subject: [WikiEN-l] Name order in alpha lists (was Re: Problems with Susan Mason)

body:
On Thu, 2003-03-06 at 23:44, james duffy wrote:
> Just to let everyone know that Susan/Lir whomever else they are, has
> unilaterally decided that the system of names on lists is wrong and should
> be reversed to read {surname}, {name}, rather than the current {name}
> {surname}. When I pointed out (after Zoe and I had reverted the previous
> tamperings on the List of Polydactyls page) that all the lists were in the
> {name} {surname} format, He/she revealed that they have so far modified at
> least a dozen of the pages to confirm to what  I suppose we should call the
> Lir-ipedia Method.
>
> Any thoughts? Ignore it? Challenge Susan on it? Revert changes?

While there is a certain temptation to revert anything Lir (by any name)
does on principle, this isn't a Lir issue at all but a general one.

Long lists of names by alphabetical order *are* more easily scanned
visually if presented in "Last, First" / "Family Personal" order. This
is primarily because this exposes the sort order in the vertical
alignment:

  Fa Lihai
  Fassbinder, Uter
  Fiddlesticks, Jane
  Fizzlesticks, Bob
  Fizzickston, Kelly
  Fong Liuchang
  Fottburton, Manny
  Fotzsmith, Wigglesworth
  Framsmackle, Otis

is a much easier list to look through than:

  Fa Lihai
  Uter Fassbinder
  Jane Fiddlesticks
  Bob Fizzlesticks
  Kelly Fizzickston
  Fong Liuchang
  Manny Fottburton
  Wigglesworth Fotzsmith
  Otis Framsmackle

though about as good might be:
               Fa Lihai
          Uter Fassbinder
          Jane Fiddlesticks
           Bob Fizzlesticks
         Kelly Fizzickston
               Font Liuchang
         Manny Fottburton
  Wigglesworth Fotzsmith
          Otis Framsmackle

which would require some ugly table code.

Now, most links are in natural name order, which is as it should be --
most mentions of people are going to be in context, not in lists;
natural name order is most appropriate for titles, and most comfortable
for most linking, and therefore that is how articles on people are
titled.

For the occasional alphabetical lists where one might want to present
Last, First order for western names, that means that the code looks
like:
  *[[Jane Fiddlesticks|Fiddlesticks, Jane]]
  etc.

This is trivially achievable by simple scripts or regexps in 99% of
cases for those who are too lazy to do it by hand, though they need to
be checked for exceptions.

Or, one could make a crapload of redirects -- again, either these need
to be maintained by hand or semiautomated with a script. They would very
rarely be used except in alphabetical lists (including perhaps the alpha
index at Special:Allpages).

Alternately, proposed categorization schemes could be used to produce
most such categorical lists programmatically. A category relation could
be defined with an inherent sortable and/or displayable variant,
allowing automatic generation of lists in name-sensitive alpha order,
rank order by population, age, area, etc. This would save hand-coding.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Oliver Pereira

subject: [WikiEN-l] sys admin?

body:
On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I wish we had a lot more sysops, so that we could partly demystify the
> position.

Oh, well, in that case... I hereby request sysop status. :)

Camembert suggested on the first of March that I should become a sysop,
although I have no idea how closely he had been monitoring my behaviour in
order to judge the wisdom of such a suggestion...

I may have done a few *slightly* silly things on the Wikipedia (see e.g.
my defence of [[Ben Hajioff]]), but I promise that I would never turn into
a power-crazed maniac, or anything like that. :)

Oliver

+-------------------------------------------+
| Oliver Pereira                            |
| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
| University of Southampton                 |
| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk                    |
+-------------------------------------------+


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] limit of edits for anonymous users

body:
> From: "Chuck Smith" <msochuck at yahoo.com>
>> Could we have a limit of 50 edits for anonymous users?
>>  I just don't think anonymous users should be making
>> this many edits in one day...  what do you think?
>> ...and yes, this is happening in the Eo Wikipedia!

> Or perhaps ask that at a specified
> number they must log in??? I know
> that I sometimes don't bother logging
> in and once you get carried away
> adding articles and making edits,
> you just forget about not being
> logged in. So a reminder would
> be helpful if it could be implemented
> without much fuss or trouble. Other
> wise if there is no harm done then
> is the reason for the limit a feeling
> that some bot may mess things up?
> That could be a problem... What
> else could be done?

Limits on number of edits or timed warning messages are a bad idea.
Editing without an account is a legitimate choice, and we should not annoy
people into creating one. However,

* we should check the "Remember me" box by default.
* we should probably change the "Log in" text to something else. It is
non-obvious that you can create an account by clicking "Log in". (In other
languages, this is not as problematic, German uses "Anmelden", which is
equivalent to "Sign up/in".)
* we might get people to sign up by offering the same features as for
signed in users to anons (prefs, watchlist etc.) but to direct them to the
login/create an account page when they try to use them (with a short
explanation: "The watchlist allows you to .. However, in order to ..").
* if someone becomes a regular contributor but doesn't create an account,
put a message on their talk page. They get the "You have new messages"
text like everyone else, so they should read it. In one case, I found out
that the user in question doesn't use their account at work, so there are
plenty of reasons not to sign in.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lists which are sheer nonsense

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

>> ...I'd like to hear a convincing argument who might want to
>> look it
>> up and why. If the answer is just the entertainment value, then I
>> am
>> inclined to be skeptical about the need for the list's existence.

> How about getting us traffic from search engines?

If that's all you care about, I will gladly upload my collection of midget
foot fetish pornography.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Lee Pilich

subject: [WikiEN-l] sys admin?

body:
At 00:27 07/03/2003 +0000, Oliver wrote:
>On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> > I wish we had a lot more sysops, so that we could partly demystify the
> > position.
>
>Oh, well, in that case... I hereby request sysop status. :)
>
>Camembert suggested on the first of March that I should become a sysop,
>although I have no idea how closely he had been monitoring my behaviour in
>order to judge the wisdom of such a suggestion...

I've been watching you *very* closely. aHahahahAHahahhAHAhaHA!

Ahem. Seriously, I don't think there's anything to worry about with Oliver,
I will vouch for him. He's made a lot of good edits on a regular basis.
There's no reason not to sysop him that I know of.

lp (camembert)
WikiKarma: [[Master of the Queen's Music]]


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

body:
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On Thursday 06 March 2003 14:54, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> >First we need to know what your user name is. Next we need somebody to
> >quickly
> >verify that you pretty much know how the place works and most importantly
> >are
> >not the type of person that would abuse admin powers (that is, you are not
> >a
> >vandal or troll). This describes nearly all old timers and most users that
> >have been editing more or less daily for a month or so. I would bet it
> > also describes you but we do need to know what username you edit under.
>
> My username is anonymous56789.  Even though I've only used this account for
> a few weeks, I've been using wikipedia for months.  I definitely wouldn't
> abuse admil powers. I edit wikipedia every day and make a new entry on
> average about 2 a day. I always check my sources. Before letting me be an
> admin, I think you should know that I am 13 years old, and if you think my
> information would be inaccurate, then don't make me an admin.

I don't want to be antagonistic, but as it stands I can't endorse someone for
sysop powers who is both this new to wikipedia and who does not answer
questions on their user talk page or on talk pages on articles they started .

Sascha Noyes
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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikitech-l] demystifying Image description pages ... well maybe

body:
I think I've already mentioned this on sourceforge but...

There is weirdness going on with how image description pages work.

There are two delete links on them; one for the media file and one for the
image description page. To properly delete a media file and it's description
page ''both'' delete links have to be used. This confused the hell out of me
the first time and also just caught Zoe (there are probably other sysops who
/thought/ they deleted images but who really just deleted the image
description pages).

IMO a much better design would treat the actual media file in the same way as
text is treated on normal pages: When the page it is on is deleted the
content (text and media file and their history) is deleted as well. When the
image page is moved then the media file is renamed. Which brings me to;

Another thing: there is no way to rename an media file or its corresponding
image description page. Using the 'Move this page' feature brings up an
error.

Also, the time and dates of uploads are not displayed and the different
versions are listed in a separate history-like table (minus the dates and
times). Since the media file is content on the page it would make sense for
changes in that content to be properly logged.

IMO the whole thing is a bit confusing and may need to be redesigned.
Conceptually the media files can simply be thought of as another piece of
content on a page and therefore treated accordingly (with one history, one
delete link, and the ability to move the page).

For this to work the different media file versions would have to be somehow
represented by different wiki text (a new magic link that only works on image
description pages could be in the form [[media version:Foo.jpg(n)]] where "n"
is the version number). Then uploading a new version of the a media file
automatically edits the image description page ([[media version:Foo.jpg(1)]]
becomes [[media version:Foo.jpg(2)]] in the wiki text).

