from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Toolbar

body:
Till-
> For example (you have pressed the "IMG" button):

>    [HELP BAR] [B] [/A/] [_U_] ... [IMG]
>    [  [[Image:Example-Image.jpg]]          ]
>    [ If you want to use images on a page,  ]
>    [ you use the [[Image:...]] syntax. For ]
>    [ proper formating the image, put some  ]
>    [ <div style:...> in front and after the]
>    [ img ...                               ]

Yes, that is one possibility I've thought about. I also agree that some of
the example texts are unhelpful - they were not written with the help bar
in mind.

However, before I experiment further with the help bar, I'll try building
a downgraded version of the toolbar which works with prompt() instead of
the text selection (so you get a message box asking you to enter text in
bold, instead of being able to select+click, in browsers which do not
support it). The text could either be appended at the end (with a notice
in the messagebox saying so) or put in an input box like the example text
box. In the latter case, the text could be auto-selected for easy copy &
pasting.

We have the following at our disposal in most browsers:
-prompt() and alert()
-overwrite form field contents
-append at beginning or end
-focus form elements

Setting form elements visible/invisible is probably not possible in some
old browsers (NS 4 etc.).

Regards,

Erik


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wikitech-l] Still problems with the servers?

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

Hi,

Are there still problems with the servers?
I get this message on the fr: wikipedia :

"D?sol?! Suite ? des probl?mes techniques, il est impossible de se connecter ?
la base de donn?es pour le moment.
 Ceci est une copie de la page demand?e et peut ne pas ?tre ? jour"

Thanks,
Yann
- --
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAFAoKm4KYjQo0y9oRAp8dAJ4tSg1ZxaiEuQcCygW7yJFHEd4TWACfcOUo
+r9t7Z2v48fvM3HFZkJYlZ4=
=RWQN
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikitech-l] incremental backups

body:
Alwin Meschede <ameschede at gmx.de> writes:

> Alwin Meschede schrieb:

>> Your proposal sounds very interesting to me. But did I get the point
>> right that you also want CVS as a way for writing to the database?

At the moment I'm interested in ro access via CVS only.

>> That would be a great thing for offline editing,

Yes :) already now I do most of my editing outside the webbrowsers
editor (via cut-and-paste - thus far I don't know how to plug into
mozilla (Linux) an external editor).

>> but makes mass vandalism possible. Simply fill in random crap in your
>> local files, say "cvs commit" and voil?, you've ruined a whole
>> wiki...

Thus far I'm not sure about the commits - some kind of verifying proxy
in between might be appropriate.

> Oh, I see it was the other way round... Writing to the *local* database
> is OK.

Yes, my initial proposal is pretty innocent.

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] incremental backups

body:
elwp at gmx.de writes:

> I wonder how fast CVS is with so many small files.

I guess one has to spread the files over subdirs, e.g. as follows:

    Nancy      -> N/a/Nancy
    New York   -> N/e/New York
    Nueremberg -> N/u/Nuremberg

or

    Nancy      -> N/Na/Nancy
    New York   -> N/Ne/New York
    Nueremberg -> N/Nu/Nuremberg

> And I doubt that the scripts that have to be develped to mirror the
> database to CVS on the server and to put the files back to the
> database on the client machine are much simpler than my programs, but
> you are welcome to write them, of course. :-)

But i expect the scripts to be trivial - as yours ;)

I'd simply write every successfull commit into a separate table (or an
own database) from where you can dump to the CVS - all this could be
done at the servers idle time.

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


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Installing MediaWiki

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Jan 24, 2004, at 03:55, Timwi wrote:
>
>> Currently, I get
>>     Fatal error: Call to undefined function: getallheaders() in
>>     /home/ajh65/public_html/w/wiki.phtml on line 22
>
> Looks like you're running PHP as a CGI instead of as an Apache module.

I have no idea :-) ... It was indeed sufficient to comment out the line
that uses getallheaders() (and the few debug lines that follow it).

So it works a little bit now; thanks for your help. My next problem is
that I need to get the admins of the server to upgrade to MySQL 4 :)

Timwi


list: wikien-l

from_name: Olivia

subject: [WikiEN-l] question about the atlantic ocean

body:
hi, i need help on my geography homework, i was wondering if you could help?

''what is the name of the ocean current in the atlantic to the west of the uk? and how does it affect our climate?

thank-you!

olivia

p.s please email me back on: oliviabutton12 at hotmail.com
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from_name: Anthere

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Should the content of articles be subject to
	arbitration?

body:
Thanks Fred :-)

Fred Bauder a ?crit:
> Whether we deal with article-based disputes is a close issue. While I see
> the need and advocate it, I recall great reluctance on the part of the
> mailing list to allow arbitration of article content. I'm also posting this
> to wikien-l for further comment by the mailing list.
>
> Fred
>
>
>>From: "Steve Dunlop" <steve-dunlop at nerstrand.net>
>>Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:39:45 -0600
>>To: <arbitration at nerstrand.net>
>>Subject: Re: (Fwd) Re: Jurisdiction - keep it simple?
>>
>>Item [4].  I believe that it is important that we remain available for
>>article-based disputes.  Some of these will not be able to be resolved
>>through mediation.  Since "interpersonal" disputes at Wikipedia have their
>>roots in article disputes, I think the community would be best served to
>>have a means of resolving article disagreements where mediation has failed.
>

but then, if it is probably best that a mediator has little knowledge on
a topic involved in a conflict (insure more neutrality in the approach),
it is probably best that the arbitrator has some knowledge, otherwise
the "judgement" will probably be very unwelcome :-)


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Stop for a moment, please

body:
Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> writes:

Thanks for your bright words!

> Wikimedia is bound to free content by the GFDL. The freedom is more
> important than the principle of democracy (which will be generally
> respected through the consensus process anyway, since so many of us
> believe in democratic government in some fashion).

I fully agree with you.  That's the point - contents is protected by the
GFDL, what might happen behind the scenes is interesting, but it is not
that important.  After all, democracy is a strong word and, sure, one
must not put bad words on it, but in the end incarnations of democracy
could be astonishing.

Democracy is good for political issues, not for writing an encyclopedia.

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


from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Using language which represents events

body:
LDan wrote:

> I wasn't talking about semantics, it's just that when
> you start bringing in formalities like making people
> redo their entire testemony in arbitration that they
> already did in mediation, it makes the whole thing a
> lot less efficient.

As I see it:

If someone writes a summary of their position and the past history for the
benefit of the mediation there's nothing to stop them also using it in
arbitration.  *But* the other party can't use it during arbitration (e.g "he
said these lies about me during mediation"), and neither party can use the
fact that the other called them a poopy-head during mediation as a factor in
arbitration (of course that might be a factor in the breakdown of a
mediation).

A lot of what goes on in the two processes will be irrelevant for the other
anyway because of their differing aims.  While a mediator will have to look
at the history in order to understand the positions of the parties involved,
they are not doing so to decide who is right and who is wrong.  The mediator
is trying to find mutually acceptable solutions not make judgements.

Regards,

sannse


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stop for a moment, please

body:
On Sunday 25 January 2004 03:19 pm, Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> > Lars Aronssen mentioned on the german list the "Medizins sans frontiere"
> > (is ist "medicines without frontieres" in english?). As far as I can see,
> > they
>
> I mentioned them as one of several international organizations that
> have national chapters.  The French name is Medecins Sans Frontiers
> (www.msf.org), the German section is www.aerzte-ohne-grenzen.de
>
> One thing that can be observed is that on the top right of their
> German website is a bank account for donations (Spendenkonto).
> This is a German bank account that belongs to the German section.
> This could be food for thought: If a German membership association
> ("e.V.") for Wikipedia is founded, and it opens a bank account, can
> this bank account be displayed on the front de.wikipedia.org, or would
> that be reserved for bank accounts directly belonging to Wikimedia
> Foundation, Inc., Florida USA?  Of course, the website ultimately
> belongs to the American foundation, and so does the decision.
>
> Of course, for MSF the main activity is sending doctors to work abroad
> in developing countries or disaster areas, and their website is just a
> minor expense in their budget.  The German MSF website belongs to the
> German section, etc.  In contrast, the German Wikipedia website is not
> owned by the German membership organization, but by the American
> Foundation.

Maybe a good first step would be to stop calling Wikimedia "American", as it
aims to be the international body which governs all the wikimedia projects.

Best,
Sascha Noyes

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


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] List Volume and the Check All Delete Dance

body:
The amount of email on this list is growing tremendously.

I often just scan the headers and read a few of the messages, then do
the Check all and Delete dance.

I feel like I may be missing important stuff, yet I cannot spend the
time every day to read all the stuff.

I feel that a lot of ranting goes on in the list. I wish people would
stop and think before typing, and keep their posts short.

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

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bylaws Part IV

body:
(Catching up with my email...)

Anthere wrote:
> Sorry, but I still do not understand why it is there at all (I mean
> under the paragraph about resignation as a member of the association)
>
> What you say is that at any time, Jimbo (or the board) can just delete
> any one account. I agree with this naturally. But that is true of
> absolutely any user. Be it a trusted user, a new user, a bugging user, a
> banned user, or a vandal. And be him registered in the association or
> not registered.
>
> This is true for everyone, for any user.
>
> So, why is this only mentionned under the paragraph about those who are
> just resigning from the association ? Either this is mentionned for
> absolutely all users, or it is not mentionned at all.
>
> Say, if I register to the association next month.
>
> Then, for some personal reasons, I decide to unregister (for example, if
> I wish not that my name appear in the list any more), why should I have
> my account on wikipedia itself deleted ? Why more than right now as I am
> not a member at all ? What is the difference ?

