subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
>From: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>
> > I don't know what you expect, Bj?rn, but a certain degree of
> > protection is needed for anyone who's been submitted to an arbcom
> > complaint. We can't just let anyone accuse someone without the arbcom
> > being given evidence of the violations in question.
>
>I think that is unrelated to the fact that The System, as it currently
>is constructed, does not work for an editor being harassed by an
>admin.

Actually, it doesn't appear to work very well for admins who are being
harrassed by editors.

>Besides, there is ample evidence in the diffs. Evidence that
>has been collected and also ignored.

What specific evidence are you talking about?
> > BTW Arbcom complaints don't need to be signed by someone else, that
>RFCs.
>
>I didn't know that. Has it changed recently? Last time I checked the
>procedure was exactly as I described.

No, it has always been that way.  You're confusing RfC with RfAR.

>I even witnessed first-hand a
>user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get
>a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which wasn't
>very strange because there really only was he/she and the admin
>involved..

I strongly doubt that, since that's not part of the Arbitration Committee
procedure.  Which case are you referring to?

Jay.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
>From: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>
>
> > >Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was
> > >harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed
> > >because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators.
> >
> > No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for doing
> > things against policy; new users often seem to think "disagreeing with
>me"
> > or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy.
>
>No, the rules are set up so that admins are protected from all
>complaints. Admins often seem to think that new users seem to think
>that "disagreeing with me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is
>against policy.

Sigh.  Can you leave the "I know you are but what am I" type comments off
the mail-list please?

> > >some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll
> > >forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly
> > >forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only
> > >made a mistake/got played by the trolls.
> >
> > Can you give an example of this happening? Arbcom sanctioning an admin,
>and
> > the person who brought the case therefore being viewed as a
> > troublemaker/troll?
>
>Umm... It has never happened, so obviously I can't.

Then how can you claim it as fact?

>But you can
>yourself search the archives to find countless examples of how
>mistakes and harassments by admins have been brushed off as "everyone
>does mistakes sometimes".

Can you provide some of those "countless examples"?

>And also of countless number of examples in
>which users have been branded trolls for brining up valid complaints
>against administrators.

That they were valid is solely your opinion.

>For a very clear example see the OP's post,
>who even found it best to post anonymously, and then was outed by two
>admins who don't like him/her.

Didn't like him, or didn't like the smears he was posting anonymously?  I
don't know what makes you so sure it was the former.

Jay.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome

body:
On 6/1/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Regardless of what happened to his A Nony Mouse account, I'm sure his
> Everyking e-mail can still post.
> Jay.

AIM ALL WEAPONS AT FEET.
FIRE!

You're just substantiating the claims of hasty admin behavior by
throwing out such allegations.

If indeed you believe that someone is a troll, you should to the right
thing and quit feeding them.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Sérgio Ribeiro

subject: [Foundation-l] 2 M

body:
Just one question.
When you say ?future feature?, ?quality survey? and ?article validation
system?, are you referring to the kind of system that WP:DE has (
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bewertungsbausteine if I'm not in
mistake) or something more advanced, like a mediawiki feature ?

Cheers,
--
Edit this page @ http://pt.wikipedia.org


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] 2 M


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome

body:
>From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
>Come on, Jay. That's totally uncalled for.
>
>You can't say such a thing unless you can provide technical evidence
>it's him. Something like similar writing styles (which I assume you've
>based this on) isn't going to be conclusive evidence in this regard.
>There's such a thing as impersonation to discredit.

You're right that I assumed it based on his writing style. However, the
point remains, he can still post from his real e-mail account, whoever he
is.  And since I'm the third person here to state who the real editor is,
why did you jump on me, and not the first two?

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome

body:
>From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
>
>On 6/1/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Regardless of what happened to his A Nony Mouse account, I'm sure his
> > Everyking e-mail can still post.
> > Jay.
>
>AIM ALL WEAPONS AT FEET.
>FIRE!
>
>You're just substantiating the claims of hasty admin behavior by
>throwing out such allegations.

What hasty behaviour?  Making an allegation is not the same as actually
taking action on it. And the points made in my previous e-mail remain:
1. Whoever the person is, they can still post from their real account.
2. Why are you jumping on me, when I'm the third person on the list to make
the connection?

>If indeed you believe that someone is a troll, you should to the right
>thing and quit feeding them.

Good point.

Jay.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with install

body:
drmike wrote:
> I'm trying to install 1.4.4 locally here and I am having an issue.  I'm in the
> setup page under mydomain.com/config/index.php and I have filled out all the
> necessary information under the site config and click the 'install' button.
> The problem is I then get the "Something's not quite right yet; make sure
> everything below is filled out correctly." with the additional error of "Check
> name/pass".

Please provide the diagnostic output from the installer up to that point.

> Only one problem.  Database name, username, and password are correct.  I've
> verified with under the command line and I can connect from that fine.  It just
> won't do it under the install script.

Are you using MySQL 4.1 or later? Check the RELEASE-NOTES section about
that.

> I searched the mediawiki site but found no mention.  It appears that the mailing
> list is not searchable. (Wish it was)

Google search, site:mail.wikipedia.org.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome

body:
>From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
>
>Simple, I never read the other 2 messages who named him because my
>inbox is flooded with mail about this and I'm starting to be selective
>about what I read.

I'm flattered that you read my malilings; it was worth it just to learn
that. ;-)

Jay.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: 2M articles

body:
Anthere (anthere9 at yahoo.com) [050601 14:24]:

> But *this* announcement would not be a global one. Launching article
> quality survey is of great interest for the english wikipedia due to its
> size. It is of much reduced interest for smaller language (as the lack
> of interest in validation topics by minor languages show in meta).
> Wikipedias are at different stages of development. 2M global article can
> help smaller languages get a press announcement. I am not sure they
> would dare send a "quality survey" if their project is 11 254 articles.
> Journalists are more likely to have a great laugh :-)

Mmm. It's of great interest on en: and (I think) de: (particularly in
regards to their quality campaign). Has anyone on fr: noticed?

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: 2M articles


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mass handling of "zh" translations??

body:
Hi all,

You may or may not have read my earlier message warning people that
it's not OK to put Simplified text as the zh translation for press
releases, system messages, etc. outside of the 3 Wikimedia wikis that
support it (zh-books, zh-pedia, zh-wikt).

As I found out it seems this is all the work of one culprit,
"vipuser", who similarly seeks constantly to replace the Traditional
Chinese sister-projects template on the Traditional Chinese version of
Commons mainpage with a Simplified one.

However, his work is already very extensive, and it will be a lot of
work to do by hand.

So I wondered , is there a way we can move (and delete redirect) en
masse all of the /zh translations to /zh-cn or /zh-hans?

Again, it's important that we remember that conversion only works
inside of those 3 wikis, everywhere else there still needs to be two
versions .

Also, congrats on the Cantonese Commons, Meta, etc-mainpage.

Mark

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Tels

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] server maintenance on June 1,
	3 a.m. UTC

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Moin,

On Wednesday 01 June 2005 06:21, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > Jens Frank wrote:
> >> We'll create some new indexes that should improve site
> >> performance. To do this, we need to set the wikis to
> >> read only at 3 a.m. UTC (5a.m. Berlin/Paris, about
> >> 10 p.m. Chicago). The downtime will take about 2 hours.
> >
> > While we're on this, that would be a good time to run the password
> > hash salting.
>
> Done.
>
> The other indexes are still building, we'll be back online soon
> enough... :)

Arg, I was not fast enough. I just wanted to say that I am shocked that
wikipedia didn't already salt the passwords.

And in addition, I hope that now not only the passwords are salted, but
actually include more measures against brute-forcing, like hashing the
password 10000 times, or using something stronger than MD5.

But I fear it is again too late for adding that :/

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Wed Jun  1 18:48:11 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be ready within 10
 years." Alex Lewyt, of the Lewyt Corporation, a vacuum maker, predicted
 in The New York Times on June 10, 1955 -- A warning to all technophiles

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from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: GFDL Clarification

references:
<Pine.LNX.4.61.0505271324140.4830@mimosa.opentrend.net>
	<d7ajq0$887$1@sea.gmane.org> <d7kab6$s7r$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Well,

after getting their agreement, it should be important to send them
the GNU FDL in order to ask them if they also agree with the terms of
this license.

When they answer yes, it's done.

