body:
On 11/14/06, Siebrand Mazeland <s.mazeland at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Let's stop bitching at each other and start being more constructive, could
> we?
>
> Commons is the way to go and it saves a lot of work on and distraction from
> other wiki's main goals.

How?

> Getting people inexperienced with image maintenance as admins on Commons is
> not a good idea. Requiring only a few hundred edits and a few months of
> activity is rather normal for admin bits on any Wikimedia wiki.

Commons is not normal. I'm an en and wikispecies admin. I've probably
got at least as much experence dealing with images as all but your
most experenced admins. And now I have to mess around makeing 200
edits.

>There is
> absolutely no reason to dispute it. Challenges are in the volume of the
> content and the diversity of the languages. If _you_ want to help, make the
> admins that do a lot of image maintenance on your local wiki aware of the
> challenges Commons has and get them to chip in.

Can't see since we don't have those 200 edits.

> If possible, change your
> wiki policy so that it's image policy will start to be equal to that of
> Commons,

No.

>so that ultimately, it will be _the_ central image repository
> aiding the creation of great free encyclopedias, free books, free source
> material, free and illustrated taxonomies and much more.
>

Alreadly got that we call it en.pedia and de.pedia. Sure en only has
627,071 media files at the moment but a conserted drive could probably
overtake commons. Particularly if we stoped moveing images across. the
images also tend to be better organised (although more by happy
acident rather than deliberate policy.)

> In short: "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access
> to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." [1]
>
> Do not forget the higher goals and build bikesheds [2] that distract us from
> it.

In order to build castles in the sky you need to keep your feet firmly
on the ground.

--
geni


list: commons-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Siebrand Mazeland

body:
Let's stop bitching at each other and start being more constructive, could
we?

Commons is the way to go and it saves a lot of work on and distraction from
other wiki's main goals. It's image policies are great - only _free_ media
in the broadest sense of the word. The admins do great work and yes, we
could use more of them. How can we archieve that?

Getting people inexperienced with image maintenance as admins on Commons is
not a good idea. Requiring only a few hundred edits and a few months of
activity is rather normal for admin bits on any Wikimedia wiki. There is
absolutely no reason to dispute it. Challenges are in the volume of the
content and the diversity of the languages. If _you_ want to help, make the
admins that do a lot of image maintenance on your local wiki aware of the
challenges Commons has and get them to chip in. If possible, change your
wiki policy so that it's image policy will start to be equal to that of
Commons, so that ultimately, it will be _the_ central image repository
aiding the creation of great free encyclopedias, free books, free source
material, free and illustrated taxonomies and much more.

In short: "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access
to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." [1]

Do not forget the higher goals and build bikesheds [2] that distract us from
it.

Cheers! Siebrand

[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikeshed

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: commons-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:commons-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] Namens geni
Verzonden: dinsdag 14 november 2006 13:33
Aan: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List
Onderwerp: Re: [Commons-l] Principles of organisation - who do we serve?

<snip>

Not really. If en.pedia stoped switching images over to commons and copied
the ones we use back to en.pedia we could walk away from you in less than a
month.

<snip>
--
geni
_______________________________________________
Commons-l mailing list
Commons-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Montenegrin Wikipedia should be opened

body:
There are enough people who are willing to work on it. They made their
own MediaWiki (http://wikii.itam.ws/index.php/Glavna_stranica). So,
the main reason for not opening is lack of the people who are willing
to work (besides political reasons which I don't want to comment).

So, what is the procedure? To make all things on
incubator.wikimedia.org? Who should give permissions to those people
there or is it necessary?


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Java becomes Open Source, what next?

body:
On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 03:01:24PM -0500, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 11/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > That's the wrong question. A better set of questions would be:
> > * Does every project have at least one sysop/bureaucrat who can spot
> > "evil" Java resources?
> > * Does every sysop/bureaucrat who does not have this skill, acknowledge
> > that they don't and consequently leave the approval queue alone? (from
> > your message, it appears that you do, so you're fine)
>
> It's not a question of skill:
> No matter how skilled no human can tell a malicious java app in binary
> form from a good java app.
>
> Only through a careful audit of the source code could we expect to
> have any confidence... and thats a question of both time and skill...

. . . and at that point, you're back to wondering if the
sysops/bureaucrats who don't have the skill will leave the approval
queue alone.  Since this is a preventative measure, and not an active
measure, it introduces problems later down the road, because the real
question isn't "Does every sysop/bureaucrat who does not have the skill
acknowledge that they don't and consequently leave the approval queue
alone?"  Instead, the question is:

  "Will every sysop/bureaucrat forevermore who does not have the skill
  be reasonably expected that they don't have the skill and consequently
  leave the approval queue alone, or do we think there's a nontrivial
  likelihood that new sysops/bureaucrats will potentially become a
  problem in this regard in the future?"

Unfortunately, if you want something approaching complete safety in this
regard, I don't think you're going to get it.  I guess it all depends on
how much you're willing to risk it.

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your
hands and hopping when a rock or a club will do." - McCloctnick the Lucid


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Commons-l] press release

references:
<ejb10j$h8i$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<71cd4dd90611140931s39c17f06v70af04194b4f059b@mail.gmail.com>
	<ejd26e$v5p$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 11/14/06, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > On 11/13/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >>*http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_logo_mosaic/ConstructionNotes
> >>(this gorgious new logo)
> >>
> >
> > Doesn't that violate the copyright of the logo?
> >
> > Anthony
>
> fr: Dans sa grande mansu?tude, la Fondation autorise l'usage de ce d?riv?...
>
> en: authorized for non commercial uses...
>
> ant
>
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:WikimediaMosaicCapture.png

When I first wrote this it said GFDL.  Now it says "Original logo
copyright Wikimedia Foundation.  This picture is made of the hundreds
of free licenses of the images used to make it.  Screenshot under the
GFDL (?)"

Which is a big contradiction.  The logo is not under a free license,
so a derivative of it can't be under the GFDL.  And many of the images
are under copyleft licenses, so derivatives can't be under a
non-commercial license.

Yeah, yeah, it's such a small deal, who cares...  Considering the
nature of this project the answer should be "we do".

Anthony


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Commons-l] [Wikitech-l] Java becomes Open Source, what next?

body:
Simetrical wrote:
> On 11/13/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> If security is a major issue, might it be feasible to maintain a
>> whitelist of certificates (to allow applets from trusted authority to
>> be uploaded directly), and to flag all other applets as
>> "non-embeddable" until a sysop flips a switch, so they can be reviewed
>> for security? We could add a big fat warning on the file description
>> page.
>
> It makes more sense to me to use the system we use for JavaScript,
> i.e., only sysops can add it to begin with.  Allowing applets from
> trusted authorities is an interesting idea, but what does "trusted"
> mean?  Trusted to not take up too many CPU cycles, to avoid playing
> sound unless the user permits it explicitly, to not include material
> that would be vulgar and thus attractive to vandals?
>
> I definitely don't think anything whatsoever should be available to
> non-sysops at all unless uploaded by a sysop, no matter how large the
> warning message.  People are *way* too used to ignoring warning
> messages.
>

Here's a related idea: if we can't get "confirmed email required before
uploads enabled" for Commons, could we get uploads disabled for
non-sysops? Surely images in general are similarly "dangerous" (if not
for system & vandalism reasons, for copyright reasons)?

(Cross-posting to Commons-l)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Simetrical wrote:
> On 11/13/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> If security is a major issue, might it be feasible to maintain a
>> whitelist of certificates (to allow applets from trusted authority to
>> be uploaded directly), and to flag all other applets as
>> "non-embeddable" until a sysop flips a switch, so they can be reviewed
>> for security? We could add a big fat warning on the file description
>> page.
>
> It makes more sense to me to use the system we use for JavaScript,
> i.e., only sysops can add it to begin with.  Allowing applets from
> trusted authorities is an interesting idea, but what does "trusted"
> mean?  Trusted to not take up too many CPU cycles, to avoid playing
> sound unless the user permits it explicitly, to not include material
> that would be vulgar and thus attractive to vandals?
>
> I definitely don't think anything whatsoever should be available to
> non-sysops at all unless uploaded by a sysop, no matter how large the
> warning message.  People are *way* too used to ignoring warning
> messages.
>

Here's a related idea: if we can't get "confirmed email required before
uploads enabled" for Commons, could we get uploads disabled for
non-sysops? Surely images in general are similarly "dangerous" (if not
for system & vandalism reasons, for copyright reasons)?

(Cross-posting to Commons-l)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Commons-l] Principles of organisation - who do we serve?

body:
Pedro Sanchez-2 wrote:
>
> On 11/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>> If we can find good admin candidates for commons that people can vouch
>> for, that'd be great. But a mere call for admins in the first instance
>> would be the first thing to do, on the es: equivalent of [[WP:AN]] on
>> en:.
> Except that people on es: will knock down admin requests for admins
> coming from commons, no matter how experienced, since "admiship is not
> granted by osmosis from other wikis", and you got to work a nice
> editcount (circa 3000 edits for what I've gathered) and being involved
> on the community noticeboard discussions
>
Actually, if I understood David's suggestion correctly, he was saying that
someone from Commons should advertise on eswiki for people to volunteer to
be admins at commons.

HTH HAND
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Principles-of-organisation---who-do-we-serve--tf2605933.html#a7347949
Sent from the WikiMedia Commons mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Hoi,
The decision to start Wikimedia Foundation projects are based on
languages not on countries. You use as an argument that people are
working on a project using MediaWiki. I hope they enjoy themselves doing
this. The point where it starts to make sense to ask for a new project
is when it is clear that Montenegrin is a different language or when it
is clear that there are other reasons like a difference in script that
may make for a sufficient difference that a new project is warranted.
When you mistake this for a political reason, you are sadly mistaken.