It looks to me more like that section is there to state that it's the
board's decision whether the account of a resigned user stays or goes and
not the user's- which means that soemone cannot say "I quit, now you have to
remove my account"... and thus documentation of what they did. Removing an
account entirely is a messy thing, in terms of page histories and so forth.
Retaining the contributions lists is important.

Or at least, that's what I see.

-- Jake


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stop for a moment, please

body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> Lars Aronssen mentioned on the german list the "Medizins sans frontiere" (is
> ist "medicines without frontieres" in english?). As far as I can see, they

I mentioned them as one of several international organizations that
have national chapters.  The French name is Medecins Sans Frontiers
(www.msf.org), the German section is www.aerzte-ohne-grenzen.de

One thing that can be observed is that on the top right of their
German website is a bank account for donations (Spendenkonto).
This is a German bank account that belongs to the German section.
This could be food for thought: If a German membership association
("e.V.") for Wikipedia is founded, and it opens a bank account, can
this bank account be displayed on the front de.wikipedia.org, or would
that be reserved for bank accounts directly belonging to Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., Florida USA?  Of course, the website ultimately
belongs to the American foundation, and so does the decision.

Of course, for MSF the main activity is sending doctors to work abroad
in developing countries or disaster areas, and their website is just a
minor expense in their budget.  The German MSF website belongs to the
German section, etc.  In contrast, the German Wikipedia website is not
owned by the German membership organization, but by the American
Foundation.

Another issue is to how big a degree a German Wikipedia membership
organization can be independent from the American foundation.  What if
two or three separate German organizations are formed?  The mother
foundation probably needs to appoint one of them to be the "official"
one, allow them to use the Wikipedia or Wikimedia name, etc., and
probably should prosecute any other organization for illegally using
these names.  Or perhaps my preconceived notions run away with me
here.  Could we live with a plurality of supporter organizations?

I was personally surprised to learn from the bylaws of the German
sections of MSF (URL above) and ISOC (www.isoc.de) that the annual
general assembly of members is free and sovereign to decide on
modification of the bylaws.  For Swedish membership organizations, it
is normal that amendments to the bylaws require decisions on two
separate general assembly meetings with at least a month between them.

In addition to this, for the Swedish chapter of ISOC (www.isoc.se),
any amendment to the bylaws must be approved by the ISOC Vice
President of Chapters.  The initiative and decision to amend the
bylaws must come from within the Swedish chapter, so no changes can be
pushed down from above; ISOC only has a veto power.  You can read an
English translation of the bylaws for ISOC-SE (particularly ? 7) on
http://www.isoc.se/arsmote010314/engelska010301.pdf
However, no veto paragraph is found in the bylaws for ISOC-DE.

I personally find the Swedish ISOC bylaws quite acceptable.  If the
members of the Swedish chapter would suddenly vote to change the
bylaws to promote letter pidgeons instead of the Internet, then the
international organization should be able to veto this change.  The
veto paragraph (? 7) was introduced because ISOC required it.  I have
no idea about the history of the bylaws for the German chapter.

I also learned that the Wikimedia Foundation is not a "foundation" in
the European sense of the word.  Swedish law defines different cases
for non-profit membership organizations, for-profit membership
organizations (coops) and foundations.  Foundations are inherently
void of democracy, since they cannot have members.  A typical Swedish
foundation is the Nobel Foundation, formed according to the will of
Alfred Nobel.  In Sweden, churches, political parties, and trade
unions are defined as non-profit membership organizations.  Naively I
had assumed that the German "e.V." was a direct equivalent of the
Swedish non-profit membership organization.  However, I was told that
in Germany, churches, political parties, and trade unions are not at
all of the "e.V." form, but organizations of other kinds, defined in
separate laws.

I'm really learning a lot here.  Hope these observations can be
useful.

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


from_name: UB 1

subject: [WikiEN-l] admin abuse

body:
Wikipedia:Administrators - As of September 2003, it is
now possible for sysops to block usernames. It is
important to note that sysops are not authorised to
decide whether a particular case of vandalism warrants
banning by username. The ability to ban by username
has been made available for the purposes of enforcing
a ban already approved by Jimbo. It may be used to
block obvious reincarnations of hard-banned users.

Special:Ipblocklist - 05:10, 26 Jan 2004, Angela
blocked UnbannableOne (contribs) (Unacceptable user
name. Please log in with something different.
Unacceptable behaviour. Please quit it.)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Minor changes by anonymous user

body:
Evan-
> Wiki is an exercise in trust. It's finding out that if you open the
> doors and let everyone in, 99% of them are going to be good-hearted,
> hard-working, and well-meaning. And you can collectively deal with the
> other 1% quickly and effectively.

More like 30-40% for anonymous users. Check RC on En: occasionally. The
simple fact is that most vandals, crackpots and abusers are anons, and
that "minor edit" is a tool that is easily abused. It seems fairly obvious
then that it's a good idea to limit that tool to signed in users.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Martin Harper is again censoring Wikipedia

body:
Robert,

Without any wish to imply any more than just my plain words, I
appreciated your email general civil tone.

hope I am clear here :-(

We are currently trying to decide who could help you both.

Robert a ?crit:
> Martin Harper (MyRedDice) is again censoring the article,
> "Palestinian views of the peace process". Instead of
> deleting the entire article, Martin Harper has deleted most
> of the (verfied) facts and quotes, leaving a skeleton
> article with vietually no content!
>
> This specific problem was already discussed in detail a few
> weeks ago. It was decided that when Danny mass deleted this
> vast amount of information, it amounted to vandalism, or
> censorship. It was decided that when Zero did the same
> thing, this too was censorship.
>
> Jimbo, some anonymous folk, and myself made many arguments
> on simple points: One may not delete verified historical
> facts and quotes simply because it makes them
> uncomfortable. You cannot push your political agenda by
> deletin facts that are inconvenient.
>
> Please re-read Jimbo's many posts on this issue. We cannot
> have any kind of encyclopedia at all if we mass delete huge
> amounts of facts and quotes to push political agendas.
>
> Jimbo was very clear that the problem was not one of NPOV,
> but one of people trying to avoid discussion of certain
> points altogether. Instead of improving an article, people
> were trying to make it disappear. That is uncalled for.
>
> I am trying to mitigate the damage caused by Martin, but he
> is really making a one person censorship campaign his full
> time job. I am requesting mediation. However, we require
> mediators who are _not_ avowedly anti-Israel and
> pro-Arafat, because that is precisely the problem.
>
> We should be discussing _how_ to present facts, not _if_ we
> should present them!  For shame.
>
> Robert (RK)
>
>
>
> =====
> "I prefer a wicked person who knows he is wicked, to a righteous person who knows he is righteous".
> The Seer of Lublin [Jacob Isaac Ha-Hozeh Mi-Lublin, 1745-1815]
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004, Sascha Noyes wrote:

> A good example of why it is a bad idea to use the CE as a starting-point for a
> wikipedia entry: (found on [[Witchhunt]] and quickly removed)
>
> "The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not easy to
> pass a confident judgment. In the face of Holy Scripture and the teaching of
> the Fathers and theologians the abstract possibility of a pact with the Devil
> and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be denied"
>
> ;-)
>
Sad to say, but this is the least of the problems I have encountered with
the CE. At one point, when researching the Controversy of the Three Chapters
(one of the many twists & turns of the dispute over the nature of Christ),
I found that the CE actually lied about its effects in the West. Its
account of the resulting schism in Northern Italy clearly made it seem as
if the dispute was resolved within a life time, when I knew from other
accounts that it persisted for about 150 years.

Sometimes even to simply cut-n-paste PD materials, with minimal editting,
one must needs be an expert.

Geoff


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] admin abuse

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:

>On Monday 26 January 2004 12:41 am, UB 1 wrote:
>
>
>>Wikipedia:Administrators - As of September 2003, it is
>>now possible for sysops to block usernames. It is
>>important to note that sysops are not authorised to
>>decide whether a particular case of vandalism warrants
>>banning by username. The ability to ban by username
>>has been made available for the purposes of enforcing
>>a ban already approved by Jimbo. It may be used to
>>block obvious reincarnations of hard-banned users.
>>
>>Special:Ipblocklist - 05:10, 26 Jan 2004, Angela
>>blocked UnbannableOne (contribs) (Unacceptable user
>>name. Please log in with something different.
>>Unacceptable behaviour. Please quit it.)
>>
>>
>
>I'm behind Angela on this one. [[user:UnbannableOne]] is an obvious
>"boundary-experiment" by an old troll taking advantage of there not existing
>any officially sanctioned policy enforcing body in order to troll wikipedia,
>while making themselves "unbannable" by adding legitimate content.
>
>
I haven't looked into this particular case so can't say (yet) whether I
think banning was correct or not, but I don't like the precedent of
sysops banning logged-in users based on individual judgment calls (even
if that call was right in this case).  Given that our procedures are
still in flux I'm not particularly upset about this one, but I feel
fairly strongly that future cases should be probably be sent to the
arbitration committee.  That's of course still a judgment call, but at
least it's a judgment call by multiple people instead of one.

On the other hand, probable reincarnations of already-banned users are
fine (in my opinion at least) to ban on sight.  Though I do think our
ban message should provide some sort of contact address (wikien-l?) so
people accidentally banned as a reincarnation of a logged-in user can
email to inform us of that fact.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
A good example of why it is a bad idea to use the CE as a starting-point for a
wikipedia entry: (found on [[Witchhunt]] and quickly removed)

"The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not easy to
pass a confident judgment. In the face of Holy Scripture and the teaching of
the Fathers and theologians the abstract possibility of a pact with the Devil
and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be denied"

;-)

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


from_name: Menchi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
Well... you /have to/ expect that from an encycl. with the word "Catholic"
in its title. 8-...


from_name: Martin Harper

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration progress report #2

body:
> Mediators certainly have a right to discuss the creation and repeal of policies.  But > once policies are in place, they should be expected to enforce them.

