
displayed on the
list pages.
Some are STUPIDLY large, eg that one featuring some
sort of rodent
which
I removed.

with a modem it takes about 5 minutes for them all to
load.
people should upload a smaller version ( < 30 k ?) or
be disqualified

Anthere add...

besides, a logo is not only to print on a tee shirt,
but also to put as a logo on the web site. As such, it
has to be readable and pretty at big size as well as
at small size (around 150 pt). The rodent's very nice
but it might be important to see it at small size as
well.

Erik, I find 7 days to be a very short time (again,
not to insist too much, but school has not restarted
yet, many people are still on holidays, sorry Mav
:-)). Is there a special reason you chose such a short
time ?

Anthere

__________________________________
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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] First logo voting stage

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>The first voting stage for the new Wikipedia logo has begun:
>
>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote
>
>has begun. Please add your signature under up to 10 logos. The 10 logos
>with the highest number of votes will then enter the final voting stage.
>The deadline for the first stage is September 5, 20:00 UTC.
>
>With over 130 logos and many variants we have lots of excellent candidates
>to choose from. Thanks to everyone who contributed!
>
>
>
please could you enforce a byte limit for the images displayed on the
list pages.
Some are STUPIDLY large, eg that one featuring some sort of rodent which
I removed.

with a modem it takes about 5 minutes for them all to load.
people should upload a smaller version ( < 30 k ?) or be disqualified


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] message to Kurt Kawohl

body:
on 8/28/03 3:31 AM, Andre Engels at engels at uni-koblenz.de wrote:

> Here is an answer I sent to Kurt Kawohl on a request to oppose the deletion
> of his material:
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, 27 Aug 2003, Kkawohl wrote:
>
>> Please voice your opinion on deletion.
>>
>> 21st Century Transcendentalism is not a religion and does not advocate
>> (request belief, membership or anything else) anything; it stands for
>> religious rationality in the 21st Century. If Wikipedia can describe what
>> atheists, Christianity, Islam, Bokononism thinks then why can not I as a
>> 21st Century Transcendentalist describe what I think? Bias, maybe?
>
> The reason is exactly that this is about what _you_ think. When we describe
> atheism, Christianity, Islam, we describe the common belief system of a
> large group of people, a belief system that makes an important impact on
> society as a whole. On the other hand, 21st Century Transcendentalism is
> just your ideas. If you get a reasonably large following for it, or if it
> otherwise becomes influential, then I would be in favor of addition. But
> I see no evidence whatsoever for it now.
>
> Andre Engels

There is a bit on this on the internet. A self-published book at:

http://www.authorzone.com/view_books.php?bookid=246

and an associated biography at:

http://www.authorzone.com/view_authors.php?&authorid=1426

Fred


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Arrow graphics for enhanced recentchanges?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> These are kinda needed for enhanced recentchanges to make sense:
>
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 apache   wikidev       289 Jan  6  2003 Arr_d.png
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 apache   wikidev       918 Jan  7  2003 Arr_.png
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 apache   wikidev       282 Jan  6  2003 Arr_r.png
>
> a) Who made them?

I got them from some free-icons-site (don't know which one, but it said
"free to use" or something).

> b) Are they GPL-compatible?

Tough one. I doubt whoverver made them will come after us for using
them, though. If you put someting you made on the web and say "free to
use", it sounds like public domain to me...

> c) If a) and b) are satisfactory, any objection to adding them to CVS?
> (They have to be marked as binary files in some way if so. I don't know
> the option offhand.)

If there's a problem with their legal status, I can draw some new ones.

Magnus


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] First logo voting stage

body:
tarquin wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>> The first voting stage for the new Wikipedia logo has begun:
>>
>> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote
>>
>> has begun. Please add your signature under up to 10 logos. The 10
>> logos  with the highest number of votes will then enter the final
>> voting stage.  The deadline for the first stage is September 5, 20:00
>> UTC.
>>
>> With over 130 logos and many variants we have lots of excellent
>> candidates  to choose from. Thanks to everyone who contributed!
>>
> please could you enforce a byte limit for the images displayed on the
> list pages.
> Some are STUPIDLY large, eg that one featuring some sort of rodent
> which I removed.
>
> with a modem it takes about 5 minutes for them all to load.
> people should upload a smaller version ( < 30 k ?) or be disqualified

I don't know if removing them is the right course of action, or if the
size limit should be imposed on the contributor.  Postage stamp
designers do not do their work on a postage stamp sized canvas.

Having the original work in a large file is preferable because it can be
scaled down.  In scaling up a small file we will not be able to provide
missing detail.  Trimming a contribution to 30k should be done by
software.  If a scaled down logo loses too much information, we probably
shouldn't adopt it.

Ec


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [WikiEN-l] message to Kurt Kawohl

body:
Here is an answer I sent to Kurt Kawohl on a request to oppose the deletion
of his material:

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

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003, Kkawohl wrote:

> Please voice your opinion on deletion.
>
> 21st Century Transcendentalism is not a religion and does not advocate
> (request belief, membership or anything else) anything; it stands for
> religious rationality in the 21st Century. If Wikipedia can describe what
> atheists, Christianity, Islam, Bokononism thinks then why can not I as a
> 21st Century Transcendentalist describe what I think? Bias, maybe?

The reason is exactly that this is about what _you_ think. When we describe
atheism, Christianity, Islam, we describe the common belief system of a
large group of people, a belief system that makes an important impact on
society as a whole. On the other hand, 21st Century Transcendentalism is
just your ideas. If you get a reasonably large following for it, or if it
otherwise becomes influential, then I would be in favor of addition. But
I see no evidence whatsoever for it now.

Andre Engels


from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 12:48:59 -0400, Alex R. <alex756 at nyc.rr.com> gave
utterance to the following:

> Any user name is a copyright pseudonym if it is not a real user's name.
> The user name (or IP address) is the only way to trace the attribution
> rights
> (this is especially inportant in droit d'auteur countries such as Canada
> where
> an author's moral rights must be respected, and if someone has questions
> about the validity of the copyright of the underlying text submitted to
> Wikipedia the only way to check that is to contact the contributor from
> Wikipedia (they usually call that 'due diligence' in the copyright chain
> of
> title
> review industry).
>
> The  GFDL requires that the last five authors of a document released be
> listed
> (see section 4(B) of the license).  Thus,  five contributors to a page
> may
> technically have to be listed by any GFDL republisher of that page.
>
> Imagine someone who wants to publish a page and finds that one of the
> authors has an offensive name; they may decide that they cannot morally
> accept to use such a page because of the offensive character of the
> author's
> name which they must acknowledge.
>

Another point that it raises is that the majority of people are still on
dynamic IP's. (Wikipedia probably has a higher proportion of static IP's
than most websites due to the number of contributors who are staff at
academic institutions.
So with a not-logged in contributor on a dynamic IP, the only means of
identifying the person is by asking the ISP who had that IP at that time.
And most ISP's will flatly refuse to divulge that information. Under New
Zealand's privacy laws I think the only grounds on which they are obliged
or even allowed to release such personal information is a police
investigation or as part of a civil lawsuit. A copyright enquiry simply
doesn't cut it.

--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried


subject: [Wikitech-l] select denied

body:
When trying to do a database search on the Dutch Wikipedia (wanting to create
a new cached version of the defunct special pages), I got an error message
with the text "1142: select command denied to user:
'sqluser at localhost.localdomain' for table 'cur'". Is this another action taken
to make Wikipedia less slow, or is it a bug?

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: logo

body:
Anthere wrote:
>Erik, I find 7 days to be a very short time
>(again, not to insist too much, but school
>has not restarted yet, many people are still
>on holidays, sorry Mav :-)). Is there a
>special reason you chose such a short time ?

Either Europeans take too many holidays or Americans
don't take enough of them. :-) Either way, 7 days is
not enough.

--mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


body:
Magnus wrote:
>I doubt whoverver made them will come after
>us for using them, though. If you put someting
>you made on the web and say "free to use",
>it sounds like public domain to me...

