from_name: Conrad Irwin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Inline Wiktionary links

body:
Dear All,

When an obscure term is used in a body of text that has no Wikipedia article
associated with it, the author of the article, at the moment, has to include
the meaning of the word in the article itself. Would it not make sense to
have a way of quickly making links to look up a word in Wiktionary,
something like {{define|miscellany}}.

Conrad


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Back to basics

body:
Hoi,
If these are the basics, we have to make it work. When we have money we
can pay translators to translate into languages where we do not have
content yet. The notion that we only need the money to have our current
operational needs serviced does therefore not suffice. If anything, if
the dream is to have all knowledge in all languages, we need much more
money.
Thanks,
     GerardM

Teun Spaans schreef:
> Indeed this is the old dream: all knowledge in all languages.
>
> On 1/2/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>> On 1/2/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>> With all the commotion, with the departures over the sitenotice, with the
>>> infighting on various projects (and between various projects), with the bitter
>>> debates over image policy, I thought it may be a good idea to go back to the
>>> very root of all the Wikimedia projects. It is a simple statement, but what
>>> it says--and doesn't say--summarized the very essence of what we are  doing.
>>>
>>> "Imagine a world in which every single human being can  freely share in the
>>> sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."
>>>
>>>
>> That statement is "the very root of all the Wikimedia projects"?  When
>> was that decided?
>>
>> Anthony


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Back to basics


from_name: Teun Spaans

subject: [Foundation-l] Back to basics

body:
All contributions have always been by volunteers.

There has been some discussion about hiring paid contributors, at
least I have seen a questionaire on it somewhere.

I wouldnt support paid translators, the success of volunteer work
encourages us to go on along this path.

teun

On 1/2/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> If these are the basics, we have to make it work. When we have money we
> can pay translators to translate into languages where we do not have
> content yet. The notion that we only need the money to have our current
> operational needs serviced does therefore not suffice. If anything, if
> the dream is to have all knowledge in all languages, we need much more
> money.
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
>
> Teun Spaans schreef:
> > Indeed this is the old dream: all knowledge in all languages.
> >
> > On 1/2/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> >> On 1/2/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> With all the commotion, with the departures over the sitenotice, with the
> >>> infighting on various projects (and between various projects), with the bitter
> >>> debates over image policy, I thought it may be a good idea to go back to the
> >>> very root of all the Wikimedia projects. It is a simple statement, but what
> >>> it says--and doesn't say--summarized the very essence of what we are  doing.
> >>>
> >>> "Imagine a world in which every single human being can  freely share in the
> >>> sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."
> >>>
> >>>
> >> That statement is "the very root of all the Wikimedia projects"?  When
> >> was that decided?
> >>
> >> Anthony
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Back to basics


subject: [Foundation-l] Donation of DVDs to Wikimedia Foundation Projects

body:
If there is handwriting on a blackboard or such, image quality needs
to be sufficient to read it.

On 1/2/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> Bryan Tong Minh wrote:
>
> >If the files were to be converted to ogg theora (which they should;
> >mpeg2 isn't free, neither in speech nor beer), they would take
> >approximately 500 MB per hour. (rough estimation). So how many dvd's
> >are we talking about?
> >
> >Bryan
> >
> >
> >
> This appears to be the taped lectures of an enitre university-level
> calculus course.  It could be as much as about 200 hours of instruction
> or more (if it is a full year's worth of lectures).  I'm guessing even
> with some significant compression, this would still be more than a dozen
> DVDs.
>
> Of course that would be multiple files in theory, if you could have each
> lecture as a seperate file, but that would be just for convience to get
> this accomplished.
>
> On the positive side, since it is just a lecture the audio might need to
> be good, but the video doesn't need to be the absolutely highest quality
> and could be reduced in size to reduce space/bandwidth.
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

subject: [Wikitech-l] Parsing top 10 "wanted pages" onto front page.

body:
On 1/2/07, Emanuel Nordrum <solers at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm just getting aquainted with MediaWiki, so I appologize if I'm
> making a silly question, but:
>
> How can I automate posting the top 10 entries from Special:Wantedpages
> in a table on my main page?
>
> You can have a look at http://www.hackwurld.com/gwwiki to see what I
> have in place right now. I'd like the same thing, but with the (12
> links) entry and automated so that I don't have to update the front
> page to keep it up to date.
>
> Thanks,
> Emanuel
> --
> "The best journalism is the first draft of history."
> - John Pilger
>
> http://www.xanga.com/legba
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

Try {{Special:Wantedpages/10}}.


from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] Back to basics

body:
Hoi,
There have been paid contributions, contributions nothing to do with
whatever questionnaire. The notion that all contributions were done by
volunteers is incorrect. I would even say that both the quality and the
quantity of the content can be improved by having professionals contribute
to our content.

I know of several specialists are working on their topic because they HATE
to see the nonsense that existed on the topic that they know best. So if
anything I respectfully disagree with your notions.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 1/2/07, Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> All contributions have always been by volunteers.
>
> There has been some discussion about hiring paid contributors, at
> least I have seen a questionaire on it somewhere.
>
> I wouldnt support paid translators, the success of volunteer work
> encourages us to go on along this path.
>
> teun
>
> On 1/2/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > If these are the basics, we have to make it work. When we have money we
> > can pay translators to translate into languages where we do not have
> > content yet. The notion that we only need the money to have our current
> > operational needs serviced does therefore not suffice. If anything, if
> > the dream is to have all knowledge in all languages, we need much more
> > money.
> > Thanks,
> >      GerardM
> >
> >
> > Teun Spaans schreef:
> > > Indeed this is the old dream: all knowledge in all languages.
> > >
> > > On 1/2/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > >
> > >> On 1/2/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> With all the commotion, with the departures over the sitenotice,
> with the
> > >>> infighting on various projects (and between various projects), with
> the bitter
> > >>> debates over image policy, I thought it may be a good idea to go
> back to the
> > >>> very root of all the Wikimedia projects. It is a simple statement,
> but what
> > >>> it says--and doesn't say--summarized the very essence of what we
> are  doing.
> > >>>
> > >>> "Imagine a world in which every single human being can  freely share
> in the
> > >>> sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >> That statement is "the very root of all the Wikimedia
> projects"?  When
> > >> was that decided?
> > >>
> > >> Anthony
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Back to basics


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] [Wmfcc-l] News flash: WMF is a
	charity!

body:
On 02/01/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Not having followed this thread carefully, I didn't notice a little
> problem before.
>
> The phrase "nonprofit charity" is weird.  All charities are non-profits,
> but not all non-profits are charities.  Charities are a subset of
> non-profits, but the wording suggests the contrary.  "Charitable
> non-profit" would be more correct, even if it does sound a little awkward.
>
> Perhaps rewording the clause to "a non-profit organisation registered as
> a US ax-deductible 501(c)(3) charity." would avoid that problem.

Yeah, I don't think "charitable non-profit" sounds very good. To the
reader who isn't that familiar with charity law, charitable non-profit
sounds like an organisation that is charitable [as a comparison,
McDonald's giving $15 to a school  - charitable corporation] rather
than a charity proper.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 02/01/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> The phrase "nonprofit charity" is weird.  All charities are non-profits,
> but not all non-profits are charities.  Charities are a subset of
> non-profits, but the wording suggests the contrary.  "Charitable
> non-profit" would be more correct, even if it does sound a little awkward.
> Perhaps rewording the clause to "a non-profit organisation registered as
> a US ax-deductible 501(c)(3) charity." would avoid that problem.

I believe we have a lawyer on staff. Brad?

- d.


body:
On 02/01/07, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bittorrent has some very major problems with firewalls and proxies.

I suggest BitTorrent be the primary protocal for files over, say, 200
MB but alternative protocals should be presented. Perhaps on the
description page the user could follow a link "Having problems with
BitTorrent?" and from there there would be a BitTorrent link.

Can anyone propose alternate protocols?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 02/01/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 02/01/07, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Bittorrent has some very major problems with firewalls and proxies.

> I suggest BitTorrent be the primary protocal for files over, say, 200
> MB but alternative protocals should be presented. Perhaps on the
> description page the user could follow a link "Having problems with
> BitTorrent?" and from there there would be a BitTorrent link.

That's perfect :-)

> Can anyone propose alternate protocols?

HTTP or FTP is fine unless someone has other ideas as well.

- d.


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] Illegal IP blocking on the Dutch wikipedia

body:
Walter van Kalken schreef:
> Wanting to edit on the nl.wikipedia I found my IP blocked. All of the
> IP's of my Thai internet provider are blocked it seems. So I cannot edit
> nl.wikipedia!
>
> On nl: user RonaldB has a private project of AUTOBLOCKING all open
> proxies. All Thai providers use open proxies. So now I am blocked and
> cannot log in. RonaldB never got agreement on nl: for this nor is this a
> wikimedia policy to stop all users in Thailand from editing. Still
>
> I AM FUCKING BLOCKED AGAIN.
>
> Waerth

I do not think there is any other wikipedia where it so easy to ask for
help like on the NL Wikipedia if you have problem like this.

- you can ask help on IRC
- you can contact wikipedia NL by email private (since end of 2002!).
Emails are mostly answerd in a couple of hours
- you can contact the blocking admin directly by private email
- you can use WikiNL-l

That are all means of contact you know exist.

