from_name: Dante Alighieri

body:
OK, let me see if I can do this without making things worse...

At 07:40 PM 8/29/2003, you wrote:
>A very sick man has now created a dozen Wikipedia pages
>dedicated to abusing me.  (Yes, I know I previously said
>that EntmootsOfTrolls had created six, but his latest list
>is much longer. He is still creating more, even though that
>is hard to believe.)

It's not hard to believe, he obviously has something against you.

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

Well, you seem to have missed the people in the community calling for EoT
being banned. You also may have missed the point of James' message which
was not that Jew-baiting does not exist, but that he was concerned that
your frequent (not just in this instance) accusations of anti-semitism may
cloud the issue when actual anti-semitism does rear its ugly head.

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

I don't really understand your logic here. EoT is not obsessed with Jews.
He's obsessed with YOU. I don't see why you can't understand how a person
who isn't an anti-semite or an idiot could have the opinion that EoT's
remarks (while facially anti-semitic, obviously) aren't ABOUT being
anti-semitic, but are ABOUT pissing you off. Now, I'm not condoning them,
in fact, I think he's gone so far that he's reached the level of bannable
offenses. But I don't appreciate your sweeping generalizations about anyone
who disagrees with you. I don't see how that helps anything.

>Would we allow similar statements about women, gays,
>blacks, Hispanics, etc?  Nope.
>
>And right now Stevertigo slanders most Wikipedians as
>"philo Semites"...and in response some people do nothing,
>yet only respond that I am lying or imagining things when I
>object to the blatant anti-Semitic Jew-baiting?

Stevertigo did absolutely nothing of the sort. Read his original post,
Vicki's response, and then Stevertigo's reply to her response. The reason
people did nothing is that nothing untowards happened. He was talking about
the attitude that some people have, not about his opinion or about any
specific Wikipedians. I don't think you're maliciously being misleading
here, I just think that in your frustration you may be not reading text as
closely as you ought.

>Huh? If that action on your part isn't Jew-baiting itself,
>then nothing is.
>
>Stevertigo and EntmootsOfTrolls are the ones making the
>most outrageous attacks. However, they are only a few
>people, out of thousands of Wikipedia.  It is not them I am
>worrying about. Rather, it is the rest of you self-who
>don't see a problem with this that I am worried about.

Well, you should be worried about the ones making the attacks (although I'm
not really aware of what Stevertigo has done). Let me be blunt, RK, many
people on Wikipedia don't like you. Lest you take that the wrong way, it
has nothing to do either with your status as a Jewish person or your
position on anti-semitism. It has to do with your attitude towards fellow
Wikipedians and your general demeanor. Perhaps there are people who "don't
see a problem" because they know that EoT isn't trying to attack Jews, just
you. If they don't like you, they may not have a problem with that. But
then, I'm not qualified to go judging peoples' reasons for things.

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

RK, you are really starting to go far afield here. I've already dealt with
your mistaken opinion of Stevertigo's email above, but let me add something
else.Trolls get banned all the time. EoT will probably be banned soon.
Screaming about how nobody is doing anything except blaming you (which
isn't true, by the way) DOES NOTHING TO HELP THE SITUATION.

I challenge you to back up your assertion above. Show us all where we deny
that anti-semitism exists. RK, you gain nothing but more enmity when you
cast invective on countless Wikipedians who do not deserve it.

>And on a related topic, EntmootsOfTrolls has also created a
>dozen Wikipedia article dedicated to harassment, has done
>things that would get a dozen other users banned
>immediately, but narly all of you are still protecting him.
>
>Your tacit acceptance of harassment is shameful, and a
>violation of everything this project stands for.

I had almost forgotten about this until now. Your repeated use of "shame"
really isn't wise. It's a loaded word that is bound to generate nothing but
defensiveness from those you wish to help you. Not for nothing, RK, but
IMHO it is highly inappropriate for you to dictate to others what they
should or should not be ashamed about. All of us have consciences and most
of us act as dictated by our consciences. The fact that, despite numerous
attempts to illucidate the situation to you, you CONTINUE to insist that
everyone is against you and that it's all because of some vast anti-semitic
conspiracy (conspiracy here is my word, not yours, but I feel that's what
you're implying) is really unfortunate.

It seems that you are not willing to pay attention to all the information
that is available, but instead choose to "cherry-pick" in order to support
your chosen position. If I were you, I might call that "shameful".

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

Here is what puzzles me most. If you truly think all these things about all
of us, why are you here? Why write a letter and then close with the
assertion that our words are meaningless to you? And, lest you take the
above as a veiled request for you to leave, it's not. I'm just confused. I
trust that, since you're still here, you believe that there is something
good and useful in this community and project. I just can't reconcile that
with your words above. RK, you are digging yourself a very deep hole out of
which I'm not sure you'll be able to climb.

RK, whether people like you or not is really irrelevant. It seems that most
of us are, at the very least, willing to accept you. That should be enough.
And, quite frankly, you HAVE cried wolf in the past. How long ago was it
that you thought that JT was an anti-semite and had to publicly apologize
because you decided you were mistaken? Have you changed your mind again? Is
he an anti-semite again? THIS is what is meant by crying wolf. You cannot
just accuse people (who may have honest disagreements with you) of being
anti-semites just because you don't like their position and then expect
people to care. I'm sure that there are people who haven't even bothered to
look up the history of you and EoT because they assume that it's a bogus
argument because of all your false claims in the past.

In closing, please don't take anything I've said as an attack, it REALLY
hasn't been intended that way. What I'm trying (let's hope it succeeded) to
do is show you how other people may be thinking of the situation. I really
believe that if you can calm down long enough to open yourself up to other
peoples' viewpoints, not everyone may seem quite so very much against you.

For what it's worth, I hope you stay and continue contributing positively
to the 'pedia, and that harassment of all users by all other users could be
stopped promptly and effectively in the future.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Kurt Jansson

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

body:
Fernanda Viegas wrote:

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

I'd love to see MediaWiki use a smarter diff function, but I have no
programing skills (well, TurboPascal, but that's long ago ...). Maybe
one of our not-so-busy developers (are there any?) could talk with you
about this.

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

Great!

Kurt


from_name: Merritt L. Perkins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dictation

body:
It is dangerous to ask questions; you may get answers you didn?t expect.
One answer may lead to several questions.
.Why do I dictate? Because dictation is much faster than typing when it
works right. By saying only two words I can print out a letterhead with
my name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address centered at the
top of the page. I can print my handwritten signature with two words. It
can print boilerplate, one or more paragraphs that you use repeatedly.
I started using dictation programs at least five years ago. I use it with
a computer that I built to write magazine articles: a Pentium 4. 2 GHz,
528KB Rambus memory, 8 Gigabit Hard Dr., two floppy disk drives, two
rewritable CD drives, and a 21 in. monitor. It has a card reader to read
the memory cards from my digital cameras. I use a trackball.
I store my data on floppies or CDs, not on the hard drive. One CD will
hold as much as 450 floppies. I have hundreds of floppies with data.
I e-mail the articles to the editor and never print them on paper.
I am lazy and will do a lot of work to keep from doing a little. I think
and move so slowly. Perhaps this is because I am anemic. The red blood
cells do not carry enough oxygen , because some of them are defective.
The red blood cells are made in the bone marrow and need iron, folic
acid, and vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin). Folic acid comes from green
vegetables and can be destroyed by cooking.
Traces of cobalt are found in the soil in most parts of the world. When
ruminant animals such as cattle and sheep eat grass they swallow it into
their first stomach where fermentation takes place that produces large
quantities of methane gas and combines traces of cobalt to form vitamin
B-12. After they regurgitate it and "chew their cud" they swallow it to
the second stomach and it is digested it goes into the meat
People have glands in the stomach that produce an intrinsic factor which
combines with vitamin B12 and when it reaches the ileum of the small
intestine it can be absorbed into the bloodstream and go to the bone
marrow to help produce red blood cells.
When the glands in the stomach fail to make the intrinsic factor it may
be a long time before the vitamin B-12 deficiency is detected because the
liver can store a five-year supply of B-12. The treatment is to inject 1
ml of vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin) into the muscle perhaps at weekly
intervals for a few times and then once a month for life.
I don?t have arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome but I do have pernicious
anemia. My doctor ordered blood tests but two nurses at his office
couldn?t get the blood sample so I had to go to the hospital where two
nurses were doing it on a production line with patients waiting. The
nurse couldn?t get it with a butterfly so used a syringe. She had been
doing it for 20 years.
There is a lot to learn to use a dictation program. You need to learn the
program and the vocabulary and can teach it words that it does not have.
You can train different words. The early dictation programs worked on one
word at a time, but that was no good. The present-day programs work on
phrases or groups of words. When it makes a mistake you can choose from
several phrases or type the correction in from the keyboard.
I have tried to shorten this by omitting many details so it may leave you
with many questions.
Merritt L. Perkins


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Geoffrey Thomas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Simple question

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sf.net> saith:
> On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 07:24:41PM -0700, Geoffrey Thomas wrote:
> > Simple question with a complex answer.
> >
> >   How do I install MediaWiki on Windows?
>
> Oh, it's really easy:
> 1. Install Linux
> 2. Install MediaWiki

LOL. I'd happily get Linux but I've already done so much stuff on
'Windoze' XP, saved on an NTFS disk (I assume Linux can't boot off
NTFS?), that I'd have to use PartitionMagic or something to keep
all my files. And paying $50 for PartitionMagic defeats the purpose
of getting a 'free' operating system.

