from_name: Heinz

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link
 resource in /home/includes/Database.php on line 374

body:
What does this mean:

Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/home/includes/Database.php on line 374
Unable to free MySQL result

Any Hints?


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Page protection interface updates

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Thanks a lot, Brion! This is an excellent and very important new feature.
> Could you make it explicit what the reasons are semi-protection is not
> enabled globally? Is this just during the testing period, or are you waiting
> for some kind of approval to turn it on?

The policy's only been made on en.wikipedia. If there's some consensus or order
to put it on everything that can be done.

> The isNewbie check doesn't seem to work yet. I made an edit to a
> semi-protected page with a newly created user:

I'm an idiot and made a typo in the config, so the four-day timeout didn't go
into effect. I've corrected it.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
On 12/22/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> > You'd have to spend a whole lot of money to get human editors to pick
> > the "useful articles".  It might pay off in the really long term, but
> > it'd require a huge investment.  And due to the GFDL some other
> > company could just come along and take the results of that huge
> > investment and drive you out of business anyway.  I'm not at all
> > surprised no one is doing it.
>
>
> They certainly didn't for de:. Oh, wait ...
>
>
> - d.

You're referring to the producers of the DVD, I assume.  I don't know
a whole lot about that project but I assumed they used some automated
method to select articles for inclusion (there was a mention of only
using articles which were last edited by a certain selection of logged
in users), not that they had someone go through each one by hand.

I guess it could be worth it to have someone give a quick one minute
glance to each article.  I wouldn't remove stubs though, they're a
huge part of what makes Wikipedia so great.  For "only" 200,000
articles at $6/hour it'd cost under $20K.  Of course, that kind of
assumes a DVD distribution where the barriers to entry are a bit
higher than web distribution.  It's not like many people are going to
pay $10 a pop to read a free encyclopedia on the web.

Anthony


subject:
[Wikitech-l] We have a problem (was: Stable version now with
	cache)

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
[snip]
> Then, I think it was two weeks ago, you said that, after seventeen month
> of hot air, that the validation feature was unsalvagable. So I went
> ahead and rewrote it as a feature, which was one of your wishes some
> month ago. I have not heard anything about that from you either.

I haven't had a chance to go over that code yet; I've got to review that and
Erik's wikidata stuff still. But I do feel a lot better about it being done as
an extension, and I'd love to see it up and running soon.

> What *I* wish for is a process like this:
> * Someone writes a major new function/extension to be used on the
> Wikimedia sites
> * Someone in charge of these sites (Tim, Brion, whoever) says either
> ** "OK, that's great, we'll use it right away" OR
> ** "No, we'll never use that, so don't waste your time" OR
> ** "We would use it if you fix THIS and change THAT"

Yes, we need to be better about that. I know the most frustrating thing is
waiting for a solid reaction, and I'm sorry I haven't been as good about that as
I should.

Please call me on it if you see me being wishy-washy on things.

> So, to come back to the original topic, this is *the* chance to answer a
> few of my questions:
> * Is /anyone/ actively working on a stable version feature?

Tim has been working on it for about a week, and is about to commit into a branch.

> * If so, is it already more advanced than the code I put into CVS?

We'll see when he commits his code, which should be Very Soon Now.

> * Is there some other reason this can't be done based on my code?

Who knows. :D

> I'll be on the 22C3, so maybe we could discuss these things in person.

Great, I'll see you there!

A few things:

* Those of us who are mostly chatting on IRC, we should remember to keep
everybody posted on the mailing list when we start or finish something major.

* If actively working on code, popping into IRC is strongly recommended to get
some immediate feedback. In particular, I'd like to ask that anyone making
commits to CVS be in #mediawiki at the time to respond to questions or reactions
that others may have.

* Those of us working on code for more than a day or two without it making it
into CVS should show post work patches from time to time to show our progress. A
live demo site is particularly helpful.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
On 12/22/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/12/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 12/22/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > >
> > > > You'd have to spend a whole lot of money to get human editors to pick
> > > > the "useful articles".  It might pay off in the really long term, but
> > > > it'd require a huge investment.  And due to the GFDL some other
> > > > company could just come along and take the results of that huge
> > > > investment and drive you out of business anyway.  I'm not at all
> > > > surprised no one is doing it.
> > >
> > >
> > > They certainly didn't for de:. Oh, wait ...
> > >
> > >
> > > - d.
> >
> > You're referring to the producers of the DVD, I assume.  I don't know
> > a whole lot about that project but I assumed they used some automated
> > method to select articles for inclusion (there was a mention of only
> > using articles which were last edited by a certain selection of logged
> > in users), not that they had someone go through each one by hand.
>
> First two versions were hand-processed, last version was automated.
>
>From your description it sounds like the work was done by Wikipedia
volunteers, and not the company that produced the DVD.  So we've
gotten pretty far off the topic of "Wikipedia mirrors such as
Answers.com", but still very interesting information.  I can't speak
for all of en:, but I'm pretty jealous of those who can understand
German.

Anthony


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikitech-l] Namespace changes ready for code review

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Tomer Chachamu wrote:
>>
>>> On 21/12/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In this case, people sometimes say they want to develop new namespaces
>>>> for references, or category-like namespaces for blogging, etc; I guess
>>>> some such things could be done through wikidata, but then again,
>>>> wikidata could be attached to namespaces via those same hooks. Maybe.
>>>
>>>
>>> An excellent idea!
>>>
>>> Image:
>>> Category:
>>> Template:
>>> Reference:
>>> *Table:*
>>> Task:
>>> Review:
>>> Poll: (AFD etc)
>>> Collection: (transclude polls; AFD)
>>
>> So perhaps there could be a series of options  that the bureaucrat
>> toggles when he activates a namespace.
>>
>> Ec
>
> Hoi,
> The ease with which new namespaces can be created are in one way
> really scary. They will affect the behaviour of a project and it will
> be too easy to do just this. When a language version of a project
> decides to "go its own merry way" it may mean that the consistency in
> which Mediawiki works will go away. If there is one thing that should
> not happen is that a user on any level starts messing with namespaces
> without prior agreement. Using namespaces is a great way of improving
> our environment, it is also a sure way of making an absolute mess when
> this is done without careful deliberation.

I absolutely agree about the scarriness.  In his message Erik speaks of
the potential for 100,000 namespaces in a project, but that many would
seem horribly counterproductive.  The present 256 limit for the number
of namespaces in a project seems more than enough, and in welcoming the
namespace management concept it was still with that limit in mind.  If
any project approaches that limit it's in need of serious
self-examination.  Namespaces need to serve a useful function.

I find the willingness of people to keep designing new templates carry
enough.  They may very well save a lot of time for their inverntors and
a few of their close collaborators.  More often when that person leaves
the project we are left to wonder just what these templates are doing,
particularly if they form a series of nested templates.

> The English Wikipedia is "leading" the way and it does not ask itself
> what the consequences are for the other language versions of the
> project. People mistake our mission, to create a great encyclopaedia
> with a stable encyclopaedia or a validated encyclopaedia. They are not
> necessarily the same thing. The Wiki way is about doing a good thing
> in a simple way and in a collaborative way. When we make what we do
> too complicated it loses the attributes what makes it work. Some
> people are of the opinion that Wikipedia has a "sufficient" size and
> to those people I want to point out that the sh.wikipedia for instance
> has *2,321* <http://sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics>
> articles. That does not suffice.

The other side of that is that the en:wikipedia should not need to stand
still waiting for everybody else to catch up.

Ec


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link
	resource in /home/includes/Database.php on line 374

body:
Heinz wrote:
> What does this mean:
>
> Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
> /home/includes/Database.php on line 374
> Unable to free MySQL result
What MediaWiki Version?
What were you doing when the error occurred?
Do you use any extensions or hacks?


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/22/05, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
>
>> I'm surprised that Wikipedia mirrors such as Answers.com don't
>> work more like Wikireaders, where a human editor picks useful
>> article-versions and leaves the stubs unmirrored.  The added value
>> from such an "editor's choice" would be a perfectly valid business
>> model.
>>
>>
>
> You'd have to spend a whole lot of money to get human editors to pick
> the "useful articles".  It might pay off in the really long term, but
> it'd require a huge investment.  And due to the GFDL some other
> company could just come along and take the results of that huge
> investment and drive you out of business anyway.  I'm not at all
> surprised no one is doing it.
>
> It's enough of a value add to present a page with results from
> multiple different sources, organized without all the editing tools
> and other extraneous things useful only for editing.  It's enough of a
> filter to just leave out article versions which were reverted within 5
> minutes (or some other determined time period).  Until recently the
> mirrors tended to perform faster as well.
>
> When I want to read Wikipedia, I go to the mirrors, not to
> wikipedia.org.  Wikipedia just doesn't do a very good job of
> distributing its product, and it wastes millions of dollars of
> donation money trying.
>
>
It is "long" life the Wikimedia Foundation did never spend millions of
dollars. Consequently it cannot have wasted this amount of money. Given
the amount of investment in its operations it is also boasts the best
cost benefit ratio in the business. Then again you have to define
benefit because the WMF does not make a profit. You also have to define
cost because we should value the effort that went into our "product".
> This is not to knock the Wikipedia, which does a great job of
> producing articles.  I don't think you'll ever be able to cater to
> readers and editors on the same site though (although to some extent
> that comes down to a semantics question of what would be considered
> "the same site").
>
> Anthony
As your basic assumption is wrong, I would also say that your conclusion
is wrong. Yes, Wikipedia is an outstanding project it creates both
content and it serves content for an unbeatable price.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid
 MySQL-Link resource in /home/includes/Database.php on line 374

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

> <?php
> $wgExtensionFunctions[] = "wfTest";
>
> function wfTest() {
>    global $wgParser;
>    $wgParser->setHook( "Test", "renderTest" );
> }
>
> function renderTest( $input ) {
>    [...]
>    [preparing $opts]
>    [...]
>    $output .= new phpMyEdit($opts); //weird...
>
>    return $output;
> }
> ?>

Why are you concatenating an object to what should be a string?
Furthermore, you're currently working on a parser hook, which usually
shouldn't need database information.