Every time you get angry about anything you come and complain here on
this off topic list regarding you local NL-problems. That is very annoying.

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


body:
On 03/01/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 02/01/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I suggest BitTorrent be the primary protocal for files over, say, 200
> > MB but alternative protocals should be presented. Perhaps on the
> > description page the user could follow a link "Having problems with
> > BitTorrent?" and from there there would be a BitTorrent link.
>
>
> That's perfect :-)

Haha, you discern what I meant. For the record, I inteded to write:
"Perhaps on the description page the user could follow a link "Having
problems with BitTorrent?" and from there there would be a HTTP
link.".
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 03/01/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 03/01/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 02/01/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:

> > > I suggest BitTorrent be the primary protocal for files over, say, 200
> > > MB but alternative protocals should be presented. Perhaps on the
> > > description page the user could follow a link "Having problems with
> > > BitTorrent?" and from there there would be a BitTorrent link.

> > That's perfect :-)

> Haha, you discern what I meant. For the record, I inteded to write:
> "Perhaps on the description page the user could follow a link "Having
> problems with BitTorrent?" and from there there would be a HTTP
> link.".

Yep. Only offer HTTP if they click on that link. Until we're sure our
setup can handle it.

Handling one bit of huge high-quality DVD video would attract more
right away. This might be painful in the short run, but is precisely
what we really want in the long run.

- d.


body:
On 03/01/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Can anyone propose alternate protocols?
>
> HTTP
>
> Lets save the fancy bandwidth savings gymnastics for when there is a
> measurable bandwidth issue.
>
> The files at download.wikimedia.org haven't killed us yet, nor will a few DVDs.

I'm sure it won't, just thinking about the future.

Another idea: presenting users with low-quality, highly-compressed
(possibly embedded) videos which would hopefully suffice for most
users while also providing a link to the full quality video...

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Johan Bos

body:
This WAS communicated to Waerth. There were only 35 minutes between his last
edit before he got blocked and his first edit after being unblocked. This
shows how quick problems can be solved, even if you are really not polite
and calm.

Johan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerard Meijssen" <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>
To: <oscarvandillen at wikimedia.org>; "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 9:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Illegal IP blocking on the Dutch wikipedia

> Hoi,
> Do I understand correctly that this was not communicated to Walter ..
> This would thereby demonstrate that it did not function effectively ??
> Thanks,
>    GerardM
>
> oscar schreef:
>> On 1/1/07, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>> ps the case of thailand and waerth specifically is now being discussed
>>>> at
>>>> the dutch list, and i do hope we find a solution soon
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Which Dutch list? This should be a public discussion.
>>>
>>> Waerth
>>>
>>>
>>
>> no, it was not public, because deblocking you, which has been done
>> succesfully already some days ago by now, was done with information on
>> the
>> ip's you use. this i consider to be private conforming to the policies.
>>
>> best,
>> oscar
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 1/1/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> I guess this is also a political issue in the sense of wheither the WMF
> wants to get into the business of hosting DVD-video length content on
> its servers.

None of the files I've uploaded so far have been even near this size.
Now, it seems clear to me that the Wikimedia Foundation wants to be
and should be a vector for useful educational content coming online.
Whether we should host it directly, host it using BitTorrent, or host
it in collaboration with an external partner is up to debate. Having a
serious offer of useful content helps to force the issue, so I
encourage you to take the lead in receiving this content and sending a
first evaluation to this very list.

My take is that we should collaborate with the Internet Archive on
hosting files above 100 MB, though we should still provide metadata
for the files as well.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


list: wikien-l

from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Oldak Quill" <oldakquill@gmail.com>

body:
On Wed, 03 Jan 2007 10:34:04 +1030, "Alphax \(Wikipedia email\)"
<alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

>Switches and lights? Magnets and compass needles...

Magnets?  You had magnets?  We used to *dream* of magnets! ....

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> Magnets?  You had magnets?  We used to *dream* of magnets! ....

Dreams? You had dreams? We used to... er... nope, I've got nothing.


body:
On 1/3/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Because of their apparently non-proactive approach with copyright and
> use of proprietary formats, they may at some point in the future
> become a highly discouraged external link target on English Wikipedia
> much like YouTube is today.

Of course video files hosted there for Wikimedia would have to be made
available in Ogg Theora. Building this bridge would be a good starting
point for opening the discussion about proprietary vs. free formats in
other contexts, and collaborating on making free formats more
widespread.

> If the simple hosting some large
> static files is outside of out domain of expertise

As far as I can tell, it's not a matter of expertise, but of cost. The
cost of hosting this single file would be negligible, but if, by doing
so, we expand our criteria of inclusion to cover similar video
lectures and educational materials, we need to carefully consider if
we want to do so alone. I do believe we need to start collaborating
with other organizations, especially in the fields of education and
archiving, even if they do not follow a blueprint of our ideology --
after all, no good missionary preaches only to the converted.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: howard chen

subject:
[WikiEN-l] What are the strategies to defense DDOS or crazy robots
	for wikipedia?

body:
Hello,

Can share something abt in these area?

Thanks.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] alternatives

body:
Teun Spaans wrote:
> On 1/2/07, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Teun Spaans wrote:
>>
>>>A number of people answered this call. A summary of ideas from the dutch pub:
>>>* save money on bandwith by symplfying html. - however, I checked and
>>>html seems already pretty lean.
>>>* Save discspace by deleting older versions of articles - probably
>>>contradicts GFDL.
>>>* Make lists of charities. Foundation board is probably already doing this.
>>
>>** I remember seeing such a list from Danny. But yes, that's something
>>we should work on.
>>
>>
>>>* There were a number of people who suggested running selected commercial ads.
>>>* Distributed storage - technically probably not yet feasible
>>>* Grid computing
>>>* Publish thematical information as commercial books
>>
>>** legal risk associated with publishing (same for dvd below), but we
>>can have others publish or sell them, and get royalties. Hopefully, a
>>deal will soon be signed up on this matter, which I hope we can generalized.
>>
>>
>>>* Sell dvds, either whole encyclopedia or thematical
>>>* Make deals with clones or block them
>>
>>There are a handful of such deals. Just a handful.
>
>
> Perhaps we can approach the others?

Absolutely !
Our general approach until now has been not to bug the sites which are
obviously "non profit" type, dedicated to education.
As for the obvious mirrors-for-money, yeah, we can approach them and
propose them a datafeed.

A template for such suggestion has been done a few months ago. It is
useable on OTRS. Do you have access to OTRS ? If not, OTRS members can
certainly provide you the template. It would be great someone (a
community volunteer) take the time to contact all "big" languages and
try to identify lists of major commercial mirrors. Maybe coordinate
contact of these mirrors and to suggest them datafeeds.
If there is a no, contact the developers to get these mirrors blocked.
The Foundation does have a template contract to propose afterwards, so
this will be easy to handle (a bit of Brad or Danny time though).
The datafeed must get activated, which requires more or less work.
Usually done by Brion (slows down other features development, nothing
perfect).

But yes, feasible.
Mostly need coordinators in the biggest languages. Web hunting to
identify major commercial mirrors. Then contacting them. Foundation can
take in charge administrative and technical follow up.

Ant

>>>* Same for news agencies
>>
>>Not sure I see how it would bring money. How so ?
>
> I'll ask the user who posted this. David Gerard is probably right that
> wikinews has to pick up   a bit more before this will work.
>
>
>>>* Make bio info available for pda's. A lot easier to carry around than
>>>field guides
>>
>>Same question. Making it available only against a payment ?
>
> If it requires a special format, we might consider that.
>
>
>>>* Asks subsidies from UN, EU and individual states.
>>
>>Some expressed concerns with regards to independance. Limitations on
>>this very topic is mostly lack of human resources to make the requests.
>>Volunteers welcome.
>
> I admit that these concerns are much more legitimate than when we have
> a broad array of companies which advertise.
>
>>>* Be more selective in accepting articles
>>>* Much of what we have is fancruft, and it seems fairly popular. Move
>>>all fanstuff to a separate project, outside wikipedia. Call if
>>>fanpedia or something. Let this project be more liberal in its
>>>acceptance of media, and let this project accept advertisements. This
>>>could probably support all wiki projects.
>>>* If images cost to much bandwidth, put a limit of 3 images / article.
>>
>>I cant estimate the interest of technical suggestions.
>>thanks for the feedback
>
> Neither can I. But in the dutch pub I can ask the user who suggested
> there was opensource software for grid compunting, if Brion thinks it
> may be interesting.
>
> Thank you for listening and commenting. I'll post a translation in the
> appropriate thread in the pub of the Dutch wiki.
>
> teun
>
>
>>ant
>>
>>
>>>teun
>>>
>>>On 12/29/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Old Chinese proverb:
>>>>
>>>>"... no matter how loud the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it ..."
>>>>
>>>>mountain = foundation
>>>>wind = people whining.
>>>>
>>>>:-)
>>>>
>>>>Jeff
>>>>
>>>>effe iets anders wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>>Lots of people are yelling and shouting that the current vision and policy
>>>>>of the foundation is totally wrong. I would like to invite all these people
>>>>>and others to think about alternatives. We won't get rid of these ugly
>>>>>things (everybody agrees upon that, i guess) in the sitenotice without any
>>>>>serious alternatives. I already asked this in the Dutch Village Pump, I hope
>>>>>you will bring the question back to all your communities, to the places
>>>>>where is discussed about the sitenotice. I have myself troubles to come up
>>>>>with serious alternatives, so I hope you guys have one. And when you have
>>>>>one, then you can ideed start a discussion about which solution is better. I
>>>>>look forward to your ideas, and please keep the discussion about how bad the
>>>>>current solution is for other threads.
>>>>>
>>>>>Lodewijk / Eia
>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>


subject: [Foundation-l] alternatives


body:
On 03/01/07, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah, it held nothing!!!