My understand is that mediators do not seek to *enforce* anything. Perhaps you
meant to say "Arbitrators"?

-Martin


subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration progress report #3

body:
We now have [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Jurisdiction]] - it's just provisional,
but it seems to be the way we're thinking at the moment.

-----

The arbitrators reserve the right to hear or not hear any dispute, at their discretion.
The following are general guidelines which will apply to most cases, but the
arbitrators may make exceptions.  These guidelines may change over time:

1) The arbitrators will hear disputes that have been referred to it by the mediation
committee.
2) Where a dispute has not gone through mediation, the arbitrators may refer the
dispute to the mediation committee if it believes mediation is likely to help.
3) The arbitrators will occasionally request advice on whether to hear a particular
dispute from Jimbo Wales.
4) The arbitrators will accept both article- and interpersonal- disputes, though expect
to primarily be involved with the latter.
5) The arbitrators will hear or not hear disputes according to the wishes of the
community, where there is a consensus.
6) The arbitrators will not hear disputes where they have not been requested to
arbitrate.

-----

Next on the agenda is determing what Rules we are going to enforce. You know,
when does a "policy" become a "Policy"? How exactly do we rationalise a set of
policies and guidelines that includes a guideline to "Ignore all rules"? Etc.

-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [WikiEN-l] 200,000th article

body:
The 200,000th article is there not yet but the press is not waiting for it.

"Online reference to reach milestone"
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/7793099.htm

This service works good;
http://www.google.com/newsalerts

Walter


subject: [WikiEN-l] Should the content of articles be subject to arbitration?

body:
Mark wrote:
> Our current process seems to have two main ways of resolving
> contentious disputes:
>
> * Whoever is most persistent wins, as eventually his opponent
> goes away and he reverts to his preferred version without anyone
> noticing
>
> * Whichever position is most popular wins, as it wins the vote
> (even if it's grossly incorrect)

A third option is that someone constructs a form of words acceptable (or at least
palatable) to both sides. A fourth is that one side or the other is convinced that they
are incorrect (or potentially incorrect). I can't comment on relative frequency, but
they do happen.

-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


subject: [WikiEN-l] admin abuse

body:
On Monday 26 January 2004 12:41 am, UB 1 wrote:
> Wikipedia:Administrators - As of September 2003, it is
> now possible for sysops to block usernames. It is
> important to note that sysops are not authorised to
> decide whether a particular case of vandalism warrants
> banning by username. The ability to ban by username
> has been made available for the purposes of enforcing
> a ban already approved by Jimbo. It may be used to
> block obvious reincarnations of hard-banned users.
>
> Special:Ipblocklist - 05:10, 26 Jan 2004, Angela
> blocked UnbannableOne (contribs) (Unacceptable user
> name. Please log in with something different.
> Unacceptable behaviour. Please quit it.)

I'm behind Angela on this one. [[user:UnbannableOne]] is an obvious
"boundary-experiment" by an old troll taking advantage of there not existing
any officially sanctioned policy enforcing body in order to troll wikipedia,
while making themselves "unbannable" by adding legitimate content.

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


body:
Optim wrote:

> Checking for vandalism means we check all edits,
> no matter whether they are minor or not.
>
> if an admin fails to notice vandalism because
> he/she hides the minor changes from RC, I
> consider it his/her own fault.
>
> --Optim

Go back to the original question of the original poster.

"How can a anonymous user make Minor changes and how to stop that?"

I think you look at the situation of the English Wikipedia regarding
edits by anonymous users. The question of Elly is about the Dutch
Wikipedia. The speed of RC there is much, much, slower there if you
compare whit EN. Everybody still knows more or less everybody. There are
very few anonymous users. Mostly from a different Wikipedia for a
interwiki-link or somebody who has forgotten to login.

The edits done by anonymous users must be checked because the have a
high change to be a vandal. The edits done by resisted users have a much
lower priority.

Because there is no option "Show only anonymous edits" the option the
hide small edits is the best way to keep the list of edits to verify short.

Walter


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stop for a moment, please

body:
Alex T. wrote:
> So while in Europe one would expect, as you have stated Lars, that the
> foundation is an endowment, in the United States a foundation can be
> a membership organization, or quasi-membership organization such as

Perhaps this should go into some FAQ, to avoid Europeans being
confused by the name.

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


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] What Links Here

body:
Does anyone know what is going on with "What links
here"? Do we really need to disable that function for
performance?

And if we do have to disable it during peak hours,
will it actually be enabled during off hours? I don't
know if it eventually was enabled this past off-peak
period, but it wasn't during the first hour or so.

Not having what links here basically halts any fixing
of orphans, double-redirects, disambigs with links (or
the creation of disambig pages), broken links, etc.

-Rich Holton (a.k.a. Anthropos)

__________________________________
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] admin abuse

body:
While possibly the ban was unwise to some small degree, Angela is not
going to get any grief from me on this one.  Anyone who signs in with
an id of "UnbannableOne" is just asking for it, and it's hard to
muster up much sympathy or concern for the particular case, while at
the same time, of course, we must all wave our hands in the general
direction of caution about establishing unwise precedents that may
cause trouble in the future.

Someone suggested that this character might have been taking advantage
of a perceived "gap in authority" because we're now technically
supposed to be using an arbitration process, but the details of that
process aren't fully worked out yet.

Have no fear, that isn't a viable loophole.  If someone is
sufficiently annoying, I'll just step in to ban them, end of story.
And I trust that my general stock of goodwill in the community, and my
cautiousness about doing that sort of thing, will be sufficient to get
nearly unanimous consensus that it's o.k. for me to do that.

I want to get out of that business, but of course, we shouldn't
imagine that some hyper-legalistic approach to our governance
procedures should cause any sort of management crisis during the
transition.

----
This part is important!  So don't stop reading yet!

It's hard to know for sure, and we should perhaps check the ip logs
to find out, but it seems likely that this knucklehead is the same
knucklehead who wrote the last entry on this page:

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

The strategy of trolling outlined there is to provoke us into a law
enforcement response as a way of discrediting our reputation as being
open.

It's paranoid ranting in the exact style of 24/142, of course, but the
specific strategy is to write "genuinely educational" stuff while
being a jerk, so as to get banned, certainly sounds like
UnbannableOne's actions.

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude:

(a) UnbannableOne is likely just a reincarnation of 24/142 and thus a
legitimate target for immediate ban and (b) Even if not, UnbannableOne
is an open threat to bad behavior, and thus o.k. to ban as an
"emergency" measure under existing policy.

I'd say that Angela made a judgment call here, and one that we might
not all agree with, but well within the range of respectful discretion
that we should give each other.  So I hope that those who think that
Angela made the wrong decision will just say "Hey, here is what I
would have done differently" and *not* in *any way* fall into the
vandal's game of trying to turn us against each other with accusations
of Angela being a tyrant or whatever.

We're good, nice, people, trying to do something of global importance
in a spirit of love and harmony.  We bend over backwards to be kind
even to people who spit in our faces.  So, let's not get too upset if
we have to ban people sometimes.  Jerks are jerks, we do what we can
to heal them, but some psychological problems are beyond our scope of
operations.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] CafePress Wikipedia items

body:
I'll send that to you now.  I suspect that the tax id should be kept
semi-private so as to make fraud harder for anyone who might try to
steal our money.

Erik Moeller wrote:

> Sean-
> > I am pleased to report that I ordered two Wikipedia tile coasters from
> > CafePress on [[19 January]], and received them in perfect order on
> > [[23 January]].  A very smooth, satisfactory, and recommendable
> > transaction.
>
> How is the quality of the coasters? Is the text recognizable, are there
> any pixelization effects?
>
> There are now $20 in commission. I've configured Cafepress to send me a
> check when there are $100, which will be passed on to Wikimedia.
>
> It would probably be preferable to send the commission checks directly to
> Jimbo. To do so I need the full address and federal tax ID.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Optim

subject: [WikiEN-l] admin abuse

body:
Angela is a very good admin. And I don't think
the nickname UnbannableOne can be accepted in the
wiki. Let's not waste more time with this issue.

--Optim

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: admin abuse

body:
"Optim" <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk>
???????:20040126155412.36534.qmail at web25010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com...
> Angela is a very good admin. And I don't think
> the nickname UnbannableOne can be accepted in the
> wiki. Let's not waste more time with this issue.

Exactly. The banned user's intention is a tad too transparent. We all know
what he's trying to do.
___________________________
Menchi


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] admin abuse

body:
I support Angela in this action.  The name was obviously chosen for the purpose of just such a confrontation.

And why was this crossposted to spam at mailinator.com?

RickK

UB 1 <tp8776 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Wikipedia:Administrators - As of September 2003, it is
now possible for sysops to block usernames. It is
important to note that sysops are not authorised to
decide whether a particular case of vandalism warrants
banning by username. The ability to ban by username
has been made available for the purposes of enforcing
a ban already approved by Jimbo. It may be used to
block obvious reincarnations of hard-banned users.

Special:Ipblocklist - 05:10, 26 Jan 2004, Angela
blocked UnbannableOne (contribs) (Unacceptable user
name. Please log in with something different.
Unacceptable behaviour. Please quit it.)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: admin abuse

body:
Tim, have you checked UB1's address to see if he comes from a previousbly banned address range?