- --
 Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
 SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
 GPGKey:0x869C48DA   http://www.thewritingpot.com/gpgpubkey.asc
 3FA8 E9A9 7385 B691 A6FC B3CB A933 BE7D 869C 48DA
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFDqyVgqTO+fYacSNoRAqMHAJ0TkvrIjKvCnkcIqnVHrYAz4bRyDwCeNl0V
6SA1x9YvnZSABfLewxH94X4=
=6+J8
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
Magnus Manske schrieb:
> Heinz wrote:
>
>>What does this mean:
>>
>>Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
>>/home/includes/Database.php on line 374
>>Unable to free MySQL result
>
> What MediaWiki Version?
> What were you doing when the error occurred?
> Do you use any extensions or hacks?
I use mediaWiki 1.53 and i'm working on an extension.


list: wikien-l

from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stubification to the max!

body:
--- David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> This sounds like the fallacy that volunteers can be
> told to do something
> other than what they're interested in. I cannot
imagine ever having the
> patience to go stub-sorting, but those on WSS can.
They're doing useful work and they feel like they are.

Volunteers may not be "interested" in it, but it may
be useful to point out that not all volunteers are
considered equal. Some volunteers for example have
checkUser access (and indeed 'who checked who' should
be open knowledge, [redacting IPs of course]).

Other volunteers are Arbcom members who have been
elected (or appointed) to hold decisive authority over
other volunteers. IOTM, that if this small group was
the least bit creative, they could apply that decisive
power toward the completion of goal-oriented tasks.
Not all Arbcom "remedies" should be drastic; indeed
the Arbcom could be charged with being useful.

Stevertigo

__________________________________
Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year.
http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I absolutely agree about the scarriness.  In his message Erik speaks of
> the potential for 100,000 namespaces in a project, but that many would
> seem horribly counterproductive.  The present 256 limit for the number
> of namespaces in a project seems more than enough,

Actually, there's no such limit currently. Since 1.5 the namespace values are
stored as 32-bit integers, so you could have a couple billion namespaces if you
had the memory and CPU time to define them. ;)

In general though, they're not meant to be very many. Using 8-bit fields unduly
limited the *key numbers* which could be used reliably, not so much the total
number of namespaces.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Move-protection fix

body:
Titoxd at Wikimedia wrote:
> There currently is a problem with the new Protection UI, which disabled the
> precautionary move-protection that was installed on HEAD.

That was a config typo, since fixed.

> Currently, new pages are created with an empty protection string. To fix it,
> all the pages that have that empty string have to be changed to
> [move=autoconfirmed] through a conversion script. [move=autoconfirmed] also
> needs to be the default string when creating a new page.

No, that would be unnecessary.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Page protection interface updates

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 22/12/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>> There's now a timestamp field on the user table for the registration date, which
>> is used to calculate the age (this'll be included on newly registered accounts
>> but is NULL on older ones).
>>
>> The age setting replaces the percentage formerly used for the sitewide move
>> limitations.
>
> ...hmm. So dos this mean that:
>
> a) All page-move permissions are done on the four-day-old basis as well?

Yes. Previously it was using the percentage-of-registered-users thing.

> b) All users currently existing are grandfathered in as "old enough"?
> (if so, it'll be moot in four days time, I guess)

Yes.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


references:
<doedv5$siu$1@sea.gmane.org> <43AACD80.1040701@web.de>
	<200512221129.21300.xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>

body:
Robert Treat schrieb:
> On Thursday 22 December 2005 11:00, Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>>Heinz wrote:
>>
>>>What does this mean:
>>>
>>>Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
>>>/home/includes/Database.php on line 374
>>>Unable to free MySQL result
>>
> Basically it means you don't have a valid db connection (or you aren't
> referencing your connection properly).  To figure out why your getting that
> message we'd need a bunch more info like-->
>
>>What MediaWiki Version?
>>What were you doing when the error occurred?
>>Do you use any extensions or hacks?
>>
I use mediaWiki 1.53 and i'm working on an extension.

I try to add a table to mediawiki using phpmyedit
(http://platon.sk/projects/main_page.php?project_id=5)

The extension looks like this

<?php
$wgExtensionFunctions[] = "wfTest";

function wfTest() {
   global $wgParser;
   $wgParser->setHook( "Test", "renderTest" );
}

function renderTest( $input ) {
   [...]
   [preparing $opts]
   [...]
   $output .= new phpMyEdit($opts);

   return $output;
}
?>


from_name: Blackcap

subject: [WikiEN-l] One line summaries of WP Guidelines and Policies

body:
On 12/22/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> > Would you agree to putting that whole first sentence in bold?  What
> > about separating it slightly from the main text? What about putting it
> > in a box? :)
>
>
> Put the first sentence in bold, that'd do the first job.

That seems all right to me: a hell of a lot better than another infobox.


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Verbose results from the Britannica vs. Wikipedia paper
	on nature.com

body:
Hi,

on http://fftw.org/~stevenj/Nature-reviews.doc, there is now a Microsoft
Word document describing the "errors" (in a broader sense) found by the
reviewing persons.

With this list, it is now much easier to deal with these articles. Note
that the kind of "error" varies from minor factual errors (wrong year)
to some kind of overall criticism (wrong proportions for competing
theories).

However, it should be possible to bring the number of "errors" in those
42 articles down to a much lower number (...and we can introduce brand
new ones, yeah!).

Thanks for helping out.

The folks at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_peer_review/Nature_December_2005
will be thankful for your efforts in this matter.

At de.wikipedia, I am preparing an FAQ about this review, you might want
to join or do something in your own language. There was way too much
misinterpretation done by the press (mostly "in favour" of wikipedia,
which is not a good thing).

Mathias


subject: [Wikitech-l] Extensions & Special Pages

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

Boris Herbini?re-S?ve wrote:
> I guess the best way to integrate this into mediawiki is through a
> special page, but I was unable to find any useful doc (whereas help
> for extensions on meta-wiki is really useful. Thanks).

Hi, I'm assuming the metawiki page you are referring to is
[[meta:Writing a new special page]] and that you know how to integrate a
special page to the system.

I recommend reading the API documentation (
http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/doc/ ) or actually going through the
source code and finding out how the core code goes about doing the job.

Boris Herbini?re-S?ve wrote:
> I need a custom page with access to another DB, SQL requests and
> processing.

If the DB is not the same as the one MediaWiki is using, you will likely
have to implement your own infrastructure. From what it seems to me, the
current DB classes are not easily reusable. I may be wrong though.

- --
 Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
 SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
 GPGKey:0x869C48DA   http://www.thewritingpot.com/gpgpubkey.asc
 3FA8 E9A9 7385 B691 A6FC B3CB A933 BE7D 869C 48DA
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFDq0KKqTO+fYacSNoRAlglAJ9sQ9B0U9WCEM8JlayUsNercJRYtACeJd4I
BF02VDzT1mXnGY00WuJ/wPU=
=w02N
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid
	MySQL-Link resource in /home/includes/Database.php on line 374

references:
<doedv5$siu$1@sea.gmane.org> <43AACD80.1040701@web.de>
	<doejfv$hoa$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Heinz wrote:
> Magnus Manske schrieb:
>> Heinz wrote:
>>
>>> What does this mean:
>>>
>>> Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
>>> /home/includes/Database.php on line 374
>>> Unable to free MySQL result
>>
>> What MediaWiki Version?
>> What were you doing when the error occurred?
>> Do you use any extensions or hacks?
> I use mediaWiki 1.53 and i'm working on an extension.
Well, it seems that your extension tries to use a database handle which
isn't one. If you pass the functions names from your extension to the
query/select/... database functions, the error message should tell you
which function caused the problem.

Magnus


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] A newbie on article prefill templating

body:
G'day David,

> John Lee wrote:
>>MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
<snip />
>>What I'm concerned about is
>>that, as he said, external links != further reading. Maybe we could
>>change "further reading" to "other resources"?
>
> Or maybe we could leave it alone! I don't at all see the problem with
> "References" and "External links". (And some articles, e.g. [[Xenu]],
> actually have "References" and "Sources" and "External links".) I think
> the current convention is fine.

[[Lang Hancock]], which I bring up whenever I need to refer to a good
article I've written (since, alas, it's the only really good one I can
claim!), has References, External links, Further reading, and See also.

I listed all my sources as footnotes in "References", and now there's
far too many footnotes; especially when I cite some sources more than
once.  I've been considering renaming "References" to "Footnotes" and
using it only for extraordinary claims, and moving everything else to a
sources section ("References").  Then there'll be Footnotes, References,
See also, Further reading, and External links.