Sure a vandal could copy the wiki text representing the image of one thing and
replace it with something else but the vandal can already do that with the
article text.

IMO these pages should work more like other pages on Wikipedia.

Aside: "Image" is not the best namespace title for these pages since we allow
non-image filetypes. "Media" would be better but that is already taken....

Thoughts?

-- mav


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] demystifying Image description pages ... well
	maybe

body:
On Fri, 2003-03-07 at 01:39, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> There are two delete links on them; one for the media file and one for the
> image description page. To properly delete a media file and it's description
> page ''both'' delete links have to be used.

No, just the "del" link next to the most recent in the list of image
versions is sufficient, this will delete both the image and the page.

However that's no excuse -- the page deletion link should do this as
well. Known problem, low priority, not fixed yet.

> Another thing: there is no way to rename an media file or its corresponding
> image description page. Using the 'Move this page' feature brings up an
> error.

a) we don't have redirects for images, and I'm not sure we should.
Without that, moving images would be different from moving pages --
exactly what you're trying to avoid! ;)

b) this means a lot more things to rename (files...); probably just
grunt work though

> Also, the time and dates of uploads are not displayed

Eh? Can you give an example of such a page? I'm looking at
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Svcmap_gotland.png and I assure you
it shows the date and time of upload.

>  and the different
> versions are listed in a separate history-like table (minus the dates and
> times).

No, *with* the dates and times.

>  Since the media file is content on the page it would make sense for
> changes in that content to be properly logged.

I agree, which is why you'll notice that it *does* list the date and
time.

> IMO the whole thing is a bit confusing and may need to be redesigned.
> Conceptually the media files can simply be thought of as another piece of
> content on a page and therefore treated accordingly (with one history, one
> delete link, and the ability to move the page).

Images are not their description pages. Image upload history and image
description edit history cannot be conflated, because they are different
things, and can be changed in different ways at different times through
completely different methods (editing a text page, uploading a file).

> Aside: "Image" is not the best namespace title for these pages since we allow
> non-image filetypes. "Media" would be better but that is already taken....

I suggested "File:" back in July, heard a whole lot of silence.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Brion wrote:
>I agree, which is why you'll notice that it *does* list the date and
time.

OK that part of my post goes into the brain fart category. It's a real good
thing I'm not a developer - If I mess up such an obvious thing on a mailing
list post at 2 AM think of the fun I could cause with the software at 4AM. ;)

--mav


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] California court ruling  on responsibility for content

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:
> I don't think it affects us: the reasoning of the court was that
> Matchmaker.com is partly responsible for the content because they
> partly created it, by providing the user with a long series of yes/no
> questions and targeted essay questions to produce the ad. But the
> Wikipedia non-profit doesn't do anything like that.

That's right, to an extent.  But the Wikipedia non-profit does have a
significant hand in directing the content.  If I edit (which I rarely
do), this is more obvious.

Under this good part of DMCA, if the nonprofit neglects to police the
pages, and someone posts libel or similar, the nonprofit is not liable
in any way, plus the nonprofit has a simple defense that gets the
whole suit tossed out before it gets to a jury, so the cost of defense
is low.

Without this defense, i.e. if someone argues that by setting
standards, occassionally editing, posting here in the mailing list to
set policy and mediate conflicts, that I (representative of the
nonprofit) am "partly responsible for the content", then a case like
that could end up before the jury.

> Any harmful content
> posted on Wikipedia was created completely independently by the
> (ab)user. All the prodding they got from us was a textbox and a
> blinking cursor.

That would certainly be the argument that I'd make in court.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> Sounds good to me--as anonymous56789 he's been a good, steady
> contributor, and I don't think age is relevant: the project and the
> work we do on it are what matter.

I agree.  I join Ed Poor, though, in _recommending_ that a more
confidence-inspiring username would be a good idea.  It need not be a
real name, of course, but 'anonymous56789' might tend to confuse
people, as it sounds like a username of a passerby testing the system,
rather than a trusted and valued member of the community.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info

in_reply_to: <3E67BB24.9020103@planetunreal.com>; from tarquin@planetunreal.com on Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 09:18:28PM +0000

body:
tarquin wrote:
> Oh great. Another fork :(

Is Fred really planning a fork, or something more like a mirror?

If he's planning a fork, maybe he can tell us why.

--Jimbo


body:
Erik:
>> ...I'd like to hear a convincing argument who might want to look
>> it up and why. If the answer is just the entertainment value, then
>> I am inclined to be skeptical about the need for the list's
>> existence.

Christopher Mahan wrote:
> How about getting us traffic from search engines?

Erik statement about midget foot fetish porn brought a smile to my
face, but I wanted to weigh in here with my usual middle-of-the-road
answer: getting traffic from search engines is a valid goal, one of
many that we may have for a given page, and it is appropriate for us
to weigh it as *one factor* in determining the value of a page.

--Jimbo


body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
> I guess being facetious is hard to recognize.

Oh, well, I took you seriously, and I think you were right.  :-)

> When I say something is good enough for getting results from search
> engines, I am not speaking too highly of the content.

For a long time, our most popular pages were the 9/11 pages, due
primarily to traffic from the search engines.  Attracting new people
to wikipedia, getting the name before lots of people, is a valid goal.

Not, obviously, our only goal, not even close.  But it can weigh into
our overall evaluation of specific pages.  It can't override
violations of our NPOV principles, for example, but it can permit us
to keep some pages that we otherwise find silly or trivial.

I'll post later today a list of pages ranked by how popular they are
with google.  That should be interesting, anyway.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Please sign this anti-war petition

in_reply_to: <3E67F06A.4070506@telus.net>; from saintonge@telus.net on Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 05:05:46PM -0800

body:
Yes, by all means, let's not discuss the war or world politics on this
list.

I think one of the key "discoveries" that we've made here is that
people of *very* divergent political/ethical/religious perspectives
can agree on NPOV.  It's more difficult on "hot" issues, of course,
but people of very divergent positions can agree that access to basic
information is highly valuable.

If we start arguing politics on the mailing list, I fear a serious
"infection" of our pleasant discourse on the wikipedia proper.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Problems with Susan Mason

in_reply_to: <001e01c2e44a$5fa72ea0$c679e90c@attbi.com>; from stevertigo@attbi.com on Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 05:39:19PM -0800

body:
Stevertigo wrote:
>I do understand Zoe's keen distaste for her, and share some of
>it. although the chauvinist in me does brush some of this off as
>'typical female jealousy' - for lack of a better expression.

I don't think this was an appropriate remark in any way.

But, at any rate, if it's true that Susan Mason is Lir/Bridget/Adam,
then my understanding is that the actual person involved here is male,
not female.

--Jimbo


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info

body:
Lots of forks at a real banquet...

Fred

> From: tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 21:18:28 +0000
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info
>
>
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> I have installed the wikipedia3 software at:
>>
>> http://www.internet-encyclopedia.info/wiki.phtml
>>
>>
>>
> Oh great. Another fork :(
>
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Server issue

body:
The website appears to be functioning more or less normally, but I am
unable to ssh in to the machine.  I get a prompt, and type my
password, and then I'm hung indefinitely (over an hour and waiting).

This is true for both my account (jwales) and root.

Before I do anything drastic like power-cycle the machine, I'll just
wait to see if anyone else can get in.