Unlike the [[water integrator]] I used to edit Wikipedia from.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] [Wmfcc-l] News flash: WMF is
	a	charity!

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:

>On 02/01/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Not having followed this thread carefully, I didn't notice a little
>>problem before.
>>
>>The phrase "nonprofit charity" is weird.  All charities are non-profits,
>>but not all non-profits are charities.  Charities are a subset of
>>non-profits, but the wording suggests the contrary.  "Charitable
>>non-profit" would be more correct, even if it does sound a little awkward.
>>
>>Perhaps rewording the clause to "a non-profit organisation registered as
>>a US tax-deductible 501(c)(3) charity." would avoid that problem.
>>
>>
>Yeah, I don't think "charitable non-profit" sounds very good. To the
>reader who isn't that familiar with charity law, charitable non-profit
>sounds like an organisation that is charitable [as a comparison,
>McDonald's giving $15 to a school  - charitable corporation] rather
>than a charity proper.
>
Good point. Thanks.

Ec


list: commons-l

from_name: jfulrich at mailaka.net

body:
I agree.

                Laleena

---- Original Message ----
From: bastique at bellsouth.net
To: commons-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Anglo-Saxonisation of the commons
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 21:16:03 -0500

>It must have been a mental infarction.  Galleries are done using
>native
>language and redirects.  Categories have generally been done in
>English.
>
>~~~~ (Cary)
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: commons-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
>> [mailto:commons-l-bounces at wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of Brianna
>Laugher
>> Sent: Monday, January 01, 2007 7:43 PM
>> To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List
>> Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Anglo-Saxonisation of the commons
>>
>>
>> On 02/01/07, Cary Bass <bastique at bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> > I am fairly certain that the policy on Commons is that cities and
>other
>> > localities are in the native language.  Therefore M?nchen and
>Praha are
>> > absolutely correct and the categories must be fixed.
>>
>> No...
>> did you ever notice [[category:??]] ? (or even worse, maybe
>> [[category:transport in ??]]?)
>>
>> Nobody likes enforcing English-only categories to further
>Anglo-saxon
>> supremism or the like, but until we have proper category
>redirects...
>>
>> regards,
>> Brianna
>> user:pfctdayelise
>> _______________________________________________
>> Commons-l mailing list
>> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>>
>> --
>> No virus found in this incoming message.
>> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>> Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.16.2/613 - Release Date:
>> 1/1/2007 2:50 PM
>>
>--
>No virus found in this outgoing message.
>Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.16.2/613 - Release Date:
>1/1/2007
>2:50 PM
>
>_______________________________________________
>Commons-l mailing list
>Commons-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l


subject: [Commons-l] English Wikipedia

body:
Any issues on Wikipedia that need correcting?

                             LaleenaWiki


body:
On 1/3/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> If Internet archive is paying substantially less for bandwidth than we
> do, then we're doing something wrong.

It's possible that we are doing something wrong. We should find out.
;-) But aside from whatever they are paying, they have other sources
of funding than we do.

> The same argument could be equally applied to our hosting of images.
> Image account for something on the order of 40% of our bandwidth usage
> today. I do not see why we should consider offloading moving images to
> another organization when we're not doing the same with still images.

The strength of wiki is not the power to raise enough funds to host
large files. In fact, we're still pretty bad at fundraising. The
strength of wiki is to collaborate, to _edit_ content and derive new
works. The strength of the Internet Archive is to _preserve_ and make
available existing works. If we want both our non-profits to evolve
towards their natural strengths, it seems logical to me to try to
figure out ways for us to do less hosting and more collaborating.

In the case of pictures, hosting them makes collaboration a lot easier
when they get changed and overwritten. We need to generate thumbnails,
and be sure that they get served quickly when we need them. To start
with, we don't necessarily need to be able to stream videos in real
time (especially the really big ones), so they are a lot more suitable
for being offloaded to others.

We're also not talking about offloading something we're already doing.
We do not, to my knowledge, presently host any video file above 100
MB. There is an existing non-profit which hosts thousands such files,
many of them falling within the scope of content we typically cover.
Should we mirror all those files, just to prove that we can? I don't
think so. Should we expand our scope to cover such files? Only if we
cannot collaborate.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Michael Billington

subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Wmfcc-l] News flash: WMF is a charity!

body:
Slight problem I encountered, adding that HTML/wikimarkup un-modified to the
[[MediaWiki:Copyright]] message makes a few broken links. (at least it did
on Wikiversity) To do the same thing on any wiki, you have to swap some of
the {{loaclurl}}s with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/, so that the Wikipedia
articles will still link, rather than pointing to articles on your project
which don't exist. Cheers -- Michael Billington


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Back to basics @ Danny

body:
Danny do I have your permission to repost this mail in the Dutch
villagepump?

Waerth

>With all the commotion, with the departures over the sitenotice, with the
>infighting on various projects (and between various projects), with the bitter
>debates over image policy, I thought it may be a good idea to go back to the
>very root of all the Wikimedia projects. It is a simple statement, but what
>it says--and doesn't say--summarized the very essence of what we are  doing.
>
>"Imagine a world in which every single human being can  freely share in the
>sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."
>
>Perhaps this should be the yardstick with which we make our decisions.  It is
>inclusive ("every single human being") and devoted to free content ("can
>freely share"), and it defines the parameters of our content ("the sum of all
>human knowledge."). It recognizes that this project is still in the works: we
>have not finished what we set out to do ("Imagine a world ...")
>
>That's our commitment.
>
>As for what it doesn't say:
>It does not say, "Imagine an advertising-free world."
>It does not say "where every single person who speaks a English or a
>European language ..."
>It does not say "share freely unless the unfree content is better."
>It does not say "free knowledge and links to where to find out  more/buy it."
>It does not say "That's what we did."
>
>Let's try and refocus the discussions on what our goals are and how we can
>best achieve them. Let's use this as our yardstick.
>
>Danny
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Back to basics @ Danny


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Walter Vermeir schreef:
> Walter van Kalken schreef:
>
>> Wanting to edit on the nl.wikipedia I found my IP blocked. All of the
>> IP's of my Thai internet provider are blocked it seems. So I cannot edit
>> nl.wikipedia!
>>
>> On nl: user RonaldB has a private project of AUTOBLOCKING all open
>> proxies. All Thai providers use open proxies. So now I am blocked and
>> cannot log in. RonaldB never got agreement on nl: for this nor is this a
>> wikimedia policy to stop all users in Thailand from editing. Still
>>
>> I AM FUCKING BLOCKED AGAIN.
>>
>> Waerth
>>
>
>
> I do not think there is any other wikipedia where it so easy to ask for
> help like on the NL Wikipedia if you have problem like this.
>
> - you can ask help on IRC
> - you can contact wikipedia NL by email private (since end of 2002!).
> Emails are mostly answerd in a couple of hours
> - you can contact the blocking admin directly by private email
> - you can use WikiNL-l
>
> That are all means of contact you know exist.
>
> Every time you get angry about anything you come and complain here on
> this off topic list regarding you local NL-problems. That is very annoying.

Hoi,
The argument is good. However, the blocking of Waerth has already
happened certainly more than five times. At some stage it is not
reasonable to ask people to be "reasonable", particularly when because
of the repetitive nature of this there is no "learning" done by the
other party, in this case the nl.wikipedia. I can appreciate that this
is very annoying the shoe is however on the other foot.
Thanks,
   GerardM


body:
Gregory Maxwell schreef:
> On 1/2/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> On 1/3/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> If Internet archive is paying substantially less for bandwidth than we
>>> do, then we're doing something wrong.
>>>
>> It's possible that we are doing something wrong. We should find out.
>> ;-) But aside from whatever they are paying, they have other sources
>> of funding than we do.
>>
>
> Still, it seems very premature to shape our decisions around bandwidth
> concerns which do not yet exist. How much traffic are we talking
> about? If we don't know, how could the internet archive fairly accept
> it?
>
Hoi,
Bandwidth is very much a concern because they cost money. Saying that
these concerns do not exist while we are doing a fund-raiser  that needs
to get us $1.500.000,- is a bit naff.  Then again, as I said in the
past, Kennisnet has offered to consider hosting video. They have even
included the ogg movie formats to their application if I remember well.
You may remember, Kennisnet, the organisation that does much of our
European traffic for the WMF ??
>
>> The strength of wiki is not the power to raise enough funds to host
>> large files. In fact, we're still pretty bad at fundraising.
>>
>
> We are bad in terms of viewership vs income. In absolute terms, I
> think we're not doing so bad.. How many internet/technology projects
> can you name that bring in $1M USD/yr with pretty much only website
> panhandling?  There are a lot of low hanging fruit, and I have
> confidence for us in the future.
>
I am sure you base this confidence on the fact that our needs grow not
quite as exponentially as the growth we are achieving in the
provisioning of our services. I am really happy that you recognise a lot
of "low hanging fruits" .. this will help as we need more of them as it is.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Emanuel Nordrum

body:
I'm just getting aquainted with MediaWiki, so I appologize if I'm
making a silly question, but:

How can I automate posting the top 10 entries from Special:Wantedpages
in a table on my main page?