Thank goodness it's not a stub as well!  Knowing Hancock, there'd be a
*lot* of stub categories the man could fit under.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.3/209 - Release Date: 21/12/2005


references:
<doedv5$siu$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<43AACD80.1040701@web.de>	<doejfv$hoa$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<43AAEF41.7040008@web.de>

body:
Magnus Manske schrieb:
> Heinz wrote:
>
>>Magnus Manske schrieb:
>>
>>>Heinz wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>What does this mean:
>>>>
>>>>Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
>>>>/home/includes/Database.php on line 374
>>>>Unable to free MySQL result
>>>
>>>What MediaWiki Version?
>>>What were you doing when the error occurred?
>>>Do you use any extensions or hacks?
>>
>>I use mediaWiki 1.53 and i'm working on an extension.
>
> Well, it seems that your extension tries to use a database handle which
> isn't one. If you pass the functions names from your extension to the
> query/select/... database functions, the error message should tell you
> which function caused the problem.
>
> Magnus

hello Magnus

thanks for your help.
here is the full error message message:

Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/home/includes/Database.php on line 374

Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/home/includes/Database.php on line 374

Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/home/includes/Database.php on line 374

Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/home/includes/Database.php on line 374

Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/home/includes/Database.php on line 374

Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/home/includes/Database.php on line 374

Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/home/includes/Database.php on line 374

Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/home/includes/Database.php on line 374

Warning: mysql_query(): 81 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/home/includes/Database.php on line 374
Unable to free MySQL result

Backtrace:

     * GlobalFunctions.php line 451 calls wfbacktrace()
     * Database.php line 521 calls wfdebugdiebacktrace()
     * User.php line 766 calls databasemysql::freeresult()
     * SkinTemplate.php line 267 calls user::getnewtalk()
     * OutputPage.php line 467 calls skinmonobook::outputpage()
     * index.php line 270 calls outputpage::output()


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Blackcap wrote:
> On 12/22/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

>>Precisely. One page with the one-liners, each linking to the full novel.
>>This won't cram all the OMG INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT detail into everyone's
>>heads, but nothing else will either.

> We already have this, as I've said, at [[Help:Contents]]. And why have a big
> box, when the same text as a first line can be done instead?

I see no reason not to do both. The good and clue-friendly editors can
get the header box quickly, and the rules lawyers can be dealt with
using baseball bats.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stubification to the max!

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:

>  It's
> just that some times I have to wonder if all of the energy sorting these
> stubs wouldn't be better applied to making them into full-length articles,

This sounds like the fallacy that volunteers can be told to do something
other than what they're interested in. I cannot imagine ever having the
patience to go stub-sorting, but those on WSS can. They're doing useful
work and they feel like they are.

> P.S. Had I known my email would have generated so many follow-ups, I would
> have changed the subject line. But I doubt I could have improved on Mark
> Gallagher's "stubification to the max!"

Done ;-)

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Defamatory Biographies -
	another	problem	looming	forWikipedia?

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Do the people who like all these stub labels ever try to fix these
> problems, or do they just have a personal passion with finding work that
> others can do? :-)

They leave them for those of us with an interest in the content area :-)

- d.


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

> * Insisting that the first sentence of each page be a summary for the
> whole guideline. (As opposed to currently, where quite a few start with
> a background to the problem, rather than the solution)

That's a good idea in general. All policy and guidelines should be in
summary style with a lead section in strict inverted pyramid. This is
really important.

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

> It's my opinion that the success of the English Wikipedia depends on
> getting some controls in place.  Too many of our articles are
> degrading in quality precisely because anybody can edit them.

Idea: en: should be envious of the fact that de: is good enough to be in
its third DVD edtion, and do what we can to make it easy to do one
ourselves!

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

> Instead of thinking of (the English) Wikipedia as a basket of
> 850,000 articles in their current version, we can think of it as a
> basket of X million article-versions.
>    Every
> article-version in this collection of X million is free under
> GFDL, and can be used as the basis for new article-versions.
> Anybody can add new article-versions to the collection.

Oh, I *like* that.

> Currently Wikipedia works under the assumption that the latest
> version of any article is the best one, and the only one that
> should be linked from other articles, shown to the public and
> indexed by search engines.  It is important that we realize that
> this *is* an assumption, it does represent a design choice, and
> not necessarily the optimal one.
> If I'm compiling a Wikireader or a similar subset of articles, I
> might pick my article-versions under very different assumptions.

I agree.

> I'm surprised that Wikipedia mirrors such as Answers.com don't
> work more like Wikireaders, where a human editor picks useful
> article-versions and leaves the stubs unmirrored.  The added value
> from such an "editor's choice" would be a perfectly valid business
> model.

Indeed!

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> You'd have to spend a whole lot of money to get human editors to pick
> the "useful articles".  It might pay off in the really long term, but
> it'd require a huge investment.  And due to the GFDL some other
> company could just come along and take the results of that huge
> investment and drive you out of business anyway.  I'm not at all
> surprised no one is doing it.

They certainly didn't for de:. Oh, wait ...

- d.


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Rowan Collins:
> One thing that I was pondering when you posted about this before is
> whether the "special behaviour" of namespaces like "Image:",
> "Category:", etc could be built into some kind of hooks mechanism.

Yes. These kinds of hooks are essential to Wikidata and Ultimate
Wiktionary (especially the latter). It will be possible to attach
different application classes to different namespaces. Wikidata will be
one such application, providing versioning, search and user interfaces
for arbitrary structured data.  The methods in these classes will
themselves contain hooks for extensions and customizations.

Besides reducing some of the "magic" of namespaces like NS_IMAGE, and
the ability to add arbitrary structured content, Wikidata will have uses
even within the default namespaces. NS_IMAGE is an excellent example. It
is currently a table containing versioned structured content (the image
metadata) that is, however, completely separate from the image
description page (and still split in a CUR/OLD way). With Wikidata, this
would just be a customized wiki page with some added fields and special
hooks,

The best part is that the Wikidata design allows for translations, so
you could add something like a default caption to the image page as a
separate field, and translate it into all languages. When you type
[[Image:Foo.jpg|thumb]] anywhere, it would then use the default caption
in whatever language is appropriate. This could also be used on category
galleries. And I've posted here before on the uses of Ultimate
Wiktionary to translate category names. Commons will therefore be one of
the major beneficiaries of Wikidata, with the goal being a move towards
powerful, automatically localized tagging as the main method of
organizing content.

But even this just scratching the surface. Wikidata and UW are hugely
complex projects with enormous potential, if done right. Because they
are so complex, we are trying to implement milestones which are
independently useful. The namespace manager is one example, more will
follow. I'll post further details soon.

One note on namespaces: The namespace manager is _not_ intended to add
hundreds of namespaces to a wiki. Namespaces are for very large sets of
pages (or special functionality). The Cookbook: namespace on Wikibooks
is one example, the abandoned Jokebook: was another - but most books on
Wikibooks are probably too small to deserve their own namespace.

Some people will doubtlessly create wikis with hundreds or thousands of
namespaces, and run into some limitations. These may be addressed, but
in the Wikidata context, we're typically dealing with few namespaces.
For example, Ultimate Wiktionary, in spite of having a huge set of
tables, will probably only have one or two namespaces. There are
additional ways to restrict a set of content, and one idea I'm playing
with are link parameters. To get just the "animal" definitions of the
word dog in Ultimate Wiktionary, for example, you could use something
like [[en:Dog|related to=Animal]].

Erik


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
On 22/12/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> Idea: en: should be envious of the fact that de: is good enough to be in
> its third DVD edtion, and do what we can to make it easy to do one
> ourselves!

In case anyone's interested, [[German Wikipedia]] now has a
description of the various DVD projects. Quite interesting.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Philip Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stubification to the max!

body:
On Dec 22, 2005, at 8:55 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> stevertigo wrote:
>
>> Other volunteers are Arbcom members who have been
>> elected (or appointed) to hold decisive authority over
>> other volunteers. IOTM, that if this small group was
>> the least bit creative, they could apply that decisive
>> power toward the completion of goal-oriented tasks.
>> Not all Arbcom "remedies" should be drastic; indeed
>> the Arbcom could be charged with being useful.
>
>
> Last time we tried getting creative with remedies, it was widely
> regarded as my worst idea ever ...

There is some reason to take wide regard as being a bad idea as a
good thing, at this point.

-Phil


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
> Please, please, fix it. Add little summaries. I heartily
> encourage you to do so. The Help namespace could use that.
> But a box will not help matters.

Oi, I'm not pro-box :) Here are some possibilities I see for each page:
* A box on each page (as I added, but prettier)
* Extending the existing policy box to include the shortcut for the page
and the one-line summary
* Insisting that the first sentence of each page be a summary for the
whole guideline. (As opposed to currently, where quite a few start with
a background to the problem, rather than the solution)
* No summary at all on each page

Separately there is the question, where should a list of all summaries
of all policies and guidelines go:
*At WP:RULES, reorganising the page so that every guideline/policy is
referred to exactly once, with a summary. (Any guideline not referred to
on that page probably doesn't deserve to be called a guideline)
*At Help:Contents, including guidelines and policies with genuine help -
probably not a good idea as it would end up just duplicating wp:rules
*Somewhere else entirely

Comments and ideas please!

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stubification to the max!

body:
On Dec 22, 2005, at 9:20 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> Philip Sandifer wrote:
>> On Dec 22, 2005, at 8:55 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>
>>> Last time we tried getting creative with remedies, it was widely
>>> regarded as my worst idea ever ...
>
>> There is some reason to take wide regard as being a bad idea as a
>> good
>> thing, at this point.
>
>
> No ... that was a bad idea!
>
> The AC assigning people homework would not work in any way I can think
> of. These are volunteers, with pride. Even the difficult ones.

Well, yes, but it's so hard to find a remedy that properly says
"You're a petulant child and should go away."

-Phil


list: foundation-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Day 7 Fund Drive Report

body:
Copied from:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4/Day_7
-------------------------------------------------------------

A total of 455 donations were made through PayPal on '''Day 7''', yielding the equivalent of
$10,107.89 USD. The average donation that day was $22.22. Small increases in mail and Moneybookers
donations brings those totals to $95 and $545.33 respectively. I'm still waiting for the first
Dexia updates to be mailed to me.

Grand total for the whole drive at the end of Day 7: '''$85,839.88'''

 AUD     172.41    (129.39 USD)
 CAD 	364.36 	  (299.84 USD)
 EUR 	3,132.43  (3,804.93 USD)
 GBP 	273.99 	  (491.35 USD)
 JPY 	29,012.00 (262.12 USD)
 USD 	5,120.26
 Total 	10,107.89 USD

Copied from: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-22/report/

==Special thanks to large donors==
The largest donation this day was $500.00 USD and was made by Lawrence Lessig. There were also
many donors who gave the equivalent of about $100 or more (listed in no particular order); Dr
Horst W Doelle, J Nasser, Sebastian Kloska, Joseph Emile MARTIN, Urs Gilgen, Frederique Guilbert,
Robert Matthews, James Craig, Jonathan Brown, Chris Sachs, Andrew Maretz, Paul Seet, Tabrez Syed,
Lawrence Lessig and 10 anonymous donors.