All I really wanted to do was to play aroud with the logs to see
what's the most popular stuff from google.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] What google likes

body:
As you can see, 'what google likes' is dominated by lists.  I
wondered if people who were finding 'Famous French People' were
finding what they wanted, which would be good, or just stumbling
on the page while looking for something specific, which is not
necessarily as good.  I'll print the results of that inquiry after
this list:

  1150  [[Famous French People]]
   418  [[Mercury (element)]]
   402  [[Famous Spanish people]]
   372  [[Famous African-Americans]]
   368  [[Science fiction themes]]
   312  [[Recent celebrity deaths]]
   304  [[Biographical Listing]]
   268  [[World War II]]
   252  [[The Station nightclub fire]]
   230  [[Fred Rogers]]
   199  [[Leet]]
   198  [[Napoleonic Code]]
   171  [[U.S. Supreme Court]]
   161  [[George W. Bush]]
   155  [[Body piercing]]
   145  [[Native American]]
   145  [[English Civil War]]
   138  [[Elizabethan era]]
   130  [[Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act]]
   129  [[President of the United States]]
   125  [[Old school rap]]
   122  [[Prince Albert piercing]]
   119  [[Natural logarithm]]
   116  [[Discovery of the chemical elements]]
   112  [[U.S. presidential election, 1844]]
   111  [[List of United States Supreme Court cases]]
   109  [[Timeline of inventions]]
   109  [[Mark Antony]]
   109  [[1960s]]
   106  [[United States]]
   105  [[Protest song]]
   103  [[Nuclear weapon]]
   102  [[List of Greek mythological characters]]
    99  [[Mount Vesuvius]]
    98  [[Steamboat Willie]]
    97  [[Incest]]
    92  [[Nudism]]
    92  [[Definition of music]]
    91  [[Evolutionary timeline]]
    91  [[Egyptian language]]
    91  [[Cancer (constellation)]]
    89  [[Famous gay lesbian or bisexual people]]
    89  [[Battle of New Orleans]]
    88  [[Famous Swedish people]]
    88  [[Donald Rumsfeld]]
    87  [[September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack]]
    87  [[Roman Empire]]
    87  [[Famous women in history]]
    85  [[Terrorist incidents]]
    84  [[Big O notation]]
    82  [[World capital cities]]
    82  [[U.S. plan to invade Iraq]]
    80  [[Nudity]]
    78  [[Torture]]
    77  [[List of famous Italians]]
    77  [[Battle of Marston Moor]]
    77  [[Backus-Naur form]]
    74  [[Prime number]]
    74  [[List of places in London, England]]
    73  [[Medieval siege weaponry]]
    72  [[Maria Theresa of Austria]]
    70  [[Prime Minister of Canada]]
    70  [[Photographer]]
    70  [[Capital punishment]]
    69  [[United States Army]]
    69  [[Anti-globalization movement]]
    68  [[List of French monarchs]]
    68  [[Deity]]
    68  [[Aircraft carrier]]
    67  [[Wikipedia:Public domain resources]]
    67  [[Vulva]]
    67  [[Greek mythology]]

Printing just the most common Google URLS, we find:

     10 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=famous+french"
     10 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=famous+french+&btnG=Google+Search"
     10 "http://www.google.com.sg/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=famous+%2B+french+"
     11 "http://www.google.com/search?q=famous+french+people&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8"
     11 "http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=famous+french+people&btnG=Google+Search&meta="
     12 "http://www.google.com.au/search?q=french+people&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8"
     12 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=famous+french+people"
     13 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=famous+french+people&btnG=Google+Search"
     18 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=famous+french+speaking+people&btnG=Google+Search"
     20 "http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=famous+french+people&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en&meta="
     21 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=cs&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Famous+french+sportsmen&lr="
     22 "http://www.google.com.au/search?q=famous+french+people&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta="
     22 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=french+people"
     24 "http://www.google.com.au/search?q=famous+french+people&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta="
     26 "http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=famous+french+people&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta="
     27 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=famous+french+people&btnG=Google+Search"
     27 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=french+people"
     38 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=famous+french+people"
     39 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Famous+French+People"
     45 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=famous+french+people"
     47 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=french+people"
     68 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=famous+french+people"

I think it's fairly clear that (a) lots of people want to know about
"famous French people" and (b) when they get to our page, they are
going to get exactly what they want.

So for *this list*, anyway, it's seems unquestionably a good thing
that we have it.


from_name: james duffy

body:
Just to let everyone know that Susan/Lir whomever else they are, has
unilaterally decided that the system of names on lists is wrong and should
be reversed to read {surname}, {name}, rather than the current {name}
{surname}. When I pointed out (after Zoe and I had reverted the previous
tamperings on the List of Polydactyls page) that all the lists were in the
{name} {surname} format, He/she revealed that they have so far modified at
least a dozen of the pages to confirm to what  I suppose we should call the
Lir-ipedia Method.

Any thoughts? Ignore it? Challenge Susan on it? Revert changes?

JT

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


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Edit page Size warning

body:
"fdafd" <stevertigo at attibi.com> writes:

> MAV::"Ideal length" would ''not'' be in the 30 - 50 KB range. Anything above
> 20KB of readable text tries the patience of readers and anything above 28KB
> has technical limitations for users on slow computers and/or use certain
> browsers. --[[User:Maveric149|mav]] 00:32 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

As long as we are speaking about plain text a length of 30-50 KB is
perfectly okay; if download is slow one can start reading at the
beginning of the article while the rest will follow.  Adding pictures
might be a problem; but if your link is limited, you can always disable
image downloading.

--
ke at suse.de (work) / keichwa at gmx.net (home):              |
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |      ,__o
Free Translation Project:                                |    _-\_<,
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/             |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: internet-encyclopedia.info

body:
On Thu, 06 Mar 2003 06:56:48 -0700, Fred Bauder
<fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> I have installed the wikipedia3 software at:
>
> http://www.internet-encyclopedia.info/wiki.phtml
>
> It is not quite ready for public access, but you can view progress there
> and
> work on it should you so desire. The wikidata base dump was not
> installed.
> Certain policies have been changed from wikipedia and there are some
> bugs.
> Please report bugs on my talk page or by email to me at
> fredbaud at ctelco.net.
> Policy changes include: internet-encyclopedia is written in American
> English;
ok, I'll steer clear ;-)

--
Richard Grevers


subject: [WikiEN-l] Problems with Susan Mason

body:
If we can establish firmly that Susan Mason is Lir, then obviously the
old ban just carries over and that's the end of it.  I'm not willing
to say that just yet, although I'm eager to do so if someone can give
me good evidence -- it saves me the hassle of trying to adjudicate,
after all.

Barring that, I think that all that's warranted by *what I've seen so
far*, is a strong warning against personal attacks.

I say this even though the remark to RK on [[Talk:Idolatry]] was
absurd and a personal attack, *and* exhibited the same kind of bizarre
"logic" about Anglicization as Lir's usual.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

body:
Stevertigo wrote:
> And I dont want to ask for them, because they would require I tenor
> my language somewhat beyond what I do already under threats of
> censure....

Heh, perhaps I should make you a sysop against your will, then.
;-)

Seriously, I would invite everyone to "tenor the language somewhat"
whenever you have an opportunity to do so.


from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

body:
> On Thursday 06 March 2003 14:54, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> > >First we need to know what your user name is. Next we need somebody to
> > >quickly
> > >verify that you pretty much know how the place works and most
importantly
> > >are
> > >not the type of person that would abuse admin powers (that is, you are
not
> > >a
> > >vandal or troll). This describes nearly all old timers and most users
that
> > >have been editing more or less daily for a month or so. I would bet it
> > > also describes you but we do need to know what username you edit
under.
> >
> > My username is anonymous56789.  Even though I've only used this account
for
> > a few weeks, I've been using wikipedia for months.  I definitely
wouldn't
> > abuse admil powers. I edit wikipedia every day and make a new entry on
> > average about 2 a day. I always check my sources. Before letting me be
an
> > admin, I think you should know that I am 13 years old, and if you think
my
> > information would be inaccurate, then don't make me an admin.
>
> I don't want to be antagonistic, but as it stands I can't endorse someone
for
> sysop powers who is both this new to wikipedia and who does not answer
> questions on their user talk page or on talk pages on articles they
started .
>
> Sascha Noyes

I tend to agree with Sacha - There are bound to be people wanting Sysop
rights right away... Ive been around for a few months now. ( I think) And I
dont want to ask for them, because they would require I tenor my language
somewhat beyond what I do already under threats of censure.... Too soon, not
being necessarily an issue of age, but of loyalty to the WP, and a firm and
demonstrated understanding of its politics... politics is an immature and
crafty business... I would suggest the minimum be around 6 months of solid
work and demonstrated issues resolution before sysopdom...
-Steven


subject: [WikiEN-l] Problems with Susan Mason

in_reply_to: <006701c2e4cc$5ca9fa20$c679e90c@attbi.com>; from stevertigo@attbi.com on Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 09:09:49AM -0800

body:
Stevertigo wrote:
> I would characterize Susan/Lir's comments to RK as perhaps
> reasonable, considering RK, and her exasperation... She cant turn to
> official channels if she's Lir,

If she's Lir, nothing she does is reasonable, since
Lir/Bridget/Adam/Vera Cruz is banned.

If she's not Lir, then this particular response is still unreasonable.
*If* RK is doing bad things, then the *best possible response* is to
be extremely careful to follow the utmost standards of civility, so as
to leave a firm paper trail that RK is the one doing something wrong.

> What I really want to know is.. why do people think that she's Lir?

The style is the same, the hot button issues are the same.  Lir used
to say that it's racist to use English spellings for foreign words in
the English encyclopedia.  Susan suggests that RK is racist against
Chinese people because he complained about your use of Kanji for your
username.  That's more or less the same argument, and ridiculous in
both cases.

