from_name: Emilio Gonzalez

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Data dumps

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

Brion Vibber wrote:
> I'm doing a test run of the new data dump script on our Korean cluster;
> currently jawiki (ja.wikipedia.org) is in progress:
> http://amaryllis.yaseo.wikimedia.org/backup/jawiki/20060118/
>
> Any comments on the page layout and information included in the progress page?
>
> A couple notes:
>
> * The file naming has been changed so they include the database name and date.
> This should make it easier to figure out what the hell you just downloaded.
>
> * The directory structure is different; the database names are used instead of
> the weird mix of sites, languages, and database names which was hard to reliably
> get the scripts to run. Each database has subdirectories for each day it was
> dumped, plus a 'latest' subdirectory with symbolic links to the files from the
> last completed dump.
>
> * I renamed 'pages_current' and 'pages_full' to 'pages-meta-current' and
> 'pages-meta-history'. In addition to the big explanatory labels, this should
> emphasize that these dumps contain metapages such as discussion and user pages,
> distancing it from the pages-articles dump.
>
> * I've discontinued 7-Zip compression for the current-versions dumps, since it
> doesn't do better than bzip2 for those. They are still generated for the history
> dump, where it compresses significantly better (about 3 vs 11 GB for enwiki)
>
> * Upload tarballs are still not included at the moment.
>
>
> The backup runner script is written in Python, and is in our CVS in the 'backup'
> module should anyone feel like laughing at my code.
>
> A few more things need to be fixed up before I start running it on the main
> cluster, but it's pretty close! (A list of databases in progress, some locking,
> emailing me on error, and finding the prior XML dump to speed dump generation.)
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Just a comment. Why not adding user_groups table in the public dump? It
can be useful for some statistical purposes and I can't see any risk in
publishing this information.

Regards,

Emilio Gonzalez
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list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] "adminship is no big deal"

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 1/18/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Yes, it is somewhat outdated, but it remains true in a sense;
>>administrators are on the same level as everyone else as far as
>>content is concerned, pointing out that you are an administrator will
>>not get you far in a content dispute, and carried far enough, will
>>get you desysopped.  There are occasional lapses and few folks sneak
>>around a bit, but those who think being an administrator gives them
>>authority over the most important thing in Wikipedia, content, are
>>mistaken.
>>
>>
>Admins decide which content gets deleted and which content gets
>undeleted.  They decide when pages are protected and when they are
>unprotected.  While those pages are protected they decide what those
>pages are going to say.  They decide when to block someone for
>violating the three revert rule and when not to block someone for
>violating it.
>
>On very rare occassion an admin does something so ridiculously
>outrageous and out of touch with the POV of the arbitration committee
>that they get reprimanded for it, but there are numerous occassions
>where they influence content and nothing happens at all.
>
>It's very hard to separate power from authority, and in a flat (as
>opposed to hierarchical) system, it's probably impossible.
>
It's all about building trust.  If a sysop has built a reputation for
fairness he can "get away" with a lot more.  The community knows that
his edits do not deviate radically from accepted norms.  He will also
show himself willing to discuss issues when his decisions are
questioned, and will be quick to admit when he is wrong.  If he wants to
take a stand he will choose his issues carefully without feeling
compelled to maintain an argument about everything.

That just seems like elementary ability to get along with people.

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: how to avoid caching of pages with dynamic
	content

body:
Ah well, at least someone corrected me. *shrug*

Rob Church

On 18/01/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Thomas Gries wrote:
> > Inside an extension module:
> > what is the correct way to _disable caching for that specific page_
> > (example: dynamic integration of  texts from another source, which might
> > change) ?
>
> Rob Church wrote:
> > $wgOut->setSquidMaxage( 0 );
>
> Yes, you could do that, or you could use $parser->disableCache() if you actually wanted it to work.
> $parser is a Parser object that should be passed as a parameter to Parser-related hooks.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions, bogus guidelines

body:
Of course, talking of bogus guidelines that unfortunately have more support than they deserve, Tony was acting in complete violation of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Process_is_Important

  and here was me thinking we were trying to write an encyclopaedia:)

  Jon

David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
  Justin Cormack wrote:

>Clearly we need a good definition of what listed means; also
>investment trusts and suchlike generally have laxer requirements
>and probably should not be included.

What I'm reading here is that the guideline in question was clearly
bogus and ignoring it as bogus was the right thing to do. And if
people are going to cite it on AFD, it'll need some sort of
ratification from people other than five AFD regulars.

- d.
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
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body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> A lot of it is poker. Folks without a decent hand, raising and
> bluffing. I suggest courteous calling: asking for sources,
> negotiating, patience, using the dispute resolution process effectively.

Yep.  Sometimes you even need to bluff with a good hand so that you can
win a bigger pot.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: mwdumper problems

references:
<dpqefb$8m4$1@sea.gmane.org>	<8a93c6a0601081431w46005a66x49aa8f4336a2fe50@mail.gmail.com>	<dqi8lj$nh3$1@sea.gmane.org>	<e92136380601170311u120ab673p@mail.gmail.com>
	<dqmp4q$l7v$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
candy wrote:
> It shows only a few pages:
>
> A                    to     Alexander Selkirk
> Alexander Severus    to     Antipope
> Antiprism            to     Foreign relations of Antigua and Barbuda
> Geography of Africa    to     ?gir
>
> Why wasnt the entire dump imported. As its only a few pages there are so
> many red links. That is broken links I guess.

Perhaps an error occurred, and you didn't notice the error message?

Note that when piping SQL to the mysql command-line client, mwdumper will
continue unpacking the XML all the way through to the end but generally nothing
else will go into the database beyond the first database error that occurs.

Make sure that your database tables are *completely* empty before running
mwdumper. If there are any pages in there, you are likely to encounter errors.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: admin Yellowikis

subject: [Wikitech-l] RfC: Multilingual MediaWiki

body:
Sorry Erik - I must have missed that.

Any idea when it will be ready for testing?

Paul

On 1/18/06, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> admin Yellowikis:
> > Under your proposed system users will not have to log on to change the
> > UI. This is clearly a great improvement. But will it be possible to
> > define a default UI language for a particular page? where no
> > preference for UI has been selected?
>
> That is the idea. To quote the proposal:
>
> <<
> When no user interface language is set, the UI language should be
> identical to the content language, that is, when viewing pages in
> English, the UI language should be English; in German, the UI language
> should be German, and so on. This ensures that each language community
> can customize the interface messages according to their needs, and
> emulates the current behavior of multilingual Wikimedia projects with
> split databases.
>  >>
>
> Best,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 1/18/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Of course, talking of bogus guidelines that unfortunately have more support than they deserve, Tony was acting in complete violation of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Process_is_Important

Um, yes. In utter and complete contempt for it. :)


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/18/06, Travis Mason-Bushman <travis at gpsports-eng.com> wrote:
> There's one thing that Tony and I violently agree on: The idea that "process
> is important" is pernicious and harmful to the creation of an encyclopaedia.

Really? We have tens of thousands of editors. Over 700 admins. Imagain
if they all decided to ignore process on a regular basis.

--
geni


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Students Expose Sex Offender Through Wikipedia Research

body:
--- Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:

> I had missed that there's an article in the main
> namespace on the guy.
> I think it's good the story is getting covered, and
> it's a useful
> illustration of how the wiki system (use of history,
> talk pages) can
> work well. I'm not so sure about the guy having an
> article though.

Hm. Agreed.
~ SV

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fair use images on user pages and enforcement

body:
On 1/18/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/18/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/18/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > It may or may not vanish, depending whether or not you use the image
> > > on that user page for educational purposes.
> >
> > Please give me one example of where an image (any image) on a userpage
> > is educational.
> >
> > --
> > Sam
>
> Can I give an example of an image that used to be on a userpage, but
> was deleted?
>
> I had on my userpage a photo I took from the top of a lighthouse in
> New Jersey.  Next to it I had an image I created using Google Earth
> which attempted to reproduce that photo.  I had a couple of lines of
> text about how the two were created.
>
> That's educational, and it's fair use, and the image was deleted.

That image was deleted because it was being used to make a specific
challenge to Google's claim of copyright on the image.  It wasn't
educational, it was civil disobedience.

Kelly


body:
I don't know if this is good or not (given we're meant to be an encylopaedia)

  http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/acarvin/view?PostID=10313

  Jon

---------------------------------
  Yahoo! Cars NEW - sell your car and browse thousands of new and used cars online search now
---------------------------------


body:
I don't know if this is good or not (given we're meant to be an encylopaedia)

  http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/acarvin/view?PostID=10313

  Jon

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger  NEW - crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
geni wrote:
> There is no objective ay to judge the imporance of any internal
> debate. Thus we have to keep records of them.~~~~

Well, I've already modified my position on other grounds, so we don't
need to argue it further.  But it's worth pointing out that 'deletion'
is actually 'making dark', we'd still have the records, and any of
hundreds of admins could undelete anytime it seemed useful to do so.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> Rob wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Can we prevent google from indexing Vfd discussion pages?
>>
>>
>> This would be a start, and I've talked to the dev's about it.  But I
>> don't think it is sufficient.   Deletion seems much preferable to me.
>>
>
> How about a compromise position of just blanking the AfD page, perhaps
> with a template to indicate that the old discussion can be found in
> history? That way non-admins can examine old AfD results as well.