Hm. "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"... "Wikipedia
is free content"

I sure hope that doesn't give the impression that
Wikipedia is in the public domain.

--mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] First logo voting stage

references:
<8seDz0$SpVB@erik_moeller>
	<3F4DC488.3050800@planetunreal.com>	<3F4E43F2.1000203@telus.net>
	<3F4E6C38.7080706@planetunreal.com>

body:
tarquin wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> I don't know if removing them is the right course of action, or if
>> the size limit should be imposed on the contributor.  Postage stamp
>> designers do not do their work on a postage stamp sized canvas.
>>
>> Having the original work in a large file is preferable because it can
>> be scaled down.  In scaling up a small file we will not be able to
>> provide missing detail.  Trimming a contribution to 30k should be
>> done by software.  If a scaled down logo loses too much information,
>> we probably shouldn't adopt it.
>
> Yes, we must have the large original.
> But voters MUST be able to see that the design is viable at the final
> size. If size reduction & data compression turns the winning design
> into a blurry mess -- what then?

Then we should never have adopted that one in the first place.  This is
less critical when we are trying to establish a short list from a list
that's as long as the list of California gubernatorial candidates.

If a logo with such problems makes it onto the top ten list, the
contributor should then have the opportunity to rectify this kind of
problem or be prepared to have it eliminated.

Perhaps what we are looking for in the first round of voting is some
kind of broad aesthetic appeal.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] IBM analyzing Wikipedia page histories

body:
It seems that researchers are starting to take note of
Wikipedia:

http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/index.htm

Interesting stuff.

--mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

body:
Hello,
I install the early phase III version on my remote server, configure
"LocalSettings.php" and launch  "createdb.php". The message say : "Done." So
I suppose it's finish. My problem now is how to acces my wiki !? There no
index file (html, php, etc). Have I to create manulay the home page ?
When I try "wiki.phtml" I got an error message :

Fatal error: open(O_RDWR) failed for session file. The error is No such file
or directory (2). Please consult http://support.free.fr/web/php/php4.html in
wiki.phtml on line 7

Problem with my host server ? If it's an host problem, do you know a (free)
host where I can install a wiki ?

Aoineko

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com>
To: "A mailing list for discussing about the technical organization of
theWikipedias" <wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 6:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

> Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> > Thank Brion,
> > I found a backup of an early version of Phase III on my PC !
> > I modified "LocalSettings.php" and put that all on my server.
> > When I launch "createdb.php" I got this error message :
> >
> > *Warning*: set_time_limit() has been disabled for security reasons in
> > *createdb.php* on line *9*
>
> D'oh! If that's the only way you have to run maintenance scripts they
> could perhaps time out if they take too long.
>
> If the message bugs you just take the line out...
>
> > Creating new tables.
> > *Warning*: Access denied for user: 'wikiadmin at php6-1.free.fr' (Using
> > password: YES) in *DatabaseFunctions.php* on line *17*
> > Connexion impossible ? la base de donn?es sur localhost
> ...
> > Where can I set the wikiadmin ? In "LocalSettings.php" I have only
> > "user", "user password" and "admin password". Have I to create user
> > manualy ?
>
> In maintenance directory should be 'buildusers.sql'. Do a
> search-and-replace to change the passwords to what you want to use, and
> run those statements into your mysql. It may need fiddling to be right,
> particularly if your mysql server is remote (as it looks like).
>
> OR, if you don't have the rights to create new mysql user accounts, then
> just set the admin and user usernames and passwords in localsettings to
> the username and password you've been given to use.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> It seems that researchers are starting to take note of
> Wikipedia:
>
> http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/index.htm
>
> Interesting stuff.

Now if only they can apply this to the Linux kernel and SCO's unix
codebase... ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

body:
I removed session_xxx() functions and its seem to now working very well !
Thank you very much Brion.

Aoineko

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com>
To: "A mailing list for discussing about the technical organization of
theWikipedias" <wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 3:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

> Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I install the early phase III version on my remote server, configure
> > "LocalSettings.php" and launch  "createdb.php". The message say :
"Done." So
> > I suppose it's finish. My problem now is how to acces my wiki !? There
no
> > index file (html, php, etc). Have I to create manulay the home page ?
>
> wiki.phtml is the entry point for the script. If you want you can rename
> it to index.php or something.
>
> > When I try "wiki.phtml" I got an error message :
> >
> > Fatal error: open(O_RDWR) failed for session file. The error is No such
file
> > or directory (2). Please consult
http://support.free.fr/web/php/php4.html in
> > wiki.phtml on line 7
> >
> > Problem with my host server ? If it's an host problem, do you know a
(free)
> > host where I can install a wiki ?
>
> Logins require session support... this stores a file in a temporary
> directory on the server which is matched up with a randomly-assigned
> cookie. Apparently they've done something weird with the server
> configuration so the temporary directory isn't accessible. You can bug
> them to fix it...
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [WikiEN-l] message to Kurt Kawohl

body:
Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> writes:

> There is a bit on this on the internet. A self-published book at:

Hmm, a self-published book plugged on wikipedia...
Are the illustrations by Daniel C. Boyer?
--
Gareth Owen
I'm very enamoured of the idea of meta-content markup ...
there are a lot of cool possibilities. But we should be reluctant to tamper
much with a system that totally works in an amazing way. -- Jimmy Wales


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 1, Issue 1304

body:
Message: 7
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 14:11:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: logo
To: wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
Message-ID:
<20030828211146.52979.qmail at web12802.mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Anthere wrote:
>Erik, I find 7 days to be a very short time
>(again, not to insist too much, but school
>has not restarted yet, many people are still
>on holidays, sorry Mav :-)). Is there a
>special reason you chose such a short time ?

Either Europeans take too many holidays or Americans
don't take enough of them. :-) Either way, 7 days is
not enough.

--mav

Dare I add something ?

Perhaps you guys know that some european countries are
suffering economical troubles right now. Among which
Germany and France. We are old nations, and in spite
of  my peers trying to make three babies instead of
two, we will have problems financing...hum...our
parents retirements (ours, likely, will not exist at
all :-)

It is my understanding Germany suggested an off day be
removed, which could bring some immediate money from
working revenues for one day among 365 days. It is
also my understanding that german people accepted
that.

Now, our crazy politicians have decided to import the
same thing in France and to "steal" one of our
beautiful off-day in may (may is a very pleasurable
month). One guy even suggested removing two. Grrrrr.

Debate is upon the day which will be removed.
Either it is a catholic celebration day
Or it is the WWII commemoration day

I wonder which one would be best...

__________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: logo

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
>besides, a logo is not only to print on a tee shirt,
>but also to put as a logo on the web site. As such, it
>has to be readable and pretty at big size as well as
>at small size (around 150 pt). The rodent's very nice
>but it might be important to see it at small size as
>well.
>
>
>
exactly.
the entry needs to demonstrate how it will look at the correct size -
both pizels & bytes.
There are several logos - not just the wombat - which are unfeasibly
large, and I do not think they will compress very well.
people voting might bear this in mind


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Languages

body:
Message: 9
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 12:36:26 -0700
From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Languages
To: wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
Message-ID: <3F4D083A.4050302 at telus.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

>In Canada a genocidal policy that forced more than a
>generation of first
>nations children into residential schools where they
>were forbidden to use their own language has put many
>of these languages in desparate
>situations.  There may not be a critical mass of
>population for keeping some of these languages and
>cultures alive.  We can provide space for a
>Kootenayan language Wikipedia, but what good is that
>if there is no-one around with the ability to write
in >that language?  The elders may be
>the only ones with a functional knowlege of the
>language, but these elders are no different from the
>elders of other societies who are
>overwhelmed by anything having to do with computers.

Every little bit can help perhaps. What else would you
suggest we can do ?