==Selected donor comments==
Let's all thank everybody who donated on this day by reading their comments.
:Full listing at: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-22/detail/

*"Go Wiki Go!" by Drew Williams
*"For Paul Wright for Christmas" by anonymous
*"布施いたします。" by anonymous
*"Thank you for showing the power of sharing." by Lee Carleton
*"I'm poor. But I love cool stuff!" by Rasmus Rydstrom
*"С точки зрения
глобальной
градации..." by anonymous
*"without you i could not do my assignments!" by alexander onea
*"Good job guys(and girls of course)! Every reader should donate 1 EURO and the progress bar will
fast increase! Gruesse aus Deutschland!" by Oliver Moeller
*"I've already gotten more value than my donation." by Vincent Wright
*"I use Wikipedia so much that I would feel guilty if I didn't donate." by anonymous
*"Ich bedanke mich!" by Alfred Soehl
*"first point of reference for almost everything" by anonymous
*"Quickly replacing Google as my first destination for information on a topic -- in a few years I
suspect we won't know how we lived without it." by Conor Sen
*"go portuguese wikipedia!" by Luis Fagundes
*"Thanks mates!" by Florian Antretter
*"Weiter So!!!!!!!" by Steffen Rehnig

Some of my personal favorites:
*"Proof that the best things in the world are free." by Vijay P Choksi
*"Simply the greatest website and information resource in the history of the world. I am immensely
proud of this site" by Paul C. Chapman
*"Wikipedia is built on millions of small edits. Let's keep it alive with millions of small
donations." by James Lovell
*"Wikipedia makes me look with hope at the future of humanity." by Dario Teixeira
*"For Freedom" by James Hanks

-- Daniel Mayer

__________________________________
Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year.
http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Day 7 Fund Drive Report


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 7 Fund Drive Report


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stubification to the max!

body:
--- Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, yes, but it's so hard to find a remedy that
> properly says
> "You're a petulant child and should go away."

Well, thats only one kind of remedy, and its not
appropriate in most cases - everyone, even some of our
most controversial editors, being volunteers who have
contributed usefully in one way or another. In that
context, its a bit more petulant to be the one to say
"go away," and thats why wiser people learn to not say
it.

Given the above situation and just the general fact
that circumstances change, what may have been a "bad
idea" a year ago might be a good idea today
--particularly in the context of finding remedies that
are something other than absolutist decrees or
embarrasingly indecisive punts to other authorities.
Varied degrees of punishment -- community service --
what radical concepts!

Stevertigo

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Phoebe Ayers

subject:
[Foundation-l] "Fair Use does not apply to DSM material or any
	other APA/APPI content." um, wtf?

body:
On 12/21/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Any File wrote:
>
> >David Gerard wrote:
> >
> >
> >>        [Response re: DSM-IV-TR criteria (all identifiers removed,
> >>original forwarded to permissions at wikipedia.org):
> >>
> >>            We are inclined to deny Wikipedia permission to use our
> >>content as we do not allow anyone to alter our material and we do not
> >>want our material posted online. I can assure you that we have
> >>complete rights to our material and Fair Use does not apply to DSM
> >>material or any other APA/APPI content.
> >>
> >>
> >They want to keep for themselves they right of seling the definitions
> >and the right of chaning them.
> >
> >I know that copyright apply only to intellectual right, not to facts.
> >I can not proibits people to publish that 14-Carbonuim-14 or
> >230-Thorium are radioactives.
>

But these aren't hard and fast "facts" of physical science; they're
interpretations. Though I don't think it's right, I can see their point in
not wanting their content reproduced freely on Wikipedia; they are in the
business of selling definitions, and the DSM-IV online from the APPI costs
between $300-400 for individuals. For libraries the price is undoubtedly
many, many hundreds of dollars more. If we got after it and posted fair use
snippets of the majority of the definitions in the work, the APPI would
probably lose money, as well as their editorial control.

>>If they claim that these definitions are covered by copyright rights
>>they are claming that they are ficticious, just like a text of a novel
>>is.
>
>Copyrighting a definition that has the purpose of standardising a
>concept across an industry doesn't make sense.  That would force those
>who are not members of their cabal to define the term differently, and
>thus effectively defining a different disorder.  The resultant ambiguity
>would seem contrary to public policy in health care.

I think the idea is probably to make everyone part of their cabal, not to
standardize the industry.

-- phoebe / brassratgirl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
On 22/12/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/22/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >
> > > You'd have to spend a whole lot of money to get human editors to pick
> > > the "useful articles".  It might pay off in the really long term, but
> > > it'd require a huge investment.  And due to the GFDL some other
> > > company could just come along and take the results of that huge
> > > investment and drive you out of business anyway.  I'm not at all
> > > surprised no one is doing it.
> >
> >
> > They certainly didn't for de:. Oh, wait ...
> >
> >
> > - d.
>
> You're referring to the producers of the DVD, I assume.  I don't know
> a whole lot about that project but I assumed they used some automated
> method to select articles for inclusion (there was a mention of only
> using articles which were last edited by a certain selection of logged
> in users), not that they had someone go through each one by hand.

First two versions were hand-processed, last version was automated.

First edition:
"To produce the CD, a dump of the live Wikipedia had been copied to a
separate server, where a team of seventy Wikipedians vetted the
material, deleting nonsense articles and obvious copyright violations.
Questionable articles were added to a special list, to be reviewed
later. The final CD contained 132,000 articles and 1,200 images."

Second edition:
"The vetting process was similar to the one for the CD described above
and took place on a separate MediaWiki server. The process took about
a week and involved 33 Wikipedians, communicating on IRC. To prevent
duplication, editors would protect every article that they had
reviewed; links to protected articles were shown in green. List of
potential spam or vandalism had been produced ahead of time with SQL
queries. Unacceptable articles were simply deleted on the spot. The
final DVD contained about 205,000 articles, with every article linking
to a list of contributors."

Third edition:
The vetting process for this version was different and did not involve
human intervention. A "white list" of trusted Wikipedians was
assembled, the last 10 days of every article's history were examined,
and the last version edited by a white-listed Wikipedian was chosen
for the DVD. If no such version existed, the last version older than
10 days was used. Articles nominated for cleanup or deletion were not
used.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Dori

subject: [Wikitech-l] Review feature

body:
On 12/20/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> The new Review extension, which replaces the Validation feature, can be
> seen in all its overwhelming beauty at
>
> http://magnusmanske.de/wikipeerdia/index.php
>
> That site also features the Tasks extension.

I'd suggest limiting it to just three options: Bad (frownie) Neutral
Good (smiley)

Ready for 1.0 should perhaps be a preference that an editor would have
to turn on. There's no need to concern normal readers about this as
they'd have to know what 1.0 means (probably reading a long page
detailing guidelines).

Looks pretty usable

Dori


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: We have a problem (was: Stable version now with
	cache)

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
> Hi Magnus,
>
>>I'll be on the 22C3, so maybe we could discuss these things in person.
>
> Not everyone of us may come to 22C3, but everyone involved in site
> operation are discussing our changes in IRC channels constantly. In
> real life developers have proper meetings, we can't afford those, so
> online communication is preferred. Some features could be discussed
> using Skype as well.
>
> Long email threads maybe can be tracked in future, but they do not
> help with proper cooperation and collaboration.
>
> So far it was always absolutely efficient and easy to communicate any
> changes to other developers on #mediawiki or #wikimedia-tech.

IRC is fine, but with different timezones it's hard to be uptodate. For
example, tim & brion are chatting a lot early morning, there is a lot of
activity on Sunday. Not everyone is able to be on IRC 24/24 to track all
the activity (although we can still read logs). Also, Magnus is not on
IRC, which doesnt help either.

Long emails are good, but wikitech-l is flooded with several issues. It
can either be issues with the wikifarm or the mediawiki code.

I think we could use a dedicated mailing-list where only devs / sysadmin
would be able to post (rest will be heavily moderated). Then when
someone do something important, he can send an email to that list and
will be sure everyone will know about it. The server admin log on
wikitech is just about that, but for the farm only.

I would love to do developers meeting every 3 months or so, but with lot
of us in europe and the core developers in australia and usa ... It's a
bit hard (or we have to be really rich).

An example of "yet another tool" that we could use one day:
http://www.dotproject.net/ (let you create projects with tasks, assign
people to them etc..). Anyway, that might not be the best solution to
solve a communication trouble :o)

cheers,

(thanks deadchip at bmpx for the dotproject.net link)

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
<snip>
> What do others think?
>
> Erik

I haven't looked at the Stable extension so I cant comment on it. The
task / revision extensions looks promising but need a bit more time
before they are made available on live website.

Maybe it's time to release 1.6 with the current HEAD code, merge changes
from wikidata branch and work on it (keeping live site under 1.6). We
could then really concentrate on  Stable / Tasks / Revision . I am not
sure how brion decide when a new release should be created though.

Hopefully, when we switch to subversion, it will probably be a bit
easier to play with branches.

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


from_name: Brock Batsell

body:
Stephen Bain wrote:
> Since the age field for existing users is set to null, won't there
> have to be a large enough sample of new users (beginning from when the
> feature was switched on) before the percentage age starts meaning
> anything?
The policy has been altered from x percentage of newest users to x days
since registering (which is why the age field is necessary in the first
place), so no.  Accounts created before the age field went into effect
won't be restricted, but all those afterwards will be until 4 days expire.