Le 1 juin 05 ? 14:42, Phil Boswell a ?crit :

> "Timwi" <timwi at gmx.net> wrote in message
> news:d7ajq0$887$1 at sea.gmane.org...
> [snip]
>
>> Quite to the contrary, you only asked if the image could be used on
>> Wikipedia, not whether they would license it under the GFDL or
>> anything
>> else. Therefore, they only agreed to using it on Wikipedia, and
>> therefore
>> it should not be used on Wikipedia because it isn't free.
>>
>
> Am I the only person stunned by the complete lack of logical
> progression
> here?
>
> A) The owners of the image agreed for it to be used on Wikipedia
> B) Therefore it can't be.
>
> Surely we can sort out our licensing system better than this
> self-contradictory nonsense?
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] GNU-FDL and Ultimate Wiktionary

body:
It could be good to do something like that.

IRC rulez...

Le 1 juin 05 ? 17:25, Erik Moeller a ?crit :

> Jimmy Wales:
>
>> I think that GNU FDL is perfectly fine for Ultimate Wiktionary and
>> there
>> is no need to change the license.  The license is perfectly
>> compatible
>> with the .DICT format, so there should be no problems at all.
>>
>
> Jimbo,
>
> could you give us an update on where we are with regard to CC-BY-SA/
> FDL compatibility? Might it make sense to organize an electronic
> meeting with Wikimedia's legal team and the CC/GNU folks to speed
> matters up? Sorry if I'm out of the loop on this.
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: 2M articles

body:
David Gerard a ?crit:
> That is: it's something that will show up in the new software. I'd be very
> surprised if any of the top 10 wikis wouldn't benefit from some application
> of it. Of course, they may want to wait to see how the trial goes first ;-)
>
>
> - d.

Oooops. We are uncovered....


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: 2M articles


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Muke Tever

subject: [Wiktionary-l] GNU-FDL and Ultimate Wiktionary

body:
Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>> I agree.  As I have said ... probably many times now, 99% of Wiktionary
>> articles are stubs.
>
> If you want stubs look at the Ido Wiktionary. 8-)

I hit special:randompage once on en: and io: and got:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Benignant
http://io.wiktionary.org/wiki/Seenessel

Not much difference there, except that en: has a part of
speech and io: has a language index category...

nl: doesn't fare much better, returning
http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/yei
which manages language, category, part of speech, and definition...
But the word is spelled entirely wrong (according to
[1] and en: it should probably be ??, though since Google
search ignores Burmese text [!!] I can't really confirm that)

(For my part, randompage on la: brought up
http://la.wiktionary.org/wiki/Thursday
which isn't all that hot either.)

Anyway, this reminds me of why I don't find duplication of effort
a problem in general.  I don't trust any wiktionary for words
outside its native language, for one.  Too many people import lists
of translations and don't do any fact-checking (I had to respell
several Kalaallisuut number words in en recently) or even reality-
checking (someone put in "cic?nnia" as the Sardinian for [[stork]]
some time ago--I had to hunt down and fix a lot of Sardinian
mojibake in several articles imported from the same source when I
ran across that one).

nl: I've found to be particularly bad about this, as it won't just
add the translation to the lists without checking, they'll actually
create full articles for them (like 'yei' above, or another word
under the [[nl:water]] list, Dagaare "koO", which appears to be
an ASCII rendering for ko?...).

Will the UW have any way to note that information was added by a
non-native speaker?

IMO the more effort put in (can't really say it was _duplicated_, as
outside of very specialized technical terms and the communalized SAE
semantics, just because something translates an English word doesn't
mean it's the best translation of the French, Greek, or Chinese word
that also translates the English..., and at the very least that has
to be checked), the more chances we have to find discrepancies and
make a better dictionary by checking them against each other.

	*Muke!
[1] http://www.ayinepan.com/literature/search_word.php?word=w
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
On 6/1/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> What if the crackpot opens a RfC to get other people's opinions about
> who is correct, and they all agree with the crackpot because his
> version of the truth "sounds better"? Thus the crackpot version gets
> written into the article semipermanently, and any further attempts by
> the smart person to remove it from the article will be seen as
> anything from a troublesome annoyance to vicious vandalism.

But NPOV says we should be prefering citable resources over odd straw
polls on wikipedia. Voting is harmful, just another example.  Creds
don't help the problem much... but I don't think having them would
hurt.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
On 6/1/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> The smart person, being a smart person, will realise that he has failed to
> persuade, and will henceforth exercise his persuasive skills to the extent
> that, being smart and (one is presuming here) demonstrably correct, he
> will prevail.
> Or else, being a smart person, he could realise he was wrong.

or being a smart person he will realize that he is arguing with Tony
Sidaway, conclude that attempting to empty the oceans with a dixie cup
would be more productive, and just give up.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
Exactly! Giving up on an argument only makes you wrong if you're a girl.

Mark

On 01/06/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/1/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> > The smart person, being a smart person, will realise that he has failed to
> > persuade, and will henceforth exercise his persuasive skills to the extent
> > that, being smart and (one is presuming here) demonstrably correct, he
> > will prevail.
> > Or else, being a smart person, he could realise he was wrong.
>
> or being a smart person he will realize that he is arguing with Tony
> Sidaway, conclude that attempting to empty the oceans with a dixie cup
> would be more productive, and just give up.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on

body:
On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Geoff Burling said:
> > but is noteable because one
> > side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions,
> > thus
> > disrupting the forum to prove their point.)
>
> What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context?  Whose
> workplace?  Why unsafe?  How can a person placing a photograph on a
> website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe?
>
This post challenges me in a way I haven't been challenged before: I
can express three possible responses, but given the nature of these
responses, I feel I am limited to only using one of them. Could
someone help me decide which of these three responses should I use?

1. Tony, do you  honestly not know what I meant by "workplace unsafe"?
Are you, for some reason, unable to point your browser at
http://portland.craigslist.com, find the link for "Rants & Raves", then
examine the posts there to see what I might mean? The ones with pictures
attached are all helpfully marked, so if this is a sinceely pressing
question for you, I'd expect you to take a look & see what I meant.

And if you have no interest in doing your own research, what is your
point for these questions?

FWIW, I picked this term "workplace unsafe" because I had only looked
at two of the 20 or more posts with pictures on this topic. While
both were images of part of an unclothed body, I didn't want to base
my assumptions on such an unrepresentative sample & assume that none
of the others were more appropriate for a web site named
www.pregnantteeniesfuckedbygoats.com. And because I'm sure if I had
merely written "pictures of unclothed people", someone would have
found the few that were not simply unclothed people, & made the effort
to misrepresent my point by accusing me of condoning pictures I might
find offensive.

2. I was sincere in describing the exchanges here as intellectual as
compared to what usually appears in "Rants & Raves". Even the concurrent
exchange about "Rogue Admins" is polite, thoughtful, & restrained compared
to the ones I've seen in that spot at Craig's List; over there, telling
someone you disagree with "Fuck off and die" is better than half of the
exchanges I've read in "Rants & Raves" -- & one reason I don't usually
read it, despite the fact there are some very fine posts there (which
fortunately make it to "Best of Craig's List").

However, if you want to be disruptive to make a point (something usually
discouraged here at Wikipedia), & show that we can be just as nasty &
offensive, please don't try to imitate examples of Gay bashing, complaints
about fat women, national business chains, or local government. As the
joke goes, a single feather can be a lot of fun; the whole chicken is just
plain offensive.

3. I am reminded of a Zen Buddhist story, about a Master who has taken a
vow of chastity, & his young disciple. One day, as they were travelling
along, they came to a river, where a woman was standing, in provocative,
yet expensive, clothes. She asked the Master if he would be so kind as
to help her across the river; the Master agreed, and carried her across
the river on his back. She thanked the Master, & they went their
separate ways.

This incident troubled the young disciple: why did his master let a
woman -- particularly one dressed as she had been -- touch him? Didn't
that infringe on his vow of chastity? The disciple thought about about
this for a long time, & at last asked his Master about the woman.

"I left her back at the river, & have gone on," the master replied
calmly. "You appear to still be carrying her."

I recall you making a point about the phrase "workplace unsafe" quite
eloquently in a discussion some time back, about how you didn't like
the phrase & why. I have left that discussion & have gone on.

Geoff


from_name: drmike

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with install

body:
Greets:

I'm trying to install 1.4.4 locally here and I am having an issue.  I'm in the
setup page under mydomain.com/config/index.php and I have filled out all the
necessary information under the site config and click the 'install' button.
The problem is I then get the "Something's not quite right yet; make sure
everything below is filled out correctly." with the additional error of "Check
name/pass".

Only one problem.  Database name, username, and password are correct.  I've
verified with under the command line and I can connect from that fine.  It just
won't do it under the install script.

I searched the mediawiki site but found no mention.  It appears that the mailing
list is not searchable. (Wish it was)  Google comes up with 5 hits on the error
related to mediawiki.  4 with no solution and 1 with a "Get something better."

