from_name: Gabriel Wicke

body:
On Fri, 2004-06-18 at 09:10 -0400, john wrote:

> [pear_error: message="failed to open stream: Operation not permitted"
> code=0 mode=return level=notice prefix="" info=""]

Sounds as if you don't have write permissions to /tmp. The parsed
template is stored there usually. You could adjust line 72 in PHPTAL-NP-
0.7.0/libs/PHPTAL.php to something else than /tmp/, another solution
would be

if (strtoupper(substr(PHP_OS, 0, 3)) == "WIN") {
    define('PHPTAL_DEFAULT_CACHE_DIR', getenv("TMP") . "\\");
} else {
        global $wgTmpDirectory;
	define('PHPTAL_DEFAULT_CACHE_DIR', $wgTmpDirectory);
}

Gabriel Wicke


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Recent zwinger outage

body:
Zwinger was out of commission for about a half hour from 22:20 UTC. Not
entirely sure what happened, but syslog entries record a number of out
of memory kills of the web server.

Symptoms included very high load, very slow response on NFS, very *very*
slow response on interactive terminals, and timeouts of attempted ssh
logins. Machine seems ok after a reboot.

Ain't single points of failure grand? :)

Gwicke's been experimenting with the coda distributed filesystem.
Hopefully it wasn't involved in the crash. :) If it works nicely, it
could be more reliable than our current center-heavy NFS system for
sharing the files to the web servers.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: bypassing browser to upload Emacs edits

in_reply_to:
<87vfhpnic3.fsf_-_@golden.net> (Rick's message of "Fri, 18 Jun
	2004 08:47:40 -0400")

references:
<E1Bb5Yx-0003M6-9g@smtp.golden.net>
	<1087515322.1622.6.camel@venus> <87vfhpnic3.fsf_-_@golden.net>

body:
Rick <rickm at golden.net> writes:

> Is there some kind of command-line operation
> that I can issue that would be equivalent
> to clicking "Save page" during an edit operation?

I guess you can make use of the 'url' package.  I don't know how good
cookie support is.

Directly talking to the SQL database would be another possibility.

Or a webdav interface.  Or, dreaming, access via CVS...

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


list: foundation-l

from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: User Rights

body:
We need more than speculation before we discard a fundamental working
of the wiki concept.

Firstly, there is [[Special:Newpages]], so it's easy to find track all
new pages created.  The volume of new pages created by anons is of
negligible load on our servers.  A quick glance of the last 24 hour
period -- 666 new pages, with 216 by anons.  Not a great volume, even
if you take into account deleted nonsense.

I offer that the benefits of being inclusive of anons far outweigh any
downsides. Any vandalism by anons in new articles is usually so
simplistic it's trivial to catch. Everyone was a newbie at one time.

If you look at our "New Wikipedians" graph in the stats, we need to be
more inclusive.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/ChartsWikipediaEN.htm

-Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado)

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 11:36:47 +0300, Viajero <viajero at quilombo.nl> wrote:
>
> On 06/18/04  at 09:31 AM, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> said:
>
> > I know a few users who started by creating a page, because they knew
> > something about something that didn't have an article. Generally as an
> > anon user. Why should they bother waiting a week? What's in it for them?
>
> I would turn the question around: what is in it for us?
>
> Maybe three years ago, when the project was just starting and it was important to build momentum, we needed every contributor and contribution we could get. But now we have ~300k articles, many of which still need lots of work, thousands of regular users, and a database which is unable to keep up with the demand, no matter how much hardware we throw at it. Maybe we should start thinking in terms of quality rather than sheer quantity.
>
>
> V.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: User Rights


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] zh-tw.wikipedia.org

body:
Please, no.  We've discussed this in several places recently, but:

1) The ZH community has kept it consolidated to keep critical mass together
2) Doing so will make a future technical solution easier to implement
3) It's not a good time anyway, since the ZH accessibility is in flux
from the PRC

-Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado)

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 10:48:29 +0000, Ian Mackinnon
<ianm2000uk at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I don't know how to reply to the list thread but I really like Mark's idea
> about splitting zh.wikipedia.org into zh-cn.wikipedia.org and
> zh-tw.wikipedia.org. This would really solve the problem of navigation
> conflicts. I wasn't suggesting this for political reasons but for practical
> reasons since the writing scripts conflict with each other.
>
> Whoever is able to split the portal into 2 categories, please do so.
>
> Thanks!
> - Ian
>
> -----
> Mark's comment:
> Interlanguage links are already done with [[zh-tw:]] and [[zh-cn:]], so
> perhaps we could simply split zh.wikipedia.org into zh-cn.wikipedia.org
> and zh-tw.wikipedia.org, with zh.wikipedia.org being a disambiguating
> portal?  Of course, this is more up to Chinese-speakers than it is to
> myself; just a suggestion that would be consistent with our current
> usage.  Having separate interlanguage links going to one encyclopedia
> that is effectively written in a mixture of two writing systems that are
> often not mutually intelligible is more than a little bit odd.
>
> -Mark
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Use MSN Messenger to send music and pics to your friends
> http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: phil hunt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Viability of the open model

references:
<20040617210446.62200.qmail@web52510.mail.yahoo.com>
	<BCF77395.46F8%fredbaud@ctelco.net>
	<slrncd48ek.8f5.zen19725@cabalamat.cabalamat.org>
	<40D27BB9.3040703@yahoo.com>

body:
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 07:20:57 +0200, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>Yes, phil is correct.
>
>I think this is a little step that would not cost a lot. It would not
>bother a human too much and add a layer of protection.
>During registration, display a little image, with an number in it
>(something simple, number 1 to 9 randomly), and ask the user to enter
>this number in an empty field.

You'd want more than one number, because a bot could guess it right
one out of 10 times, and it would be trivial to run the bot
multiple times until it succeeds.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Server downtime

body:
Camille Constans wrote:
> We plan some server downtime On Saturday at 18:00 UTC
>
> The wiki should be read-only during this time, with a backup from 3 days ago.
>
> We'll put ariel, the new db server, in production. And we'll keep Suda as db slave server.
>
> Shaihulud

We need a second slave, otherwise it's not worth doing. Ariel will
crash, we'll lose a couple of bytes from suda's binlog, and suddenly
we'll be back to square one. How many times does this have to happen
before we do something about it?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Mark Pellegrini

subject: [WikiEN-l] Corporate sponsorship of Wikipedia

body:
After it came up on IRC, I was compelled to write up a
meta page on Cooperate sponsorship of the project. Please
add your thoughts to http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_sponsorship.
Note, Angela asked me emphatically to make sure you fight
it out there and not on the mailing list.

Jimbo - you might want to add your thoughts there as well.
There was some debate as to what your opinion on the matter is.

--Mark


from_name: Rowan Collins [IMSoP]

body:
>
> Is there some kind of command-line operation
> that I can issue that would be equivalent
> to clicking "Save page" during an edit operation?
>
> I'd also want some way to specify the "Edit summary" field
> and indicate if the operation is a minor edit.
> Hmm, there is also specifying my User name which, I assume,
> would be even trickier.
>

I've no idea what equivalents or bindings or whatever there are for EMACs, but all of the above can
be done pretty easily with "libwww-perl". Essentially, you can control exactly what HTTP requests
get sent, just like a browser would, and it will handle things like cookies for you quite happily
(you just give it a text file to use as a "cookie jar" IIRC).

If the worst comes to the worst, it's not that hard to code HTTP requests by hand: it's all just
plaintext, and forms are simply sent as part of the data (he says, fudging it bacause he's never
coded anything that used POST requests yet); cookies are just sent as an extra header, so that's
easy enough too, once you've gone through the login screen and acquired one.

You might want to have a look at the "livehttpheaders" mozilla extension, which allows you to see
exactly what is being sent between the browser and the web server, in real time: watch what it does
when you save / preview a change in a sandbox somewhere, and that's what you're code has to do.
http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/index.html

--
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] Funding for the newly elected Board Members

body:
Hello,

I know that the Wikimedia is currently strapped for cash. However, I would
like to propose that we cover certain key expenses for our elected board members
relating to their participation in Wikimedia work. For instance, telephone
calls overseas should be covered by the Foundation, and not the elected
representatives. A broadband connection should be covered by the Foundation as well.

While every participant is doing their work on Wikipedia and the other
projects voluntarily, Ant and Angela are expected to represent us, the users. We
should make it as easy for them as possible.

I hope you support my proposal.

Danny
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body:
Hello,

I know that the Wikimedia is currently strapped for cash. However, I would
like to propose that we cover certain key expenses for our elected board members
relating to their participation in Wikimedia work. For instance, telephone
calls overseas should be covered by the Foundation, and not the elected
representatives. A broadband connection should be covered by the Foundation as well.

While every participant is doing their work on Wikipedia and the other
projects voluntarily, Ant and Angela are expected to represent us, the users. We
should make it as easy for them as possible.

I hope you support my proposal.

Danny
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body:
Hello,

I know that the Wikimedia is currently strapped for cash. However, I would
like to propose that we cover certain key expenses for our elected board members
relating to their participation in Wikimedia work. For instance, telephone
calls overseas should be covered by the Foundation, and not the elected
representatives. A broadband connection should be covered by the Foundation as well.

While every participant is doing their work on Wikipedia and the other
projects voluntarily, Ant and Angela are expected to represent us, the users. We
should make it as easy for them as possible.

I hope you support my proposal.

Danny
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body:
Hello,

I know that the Wikimedia is currently strapped for cash. However, I would
like to propose that we cover certain key expenses for our elected board members
relating to their participation in Wikimedia work. For instance, telephone
calls overseas should be covered by the Foundation, and not the elected
representatives. A broadband connection should be covered by the Foundation as well.