I'm happy with that compromise.


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 1/18/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Two recent deletion listings.
>>>
>>>Tally, an article about an accounting software company that's been
>>>going for twenty years and has a number of major companies among its
>>>clients in its native India, including the Reserve Bank of India and
>>>the Indian IT giant, Infosys.  And SuperOffice, about a public listed
>>>company (ticker code SUO on the Oslo Bors) with a turnover of some
>>>Euro 30m.
>>>
>>>Easy keeps?  No, deleted on AfD.
>>>
>>>Turns out that the guy who listed them did so to make a point.
>>>
>>>I summarily undeleted these articles--articles on such prominent
>>>companies should never have been deleted and the process that deleted
>>>them is clearly broken.
>>>
>>>They have been redeleted.  Twice.
>>>
>>>I am utterly ashamed of the process and those who have deleted these
>>>good articles in the name of that process.
>>>
>>>I have undertaken a bottom-up rewrite of both, but we should not be
>>>deleting such articles and we should not be forced through the silly
>>>pantomime of rewriting in order to keep articles about these companies
>>>on Wikipedia.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I beg to differ. The motive of the original nominator is besides the
>>point. There's also the fact that the original articles did not make
>>their status clear, so I think a rewrite would be necessary. (By the
>>way, I "voted" to delete both articles on the original AfD.)
>>
>>
>
>it doesn't matter how you voted' the articles were *at worst* cleanup
>candidates, and obviously nobody in the AfD discussion troubled their
>heads with anything resembling research.
>
>I agree that the bad faith nomination doesn't necessarily disqualify
>the deletion.  But the nature of the articles did.
>
>I wish I didn't have to go through this ridiculous charade whenever
>some well-meaning ignoramuses consigned a good stub article about a
>major company to the bin.
>
>
If the original articles provide no basis for which to judge their
topic(s) as worthy for inclusion in an encyclopedia, why bother
rewriting them?

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

body:
> The fact that nothing (except image deletions)
> is permanent on Wikipedia makes [[WP:IAR]] work.
> If someone doesn't believe that my [[WP:BOLD]]
> invocation of [[WP:IAR]] was proper, they are free
> to boldly revert it, or in the case of a deletion,
> find one of those 700 admins to undelete it, in
> which case a discussion can begin.

This last sentence is the important point. When people challenge your
ignoring of established process you have to sit down and discuss things
with them - not just keep reverting to the version you think is better and
say that discussion is a waste of time. This goes even when you think your
view is "common sense" or "obviously correct". If it really is, you will
be able to convince other Wikipedians of it. Our hobby is building an
encyclopedia - many of us are quite reasonable people :)

Process is basically a way of facilitating discussion and cooperation in
this large collaborative project. That's why some of us think it's
important, not for its own sake.

Regards,
Haukur


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>On 1/18/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
>
>>If the original articles provide no basis for which to judge their
>>topic(s) as worthy for inclusion in an encyclopedia, why bother
>>rewriting them?
>>
>>John Lee
>>([[User:Johnleemk]])
>>
>>
>
>
>To make sure they did? Just because someone puts the article to a bad start
>doesn't mean it should never be recreated. Rewriting shows the subject is
>notable and thus worth an article. Seems a worthy enough reason to me to
>"bother".
>
>Mgm
>
>
I didn't say it shouldn't have been recreated. As a matter of fact, I
specifically said I supported Tony's recreation of rewritten versions on
[[WP:ANI]].

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Notability meta-guidelines

body:
> 2) A subject should not appear in Wikipedia when many more subjects in

> its category or field do not. {The insignificance principle}

Aw, crap. For what it's worth, this is a typo. This was meant to read:

2) A subject should not appear in Wikipedia when many more *notable*
subjects in its category or field do not.

Ie, a subject should not appear until most of the more notable subjects
in its field are covered.

Steve


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 1/18/06, Travis Mason-Bushman <travis at gpsports-eng.com> wrote:
> It's the concept of the "Process is important" process fetish that I
> disagree with. Process is necessary, but as you say, not for its own sake.
> Just as there must be a purpose to invoke [[WP:IAR]], there ought to be a
> purpose to require the assistance of process.

Quite so.  Process ___***is***___ important, just not (nearly) as
important as that damned encyclopaedia.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Notability meta-guidelines

body:
> >Thus we can say, "come back when c, b and a have been fulfilled to
> some extent".
>
>
> To which the obvious answer is "there is no reason not to
> start *here*."

My thinking was that following the "insignificance principle" (see my
correction to the typo) could help follow the "vanity principle". Simple
example: imagine that there are 11 articles about businesses in
Wikipedia. 10 are fortune 500's. The 11th one is Bill's Fish & Chips
[1].  Bill is ridiculously "overexposed" and will get some sort of
attention he doesn't really deserve. Hence he becomes more notable by
appearing in Wikipedia. However, on a Wikipedia with 11 million articles
on businesses, he deserves to be there - he's not out of place, and is
no longer "vanity". Regardless of what his business turnover is.

> We are not running out of disk space in any way at all, and
> 100000 "fancruft" articles don't make it any harder for me to
> find, e.g., [[EXA]] or [[Xenu]].
>
> This is not a book. If someone makes a book, they can take
> care of it how they wish (e.g. the Category system).

I just wanted to stress that I'm not proposing these guidelines. I'm
proposing them as expressions of unwritten guidelines that I suspect are
in use. That way perhaps we can debate the actual merits of them.

Fancruft does not bother me if it follows the insignificance principle.
However, I would rather see a very broad coverage of all TV shows before
seeing the level of depth we see on one or two.

[1] An actual fast food shop.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Notability meta-guidelines

body:
> The larger and more influential we become (and so better able
> to confer notability), the fewer subjects qualify to join our
> august ranks.

I don't think that's true - we just need to have a more comprehensive
listing. No subject can gain a "notability advantage" from being listed
side by side with every single competitor, can they?  Or at least their
advantage is a lot smaller.

> > 2) A subject should not appear in Wikipedia when many, more notable
> subjects in
> > its category or field do not. {The insignificance principle}
>
> Our blind spots must never be filled in.  The more we leave
> out, the more we should leave out.

I don't understand what you're saying, could you express that
differently?

>
> > 3) Imaginary or fictitious subjects have less right to appear in
> > Wikipedia than other subjects. {The fancruft principle}
>
> [[Zeus]] has less right to appear than [[Jakob von Uexkull]].
>
> I disagree.

(again, I'm not arguing for these principles, I'm just trying to state
them)

I of disagree with that too. I'm suggesting that these are *principles*,
rather than rules or even guidelines. Obviously principles come into
conflict with each other. You might say that a very good fictitious
article still has more right than a very bad non-fiction article. I'm
obviously not being clear yet. :)

Steve


body:
On 1/18/06, Travis Mason-Bushman <travis at gpsports-eng.com> wrote:
> Have you read some of the comments on that page's Talk page? They wish
> eventually to entirely abolish [[WP:IAR]] "and expunge its history."
>

Good anyone who need IRA to justify their actions should have carried
them out in the first place.

> The idea that "process is important" inherently puts rules and bureaucracy
> above writing an encyclopaedia - and we are here to write an encyclopaedia,
> correct? What [[WP:IAR]] states at its root is a principle that is central
> to Wikipedia - that is to say, that if you're doing what you believe is
> something that will benefit the encyclopaedia, damn the rules and do it
> anyway.
>

Perhaps but don't expect mercy if you make the wrong descision. If you
throw the rules out of the window don't complain if you go that way
too (I have not ben playing to much Max Payne I have not ben playing
to much Max Payne)

> The fact that nothing (except image deletions) is permanent on Wikipedia
> makes [[WP:IAR]] work. If someone doesn't believe that my [[WP:BOLD]]
> invocation of [[WP:IAR]] was proper, they are free to boldly revert it, or
> in the case of a deletion, find one of those 700 admins to undelete it, in
> which case a discussion can begin.
>

Or we could do the discussion bit first you know. to quote Tony Sidaway:

Wikipedia is not a multiplayer game, it's not a time-critical affair.
If something needs to be done, it'll wait until tomorrow, or most
likely someone else will do it if it urgently needs to be done. --Tony
Sidaway|Talk 20:08, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

> [[WP:IAR]] at its core, is about the fact that it is more beneficial to the
> encyclopaedia to *do* something than to worry about going through five
> levels of something Wikipedia is not, namely bureaucracy, before doing it.
>

Outside of directly improveing article content it is in fact often
beneficial to do nothing on wikipedia. Problems have a tendancy to
solve themselves given time

> Being [[WP:BOLD]], a principle which I think no one would disagree with,
> often requires its complement, [[WP:IAR]].
>
> -FCYTravis
>

WP:BOLD does not apply to admin actions.~~~~
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notability meta-guidelines

body:
> 1) A subject should not become *more notable* by appearing in
> Wikipedia.  {The vanity principle}

>Just so long as you do not confuse "notable" with "widely known".