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
-drmike


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Trophees du libre prizes

body:
> * an hosting offer "pack premium", description at
> http://nexenservices.com/product_info.php?set_lang=en&cPath=2&products_id=17
> .Once again, i guess you decide whether to accept it or not, what to
> do with it. I think the offer is for one year (but i can contact
> someone to make sure, or have more details)

Brion doesn't seem to think much of it but I think it's very useful,
there are some people involved in development (including myself) who
haven't got things like a box on a static IP address to demonstrate
changes in MW to others. If there's shell access it has alot of other
potential uses such as running a public SQL query service on a
database dump which has been requested for some time now.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Feature addition to the gallery

references:
<429BA6C3.50609@wildgooses.com> <429BB0E1.9010100@pobox.com>
	<429C54EE.4080108@wildgooses.com> <d7je6b$d7q$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
> I wrote this patch. I stopped working on it after a cold reception--my
> contributions weren't met with much enthusiasm so I stopped pursuing
> trying to make them.

Well I for one would like to see it happen.

> Also, ?var notes that the patch doesn't work on the current HEAD, as the
> code the patch applies to has probably changed since the patch was
> written, so it needs some cleaning up.

Well it's pretty hard to apply a patch that doesn't work;)


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on

body:
Geoff Burling said:
> but is noteable because one
> side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions,
> thus
> disrupting the forum to prove their point.)

What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context?  Whose
workplace?  Why unsafe?  How can a person placing a photograph on a
website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe?


from_name: Arkady Rose

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
Jack Lynch wrote:
> Hey, thats me! Your talking about ME! Oh wait, thats not a good thing...

You hardly count as a newbie who is unaware of the rules.

-a

> On 6/1/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>>There are a number of administrators who are failing in that
>>>>responsibility, and they are present on this list.
>>>
>>>Name them.  Take them to ArbCom.
>>
>>Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was
>>harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed
>>because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators.
>>
>>First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather
>>evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to
>>accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint
>>within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and
>>20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all
>>traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint
>>obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a
>>troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user
>>must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in
>>question.
>>
>>And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for
>>further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you
>>to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows
>>all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends
>>while you only have enemies.
>>
>>But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the
>>unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue
>>some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll
>>forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly
>>forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only
>>made a mistake/got played by the trolls.
>>
>>--
>>mvh Bj?rn
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>

--
Imagination is just intelligence having fun.

--
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Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
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from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Bug 1133 EmailUser: additional option to send a
	(blind) copy to oneself

body:
I'm interested, if an implementation of this would be appreciated by you all
Wikinaut Tom


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
> >There are a number of administrators who are failing in that
> >responsibility, and they are present on this list.
>
> Name them.  Take them to ArbCom.

Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was
harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed
because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators.

First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather
evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to
accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint
within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and
20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all
traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint
obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a
troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user
must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in
question.

And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for
further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you
to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows
all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends
while you only have enemies.

But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the
unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue
some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll
forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly
forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only
made a mistake/got played by the trolls.

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
 "BJ?rn Lindqvist" wrote

>> Name them.  Take them to ArbCom.

>Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was
harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed
because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators.

When I was a newbie, 'dispute resolution' was a multi-step process.  In
which going to the ArbCom was the last stage, for intractable disputes.  Of
course if you have rules that are going to be applied legalistically, they
will be complex.  I doubt they are biased in favour of admins: admins have
extra powers, but more rights?

Charles


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
Hey, thats me! Your talking about ME! Oh wait, thats not a good thing...

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 6/1/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >There are a number of administrators who are failing in that
> > >responsibility, and they are present on this list.
> >
> > Name them.  Take them to ArbCom.
>
> Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was
> harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed
> because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators.
>
> First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather
> evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to
> accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint
> within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and
> 20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all
> traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint
> obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a
> troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user
> must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in
> question.
>
> And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for
> further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you
> to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows
> all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends
> while you only have enemies.
>
> But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the
> unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue
> some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll
> forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly
> forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only
> made a mistake/got played by the trolls.
>
> --
> mvh Bj?rn
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Good reasons for blocking Enviro

body:
>The 3RR does allow administrators some discretion, such as the ability
>to unblock people where they have shown remorse for breaking the rule.
>Enviroknot has not expressed any such remorse, and has not addressed
>the allegations of sockpuppetry. Instead, he or she has spammed the
>mailing list and attacked Wikipedia Administrators as a whole. Had
>Enviroknot come up with a good explanation for sharing IPs with other
>users, expressed some sort of remorse for breaking a very basic rule
>and agreed to work collaboratively on the relevant article's talk page
>to reach consensus, I have little doubt the ban would have been
>happily lifted by a number of administrators.

I totally agree with this. If environknot had been less hostile, his
chances of being unblocked would've been much larger.

--Mgm


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
JAY JG wrote:
>> From: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>
>> Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was
>> harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed
>> because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators.
>
>
> No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for doing
> things against policy; new users often seem to think "disagreeing with
> me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy.

Unless "Wikipedia would more or less stop running without" that editor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RickK#Outside_view
Then any policy violations are OK.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
I was tho, back when I they formed the arb com, and I took an admin there

Jack

On 6/1/05, Arkady Rose <arkady at arkady.org.uk> wrote:
> Jack Lynch wrote:
> > Hey, thats me! Your talking about ME! Oh wait, thats not a good thing...
>
> You hardly count as a newbie who is unaware of the rules.
>
> -a
>
>
> > On 6/1/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>>>There are a number of administrators who are failing in that
> >>>>responsibility, and they are present on this list.
> >>>
> >>>Name them.  Take them to ArbCom.
> >>
> >>Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was
> >>harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed
> >>because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators.
> >>
> >>First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather
> >>evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to
> >>accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint
> >>within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and
> >>20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all
> >>traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint
> >>obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a
> >>troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user
> >>must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in
> >>question.
> >>
> >>And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for
> >>further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you
> >>to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows
> >>all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends
> >>while you only have enemies.
> >>
> >>But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the
> >>unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue
> >>some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll
> >>forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly
> >>forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only
> >>made a mistake/got played by the trolls.
> >>
> >>--
> >>mvh Bj?rn
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>WikiEN-l mailing list
> >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Imagination is just intelligence having fun.
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 267.3.3 - Release Date: 31/05/2005
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
On 6/1/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unless "Wikipedia would more or less stop running without" that editor.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RickK#Outside_view
> Then any policy violations are OK.

Interesting to see the list of users that supported that position and
compare it to the list of users unable to keep themselves out of
disputes over appropriate admin behavior with users.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
I don't know what you expect, Bj?rn, but a certain degree of
protection is needed for anyone who's been submitted to an arbcom
complaint. We can't just let anyone accuse someone without the arbcom
being given evidence of the violations in question.

Secondly, a lot of users go straight onto the attack of a blocking or
reverting admin while simply asking to undo their actions or asking
for an explanation would be much more helpful.

Also, you can't expect admins to be infallible all the time. I've made
some bad decisions, but I've always been open to discussion.

Still, there's enough good reasons to put admins who repeatedly fail
to discuss their controversial actions.

BTW Arbcom complaints don't need to be signed by someone else, that RFCs.

--Mgm

On 6/1/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >There are a number of administrators who are failing in that
> > >responsibility, and they are present on this list.
> >
> > Name them.  Take them to ArbCom.
>
> Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was
> harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed
> because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators.
>
> First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather
> evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to
> accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint
> within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and
> 20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all
> traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint
> obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a
> troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user
> must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in
> question.
>
> And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for
> further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you
> to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows
> all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends
> while you only have enemies.
>
> But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the
> unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue
> some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll
> forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly
> forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only
> made a mistake/got played by the trolls.
>
> --
> mvh Bj?rn
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Dori

subject: [Wikitech-l] Trophees du libre prizes

body:
On 6/1/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Nicolas Weeger wrote:
> >> Well, it would make sense to make use of this for Wikimania: we're
> >> planning a developers hackathon before the main convention and if
> >> somebody's missing a laptop it could come in rather handy. If nobody
> >> needs direct use of it, we could reserve it for infrastructure / use by
> >> the NIC.
> >>
> >> After Wikimania it'll need to go somewhere.... ?
> >
> > Ok, I'll keep it stored under my bed, and bring it to Wikimania.
> > I may test it to make sure it works, but that's all.
>
> Ok, consensus among core devs is that the laptop will go to Tim
> Starling, who's put in so much excellent work on the system over the
> last year or two (especially in our database load balancing support,
> text block compression, and other vital areas) and so far is laptopless.
>
> Tim will be using it for the hackathon and taking it home after Wikimania.