You can have a look at http://www.hackwurld.com/gwwiki to see what I
have in place right now. I'd like the same thing, but with the (12
links) entry and automated so that I don't have to update the front
page to keep it up to date.

Thanks,
Emanuel
--
"The best journalism is the first draft of history."
- John Pilger

http://www.xanga.com/legba


from_name: cohesion

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google faking semantics

body:
It looks like google is pulling some information from wikipedia in a
pseudo semantic way,

http://www.google.com/search?c2coff=1&q=hd+dvd+capacity&btnG=Search

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD

Am I just noticing this, or is it new?

Judson
[[:en:User:Cohesion]]


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 1/2/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/2/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm sure it won't, just thinking about the future.
>
> It will take us all of 30 minutes to setup a BT link when the time
> comes. Less future more today.
>
I don't see a problem with that strategy, as long as the foundation is
on board with it.  I already expressed my skepticism that allowing a
few of these types of files will make a huge difference in bandwidth
costs.  So if you can convince the management of the foundation to
just go ahead with it, more power to you.  My suggestion of using BT
was mainly an alternative to telling the person to go somewhere else.

That said, the sooner the BT links get set up, the more people that
can be convinced to become seeds ahead of time, before the bandwidth
becomes unbearable.  In that sense, I see no reason not to offer both,
if no one prefers the BT links, then only 30 minutes of time is lost.

> It will be a wonderful problem to have when we find ourselves
> overwealmed with requests. ... It'll be a problem we'll never need to
> worry about if we don't get the content up.
>
> Content must come first.
>
Absolutely agreed.  My suggestion of BT was precisely meant to get the
content up, and to worry about those few people with firewall problems
(BT works perfectly fine through most firewalls), what happens if a
single seed starts getting hit with 10Mbit/sec in requests (get more
seeds), how to encourage people to become seeds for the least seeded
files first (like maybe have a list of the least seeded files), etc.,
first.

In another post you mention download.wikimedia.org.  I think those
files, at least the most popular of them, would be an excellent choice
for *also* offering via bittorrent.  Take the 30 minutes, set up a
server, wait a year or two, and see what happens.  Worst case scenario
no one uses it.

Anthony


body:
On 1/3/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/3/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Mmm. How precisely does one tag a video with the GFDL, and what's the
> > transparent copy?
> >
> >
> > - d.
>
> Taging is fairly trivial you just add the complete lisence in at the
> end. Ok fairly trivial as long as your video is high res otherwise
> good luck. The other problem kicks in when you want to start useing
> other people's stuff since credit becomes an issue. I'm yet to figure
> out a way to include GFDL and CC material in one video. Generaly I
> just give up and use stuff in the public domain.
>
>
I would think any format with an open specification would be
considered transparent, though admittedly the GFDL only mentions text
editors, paint programs, and drawing editors, not video editors.

As for including GFDL and CC material in one video, that's the major
problem with all copyleft licenses, not just the GFDL.  Of course you
can always just take the Wikipedia way out and just mix them together
and call the result an aggregate.

Anthony


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Communications issues

body:
Gatto Nero wrote:

> 2007/1/3, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net>:
>
>> Part of the problem is a lack of resources, both human and technical, in
>> the communications area as much as in any other. That sort of thing is,
>> of course, exactly what this fundraiser is trying to address.
>
> I'm sorry, 'cause of language differences maybe I've not understood:
> are you saying that "lack of resources" is one of the reasons why are
> we collecting money?

Yes.

> This means, "people needs to be payed"? (I'm asking, 'cause I'm not
> sure, that's not an accusation)

See "human and technical" above. There's a need for servers, and there's
a need to hire staff to do the things that volunteers can't, won't, or
aren't trained to do.

> In the recent past, I remember a user answering to me and other
> italians "Communities doesn't matter. Funding does. Capisce?".
> How does this phrase should be interpreted?
> Let's think about a new user who's starting to communicate with the
> Foundation, and he's been answered in this way.
> Obviously, I don't think this is an isolated case.

I don't know who said it or how it was intended to be interpreted. At
face value, it's certainly not an appropriate expression of the
Foundation's position. However, I'm surprised that you would take a
random comment like this, that sounds like it was made on IRC, as an
authoritative statement. A "new user" who wants to "communicate with the
Foundation" is looking in entirely the wrong place there, and I'm not
sure how a truly new user would receive such an answer (as opposed to
someone used to getting information passed by word of mouth in a chat
room). As I mentioned with regard to OTRS, good customer service skills
are expected, and we do work with new volunteers so they understand not
to give such inappropriate responses.

> As far as I remember, I have no memories at all of reading a
> communication "signed" by the CommComm. Better: I have no memories at
> all of reading a communicaton about Foundation's issues or problem.

The former may not be surprising, although there have been some (like
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/foundation-l/2006-June/007393.html).
In part, the Communications Committee has been involved in coordinating
messages that do not necessarily come with its "signature", like the
material surrounding the closure of the French Wikiquote. Meanwhile, if
you've been subscribed to this list, and truly have no memory of reading
communications about the Foundation's issues, I really can't help you
with that.

> Why has there not been a periodical mail/message/zine/whatever
> summarizing what's going the Foundation?

Lack of time, attention, and resources. Anyone who wants to try to
resurrect the Wikimedia Quarto or do something similar is welcome to.
There have been lots of suggestions about things Wikimedia could be
doing, many of them useful, both as to communications and other issues.
These are nice, but simply adding more tasks to an already overloaded
to-do list doesn't produce a lot of progress. That's why we're asking
for help. We need more people like Improv or BirgitteSB, who are willing
to take a good idea and implement it. Ideas are cheap compared to action.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Foundation-l] Communications issues


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google faking semantics

body:
On 1/3/07, cohesion <cohesion at sleepyhead.org> wrote:
> It looks like google is pulling some information from wikipedia in a
> pseudo semantic way,
>
> http://www.google.com/search?c2coff=1&q=hd+dvd+capacity&btnG=Search
>
> from
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD
>
> Am I just noticing this, or is it new?
>
It has been around at least a few months.  They might have recently
improved on it though.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google faking semantics

body:
On 1/3/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/3/07, cohesion <cohesion at sleepyhead.org> wrote:
> > It looks like google is pulling some information from wikipedia in a
> > pseudo semantic way,
> >
> > http://www.google.com/search?c2coff=1&q=hd+dvd+capacity&btnG=Search
> >
> > from
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD
> >
> > Am I just noticing this, or is it new?
> >
> It has been around at least a few months.  They might have recently
> improved on it though.
>
BTW, it's not limited to Wikipedia:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mars+radius&btnG=Search

Mars ? Radius: 3,397 KM
According to http://www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk/astro/textb/solsys/mars.htm


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] This is not an Advertisement @ pgunn

body:
On 02/01/07, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I will pick up the ball here.  I think LSS is an
> extremely important project.  I thank you for your
> work in starting LSS as well as all your other
> contributions.

Thank you for taking this on!

- d.


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Thousands of *awful* articles on websites

body:
On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Bogdan Giusca wrote:
> Wikipedia has way too many articles on websites, webcomics and
> other types of internet content -- likely thousands.
>
> The problem is that around 95% of those articles are not sourced (or
> they are sourced from forum and blog posts) and at least 70% won't be
> able to be sourced because they were never mentioned in the mainstream
> press -- and probably very few were mentioned in books and journals.

Perhaps that means you need a broader view of what sourcing is.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimeet-l

body:
Thoughts on setting up a wikimeet-l for sending out announcements for
upcoming meetings?

For those of us who are interested in going to meetups in multiple
places, trying to catch meetings via watchlists is a losing battle.
Seems to usually be the case that by the time I hear about a meetup
its too late to adjust my travel to attend.