We did the same with our languages, breton, basque,
corse... The french unity is not so much relying on
political unity, than cultural, linguistic and
religious (less and less now of course, but the
principles running the society are christian based
even if we are a laic state). To achieve that unity,
in the past time, kids also were hit at school if they
talk their "home-language" (patois).

There are now a wikipedia is occitan and one in
breton.

>PS: the English for "decennie" is "decade"

Merci

>>The Encyclopedia is not translated and will not be
>>translated in other languages. Each language is free
>>'''in''' its own creativity. Articles from one
>language can
>>influence another language. But they are not copies.

>I changed "of" to "in" in your comment, Anthere.
"Of" >would suggest
>that a language is somehow liberated from its own
>creativity.

:-((((

>Your message contains a very important subtlety.  If
I >could translate
>this text into Cree the result would not be in Cree;
>it would be in
>English with Cree words.  There exists a pervasively
>na??ve and
>simplistic view about translations that it is just a
>matter of changing
>words that have a one to one correspondence.  Some
>topics, notably
>technical ones, can survive that transition very
well, >but topics that
>are closely linked to culture fare rather badly.

So true.
Some topics, I cannot even translate from english to
french because I do not know the french words for
these.

By the Ec... the definition for "sect" seems to be
notably different from our "secte".

Someone changed the international link and now our
"secte" is linked with your "cult".

 What do you think ?

Translations are important, and words leading to
others as well.

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from_name: Geoffrey Thomas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Simple question

body:
Simple question with a complex answer.

  How do I install MediaWiki on Windows?

I have Windows XP, Apache 2, Perl, and Cygwin (to do UNIX stuff). I
don't have PHP or MySQL - I assume I need to install these? Is it
possible to use MS Access 2002 as the database (so it's one less
thing to install)? For TeX equations and other cool stuff, do I
also need some rendering or image-creating software?

I don't (think that I) have CVS, so is there a .tar.gz or a .zip
of the relatively recent MediaWiki? Or do I need to download the
Windows CVS client?

I'm currently using UseMod because I have Perl somewhere and it
works as a basic Wiki, but I like MediaWiki's uploads, equations,
advanced formatting, etc. UseMod's installation is basically "change
a few globals and copy into cgi-bin" - MediaWiki's seems more
complex; is it doable on Windows?

Is there any public website successfully running MediaWiki under
Apache/Windows or even IIS/Windows? Has anyone ever done this?

Another few questions: Whatever happened to Phase I, and what's the
difference between Wikipedia's Phase II and UseMod?

-[[User:Geoffrey]] Thomas
<geoffreyerffoeg at yahoo.com>

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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
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from_name: Tobin Richard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Arrow graphics for enhanced recentchanges?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> These are kinda needed for enhanced recentchanges to make sense:
>
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 apache   wikidev       289 Jan  6  2003 Arr_d.png
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 apache   wikidev       918 Jan  7  2003 Arr_.png
> -rwxr-xr-x    1 apache   wikidev       282 Jan  6  2003 Arr_r.png
>
> a) Who made them?
> b) Are they GPL-compatible?
> c) If a) and b) are satisfactory, any objection to adding them to CVS?
> (They have to be marked as binary files in some way if so. I don't know
> the option offhand.)
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Ah, that reminds me. When I first installed MediaWiki I dont think the
install script copied these files across (not that it took long to do
that myself). I also seem to remember having to copy them off the
Wikipedia recentchanges page, are they in CVS?

Tobin Richard
http://www.sca.org.au/cunnan/


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] listing textbooks in columns

body:
Could somebody who knows how, organize the textbooks into
columns on the main page ? Like, a vertical list of the
science textbooks next to a list of the language ones, etc.
It seems like with the number of textbooks it will be
easier to scan them that way. It could be sort of like the
main page of the Wikipedia site. You see the category
header and then scan right down the list ..

Thanks to whoever can do it and wants to try.

--Karl

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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
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body:
Anthere wrote:

>Message: 7
>Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 14:11:46 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
>Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: logo
>To: wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
>Message-ID:
><20030828211146.52979.qmail at web12802.mail.yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>Anthere wrote:
>
>>Erik, I find 7 days to be a very short time
>>(again, not to insist too much, but school
>>has not restarted yet, many people are still
>>on holidays, sorry Mav :-)). Is there a
>>special reason you chose such a short time ?
>>
>
>Either Europeans take too many holidays or Americans
>don't take enough of them. :-) Either way, 7 days is
>not enough.
>
>--mav
>
>Dare I add something ?
>
>Perhaps you guys know that some european countries are
>suffering economical troubles right now. Among which
>Germany and France. We are old nations, and in spite
>of  my peers trying to make three babies instead of
>two, we will have problems financing...hum...our
>parents retirements (ours, likely, will not exist at
>all :-)
>
>It is my understanding Germany suggested an off day be
>removed, which could bring some immediate money from
>working revenues for one day among 365 days. It is
>also my understanding that german people accepted
>that.
>
>Now, our crazy politicians have decided to import the
>same thing in France and to "steal" one of our
>beautiful off-day in may (may is a very pleasurable
>month). One guy even suggested removing two. Grrrrr.
>
>Debate is upon the day which will be removed.
>Either it is a catholic celebration day
>Or it is the WWII commemoration day
>
>I wonder which one would be best...
>
I'm glad to hear that the workers' day on May 1 is not up for
consideration.  My understanding  was it was always an agreement between
the political left and right that it was to their mutual benefit to
support each other's holidays.  If you have to abandon one, I guess it
will have to be the WWII day.

Generally the longer standard European six week holiday makes more
sense, as does the reduction of the work week in France.  I do think
that with the longer vacation period combined with the shorter work week
makes individual feast days less important..  The American social safety
net has a long way to go before it can catch up with Europe.

Ec


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: logo

body:
Anthere-
> Erik, I find 7 days to be a very short time (again,
> not to insist too much, but school has not restarted
> yet, many people are still on holidays, sorry Mav
> :-)). Is there a special reason you chose such a short
> time ?

We started accepting logos at July 20. The original deadline of August 20
has been extended by one week. We have more than 130 logos. There will be
a 10 day period after the first voting round is closed for refining logos.
The final voting round will take another 10 days. All in all, the whole
thing will be finished by September 25 if we're lucky, which is slightly
more than two months of time for getting a new logo. I think this is more
than enough time and if someone can't vote in a certain stage because
they're not available in that particular week, it is unlikely that this
will substantially affect the result. Already we are dealing with hundreds
of votes. I know it's exciting and fun, but let's remember every once in a
while that we actually would like to arrive at a result, preferably before
our massive fundraising campaign begins.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: james duffy

subject: [WikiEN-l] message to Kurt Kawohl

body:
This was my reply to Kurt's message.
-------------------------

>Please voice your opinion on deletion.
>
>21st Century Transcendentalism is not a religion and does not advocate
>(request belief, membership or anything else) anything; it stands for
>religious rationality in the 21st Century. If Wikipedia can describe what
>atheists, Christianity, Islam, Bokononism thinks then why can not I as a
>21st Century Transcendentalist describe what I think? Bias, maybe?
>
>?Transcendentalism Today Org.? with Kurt Kawohl as its founder has been
>accepted by and is a member of:
>IONS - Institute of Noetic Sciences,
>World Interfaith Congress,
>United Communities of Spirit,
>Alliance for Spiritual Community,
>Interfaith Voices for Peace And Justice,
>[[user:kkawohl]]
>

Kurt, there is a fundamental difference. When it comes to christianity,
Islam, etc wiki is merely reporting objectively on a belief and values
system subscribed to by large numbers over a long period of time. Yours is a
personal belief. It is not for wiki to rule on its validity or invalidity.
But wiki has a long established policy of using independently sourced
religions, not one person's own article on his own personal religion. If
there is independent evidence that your religion is practiced widely then it
qualifies as an entry. But wiki has a long established policy of not
accepting promotional articles on tiny religious groupings from the founder
of that religion. The deletion of such pages is standard practice. Many of
the above organisations have far more liberal entry requirements than an
encyclop?dia has. 'Vanity pages' in the absence of concrete evidence as to
their worth are unencyclop?dic, hence the deletion.