You're right. I should restate this as:

1) A subject should not appear more notable than they are by appearing
in Wikipedia.  {The vanity principle}

>If there are only four people in the world who can perform a
particularly
>crufty surgical procedure, then I would say that all four of them would

>count as "notable".

Definitely.

>In this kind of case, it is the duty of Wikipedia to ensure that these
>people are made **more** widely-known, because they are sufficiently
notable
>to deserve it.

Eek. I don't like the sound of that at all. Don't we try and avoid moral
judgments? Should attempt to make little-known war criminals more widely
known?

On the other hand, encyclopaedias are there to enlighten us. Hmm.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
On 1/18/06, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
>  How
> much effort did explaining this undeletion and enforcing it require
> with regard to its reward (one article is undeleted that should not
> have been deleted)?

Two articles.  Not much effort as it was obviously a case of bad deletions

>  Wouldn't this time have been better spent
> advocating a change in the written policy that led to its deletion,

No.  Policy is what happens, not what is written down.  The policy in
this case, which will always be unwritten, is that we don't delete an
article without a very good reason.


from_name: Stan Shebs

references:
<20060116082830.GP20211@andromeda.dapyr.net>
	<2487477A-0722-4E58-932B-D0B9B911F75E@specialbusservice.com>
	<dqj9et$g3q$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<F2C540C7-F5F3-45EF-B070-082C09C64DAF@specialbusservice.com>
	<98dd099a0601180655w6512a5ecpdcf967084f1bb56e@mail.gmail.com>
	<8AF2C0A5-2A8E-445B-A519-6C24A5D0DDA9@specialbusservice.com>
	<43CE9B24.4010801@apple.com>
	<7CD36973-4A2C-4486-A71B-AA778A05FDF6@specialbusservice.com>

body:
Justin Cormack wrote:

>
> I was very involved in the fair use project until a few months ago
> when I realised that there was no hope and "fair use" will destroy
> wikipedia.

I thought it was userboxes that were going to destroy Wikipedia?
Or was it AfD?

I tend to be pretty sanguine about project destruction myself,
seeing as how I'm getting paid to work on GNU software (whose
failure has been predicted many times) by Apple Computer, which
has been about to go out of business for some 27 years now...

Stan


body:
> "Steve Bennett" <stevage at gmail.com> wrote in
> message
> news:f1c3529e0601180739x58cee2bai8424268f8cd0eb30 at mail.gmail.c
om...
[snip]
> 3) Imaginary or fictitious subjects have less right to appear in
> Wikipedia than other subjects. {The fancruft principle}

>That takes care of those pesky religious articles, and the literature,
and
>the TV programmes, and the movies ...

>On what basis do you make this particular claim?

Ok I was definitely unclear :) I am trying to find the rationale behind
people's revulsion of "fancruft". I don't see the derogatory word
"cruft" used to describe any subject on wikipedia, no matter how
esoteric, that is based on the physical world. But now that I think
about it, it is not the world of fiction that reviles people: it is
popular culture. I revise:

3) Subjects relating to popular culture have less right to appear in
Wikipedia than other subjects. {The fancruft principle}

It suddenly occurred to me that no one objects to theological articles
as fancruft either.

Can anyone find any other recurring themes in notability guidelines?

Steve


body:
On 1/18/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good anyone who need IRA to justify their actions should have carried
> them out in the first place.

I'm not sure that using the IRA to justify your actions for you is
ever a good idea!

> WP:BOLD does not apply to admin actions.~~~~

No, but its spirit (as in, don't spend ages discussing where you could
just cut to the chase and do it).

--
Sam


body:
> The only way I can see to interpret 1) is to make "notable"
> mean something like "well known".

Yes, it was a mistake on my part.

> And frankly, the rule doesn't make sense to me.  Providing
> someone with information on something when they request it
> isn't advertising.
> Advertising is when you provide someone with information
> other than what they requested.
>
> IOW, if someone does a search for "Bob's Garage Band" and
> they get information on it, how is that advertising?

I'm not 100% sure of the logic either, but articles get turfed for being
"vanity" all the time. Even, as we have seen recently, when they are
written by people unknown to the subject.

Actually now that I think about it, maybe a subject *does* get false
notability from being on Wikipedia. If I searched for Bob's garage band
and found nothing but a crufty geocities website, that would be one
thing. If I found a fully-fledged Wikipedia article, I would think
something completely different about them. I would think they were more
notable than they really were.

Steve


body:
On 1/18/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/18/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Good anyone who need IRA to justify their actions should have carried
> > them out in the first place.
>
> I'm not sure that using the IRA to justify your actions for you is
> ever a good idea!
>

my statement should have read "Good anyone who needs IRA to justify
their actions should not have carried them out in the first place."

> > WP:BOLD does not apply to admin actions.~~~~
>
> No, but its spirit (as in, don't spend ages discussing where you could
> just cut to the chase and do it).
>
> --
> Sam

No, but its spirit (as in, don't spend ages discussing where you could
just cut to the chase and do it).

Whatever they are calling VFU these days doesn't take that long to go through.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
On 1/18/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I use the Classic skin myself; it was the standard when I first joined.
> It does not impose a full-width horizontal line after a level 2
> heading.  In Wiktionary we decided long ago to use a horizintal line
> between languages, with the language names as level 2 headings.  This
> has led to periodic complaints from those who use Monobook and end up
> with horizontal lines both above and below the language name.
>
> I appreciate the intent of allowing Monobook to be modified bu users,
> but that does not do much good for those of us who may be interested in
> content, but have limited experience or understanding about amending css
> files.  To the extent that they might want to do so, if users are going
> to be able to modify their skins that should apply to all skins.
>
> Ec
>

You can modify any skin but for the most part people don't modify
classic since it is pretty much perfect.

--
geni


body:
On 1/18/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/18/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm not sure that using the IRA to justify your actions for you is
> > ever a good idea!
> >
>
> my statement should have read "Good anyone who needs IRA to justify
> their actions should not have carried them out in the first place."

I was referring to [[IRA]], not [[WP:IAR]].  I was attempting levity.
I shan't try again...

> > > WP:BOLD does not apply to admin actions.~~~~
> >
> > No, but its spirit (as in, don't spend ages discussing where you could
> > just cut to the chase and do it).
>
> No, but its spirit (as in, don't spend ages discussing where you could
> just cut to the chase and do it).
>
> Whatever they are calling VFU these days doesn't take that long to go through.

I was contesting your statement in principle, not in specifics.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
On 1/18/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  Wouldn't this time have been better spent
> > advocating a change in the written policy that led to its deletion,
>
> No.  Policy is what happens, not what is written down.  The policy in
> this case, which will always be unwritten, is that we don't delete an
> article without a very good reason.

Rather a lot of people wanting to delete it in the proper venue for
disscussion is a very good reason.

--
geni


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/18/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> The notion of using deletion as a way to "store" stuff long-term gives
> me the heebie-jeebies.
<snip>
> And historically, deleted articles have been permanently purged before -
> IIRC the last time was somewhere in 2002. How do we know it won't happen
> again?

Last happened on 3 December 2003. Also, there was a database crash on
8 June 2004, which had the same effect.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
On 1/18/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/18/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/18/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I'm not sure that using the IRA to justify your actions for you is
> > > ever a good idea!
> > >
> >
> > my statement should have read "Good anyone who needs IRA to justify
> > their actions should not have carried them out in the first place."
>
> I was referring to [[IRA]], not [[WP:IAR]].  I was attempting levity.
> I shan't try again...

Well the IRA do have a long history of ignoreing policy.

> > > > WP:BOLD does not apply to admin actions.~~~~
> > >
> > > No, but its spirit (as in, don't spend ages discussing where you could
> > > just cut to the chase and do it).
> >
> > No, but its spirit (as in, don't spend ages discussing where you could
> > just cut to the chase and do it).
> >
> > Whatever they are calling VFU these days doesn't take that long to go through.
>
> I was contesting your statement in principle, not in specifics.
>
> --
> Sam

If something would end up takeing very large amounts of discussion you
must conclude that:
a) it isn't going to be popular
in which case you shouldn't be doing it
b)there are some problem users
in which case something needs to be done about those users
c)you are not very good at proposeing things
In which case I would advise against trying to use [[WP:IRA]]  (since
you are going to need very good interpersonal skills to pick things up
afterwards if things go wrong).

--
geni


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Yes, it is quite appropriate. It was covered in this week's issue of the
Wikipedia Signpost.

On 1/18/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I don't know if this is good or not (given we're meant to be an
> encylopaedia)
>
> http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/acarvin/view?PostID=10313
>
> Jon
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Messenger  NEW - crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with
> voicemail
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 1/18/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> WP:IAR is one of the fundamental pillars of Wikipedia.

It wasn't original hard policy

>  An attack on it is an attack on the basic structure of our project to create an
> encyclopedia.

No it isn't. [[WP:IRA]] is broken. It was broken the first time
someone tried to cite in thier defence. [[WP:IRA]] is not a defence if
you decide to ignore the rules. The only defence for doing that is to
be able to show it was the right thing to do.

> Ah, so you're planning to abolish WP:AGF, too.