On 1/3/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> James F. managed to pick the one pub in London that was closed for
> repairs. So we stuck an oblique sign on the window (which may still be
> there for all I know) and adjourned to the Chandos (?) near Leicester
> Square.
>
> Attendees: James Forrester, me, Phoebe (User:Brassratgirl), Austin
> Hair, User:Psychonaut, User:Morwen, Chris McKenna (User:Thryduulf),
> Chris Sherlock (User:Ta bu shi da yu) and his wife (they're doing
> Europe for their honeymoon) and Psychonaut's pet ferret. We got lots
> of photos on James' [[Casio Exilim]] EX-S600 camera, which I found the
> "get usable photos in really dim light" setting on. I did my best to
> be loud, drunk and embarrassing, except I am not susceptible to
> embarrassment. We had a marvellous time. Excellent stuff.
>
> Next week: what day depends on your schedule, Jimbo. Monday or Tuesday
> evening, and where are you staying? Not sure which pub either. Chandos
> has nice beer but was bloody impossible to find a seat in ... might
> see if the Montagu Pyke is open this time.
>
>
> - 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
>


from_name: Ron Hall

subject:
[Wikitech-l] What are the strategies to defense DDOS or
 crazyrobots for wikipedia?

body:
Rob Church wrote:
>
> On 03/01/07, howard chen <howachen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > i want to know what kind of software/hardware/techniques are currently
> > used by wikipedia in defending DDOS. (not just robots)
>
> Well, what we do, is we position Mark in front of the data centre with
> a big stick...
>
    How big is the stick? And does it conform to current industry standards
    for sticks? You may need to upgrade to a brickbat or sledge hammer.

    r


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/3/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>We have far less video, so we do see less video collaboration.. but we
>>do see video collaboration. Of course, if we prematurely shut of
>>collaboration by forcing video content to a non-collaborative medium
>>(which the internet archive is) we will of course never see the volume
>>and value of what we have missed.
>>
>>
>>
>
>When it comes to videos the GFDL sucks worse than it does for images.
>
>
>
>
How so?  I will admit that the GFDL is written primarily for textual
manipulation and content, but that is about like saying the GPL is lousy
for copyright purposes in a book.  Other than the "authorship" clauses
being blurred so much for video that it is hard to determine exactly who
participated with the development of the video (motion pictures can
sometimes involve hundreds of people in the production of one "work"),
I'm not exactly sure what the issue is here.

The general philosophy of the GPL and GFDL is that you are free to copy
and redistribute the content, provided that you don't put any additional
restrictions on the people that you give the content to.  And you must
also give the ability to freely redistribute that same content to those
who are recieving the stuff.  One other basic point is that you are also
free to modify and change that content without fear of reprisal from the
content originator.  Most of the rest of the GFDL and the GPL are fine
details to make sure that these basic principles are defined in a strong
legal manner.

While I may admit that a license like these may have to be written
explicitly for video and music archives to achieve the same
philosophical goals, I'm curious about what explicit issues you are
worried about in the case of video and why it doesn't apply.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
> From: Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:16:52 -0500
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>
>
>
>> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:37:32 -0800
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>>
>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>
>>>> From: Ray Saintonge
>>>>
>>>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding
>>>>> out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism.
>>>>> My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic
>>>>> bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A
>>>>> protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And,
>>>>> ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> It seems like Mario Savio became discouraged and frustrated a long time
>>>> ago.  If a vandal's goal is to sow chaos he is accomplishing that very
>>>> well..  Surely some vandals may be performing an act of protest, but I
>>>> don't think that that tranche provides the really tenacious vandals who
>>>> just get a thrill out of competing in a cat and mouse game.
>>>>
>>>> Sticking to principles consistent with what the new left wanted in the
>>>> 60s was not an easy task.  Principles served on a plate of squalor can
>>>> be very unappetizing.  It's amazing how over the long run the
>>>> establishment absorbs it all.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Mario Savio and I were close friends - and, emotionally, still are. He was
>>> frustrated every moment that I knew him - it was his fuel. But, he was
>>> never, never, discouraged.
>>>
>> No offense intended.  As a person who is Savio's junior by only two
>> months, that seems close enough to make us contemporaries.  The general
>> points in his famous speech did resonate well-beyond UC Berkeley.  If I
>> try to reflect on those times now all I get is questions.

Are you still asking them?

M
>>
>>> Wikipedia, itself, is the protest.
>>>
>> Hmmm!  While many valuable contributors could be seen as natural
>> protesters, I wouldn't call the project itself a protest.  I hope you
>> are not judging things on the basis of the vandals and other
>> objectionable sorts, because I certainly don't see them as forming the
>> mainstream of what is happening.  They certainly know how to make
>> themselves very visible and annoying, but one would not judge a society
>> by the antics of its mischievous kids.
>>
>> What to me takes it beyond protest is that we do have many who are
>> trying to make positive contributions without generating a lot of
>> noise.  Maybe, unlike the 1960s, some of us have given up the hope that
>> existing institutions, like the universities, could be reformed, and are
>> setting the groundwork for new institutions.  The Rochdale College
>> experiment may have been premature.  It perhaps tried too much to play
>> in the backyard of corporate structures.  We sometimes give too much
>> credit to those of our colleagues whose marvellous intentions are not
>> matched by realistic evaluations of the opponent.
>>
>> Ec
>
> The analogy I was making in stating that Wikipedia is the protest was in
> reference to my previous statement that some parameters must be set to
> achieve a goal; that a protest without some order is merely chaos - and
> achieves nothing. All of this had to do with placing some restrictions on
> User identification. I had & have left the issue of vandals behind some time
> ago.
>
> Marc
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
David Gerard wrote:

>>When it comes to videos the GFDL sucks worse than it does for images.
>>
>>
>
>
>Mmm. How precisely does one tag a video with the GFDL, and what's the
>transparent copy?
>
>
>- d.
>

Imagine, for the sake of the discussion here, that you have a production
of a TV episode like Star Trek that is available under the GFDL.
 Assuming that video is available under a GPL-like distribution license,
you would be free to take all of the fancy special effects and replace
all of the scenes with William Shatner in them with an actor who
actually knows what he is doing.  :)

Of you could "insert" additional scenes, or rearrange the order of the
content in a variety of ways to create something very new.  BTW, this
was a very popular technique for Russian filmakers during the early part
of the 20th Century, where they would get hours of "stock footage" and
with just some simple movie editing tools would "compile" new motion
pictures.  This has also been a fairly common technique for some serial
television programs, such as the television series [[JAG]] in some of
its early seasons of production.

For a "Wikimedia" version of this as a collaborative tool, I would
imagine that something akin to a documentary could be put together in
relation to historical footage, making essentially a video version of a
Wikipedia article.  I think it would be something fun to put together,
to be honest, especially if you used the Wikipedia article (FA status,
of course) as the "script" for the narration and dialog in the video,
with some minor editing.

I'm not exactly sure how you could put a video/audio editing suite into
a web page format, but I'm sure some creative minds could come up with
something if we really wanted to try.  Non-web page software certainly
is available free (as in beer and FOSS) to do this sort of work as well.

More reasonable for "transparent" image, I would imagine that a lossless
compression technique would be required in this situation, so you could
uncompress and recompress the image without generation losses.  Of
course the same could be said about JPEG images as well in this situation.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google faking semantics

body:
On 1/3/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Am I just noticing this, or is it new?
>
> It's been around for a while. Try asking google questions - "When was
> Celebrity X born?", "How tall is the Empire State Building?", that
> kind of thing.

Those examples don't work.

But it is interesting seeing the difference in the response of
radius mars

and

radius of mars


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Anthony wrote:
> On 1/2/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>> I'm sure you
>> could do some specific accounting to determine what it would cost for
>> the WMF to host just as storage on a hard drive about 1GB of data,
>> together with serving 1TB of data as bandwidth (assuming that this 1GB
>> file is downloaded at least 1000 times.... a rather conservative notion
>> given crawling engines alone not to mention interested Wikimedia users).
>
> FWIW, none of the major crawlers download entire gigabyte sized files.
>
> For something that huge though, bittorrent seems like a much smarter
> choice, especially if others could be convinced to act as seeds.
>

Bittorrent has some very major problems with firewalls and proxies.

--
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:
Anthony wrote:
> On 1/2/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>> I'm sure you
>> could do some specific accounting to determine what it would cost for
>> the WMF to host just as storage on a hard drive about 1GB of data,
>> together with serving 1TB of data as bandwidth (assuming that this 1GB
>> file is downloaded at least 1000 times.... a rather conservative notion
>> given crawling engines alone not to mention interested Wikimedia users).
>
> FWIW, none of the major crawlers download entire gigabyte sized files.
>
> For something that huge though, bittorrent seems like a much smarter
> choice, especially if others could be convinced to act as seeds.
>

Bittorrent has some very major problems with firewalls and proxies.

--
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:
Anthony wrote:
> On 1/2/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>> I'm sure you
>> could do some specific accounting to determine what it would cost for
>> the WMF to host just as storage on a hard drive about 1GB of data,
>> together with serving 1TB of data as bandwidth (assuming that this 1GB
>> file is downloaded at least 1000 times.... a rather conservative notion
>> given crawling engines alone not to mention interested Wikimedia users).
>
> FWIW, none of the major crawlers download entire gigabyte sized files.
>
> For something that huge though, bittorrent seems like a much smarter
> choice, especially if others could be convinced to act as seeds.
>

Bittorrent has some very major problems with firewalls and proxies.

--
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:
Anthony wrote:
> On 1/2/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>> I'm sure you
>> could do some specific accounting to determine what it would cost for
>> the WMF to host just as storage on a hard drive about 1GB of data,
>> together with serving 1TB of data as bandwidth (assuming that this 1GB
>> file is downloaded at least 1000 times.... a rather conservative notion
>> given crawling engines alone not to mention interested Wikimedia users).
>
> FWIW, none of the major crawlers download entire gigabyte sized files.
>
> For something that huge though, bittorrent seems like a much smarter
> choice, especially if others could be convinced to act as seeds.
>

Bittorrent has some very major problems with firewalls and proxies.