RickK

Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> wrote:

"UB 1" wrote in message
news:20040126054105.96886.qmail at web20724.mail.yahoo.com...
> Wikipedia:Administrators - As of September 2003, it is
> now possible for sysops to block usernames. It is
> important to note that sysops are not authorised to
> decide whether a particular case of vandalism warrants
> banning by username. The ability to ban by username
> has been made available for the purposes of enforcing
> a ban already approved by Jimbo. It may be used to
> block obvious reincarnations of hard-banned users.
>
> Special:Ipblocklist - 05:10, 26 Jan 2004, Angela
> blocked UnbannableOne (contribs) (Unacceptable user
> name. Please log in with something different.
> Unacceptable behaviour. Please quit it.)

UT1 was basically attempting to bait people into banning him, by choosing
the username "UnbannableOne", and by getting into an edit war with five
different sysops over awarding himself a "barnstar". Angela was more than
happy to take that bait, and so predictably enough, UT1 made a complaint.

If Angela didn't block the user, I'm sure someone else would have, in short
order.

-- Tim Starling

_______________________________________________
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http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stop for a moment, please

body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> However, we don't want to have that control extended in a way that
> the people running the server are able to enforce general guidelines
> and rules on the Wikimedia project and it's subprojects as such.

I'm not sure what you're speaking of specifically here, but I would
say that yes, we do want to make sure that the control does very much
extend to the ability to enforce general guidelines and rules.

NPOV, for example.

--Jimbo


body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> Currently, Wikimedia (the umbrella for the Wikipedia and other projects)
> is organized based on consensus, if you ignore the largely unused
> dictatorial powers. Consensus is not the same thing as democracy.

Well, to be perfectly clear, the foundation itself is not organized
based on consensus.  It's organized based on me spending tons of money
for several years to make this all happen, and my effort to carefully
set this up as a public charity, and dictating how that's to be done
by selecting board members and a process for member representation.

The projects of the foundation *are* based on consensus, of course,
and I see no reason for us to contemplate any change to that.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] foundation of a German registered association

body:
Ivo K?thnig wrote:
> The actual plan is to call it
>
>    "Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur F?rderung Freien Wissens",
>
> that nearly means
>
>    "Wikimedia Germany - society for promotion of free knowledge".
>
> "Friends of wikipedia e.V." and several other variants was discussed but for
> some reasons not wished by the majority.

I request two things --

1.  Ask the majority to reconsider, and give them good reasons for it.

2.  Wait on actually forming anything at least until we get a German
lawyer to talk to me about all the ramifications.  If you simply MUST
form something now, please make it very clear that it can only be a
"friends of Wikipedia" unless it is blessed by the board of the
existing foundation.

I am very opposed to the existence of an organization of the name that
you are favoring, done against my wishes, without my approval, and
without any time for discussion of what it means and how it will be
controlled.

--Jimbo


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:

>A good example of why it is a bad idea to use the CE as a starting-point for a
>wikipedia entry: (found on [[Witchhunt]] and quickly removed)
>
>"The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not easy to
>pass a confident judgment. In the face of Holy Scripture and the teaching of
>the Fathers and theologians the abstract possibility of a pact with the Devil
>and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be denied"
>
>;-)
>
Everything needs to be viewed in context.  There is still a lot of
valuable material in the CE on historical matters and biography.

The quotation, when viewed in isolation, is indeed enigmatic.  It
nevertheless represents an important turning point in Catholic thought
on the subject, from the dogmatic view of inquisitorial times to the
more critical view of the twentieth century  I would put it back and
give it context.  There is no need to protect the Catholic Church from
itself.

Ec


body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> > I hereby appoint Kurt to be Vice President, Germany, of the
> > international Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> Sorry Jimmy, but that's exactly the top-down strategy that should be
> reconsidered soon.

How is it top-down?  If you all want to get together and elect
someone, or if consensus on de.wikipedia.org is that some particular
person should be the official spokesperson, then that can be done
without any need for a new organization formed against my wishes or
international oversight of any kind.

My point is that the argument "we need to have a spokesperson in
Germany with an official title" is *not* in any way an argument for a
separate organization.  If someone needs a title, we can make
arrangements for that already.  It's a complete nonissue.

--Jimbo


body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> > Yes, I can see that might be possible, but it is for this reason that
> > I think it wise if we consult with a German attorney.

> Just got the information here on the german list that it might be
> *illegal* for german attorneys to work pro bono (the money they
> might charge and must charge is stricltly reglemented here, and they
> must not not do stick out their head too much with anything that
> could be interpreted as "advertising themselves"). So probably it
> will get hard to find one. We have two attornies or at least
> law-professional among the german contributors (I guess), but one
> prefers to stay anonym and the other already didn't want to be admin
> because of the possible legal implications...

The consultation can be completely informal and not official advise,
of course.  Surely German lawyers aren't forbidden from chatting with
me about such things.

Was my message posted on the website so that lots of people will have
the opportunity to respond?

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bylaws

body:
Oliver Brown wrote:
> Are these Bylaws official or are they still being finalized? Because I
> have a few suggestions regarding clarifications of the language.

They are official, but subject to revision of course, under the terms
of the bylaws themselves.  I'm taking careful note of all the
comments, and I expect that 3-6 months from now, after the first
election of member representatives, I'll hold an (online) meeting of
the trustees to hammer out some changes.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:

>A good example of why it is a bad idea to use the CE as a starting-point for a
>wikipedia entry: (found on [[Witchhunt]] and quickly removed)
>
>"The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not easy to
>pass a confident judgment. In the face of Holy Scripture and the teaching of
>the Fathers and theologians the abstract possibility of a pact with the Devil
>and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be denied"
>
>;-)
>
Further to my previous post, the incomplete quotation is more POV than
the full sentence in the CE.  Here's the rest of it:

> but no one can read the literature of the subject without realizing
> the awful cruelties to which this belief and without being convinced
> that in 99 cases out of 100 the allegations rest upon nothing better
> than pure delusion.

One should at least give credit to the editors of the CE for recognizing
that the topic was problematic.

Ec


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
Brion,

I keep "hide minor edits" turned OFF, so that I won't be regarded as
ruthless, and so I can help find "fake minor edits".

Every once in a while, I spend an hour checking anonymous edits -- kind
of a "safety patrol" duty. Which reminds me, maybe mav and Eloquence
should organize a Vigilance Committee (Fred Bauder could be the
ringleader, and we could shoot first and ask questions later! ;-)

Ed Poor


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Let's keep "no personal attacks" (was: Arbitration
	progress report #2)

body:
Sean,

I'm glad there's a contrarian on board. Like the Cunctator,
you will help balance a process that has a risk of turning
into a witch-hunt.

But...

There are only three things that really piss off valuable
contributors and drive them away:

1. Arbitrary reversion of good work (i.e., edit wars with
   morons)

2. Name-calling (e.g., "you moron, stop reverting my work")

Ed Poor

P.S. There are 3 kinds of statisticians, those who can count
and those who can't ;-)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Trials and verdicts

body:
Ec to Sean:

=> >So forget having me impeached -- call the Thought Police!
=> >
=> The thought of impeaching arbitrators even before the
=> arbitration process is in place is not very encouraging.

"No, no!" said the Queen.
"Sentence first-verdict afterwards."

(Guess who wrote the last two lines :-)

Ed Poor
Silly Former List Admin


subject: [WikiEN-l] Let's keep "no personal attacks"

body:
<< And the third one is people who seem to be at Wikipedia just to stir
the pot, never making any useful contributions.

Billy Mills >>

*chuckle* Hmm, what could that possible mean? Why, I made 2 minor edits
already today... And last months I contributed nearly a dozen stubs...
;-)

Ed Poor

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from_name: Peter Gervai

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moneybookers, e-Gold

body:
On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 11:38:19AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> We are now setup with http://www.moneybookers.com , a service similar
> to Ebay that I am told may be easier to use for Europeans.

substitute "Ebay" with "a cheaper and international PayPal" instead :)

grin


subject: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Both Catholics and Unificationists believe in the devil and other evil
>spirits as Real Beings (see [[Exorcism]]).
>
>Of course, this is in the context of a whole bunch of other
>non-atheistic beliefs; it's not as nutty as it sounds.
>
>(Did I just say "non-atheistic"? I meant, "religious" ;-)
>
The concept of a religious atheist is perfectly sensible.

Subject to semantic variations about atheism, agnosticism, etc., I would
consider myself somewhere in this camp.  I nevertheless accept that when
you remove the 99% (or perhaps more) who are delusional there remains 1%
that deserves closer consideration.  Unfortunately the 1% is very
difficult to identify.  Demonic possession represents only one attempt
at explanation, but the persistence of that explanation and its former
official supports may do no more than cloud the issue.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Good call, Angela (was:admin abuse)

body:
1. Usernames can't be offensive, and "UnbannableOne" was patently chosen
for the specific purpose of offending.

2. I can't conceive of Angela EVER doing anything questionable at
Wikipedia; I rely on her to keep ME in line :-)

3. Jimbo already decided; UB1 is out.

We try to be as open as possible, but some (very loose) limits really
are necessary. Anyone who wants to contribute and who isn't deliberately
trying to hoax or vex is welcome.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed


references:
<20040122162701.GF2294@narya.grin.hu>
	<87ptdbr67m.fsf@unicorn.bad-people-of-the-future.san-francisco.ca.us>
	<20040123125838.GQ2294@narya.grin.hu>
	<200401231623.57661.koethnig@informatik.hu-berlin.de>

body:
On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 04:23:57PM +0100, Ivo K?thnig wrote:

[about using the money]

tshirts? merchandise? advertisement? uh.