While every participant is doing their work on Wikipedia and the other
projects voluntarily, Ant and Angela are expected to represent us, the users. We
should make it as easy for them as possible.

I hope you support my proposal.

Danny
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from_name: hcheney

body:
If the Wikimedia Foundation starts giving the trustees
"perks" I feel that fundraising could be quite a bit
harder. Instead of making international phone call,
can't voice over IP be used? From an accounting
perspective, would the trustees be required to
reimburse the foundation for personal internet usage
on the foundation's broadband account?

I very strongly oppose this proposal. Maybe we could
focus on cost controls instead?

A cost saving, and confidence building measure I would
like to see is the trustees having their meeting in
IRC  and releasing the minutes to donors or the
public. Not only would this save international
airfare, lodging, dining, etc - it would provide more
transparentcy.

--H. Cheney

--- daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I know that the Wikimedia is currently strapped for
> cash. However, I would
> like to propose that we cover certain key expenses
> for our elected board members
> relating to their participation in Wikimedia work.
> For instance, telephone
> calls overseas should be covered by the Foundation,
> and not the elected
> representatives. A broadband connection should be
> covered by the Foundation as well.
>
> While every participant is doing their work on
> Wikipedia and the other
> projects voluntarily, Ant and Angela are expected to
> represent us, the users. We
> should make it as easy for them as possible.
>
> I hope you support my proposal.
>
> Danny
> > _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


from_name: Viktor Rosenfeld

subject: [Wikitech-l] texvc doesn't work

body:
Hi,

I'm trying to get math input working in my own wiki.  Unfortunately
something is messed up with my texvc-installation.  I know that latex,
dvips, gs and convert are in my apache path.  Instead, I think texvc
isn't really working here.  When I do:

# mkdir tmp out
# echo | ./texvc tmp out 'x \not\in \Sigma' iso-8859-1
+5e6c5975facb1fd4f0895accca92d451-

I found the file tmp/8435_5e6c5975facb1fd4f0895accca92d451.tex in my tmp
directory.  Poking around with strace -f it appears, that latex cannot
find the temporary texfile and consequently texvc gives up.  Here's the
relevant bits:

[pid  8446] access("./tmp/8444_bc30a6e8e7394384dc79e75a32f251f3.tex", R_OK) = -1
 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

in the thread that executes latex.  I double checked, the file does
exist. [1]

The error message I get is: Parser-Fehler (PNG conversion failed; check
for correct installation of latex, dvips, gs, and convert).

I'm really stuck here.

TIA,
Viktor

[1] Although the PID is different, never mind that.
--
GnuPG-Fingerprint: E292 4D89 A5F1 16EC 2795  35AC 9162 34E8 2331 4340
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subject: [Wikitech-l] texvc doesn't work

body:
Hi,

I'm trying to get math input working in my own wiki.  Unfortunately
something is messed up with my texvc-installation.  I know that latex,
dvips, gs and convert are in my apache path.  Instead, I think texvc
isn't really working here.  When I do:

# mkdir tmp out
# echo | ./texvc tmp out 'x \not\in \Sigma' iso-8859-1
+5e6c5975facb1fd4f0895accca92d451-

I found the file tmp/8435_5e6c5975facb1fd4f0895accca92d451.tex in my tmp
directory.  Poking around with strace -f it appears, that latex cannot
find the temporary texfile and consequently texvc gives up.  Here's the
relevant bits:

[pid  8446] access("./tmp/8444_bc30a6e8e7394384dc79e75a32f251f3.tex", R_OK) = -1
 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

in the thread that executes latex.  I double checked, the file does
exist. [1]

The error message I get is: Parser-Fehler (PNG conversion failed; check
for correct installation of latex, dvips, gs, and convert).

I'm really stuck here.

TIA,
Viktor

[1] Although the PID is different, never mind that.
--
GnuPG-Fingerprint: E292 4D89 A5F1 16EC 2795  35AC 9162 34E8 2331 4340
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from_name: Jim Higson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikimedia handling links contining URLs

body:
Sites like archive.org sometimes use URLS like:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030405071620/http://www.xvid.org/v1_1_comparison.pdf

The wiki only sees the 'inner' URL as the address.


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] texvc doesn't work

body:
On Fri, Jun 18, 2004 at 10:22:50PM +0200, Viktor Rosenfeld wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to get math input working in my own wiki.  Unfortunately
> something is messed up with my texvc-installation.  I know that latex,
> dvips, gs and convert are in my apache path.  Instead, I think texvc
> isn't really working here.  When I do:
>
> # mkdir tmp out
> # echo | ./texvc tmp out 'x \not\in \Sigma' iso-8859-1
> +5e6c5975facb1fd4f0895accca92d451-
>
> I found the file tmp/8435_5e6c5975facb1fd4f0895accca92d451.tex in my tmp
> directory.  Poking around with strace -f it appears, that latex cannot
> find the temporary texfile and consequently texvc gives up.  Here's the
> relevant bits:
>
> [pid  8446] access("./tmp/8444_bc30a6e8e7394384dc79e75a32f251f3.tex", R_OK) = -1
>  ENOENT (No such file or directory)
>
> in the thread that executes latex.  I double checked, the file does
> exist. [1]
>
> The error message I get is: Parser-Fehler (PNG conversion failed; check
> for correct installation of latex, dvips, gs, and convert).
>
> I'm really stuck here.

Try absolute paths. Because latex is extremely stupid and tries
to create files in *current* directory, texvc has to switch current directory
to tmp and then switch back. It seems to be passing full path to latex
after that, what works with absolute paths but doesn't with relative ones
(that's probably bug in texvc, it should pass filename without dirname to latex
and filenames with dirname to everything else)

access() returns ENOENT because at the moment it's executed process is
in tmp directory, and it doesn't contain another tmp/ as a subdir.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikimedia handling links contining URLs

body:
Jim Higson wrote:
> Sites like archive.org sometimes use URLS like:
>
> http://web.archive.org/web/20030405071620/http://www.xvid.org/v1_1_comparison.pdf
>
> The wiki only sees the 'inner' URL as the address.

This is a known bug: #583234
(https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=583234&group_id=34373&atid=411192)

Thanks for pointing it out, though; for future reference, bugs should always be looked for /
submitted to the tracker at https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=34373&atid=411192

--
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corporate sponsorship of Wikipedia

body:
Mark Pellegrini wrote:
> After it came up on IRC, I was compelled to write up a
> meta page on Cooperate sponsorship of the project. Please
> add your thoughts to http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_sponsorship.
> Note, Angela asked me emphatically to make sure you fight
> it out there and not on the mailing list.
>
> Jimbo - you might want to add your thoughts there as well.
> There was some debate as to what your opinion on the matter is.
>
> --Mark

Yup.

However, this is ***not*** the proper mailing list.

I second Angela on her emphatic request, and ask emphatically that
discussion be also adverstise on the correct medium.

Thanks

ant


from_name: Corey Burger

subject: [Foundation-l] Mobile. subdomain

body:
If this is a double/triple post, I apoligize. I was getting error
messages
back.

On #wikipedia DavidGerard posted this link:
http://www.kwickee.com/. They are going to provide content to mobile
users. These people are going to fail. We can provide better and for free.

My idea is thus: Have a mobile.wikipedia.org domain that is designed for
small browsers. It would draw it's contents off the main name space, but
would initally just download the first paragraph of the article. It would
be readonly.

Ideas/Thoughts?

Corey Burger aka Burgundavia


subject: [Foundation-l] Mobile. subdomain


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism by banned user

body:
Yes, while not condoning the vandalism, I think that
is important to realise how much frustration,
resentment and anger is caused by users behavior to
others sometimes. Unfortunately, this also includes
some admins.
Mark

--- "KNOTT, T" <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:
>
>
> >If he's only willing to contribute on his own
> terms, and if he reacts
> to
> >a "time-out" by running a computer program that
> automatically
> vandalizes
> >our encyclopedia database,
>
>  I'm just correcting factual errors here -
>
> It wasn't the 7 day ban by the AC that prompted Wik
> to run the script,
> it was the continual creation of subpages to Wik's
> user page by certain
> people who were trying to taunt him. The subpages in
> question were being
> deleted by various admins but that wasn't good
> enough for Wik.
>
>
> >... THEN it's fairly obvious that he never had a
> congenial purpose in
> mind.
>
>
> I can't agree with that. Wik certainly made a whole
> lot of very good
> edits and wrote some very good articles. I'm sure
> that when he joined
> Wikipedia he did so with the same altruistic
> intentions as everyone
> else.
>
> Note also that the vandalbot is attacking user
> pages, user:talk pages,
> policy pages, and pages in the wikipedia namespace.
> It is not(as far as
> I've seen anyway) attacking articles in the main
> namespace.
>
> Theresa
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
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Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
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subject: [Foundation-l] Mobile. subdomain

body:
If I am not mistaken, that is offsite dump, correct? What I was thinking
of would be inhouse, so we could make it better faster.

Corey Burger aka Burgundavia

--


subject: [Foundation-l] Mobile. subdomain


subject: [Foundation-l] Mobile. subdomain

body:
I have created a meta page about this:

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

Corey Burger aka Burgundavia

--


subject: [Foundation-l] Mobile. subdomain


from_name: sannse

body:
> Hello,
>
> I know that the Wikimedia is currently strapped for cash. However, I would
> like to propose that we cover certain key expenses for our elected board
members
> relating to their participation in Wikimedia work. For instance, telephone
> calls overseas should be covered by the Foundation, and not the elected
> representatives. A broadband connection should be covered by the
Foundation as well.
>
> While every participant is doing their work on Wikipedia and the other
> projects voluntarily, Ant and Angela are expected to represent us, the
users. We
> should make it as easy for them as possible.
>
> I hope you support my proposal.
>
> Danny

Absolutely.

