from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
James-

> Not so. NPOV requires balence in content.

Actually, NPOV requires that views are attributed. We have no obligation
to "invent" positive views if all we have is negative information. For
example, there is no obligation for us to write 10K about how great a
painter a dictator was to compensate for the 10K we write about how many
people he killed. Certainly we should strive for balance especially in a
case like Mother Teresa, and I would have been the first to agree that
more should have been written about her life and work. In fact, I have
always stated that
- all sections should be continually expanded
- as soon as a certain length is reached, the article should be split into
different sections regardless of their content.

It does not matter who or when people protested against the controversies
being listed on the Mother Teresa page, what matters is whether the course
of action to split away *only the controversial* parts of the article is
proper and in line with our established policy or not. I think it is quite
clear that it is not. The simple reality is that most people do not know
much about the criticisms concerning Mother Teresa, and there is a large
gulf between the reality of her work and the media portrayal thereof. It
is therefore to be expected that people will assume that an article is
biased when it presents more critical information than they would expect.
However, there is clear precedent on what to do in cases like this, for
example, the [[Scientology]] article, where individual sections were split
away as the article became too long. It is not NPOV to split away only the
controversy section.

You repeatedly insist that your only commitment is to neutrality and
academic standards. Why, then, do you not mention with a single word the
objections that have been raised by other contributors to your actions?
Both Bryan Derksen and Jiang, long-term Wikipedia contributors with a
positive track record, have objected to your splitting away. Clearly there
was no consensus for your actions, yet you persisted in reverting to your
preferred version. Are you seriously trying to tell me that this was in
the spirit of cooperation and Wikiquette? I think even you know that it
was not, since you seem to imply that it was OK because I would do the
same (use consensus only when it suits me).

>> I did not edit the page for the next few hours and nor did you,

> You know I am not on during the daytime.

I don't watch your edits. My unprotection of the page had a single
purpose, to allow other contributors to continue working on the article
because of the beatification on Sunday in spite of our silly edit war. The
protection did not stop me or you from editing the page, but it stopped
others, so it seemed very unfair to uphold it. You will have to admit that
this is not even close to being abusive behavior.

>> In addition to that, you continue to play your usual games, which consist
>> of
>> - personal attacks (always singling out one contributor, even though
>> several users have expressed disagreement with your actions)

> I have to say at this point that a ban of Jtdirl is no longer out of the
> question for me.?Eloquence 22:07, Oct 20, 2003 (UTC)

At the point where your behavior became so crass and clearly in violation
of what this community stands for, it was only logical for me to bring up
the question of whether you should be allowed to persist in this kind of
behavior, as we have clear rules on these matters.

To compare a tongue-in-cheek remark like "valiant defender of truth" to
the kind of personal attacks you have made against me -- that I don't know
what I'm talking about, that my prose is poorly written, convoluted etc.,
that I tried to rewrite the article based on the claims of a single
person, that I wanted to turn all of Wikipedia into some kind of anti-
Catholic bashfest -- is quite obviously inaccurate. You have a long
history of rudeness and it would be helpful if you would begin to
acknowledge at least that, for this would be the first step towards better
cooperation.

> So why then accuse me of a 'pro-catholic bias' and censoring criticism of
> MT, when I was doing nothing of the sort, merely trying to NPOV an article
> and give stuff not about MT its own article?

Because moving away everything that is critical while then providing a
one-paragraph-summary thereof is not even close to neutral.

> Which is why, I suppose, every edit I made for ages tonight was screwed
> around when you went in and began changing past tense to present tense

Oh please. I don't give a hoot about past or present tense. I have told
you a zillion times before that you should not complain about lost changes
if you don't try to resolve one matter before making the next change.

>> That cannot always be
>> done, of course, but there are reasonable courses of actions in the cases
>> where it can't (act based on established precedent, hold a vote, ask Jimbo
>> etc.). Just trying to get "your way or the highway" will not lead to any
>> kind of solution.

> More threats from 'The User Who Does Not Make Threats', eh?

Huh? Where exactly is the threat in the above paragraph?

> I have co-operated with many people on wikipedia. The only fights I have had
> here in ages have been with you

That's funny. My mailbox is full of long flames written by you which have
not been directed at me. Look, James, everyone who knows even a little bit
about you knows that you frequently resort to attacking people personally.
You often apologize later when these attacks are directed at regulars, and
that is good. But why do you attack people in the first place? Isn't it
obvious that this whole conflict would never have arisen if you had just
made your suggestion for changes on the talk pages and tried to find a
solution together with me? Do you think that I am so incredibly biased
that it is not possible to work with me?

Regards,

Erik


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Eric's abuse of his sysop powers


list: wikien-l

from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Jtdirl ban (was : Eric's abuse of his sysop powers)

body:
On 10/21/03 12:15 AM, "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> Cunc-
>
>>> No, I would not ban Jtdirl myself, and I have never said that I would. But
>>> it is beginning to look like a necessity. I will look at this again when
>>> Jimbo is back and if I deem it necessary, supply the evidence to him that
>>> would support a temporary ban.
>>>
>>> Oh, and this still belongs on wikien-l.
>>>
>> Sounds like a threat to me.
>
> Hardly surprising, as you see every ban as a threat. However, this is the
> proper procedure for banning users on Wikipedia, whether you like it or
> not.
>
I was responding to Ed Poor's mistaken belief that you weren't serious about
initiating banning procedures on Jtdirl.

("No, Erik would never do that -- no more than I would. In a moment of
anger, anyone might 'think aloud' and talk about doing something. But
that is not a threat.

Saying, "I wish Bush was dead" or even "Someone ought to kill the
president" is NOT THE SAME as an assassination threat. Sheldon Rampton's
wish that the software would give him the ability to send a million
volts through my chair is not a murder threat.

Erik and I both spoke (rashly, perhaps) of a DESIRE to temporarily block
or even permanently ban contributors who use Wikipedia in ways we didn't
like.

But Jimbo knows we wouldn't really do that.")

Unless I misinterpreted Ed.


from_name: Graham Burnett

subject: [WikiEN-l] ALERT: Idea for new feature: "Who's watching this page?"

body:
Idea for new feature: "Who's watching this page?"

This got mooted on the Village Pump today- I'm STRONGLY against this, to the
extent that I'd withdraw from wikipedia with a demand that any history of
pages I'd watched be deleted from public record if it were to be implemeted.
Suffice to say many of us watch certain pages for many differing reasons
which are nobody elses business.

Nuf said i hope.

Graham (Quercus Robur)

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.525 / Virus Database: 322 - Release Date: 10/10/2003


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[WikiEN-l] ALERT: Idea for new feature: "Who's watching
	this	page?"

body:
On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 01:46 US/Pacific, Angela wrote:
> I also think sysops should be prevented from being
> able to access this information. (They currently can
> despite earlier claims they can not).

Sysops can presently look at watchlist data via sql, but this is simply
an oversight which can be corrected.

Sysops cannot look at users' e-mail addresses or password hashes
(passwords are not stored in plaintext, but it's easier to crack a
password if you've got the hash).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject:
[WikiEN-l] ALERT: Idea for new feature: "Who's
	watching	this	page?"

body:
On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 02:24 US/Pacific, Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 01:46 US/Pacific, Angela wrote:
>> I also think sysops should be prevented from being
>> able to access this information. (They currently can
>> despite earlier claims they can not).
>
> Sysops can presently look at watchlist data via sql, but this is
> simply an oversight which can be corrected.

...and now is.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] C++ parser : progress report

body:
On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 03:09 US/Pacific, Magnus Manske wrote:
> My C++ parser is now a working offline browser. This is achieved by
> converting a mysql dump of the cur table into an sqlite database once,
> then using apache/php as a frontend and a php file calling the
> compiled C++ executable, which renders HTML on-the-fly. Browse using
> your favourite browser :-)

Neat!

> Why bother with this, if a static HTML version would do the same?
> * Proof-of-principle
> * sqlite databases can be changed, allowing for edits
> * Encapsuled database object, can be easily switched to use mysql or
> any other database instead of sqlite for use on a website
> * Full-text search (which I'll implement next)
* eliminate filesystem overhead of a hojillion tiny files

Pack source plus ready-to-run executables for Windows, Linux/x86, and
Mac, and this could be handy.

> Some things that bug me:
> * Is there an easy way to call an executable directly from apache,
> without the need for a PHP script in-between?

CGI? Turn it into an Apache module to run in-process?

> * Is there a no-setup-needed web browser? Some .exe that I can start
> on a windows machine, then fire up the web browser, and view/edit my
> local wikipedia copy?

Probably some out there.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Cunc-

>> No, I would not ban Jtdirl myself, and I have never said that I would. But
>> it is beginning to look like a necessity. I will look at this again when
>> Jimbo is back and if I deem it necessary, supply the evidence to him that
>> would support a temporary ban.
>>
>> Oh, and this still belongs on wikien-l.
>>
> Sounds like a threat to me.

Hardly surprising, as you see every ban as a threat. However, this is the
proper procedure for banning users on Wikipedia, whether you like it or
not.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Cunc-
> I was responding to Ed Poor's mistaken belief that you weren't serious about
> initiating banning procedures on Jtdirl.

You are correct, that belief is mistaken. However, as I have stated
countless times, if Jtdirl works with me peacefully on the article in
question, then I see no reason to continue this procedure, and I will only
make a decision after a few days of cooling down. I value him as a
contributor, but I find it impossible to work on an article if my edits
are reverted without discussion or explanation.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Eric's abuse of his sysop powers

body:
>Yes, just put it back on the page. What about the basic question of whether
>Wikipedia should be NPOV, and how we do that? Maybe we should finally stop
>circumventing that question and actually discuss it. Would be useful, I'd
>say.
>
>Andre Engels

This article, Mother Teresa, does cry out for segregation of critical views
from positive views as we seem rather mean spirited to be bringing up all
the uncomfortable facts (even God must have been unaware of them or she
would never have been authorized to perform miracles) just as the Catholic
community is celebrating a new saint. But I note the John Paul Jones
article effectively debunks an American secular saint.