>This was all under the premise that the sysops knew it for a
> fact, based on a static IP and other evidence...

Susan edits via an AOL dynamic ip.  So this proves essentially
nothing.

> Why has this gone on so long, if there is definitive proof
> of.... and why is the accusation of, allowed and promulgated here if
> it is inuendo without basis?

It's not without basis, it's intelligent speculation.  But, as I've
said, it's not confirmed, and so I'm not going to act on it without
something more definitive.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Server issue

body:
Here's what happened -- I sent my email to the list, and it never
showed up.  Sendmail generally takes a break if the server load is
high, and it's hard to get ssh to answer if the server load is REALLY
high.  After waiting for an hour, I decided that ssh would never
answer me, so I power-cycled the machine.

Everything seems joyful now.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Problems with Susan Mason

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 8:10 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Problems with Susan Mason

> If we can establish firmly that Susan Mason is Lir, then obviously the
> old ban just carries over and that's the end of it.  I'm not willing
> to say that just yet, although I'm eager to do so if someone can give
> me good evidence -- it saves me the hassle of trying to adjudicate,
> after all.
>
> Barring that, I think that all that's warranted by *what I've seen so
> far*, is a strong warning against personal attacks.
>
> I say this even though the remark to RK on [[Talk:Idolatry]] was
> absurd and a personal attack, *and* exhibited the same kind of bizarre
> "logic" about Anglicization as Lir's usual.

I would characterize Susan/Lir's comments to RK as perhaps reasonable,
considering RK, and her exasperation... She cant turn to official channels
if she's Lir, and she no doubt felt alone in fending an off an
equal-but-opposing strain of rampant Evangelism... The point is that its
deeper than just the issue of superficial civility- dealings with Robert
often involve varied dimensions of uncivil conduct... many are not apparent.
He being my own personal tail for blanket-article-revertings is one of
them...

What I really want to know is.. why do people think that she's Lir? I repeat
it based solely off of a comment Zoe made to her on a talk page... I emailed
Susan directly for an answer, and when I did not get one, surmised that it
was true... This was all under the premise that the sysops knew it for a
fact, based on a static IP and other evidence...
Why has this gone on so long, if there is definitive proof of.... and why is
the accusation of, allowed and promulgated here if it is inuendo without
basis?
-Stevertigo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

body:
>JW Wrote:
>Heh, perhaps I should make you a sysop against your will, then.
> ;-)
> Seriously, I would invite everyone to "tenor the language somewhat"
> whenever you have an opportunity to do so.

Thanks, Ill consider it.... but I'll ask.... when I want to stop scrappin
with the gloves off. I have to many 'psychotic (Carlin expletive cut)
hatreds' to have any one-ups on anyone I'm... training.  ;) -Steven


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] More new sysops

body:
Sheldon Rampton and Oliver Pereira now have sysop rights.

Uncle Ed, aka Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Problems with Susan Mason

in_reply_to: <008d01c2e4cf$797b92a0$c679e90c@attbi.com>; from stevertigo@attbi.com on Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 09:32:06AM -0800

body:
Stevertigo wrote:
> 1.Was Lir, as rumored, working for a corporate encyclopedia?

I've never even heard this rumor.  That's almost certainly false.

This is Lir's website: http://qwert.diaryland.com/

Make of it what you will.  :-)

> 3.It does'nt strike me as valid to characterise all of her edits as
> vandalism,

No, of course not.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Problems with Susan Mason

body:
> > SV wrote: Why has this gone on so long, if there is definitive proof
> > of.... and why is the accusation of, allowed and promulgated here if
> > it is inuendo without basis?
>
>JW wrote: It's not without basis, it's intelligent speculation.  But, as
I've
> said, it's not confirmed, and so I'm not going to act on it without
> something more definitive.
>
Ah, thanks. So its very touchy... like the prob with 142...
Three things, (nobody respond until the 'tenor'... comes back..;)...
1.Was Lir, as rumored, working for a corporate encyclopedia?
2.If were essentially stuck with him/her, in one incarnation or another, can
we deal with her issues perhaps one-by-one in a collective way, with some
tenor, considering the possibility that the new incarnation is not her...,
rather than carry over the baggage of..
3.It does'nt strike me as valid to characterise all of her edits as
vandalism, nor too unreasonable (usually)... just monolithic in her
judgements and exacerbatory in the talk... A natural human tendency of the
marginalized - I might point out. -Stevertigo


subject: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info

body:
>Sacha wrote:
> LOL. I have my doubts about the sanity of forking wikipedia. Why >would
you
> fork wikipedia so that you can have an encyclopedia with a Personal POV?
And:
> What if someone comes along who has an opposite POV from your own, they
don't > have to adhere to NPOV, so what are you going to do? Ban them?

Maybe they're trying to 'fork' Wikipedia?.. Seriously... Its a good
experiment as a Libertarian runaround to the POV problem... here....  The
real problem is that it wont have the merit of being 'encyclopedic' and
therefore will be less 'authoritative', and attract less 'authorship'...
Perhaps. I like the title though...-Stevertighoe


body:
Sheldon Rampton wrote:
> I don't see any reason to assume that an encyclopedia
> *has* to have a neutral point of view to succeed. NPOV is only one
> among multiple possible points of view. Someday maybe there'll be a
> Commiepedia frequented by leftists, a Nazipedia, a Christipedia, an
> Intifadipedia, an Agnostipedia...

I think that's probably right.  Such sites would probably have to be
setup so that only logged-in users can edit, and logins are only
granted to people who apply.  And *then*, a form of "NPOV" (Nazi point
of view?) could be used to resolve intra-group disputes.

Our success, though, is in part because we're able to get a large
number of people together, i.e. it's really easy to start working, and
because even people of fairly widely divergent political, religious,
etc.  viewpoints can "buy into" NPOV.

I've brainstormed that it could be possible to set up a site devoted
to a particular "hot topic", say gun rights, and have articles written
wiki-style both "pro" and "con".  But what a nightmare to administer.
It seems easier to me (and more useful, likely) to have an in-depth
website on a topic like that where all parties are morally committed
to NPOV.

One thing that's great about wikipedia is that there are tons and tons
of topics that just aren't really controversial at all.  I mean, what
kind of flame war can really develop about the names of rivers?  (Er,
uh... *wink*)

--Jimbo


body:
> For that matter, there might be different wikipedias devoted to
> specialized topics: e.g., a "litipedia" devoted to literature, or a
> "medipedia" devoted to medical information.
>
> I'm not saying this has to happen or that it should happen, but I
> don't think there's any reason to assume that it *can't*.

Ah, the "victim of its own success syndrome" rears its ugly head at
Wikipedia...-Stevertigo


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 07:55 PM 3/6/03 -0800, Stevertigo wrote:

>Zoe, I apologise for the quasi-sexism. Re:user:Susan/gender Im not privy
>to Sysop info. But I do see some sysops getting a little personal and at a
>loss for gentleness and my point is that this is something in itself worth
>noting. Should I say more? -Stevertigo

If people, of any gender, are being rude, that is worth noting. Responding
in kind
is not helpful, however.

Also, I cannot read your dark-on-black text. Please send plain text, not
color-formatted
HTML. (I got around it this time by clicking "select all" in Eudora, which
let me read
the text as white-on-dark-blue, but most of the time I just delete such
things as not worth
my trouble.)

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] automatic sysopping

body:
Yeah, Ed, you probably shouldn't do that if people don't like the
idea.

But we really should consider adjusting the software so that it
happens automatically.  I want to de-politicize it and de-mystify it.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] META tags

in_reply_to: <3E68DCED.3060104@web.de>; from magnus.manske@web.de on Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 06:54:53PM +0100

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> I noticed that we lost (?) the META tags from Phase II. As a reminder,
> we had the titles of all the links in an article as META keywords, and
> the first paragraph (roughly;-) as META content.
>
> Should we set this up again (more precise in Google hits)?

Sounds pretty cool to me.


from_name: tarquin

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>I think I've already mentioned this on sourceforge but...
>
>There is weirdness going on with how image description pages work.
>
>
>
Some further suggestions for these pages that have been around lately:

* display the current version of the image at the top of the page
* text in the page up to the first HR is automagically displayed in
Wikipedia articles as a photo caption (with CSS formatting too!)

>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info

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

On Friday 07 March 2003 07:21, Fred Bauder wrote:
> Lots of forks at a real banquet...
>
> Fred

LOL. I have my doubts about the sanity of forking wikipedia. Why would you
fork wikipedia so that you can have an encyclopedia with a Personal POV? And:
What if someone comes along who has an opposite POV from your own, they don't
have to adhere to NPOV, so what are you going to do? Ban them?