JT

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from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] First logo voting stage

references:
<8seDz0$SpVB@erik_moeller> <3F4DC488.3050800@planetunreal.com>
	<3F4E43F2.1000203@telus.net>

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>>>
>> please could you enforce a byte limit for the images displayed on the
>> list pages.
>> Some are STUPIDLY large, eg that one featuring some sort of rodent
>> which I removed.
>>
>> with a modem it takes about 5 minutes for them all to load.
>> people should upload a smaller version ( < 30 k ?) or be disqualified
>
>
> I don't know if removing them is the right course of action, or if the
> size limit should be imposed on the contributor.  Postage stamp
> designers do not do their work on a postage stamp sized canvas.
>
> Having the original work in a large file is preferable because it can
> be scaled down.  In scaling up a small file we will not be able to
> provide missing detail.  Trimming a contribution to 30k should be done
> by software.  If a scaled down logo loses too much information, we
> probably shouldn't adopt it.
>
Yes, we must have the large original.
But voters MUST be able to see that the design is viable at the final
size. If size reduction & data compression turns the winning design into
a blurry mess -- what then?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Foreign language articles

body:
Merritt L. Perkins wrote:

>. There are many expressions and abbreviation that I do not understand
>and don't know where to find an explanation of them.
>
That's a valid point, but even after a year and a half there are still
things that I know are in Wikipedia, but are still difficult to find.

>
>How could I get the hardware and software needed to write languages other
>than English with a computer.?
>
It sounds as though you need to download the Unicode character set.
 Additional hardware is likely not be needed

>I am dictating this with Dragons NaturallySpeaking 7 preferred. It is
>available in the five English dialects: US English, UK English,
>Australian English, Indian English, and Southeast Asian English. It is
>supposed to be able to read back what you said, and what it recorded on
>the screen. For some reason I can't get these features t to work.
>I suggest that when writing an article you should keep in mind that some
>of the readers may be learning the language and so explain some of the
>terms used.
>
Dare I ask if there is some reason why you chose to dictate instead of
type.  It's understandable if you have some kind of physical disability,
but failing that it sounds like problems waiting to happen.

>When an abbreviation is used the first time explain what it
>stands for in parentheses and perhaps add a footnote explaining what it
>means and a reference to an article on the subject...
>
I too find many abbreviations cryptic, and often ambiguous.  Not long
ago we had a dispute based on a misunderstanding over whether LOL meant
"Laughing out Loud" or "Lots of Love"

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Simple question

body:
Just a note first -- my mail server has been down all day. I can get at
the lists through the archives and gmane, and have just changed my
redirection service to point to an alternate address so I should receive
future mails, but anything sent directly to me in the last 12 hours has
probably not reached me.

Geoffrey Thomas wrote:
> Simple question with a complex answer.
>
>   How do I install MediaWiki on Windows?

If anyone's been successful at it, they haven't told us. :)

> I have Windows XP, Apache 2, Perl, and Cygwin (to do UNIX stuff). I
> don't have PHP or MySQL - I assume I need to install these? Is it
> possible to use MS Access 2002 as the database (so it's one less
> thing to install)? For TeX equations and other cool stuff, do I
> also need some rendering or image-creating software?

You do need PHP and MySQL; there should be installable Windows versions
on www.php.net and www.mysql.com.

Hypothetically it might be possible to use Access, but you'd have to
rewrite some stuff. Possibly a lot of stuff.

Not sure what it would take to get TeX support running.

> I don't (think that I) have CVS, so is there a .tar.gz or a .zip
> of the relatively recent MediaWiki? Or do I need to download the
> Windows CVS client?

I'll tar up the current stable version; it should be up soon.

> I'm currently using UseMod because I have Perl somewhere and it
> works as a basic Wiki, but I like MediaWiki's uploads, equations,
> advanced formatting, etc. UseMod's installation is basically "change
> a few globals and copy into cgi-bin" - MediaWiki's seems more
> complex; is it doable on Windows?

If you make it work, please let us know how you did it. :)

> Another few questions: Whatever happened to Phase I, and what's the
> difference between Wikipedia's Phase II and UseMod?

"Phase I" is just UseModWiki v0.92. Turn FreeLinks on, WikiLinks off,
NonEnglish on, and optionally use the patch for supporting mod_rewrite.

Phase II is unrelated to UseMod.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Merritt L. Perkins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Foreign language articles

body:
. There are many things about Wikipedia that I do not know about because
I don't know how to find out or where to look. Richard Gtreves has told
how to find out about
Wikipedias in different languages. I was surprised that so much has been
written in languages other than English.
. There are many expressions and abbreviation that I do not understand
and don't know where to find an explanation of them.
. Why should speakers of English be interested in encyclopedias in other
languages?
If you are studying another language and have learned what you can from
language lessons you need some way to practice what you have learned.
Encyclopedias give you a variety of subjects to choose from and
preferably are original articles and not translations..
Years ago I tape-recorded the language lessons from shortwave radio
broadcasts from radio Beijing. They sent me the printed books to go with
the lessons.. I have a Chinese English dictionary sent to me from China.
How could I get the articles from the Chinese encyclopedia so that I can
view them on the screen? I would like to have it read the text with a
synthetic voice so that I could listen to it and have it point to words
that it is reading . Is this asking too much? I would like to be able to
print it out on paper.
Long ago Chinese was written on strips of bamboo, the characters were
written one line vertically downward. A hole new the top allowed a string
to be used to tie them together. When writing on silk or paper they
started in the upper right corner and wrote down. In 1956. the mainland
government adopted simplified characters writing from left to right..
I have two writing brushes but no ink stick. Today they use a ball-point
pens.
How could I get the hardware and software needed to write languages other
than English with a computer.?
I am dictating this with Dragon?s NaturallySpeaking 7 preferred. It is
available in the five English dialects: US English, UK English,
Australian English, Indian English, and Southeast Asian English. It is
supposed to be able to read back what you said, and what it recorded on
the screen. For some reason I can't get these features t to work.
I suggest that when writing an article you should keep in mind that some
of the readers may be learning the language and so explain some of the
terms used. When an abbreviation is used the first time explain what it
stands for in parentheses and perhaps add a footnote explaining what it
means and a reference to an article on the subject...
Merritt L. Perkins


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Foreign language articles

body:
At 10:55 PM 8/28/03 -0400, Merritt Perkins wrote:
>. There are many things about Wikipedia that I do not know about because
>I don't know how to find out or where to look. Richard Gtreves has told
>how to find out about
>Wikipedias in different languages. I was surprised that so much has been
>written in languages other than English.

Information about the variety of languages Wikipedia is in, and much else
of interest to new users, can be found on the main page.

>. There are many expressions and abbreviation that I do not understand
>and don't know where to find an explanation of them.
>. Why should speakers of English be interested in encyclopedias in other
>languages?

Why do you assume that these encyclopedias are intended for speakers of
English? They are meant for speakers/readers of those languages, just as
the English wikipedia is intended primarily for English-speakers, not speakers
of Arabic or French.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Languages

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Every little bit can help perhaps. What else would you
>suggest we can do ?
>
For the most part we are limited to encouragement and letting them know
that the medium is there for them.

>We did the same with our languages, breton, basque,
>corse... The french unity is not so much relying on
>political unity, than cultural, linguistic and
>religious (less and less now of course, but the
>principles running the society are christian based
>even if we are a laic state). To achieve that unity,
>in the past time, kids also were hit at school if they
>talk their "home-language" (patois).
>
I'm familiar with that, but the Corsicans have never been content to be
a part of France.  Of course one has to distinguish between what
Christians say and what they do.

>>>The Encyclopedia is not translated and will not be
>>>translated in other languages. Each language is free
>>>'''in''' its own creativity. Articles from one
>>>
>>language can
>>
>>>influence another language. But they are not copies.
>>>
>Some topics, I cannot even translate from english to
>french because I do not know the french words for
>these.
>
If it's '''just''' a matter of words, a good dictionary can deal with
it.  Cultural context is more difficult.