Well I don't like makeing assumptions. But what has assumeing good
faith got to do with anything? Ignoreing the rules means you think you
know better than the people who put together the rules and those that
accepted them. If you are right then good for you. If you are wrong
then the issue of actions tending to have consiquenes kicks in

> Is WP:NPOV third on your list?

No there is a seperate wiki for that

>
> Wrong.  Admins are as encouraged to be as bold as any other editor.  The
> word "admin" does not appear on WP:BOLD at all, let alone as an exception.

[[WP:BOLD]] covers article content only. Admins are free to be bold as
editors. WP:BOLD clearly does not encourage them to be bold as admins.
--
geni


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Well, I've already modified my position on other grounds, so we don't
> need to argue it further.  But it's worth pointing out that 'deletion'
> is actually 'making dark', we'd still have the records, and any of
> hundreds of admins could undelete anytime it seemed useful to do so.
>
Until the deleted version database gets purged again.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/19/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Most people use Monobook :)
>>
>>--
>>Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
>>
>>
>And they wounder why they have problems. Ok classic does have problems
>with a few things (large numbers of catigories and interlang links)
>but it has it's advantages.
>
Yes, classic does have its problems.  Personally, I like having the
serif typeface, and having the categories at the top.

Ec


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Subversion coming

body:
So which do we commit to until then?

Rob Church

On 19/01/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Ok, SourceForge got our Subversion import done, but their notification hooks are
> broken: commit mails don't include diffs, and they haven't allowed support for
> the CIA notification bot yet. This makes it virtually impossible to follow what
> changes your fellow developers are making.
>
> When we get these resolved, we can patch in the remaining changes from CVS and
> start using the SVN repo.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
Brock Batsell wrote:

> I attempted to make it clear that Wikipedia has guidelines and
> policies that must be followed by all of its editors, so that clutter
> and cruft can be eliminated and we can get to work on writing an
> encyclopedia.

The error here is in thinking that guidelines *must* be followed.
Guidelines *should* be followed, but there should be no penalty when
just trying something different.  It may even be a better idea..  As for
"clutter" and "cruft", we all know that there is no single opinion about
what qualifies as such.

> I also encouraged him to bring up his problems with  those policies
> and guidelines on the respective talk pages in order  to effect change
> in Wikipedia.

So then he makes his comments on the article's talk page, and after a
week there's no response at all.  Can we blame him for believing that
silence is consent.

> Now I (and he) see a longtime administrator and respected editor
> making a liar out of me, completely ignoring the processes that
> volunteers long before I arrived worked to hammer out in order to
> make this encyclopedia the best it can be.

To have an effective wiki there must be reasonable avenues for
questioning those early process decisions.  Except for a handful of key
principles all decisions and processes should be open for
reconsideration.  This includes many that probably never will be
questioned.  The handful that are beyond question can probably be put on
one screen without ever needing to scroll.

> For the record, I completely agree that this article should not have
> been deleted, as do most people on this list.  But your complete
> disregard for anyone with a differing opinion is astonishing.  How
> much effort did explaining this undeletion and enforcing it require
> with regard to its reward (one article is undeleted that should not
> have been deleted)?  Wouldn't this time have been better spent
> advocating a change in the written policy that led to its deletion,
> so that your work can benefit thousands of similar articles?

Some people feel that it's a more valuable use of time to be working to
improve our encyclopedia  than to engage in endless wrangling over
policy detailsa.

> The user I worked with had very strong views that he had thought out
> quite well, although they were contrary to policy.  He used his
> noggin just fine.  Unfortunately, just using your noggin and ignoring
> the noggins of other people (otherwise known as consensus) is not how
> Wikipedia was built, and it's not how it will be built in the
> future.  You know that as well as I do.

For consensus to be meaningful his ideas need a fair hearing.  That
means that there needs to be some attempt at finding some way to
accomodate the new views that he is introducing.  If that cannot be done
the pre-existing consensus is no longer a consensus.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 1/18/06, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
>
>
>> How
>>much effort did explaining this undeletion and enforcing it require
>>with regard to its reward (one article is undeleted that should not
>>have been deleted)?
>>
>>
>Two articles.  Not much effort as it was obviously a case of bad deletions
>
>
>> Wouldn't this time have been better spent
>>advocating a change in the written policy that led to its deletion,
>>
>>
>No.  Policy is what happens, not what is written down.  The policy in
>this case, which will always be unwritten, is that we don't delete an
>article without a very good reason.
>
Good policy reflects practice, not the other way around.  The policy
becomes a codification of what works.

Ec


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 18 Jan 2006, at 19:46, Stan Shebs wrote:

> Justin Cormack wrote:
>
>>
>> With magazine covers, if we had say downloaded (made up example;
>> I  havent
>> looked into where they came from) the Official Playboy Magazine
>> Cover  website
>> and stuck them all in wikipedia then we would be liable - we would
>> be  taking
>> advertising revenue from their website thus causing damages.
>> Regardless of
>> the amount of important critical commentary we make on them.
>
> In theory yes, in practice the fair-use images are still pretty
> thinly spread over our 900K+ articles. In my cleaning-out work on
> the generic fair-use category I've only seen a handful of articles
> that have more than one or two fair-use images, and they tend to be
> articles on Pokemon characters and the like, where several stubly
> articles have been merged into one (as per a common practice for
> fictional characters).

They are spread by article but not by topic. For example we have
images of (probably) all pokemon characters, but they arent all
in one article.

> Right now I think we're still in the process of figuring out much
> we have and documenting the copyright holders. (The now-deprecated
> category of generic fair-use images still has many thousands of
> images left in it.) Once that's under control, I think we'll be in
> a better position to focus on articles and areas that have excessive
> numbers of copyrighted images. It wouldn't hurt to start a discussion
> in the fair use wikiproject now, since it will likely take a while
> to develop consensus on a good objective standard.

I was very involved in the fair use project until a few months ago
when I realised that there was no hope and "fair use" will destroy
wikipedia. I am now mostly contributing to commons and writing a few
articles. I am still interested (when I get time) in writing tools
to make it easier to fork a free version of wikipedia without fair use
images.

Justinc


body:
On 1/19/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> I was very involved in the fair use project until a few months ago
> when I realised that there was no hope and "fair use" will destroy
> wikipedia. I am now mostly contributing to commons and writing a few
> articles. I am still interested (when I get time) in writing tools
> to make it easier to fork a free version of wikipedia without fair use
> images.
>
> Justinc

With the practice runs we have had from clearing other catigories I
think we could delete every fair use image without too much trouble.

--
geni


subject: [Wikitech-l] Subversion coming

body:
OK, thanks. I was completely confused by the whole damn transition...

Rob Church

On 19/01/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Rob Church wrote:
> > So which do we commit to until then?
>
> CVS.
>
> You know, the one that I *didn't* just say we won't use until it's made usable. :)
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


body:
On 19 Jan 2006, at 00:38, geni wrote:

> On 1/19/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>> I was very involved in the fair use project until a few months ago
>> when I realised that there was no hope and "fair use" will destroy
>> wikipedia. I am now mostly contributing to commons and writing a few
>> articles. I am still interested (when I get time) in writing tools
>> to make it easier to fork a free version of wikipedia without fair
>> use
>> images.
>>
>> Justinc
>
> With the practice runs we have had from clearing other catigories I
> think we could delete every fair use image without too much trouble.

You think so?

Which practice runs?

Justinc


body:
Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:

>Have you read some of the comments on that page's Talk page? They wish
>eventually to entirely abolish [[WP:IAR]] "and expunge its history."
>
That certainly doesn't surprise me.  It certainly is a problem for
people who feel that rules are necessary to make make life livable.

>The idea that "process is important" inherently puts rules and bureaucracy
>above writing an encyclopaedia - and we are here to write an encyclopaedia,
>correct? What [[WP:IAR]] states at its root is a principle that is central
>to Wikipedia - that is to say, that if you're doing what you believe is
>something that will benefit the encyclopaedia, damn the rules and do it
>anyway.
>
As a rule IAR should take second place only to "Assume good faith".

Ec


body:
On 1/19/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:

> You think so?
>
> Which practice runs?
>
> Justinc

With permission images would probably be the largest we have delt with so far.

--
geni


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fairness in voting

body:
On 18/01/06, Liviu Andronic <landronimirc at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > You know what, I think everything one says is a POV.
> >
> > Yes, and on Wikipedia, people try to work together to make it more
> > neutral. However, Pavel was not open to that.
>
> This is why Moldovan Wikipedia ought to be deleted. It can never be a
> *neutral* place. It is from the very start of it a POV. And Pavel, he is
> just one of the Moldovans and Romanians that strongly disagree to its
> existence. He is just showing his feelings more than others.

That's a weird conclusion. If you want to just exprewss your opinions,
that's fine, but if you're trying to actually respond coherently to
somebody else's e-mail, your responses should follow directluy and
logically (or at least demonstrably, if not logically) from the
previous e-mail. Please, read the other messages in this thread.

> > Well, what's the point of keeping mo.,  if it's just like ro. ?
> >
> > Please re-read that paragraph again. It wasn't just like ro.wiki until
> > Pavel moved pages and replaced their contents...
>
> It is not Pavel to be blamed for the similarity of mo.wiki and ro.wiki[...]
> http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random.