Sascha Noyes

>
> > From: tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com>
> > Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> > Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 21:18:28 +0000
> > To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info
> >
> > Fred Bauder wrote:
> >> I have installed the wikipedia3 software at:
> >>
> >> http://www.internet-encyclopedia.info/wiki.phtml
> >
> > Oh great. Another fork :(
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> > http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

- --
Please encrypt all correspondence.
PGP key available from:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/noyes/snoyes.asc
- --
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+aMW5gzJdfX+cTW8RAuCqAJwKUtxWMNLObj7k3A4kMOxBYciIGQCfby3S
27u6R/zSx+pxphsh2pMkORw=
=1S+f
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [WikiEN-l] What google likes

body:
I imagine many of us (most of us?) first encountered the wikipedia in
a google search.  I know I did.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


subject: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info

in_reply_to:
<BA8DDCCF.DA7%fredbaud@ctelco.net> (message from Fred Bauder on
	Fri, 07 Mar 2003 05:21:19 -0700)

body:
What is the back-of-a-matchbook summary of the idea of the
internet-encyclopedia?  That is, I looked, but I don't get it.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88

|From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
|Sender: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
|Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 05:21:19 -0700
|
|Lots of forks at a real banquet...
|
|Fred
|
|> From: tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com>
|> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
|> Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 21:18:28 +0000
|> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
|> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info
|>
|>
|>
|> Fred Bauder wrote:
|>
|>> I have installed the wikipedia3 software at:
|>>
|>> http://www.internet-encyclopedia.info/wiki.phtml
|>>
|>>
|>>
|> Oh great. Another fork :(
|>
|>>
|>>
|>
|>
|> _______________________________________________
|> WikiEN-l mailing list
|> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
|> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
|
|_______________________________________________
|WikiEN-l mailing list
|WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
|http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
|


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

body:
Im afraid Sacha is right, in principle. Im not going to bother with the
details. And AnonXXX should be an invalid username in any case... Estevan


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:

>LOL. I have my doubts about the sanity of forking wikipedia. Why would you
>fork wikipedia so that you can have an encyclopedia with a Personal POV? And:
>What if someone comes along who has an opposite POV from your own, they don't
>have to adhere to NPOV, so what are you going to do? Ban them?

Actually, I think it could work. The NPOV works pretty well for
Wikipedia, but even it requires a certain amount of enforcement and
peer pressure to make it work. The mere idea of making Wikipedia an
"encyclopedia" also requires discipline, and enforcing that rule has
been possible even though you get a few people who refuse to abide by
the guidelines. I don't see any reason to assume that an encyclopedia
*has* to have a neutral point of view to succeed. NPOV is only one
among multiple possible points of view. Someday maybe there'll be a
Commiepedia frequented by leftists, a Nazipedia, a Christipedia, an
Intifadipedia, an Agnostipedia...

For that matter, there might be different wikipedias devoted to
specialized topics: e.g., a "litipedia" devoted to literature, or a
"medipedia" devoted to medical information.

I'm not saying this has to happen or that it should happen, but I
don't think there's any reason to assume that it *can't*.
--
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------


subject: [Wikitech-l] META tags

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> I would not oppose some means of allowing authors to add META
> tags that were honest and accurate and based on human judgment.
> But if we created META tags by some automated process just to
> get higher rankings on search engines that still use them,
> then we would be guilty of manipulation just as other
> advertisers are.

I'm not sure there's anything inherently dishonest about creating meta
keyword tags from linked words.  Those keywords are real keywords for
the article -- it seems like a pretty good proxy for what humans would
enter into a separate field anyway, and yet it doesn't cost us any
human labor.

I guess my question is: what's the downside?  What's the harm?
Generally being guilty of participating in something that other people
manipulate unfairly doesn't strike me as a real downside.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

body:
I am seriously considering unilaterally giving sysop rights to everyone on this mailing list:

* whose name and username I recognize
* who seems to know what they're doing
* who doesn't seem radically opposed to NPOV

This would be about a dozen or more people, and I'll decide on Monday, so be forewarned: unless you STRENUOUSLY object to yourself or someone else being a sysop, it's gonna happen!

Uncle Ed -- not kidding


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] What google likes

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

> As you can see, 'what google likes' is dominated by lists.  I
> wondered if people who were finding 'Famous French People' were
> finding what they wanted, which would be good, or just stumbling
> on the page while looking for something specific, which is not
> necessarily as good.  I'll print the results of that inquiry after
> this list:
>
>   1150  [[Famous French People]]
>    418  [[Mercury (element)]]
>    ...

Most interesting... Nothing about midgets though.... ;)

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

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] automatic sysopping

body:
Edward III (aka "the Poor") penned: "Half of these crybabies complain that
they don't have enough power, and the other half are too unconfident to
trust themselves."

Fine, Ed I'll do it. I  wasnt going to anytime soon... but Vicki helped me
make up my mind. Funny how that works out..  Its not a lack confidence...
Its the expectation of responsibility balanced with other things... but I've
seen sysops on the list who only chime in from time to time... so... OK!

I ''totally'' agree with the demystification, and politicization... but I
dont think that Joe Anon should just show up, do some stuff for a couple of
weeks... I guess I'd be afraid of the potential harm...But I dont know what
limits those are, should there be any. I guess Im also curious about SSL and
sysopdom, and the such... If someone really wanted to 'fork' the wikipedia
they could get access pretty easily couldnt they? -Stevertigo.


subject: [WikiEN-l] What google likes

body:
--- Tom Parmenter <tompar at world.std.com> wrote:
>
> I imagine many of us (most of us?) first encountered the wikipedia
> in
> a google search.  I know I did.

Surprisingly I didn't.

I was briefly involved in the GNU-Encyclopedia discussion in Jan
2001. (still have those pages on my website).
http://www.christophermahan.com/gne/

Then that project was scrapped for Nupedia. The rest is history as
they say.

But there is a pointer to Wikipedia at
http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/

For those of you who are interested in historical stuff...

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

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] META tags

body:
> (Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de>):
> I noticed that we lost (?) the META tags from Phase II. As a reminder,
> we had the titles of all the links in an article as META keywords, and
> the first paragraph (roughly;-) as META content.
>
> Should we set this up again (more precise in Google hits)?

"META" tags are all but useless, and only useful at all if they
are carefully created by human evaluation and judgment.  Any
attempt to create automatic ones is not likely to produce any
meaningful result.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [WikiEN-l] GNE Historical WAS: What google likes

body:
--- Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Tom Parmenter <tompar at world.std.com> wrote:
> >
> > I imagine many of us (most of us?) first encountered the
> wikipedia
> > in
> > a google search.  I know I did.
>
> Surprisingly I didn't.
>
> I was briefly involved in the GNU-Encyclopedia discussion in Jan
> 2001. (still have those pages on my website).
> http://www.christophermahan.com/gne/
>
> Then that project was scrapped for Nupedia. The rest is history as
> they say.
>
> But there is a pointer to Wikipedia at
> http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/
>
> For those of you who are interested in historical stuff...
More historical discussion about some of the early issues of
G/N/W-Pedias:
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gne/
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gne/

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

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Name for new Sysop, Daniel E. (was: Sysop Requests)

body:
Yeah, how about Danny The Great, or Dan The Man, or Young Danny? Or, shucks, even use your real name.

I use my real name. Although I've taken to signing my talk comments with Uncle Ed, when you click on me you get Ed Poor.

Uncle Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales at bomis.com]

I agree.  I join Ed Poor, though, in _recommending_ that a more
confidence-inspiring username would be a good idea.  It need not be a
real name, of course, but 'anonymous56789' might tend to confuse
people, as it sounds like a username of a passerby testing the system,
rather than a trusted and valued member of the community.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

body:
At 12:14 PM 3/7/03 -0500, you wrote:
>I am seriously considering unilaterally giving sysop rights to everyone on
>this mailing list:
>
>* whose name and username I recognize
>* who seems to know what they're doing
>* who doesn't seem radically opposed to NPOV
>
>This would be about a dozen or more people, and I'll decide on Monday, so
>be forewarned: unless you STRENUOUSLY object to yourself or someone else
>being a sysop, it's gonna happen!

For the reasons he's stated himself, I STRONGLY feel that Stevertigo should
not be a sysop.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop at last?

body:
I could sysop as needed if the need arose, Ed, but I can't guarantee
I'll keep it up for long. But I'm willing to give it a go if you're
short of helpers.

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

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/


from_name: rednblack at alum.mit.edu

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

in_reply_to:
Your message of "Fri, 07 Mar 2003 12:14:04 EST."
             <E506B3FF6BC1254C9AC1B948C380BC280CF5B7@sm-nyny-xm05.nena.wdpr.disney.com>

body:
Please don't do this, Ed. Many of us have our own reasons for not wanting
to be sysops. If we wanted to be sysops, we would ask.