That still doesn't answer my question; it says how to install
MediaWiki on a machine that ran Windows once. Not /on/ Windows :-).

Brion: thanks for the tarball. 2221KB? As in 2MB? So the tarball
itself would fit onto two floppies? Wow...but maybe the download
of PHP and MySQL will compensate for MediaWiki's small size.

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

=====
-Geoffrey Thomas
geoffreyerffoeg at yahoo.com

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


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 1, Issue 1307

body:
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 11:46:44 -0400
From: "Matt M." <matt_mcl at sympatico.ca>
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Culte, cult, secte, sect
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID:
<000f01c36e44$bfc38840$0200a8c0 at oemcomputer>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

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

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

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

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

Matt

Thanks Matt and Ec

That is a tricky word, not to mistranslate
unintentionnally :-)

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


list: wikien-l

from_name: Christopher Mahan

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

body:
--- james duffy <jtdirl at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Michael's behaviour is gone beyond annoying at this stage. We have
> talked
> and talked about contacting AOL. Has that been done?

Block AOL IP Block for edits.

If people complain, tell them that there is no other way to stop AOL
users from damaging the system, and that AOL itself does not care.

I say we might get some advertizing that way.

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

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Tacit acceptance of harassment

body:
--- Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com> wrote:

> [RK's rant]

> For what it's worth, I hope you stay and continue contributing
> positively
> to the 'pedia, and that harassment of all users by all other users
> could be
> stopped promptly and effectively in the future.

To W-RK:
I personally think that ranting from RK is now more destructive to
the W than his contributions, as it undermines the community spirit
we have so carefully built over the years.

I will, in the future, immediately delete his posts to the mailing
list as "Junk" and my silence will stand for my disapproval of his
sneaky and underhanded behavior.

To RK:
6 billion people live on this planet. If you don't want to get along
with them, I don't see why they should try to get along with you.

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

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


body:
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 19:40:53 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Tacit acceptance of harassment
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Message-ID:
> <20030830024053.84463.qmail at web20309.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> A very sick man has now created a dozen Wikipedia
> pages
> dedicated to abusing me.  (Yes, I know I previously
> said
> that EntmootsOfTrolls had created six, but his
> latest list
> is much longer. He is still creating more, even
> though that
> is hard to believe.)
>
> Yet your communal response?  Anthere starts
> attacking me,
> and James Duffy starts ranting about "the boy who
> cried
> wolf", and denies that serious amounts of Jew
> baitiing
> exists - in the midst of some of the most serious
> anti-Semitic slander Wikipedia has seen.

Robert

I have not started to attack you anywhere.

Please Robert, would you stop deleting other people
comments from talk pages during a conflict? It is
unnice and unconstructive. Please.

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


from_name: Lothar Kimmeringer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fun with mailing lists

body:
On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 20:04:48 +0000 (UTC), Brion Vibber wrote:

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

I had no problems so far and if you read this post, the system
should (still) work.

Regards, Lothar
--
Lothar Kimmeringer                E-Mail: spamfang at kimmeringer.de
               PGP-encrypted mails preferred (Key-ID: 0x8BC3CD81)

Always remember: The answer is forty-two, there can only be wrong
                 questions!


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: mysql table size

body:
"Constans, Camille (C.C.)" <cconsta4 at ford.com> wrote in
message
news:414AB5A4B93BD4118A8F00D0B74753A610CC3CE0 at war00116.warley.ford.com...
>
> Hi,
>
> I saw something in mysql manual about table size. Mysql can handle a table
of 8 To, but on 64 bits systems. On 32bits it seem it can only use 4Go
tables.
> And i know that old_table from english wikipedia is 1,5Go with bzip2.
>
> Maybe we could think about 64 bit processors for our new server ?
>
> Shaihulud on fr.wiki

Old is 10GB uncompressed, so I gather we've dealt with that problem already.
According to this:

http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Table_size.html

...linux can handle >4GB files if you have the right version. Which we
obviously do.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Olie ze kat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: logo

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>, l'ami(e) des kats,
avait papatt? dans sa niouze :

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

WARNING ....it is not a NPOV :o)))))))))

--
Vote for Miwiki the ant :
 http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Oliezekat/Miwiki_logo_5 or use it for your
logo variant !!! ;o)
Olie ze kat


from_name: james duffy

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

body:
Michael's behaviour is gone beyond annoying at this stage. We have talked
and talked about contacting AOL. Has that been done?

If not, can I please as Jim or one of the developers /as a matter or
urgency/ to do it. The little turd (sorry if the terminology is unusual but
I can think of no less offensive term to call him and a lot stronger) has
been moving around various users' pages, invariably the pages of Hephaestos
and occasionally others, including Jim O'Regan's now.

Among his targeting of Hep's pages have been :
    * (cur) (last) . . M 03:50, 29 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos (Reverted to last
edit by Hephaestos)
    * (cur) (last) . . 03:50, 29 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos' Account
    * (cur) (last) . . M 03:50, 29 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos (Reverted to last
edit by Delirium)
    * (cur) (last) . . M 03:49, 29 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos' Account (So, you
were born on St. Christopher's day 1953, huh?)
    * (cur) (last) . . M 03:40, 29 Aug 2003 . . Delirium (Reverted to last
edit by Hephaestos)
    * (cur) (last) . . 03:36, 29 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos' Account
    * (cur) (last) . . 03:35, 29 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos' Account
    * (cur) (last) . . 16:58, 28 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos (just a note.
please?)
    * (cur) (last) . . M 16:56, 28 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos
    * (cur) (last) . . M 00:59, 28 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos (Reverted to last
edit by Hephaestos)
    * (cur) (last) . . 00:59, 28 Aug 2003 . . Bastard (Hephaestos)
    * (cur) (last) . . M 00:53, 28 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos (Reverted to last
edit by Hephaestos)
    * (cur) (last) . . 00:53, 28 Aug 2003 . . Mr. Bush
    * (cur) (last) . . 05:23, 27 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos
    * (cur) (last) . . 22:40, 4 Aug 2003 . . Evercat (rv)
    * (cur) (last) . . 22:38, 4 Aug 2003 . . 67.121.169.17 (Michael)
    * (cur) (last) . . M 10:21, 4 Aug 2003 . . Cyp (Reverted to last edit by
Notheruser)
    * (cur) (last) . . 10:20, 4 Aug 2003 . . 202.147.80.212
    * (cur) (last) . . M 08:04, 4 Aug 2003 . . Notheruser (Reverted to last
edit by Notheruser)
    * (cur) (last) . . 08:04, 4 Aug 2003 . . 202.147.80.42
    * (cur) (last) . . M 07:57, 4 Aug 2003 . . Notheruser (Reverted to last
edit by Hephaestos)
    * (cur) (last) . . 07:56, 4 Aug 2003 . . Homohomo
    * (cur) (last) . . 07:56, 4 Aug 2003 . . Homohomo
    * (cur) (last) . . M 07:54, 4 Aug 2003 . . Hephaestos (Reverted to last
edit by Notheruser)
    * (cur) (last) . . 07:54, 4 Aug 2003 . . 202.147.80.220
    * (cur) (last) . . M 07:52, 4 Aug 2003 . . Notheruser (Reverted to last
edit by Notheruser)
    * (cur) (last) . . 07:52, 4 Aug 2003 . . 202.147.80.220
    * (cur) (last) . . 07:51, 4 Aug 2003 . . 202.147.80.220
    * (cur) (last) . . M 07:50, 4 Aug 2003 . . Notheruser (Reverted to last
edit by 202.147.80.220)
    * (cur) (last) . . 07:49, 4 Aug 2003 . . Homohomo
    * (cur) (last) . . 07:46, 4 Aug 2003 . . 202.147.80.220
    * (cur) (last) . . 07:45, 4 Aug 2003 . . 202.147.80.220
    * (cur) (last) . . M 19:31, 31 Jul 2003 . . Hephaestos
    * (cur) (last) . . M 05:35, 30 Jul 2003 . . Hephaestos
    * (cur) (last) . . M 05:30, 30 Jul 2003 . . Hephaestos (can you not
-read-? Do not protect this page without INFORMING me. Thank you.)
    * (cur) (last) . . 04:11, 30 Jul 2003 . . Evercat (restoring)
    * (cur) (last) . . 04:07, 30 Jul 2003 . . 67.121.169.17 (Michael) (moved
to "User:Hephaestos")
    * (cur) (last) . . 04:06, 30 Jul 2003 . . 67.121.169.17 (Michael)
    * (cur) (last) . . 04:05, 30 Jul 2003 . . 67.121.169.17 (Michael)
    * (cur) (last) . . 04:04, 30 Jul 2003 . . 67.121.169.17 (Michael)
    * (cur) (last) . . 04:02, 30 Jul 2003 . . Notheruser (moved to
"User:Hephaestos")
    * (cur) (last) . . M 18:46, 27 Jul 2003 . . Koyaanis Qatsi
    * (cur) (last) . . 18:34, 27 Jul 2003 . . 67.121.191.130
    * (cur) (last) . . M 10:17, 21 Jul 2003 . . Hephaestos (Reverted to last
edit by Maveric149)
    * (cur) (last) . . 10:16, 21 Jul 2003 . . 66.235.39.157
    * (cur) (last) . . M 03:17, 20 Jul 2003 . . Maveric149
    * (cur) (last) . . M 03:16, 20 Jul 2003 . . Hephaestos (I could almost
agree with that. My mom might take offense... :) )
    * (cur) (last) . . M 02:37, 20 Jul 2003 . . Hephaestos (Reverted to last
edit by Notheruser)
    * (cur) (last) . . 02:37, 20 Jul 2003 . . The Winner
    * (cur) (last) . . M 23:07, 18 Jul 2003 . . Notheruser (Reverted to last
edit by Hephaestos)
    * (cur) (last) . . 23:06, 18 Jul 2003 . . 67.121.168.151