Starting on the incubator does not a languages make.

Thanks,
     GerardM

Milos Rancic wrote:
> There are enough people who are willing to work on it. They made their
> own MediaWiki (http://wikii.itam.ws/index.php/Glavna_stranica). So,
> the main reason for not opening is lack of the people who are willing
> to work (besides political reasons which I don't want to comment).
>
> So, what is the procedure? To make all things on
> incubator.wikimedia.org? Who should give permissions to those people
> there or is it necessary?
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


from_name: Rotem Liss

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-11-14

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

brion at pobox.com wrote:
>    1 previously failing test(s) now PASSING! :)
>    1 new PASSING test(s) :)
>    1 previously FAILING test(s) removed O_o
>    1 new FAILING test(s) :(
>

Which tests?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFWbc9qahN/0dU8mcRAsGEAJ4kRz9JGGsy6qCVIEsJC0MsSC+sJgCfRKst
/TlwvPCUMq4G5qzlow+OfFQ=
=8lOI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Guillaume Paumier

body:
On 11/14/06, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There are enough people who are willing to work on it. They made their
> own MediaWiki (http://wikii.itam.ws/index.php/Glavna_stranica). So,
> the main reason for not opening is lack of the people who are willing
> to work (besides political reasons which I don't want to comment).
>
> So, what is the procedure? To make all things on
> incubator.wikimedia.org? Who should give permissions to those people
> there or is it necessary?

Please also take a look at this post :
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-November/011444.html

--
Guillaume Paumier
Disciplus Simplex
http://fr.wikipedia.org : Resistance is futile ? You will be assimilated.


subject: [Commons-l] Deleting images

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> On 13/11/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
>> Unfortunately the toolserver appears to be up the creek again...
>
> Yeah the Commons DB is mega-corrupt :( Missing all but the last couple
> of weeks' entries that correspond to category membership. So all the
> toolserver tools will give faulty results until this is fixed.
>
> It's not like categories are the backbone of Commons, or anything...
> :o here's hoping it gets fixed soon.
>

Given the recent flamewars around the place re: categories vs.
galleries, things might get interesting :)

Oh, and where has Magnus's imagereview thing gone?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
On 11/14/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> The decision to start Wikimedia Foundation projects are based on
> languages not on countries. You use as an argument that people are
> working on a project using MediaWiki. I hope they enjoy themselves doing
> this. The point where it starts to make sense to ask for a new project
> is when it is clear that Montenegrin is a different language or when it
> is clear that there are other reasons like a difference in script that
> may make for a sufficient difference that a new project is warranted.
> When you mistake this for a political reason, you are sadly mistaken.
>
> Starting on the incubator does not a languages make.

- 100.000 of inhabitants of Montenegro claim chat their native
language is Montenegrin.
- They don't want to work on Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian Wikipedias.
- It is reasonable not to wait ISO to formalize Montenegrin language
and not to wait to incorporate those people in Wikimedian projects.
They have the same rights like others. ("Bosnian Wikipedia is made
because it would be unfair to have Serbian and Croatian Wikipedias and
not Bosnian." -- I think that Andre Engels said so.)
- Their Wiki project (http://wikii.itam.ws/index.php/Glavna_stranica)
indents to be an encyclopedia, not POV fork. (I am sure that their
Wiki(pedia) will have POV pages, but this is usual not only to small
Wikipedias.)

Maybe we could make "virtual Mongenegrin Wikipedia" based on
conversion engine on Serbian Wikipedia (also, Montenegrin Wikipedia
should have the same Cyrillic/Latin conversion engine), but we didn't
finish Ekavian/Iyekavian engine. (Or, optionally, we can still work on
it, but then we need a help.)

And about vandals: The group of vandals are the same group which is
indefintely blocked on Serbian Wikipedia and which makes to us a lot
of problems.


from_name: Steve Sanbeg

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Labeled Section Transclusion (need feedback
	oncurrentstatus!)

body:
"Nick Jenkins" <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKIEHEJEAA.nickpj at gmail.com...
> > Over the past weeks and months, User:Sanbeg has quietly and modestly put
a lot of work into "Labeled Section
> > Transclusion" as an extension feature to the Wikimedia Software. This
includes code for the extension, test cases, and a
> > new page at the Mediawiki software website describing his extension,
which may be found here:
> >
> > [... snip ...]
> >
> > So what we really need now is some developer feedback!
> >
> > Dovi
>
> I've just had a very quick look at it, and would only make 3 very minor
comments:
>
> Probably add a closing "?>" to the end of the file.
>
> Line 156: "if (0){" : unreachable code, maybe delete or comment out.
>
> Fatal error:  Call to a member function getPrefixedText() on a
non-object in
> /var/www/hosts/mediawiki/extensions/lst/lst.php on line
231

> Example malformed wiki text input which causes this:
> -------------
> {{#lstx:</
> includeonly>
> {|}}
> -------------
>
> All the best,
> Nick.

Thanks for finding those; I've uploaded a new version that fixes those.

Hopefully we can get this out, so we can start using it.

Thanks again
  -Steve


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 11/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> That's the wrong question. A better set of questions would be:
> * Does every project have at least one sysop/bureaucrat who can spot
> "evil" Java resources?
> * Does every sysop/bureaucrat who does not have this skill, acknowledge
> that they don't and consequently leave the approval queue alone? (from
> your message, it appears that you do, so you're fine)

It's not a question of skill:
No matter how skilled no human can tell a malicious java app in binary
form from a good java app.

Only through a careful audit of the source code could we expect to
have any confidence... and thats a question of both time and skill...


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Commons-l] [Foundation-l] Principles of organisation - who do
	we serve?

body:
On 14/11/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:

> Commons exists to be a repository for free culture *and* to serve as
> an inter-wiki storage medium for *free* media.  it is not a place to
> dump stuff, nor is it a place which exists independently of other
> wikis.
> Copyright violations are not a minor or trivial problem.  They are a
> serious problem, for which we are obligated to act when they are
> properly brought to our attention.  This is all nothing new.
> If there are Wikimedians who are advocating housing copyrighted media
> in Commons, speak up now, because we need to get clear on why that is
> not cool immediately.

There isn't anyone advocating that; this discussion started with a
Commons admin threatening to block all es:wp users from Commons to
stop copyvios from es:wp, because the Commons admins can't keep up,
evidently because their admin process is strict enough that pretty
much no-one even bothers trying.

- d.


list: foundation-l

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Commons-l] Principles of organisation - who do
	we serve?


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Commons needs patrollers and future admins

body:
On 11/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just sent this to wikien-l asking for helpers. Presumably there are
> tags, etc. for non-admin patrollers to tag suspect images. Something
> like this posted to other language Wikipedias would be a good idea, I
> suspect.

Yes.
{{delete}}
and the
{{subst:nsd}}
and
{{subst:nld}}

Just like on en.


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Labeled Section Transclusion (need feedback on
	currentstatus!)

body:
> Over the past weeks and months, User:Sanbeg has quietly and modestly put a lot of work into "Labeled Section
> Transclusion" as an extension feature to the Wikimedia Software. This includes code for the extension, test cases, and a
> new page at the Mediawiki software website describing his extension, which may be found here:
>
> [... snip ...]
>
> So what we really need now is some developer feedback!
>
> Dovi

I've just had a very quick look at it, and would only make 3 very minor comments:

Probably add a closing "?>" to the end of the file.

Line 156: "if (0){" : unreachable code, maybe delete or comment out.

Fatal error:  Call to a member function getPrefixedText() on a non-object in
/var/www/hosts/mediawiki/extensions/lst/lst.php on line 231

Example malformed wiki text input which causes this:
-------------
{{#lstx:</
includeonly>
{|}}
-------------

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [Commons-l] Uploading files beyond the size limit

body:
On 11/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I shudder at the thought of this being enabled on Commons unless such
> uploads are somehow marked for particular urgent attention - it sounds
> like an even easier way to upload copyright violations. If such
> uploads are marked and auto-categorised, it might be manageable.

More data = better. Force the edit summary to include the URL and then
I could only hope that all copyvios get uploaded that way!


from_name: Chuck Smith

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikitech-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 21

body:
> The installation basis of JREs is of secondary importance. Most people
> do not have Ogg Vorbis players installed on their systems either, yet
> we use Ogg Vorbis as our primary audio format.

Yes!  This is where I primarily see the use of a Java applet on
Wikipedia.  It could also be useful to show videos as well.  This is
*especially* useful when people are surfing Wikipedia in Internet
cafes where they may not be able to download software, but yet they
can view Java applets.  It would be nice if Wikipedia could show
embedded multimedia as well as Encarta 1996...

Of course, I also have to confess that I'm a bit biased considering
I'm the head programmer of the WikiWizard, a Java applet wiki editor
(http://jspwiki.org/wiki/WikiWizard) which I would also like to
incorporate into Wikipedia someday.

Chuck


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [Commons-l] press release

body:
Just to keep everyone up-to-date, User:Pfctdayelise has started the
press release at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/1M .

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
Hoi,
Yes I have read this message. The problem is in many ways intractable.
It is also very reminiscent of several issues that we have had before.
It often happened in the past that a project was "approved" to have a
project. In the case of the "Siberian" language it lead to an immediate
backlash. This is however not an isolated problem. This is not good.