[[:en:User:Bbatsell]]


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] EnotifWiki3.59 = MediaWiki 1.5.4 plus my additions and
 WYSIWYG editor released

body:
To whom it may concern

I published today EnotifWiki 3.59 = MediaWiki1.5.4
- http://www.enotifwiki.org Helpdesk and information about the
differences to MediaWiki
-
http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=4473&release_id=8442

Merry christmas to you all.
Tom


from_name: Dr Leopold Hartenschwanz

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:DrKinsey and associated IP address wrongly blocked

body:
Sirs,
If an administrator coulod help me I would appreciate it. User:Curps has
blocked my User:DrKinsey user account on the incorrect basis that I have
been vandalising articles and creating user accounts with insulting
things about him in the username.
You will find details of how this situation arose on User:Curps talk
page.
I would appreciate it if somebody with the technical know-how could
prove to User:Curps that he has made a mistake.
I am not receiving messages from the mailing list, so please email me
directly at hartenschwanz at fastmail.fm
Regards,
User:DrKinsey
--
  Dr Leopold Hartenschwanz
  hartenschwanz at fastmail.fm

--
http://www.fastmail.fm - Does exactly what it says on the tin


body:
> > That's a good idea in general. All policy and guidelines
> should be in
> > summary style with a lead section in strict inverted
> pyramid. This is
> > really important.
>
>
> Seconded.

Would you agree to putting that whole first sentence in bold?  What
about separating it slightly from the main text? What about putting it
in a box? :)

Ok, I'm being facetious, but just wondering where the line is.  In any
case, this will probably have to wait for the New Year now. MC and HNY
to everyone!

Steve


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> From your description it sounds like the work was done by Wikipedia
> volunteers, and not the company that produced the DVD.  So we've
> gotten pretty far off the topic of "Wikipedia mirrors such as
> Answers.com", but still very interesting information.  I can't speak
> for all of en:, but I'm pretty jealous of those who can understand
> German.

Now you get why I'm going on about the de: DVD and why I'm mentioning it
in media interviews as the sort of thing the English version is aspiring to!

- d.


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

> Would you agree to putting that whole first sentence in bold?  What
> about separating it slightly from the main text? What about putting it
> in a box? :)

Put the first sentence in bold, that'd do the first job.

- d.


body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

> [[Lang Hancock]], which I bring up whenever I need to refer to a good
> article I've written (since, alas, it's the only really good one I can
> claim!), has References, External links, Further reading, and See also.
> I listed all my sources as footnotes in "References", and now there's
> far too many footnotes; especially when I cite some sources more than
> once.  I've been considering renaming "References" to "Footnotes" and
> using it only for extraordinary claims, and moving everything else to a
> sources section ("References").  Then there'll be Footnotes, References,
> See also, Further reading, and External links.

I dunno. Have a look at some Featured Articles - to get through FAC
these days, you need the metric shitload of references. A lot of people
seem to put them <small>, which helps the less-interested eye gloss over
them reading the article.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stubification to the max!

body:
stevertigo wrote:

> Other volunteers are Arbcom members who have been
> elected (or appointed) to hold decisive authority over
> other volunteers. IOTM, that if this small group was
> the least bit creative, they could apply that decisive
> power toward the completion of goal-oriented tasks.
> Not all Arbcom "remedies" should be drastic; indeed
> the Arbcom could be charged with being useful.

Last time we tried getting creative with remedies, it was widely
regarded as my worst idea ever ...

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stubification to the max!

body:
Philip Sandifer wrote:
> On Dec 22, 2005, at 8:55 PM, David Gerard wrote:

>> Last time we tried getting creative with remedies, it was widely
>> regarded as my worst idea ever ...

> There is some reason to take wide regard as being a bad idea as a  good
> thing, at this point.

No ... that was a bad idea!

The AC assigning people homework would not work in any way I can think
of. These are volunteers, with pride. Even the difficult ones.

- d.


from_name: Tupsharru Tupsharru

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Please remove user data and talk pages from database
	dumps!

body:
I once registered as a user of Wikipedia, and I know that anything I write there *may* be copied and re-used according to the GFDL. However, I did not sign up for the Pornopedia, Nazipe dia or Spamopedia.

What is written on user pages and user talkpages is also released under the GFDL, and if somebody wants to copy it or quote it, fine (as long as it is attributed)! But there is no reason to automate this process or make it easy for webspammers and other creeps to do so. I do not want my user page to be copied to various Wikipedia mirrors, as happened a while ago with the Nazi copy of Wikipedia. I would be even less happy if I had signed up under my real name. The appearance of a name in such a context may actually be harmful to somebody's reputation.

1. My first suggestion: just *make sure that when the database is copied, user information does not come along with it, including userpages, user talkpages and even the history of a page*. I notice from some of the mirrors out there, that the only contributor visible in the history of an article is the last one before the dump, somebody who may just have corrected a typo. As it doesn't give proper attribution in any case, we may just as well get rid of that too. Just make sure the history page of every downloaded article refers back to Wikipedia, where the full history can be found.

2. Second suggestion: is there any reason why *any* discussion pages need to come with the normal database dump? The nazi 'pedia (which is down now) took these and search-and-replaced "Wikipedia" with its own name everywhere, giving the misleading impression that a lot of Wikipedia users had been active in discussions on a Nazi website. This may be seriously harmful to somebody's reputation if found through a Google search by somebody not familiar with the GFDL and how Wikipedia works. It is probably illegal in some way to do what they did (as Wikipedia will no longer be properly credited) but I just don't see anybody going to court to stop it, and we certainly don't need to facilitate abuse of mirrored discussion pages with consequences for the reputation or privacy of individual users. Again, please *replace all discussion pages in the database dump with a very clear and visible link back to Wikipedia*, not just the miniscule one down at the bottom of every page. Most downloaders
 are not going to bother removing that link, as all they want Wikipedia content for, is to get Google hits and drive traffic to their websites.

3. Remove the user namespace from the reach of Google's indexing bots. It should be available to our internal search, but there is no reason it should get hits from Google. Userspace  contains all kinds of semi-private conversations and unfinished drafts which are really only of internal use and interest.

I question whether some other type of free but non-commercial license wouldn't be more suitable for user pages, but that may not be realistic for various reasons. But the removal of these pages from the dump really shouldn't require a change in license. It will just force somebody who wants to copy the content to do so manually. The webspammers obviously won't bother with that.

User:Tupsharru

---------------------------------
Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania update

body:
Hello all

In november, the Foundation published a job opportunity for a Wikimania
organiser.

See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings and somewhere in
the history of this mailing list late november.

The outcome of this announcement :

* The job announcement for the event organiser received 4 candidacies, 3
of them from wikipedians and one from an external party.

* Delphine M?nard (aka notafish) will be a contractant of the Wikimedia
Foundation Inc, in charge of budget management, registration and
logistics. This is in large part what she already handled last year with
success and being an event manager has actually been her real life job
for several years. For the Foundation, her being legally in charge of
these issues is a garantee for more financial security. We'll publish in
the next few days a bit more details about what the contract will include.

* Other aspects of the Wikimania event, such as program, promotion,
press, sponsorship etc... will be entirely organised by volunteers as
was the case last year. We hope that all those interested participate in
the area of their wish.

* Last point, Angela Beesley will be the board member liaison for the
coordination with the organisation team and Delphine M?nard.

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania update


subject: [Foundation-l] fund drive, and e-gold revisited

body:
--- Douglas Jackson <djackson at e-gold.com> wrote:
> About a year ago I proposed on this list that the Board add e-gold as an
> additional alternative payment option. As I recall, the suggestion was
> declined, with the comment that e-gold was an "also-ran" payment system.
>
> I would like to encourage another look. e-gold has continued to advance
> through 2005, pulling considerably ahead of moneybookers.com [and for
> that matter, etrade.com and citi.com] in terms of reach and traffic
> rankings per Alexa. At present, e-gold processes 40,000 to 60,000 Spends
> (User-to-User transfers) per day, conveying $10 million plus of value.
> [see http://www.e-gold.com/stats.html ]. Unlike Paypal, Moneybookers,
> credit cards or any other legacy option, e-gold is truly global and
> features fees that are a tiny fraction of any other system. For those of
> you whose life beyond Wiki entails online commerce, I also note that
> e-gold is unique in that it is absolutely free of chargeback risk with
> immediate final settlement, worldwide.

Here is what we need:
1) A service that processes credit cards directly w/o the need to create an account (PayPal
already does that for most countries; more are being added)
2) One that has world-wide acceptance and tens of millions of accounts (again, PayPal fits that
bill)
3) Accepts the major currencies of the world using an easy to use interface (PayPal)
4) Accepts a wide range of other currencies (MoneyBookers does that)
5) Has an interface that is available in several different languages (MoneyBookers and a bit
less-so with PayPal; but they are adding more languages)
6) One that let?s us easily track individual donations and present those to the public (PayPal is
great in that regard; there are also many more other neat PayPal hacks that we could add)

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of other systems we could use. While I?m not completely
satisfied with PayPal (they need to give us a price break; fees in the 4 to 5% range are closer in
value to point-of-sale taxes than normal transaction fees) or MoneyBookers (not the easiest
service to use), I do think that the two together fit our current needs. Thus, IMO, there is no
pressing need to add another payment option at this time.

The ideal system would combine the ease of use and service of PayPal with the internationalization
of MoneyBookers. So far, it looks like PayPal is moving in the direction of being more
international. I?d even like to get rid of MoneyBookers as a payment option once PayPal becomes as
international as MoneyBookers and they give us a fee break. Keeping things simple has its own
value.

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Douglas Jackson

body:
About a year ago I proposed on this list that the Board add e-gold as an
additional alternative payment option. As I recall, the suggestion was
declined, with the comment that e-gold was an "also-ran" payment system.