This could be done in a separate article, or in a separate section within
the article. Interspersed throughout the article it definitely breaks the
spell, aura of holiness.

Fred


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Decorating articles with metainfo

body:
Please stop decorating small article with "stub" statements - there is
already engough administrative stuff around the article text.

Short article are not bad per se, and articles looking "long enough"
might be more misleading than a short article.  Thus adding "stub"
statements is just stupid.

For comments like "stub" statements use the Talk page of the article.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Balance in content (was: Eric's abuse of his sysop
	powers)

body:
JTD:

> NPOV requires balence in content.

I disagree. Otherwise, I would have instantly reverted the anonymous
changes to [[Sun Myung Moon]], [[Moonies]], etc. which "unbalanced"
those articles.

I purposely let the balance shift toward the 'anti-Moon' end of the
spectrum. Since then, I have gradually been fixing up the article.

I see no problem with an article about Rev. Moon being 80%, 85%, even
90% about CRITICISMS PEOPLE MAKE about him. There is no reason to revert
such additions, and the 'unbalanced' article doesn't bother me at all.

If any "balance" is needed, we might try to estimate HOW MANY PEOPLE
think a certain way. If this means an article says that 99% of the world
loves Theresa and 1% hate her -- while the article is 1/3 hagiography
(praise) and 2/3 vilification (criticism), what's wrong with that?

As long as the critical POV is attributed to its advocates and
sources...

"Uncle" Ed


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Balance in content (was: Eric's abuse of his sysop
	powers)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Watchlist feature wishlist

body:
I would like to have my watchlist publicly viewable, and I would also
like to maintain (discreetly) a private, non-viewable watchlist.

Additionally, I would like to have a publicly EDITABLE watchlist: like,
hey Ed please watch this page!

I'd even like to have multiple watchlists, each with:
* a name
* a setting for publicly viewable, or hidden
* a setting for publicly editable, or personally controlled

I need an NPOV watchlist, a "users fighting" watchlist, and a "global
warming" watchlist.

How soon can we get this stuff, Tim/Brion/Magnus and crew? ^_^

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikitech-l] Watchlist feature wishlist


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Watch list (Ed)

body:
I would like to have my watchlist publicly viewable,
and I would also
like to maintain (discreetly) a private, non-viewable
watchlist.

Additionally, I would like to have a publicly EDITABLE
watchlist: like,
hey Ed please watch this page!

I'd even like to have multiple watchlists, each with:
* a name
* a setting for publicly viewable, or hidden
* a setting for publicly editable, or personally
controlled

I need an NPOV watchlist, a "users fighting"
watchlist, and a "global
warming" watchlist.

How soon can we get this stuff, Tim/Brion/Magnus and
crew? ^_^

Ed Poor

------

I would like this feature to be discuss on the right
list.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Watch list (Ed)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Watchlist feature wishlist

body:
Ed writes:

> I would like to have my watchlist publicly viewable,
and I would also
> like to maintain (discreetly) a private,
non-viewable watchlist.
>
> Additionally, I would like to have a publicly
EDITABLE watchlist: like,
> hey Ed please watch this page!

This can already be done. Just create a page in your
userspace with links to
pages that you are "publicly" watching, and click on
Related Changes any time
to see what pages have been edited. This is
essentially a "public watchlist".

Evercat

------

I would like this feature to be discussed on the
proper list

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [WikiEN-l] Watchlist feature wishlist


body:
>
> >  so this should be "opt-in" only, not
> > the default, if implemented.
>

Well an 'opt in' public watchlist is something I could live with. But the
default should definately be private. I liked the suggestion of  a seperate
'watchlist' (called something else) which could list articles one is
currently looking for collaborators on.

But as I stated on Village Pump, I have a couple of pages on my Watchlist
that I keep an eye on for my own reasons. Bearing in mind that ANYBODY could
join Wikipedia and then have a look at what I maintain an interest in, and
that from my user page it's fairly easy to work out where I live, this is
not something I would be happy with. It's not a case of 'if your not doing
anything wrong then you shouldn't have anything to hide' but common sense.
It's also a matter of principle.

graham (Quercus robur)

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.525 / Virus Database: 322 - Release Date: 09/10/2003


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: FW: "Auto Extraction from WWW"

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Monday, Oct 20, 2003, at 12:18 US/Pacific, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>> Could someone take over this question? I don't know what to tell these
>> guys.
>
>
> Tim answered a long time ago, but nobody's heard anything back from them
> but the initial form letter cut-n-pasted, so far as I know.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rameez

They emailed me privately twice, the second one just a few hours ago:

:Dear Tim
:
:thanx for ur reply
:i have installed MySql on Windows & i did try to open  the SQL dump but
:somehow was unable to do so
:could u plz guide regarding the same (i m a novice as far as Mysql is
:concerned)
:hope to hear from u soon
:
:regards
:
:Don Rameez

I'm too nice. I should just tell them to do their own homework.

-- Tim Starling.


from_name: Angela

subject:
[WikiEN-l] ALERT: Idea for new feature: "Who's watching this
	page?"

body:
I think this feature should be limited to just show
the number of people watching a page. Having an
opt-out feature would stop it being useful anyway.
What benefit is there in seeing a list of people who
agreed to admit they were watching it?

I also think sysops should be prevented from being
able to access this information. (They currently can
despite earlier claims they can not).

Angela.

________________________________________________________________________
Want to chat instantly with your online friends?  Get the FREE Yahoo!
Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk


subject: [Wikitech-l] visited links and empty links in red (Ed)

body:
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
Subject: RE: [Wikitech-l] visited links and empty
links in red

Anthere,

I have never been to Cologne, and I'm sorry you're
feeling blue. ;-)

Edmond LePauvre

Me neither Edmond.

I am right now fuming, so kinda red actually.
So you can figure me out with a blue skin with red
patches on the cheeks. The colors messing together
might turn black eventually :-)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [Wikitech-l] Watchlist feature wishlist

body:
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
>I would like to have my watchlist publicly viewable, and I would also
>like to maintain (discreetly) a private, non-viewable watchlist.

>Additionally, I would like to have a publicly EDITABLE watchlist: like,
>hey Ed please watch this page!

>I'd even like to have multiple watchlists, each with:
>* a name
>* a setting for publicly viewable, or hidden
>* a setting for publicly editable, or personally controlled

>I need an NPOV watchlist, a "users fighting" watchlist, and a "global
>warming" watchlist.

>How soon can we get this stuff, Tim/Brion/Magnus and crew? ^_^

>Ed Poor

It is easy to set up these watchlists as user subpages. If you don't
want it to be readily accessible then do not link to it from your
home page. You can hide the links by blanking the page, then
when you want to see it look at the previous version through a
page history. You can, as Brian points out, then do a related changes
search and get all the recent changes. The links to the "hidden" pages
get lost in your user contributions (unless you make changes but
that is not a problem for the public lists). It works for me.

Alex756


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Problem with photos

body:
Ericd writes:

> My photo of a Porsche 912 -took by myself- on the Porsche article was
> replaced by another wich is obviously not a Porsche 912. The new picture
is
> IMO studio works and probably copyrighted. It seems impossible to recover
> the old photo. Why ? Even if the new image is uncopyrighted and better
than
> mine, mine could be useful elsewhere (on a Porsche 912 article) for
> instance.

I just left a few paragraphs on Chris K's user talk page about that.  It
seems he has a history of doing this, given the other comments on his page.

It brings up a software issue, too.  Changes to articles are in the history
and can always be reverted if we don't like them -- thus, no irreversible
changes can be made to an article.  With images, on the other hand, we allow
regular users to delete image files.  Thus, the Wikipedia concept is broken;
changes can be made which cannot be undone.  This is what User:Chris K did
here.

I suspect this ability exists so that users don't clutter up the server with
lots of old image revisions and can clean up after themselves, but it has
consequences and is open to abuse.

I'm not suggesting that Chris K intended any ill by this; he probably just
thought it was a better image for the article.  I do not like that it was
possible for him to remove the possibility of his changes being reverted
within the Wikipedia system.  (Of course, EricD may have the file saved
off-line, but if so, that's luck.  Luck we may not have if a picture is
deleted that belonged to a departed contributor.  Of course, there may be
OS-level backups being taken that would help in such an event).

-Matt [User:Morven]


subject: [Wikitech-l] visited links and empty links in red

body:
Anthere,

I have never been to Cologne, and I'm sorry you're feeling blue. ;-)

Edmond LePauvre


from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Eric's abuse of his sysop powers

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> Yes, just put it back on the page. What about the basic question of
whether
> Wikipedia should be NPOV, and how we do that? Maybe we should finally stop
> circumventing that question and actually discuss it. Would be useful, I'd
> say.

 ... what? NPOV is the one absolute of Wikipedia. Now, we sometimes disagree
about what approach is most neutral (there's a tendency these days towards
No Point of View, which is quite different), but NPOV is the keystone of
everything here.

Fred Bauder wrote:
>Interspersed throughout the article it definitely breaks the
>spell, aura of holiness.

Good.