Another thing that is really deplorable is that some insist that they
can and should be allowed to roll their own Wikimedia Foundation
language codes. The current crop of our codes does not adhere to any
Standard codes (like ISO-639 or IANA language subtags). Brion asked me
at some stage to check our current list of codes and indicate where they
do not comply with standards. To do that I have received the other day
the information necessary to do that. When there are no codes for a
specific code under the standards mentioned or where I cannot make out
what they should be, I learned some of the procedures needed for the
four standard organisations that apply to languages, dialect and
orthographies.

I hope this will lead to two things; identification where our codes are
problematic. What to do with the codes that are manifestly wrong is
another matter. The second thing is that it will strengthen the argument
that we should never ever come up with our own codes. We should be good
as it helps to integrate our work in the best practices of the Internet
and the languages industry.

Thanks,
    GerardM

Guillaume Paumier wrote:
> On 11/14/06, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> There are enough people who are willing to work on it. They made their
>> own MediaWiki (http://wikii.itam.ws/index.php/Glavna_stranica). So,
>> the main reason for not opening is lack of the people who are willing
>> to work (besides political reasons which I don't want to comment).
>>
>> So, what is the procedure? To make all things on
>> incubator.wikimedia.org? Who should give permissions to those people
>> there or is it necessary?
>>
>
>
> Please also take a look at this post :
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-November/011444.html
>
>


body:
On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 05:39:05PM -0500, Simetrical wrote:
>
> That said, there's no reason to be paranoid.  Yes, there will always
> be vulnerabilities, but they'll be doubly limited by the approval
> process *and* the sandbox.  We aren't distributing arbitrary machine
> code, we're distributing Java, which as far as I know can't do
> anything like take over your computer or wipe your hard drive.
> Running arbitrary Java is not to my knowledge a real security risk, at
> least no more than arbitrary JavaScript (which can spy on you to an
> extent), and this Java won't even be arbitrary: it will be vetted
> first, however imperfectly.

The idea that Java cannot take over your computer or wipe your hard
drive may (and I emphasize the use of "may" here) be true for applets,
but for other uses of Java it is anything but true.

Hey, if we're going to start including virtual machine run bytecode
content, maybe we should include other VMs than Java's.  For instance,
there's OCaml's toplevel VM, Parrot, and Smalltalk out there.  Could be
fun.

Okay, I'm not very serious about that.

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Brian K. Reid: "In computer science, we stand on each other's feet."


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> Even ignoring the sandbox breakout issues, the halting problem
> ultimately means that we can not determine what arbitrary code will
> do... The possibilities for vandalism are endless..  Imagine a little
> animation of an atom turns into dancing penises for ten minutes on
> alternate tuesdays.

Humans can't solve the halting problem either, but despite that, I can
guarantee that there are no hidden dancing penises embedded in the MediaWiki
core. I can do that because it is possible to classify programs into three
categories: bad, suspicious and good. We can reject the suspicious programs,
making it irrelevant what the programmer has hidden in them.

That's not to say I would support having user-supplied Java applets. I agree
with all your other concerns. And it would indeed be difficult (but not
impossible) to review applets.

We've been talking about putting Jmol Java applets on chemical compound
pages, with a MediaWiki extension. When I posted a demo link to #wikipedia,
all I got back were complaints about the long load time, and the performance
impact of starting Java. A JavaScript "click to load" link would be
necessary for usability.

-- Tim Starling


list: wikien-l

from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [WikiEN-l] Commons needs patrollers and future admins

body:
On 11/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Commons is currently suffering a problem of a metric shitload of
> rubbish and copyvios, and not enough admins to do the cleanup work.
> Can anyone here help?
>
> Patrollers who speak multiple languages are particularly valuable in
> this regard, but I expect anyone good would be reasonably welcome once
> they can show a reasonable amount of work on Commons itself. Spanish
> and Portuguese speakers are particularly encouraged at present,
> because es: and pt: only allow image uploads directly to Commons.
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators#Suggestions_for_administrators
>
> (I whined enough about it on commons-l myself that I'll be diving into
> shitwork on Commons soon as well ...)
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

There's something wrong when images are tagged for speedy (bad
license), then after 1 month of due date a newbie admin comes and
kills the images, and then gets yelled and scolded  since the images
were not supposed to be speedied  but rather let sit on the backlog
while others take time to sort them out and change their licenses..

Im only guessing that's causing some admins beiong less proactive.


from_name: geni

body:
On 11/14/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> Or, the es.wp users are all not aware of the restrictions on what is
> acceptable.

On en.pedia we have tried asking, explaining, pleading, beging and
threatening and still the copyvios come.

Rather a lot of the internet doesn't care about copyright. They want
their image of dancing pigs and will lie to us to get it.

--
geni


body:
On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 05:55:43PM -0500, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> Better to just write a sandboxed ecmascript or python interpreter
> which runs in sandboxed Java... and then make an extension that lets
> you directly input the script code, which will then be handed out to
> clients.   This then reduces the risk of it displaying penises on
> second tuesdays to the same risk as template code displaying penises
> on second tuesdays.
>
> It's actually not the far out of an idea... there is already a python
> implementation in java (jython,
> http://www.jython.org/Project/index.html) and several of the python
> plotting libraries will work in jython
> (http://www.eckhartarnold.de/apppages/pyplotter.html).   I imagine
> that interactive graphs are the largest driver for java apples beyond
> audio/video playback.

For that matter, I think there are JVM-embedded Ruby and Perl
interpreters as well.  Might as well allow it all, if you're going to do
it that way.

>
> A solution like this would give us real wikieditable software which we
> could open to the world, and not confine to sysop priests with java
> compilers and the patience to work offline.

That's an excellent point about the social significance of how we handle
it.

>
> Unfortunately jython needs non-sandboxed java because it mucks about
> with the VM for the ability to call arbritary java and native code
> functions. :-/
>
> If anyone is aware of any dynamic languages which will run in
> sandboxed java and which have decent graphing libraries, I'd love to
> hear about it. :)

I don't know whether Ruby's implementations (there are several, in fact)
within the JVM allow them to be run sandboxed and, believe it or not, I
don't actually know for sure whether there's a Perl implementation to
compare, even though I probably use Perl at least as often as any other
single language (and significantly more than Ruby).

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"There comes a time in the history of any project when it becomes necessary
to shoot the engineers and begin production." - MacUser, November 1990


body:
On 11/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14/11/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > You want experenced and active admins. Something everyone is short of
> > to do non admin maintenance tasks includeing adding welcome templates?
> > This does not seem to be a reasonable use of rescourses.
>
>
> Call it "admin and patrolling" - a lot of tagging work can be done by
> non-admins.
>
>
> > > I'm sorry to say, but such claim doesn't give a very good picture of your
> > > knowledge of Commons. The admin process in Commons is the laxest one I
> > > know. 200 edits! I didn't know that much when I applied for adminship. I
> > > hadn't done much maintenance work. And I was elected.
>
> > I know other porjects with more relaxed standards. We are not however
> > looking at candidates with nor previous background
> > You need people who can speak spanish. You need admins with image
> > experence who can speak spanish. The only place you can get them
> > quickly is from the spanish wikipedia. Rather than haveing them make
> > 200 edits which are less critial it would be mnore effective to
> > provide links to crash courses in commons adminship policy and then
> > basicaly rubber stamp their aplications.
>
>
> If we can find good admin candidates for commons that people can vouch
> for, that'd be great. But a mere call for admins in the first instance
> would be the first thing to do, on the es: equivalent of [[WP:AN]] on
> en:.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>

Except that people on es: will knock down admin requests for admins
coming from commons, no matter how experienced, since "admiship is not
granted by osmosis from other wikis", and you got to work a nice
editcount (circa 3000 edits for what I've gathered) and being involved
on the community noticeboard discussions

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Candidaturas_a_bibliotecario/Drini

I''m not doing bad, but the percentage of opposes for the reasons
above concerns me a bit (let be recalled that es: has a culture of
"voting" for many things like adminship, deletions, etc (blank voting
for anybody over100 edits, no discussion in order to reach for
consensus))


subject: [Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering

body:
On 14/11/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> This has caused me pain and suffering for some time, as some of you
> know, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere in public since the
> dawn of logotime: The WMF logo is asymmetric.  most notably the green
> region, but also the blue (varying width, inner and outer rings not
> quite parallel).   As long as the newly revisited commons logo is
> being considered
>
> Can this be fixed?  Should it be?  Does this asymmetry cause just
> enough subliminal disjuncture that it sticks in peoples mind?  ...and
> causes them to do crazy things?  ...and causes them to run out and
> snap free-content photos of celebrities?

Now that I see it, it causes me great pain and woeful suffering. Why
has it not been fixed before?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [Foundation-l] Anti-vandalism IRC channel for small projects

body:
Hello,

On 11/13/06, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I have been willing for quite a long time now to create an anti-vandalism
> channel on IRC dedicated to projets with a small community and with few
> edits (usually called "small projects"). <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pgkbot>

Thanks to Tangotango's great work, there is now a working channel monitoring
20 small wikis. People willing to help can join us in #wikimedia-swmt on
freenode

--
Guillaume Paumier
Disciplus Simplex
http://fr.wikipedia.org : Resistance is futile ? You will be assimilated.


body:
On 14/11/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Could we double the size limit?  That would be most helpful for some
> rich media files.

I've been wanting this for quite a while. We are having trouble with
some audio and many video files at the current limit.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Brad Patrick

subject: [Foundation-l] More stewards...

body:
Please note I have added a section to the rules regarding the legal
age requirement of 18 years for anyone running for steward.  I am
aware there are some people who wish to run for steward who are not
18.  Unfortunately, there is not an exception for this requirement.
Individuals who are trusted within our community may not be treated
the same way if there is a lawsuit which results from a steward's
actions, which is a very real possibility.  As such, we cannot allow
individuals who are not yet 18 to run.