Flying them to the US every week to attend meetings might be a /little/
beyond our budget ;) But certainly Foundation related phone calls should be
covered.  And if we need them to have a better connection then that should
be paid for too.

To reply to H. Cheney's concerns - this isn't about perks, it's about them
not being out of pocket with the extra costs that are going to crop up.
They are doing the Foundation a service, they shouldn't also have to pay
extra to do so.

This is very much standard practice for all organisations I would have
thought.

Regards

--sannse


subject: [WikiEN-l] Terms of Use

body:
I agree that this is important. However, it seems to be masked in a lot of
jargon, so that it is difficult to get to the main point, which is important.

Remember, no one reads things like this. At best they scan them. This may not
be an ideal situation, but it is reality.

I suggest a one sentence summary in bold and big type on top, followed by all
the legalese you want.

Danny
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Alt-B

body:
Gabriel Wicke <lists at wikidev.net> writes:

> To switch them off, drop
>
> ta = false;
>
> in your monobook.js.

thanks for advise.  Unfortunately, it does not work for me - even after
clearing the cache.  Is there a syntax error? :

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Keichwa/monobook.js

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Terms of use

body:
Martin Harper wrote:

>>Some sites ask users to "sign" agreements related to their activities
>>
>>
>
>So will we, eventually:
>
>[[en:Wikipedia:terms of use]]
>[[en:Wikipedia:Submission Standards]]
>
>I've made the former "official" - it was created by Alex756, reviewed by JamesDay,
>myself, and mentioned on this list, village pump, IRC, enough times. Old hat now. So
>now is a good day to be bold about it.
>
>Other Wikimedia wikis may decide they don't need such terms, or need different terms,
>so I don't think we need a Wikimedia-wide decision on this. However, I will copy to
>foundation-l, since that's the new home for wikilegal-l.
>
As a practical matter, what difference will this make?

All of us have acquired software which require us to "read, understand
and agree" to some longwinded licence full of legalese bafflegab.  We
all "agree", but that's just because we know that if we don't "agree"
the software won't work.  Who could honestly say that he understands the
terms of these "agreements"?

For the most part the legal effect of these documents is at best obscure
and unenforceable.

Ec


from_name: libertarian

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proof of my ignorance

body:
--- On Tue 06/15, phil hunt < zen19725 at zen.co.uk > wrote:

> I've never come across him on the Wikipedia either, but judging
> from his writing style, I would tend to side with anyone he's in
> disagreement with [because it is style and not substance that
> matters.]

This is what separates the Bubbas from those who understand academic rigor. The Bubbas go by style and get carried away by smooth-talkers.

Hey, I insist that the sun does not go round the earth. Now clearly, phil insists that the sun goes round the earth. How idiotic! This is the same mentality that has made Wikipedia into a substandard resource full of factual errors and propaganda.

Many Americans used to call anyone who didn't side with them as a Communist. Now it has gone to the other extreme. The Americans don't think, but bash anyone who points out the existence of Communists as indulging in McCarthyism!
This is amazing. Keep insisting that this is not true, but India has a coalition controlled by Communists.

-libertarian

_______________________________________________
No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: move temporarily sysop-only on en

body:
> I understand entirely emergency measures; we should
> just try to explain people what is going on a minimum
> though. Those not on en: just can't guess.

Perhaps temporary measures should be accompanied by temporary warnings - a message, built into the
software if necessary, that gives a reassurance that this is an emergency measure. Certainly
something that needs considering whenever such a feature is implemented. [Not that I know what
message *did* get displayed, but clearly it wasn't adequately informative, else this conversation
wouldn't be happening.]

 >> has now been changed
 >> to allow all but the most recently registered users
 >> to move pages.

Out of interest, is this being done by time, or by edits - can a user simply not access it for the
first half hour / half day / whatever, or do they need to earn "experience"? Mind you, now I think
about it I'm not sure there's much to choose between the two - neither the ability of a bot to get
round it, nor the slight feeling of inequality created really varies. I'm guessing it's time-based,
though, cos I can imagine how that might easily be codable.

--
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proof of my ignorance

body:
On 6/19/04 12:23 PM, "libertarian" <libertarian at myway.com> wrote:

>
> --- On Tue 06/15, phil hunt < zen19725 at zen.co.uk > wrote:
>
>> I've never come across him on the Wikipedia either, but judging
>> from his writing style, I would tend to side with anyone he's in
>> disagreement with [because it is style and not substance that
>> matters.]
>
> This is what separates the Bubbas from those who understand academic rigor.
> The Bubbas go by style and get carried away by smooth-talkers.
>
> Hey, I insist that the sun does not go round the earth. Now clearly, phil
> insists that the sun goes round the earth. How idiotic! This is the same
> mentality that has made Wikipedia into a substandard resource full of factual
> errors and propaganda.

You drew an incorrect conclusion here. Phil said that he "would tend to side
with anyone he's in disagreement with". Noone is in disagreement with you
that the sun does not go round the earth. Your conclusion that "phil insists
that the sun goes round the earth" is therefore incorrect. Some might even
say "idiotic".

Please don't draw fallacious conclusions and then insult people based on
such incorrect grounds.

Actually, the whole sun-earth-orbit question is a good starting point for
understanding the important physical concept of frames of reference, but
that's a digression for another time.


from_name: Martin Harper

subject: [WikiEN-l] Terms of use

body:
> Some sites ask users to "sign" agreements related to their
> activities

So will we, eventually:

[[en:Wikipedia:terms of use]]
[[en:Wikipedia:Submission Standards]]

I've made the former "official" - it was created by Alex756, reviewed
by JamesDay, myself, and mentioned on this list, village pump, IRC,
enough times. Old hat now. So now is a good day to be bold about it.

Other Wikimedia wikis may decide they don't need such terms, or need different terms,
so I don't think we need a Wikimedia-wide decision on this.

<s>However, I will copy to foundation-l, since that's the new home
for wikilegal-l.</s> (I'm not subscribed at the moment - oops)

-Martin
------- End of forwarded message -------


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Categories considered harmful

body:
Jakob wrote:

>Categories considered harmful
>
I generally appreciate your comments, but I would never go so far as to
consider this initiative harmful.

>Since Version 1.3 of MediaWiki we have the nice category function. In the
>german wikipedia there is a lot of confusion and struggle on how to use
>categories in the right way. As a student of library science I could tell
>several methods how to classify, index and sort things but none of them
>seems to be applicable easily with the current implementation of categories.
>
The confusion and struggle that you are experiencing on the german
Wikipedia is being faced by all the projects.  Each is likely to find
its own way of dealing with the issue, and the solutions are likely to
show considerable variation.  That's fine and very wiki.  Some will
undoubtedly be discarded at a later stage, as a part of a normal
evolutionary process.  We need to avoid being overly critical of those
who experiment with other possibilities.

I also believe that effective categorization depends on having a
properly functioning internal search function.  Hopefully, the day will
come when our developpers will be able to get past the constant stresses
on the system, and find something that does not depend on Google. :-)

>As far as I can tell there are three main reasons for Wikipedia's success:
>
>1. It's very easy to contribute (Wikitax, everybody can edit)
>2. Every edit is monitored in watchlists and list of lasts edits
>   so we can control each other
>3. There is a clear common mission - to create an encyclopedia (+NPOV)
>
Agreed.

>As far as I also can see the category-function contradicts all of them:
>
To a significant extent, yes.

>1. It's not easy.
>
>It's not easy to know how to do it in the right way because subject
>indexing is a complex issue and it's not easy because of lacks in the
>implementation (no rename, no redirects, no assignment of articles to
>categories without editing every single the article pages). Editing an
>article I have to guess which categories are existing, how they are
>spelled and the rules what to classify into them and what not.
>
Perhaps it's too easy.  Anybody can propose any new category, including
misspelled ones.  Doing it without creating chaos is a different thing.
It's especially difficult for people who specialize in a particular area
of knowledge.  To categorize effectively at its top level requires an
ability to grasp the "big picture" of the Wikipedia.

>2. It's not controllable.
>
>You cannot watch a category to get noticed on new articles or when
>somebody removes an article from the category.
>
Mostly yes.  Building categories is a top-down activity.  Categorizing
articles is a bottom-up activity.  The challenge lies in establishing an
interface between these two activities.

>3. There is no common mission
>
>Can anybody tell the purpose of categories? Finding articles (without
>a coordinated search function?!) Browsing in topics (without a clear
>overview of all categories?!) Are we trying to index articles with
>subject heading, using a thesaurus, a classification or even a structure
>ontology? Library science has invented several kind of schemes like that
>but at the moment everybody is muddling this and that trying to invent
>the already invented wheels of documentation (by the way there are also
>methods of automatic indexing, clustering and classification).
>
Whatever the mission of categories it is a subordinate mission motivated
by a desire to make the information in the projects more accessible.
Categories have no meaning in an information vacuum..  I would answer
your questions by saying, "All of the above, and more."

Library science has indeed invented numerous schemes.  Any such scheme
designed for general application is as good as its competitors.  Each
developped independently to address the priorities of the originating
library.  Any of them may thus be validly criticized for its nationalist
tendencies.  Nevertheless, choosing one of them to serve as a starting
point need not be a nationalist act.  That choice is more likely to be
driven by the availability of detailed data, and the willingness of some
individual(s) to do the work of adapting that system to serve wiki purposes.