Again, are you trying to respond to my e-mail? Your points are all
valid and if you meant to make them independently, I will be happy to
respond to them, but they don't seem to fit as responses to things I
said.

> Furthermore, this mo.wiki is full of errors [...] low-quality content.

Please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

The entire point of a Wikipedia is that anyone may edit it. If you see
an error, FIX IT! Don't just complain that there are so many errors
here, it's so horrible... either do your part and try to fix it, or
stop complaining -- you have no right to complain if you don't try to
help with the problem.

> > Romanians are not foreigners on the Moldovan Wikipedia!
> >
> > Ro.wikipedians are. Romanians who are established mo.wikipedians, like
> > Ronline, are not "foreigners". But most -- Bogdan, AdiJapan, Bonaparte
> > -- are foreigners.
>
> Read the previous messages. Any Romanian is directly concerned by
> mo.wikipedia and has all the right not to be considered as foreigner there.

I would dispute that.

> Now, please take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova#Demographics
> , especially at the correctness of the 2004 census: "About 2004 census".

That page says 0 about languages. Just ethnicities. We are talking
about languages. You and your unionist buddies too often confuse the
two. Don't forget that there are ethnic Moldovans who don't speak the
Moldovan language well, only Russian, and also Ukrainians or Russians
who don't speak Ukrainian or Russian well only Moldovan. You can't
equate language with ethnicity, especially not in modern Moldova.

> First of all this is the the name given by the Moldovan Constitution to the
> Romanian language. I have also found a nice example here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova#Comparison_with_Romanian

I, for one, would debate such a comparison. It was selected out of the
entire two constitutions for just the 3 or 4 lines which are similar.
If you look at constitutions of, say, Portugal and Spain, you can
probably find the same thing.

> Secondly[...]Moldovan.

Whether or not you write in the real Moldovan language is up to you.
In Rep. Moldova, not many people do. It actually seems more common in
Romanian Moldova, where you can find it in poetry and such.
Unfortunately Moldovans seem to use Wallachian writing exclusively
since about 100 years ago.

> Thirdly ... contents are disputed.

Always imposed? In Transnistria, some of the Latin schools were
re-opened. If Moldovans love the Latin alphabet so much, why are some
kids (in fact, the majority) Moldovan in Transnistria still going to
the Cyrillics schools?

> And Node, do you know [...].html

Anittas wrote that absurd paragraph. If you take an actual look at the
chronicles, Ureche never said anything so apparent. Instead, he mostly
said things about a close kin, or mutual understanding, never anything
about them being the same language.

Mark


body:
Justin Cormack wrote:

> I was very involved in the fair use project until a few months ago
> when I realised that there was no hope and "fair use" will destroy
> wikipedia.

I don't think that it's as dramatic as that.

> I am now mostly contributing to commons and writing a few
> articles. I am still interested (when I get time) in writing tools
> to make it easier to fork a free version of wikipedia without fair use
> images.

Of course.  But if the fair use images are properly marked it should be
easy to remove them from the fork.

Ec


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Registering www.wikipedia.se for
	sv.wikipedia.org

body:
I don't think they would if you had it redirect to the Swedish
Wikipedia. Wikipedia is for languages, not countries.

Please see, for example, http://www.wikipedia.ch or
http://www.wikipedia.dk or http://wikimedia.co.uk

Mark

On 18/01/06, Andreas Vil?n <andreas.vilen at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is taking NPOV to the extreme... 99% of all people living in
> Sweden except to get to a site in Swedish when they go to a website
> with the ending .se, probably most Swedish Finns would go to
> www.wikipedia.se (and surely not sv.wikipedia.org) if they wanted to
> find Wikipedia in Swedish, not www.wikipedia.fi. But as I have said
> numerous times, this is another discussion.
>
> The question is: "Is it possible to get Wikimedia to pay for the
> domain name www.wikipedia.se?"
>
> /Andreas
> On 1/18/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > "Andreas Vil?n" <andreas.vilen at gmail.com>
> > wrote in message
> > news:cb099c010601180538p372b1ef3q1d762142d2ab1196 at mail.gmail.com...
> > [snip]
> > > All top domains I search for are redirects to their country's primary
> > > language, I don't see why www.wikipedia.se shouldn't. In fact, since
> > > wikipedia.fi is, that would be pure discrimination. Especially since
> > > Swedish is far more widespread in Finland than Finnish is in Sweden.
> >
> > Maybe they should therefore be updated to provide proper portal
> > facilities...unless there's a chapter in that country in which case surely
> > they ought to be doing something with "their site"?
> > --
> > Phil
> > [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

body:
On 1/18/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > No.  Policy is what happens, not what is written down.  The policy in
> > this case, which will always be unwritten, is that we don't delete an
> > article without a very good reason.
>
> Rather a lot of people wanting to delete it in the proper venue for
> disscussion is a very good reason.

It's not a good reason if it was an article worth having in an encyclopedia.
"A lot of  people" can come to an incorrect conclusion.

Mind you, I don't know if this article was worth it or not.

Garion


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.5.6 and 1.4.14 released

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

MediaWiki 1.5.6 and 1.4.14 are security and bugfix maintenance releases.

A bug in edit comment formatting could send PHP into an infinite loop
if certain malformed links were included. In most installations, this
would cause the script to fail after PHP's 30-second failsafe timeout.

in 1.5.6, some improvements have been made to the installer which should make
installation possible on a system with a broken MySQL "root" account. Some
miscellaneous fixes are also present; see the complete change list at the end of
the release notes, linked below.

1.3.x releases are also vulnerable to the loop bug, but we are no longer
maintaining that branch, and it doesn't work with current versions of PHP. Older
installations probably should consider upgrading for the numerous bug fixes etc.

Release notes:
1.5.6: http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=386609
1.4.14: http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=386608

Download:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.5.6.tar.gz?download
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.4.14.tar.gz?download

MD5 checksums:
adcb318d812af2d2637374a8aadc79c1  mediawiki-1.5.6.tar.gz
5cafd5f6adea43be0fedd64883d50127  mediawiki-1.4.14.tar.gz

SHA-1 checksums:
8e0df360ddf5b267dd2b62e59a24c6921ccd1c43 mediawiki-1.5.6.tar.gz
d3e57bb777a3ec8cc07d97ebf6afa850f3f743ab mediawiki-1.4.14.tar.gz

Before asking for help, try the FAQ:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_FAQ

Low-traffic release announcements mailing list:
(Please subscribe to receive announcements of security updates.)
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce

Wiki admin help mailing list:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

Bug report system:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/

Play "stump the developers" live on IRC:
#mediawiki on irc.freenode.net

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
On 1/19/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Most people use Monobook :)
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax

And they wounder why they have problems. Ok classic does have problems
with a few things (large numbers of catigories and interlang links)
but it has it's advantages.

--
geni


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: how to avoid caching of pages with dynamic content

body:
Thomas Gries wrote:
> Inside an extension module:
> what is the correct way to _disable caching for that specific page_
> (example: dynamic integration of  texts from another source, which might
> change) ?

Rob Church wrote:
> $wgOut->setSquidMaxage( 0 );

Yes, you could do that, or you could use $parser->disableCache() if you actually wanted it to work.
$parser is a Parser object that should be passed as a parameter to Parser-related hooks.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Notability meta-guidelines

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Steve Bennett

> 2) A subject should not appear in Wikipedia when many more
> subjects in its category or field do not. {The insignificance
> principle}

This might simply mean that nobody has gotten around to doing the research
on these others yet, and if we keep on deleting the first one in the series,
there's never going to be more than one at a time.

I wonder how this squares with DG's comments about specialist communities.
Asian Ball-Jointed Sex Toys might have a small but devoted following, with
accredited experts in the field and examples changing hands for thousands of
dollars, but so do houses on streets in outer suburbs of Wagga Wagga.

I'm not entirely sure that Wagga Wagga has inner suburbs, let alone outer,
but I'll let that one ride. I'm not an expert on this, but I know that some
of these streets are worth millions.

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [Wikitech-l] "Out of memory" style error

body:
A user in the #wikipedia IRC channel commented on an error he thought
amusing. Given that Domas and either Brion or Tim (and I think Brion)
were discussing it briefly in #wikimedia-tech, I thought I'd grab the
details. Can't actually get anyone to respond to my pokes right now...

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Japan&oldid=35775401

Error text: Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 52428800 bytes
exhausted (tried to allocate 10597086 bytes) in
/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Parser.php on line 301

Checking the code, that line seems to be in the middle of
Parser::extractTagsAndParams() so gut instinct suggests, to me at
least, that it's a massive chunk of text being handled somewhere, but
that's pure speculation and could well be (and given my recent
cockups, probably is) wrong.

Rob Church


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony DiPierro
>
> And frankly, the rule doesn't make sense to me.  Providing
> someone with information on something when they request it
> isn't advertising.
> Advertising is when you provide someone with information
> other than what they requested.
>
> IOW, if someone does a search for "Bob's Garage Band" and
> they get information on it, how is that advertising?

If the article is categorised, then the band will appear on a listing,
serving the same purpose as (say) an entry in the Yellow Pages.