Also, for the same reasons, individuals who are anonymous (using only
a username) must disclose their identity in the same manner as persons
who run for the Board.

Please contact me individually if you require further explanation.

On 11/13/06, Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com> wrote:
> The steward's roll has always been (correct me if I'm wrong here) a
> functional one where stewards aim to avoid making decisions and
> judgements and just follow the processes necessary. I think that the
> stewards are all perfectly skilled at judging the consensus of the
> community, of course, but I am fearful that it would undermind their
> position.
>
> I may of course be nit-picking here, but I think we need to be careful
> as the position of steward, while usually low-profile, can have an
> influence in certain situations.
>
> Thanks,
> S
>
> On 13/11/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Well... you know... yesterday, on irc, it was suggested that Danny
> > should not be reconfirmed since he was staff and needed the status to do
> > office action, but I should be reconfirmed. Granted, no one mentionned
> > Jimbo should be reconfirmed... :-)
> >
> > /me vaguely wonders how she would do if not reconfirmed...
> >
> > Right now, stewards lose stewardship was becomming inactive. Or they
> > lose it because another steward decides to remove them their access.
> > If this is acceptable, I have been wondering if we could not simplify
> > things by having stewards self-confirm their group ? For example, after
> > new elections, all stewards would do a clean up of their group (and
> > remove inactive or bad stewards). Would that be shocking ?
> >
> > Ant
> >
> >
> >  Sean Whitton wrote:
> > > Although I agree that we should reconfirm stewards, do we really need
> > > to do so the the board members?
> > >
> > > There is no easy solution here as board members are not automatically
> > > stewards or anything, the point I'm making is that reconfirming Jimbo
> > > seems a little strange.
> > >
> > > S
> > >
> > > On 13/11/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >>Last steward election was nearly a year ago. Since then, some stewards
> > >>resigned, some were removed, some became inactive. We need more stewards.
> > >>
> > >>Please see here:
> > >>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2006-2
> > >>
> > >>The rules are basically the same than last year but for one thing.
> > >>Previous stewards will have to be reconfirmed. Inactive stewards will be
> > >>removed.
> > >>
> > >>The rules for election are not yet fully finalized. Please comment on
> > >>them in the next few days. Currently, some people think dates may not be
> > >>best. Others are not certain previous stewards should be reconfirmed.
> > >>
> > >>Ant
> > >>
> > >>_______________________________________________
> > >>foundation-l mailing list
> > >>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
>         ?Xyrael / Sean Whitton ~ Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty
>                 sean at silentflame.com (PGP: 0x25F4EAB7) | xyrael.net
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


subject: [Foundation-l] More stewards...


from_name: Chad Perrin

body:
On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 06:31:50PM -0500, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 11/14/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> > For that matter, I think there are JVM-embedded Ruby and Perl
> > interpreters as well.  Might as well allow it all, if you're going to do
> > it that way.
>
> I'd prefer we only have one.. simply because I'd rather have one large
> base of wikipedians speaking the same language than four fragmented
> groups.  ....  But I don't really care which one it is.

In this case, I think the fact that a lot of people will care might
reduce the number of people willing to participate, to say nothing of
the fact that the way you presented the idea it sounds like the
Wikimedia collection of content (and the philosophy of how that content
is handled and distributed) would be extended to client-side code.  This
being the case, it seems inconsistent and exclusionary to only "allow" a
single client-side programming language outside of Javascript.  Maybe
that's just me, though.

>
> Our site is innovative in many ways...(nearly) instant gratification,
> open access, revision control (never forget), Free Content, low
> barriers to entry.. etc..    as we step into the realm of executable
> content we should not abandon all the things that have made us grand.

Thus, my concern about the extension of the philosophy of content to
executable content, and being inclusive in terms of interpreted source
code that can be used.

>
> We need:
>
> 0) Can run safely in the JVM.
> 1) Can perform graphics in the JVM, hopefully sound.
> 2) near enough to interpreted (compile at preview would be a bummer :)
> Plus new programmers really enjoy the ability to sit at a prompt and
> type in code).
> 3) Used in the outside world (we already have one home grown
> programming language, we don't need another)
> 4) Is broadly compatible with the JVMs on client systems.
> 5) Decent libraries for data handling, graphing, etc a big plus.

Agreed on each point, I think.  The biggest problems are likely to be a
working definition of "safely" and sorting out JVM compatibility on
client systems.

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
This sig for rent:  a Signify v1.14 production from http://www.debian.org/


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] where are mediawiki extensions?

body:
Mike O wrote:
> Where are the Mediawiki extension hidden at ? Pages in meta have the wrong links, to cvs at sourceforge.

How long ago did MediaWiki switch to SVN? Why are there still links to
CVS on Meta or anywhere else?


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Commons-l] press release

body:
On 11/14/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hats off!  Rob Silvers, eat your heart out.  At least in this version
> of the WMF logo, you can't see the asymmetry.

/me can't help but chuckle.

Delphine

--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


from_name: Simetrical

body:
On 11/14/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> . . . and at that point, you're back to wondering if the
> sysops/bureaucrats who don't have the skill will leave the approval
> queue alone.

I think, psychologically, that requiring people to personally and
informally propose things on talk pages will better stave off
overconfident sysops than some kind of queue or formal mechanism.  The
latter is, I suspect, more prone to clear-the-backlog-osis, and less
likely to make people realize that by submitting it they're taking
responsibility for it.

That said, there's no reason to be paranoid.  Yes, there will always
be vulnerabilities, but they'll be doubly limited by the approval
process *and* the sandbox.  We aren't distributing arbitrary machine
code, we're distributing Java, which as far as I know can't do
anything like take over your computer or wipe your hard drive.
Running arbitrary Java is not to my knowledge a real security risk, at
least no more than arbitrary JavaScript (which can spy on you to an
extent), and this Java won't even be arbitrary: it will be vetted
first, however imperfectly.


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image thumbnail (re)generation etc

body:
A user has reported that images with ampersands in the title are now
having mass failures of thumbnails. (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Help_desk#Many_photos_are_now_unavailable_due_to_software_changes
)

Looking at Special:Newimages search for '&', gives 10 dead thumbnails
out of the first 48, 18 dead of the next 48, 13 of the next 48, so
he's probably onto something.

Mysterious...

Brianna


subject: [Wikitech-l] Factual error on mediawiki.org

body:
Hi,

I noticed this on the Edit page on mediawiki.org:

     * Pages in the Help: namespace all have a thick blue border around
       them, indicating that their content is released into the public
       domain. Do not make edits to these pages unless you are
       comfortable releasing your contributions under this license.

There are far too many misconceptions about copyright and public domain
in circulation already, MediaWiki shouldn't spread them even further.
Public domain is not a license. Please correct this as soon as possible.

Timwi


body:
On 11/14/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14/11/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This has caused me pain and suffering for some time, as some of you
> > know, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere in public since the
> > dawn of logotime: The WMF logo is asymmetric.  most notably the green
> > region, but also the blue (varying width, inner and outer rings not
> > quite parallel).   As long as the newly revisited commons logo is
> > being considered
> >
> > Can this be fixed?  Should it be?  Does this asymmetry cause just
> > enough subliminal disjuncture that it sticks in peoples mind?  ...and
> > causes them to do crazy things?  ...and causes them to run out and
> > snap free-content photos of celebrities?
>
> Now that I see it, it causes me great pain and woeful suffering. Why
> has it not been fixed before?

Because we were too busy making sure no derivatives were ever issued. *grins*

Could it be that the official logo is actually a derivative itself?

/me starts shivering.

Ok Sam, you won, i'll be working on it shortly. Give me the week-end
to issue all new official Wikimedia logos, if that be my swan's song.

(/me can see Sam do the happy dance)

Delphine
--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Java becomes Open Source, what next?

body:
On 11/14/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> That said, there's no reason to be paranoid.  Yes, there will always
> be vulnerabilities, but they'll be doubly limited by the approval
> process *and* the sandbox.  We aren't distributing arbitrary machine
> code, we're distributing Java, which as far as I know can't do
> anything like take over your computer or wipe your hard drive.
> Running arbitrary Java is not to my knowledge a real security risk, at
> least no more than arbitrary JavaScript (which can spy on you to an
> extent), and this Java won't even be arbitrary: it will be vetted
> first, however imperfectly.

In the best case arbitrary java can ask the user to let it out of the
sandbox and most users will, in the worst it can just get out on its
own (JVM doesn't have a great track record).  Once running in trusted
mode java can do anything any other binary on your system can do.

Even ignoring that sort of vulnerability, if we allow people to upload
java binaries the binaries could decide to display penises every
second tuesday.  Just limiting it to sysops won't fix it because
sysops will be (mostly) adding java which was given to them by
(untrusted) third parties.  We can't demand the sysops check the java,
because no human could be expected to detect such problems.

So we're left with demanding that people submit java in source form
(which I suppose is good for other reasons), and then we'll expect
qualified admins to audit, compile, then install the code..  yuck.

Better to just write a sandboxed ecmascript or python interpreter
which runs in sandboxed Java... and then make an extension that lets
you directly input the script code, which will then be handed out to
clients.   This then reduces the risk of it displaying penises on
second tuesdays to the same risk as template code displaying penises
on second tuesdays.

It's actually not the far out of an idea... there is already a python
implementation in java (jython,
http://www.jython.org/Project/index.html) and several of the python
plotting libraries will work in jython
(http://www.eckhartarnold.de/apppages/pyplotter.html).   I imagine
that interactive graphs are the largest driver for java apples beyond
audio/video playback.