>By the Ec... the definition for "sect" seems to be
>notably different from our "secte".
>
>Someone changed the international link and now our
>"secte" is linked with your "cult".
>
> What do you think ?
>
That's tricky, because I know that the words are used differently.  In
English "sect" is often used to distinguish different religious
sub-groups.  Among Protestants Lutherens, Calvinists, Presbyterians,
etc. are all protestant sects. There is some affinity with schismatics
whose separation from the church was more often for reasons relating to
the governance of the church than to theology.   Any of these groups
 tends to still be socialy acceptable.

 "Cult" is more often used to refer to deviant religious groups,
heretics with significant doctrinal differences.  Outsiders sometimes
tend to believe, without a stitch of evidence that the cultists do weird
things like drinking blood or engaging in orgies.

I haven't researched the matter, but my impression is that in French
"culte" is far more socially acceptable.

Ec


from_name: Joachim Kerschbaumer

body:
Wow, Brion, could you implement this function in Wikipedia by next week?...
;-)

Joke apart, I think, this tool is possible to be used for Wikipedia sooner
or later, and probably also very helpful for some aspects.

I like one line specially:

"This site is a preliminary report on a simple visual technique, history
flow, that provides a clear view of complex records of contributions and
collaboration. "

Is this "simple visual technique" relating to "simple technique" or "simple
visualisation"?

Joachim :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org]On Behalf Of Daniel Mayer
Sent: Donnerstag, 28. August 2003 23:50
To: wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] IBM analyzing Wikipedia page histories

It seems that researchers are starting to take note of
Wikipedia:

http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/index.htm

Interesting stuff.

--mav

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from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

> It seems that researchers are starting to take note of
> Wikipedia:
>
> http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/index.htm
>
> Interesting stuff.

Wow.

Is their diff function better then our's? Take a look at
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Osmanisches_Reich&diff=263305&oldid=263282
Aren't there more intelligent ones we could use?

(BTW, the line was inserted by Mozilla, seems to be a bug)

Kurt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: IBM analyzing Wikipedia page histories

body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> 1) they quote more or less completely some Wikipedia articles on their gallery
> screenshots (http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/gallery.htm). They
> don't link back to Wikipedia or mention the content to be under GNU FDL.
> Instead, they put a (c) 2003 by IBM below their pictures.

They do link to Wikipedia, and this use of extracts & screenshots to
demonstrate a research project seems clearly within fair use bounds.
(IANAL)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

body:
On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 05:09:51PM -0700, Anthere wrote:
> It is my understanding Germany suggested an off day be
> removed, which could bring some immediate money from
> working revenues for one day among 365 days. It is
> also my understanding that german people accepted
> that.

>From what I've heard, they haven't removed a single day off yet,
and they're not very likely to.

Neither does removing days off seem likely in Poland.

Not that it would help any - places in Europe with more
days off (like Bavaria) aren't any worse than those with fewer.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Updated stable snapshop

body:
For those who may be interested, I've updated the release snapshot to
the current state of the stable branch:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-20030829.tar.gz?download

Compared to last month's snapshot there are a number of bug fixes:
* simultaneous edit bug (data corruption)
* 'post comment' bug (data corruption)
* Internet Explorer cache bug (just annoying)
* probably some stuff that slips my mind

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/index.htm

I just had a creative insight --
We should adapt one of these for our logo!
^_^

-- Toby


body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:

>1) they quote more or less completely some Wikipedia articles on their gallery
>screenshots (http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/gallery.htm). They
>don't link back to Wikipedia or mention the content to be under GNU FDL.
>Instead, they put a (c) 2003 by IBM below their pictures.

Oh good!

Then if we want to adapt their pictures into a logo,
as I humorously suggested in my previous post,
then they already must be released under the GNU FDL.
^_^

-- Toby


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Foreign language articles

body:
on 8/28/03 8:55 PM, Merritt L. Perkins at mlperkins3 at juno.com wrote:

> . There are many things about Wikipedia that I do not know about because
> I don't know how to find out or where to look.

Try http://www.wikipedia.org

Richard Gtreves has told
> how to find out about
> Wikipedias in different languages. I was surprised that so much has been
> written in languages other than English.
> . There are many expressions and abbreviation that I do not understand
> and don't know where to find an explanation of them.

Perhaps you could try a good dictionary or encyclopedia. for abreviations
you might look at:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbreviation

> . Why should speakers of English be interested in encyclopedias in other
> languages?

Citizens of the United States are responsible for the administration of a
great empire and have to know everything.

> If you are studying another language and have learned what you can from
> language lessons you need some way to practice what you have learned.

Yes, editing on the Hindi wikipedia should bring you up to speed.

> Encyclopedias give you a variety of subjects to choose from and
> preferably are original articles and not translations..

If you're into reading enclopedias.

> Years ago I tape-recorded the language lessons from shortwave radio
> broadcasts from radio Beijing. They sent me the printed books to go with
> the lessons.. I have a Chinese English dictionary sent to me from China.
> How could I get the articles from the Chinese encyclopedia so that I can
> view them on the screen?

Try http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%96%E9%A0%81

 I would like to have it read the text with a
> synthetic voice so that I could listen to it and have it point to words
> that it is reading . Is this asking too much?

Modern software allows you to do this, System X for the Macintosh can be set
up in Chinese and will do all that. (I think). Except for pointing to the
words, but perhaps there is some such software somewhere. If not someone
ought to write it.

 I would like to be able to
> print it out on paper.

As noted previously you will have to use a printer and supporting software
(that on System X will print Chinese).

> Long ago Chinese was written on strips of bamboo, the characters were
> written one line vertically downward. A hole new the top allowed a string
> to be used to tie them together. When writing on silk or paper they
> started in the upper right corner and wrote down. In 1956. the mainland
> government adopted simplified characters writing from left to right..
> I have two writing brushes but no ink stick. Today they use a ball-point
> pens.

Ink sticks are easily obtained though Chinese or Japanese merchants. And
perhaps through an artist supply store.

> How could I get the hardware and software needed to write languages other
> than English with a computer.?

The modern operating systems: Microsoft's XP and Apple's System X have this.
Just buy any modern personal computer and the operating system will come
bundled with it. You can set up the computer in any number of languages.

> I am dictating this with Dragon?s NaturallySpeaking 7 preferred. It is
> available in the five English dialects: US English, UK English,
> Australian English, Indian English, and Southeast Asian English. It is
> supposed to be able to read back what you said, and what it recorded on
> the screen. For some reason I can't get these features to work.

Perhaps it is relatively simple if you can see the screen. Have a sighted
person eyeball it and see if they can't figure it out.

> I suggest that when writing an article you should keep in mind that some
> of the readers may be learning the language and so explain some of the
> terms used. When an abbreviation is used the first time explain what it
> stands for in parentheses and perhaps add a footnote explaining what it
> means and a reference to an article on the subject...

You're preaching to the choir, but perhaps some hardheads will take note.

> Merritt L. Perkins

Thank you Merritt, Your posts have provided an excellent springboard for
discussion on the list. I'm sure this one will too.

Say hello to your cousin Lisa.

Fred Bauder

http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
> > Delirium wrote:
> >
> >> With online publishing, a link to the page
> history should suffice for
> >> attribution, but in a paper format the publisher
> would actually have
> >> to list five authors for every single article,
> and they certainly
> >> wouldn't want to list offensive names for those
> authors.