Great idea! He deserves a lot more than a laptop, but we won't tell him that.


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: 2M articles

body:
On 6/1/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> David Gerard a ?crit:
> > That is: it's something that will show up in the new software. I'd be very
> > surprised if any of the top 10 wikis wouldn't benefit from some application
> > of it. Of course, they may want to wait to see how the trial goes first ;-)
> >
> >
> > - d.
>
> Oooops. We are uncovered....

Indeed, that's typical of the French. Wait and see till other "break
their teeth" (French, saying, it looses in the translation) on newer
stuff, and then laugh if they fail, look at them and say with a very
condescending tone a phrase like "We knew it would not work" or... try
hard to catch up for years to come.

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: 2M articles


subject: [Wikitech-l] Trophees du libre prizes

body:
On 6/1/05, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> > * an hosting offer "pack premium", description at
> > http://nexenservices.com/product_info.php?set_lang=en&cPath=2&products_id=17
> > .Once again, i guess you decide whether to accept it or not, what to
> > do with it. I think the offer is for one year (but i can contact
> > someone to make sure, or have more details)
>
> Brion doesn't seem to think much of it but I think it's very useful,
> there are some people involved in development (including myself) who
> haven't got things like a box on a static IP address to demonstrate
> changes in MW to others. If there's shell access it has alot of other
> potential uses such as running a public SQL query service on a
> database dump which has been requested for some time now.

This sounds like a good plan. To elaborate on that maybe also a little
nice place where users and developers can work together on static
versions of Wikipedia(s) for any kind of purpose (DVD etc..) for
example.
In any case, I really believe we should take advantage of this offer
and not let it go by, just because it's good to know providers all
over the place ;-).

Cheers,
Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
> I don't know what you expect, Bj?rn, but a certain degree of
> protection is needed for anyone who's been submitted to an arbcom
> complaint. We can't just let anyone accuse someone without the arbcom
> being given evidence of the violations in question.

I think that is unrelated to the fact that The System, as it currently
is constructed, does not work for an editor being harassed by an
admin. Besides, there is ample evidence in the diffs. Evidence that
has been collected and also ignored.

> Secondly, a lot of users go straight onto the attack of a blocking or
> reverting admin while simply asking to undo their actions or asking
> for an explanation would be much more helpful.

Very true - many admins exploit that fact. Some admin blocks a user,
that user comes back in another form and sprouts insults around
him/her, the admin can then defend its decision by the bad behaviour
the user exhibited IN REPSONSE to the harassment. But the fact you
mention is not really pertinent and can not defend bad actions from
admins.

> Also, you can't expect admins to be infallible all the time. I've made
> some bad decisions, but I've always been open to discussion.

I don't "expect" that. :) I know that each and every sysop is about
100 times more secure in their position than the average user because
of admin cameradiereship (sp?). But I would have very much preferred a
system in which one bad decision is enough. If one admin goes down,
there is 100 other users to replace him/her.

> BTW Arbcom complaints don't need to be signed by someone else, that RFCs.

I didn't know that. Has it changed recently? Last time I checked the
procedure was exactly as I described. I even witnessed first-hand a
user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get
a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which wasn't
very strange because there really only was he/she and the admin
involved..

I must also add so I don't offend someone to much. I think that even
if you replaced all misbehaving cowboy-sysops with good well-behaved
ones, nothing would change. Why? Because it's the System man, the
System!

--
mvh Bj?rn


subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
> >Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was
> >harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed
> >because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators.
>
> No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for doing
> things against policy; new users often seem to think "disagreeing with me"
> or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy.

No, the rules are set up so that admins are protected from all
complaints. Admins often seem to think that new users seem to think
that "disagreeing with me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is
against policy.

> >some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll
> >forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly
> >forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only
> >made a mistake/got played by the trolls.
>
> Can you give an example of this happening? Arbcom sanctioning an admin, and
> the person who brought the case therefore being viewed as a
> troublemaker/troll?

Umm... It has never happened, so obviously I can't. But you can
yourself search the archives to find countless examples of how
mistakes and harassments by admins have been brushed off as "everyone
does mistakes sometimes". And also of countless number of examples in
which users have been branded trolls for brining up valid complaints
against administrators. For a very clear example see the OP's post,
who even found it best to post anonymously, and then was outed by two
admins who don't like him/her.

--
mvh Bj?rn


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome

body:
Come on, Jay. That's totally uncalled for.

You can't say such a thing unless you can provide technical evidence
it's him. Something like similar writing styles (which I assume you've
based this on) isn't going to be conclusive evidence in this regard.
There's such a thing as impersonation to discredit.

--Mgm

On 6/1/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: iMeowbot <iMeowbot at mac.com>
> >"Rick" <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > --- A Nony Mouse <tempforcomments2 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >[...]
> >
> > > Really?  You've been banned from the list?  Then how
> > > did this posting make it through?
> >
> >Earlier messages were from tempforcomments@ rather than tempforcomments2@ .
>
> Regardless of what happened to his A Nony Mouse account, I'm sure his
> Everyking e-mail can still post.
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on

body:
Matt Brown said:
> On 6/1/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>> What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context?  Whose
>> workplace?  Why unsafe?  How can a person placing a photograph on a
>> website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe?
>
> With respect, Tony: what could be said about this THIS time that
> wasn't said last time?  It'd be flogging a dead horse on all sides.
>

Quite.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples?

body:
Personally, I'd like to see an example of an admin repeatedly
harrasing a regular user failing to be put before arbcom.

The only ones cases of admins before arbcom I can remember are those
who were accused of harrasment by people who repeated inserted
nonsense into articles and were reverted.

However, I'm sure my mind is foggy with regard to the history of
arbitration, so if anyone can provide examples, I'd happily read up on
it.

--Mgm

On 6/1/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>
> >
> > > >Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was
> > > >harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed
> > > >because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators.
> > >
> > > No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for doing
> > > things against policy; new users often seem to think "disagreeing with
> >me"
> > > or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy.
> >
> >No, the rules are set up so that admins are protected from all
> >complaints. Admins often seem to think that new users seem to think
> >that "disagreeing with me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is
> >against policy.
>
> Sigh.  Can you leave the "I know you are but what am I" type comments off
> the mail-list please?
>
> > > >some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll
> > > >forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly
> > > >forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only
> > > >made a mistake/got played by the trolls.
> > >
> > > Can you give an example of this happening? Arbcom sanctioning an admin,
> >and
> > > the person who brought the case therefore being viewed as a
> > > troublemaker/troll?
> >
> >Umm... It has never happened, so obviously I can't.
>
> Then how can you claim it as fact?
>
> >But you can
> >yourself search the archives to find countless examples of how
> >mistakes and harassments by admins have been brushed off as "everyone
> >does mistakes sometimes".
>
> Can you provide some of those "countless examples"?
>
> >And also of countless number of examples in
> >which users have been branded trolls for brining up valid complaints
> >against administrators.
>
> That they were valid is solely your opinion.
>
> >For a very clear example see the OP's post,
> >who even found it best to post anonymously, and then was outed by two
> >admins who don't like him/her.
>
> Didn't like him, or didn't like the smears he was posting anonymously?  I
> don't know what makes you so sure it was the former.
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome

body:
Simple, I never read the other 2 messages who named him because my
inbox is flooded with mail about this and I'm starting to be selective
about what I read.

--Mgm

On 6/1/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
> >Come on, Jay. That's totally uncalled for.
> >
> >You can't say such a thing unless you can provide technical evidence
> >it's him. Something like similar writing styles (which I assume you've
> >based this on) isn't going to be conclusive evidence in this regard.
> >There's such a thing as impersonation to discredit.
>
> You're right that I assumed it based on his writing style. However, the
> point remains, he can still post from his real e-mail account, whoever he
> is.  And since I'm the third person here to state who the real editor is,
> why did you jump on me, and not the first two?
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Kate Turner

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: image dump

body:
Rowan Collins wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:

> On 01/06/05, james <jamessampford at supanet.com> wrote:
>> just finished downloading the en image dump, tried extracting it with
>> winrar -

> http://download.wikimedia.org/images/README_ABOUT_FILE_FORMAT.txt
> mentions how to extract them correctly under *NIX system - so one way
> would be to get cygwin up and running.

hmm. i completely forgot that people might want to extract the images under
non-Unix systems... :-(  the pax format is standard, but it's not widely
used - it's not the same as GNU's version, although GNU tar can read them.
i guess most "multi-function" archive tools only understand POSIX and GNU
tar format.

i don't have a Windows system here to test, but if someone wants to
recommend an easy way to extract pax archives under Windows, i'll include
it there.  maybe we could distribute a standalone version of the Cygwin
binary?