Saurabh

------
"We cannot buy the Sharon argument that his attacks are a reaction to the
Palestinian violence. And I don't blame the Israelis if they also don't accept
our arguments, that our violence is a reaction to the Israeli violence."
--Ghassan Khatib, PA minister of labor

In message <E506B3FF6BC1254C9AC1B948C380BC280CF5B7 at sm-nyny-xm05.nena.wdpr.disne
y.com>, "Poor, Edmund W" said:
>I am seriously considering unilaterally giving sysop rights to everyone on thi
>s mailing list:
>
>* whose name and username I recognize
>* who seems to know what they're doing
>* who doesn't seem radically opposed to NPOV
>
>This would be about a dozen or more people, and I'll decide on Monday, so be f
>orewarned: unless you STRENUOUSLY object to yourself or someone else being a s
>ysop, it's gonna happen!
>
>Uncle Ed -- not kidding
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Serious problems with an anon user

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

Hi all

I hate to have to bring this here, but I've had major annoyances with user
128.193.88.55. (furter referred to as '55')

Here's what happened:

1) 55 deleted various factual information from [[current events]] news
stories. These facts (whether they are right or wrong) were stated as fact in
the news stories that were linked to. These included publications such as CNN
and the washington post.
(witness the changes made by 55:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728672&oldid=728668
and
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728706&oldid=728687)

2) 55 also made a few really bad quality POV edits of other peoples news
stories (witness:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728646&oldid=728640
and
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728668&oldid=728664)

3) I hence reverted 55's changes saying that they should be backed up by
credible sources. (the factual information that 55 deleted being backed up in
such a manner).

4) I then added 55 to [[Wikipedia:annoying users]], because i believe that it
is important to be able to track users who make such qualitatively bad edits,
and to tell others to keep an eye on them as well.

5) 55 deleted my comments about him/her from [[Wikipedia:annoying users]],
saying that he/she had justified their claims on the current events talk
page. Infact, the user only restated his opinion and did not give any outside
sources to back up his edits:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Current_events&diff=0&oldid=728788

6)I moderated my original post on [[Wikipedia:annoying users]], and added
another post asking 55 not to delete my posts.

7)55 deleted both my posts.

8) I moderated my posts again, adding a third one containing the bold
sentence: "If you delete this a third time, I will report it to vandalism and
make the suggestion of banning you to a sysop. --snoyes 17:41 Mar 7, 2003
(UTC)"

Here I am.

In summary, it does not matter as to who is factually correct on [[current
events]], but rather that 55 deleted my legitimate messages on
[[Wikipedia:annoying users]] about 6 times (and counting). Notice also that I
did not put him/her on [[Vandalism in progress]], even though 55's deleting
my posts on [[Wikipedia:annoying users]] clearly is vandalism.

Please give me your thoughts, and excuse me for taking so much of your time
with this issue.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
- --
Please encrypt all correspondence.
PGP key available from:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/noyes/snoyes.asc
- --
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+aOnhgzJdfX+cTW8RAocoAJ9e7jF1ZlRocRthEOhRO03y1MvA5QCfS+bS
+sqQo5iZwsn+7xihe03aNKU=
=Z3TS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

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

On Friday 07 March 2003 13:05, rednblack at alum.mit.edu wrote:
> Please don't do this, Ed. Many of us have our own reasons for not wanting
> to be sysops. If we wanted to be sysops, we would ask.
>
> Saurabh

I also don't think this is a good idea.

And again I must repeat that I do not think it is a good idea to make Anonxxxx
a sysop. I had a look at their contribution history. First post was
copyrighted info from another website. A couple of days (or weeks) after
first contributing propperly this user inquired what was necessary to become
sysop. I'm always extra critical of people actively seeking powers before
they deserve them.

Best,
Sascha Noyes

>
> ------
> "We cannot buy the Sharon argument that his attacks are a reaction to the
> Palestinian violence. And I don't blame the Israelis if they also don't
> accept our arguments, that our violence is a reaction to the Israeli
> violence." --Ghassan Khatib, PA minister of labor
>
> In message
> <E506B3FF6BC1254C9AC1B948C380BC280CF5B7 at sm-nyny-xm05.nena.wdpr.disne
>
> y.com>, "Poor, Edmund W" said:
> >I am seriously considering unilaterally giving sysop rights to everyone on
> > thi s mailing list:
> >
> >* whose name and username I recognize
> >* who seems to know what they're doing
> >* who doesn't seem radically opposed to NPOV
> >
> >This would be about a dozen or more people, and I'll decide on Monday, so
> > be f orewarned: unless you STRENUOUSLY object to yourself or someone else
> > being a s ysop, it's gonna happen!
> >
> >Uncle Ed -- not kidding
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> >http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

- --
Please encrypt all correspondence.
PGP key available from:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/noyes/snoyes.asc
- --
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+aOrkgzJdfX+cTW8RAm7rAJ9aHi4w28gjbfNSY0LUerGCDNbzhwCgq6sG
TUSOVKMqgqKPLxMJzKG9UGk=
=5Q5r
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Wikitech-l] META tags

body:
> > "META" tags are all but useless, and only useful at all if they
> > are carefully created by human evaluation and judgment.  Any
> > attempt to create automatic ones is not likely to produce any
> > meaningful result.
>
> That's not true !
> Lot of search engines rely on meta tags.
> The only search engine we get lot of traffic from is Google
> (which ignores META tags). The rest are almost ignoring us
> and this is one of reasons.

That's one reason why Google is the only search engine that
matters; they discovered long ago that META tags provided no
useful information, so they evaluated pages on their own.

Information is only useful when it is honest and accurate.
Because search-engine rankings are economically valuable, the
natural incentive is to manipulate the self-descriptive
information in META tags to achieve the result, rather than
making them honest and accurate.  Because of that, search
engines that use META tags rank highly those who are most
adept at manipulation, not those of most real value.

I would not oppose some means of allowing authors to add META
tags that were honest and accurate and based on human judgment.
But if we created META tags by some automated process just to
get higher rankings on search engines that still use them,
then we would be guilty of manipulation just as other
advertisers are.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Serious problems with an anon user

body:
Ed writes:
>"OhMyGosh! I can't handle the responsibility!"

I hope you're not putting words into my mouth; I'm quite capable of
putting them there myself when need be.

cheers.

kq


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Interlanguage links at test site

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>"International issues" seems a strange title for the link & the page --
>it makes me think of a stern Kofi Annan shaking his head as Hans Blix
>examines our link integrity. ;)
>
I took care that they won't find our virus storages either ;-)

>"Other languages" or "Language connections" might be a better way to go.
>(Or, heck, "Interlanguage links"!)
>
>
My original intention was to put the translations for the PHP script
into the same database, and manage them over the same special page.
Perhaps I should scale down for the moment :-)

I'll fix it later today.

Magnus


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Stevertigo wrote:
>
>>And I dont want to ask for them, because they would require I tenor
>>my language somewhat beyond what I do already under threats of
>>censure....
>>
>
>Heh, perhaps I should make you a sysop against your will, then.
>;-)
>
Hmmm.  Like when during the French regime in Quebec.  When they needed
to hire an executioner, they offered the post to a condemned man as an
opportunity to save his own life

>Seriously, I would invite everyone to "tenor the language somewhat"
>whenever you have an opportunity to do so.
>
In those circumstances we already have too many sopranos with bass
habits. :-)

Ec.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Legality of internet-encyclopedia.info ?

body:
Is what Fred is doing even legal under the GNU FDL? All he is doing is
mentioning in the first edit summary where the article came from - there is
no mention of its source in the article itself.

Doesn't our implementation of the GNU FDL require a link-back to the source
Wikipedia article and a mention of the source in the article?

IMO each article that is based on a Wikipedia article should have the
following section at the end:

==Reference==
*Text adapted from [http://www.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Wikipedia_article |
Wikipedia]. Copied on {insert date that the content was copied here}

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

WikiKarma
The Usual at [[March 5]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] automatic sysopping

body:
Yeah, but it's so much fun to *threaten* people that way.

"OhMyGosh! I can't handle the responsibility!"

Half of these crybabies complain that they don't have enough power, and the other half are too unconfident to trust themselves.

I'm getting fed up with wikipedia again...

Time for my bi-monthly "I'm quitting for good" rant, eh?

Mean Ol' Uncle Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales at bomis.com]
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 12:59 PM
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] automatic sysopping

Yeah, Ed, you probably shouldn't do that if people don't like the
idea.