A solution like this would give us real wikieditable software which we
could open to the world, and not confine to sysop priests with java
compilers and the patience to work offline.

Unfortunately jython needs non-sandboxed java because it mucks about
with the VM for the ability to call arbritary java and native code
functions. :-/

If anyone is aware of any dynamic languages which will run in
sandboxed java and which have decent graphing libraries, I'd love to
hear about it. :)


from_name: Mark Clements

body:
"Timwi" <timwi at gmx.net> wrote in message
news:<ejcvgk$mer$1 at sea.gmane.org>...
>
> Hi,
>
> I noticed this on the Edit page on mediawiki.org:
>
>      * Pages in the Help: namespace all have a thick blue border around
>        them, indicating that their content is released into the public
>        domain. Do not make edits to these pages unless you are
>        comfortable releasing your contributions under this license.
>
> There are far too many misconceptions about copyright and public domain
> in circulation already, MediaWiki shouldn't spread them even further.
> Public domain is not a license. Please correct this as soon as possible.
>

Soon enough for ya?   :-)

http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning&diff=4
8510&oldid=25463

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


from_name: Carl Witty

body:
On Tue, 2006-11-14 at 18:31 -0500, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> Perl .. yuck.. But sure, as I said... I don't care what language.  I
> was hoping there would be some good ECMAscript interpreters in java
> but because of 'javascript' it's darn difficult to search for.

I only know of one, Rhino (http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/).  Looking from
outside, it seems to be a good implementation -- it's actively
maintained, and has a nice feature list -- but I've never actually used
it.

> I'd rather not make performance a goal.. I'd rather they have
> facilities for calling java classes we provide.. and we can provide
> (audited) java classes for anything performance critical... for
> example video/audio playback or 3D rendering.

"... we can provide (audited) java classes for anything performance
critical..."
Really?  Including fluid dynamics simulators, rigid-body kinematics with
collision detection, Game of Life simulators, and chess-playing
programs?  These are just a few possibilities for (the
performance-critical part of) educational applets that I came up with
off the top of my head; I'm sure there are many more.

The JVM-based interpreter may still be the right thing to do, but people
need to be aware that there are whole realms of creative educational
possibilities that are far less feasible with that approach.

How does a Java applet go about asking for more privileges?  Is that
something we can easily audit to avoid (for instance, by checking .class
files to make sure they only use standard Java classes and methods that
are in a whitelist, not to include reflection)?

If the embedded-in-JVM interpreters let you interact with Java, then you
will probably be able to write scripts that ask for more privileges; and
that can't be fixed by outlawing reflection, since the interpreter has
to use reflection.  For this reason, compiled Java may actually be
easier to secure than an interpreter.

Can we write our own security manager, ensure that all calls to
uploaded .class files are "wrapped" by our security manager, and
implement our own restrictive security policy that way?

Carl Witty


from_name: spectre at ivixor.net

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Policy draft: Wikimedia projects are not the
 place for national constitution

body:
>
> Script choice is a very interesting sociolinguistic topic.

At the risk of going off-topic, there is an interesting paper on this
topic by the guy who does Omniglot. See:

http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/revolutionary_scripts.htm

Fran


subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof issues

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 11/12/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> [snip]
>
>>There is a need for judgement, regardless of the software in use. Trolls
>>will go on trolling regardless of what anti-spoofing restrictions we have in
>>place. Our aim should be to minimise their impact, and heuristic systems
>>with a high false positive rate do quite the opposite.
>
> This note brings to mind an interesting homework assignment for the list...
>
> Can we think of a good way to impliment "interactive intervention" in
> mediawiki which neither adds weird backend requirements (works with
> the nonpersistantness of php) or odd client requirements (no java or
> the like).
>
> The idea is that we have hundreds of people in IRC.. many people RC
> patrolling.   There are *many* sorts of activities which software can
> mark as suspect but which require judgement.  Is there a reasonable
> way for us to get that judgement in real-time?

But that's easy...

* User tries to create an account
* Software responds, "The username you chose is very similar to the
   username of an existing user. In order to ensure that you are not
   trying to impersonate someone else, an administrator will have to
   approve your username manually. Approval is usually processed within
   <average timeframe>. How do you wish to proceed?"
   [ Request approval ] [ Try a different username ]
* User clicks "Request approval". Software responds, "Your request for
   approval has been sent off to the administrators. You will receive an
   e-mail as soon as approval has been granted or rejected."
* Either an e-mail is sent to a mailing list, or a wiki page is updated,
   or (my preferred way) a special dedicated feature in MediaWiki is
   invoked, which alerts volunteers to the awaiting approval.
* An administrator accepts or rejects the request. If it is accepted,
   the normal welcome e-mail with the confirmation link is sent to the
   user. Otherwise, an e-mail informs the user of the rejection.

Timwi


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of {{fact}}, redux

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

James Hare stated for the record:
> Yeah, seeing a bunch of "this is unsourced crap" will make people think
> twice about using Wikipedia. Or maybe they'll think that something on Wiki
> is 100% true -unless- there's that cite-needed tag.

And that's exactly how it should be -- anything without a source is by
definition crap and should be thought about at least twice before it is
used.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Today's robots are very primitive, capable
 sean at epoptic.com | of understanding only a few simple
                  | instructions such as "go left," "go
                  | right," and "build car." --John Sladek
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFWnXA/SVOiq2uhHMRAkPJAJ9OSwknEKu0B0juY7CoKy7zLg811QCghA/u
CrsBQjHJJ95ZXnlgQ1h+EpY=
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-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Wikitech-l] On style sheets

body:
> Is it possible to run multiple instances of Mediawiki all talking to
> the same database (table sets, etc), assuming that the db formats
> haven't changed between the Mediawiki versions used in those
> instances?
>
> What I'm thinking is that a beta.en.wikipedia.org instance wouldn't be
> so bad, if it had the same data on the back end.

I really like that idea. I would use such a beta instance and report
problems as I find them (which is the purpose of a beta-test). I would
certainly /not/ use a separate "beta-test" wiki if it isn't Wikipedia,
because that's extra work and it's boring compared to Wikipedia. I'm
sure at least 90% of the users feel that way.

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Geohack

body:
Jens Frank wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 09:52:09PM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>>On 11/13/06, Jens Frank <jf at mormo.org> wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 09:27:20AM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
>>>
>>>>As it is tradition for temporary fixes, this one seems to have become
>>>>permanent ;-) with ~640000 hits in October, making up >8% of
>>>>toolserver traffic.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Could you please change the logo of that page? I guess it's not really
>>>necessary to use a 1MB big image on a page frequented that often.
>>
>> Done.
>>
>>About my original question...?
>
> geohack is not an extension, but a standalone tool.

Magnus explicitly explained that the standalone tool was his, and that
it was a "temporary workaround" that was introduced because the
extension somehow couldn't be used on the live site. I'm sure Magnus
knows the difference between an extension and a standalone thing.

> geohack is full of hardcodes, and has no support for
> internationalization.

Magnus claimed that it does, so again I'm inclined to assume that you
are referring to Magnus' workaround, and not the actual extension he's
proposing.

Timwi


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Foundation-l] Sexual harassment in Wikipedia

body:
roc wrote:
<snip>
> Regarding policies and procedures, I think that WMF should either
> dictate privacy policies of all its projects or give authorizations to
> the community/people it trusts, as long as it conforms with the best
> interests of WMF, the project, and the public. I believe that the
> privacy policy of Chinese Wikipedia is governed by the WMF. In this
> privacy policy, it is stated that "personally identifiable data...may
> be released by...users with CheckUser access", does it mean that
> checkusers/stewards are authorized to release IP information of a
> registered user without seeking approval for each case from the Board
> or Executive?
>


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 11/14/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
[snip]
> For that matter, I think there are JVM-embedded Ruby and Perl
> interpreters as well.  Might as well allow it all, if you're going to do
> it that way.

I'd prefer we only have one.. simply because I'd rather have one large
base of wikipedians speaking the same language than four fragmented
groups.  ....  But I don't really care which one it is.

> > A solution like this would give us real wikieditable software which we
> > could open to the world, and not confine to sysop priests with java
> > compilers and the patience to work offline.
>
> That's an excellent point about the social significance of how we handle
> it.

Our site is innovative in many ways...(nearly) instant gratification,
open access, revision control (never forget), Free Content, low
barriers to entry.. etc..    as we step into the realm of executable
content we should not abandon all the things that have made us grand.

> I don't know whether Ruby's implementations (there are several, in fact)
> within the JVM allow them to be run sandboxed and, believe it or not, I
> don't actually know for sure whether there's a Perl implementation to
> compare, even though I probably use Perl at least as often as any other
> single language (and significantly more than Ruby).

Perl .. yuck.. But sure, as I said... I don't care what language.  I
was hoping there would be some good ECMAscript interpreters in java
but because of 'javascript' it's darn difficult to search for.

We need:

0) Can run safely in the JVM.
1) Can perform graphics in the JVM, hopefully sound.
2) near enough to interpreted (compile at preview would be a bummer :)
Plus new programmers really enjoy the ability to sit at a prompt and
type in code).
3) Used in the outside world (we already have one home grown
programming language, we don't need another)
4) Is broadly compatible with the JVMs on client systems.
5) Decent libraries for data handling, graphing, etc a big plus.