--
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: howard chen

subject:
[Wikitech-l] What are the strategies to defense DDOS or crazy
	robots for wikipedia?

body:
Hello,

Can share something abt in these area?

Thanks.


body:
Matthew Brown wrote:
> On 1/2/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Yeah, I have no idea where this "usability" rubbish comes from! Make
>> the damn users work themselves: computers should ship with a
>> Linux-based TUI OS. ;)
>
> Text? Bah.  Toggle switches and blinkenlights.  That'll teach 'em.
>

Switches and lights? Magnets and compass needles...

--
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: Rob Church

body:
On 03/01/07, Rory Stolzenberg <rory096 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Try {{Special:Wantedpages/10}}.

Query pages aren't inherited from IncludableSpecialPage, so that may
not work. The user also wants their data in tabular format, which
Wantedpages wouldn't output anyway.

At this stage, I would be inclined to recommend a parser hook
extension...some of the code from SpecialWantedpages could probably be
reused.

Rob Church


from_name: Claudi Meneghin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Ladin (lld) wikipedia; addendum

body:
Hi all,
happy new year to everybody!
I asked a bit ago the creation of Ladin wikipedia, with domain lld.wikipedia.org; I would like to add to this request (if I don't ask too much) the issue of enabling
the 'special:import' feature from the very beginning. This would help so much this small (and endangered) language.
Thank you!
Best regards,
Claudi

 __________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
En finir avec le spam? Yahoo! Mail vous offre la meilleure protection possible contre les messages non sollicit?s
http://mail.yahoo.fr Yahoo! Mail


from_name: Gatto Nero

subject:
[Foundation-l] Communications issues (was Re: This is not an
	Advertisement @ pgunn)

body:
2007/1/3, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net>:

> Part of the problem is a lack of resources, both human and technical, in
> the communications area as much as in any other. That sort of thing is,
> of course, exactly what this fundraiser is trying to address.

I'm sorry, 'cause of language differences maybe I've not understood:
are you saying that "lack of resources" is one of the reasons why are
we collecting money?
This means, "people needs to be payed"? (I'm asking, 'cause I'm not
sure, that's not an accusation)
Cause if so, it seems to me a "standard excuse" ("jolly excuse",
translating an italian phrase): everyone could say so, but this is not
enough to explain how communication failed so much, in this and other
occasions.

> The
> community seems much more inclined to give feedback when the Foundation
> does something as opposed to when it talks about planning things.

This is a problem of communication, too. Community doesn't feel
involved in planning things. Users are not asked their opinions.
Moreover, when they express it anyway, they're answered in a bitter way.
In the recent past, I remember a user answering to me and other
italians "Communities doesn't matter. Funding does. Capisce?".
How does this phrase should be interpreted?
Let's think about a new user who's starting to communicate with the
Foundation, and he's been answered in this way.
Obviously, I don't think this is an isolated case.
Community doesn't think its opinion is welcome. If community's opinion
is welcome, then there's a problem of communication.

> Wikimedia is committed to maintaining a neutral point of view, as is
> well known, and I believe that value has not been compromised in any
> material way.

There are many ways to compromise anything.
Neutrality is strongly linked with independence.
In this very case, neutrality is strongly linked with independence by
any type of commercial reality (explicit or implied, as Virgin
United).
This mine opinion could be - maybe - a cultural heritage, 'cause is
shared by other people inside the italian community, and - as far as
I've seen - outside the italian community too. But - always thinking
about cultural differences - this opinion seems not to be shared by
the en: or the east communities.

> What is advertising and whether we should have
> it are important considerations, and have been debated at length, but
> it's not a fundamental value in the same way that free content or
> neutrality are.

Let's return to the begin. How this phrase is going to demonstrate
interest in community's opinon?
"Advertising is not a fundamental value". Who did decide this?
Lots of users think advertising is a fundamental value, indeed. If you
say that, you seem no to respect other opinions.
That's an important duty for the CommComm: *hearing*, *listening*,
*considering*.
As far as I've studied Communication is made by a sender and a
reveicer, and they often interchange their roles.

> Anyone who's convinced that our actual content has been
> compromised already by the recent decisions is welcome to try and
> demonstrate how that's the case.

I should not consider this question, 'cause I could make the same
reflected: "Anyone who's convinced that our actual content has not
been compromised already by the recent decisions is welcome to try and
demonstrate how that's the case".

But simply, anyone (at least: anyone who made mediacommunication or
psychology studies) is aware that noone is immune to influences. Both
in a positive or a negative way, no matter.
Moreover, communication's results are heavily influenced by perception.

Let's make an example.
We have an academical audit.
A man talks about the importance of sobriety in the political duties.
First case scenario: the man is wearing an elegant suit, he's well
cleaned, speaks calmly.
Second case scenario: same content, but the man is wearing a jeans and
a shirt, has a not-perfect-hairdo, speaks loudly and gesticulating.

They say perfectly the same things, with the same words.
But in the first scenario, the man will be listened with more
attention, and his communication is going to be more effective.

Same content, different perception.

> Communicating with the project communities is also a challenge, because
> they are so widely distributed. There is no central place to reach
> everyone, and many differing expectations about what "affects" the
> community and how it should be notified. (I use quotes because
> everything affects the community, but notice doesn't seem to be expected
> every time we buy servers, as long as the site runs.) The solution is
> for the community to help spread the word about anything that might be
> of importance. Some people may be familiar with The Wikipedia Signpost
> on en.wikipedia, or the Kurier on de.wikipedia. These are community
> efforts to grow and build on, and more like them should be encouraged. I
> know the TIME honor is so last year, but "You" are the only way
> Wikimedia can ever communicate with its projects. Contributions like
> Walter's Wikizine or Improv's LSS are invaluable (and as we regret the
> latter's departure, thanks to BirgitteSB for committing to keep it going).

And here we are at the end of this mail.
Personally, I'm a bit saddened. This email is titled "Communication
issues" but doesn't seem to talk that much about communication (it
talks more about how people should not complain about advertising).

We *must* discuss about our communication problems. And we must decide
which is our "starting point" in this discussion.
Personally: sorry to say this, but mine is "Communication Committee
totally failed in internal communication".
As far as I remember, I have no memories at all of reading a
communication "signed" by the CommComm. Better: I have no memories at
all of reading a communicaton about Foundation's issues or problem.
(Apart from Wikizine, but that's not about Foundation)

Why has there not been a periodical mail/message/zine/whatever
summarizing what's going the Foundation?

"This week/month the Foundation did..."
"This week/month the Foundation talked about..."
"Foundation told we have some problems with..."

This is an internal communication. This express the will to be
transparent, to involve communities in what's going on, to inform
about the problems etc etc.
Periodical information is really, really important.

And I think we can start discuss about how to improve it.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Bogdan Giusca wrote:

>Wikipedia has way too many articles on websites, webcomics and
>other types of internet content -- likely thousands.
>
Too many on these subjects, or too few on "good" subjects?

>The problem is that around 95% of those articles are not sourced (or
>they are sourced from forum and blog posts) and at least 70% won't be
>able to be sourced because they were never mentioned in the mainstream
>press -- and probably very few were mentioned in books and journals.
>
If the subject is of trivial importance the sources should matter less.
Since when did the mainstream press become obligatory?

>I deleted about 50 of them, which looked totally non-notable, but if I
>had to apply the rules, at least 80% would have to be deleted for
>lacking notability claims.
>
Makes you sound like a regular crusader.

>Can anyone suggest any solution to this?
>
Yes.  Spend more time _adding_ good content, and stop wasting your own
time trying to get rid trivial material.  If the article starts with,
"This article is about a webcomic," the readers are forwarned about the
value of the article.

Ec

Ec


body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/3/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
>
>>How so?  I will admit that the GFDL is written primarily for textual
>>manipulation and content, but that is about like saying the GPL is lousy
>>for copyright purposes in a book.  Other than the "authorship" clauses
>>being blurred so much for video that it is hard to determine exactly who
>>participated with the development of the video (motion pictures can
>>sometimes involve hundreds of people in the production of one "work"),
>>I'm not exactly sure what the issue is here.
>>
>>
>>
>
>For that standard low res we video includeing a copy of the lisence is
>a serious problem. the isue that the GNU logo itself appears to be
>under the free art lisence is interesting complication although not
>one most people will encounter.
>

I'll admit that the requirement for inclusion is a huge issue with the
GFDL, and so significant that projects like Wikinews have decided to
abandon the license entirely in part because of this issue.  For
projects like Wikibooks, it is only a minor annoyance that only takes up
a couple of extra pages when distributed elsewhere.

It would be nice to have, in a future version of the GFDL, some optional
clause that would allow for smaller works to simply provide a network
location to a copy of the GFDL, instead of requiring the complete text,
or something alone similar lines of thought.  Unfortunately, this is the
wrong mailing list to try and get those sort of changes implimented.