What about just writing down the URL in ink?
LDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
> Another point that it raises is that the majority of
> people are still on
> dynamic IP's. (Wikipedia probably has a higher
> proportion of static IP's
> than most websites due to the number of contributors
> who are staff at
> academic institutions.
> So with a not-logged in contributor on a dynamic IP,
> the only means of
> identifying the person is by asking the ISP who had
> that IP at that time.
> And most ISP's will flatly refuse to divulge that
> information. Under New
> Zealand's privacy laws I think the only grounds on
> which they are obliged
> or even allowed to release such personal information
> is a police
> investigation or as part of a civil lawsuit. A
> copyright enquiry simply
> doesn't cut it.
>
> --
> Richard Grevers
> Between two evils always pick the one you haven't
> tried

...therefore, we cannot be expected to list anon
users.  They know perfectly well that they cannot get
credit as anons, or are complete newbies, and wouldn't
know that credit exists (in that case, they soon
will). I knew an anon user who made many great edits
on a static IP. Even as an advanced user, he didn't
make a username because he didn't want any
credit for hist work. Eventually, he created a
username, I think CrusadeOnIlliteracy or something
like that, so that he could move pages and upload
images. (On a related note, anons should be able to do
those tasks.) He still didn't want to have credit. I
think that there are many anons like that, and we
don't need to give them credit because they don't want
it.
LDan

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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: logo

in_reply_to:
<8siEBeVSpVB@erik_moeller>;
	from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 11:39:00PM +0200

body:
I think that the time schedule is fine the way it is, and if anything,
it's too slow.  If I were the dictator some of my critics say I am,
this would all be over today, because I really like one of the logos
more than any of the others.  :-)

Erik Moeller wrote:

> Anthere-
> > Erik, I find 7 days to be a very short time (again,
> > not to insist too much, but school has not restarted
> > yet, many people are still on holidays, sorry Mav
> > :-)). Is there a special reason you chose such a short
> > time ?
>
> We started accepting logos at July 20. The original deadline of August 20
> has been extended by one week. We have more than 130 logos. There will be
> a 10 day period after the first voting round is closed for refining logos.
> The final voting round will take another 10 days. All in all, the whole
> thing will be finished by September 25 if we're lucky, which is slightly
> more than two months of time for getting a new logo. I think this is more
> than enough time and if someone can't vote in a certain stage because
> they're not available in that particular week, it is unlikely that this
> will substantially affect the result. Already we are dealing with hundreds
> of votes. I know it's exciting and fun, but let's remember every once in a
> while that we actually would like to arrive at a result, preferably before
> our massive fundraising campaign begins.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


in_reply_to:
<200308291019.42451.mail@ulrich-fuchs.de>;
	from mail@ulrich-fuchs.de on Fri, Aug 29, 2003 at 10:19:42AM +0200

body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> 1) they quote more or less completely some Wikipedia articles on their gallery
> screenshots (http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/gallery.htm). They
> don't link back to Wikipedia or mention the content to be under GNU FDL.
> Instead, they put a (c) 2003 by IBM below their pictures.

These are good people, Fernanda Viegas in particular has written to me
and to the mailing list a few times.  They don't mean any harm, as far
as that goes.

But ANYWAY, that particular type of use of our data qualifies VERY
WELL as 'fair use', which means that they can use it whether we like
it or not, license or no license.

I think it's not good if in our concern that our license be respected,
we erode public confidence in one of the best features of copyright
law, i.e. fair use.

> that we, of course, would be keen to pilot their new product - if we get the
> software for free and if they sponsor a server to run it on...

I'd love to see IBM donate some money to us.  I'd love to see Bill
Gates donate some money to us, too, but I can imagine the howls if I
applied to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for support.  :-)

--Jimbo


body:
Fernanda Viegas wrote:
>put a note on our gallery page saying "Article text (c) 2003
>Wikipedia, reproduced by permission." Sorry for any confusion, this is
>a confusing area! (in fact, wasn't there recently a whole thread on
>fair use on this mailing list?)

You don't need permission, it's clearly fair use.  And the question of
who, exactly, could give permission, is thorny.  :-) I don't think
permission enters into it at all, actually.

I don't think the people who raised that question were considering
fair use at the time.

--Jimbo


from_name: Andreas Hoerstemeier

body:
Anthere wrote:
> It is my understanding Germany suggested an off day be
> removed, which could bring some immediate money from
> working revenues for one day among 365 days. It is
> also my understanding that german people accepted
> that.
Not fully correct :-) Some years ago a holiday was actually removed, the
protestantic "Buss- und Bettag", in order to finance an additional
insurance for older people requiring medical care (the
"Pflegeversicherung"). It has been suggested to do the same again to
help financing the retirement insurance, however that did so far stay as
only guesswork.

Bye,
    Andy


from_name: Fernanda Viegas

body:
Hello,

It's great to see this discussion on the mailing list. We were planning to post a link to our project after we got all of the survey results but you guys beat us to it!  Basically, we didn't want your answers on the survey to be impacted by the visualizations we had posted on our site. As the site says, it's a preliminary report at this point.

To address a couple of points people raised...

1. We'd love to work more closely with the Wikipedia community! It's a great model of dissemination and gathering of knowledge. Certainly we'd love to discuss whether there's any way our technology might be useful to you, or that we could collaborate.

2. One person questioned our use of Wikipedia text in our screenshots. We do link to Wikipedia (the site, the archival database, and the Wikipedia entry on Wikipedia) but we could also either (a) alter the text so it is unreadable; or (b) since readable text makes the diagram more understandable: with Wikipedia's agreement, we could put a note on our gallery page saying "Article text (c) 2003 Wikipedia, reproduced by permission." Sorry for any confusion, this is a confusing area! (in fact, wasn't there recently a whole thread on fair use on this mailing list?)

3. Another poster asked about our diff method: I think the main difference between ours and yours is that ours is operating at a finer granularity (roughly at the sentence level, rather than the paragraph level). We'd be happy to talk in more detail, if you want!

4. We have been finding some fascinating patterns about the different ways in which people collaborate in Wikipedia. We are currently writing a paper about this and would be happy to share it with the community after we are done.

Again, it is great to hear all the excitement about the project here and it would be great to figure out ways to collaborate and hear more feedback from you.

best,

Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg

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from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

body:
Am Freitag, 29. August 2003 01:08 schrieb Joachim Kerschbaumer:
> Wow, Brion, could you implement this function in Wikipedia by next week?...
> ;-)

Two issues to state here:
1) they quote more or less completely some Wikipedia articles on their gallery
screenshots (http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/gallery.htm). They
don't link back to Wikipedia or mention the content to be under GNU FDL.
Instead, they put a (c) 2003 by IBM below their pictures.

2) Perhaps we should inform them about that issue and suggest at this point,
that we, of course, would be keen to pilot their new product - if we get the
software for free and if they sponsor a server to run it on...

Uli


from_name: email at joachim.net

body:
Ulrich Fuchs <mail at ulrich-fuchs.de> schrieb am 29.08.2003, 10:19:42:

> 2) Perhaps we should inform them about that issue and suggest at this point,
> that we, of course, would be keen to pilot their new product - if we get the
> software for free and if they sponsor a server to run it on...

Yesterday I started already with writing a email to them. But then I
stoped it, because I am not sure, how good it is if we get a server from
IBM... I don't yet like the idea of having companies giving "officially"
money to Wikipedia... But probably is there a way to solve this Problem
(if they want to help us ;-)

Joachim :-)


from_name: gorgon zolla

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Simple question

body:
MediaWiki will work on Windows with latest components:

Apache 2.0.47
PHP 4.3.3
Mysql 4.0.14-nt

PHP does not handle the include_once directive properly on all windows
platforms and
filesystems, probably due to the Windows treatment of upper and lower case
in file
names.  You may have to comment out the include_onces in some of the .php
files as
follows:

Article.php:	# include_once( "CacheManager.php" );
Setup.php:	# include_once( "$IP/Title.php" );
SpecialMovepage.php:	#include_once( "LinksUpdate.php" );

Also, you really do need iconv for some of the special pages to work, unless
you
comment out the relevant call in language.php:

      #  return iconv( "UTF-8", $wgInputEncoding, $s );

Procedures and issues

1.	Install mysql from www.mysql.com using the windows binaries
2.	Install the Apache web server from www.apache.org using the latest 2.x
binaries
3.	Modify the httpd.conf for apache:
a.	Add these lines at the end of the block of LoadModule lines:
  LoadModule php4_module c:/playpen/php/php-4.3.3-Win32/sapi/php4apache2.dll
  AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
b.	Change the DocumentRoot
c.	Add the PHP types and disable PHP for all directories other than the wiki
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .php4 .phtml
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
php_admin_flag engine off
<Directory "c:/playpen/wiki/runtime/wiki">
php_admin_flag engine on
</Directory>
d.	It is not strictly necessary to enable the rewrite engine or include the
ampersand patch
4.	Install PHP from www.php.net using the latest windows binaries
a.	Modify php.ini so that register_globals = On
5.	If you do not already have a CVS client, you will have to get one and
install it.
6.	Get MediaWiki from the CVS archives, read ?readme.txt? and follow
instructions in INSTALL for modifying LocalSettings and AdminSettings;
disregard the PHP/Apache/MySQL configuration notes as they are not relevant
for Windows
7.	Modify php files as noted above.
8.	Uncompress and load the database.
9.	Have fun.