The muddling and the re-invention of the wheel implicit in most people's
approach to categorization was completely forseeable.  I say this
without finding fault.  It was just one of those miseries that had to be
gone through; system convergence comes later.  Let's just keep away from
automated system until we know what we want.  A premature application of
automation will only support the muddling.

>And: In classification there is no NPOV because there is no "right" way
>to classify the world but it depends on the special needs and questions
>I want to answer with a special system of subject indexing.
>
I agree with what you seem to be saying but I would not put it in terms
of NPOV.  "Wiki is not paper," is a far more useful principle.  A
traditional librarian may want to classify a single copy of a book on
German libraries, and must decide whether that book should be shelved
with books about Germany or books about libraries.  We do not have that
restriction.

>Given the reasons I strongly recommend to stop using the categories and
>to focus on writing and improving good articles. Many categories can easily
>be replaced with normal links between articles. Adding and removing
>categories do not change an article's content a bit. If you want to
>keep track of all articles in some area use (Wiki)Projects, article
>series, portals and learn how to use the "what links here"-function!
>A good article is an article that can be found easily without categories.
>
I don't arrive at the same conclusion about stopping the use of
categories.  The techniques that you mention are all good and effective,
and they should obviously continue to be used.  Categories are a way of
providing a comprehensive overview.  It is easy to see at an appropriate
place on an article just how that article has been categorized, or
indeed '''if''' it has been categorized.  A list system has its uses,
but needs to be manually maintained.  It is not evident on the face of
the article that it has been properly listed.  A non-contributing reader
may not be aware of the list's existence, or of the purpose of "What
links here."  Even a contributor is not going to be inclined to check
every article to see if it has been properly listed, but without
checking he has no way of knowing.  This brings me back to my earlier
point about categorization of articles being a bottom-up procedure.

>Indeed classifying wikipedia articles is very interesting and will
>become more important, but this should be an independent project - maybe
>in a "Classifipedia" or "Categorypedia" that links to wikipedia articles.
>
No.  the categories are meaningless in isolation.

>You know - librarians normally do not write the books they organize and
>search engine experts do not write the websites they crawl, so let's focus
>on what we can do the best: creating the most detailed, most understandable
>and freest encyclopedia in the history of mankind!
>
>
Your premise here is the most important thing that you say.  No
professional librarian would tolerate an author who goes around
insisting that his books be classified in a particular way.  The
authors, the editors and the classifiers all have their own roles on the
wiki.  All are working toward the goal that you specify, but not in
complete isolation.

Ec


from_name: Arne Klempert

subject: [Foundation-l] Mobile. subdomain

body:
On Saturday, June 19, 2004 3:02 PM
Corey Burger <cburger at victoria.tc.ca> wrote:

> If this is a double/triple post, I apoligize. I was getting error
> messages
> back.
>
> On #wikipedia DavidGerard posted this link:
> http://www.kwickee.com/. They are going to provide content to mobile
> users. These people are going to fail. We can provide better and for
> free.
>
> My idea is thus: Have a mobile.wikipedia.org domain that is designed
> for small browsers. It would draw it's contents off the main name
> space, but would initally just download the first paragraph of the
> article. It would be readonly.
>
> Ideas/Thoughts?

Have a look at this:
http://www.wapedia.de

Complete German Wikipedia, long articles split to several pages.

-akl


subject: [Foundation-l] Mobile. subdomain


subject: [Foundation-l] Mobile. subdomain

body:
On Saturday, June 19, 2004 3:29 PM
Corey Burger <cburger at victoria.tc.ca> wrote:

> If I am not mistaken, that is offsite dump, correct?

correct.

> What I was
> thinking of would be inhouse, so we could make it better faster.

Perhaps someone should ask, ih he wants to merge his project:
http://www.wapedia.de/wapedia:Florian_Amrhein

It seems that he has no commercial interests.

-akl


subject: [Foundation-l] Mobile. subdomain


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] What the heck is going on with Wikipedia?

body:
I look at "my contributions" and I don't see anything that has been done since June 16.  I went to Village Pump and I see that it's empty, because the Wik vandalbot has redirected it to a nonexistant page.  But the history of the Village pump looks like this:

(cur) (last)  [input]  [input]  18:49, Jun 16, 2004 Fasiyiq m
(cur) (last)  [input]  [input]  19:03, May 12, 2004 Hyacinth (# & SP)
(cur) (last)  [input]  [input]  18:46, May 12, 2004 Niteowlneils (=Press release: Wikipedia wins 8th Annual Webby Award for Best Community=)
The vandalbot's change was made on June 16, again the last date of my contributions, but according that this, there were no contributions to the Village pump between June 16 and May 12?

Again, what's going on?

RickK

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
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from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Rick wrote:
>     I look at "my contributions" and I don't see anything that has been
>     done since June 16.

At the moment it's showing a read-only backup from June 16 while
maintenance is going on, trying to set up a second (hopefully) more
reliable database server.

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

body:
Categories considered harmful

Since Version 1.3 of MediaWiki we have the nice category function. In the
german wikipedia there is a lot of confusion and struggle on how to use
categories in the right way. As a student of library science I could tell
several methods how to classify, index and sort things but none of them
seems to be applicable easily with the current implementation of categories.

As far as I can tell there are three main reasons for Wikipedia's success:

1. It's very easy to contribute (Wikitax, everybody can edit)
2. Every edit is monitored in watchlists and list of lasts edits
   so we can control each other
3. There is a clear common mission - to create an encyclopedia (+NPOV)

As far as I also can see the category-function contradicts all of them:

1. It's not easy.

It's not easy to know how to do it in the right way because subject
indexing is a complex issue and it's not easy because of lacks in the
implementation (no rename, no redirects, no assignment of articles to
categories without editing every single the article pages). Editing an
article I have to guess which categories are existing, how they are
spelled and the rules what to classify into them and what not.

2. It's not controllable.

You cannot watch a category to get noticed on new articles or when
somebody removes an article from the category.

3. There is no common mission

Can anybody tell the purpose of categories? Finding articles (without
a coordinated search function?!) Browsing in topics (without a clear
overview of all categories?!) Are we trying to index articles with
subject heading, using a thesaurus, a classification or even a structure
ontology? Library science has invented several kind of schemes like that
but at the moment everybody is muddling this and that trying to invent
the already invented wheels of documentation (by the way there are also
methods of automatic indexing, clustering and classification).

And: In classification there is no NPOV because there is no "right" way
to classify the world but it depends on the special needs and questions
I want to answer with a special system of subject indexing.

Given the reasons I strongly recommend to stop using the categories and
to focus on writing and improving good articles. Many categories can easily
be replaced with normal links between articles. Adding and removing
categories do not change an article's content a bit. If you want to
keep track of all articles in some area use (Wiki)Projects, article
series, portals and learn how to use the "what links here"-function!
A good article is an article that can be found easily without categories.

Indeed classifying wikipedia articles is very interesting and will
become more important, but this should be an independent project - maybe
in a "Classifipedia" or "Categorypedia" that links to wikipedia articles.

You know - librarians normally do not write the books they organize and
search engine experts do not write the websites they crawl, so let's focus
on what we can do the best: creating the most detailed, most understandable
and freest encyclopedia in the history of mankind!

Greetings,
  Jakob Voss (aka nichtich at de.wikipedia.org)


from_name: Tomos at Wikipedia

subject: [WikiEN-l] Terms of use

body:
I think those legal documents do make differences.

As one of the more visible admins at japanese wikipedia, I occasionally
receive legal threats and requests from others. If the submission standards
include such clause as "the conflicts among wikipedians regarding wikipedia
contents are first resolved via the internal arbitration process of
wikipedia, and you agree not to bring the matter to the court," then it
reduces a lot of uncertainty surrounding those threats.

If the submission standards specify choice of law and jurisdiction, again,
it reduces legal uncertainty.

So, I would say it does matter a lot.

Regarding the terms of use just introduced, it seems that it creates a fair
ground for the Wikimedia Foundation to claim that it is not responsible for
copyvios, defamation, privacy invasion, and other legal problems in any of
the past versions of a page. Those pages are not for distribution, and
anyone using the wikipedia is supposed to know that.

So, again, it changes a lot of things.

But in terms of user behaviors, maybe not much change happens as a result of
these documents. People might behave more or less the same way regardless,
unless there is some kind of campaign to notify them of the change. But my
understanding of these pages is that they are designed to reduce legal risk
for the Foundation resulting form the current practice, without really
demanding behavioral change in people.

Tomos

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee?
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963


body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Library science has indeed invented numerous schemes.  Any such scheme
>>designed for general application is as good as its competitors.  Each
>>developped independently to address the priorities of the originating
>>library.  Any of them may thus be validly criticized for its nationalist
>>tendencies.
>>
>>
>I think you are wrong here, but I wish I was more certain of my case.
>I'm not a librarian.  I'm just fond of observing this German-American
>cultural clash from some distance (from Sweden).
>
I readily admit that I am not up to date on modern trends in German
library science :-)

>In the field of digital libraries, there is a subculture that likes to
>discuss "thesauri and ontologies", especially bordering on the
>"semantic web" subculture.  It seems to me that most people in the
>thesauri and ontologies subculture are from Germany and have some kind
>of German library science background.  I'm talking about stuff like
>http://www.ecdl2003.org/ecdl.tutorials.html#tutorial4
>and http://www.jcdl2004.org/tutorials.htm#t2a
>
I checked those links and am not any further ahead.  I think that I can
understand how thesauri might be relevant; however, I'm puzzled by how
they have imported a term from metaphysics to serve their purpose.