I don't go looking for a specific woggle tinkerer when my woggle needs
tinkering, but instead I open up the directory, look through the list and
pick the one closest, cheapest, best, fastest, brownest or whatever my
particular need is, and I base my decision on the advertisements placed by
the woggle tinkering firms.

Pete, whose woggle needs no tinkering at the moment, thank you


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Doctored Wikipedia article read out on air by
	conservative talk show host

body:
If the content of that thread is anything to go by, that site is
occupied by some rather disturbed individuals.  People who define
themselves by what, and whom, they hate.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 1/18/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> It's all about building trust.  If a sysop has built a reputation for
> fairness he can "get away" with a lot more.  The community knows that
> his edits do not deviate radically from accepted norms.  He will also
> show himself willing to discuss issues when his decisions are
> questioned, and will be quick to admit when he is wrong.  If he wants to
> take a stand he will choose his issues carefully without feeling
> compelled to maintain an argument about everything.
>
> That just seems like elementary ability to get along with people.
>
> Ec

I think you are mostly right, but with an important tweak.  It really
doesn't matter what the "community" thinks about the admin, so long as
the community of admins (and in most cases, the arbitration committee)
is willing to work with her.

Individual admins do not have very much authority, but as a group the
admins have a great deal of authority.  The role of admins in
Wikipedia has become rather political, and the proportion of admins to
all contributors is small.  Thus adminship has become a big deal.

I suppose the fact that admins themselves tend to rule under a form of
rough consensus mitigates the authority of any single admin even more.
 There seems to be a limit on the number of people, even people who
are highly skilled at getting along with each other, that can reach a
rough consensus on issues, and this particular group of admins seem to
be around that threshold.  Thus the introduction of "wheel warring".
So far the arbitration committee seems unwilling to tackle that one,
and in this case with good reason as it's going to be a difficult
problem to resolve.  Reducing the number of admins (and thus making
them even less representative of the whole community) or modifying the
power structure of Wikipedia in some way are probably the only
solutions, and the arbitration committee doesn't really have the
authority to do either.  It'll probably take a while, but the problem
of wheel warring might very well be one of the next major crises to
hit.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I am reluctant to accept a case which involves one dispute. Everyone
makes mistakes. I would not be reluctant if the dispute was sustained
or or repeated. My take is that letting yourself get caught up in a
wheel war is punishment enough if it is only an occasional event. All
you have is your reputation.

Fred

On Jan 19, 2006, at 4:51 AM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> Thus the introduction of "wheel warring".
> So far the arbitration committee seems unwilling to tackle that one,
> and in this case with good reason as it's going to be a difficult
> problem to resolve.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] 9/11 wikipedia

body:
gediza at gmail.com wrote:

>9-11 wikipedia needs to be moved. I can understand why its usefull and why
>it should be kept. I lost people I know in the incident as well. However it
>is impractical to have a memorial wikipedia in wikipedia/wikimedia namespace
>which is about human knowlege. How people feel about 9/11 is not knowlege.
>
>Anyways vote is avalible at:
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/9/11_wiki_move_proposal
>                          Cool Cat
>
>
A couple of points to note:  There are competing pages at the moment to
decide exactly what to do with the 9/11 Memorial Wiki.  For example,
this page has been moved all over the place from Wikipedia to a VfD page
on Meta and to the Babel pages and more:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sep11wiki/Request for deletion

Which page is more appropriate to deal with this issue?  A notice needs to go to all major Wikimedia projects and turn this into a vote for all Wikimedia users somehow, with a notice on the front page of Meta as well.  This is an issue that has been kicking around for some time and the general concensus is to shut down this project in some manner, but exactly how is yet another story.  I am arguing that some consistant forum needs to be established to get this issue decided once and for all.

--
Robert Scott Horning


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] 9/11 wikipedia


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Firmage's `Universe' needs tweaks

body:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/personal_technology/13651699.htm

"After taking a brief look, I'm convinced that Firmage [founder of
Digital Universe] still lacks a firm grasp of product development. The
site is confusing to access, ponderous to navigate and sloppily put
together."

In my opinion a rather accurate description of the product as
launched.  Note that the encyclopedia portion has not yet been made
available to the public, and that the media (and to some extent even
the Wikipedia article) tends to confuse Digital Universe with the
encyclopedia project.

Poor Larry, he seems to have gotten behind the wrong group.  But who
knows, maybe DU will be able to make a 180 once the encyclopedia
launches.

Anthony


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Notability meta-guidelines

body:
> There is an entry for [[Ray's Pizza]]...

If it's been mentioned on the Simpsons, Seinfeld and Futurama, I suspect
it's more notable than a single fast food shop in Melbourne :)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Notability meta-guidelines

body:
> > So, I think the idea runs like this: "If it happened 1000 years ago
> > and someone still cares enough about it to write an article
> then it's
> > probably notable enough to keep."
> >
>
> Interestingly, people /will/ try and delete something if the
> subject is only 100-200 years old, but it's perfectly
> acceptable to have articles on every X in Y where Y is 1000
> times larger that all other Z, where Y is a member of Z, and
> yet not allowed to have articles on other X's in W, where W
> is also a member of Z, and W is 10000 times smaller than Y...

Interesting. Can anyone else vouch for this? It sounds like another
principle that shapes people's ideas on notability: Articles about older
subjects have more right to appear in Wikipedia than articles about
newer subjects.

Steve


body:
On 1/19/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > I was very involved in the fair use project until a few months ago
> > when I realised that there was no hope and "fair use" will destroy
> > wikipedia. I am now mostly contributing to commons and writing a few
> > articles. I am still interested (when I get time) in writing tools
> > to make it easier to fork a free version of wikipedia without fair use
> > images.
>
> Every other article I write quotes a copyrighted text (=fair use). You
> might have a hard time yanking that out :)
>
> Regards,
> Haukur

Short quotes of text also tend to be the kind of fair dealing which is
broadly accepted by all countries and is essentially indistinguishable
from "not copyrighted".

Fair use, in general, is a whole different beast.

Anthony


body:
On 1/18/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/18/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 1/18/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 1/18/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > > It may or may not vanish, depending whether or not you use the image
> > > > on that user page for educational purposes.
> > >
> > > Please give me one example of where an image (any image) on a userpage
> > > is educational.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Sam
> >
> > Can I give an example of an image that used to be on a userpage, but
> > was deleted?
> >
> > I had on my userpage a photo I took from the top of a lighthouse in
> > New Jersey.  Next to it I had an image I created using Google Earth
> > which attempted to reproduce that photo.  I had a couple of lines of
> > text about how the two were created.
> >
> > That's educational, and it's fair use, and the image was deleted.
>
> That image was deleted because it was being used to make a specific
> challenge to Google's claim of copyright on the image.  It wasn't
> educational, it was civil disobedience.
>
> Kelly

The challenge to Google's claim of copyright on the image (which in
itself was educational) didn't come until the image had already been
up there for months.  In fact, the image itself didn't even include a
claim of copyright by Google, it was from one of the very first
editions of the software when Google didn't yet have the audacity to
make such an obviously specious claim.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Earth copyright (now that you bring it up)

body:
On 1/19/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> The challenge to Google's claim of copyright on the image (which in
> itself was educational) didn't come until the image had already been
> up there for months.  In fact, the image itself didn't even include a
> claim of copyright by Google, it was from one of the very first
> editions of the software when Google didn't yet have the audacity to
> make such an obviously specious claim. (*)
>
> Anthony
>

(*) The image in question was exported from Google Earth (example at
http://www.newrecruit.org/images/blog/googleearth/paris.jpg).  The
compass on the bottom left was not present and neither was the
copyright notice on the bottom right (not because I removed them, but
because Google had not yet added them).  Like the image I presented
there were no 3-D elements.  I think it's clear to anyone with any
knowledge of copyright law that Google has *zero* copyright interest
in such an image.  You don't get copyright on something simply because
it is part of the output of a program you wrote, and all the rest of
the possibly copyrighted features are held by someone else (in the
case of my photo, the state of New Jersey).


subject: [Foundation-l] 9/11 wikipedia

body:
On 1/19/06, gediza at gmail.com <gediza at gmail.com> wrote:
> 9-11 wikipedia needs to be moved. I can understand why its usefull and why
> it should be kept. I lost people I know in the incident as well. However it
> is impractical to have a memorial wikipedia in wikipedia/wikimedia namespace
> which is about human knowlege. How people feel about 9/11 is not knowlege.
>
> Anyways vote is avalible at:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/9/11_wiki_move_proposal
>                           Cool Cat

I certainly wouldn't characterize it as a "move", as Wikimedia has no
control over what Wikicities does.

Has Wikicities even agreed to host the 9/11 wiki?  Have they agreed to
do so without introducing advertisements into it?

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] 9/11 wikipedia


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: mediawiki graphic profiling

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
> I uploaded some random profile image at http://dammit.lt/2006/01/18/
> mediawiki-graphic-profile/, take a look at big picture of some random
> web hit. It shows how inefficient our interwiki handling is, I'm
> trying to rewrite it now.
>
> I'm adding 'KCacheGrind' to a list of my favorite desktop
> applications, besides TextMate ;-)
>
> Domas

Then try profiling the memory usage :o) You will have some surprises!