Michael's pseudonyms

    * User:Michael Contributions
    * User:Michael (Unbanned User) Contributions
    * User:Michael/Crass Contributions
    * User:Michael/NOFX Contributions
    * User:Michael/Trapeze Contributions
    * User:No-Fx Contributions
    * User:Weezer Contributions
    * User:Weezer/NOFX Contributions
    * User:Eddie Contributions
    * User:Fuck Contributions
    * User:UPSyNDROME Contributions
    * User:George Washington Contributions
    * User:NOFX Contributions
    * User:Michaelese Contributions
    * User:Crass/Tapeze Contributions
    * User:My Green Dice Contributions
    * User:Punk Contributions
    * User:Twister Contributions
    * User:Maynard James Keenan Contributions
    * User:Michaelism Contributions
    * User:Unbanned User Contributions
    * User:Jar Jar Binks Contributions
    * User:Steve Ignorant Contributions
    * User:George Washington (president) Contributions
    * User:Michael (Banned User) Contributions
    * User:Michael still wins! But Hephaestos still loses! Contributions
    * User:152.163.xx.xx Contributions
    * User:205.188.xx.xx Contributions
    * User:The Winner Contributions
    * User:Xxx.xxx.xx.xx Contributions
    * User:Michael's IP Contributions
    * User:67.121.169.17 (Michael) Contributions
    * User:Banned User Contributions
    * User:Michael-ish Contributions
    * User:Banned User Addition Contributions
    * User:24.130.213.242 (Michael) Contributions
    * User:MutantY Contributions
    * User:Michael J.J. Contributions
    * User:Michael vs. Hephaestos Contributions
    * User:Capable as Michael Contributions
    * User:Michael's Justice League Contributions
    * User:Mr. Bush Contributions
    * User:Bastard (Hephaestos) Contributions
    * User:The Bastard (Hephaestos) Contributions
    * User:The Bastard (Michael) Contributions
    * User:Mr. Banned User Contributions
    * User:64.12.9x.xx Contributions
* User:Hephaestos' Account Contributions

Whereas his early contributions focused on music pages, recently most of his
targets are users' pages.

I have had to protect Hep's pages on occasions when he isn't around and
Michael is running riot over them. We need action to deal with this nutter
as he obviously has no intention of going away. I don't think any other
troll has delberately caused as much damage. At least DW/Black
widow/JoeCanuck etc and Adam/Lir/Vera/Susan/Dietary Fiber/PP (who is back
again BTW) did make positive as well as negative contributions, but Michael
has done nothing but vandalism.

So please, someone with authority, contact AOL and see can anything be done
through it about Michael.

In the meantime, sysops cannot ban 'named' users. That is an understandable
and safe policy but in an emergency situation, as this is, I would like to
suggest to developers that Hepaestos be given the power to do so, in the
case of Michael. Hep has shown incredible restraint and solid judgment in
dealing with the nutter. I think he can safely be trusted to use such a
power responsibly. I will be reducing my commitment to wiki from next week
due to work commitments. Mav is on less often. Jim will be away in Ibiza for
a couple of weeks. Others used to dealing with Michael won't be around and
developers aren't always around when Michael is, so I think it is reasonable
to suggest that the target of most of his vandalism be given emergency
powers to deal with Michael, pending a possible more permanent solution.

Alternatively remove the power to move user pages, only temporarily, perhaps
restricting the power to move a page to sysops, who would do moves requested
by bona fide users who want to move their page. Other alternatives might be
to allow only the user to move his or her page. Or place a lock on the
moving of those user pages Michael continually targets, specifically Hep's.

JT

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


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
on 8/29/03 8:40 PM, Robert at rkscience100 at yahoo.com wrote:

> Coming from people who are blind to
> anti-Semitism in a very blatant form, I just can't take
> your words seriously at all.
>
> Robert (RK)

Wrong, Robert, we do the best we can.

Fred


from_name: koyaanis qatsi

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

body:
--- james duffy wrote:
>>
>> Michael's behaviour is gone beyond annoying at this
>> stage. We have talked
>> and talked about contacting AOL. Has that been
done?

--- Christopher Mahan wrote:
>Block AOL IP Block for edits.
>
>If people complain, tell them that there is no other
>way to stop AOL users from damaging the system, and
>that AOL itself does not care.
>
>I say we might get some advertizing that way.

KQ writes:
While I'm sure the thought is tempting, isn't it a bit
counter to wikipedia's stated goals of openness to
block *all* of AOL?  I can't imagine how it would
result in generally *good* press.  Also, I think it's
bad protocol to break the web (which kind of relies on
linking from one place to another).

As an aside, AOL is already blocking all links from
Livejournal.com (not just images):
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/08/29/2057242.shtml?tid=120&tid=187&tid=96&tid=99
.  Insert your own metaphor about walled gardens
and/or gated communities.

kq

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


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking AOL users

body:
I am an AOL user. I am also a sysop and I have been contributing to Wikipedia
for well over a year. I have found myself blocked on several occasions
because of blocks against Michael. There is absolutely no justification for blocking
thousands of potential users like me just because we happen to use AOL. There
must be some other solution.

Danny
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030830/3353303c/attachment.htm


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking AOL users

body:
--- daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> I am an AOL user. I am also a sysop and I have been contributing to
> Wikipedia
> for well over a year. I have found myself blocked on several
> occasions
> because of blocks against Michael. There is absolutely no
> justification for blocking
> thousands of potential users like me just because we happen to use
> AOL. There
> must be some other solution.
>
> Danny

Danny, the company you chose to use to provide internet access and
other services is unwilling to alter its business practices to
accomodate the needs of other web sites to provide defense against
malicious persons.

You will note that AOL is the only ISP which does not assign
session-length IPs for dialup users. This is a technical feature they
have decided to implement in order to disallow banning of internet
users from non-AOL sites, since by the strength of their numbers they
can influence content providers to not block this many potential
customers.

Some people will counter that because of AOL's infrastructure, they
are incapable of assigning session-length IPs. I say that they have
the money to do so, they are just unwilling. (everybody else does it,
so it can't be that hard).

I feel your pain, but AOL's policy is harming the W, both by allowing
Michael and Co to rampage and by forcing many people to spend their
time and energy trying to figure out a way around this problem.

You have an option: You can leave AOL and use a different provider.

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

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


from_name: Steve Vertigum

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking AOL users

body:
Im kinda with Chris on this --  There is absolutely no
justification for anyone to use AOL.
-S-

--- daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> I am an AOL user. I am also a sysop and I have been
> contributing to Wikipedia
> for well over a year. I have found myself blocked on
> several occasions
> because of blocks against Michael. There is
> absolutely no justification for blocking
> thousands of potential users like me just because we
> happen to use AOL. There
> must be some other solution.
>
> Danny
> > _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Tacit acceptance of RK's accusations

body:
Other than the typical whining and trolling, the kind
which we can either ignorantly ignore , or deal with
for what it is, namely: Trolling! --the foremost
accusation RK makes is that EofT has continued to
"harrass" him by adding new pages. Perhaps he can send
us links -- because Im looking at EofT's history now
and can find anything of the kind.

-S-
 "Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is
justice."
-Mencken

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


from_name: jdepape at cfl.rr.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: My Wikipedia Rant

body:
This message from Politics:  The Bully Pulpit on DelphiForums.com was forwarded to
you by 2MINUTESHATE.

You can view it in the context of the entire discussion by going to:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/bully/messages/?msg=25069.115

To view 2MINUTESHATE's Profile, visit
http://www.delphiforums.com/dir-app/showprofile.asp?uname=2MINUTESHATE

======== 2MINUTESHATE says to you ========
I take part in this forum on delphi.  I wanted to make someone at Wiki aware of some of these offenders who seem to think it is somehow cute or funny to deface someone else's work.

Thank You and feel free to contact me if you require and further help stopping the abuse.

jdepape at cfl.rr.com

=======================Forwarded Message=======================

Forum:    the Politics:  The Bully Pulpit Forum
Subject:  My Wikipedia Rant
From:     Sinfully Delicious (MAGNOS1)
To:       John (CHICAGOJOHN)
DateTime: 8/30/2003 10:17:57 AM

What a great website! I've amended an entry for the Roman emperor Trajan:
Trajan
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

 Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus (53 - 117), Roman Emperor (98 - 117) was the second of the so-called "five good emperors" of the Roman Empire and one of its greatest ever. Under his rule, the empire reached its greatest territorial extent. He also started the 'Trajan' brand of ribbed condoms.

=================================================
DelphiForums.com: Home to the Web's most vibrant
online communities. Explore more than 100,000 Forums
or create your own at http://www.delphiforums.com
=================================================


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: My Wikipedia Rant

body:
This message from Politics:  The Bully Pulpit on DelphiForums.com was forwarded to
you by 2MINUTESHATE.