To expand on that: I'm not a huge fan of Mother Theresa (or Catholicism, or
organized religion in general), but neither am I interested in vilifying
her; I think there's too much tendency (in both the article and pretty much
every other medium I've seen mention) to go to one side or the other. But
there should not be an aura of holiness in any article. That's the sort of
thing that stifles clear thought. There are positive and negative things to
be said about anyone and anything, and very few absolute truths.

-- Jake


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: ALERT: Idea for new feature: "Who's watching this
	page?"

body:
Graham Burnett wrote:
> Idea for new feature: "Who's watching this page?"
>
> This got mooted on the Village Pump today- I'm STRONGLY against this, to the
> extent that I'd withdraw from wikipedia with a demand that any history of
> pages I'd watched be deleted from public record if it were to be implemeted.
> Suffice to say many of us watch certain pages for many differing reasons
> which are nobody elses business.
>
> Nuf said i hope.
>
> Graham (Quercus Robur)
>

How about a user preference allowing you to hide your watchlist? The
"successfully added to watchlist" screen could warn the user that the
watchlist is public and inform them of the fact that they can alter this
in their user preferences.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 06:28 AM 10/21/03 -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:
> >Yes, just put it back on the page. What about the basic question of whether
> >Wikipedia should be NPOV, and how we do that? Maybe we should finally stop
> >circumventing that question and actually discuss it. Would be useful, I'd
> >say.
> >
> >Andre Engels
>
>This article, Mother Teresa, does cry out for segregation of critical views
>from positive views as we seem rather mean spirited to be bringing up all
>the uncomfortable facts (even God must have been unaware of them or she
>would never have been authorized to perform miracles) just as the Catholic
>community is celebrating a new saint. But I note the John Paul Jones
>article effectively debunks an American secular saint.

You're assuming the conclusion here: namely, that (a) there is a God,
who (b) has given the Catholic Church the ability to identify saints, and
(c) that said church never makes mistakes.

If, conversely, the criticisms of Mother Theresa are valid (which I think
they are, but that's open to debate), and the Catholic church has declared
her to be a saint (a fact), that leads to questions about what beatification
means.

>This could be done in a separate article, or in a separate section within
>the article. Interspersed throughout the article it definitely breaks the
>spell, aura of holiness.

Wikipedia's job is not to create an aura of holiness. We're an encyclopedia.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Developer threatening sysop with ban (over an edit war)

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> You are correct, that belief is mistaken. However,
> as I have stated
> countless times, if Jtdirl works with me peacefully
> on the article in
> question, then I see no reason to continue this
> procedure, and I will only
> make a decision after a few days of cooling down. I
> value him as a
> contributor, but I find it impossible to work on an
> article if my edits
> are reverted without discussion or explanation.

Not to mention-- since it be *you in the edit war with
JT --it wont be *you who be doing any banning.

~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


body:
Benjamin Esham wrote:
> On Monday, October 20, 2003, at 08:25  PM, Graham Burnett wrote:
>
>> Idea for new feature: "Who's watching this page?"
>>
>> This got mooted on the Village Pump today- I'm STRONGLY against this,
>> to the
>> extent that I'd withdraw from wikipedia with a demand that any history of
>> pages I'd watched be deleted from public record if it were to be
>> implemeted.
>> Suffice to say many of us watch certain pages for many differing reasons
>> which are nobody elses business.
>
>
> Why can't we have a user preference that says "Hide my watchlist from
> other users"?
> Then, on the "Who's watching this page?" page, there would be a note to
> the effect
> that there are X additional users that are watching the page, but whom
> do not want
> to be identified.  This seems like a balanced solution to me -- users
> who value their
> privacy could choose not to be identified, but the useful statistic of
> how many people
> there are that are watching the page would still be available.
>
> Just a thought :-)
>

My word, that *is* a good idea. Why didn't I think of that?

-- Tim Starling.


body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> This article, Mother Teresa, does cry out for
> segregation of critical views
> from positive views as we seem rather mean spirited
> to be bringing up all
> the uncomfortable facts (even God must have been
> unaware of them or she
> would never have been authorized to perform
> miracles) just as the Catholic
> community is celebrating a new saint. But I note the
> John Paul Jones
> article effectively debunks an American secular
> saint.

It may be that Eriks got an anti-Catholic gripe going
--who doesnt.  But Fred is exactly right --and the
issue is: Who is Mother Teresa?  Is she on her way to
being a saint, or a contemporary person, for whom an
encyclopedia article can write up all kinds of dirt on
her.

We can also ask: "Who *was* Mother Teresa?" but this
is the controversy --Catholics think of her as being
an "is" while non-Catholics will think of her as a
"was."

Which takes precedence?  Neither. This is an
encyclopedia -- we use [[news style]] and that neutral
point of view thing...

Its quite easy to simply describe her humanist
accomplishments in a *secular, *encyclopedic, way --
and then to treat how Catholics revere her, and others
hate her --presumably for her supposedly making the
Catholic Church look good somewhat --(we can't have
that.)

~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Eureka! I've got it (was: Pages with hundreds of
	international links slow?)

body:
On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 10:04 US/Pacific, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> Eureka! I've got it!!
>
> Give each page a "links complete" bit.
>
> The first time the page is loaded, we check all the links, then set the
> bit ON.
>
> After that, any page change (creation, deletion, etc.) WHICH AFFECTS
> THIS PAGE would then turn the bit OFF.

How's this different from the cur_touched cache invalidation timestamp
we've got now?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Watchlist

body:
On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 10:46 US/Pacific, K Forstner wrote:

> Time for the silly question(s). Wasn't the watchlist feature disabled
> some
> time ago?

No. For people with very long watchlists the default time period shown
on [[Special:Watchlist]] has been drastically reduced, that's all.

Also a note:
THERE WILL BE NO FEATURE BY WHICH ARBITRARY PEOPLE CAN VIEW ANYONE
ELSE'S WATCHLIST WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT. The idea is very unpopular, and
for good reason.

Hypothetically we could make an opt-in 'public watchlist', but few
people think this would be useful, and you can do more flexible things
by creating pages of links.

More likely we might add a "N users are watching this page" to the page
stats, which is not privacy-invasive but perhaps informative.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Watchlist


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Eureka! I've got it (was: Pages with hundreds
	ofinternational links slow?)

body:
On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 11:38 US/Pacific, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> The kerfuggle touched my what? I dunno :-)
>
> I was under the impression that EVERY TIME a user requests a page,
> the software has to double-check each internal link for the presence or
> absence of the linked page.
>
> My ancient Greek cry of jubilation only applies, if this is the case...

Well, I generally recommend reading the software in detail to see what
it does ;) but here's a summary for those who wish to remain partially
sane:

* Grab page info from db
* Are you anonymous user? if so:
   * check for cached output html
     * compare its timestamp against cur_touched
     * if ok, send that out and leave
* Check if client told us it's got a locally-cached copy of the page
   * compare its timestamp against cur_touched
   * if ok, say to use the cached copy and leave
* Do a quick query to the link tables for all existing and non-existing
links from this page
* Parse the wikitext
   * As we find each wikilink, look it up in the lists we already got to
see if it exists
   * On the off chance the tables are corrupt, anything that wasn't
listed will be checked individually against cur
* Output
* If anon, save output html in the server cache.

On page creation and deletion we update the cur_touched timestamp of
all pages that link to the given page, thus forcing them to re-render,
and we update the link tables to reflect the new existence or
non-existence of the page.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [WikiEN-l] ALERT: Idea for new feature: "Who's watching thispage?"

body:
> Actually, it's a good idea. In no way is it a invasion of
> privacy. Anyone who wants to get some idea of a contributor's
> interests can look at his edit record. There's no good reason
> not to have watchlists be public.

Edit history does not equal watch list.  I can watch something without
having edited it.  And other people being able to see my watch list is
an invasion of privacy of sorts, so this should be "opt-in" only, not
the default, if implemented.

Wikipedia is trying to get more people to join, so it would be a tragedy
if this privacy issue kept folks away.

-Fuzheado


subject: [Wikitech-l] Watchlist feature wishlist

body:
On 10/21/03 9:13 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:

> I would like to have my watchlist publicly viewable, and I would also
> like to maintain (discreetly) a private, non-viewable watchlist.
>
> Additionally, I would like to have a publicly EDITABLE watchlist: like,
> hey Ed please watch this page!
>
> I'd even like to have multiple watchlists, each with:
> * a name
> * a setting for publicly viewable, or hidden
> * a setting for publicly editable, or personally controlled
>
> I need an NPOV watchlist, a "users fighting" watchlist, and a "global
> warming" watchlist.
>
This is an absolutely terrible idea. Talk about giving people reason to
think that there are cabals.

Ed: the watchlist that is most important to be public is the one you use to
watch "users fighting"--because that is the one in which your own behavior
should be under scrutiny.

Having both public and private watchlists would be an ugly corruption of the
basic WikiNature of Wikipedia.


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
My C++ parser is now a working offline browser. This is achieved by
converting a mysql dump of the cur table into an sqlite database once,
then using apache/php as a frontend and a php file calling the compiled
C++ executable, which renders HTML on-the-fly. Browse using your
favourite browser :-)

Why bother with this, if a static HTML version would do the same?
* Proof-of-principle
* sqlite databases can be changed, allowing for edits
* Encapsuled database object, can be easily switched to use mysql or any
other database instead of sqlite for use on a website
* Full-text search (which I'll implement next)

Some things that bug me:
* Is there an easy way to call an executable directly from apache,
without the need for a PHP script in-between?
* Is there a no-setup-needed web browser? Some .exe that I can start on
a windows machine, then fire up the web browser, and view/edit my local
wikipedia copy?