I thought it's something useful, like hardware, having a part time coder,
whatever. And possibly you cannot even support wikimedia projects outside
germany. Sorry to sound disappointed.

Well, doing anything without knowing the goals beforehand sound risky to me.

Peter


from_name: Nathan Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: admin abuse

body:
--On Monday, January 26, 2004 8:26 AM -0800 Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> Tim, have you checked UB1's address to see if he comes from a previousbly banned address range?
>
> RickK

He's probably asleep by now.

Nathan


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] admin abuse

body:
> From: Sascha Noyes <sascha at pantropy.net>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] admin abuse
> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 01:19:30 -0500
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>
> On Monday 26 January 2004 12:41 am, UB 1 wrote:
> > Wikipedia:Administrators - As of September 2003,
> it is
> > now possible for sysops to block usernames. It is
> > important to note that sysops are not authorised
> to
> > decide whether a particular case of vandalism
> warrants
> > banning by username. The ability to ban by
> username
> > has been made available for the purposes of
> enforcing
> > a ban already approved by Jimbo. It may be used to
> > block obvious reincarnations of hard-banned users.
> >
> > Special:Ipblocklist - 05:10, 26 Jan 2004, Angela
> > blocked UnbannableOne (contribs) (Unacceptable
> user
> > name. Please log in with something different.
> > Unacceptable behaviour. Please quit it.)
>
> I'm behind Angela on this one.
> [[user:UnbannableOne]] is an obvious
> "boundary-experiment" by an old troll taking
> advantage of there not existing
> any officially sanctioned policy enforcing body in
> order to troll wikipedia,
> while making themselves "unbannable" by adding
> legitimate content.
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes

Although I disagree with this, it has been set by
precedent when I was banned (temporarily) under the
username "Non-Liberals are stupid" when I was seeing
if I would get banned. (BTW, I don't believe that)

LDan

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from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rudeness and Personal Attacks

body:
I have agreed to discuss my position on arbitration of simple rudeness
with Sascha as well as anyone else who wants to have a conversation
instead of a diatribe.  Please see [[User talk:The Epopt/Arbitration]].

For those of you who prefer condemnation to discussion, my offer
stands: convince a simple majority of the committee to ask me to step
down and I will, or, of course, Jimbo can remove me.

--
 Sean Barrett     | Five parts ammonium nitrate,
 sean at epoptic.com | two parts hydrazine.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Web servers shuffled

body:
> From: Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Web servers shuffled
> CC: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 18:30:47 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>
> en.wikipedia.org is now running on a much faster
> machine. Between that
> and the database tweaks we've done in the last
> couple days, I hope this
> should keep things more or less smooth for the next
> few weeks until the
> new server farm is set up in Florida (thanks to all
> those who
> donated!).
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Then why is it in its uneditible phase?

__________________________________
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body:
Here is an illustration of what it would mean if we eliminated the "no
personal attacks" rule.

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2004/db040126.gif

Uncle Ed

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body:
> http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2004/db040126.gif

What are you trying to say, Ed?  That if we eliminate personal
attacks, we won't be able to have presidential election campaigns?

--
 Sean Barrett     | For centuries we have been wrestling with freedom,
 sean at epoptic.com | but now it is ended and over for good. They have
                  | brought their freedom to us and laid it humbly at
                  | our feet. --Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Should the content of articles be subject to
	arbitration?

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:
> Arbitration should be about enforcing policies and not making editorial
> decisions about particular articles or disputes.

I agree completely.  The wiki process, if respected, is sufficient to
generate excellent articles.  If the wiki process is being abused,
then that's where arbitration comes in (as a last resort, after
mediation fails).

I find it difficult to imaging a situation in which an arbitration
committee is asked to settle an issue of editorial judgment.  It's
about behaviors at that point, not article contents.  (I do agree, of
course, that the two may be entertwined.  But in all the cases that I
have dealt with personally, the article contents weren't the actual
issue -- the issue was unwillingness to work in a spirit of kindness
with others.)

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration progress report #2

body:
Delirium wrote:
> >So what's the months-long procedure to get rid of a committee member?
> >Where are the pages of rules on how to go about doing it and the fifty
> >or so steps required?
>
> As far as I can tell, the current process is "elections once per year",
> presumably with intervention by Jimbo for egregious problems that arise
> in the interim.  All subject to modification of course.

I'd have to dig it up, but yes that's about right.  I believe that
the terms are staggered.

I expect there to be a wide range of temperments among the arbitration
committee members -- in fact, that's part of how I selected who would
be on arbitration versus mediation, i.e. an attempt to balance both
with people who I view as "more" and "less" likely to want to ban
people.

Starting with the first elections (December), I wonder how the process
might change.  But outside of something completely egregious, I'm
obviously not about to start kicking people off of committees just for
arguing about policy.

I do fervently hope, though, that further arguments about policy will
come with a bit more love than this one has had to date.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Time to set up Wikimedia	ProjectCommittees

body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
> it should be guaranteed that the welsh wikipedians decide over the
> policies of the welsh wikipedia, the wikibookists over wikibooks and
> so on.

No, we are a single unified international project.  There are policies
which are global, and the Foundation will defend those policies.

> The wikimedia foundation is for keeping the servers running, collecting
> funds and defending the projects against legal threats, but not for
> enforcing rules (or a however defined code of ethics) upon all projects.

No, there are certain things that I have always said, from the
beginning, are enforceable rules.  That won't change.

If the Welsh wikipedia community votes to implement a policy whereby
only pre-approved contributors may contribute, or that only
contributions of a certain political type will be permitted, or
whatever, the power will always remain with the international project
as a whole to say, "No, you can't do that."

This idea of each wikipedia being entirely and completely autonomous
is just a complete nonstarter, and has been from the beginning of the
entire project.

At the same time, I have always also firmly said that there's
absolutely no reason why the exact rules and policies of the
English-language wikipedia should be enforced in other languages,
other cultures.  The broad gist of things, sure, but the details may
vary to some extent based on a vast number of local factors.

And so, if the English wikipedia voted that some policy has to be
implemented in the Welsh community whereby only pre-approved
contributors may contribute, or that only contributions of a certain
political type will be permitted, or whatever, the power will always
remain with the international project as a whole to say "No, you can't
do that."

--Jimbo


body:
Delirium wrote:
>  Unless each Wikipedia is to purchase and administer its own
> servers, and choose its own name (other than "Wikipedia"), I don't see
> how we can have projects not be subordinate, at least in a legal and
> technical sense, to the main organization.

Nor do I have any desire to ever see that happen.  We are an
_international_, _global_ project, not a series of _nationalistic_
projects following our own separate paths.

It is very important that steps be taken to ensure that those who
don't speak English have their interests well represented, there is no
question about that.  But ensuring that is not the same thing as going
down a path of balkanization.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server update

body:
UPS tracking numbers say that the new servers will be delivered on
Friday.  I'm trying to clear my schedule for that entire weekend to do
everything in my power to get them installed and running for next
Monday.

Obviously, Brion is in a much better position than I am to say what
will be needed before we can switch.  But I think it'll be pretty easy
to get us more or less switched, although full use of our new
equipment (with the squids and whatnot) will of course take a bit
longer.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Server update


subject: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
Both Catholics and Unificationists believe in the devil and other evil
spirits as Real Beings (see [[Exorcism]]).

Of course, this is in the context of a whole bunch of other
non-atheistic beliefs; it's not as nutty as it sounds.

(Did I just say "non-atheistic"? I meant, "religious" ;-)

Ed Poor


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sysop SQL queries disabled

body:
Somebody on nl.wikipedia.org ran this query:

SELECT user_name, COUNT(*) FROM user, cur, old WHERE
user_name=old_user_text OR user_name=cur_user_text GROUP BY user_id
ORDER BY user_id DESC LIMIT 20

This ran for about 90 minutes before I caught and killed it, and froze
up the entire database in the meantime.

For those not familiar with SQL, the above query will take _every
single_ article and cross-reference it against _every single_ stored
old revision. It will then sort these _many millions_ of rows by user
id and return the first 20. (Obviously that's not the intent, but
that's how the database interprets the request.)

Sysop SQL queries on the database are now disabled. If people have an
urgent need to perform queries and know what they're doing, we may be
able to open up access on an individual basis, but please be aware that
SQL offers many ways to shoot yourself in the foot. Allowing this
access at all is a foolish thing that we do in the spirit of openness
(like letting anyone edit our website ;) but we can't afford to have
the site go down whenever somebody makes a typo.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Dmitry Borodaenko

subject: [Wikitech-l] Couple of fixes for Russian translation

body:
Attached is a patch for languages/LanguageRu.php that fixes two glitches
in Russian translation of MediaWiki templates.