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


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

body:
> As a rule IAR should take second place only to "Assume good faith".

And "neutral point of view" and "verifiability" and the copyright policy
and "no original research" and "no personal attacks"...

But I'm fine with IAR as it is worded in the simplified ruleset:

"Ignore all rules, including this one. Don't worry! If you just want to
add some useful information to an article in a commonsense way, DO SO. On
the other hand, if someone suggests that there is an established and
sensible way to do something, please ignore this rule and listen to them."

It's when IgnoreAllRules turns into IgnoreAllOtherOpinions when I really
start getting scared.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Patrick, Brad

subject: [Foundation-l] Chris Anderson's manuscript for the Long Tail is done

body:
Chris Anderson (Wired Mag) has finished writing his book, "The Long
Tail".  If you haven't heard of the Long Tail, you should check out his
website.  Wikipedia rates in the top ten things that got his book
finished:

http://www.thelongtail.com/the_long_tail/2006/01/cool_things_tha.html

Chris is a guy I enjoy making happy.

Bradford A. Patrick, Esq.
Fowler White Boggs Banker
501 E. Kennedy Blvd.
Suite 1700
Tampa, FL  33602-5239
(813) 228-7411 main
(813) 222-3336 direct
(813) 229-8313 fax
bpatrick at fowlerwhite.com

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from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] a new category for the living

body:
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Hash: SHA1

charles matthews stated for the record:

> Adding [[Category:Living person]] - is that suppposed to be fact-checked
> or what?  [[Category:No death date]], that would be fine.
>
> Charles

Good point.  I suppose "I shook hands with him this morning" would be
disallowed as original research.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | All life is six-to-five against.
 sean at epoptic.org |
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body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

charles matthews stated for the record:

> Adding [[Category:Living person]] - is that suppposed to be fact-checked
> or what?  [[Category:No death date]], that would be fine.

Quick: provide a citation proving that [[Nancy Reagan]] is still alive.

However, I have it on very good authority that [[Generalissimo Francisco
Franco is still dead]].

- --
 Sean Barrett     | All life is six-to-five against.
 sean at epoptic.org |
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from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> On 1/19/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>> Until the deleted version database gets purged again.
>>
>
> Database dumps should mean that nothing is ever irretrievable.
>
Once upon a time I asked around a bit trying to find such a database, I
was looking for a copy of [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct
disputes archive/Bryan Derksen]] (or [[Wikipedia:Requests for
comment/Bryan Derksen]], for that matter). I hit a dead end. Do you know
where I could find this?

Even if it can be located, though, it's going to be a great deal of
trouble for me to dig out. Database dumps are enormous to download, I
don't have the right software installed at the moment to dig it out,
etc. This makes it far more inaccessible to the average user than even a
normal deleted page, and there won't even be any way to know it was
there in the first place. Deletion really is a bad way to "store" something.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_conduct_disputes_archive/Bryan_Derksen&action=edit>


body:
Carbonite wrote:
> What about implementing a Special page that lists all articles with a
> birth date category, but not a death date category? This would
> effectively be the same as a "Living People" category (after fixing
> articles that mistakenly omit a death category).
>
It'd help locate some of those if the living-person list were sorted by
birth year, everyone over 120 years or so old is probably missing a
death date.


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] 9/11 wikipedia

body:
On 1/19/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Has Wikicities even agreed to host the 9/11 wiki?  Have they agreed to
> do so without introducing advertisements into it?

The entire wiki has degenerated into nothing but a magnet for trolls
and vandals. I can't see any reason for Wikicities to host something
which has never had any community behind it. Marshall Poe from
memorywiki.org expressed some interest in it previously. I expect that
would be a better place for it.

Angela


subject: [Foundation-l] 9/11 wikipedia


body:
> I was very involved in the fair use project until a few months ago
> when I realised that there was no hope and "fair use" will destroy
> wikipedia. I am now mostly contributing to commons and writing a few
> articles. I am still interested (when I get time) in writing tools
> to make it easier to fork a free version of wikipedia without fair use
> images.

Every other article I write quotes a copyrighted text (=fair use). You
might have a hard time yanking that out :)

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 1/19/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I don't know if this is good or not (given we're meant to be an encylopaedia)

Of course it's good. As it says at the bottom of the article, it's an
excellent example of how people have used the history and talk pages
to make informed judgements about the quality and accuracy of the
article they are reading. It's a win for the wiki system.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
John Lee wrote:

> Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:
>
>> When people challenge your
>> ignoring of established process you have to sit down and discuss things
>> with them - not just keep reverting to the version you think is
>> better and
>> say that discussion is a waste of time. This goes even when you think
>> your
>> view is "common sense" or "obviously correct". If it really is, you will
>> be able to convince other Wikipedians of it. Our hobby is building an
>> encyclopedia - many of us are quite reasonable people :)
>>
>> Process is basically a way of facilitating discussion and cooperation in
>> this large collaborative project. That's why some of us think it's
>> important, not for its own sake.
>
> While process should never *ever* get in the way of common sense, once
> people acting in good faith start reverting your actions, it's time
> for process to step in. Process acts as a way to limit the anarchy of
> IAR. It may be evil, but it's very much a necessary evil. Also bear in
> mind that undermining one process often indirectly erodes other
> processes. If an admin wheel wars over the deletion of an article with
> other admins acting in good faith and gets away with it, pretty soon
> new admins will figure, "Why not apply to this to blocking wheel
> wars?" And so on.
>
> Tony has been arguing that the deletion process is borked. That, I
> think we can all agree on, even if we disagree on how it's broken.
> However, that's not licence to wholly ignore it, unless you have no
> respect for the establishment of process at all. If you seek the
> replacement of this borked process by something better, once this goal
> is achieved, your actions in ignoring process will eventually be used
> as an excuse by other admins (no matter how well-meaning) to ignore
> the process you support because in their opinion, it's borked. And if
> you don't seek the replacement of this process, then you're just
> disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point (or no point at all, maybe).

When process must be the basis for a decision it must do the least harm;
it should give the best opportunity for a real resolution.  In
situations where sysops differ process shouold favour keeping in the
general case.  A least harm approach could still favouur deletion in
cases where legal problems such as copyvios, libel or privacy are a
major factor.  When the only issue is notability we are talking abour a
highly subjective concept; that explains why it has been such a
perennial problem.  When undeletion depends almost completely on whether
the deletion process was followed correctly rather than on content it's
clear that process has become overly dominant.

John's argument is like that of any other politicians who like things
the way they are.  I don't think that Tony is wholly ignoring the
process; it's more like civil disobedience.  Civil disobedience is a
perfectly acceptable way of opposing unjust laws.  I realize that the
sophistry in John's arguments is more subtle than that.  He doesn't
complain of disrespect of the process, but of disrespect of the
establishment.  An establishment needs to repeatedly earn respect, or
expect to be challenged.  There is also a black and white aspect to how
John views process; it's either the way it is, or some completely
different proces from what now exists.  In that view, just as the
current process is something to be defended so too the hypothetical
different process becomes a goal that would need defending if it were to
succeed.  So, yes, others will ignore that new process just as much as
they are ignoring the present process; that's a good thing.

Dealing with a single article should not need to involve a person in a
broad unending discussion of general process.  If a person feels that a
particular corporation is notable, that needs to be discussed on its own
merits.  Falling back on general process ignores the fact that the
financial pages form a larger part of daily newspapers than comic strips.

Ec


body:
Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:

>>I was very involved in the fair use project until a few months ago
>>when I realised that there was no hope and "fair use" will destroy
>>wikipedia. I am now mostly contributing to commons and writing a few
>>articles. I am still interested (when I get time) in writing tools
>>to make it easier to fork a free version of wikipedia without fair use
>>images.
>>
>>
>Every other article I write quotes a copyrighted text (=fair use). You
>might have a hard time yanking that out :)
>
It's remarkable that many of these discussions about fair use too often
tend to reduce the scope of the discussion to fair use images.

Ec


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
Hello

I am writing this to announce the creation of a new category on Wikipedia-English: [[Category:Living people]]. The category should include the articles of all people who are still alive.

Before getting into arguments about the scope of this category, I would like to take a moment to explain its importance.

With our ever-increasing prominence, it is becoming more and more likely that questionable, unsourced information may sneak into articles, despite all of our goodwill and vigilance. Flagging all articles pertaining to living people will mean that our editors can keep a closer watch on these articles, check new articles more closely as they are created, and help to avoid potential problems.

This is not the ultimate solution. It is, however, one step toward a working solution to ensure that our materials are adequately referenced and NPOV and to avoid potential conflicts with the subjects of these articles.

Please keep this Category in mind when creating new articles and when reviewing existing articles.

Thanks

Danny


body:
Justin Cormack wrote:

> On 19 Jan 2006, at 10:12, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:
>
>>> I was very involved in the fair use project until a few months ago
>>> when I realised that there was no hope and "fair use" will destroy
>>> wikipedia. I am now mostly contributing to commons and writing a few
>>> articles. I am still interested (when I get time) in writing tools
>>> to make it easier to fork a free version of wikipedia without fair  use
>>> images.
>>
>> Every other article I write quotes a copyrighted text (=fair use). You
>> might have a hard time yanking that out :)
>
> I have no problem with fair use of text in wikipedia.
>
> Fair use of images is just a morass of copyright violation. In theory
> it would be ok to allow some, but clearly that cant happen until we
> get rid of all the rubbish claimed as "fair use" now, none of which
> is.