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MT and pro-Catholic bias

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> All I want is for MT to be treated like any other
> person on Wikipedia. It
> is not our duty, moral or otherwise, to uphold any
> kind of fiction to
> avoid disturbing our readers. We may use some
> articles from them, but
> Wikipedia does not use the same editorial policies
> as the Catholic
> Encyclopedia. Our policy is NPOV, and that policy is
> applicable to all
> people, places and things.

But she's not a "person" --she's  ( well on her way to
being ) a "saint!"

;-)
~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
On Mon, 20 Oct 2003, Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:

> > Not so. NPOV requires balence in content. The critique in such detail
> > clearly violated wikipedia's NPOV policy. It doesn't matter if it was
> > 70% glorification or 70% demonisation of MT or anyone else. Making an
> > article overwhelmingly one sided where the vast majority of the text is
> > putting forward one view  [...]
>
> JT, Eric, everyone, this doesn't belong here; please see my comments on
> the talk page for the Mother Teresa article.  I suggest that the
> discussion be continued there, as I note in those comments.

Yes, just put it back on the page. What about the basic question of whether
Wikipedia should be NPOV, and how we do that? Maybe we should finally stop
circumventing that question and actually discuss it. Would be useful, I'd
say.

Andre Engels


body:
--- Gareth Owen <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

> 'Missionaries Of Charity took in a lot of money and
were pretty shifty about where it went?'
> This point is made about 5 times in the article,
>each time with a lengthy direct quotation from a
different >secondary source.

I bet it could use another. ;-)

> As a bonus, neither section would then read like it
> was written by an 3rd grader with attention-deficit
disorder.
> "Your tomato wife asparagus is cabbage dead."

:D! Maybe this article chould be renamed :[[Mother
Teresa:Angel of Mercy, or Undercover Embezzler-Vampire
? -You Decide]].

~S~
How would Internet-Encyclopedia handle this
controversy?

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Rob Hooft

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Robot code: open source or lock away in safe?

body:
Nikola Smolenski wrote:
> On Monday 20 October 2003 19:06, Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:
>
>>>Now, I could just start an open source project at sourceforge to
>>>collaboratively develop it further. BUT: I am afraid of the power of
>>>this software, and the damage it could do if it ends up in the wrong
>>>hands (vandals).
>>
>>My two cents:
>>
>>1.  Change your bot so that it adds a User-agent header to the HTTP
>>requests that identifies the request as coming from a bot (unless you've
>>already done this).

Brion asked me to do that earlier, so it is recognizable.

>>2.  Ask Brion or someone to add a check for the "User-agent: Bot" and
>>then check the already-exising "bot" flag in the user record, and toss
>>out the edit if it is made from other than a "bot" user.
>>
>>3.  Once this is done, release your source.
>>
>>Quick and easy.  Now, to be sure, anyone with software skills can change
>>the source so that it doesn't produce the header.  But then, anyone with
>>software skills can write their own bot.
>
>
> Yes, but one is much easier then other.
>
> I propose that critical part of source (one that reads and writes data on
> Wikipedia), with the enhancements that Louis proposed, should be stored in a
> library which would be freely distributable but closed source. Then the rest
> of the bot code could be released open source.

Unfortunately that will not work, as the 'bot is written in python,
which is source code or VM code which can be easily disassembled. And
even without disassembly it is easy to "modify" the library in a running
program.

I'm still not sure what to do. If I can't get any definite opinion
formed on this list, I will open an open-source project for the robot at SF.

Rob

--
Rob W.W. Hooft  ||  rob at hooft.net  ||  http://www.hooft.net/people/rob/


body:
--- Sascha Noyes <sascha at pantropy.net> wrote:
> I think Erik's intent was quite clearly to say that
> that no factual information pertinent to the subject
should be
> removed, with which I agree.
> The example you cite is rubbish, not Erik's
argument.

Well, lets not get confused:

(why is all this crud on the list anyway? Oh right
--JT's whining to the list --two of them, no less)

The good cause of [[Wikipeida:Abundance and
reduncancy]] --not removing valid material from an
article -- has to be balanced with the state that the
article is in.

It may be that there is enough for a controversy
article.  Whether that controversy material should be
attached to mother teresa's name, or to the Church
itself -- I cant say yet.

I would suggest removing it all -- allowing for a
glowing review -- and then remove the POV from that.
Deal with the aspect of Reverence as POV --and make
that article NPOV. Keep all the controversial stuff in
a subpage and deal with it when the article has
developed.  The proportion should be perhaps like the
Chomsky article -- critics get paid to blabber -- so
they could go on forever, and be quoted forever.  Fuck
them.  Just keep this article about the person for
now.

~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikitech-l] C++ parser : progress report

body:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Magnus Manske wrote:

>* Is there a no-setup-needed web browser? Some .exe that I can start on
>a windows machine, then fire up the web browser, and view/edit my local
>wikipedia copy?

I downloaded Mozilla Firebird (currently at version 0.7 and working *very*
well) yesterday on windows and discovered that it's a simple ZIP file with
no installation: just unzip and run the EXE file. URL is www.mozilla.org

I mailed some days ago Brion privately about the static html dump, but
probably the email got lost in some server upgrade madness :-) My script
works fine, and (compared to the last days) works well enough that I feel
confident it can be used on wikipedia servers. Is anyone interested on
putting static dumps online? It can be an automatic procedure or, for the
first times, manually run from any machine.

Ciao,
Alfio


body:
Eureka! I've got it!!

Give each page a "links complete" bit.

The first time the page is loaded, we check all the links, then set the
bit ON.

After that, any page change (creation, deletion, etc.) WHICH AFFECTS
THIS PAGE would then turn the bit OFF.

For example, a page with 20 links. Half of them are to existing (blue)
articles. Half are to missing (red) articles. We load the page, figure
out the colors, cache the page, and set the bit ON.

Next time, someone loads the page, we chech the bit. If it's still on,
we serve the cached copy. (Cold cash! Cash and carry! We get a
substantial discount!!!)

But --

If anyone creates a new page, we take some extra time to trace all the
"pages that link here" and turn off each affected page's "links
complete" bit. (We do not have to re-render the page, though. That can
wait.)

Likewise, if anyone deletes a page.

(patting self on back)

Uncle Ed Poor
Resident genius, tame creationist, and brainwashed cult member ^_^


from_name: Matthew J. Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion policy needed

body:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Alex Rosen wrote:

> I wasn't aware that there was any "official" policy as to whether
> something had to be important, or if it just had to be true and
> verifiable.

Official or not, many people seem to use an 'important' standard when it
comes to biographical articles.  'Wiki Is Not a Biographical Dictionary'
(wherever that is) describes teh policy a lot seem to follow.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Problem with photos

body:
Please re-load your image, with a distinctive name like
Eric_porsche_912.jpg and we'll try to fix this problem. (I left a
similar note on your talk page.)

Ed Poor


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Dammit! Post to the right list or don't post at all.
	(was Re: MT and pro-Catholic bias)

body:
It is really so difficult to make sure that
en.Wikipedia stuff like article disputes and
allegations of abuse of power goes to WikiEN-L while
discussion about controversial new features goes to
Wikipedia-L?

--mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Dammit! Post to the right list or don't post at all.
	(was Re: MT and pro-Catholic bias)


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] high textbook prices article

body:
Link to a NYTimes article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/21/education/21BOOK.html

Also, perhaps the book on Theology that is on the site will
be a test of NPOV.

Karl

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] possible plagiarism

body:
I have been removing text to talk, generally concerning the Ottoman Empire
(articles on the Ottoman Triumvirate, Suleiman the Magnificent, Ormus,
etc.).  These seem to be plagiarized from  WWW.nationmaster.com, which
>holds copyright on all aspects of this site (including but not limited to
>content and layout), with the exception of the text from articles taken
>from Wikipedia and where copyrights are held by our sources
Before I remove any more text to talk, I'd appreciate it if someone can
check this for me.  As far as I can tell, the text in the nationmaster
encyclopedia is not attributed to Wikipedia, so I have assumed that one of
our contributors has been copying from them, rather than vice versa.  But
I'd appreciate it if someone else can look into this further before I make
any more changes,

Thanks,

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20031021/cf9f4c91/attachment.htm
-------------- next part --------------

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.528 / Virus Database: 324 - Release Date: 10/16/2003


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [Wikitech-l] inter-language link insanity

body:
Hi

I want to raise the issue that the inter-language link situation at the moment
is a big mess:

Please have a look at Rob Hooft's 5 pages listing articles on the english
wikipedia that do not have inter-language links to corresponding articles in
other languages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rob_Hooft/page1 (1 through 5).

There are literally thousands of such links missing. Multiply this by roughly
two, to factor in the missing links on all the other languages (English
wikipedia has roughly half the total number of articles), and you can see the
magnitude of the problem.

The correct alphabetical ordering of links is also necessary, and adds more
work.

Now, there are a couple of solutions to this problem (please add your own):

1) Just continue as we have been doing. Additionally asking people to make an
effort to add inter-language links.
Pro: doesn't require any mediawiki changes
Con: wastes a _massive_ amount of man-hours that needless to say could be
better employed

2) Deploy the robot that Rob wrote (and is using on the Dutch wikipedia) on
all wikipedias. To my knowledge this robot searches for missing links and
automatically adds those.
Pro: no mediawiki changes necessary
Con: at least one person per language is needed to run/administer the robot

3) Create a unified inter-language link field (similar to what I have proposed
for pictures/images). This would have a list of languages in which a
particular article is available.
Pro: No need for robot traffic that eats up man-hours, bandwidth, cpu, ram,
disc usage. No massive waste of man-hours due to just continuing as we are.
Con: mediawiki development of such a feature.
Another obvious problem is that the field relating to each article will have
to have a unique identifier which is referrenced from each different language
version of that article. Two possible approaches:
a) just settle on the english title, I know this is language-ism and will piss
a bunch of people off
b) unique identifier is a number. The problem here is obvious: If you write a
new article you will 'have' to check that the article has not been written in
a different language already and therefore already has a unique number.