--
Dmitry Borodaenko
-------------- next part --------------
--- LanguageRu.php,koi	Mon Jan 26 13:34:36 2004
+++ LanguageRu.php,koi-fixed	Mon Jan 26 13:52:22 2004
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@
 # Bits of text used by many pages:
 #
 "linktrail"		=> "/^([a-z]+)(.*)\$/sD",
-"mainpage"		=> "?????????????????? ????????????????",
+"mainpage"		=> "?????????????????? ????????????????",
 "mainpagetext"	=> "?????????????????????? ?????????????????????? ???????? ??????????????????????.",
 "about"			=> "????????????????",
 "aboutwikipedia" => "???????????????? ??????????????????",
@@ -180,7 +180,7 @@
 "search"		=> "????????????",
 "go"		=> "??????????????",
 "history"		=> "???????????? ????????????",
-"printableversion" => "???????????? ?????? ??????????????????????",
+"printableversion" => "???????????? ?????? ????????????",
 "editthispage"	=> "?????????????????????????????? ?????? ????????????????",
 "deletethispage" => "?????????????? ?????? ????????????????",
 "protectthispage" => "?????????????????? ???????????? ???? ?????? ????????????????",


subject: [Wikitech-l] installation - register_globals

body:
On Jan 26, 2004, at 12:31, Watanabe Tomoaki wrote:
> Hi. I got a question related to the installation of MediaWiki. One of
> our project members says that there is some installation problem
> related to "register_globals."Is this a known issue?  (sorry to be
> very vague!!).

Currently, MediaWiki requires that register_globals be set *on*.

Since PHP 4.2 the default is off, though a lot of software depends on
it so some sites will have it set to on for you already.

For more information, see: http://www.php.net/register_globals

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
On Jan 26, 2004, at 13:56, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Brion-
>> Sysop SQL queries on the database are now disabled.
>
> If I'm not mistaken, I had disabled them already.

I wasn't aware of your having done so. Where did you set it?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] What Links Here

body:
Rich Holton wrote

> Does anyone know what is going on with "What links
> here"?

It's certainly something I miss greatly.  One can use RelatedChanges as some
sort of surrogate.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:

>On Monday 26 January 2004 12:30 pm, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>Sascha Noyes wrote:
>>
>>>A good example of why it is a bad idea to use the CE as a starting-point
>>>for a wikipedia entry: (found on [[Witchhunt]] and quickly removed)
>>>
>>>"The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not
>>>easy to pass a confident judgment. In the face of Holy Scripture and the
>>>teaching of the Fathers and theologians the abstract possibility of a
>>>pact with the Devil and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can
>>>hardly be denied"
>>>
>>>;-)
>>>
>>Further to my previous post, the incomplete quotation is more POV than
>>the full sentence in the CE.  Here's the rest of it:
>>
>>>but no one can read the literature of the subject without realizing
>>>the awful cruelties to which this belief and without being convinced
>>>that in 99 cases out of 100 the allegations rest upon nothing better
>>>than pure delusion.
>>>
>>One should at least give credit to the editors of the CE for recognizing
>>that the topic was problematic.
>>Ec
>>
>I concede the points you are making. I wrestled with myself about removing the
>CE content, and had a look at the edit history of the particular article.
>Only once had a content-related edit been made to the CE text. There were
>however still opinions like the one I quoted above stated as fact. I agree
>that the CE text is a valuable resource, and I have therefore moved the text
>to the talk page where salvageable material can be extracted. I am still
>unchanged in my opinion, however that old texts make unfruitful starting
>points for wikipedia articles.
>
>Best,
>Sascha Noyes
>
Perhaps the most important consideration in determining what is
salvageable is relevance.  Our article is about witch"hunt" while the CE
article is about witch"craft".  They don't have a separate article about
witchhunts.  We already have an article about witchcraft so we don't
need to get into that here.  Among the most significant statements in
the CE article is that there were no mass witchhunts for the first 1300
years of church history, and the first barbecue did not take place until
1275.  Heresy was always a more serious crime. For our puposes in this
article the church's reaction to witchcraft is more important than the
witchcraft itself.

Ec


from_name: Mills, Billy

body:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poor, Edmund W [mailto:Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com]
> Sent: 26 January 2004 14:57
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Let's keep "no personal attacks" (was: Arbitration
> progress report #2)
>
>
> Sean,
>
> I'm glad there's a contrarian on board. Like the Cunctator,
> you will help balance a process that has a risk of turning
> into a witch-hunt.
>
> But...
>
> There are only three things that really piss off valuable
> contributors and drive them away:
>
> 1. Arbitrary reversion of good work (i.e., edit wars with
>    morons)
>
> 2. Name-calling (e.g., "you moron, stop reverting my work")
>
> Ed Poor
>
> P.S. There are 3 kinds of statisticians, those who can count
> and those who can't ;-)

And the third one is people who seem to be at Wikipedia just to stir the
pot, never making any useful contributions.

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

DISCLAIMER: This message has been scanned by Norton Antivirus (using the
latest definitions) for all known Viruses.
The information in this message is confidential and is intended solely for
the use of the named addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, you
must not copy, distribute or use this email or the information contained in
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from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
On Monday 26 January 2004 12:30 pm, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Sascha Noyes wrote:
> >A good example of why it is a bad idea to use the CE as a starting-point
> > for a wikipedia entry: (found on [[Witchhunt]] and quickly removed)
> >
> >"The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not
> > easy to pass a confident judgment. In the face of Holy Scripture and the
> > teaching of the Fathers and theologians the abstract possibility of a
> > pact with the Devil and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can
> > hardly be denied"
> >
> >;-)
>
> Further to my previous post, the incomplete quotation is more POV than
>
> the full sentence in the CE.  Here's the rest of it:
> > but no one can read the literature of the subject without realizing
> > the awful cruelties to which this belief and without being convinced
> > that in 99 cases out of 100 the allegations rest upon nothing better
> > than pure delusion.
>
> One should at least give credit to the editors of the CE for recognizing
> that the topic was problematic.
>
> Ec

I concede the points you are making. I wrestled with myself about removing the
CE content, and had a look at the edit history of the particular article.
Only once had a content-related edit been made to the CE text. There were
however still opinions like the one I quoted above stated as fact. I agree
that the CE text is a valuable resource, and I have therefore moved the text
to the talk page where salvageable material can be extracted. I am still
unchanged in my opinion, however that old texts make unfruitful starting
points for wikipedia articles.

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


from_name: Peter Danenberg

body:
> Currently, MediaWiki requires that register_globals be set *on*.

I hope we can wean ourselves from register_globals; a hell of an
undertaking, of course.

Peter


body:
Certainly not you, Ed.  And I apologise of that was the impression given.

Billy Mills

-----Original Message-----
From: Poor, Edmund W [mailto:Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com]
Sent: 26 January 2004 15:28
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Let's keep "no personal attacks"

<< And the third one is people who seem to be at Wikipedia just to stir the
pot, never making any useful contributions.

Billy Mills >>

*chuckle* Hmm, what could that possible mean? Why, I made 2 minor edits
already today... And last months I contributed nearly a dozen stubs... ;-)

Ed Poor

DISCLAIMER: This message has been scanned by Norton Antivirus (using the
latest definitions) for all known Viruses.
The information in this message is confidential and is intended solely for
the use of the named addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, you
must not copy, distribute or use this email or the information contained in
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
On Monday 26 January 2004 01:33 pm, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Both Catholics and Unificationists believe in the devil and other evil
> spirits as Real Beings (see [[Exorcism]]).
>
> Of course, this is in the context of a whole bunch of other
> non-atheistic beliefs; it's not as nutty as it sounds.

Well, according to us scientismists, one should disbelieve claims made without
being backed up by sufficient evidence. It is a question of what one
considers "sufficient evidence". I don't consider the opinions (even when
written down in "holy" texts) of a couple of ancient guys (yes, they were
almost exclusively guys) all that convincing. What were we talking about
again? Oh yeah, Catholic Encyclopedia articles are a bad starting point for
"real" encyclopedia articles. ;-)

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


body:
> > http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2004/db040126.gif
>
> What are you trying to say, Ed?  That if we eliminate
> personal attacks, we won't be able to have presidential
> election campaigns?

LOL, what I'm trying to say is lighten up and have a laugh -- all this
talk of trials and trolls was getting dark and dreary...

Eddie


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: admin abuse

body:
"UB 1" <tp8776 at yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:20040126054105.96886.qmail at web20724.mail.yahoo.com...
> Wikipedia:Administrators - As of September 2003, it is
> now possible for sysops to block usernames. It is
> important to note that sysops are not authorised to
> decide whether a particular case of vandalism warrants
> banning by username. The ability to ban by username
> has been made available for the purposes of enforcing
> a ban already approved by Jimbo. It may be used to
> block obvious reincarnations of hard-banned users.
>
> Special:Ipblocklist - 05:10, 26 Jan 2004, Angela
> blocked UnbannableOne (contribs) (Unacceptable user
> name. Please log in with something different.
> Unacceptable behaviour. Please quit it.)

UT1 was basically attempting to bait people into banning him, by choosing
the username "UnbannableOne", and by getting into an edit war with five
different sysops over awarding himself a "barnstar". Angela was more than
happy to take that bait, and so predictably enough, UT1 made a complaint.

If Angela didn't block the user, I'm sure someone else would have, in short
order.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Stop for a moment, please

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>>Currently, Wikimedia (the umbrella for the Wikipedia and other projects)
>>is organized based on consensus, if you ignore the largely unused
>>dictatorial powers. Consensus is not the same thing as democracy.
>>
>>
>
>Well, to be perfectly clear, the foundation itself is not organized
>based on consensus.  It's organized based on me spending tons of money
>for several years to make this all happen, and my effort to carefully
>set this up as a public charity, and dictating how that's to be done
>by selecting board members and a process for member representation.
>
>The projects of the foundation *are* based on consensus, of course,
>and I see no reason for us to contemplate any change to that.
>
>--Jimbo
>
Correction accepted, and the clarity is appreciated. I would still
suggest that consensus is a goal worth striving for in the foundation
itself. Dictation certainly helps to get things started sometimes. But
because of the way humans are, I doubt any dictator can succeed here
unless the dictation is ultimately accepted by a consensus. So I
appreciate your efforts to take other opinions into account and provide
mechanisms for a consensus to develop.