I'd rather not make performance a goal.. I'd rather they have
facilities for calling java classes we provide.. and we can provide
(audited) java classes for anything performance critical... for
example video/audio playback or 3D rendering.


from_name: Jon Harald Søby

subject: [Foundation-l] Remove/Disable Move and Edit Tabs...

body:
Hi! Paste this line into your monobook.css file (at
[[User:Yourusername/monobook.css]]):

li.edit, li.history, li.move { display:none; }

On 11/14/06, Manjunath H.T <manju_h_t at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Can Anyone suggest how to remove/disable the Move,Edit and History Tabs.I am using Monobook skin...
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Best regards,
Jon Harald S?by

Website - http://www.alqualonde.com/
Wikipedia - http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Jhs
MSN messenger - jhsoby at gmail.com
Skype - jon.harald.soby


body:
Cormac Lawler wrote:
>
> *Is an "evil" java resource going to be easily spotted by a project
> sysop/bureaucrat?

That's the wrong question. A better set of questions would be:
* Does every project have at least one sysop/bureaucrat who can spot
"evil" Java resources?
* Does every sysop/bureaucrat who does not have this skill, acknowledge
that they don't and consequently leave the approval queue alone? (from
your message, it appears that you do, so you're fine)


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Policy draft: Wikimedia projects are not
 the	place for national constitution

body:
Jacky PB wrote:
> Hello GerardM,
>
> Accusing Bogdan of trolling is utter nonsense.
> And, to cite you, I've had my fill with this nonsense
> too often.
>
Hoi,
When anyone does not want to be accused of trolling, he or she has to
use arguments that matter. Projects of the Wikimedia Foundation are
organised by language. Not by country. Not to understand this is an
insult to the knowledge you and he should have by now about what makes a
Wikimedia project.

When a national organisation wants to regulate a language. It either
does it with the consent of all people who speak the language or they do
it at best for the people who are under the jurisdiction of the country.
The Dutch language is spoken in several countries and changes to the
language are done jointly by /all /the countries involved. They still
manage to get it "wrong" according to a sizeable part of the Dutch
speaking population which resulted in a fork. The IETF is quite happy to
consider both these and historical orthographies as subtags.

Whether the Moldovans want to unite with "Imperialist Romania" is
irrelevant. What is relevant is that there are people who use the
Cyrillic script for Moldovan. They have an existing Wikipedia that is
distinctly different. At this moment there is no way in which this can
be reconciled. Let us know when there is an acceptable way of
reconciling this for instance in a way as practiced by the zh.wikipedia.

Thanks,
    GerardM
> As to your "arguments":
>
> Of course, the Soviet Union managed to create an ISO
> code for Moldovan. Still, the language is regulated by
> the Moldovan Academy, which states that standard
> Moldovan is identical with standard Romanian.
>
> Don't invent your nice world full of endangered
> minorities. Moldovans are not a minority in Moldova,
> nor intend to unite with "Imperialist Romania". So,
> the Moldovan Academy is doing its job without external
> pressure.
>
> Dpotop
>
> --- Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> For your information.
>> http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=mol
>> shows quite clearly
>> that under both ISO-639-1/2/3 there is a code for
>> Moldavian. To
>> complicate this
>> http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mol
>>
>> does nor agree with this sentiment. So nobody gets
>> it right, not even
>> the organisation that maintains ISO-639-3.
>>
>> We have had our fill with this nonsense too often.
>> Mark is correct where
>> he says that the language is not the country. The
>> Dutch language is just
>> one example where the name does not imply that
>> everyone who speaks Dutch
>> as his or her mother tongue is Dutch. Bogdan your
>> argument does not
>> wash. When you mention trolling, I wonder when you
>> looked last in a
>> mirror. Anyway the best you can do is ignore. That
>> may be kinda hard but
>> consider, if this project stinks, anyone
>> knowledgeable will be able to
>> sniff it out personally. Then again, roses grow best
>> on dung.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>     GerardM
>>
>> Bogdan Giusca wrote:
>>
>>> Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 12:00:31 AM, Mark
>>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Standard language of PMR is written in Cyrillic.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Yes, it is a "separatist region", but that does
>>>>
>> not cancel the fact
>>
>>>> that it is taught in schools there.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Yes, it has been discussed this before: it's not
>>>
>> standard Moldovan,
>>
>>> as used by the government of Moldova. So why is it
>>>
>> at the mo subdomain?
>>
>>> Shouldn't it be at mo-cyr.wikipedia.org ?
>>>
>>> I think that's the main point of disagreement and
>>>
>> both Moldovans and
>>
>>> Romanians disagree with the current state.
>>>
>>> Anyway, Mark, what do you want to do with this
>>>
>> encyclopedia? I don't
>>
>>> that in the last six months it got *any* new
>>>
>> original content, despite
>>
>>> the thousands of trolling edits by numerous
>>>
>> sock-puppets of Romanian,
>>
>>> Russian, Bulgarian, Greek, American and possibly
>>>
>> Georgian origin.


body:
Mark Clements wrote:
> "Timwi" wrote:
>
>>Public domain is not a license. Please correct this as soon as possible.
>
> Soon enough for ya?   :-)
>
> http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning&diff=4
> 8510&oldid=25463

Yep, thanks a lot :)

Of course, I would have fixed it myself, but... you know! MediaWiki
namespace and stuff ;-)


from_name: Christopher Hagar

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semi-protection

body:
Please help unprotect old protected pages at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_protected_pages

No one else has been unprotecting these pages, despite them liberally
applying protection. They just keep piling up and if it were not for just
two (2) people, there would still be pages semi-protected since July. An
expiry system or an admin bot would be good, and also stop using the
make-work semi-protection template, when the relevant information is
included in the MediaWiki page seen when an IP tries to edit a page.


subject: [Commons-l] Principles of organisation - who do we serve?

body:
On 11/14/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
 > I oppose this on Commons, for the reasons I have given in this thread
> when this was previously brought up:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-June/044555.html

>But I
>think it's OK for Commons to be "harsh", because it follows a very
>strict standard of freedom and it's important for people to learn
>that.

But does the fact that some wikis are now disabling local upload
change the rules at all?
If no, then I suppose we can go on being harsh... but will we always
have to endure David telling us that we are a failure because we've
decided to be harsh?  :)

>Given that there's currently not central user database, having to
>confirm an e-mail address again for Commons strikes me as an
>unnecessary barrier to entry, particularly since our practice is
>generally to simply delete files without a clear source.

I agree.  SUL will reduce this barrier substantially.

I expect with SUL a user which confirms their email on any wiki where
they have an account will have a confirmed email once they arrive at
commons.

Would you consider the confirmed email requirement to be more
acceptable once SUL is implemented?

There is a lot of pressure on commons to not 'simply delete' except in
the most obvious cases, even more than I felt on enwiki... because on
commons the media is often used on dozens of Wikis and multiple
languages create communications barriers.  None single person on
commons us speaks all the languages we serve.

> On Commons,
>I'd rather wish for special processes to educate new users about the
>meaning of "free content" (see the discussion on commons-l about a
>licensing tutorial as a mandatory sign-up step).

I've agreed with these proposals for a copyright quiz ... but it's not there.

Do we need to make a push to complete these?
What is in the way?


body:
Hoi,
There have been projects that were completely removed because there
content was not in the language that it said they were. There have been
projects were the people editing were put on notice to improve the work
because it was disastrously bad. The answer to your question, yes, there
have been projects that were worse.
Thanks,
   GerardM

Bogdan Giusca wrote:
> Gerard,
>
> There is an ISO code because that standard was made by engineers and
> it has no ethnologue code because that list of languages is made by
> linguists.
>
> This Wikipedia was first edited by Node_ue in December 2004, who added
> the first words in Cyrillic. In these two years, it produced zero
> original articles, but it had 8000 edits and endless discussions on
> en.wiki, meta and the mailing lists.
>
> I ask you: there is another Wikipedia with such a record?
>
> Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 2:18:06 AM, Gerard wrote:
>
>
>> For your information.
>> http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=mol shows quite clearly
>> that under both ISO-639-1/2/3 there is a code for Moldavian. To
>> complicate this
>> http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mol
>> does nor agree with this sentiment. So nobody gets it right, not even
>> the organisation that maintains ISO-639-3.
>>
>
>
>> We have had our fill with this nonsense too often. Mark is correct where
>> he says that the language is not the country. The Dutch language is just
>> one example where the name does not imply that everyone who speaks Dutch
>> as his or her mother tongue is Dutch. Bogdan your argument does not
>> wash. When you mention trolling, I wonder when you looked last in a
>> mirror. Anyway the best you can do is ignore. That may be kinda hard but
>> consider, if this project stinks, anyone knowledgeable will be able to
>> sniff it out personally. Then again, roses grow best on dung.
>>


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of {{fact}}, redux

body:
Angela wrote:
> On 11/15/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>>> Yeah, I hate that. Why not just use {{unsourced}}, it is just a good a
>>> warning (better, even), and not at all as annoying.
>> How about we give a class to template:fact so that people could add
>>
>> #cite-request  {
>>    display: none;
>> }
>>
>> to their skin's CSS and make them vanish, if they're sufficiently
>> annoyed by them? That way everyone's preferences can coexist.
>
> I'm more concerned about how it looks to readers, not to people who
> know how to edit their skin settings.

I don't think that it would be a good idea to hide them by default,
though, since then almost nobody would ever see them.

{{unsourced}} is well and good when an article has _no_ references, but
when an article is a blend of sourced and unsourced statements I think
it's better to have something that we can use to label individual
statements as needing citations. If they make the article look ugly, one
could consider that as a visual representation of the state of the
article's verification. We can de-uglify by adding appropriate references.