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


from_name: Matt M.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Culte, cult, secte, sect

body:
>  "Cult" is more often used to refer to deviant religious groups,
> heretics with significant doctrinal differences.  Outsiders sometimes
> tend to believe, without a stitch of evidence that the cultists do weird
> things like drinking blood or engaging in orgies.
>
> I haven't researched the matter, but my impression is that in French
> "culte" is far more socially acceptable.

I would use the French "secte" to translate "cult" in the sense of
"antisocial cult." When Heaven's Gate, the Solar Temple, etc., are mentioned
in the French-language media, or when they ask "Is such-and-such a little
religious group a cult or not?" the word they use is "secte."

In English, "sect" means a denomination of a religion; I would probably
translate it as "d?nomination" or something similar. ("Northern Conservative
Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reform Baptist?")

"Culte" in French means worship, as in "heures de culte" (hours of
prayer/worship/mass at a church). English sometimes uses "cult" for this, as
in "the cult of the goddess Athene" in ancient Greece, meaning the worship
of Her, but it's rarer and, in view of the pejorative meaning of cult, seems
to be dwindling and increasingly able to be misunderstood. (I would probably
not want to refer the "the cult of the Goddess" within earshot of any
Pagan - and I am one!) "Worship" is probably the best translation of
"culte".

Matt


from_name: Al Shaw

subject: [WikiEN-l] deletion of "List of Heterosexuals"

body:
Can we please delete the page "List of Heterosexuals"  It was on VfD,
before it was moved off.  There are only two entries on the list, and
the page is generally misguided.

--Lypheklub


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
Jimbo spoke:
> ... but I can imagine the howls if
> I applied to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for support.
:-)

Are you HIV positive? Do you live in a sub-saharan nation?

Oh, nevermind...

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Culte, cult, secte, sect

body:
Matt M. wrote in part:

>"Culte" in French means worship, as in "heures de culte" (hours of
>prayer/worship/mass at a church). English sometimes uses "cult" for this, as
>in "the cult of the goddess Athene" in ancient Greece, meaning the worship
>of Her, but it's rarer and, in view of the pejorative meaning of cult, seems
>to be dwindling and increasingly able to be misunderstood. (I would probably
>not want to refer the "the cult of the Goddess" within earshot of any
>Pagan - and I am one!) "Worship" is probably the best translation of
>"culte".

I used "cult" in this sense on [[en:Our Lady of Guadalupe]] over a year ago,
and it's still there. *shrug*

-- Toby


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] mysql table size

body:
On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Constans, Camille (C.C.) wrote:
> I saw something in mysql manual about table size. Mysql can handle a table o$
> And i know that old_table from english wikipedia is 1,5Go with bzip2.

There may be such a limit on individual data objects, but tables can
certainly be bigger; the English old table is _much_ bigger than 4gb, and
our whole InnoDB data store file is about 16gb.

(A note though: some filesystems cannot handle files larger than 4gb. In
particular, I recommend against trying to decompress the english old
article dump on a FAT32 filesystem...)

> Maybe we could think about 64 bit processors for our new server ?

Well, that'd be cool too. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Constans, Camille (C.C.)

subject: [Wikitech-l] mysql table size

body:
Hi,

I saw something in mysql manual about table size. Mysql can handle a table of 8 To, but on 64 bits systems. On 32bits it seem it can only use 4Go tables.
And i know that old_table from english wikipedia is 1,5Go with bzip2.

Maybe we could think about 64 bit processors for our new server ?

Shaihulud on fr.wiki


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Foreign language articles

body:
Merritt L. Perkins wrote:

>. Why should speakers of English be interested in encyclopedias in other
>languages?
>
>
It's not just speakers of English who use the internet!!

(is this guy for real or what?)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Culte, cult, secte, sect

body:
on 8/29/03 1:06 PM, Toby Bartels at toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu wrote:

> I used "cult" in this sense on [[en:Our Lady of Guadalupe]] over a year ago,
> and it's still there. *shrug*
>
>
> -- Toby

"cult of Mary" remains a viable expression.

Fred


subject: [Wikitech-l] Simple question

body:
On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 07:24:41PM -0700, Geoffrey Thomas wrote:
> Simple question with a complex answer.
>
>   How do I install MediaWiki on Windows?

Oh, it's really easy:
1. Install Linux
2. Install MediaWiki


from_name: Alex R.

body:
Maybe this could be used to help downstream licensees
comply with the "at least five major authors" rule in the
GDFL as the screen shots appear to list contributors by
amount of text they have contributed and it lists all the
contributors in a convenient list.
Alex756
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 5:49 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] IBM analyzing Wikipedia page histories

> It seems that researchers are starting to take note of
> Wikipedia:
>
> http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/index.htm
>
> Interesting stuff.
>
> --mav


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki documentation -> meta

body:
OK. My Wikiholism is advancing to the next level and
to feed that I would like to consolidate MediaWiki's
documentation on meta. The reasons are two-fold; 1)
there are already forks in documentation development
between meta, SourceForge, Lee's webpages, and various
Wikipedia namespace pages (not to mention other
duplication; such as in other Wikimedia projects) 2) I
would like to understand the beast known as MediaWiki
so that after I learn PHP I can advance to
uber-Wikiholic and port over the WikiBook
functionality from PyWiki and tweak it for use in
Wikibooks.

I don't want to step on anybody's toes, so I would
like to know who is currently involved with creating
documentation? Is there anybody working on
coordinating documentation efforts? If so, then I
could work with that person instead of leading this
effort on my own. It would also be helpful to know
where current documentation resides.

Currently on meta:

MediaWiki
How to become a MediaWiki hacker
Running MediaWiki on Windows
Database queries on MediaWiki
Text in MediaWiki
MediaWiki math markup
RDF spool
Wiki markup tables -- proposals
Wiki markup syntax - see Wikipedia DTD
meta.wikipedia.org technical issues
Sites using MediaWiki
Wikitax

On en.wikipedia:

Wikipedia:MediaWiki
Wikipedia:Software Phase III
Wikipedia:TeX markup
Wikipedia:Software Phase IV
Wikipedia:TeX markup
Wikipedia:GNU LilyPond support
Wikipedia:Edit summary
Whole bunch of how to use Wikipedia's software pages
(this will take some time since many of them have
Wikipedia-specific references).

I'm thinking about organizing all this between actual
documentation vs ideas about how MediaWiki should
work. Documentation can be further subdivided between
stuff for developers vs stuff for users. When we do
finally have the WikiBook functionality, then an
actual users guide and developer documentation guides
can be organized on meta (complete with a "print this
book" feature).

This is a long term undertaking but I think it is
worth the effort.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Fernanda-
> 1. We'd love to work more closely with the Wikipedia community! It's a
> great model of dissemination and gathering of knowledge. Certainly we'd
> love to discuss whether there's any way our technology might be useful
> to you, or that we could collaborate.