I would like to encourage another look. e-gold has continued to advance
through 2005, pulling considerably ahead of moneybookers.com [and for
that matter, etrade.com and citi.com] in terms of reach and traffic
rankings per Alexa. At present, e-gold processes 40,000 to 60,000 Spends
(User-to-User transfers) per day, conveying $10 million plus of value.
[see http://www.e-gold.com/stats.html ]. Unlike Paypal, Moneybookers,
credit cards or any other legacy option, e-gold is truly global and
features fees that are a tiny fraction of any other system. For those of
you whose life beyond Wiki entails online commerce, I also note that
e-gold is unique in that it is absolutely free of chargeback risk with
immediate final settlement, worldwide.

Dr. Douglas Jackson
Chairman, e-gold Ltd.
(and fan of Wikipedia)

Daniel Mayer wrote:

 >Copied from:
 >http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4/Day_7
 >-------------------------------------------------------------
 >
 >A total of 455 donations were made through PayPal on '''Day 7''',
yielding the equivalent of
 >$10,107.89 USD. The average donation that day was $22.22. Small
increases in mail and Moneybookers
 >donations brings those totals to $95 and $545.33 respectively.
 >


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 12/23/05, Dr Leopold Hartenschwanz <hartenschwanz at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> Sirs,
> If an administrator coulod help me I would appreciate it. User:Curps has
> blocked my User:DrKinsey user account on the incorrect basis that I have
> been vandalising articles and creating user accounts with insulting
> things about him in the username.
> You will find details of how this situation arose on User:Curps talk
> page.
> I would appreciate it if somebody with the technical know-how could
> prove to User:Curps that he has made a mistake.
> I am not receiving messages from the mailing list, so please email me
> directly at hartenschwanz at fastmail.fm
> Regards,
> User:DrKinsey

Well, let's see.  You created a user called "Jimbo Wa1es", and when it
was blocked as an imposter complained on the user page of that user
about it being blocked.  You also put decidedly odd material on the
talk page of a long-departed user.  I'd have to say that you appear to
be a troll to me.

Kelly


from_name: Boris Herbinière-Sève

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Extensions & Special Pages

body:
Thanks for the infos, I've reached a working state far earlier than I've
expected !

> If the DB is not the same as the one MediaWiki is using, you will likely
> have to implement your own infrastructure. From what it seems to me, the
> current DB classes are not easily reusable. I may be wrong though.

That's what I did. I did not feel like digging in the mediawiki DB
abstraction layer at this time. As this extension is not meant to be
used by a large number of people, the increased load on the DB server is
bareable.

A last quick question though :
I use $wgOut->AddWikitext() to render some data from the tag defined by
my extension. However, some wiki tag (like '' or ''') are correctly
handled whereas others (* or #) are ignored (render as is). Am I
overlooking something ?

Thanks in advance,

--
Boris Herbiniere-Seve


from_name: Ref Bot

subject: [WikiEN-l] RefBot blocked by Admin with no email

body:
User:Refbot has been erroneously blocked while being set up by User:Curps,
who has no email address and can not be contacted by blocked/autoblocked
user.  Perhaps those with no email address should not be using features
which require email addresses.  Reason given is possible impersonator of
User:SEWilcoBot, but Curps also reverted a change to SEWilcoBot's user page
which showed that functionality was being transferred to RefBot and thus
there was no such behavior to impersonate.

_________________________________________________________________
Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] off on holiday next Wed

body:
For New Year, I'm off to a seaside resort in North Yorkshire in the
middle of the bloody winter, because I am obviously insane.

I'm leaving Wednesday morning and return the following Wednesday
evening. In the meantime, I won't be at the wikien-l mod queue, I
won't be checkusering and I won't be beating trolls about the head or
advocating such (except as a general principle, but you know that).

wikien-l mods, be sure someone checks the queue daily!

- d.


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject:
[WikiEN-l] why the well-dressed stub is sorted (Re:Defamatory
	Biographies - another problem looming forWikipedia?)

body:
On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, Mark Gallagher wrote:

[quoting me; keeping attributions is always a good thing]
>
> > And I admit that I agree for the most part with that WikiProject's goals:
> > one fat collection of articles under {{stub}} was just not workable. It's
> > just that some times I have to wonder if all of the energy sorting these
> > stubs wouldn't be better applied to making them into full-length articles,
> > especially after Angela's example with [[Ambrosius Stub]] -- although
> > now that I've had a moment to think about it, I suspect someone was
> > having too much fun adding {{stub}}'s to Mr Stub's article.
>
> I sometimes wonder if all the energy spent writing about minor
> characters in /Star Wars/ or /Pokemon/ wouldn't be better spent
> improving our articles on minor Australian politicians, but, as a number
> of Wikipedians I hold in high esteem (inc. David Gerard, Tony Sidaway,
> and of course Jimbo) have pointed out, you can't make people do the
> stuff they aren't interested in by taking away the stuff they are.
> Stub-sorting is a worthwhile effort; I don't think it's as useful as the
> WSS believe it is, but we're better off having those users concentrating
> on WSS matters than leaving altogether.
>
I have a feeling that we're talking past each other here, & not realizing
that we're in general agreement on this matter, so let me just re-emphasize
my primary criticisms with the WSS, which are two: the first is the
creation of possibly unnecessary sub-categories of stubs, & the second
is adding more than one stub to articles.

Now concerning the needless creation of sub-categories, I will admit that
I can't think of a specific example, although whenever I encounter an
existing stub moved to yet another new stub category my first reaction
is that this was wasted effort. However, after a few days as I discover
the usefulness of this change my opinon changes; it's a first impression
that I admit I will always have, but try to keep to myself unless I find
evidence that clearly confirms my suspicions.

As for the second criticism, as I wrote above, I can't help but believe
it is a newbie error, because it demonstrates an misunderstanding of
the usefulness of stub tags: I see similar abuse with category tags.
What is really the value of adding the categories of "Ethiopia",
"Rulers of Ethiopia", & "Members of Ethiopia" to [[Haile Selassie I]]?
These categories link to each other, & fail to add useful content to
the article. Only someone knowing that Haile Selassie was an important
Ethiopian would misuse these categories to emphasize his importance --
a mistake I assume only a newbie would make.

In short, my criticism is not with the idea of a stub tag, but with
how it is used -- or IMHO, abused.
>
> > What I see is the problem here is that eager new editors, who are looking
> > for something easy to do, start adding every stub template or category
> > label that fits the article they can think of. I know I've been overly
> > enthusiastic in the past with some of my edits, so unless the WSS people
> > insist that I stop my stub pruning or be hauled before the ArbCom, I'm
> > assuming that most of these multiple stubs are the work of newbie editors
> > who will outgrow this habit in a month or two.
>
> Worl, User:Grutness and User:Mairi are definitely not newbies; Grutness
> has been around since before the dinosaurs started smoking and doing
> drugs, and Mairi was recently made an admin.

I can't comment on the other two you've mentioned, but I've occasionally
followed Grutness' efforts, & I haven't seen him add multiple stub tags
to articles. He once even explained on his Talkl page his rationale for
creating new sub-categories -- which in my opinion means I'll accept
his decisions without question unless I think they are clearly in error.
However, I haven't seen his name attached to examples of articles with
multiple stub tags, so my suspicion that this is a newbie mistake still
stands.
>
> But as a general rule, I think you could be right.  A lot of easy tasks
> (well, easier than editing, anyway) tend to attract newbies like so many
> annoying but unbiteable blowies.  This even includes AfD, where teaching
> new editors that "AfD isn't a vote and even if it was the presumption
> that keep votes are worth twice as much as delete votes isn't
> 'unfair'[0]" is an ongoing effort.[1]

The one easy task I often indulge in is the creation of new links within
articles; & I've noticed that there is a faction who believes that is
often abused. There is a skill to the successful execution to even these
"easy tasks", one that is not immediately apparent.

Geoff


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Verbose results from the Britannica vs. Wikipedia
	paper on nature.com

body:
On 22 Dec 2005 at 19:18, Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:

> on http://fftw.org/~stevenj/Nature-reviews.doc, there is now a Microsoft
> Word document describing the "errors" (in a broader sense) found by the
> reviewing persons.

Yuck... proprietary Microsoft formats suck.  Why couldn't this have
been done in a more standard, less proprietary form like ASCII or
HTML?

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Blackcap

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Larvatus [rape
	allegations)

body: I get a kick out of the "Go Bengals!" at the bottom of that.


body:
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005, Mark Gallagher wrote:

> [[Lang Hancock]], which I bring up whenever I need to refer to a good
> article I've written (since, alas, it's the only really good one I can
> claim!), has References, External links, Further reading, and See also.
>
I had a quick look at this article & found it is a solid, useful piece,
the kind of work I've been looking for to add to [[Wikipedia:Good articles]].
I think it is just as important to recognize that spending 50 hours to
create, say, 25 solid & useful articles is just as valid as spending 50
hours to create one Featured Article. Considering the number of articles,
spending the time on more articles may be more worthy of praise.

Some of us are having trouble explaining that to a group at
[[Wikipedia talk:Good articles]]. Or maybe they are just afraid that as
it stands, saying that something like [[Lang Hancock]] is a Good Article
is arbitrary & therefore bad -- without acknowledging that for the most
part, everything on Wikipedia is arbitrary. (Although it helps in the
long run if you can articulate a reason for your actions.)

Geoff


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Yeah, personally I think it doesn't even need to be changed.
Teach people the difference. Don't change Wikipedia to help the ignorant.


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] why the well-dressed stub is sorted (Re:Defamatory
 Biographies - another problem looming	forWikipedia?)

body:
G'day Geoff,

<snip />

> And I admit that I agree for the most part with that WikiProject's goals:
> one fat collection of articles under {{stub}} was just not workable. It's
> just that some times I have to wonder if all of the energy sorting these
> stubs wouldn't be better applied to making them into full-length articles,
> especially after Angela's example with [[Ambrosius Stub]] -- although
> now that I've had a moment to think about it, I suspect someone was
> having too much fun adding {{stub}}'s to Mr Stub's article.