>U.S. libraries have the Dewey Decimal system for classification and
>other countries have other systems.  These systems are colored by the
>time and country where they were created.  So far you are right.  But
>it seems to me that perhaps German library science scholars have gone
>deeper into making more of a science of this part of library science.
>Instead of learning, using and teaching the system they have, German
>library scientists discuss how best to design such category systems.
>I've heard them dismiss Yahoo's and Dmoz' category trees as naive
>creations of people who don't know the basics of library science.
>
Their criticisms of Yahoo and Dmoz are quite likely valid.  Hard core
scientists will dispute that there can be any science in Library
science.  Still we need a technology more than we need a science.  Will
the efforts of the German scientists lead to a user friendly system.
Users too easily reject any kind of coded system.

>I think this is what is happening on wikide-l and I'm glad that we
>have library scientists there.
>
>Problematisieren -- the German word for making a problem out of
>something, to see problems (worthy of a deeper discussion) where
>others don't -- is the first step of a scientific approach.
>
How scientific does our approach need to be?

>I only speak Swedish, English and German, and this reduces my
>perspectives.  Perhaps Chinese, Russian or French library scientists
>have totally different approaches that I should take into account.
>
And how has this issue been developping in Swedish?  As I said before,
each wiki is likely to find its own solution to the problem.
Compatibility may need to came at a later stage.

Ec


from_name: Angela

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] What the heck is going on with
	Wikipedia?

body:
Rick wrote on wikien-l:
> What the heck is going on with Wikipedia?

The site is using a three-day old read-only back up at the moment.
This is expected to last until at least 2am (UTC).

Please see OpenFacts for the latest updates on this.
http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status

According to Tim Starling, when the data transfer finishes, the
developers will make sure suda is properly set up to be a master. Then
the wiki will be restarted using that. A second copy of the entire
data directory will be made on ariel. Then they will try to start
ariel as a slave. After that, a third DB machine may be set up.

Angela


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Library science has indeed invented numerous schemes.  Any such scheme
> designed for general application is as good as its competitors.  Each
> developped independently to address the priorities of the originating
> library.  Any of them may thus be validly criticized for its nationalist
> tendencies.

I think you are wrong here, but I wish I was more certain of my case.
I'm not a librarian.  I'm just fond of observing this German-American
cultural clash from some distance (from Sweden).

In the field of digital libraries, there is a subculture that likes to
discuss "thesauri and ontologies", especially bordering on the
"semantic web" subculture.  It seems to me that most people in the
thesauri and ontologies subculture are from Germany and have some kind
of German library science background.  I'm talking about stuff like
http://www.ecdl2003.org/ecdl.tutorials.html#tutorial4
and http://www.jcdl2004.org/tutorials.htm#t2a

U.S. libraries have the Dewey Decimal system for classification and
other countries have other systems.  These systems are colored by the
time and country where they were created.  So far you are right.  But
it seems to me that perhaps German library science scholars have gone
deeper into making more of a science of this part of library science.
Instead of learning, using and teaching the system they have, German
library scientists discuss how best to design such category systems.
I've heard them dismiss Yahoo's and Dmoz' category trees as naive
creations of people who don't know the basics of library science.

I think this is what is happening on wikide-l and I'm glad that we
have library scientists there.

Problematisieren -- the German word for making a problem out of
something, to see problems (worthy of a deeper discussion) where
others don't -- is the first step of a scientific approach.

I only speak Swedish, English and German, and this reduces my
perspectives.  Perhaps Chinese, Russian or French library scientists
have totally different approaches that I should take into account.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se/


from_name: Simonides of Ceos

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Restructuring, renaming,
	creating and removing Wikiprojects

body:
Hello all -

This may have something to do with the ongoing discussion on categories.

I just did a little restructuring of the Wikiprojects Catalogue today (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject), renaming some of the categories. I don't think any of them should be objectionable, but please let me know if they are. More importantly, I have renamed/ changed the content of two of the Wikiprojects - Authors (empty) and Novels, under the Literature section. They appear not to have been much of a success. There is already a Wikiproject for Books, and I feel this is far too vague, and I have split the Books section further into Classic & Canonical Fiction, Contemporary, Poetry, Mass Market and Genre Fiction, and Miscellaneous Prose. To include really vague sections - "novels" and "authors" under an already very vague section, makes things far too confusing. We should list either Authors or Books, not both (I prefer Books, since one Author might fit in too many categories); I am keeping an Authors LIST to make navigation quick, but that's all (it needs editing
 and lengthening); the link to the "Novels" section has been removed, but the page is still available at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels]] in case someone wishes to retrieve it for some reason. If it's not needed, please delete it.

I would also like to bring together as many people as possible to contribute to the main Literature Wikiproject, under which I hope to incorporate the History of Literature and mention numerous writers from all the world who may or may not be well known in the West, but are not given enough space anyway; similarly for the (new) Painting and Sculpture, Opera, International Cinema and any related projects. All comments, contributions etc welcome. (The above is also posted the Wikiprojects Talk page.)

As for the Categories issue: I have not thought about it as profoundly as some of you have. I only joined about three days back and I posted this at the Village Pump and Help Desk not long after:

"There is no coherent, rational structure or index for the distribution of articles, and no specified protocol which makes this structure/ index possible; because the current distribution is not rational, access routes to information are not reversible. Though each article has links that lead to other links, it is quite random; to illustrate with an example, a) User A creates article on Famous Scientist. Famous Scientist belongs to Specific Science, and is citizen of Certain Country; however, clicking on link to "Specific Science" does not lead to a COMPREHENSIVE list of famous scientists which will lead back to the Famous Scientist in question; in some cases it does not even lead to a list, or a history, or any such thing; similarly, clicking on "Certain Country" does not lead to a comprehensive list of famous scientists, or even "Contributions to Science" subdivision which will lead back to the Famous Scientist in question. User A may make an effort to rectifying said links and
 lists, but there are too many articles, lists, links and so on to ensure the changes have much impact. It would be much simpler to encourage a protocol among article creators and editors that would give rise to indexing, and will make these "information access routes" smoother and rational. (Additional note) b) I see there are " Wikiprojects" for some subject areas - would it be possible to direct newcomers to existing Wikiprojects, or ask them to create new Wikiprojects, so that groups of related articles can be effectively indexed and linked to each other, and category-wide changes can be requested and/or tracked?"

I believe Wikiprojects are a good way of dealing with or smoothing out categories, and providing context where it may not exist or may not be substantial. A sizeable number of people with similar interests, working together on a large Wikiproject, would easily be able to agree on, create and link necessary categories to each other; errors are also less likely.

Criticism is welcome. Please also join in the effort to write up, modify and expand some of the Wikiprojects I have created.

Thanks!

---------------------------------
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subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Restructuring, renaming,
	creating and removing Wikiprojects

body:
Hello all -

This may have something to do with the ongoing discussion on categories.

I just did a little restructuring of the Wikiprojects Catalogue today (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject), renaming some of the categories. I don't think any of them should be objectionable, but please let me know if they are. More importantly, I have renamed/ changed the content of two of the Wikiprojects - Authors (empty) and Novels, under the Literature section. They appear not to have been much of a success. There is already a Wikiproject for Books, and I feel this is far too vague, and I have split the Books section further into Classic & Canonical Fiction, Contemporary, Poetry, Mass Market and Genre Fiction, and Miscellaneous Prose. To include really vague sections - "novels" and "authors" under an already very vague section, makes things far too confusing. We should list either Authors or Books, not both (I prefer Books, since one Author might fit in too many categories); I am keeping an Authors LIST to make navigation quick, but that's all (it needs editing
 and lengthening); the link to the "Novels" section has been removed, but the page is still available at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels]] in case someone wishes to retrieve it for some reason. If it's not needed, please delete it.

I would also like to bring together as many people as possible to contribute to the main Literature Wikiproject, under which I hope to incorporate the History of Literature and mention numerous writers from all the world who may or may not be well known in the West, but are not given enough space anyway; similarly for the (new) Painting and Sculpture, Opera, International Cinema and any related projects. All comments, contributions etc welcome. (The above is also posted the Wikiprojects Talk page.)

As for the Categories issue: I have not thought about it as profoundly as some of you have. I only joined about three days back and I posted this at the Village Pump and Help Desk not long after:

"There is no coherent, rational structure or index for the distribution of articles, and no specified protocol which makes this structure/ index possible; because the current distribution is not rational, access routes to information are not reversible. Though each article has links that lead to other links, it is quite random; to illustrate with an example, a) User A creates article on Famous Scientist. Famous Scientist belongs to Specific Science, and is citizen of Certain Country; however, clicking on link to "Specific Science" does not lead to a COMPREHENSIVE list of famous scientists which will lead back to the Famous Scientist in question; in some cases it does not even lead to a list, or a history, or any such thing; similarly, clicking on "Certain Country" does not lead to a comprehensive list of famous scientists, or even "Contributions to Science" subdivision which will lead back to the Famous Scientist in question. User A may make an effort to rectifying said links and
 lists, but there are too many articles, lists, links and so on to ensure the changes have much impact. It would be much simpler to encourage a protocol among article creators and editors that would give rise to indexing, and will make these "information access routes" smoother and rational. (Additional note) b) I see there are " Wikiprojects" for some subject areas - would it be possible to direct newcomers to existing Wikiprojects, or ask them to create new Wikiprojects, so that groups of related articles can be effectively indexed and linked to each other, and category-wide changes can be requested and/or tracked?"

I believe Wikiprojects are a good way of dealing with or smoothing out categories, and providing context where it may not exist or may not be substantial. A sizeable number of people with similar interests, working together on a large Wikiproject, would easily be able to agree on, create and link necessary categories to each other; errors are also less likely.