I think it would definitely be useful to be able to generate this kind of
history flow for articles. Perhaps we could make use of your technology
without the tech itself necessarily being open source (by just having a
copy on our servers). One problem for us right now is our limited hardware
(especially since this is a Java application), but this should be
addressed in coming months. In order to have some of the interactive
features of the application, it would be necessary to run it client side,
but it would already be great to have just a server side rendered history
flow graphic for each article.

Why would it be useful? Not only because of the information it gives about
the persistence of specific contributions, but also because it is of high
emotional value. Think of SETI at Home -- many people like to watch it just
because of the nice screensaver that shows the amount of "work" their
computer has done. A beautifully rendered history flow for our articles
would be a strong motivational factor. Remember that our long time goal is
to make Wikipedia more addictive than crack.

> 2. One person questioned our use of Wikipedia text in our screenshots.

Ignore that, your use is clearly allowed. Thanks for the link to
Wikipedia, even though we normally spell it "Wikipedia" and not
"WikiPedia".

> 4. We have been finding some fascinating patterns about the different
> ways in which people collaborate in Wikipedia. We are currently writing
> a paper about this and would be happy to share it with the community
> after we are done.

Please do. Most research on Wikipedia so far has focused on the content
and not on the collaborative patterns. This would also be of interest to
the larger wiki community.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Joachim Kerschbaumer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Simple question

body:
Tobin Richard wrote:

(re Wiki on Windows)

> I've still got a copy of all my config files and the SQL dump if anyone
> wants to poke through them.

Yes, please, that would be very helpful! Thanks a lot,
Joachim :-)


from_name: Tobin Richard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Simple question

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
>>   How do I install MediaWiki on Windows?
>
>
> If anyone's been successful at it, they haven't told us. :)
<SNIP>
 > If you make it work, please let us know how you did it. :)

I did it back in Feb :-)

mysql-3.23.55
php-4.3.0

Didn't bother trying to setup TeX support.

The install scripts didn't work and in the end I just copied everything
to htdocs\ and edited the config files (I also put the contents of
maintenance\ in with the main script (not caring about security)). Then
ran createdb.php. If anything else was needed to make it work I cant
remember it.

It was running on a network with a total of two users (and we only used
it to abuse one another when there was no work to do) so I didn't bother
trying to be secure about the setup in any way.

everything seemed to work, but like I said, it was only being used as a
time waster.

I've still got a copy of all my config files and the SQL dump if anyone
wants to poke through them.

Tobin Richard
http://www.sca.org.au/cunnan/


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Tacit acceptance of harassment

body:
A very sick man has now created a dozen Wikipedia pages
dedicated to abusing me.  (Yes, I know I previously said
that EntmootsOfTrolls had created six, but his latest list
is much longer. He is still creating more, even though that
is hard to believe.)

Yet your communal response?  Anthere starts attacking me,
and James Duffy starts ranting about "the boy who cried
wolf", and denies that serious amounts of Jew baitiing
exists - in the midst of some of the most serious
anti-Semitic slander Wikipedia has seen.

Entmoots non-stop talk about Jews, Zionpedia, questining me
about hwo I follow Leviticus, claiming that I am not a Jew,
and whining about how Zionists control this place is a very
clear thing: This is anti-Semitic harassment. For someone
to look at this and deny it is a sign that they ar
stupid...or anti-Semitic themselves.

Would we allow similar statements about women, gays,
blacks, Hispanics, etc?  Nope.

And right now Stevertigo slanders most Wikipedians as
"philo Semites"...and in response some people do nothing,
yet only respond that I am lying or imagining things when I
object to the blatant anti-Semitic Jew-baiting?

Huh? If that action on your part isn't Jew-baiting itself,
then nothing is.

Stevertigo and EntmootsOfTrolls are the ones making the
most outrageous attacks. However, they are only a few
people, out of thousands of Wikipedia.  It is not them I am
worrying about. Rather, it is the rest of you self-who
don't see a problem with this that I am worried about.

If I wrote that your tolerance of writing about black
subjects makes you "nigger lovers", isn't that racist, and
grounds for an immediate ban?  Sure.  But when people like
Stvertigo and EntmootsOfTrolls write things exactly like
this about the Jews, you blame the victim, deny that
anti-Semitism exists, slander me, and then refuse to ban
trolls.  That's either hypocritical (at best) or a tacit
admission that deep down inside you really don't have a
problem anti-Semitism.

And on a related topic, EntmootsOfTrolls has also created a
dozen Wikipedia article dedicated to harassment, has done
things that would get a dozen other users banned
immediately, but narly all of you are still protecting him.

Your tacit acceptance of harassment is shameful, and a
violation of everything this project stands for.

Please stop writing posts about how good and tolerant you
all are, and about how the only problem is that I "am
crying wolf".  Coming from people who are blind to
anti-Semitism in a very blatant form, I just can't take
your words seriously at all.

Robert (RK)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Fun with mailing lists

body:
Kat's message to the list about running MediaWiki on Windows got held for
moderation on account of "message has implicit destination". After rooting
around in the docs, this appears to be because the message was posted
through the GMANE news gateway, and thus doesn't have a To: or CC: header
pointing to the actual address of the mailing list.

This is presumably intended to protect against spam.

Any thoughts on whether we should turn this check off, or can GMANE be
configured so that the messages turn out right? Is anyone else posting to
the lists through GMANE and having or not having trouble?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


references:
<NABBKFICIOPJAENJGNMJGECKEJAA.email@joachim.net>
	<200308291019.42451.mail@ulrich-fuchs.de>
	<20030829090101.G19992@joey.bomis.com>

body:
Am Freitag, 29. August 2003 18:01 schrieb Jimmy Wales:
> Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> > 1) they quote more or less completely some Wikipedia articles on their
> > gallery screenshots
> > (http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/gallery.htm). They don't link
> > back to Wikipedia or mention the content to be under GNU FDL. Instead,
> > they put a (c) 2003 by IBM below their pictures.
>
> These are good people, Fernanda Viegas in particular has written to me
> and to the mailing list a few times.  They don't mean any harm, as far
> as that goes.
>
> But ANYWAY, that particular type of use of our data qualifies VERY
> WELL as 'fair use', which means that they can use it whether we like
> it or not, license or no license.
>

I think, I have to start using smilies again, otherwise no one is realizing me
talking ironically. ;-)) There is no need to discuss the fair use issue, I
have no problems with IBM using Wikipedia that way, in fact, being reproduced
is what we want to; (however I doubt if that would really be "fair use" -
keep in mind that IBM even copyrights their screenshots, and think about the
curious ways to distribute the DeCSS algorithm) - But as I said, please
forget about that issue: The use by IBM is certainly nothing worth arguing
with them. They link to Wikipedia, that's giving publicity, and that's fine.

Second point - I am very interested in that paper and the editing patterns; I
believe the analysis will be based on the english Wikipedia, I'd like to see
if I recognize these patterns on the german Wikipedia, too!

Uli


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Michael again *sigh*

body:
Some thoughts on the "Michael" affair:

With regards to contacting AOL, this would be most effective if done
thoroughly, and (as you mentioned) by someone with some official
connection to the Wikimedia Foundation (perhaps Jimbo).  Probably the
best thing to do would be for someone with access to server logs to dig
up a lengthy list of IPs and the times they were used.  Then the letter
to AOL could include a large amount of evidence of repeated vandalism
over an extended period despite multiple bannings.  Having a few dozen
IP address / time pairs might make it easier for them to track down the
user account as well, assuming they can be motivated to do something.

Email's probably the best first option, but if no response is
forthcoming perhaps a letter by registered mail might get some more
attention.

As for additional powers to deal with things like this, one useful and
power-neutral code addition would be something analogous to the
sysop-quick-rollback, but for page moves.  If I could click "unmove" to
undo the effect of a move, that'd make it easier to deal with these
things (we could just go down his user history and click "unmove" on all
of them).  Not being a PHP person, I'm not familiar with the wiki code,
so have no idea how easy this would be to implement.

-Mark