You can view it in the context of the entire discussion by going to:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/bully/messages/?msg=25069.7

To view 2MINUTESHATE's Profile, visit
http://www.delphiforums.com/dir-app/showprofile.asp?uname=2MINUTESHATE

======== 2MINUTESHATE says to you ========
Here's the one who made the 'clever' alterations on the planet Mars entry...

=======================Forwarded Message=======================

Forum:    the Politics:  The Bully Pulpit Forum
Subject:  My Wikipedia Rant
From:     Fish (FFFFFFFFFISH)
To:       John (CHICAGOJOHN)
DateTime: 8/25/2003 12:52:16 PM

Hey, this could be fun! Check out my edit on the planet Mars:

"Mars is the third planet in the solar system, named for the Klingon god of war (the counterpart of the Greek Ares), on account of its blood red color."

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_(planet)

Now I know where to go when I get bored.

-Fish

=================================================
DelphiForums.com: Home to the Web's most vibrant
online communities. Explore more than 100,000 Forums
or create your own at http://www.delphiforums.com
=================================================


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: My Wikipedia Rant

body:
This message from Politics:  The Bully Pulpit on DelphiForums.com was forwarded to
you by 2MINUTESHATE.

You can view it in the context of the entire discussion by going to:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/bully/messages/?msg=25069.8

To view 2MINUTESHATE's Profile, visit
http://www.delphiforums.com/dir-app/showprofile.asp?uname=2MINUTESHATE

======== 2MINUTESHATE says to you ========
This one advocates it.

=======================Forwarded Message=======================

Forum:    the Politics:  The Bully Pulpit Forum
Subject:  My Wikipedia Rant
From:     John (CHICAGOJOHN)
To:       Fish (FFFFFFFFFISH)
DateTime: 8/25/2003 12:56:22 PM

ROFL!!!
I just went there.  That was awesome!
I'm tempted to go there and adjust some of my favorite definitions.

John

=================================================
DelphiForums.com: Home to the Web's most vibrant
online communities. Explore more than 100,000 Forums
or create your own at http://www.delphiforums.com
=================================================


from_name: sgilbert at nbnet.nb.ca

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Dictation

body:
Merritt L. Perkins  wrote:

> It is dangerous to ask questions; you may get answers you didn?t
> expect.

Very true. Of course, you may get answers you don't expect even if
you *don't* ask questions.

> Why do I dictate?

Case in point. I don't believe this question was asked. However, the
answer came, and it prompts me to ask another question: does
this make you a dictator?

Merritt, I must say I find you quite adorable. ;)

Stephen G.


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

body:
Matt M. (that's what the header says, but I think it may have been
Anthere) wrote:

> That is a tricky word, not to mistranslate
> unintentionnally :-)

It's a tricky word to use, too. One person's "cult" is another's
religion. Many conservative Christians consider the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ("Mormonism") a cult, but I doubt
such a label would stand in the state of Utah.

Some people argue that a cult is simply a newer religion that hasn't
yet established itself. The word "sect" is more neutral; the term
"new religious movement"  is sometimes used in academic
research. In most cases, when we call a group a "cult" in
Wikipedia we should probably attribute it.

Stephen G.


from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
RK wrote in part:

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

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

That seems to be the conclusion that a lot of people here have drawn.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>What about just writing down the URL in ink?

That's hardly transparent for the GNU FDL.
Even linking in a web page seems rather fishy to me.
As an institution, /we/ really would prefer it;
and as long as Wikipedia is up, it's ethically OK.
But it probably violates the letter of the FDL (although IANAL).

To see why this could be a problem, consider:
If something ever happened to Wikipedia,
we would no longer be giving credit to anybody.
That's OK for own compliance with the License,
since we're not publishing their work anymore either.
But how is the visitor to another site to see the credit?

As for writing down a URL, that's even worse.
What if the reader has no access to the Internet?
At least another web page can reasonably assume this.

-- Toby


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

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>Block AOL IP Block for edits.

>If people complain, tell them that there is no other way to stop AOL
>users from damaging the system, and that AOL itself does not care.

>I say we might get some advertizing that way.

But we have to contact AOL in good faith before doing this.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with AOL over vandalism

body:
--- james duffy <jtdirl at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 1. Wiki FORMALLY requests that AOL produce a solution to the
> Michael
> problem, with the threat that if they don't , all AOL users will be
> blocked...

Note that I said "blocked from editing" rather than blocked from
viewing the site at all.

otherwise, i agree with your post.

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

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


from_name: tarquin

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

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>--- james duffy <jtdirl at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Michael's behaviour is gone beyond annoying at this stage. We have
>>talked
>>and talked about contacting AOL. Has that been done?
>>
>>
>
>
>Block AOL IP Block for edits.
>
>If people complain, tell them that there is no other way to stop AOL
>users from damaging the system, and that AOL itself does not care.
>
Block *all* AOL IPs?
looks like I won't be around any more, guys :(


body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> That seems to be the conclusion that a lot of people
> here have drawn.

Not that I want to engraciate any Bartelsian nonsense
by responding to it.. (Did you read my response to you
Toby ,on http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ARK ?)

But Certain People have more than once apologized for
their haste in calling me an "anti-semite."  I in turn
accept and embrace their change from baseless
confusion and ethnic nonsense to reason and justice
and will appreciate such an apology when it comes from
you too Toby.

Can we apply the natural corrolary to Godwins Law
here?  I feel like Im in an argument to people who
resort to routinely break down to calling people
"doodiehead" -- whats the difference bettwen calling
someone "doodiehead" and "anti-semite" in this
context? And regardless, there is certainly little
excuse to stick up for RK's often tactless behaviour
-- be he your ethnic relation or not.

I apologise for sticking up for EofT, but someone had
to point out the desparity in treatment. And though I
might admit to going a tad too far (like bothering to
respond to Toby or RK at all) -- to 'unjustifiably fan
the flames of discord and cause undue harm to the
tender sentiments of the sanctimonious within our
community,' that is little excuse for calling me or
anyone a bigot.  But what else can a nigga do?

-S-

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


from_name: Delirium

body:
While I doubt that this idea will go anywhere, I figured I'd weigh in
against it anyway.

First of all, the whole idea is somewhat ridiculous.  AOL is the single
largest ISP in the United States, providing internet access to millions
of people, including quite a few of our better contributors.  Blocking
it would be incredibly counter-productive, and do far more damage than
Michael could possibly do.  Furthermore, it is unlikely to receive *any*
even remotely good publicity, regardless of what publicity blitz you put
on.  It will receive good publicity on slashdot, in NANAE, and other
similar internet-zealot locations, but universally bad press
everywhere.  Wikipedia will essentially be painted as an elitist
internet-zealot organization that doesn't allow common folk in, while
we'd like to be painted as a bit more open than that.

In addition, it's completely unnecessary.  Even if we were to need a
technical block of sorts (which IMO would require far more vandalism
than Michael has caused so far to justify), it should be done as
minimally as possible.  Using something heavy-handed like blocking all
AOL IPs from editing is certainly not minimal.  A first step I *might*
possibly support *if* it were a huge problem and all other avenues were
exhausted would be to allow sysops to ban logged-in users if they are
currently on an AOL IP (then Michael could simply be banned by any sysop
each time he pops up by clicking the "ban" button).  However, even this
I'd prefer not to have, given that other solutions are possible (my
preferred so far being extending rollback to support rolling back page
moves).

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking AOL users

body:
Steve Vertigum wrote:

>Im kinda with Chris on this --  There is absolutely no
>justification for anyone to use AOL.
>
>
Apart from the fact that it has an easier-to-use interface than most
services and more widespread access to dial-up numbers (very useful when
travelling)?  I'd personally be happy if AOL doubled its market share --
AOL users are also generally immune to email worms (due to the nature of
AOL's email client), so taking some market share from all the infectees
using other ISPs could only help things.

-Mark


from_name: Lee Pilich

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

body:
JT wrote:
 >Michael's behaviour is gone beyond annoying at this stage. We have talked
 >and talked about contacting AOL. Has that been done?

I wrote to AOL a few months ago (shortly after I wrote to the list saying I
intended to do so, whenever that was), but I must admit, it was a rather
half-hearted effort, which is why I never reported back on it. I gathered
together a few IP numbers and times from when he'd not been logged in, but
not many. I've not kept my message to them, and I never got a reply.

Best of luck to anybody who has a proper attempt at going down this route.

Lee (Camembert)


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking AOL users

body:
--- Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:

> Apart from the fact that it has an easier-to-use interface than
> most
> services and more widespread access to dial-up numbers (very useful
> when
> travelling)?

Agreed.

>  I'd personally be happy if AOL doubled its market
> share --
> AOL users are also generally immune to email worms (due to the
> nature of
> AOL's email client), so taking some market share from all the
> infectees
> using other ISPs could only help things.

That's a different problem altogether.

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

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


body:
--- Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:
> While I doubt that this idea will go anywhere, I figured I'd weigh
> in
> against it anyway.

I'm listening.

> First of all, the whole idea is somewhat ridiculous.  AOL is the
> single
> largest ISP in the United States, providing internet access to
> millions
> of people, including quite a few of our better contributors.

I'm with you so far.

> Blocking
> it would be incredibly counter-productive, and do far more damage
> than
> Michael could possibly do.

Arguably so.

It only takes one or two really tenacious little vandals to piss off
and demoralize many good contributors.

  Furthermore, it is unlikely to receive
> *any*
> even remotely good publicity, regardless of what publicity blitz
> you put
> on.  It will receive good publicity on slashdot, in NANAE, and
> other
> similar internet-zealot locations, but universally bad press
> everywhere.  Wikipedia will essentially be painted as an elitist
> internet-zealot organization that doesn't allow common folk in,
> while
> we'd like to be painted as a bit more open than that.