Criticism is welcome. Please also join in the effort to write up, modify and expand some of the Wikiprojects I have created.

Thanks!

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from_name: Ronald Chmara

body:
On Jun 20, 2004, at 1:52 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Lars Aronsson wrote:
>> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>> In the field of digital libraries, there is a subculture that likes to
>> discuss "thesauri and ontologies", especially bordering on the
>> "semantic web" subculture.  It seems to me that most people in the
>> thesauri and ontologies subculture are from Germany and have some kind
>> of German library science background.  I'm talking about stuff like
>> http://www.ecdl2003.org/ecdl.tutorials.html#tutorial4
>> and http://www.jcdl2004.org/tutorials.htm#t2a
>>
> I checked those links and am not any further ahead.  I think that I
> can understand how thesauri might be relevant; however, I'm puzzled by
> how they have imported a term from metaphysics to serve their purpose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_%28computer_science%29

-Bop


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Jakob (jakob.voss at s1999.tu-chemnitz.de) [040620 06:28]:

> As far as I can tell there are three main reasons for Wikipedia's success:
> 1. It's very easy to contribute (Wikitax, everybody can edit)
> 2. Every edit is monitored in watchlists and list of lasts edits
>    so we can control each other
> 3. There is a clear common mission - to create an encyclopedia (+NPOV)
> As far as I also can see the category-function contradicts all of them:
> 1. It's not easy.

It's remarkably easy. I find it so anyway.

> 2. It's not controllable.
> You cannot watch a category to get noticed on new articles or when
> somebody removes an article from the category.

This could do with fixing. OTOH, it's becoming conventional for one's edit
summary to say "[[Category:xxx]]" when you add an article to category xxx.
Which of course shows up in your watchlist.

> 3. There is no common mission
> Can anybody tell the purpose of categories? Finding articles (without
> a coordinated search function?!) Browsing in topics (without a clear
> overview of all categories?!) Are we trying to index articles with
> subject heading, using a thesaurus, a classification or even a structure
> ontology? Library science has invented several kind of schemes like that
> but at the moment everybody is muddling this and that trying to invent
> the already invented wheels of documentation (by the way there are also
> methods of automatic indexing, clustering and classification).

I find it very useful to accumulate a group of articles on a subject I'm
interested in (e.g. Category:Scientology and Category:Goth, which I
created). A quick overview give one some idea of what's missing as well.

It also allows one to try to bring all of a category up to scratch. A lot
of the articles in Category:Goth are just a bit crappy and need work. But
now they're on one list, and I can feel a sense of achievement at making
that category worth the effort.

> And: In classification there is no NPOV because there is no "right" way
> to classify the world but it depends on the special needs and questions
> I want to answer with a special system of subject indexing.

I think you're wrong here. Categories are emerging quite nicely.
Badly-named ones are getting turned into well-named ones, even if that
means editing thirty articles by hand. It's clunky at first, but the wiki
process is working on this one too.

> Given the reasons I strongly recommend to stop using the categories and
> to focus on writing and improving good articles.

As I note above, a category can help one write obviously missing articles
and give an incentive to bring bad ones up to scratch.

> Many categories can easily
> be replaced with normal links between articles.

One important presentation function I find for categories is that they
can replace those bloody ugly article series boxes people are so fond of.

>  If you want to
> keep track of all articles in some area use (Wiki)Projects, article
> series, portals and learn how to use the "what links here"-function!
> A good article is an article that can be found easily without categories.

I disagree. I've found categories useful already (goth, scientology - once
each was created, others added stuff to them).

> Indeed classifying wikipedia articles is very interesting and will
> become more important, but this should be an independent project - maybe
> in a "Classifipedia" or "Categorypedia" that links to wikipedia articles.

Bottom-up category creation is working, in my humble opinion - because
hierarchies of categories are emerging, and it's a lot easier moving a
category in a hierarchy than moving all thirty-odd articles to a different
category.

> You know - librarians normally do not write the books they organize and
> search engine experts do not write the websites they crawl, so let's focus
> on what we can do the best: creating the most detailed, most understandable
> and freest encyclopedia in the history of mankind!

I appreciate your frustration with the current proces, but it's early days
yet. I haven't addressed everything you've said, and I do see your points,
but I think they won't be a problem in the long run - because good stuff is
already coming out as an emergent behaviour. Which, by the Bazaar process,
will produce better stuff if it's a sound approach in the first place.
Which I think it is.

- d.


from_name: Philip Newton

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Categories considered harmful

body:
On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 07:22:39 +1000, David Gerard wrote:

> Jakob (jakob.voss at s1999.tu-chemnitz.de) [040620 06:28]:
>
> > 2. It's not controllable.
> > You cannot watch a category to get noticed on new articles or when
> > somebody removes an article from the category.
>
>
> This could do with fixing. OTOH, it's becoming conventional for one's edit
> summary to say "[[Category:xxx]]" when you add an article to category xxx.
> Which of course shows up in your watchlist.

But only if the article was on your watchlist anyway.

If, say, you're interested in [[Category:Goth]], then your watchlist
won't notify you when a new article (that you weren't previously
watching) is added to that category, even if you're watching
[[Category:Goth]].

This is something I've wished for as well, and I hoped watching the
category would provide for that, but no.

It would be a good way to be notified of articles in the topics I'm
interested in, for example.

Cheers,
Philip


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

in_reply_to:
<c89ad09kog6sdlm7v930fl867inuebpkr7@4ax.com> (Philip Newton's
	message of "Sun, 20 Jun 2004 07:49:59 +0200")

references:
<1087676769.40d4a161d46f5@mail.tu-chemnitz.de>
	<1087676769.40d4a161d46f5-7187ArNAsRfQTwObEM2FzhvVK+yQ3ZXh@public.gmane.org>
	<20040619212239.GB7581@thingy.apana.org.au>
	<c89ad09kog6sdlm7v930fl867inuebpkr7@4ax.com>

body:
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton at gmx.net> writes:

> On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 07:22:39 +1000, David Gerard wrote:

>> This could do with fixing. OTOH, it's becoming conventional for one's edit
>> summary to say "[[Category:xxx]]" when you add an article to category xxx.
>> Which of course shows up in your watchlist.
>
> But only if the article was on your watchlist anyway.

I wish all these category changes wouldn't clutter my watch list.  No,
it is not an option to ignore all edits marked as "minor".

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Alt-B

in_reply_to:
<shsmcr7ve5.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de> (Karl Eichwalder's message of
	"Sat, 19 Jun 2004 11:24:34 +0200")

references:
<pan.2004.06.08.12.30.14.532128@arvin.dk>
	<ca4qvk$jsu$1@sea.gmane.org> <shu0xlhq8p.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>
	<1086800687.1588.16.camel@venus> <shsmcr7ve5.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>

body:
Karl Eichwalder <ke at gnu.franken.de> writes:

> Gabriel Wicke <lists at wikidev.net> writes:
>
>> To switch them off, drop
>>
>> ta = false;
>>
>> in your monobook.js.
>
> thanks for advise.  Unfortunately, it does not work for me - even after
> clearing the cache.  Is there a syntax error? :
>
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Keichwa/monobook.js

Please, help.  From where can I copy monobook.js that disables these
shortcut assignments for Mozilla reliably?

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


from_name: apogr

body:
1. The list
Wikipedia, other encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. as we know it, have the following in common: they are a list of usually single words (entry words, items, index words, etc.) associated with longer texts (articles) for which connection (whether explicit or implicit) the whole collection is sought. The way the number of items in the list is growing is either by inclusion of a new item that an author knows enough, or by the inclusion of a new word as a stub that a curious reader is not knowledgeable enough and wants to know more of. Each entry word first is found somewhere out there (in the context) and is then decontextualised, lemmatised, etc.) to be included in that list. If there are homonyms, the original context of each occurence is partially reconstructed and marked by disambiguation.

Context, however, should be considered to introduce additional relevant points (sometimes the originator for example), and if you go on without exactly specifying the relations that a given context reflects, you should have a lot more contexts shown in a structured fasion than normally found in dictionaries and/or in encyclopedias (compare: categories, senses, semantic web, etc.).

Given that wikipedia and its sister projects are word-centered devices you can hardly  go beyond basic grammar terms and the alphabet used a) to bring an entry word to a common form (noun, single word), and b) to sort them according to a single ("senseless") criterion that keeps resulting in an alphabetic index only to rely on in searching.