Actually, now that I think about it option (b) sounds pretty stupid.

Thoughts?

Best,
Sascha Noyes
aka snoyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: Alex Rosen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion policy needed

body:
> I still vote for "verifiable".
> Someday we'll have all of the elementary schools, and good for us.
> But we shouldn't let crap slip in because of our generosity either.
> This is what "verifiable" does.
>
> Is that criterion still in use on VfD?
>
> -- Toby

I wasn't aware that there was any "official" policy as to whether
something had to be important, or if it just had to be true and
verifiable.

If verifiable is the current standard, nobody seems to be following it
- for example, look at the votes for Ellen Oshey on VfD right now. She
is verifiable but 8 out of 10 people voted to delete her article because
she's not very notable.

Alex (axlrosen)


body:
--- Sascha Noyes <sascha at pantropy.net> wrote:

> I want to raise the issue that the inter-language
> link situation at the moment
> is a big mess:

Its been a mess.

There has been more than one script written to make
"two for one" crosslanguage links (Add a number of
links to en, and each target language gets these
links.)  Even if it was only a one way process (not
counting all the various links that may be on other
pages) --it would be lightyears ahead of what is
availiable now.

But this is too easy --people have been writing bots
to do all kinds of fancy things.  They fail to
understand the exponential efficiency benefits of
installing a ( what is generally called ) "simple"
"two for one" script into MediaWiki.

I think Rob's approach is wrong-- a one-user bot is
not the answer --rather, incorporating parts of his
bot into MediaWiki, is.

~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Problem with photos

body:
--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Please re-load your image, with a distinctive name
> like
> Eric_porsche_912.jpg and we'll try to fix this
> problem. (I left a
> similar note on your talk page.)

I was long under the impression that images (media
files) had a history --now it seems that media files
in history are erased after a while -- when a new one
is loader over?  Isnt this a vandalism or security (to
the end user) risk?

~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Watchlists"

body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> On 10/21/03 9:13 AM, "Poor, Edmund W"
> <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>
> > I would like to have my watchlist publicly
> viewable, and I would also
> > like to maintain (discreetly) a private,
> non-viewable watchlist.
> >
> > Additionally, I would like to have a publicly
> EDITABLE watchlist: like,
> > hey Ed please watch this page!
> >
> > I'd even like to have multiple watchlists, each
> with:
> > * a name
> > * a setting for publicly viewable, or hidden
> > * a setting for publicly editable, or personally
> controlled
> >
> > I need an NPOV watchlist, a "users fighting"
> watchlist, and a "global
> > warming" watchlist.
> >
> This is an absolutely terrible idea. Talk about
> giving people reason to
> think that there are cabals.
>
> Ed: the watchlist that is most important to be
> public is the one you use to
> watch "users fighting"--because that is the one in
> which your own behavior
> should be under scrutiny.
>
> Having both public and private watchlists would be
> an ugly corruption of the
> basic WikiNature of Wikipedia.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] No one's banning anyone - not till Jimbo gets back

body:
Everyone, please just relax.

1. Erik (Eloquence) isn't going to ban anyone.
* He said he wouldn't (and I trust him on that).
* If he did (which he wouldn't), Tim or Brion or I would simply undo the
ban (only takes 5 seconds)

2. Erik is highly exercised over something, but he is working it out in
EXACTLY the proper manner.
* Bringing the issue to the mailing list
* Trying to work it out with the other user
* Renewing his promise not to "push the ban button" himself.

A couple of people have volunteered to be mediators, with varying
results. I won't name any names, because I'd rather be a cheerleader on
the sideline.

Nothing will be decided until Jimbo comes back. There is no emergency.
It's not vandalism. No one is threatening anyone.

Just chill out... ^_^

Uncle Ed


body:
The kerfuggle touched my what? I dunno :-)

I was under the impression that EVERY TIME a user requests a page,
the software has to double-check each internal link for the presence or
absence of the linked page.

My ancient Greek cry of jubilation only applies, if this is the case...

Ed


subject: [Wikitech-l] The demand for automated interactions. (was Watchlist)

body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:

> Having both public and private watchlists would be
> an ugly corruption of the
> basic WikiNature of Wikipedia.

Well -- what people are wanting (increasingly) is
automated interaction pages. - like replacing VFD page
with a chekbox -[Send to VFD] option on an article -
or replacing the Village pump wiki  - with a threaded
chat.  Wiki is fine for static articles, but for pages
that change a lot, they dont make people happy.

So "customize our watchlists please" if translated
reads: "we want more non-wiki interactive
capabilities."   This is the direction the watchlist
topic really wants to go in --and its a very general
and grandiose one.  In my mind there is nothing
anti-wiki about adding extra-wiki functional pages for
special, high traffic, high user-demand applications.

~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Allan Crossman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Public watchlist

body:
Ed writes:

> I would like to have my watchlist publicly viewable, and I would also
> like to maintain (discreetly) a private, non-viewable watchlist.
>
> Additionally, I would like to have a publicly EDITABLE watchlist: like,
> hey Ed please watch this page!

This can already be done. Just create a page in your userspace with links to
pages that you are "publicly" watching, and click on Related Changes any time
to see what pages have been edited. This is essentially a "public watchlist".

Evercat

--
Allan Crossman - http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
PGP keys - 0x06C4BCCA (new) || 0xCEC9FAE1 (compatible)


body:
On Tuesday 21 October 2003 03:18 pm, Gareth Owen wrote:
> erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) writes:
> > Cutting down fluff and POV language which is inevitable when using direct
> > quotes -- sure. Removing facts -- no way.
>
> Really?  If I had verifiable facts (from a published Diary, say) that Tony
> Benn had toast and marmalade for breakfast on the 3rd of March, 1967, and
> added it to the article, that would be OK and -- how wiki is this --
> *irremovable*.
>
> What rubbish.

I think Erik's intent was quite clearly to say that that no factual
information pertinent to the subject should be removed, with which I agree.
The example you cite is rubbish, not Erik's argument.

>
> > There is no size limit on Wikipedia.
> > To remove useful information ...
>
> At the third reiteration, the information ceases to be useful, or
> interesting. How many times do you wish to cite sources stating that the
> Missionaries Of Charity took in a lot of money and were pretty shifty about
> where it went?

If it is true, as you claim, that something is repeated three times, then
surely the removal of two of those instances does not remove factual and
pertinent information?

>
> This point is made about 5 times in the article, each time with a lengthy
> direct quotation from a different secondary source.
>
> The section "Improper and undisclosed use of funds" could be precis'd into
> about 6 sentences and no useful information would be lost.  Similarly, both
> lengthy quotations in "Secret Baptisms" could be summarised in about 40
> words, including attributions.
>

Then why don't you do it? If you think that something is wrong with the
article you can change it. (Remember, this is a wiki)

> As a bonus, neither section would then read like it was written by an 3rd
> grader with attention-deficit disorder.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Mother Theresa article (was: Eric's abuse of his
	sysop powers)

body:
Can we change the subject header of the e-mail now?

I think we all trust that Erik is not planning any "abuse" . . .

Ed Poor


from_name: Nick Reinking

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Wikitext to HTML translator and Wikitext language
	specification

references:
<E506B3FF6BC1254C9AC1B948C380BC280F44DD@sm-nyny-xm05.nena.wdpr.disney.com>
	<3F8B174B.2090601@nohat.net> <oprwz5hhvzzs1r4a@localhost>
	<20031021201213.GA28983@tavaiah>

body:
BTW, my Wikitext parser is also up at:

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

It's fairly old, and not quite complete, but otherwise quite good.

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Redhat [was: Server purchase plan - advice needed
	quickly]

body:
> I'd like to add that we're having some problems because of using RedHat.
> RedHat's TeX doesn't include CJK support, so the math mode on Wikipedia
> can't render CJK characters, in spite of this being possible on my home
> Debian machine. Recompiling TeX by hand would of course be the other option.

And Debian is somewhat more freer than Redhat, so it fits with the
spirit of Wikipedia.  Plus, it really makes life easy for
administrators.

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
>~S~
>How would Internet-Encyclopedia handle this
>controversy?

The main article would be postive point of view, but note that there are
criticisms and set them forth briefly. Criticisms, if set forth in detail,
would be in an article entitled Mother Teresa:A critical view. That article
would be required to note her beatification and probable sainthood and the
basis therefore

Fred

http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [WikiEN-l] Problem with photos

body:
On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 14:25 US/Pacific, Stevertigo wrote:
> --- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>> Please re-load your image, with a distinctive name
>> like
>> Eric_porsche_912.jpg and we'll try to fix this
>> problem. (I left a
>> similar note on your talk page.)
>
> I was long under the impression that images (media
> files) had a history --now it seems that media files
> in history are erased after a while -- when a new one
> is loader over?  Isnt this a vandalism or security (to
> the end user) risk?

They're only removed if someone deletes a version explicitly (which
should be disabled atm) or there's some dreadful bug (which is
possible).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Stupid database tricks: images?

body:
On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 15:39 US/Pacific, Jens Frank wrote:
> The images could also be saved to a filesystem served by the new db box
> (what's its name anyway?). FS access, even remote, should always be
> faster
> than a db access.