Agreed.

>..to allow sysops to ban logged-in users if they
> are
> currently on an AOL IP (then Michael could simply be banned by any
> sysop
> each time he pops up by clicking the "ban" button).  However, even
> this
> I'd prefer not to have, given that other solutions are possible

> (my preferred so far being extending rollback to support rolling
back page moves).

That would be great, and it would be great regardless of Michael and AOL.

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

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


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

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

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

>"cult of Mary" remains a viable expression.

Sure, sure ... but the expression that *I* used
was "cult of Guadalupe" -- so is /that/ one still viable?

^_^

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dictation

body:
Merritt L. Perkins wrote in part:

>Why do I dictate? Because dictation is much faster than typing when it
>works right. By saying only two words I can print out a letterhead with
>my name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address centered at the
>top of the page. I can print my handwritten signature with two words. It
>can print boilerplate, one or more paragraphs that you use repeatedly.

All of this can be done in Microsoft Word using macros.
After defining the macro, you can execute it with 2 keystrokes.
And this isn't because Microsoft writes a great word processor.
OTC, like most Microsoft products, it's about the worst one.
The point is, you can do this /even/ with Microsoft Word!

But I mention all of this just for general information.
I don't intend to criticise your choice to use a dictation program.
People have been dictating letters to secretaries for centuries,
so I have no doubt that dictation programs will be very popular,
once the technology supporting them is well enough devloped
that even Microsoft can figure out how to make a decent one.

>I am lazy and will do a lot of work to keep from doing a little.

This is a wise philosophy, anemia or no.

All of your information about anemia and vitamin B12 is very interesting.
I would encourage you to add it here:

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Cobalamin&action=edit

Our article is rather poor right now!

-- Toby


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Simple question

body:
On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, gorgon zolla wrote:

>5.	If you do not already have a CVS client, you will have to get one and
>install it.

Just to add a quick note, if you have Cygwin installed there will be the
unix cvs client there. Also, using the Cygwin setup you can install Tex
and you should be able to use MediaWiki math support.

Ciao,
Alfio


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Ideographic Chinese -Even Simpler Chinese

body:
Recently someone Menchi (?) discussed with Brion about

making separate wikis for Simple Chinese and
Traditional Chinese, and I fully support this view.

Continuing with the tradition of Wikpeidas innovation
and originality, I think it would be good idea to go
one further, and make a strictly Han Ideographic
(Chinese) language wikipedia.

The idea comes from the problems inherent to Chinese
--What began as purely ideographic --
symbol=thing/concept/connectors -- has also "degraded"
to include characters for which nobody knows their
origins, charachters that used to invoke a *phonetic
distinction between words. In more recent years,
bopomofo, pinyi, (chinese) and romaji , katakana,
hiragana (japanese) have all developed to supplant or
augment the highly complex pictographic forms and
their more complicated usage.

It would then be extremely interesting to create a
purely ideographic (using simplified characters) Han
wikipedia -- that is usable by Chinese, Japanese and
Korean wikipedians, and would be easier for non-asian
users to get involved with and understand.

Sincerely,
-Steve Vertigo

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


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cease fire

body:
I'm declaring another cease fire -- the last one worked out pretty
well, and what the hell.

LOTS of people have written me asking me to ban EofT.  The reasons
should be readily apparent.  No one has written me asking me to ban
RK, but LOTS of people are of the opinion that he needs to be a LOT
nicer to people, all around.

What I'd like to do is call a ceasefire on this one for a week or so,
starting now.  (I'll be posting this on Wikipedia as well, on my user
page, on RK's user page, and on EofT's user page.)

--Jimbo


from_name: Menchi Zh-En WP

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] The Separation (was: Ideographic Chinese -Even
	Simpler Chinese)

body:
>Stevertigo: Recently someone Menchi (?) discussed with Brion about making
>separate wikis for Simple Chinese and Traditional Chinese...

No, I did not suggest to Brion or anyone the separation of Simplified and
Traditional Chinese versions. I don't know who said it. As far as I know,
all active and regular contributors there are fine with the co-existence of
the two versions.

What we /have/ been saying is to implement an automatic
Traditional<->Simplified conversion, since the phrasing is completely
identical (the wording occasionally isn't. Occasionally.)

Anyway, shouldn't this be at Intlwiki-L.?

Menchi Zh-En

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


in_reply_to:
<BAY1-F282T0apMHi0SY0000250f@hotmail.com>;
	from jtdirl@hotmail.com on Sat, Aug 30, 2003 at 08:43:08PM +0100

body:
james duffy wrote:
> That formal request come from Jimbo to SENIOR figures in AOL.

Hey, I'm all for it, unless people come up with good reasons for me
not to try, but I don't think I really have any access to anyone of
any importance at AOL.  I've never even done any business with them in
order to have a contact in the business development department or
anything like that.

Also, I think detailed threats against AOL might not be as helpful as
just an ordinary abuse complaint.  I mean, have we tried that yet?
I'm under the vague impression that, if anything, AOL is too *quick*
to close accounts for complaints.  I think they basically figure why
bother dealing with the expense of defending a customer, right or
wrong.

--Jimbo


body:
I would definitely say that starting gently with AOL is a good idea.

Imran Ghory wrote:

> On Sat, 30 Aug 2003, Delirium wrote:
> > First of all, the whole idea is somewhat ridiculous.  AOL is the single
> > largest ISP in the United States, providing internet access to millions
> > of people, including quite a few of our better contributors. Blocking
> > it would be incredibly counter-productive, and do far more damage than
> > Michael could possibly do.
>
> What we should do is the following,
>
> 1) Contact AOL pointing out those specific sections of the AOL TOS that
> the user has violated.
>
> 2) If this fails to get a response, send a letter stating that access to
> wikipedia could be withdrawn from AOL users.
>
> 3) If this fails, make a wikipedia front page that described the problem
> we've been having with AOL and serve it up to all AOL users accessing the
> site. On the page supply an email address for AOL and ask AOL users to
> contact AOL about the issue.
>
> Hopefully that will be enough to make AOL take action, and if we have to
> take more extreme action against them we will be able to show that we are
> fully justified in taking those actions.
>
> Imran
> --
> http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking AOL users

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
> You will note that AOL is the only ISP which does not assign
> session-length IPs for dialup users. This is a technical feature they
> have decided to implement in order to disallow banning of internet
> users from non-AOL sites, since by the strength of their numbers they
> can influence content providers to not block this many potential
> customers.

When you say "in order to" are you saying that this is their
motivation for the way they do this?  I doubt it, that's all I'm
saying.  I mean, if anything, their system (whereby one person may
show up at a large number of ips during a single session, as far as a
website can see) would likely lead to *more* problems for AOL users
than *less*.

> You have an option: You can leave AOL and use a different provider.

I disagree completely.

My understanding is that AOL is actually more often at fault for being
*overly* zealous about cancelling people's accounts, not for not
taking action.  I remember reading a story that said that people have
been cancelled based on sending a couple of emails to an
ex-girlfriend, etc.

I think if anyone says boo about an AOL user, the account will be
cancelled.

It just makes good business sense for AOL to be that way.  An ISP that
is willing to stand up for users who get themselves into trouble on
the net is going to incur some serious costs looking into the
allegations, sorting out who is right or wrong, etc.  Believe me, it's
my nearly-fulltime job on Wikipedia.  :-)

It's a lot easier to just kick people off -- they aren't the customers
you want.  The customers you want just pay their money and don't cause
any trouble.  That's profitable.  A person who causes trouble is just
going to cost you money in dealing with complaints.

--Jimbo


from_name: Ray Kiddy

subject: [WikiEN-l] structure/ideas for people pages?

body:
Hello -

I am new to this list, but I do not see relevant posts in the archive.

Is there any interest in analyzing the structure of people pages and
relationships between them?

People pages seem to have a loosely defined structure. It might be
interesting to analyze these pages and automatically build up
meta-content that relates people to each other, or that provides for a
more consistent searchability of people.

I have done related work with California state lobbying and campaign
finance information. This information is published electronically by
the state, but the format obfuscates the identity of individuals and
the relationships between them. I have been working on disambiguating
these people and relationships.

Certainly there are other structured relationship that could be looked
at. A genealogy is one example. But there are also ad hoc relationships
that can be developed. When one person's page mentions another person's
page, for example. This fact could be captured in meta-information that
would allow the browsing of these relationships.

Please let me know if there is a better source for this information,
apart from this list. It does not seem that there is a separate list
for content rather than the discussion of ... um... personalities, but
any pointers would be appreciated.

thanx - ray

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RayKiddy


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Power to the people!

body:
For a while now, at least in English wikipedia, ordinary users have been able to change the text that appears at the top of Special:Recentchanges, by simply editing Wikipedia:Recentchanges. This has been great. However, there are about a million other places where such a system would be useful. For example, why can't we change the message that comes up when a new user creates an account, to something a bit more informative? Why can't we edit the text at the top of the "confirm deletion" page, to reflect this week's deletion policy?

The problem with this is that the current way of doing it is difficult to implement in each case, and not very easy to use with the other-language wikis, or the other sites using our software. I have made a simple change to wfMsg (now in CVS), which makes the creation of these software message pages much easier. With the new feature, instead of this:

"welcomecreation" => "
Welcome, $1!