But we really should consider adjusting the software so that it
happens automatically.  I want to de-politicize it and de-mystify it.

--Jimbo
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


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

This user is now under the IP 128.193.88.225 and reverting
[[Wikipedia:annoying users]] again, which now included a copy of this email.
Can some sysop please do something. I feel like I'm 100% in the right and
have no chance to defend myself if the person keeps deleting _MY_ messages
from [[Wikipedia:annoying users]].

Best,
Sascha Noyes

On Friday 07 March 2003 13:50, Sascha Noyes wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I hate to have to bring this here, but I've had major annoyances with user
> 128.193.88.55. (furter referred to as '55')
>
> Here's what happened:
>
> 1) 55 deleted various factual information from [[current events]] news
> stories. These facts (whether they are right or wrong) were stated as fact
> in the news stories that were linked to. These included publications such
> as CNN and the washington post.
> (witness the changes made by 55:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728672&oldi
>d=728668 and
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728706&oldi
>d=728687)
>
> 2) 55 also made a few really bad quality POV edits of other peoples news
> stories (witness:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728646&oldi
>d=728640 and
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728668&oldi
>d=728664)
>
> 3) I hence reverted 55's changes saying that they should be backed up by
> credible sources. (the factual information that 55 deleted being backed up
> in such a manner).
>
> 4) I then added 55 to [[Wikipedia:annoying users]], because i believe that
> it is important to be able to track users who make such qualitatively bad
> edits, and to tell others to keep an eye on them as well.
>
> 5) 55 deleted my comments about him/her from [[Wikipedia:annoying users]],
> saying that he/she had justified their claims on the current events talk
> page. Infact, the user only restated his opinion and did not give any
> outside sources to back up his edits:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Current_events&diff=0&oldi
>d=728788
>
> 6)I moderated my original post on [[Wikipedia:annoying users]], and added
> another post asking 55 not to delete my posts.
>
> 7)55 deleted both my posts.
>
> 8) I moderated my posts again, adding a third one containing the bold
> sentence: "If you delete this a third time, I will report it to vandalism
> and make the suggestion of banning you to a sysop. --snoyes 17:41 Mar 7,
> 2003 (UTC)"
>
> Here I am.
>
> In summary, it does not matter as to who is factually correct on [[current
> events]], but rather that 55 deleted my legitimate messages on
> [[Wikipedia:annoying users]] about 6 times (and counting). Notice also that
> I did not put him/her on [[Vandalism in progress]], even though 55's
> deleting my posts on [[Wikipedia:annoying users]] clearly is vandalism.
>
> Please give me your thoughts, and excuse me for taking so much of your time
> with this issue.
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes
> --
> Please encrypt all correspondence.
> PGP key available from:
> http://individual.utoronto.ca/noyes/snoyes.asc

- --
Please encrypt all correspondence.
PGP key available from:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/noyes/snoyes.asc
- --
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+aP0HgzJdfX+cTW8RAuRAAJ0T1c+ckc2p/BE/rkG/KnM004+fmACeISFX
cKYwa+GifbOQrGpbEvyyPsg=
=WsUs
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] FDL question

body:
I'm sure many of you noticed the mention of the Internet Book List on
slashdot (at http://www.iblist.com/ , a new database intended to be
for books was imdb.com is for movies).  I'm excited about the project
and sent an email with many questions to Patrick Roos.  In that email,
I asked what the copyright terms were of the site and if Roose knew
about the FDL.  He did not.  I referred him to the official GNU FDL page.

I'm not very familiar with the FDL, though I recognize it as a Good
Thing (tm).  I have several questions:

1) if the IBL is put under the FDL, what would be required if they
wanted to use e.g. a wikipedia biography of [[Stephen King]]--a
linkback, and nothing else?  I ask this question because I'm sure each
article is under the FDL (else Encarta could rip them off), but I hope
that each article is not considered a separate "Document" under the
FDL terms.  (if they were, they would all need a new title--"let's
file Stephen King under [[Barnaby Jones]]") ;-)  The "Document" is the
entire 'pedia, right?

2) would it be better for the project, if they consider adopting the
FDL, to link to the wikipedia articles rather than forking them?
(mostly a rhetorical question, though I'm aware I don't usually think
of *all* possibilities).

3) what considerations would you encourage Roos et al. to make before
committing (or not committing) to the FDL?

4) anything else you'd say?

best wishes,

kq


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

I have now added the incident of my posts on [[Wikipedia:annoying users]]
being deleted to [[Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress]].

Sascha Noyes

On Friday 07 March 2003 15:11, Sascha Noyes wrote:
> This user is now under the IP 128.193.88.225 and reverting
> [[Wikipedia:annoying users]] again, which now included a copy of this
> email. Can some sysop please do something. I feel like I'm 100% in the
> right and have no chance to defend myself if the person keeps deleting _MY_
> messages from [[Wikipedia:annoying users]].
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes
>
> On Friday 07 March 2003 13:50, Sascha Noyes wrote:
> > Hi all
> >
> > I hate to have to bring this here, but I've had major annoyances with
> > user 128.193.88.55. (furter referred to as '55')
> >
> > Here's what happened:
> >
> > 1) 55 deleted various factual information from [[current events]] news
> > stories. These facts (whether they are right or wrong) were stated as
> > fact in the news stories that were linked to. These included publications
> > such as CNN and the washington post.
> > (witness the changes made by 55:
> > http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728672&ol
> >di d=728668 and
> > http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728706&ol
> >di d=728687)
> >
> > 2) 55 also made a few really bad quality POV edits of other peoples news
> > stories (witness:
> > http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728646&ol
> >di d=728640 and
> > http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=728668&ol
> >di d=728664)
> >
> > 3) I hence reverted 55's changes saying that they should be backed up by
> > credible sources. (the factual information that 55 deleted being backed
> > up in such a manner).
> >
> > 4) I then added 55 to [[Wikipedia:annoying users]], because i believe
> > that it is important to be able to track users who make such
> > qualitatively bad edits, and to tell others to keep an eye on them as
> > well.
> >
> > 5) 55 deleted my comments about him/her from [[Wikipedia:annoying
> > users]], saying that he/she had justified their claims on the current
> > events talk page. Infact, the user only restated his opinion and did not
> > give any outside sources to back up his edits:
> > http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Current_events&diff=0&ol
> >di d=728788
> >
> > 6)I moderated my original post on [[Wikipedia:annoying users]], and added
> > another post asking 55 not to delete my posts.
> >
> > 7)55 deleted both my posts.
> >
> > 8) I moderated my posts again, adding a third one containing the bold
> > sentence: "If you delete this a third time, I will report it to vandalism
> > and make the suggestion of banning you to a sysop. --snoyes 17:41 Mar 7,
> > 2003 (UTC)"
> >
> > Here I am.
> >
> > In summary, it does not matter as to who is factually correct on
> > [[current events]], but rather that 55 deleted my legitimate messages on
> > [[Wikipedia:annoying users]] about 6 times (and counting). Notice also
> > that I did not put him/her on [[Vandalism in progress]], even though 55's
> > deleting my posts on [[Wikipedia:annoying users]] clearly is vandalism.
> >
> > Please give me your thoughts, and excuse me for taking so much of your
> > time with this issue.
> >
> > Best,
> > Sascha Noyes
> > --
> > Please encrypt all correspondence.
> > PGP key available from:
> > http://individual.utoronto.ca/noyes/snoyes.asc
>
> --
> Please encrypt all correspondence.
> PGP key available from:
> http://individual.utoronto.ca/noyes/snoyes.asc

- --
Please encrypt all correspondence.
PGP key available from:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/noyes/snoyes.asc
- --
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

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=ZnP9
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subject: [WikiEN-l] My name in Japanese and Korean (was: enough with the chinese character names!)

body:
What's wrong with Asian characters?

?? ??, aka ?? ??

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subject: [WikiEN-l] enough with the chinese character names!

body:
> Tarquin typed:Now BOTH Stevertigo AND Goatasaur seem to have these.
> Of course, I can't tell -- they just show as "??" on my screen.
>
> Please go back to usual signatures, guys. And go clean up the existing
> ones. It was amusing while it lasted, but joke over

Well, Ill admit to having started the 'mess' and respect your opinion Tarquin. But the idea of Kanji is to be understood.... i had long thought that Kanji was too complicated to be useful, and that [[igo]] would be the only thing of Asian culture that could be used... I was wrong, and now Im telling people they should raise their kids to learn Kanji at an early age.... the phonetics are irrelevant... its the ideas that they convey which is useful. A soft introduction is forthcoming on the WP.