>
>I'm not really thinking about semi professional or professional films
>but well in my case narrated instructional slide shows. So the number
>of people involved isn't a problem. The problems asside from incudeing
>the lisence are:
>
>Has to be GFDL only since I can't figure out how the almagimation
>stuff is meant to apply to videos. Free art  are and CC are out (thank
>goodness for Wildebeests).
>
>Ok I've included the lisence now how long do I have to include it for?
>10 sec? 1 min?
>
>
This is a very good question.  In theory, one video frame might be all
that is legally required, but that hardly seems to be fitting.  Clearly
this is one area that the GFDL does fall flat on its face as it is not
very clear what is needed here.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

>Imagine, for the sake of the discussion here, that you have a production
>of a TV episode like Star Trek that is available under the GFDL.
> Assuming that video is available under a GPL-like distribution license,
>you would be free to take all of the fancy special effects and replace
>all of the scenes with William Shatner in them with an actor who
>actually knows what he is doing.  :)
>
Anybody with the initiative to sell his kidney stones on eBay must have
a great sense of humour; this is supported by his incomparable rendition
of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.".  Some others of us might be happy
to get rid of the special effects and keep Shatner in a medium that
requires more imagination from the user.

>Of you could "insert" additional scenes, or rearrange the order of the
>content in a variety of ways to create something very new.  BTW, this
>was a very popular technique for Russian filmakers during the early part
>of the 20th Century, where they would get hours of "stock footage" and
>with just some simple movie editing tools would "compile" new motion
>pictures.  This has also been a fairly common technique for some serial
>television programs, such as the television series [[JAG]] in some of
>its early seasons of production.
>
We still need to respect the originator's moral rights in the sense of
recognizing what he did and what came from him, but the approach you
describe seems more consistent with Jefferson's vision of intellectual
property than a geriatric mouse that will soon have lived longer than
Jefferson himself.

Ec


from_name: Jake Waskett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ephemeral nature of web pages - a silly idea?

body:
Sorry, I should have been more clear. My thought was that, when linking
to a page, it might be worth checking first whether archive.org has a
copy and, if so, linking to that version.

Your second comment is interesting. An argument could be made that
Wikipedia represents a selection of the more useful pages on the
Internet, and I wonder whether the folks at archive.org have considered
this at all. It is worth contacting them?

Jake

On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 20:01 +0100, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> Problem is their lag time. It takes over 6 months for stuff to appear there
> by which time you are in deep trouble if it wasn't stored to begin with. It
> would be nice if every site that's referenced in Wikipedia is spidered
> automatically just like every site that's visited by a surfer with an Alexa
> toolbar.
>
> Mgm
>
>
> On 1/2/07, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> >
> > There might be some copyright problems involved with that proposal.
> >
> > There is a partial solution, however. The Wayback Machine
> > [http://www.archive.org/index.php] archives many web pages and their
> > revisions. They have negotiates an exemption to the DMCA
> > [http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=82097], and so will
> > probably be around for some time to come.
> >
> > Jake
> >
> > On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 05:33 -0800, zero 0000 wrote:
> > > We allow web pages as sources under some reliability
> > > criteria, even though the web page might change or go
> > > away.  We choose to live with this problem as a lesser
> > > evil than banning web sources altogether.  But, I was
> > > wondering: could Wikipedia not keep its own archive of
> > > web pages used as sources?  Or some such web pages?
> > > This is a minimally thought out proposal as you can tell!
> > >
> > > Zero.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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 1/3/07, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
>
> Wikipedia has way too many articles on websites, webcomics and
> other types of internet content -- likely thousands.
>
> The problem is that around 95% of those articles are not sourced (or
> they are sourced from forum and blog posts) and at least 70% won't be
> able to be sourced because they were never mentioned in the mainstream
> press -- and probably very few were mentioned in books and journals.
>
> I deleted about 50 of them, which looked totally non-notable, but if I
> had to apply the rules, at least 80% would have to be deleted for
> lacking notability claims.
>
> Can anyone suggest any solution to this?

Don't be such a deletion nazi.


from_name: Jim Hu

body:
I don't see why one should buy special equipment when a code snippet
works.  I added the snippet while an msnbot indexing swarm was in
progress.  Apparently modifying robots.txt while a msnbot swarm is in
progress doesn't shut them off, and it was msnbot that was
effectively causing a DDOS (if unintended) on my server.  The wiki it
was indexing has a lot of large category pages, and the maximum
number of processes in the mysql installation was being overwhelmed.
The snippet exits before any queries are launched, so after I added
the blocker, I got back access to the wiki and several other sites
using the same mysql instance.  So it worked for me, because the DDOS
was at the level of mysql limits, not at the level of bandwidth.  YMMV.

Even if you didn't want to do this at the wiki level, I don't think
special equipment is needed.  If you know where the DDOS is coming
from, you can block at the Apache level, the firewall level, or use
throttling scripts.  Captcha is to block spambots, but is not
effective against DDOS.

JH

=====================================
Jim Hu

On Jan 2, 2007, at 7:45 PM, Kasimir Gabert wrote:

> Hello Howard,
>
> I am not sure that blocking msnbot from your wiki would accomplish
> much.  You should also block robots in /robots.txt, not in your
> LocalSettings.php file.  If you want to protect against DDoS, you can
> not do it at a wiki level.  You will need to buy special equipment
> that detects it on a lower level.  (Some links:
> http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns615/
> networking_solutions_sub_solution.html
> and http://www.juniper.net/solutions/service_provider/
> network_security/
> ).  If you want to protect against malicious bots, you will have to
> use something such as captchas to separate the humans from the bots.
>
> I hope that this helps,
> Kasimir Gabert
>
> On 1/2/07, Jim Hu <jimhu at tamu.edu> wrote:
>> This may be a bit extreme, but I added this to my LocalSettings.php
>>
>> $agent= " " . $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
>> if ( strpos($agent,"msnbot") ) {
>>          exit;
>> }
>>
>> found the snippet via Googling.
>> =====================================
>> Jim Hu
>>
>>
>> On Jan 2, 2007, at 6:31 PM, howard chen wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> Can share something abt in these area?
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>>> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>
>
>
> --
> Kasimir Gabert
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


body:
Robth wrote:

>Remember, people learn to write Wikipedia by reading
>Wikipedia.  If we're going to relax our content standards
>substantially for one area, people are going to carry the lessons they
>learn from reading that area into the rest of Wikipedia.
>
Do you have any evidence for that theory?  Those who are interested only
in "serious" subjects are not likely to spend a lot of time with the
flakier subjects in order to learn how to write for Wikipedia.  We also
have Study Groups (aka WikiProjects) which do a pretty good job setting
standards for their area of interest.

Ec


body:
A splendid idea for Internet-based research in general, and it's
surprising how few people do this (myself included, I admit).

In terms of Wikipedia sourcing, however, it may create (or overlook) a
problem: verifiability. What is the purpose, for Wikipedia, of doing so?

Is the purpose to be able to say, at some later date, "oh, that page
must've been deleted. Want me to email you a copy of the original?" If
so, is that verifiable? I don't think so - it may be impossible to
contact you, for example. So how do Wikipedia readers benefit?

On the other hand, if the page concerned contained quotations or cited
other sources that may help in locating a *different* source, then it is
certainly helpful, albeit indirectly.

My concern is that encouraging saving of pages - however unofficially -
may be seen to imply the former, perhaps undermining vital policies. But
this may be avoidable.

Jake

On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 16:09 -0500, James Hare wrote:
> I have an idea.
>
> How about, from now on, every time any of us uses a web source, we save the
> page so that it'll be around in the future? Not necessarily making this a
> policy, or a guideline, but a Really Good Idea.
>
> Once it goes off the Internet, we will still have it for at least our own
> use.
>
> Or how about a Library of Congress-esque things for websites, where
> identified websites are selectively archived so they can exist for eternity
> (as opposed to Wayback Machine which seems to work as randomly picking
> pages).
>
> On 1/2/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Problem is their lag time. It takes over 6 months for stuff to appear
> > there
> > by which time you are in deep trouble if it wasn't stored to begin with.
> > It
> > would be nice if every site that's referenced in Wikipedia is spidered
> > automatically just like every site that's visited by a surfer with an
> > Alexa
> > toolbar.
> >
> > Mgm
> >
> >
> > On 1/2/07, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > There might be some copyright problems involved with that proposal.
> > >
> > > There is a partial solution, however. The Wayback Machine
> > > [http://www.archive.org/index.php] archives many web pages and their
> > > revisions. They have negotiates an exemption to the DMCA
> > > [http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=82097], and so will
> > > probably be around for some time to come.
> > >
> > > Jake
> > >
> > > On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 05:33 -0800, zero 0000 wrote:
> > > > We allow web pages as sources under some reliability
> > > > criteria, even though the web page might change or go
> > > > away.  We choose to live with this problem as a lesser
> > > > evil than banning web sources altogether.  But, I was
> > > > wondering: could Wikipedia not keep its own archive of
> > > > web pages used as sources?  Or some such web pages?
> > > > This is a minimally thought out proposal as you can tell!
> > > >
> > > > Zero.
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Chris Lüer

body:
At 11:52 AM 1/3/2007, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>If they don't assert notability (something like "X readers", "Y
>million hits a day", "recieved Z award" - it doesn't matter what the
>X, Y and Z are, even "has 3 readers every week" is an assertion of
>notability), then speedy them. If they do assert notability, but you
>think they aren't notable anyway, then PROD them.
>
>All websites are easy to source - you have the website itself. You're
>not going to make a featured article from only a primary source, but
>it's enough to save an article from deletion.