Your account has been created.
Don't forget to personalize your wikipedia preferences.",

we write this:

"welcomecreation" => ":Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers",

A message starting with a colon ":" indicates that the text should come from a wiki page. If the page doesn't exist, it will fail quietly, returning a link to the non-existent page.

In some cases the code will have to be altered to use wiki-markup messages rather than HTML, but there are a number of places where this could be implemented by simply changing Language.php.

An additional feature is that if the tag "__START__" exists in the text, the text before that point will be filtered out, in wfMsg. This allows us to write messages such as "The following text appears at the top of [[Special:Recentchanges]]. Editing this page will instantly change that text. "

-- Tim Starling <t-starling-physics-unimelb-edu-au>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20030830/fcfbebfa/attachment.html>


body:
on 8/30/03 3:34 PM, Toby Bartels at toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> Toby Bartels wrote:
>
>>> I used "cult" in this sense on [[en:Our Lady of Guadalupe]] over a year ago,
>>> and it's still there. *shrug*
>
>> "cult of Mary" remains a viable expression.
>
> Sure, sure ... but the expression that *I* used
> was "cult of Guadalupe" -- so is /that/ one still viable?
>
> ^_^
>
>
> -- Toby

"cult of Guadalupe" returns 31 google hits (including your edit); "cult of
Mary" returns 1760 hits.

Fred


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cease fire

body:
Sounds reason-able.
-S-

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> I'm declaring another cease fire -- the last one
> worked out pretty
> well, and what the hell.
>
> LOTS of people have written me asking me to ban
> EofT.  The reasons
> should be readily apparent.  No one has written me
> asking me to ban
> RK, but LOTS of people are of the opinion that he
> needs to be a LOT
> nicer to people, all around.
>
> What I'd like to do is call a ceasefire on this one
> for a week or so,
> starting now.  (I'll be posting this on Wikipedia as
> well, on my user
> page, on RK's user page, and on EofT's user page.)
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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


body:
Ah so.  Sorry for my error.  Yes, its true that your
discussion of implementing something specific on a
specific wikipedia belongs on intlwiki-l.  However,
the notion of a new Ideographic wikipedia that doesnt
yet exist except in mine owne imagination-- does
indeed belong on this list.

Xie xie ni,
-S-

>Menchi: No, I did not suggest to Brion or anyone the
> separation of Simplified and
> Traditional Chinese versions. I don't know who said
> it. As far as I know,
> all active and regular contributors there are fine
> with the co-existence of
> the two versions.
>
> What we /have/ been saying is to implement an
> automatic
> Traditional<->Simplified conversion, since the
> phrasing is completely
> identical (the wording occasionally isn't.
> Occasionally.)
>
> Anyway, shouldn't this be at Intlwiki-L.?
>
> Menchi Zh-En

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Power to the people!

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> "welcomecreation" => "
Welcome, $1!

Your account has been
> created.
> Don't forget to personalize your wikipedia preferences.",
>
> we write this:
>
> "welcomecreation" => ":Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers",
>
> A message starting with a colon ":" indicates that the text should
> come from a wiki page. If the page doesn't exist, it will fail
> quietly, returning a link to the non-existent page.

Greta idea!
how about providing a fallback:

"welcomecreation" => ":Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers" => "
Welcome,
$1!

Your account has been created.
Don't forget to personalize your wikipedia preferences."

(the PHP syntx may be totally wrong, but you get what I mean)


body:
Even then its unclear that we want to go so far as to
block AOL -- Its the most-used provider, despite its
unpopularity. (I feel a little like Yogi Berra saying
that)

The gradual approach is obviously the way to
go-provided that the contact person keeps everyone
posted, and I would add that the true value of these
*two threads of discussion is to determine what the
limits WP should be willing to go to.  More than that,
people have been talking for a while about how to
enlist the help of isp's to combat their user-vandals,
and the last word on that is that 'one never knows
until they try.' I imagine each one is the same, yet
different.

I nominate Fred Bauder to the task/position of ISP
contact guy, because hes a professional and
straightforward guy, And his name is Fred -- a nombre
which carries volumes of psychologically persuasive
symbolism that I dont have to go into here.

-S-

> >Jimbo wrote
> >I would definitely say that starting gently with
> AOL is a good idea.
>
> An even better idea is starting, gently or
> otherwise! :-) I think Michael's
> latest game, adding users' names to the [[recent
> deaths]] page shows we have
> to do /something/ asap. And we have to let AOL know
> that we are serious with
> them. We will work with them if they are willing to
> do something. But if
> they aren't willing, we aren't willing to let the
> issue drop. So they can
> work with us, in a full spirit of co-operation to
> solve the problem. Or they
> can face a response from us of a sort that would not
> be in their best
> interests. They choose which route they want.
>
> JT
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2
> months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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


from_name: Gutza

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Dictation

body:
sgilbert at nbnet.nb.ca wrote:

>>Why do I dictate?
>>
>>
>Case in point. I don't believe this question was asked. However, the
>answer came [...]
>
The question was actually asked: "Dare I ask if there is some reason why
you chose to dictate instead of type." by Mr. Saintonge. However, as you
can see, Mr. Saintonge's tone was cautious when asking the question, he
probably expected something along the lines of Mr. Perkins' reply. Even
more, someone else suggested Merritt may be sightless IIRC, so his
taking the time to explain the reason for dictating is welcome in order
to avoid misunderstandings in the future - personally, I find this to be
the best possible attitude.

[[User:Gutza]]


body:
--- james duffy <jtdirl at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I think Fred would be a good choice. We have had our
> disagreements but I do
> have a high regard for Fred and he would be a
> competent choice. But it has
> to be made clear, /in Fred's interest/, that he
> isn't some member acting but
> that he is acting /for wikipedia/. Whomever we
> choose must have the
> authority to act, and not be seen as just some
> activist expressing an
> opinion. We must remember that wiki is a community
> of hundreds of activists,
> thousands of participants. It isn't just some
> ordinary website but an
> encyclop???dia outpacing Encyclop???dia Brittanica
in
> usage on the web, a
> serious and credible website, not just some minor
> website that can be
> ignored as can so many of mediocre standard and
> idiocyncratic membership.
> This is a serious website, involving people of great
> ability and commitment
> that far exceeds most locations on the net. If Fred
> speaks for us, he must
> be do so with the full power of wiki behind him; our
> credibility and
> excellence. That must be unambiguously shown and
> stressed. This is a /real/
> encyclop???dia, not a discussion group and that /has
> to be stressed/ to
> empower Fred.
>
> JT

Huh??  Ok. Yeah -- thats the point of having someone
designated for the role. This whole business of
"somebody... just make it so" is confusing.

-SV-

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


from_name: james duffy

body:
>From: daniwo59 at aol.com
>Reply-To: Discussion list for English-language
>Wikipedia<wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking AOL users
>Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 08:58:48 EDT
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Received: from pliny.wikipedia.org ([130.94.122.197]) by
>mc12-f18.adinternal.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); Sat,
>30 Aug 2003 05:59:06 -0700
>Received: from pliny.wikipedia.org (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])by
>pliny.wikipedia.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id h7UCx3n32081;Sat, 30 Aug
>2003 12:59:03 GMT
>Received: from imo-m08.mx.aol.com (imo-m08.mx.aol.com [64.12.136.163])by
>pliny.wikipedia.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id h7UCx1n32071for
><wikien-l at wikipedia.org>; Sat, 30 Aug 2003 12:59:01 GMT
>Received: from daniwo59 at aol.comby imo-m08.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v36_r1.1.)
>id 8.43.21785a6e (16781)for <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>; Sat, 30 Aug 2003
>08:58:48 -0400 (EDT)
>X-Message-Info: vAu4ZEtdRigHscoddWhVe52f53EV3Kow
>Message-ID: <43.21785a6e.2c81f988 at aol.com>
>X-Mailer: 9.0 for Windows sub 531
>X-BeenThere: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2
>Precedence: list
>List-Id: Discussion list for English-language
>Wikipedia<wikien-l.Wikipedia.org>
>List-Unsubscribe:
><http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>,<mailto:wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>List-Archive: <http://pliny.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l>
>List-Post: <mailto:wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>List-Help: <mailto:wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org?subject=help>
>List-Subscribe:
><http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>,<mailto:wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org?subject=subscribe>
>Sender: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>Errors-To: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>Return-Path: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 30 Aug 2003 12:59:06.0412 (UTC)
>FILETIME=[7EC166C0:01C36EF6]
>
>I am an AOL user. I am also a sysop and I have been contributing to
>Wikipedia
>for well over a year. I have found myself blocked on several occasions
>because of blocks against Michael. There is absolutely no justification for
>blocking
>thousands of potential users like me just because we happen to use AOL.
>There
>must be some other solution.
>
>Danny

I would hate to use Danny, who is a superb contributor, and many other
potentially excellent contributions. What I would suggest is

1. Wiki FORMALLY requests that AOL produce a solution to the Michael
problem, with the threat that if they don't , all AOL users will be blocked
and the blocking of AOL will be PUBLICLY announced to the media in a
publicity blitz, in which it will be accused through negligence of placing
wikipedia and other websites in danger from vandalism.  That formal request
come from Jimbo to SENIOR figures in AOL. To balance the threat, Wiki must
make it clear that it will work with AOL to do what it takes, if AOL is
willing to act. That should offer a methodology whereby, to avoid public
criticism, AOL can back down and work of a solution.