I do agree with Uli that ideally someday "no single person with
superpowers is needed". Unless perhaps you plan to live forever.

--Michael Snow
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subject: [WikiEN-l] admin abuse

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Sascha Noyes wrote:
>
> >On Monday 26 January 2004 12:41 am, UB 1 wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Wikipedia:Administrators - As of September 2003, it is
> >>now possible for sysops to block usernames. It is
> >>important to note that sysops are not authorised to
> >>decide whether a particular case of vandalism warrants
> >>banning by username. The ability to ban by username
> >>has been made available for the purposes of enforcing
> >>a ban already approved by Jimbo. It may be used to
> >>block obvious reincarnations of hard-banned users.
> >>
> >>Special:Ipblocklist - 05:10, 26 Jan 2004, Angela
> >>blocked UnbannableOne (contribs) (Unacceptable user
> >>name. Please log in with something different.
> >>Unacceptable behaviour. Please quit it.)
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I'm behind Angela on this one. [[user:UnbannableOne]] is an obvious
> >"boundary-experiment" by an old troll taking advantage of there not
existing
> >any officially sanctioned policy enforcing body in order to troll
wikipedia,
> >while making themselves "unbannable" by adding legitimate content.
> >
> >
> I haven't looked into this particular case so can't say (yet) whether I
> think banning was correct or not, but I don't like the precedent of
> sysops banning logged-in users based on individual judgment calls (even
> if that call was right in this case).  Given that our procedures are
> still in flux I'm not particularly upset about this one, but I feel
> fairly strongly that future cases should be probably be sent to the
> arbitration committee.  That's of course still a judgment call, but at
> least it's a judgment call by multiple people instead of one.
>
> On the other hand, probable reincarnations of already-banned users are
> fine (in my opinion at least) to ban on sight.  Though I do think our
> ban message should provide some sort of contact address (wikien-l?) so
> people accidentally banned as a reincarnation of a logged-in user can
> email to inform us of that fact.
>
> -Mark

UB1 was basically attempting to bait people into banning him, by choosing
the username "UnbannableOne", and by getting into an edit war with five
different sysops over awarding himself a "barnstar". Angela was more than
happy to take that bait, and so predictably enough, UB1 made a complaint.

If Angela didn't block the user, I'm sure someone else would have, in short
order. It wasn't exactly an individual judgement call, there was some
IRC-related encouragement.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

body:
> Maybe the "fraction" calling for action now could found a wikimedia
> support group, not legally representing wikimedia. When we, after
> careful planning and coordination with Jimbo, get a German "subdivision"
> of the wikimedia foundation, we can either keep the support group, or
> merge it with the "official" group.
>
> That would serve everyone, but create some organisatorical overhead.

That would serve no-one, and just create organisatorical overhead.

Uli


from_name: Dan Drake

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Me Too

body:
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 11:48:36 UTC, Fred Bauder
<fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> We want "Me Too" messages during this process of discussion as we want
> decisions to reflect what everyone wants and that is how you communicate
> agreement.
>
> Fred

Good point. I stand corrected, and withdraw the "me too" joke.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Robert's request for mediation

body:
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 16:28:37 UTC, "Martin Harper"
<martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk>
wrote:

> Robert wrote:
> > I am requesting mediation.
>
> I'm delighted to accept mediation, as and when the mediation committee is in a
> position to handle the matter. Accordingly, I have left a very brief comment on
> "requests for mediation".
>
> If anyone is paying any attention to Robert's posts and wants me to respond to
> his accusations publically or privately, then I will be delighted to do so.
> Otherwise I shall not bother.

Three cheers. Let's get it mediated, and show our confidence in the
process by forgetting the traffic up to now and not asking for reponses --
both of those, or neither.

--
Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.
 --George Orwell


from_name: Optim

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Minor changes by anonymous user

body:
I don't like software automation, because I don't
really trust software (and I do write software).

Automated minor-change flagging would be
disastrous. As Engels pointed, many vandals just
change one or two characters.

--Optim

--- Andre Engels <engelsAG at t-online.de> wrote:
> "Rob Hooft" <rob at hooft.net> schrieb:
> > Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> >
> > > The "minor changes" (in the meaning it has
> in traditional wikis) feature is dead.
> >
> > Would it be possible to automatically detect
> what are small changes?
> > e.g. a small change would have:
> > *only interwiki changes
> > or:
> > *no more than two adjacent characters changed
> in the text and not more
> > than 10 in total possibly excepting the
> addition or removal of [[ and ]]
> > (but even that could be vandalism if in
> excess).
> >
> > If that would be implemented, the checkbox
> could go altogether.
>
> That has clear disadvantages - many actually
> minor changes would not
> be flagged minor, but it would be possible to
> get non-minor changes
> that would.
>
> Changing "John lived for almost 10 years in
> [[Oxford]]." to
> "John lived for nearly 10 years in [[Oxford]]"
> or "John lived for
> almost 10 years in [[Oxford, England|Oxford]]"
> would not be small
> changes this way, but changing it to "John
> lived for almost 90 years
> in [[Oxford]]." would.
>
> Andre Engels
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: foundation of a German registered association

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:

>>    "Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur F?rderung Freien Wissens",
>>
>> that nearly means
>>
>>    "Wikimedia Germany - society for promotion of free knowledge".
>>
>> "Friends of wikipedia e.V." and several other variants was discussed
>> but for some reasons not wished by the majority.

The majority didn't speak up that far, approx. 10-12 writers did
participate in the discussion thus far.

> 2.  Wait on actually forming anything at least until we get a German
> lawyer to talk to me about all the ramifications.  If you simply MUST
> form something now, please make it very clear that it can only be a
> "friends of Wikipedia" unless it is blessed by the board of the
> existing foundation.

Yes, that's also my proposal.  Such a association/name would be good
enough for talking to the press and even for collecting money.
But honestly, since the said domain wikipedia.de is back again, there
is no need to hurry up and founding something.

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


from_name: Watanabe Tomoaki

body:
Hi. I got a question related to the installation of MediaWiki. One of our
project members says that there is some installation problem related to
"register_globals."Is this a known issue?  (sorry to be very vague!!).

Regards,

Tomoaki Watanabe

_________________________________________________________________
???24?????????MSN ???????????????????
http://messenger.msn.co.jp


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New admins german WP

body:
The following people should get admin/sysop status on the german Wikipedia,
please:

Akl, Chd, Wst, Fab, Robodoc, Magnus, Echoray, Aglarech, Maclemo, Baldhur

(Voting and discussion may be found on
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion:Administratoren). I'm just
listing the "very clear" candidates here, we will see how far we get with the
others soon. Can a developer enable the admin flag for those people please
and then leave me a short notice, so I can inform them in turn.

Thanks
Uli


from_name: John C. Penta

subject: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com>
Date: Monday, January 26, 2004 1:45 am
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Catholic Encyclopedia

> Sad to say, but this is the least of the problems I have
> encountered with
> the CE. At one point, when researching the Controversy of the
> Three Chapters
> (one of the many twists & turns of the dispute over the nature of
> Christ),I found that the CE actually lied about its effects in the
> West. Its
> account of the resulting schism in Northern Italy clearly made it
> seem as
> if the dispute was resolved within a life time, when I knew from other
> accounts that it persisted for about 150 years.

Uh, if this is the same CE that can be found online, it may be helpful to note that that edition is from 1911.

Why use something from 1911?

John


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Proposal: foundation-l

body:
I think we need a separate mailing list for the Wikimedia foundation.
These organizational issues really have little to do with the day to day
workings and policies of Wikipedia. This would also be a place to discuss
possible new projects for the foundation.

I suggest the name foundation-l at wikimedia.org instead of wikimedia-l to
avoid typos.

This would have to be set up by Brion or Jason. Alternatively, I can set
up a new forum at http://boards.wikimedia.org.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Brion-
> Sysop SQL queries on the database are now disabled.

If I'm not mistaken, I had disabled them already. Why were they re-
enabled? Sysop SQL queries are a bad, bad idea until we have timeouts.
Yes, openness is good, but wikis work because users cannot do any lasting
damage. Open SQL queries without timeouts are like a wiki without a page
history.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Peter Jaros

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citations.

body:
On Jan 24, 2004, at 12:01 PM, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

> I'm not sure which articles these are, but if you have
> a list or something, could you contact the author(s)
> and ask them to find the original source of the
> information (ie. where those books got the information
> from)? That kind of book usually does almost no
> original research and is very well-cited.
>
> If that is impossible, you could just prefix the
> sentences with stuff like "Many believe..." to give it
> an NPOV.

Although this is discouraged if citations are possible.  If nothing
else, try to leave something on the talk page that others can use to
add citations.

Peter

---
Funding for this program comes from Borders without Doctors: The
Bookstore Chain That Sounds Like a Charity.
		--Harry Shearer, Le Show


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unobtrusive Ways of Citing Authority

body:
On Jan 24, 2004, at 8:36 PM, Sascha Noyes wrote:

> On Saturday 24 January 2004 07:45 pm, Fred Bauder wrote:
>> There are several ways of adding citations that do not clutter up the
>> text.
>>
>> 1. A superscript which point to a footnote.
>>
>> 2. A hypertext link to the source like
>> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_wet] which will display [1].
>>
>> 3. Using comments while editing that do not show up in the displayed
>> text:
>>
>> <!--  via Wikipedia: Pierre de Fermat
>>
>>       last updated: 2004-01-01T18:44:37Z
>>       193.230.240.14
>>
>> -->
>
> Or my personal favourite:
>
> <sup>[[Articlename#References|<nowiki>[</nowiki>1<nowiki>]</
> nowiki>]]</sup>

Which will hopefully become a feature before too long.