Setting up an NFS share is an extra maintenance and security concern,
moreso if we want to worry about failover when the main db box tanks.
Just things to consider...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] possible plagiarism

body:
Have a look at the notice on the bottom right-hand corner on this page:

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Ottoman-Triumvirate

On Tuesday 21 October 2003 01:43 pm, steven l. rubenstein wrote:
> Before I remove any more text to talk, I'd appreciate it if someone can
> check this for me.  As far as I can tell, the text in the nationmaster
> encyclopedia is not attributed to Wikipedia, so I have assumed that one of
> our contributors has been copying from them, rather than vice versa.  But
> I'd appreciate it if someone else can look into this further before I make
> any more changes,
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve
>

Have a look at the notice on the bottom right-hand corner on this page:

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Ottoman-Triumvirate

It says that "The Wikipedia article included on this page is licensed under
the GFDL", meaning that the article is from wikipedia.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
aka snoyes

--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


subject: [WikiEN-l] possible plagiarism

body:
Oops, sorry for the crappy formatting on the previous message (note the stuff
below the quoted excerpt from Steven).

This incident shows that nationmaster is acting in slightly bad faith when
they make it look obvious that it is their content (even to people active in
wikipedia). Good faith in my opinion would have a short sentence infront of
the article explaining that this is not actually their work. Oh well.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
aka snoyes

On Tuesday 21 October 2003 03:57 pm, Sascha Noyes wrote:
> On Tuesday 21 October 2003 01:43 pm, steven l. rubenstein wrote:
> > Before I remove any more text to talk, I'd appreciate it if someone can
> > check this for me.  As far as I can tell, the text in the nationmaster
> > encyclopedia is not attributed to Wikipedia, so I have assumed that one
> > of our contributors has been copying from them, rather than vice versa.
> > But I'd appreciate it if someone else can look into this further before I
> > make any more changes,
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Steve
>
> Have a look at the notice on the bottom right-hand corner on this page:
>
> http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Ottoman-Triumvirate
>
> It says that "The Wikipedia article included on this page is licensed under
> the GFDL", meaning that the article is from wikipedia.
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes
> aka snoyes

--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Could we swap list names please ?

body:
Could the whole discussion on Erik issues over Mother
Teresa MOVE to the english list where it is relevant

WHILE

The whole discussion on watch list issues move from
the english list to the general list, where it is
relevant

OR

could we just swap mailing list names since
discussions relevant on english matter are on the
general list, while discussions relevant to the whole
community are on the english list ?

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Could we swap list names please ?


subject: [Wikitech-l] PRIVATE - OFFLIST

body:
On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 16:07 US/Pacific, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> PRIVATE - OFFLIST

A lot of people do this accidentally, so just for the record: whenever
making a private reply to a mailing list message, check, re-check, and
double-recheck the 'to' and 'cc' headers of the message before you send
it. Some lists (like ours) set a 'reply-to' header by which replies go
to the list by default, and it's easy to forget to make your reply
privately addressed when you mean to.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] ALERT: Idea for new feature: "Who's watching
	this	page?"

body:
Audin Malmin wrote:

>On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 06:02:22PM -0700, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
>
>>OK, but the default preference should be to keep it
>>private by default, and the new feature would mainly
>>be used just to see how many people are watching it.
>>
>
>	I disagree.  That default will make the feature useless.  Make the
>default Public and place a good notice on the edit page next to the watchlist
>chechbox.
>
>	Why is making a watchlist public any worse than ones contributions?
>

The proposal to watch who's watching which page is the kind of thing
that's worthy of an aspiring KGB or CIA agent.  The potential for
mischief is too high.  I want to be on the record as absolutely against it.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] possible plagiarism -- oops!

body:
Please disregard my last e-mail.  As Snoyes pointed out, one must scroll
all the way down to the bottom of the page (on nationmaster) to find the
appropriate acknowledgement to Wikipedia,

Steve

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

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.528 / Virus Database: 324 - Release Date: 10/16/2003


from_name: Stevertigo

body:
--- James Duffy <jtdire at hotmail.com> wrote:

> All this was already covered, but was repeated in a
> 5 line caption that
> could have been summarised in 10 words, any attempt
> to make standard short
> captions was met with revertions and cries of
> censorship.

I agree with almost everything you said JT -- the
problem is that I know you, and I know that you can be
a little bit disingenous about NPOV -- case in point
-- "could have been summarized in 10 words" -- is not
being reasonable. All the other stuff  ( that I read,
anyway -- your email started out  unusually
to-the-point ) was fairly legitimate -- and agreeable.

JT:As far as the proper name order policy -- fine --
but this may be an error in policy. And the way it was
written was contradictory to your  example -- instead
of Mother Teresa, it was Blessed .... yadda Teresa.
Consistency, please.
~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Oops, please delete my previous post.

body:
I will delete your post from my mailbox. ;)

~S~

--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Darn MS Outlook. I hit the wrong key while trying to
> send private mail
> to Brion and now I made a private post public. I
> hate computers!!
>
> Ed
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Jason Richey

body:
It should be deleted from the archives now...

Jason

Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> Darn MS Outlook. I hit the wrong key while trying to send private mail
> to Brion and now I made a private post public. I hate computers!!
>
> Ed
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename your subject (Wikien-l Digest)

body:
Ghraham, could you please rename the subject of your
reply mails -- the WikiEN-l Digest tag gets annoying
if it starts a thread.

~S~

--- Graham Burnett <grahamburnett at blueyonder.co.uk>
wrote:
>
>
> > Also a note:
> > THERE WILL BE NO FEATURE BY WHICH ARBITRARY PEOPLE
> CAN VIEW ANYONE
> > ELSE'S WATCHLIST WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT. The idea
> is very unpopular, and
> > for good reason.
> >
>  thank you for that assurance. It's somethingbI've
> been nervous about since
> the idea was mooted.
>
> Graham (Quercus robur)
>
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system
> (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.525 / Virus Database: 322 - Release
> Date: 10/10/2003
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

body:
--- Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Could the whole discussion on Erik issues over
> Mother
> Teresa MOVE to the english list where it is relevant
>
> WHILE
>
> The whole discussion on watch list issues move from
> the english list to the general list, where it is
> relevant
>
I agree. Right now, it seems like Wikipedia-l is used
exactly like WikiEN-l except with 1/10 of the traffic.

> OR
>
> could we just swap mailing list names since
> discussions relevant on english matter are on the
> general list, while discussions relevant to the
> whole
> community are on the english list ?

Yeah, that might work, but I prefer the first. There
are probably some people on the Wikipedia-l list who
don't want to be on the WikiEN-l list.
LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Article ban: Erik and James

body:
Erik, your rhetoric here is more becoming of Holy
Roman Catholic Church dogma.

JT, I'd like you to recuse yourself as well from the
MT article -- otherwise, I would like to impose a ban
on you both from editing the main article for a week.

Louis, dont take it upon yourself to simply make a
redirect out of a new article which I just started,
for an apparently necessary reason. Thanks.

~S~

> Yes, for your repeated and gross violations of
> Wikipedia's behavioral
> standards, which makes any productive cooperation
> impossible. You do not
> discuss, you do not seek consensus, you resort to
> vile personal attacks
> and false accusations, you revert without comment.
> This must stop.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article ban: Erik and James


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Eureka! I've got it (was: Pages with
	hundredsofinternational links slow?)

body:
Um, Brion, I plead insanity. I didn't understand your summary of what
the software does.

I *think* you're saying the software already does what I in my
Archimedean joy had suggested.

Ed "dripping wet" Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MT and pro-Catholic bias

body:
--- James Duffy <jtdire at hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Mother Teresa with [Charles Keating]]
> later convicted of fraud in the United States."
> That is all the caption needs to say. The full story
> is a couple of inches
> away in the text.

Ok. Agreed.  I also dont like the fact that there are
three huge photos showing her in a negative context.
They are not there --well out of proportion with the
positive aspects --in the spirit of NPOV.

> When someone is beatified, wikipedia articles start
> with the beatification
> name, eg, 'Blessed John XXIII'. The same policy is
> applied to those
> possessing honorifics, Sir/Dame, etc. But the
> article title does not use
> them. As MT is now 'Blessed Teresa', that is how she

Yes, but the beatification title is a
religion-specific title. Im not sure its NPOV to use
such a title -- would you suggest that the "Blessed
.... " be used for the article title?  I wonder.

Do we say His Grace or The Venerable ...or what have
you?

~S~
What do you call a "saint" who's not exactly saintly?

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Rob Hooft

subject: [Wikitech-l] Pages with hundreds of international links slow?

body:
As a result of a robot run on the nl: wikipedia, I am now left with
25840 missing or incorrect links in other wikipedias. I wanted to put
these missing links on my user pages to let people help get them in. I
have done this on a smaller scale before, but this time it took me more
than 1 minute to upload each of 5 segments of the list to the en:
wikipedia. Even retrieving them feels like it is bringing the server
down to its knees. Did something in that aspect of the software change
that slowed it down dramatically?? The only thing I can imagine that is
"unique" to these pages is the number of international links.

See the 5 pages at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rob_Hooft
(but only try that if you want to investigate, because it takes about a
minute to generate each page from the database!)

Should I take these offline again awaiting?

Rob

--
Rob W.W. Hooft  ||  rob at hooft.net  ||  http://www.hooft.net/people/rob/


from_name: Eric Demolli

subject: [WikiEN-l] Problem with photos

body:
My photo of a Porsche 912 -took by myself- on the Porsche article was
replaced by another wich is obviously not a Porsche 912. The new picture is
IMO studio works and probably copyrighted. It seems impossible to recover
the old photo. Why ? Even if the new image is uncopyrighted and better than
mine, mine could be useful elsewhere (on a Porsche 912 article) for
instance.