> A quick search also turned up
> this Windows port of a "libarchive" which seems like it may include a
> compatible "tar" utility -
> http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/libarchive.htm

this looks fine.  i've added a link to here in the readme for now.

kate.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on

body:
Stan Shebs said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
>>Geoff Burling said:
>>
>>>but is noteable because one
>>>side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions,
>>>thus
>>>disrupting the forum to prove their point.)
>>>
>>
>>What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context?  Whose
>>workplace?  Why unsafe?  How can a person placing a photograph on a
>>website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe?
>>
> You know full well, it's been exhaustively explained multiple times.

Not really.  To me, it's one of those odd concepts that crop up now and
then but never seem to be adequately explained.  Clearly we're not talking
about some kind of high explosive or even something that can cause
software to malfunction.  Suppose you put something onto a website, how
could you know it was workplace unsafe?  Which particular workplace?  How
can you know?


references:
<42999E86.6090106@wikia.com> <429A1CEB.9020604@telus.net>
	<429A24FE.2040307@wikia.com> <429AB67C.3080205@telus.net>
	<op.srlbcnxm2okkek@arcadia.hsd1.co.comcast.net>
	<429DA5C3.9040701@telus.net>
	<op.srpzf6wi2okkek@arcadia.hsd1.co.comcast.net>
	<429E865B.9050407@gmail.com>

body:
Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I hit special:randompage once on en: and io: and got:
>>
>> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Benignant
>> http://io.wiktionary.org/wiki/Seenessel
>>
>> Not much difference there, except that en: has a part of
>> speech and io: has a language index category...
>
> One big difference, the word is spelled binignant not Benignant

Not in English.
 From a real dictionary:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/96/B0189600.html

Cf. also Latin benignus.

If you're referring to the capitalization, the article states that it
is 'benignant'.  Capitalized 'Benignant' only appears in the title (as
is customary capitalization for English).

>> nl: doesn't fare much better, returning
>> http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/yei
>> which manages language, category, part of speech, and definition...
>> But the word is spelled entirely wrong (according to
>> [1] and en: it should probably be ??, though since Google
>> search ignores Burmese text [!!] I can't really confirm that)
>
> If you were a part of the nl.community you would have changed it. As it
> is, all these wiktionaries are islands, there is no cooperation. We
> waste our time and effort.

The time and effort is wasted adding things one doesn't know anything about,
when the result is only going to be inaccurate.

>> Anyway, this reminds me of why I don't find duplication of effort
>> a problem in general.  I don't trust any wiktionary for words
>> outside its native language, for one.  Too many people import lists
>> of translations and don't do any fact-checking (I had to respell
>> several Kalaallisuut number words in en recently) or even reality-
>> checking (someone put in "cic?nnia" as the Sardinian for [[stork]]
>> some time ago--I had to hunt down and fix a lot of Sardinian
>> mojibake in several articles imported from the same source when I
>> ran across that one).
>
> So you spend a lot of effort on the en.wiktionary. From my point of view
> it does me no good. It does not help. You give excellent arguments why a
> UW is what we need.

No, I don't put a lot of effort on en:, and havnt for some time really.
"cic?nnia" was from when I was an en: regular, yeah.  I ran across the
errors in the Kalaallisuut when doing a reality check on stuff imported
to la: from en:.  The words had no google hits whatever outside of wiktionary
(always a bad sign).  So I went and found the right ones, fixed the la:,
and the en: where I got them from, since it is a wiki after all.

I wouldn't have even been checking kl: words at all if I wasn't working to
create a *new* source.  If we only had one wiki, "arviniq" et al. would have
sat there until 1) some kl-speaker came along to fix it or 2) some user wanted
to make a good page for the kl word. (And if it was a nl-type user, they
wouldn't have even checked the kl word before creating it, and both the bad
translation and the bad article would stay until some kl-speaker came along
to fix it.)

>> nl: I've found to be particularly bad about this, as it won't just
>> add the translation to the lists without checking, they'll actually
>> create full articles for them (like 'yei' above, or another word
>> under the [[nl:water]] list, Dagaare "koO", which appears to be
>> an ASCII rendering for ko?...).
>
> When a word is added as a translation, a "placeholder" will be created
> in the UW, this is just a word with a language. If koO should be ko?, it
> is plain wrong and, this to spot this you need a big community of
> people. This is exactly one argument why an UW would be beneficial as it
> would increase the size of the community. On your authority I changed
> koO to ko?, something you would have done if you felt part of this
> community.

As long as UW "placeholders" are just a word and a language, fine.  But
nl's "placeholders" are more than just a word with a language. Much of
the time they also give a part of speech (which is usually the part of
the speech of the Dutch word, regardless what it may be in the actual
language -- hint: not always the same, especially for languages outside
of Standard Average European) and a definition (which is also usually
the same definition as the Dutch word, again regardless of how different
it may be; in many cases they are broader).

> The argument that there should not be a full lemma is wrong. The aim of
> the wiktionary is to have all words in all languages.

I prefer that no information be given than wrong information or information
that has not been checked.  All words in all languages does no good if they
are not reliable.

>> IMO the more effort put in (can't really say it was _duplicated_, as
>> outside of very specialized technical terms and the communalized SAE
>> semantics, just because something translates an English word doesn't
>> mean it's the best translation of the French, Greek, or Chinese word
>> that also translates the English..., and at the very least that has
>> to be checked), the more chances we have to find discrepancies and
>> make a better dictionary by checking them against each other.
>
> Again, you give arguments why we need a community to do these kind of
> things. It also means that we should share the work. Now everything done
> in one project will need to be done in another. A huge waste of effort
> because at this time we do not make a dictionary we make too many
> wiktionaries.

I would love to see a hundred independently-created dictionaries of Dagaare.
A hundred and one, counting UW. :p   I think it is a good thing that
information be gathered separately by separate projects: it means people
may use some discernment in what they add, and don't just copy things blindly;
if one project fails on this, another may come through; if different projects
disagree on data, we know there is a problem, which we don't know if all we
get is one point of view.   I'm not saying Ultimate Wiktionary shouldn't exist;
I'm just saying that I don't agree with the idea that "duplication of effort"
is without merit and something to be done away with entirely.  Competition
has its own merits.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on

body:
Sean Barrett said:
> Tony Sidaway stated for the record:
>
>> Geoff Burling said:
>>
>>>but is noteable because one
>>>side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions,
>>>thus
>>>disrupting the forum to prove their point.)
>>
>>
>> What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context?  Whose
>> workplace?  Why unsafe?  How can a person placing a photograph on a
>> website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe?
>
> Attention all: please do not feed the troll.

I'm sorry that you think it's a troll. Sean.  I will not refrain from
challenging this odd neologism when I see it used carelessly.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
Mark Williamson said:
> Exactly - it helps others realise that the crackpot is a crackpot.
>
> What if the crackpot opens a RfC to get other people's opinions about
> who is correct, and they all agree with the crackpot because his
> version of the truth "sounds better"? Thus the crackpot version gets
> written into the article semipermanently, and any further attempts by
> the smart person to remove it from the article will be seen as
> anything from a troublesome annoyance to vicious vandalism.
>

The smart person, being a smart person, will realise that he has failed to
persuade, and will henceforth exercise his persuasive skills to the extent
that, being smart and (one is presuming here) demonstrably correct, he
will prevail.
Or else, being a smart person, he could realise he was wrong.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Having listened to the radio show I heard
	something else ..

body:
--- Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Wikipedia is not paper, and we can cover any subject
> in any depth we want -- all we need is the volunteers to write it.

While I fully agree with that statement, I'd like to add that, from a usability
perspective, having all that depth in one article is bad. Thus the use of
summary style that allows readers to zoom to the level of detail they need.

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html


from_name: michaelturley at myway.com

body:
I'd say RickK's treatment of Willswikihelp is pretty close to harrassing a new user, given that he reverted the user twice, and in doing so didn't once post a polite edit summary, nor a helpful comment to Willswikihelp's talk page, or even any comment whatsoever to either article's talk page, even after Willswikihelp complained of harassment on RickK's talk page.

Since Willswikihelp is such a new user, you can quickly review his entire contribution history and see how just one or two people, especially if they're admins, can ruin the good faith of a new user.

The actions and comments of Cantus and SchmuckyTheCat aren't any better, but they're not admins, so personally, I don't expect nearly as much from them.  (However, reading SchmuckyTheCat's edit summaries in response to this new user on the South Lake Tahoe, California article is especially disturbing.)

I doubt you'll ever see this new user complain to the ArbCom.  He's obviously frustrated.  I'm not sure he'll be back.