I sometimes wonder if all the energy spent writing about minor
characters in /Star Wars/ or /Pokemon/ wouldn't be better spent
improving our articles on minor Australian politicians, but, as a number
of Wikipedians I hold in high esteem (inc. David Gerard, Tony Sidaway,
and of course Jimbo) have pointed out, you can't make people do the
stuff they aren't interested in by taking away the stuff they are.
Stub-sorting is a worthwhile effort; I don't think it's as useful as the
WSS believe it is, but we're better off having those users concentrating
on WSS matters than leaving altogether.

<snip />

> What I see is the problem here is that eager new editors, who are looking
> for something easy to do, start adding every stub template or category
> label that fits the article they can think of. I know I've been overly
> enthusiastic in the past with some of my edits, so unless the WSS people
> insist that I stop my stub pruning or be hauled before the ArbCom, I'm
> assuming that most of these multiple stubs are the work of newbie editors
> who will outgrow this habit in a month or two.

Worl, User:Grutness and User:Mairi are definitely not newbies; Grutness
has been around since before the dinosaurs started smoking and doing
drugs, and Mairi was recently made an admin.

But as a general rule, I think you could be right.  A lot of easy tasks
(well, easier than editing, anyway) tend to attract newbies like so many
annoying but unbiteable blowies.  This even includes AfD, where teaching
new editors that "AfD isn't a vote and even if it was the presumption
that keep votes are worth twice as much as delete votes isn't
'unfair'[0]" is an ongoing effort.[1]

> P.S. Had I known my email would have generated so many follow-ups, I would
> have changed the subject line. But I doubt I could have improved on Mark
> Gallagher's "stubification to the max!"

<bows />

[0] Or whatever it translates to.  I'm not well-known for my maths.

[1] Speaking of which, a few more people trying to improve the culture
     of AfD wouldn't go astray.  It'll be more useful, but probably less
     emotionally satisfying than bitching on the mailing list about those
     deletionist vandals ...

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.4/211 - Release Date: 22/12/2005


from_name: sydney poore

body:
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Larvatus

This Rfc is a serious one. It involves child rape allegations, a US
civil legal case, CEOs of  international corporations, and a famous
German band. It needs input from a broad range of  Wikipedians. Before I
removed the crime categories and POV content several weeks ago, I looked
at Larvtus's blogs, the cited CA court cases on line, and Larvatus's
entries on other websites. Content and categories were replaced and I
was scolded (my perception). I didn't start the Rfc but I signed the
request to acknowledge my attempts to modify the pages in dispute.  I've
asked Larvtus to step back and let the community decide how to write
theses articles. I'm willing to step aside and let other Wikipedians
make the decision, in fact I would prefer it.--Sydney Poore

Go Bengals!


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: We have a problem

body:
Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
> <snip>
>
>> What do others think?
>>
>> Erik
>>
>
> I haven't looked at the Stable extension so I cant comment on it. The
> task / revision extensions looks promising but need a bit more time
> before they are made available on live website.
>
See, that's part of the perception problem. You're right, these
extensions are likely not ready for use as they are now.

But they don't need more *time*. They need more /work/! Someone has to
do the work, either me (as I am probably most familiar with them), or
someone else. I, for one, have done what I can think of right now. I'm
willing to work, but I need feedback for what needs to be done.
Preferrably from those who decide if and when to turn the extension on
at the Wikimedia sites. Yes, work takes time, but we're not talking
about wine here; having it age in the basement won't improve code.

We did have plenty of time, and we wasted much of it. Now we're running
out of time, fast. If you have doubts about that, subscribe to the
google news alert with keyword "wikipedia". I used to get a list of news
each day how great wikipedia is. Today I got a list of half a dozen
items telling me how flawed and outright dangerous wikipedia is. I've
been getting these since the Steigentaler incident.

I am well aware of the press hype and the deconstruction of stars, but
this will change public perception of Wikipedia. Along with that will
come more and more "elements" that try to hit on the weak, making the
situation even worse. I don't argue to rush blindly into action no
matter what, but IMHO we (the technical people) really have to get our
act together to offer some real options to the community. Which of them
are put into use, for how long, and under which conditions, is another
topic.

Magnus


subject: [Wikitech-l] We have a problem

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
> [snip]
>> Then, I think it was two weeks ago, you said that, after seventeen month
>> of hot air, that the validation feature was unsalvagable. So I went
>> ahead and rewrote it as a feature, which was one of your wishes some
>> month ago. I have not heard anything about that from you either.
>
> I haven't had a chance to go over that code yet; I've got to review
> that and Erik's wikidata stuff still. But I do feel a lot better about
> it being done as an extension, and I'd love to see it up and running
> soon.
Great!
>
>> What *I* wish for is a process like this:
>> * Someone writes a major new function/extension to be used on the
>> Wikimedia sites
>> * Someone in charge of these sites (Tim, Brion, whoever) says either
>> ** "OK, that's great, we'll use it right away" OR
>> ** "No, we'll never use that, so don't waste your time" OR
>> ** "We would use it if you fix THIS and change THAT"
>
> Yes, we need to be better about that. I know the most frustrating
> thing is waiting for a solid reaction, and I'm sorry I haven't been as
> good about that as I should.
OK, no hard feelings.
>
> Please call me on it if you see me being wishy-washy on things.
I will! :-)
>
>> So, to come back to the original topic, this is *the* chance to answer a
>> few of my questions:
>> * Is /anyone/ actively working on a stable version feature?
>
> Tim has been working on it for about a week, and is about to commit
> into a branch.
>
>> * If so, is it already more advanced than the code I put into CVS?
>
> We'll see when he commits his code, which should be Very Soon Now.
OK. As I said, I'm not trying to push my code here because /I wrote it/.
Tim likely knows the MediaWiki code better than I do, so we'll probably
end up using his solution. I have no problem with that at all, I'm just
glad things get done.
>
>> * Is there some other reason this can't be done based on my code?
>
> Who knows. :D
>
>> I'll be on the 22C3, so maybe we could discuss these things in person.
>
> Great, I'll see you there!
Looking forward to it.
>
> A few things:
>
> * Those of us who are mostly chatting on IRC, we should remember to
> keep everybody posted on the mailing list when we start or finish
> something major.
>
> * If actively working on code, popping into IRC is strongly
> recommended to get some immediate feedback. In particular, I'd like to
> ask that anyone making commits to CVS be in #mediawiki at the time to
> respond to questions or reactions that others may have.
Personally, I prefer mails; IRC always strikes me as ... hectic. I'll
try to be there more often, though.
>
> * Those of us working on code for more than a day or two without it
> making it into CVS should show post work patches from time to time to
> show our progress. A live demo site is particularly helpful.
This is probably intended for Tim :-) as I have always tried to supply both.
I'd like to remark that a *central* demo site might be more helpful. We
do have the test site, but there should be an easy way to
* update it from live CVS
* turn extensions on and off, and alter the test database (add new
tables for extensions etc.), for CVS developers

Maybe I should write some code for that. Then again, maybe not ;-)

Magnus


subject: [Wikitech-l] Review feature

body:
Dori wrote:
> On 12/20/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
>> The new Review extension, which replaces the Validation feature, can be
>> seen in all its overwhelming beauty at
>>
>> http://magnusmanske.de/wikipeerdia/index.php
>>
>> That site also features the Tasks extension.
>>
>
> I'd suggest limiting it to just three options: Bad (frownie) Neutral
> Good (smiley)
>
> Ready for 1.0 should perhaps be a preference that an editor would have
> to turn on. There's no need to concern normal readers about this as
> they'd have to know what 1.0 means (probably reading a long page
> detailing guidelines).
>
The "topics" (options) and their ranges can be completely altered
through the appropriate "MediaWiki:" page. It is not a direct function
of the software, which is prepared for ranges up to "1-5" (it can do
more, but that would break the layout in the sidebar).

Go to
http://magnusmanske.de/wikipeerdia/index.php/Special:Allmessages
and search for "review_topics
<http://magnusmanske.de/wikipeerdia/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Review_topics&action=edit>".
> Looks pretty usable
>
Thanks!

Magnus


from_name: charles matthews

subject:
[WikiEN-l] why the well-dressed stub is sorted (Re:Defamatory
	Biographies - another problem looming	forWikipedia?)

body:
"Mark Gallagher" wrote

> Stub-sorting is a worthwhile effort; I don't think it's as useful as the
> WSS believe it is, but we're better off having those users concentrating
> on WSS matters than leaving altogether.

IMNSHO, it's useful, but I myself would give priority to categorising
articles without good category.  Which must increase the chances of getting
articles improved by a greater factor.

Charles


from_name: Jack

subject:
[WikiEN-l] References in articles (was A newbie on article prefill
	templating).

body:
> to get through FAC
> these days, you need the metric shitload of references. A lot of people
> seem to put them <small>, which helps the less-interested eye gloss over
> them reading the article.
> -- David Gerard

Would <http://tinyurl.com/9gaga> (Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and
Reference Check#Separate "Sources" namespace or subpage) not be better
if the requirement for the number of references increase?
--
User:Jeandr?


list: textbook-l

from_name: xkernigh at netscape.net

subject: [Textbook-l] about learning vocabulary using images from commons

body:
pikola Thierry <pikola24 at yahoo.fr> Wrote:
> I would like to hear some feedback about the wikibook
> http://es.wikibooks.org/wiki/Vocabulario_%28es%29 from
> those working on language learning wikibooks.

I am not working on a language Wikibook, but I looked at this
book. I cannot read "es", but I was mostly able to match the
pictures with the bold names. It helped that many of the names
were cognates.