The next obvious reference to add is the source of the notability
claim. Who says they have 3 readers? Who gave them an award? Who
wrote an article about the site?

         Chris


body:
Bogdan Giusca wrote:

>Wednesday, January 3, 2007, 7:05:16 PM, Ken wrote:
>
>
>>On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Bogdan Giusca wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The problem is that around 95% of those articles are not sourced (or
>>>they are sourced from forum and blog posts) and at least 70% won't be
>>>able to be sourced because they were never mentioned in the mainstream
>>>press -- and probably very few were mentioned in books and journals.
>>>
>>>
>>Perhaps that means you need a broader view of what sourcing is.
>>
>>
>Maybe I spent too much time editing history articles, where the source
>credibility matters, but accepting blog/forum/usenet posts as valid
>sources would be a great mistake, IMO.
>
Absolutely for history. But history is far removed from webcomics, and
we all know the tendency that some writers have to spin historical
material in support of their own POV.  It goes with the territory.
Consider historical novels.  They contain some germ of historical
information, but how do you go about sorting out fact and fiction in a
work like Tolstoy's "War and Peace".  You can't seriously use it as a
reference for Napoleon's campaign in Russia.

Ec


from_name: Robth

body:
On 1/3/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Bogdan Giusca wrote:
> > The problem is that around 95% of those articles are not sourced (or
> > they are sourced from forum and blog posts) and at least 70% won't be
> > able to be sourced because they were never mentioned in the mainstream
> > press -- and probably very few were mentioned in books and journals.
>
> Perhaps that means you need a broader view of what sourcing is.
>

And why is that?  Remember, people learn to write Wikipedia by reading
Wikipedia.  If we're going to relax our content standards
substantially for one area, people are going to carry the lessons they
learn from reading that area into the rest of Wikipedia.  If something
can't be sourced up to our standards, we can do without it.

--
Robth
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robth)


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/3/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> We have far less video, so we do see less video collaboration.. but we
> do see video collaboration. Of course, if we prematurely shut of
> collaboration by forcing video content to a non-collaborative medium
> (which the internet archive is) we will of course never see the volume
> and value of what we have missed.
>

When it comes to videos the GFDL sucks worse than it does for images.

--
geni


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 03/01/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/3/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> > We have far less video, so we do see less video collaboration.. but we
> > do see video collaboration. Of course, if we prematurely shut of
> > collaboration by forcing video content to a non-collaborative medium
> > (which the internet archive is) we will of course never see the volume
> > and value of what we have missed.

> When it comes to videos the GFDL sucks worse than it does for images.

Mmm. How precisely does one tag a video with the GFDL, and what's the
transparent copy?

- d.


body:
On 1/3/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mmm. How precisely does one tag a video with the GFDL, and what's the
> transparent copy?
>
>
> - d.

Taging is fairly trivial you just add the complete lisence in at the
end. Ok fairly trivial as long as your video is high res otherwise
good luck. The other problem kicks in when you want to start useing
other people's stuff since credit becomes an issue. I'm yet to figure
out a way to include GFDL and CC material in one video. Generaly I
just give up and use stuff in the public domain.

--
geni


from_name: Aerik Sylvan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Category Intersections Again

body:
I'm still working on this.  I've got a test index running on a shared
hosting server, and the performance seems to be noticeably different than on
my local machine that had nothing better to do, but some other factors
changed as well, so that may not be a totally fair assessment.

I've got two versions, in one, I'm storing the categories in a text field,
and in the other a varchar(255) - obviously some get chopped off in the
varchar field.  There are noticeable difference in some queries but not
others.  I'm hypothesizing that this is due to smaller datasets, but my
tests so far aren't confirming it.  I also seem to be experiencing a lot of
noise in my result times from it being on a shared hosting server.

Anyway, the scripts are at http://aerik.com/wikintersections.php (text
field) and http://aerik.com/wikintersections2.php (varchar field, truncated
category list)

It takes the text in the input box and drops it in a boolean fulltext search
of the categories.

I know it's an ugly/nonexistent UI and so forth, but I wanted to invite any
interested parties to test and brainstorm with me.

Thanks,
Aerik


body:
It's a perfectly fine, non-biased article that is hurting NOONE by its
existence and represents real effort by the contributors. Why does it need
to be deleted? WHY?

On 1/3/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > It is a dead comic which was never mentioned in any newspaper, but
> > you have to pay to read it. :-)
>
> Sources don't have to be free, it's just prefered.
>
> That article doesn't assert notability, though, so it should probably
> be speedied.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
Nothing demands that you convert the license to video... That's about
the least sane thing to do... :) just provide a single copy of gfdl
(in text) with every copy you create of an aggregate work which
contains gfdl parts.

The draft of GFDL v2 waves the requirement when the amount of text
copied is small, it might be useful to include a nod to video... GFDL
isn't a good idea for all forms of video but it does have desirable
qualities for educational content, regardless of the medium.

On 1/3/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/3/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> > How so?  I will admit that the GFDL is written primarily for textual
> > manipulation and content, but that is about like saying the GPL is lousy
> > for copyright purposes in a book.  Other than the "authorship" clauses
> > being blurred so much for video that it is hard to determine exactly who
> > participated with the development of the video (motion pictures can
> > sometimes involve hundreds of people in the production of one "work"),
> > I'm not exactly sure what the issue is here.
> >
>
> For that standard low res we video includeing a copy of the lisence is
> a serious problem. the isue that the GNU logo itself appears to be
> under the free art lisence is interesting complication although not
> one most people will encounter.
>
> I'm not really thinking about semi professional or professional films
> but well in my case narrated instructional slide shows. So the number
> of people involved isn't a problem. The problems asside from incudeing
> the lisence are:
>
> Has to be GFDL only since I can't figure out how the almagimation
> stuff is meant to apply to videos. Free art  are and CC are out (thank
> goodness for Wildebeests).
>
> Ok I've included the lisence now how long do I have to include it for?
> 10 sec? 1 min?
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google faking semantics

body:
> Am I just noticing this, or is it new?

It's been around for a while. Try asking google questions - "When was
Celebrity X born?", "How tall is the Empire State Building?", that
kind of thing.


subject: [WikiEN-l] London pub meet report

body:
James F. managed to pick the one pub in London that was closed for
repairs. So we stuck an oblique sign on the window (which may still be
there for all I know) and adjourned to the Chandos (?) near Leicester
Square.

Attendees: James Forrester, me, Phoebe (User:Brassratgirl), Austin
Hair, User:Psychonaut, User:Morwen, Chris McKenna (User:Thryduulf),
Chris Sherlock (User:Ta bu shi da yu) and his wife (they're doing
Europe for their honeymoon) and Psychonaut's pet ferret. We got lots
of photos on James' [[Casio Exilim]] EX-S600 camera, which I found the
"get usable photos in really dim light" setting on. I did my best to
be loud, drunk and embarrassing, except I am not susceptible to
embarrassment. We had a marvellous time. Excellent stuff.

Next week: what day depends on your schedule, Jimbo. Monday or Tuesday
evening, and where are you staying? Not sure which pub either. Chandos
has nice beer but was bloody impossible to find a seat in ... might
see if the Montagu Pyke is open this time.

- d.


body:
On 1/3/07, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
>
> Wednesday, January 3, 2007, 7:58:27 PM, The Cunctator wrote:
>
> > It's a perfectly fine, non-biased article that is hurting NOONE by its
> > existence and represents real effort by the contributors. Why does it
> need
> > to be deleted? WHY?
>
> That's not a valid argument. If I write a fine, non-bias article on
> myself,
> it wouldn't hurt NO ONE, either and it would be a real effort from me,
> the contributor, right?

Right.


body:
On 03/01/07, howard chen <howachen at gmail.com> wrote:
> i want to know what kind of software/hardware/techniques are currently
> used by wikipedia in defending DDOS. (not just robots)

Well, what we do, is we position Mark in front of the data centre with
a big stick...

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimeet-l

body:
On 03/01/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thoughts on setting up a wikimeet-l for sending out announcements for
> upcoming meetings?
> For those of us who are interested in going to meetups in multiple
> places, trying to catch meetings via watchlists is a losing battle.
> Seems to usually be the case that by the time I hear about a meetup
> its too late to adjust my travel to attend.

Possssssssibly.

I forgot to mention this one on the meetup wiki pages at all, but I
will do next time.

- d.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] What are the strategies to defense DDOS or
	crazyrobots for wikipedia?

body:
On 03/01/07, Ron Hall <ron.hall at mcgill.ca> wrote:
>     How big is the stick? And does it conform to current industry standards
>     for sticks? You may need to upgrade to a brickbat or sledge hammer.

We upgraded the stick from a 1.5m pole to a 2.5m ash stake last year,
to appropriately scale to the needs of our user base. I believe we
also trialled a distributed architecture whereby we had Mark, Domas
and Kyle, all with sticks. Tests showed that if they kept the sticks
moving, the effective spin-up time of the stick was eliminated when
responding to attacks, however, their arms got tired more quickly,
leaving them open to later attacks.

Rob Church