2. The text/article

Since on learning about the world and/or words all of us progress from known items toward unknown items by establishing various new connections and sorting the input individually, it may be desirable to include a ring of pointers that a) take you from scratch (trivia, dictionary entry) to the latest advances connected to an entry word, b) allow you to check for covering the complete process of acquiring knowledge in a given subject in succession. And context therefore should not be dispersed aroud the free-floating text. In other words, knowledge associated with an item should be graded and presented accordingly. Using a hypertext structure is fine, but not using  other text processing tools such as concordance (KWIC/KWOC) programs to recreate and/or remodel textual information is not quite comprehensible with so many computers at hand.

 apogr

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2004 11:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Categories considered harmful

> Jakob wrote:
>
> >Categories considered harmful
> >
> I generally appreciate your comments, but I would never go so far as to
> consider this initiative harmful.
>
> >Since Version 1.3 of MediaWiki we have the nice category function. In the
> >german wikipedia there is a lot of confusion and struggle on how to use
> >categories in the right way. As a student of library science I could tell
> >several methods how to classify, index and sort things but none of them
> >seems to be applicable easily with the current implementation of categories.
> >
> The confusion and struggle that you are experiencing on the german
> Wikipedia is being faced by all the projects.  Each is likely to find
> its own way of dealing with the issue, and the solutions are likely to
> show considerable variation.  That's fine and very wiki.  Some will
> undoubtedly be discarded at a later stage, as a part of a normal
> evolutionary process.  We need to avoid being overly critical of those
> who experiment with other possibilities.
>
> I also believe that effective categorization depends on having a
> properly functioning internal search function.  Hopefully, the day will
> come when our developpers will be able to get past the constant stresses
> on the system, and find something that does not depend on Google. :-)
>
> >As far as I can tell there are three main reasons for Wikipedia's success:
> >
> >1. It's very easy to contribute (Wikitax, everybody can edit)
> >2. Every edit is monitored in watchlists and list of lasts edits
> >   so we can control each other
> >3. There is a clear common mission - to create an encyclopedia (+NPOV)
> >
> Agreed.
>
> >As far as I also can see the category-function contradicts all of them:
> >
> To a significant extent, yes.
>
> >1. It's not easy.
> >
> >It's not easy to know how to do it in the right way because subject
> >indexing is a complex issue and it's not easy because of lacks in the
> >implementation (no rename, no redirects, no assignment of articles to
> >categories without editing every single the article pages). Editing an
> >article I have to guess which categories are existing, how they are
> >spelled and the rules what to classify into them and what not.
> >
> Perhaps it's too easy.  Anybody can propose any new category, including
> misspelled ones.  Doing it without creating chaos is a different thing.
> It's especially difficult for people who specialize in a particular area
> of knowledge.  To categorize effectively at its top level requires an
> ability to grasp the "big picture" of the Wikipedia.
>
> >2. It's not controllable.
> >
> >You cannot watch a category to get noticed on new articles or when
> >somebody removes an article from the category.
> >
> Mostly yes.  Building categories is a top-down activity.  Categorizing
> articles is a bottom-up activity.  The challenge lies in establishing an
> interface between these two activities.
>
> >3. There is no common mission
> >
> >Can anybody tell the purpose of categories? Finding articles (without
> >a coordinated search function?!) Browsing in topics (without a clear
> >overview of all categories?!) Are we trying to index articles with
> >subject heading, using a thesaurus, a classification or even a structure
> >ontology? Library science has invented several kind of schemes like that
> >but at the moment everybody is muddling this and that trying to invent
> >the already invented wheels of documentation (by the way there are also
> >methods of automatic indexing, clustering and classification).
> >
> Whatever the mission of categories it is a subordinate mission motivated
> by a desire to make the information in the projects more accessible.
> Categories have no meaning in an information vacuum..  I would answer
> your questions by saying, "All of the above, and more."
>
> Library science has indeed invented numerous schemes.  Any such scheme
> designed for general application is as good as its competitors.  Each
> developped independently to address the priorities of the originating
> library.  Any of them may thus be validly criticized for its nationalist
> tendencies.  Nevertheless, choosing one of them to serve as a starting
> point need not be a nationalist act.  That choice is more likely to be
> driven by the availability of detailed data, and the willingness of some
> individual(s) to do the work of adapting that system to serve wiki purposes.
>
> The muddling and the re-invention of the wheel implicit in most people's
> approach to categorization was completely forseeable.  I say this
> without finding fault.  It was just one of those miseries that had to be
> gone through; system convergence comes later.  Let's just keep away from
> automated system until we know what we want.  A premature application of
> automation will only support the muddling.
>
> >And: In classification there is no NPOV because there is no "right" way
> >to classify the world but it depends on the special needs and questions
> >I want to answer with a special system of subject indexing.
> >
> I agree with what you seem to be saying but I would not put it in terms
> of NPOV.  "Wiki is not paper," is a far more useful principle.  A
> traditional librarian may want to classify a single copy of a book on
> German libraries, and must decide whether that book should be shelved
> with books about Germany or books about libraries.  We do not have that
> restriction.
>
> >Given the reasons I strongly recommend to stop using the categories and
> >to focus on writing and improving good articles. Many categories can easily
> >be replaced with normal links between articles. Adding and removing
> >categories do not change an article's content a bit. If you want to
> >keep track of all articles in some area use (Wiki)Projects, article
> >series, portals and learn how to use the "what links here"-function!
> >A good article is an article that can be found easily without categories.
> >
> I don't arrive at the same conclusion about stopping the use of
> categories.  The techniques that you mention are all good and effective,
> and they should obviously continue to be used.  Categories are a way of
> providing a comprehensive overview.  It is easy to see at an appropriate
> place on an article just how that article has been categorized, or
> indeed '''if''' it has been categorized.  A list system has its uses,
> but needs to be manually maintained.  It is not evident on the face of
> the article that it has been properly listed.  A non-contributing reader
> may not be aware of the list's existence, or of the purpose of "What
> links here."  Even a contributor is not going to be inclined to check
> every article to see if it has been properly listed, but without
> checking he has no way of knowing.  This brings me back to my earlier
> point about categorization of articles being a bottom-up procedure.
>
> >Indeed classifying wikipedia articles is very interesting and will
> >become more important, but this should be an independent project - maybe
> >in a "Classifipedia" or "Categorypedia" that links to wikipedia articles.
> >
> No.  the categories are meaningless in isolation.
>
> >You know - librarians normally do not write the books they organize and
> >search engine experts do not write the websites they crawl, so let's focus
> >on what we can do the best: creating the most detailed, most understandable
> >and freest encyclopedia in the history of mankind!
> >
> >
> Your premise here is the most important thing that you say.  No
> professional librarian would tolerate an author who goes around
> insisting that his books be classified in a particular way.  The
> authors, the editors and the classifiers all have their own roles on the
> wiki.  All are working toward the goal that you specify, but not in
> complete isolation.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I checked those links and am not any further ahead.  I think that I can
> understand how thesauri might be relevant; however, I'm puzzled by how
> they have imported a term from metaphysics to serve their purpose.

I think the term "ontology" entered the scene from artificial
intelligence (AI) research, which soaked up some hype from Tim
Berners-Lee's "semantic web" ideas.  There is a pretty good article at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_%28computer_science%29
People from information retrieval (IR) or library and information
science (LIS) tend to prefer "thesaurus". In some cases people make a
difference between the two, but I think they are mostly synonyms or
overlapping. WordNet (www.globalwordnet.org and
http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/) is probably the biggest
real-world open-source example.

It is possible to divide the world into people who believe in data
structures (those who build WordNet, Dmoz, other thesauri, and the
semantic web), and those who believe in free text (those who build
Wikipedia and the old non-semantic web).  Wikipedia's categories is a
border-crossing.  Some of the people who could/should contribute might
have been turned off by Wikipedia's previous category-free approach.

Sorry for being so vague.  I took computer science at a university
where information retrieval wasn't even taught.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se/


subject: [Foundation-l] International Wikimedia structure

body:
Hello all,

(translation, original text below)

I am something irritated by some suggestions on meta regarding the
international structure of Wikimedia. There are made suggestions,
aligning local Chapter at a language, instead of aligning at a country,
for example Wikimedia Francophone and Wikipedia Esperanto. IMHO that is
the wrong way. Please look at other international non profit
organizations how they do that.

The following points are important to me:

* There should be as clear as possible a separation between projects and
chapters because all projects are international and should remain widely
self-determined.

* Chapters should not primarily spend their money for projects in a
certain language but on all projects, as far as legally possible.

* There should be no sub-chapters on national level (i.e. Wikimedia
Austria as a sub-chapter of Wikimedia Germany). Each national chapter
should be directly assigned to the Foundation. Exceptions could be
meaningful for regional chapters, which could be subordinated to the
national chapters.

The bylaws of Wikimedia Germany consider these principles. I would be
glad, if future chapters would do this likewise.

We should create an international organization to promote *together* all
international projects and not create an accumulation of single
organizations, which primarily promote "their" projects.

-akl

Original text (german):

Ich bin etwas irritiert ?ber einige Vorschl?ge auf meta in Bezug auf die
internationale Wikimedia-Struktur. Dort werden Vorschl?ge gemacht,
lokale Chapter an einer Sprache, statt an einem Land auszurichten, zum
Beispiel Wikimedia Francophone und Wikipedia Esperanto. IMHO ist das der
falsche Weg. Bitte schaut Euch mal andere internationale
non-profit-Organisationen an, wie die das machen.

Folgende Punkte sind mir wichtig:

* Es sollte eine m?glichst klare Trennung zwischen Projekten und
Chaptern geben, weil alle Projekte international sind und weitgehend
selbstbestimmt bleiben sollten.

* Chapter sollten ihr Geld nicht prim?r f?r Projekte in einer bestimmten
Sprache ausgeben sondern m?glichst f?r alle Projekte, soweit wie
rechtlich m?glich.

* Es sollte keine Sub-Chapter auf nationaler Ebene geben. Jedes Chapter
sollte direkt der Foundation zugeordnet sein. Ausnahmen k?nnten sinnvoll
sein f?r regionale Chapter, die dem jeweilgen nationalen Chapter
untergeordnet werden k?nnten.

Die Satzung von Wikimedia Deutschland beachtet diese Grunds?tze. Ich
w?re froh, wenn zuk?nftige Chapter dies ebenfalls machen w?rden.

Wir sollten eine internationale Organisation schaffen, um *zusammen*
alle internationalen Projekte zu f?rdern und keine Ansammlung von
Einzelorganisationen schaffen, die prim?r "ihre" Projekte f?rdern.

-akl


from_name: Delirium

body:
Mark Pellegrini wrote:

>Note, Angela asked me emphatically to make sure you fight
>it out there and not on the mailing list.
>
>
Ugh... it's nearly impossible to carry on a lengthy conversation on the
wiki.  Mailing lists are a lot better: I can organize subthreads, keep
posts I find particularly interesting for later reference and delete
others, and so on.  Can't do any of that on a wiki unless you make a
private copy of the discussion page and edit it yourself, and then keep
your copy in sync with the original, which is a gigantic mess.