Eric Demolli (Ericd)


from_name: Wouter Vanden Hove

subject: [Wikitech-l] latexwiki

body:
Anybody here knows about latexwiki?
http://latexwiki.rootnode.com/wiki/LatexWiki

Latex-support for Wikipedia could be very valuable for the Wikibooks about
math, physics,..

Wouter Vanden Hove
www.open-education.org


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Rob Hooft wrote:

> As a result of a robot run on the nl: wikipedia, I am now left with
> 25840 missing or incorrect links in other wikipedias. I wanted to put
> these missing links on my user pages to let people help get them in. I
> have done this on a smaller scale before, but this time it took me more
> than 1 minute to upload each of 5 segments of the list to the en:
> wikipedia. Even retrieving them feels like it is bringing the server
> down to its knees. Did something in that aspect of the software change
> that slowed it down dramatically?? The only thing I can imagine that is
> "unique" to these pages is the number of international links.

What is making these pages slow is not the large number of international links,
but the large number of internal links. Basically, when you load a page, it
has to check for each page whether the page exists (and if you have stub
detection switched on, also its size). For pages with many links, this can
get quite slow.

Andre Engels


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject:
[WikiEN-l] ALERT: Idea for new feature: "Who's watching this
	page?"

body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> The proposal to watch who's watching which page is the kind of
> thing
> that's worthy of an aspiring KGB or CIA agent.  The potential for
> mischief is too high.  I want to be on the record as absolutely
> against it.

I likewise agree it's  bad idea.

The concept of wikipedia is such that people should wathc ove each
other's shoulders, because that's how articles get better over time.

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

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-lWikiEN-lWikiEN-lWikiEN-lWikiEN-l

body:
Message: 6
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 16:17:52 -0700
From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ALERT: Idea for new feature:
"Who's watching
	this	page?"
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID: <3F95BEA0.7080708 at telus.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Audin Malmin wrote:

>On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 06:02:22PM -0700, Daniel
Ehrenberg wrote:
>
>>OK, but the default preference should be to keep it
>>private by default, and the new feature would mainly
>>be used just to see how many people are watching it.
>>
>
>	I disagree.  That default will make the feature
useless.  Make the
>default Public and place a good notice on the edit
page next to the
watchlist
>chechbox.
>
>	Why is making a watchlist public any worse than ones
contributions?
>

The proposal to watch who's watching which page is the
kind of thing
that's worthy of an aspiring KGB or CIA agent.  The
potential for
mischief is too high.  I want to be on the record as
absolutely against
it.

Ec

Bonjour Ec

Envisagerais tu de bien vouloir ecrire a la liste de
discussion appropri?e pour tous les sujets relevant de
l'aspect international du projet que nous partageons
tous ?

Merci Ec

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 3, Issue 98

body:
Message: 9
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 17:02:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Stevertigo <utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename your subject (Wikien-l
Digest)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID:
<20031022000250.85706.qmail at web80709.mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Ghraham, could you please rename the subject of your
reply mails -- the WikiEN-l Digest tag gets annoying
if it starts a thread.

~S~

I entirely agree with Steve here Quercus. Would you
please place a tag labelled Re: Wikipedia-l at the top
of your message ? Thank you very much

Ant

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm a believer

body:
OK --I just read Hitchen's interview and article --
and I'm now a believer.  I suggest we invite Chris
Hitchens -- the coronary candidate himself -- to write
the Wikipedia article.

~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


body:
From: "James Duffy" <jtdire at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Could we swap list names
please
>could we just swap mailing list names since
>discussions relevant on english matter are on the
>general list, while discussions relevant to the whole
>community are on the english list ?

For some reason some weeks ago I was knocked off the
wikien-L and ended
up
on the Wikipedia-l. Now I am on both and messages seem
to go to either
or
both even when I think it is going just to the english
one.

Mea culpa, Anthere.

lol

JT

I truely thank you JT (say...just tell me if I get too
heavy right ? :-))

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


body:
Message: 13
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 17:34:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ALERT: Idea for new feature:
"Who's watching
	this	page?"
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID:
<20031022003441.71538.qmail at web14005.mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>> The proposal to watch who's watching which page is
>the kind of
>> thing
>> that's worthy of an aspiring KGB or CIA agent.  The
>potential for
>> mischief is too high.  I want to be on the record
as >absolutely
>> against it.

>I likewise agree it's  bad idea.

>The concept of wikipedia is such that people should
>wathc ove each
>other's shoulders, because that's how articles get
>better over time.

I wholeheartedly agree with that comment Chris. I am
also opposed to that watch list feature.

J'ajouterais que le concept de Wikipedia est egalement
que plusieurs langues cohabitent pour le meilleur et
pour le pire, et qu'elles partagent le m?me logiciel.
Ce qui pourrait constituer une raison valable pour
d?sormais discuter des ?volutions du logiciel tous
ensemble et non dans le cercle (certes majoritaire)
anglosaxon seulement; Merci :-)))

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] ALERT: Idea for new feature: "Who's
	watching


from_name: Sanford Forte

body:
Thanks for posting this Karl.

It's been a little-known fact that overseas MSRP for American-produced
university textbooks are far lower. The article is simply one more example
of the gravy train that textbook publishers have been on for the last four
decades, since the baby boomers started their formal years of schooling.

Every few years commercial textbook publishers obsolete their university
textbooks with "new editions". These "new edition" updates are often little
more than minor updates that compel students to buy new textbooks, in order
to kill the used book market. I heard that college textbook publishers have
a "lease" arrangement with at least one state (I think it might be Texas).
In this state, university books are leased. When they reach the end of their
life cycle they are trucked off to landfills (dozens of truckloads) to keep
them from the used book market. This is wasteful in the extreme,  shameful
(in terms of environmental impact), and yet another example of a content
sector that's unable to creatively leverage IP.

Some years ago, while employed with one of the companies mentioned in the
NYT article, I discovered quite by accident that a very popular mathematics
textbook selling for roughly $80.00 in America could be had as a paperback
edition in India for just over $6.00. I was taken back by that; in fact,
it's what started me thinking about how distributed, open content
environments could easily replace the inefficient textbook creation system
that was in place at the time (about 1995).

Let's make this textbook project happen, and save the world's K-12 and
university students billions in the process, while providing content that is
second to none in quality, and variety.

Sanford

----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Wick" <karlwick at yahoo.com>
To: "text" <textbook-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 1:43 PM
Subject: [Textbook-l] high textbook prices article

> Link to a NYTimes article:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/21/education/21BOOK.html
>
> Also, perhaps the book on Theology that is on the site will
> be a test of NPOV.
>
> Karl
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Thank you for answering Dan,
	I was fearing I was writing in invisible ink

body:
--- Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Could the whole discussion on Erik issues over
> Mother
> Teresa MOVE to the english list where it is relevant
> > WHILE
> > The whole discussion on watch list issues move
from
> the english list to the general list, where it is
> relevant

> I agree. Right now, it seems like Wikipedia-l is
used
exactly like WikiEN-l except with 1/10 of the traffic.

Do you think it is the reason why Erik issue moved
over there ? To avoid bugging the en list ?

Eh ! I got an idea ! What about setting a separate
list only for edit war discussions ?

> OR
> > could we just swap mailing list names since
> discussions relevant on english matter are on the
> general list, while discussions relevant to the
> whole
> community are on the english list ?

>Yeah, that might work, but I prefer the first. There
>are probably some people on the Wikipedia-l list who
>don't want to be on the WikiEN-l list.
>LDan

Good. So, how to suggest people to move affairs where
they belong then ?

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Problem with photos

body:
On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 15:41 US/Pacific, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 14:25 US/Pacific, Stevertigo wrote:
>> I was long under the impression that images (media
>> files) had a history --now it seems that media files
>> in history are erased after a while -- when a new one
>> is loader over?  Isnt this a vandalism or security (to
>> the end user) risk?
>
> They're only removed if someone deletes a version explicitly (which
> should be disabled atm) or there's some dreadful bug (which is
> possible).

I checked the logs. There's no mystery here, the person who uploaded
the new photos simply deleted the old revisions with the handing "del"
button. It seems this was not disabled, only complete deletion of
images.

Until this portion of the code is rewritten (which it desperately
needs), I've set it to only allow sysops to delete image revisions.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Benjamin Esham

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: ALERT: Idea for new feature: "Who's watching this
	page?"

body:
On Monday, October 20, 2003, at 09:01  PM, Tim Starling wrote:

> Benjamin Esham wrote:
>
>> [idea]
>
> My word, that *is* a good idea. Why didn't I think of that?

;-)

I'm going to blame that one on my mail server acting screwy :-)

--
Benjamin D. Esham     {     http://bdesham.net
bdesham at iname.com     }     AIM: bdesham 1 2 8
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Rob Hooft wrote:
>
>
>>As a result of a robot run on the nl: wikipedia, I am now left with
>>25840 missing or incorrect links in other wikipedias. I wanted to put
>>these missing links on my user pages to let people help get them in. I
>>have done this on a smaller scale before, but this time it took me more
>>than 1 minute to upload each of 5 segments of the list to the en:
>>wikipedia. Even retrieving them feels like it is bringing the server
>>down to its knees. Did something in that aspect of the software change
>>that slowed it down dramatically?? The only thing I can imagine that is
>>"unique" to these pages is the number of international links.
>
>
> What is making these pages slow is not the large number of international links,
> but the large number of internal links. Basically, when you load a page, it
> has to check for each page whether the page exists (and if you have stub
> detection switched on, also its size). For pages with many links, this can
> get quite slow.