Michael Turley
User:Unfocused

 --- On Wed 06/01, MacGyverMagic/Mgm < macgyvermagic at gmail.com > wrote:

Personally, I'd like to see an example of an admin repeatedly harrasing a regular user failing to be put before arbcom.

_______________________________________________
No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
Make My Way  your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 6/1/05, michaelturley at myway.com <michaelturley at myway.com> wrote:
>
> I'd say RickK's treatment of Willswikihelp is pretty close to harrassing a new user

Pretty close?  I'd say it's over the line, personally, having reviewed
the history.

Rick, can you justify your behavior in treating well-meaning new users
who are making accurate and factual additions to articles in this way,
treating them as if they are vandalising Wikipedia?  Outright accusing
them of vandalism, in fact, when all they did was add factual
information that you considered inappropriately placed?

> The actions and comments of Cantus and SchmuckyTheCat aren't any better, but they're
> not admins, so personally, I don't expect nearly as much from them.  (However, reading
> SchmuckyTheCat's edit summaries in response to this new user on the South Lake
> Tahoe, California article is especially disturbing.)

I am (speaking of SchmuckyTheCat's edit summaries) frankly, disgusted
that someone should address another editor on Wikipedia like that -
worse yet, without even it being provoked in the slightest.  Compared
to that, Cantus' behavior was terse and over-harsh, but in comparison
... though I think one should not simply revert the addition of
factual material because it is 'badly written'.

The whole set of behavior is frankly disturbing.  Rather the
antithesis of "don't bite the newbies".

-Morven


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: 2M articles

body:
Anthere (anthere9 at yahoo.com) [050601 20:09]:
> Nicolas Weeger nicolas.weeger at laposte.net

>> IMO validation activation shouldn't be decided by Foundation, but directly by contributors.Nicolas

> Which is really good, because I do not think the Foundation has *ever* suggested it would do so.
> What makes you think it would ?

At the moment it's going in on en: because Magnus wrote the code and I and
others have pushed for it to be in 1.5 - plans for a "Wikipedia 1.0" use
some sort of distributed rating system. I presume it'll be on de: as well -
Mathias Schindler started [[m:De Validierungsthemen]], analogous to [[m:En
validation topics]].

That is: it's something that will show up in the new software. I'd be very
surprised if any of the top 10 wikis wouldn't benefit from some application
of it. Of course, they may want to wait to see how the trial goes first ;-)

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: 2M articles


subject: [Foundation-l] Validation (was 2 M)

body:
Anthere (anthere9 at yahoo.com) [050601 20:24]:

> I think there are enough french readers of this list and enough french participants on meta, to know about this future feature (hard to say this aloud... :-)) ... and to make the information dip at the right places... though I do not remember having it seen discussed in french anywhere... well.
> This morning, I put the [[en validation feature]] page a bit in the light on the "hot news" on meta to help a bit it raise interest. But what I am confused about why are there not two different pages for german and english speaking wikipedias ? Will the same "frame" work for both languages ?

I would assume so. Although de: might want to take questions directly from
the quality drive. Mathias Schindler started a page for de: after
80.134.244.232 started one for en:.

It would be good if someone who knows both languages could copy suitable
suggestions between the two pages.

> In any cases, the topic of the thread is about making a press release for the 2M, not a press release for the article validation system.

Separate press releases might be an idea. The 2M is a good opportunity to
push the tiny Wikipedias. The article rating system one can mention de:
before en: and mention the success of the de: DVD and the usable quality it
must have had for that to happen ;-)

> The 2M would be of interest to many languages, if not all languages.
> The article validation system, if it deserves a press release, would not be interesting all languages by far, because some languages are currently still in the process of trying to have *content*.

Yes. It's for applying to a maturing Wikipedia, to select from it and to
try to make it better.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Validation (was 2 M)


subject: [Foundation-l] 2 M

body:
S?rgio Ribeiro (sr.ribeiro at gmail.com) [050602 02:52]:

> Just one question.
> When you say ?future feature?, ?quality survey? and ?article validation
> system?, are you referring to the kind of system that WP:DE has (
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bewertungsbausteine if I'm not in
> mistake) or something more advanced, like a mediawiki feature ?

An actual MediaWiki feature. See [[m:Article validation feature]], and you
can try it on http://test.leuksman.com/ - in the Monobook skin, you will
see a tab called "validate" (which should probably be "rate this article"
in production on en:). The current list is test topics - the actual list
for en: is being worked out on [[En validation topics]].

We aren't doing anything with the ratings as yet, just gathering the data
(though average ratings will probably be displayed).  Then we'll look at it
and see if it makes any sense.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] 2 M


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

references:
<42999E86.6090106@wikia.com>
	<429A1CEB.9020604@telus.net>	<429A24FE.2040307@wikia.com>
	<429AB67C.3080205@telus.net>	<op.srlbcnxm2okkek@arcadia.hsd1.co.comcast.net>	<429DA5C3.9040701@telus.net>
	<op.srpzf6wi2okkek@arcadia.hsd1.co.comcast.net>

body:
Muke Tever wrote:

> Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>> I agree.  As I have said ... probably many times now, 99% of Wiktionary
>>> articles are stubs.
>>
>>
>> If you want stubs look at the Ido Wiktionary. 8-)
>
>
> I hit special:randompage once on en: and io: and got:
>
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Benignant
> http://io.wiktionary.org/wiki/Seenessel
>
> Not much difference there, except that en: has a part of
> speech and io: has a language index category...

One big difference, the word is spelled binignant not Benignant

>
> nl: doesn't fare much better, returning
> http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/yei
> which manages language, category, part of speech, and definition...
> But the word is spelled entirely wrong (according to
> [1] and en: it should probably be ??, though since Google
> search ignores Burmese text [!!] I can't really confirm that)

If you were a part of the nl.community you would have changed it. As it
is, all these wiktionaries are islands, there is no cooperation. We
waste our time and effort.

>
> (For my part, randompage on la: brought up
> http://la.wiktionary.org/wiki/Thursday
> which isn't all that hot either.)
>
> Anyway, this reminds me of why I don't find duplication of effort
> a problem in general.  I don't trust any wiktionary for words
> outside its native language, for one.  Too many people import lists
> of translations and don't do any fact-checking (I had to respell
> several Kalaallisuut number words in en recently) or even reality-
> checking (someone put in "cic?nnia" as the Sardinian for [[stork]]
> some time ago--I had to hunt down and fix a lot of Sardinian
> mojibake in several articles imported from the same source when I
> ran across that one).

So you spend a lot of effort on the en.wiktionary. From my point of view
it does me no good. It does not help. You give excellent arguments why a
UW is what we need.

>
> nl: I've found to be particularly bad about this, as it won't just
> add the translation to the lists without checking, they'll actually
> create full articles for them (like 'yei' above, or another word
> under the [[nl:water]] list, Dagaare "koO", which appears to be
> an ASCII rendering for ko?...).

When a word is added as a translation, a "placeholder" will be created
in the UW, this is just a word with a language. If koO should be ko?, it
is plain wrong and, this to spot this you need a big community of
people. This is exactly one argument why an UW would be beneficial as it
would increase the size of the community. On your authority I changed
koO to ko?, something you would have done if you felt part of this
community.

The argument that there should not be a full lemma is wrong. The aim of
the wiktionary is to have all words in all languages.

>
> Will the UW have any way to note that information was added by a
> non-native speaker?

This is relatively trivial to do. I blogged about this feature; I would
tie it in with the "babel" functionality as I use it on my Meta and
nl.wikipedia userpage.

>
> IMO the more effort put in (can't really say it was _duplicated_, as
> outside of very specialized technical terms and the communalized SAE
> semantics, just because something translates an English word doesn't
> mean it's the best translation of the French, Greek, or Chinese word
> that also translates the English..., and at the very least that has
> to be checked), the more chances we have to find discrepancies and
> make a better dictionary by checking them against each other.

Again, you give arguments why we need a community to do these kind of
things. It also means that we should share the work. Now everything done
in one project will need to be done in another. A huge waste of effort
because at this time we do not make a dictionary we make too many
wiktionaries.

Thanks,
    GerardM

>
>     *Muke!
> [1] http://www.ayinepan.com/literature/search_word.php?word=w


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
> > We should have a zero tolerance policy on administrator
> > abuse.

I would add that admins should not email users privately since we
want to be able to trace their activity. If the administrator is
contacting the user via private email, it becomes a game of "he
said", "she said".

I suggest that a link to an administrator "code of ethics" be
included in the list reminders, so that all users will know what to
expect from administrators.

I would also like to add that for the most part, wikipedia
administrators are doing an outstanding job.

Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail


from_name: Sean Barrett

body:
Christopher Mahan stated for the record:

> I would add that admins should not email users privately since we
> want to be able to trace their activity. If the administrator is
> contacting the user via private email, it becomes a game of "he
> said", "she said".

I agree most emphatically, but will add that some users forbid such
openness, demanding that "private messages" remain private.

I ignore such demands -- all messages sent to me related to arbitration
matters are promptly forwarded to the ArbComm mailing list.

--
  Sean Barrett     | Awright, hold it... where's the
  sean at epoptic.com | mutant repellent? --Steve Dallas


from_name: cookfire

body:
Muke Tever wrote:

> Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>> I agree.  As I have said ... probably many times now, 99% of Wiktionary
>>> articles are stubs.
>>
>>
>> If you want stubs look at the Ido Wiktionary. 8-)
>
>
> I hit special:randompage once on en: and io: and got:
>
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Benignant
> http://io.wiktionary.org/wiki/Seenessel
>
> Not much difference there, except that en: has a part of
> speech and io: has a language index category...
>
> nl: doesn't fare much better, returning
> http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/yei
> which manages language, category, part of speech, and definition...
> But the word is spelled entirely wrong (according to
> [1] and en: it should probably be ??, though since Google
> search ignores Burmese text [!!] I can't really confirm that)

If such a thing happens in a little Wiktionary, only a very few will
notice it. If it happens in UW, chances are a lot better somebody who
knows what is wrong about it, will see it, since all our eyeballs will
be focused on one version of the data. And then it can be fixed once and
for all. If something gets fixed now in one Wiktionary, it is very well
possible it is still entered wrongly in many others.

> Will the UW have any way to note that information was added by a
> non-native speaker?
>
> IMO the more effort put in (can't really say it was _duplicated_, as
> outside of very specialized technical terms and the communalized SAE
> semantics, just because something translates an English word doesn't
> mean it's the best translation of the French, Greek, or Chinese word
> that also translates the English..., and at the very least that has
> to be checked), the more chances we have to find discrepancies and
> make a better dictionary by checking them against each other.

The problem of the translations is a very real one and it's not going to
be easy to solve it. That doesn't mean we should just give up though. It
means we should look for a viable solution. Words across different
languages can be linked to each other. For each language pair a link is
needed. This would solve the problem nicely. It's not how I set up my
implementation (my implementation is not what is being used for UW, so
it's pretty irrelevant), but maybe it's a good way to do things in UW.

Jo


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wiktionary-l] (no subject)

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>rb_wiktionary at boult.mailshell.com wrote:
>
>
>>From what little I have learned so far of this idea, including the complete
>>lack of communication with the user community, the idea of introducing a new
>>more technical Ultimate Wiktionary sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
>>
>>
>Well, I think we can avert disaster now that everyone is talking.  I did
>not personally realize that people weren't fully informed about this --
>that's my own fault.
>
>
There's no need to blame yourself on this one.  Gerard did raise his
idea some time ago, although someone like rb didn't come onto the scene
until later, and was bound to find this more alarming than I.  This
doesn't mean that I agree with or even understand all of Gerard's
proposal.  It's a fact of life that new technical proposals are
constantly being raised.  Our developers know to exercise caution before
giving them the green light, and you should not be put in a position to
approve things before their time.  Let's just say that Gerard's
promotional claims have run far ahead of his technical developments.

Ec


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on

body:
Sean Barrett said:
> Stan Shebs stated for the record:
>
>> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>>> Geoff Burling said:
>>>
>>>> but is noteable because one
>>>> side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions,
>>>> thus
>>>> disrupting the forum to prove their point.)
>>>>
>>>
>>> What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context?  Whose
>>> workplace?  Why unsafe?  How can a person placing a photograph on a
>>> website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe?
>>>
>> You know full well, it's been exhaustively explained multiple times.
>
> It even has its own Wikipedia article.

Thank you.

I must say I find the idea that workplace rules should extend outside the
workplace in this way, applying to people who don't even work there, very,
very puzzling.  If these rules are really so important, why do people
insist on risking breaching them by visiting internet sites that have
terms of use, like the following one applying to craiglist:
"You understand that craigslist does not control, and is not responsible
for Content made available through the Service, and that by using the
Service, you may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent,
inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise objectionable."


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote

> I must say I find the idea that workplace rules should extend outside the
> workplace in this way, applying to people who don't even work there, very,
> very puzzling.

Tony - this is off-off-topic and AFAIK no one is going to have their views
changed by your further pursuit of the matter in this thread.

Charles


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikitech-l] image dumps now available

body:
On Sun, 29 May 2005, Kate Turner wrote:

>at least, they will be when the dump is complete, which will take a few more
>hours yet.  once done, image dumps will be found at:
>
>  http://dumps.wikimedia.org/images/
>
>please read the readme files.  (note: don't download dumps without an
>"upload.tar" symlink, because that means the dump is still in progress and
>the file will be incomplete!)
>
>please let me know about any problems with these files, particularly if they
>don't extract correctly.

Test using http://dumps.wikimedia.org/images/wikipedia/fi/20050530_upload.tar

GNU tar on Cygwin extracts all files correctly, except for the last ones
(outside any subdirectory), where I get lots of "tar: Skipping to next
header" errors, and a bunch of invalid gif and png files (button_bold.gif,
button_bold.png and so on).

pax doesn't seem to be available for Cygwin. I found with surprise that
there's one included with windows, but it doesn't work:

pax: - : This doesn't look like a tar archive
pax: - : Skipping to next file...

only the first 832 files are extracted, out of 3000.

Alfio


from_name: ultrablue at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome

body:
The email address was not banned from the mailing list. The email
address was *unsubscribed* from the WikiEN-l mailing list at 20:59 May
30, 2005 (UTC), although by whom I cannot ascertain (the only message
it sends to mailing list administrators is
"tempforcomments at hotmail.com has been unsubscribed", so for all I know
A Nony Mouse might have unsubscribed manually). By re-subscribing on
the same email address, A Nony Mouse would have been readily able to
continue posting on that email address. The mailing list ban list, on
the other hand, prevents people from actually subscribing to the
mailing list, but tempforcomments at hotmail.com is not on the ban list.

~Mark Ryan

On 6/1/05, A Nony Mouse <tempforcomments2 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Apparently it was a very good idea.
>
> I've been banned from the list for speaking out.
>
> I shudder to think what would have happened if I revealed my Wikipedia
> username or my name on this list.
>
> A.Nony.Mouse.
>
>
> >I have decided to make this anonymous. I do not know how some of you
> would
> >react and I do not wish to take any chance that I would be harassed for
> >this.
>
> Good idea, I think.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to
> get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] custom RSS syndication

body:
Wikipedia doesn't have RSS syndication as far as I know, but there is
an XML export function, I think. It's used by some of our leeching
mirrors. You might have more luck posting this request to our
technical mailing list:
wikitech-l at wikimedia.org

The people who would know for sure are more likely to read that
mailing list than this one. This one is more about article content
than technical issues.

~Mark Ryan

On 6/1/05, QuotationsBook.com Webmaster/Support
<quotationsbook at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
> I'm constructing a large literary resource, and would like to query
> articles about authors automatically, and receive Wikipedia articles
> back as RSS/XML documents to present in my website, with all the
> relevant backlinks to wikipedia.
>
> Does Wikipedia have customised syndication of its content?
>
> Regards
> Amit
> quotationsbook.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Josh Gordon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
In exactly how many places do we need to have this exact same discussion?

--jpgordon

On 6/2/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >> first, somewhat questionable to say the least.
> > >>
> > > You seriously read the following and determined they were
> substantially
> > > the same?
> >
> > Yes, clearly the same band which failed the music notability standard.
>
> What is the music notability standard and why does it fail one of the
> most popular Christian rock bands?
>
> --
> mvh Bj?rn
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

body:
> Personally, I'd like to see an example of an admin repeatedly
> harrasing a regular user failing to be put before arbcom.

I'd like to avoid bringing that up as it can only cause more bad
blood. But since you opt on seeing examples, off the top of my hat:
Lir and Everyking. Approach the situation with open eyes and you will
see that we have a problem. Pretend that you are blind and you wont
see anything. That it has happened before is not important now. What
is important is to make sure it doesn't happen again, or atleast, make
it much more unusual than it is now. We can do that. We have a zero
tolerance policy on 3+ reverts and it has decreased the number of
reverts. We should have a zero tolerance policy on administrator
abuse.