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from_name: Milos Rancic

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Policy draft: Wikimedia projects are not the
	place for national constitution

body:
Just to mention again: Rules don't cover the whole situation. Not for
Moldovan, not for all other languages. The intention is to remove
daily political talks out of WM projects.

In other words: Please, solve your problems in real life, then come
back to Wikipedia with clear opinion. It is not hard to suppose that
Moldovan Cyrillic standard will not exist in the future. But, we are
living now and now it is not yet solved problem. Romanian
nation-building shouldn't be something which would be solved on
Wikipedia or on other Wikimedian projects. Almost the same is with
Serbian block of Montenegrin Wikipedia.

However, is there any user? is it possible to make software solution?
would the Wikipedia be called "Moldovan Cyrillic" or just "Moldovan"
or "Soviet Moldovan" -- those are completely other questions and the
page is not solving them. And this thread is not about it.

On 11/14/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> Gerard,
>
> There is an ISO code because that standard was made by engineers and
> it has no ethnologue code because that list of languages is made by
> linguists.
>
> This Wikipedia was first edited by Node_ue in December 2004, who added
> the first words in Cyrillic. In these two years, it produced zero
> original articles, but it had 8000 edits and endless discussions on
> en.wiki, meta and the mailing lists.
>
> I ask you: there is another Wikipedia with such a record?
>
> Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 2:18:06 AM, Gerard wrote:
>
> > For your information.
> > http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=mol shows quite clearly
> > that under both ISO-639-1/2/3 there is a code for Moldavian. To
> > complicate this
> > http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mol
> > does nor agree with this sentiment. So nobody gets it right, not even
> > the organisation that maintains ISO-639-3.
>
> > We have had our fill with this nonsense too often. Mark is correct where
> > he says that the language is not the country. The Dutch language is just
> > one example where the name does not imply that everyone who speaks Dutch
> > as his or her mother tongue is Dutch. Bogdan your argument does not
> > wash. When you mention trolling, I wonder when you looked last in a
> > mirror. Anyway the best you can do is ignore. That may be kinda hard but
> > consider, if this project stinks, anyone knowledgeable will be able to
> > sniff it out personally. Then again, roses grow best on dung.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Hoi,
I can safely say that in the future it will be possible to indicate that
something indicates "Moldovan Cyrillic". You seem to forget that there
is an existing body of work in existence and this has to be tagged as
much as any other orthography or dialect.
Thanks,
    GerardM

Milos Rancic wrote:
> Just to mention again: Rules don't cover the whole situation. Not for
> Moldovan, not for all other languages. The intention is to remove
> daily political talks out of WM projects.
>
> In other words: Please, solve your problems in real life, then come
> back to Wikipedia with clear opinion. It is not hard to suppose that
> Moldovan Cyrillic standard will not exist in the future. But, we are
> living now and now it is not yet solved problem. Romanian
> nation-building shouldn't be something which would be solved on
> Wikipedia or on other Wikimedian projects. Almost the same is with
> Serbian block of Montenegrin Wikipedia.
>
> However, is there any user? is it possible to make software solution?
> would the Wikipedia be called "Moldovan Cyrillic" or just "Moldovan"
> or "Soviet Moldovan" -- those are completely other questions and the
> page is not solving them. And this thread is not about it.
>
> On 11/14/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
>
>> Gerard,
>>
>> There is an ISO code because that standard was made by engineers and
>> it has no ethnologue code because that list of languages is made by
>> linguists.
>>
>> This Wikipedia was first edited by Node_ue in December 2004, who added
>> the first words in Cyrillic. In these two years, it produced zero
>> original articles, but it had 8000 edits and endless discussions on
>> en.wiki, meta and the mailing lists.
>>
>> I ask you: there is another Wikipedia with such a record?
>>
>> Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 2:18:06 AM, Gerard wrote:
>>
>>
>>> For your information.
>>> http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=mol shows quite clearly
>>> that under both ISO-639-1/2/3 there is a code for Moldavian. To
>>> complicate this
>>> http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mol
>>> does nor agree with this sentiment. So nobody gets it right, not even
>>> the organisation that maintains ISO-639-3.
>>>
>>> We have had our fill with this nonsense too often. Mark is correct where
>>> he says that the language is not the country. The Dutch language is just
>>> one example where the name does not imply that everyone who speaks Dutch
>>> as his or her mother tongue is Dutch. Bogdan your argument does not
>>> wash. When you mention trolling, I wonder when you looked last in a
>>> mirror. Anyway the best you can do is ignore. That may be kinda hard but
>>> consider, if this project stinks, anyone knowledgeable will be able to
>>> sniff it out personally. Then again, roses grow best on dung.


from_name: geni

subject: [Commons-l] press release

body:
On 11/14/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> When I first wrote this it said GFDL.  Now it says "Original logo
> copyright Wikimedia Foundation.  This picture is made of the hundreds
> of free licenses of the images used to make it.  Screenshot under the
> GFDL (?)"
>
> Which is a big contradiction.  The logo is not under a free license,
> so a derivative of it can't be under the GFDL.  And many of the images
> are under copyleft licenses, so derivatives can't be under a
> non-commercial license.
>
> Yeah, yeah, it's such a small deal, who cares...  Considering the
> nature of this project the answer should be "we do".
>
> Anthony

this is the reason I've been removing wikimedia logos from wikipedia
whenever I run across them. The downside is that example.jpg is
apparently no longer culturally neutral and I'm worried that an edit
war is going to start on [[logo]]

--
geni


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Commons-l] press release

body:
Anthony wrote:
> On 11/13/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>*http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_logo_mosaic/ConstructionNotes
>>(this gorgious new logo)
>>
>
> Doesn't that violate the copyright of the logo?
>
> Anthony

fr: Dans sa grande mansu?tude, la Fondation autorise l'usage de ce d?riv?...

en: authorized for non commercial uses...

ant


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Geohack

body:
On 11/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Jens Frank wrote:
> > geohack is not an extension, but a standalone tool.
>
> Magnus explicitly explained that the standalone tool was his, and that
> it was a "temporary workaround" that was introduced because the
> extension somehow couldn't be used on the live site. I'm sure Magnus
> knows the difference between an extension and a standalone thing.
>
> > geohack is full of hardcodes, and has no support for
> > internationalization.
>
> Magnus claimed that it does, so again I'm inclined to assume that you
> are referring to Magnus' workaround, and not the actual extension he's
> proposing.

The extension (yes, I'm talking about that, not my lousy wrapper;-)
basically takes all its text from a wiki page, which would then be in
the respective wikipedia (and not, like now, a subpage of my en user
page).

I have a few requests for updates on the extension itself, which I'm
not entirely comfortable with doing myself, and I don't really have
time to invest until the end of the month. Making it an "used"
extension might attract some more developers.

Egils extension appears to be in SVN "trunk/extensions/gis", if you're curious.

Magnus


subject: [Commons-l] press release

body:
Errrr. No
Just interested :-)

For "models", see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_release

And may I give you a hug for starting this ?

ant

Brianna Laugher wrote:
> I meant, are you (Anthere) the WMF contact point for this?
>
> On 14/11/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 14/11/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>>A press release announces things after they occurred. Not before.
>>>
>>>I would say that when people work on something great, it is cool to
>>>announce a big milestone. But of course, if no one is interested, there
>>>will be no press release.
>>>
>>>Ant
>>
>>I will try and start something today... I did email comcom about it
>>some weeks ago, but got no discernible reply (what with it being a
>>closed list, and all)... are the WMF contact point for this?
>>
>>Brianna
>>user:pfctdayelise
>>


subject: [Commons-l] Fwd: Commons needs patrollers and future admins

body:
On 11/14/06, Barcex <lv.cabc at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll post a similar message in the Spanish Wikipedia list. In fact I was
> asking some current es: admins about that, but they wonder to be rejected
> because they have not enough edits on Commons. I suggest as criteria to be
> open to accept Spanish Wikipedia admins that have many contributions there
> and were fighting image vandalism also before uploads were closed a few
> months ago.

Admins don't have a monopoly on doing good work. :)

I think it's important enough that admins be well invested and
integrated into commons practices, and it's easy enough to become an
admin on commons (~200 edits) that I wouldn't be inclined to support a
fast path at this time.


body:
On 11/14/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Those who have a need to  upload files beyond the current size limit
> may now contact me by e-mail to do so. I have set up an FTP server
> where these files can be uploaded, and will transfer them manually to
> the Wikimedia servers using my shell account. However, I'm currently
> only handing out the FTP access data on request.

I once wrote a function for the upload page where you upload a file by
giving its URL. There were some security concerns about malicious
servers, which I think I fixed, but then, as usual, nothing happened.

Should still be in there, for anyone interested. Lemme see... ah yes;
set $wgAllowCopyUploads=true in LocalSettings, and be done with it.

Magnus


from_name: Bogdan Giusca

body:
Gerard,

There is an ISO code because that standard was made by engineers and
it has no ethnologue code because that list of languages is made by
linguists.

This Wikipedia was first edited by Node_ue in December 2004, who added
the first words in Cyrillic. In these two years, it produced zero
original articles, but it had 8000 edits and endless discussions on
en.wiki, meta and the mailing lists.

I ask you: there is another Wikipedia with such a record?

Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 2:18:06 AM, Gerard wrote:

> For your information.
> http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=mol shows quite clearly
> that under both ISO-639-1/2/3 there is a code for Moldavian. To
> complicate this
> http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mol
> does nor agree with this sentiment. So nobody gets it right, not even
> the organisation that maintains ISO-639-3.