-Mark


body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

>In the field of digital libraries, there is a subculture that likes to
>discuss "thesauri and ontologies", especially bordering on the
>"semantic web" subculture.  It seems to me that most people in the
>thesauri and ontologies subculture are from Germany and have some kind
>of German library science background.  I'm talking about stuff like
>http://www.ecdl2003.org/ecdl.tutorials.html#tutorial4
>and http://www.jcdl2004.org/tutorials.htm#t2a
>
>
I'm not sure this is purely a national issue: there's quite a few US
researchers working on "sematic web" stuff, and it's one of the trendy
areas of research these days.  Nobody seriously defends the Dewey
Decimal system as a modern classification system---its defenders mostly
cite reasons of continuity and compatibility with existing
categorizations (such as physical library holdings), and say that these
outweigh any deficiencies, as it is, in their viewpoint, suboptimal but
still more than good enough.

(Of course, there's lots of viewpoints falling to any side of that one.)

I do think ad-hoc categorization is going to end up mostly useless.
Either it's going to end up hierarchical, but with a rather
idiosyncratic and arbitrary hierarchy, or it's going to be very
inclusive and overlapping, with most articles fitting under a large
number of categories.  Nearly all medical articles can go under
[[Category:Alternative medicine]] as well, for example; [[The Bible]]
can go under about a million categories relating to Christian sects, or
even non-Christian religions, sects, groups, cults, and all manner of
other organizations that have something to say about the Bible; etc.

-Mark


body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> I know that the Wikimedia is currently strapped for cash. However, I
> would like to propose that we cover certain key expenses for our
> elected board members relating to their participation in Wikimedia
> work. For instance, telephone calls overseas should be covered by the
> Foundation, and not the elected representatives. A broadband
> connection should be covered by the Foundation as well.
>
> While every participant is doing their work on Wikipedia and the other
> projects voluntarily, Ant and Angela are expected to represent us, the
> users. We should make it as easy for them as possible.

I wouldn't consider this a high priority---certainly far below buying
servers, which we already don't have enough money to buy.  Unless we
find ourselves in a situation where we have so much cash we don't have
any place it could better be spent, I think a better approach would be
to simply use email to communicate like everyone else does.  As for
internet connections, I assume anyone involved in the project already
has one (how else would they be Wikipedians, given that this is
primarily an internet-based project?).

-Mark


body:
Arne Klempert wrote:

>I am something irritated by some suggestions on meta regarding the
>international structure of Wikimedia. There are made suggestions,
>aligning local Chapter at a language, instead of aligning at a country,
>for example Wikimedia Francophone and Wikipedia Esperanto. IMHO that is
>the wrong way. Please look at other international non profit
>organizations how they do that.
>
>
I agree with this---local chapters should be for reasons of local
convenience, particularly legal issues like tax-deductability of
donations, ease of fundraising and local advertising, and so on.  Making
them language-based doesn't really address this, except for the people
who happen to be in the country the foundation is based in.  This
shouldn't be language-based---an English-speaking German should be able
to join the German Wikimedia branch and continue to work primarily or
exclusively at en: if he or she desires; a German-speaking American
should likewise be able to join the US Wikimedia branch and continue to
work primarily or exclusively at de:.  Language-type issues should be
done on the Wikimedia Foundation level---the international
organization.  Perhaps language-coordination working groups could be set
up within it, but there's no good reason I can see to tie these to
national foundations of a particular country.  Another disadvantage of
that approach is that those in smaller countries are more discriminated
against---why should a German-speaking person from Switzerland have to
"report to" a foreign Wikimedia branch in Germany, for example?

-Mark


body:
Delirium wrote:

> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I know that the Wikimedia is currently strapped for cash. However, I
>> would like to propose that we cover certain key expenses for our
>> elected board members relating to their participation in Wikimedia
>> work. For instance, telephone calls overseas should be covered by the
>> Foundation, and not the elected representatives. A broadband
>> connection should be covered by the Foundation as well.
>>
>> While every participant is doing their work on Wikipedia and the
>> other projects voluntarily, Ant and Angela are expected to represent
>> us, the users. We should make it as easy for them as possible.
>
>
> I wouldn't consider this a high priority---certainly far below buying
> servers, which we already don't have enough money to buy.  Unless we
> find ourselves in a situation where we have so much cash we don't have
> any place it could better be spent, I think a better approach would be
> to simply use email to communicate like everyone else does.  As for
> internet connections, I assume anyone involved in the project already
> has one (how else would they be Wikipedians, given that this is
> primarily an internet-based project?).

Adding a qualification to this: I wouldn't be opposed to voluntary
donations by people who feel strongly about this.  If there are expenses
that are turning out to be problematic, there could be a fund-raising
campaign to provide funding for the board members.  But this should come
out of specific donations for that purpose: people should know they're
donating specifically to the "Wikimedia board of trustees communication
and travel fund" or something.

This is something I feel somewhat strongly about, especially since
someone mentioned how other organizations routinely do it: they are most
definitely not models to emulate.  A great many non-profit organizations
are inefficient, wasteful, and often simply corrupt, with a relatively
small percentage of their money going towards their actual stated mission.

-Mark


from_name: Fennec Foxen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Numeric standards considered harmful?

body:
This was sparked by a conversation in IRC.

Would you consider numeric standards harmful- particularly those
regarding Requests for Adminship? I know there is someone (who may
identify himself if he feels like it, and whom several people already
know about) who places blanket opposition (no Neutral votes, a full
Oppose) on any candidate for sysophood unless the candidate has 3,500
edits and has been here... two months, was it? But anyway...

First of all, with this specific edit count, I'd be interested in how
many of our current sysops meet that threshold. I know that I don't,
and a *large* amount of my contributions have been stuff which I
really wouldn't be involved in if I were not a sysop- the stuff which
comes up on a patrol of Recent Changes (which is hardly as profitable
an activity without a Rollback link and a button to delete nonsense,
AND the ability to back up the you-might-be-banned notice dropped on
user pages). I certainly would not have done a fraction of that
quantity of work if I were a regular user.

Even without this specific number, such standards may also be
inconsistent- a user with an inflated edit-count due to countless
corrections or user page adjustments is rewarded under this system,
where a serious and careful user may suffer. This is the exact
opposite of what is optimal.

I'm also concerned that this type of standard places an unnecessary
burden on valid users, who might become discouraged by high standards,
while it would be trivial for a sneaky undercover returning troll
(cited as a reason for these sorts of standards) to meet these sorts
of standards with sheer persistence and a little patience. Good people
lose out, while the bad ones are merely inconvenienced.

I speak here only of sysophood standards. Are there other strict
numeric standards which would be subject to effects which are similar?


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 6/20/2004 8:13:05 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>fennec at gmail.com writes:
>Would you consider numeric standards harmful- particularly those
>regarding Requests for Adminship?
>I think we have to move away from numeric standards and start measuring
>quality over quantity. Hypothetically, someone who wrote 100 good articles from
>scratch in 100 edits is, in my opinion, a far more capable contributor and sysop
>than someone who has 1000 edits because they engaged in a whole lot of silly
>edit wars.
>
On the other hand, 100 good articles from scratch tells us nothing
about how the user will deal with duplicates, vandalism, edit wars,
and all the other little joys of a sysop's life, while 1000 edits
due to edit wars will have developed exactly the sort of track record
that will help everybody to vote no. :-) In a way, sysophood is about
everything that is not creation of genuinely new content; we're
looking for janitors rather than authors.

Stan


from_name: Denni

subject: [Foundation-l] New User privileges

body:
While there is little we can do to stop out-and-out vandalism by
experienced users, I believe we could ease the load on those dealing
with new submissions if we could deal with the problems new users cause.
Some of these are deliberate - joke pages or edits without knowing what
they are doing, but many are just the result of that bumbling about in
the dark I'm sure we all felt when we first arrived. I'm also firmly of
the opinion that problem pages are created for the most part by newbies.

I would propose something a little less stringent than what Corey Burger
offers, contingent on the assumption that it is possible to track and
sequester articles.

New users and anons would be allowed to edit and create articles
immediately. These would be flagged and moved into an anon/new user list
similar to New Articles. After one week, new users would be de-flagged
and would be allowed to move pages. I also feel anons can be
accommodated - if an IP address remains consistent and no bad behavior
is evidenced from it, I think we should assume the best. Encourage them
to become registered users, yes, but don't penalize them for not doing
so.

Denni

Visit my Wikipedia user page at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%3ADwindrim
Do you ICQ? I do - 276534369 Magpie


subject: [Foundation-l] New User privileges


from_name: Kntjhnsnj at aol.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] late 19th century polish railway system

body:
Need help! I am looking for information on railway systems from Poznan,
Poland to Antwerp, Belgium by train. My Grandfather traveled one of these routes in
1892 when he was 21 years old. He went by boat, SS Pennsylvania, on to
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I do not believe he had any connection through the
Benelux countries, but I am not sure? Thanx. K. Johnson.
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from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
In a message dated 6/20/2004 8:13:05 PM Eastern Standard Time,
fennec at gmail.com writes:
Would you consider numeric standards harmful- particularly those
regarding Requests for Adminship?
I think we have to move away from numeric standards and start measuring
quality over quantity. Hypothetically, someone who wrote 100 good articles from
scratch in 100 edits is, in my opinion, a far more capable contributor and sysop
than someone who has 1000 edits because they engaged in a whole lot of silly
edit wars.

Danny
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