--
mvh Bj?rn


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Speech Jimbo on the Open Holland

body:
Hoi,
As we have not stopped discussing all kinds of everything because of
Jimbo's presentation on the radio. I would like to change the subject
and direct you to http://asp.noterik.com/asset-view/23 where you find a
video stream with three presentations. The latest is Jimbo's. All three
speeches are in English :)

Jimbo mentioned enough good things to make it worth your while. I really
liked that EllyWa's law is now known to Jimbo. I think most wikipedians
have seen this variations on Murphy's law in action. :)

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
> >I even witnessed first-hand a
> >user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get
> >a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which wasn't
> >very strange because there really only was he/she and the admin
> >involved..
>
> I strongly doubt that, since that's not part of the Arbitration Committee
> procedure.  Which case are you referring to?

Ok. It was a Request for Comments. But it is the route you are
supposed to go if you have been threatened badly by an admin. Taking
the matter directly to the ArbCom doesn't work. And I was mistaken
about the deadline too, it is 48 hours. The case I am referring to is
between a user whos username starts with O and an admin whos username
starts with R. I'm not interested in bringing up the specific case to
the mailing list (it happened many months ago) because nothing good
can come out of it. I'm just, hesistantly, mentioning the usernames by
their initials so that readers themselves can do their research and
see that the situation actually is as atrocious as I have described.

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Harrasment by an admin - examples?

body:
Well you can at least look at the contributions and when you see a
huge number of recent good contributions, check the talk page
history... and do extra warnings. It's not hard and you should be
checking contributions anyways.

On 6/2/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/2/05, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
> > I've never suffered harassment by an admin although I have felt,
> > occasionally, that one or two are 'out to get you'. Some admins (which
> i'll
> > leave un-named) aren't able to see a second point of view, don't look in
> to
> > things, and act before they think. I've seen blocks logs where an admin
> > blocks an IP and ends up blocking 100 people, just because they didn't
> look
> > into it. Some admins don't necessarily abuse their powers, but are too
> quick
> > to use it. The issue when somebody is in their RfA, of course, is that it
> is
> > often hard to judge how that user will use their powers - many change
> their
> > ways after becoming an admin.
>
>
> There is no real way of cheacking this in advance.
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
--- Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:

>  "BJ?rn Lindqvist" wrote
>
> >> Name them.  Take them to ArbCom.
>
> >Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by
> new users who was
> harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse
> they never suceed
> because the rules are complex and setup to protect
> the administrators.
>
> When I was a newbie, 'dispute resolution' was a
> multi-step process.  In
> which going to the ArbCom was the last stage, for
> intractable disputes.  Of
> course if you have rules that are going to be
> applied legalistically, they
> will be complex.  I doubt they are biased in favour
> of admins: admins have
> extra powers, but more rights?
>
> Charles

I think you'll find that even those of us who are
admins, and those who have just been here for a while,
find the process user-unfriendly.

RickK

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subject: [Wiktionary-l] Re: Wiktionary, UW

body:
Gustav Vella wrote:

>Hi Erik and Gerard,
>
>ok the current documentation :
>On 5/30/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Notes
>>
>>
>
>has emphasis on the wikidata concept, which was briefly introduced to
>me by Magnus.
>
>
>
>>2) developing and testing the best possible schema for Ultimate Wiktionary.
>>
>>
>seems to be the last point on your roadmap but have you any
>documentation on a UW schema draft so far? I cant find anything. I'd
>be particularly interest to know
>- Where do you cut an interface between language universal and
>language specific schemacomponents?
>-- are there any guidlines for the language specific schema components?
>-  Are you working on basis of the EAGLES standard ?
>- How are you handling eqivalence lists
>- how are you handling semantic fields (fixed categories? vs keyword bag?)
>
>
>- is there some place other than the mailing list to contribute to the
>schema design? somewhere on metawiki?
>
>and finally what are your first opinions on the schema? everything
>clear? does it fit into your concepts? Do you want me to translate the
>documentation?
>
>Best regards from Cologne
>
>Gustav
>
Hoi Gustav,
At this moment we have not identified for ourselves many language
specific components. What we have identified is that a meaning and an
etymology are language dependent. I have explicitly NOT published any
schema that I could come up with because I find that it is much better
to have many schema's and discuss what is needed and why. So far it has
proven me right.

The first schema of Ultimate Wiktionary mark 1 may be lacking in some
respects. But the idea with UW is to have a base scheme, get acquainted
with what we do and ammend it.  The base will be base and open for
improvements. The idea is to change the scheme on a regular basis based
on the experience that we gain and based on the functionality that we want.

At this moment in time we are building up to the moment where we DO
start talking schema's in earnest. So if you have proposals as to an
EAGLES standard the handling of equivalence lists semantic fields this
is the time to propose.

Please publish on META and use the category "Wiktionary"

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on

body:
--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:

> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> >Geoff Burling said:
> >
> >>but is noteable because one
> >>side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to
> their contributions,
> >>thus
> >>disrupting the forum to prove their point.)
> >>
> >
> >What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this
> context?  Whose
> >workplace?  Why unsafe?  How can a person placing a
> photograph on a
> >website cause a completely unrelated workplace to
> become unsafe?
> >
> You know full well, it's been exhaustively explained
> multiple times.
>
> Stan

It's been *asserted* multiple times.

RickK

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from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
> I'd like to avoid bringing that up as it can only cause more bad
> blood. But since you opt on seeing examples, off the top of my hat:
> Lir and Everyking. Approach the situation with open eyes and you will
> see that we have a problem. Pretend that you are blind and you wont
> see anything. That it has happened before is not important now. What
> is important is to make sure it doesn't happen again, or atleast, make
> it much more unusual than it is now. We can do that. We have a zero
> tolerance policy on 3+ reverts and it has decreased the number of
> reverts. We should have a zero tolerance policy on administrator
> abuse.

You're right. But we'd have to establish when something is abuse first
and make some allowance for honest mistakes.

--Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

body:
--- SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:

> JAY JG wrote:
> >> From: BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com>
> >> Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by
> new users who was
> >> harassed my some overly aggressive admins.
> Ofcourse they never suceed
> >> because the rules are complex and setup to
> protect the administrators.
> >
> >
> > No, the rules are set up so that admins can only
> be sanctioned for doing
> > things against policy; new users often seem to
> think "disagreeing with
> > me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is
> against policy.
>
> Unless "Wikipedia would more or less stop running
> without" that editor.
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RickK#Outside_view
>
> Then any policy violations are OK.

I would like to note that you withdrew your RfC.  ~~~~

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body:
> "michaelturley at myway.com" <michaelturley at myway.com>
wrote:
> I'd say RickK's treatment of Willswikihelp is pretty
> close to harrassing a new user

This from User:Unfocused, who likes to run around
attacking VfD nominations as bad faith.

RickK

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from_name: fillme at fillmewith.info

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with install

body:
I actually found the issue in Bugzilla.  It's listed as Bug #921.  Not
sure why
it didn't pick up on the search for the error but I finally found it via
Google.

Since it is a current issue, I'll go ahead and fill in the rest of this email.

Quoting Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>:

> drmike wrote:
>> I'm trying to install 1.4.4 locally here and I am having an issue.
>> I'm in the
>> setup page under mydomain.com/config/index.php and I have filled out all the
>> necessary information under the site config and click the 'install' button.
>> The problem is I then get the "Something's not quite right yet; make sure
>> everything below is filled out correctly." with the additional error
>> of "Check
>> name/pass".
>
> Please provide the diagnostic output from the installer up to that point.

I apoligize for not doing so the first time through:

Checking environment...
PHP 4.3.9: ok
PHP server API is apache; ok, using pretty URLs (index.php/Page_Title)
Have XML / Latin1-UTF-8 conversion support.
PHP's memory_limit is 32M. If this is too low, installation may fail!
Have zlib support; enabling output compression.
Turck MMCache not installed, can't use object caching functions
Found ImageMagick: /usr/bin/convert; image thumbnailing will be enabled if you
enable uploads.
Found GD graphics library built-in.
Installation directory: /home/fillme/public_html/w
Script URI path: /w
MySQL error 1045: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using
password: NO)
Trying regular user... need password.
Something's not quite right yet; make sure everything below is filled out
correctly.

>
>> Only one problem.  Database name, username, and password are correct.  I've
>> verified with under the command line and I can connect from that
>> fine.  It just
>> won't do it under the install script.
>
> Are you using MySQL 4.1 or later? Check the RELEASE-NOTES section about
> that.

4.1.11.  Again, it works find from the command line, just not from the
MediaWiki
install page.

>
>> I searched the mediawiki site but found no mention.  It appears that
>> the mailing
>> list is not searchable. (Wish it was)
>
> Google search, site:mail.wikipedia.org.

Tried that as well. (Well, wikipedia.org instead of the mail)  I will
keep it in
mind though for next time.

Thanks,
-drmnike

>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>