Now, these are the benefits of Kanji in general... Im just using mine for a sig... Object to it if you will, but I dont see any basis for it other than "its too inconvenient to move the mouse over to show me the name the Kanji links to..." RK and your argument, that using Kanji as an embellishment, violates 'the policy of segregation of languages' doesnt hold water.  Does this mean that you guys will police the Zhongwen Wiki to remove any Engrish or Romanji? Tranculturation is a fact of life, and the web is speeding this up evidence of this... p.s try setting the browser to use the unicode it probably already has installed instead of western ISO.... -??

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: lists

body:
Jesse Alter wrote:

> Actually...
> Come to think of it, that's how I did encounter Wikipedia. It was a
> *gasp* list article! I was searching for a list of Spanish monarchs.
>
Intersting point in support of lists.  Some of us and many users often
have very specific factual questions like "Who was king of Spain in
1285?" and we would prefer finding that bit of information quickly and
easily without wading through a lot of text.

Eclecticology


subject: [WikiEN-l] Asian Characters

body:
I am tempted to say that foreign characters showing up in people's
sig would go a long way in demonstrating that the W is international.

As a compromise, I would say that those who prefer to write their
name in their native script should be allowed to do so, bet should
also put the english version in parenthesis if they are meaning their
post for an international audience.

Comments?

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

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/


subject: [Wikitech-l] META tags

body:
> > I would not oppose some means of allowing authors to add META
> > tags that were honest and accurate and based on human judgment.
> > But if we created META tags by some automated process just to
> > get higher rankings on search engines that still use them,
> > then we would be guilty of manipulation just as other
> > advertisers are.
>
> I'm not sure there's anything inherently dishonest about creating meta
> keyword tags from linked words.  Those keywords are real keywords for
> the article -- it seems like a pretty good proxy for what humans would
> enter into a separate field anyway, and yet it doesn't cost us any
> human labor.
>
> I guess my question is: what's the downside?  What's the harm?
> Generally being guilty of participating in something that other people
> manipulate unfairly doesn't strike me as a real downside.

Fair enough; I agree there's little downside, especially if we
did as Magnus suggests and send them only to anonymous browsers.
But to me, the fact that article A links to article B doesn't
actually tell us anything, and what it does tell us is already
encoded in the mere fact that the link exists.  Putting in extra
META tags is merely repeating the same information in a different
place.  So we aren't "adding keywords" at all--we're just making
longet HTML for the same information content.

I'd like to see some means of actually making more meaningful
content.  If an author were able, say, to see a list of links
and choose, say, the top three or four, then /that/ would really
be useful information.  Then it's not just the fact that A links
to B (which could be completely irrelevant, since we link
everything here), it records the fact that some person thought
that the link from A to B was important.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [WikiEN-l] mascot

body:
In case anybody hadnt seent this.. heres the sketch I did of a Meerkat as a possible mascot...

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from_name: Jesse Alter

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l digest, Vol 1 #185 - 16 msgs

body:
I haven't really thought of asking, but if you're going to be giving a
whole mess of people sysop rights...I'm up for that. If you think I fit
under your three categories, go ahead and add me. :-)

--cprompt

<<<

Message: 3
Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 12:14:04 -0500
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org

I am seriously considering unilaterally giving sysop rights to everyone on this mailing list:

* whose name and username I recognize
* who seems to know what they're doing
* who doesn't seem radically opposed to NPOV

This would be about a dozen or more people, and I'll decide on Monday, so be forewarned: unless you STRENUOUSLY object to yourself or someone else being a sysop, it's gonna happen!
>>>

Uncle Ed -- not kidding


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l digest, Vol 1 #186 - 13 msgs

body:
Actually...
Come to think of it, that's how I did encounter Wikipedia. It was a *gasp* list article! I was searching for a list of Spanish monarchs.

--- Tom Parmenter <tompar at world.std.com> wrote:

>>
>> I imagine many of us (most of us?) first encountered the wikipedia
>> in
>> a google search.  I know I did.
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Asian Characters

body:
>Chris/Tarq wrote: bilingual signing is an excellent compromise. :-)
>
 Ill bi that: --??:SV - :)


subject: [WikiEN-l] The issue has been resolved

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

It has been resolved rather amically, although I'm left with a rather bad
aftertaste about nobody but myself (and Tarquin a bit) making a principled
stand against users deleting other users signed comments. When I first joined
I got the impression that certain users were even banned for this behaviour,
and thought that such principles (in order to be principles) would have to be
applied accross the board. This has not been the case, and I'm not happy.

Sascha Noyes
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Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+aQ6PgzJdfX+cTW8RAlR4AJ47TEJWQrSqGsUDniodMABOVrqyAgCfaYvB
xgSuq1ytEjVXmFOE9ZP1+SQ=
=6weI
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sysop Requests

body:
Prefer not.  Retain street cred.  Too involved in meta-issues already.
Should be writing encyclopedia articles.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88

|From: rednblack at alum.mit.edu
|Sender: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
|Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 13:05:36 -0500
|
|
|Please don't do this, Ed. Many of us have our own reasons for not wanting
|to be sysops. If we wanted to be sysops, we would ask.
|
|Saurabh
|
|------
|"We cannot buy the Sharon argument that his attacks are a reaction to the
|Palestinian violence. And I don't blame the Israelis if they also don't accept
|our arguments, that our violence is a reaction to the Israeli violence."
|--Ghassan Khatib, PA minister of labor
|
|In message <E506B3FF6BC1254C9AC1B948C380BC280CF5B7 at sm-nyny-xm05.nena.wdpr.disne
|y.com>, "Poor, Edmund W" said:
|>I am seriously considering unilaterally giving sysop rights to everyone on thi
|>s mailing list:
|>
|>* whose name and username I recognize
|>* who seems to know what they're doing
|>* who doesn't seem radically opposed to NPOV
|>
|>This would be about a dozen or more people, and I'll decide on Monday, so be f
|>orewarned: unless you STRENUOUSLY object to yourself or someone else being a s
|>ysop, it's gonna happen!
|>
|>Uncle Ed -- not kidding
|>_______________________________________________
|>WikiEN-l mailing list
|>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
|>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
|>
|_______________________________________________
|WikiEN-l mailing list
|WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
|http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
|


subject: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info

body:
Tom Parmenter wrote:

>What is the back-of-a-matchbook summary of the idea of the
>internet-encyclopedia?  That is, I looked, but I don't get it.
>
>
>
It's "MPOV" -- multiple POV --- instead of  NPOV, from what I've just
read: write one article for each POV.
And it's written in "written in American English
<http://www.internet-encyclopedia.info/wiki.phtml?title=American_English&action=edit>,
the de facto linqua franca
<http://www.internet-encyclopedia.info/wiki.phtml?title=Linqua_franca&action=edit>
of the planet."

tarquin

>
>


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] automatic sysopping

body:
On Fri, 2003-03-07 at 14:57, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Yeah, but it's so much fun to *threaten* people that way.
>
> "OhMyGosh! I can't handle the responsibility!"
>
> Half of these crybabies complain that they don't have enough power, and the other half are too unconfident to trust themselves.
>
> I'm getting fed up with wikipedia again...
>
> Time for my bi-monthly "I'm quitting for good" rant, eh?
>
> Mean Ol' Uncle Ed

Part of the whole problem is your presumption of the authority to grant
sysop powers, and your use of the inappropriately avuncular "Uncle Ed".

You shouldn't then go complain about the fruits of your own actions and
attitude.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info

body:
Definitely a fork. Internet-Encyclopedia is an implementation of the
wikipedia3 software that has different policies from Wikipedia. For example,
rather than one article from a NPOV, Internet-Encyclopedia will have several
articles from different points of view on a controverial subject. Also
Internet-Encyclopedia is written in American English. There will also be
more tolerance of material that Wikipedia editors would reject as creative
or otherwise objectionable because of point of view, lack of scientific
consensus, or simply shortness. Generally a much more relaxed attitude will
be worked for (although what one gets in that department will depend on
folks adopting one).  Additionally, both ==Further Reading== and ==External
Links== sections will be expanded. (remember I'm a bookseller).

When coding is complete and the need arises (right now there is no traffic)
editing will be limited to folks with wikipedia experience and involvement
and carefully screened based on what they have done on Wikipedia.

As to why, just tired of having my articles trashed and the constant
critical attitude. But when you're in the water you start rethinking a lot
of things.

On the whole I think wikipedia will benefit over the long run.

Also you can't go GNU and expect no one to ever use it.

Fred

> From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 04:05:14 -0800
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] internet-encyclopedia.info
>
> tarquin wrote:
>> Oh great. Another fork :(
>
> Is Fred really planning a fork, or something more like a mirror?
>
> If he's planning a fork, maybe he can tell us why.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l