If they don't, it must be made clear that Wiki WILL act. That will require a
professional media campaign, with Jimbo and others available to brief the
media on why this extreme action is being taken. Press releases should be
released to all news organisations, including AP, Reuters and the main print
and broadcast sources in the US. The BBC in particular should be targeted.
AOL is currently mounting a major PR campaign in the UK. Having criticism of
it on the BBC both locally and internationally would be something I suspect
AOL would be desparate to avoid.

The effects of this campaign would be three-fold:
(a) to leave AOL in no doubt but that wikipedia is deadly serious about its
threat;
(b) That AOL risks damaging its own reputation, and having other websites
also publicly criticising its behaviour (there is a lot of unhappiness out
there with AOL. One credible encyclop?dia attacking AOL may well lead to
other websites too going public on their problems with AOL);
(c) the campaign would earn widespread coverage for wikipedia, identifying
itself as a credible, serious encyclop?dia that will not tolerate vandalism
and will not allow its reputation to be damaged by the arrogance and poor
standards of any provider.

2. A specific date, perhaps two weeks or a month from the issuing of the
press release, is stated at which point a ban will be imposed. In the
intervening period, a message is prominently displayed on the main page and
if possible in a banner on other pages, stating that because of AOL's
negligent refusal to offer a means to control vandalism to the site, AOL
users will no longer be able to enter the site from 'x' date.

3. A separate page be created explaining in detail /why/ this decision is
being taken, with suggestions to users like Danny as to how to change
provider, making it clear that wikipedia is not accusing AOL users of
vandalising site and that the problem with AOL, not them.

4. A message is created which will show up after the cut-off date to AOL
users trying to access the site explaining why they cannot gain access.

The chaos with Michael and others cannot continue. And the threat from
isolated nutters targeting the site is likely to increase as the site grows.
So this problem needs to be confronted now, rather than left drift until we
have a far bigger problem later on, one which could turn good users away on
frustration.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus


subject: [WikiEN-l] Tacit breaking of a cease-fire

body:
Dr James Duffy while taking the time to make a few
nice comments, cross a cease fire line.

I ask that he be sanctioned -- perhaps by confining
him to the talk:Irish potato famine page where he and
Maveric can relive Wiki glory days, and upload
pictures of fungi and yeast.

-S-

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


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fun with mailing lists

body:
Brion Vibber <brion at server.ikso.net> wrote in
news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0308292000400.21674-100000 at server.ikso.net:

> Kat's message to the list about running MediaWiki on Windows got held
> for moderation on account of "message has implicit destination". After
> rooting around in the docs, this appears to be because the message was
> posted through the GMANE news gateway, and thus doesn't have a To: or
> CC: header pointing to the actual address of the mailing list.
>
> This is presumably intended to protect against spam.
>
> Any thoughts on whether we should turn this check off, or can GMANE be
> configured so that the messages turn out right? Is anyone else posting
> to the lists through GMANE and having or not having trouble?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

I use it always and it works perfect.

In the time that i am listadmin of Wikitech-l and Intlwiki-l the number of
postings held for moderation on account of "message has implicit
destination" where very few.

But I seen no reason to not check this off. Non-members can not post so
there is no spam problem.

--
Contact: walter AT wikipedia.be
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking AOL users

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:

> When you say "in order to" are you saying that this is their
> motivation for the way they do this?  I doubt it, that's all I'm
> saying.  I mean, if anything, their system (whereby one person may
> show up at a large number of ips during a single session, as far as
> a
> website can see) would likely lead to *more* problems for AOL users
> than *less*.

Yeah, that's exactly their motivation. They live to make money, and
as far as they're concerned, if they could pull all of the internet's
valuable content into their proprietary network they would just fall
all over themselves with glee. Short of that, they'll be the big bad
boy on the block, making sure their 27 million members get access to
all the internet, so they can sell (that's SELL) their software and
access to the great unwashed masses.

As far as problems for AOL users, they don't exacly care that the
internet works less "smoothly" than their own network.

Now, don't take me wrong, I like AOL for two reasons: It allows
grandmas everywhere to connect to the web and provides decent tech
support to them. The other reason is that for a long time they
essentially funded Mozilla development by keeping Netscape software
designers employed.

>
> > You have an option: You can leave AOL and use a different
> provider.
>
> I disagree completely.

I meant to say that the Onus should not fall on W, because the W is
now in the corner where AOL and Michael are concerned, whereas users
do have the choice of ISPs.

Granted, it's a less than perfect situation.  I apologize if I
originally had failed to convey my meaning correctly.

> My understanding is that AOL is actually more often at fault for
> being
> *overly* zealous about cancelling people's accounts, not for not
> taking action.  I remember reading a story that said that people
> have
> been cancelled based on sending a couple of emails to an
> ex-girlfriend, etc.
>
> I think if anyone says boo about an AOL user, the account will be
> cancelled.

Let's see.

> Itw just makes good business sense for AOL to be that way.  An ISP
> that
> is willing to stand up for users who get themselves into trouble on
> the net is going to incur some serious costs looking into the
> allegations, sorting out who is right or wrong, etc.  Believe me,
> it's
> my nearly-fulltime job on Wikipedia.  :-)

And you have our gratitude for that :)

> It's a lot easier to just kick people off -- they aren't the
> customers
> you want.  The customers you want just pay their money and don't
> cause
> any trouble.  That's profitable.  A person who causes trouble is
> just
> going to cost you money in dealing ith complaints.

I agree completely.

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

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


from_name: Imran Ghory

body:
On Sat, 30 Aug 2003, Delirium wrote:
> First of all, the whole idea is somewhat ridiculous.  AOL is the single
> largest ISP in the United States, providing internet access to millions
> of people, including quite a few of our better contributors. Blocking
> it would be incredibly counter-productive, and do far more damage than
> Michael could possibly do.

What we should do is the following,

1) Contact AOL pointing out those specific sections of the AOL TOS that
the user has violated.

2) If this fails to get a response, send a letter stating that access to
wikipedia could be withdrawn from AOL users.

3) If this fails, make a wikipedia front page that described the problem
we've been having with AOL and serve it up to all AOL users accessing the
site. On the page supply an email address for AOL and ask AOL users to
contact AOL about the issue.

Hopefully that will be enough to make AOL take action, and if we have to
take more extreme action against them we will be able to show that we are
fully justified in taking those actions.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


from_name: Merritt L. Perkins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dictation, encyclopedia

body:
Ray Saintonge asked if the reason that I use dictation was I have some
kind of disability. Someone suggested I may be sightless.. Dictation
programs make so many mistakes that you need keen eyesight. If you tried
to dictate with your monitor turned off you would not know what you are
doing and you would have a mess.
I have a cousin who is about four months older than I am and a couple of
years ago she went to an eye doctor for an examination. He found that she
had cataracts and operated on both eyes immediately. It all worked out
very well.
My eyesight is about 20/20. I have slight astigmatism and limited
accommodation. so that I cannot focus on things close up. I sit with my
face about 3 ft. in front of the monitor and am not wearing glasses.
Occasionally I use a magnifier. It is hard for me to see periods.
I thought that this was not the place to write about anemia, blood tests,
etc. but with further thought I decided that readers should know about
these things. All too often doctors are in a hurry to get to the next
patient so you don't get the tests and treatment you should have. You
should insist that the doctor be thorough and not skip the things that
should have his attention now instead of putting it off until it is too
late.
I noticed a tiny growth on the edge of my ear. The doctor prescribed
Efudex, a very expensive cream. I read the instruction sheet that came
with it and refused to use it.
The doctor removed the growth surgically, a very minor operation, and a
biopsy showed it to be a squamous cell carcinoma. It is gone, cured. Now
there seems to be one starting on the other ear.
Efudex works on the DNA to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. You have
to keep applying the cream for a month or more and the area is sore all
the time.. You don't know when all of the cancer cells are killed.
I see no reason why I should go without necessities so that the CEO of
some big pharmaceutical company can have four luxury homes, entertain
lavishly, and have a $15 million art collection because he managed to
maneuver himself into a position of
power without ever doing anything to create or produce the products,.
A dictator is someone with absolute power. My computer often does not do
what I order it to do so I guess that I am not a dictator. Perhaps we
should have a new war, dictater for a person who speaks words that are to
be copied. I don't find dictater in the dictionary.
How can the people who write the Winkipedia articles live? They must have
some source of income; perhaps they are retired and have retirement or
investment income, are employed and do this in their spare time.
How do you go about writing an article for the Encyclopedia? What type
font and size of type do you choose? What about formatting? What computer
program can you use?
. There is quite a lot of information about dropping the atom bomb on
Japan but I didn't see anything about the intelligence that followed. How
did they find out about the effect of a bomb? Years ago a man who lived
here told me that one day he was sent out on a mission. As they approach
the target he went back and strapped himself in. When the bomb bay doors
opened he leaned out and aimed his camera straight down at the clouds
below. All he could see was clouds. When the command came he snapped the
shatter. The few days later an officer asked him if he would like to see
some pictures and showed have pictures of what the atom bomb had done. He
told him, "You took those pictures"..
I don't know that this story belongs in the Encyclopedia.
Merritt L. Perkins


body:
>Mark wrote
>While I doubt that this idea will go anywhere, I figured I'd weigh in
>against it anyway.
>
>First of all, the whole idea is somewhat ridiculous.  AOL is the single
>largest ISP in the United States, providing internet access to millions of
>people, including quite a few of our better contributors.  Blocking it
>would be incredibly counter-productive, and do far more damage than Michael
>could possibly do.  Furthermore, it is unlikely to receive *any* even
>remotely good publicity, regardless of what publicity blitz you put on.  It
>will receive good publicity on slashdot, in NANAE, and other similar
>internet-zealot locations, but universally bad press everywhere.