> If there is positive feedback, I am planning to
> translate it into English into the English wikibooks.

This book is in better condition than many of the books at
English Wikibooks. I would welcome an English translation!

-- [[Wikibooks:en:User:Kernigh]]
___________________________________________________
Try the New Netscape Mail Today!
Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List
http://mail.netscape.com


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Wikitech-l] Page protection interface updates

body:
On 12/22/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> The isNewbie check doesn't seem to work yet. I made an edit to a
> semi-protected page with a newly created user:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Eloquence/Sandbox&diff=32350355&oldid=20038782

Since the age field for existing users is set to null, won't there
have to be a large enough sample of new users (beginning from when the
feature was switched on) before the percentage age starts meaning
anything?

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Page protection interface updates

body:
Brion Vibber <brion at ...> writes:

[cut]
> Additionally there's a new level between unprotected/default permissions and
> sysop-only; this is set up on en.wikipedia.org and will restrict edits by
> unregistered users and accounts less than four days old.
[cut]

Hi,

I have some questions about the semi-protecting. (This is for Wikizine)

Now this function is live for the English Wikipedia.

Can the other projects/languages also get this function or is still to
experimental for that now?

If the can get it;

Will it become automatically active between now and some days/weeks?

Or is it only on request? If so what it the procedure the get it enabled?
(community vote first, on request by the ambassador to this list, make bugzilla
ticket about it, etc..)

Greetins,
[[user:Walter]]


body:
Walter Vermeir <walter at ...> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I have some questions about the semi-protecting. (This is for Wikizine)
[cut]

Never mind. I am reading this from the web based infase of gmane.org and for
some reason all the replys to this posting where (are) not shown. Now I have
seen them and my questions are already answered.

http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical

Greetings,
Walter


body:
On 12/23/05, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
> Stephen Bain wrote:
> > Since the age field for existing users is set to null, won't there
> > have to be a large enough sample of new users (beginning from when the
> > feature was switched on) before the percentage age starts meaning
> > anything?
> The policy has been altered from x percentage of newest users to x days
> since registering (which is why the age field is necessary in the first
> place), so no.  Accounts created before the age field went into effect
> won't be restricted, but all those afterwards will be until 4 days expire.

Oops, hadn't noticed that change.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Verbose results from the Britannica vs. Wikipedia
	paperon nature.com

body:
"Mathias Schindler" wrpte

> There was way too much misinterpretation done by the press (mostly "in
> favour" of wikipedia, which is not a good thing).

True.  But having looked at the kind of 'error' we are talking about, I'm
reassured.  It is clear that the reviewers (of high calibre, where names are
those I know) were highly variable in what they picked up on.  Some at least
of the points were simply pedantic, and it is inevitable to get some of
those, unless you write in the style of an academic paper.

Charles


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] Assign icons to non-visual uploads

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

On a private wiki we've allowed uploads of various files, like mp3. When
you view the image page, however, you see a nice blank square. Ogg,
however, seems to be associated with a nice icon in Wikimedia projects.
Two questions:

1. How do you assign icons to file types
2. How would you stop these files from being displayed gallery style in
Category listings?

Thanks.

- --
 Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
 SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
 GPGKey:0x869C48DA   http://www.thewritingpot.com/gpgpubkey.asc
 3FA8 E9A9 7385 B691 A6FC B3CB A933 BE7D 869C 48DA
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFDrIQTqTO+fYacSNoRAoTSAJ90/XD2ER9rURWb453BQ3V5/vfhTgCeIZ8P
v9Yc1xSpbp45VqF/jqqd5t0=
=5pcq
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: SPUI

body:
Tupsharru Tupsharru wrote:
> I once registered as a user of Wikipedia, and I know that anything I write there *may* be copied and re-used according to the GFDL. However, I did not sign up for the Pornopedia, Nazipe dia or Spamopedia.
>
> What is written on user pages and user talkpages is also released under the GFDL, and if somebody wants to copy it or quote it, fine (as long as it is attributed)! But there is no reason to automate this process or make it easy for webspammers and other creeps to do so. I do not want my user page to be copied to various Wikipedia mirrors, as happened a while ago with the Nazi copy of Wikipedia. I would be even less happy if I had signed up under my real name. The appearance of a name in such a context may actually be harmful to somebody's reputation.
>
> 1. My first suggestion: just *make sure that when the database is copied, user information does not come along with it, including userpages, user talkpages and even the history of a page*. I notice from some of the mirrors out there, that the only contributor visible in the history of an article is the last one before the dump, somebody who may just have corrected a typo. As it doesn't give proper attribution in any case, we may just as well get rid of that too. Just make sure the history page of every downloaded article refers back to Wikipedia, where the full history can be found.
>
> 2. Second suggestion: is there any reason why *any* discussion pages need to come with the normal database dump? The nazi 'pedia (which is down now) took these and search-and-replaced "Wikipedia" with its own name everywhere, giving the misleading impression that a lot of Wikipedia users had been active in discussions on a Nazi website. This may be seriously harmful to somebody's reputation if found through a Google search by somebody not familiar with the GFDL and how Wikipedia works. It is probably illegal in some way to do what they did (as Wikipedia will no longer be properly credited) but I just don't see anybody going to court to stop it, and we certainly don't need to facilitate abuse of mirrored discussion pages with consequences for the reputation or privacy of individual users. Again, please *replace all discussion pages in the database dump with a very clear and visible link back to Wikipedia*, not just the miniscule one down at the bottom of every page. Most do
wnl
>  oaders
>  are not going to bother removing that link, as all they want Wikipedia content for, is to get Google hits and drive traffic to their websites.
>
> 3. Remove the user namespace from the reach of Google's indexing bots. It should be available to our internal search, but there is no reason it should get hits from Google. Userspace  contains all kinds of semi-private conversations and unfinished drafts which are really only of internal use and interest.
>
> I question whether some other type of free but non-commercial license wouldn't be more suitable for user pages, but that may not be realistic for various reasons. But the removal of these pages from the dump really shouldn't require a change in license. It will just force somebody who wants to copy the content to do so manually. The webspammers obviously won't bother with that.
>
There are certain advantages to including everything in the dumps. For
instance, if Wikipedia gets shut down for some reason, it would be much
easier to start it up elsewhere if we had a full dump.

As for Google indexing, many of the pages in my User space, like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SPUI/Amtrak_shite , are useful, and I
would hope that Google does index it.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Assign icons to non-visual uploads

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

Funny... the standard RTFM response. Well...

1. I don't exactly understand: I don't see any stray png files lying
around or any docs about it... just some small icons for inlining. Is
there some text I can read lying around? I do some more hunting.

2. $wgCategoryMagicGallery sorta solves the problem, but it would be
nice if we actually were able to do gallery for images, and no gallery
for non-images. I don't suppose that's possible?

- --
 Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
 SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
 GPGKey:0x869C48DA   http://www.thewritingpot.com/gpgpubkey.asc
 3FA8 E9A9 7385 B691 A6FC B3CB A933 BE7D 869C 48DA
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFDrJzUqTO+fYacSNoRApnoAJ9d2PmZuccWNz7XoCx2+cyA3fhpkgCeJtkp
tSVQSivkrg2tbmAjNWR1HpM=
=OWcc
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject:
[Wikitech-l]
	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software

body:
On 12/22/05, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
> Thomas Gries wrote:
> > I updated that page.
> > - because MediaWiki is now at version 1.5.3, and
> > - has email notification built-in (even when this is still disabled on
> > the major project sites).
> > T.
> Also, could someone more in the know than I look at MediaWiki's entry
> for 'Web-server required'?  It currently states 'Apache or IIS with
> PHP', which implies that it only works with those two servers, which is
> far from the truth.  I personally am running MW on lighttpd, and I know
> the upload server is as well, and I know there are at least a few others
> MW runs perfectly fine on, but there must have been some reason to list
> that there that I'm not aware of.

I've found the Wikipedia pages on software to often be full of factual
inaccuracies, misunderstandings or being guilty of treating their
subjects unequally.

For instance at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software it's stated
that MW offers URL & word blacklisting, it only does so through a
MediaWiki extension, but I think to maintain any kind of consistancy
in such a listing you should only list things in the standard
distribution. However even that would be unfair, because different
software packages might have different ways of being distributed, some
might prefer a very minimalist standard installation offering modules
for nonessential functionality while others might distribute a big
monolithic application, in that case the latter application would be
listed as much more feature-complete which would not be the case in
practice.

Speaking of the standard distribution Tom added information in the
"WYSIWYG page editing" field that doesn't apply to MediaWiki at all,
but his fork of it, that should probably be removed.


body:
On 12/23/05, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/22/05, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
> > Thomas Gries wrote:
> > > I updated that page.
> > > - because MediaWiki is now at version 1.5.3, and
> > > - has email notification built-in (even when this is still disabled on
> > > the major project sites).
> > > T.
> > Also, could someone more in the know than I look at MediaWiki's entry
> > for 'Web-server required'?  It currently states 'Apache or IIS with
> > PHP', which implies that it only works with those two servers, which is
> > far from the truth.  I personally am running MW on lighttpd, and I know
> > the upload server is as well, and I know there are at least a few others
> > MW runs perfectly fine on, but there must have been some reason to list
> > that there that I'm not aware of.
>
> I've found the Wikipedia pages on software to often be full of factual
> inaccuracies, misunderstandings or being guilty of treating their
> subjects unequally.

To reply to myself there's one other very common error, licenses, for
example the page on MediaWiki lists its license as "GPL", that's very
ambiguous and in this case just plain wrong, most of MediaWiki is
under the GPL-2 *or later*, we also use a Memcached libarary that we
bundle that's under the LGPL-2 or later.

This also very common with regards to "the BSD license", which is an
oxymoron, because there are more than one.