I still have the impression that at this point, it is excessively slow.
At ~250 internal links per page, there is nothing really special about
that in those pages, but 1 minute loading time is way too long and much
much longer than I am experiencing anywhere else. Calculate with me:
rendering 250 links in one minute means 4 per second. No way, other
pages are much faster than that. That is why I suspect the interwiki
links somewhere: it sets these pages apart from other pages in the wikis.

Rob

--
Rob W.W. Hooft  ||  rob at hooft.net  ||  http://www.hooft.net/people/rob/


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Stevertigo-
> It may be that Eriks got an anti-Catholic gripe going
> --who doesnt.

In spite of repeated charges to this effect, there has never been any
substantial NPOV criticism of the Mother Teresa article. Instead, some
people have argued that 20K of criticism should be split away to a
separate page. Fred argues that a splitup needs to be enforced to retain
the "aura of holiness" around MT and that not doing so is "mean spirited".
It's funny how this kind of pro-Catholic bias is considered acceptable by
many.

All I want is for MT to be treated like any other person on Wikipedia. It
is not our duty, moral or otherwise, to uphold any kind of fiction to
avoid disturbing our readers. We may use some articles from them, but
Wikipedia does not use the same editorial policies as the Catholic
Encyclopedia. Our policy is NPOV, and that policy is applicable to all
people, places and things.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] latexwiki

body:
On Tue, Oct 21, 2003 at 05:29:10PM +0200, Wouter Vanden Hove wrote:
> Anybody here knows about latexwiki?
> http://latexwiki.rootnode.com/wiki/LatexWiki
>
> Latex-support for Wikipedia could be very valuable for the Wikibooks about
> math, physics,..

I know that not everyone here loves texvc, but have you checked
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texvc ?
We already support most of that.


from_name: Gareth Owen

body:
erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) writes:

Well, we're all anti-semites, don't you know...

> All I want is for MT to be treated like any other person on Wikipedia. It is
> not our duty, moral or otherwise, to uphold any kind of fiction to avoid
> disturbing our readers.

I've no interest whatsoever in maintaining a Holy Aura around anyone, but I
don't think the MT article, as it stands, does treat MT like anyone else.
I also think, as it stands, it's a very, very poorly written article.

Essentially, an enormous amount (the vast majority of the article) is highly
critical, based on the criticisms of three people: Hitchens, Shields and
Chatterjee and a great deal of guilt-by-association (rather honestly
so-titled).

I believe the length of discussion -- particularly the extensive passages of
quotation is unecessary.  A considerably shorter precis of the criticisms
could easily be provided, along with pointers to the source article.

Certainly, the alleged abuses of the movement *must* be mentioned, and given
some space, but there is really no need to bang on about it at such
extraordinary and tedious length.
--
Gareth Owen
"It's not a human or civic right to edit wikipedia."
                                 -- kq cuts to the core of the banning debate


body:
Gareth-
> Essentially, an enormous amount (the vast majority of the article) is highly
> critical, based on the criticisms of three people: Hitchens, Shields and
> Chatterjee

These three people in turn cite others who have been critical (sometimes
published in primary sources), such as Mary Louden (published in The
Guardian), Lancet editor Robin Fox, the Stern report by W. W?llenweber
(which in turn cites other witnesses), a priest cited by Chatterjee, and
so forth. The above paragraph is therefore a gross oversimplification of
the actual content of the page.

> and a great deal of guilt-by-association (rather honestly
> so-titled).

Actually, not such a great deal -- a single paragraph and two pictures.

> I believe the length of discussion -- particularly the extensive passages of
> quotation is unecessary.

Then summarize the quotations. If you don't lose any valuable information
in the process, this is certainly fine with me.

> Certainly, the alleged abuses of the movement *must* be mentioned, and given
> some space, but there is really no need to bang on about it at such
> extraordinary and tedious length.

There is no size limit on Wikipedia. To remove useful information just
because it is "tedious" would be disingenuous. Cutting down fluff and POV
language which is inevitable when using direct quotes -- sure. Removing
facts -- no way.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikitech-l] PRIVATE - OFFLIST

body:
PRIVATE - OFFLIST

Brion,

I worry that some vandal might learn from the Porsche incident and
replace some innocent picture with goatse.cx -- on some prominent page
like Mother Theresa or George Bush.

I hope we can close this vulnerability quickly (I'm more concerned about
this, than about my fanciful scheme for speeding up the database).

Ed Poor (PRIVATE - OFFLIST)


body:
Darn MS Outlook. I hit the wrong key while trying to send private mail
to Brion and now I made a private post public. I hate computers!!

Ed


body:
erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) writes:

> Cutting down fluff and POV language which is inevitable when using direct
> quotes -- sure. Removing facts -- no way.

Really?  If I had verifiable facts (from a published Diary, say) that Tony
Benn had toast and marmalade for breakfast on the 3rd of March, 1967, and
added it to the article, that would be OK and -- how wiki is this --
*irremovable*.

What rubbish.

> There is no size limit on Wikipedia.
> To remove useful information ...

At the third reiteration, the information ceases to be useful, or interesting.
How many times do you wish to cite sources stating that the Missionaries Of
Charity took in a lot of money and were pretty shifty about where it went?

This point is made about 5 times in the article, each time with a lengthy
direct quotation from a different secondary source.

The section "Improper and undisclosed use of funds" could be precis'd into
about 6 sentences and no useful information would be lost.  Similarly, both
lengthy quotations in "Secret Baptisms" could be summarised in about 40
words, including attributions.

As a bonus, neither section would then read like it was written by an 3rd
grader with attention-deficit disorder.
--
Gareth Owen
"Your tomato wife asparagus is cabbage dead."


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Jtdirl ban (was : Eric's abuse of his sysop powers)

body:
Are you saying you are prepared to ban a user because you are having an edit war with him?  That is MOST DEFINITELY an abuse of your sysop powers, and should cause YOU to be instantly banned.

RickK

Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
Cunc-
> I was responding to Ed Poor's mistaken belief that you weren't serious about
> initiating banning procedures on Jtdirl.

You are correct, that belief is mistaken. However, as I have stated
countless times, if Jtdirl works with me peacefully on the article in
question, then I see no reason to continue this procedure, and I will only
make a decision after a few days of cooling down. I value him as a
contributor, but I find it impossible to work on an article if my edits
are reverted without discussion or explanation.

Regards,

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

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20031021/73c2c97b/attachment.htm


references:
<8wHUsDvSpVB@erik_moeller> <r5i3cdmxuv8.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>
	<200310211524.01927.sascha@pantropy.net>

body:
Sascha Noyes <sascha at pantropy.net> writes:

> I think Erik's intent was quite clearly to say that that no factual
> information pertinent to the subject should be removed, with which I agree.

Then he should say what he means, rather than spout inaccurate platitudes.

> Then why don't you do it?

Because, as far as I was aware, the article is protected.
And people who change Erik's edits, get threatened with banning.

> If you think that something is wrong with the article you can change
> it. (Remember, this is a wiki)

Because life is too short to step into an edit war between competing zealots?
Anyway, as a "proof of concept", I've precis'd the bank account info.  I'd be
interested to know what salient information I've removed...
--
Gareth Owen
"It's not a human or civic right to edit wikipedia."
                                 -- kq cuts to the core of the banning debate


body:
Gareth-
> Really?  If I had verifiable facts (from a published Diary, say) that Tony
> Benn had toast and marmalade for breakfast on the 3rd of March, 1967, and
> added it to the article, that would be OK and -- how wiki is this --
> *irremovable*.

That depends on whether the fact that he had toast and marmelade on that
particular date is out of the ordinary. Compare previous discussions about
verifiability, expandability, relevance. Whether an NPOV'd diary of Tony
Benn with no selective omissions might find its way into Wikipedia is an
interesting question of its own.

> At the third reiteration, the information ceases to be useful, or
> interesting. How many times do you wish to cite sources stating that the
> Missionaries Of Charity took in a lot of money and were pretty shifty about
> where it went?

Redundancy is obviously unnecessary, however, if separate incidents are
described, that is not redundancy but strengthening of the case, as any
lawyer knows.

> The section "Improper and undisclosed use of funds" could be precis'd into
> about 6 sentences and no useful information would be lost.

Go ahead and give it a try. I will be happy to correct you if you are
wrong.

> What rubbish.
...
> As a bonus, neither section would then read like it was written by an 3rd
> grader with attention-deficit disorder.

I note with some interest that you are quickly adopting Jtdirl's style of
argument.

Regards,

Erik


body:
What the heck is the "general" list?

RickK

Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Could the whole discussion on Erik issues over Mother
Teresa MOVE to the english list where it is relevant

WHILE

The whole discussion on watch list issues move from
the english list to the general list, where it is
relevant

OR

could we just swap mailing list names since
discussions relevant on english matter are on the
general list, while discussions relevant to the whole
community are on the english list ?

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20031021/cf2fdd39/attachment.htm


body:
Stevertigo-
> I would suggest removing it all -- allowing for a
> glowing review -- and then remove the POV from that.
> Deal with the aspect of Reverence as POV --and make
> that article NPOV. Keep all the controversial stuff in
> a subpage

That would quite obviously be a gross violation of established neutrality
principles. There is no reason to give undue preference to positive views
about MT while stowing away the negative ones. Both are about the same
person.

Regards,

Erik


body:
erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) writes:

> > As a bonus, neither section would then read like it was written by an 3rd
> > grader with attention-deficit disorder.
>
> I note with some interest that you are quickly adopting Jtdirl's style of
> argument.

Badly written is badly written, and I reserve the right to note when an
article is badly written.  This one is.
--
Gareth Owen
"It's not a human or civic right to edit wikipedia."
                                 -- kq cuts to the core of the banning debate