> We have had our fill with this nonsense too often. Mark is correct where
> he says that the language is not the country. The Dutch language is just
> one example where the name does not imply that everyone who speaks Dutch
> as his or her mother tongue is Dutch. Bogdan your argument does not
> wash. When you mention trolling, I wonder when you looked last in a
> mirror. Anyway the best you can do is ignore. That may be kinda hard but
> consider, if this project stinks, anyone knowledgeable will be able to
> sniff it out personally. Then again, roses grow best on dung.


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Geohack

body:
On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 07:34:33PM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
> On 11/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Jens Frank wrote:
> > > geohack is not an extension, but a standalone tool.
> >
> > Magnus explicitly explained that the standalone tool was his, and that
> > it was a "temporary workaround" that was introduced because the
> > extension somehow couldn't be used on the live site. I'm sure Magnus
> > knows the difference between an extension and a standalone thing.
> >
> Egils extension appears to be in SVN "trunk/extensions/gis", if you're curious.

Doh! I even worked on that one myself, a year ago. I'll have a look. I
think I remember that it was not really production ready, but I don't
remember why.

jens


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 14/11/06, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:

> I once wrote a function for the upload page where you upload a file by
> giving its URL. There were some security concerns about malicious
> servers, which I think I fixed, but then, as usual, nothing happened.
> Should still be in there, for anyone interested. Lemme see... ah yes;
> set $wgAllowCopyUploads=true in LocalSettings, and be done with it.

I shudder at the thought of this being enabled on Commons unless such
uploads are somehow marked for particular urgent attention - it sounds
like an even easier way to upload copyright violations. If such
uploads are marked and auto-categorised, it might be manageable.

(After all my whining on this list, I'm going to have to start looking
for and tagging Commons copyvios myself and then applying for admin
...)

- d.


body:
Commons is currently suffering a problem of a metric shitload of
rubbish and copyvios, and not enough admins to do the cleanup work.
Can anyone here help?

Patrollers who speak multiple languages are particularly valuable in
this regard, but I expect anyone good would be reasonably welcome once
they can show a reasonable amount of work on Commons itself. Spanish
and Portuguese speakers are particularly encouraged at present,
because es: and pt: only allow image uploads directly to Commons.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators#Suggestions_for_administrators

(I whined enough about it on commons-l myself that I'll be diving into
shitwork on Commons soon as well ...)

- d.


from_name: phoebe ayers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semi-protection

body:
On 11/14/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/12/06, theProject <wp.theproject at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, I know I personally don't have the patience to wait a few days and
> > then add my contributions. The way I see it, anon comes around --> sees
> he
> > can't edit without registering and waiting four days --> decides it's
> not
> > worth the hassle --> perfectly good contribution lost, maybe more -->
> > Wikipedia suffers more in the long run.
>
> Absolutely.

I don't know if semi-protection is generally discouraging to new editors or
not, and without good user studies none of us will ever know for sure. As
far as I know, we are very much lacking in good data both about the
experience of new editors and of "ordinary users" who don't edit, which is
something I hope the research community will be able to someday remedy. It's
all very well to have individual, qualitative impressions (sure, the place
seems harder to navigate and less friendly than when I signed up three years
ago) but those impressions don't mean much overall unless collected widely,
counted reliably and aggregated.

> > I also disagree with anything that presumes bad faith about anonymous
> > editors. Wikipedia built itself by being as open as possible. Can we
> diverge
> > from that path of openness as little as possible?
>
> And agreed again.   To expand on GMaxwell's comment about limiting
> visibility of newbie edits: we should be as liberal as possible in
> taking in new text and information from contributors, and as careful
> as possible in how we display it.  Each view should very clearly
> identify, filtered up to the first screen of the main display, the
> history, community trust, level of discussion and monitoring, and
> referencing put into an article (especially its last dozen edits).
>
> SJ
>

I agree, and with what Gmaxwell & Ray have said. Presenting the best
possible view of an article -- the vetted and referenced version, the
version that's flagged as being "ok" by three people, whatever it takes --
is a service to our users, who are using the site to find information. These
people are and should be our primary audience. It's important to remember
that Wikipedia is a complicated system, it is difficult to figure out, and
that most readers likely don't bother. I've talked to a number of people
this year who had used Wikipedia but didn't realize it was user-created;
many other people know what it is but are massively fuzzy on the details
(someone once asked me if I had worked on all the science articles). If
readers like this are in fact in the majority (more data to collect!), we
should behave accordingly, and work behind the scenes to ensure better,
unvandalized content (as well as mounting education campaigns).

This presentation of course needs to be balanced with openess; but if
something doesn't significantly impair the ability to edit but does
significantly improve content it seems like a good modification to make.
Again, we need data to know if semiprotection, for instance, significantly
impairs or significantly improves (or both, or neither).

It's also worth remembering that people's ability to read disclaimers,
whether related to liability limitations, article reliability,
degree-of-vettedness or anything else is not something to be relied on, and
hence presenting good content (not questionable content tagged as "this
content may be unreliable, read at your own risk, but here it is anyway")
should be our goal.

I also wonder what happened with the de: pilot study. Anybody?

-- phoebe


body:
I just sent this to wikien-l asking for helpers. Presumably there are
tags, etc. for non-admin patrollers to tag suspect images. Something
like this posted to other language Wikipedias would be a good idea, I
suspect.

- d.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>
Date: 14-Nov-2006 20:12
Subject: Commons needs patrollers and future admins
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>

Commons is currently suffering a problem of a metric shitload of
rubbish and copyvios, and not enough admins to do the cleanup work.
Can anyone here help?

Patrollers who speak multiple languages are particularly valuable in
this regard, but I expect anyone good would be reasonably welcome once
they can show a reasonable amount of work on Commons itself. Spanish
and Portuguese speakers are particularly encouraged at present,
because es: and pt: only allow image uploads directly to Commons.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators#Suggestions_for_administrators

(I whined enough about it on commons-l myself that I'll be diving into
shitwork on Commons soon as well ...)

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Commons needs patrollers and future admins


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Commons-l] press release

body:
On 11/14/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 11/14/06, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Anthony wrote:
> > > On 11/13/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >>*http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_logo_mosaic/ConstructionNotes
> > >>(this gorgious new logo)
> > >>
> > >
> > > Doesn't that violate the copyright of the logo?
> > >
> > > Anthony
> >
> > fr: Dans sa grande mansu?tude, la Fondation autorise l'usage de ce d?riv?...
> >
> > en: authorized for non commercial uses...
> >
> > ant
> >
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:WikimediaMosaicCapture.png
>
> When I first wrote this it said GFDL.  Now it says "Original logo
> copyright Wikimedia Foundation.  This picture is made of the hundreds
> of free licenses of the images used to make it.  Screenshot under the
> GFDL (?)"
>
> Which is a big contradiction.  The logo is not under a free license,
> so a derivative of it can't be under the GFDL.  And many of the images
> are under copyleft licenses, so derivatives can't be under a
> non-commercial license.
>
> Yeah, yeah, it's such a small deal, who cares...  Considering the
> nature of this project the answer should be "we do".

I am the one who changed it. There is no *right* license for that
"thing". The screen shot is what it is, ie. a screenshot, so no GFDL
applies. If anything, it's a Foundation copyright (to the screen shot)
or actually, probably a fair use, under the label "tribute" or some
such thing.

The live mosaic, however, is "live" and happens to be a bunch of
pictures under free licenses patched together on a page to form the
Wikimedia logo. So you can't apply a "Foundation" copyright to
something that's made of hundreds of different licenses. The pictures
in the "live mosaic" are independant from each other, so there's no
reason why they should not keep their licences.

Hence the somewhat puzzled licensing information *I* put on that page.

Delphine

--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Mike O wrote:
>> Where are the Mediawiki extension hidden at ? Pages in meta have the wrong links, to cvs at sourceforge.
>
> How long ago did MediaWiki switch to SVN?

April.

> Why are there still links to
> CVS on Meta or anywhere else?

It's a wiki.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
On 14/11/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I just sent this to wikien-l asking for helpers. Presumably there are
> > tags, etc. for non-admin patrollers to tag suspect images. Something
> > like this posted to other language Wikipedias would be a good idea, I
> > suspect.

> Yes.
> {{delete}}
> and the
> {{subst:nsd}}
> and
> {{subst:nld}}
> Just like on en.

Exxxcellent. I shall probably do a pile of this in the slack times
next week when I'm on call ...

I put the same note on [[:en:WP:AN]] as well.

- d.


from_name: James Hare

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of {{fact}}, redux

body:
Yeah, seeing a bunch of "this is unsourced crap" will make people think
twice about using Wikipedia. Or maybe they'll think that something on Wiki
is 100% true -unless- there's that cite-needed tag.

On 11/14/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/15/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> > > Yeah, I hate that. Why not just use {{unsourced}}, it is just a good a
> > > warning (better, even), and not at all as annoying.
> >
> > How about we give a class to template:fact so that people could add
> >
> > #cite-request  {
> >    display: none;
> > }
> >
> > to their skin's CSS and make them vanish, if they're sufficiently
> > annoyed by them? That way everyone's preferences can coexist.
>
> I'm more concerned about how it looks to readers, not to people who
> know how to edit their skin settings.
>
> Angela
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Commons-l] Uploading files beyond the size limit

body:
On 14/11/06, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:

> When I was working on this, it was suggested that it should
> automatically add the source URL to the image description (unless it
> is already given in there). It could also add "[[category:URL
> uploads]]" or the like.
> With the source URL given, it would actually be *easier* to find
> copyvios, as one knows exactly where it came from, unlike the current
> system.

:-D Now that, I like!

- d.