You are joking!!! AOL is extremely unpopular among the media, who see it as
an arrogant and incompetent organisation. I mentioned out problems to a
friend of mine who works in the New York Times some weeks ago and asked him
whether the media would be interested in a negative story critical of AOL.
His response was 'you betcha. AOL is the sort of arrogant big name we are
all just waiting to take a pot shot at.'  Anyone attacking AOL would be
guaranteed media interest and follow up stories based on contacts with other
people in the internet business who are furious with AOL for various reasons
but because they are tiny don't want to draw attention to themselves. Wiki
isn't; it is one of the fastest growing sites on the net. AOL needs
criticism from something like wiki like a hole in the head. It spends
millions every year in PR to create the image of a 'good' service provider.
The last thing it would want is to get attacked by a rapidly growing and
highly regarded encyclop?dia for facilitating vandalism.

Wikipedia will
>essentially be painted as an elitist internet-zealot organization that
>doesn't allow common folk in, while we'd like to be painted as a bit more
>open than that.

No. It would be painted as a high quality information source accusing an
organisation already privately criticised as putting money before protecting
web-sites, of recklessness and facilitating vandalism. And the media /love/
taking pot-shots at high profile people or organisations, like Microsoft.
politicians, religions, big business, etc. I don't think you grasp /how/ the
media works, Mark, or how important good publicity is to organisations like
AOL, how much they pay to get it, how damaging bad publicity to them can be,
and the lengths they will go to to avoid it.
>
>In addition, it's completely unnecessary.

Lets see. One vandal consistently vandalised every music sites he could get
his hands on. Now he has spent two months vandalising user pages. His latest
game is to delete 7 months of deaths from the [[Recent deaths]] page and to
add in the deaths of users he clashes with onto the page, calling them
''bastards''. That is /one/ user. How many such people do you think it would
take to do far more damage, on such a scale as to distract serious users
from doing serious work and drive away people? This one user has already
driven away people. As wiki gets bigger, the certainty is that more assholes
like Michael will join in the 'game'.

Even if we were to need a
>technical block of sorts (which IMO would require far more vandalism than
>Michael has caused so far to justify), it should be done as minimally as
>possible.  Using something heavy-handed like blocking all AOL IPs from
>editing is certainly not minimal.  A first step I *might* possibly support
>*if* it were a huge problem and all other avenues were exhausted

What avenues are left, given that this user can hide behind AOL's lax
controls and vandalise articles at will. I don't want to spent my days on
wiki reverting everything he does and protecting user pages when the user
isn't on and Michael is targeting them /again/.

>would be to allow sysops to ban logged-in users if they are currently on an
>AOL IP (then Michael could simply be banned by any sysop each time he pops
>up by clicking the "ban" button).  However, even this I'd prefer not to
>have, given that other solutions are possible (my preferred so far being
>extending rollback to support rolling back page moves).
>
I think you are seriously underestimating the problems Michael is causing,
the scale of the problems that additional Michaels could cause or the
vulnerability of AOL to criticism. And you grossly misunderstand how the
media would cover criticism of AOL.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963


body:
>Jimbo wrote
>I would definitely say that starting gently with AOL is a good idea.

An even better idea is starting, gently or otherwise! :-) I think Michael's
latest game, adding users' names to the [[recent deaths]] page shows we have
to do /something/ asap. And we have to let AOL know that we are serious with
them. We will work with them if they are willing to do something. But if
they aren't willing, we aren't willing to let the issue drop. So they can
work with us, in a full spirit of co-operation to solve the problem. Or they
can face a response from us of a sort that would not be in their best
interests. They choose which route they want.

JT

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


from_name: Till Westermayer

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Huh,

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

has anyone mirrored this? At the moment, the IBMs researchweb won't
allow connections, but the visualization sounds really interesting. Any
chance to have a glance at this, and if yes, where?
 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


from_name: Anthere

body:
 > Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 11:59:43 -0300
> From: sgilbert at nbnet.nb.ca
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re:Culte, cult, secte, sect
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
> Message-ID: <3F5091AF.9755.14672EC7 at localhost>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> Matt M. (that's what the header says, but I think it
> may have been
> Anthere) wrote:
>
> > That is a tricky word, not to mistranslate
> > unintentionnally :-)

of course that is me :-) I wonder how you recognised
my unmistakable english :-)

> It's a tricky word to use, too. One person's "cult"
> is another's
> religion. Many conservative Christians consider the
> Church of
> Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ("Mormonism") a
> cult, but I doubt
> such a label would stand in the state of Utah.
>
> Some people argue that a cult is simply a newer
> religion that hasn't
> yet established itself. The word "sect" is more
> neutral; the term
> "new religious movement"  is sometimes used in
> academic
> research. In most cases, when we call a group a
> "cult" in
> Wikipedia we should probably attribute it.
>
> Stephen G.

That was one of the contentious points in july, on the
article secte (your cult).

the etymological origin of secte meant it was a
division of a religion, or one part of a religion
following a specific guru . Quite neutral and non
pejorative definition.

We gave another definition which is a religious
extremist group, not very well integrated by social
standards

The more modern definition we finally settled on is
highly disparaging. It does not limit itself to
religious groups anymore, and is about a group which
is dangerous for its members.

It usually refer to groups which practice some of the
following, mental manipulation, power centralization
in the hands of a guru or a small group of people,
with a pyramidal organisation, with money exactions,
and a doctrine that can not be disputed.

Note that we could say catholic religion to be there,
so additional points usually come along to avoid this
:
It often rather refer to small groups in terms of
members, new organisations and often organisations not
very well integrated in a society.

Along those definitions, a french public commission
established a list of organisations listed as sects.

The issue is highly contentious on Wikipedia because
anti-sects wanted the list to appear on the secte
article, as THE list of sectes. This is only a french
definition and judgement of what a sect is.

At the same time, some wanted some religions not cited
in the report to appear as well (such a the catholic
religion, with the Pape as its guru)

And some wanted some religious to be removed from the
list.

After lengthy discussion, there is a list appearing in
the sect article, under the title "groups usually
considered as sect", with a disclaimer below, stating
who established this list.

I am very unhappy with this list, because it is
limited to the french public position and the fact it
is written "usually". Are listed secte (with the above
definition), some organisations that are in other
places in the worlds just regular religions.

Examples

Aumisme
Jehovah witnesses
Mormonisme
Moonisme

Now, it is easy in an article, to discuss whether a
group should be said a secte or not, and to attribute
position, but when in a list, this is much tougher :-)

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


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Anthere wrote:

>It usually refer to groups which practice some of the
>following, mental manipulation, power centralization
>in the hands of a guru or a small group of people,
>with a pyramidal organisation,
>
[[There is no Cabal]] ...

> with money exactions,
>
[[Wikipedia:Donations]] ?

>and a doctrine that can not be disputed.
>
[[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] !

;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
>Stevertigo wrote
>I nominate Fred Bauder to the task/position of ISP
>contact guy, because hes a professional and
>straightforward guy, And his name is Fred -- a nombre
>which carries volumes of psychologically persuasive
>symbolism that I dont have to go into here.
>
I think Fred would be a good choice. We have had our disagreements but I do
have a high regard for Fred and he would be a competent choice. But it has
to be made clear, /in Fred's interest/, that he isn't some member acting but
that he is acting /for wikipedia/. Whomever we choose must have the
authority to act, and not be seen as just some activist expressing an
opinion. We must remember that wiki is a community of hundreds of activists,
thousands of participants. It isn't just some ordinary website but an
encyclop?dia outpacing Encyclop?dia Brittanica in usage on the web, a
serious and credible website, not just some minor website that can be
ignored as can so many of mediocre standard and idiocyncratic membership.
This is a serious website, involving people of great ability and commitment
that far exceeds most locations on the net. If Fred speaks for us, he must
be do so with the full power of wiki behind him; our credibility and
excellence. That must be unambiguously shown and stressed. This is a /real/
encyclop?dia, not a discussion group and that /has to be stressed/ to
empower Fred.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Re:Wikibooks

body:
>From what I understand, this mailing list is for the
non-English Wikipedias and not for Wikibooks.  Could
we move the international discussion of Wikibooks to
another list, please?

Thank you,
Chuck

We were not discussing wikibook, we were discussing
whether wikibook was english restricted or not (ie, if
internationals should wait for the project to be have
a better stand first, before coming in for a non
english book) or whether we should specifically set
another site for each language because of the numerous
links, rc... issues.

If the current site is common to all languages, you
are right that this matter makes no sense here and the
subject moved to the appropriate list.

If the site is english only, the textbook mailing list
is about the english project only, then there is no
place to discuss it really, and this one is probably
the best choice to host discussion where non english
are involved.

Also, if it is is made clear that the current site is
english only (and for many of the reasons given by
mav, such as the rc, the common main page etc...),
then it should be made clear. Later on, when some
non-english people feel like doing a book, they will
just have to ask for a new site for this, and set
their own rules, obviously inspired from the current
one.

If the solution is this one, it should be discussed
whether the current english textbook should be moved
from http://textbook.wikipedia.org/ to
http://en.textbook.wikipedia.org/ .

No ?

Anthere

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