I at least have no problem in agreeing that there is a big difference
between fair use and many claims of fair use.  Perhaps we just need a
clearer way to distinguish between the two.

Ec


from_name: Carbonite

body:
On 1/19/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
> I am writing this to announce the creation of a new category on Wikipedia-English: [[Category:Living people]]. The category should include the articles of all people who are still alive.
>
> Before getting into arguments about the scope of this category, I would like to take a moment to explain its importance.
>
> With our ever-increasing prominence, it is becoming more and more likely that questionable, unsourced information may sneak into articles, despite all of our goodwill and vigilance. Flagging all articles pertaining to living people will mean that our editors can keep a closer watch on these articles, check new articles more closely as they are created, and help to avoid potential problems.
>
> This is not the ultimate solution. It is, however, one step toward a working solution to ensure that our materials are adequately referenced and NPOV and to avoid potential conflicts with the subjects of these articles.
>
> Please keep this Category in mind when creating new articles and when reviewing existing articles.

What about implementing a Special page that lists all articles with a
birth date category, but not a death date category? This would
effectively be the same as a "Living People" category (after fixing
articles that mistakenly omit a death category).

Carbonite


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Registering www.wikipedia.se
	forsv.wikipedia.org

body:
"Mark Williamson" <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:849f98ed0601190006r61ddd914g at mail.gmail.com...
[snip]
> Please see, for example,  http://wikimedia.co.uk

As opposed to http://wikipedia.co.uk which redirects to :en:

...

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Notability meta-guidelines

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Steve Bennett
>
> > >Thus we can say, "come back when c, b and a have been fulfilled to
> > some extent".
> >
> >
> > To which the obvious answer is "there is no reason not to start
> > *here*."
>
> My thinking was that following the "insignificance principle"
> (see my correction to the typo) could help follow the "vanity
> principle". Simple
> example: imagine that there are 11 articles about businesses
> in Wikipedia. 10 are fortune 500's. The 11th one is Bill's
> Fish & Chips [1].
>
> [1] An actual fast food shop.

There is an entry for [[Ray's Pizza]]...


subject: [Wikipedia-l] "adminship is no big deal"

body:
If the Supreme Court accepted to hear all cases that were submitted to
them they would never get through all the work.  Not only that, but yet
others would be encouraged to submit even more cases.

Ec

Fred Bauder wrote:

> I am reluctant to accept a case which involves one dispute. Everyone
> makes mistakes. I would not be reluctant if the dispute was sustained
> or or repeated. My take is that letting yourself get caught up in a
> wheel war is punishment enough if it is only an occasional event. All
> you have is your reputation.
>
> On Jan 19, 2006, at 4:51 AM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>> Thus the introduction of "wheel warring".
>> So far the arbitration committee seems unwilling to tackle that one,
>> and in this case with good reason as it's going to be a difficult
>> problem to resolve.
>


from_name: Domas Mituzas

body:
Hashar,

> Then try profiling the memory usage :o) You will have some surprises!

Will do - milliseconds first, memory later! :) I'm still learning how
to efficiently use that tool. Obviously, 12" screen is not designed
for that (need new workstation, eh).

Domas


from_name: Poe, Marshall

subject: [Foundation-l] 9/11 wikipedia

body:
After a discussion on this list several months ago (two?), we
re-published all the *memoirs* from 9/11 wiki on MemoryWiki (we left the
rest of the content alone as it didn't really fit our site's purpose).
You can see them (among other 9/11 memoirs) at
http://www.memorywiki.org/en/Category:9/11.  Each memoir we re-published
points back to Wikipedia.  We don't have advertising and are non-profit.

Best, Marshall Poe
MemoryWiki

Marshall Poe, Ph.D.
The Atlantic Monthly
600 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-266-6511
mpoe at theatlantic.com
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Angela
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 10:12 AM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 9/11 wikipedia

On 1/19/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Has Wikicities even agreed to host the 9/11 wiki?  Have they agreed to

> do so without introducing advertisements into it?

The entire wiki has degenerated into nothing but a magnet for trolls and
vandals. I can't see any reason for Wikicities to host something which
has never had any community behind it. Marshall Poe from memorywiki.org
expressed some interest in it previously. I expect that would be a
better place for it.

Angela
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] 9/11 wikipedia


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 19 Jan 2006, at 10:12, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:

>> I was very involved in the fair use project until a few months ago
>> when I realised that there was no hope and "fair use" will destroy
>> wikipedia. I am now mostly contributing to commons and writing a few
>> articles. I am still interested (when I get time) in writing tools
>> to make it easier to fork a free version of wikipedia without fair
>> use
>> images.
>
> Every other article I write quotes a copyrighted text (=fair use). You
> might have a hard time yanking that out :)

I have no problem with fair use of text in wikipedia.

Fair use of images is just a morass of copyright violation. In theory
it would be ok to allow some, but clearly that cant happen until we
get rid of all the rubbish claimed as "fair use" now, none of which
is.

Justinc


from_name: Tony Bowden

subject: [Wikitech-l] Installation specific tags in <head>?

body:
On several mediawiki installations I run I have added the Google Analytics
code to the <head> of each page. I couldn't find any way to do this other
than directly inserting it into the code for includes/OutputPage.php
The code in question is to load an external .js file from Google's
servers, and then call a method on it.

Question 1: Is there some alternative to modifying this file that I've
missed? I know that there's the option for user-specific javascript, but
I'm looking for something similar, where I can edit a page to change the
JavaScript used by everyone.

Question 2: Assuming not, what would the consensus be on providing some
way of doing this? On one of my installations I forgot to re-modify this
file after an update, and lost a week's worth of tracking data. I'd
really like to find a way to factor this out so that I don't do that
again. I also suspect that other people would like this facility -
either for adding the Google code, or for other reasons.

My knowledge of the internals isn't good enough to do this myself yet,
but if it's deemed useful I'm willing to have a go at it if people could
give me a few pointers.

Thanks,

Tony


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of horizontal rules

body:
geni wrote:
> On 1/18/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>I use the Classic skin myself; it was the standard when I first joined.
>>It does not impose a full-width horizontal line after a level 2
>>heading.  In Wiktionary we decided long ago to use a horizintal line
>>between languages, with the language names as level 2 headings.  This
>>has led to periodic complaints from those who use Monobook and end up
>>with horizontal lines both above and below the language name.
>>
>>I appreciate the intent of allowing Monobook to be modified bu users,
>>but that does not do much good for those of us who may be interested in
>>content, but have limited experience or understanding about amending css
>>files.  To the extent that they might want to do so, if users are going
>>to be able to modify their skins that should apply to all skins.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>
>
>
> You can modify any skin but for the most part people don't modify
> classic since it is pretty much perfect.
>
>

Most people use Monobook :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Notability meta-guidelines

body:
> Hence, popular but very local music groups get turfed. And
> inconsequential beetles get kept.

You mean we should keep [[Bob's locally popular garage band]] and delete
[[Ringo Starr]]? :)

Regards,
Haukur


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Doctored Wikipedia article read out on air
	by	conservative talk show host

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Interesting allegation. Supposedly the scenario is that some political
> extremist edited a Wikipedia page about the Center for Constitutional
> Rights so as to contain slanted editorial from a political website
> opposed to that organisation, then he or another person later read out
> on air, word for word, the contents of the resulting article, preceded
> by the words "This is according to the Wikipedia free encyclopedia on
> the Web. OK? I didn't make this up."
>
> http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1137542140
>
> The edit is there, and there is a link to a political blog site
> purporting to contain a sound recording from the broadcast.
>

I presume you have deleted the revision(s) in question and indefinately
blocked the SOB for libel, slander and trolling?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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body:
geni wrote:
> On 1/18/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Interesting allegation. Supposedly the scenario is that some political
>>extremist edited a Wikipedia page about the Center for Constitutional
>>Rights so as to contain slanted editorial from a political website
>>opposed to that organisation, then he or another person later read out
>>on air, word for word, the contents of the resulting article, preceded
>>by the words "This is according to the Wikipedia free encyclopedia on
>>the Web. OK? I didn't make this up."
>>
>>http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1137542140
>>
>>The edit is there, and there is a link to a political blog site
>>purporting to contain a sound recording from the broadcast.
>
>
> Don't worry his supporters still think we are left leaning:
>
> http://www.marklevinfan.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=519.
>

When you are extreme right, everything else is left by comparison.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD courtesy problem

body:
On 1/19/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Until the deleted version database gets purged again.

Database dumps should mean that nothing is ever irretrievable.

--
Sam


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] categories as tags

body:
Steve Block wrote:
> I hope this is the right place to ask this, but basically I was
> wondering if I could get a developer's opinion on whether it would be
> possible to have the category system work more like the tagging systems
> used by del.icio.us or flickr.

Our categories are tags, just like those. If you want to propose something new
about how they're _used_, you might want to be more specific. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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