Peter

---
Funding for this program comes from Borders without Doctors: The
Bookstore Chain That Sounds Like a Charity.
		--Harry Shearer, Le Show


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Packed with clickable citations

body:
On Jan 24, 2004, at 2:36 PM, Delirium wrote:

> Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:
>
>> I agree completely. Lack of citation and traceability is IMHO a big
>> glaring
>> deficiency in traditional encyclopedias, and it's one that should be
>> remediable
>> in a hypertext encyclopedia. (However, like so much about Wikipedia,
>> there's no big barrier to "just doing it" and hoping that others will
>> follow suit. Much as I'd like better Wiki-apparatus for the purpose).
>
> But this seems to assume that the citations will all be to websites,
> which isn't likely to be the case--most respected, reliable
> information is still not available online.  So citations of that sort
> will have to be to books or journal articles, which in many cases
> won't be accessible through hypertext.

Not necessarily.  ISBN linking is a tremendous help here, and hopefully
other methods, if there are any, will become features one day.  Though
I can't think of one right now.

Peter

---
Funding for this program comes from Borders without Doctors: The
Bookstore Chain That Sounds Like a Charity.
		--Harry Shearer, Le Show


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] admin abuse

body:
In hindsight, banning this user may have been a bad
idea. He was asking for it, but I shouldn't have taken
the bait.

For those who weren't following the block log at the
time, I should point out that it was only this user's
username that was blocked. His IP was unblocked, so he
was free to create a new account with a more
appropriate user name if he really wanted to
contribute sensibly. However, the fact that the first
thing he did after being blocked was to create the
account " User:UnbannableTwo", I expect his intention
is to upset people rather than to be part of
Wikipedia.

Many people have expressed support for what I did,
both on IRC and on the mailing list, but I know that
policy wise the decision could be criticised. I agree
with earlier comments that this should not be used to
establish a precedent of sysops making blocks on user
names. Hopefully in future that won't need to happen
as the arbitration committee will be available to deal
with users who are demonstrating troll-like behaviour
and those who are trying to test the system, so the
decision won't be left to individual judgement.

I apologise to those who feel I have overstepped my
bounds on this one.

Angela.

________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping"
your friends today! Download Messenger Now
http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
"Rob Hooft" <rob at hooft.net> schrieb:
> Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
>
> > The "minor changes" (in the meaning it has in traditional wikis) feature is dead.
>
> Would it be possible to automatically detect what are small changes?
> e.g. a small change would have:
> *only interwiki changes
> or:
> *no more than two adjacent characters changed in the text and not more
> than 10 in total possibly excepting the addition or removal of [[ and ]]
> (but even that could be vandalism if in excess).
>
> If that would be implemented, the checkbox could go altogether.

That has clear disadvantages - many actually minor changes would not
be flagged minor, but it would be possible to get non-minor changes
that would.

Changing "John lived for almost 10 years in [[Oxford]]." to
"John lived for nearly 10 years in [[Oxford]]" or "John lived for
almost 10 years in [[Oxford, England|Oxford]]" would not be small
changes this way, but changing it to "John lived for almost 90 years
in [[Oxford]]." would.

Andre Engels


from_name: Martin Harper

subject: [WikiEN-l] "admin abuse"

body:
If the name alone was the problem, we do have an established
procedure for involuntary name changes: it's a developer judgement
call based on community consensus. Anyone remember Drolsi
Susej or TMC or SH?

Naturally, the arbitration committee will be usurping the power to
judge the appropriateness of Wikipedia usernames and using it to
take over ze world! Or not.

-Martin


from_name: Carl Witty

body:
On Fri, 2004-01-23 at 15:26, Elly Waterman wrote:
> Indeed, and in addition, I like to switch off the Minor Changes to watch
> only for the Bigger Changes, by regular users and ALL CHANGES by anonymous
> users, among which unluckily are some vandals. If vandals can in some way
> click this nonexisting box, they can do their hobby unnoticed, at least by
> me, and other sysops who work in this way.

If people don't like removing the "minor edit" box for anonymous users,
how about this?

1) Put the "minor edit" box back
2) Have 3 states for "Recent Changes": show all edits, hide minor
changes, hide minor changes from logged-in users

This should satisfy everybody at (I assume) a fairly small cost in
software effort.

(I actually like not having the "minor edit" box as an anonymous user;
it helps me remember to log in!)

Carl Witty


from_name: Ivo Köthnig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] foundation of a German registered association

body:
> > The actual plan is to call it
> >
> >    "Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur F?rderung Freien Wissens",
> >
> > that nearly means
> >
> >    "Wikimedia Germany - society for promotion of free knowledge".
> >
> > "Friends of wikipedia e.V." and several other variants was discussed but
> > for some reasons not wished by the majority.
>
> I request two things --
>
> 1.  Ask the majority to reconsider, and give them good reasons for it.
>
> 2.  Wait on actually forming anything at least until we get a German
> lawyer to talk to me about all the ramifications.  If you simply MUST
> form something now, please make it very clear that it can only be a
> "friends of Wikipedia" unless it is blessed by the board of the
> existing foundation.
>
> I am very opposed to the existence of an organization of the name that
> you are favoring, done against my wishes, without my approval, and
> without any time for discussion of what it means and how it will be
> controlled.

I understand, that you are opposed, and since founding that "e.V." dont give
it any rights on the project it can not start as more than a "friends of
Wikipedia". For this reason I also would prefer a name which makes that
clear. Thus the above planed name is no option anymore for me (and I think
for most of us) if we found that e.V. now (or very soon).

There even is a chance to rename the "e.V." later if you change your opinion,
but this would need money and time again. And IMO that also would make sense
only if the "e.V." gets some rights on the project by implementing it later
as chapter in some way...

--Ivo K?thnig


body:
> The consultation can be completely informal and not official advise,
> of course.  Surely German lawyers aren't forbidden from chatting with
> me about such things.
>
> Was my message posted on the website so that lots of people will have
> the opportunity to respond?

Yes, its in the red frame now...

--Ivo K?thnig


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] website error

body:
From: <omitted to respect privacy>
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:56:22 -0800
To: <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: website error

>From this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1876
I clicked on the link for David Davis.
I was sent to this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Davis
and it says that Davis was born in 1948.  This is not the same David Davis who was involved with the 1876 Presidential election.
Thank you,
xxxx xxxxxxxxxx


body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> I would still
> suggest that consensus is a goal worth striving for in the foundation
> itself. Dictation certainly helps to get things started sometimes. But
> because of the way humans are, I doubt any dictator can succeed here
> unless the dictation is ultimately accepted by a consensus. So I
> appreciate your efforts to take other opinions into account and provide
> mechanisms for a consensus to develop.

Yes, I absolutely agree with all of that.

> I do agree with Uli that ideally someday "no single person with
> superpowers is needed". Unless perhaps you plan to live forever.

That's right.  Over a period of time, I expect the Wikimedia
Foundation to be a large and famous organization similar to the
National Geographic Society, the Red Cross, or the Salvation Army,
with a wide variety of interests, a large number of employees, an even
larger number of volunteers, etc.

And the transition from where we are today to that point in the future
is going to take many years, and I want to take steps now to ensure
that the growth is well-managed and respectful of our ideals.

--Jimbo


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> If I'm not mistaken, I had disabled them already. Why were they re-
> enabled? Sysop SQL queries are a bad, bad idea until we have timeouts.
> Yes, openness is good, but wikis work because users cannot do any lasting
> damage. Open SQL queries without timeouts are like a wiki without a page
> history.

Yes, I agree.

Perhaps when we have the new cluster fully functional, and so long as
we have extra 'horsepower' available, we can have a machine running as
a 'hot spare' backup, not used for anything other than being a hot
spare, and we can direct sysop sql queries there.  If that backup
machine is bogged down for awhile, it's probably no big deal.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Selection of Arbitrators

body:
Delirium wrote:
> I'd prefer instead a simple vote of all members of the committee for
> all cases.  I very much hope there will not be a lot of cases, so I
> don't see this as being a problem workload-wise.

This is what I had envisioned as well.

> If there are a lot of cases, then we need to figure out
> how to rework the system so that there aren't--the vast majority of
> issues should, in my opinion, be decided by consensus on talk pages or,
> if necessary, through mediation.

Yes, absolutely.

Just as a side note -- I'm deliberately staying out of this
discussion, so when I say "this is what I had envisioned as well" I'm
just giving background information, not dictating to the committee as
to how it should function.

If no consensus by committee members develops soon enough as to what
it will do, I can step in and say "O.k., let's have a vote of the
committee on the options that have been proposed" and then we'll go
with that.

But hopefully a vote won't be necessary, if proposals are craft that
try to take into account various points of view.  I think that the
simple approach is best right now.

--Jimbo


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article Dispute is Effectively Settled

body:
Now that Jimbo has weighed in on the negative side of this matter it is
senseless to continue the discussion even later. Rather than consider
content we will need to consider the behavior of users as it relates to
content.

Fred

> From: "Martin Harper" <martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk>
> Reply-To: martin at myreddice.co.uk
> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 21:38:37 -0000
> To: arbitration at nerstrand.net
> Subject: Next on the agenda - "Rules"
>
> I think we can leave the "article dispute" issue raging and come back to it.
> For
> example, some people have expressed a fear that we will end up dictating parts
> of
> an article - if we reject that option during our discussion of "Solutions",
> then they
> may feel differently. So, boldly onwards.