subject: [Wikipedia-l] Automating plagiarism-checking

body:
It would be very easy to write a program that would, every week say,
randomly select three bits of text from every Wikipedia page and search
on that text using Google.  If there were any results--well, it's hard
to say how the program could tell if there were zero results--this could
be posted somewhere for a human admin to check.  That's the general
idea.  Of course, it could be tweaked, but I'll bet something like this
could be made to work.

Larry


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Larry Sanger

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strange feature of the new wiki revision

body:
This might be a bug, or I might just be confused.

I noticed that when I put in [[common sense]] on a page, it creates a
link to a page titled "Common sense" (first letter u.c.).  However, when
I click on CommonSense and replace it with #REDIRECT [[common sense]],
the *latter* creates a link to a page titled "common sense" (first
letter l.c.).

I would prefer to be able to title the page "common sense", actually.
And I *can*--by using a redirection page (!)--I just can't link to the
"common sense" page by using a [[common sense]] link on a regular page
(because that will point to "Common sense".  Another problem is that I
must rework my redirection pages from "[[common sense]]" to "[[Common
sense]]" or else all the old CommonSense links will be broken (because
they will point to "common sense" instead of "Common sense".

What should I do?  I'm sure at least ONE person will understand the
above.  :-)

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How to update Wikipedia

body:
I have an idea about how we can systematically update all the old pages:

(1) Search for "." or "e".
(2) Copy contents of each page in succession
(3) Replace the contents of all 1,300 or so MashedTogether pages with
#REDIRECT [[Mashed Together No More]].  Just BE SURE that you label the
page with the first letter capitalized.  I.e., NEVER type: "#REDIRECT
[[link like this]]".  Instead, type: "#REDIRECT [[Link like this]]".
(4) Paste copied contents on Mashed Together No More.

Then all we have to do is replace the LINKS to the old pages with links
to the new pages.

What do you think?  Shall we start doing this, or will Cliff or someone
be doing something to automate the link conversion process?

Larry


from_name: Jimmy Wales

in_reply_to: <001101c09c55$dbf9ac60$3af6ea18@Bomis.com>; from lsanger@nupedia.com on Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 02:30:14PM -0800

body:
I think that this is, in part anyway, a feature not a bug.

I know that Clifford forces the upper case in hopes of having more
'accidental linking'.

The idea is that 'Common sense' and 'common sense' should point to the
same thing.  It doesn't matter if it is at the beginning of a sentence or
not, see.

Larry Sanger wrote:

> This might be a bug, or I might just be confused.
>
> I noticed that when I put in [[common sense]] on a page, it creates a
> link to a page titled "Common sense" (first letter u.c.).  However, when
> I click on CommonSense and replace it with #REDIRECT [[common sense]],
> the *latter* creates a link to a page titled "common sense" (first
> letter l.c.).
>
> I would prefer to be able to title the page "common sense", actually.
> And I *can*--by using a redirection page (!)--I just can't link to the
> "common sense" page by using a [[common sense]] link on a regular page
> (because that will point to "Common sense".  Another problem is that I
> must rework my redirection pages from "[[common sense]]" to "[[Common
> sense]]" or else all the old CommonSense links will be broken (because
> they will point to "common sense" instead of "Common sense".
>
> What should I do?  I'm sure at least ONE person will understand the
> above.  :-)
>
> Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Slashdotted?

body:
JimboWales is being interviewed by Slashdot, and the interview may
appear tomorrow (Thursday) morning.  He mentioned Wikipedia in the
interview, and we may experience a substantial surge in traffic.  Based
on what has happened to other wikis mentioned on slashdot, we might
expect to see some vandalism.  If all the active participants could log
in a bit more often tomorrow to keep an eye on things, that would be
great.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia taking forever to accept changes

body:
Is it taking forever for anyone else for Wikipedia to accept changes?
Is this a server problem, or what?

--Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] "How does one edit a page" page edited!

body:
I have edited the "how does one edit a page" page.  I hope you like the
change.  Feel free to add more--I've probably left out features (and
warnings) I didn't know about or wasn't thinking of.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Renaming

body:
It would be *so* cool to have a renaming function, and not just to
convert from the old style links to new style links.  Is this something
we can do now or a feature we can turn on?  Or is it in the works?

---Larry


from_name: Clifford Adams

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Renaming (and deletion)

body:
> It would be *so* cool to have a renaming function, and not just to
> convert from the old style links to new style links.  Is this something
> we can do now or a feature we can turn on?  Or is it in the works?

    There is a renaming function, but it is only available for "admin" users.
(Admin users are those who have entered a correct admin password on the
preferences page.)  To use it, go to the action=editlinks page.

    On that page, you can add editing commands, 1 per line.  The commands (for
0.91) are:

* Rename an existing page (optionally rename links pointing to it).  The
OldPage *must* exist, and the NewPage must *not* exist when this command is
done.  The syntax is:

=OldPage=NewPage

* Rename links to a page.  The existance of OldPage and/or NewPage doesn't
matter.  (You can use this to rename links to pages that don't exist yet, or
to change all the links from one page to another similar page.)  Syntax:

|OldPage|NewPage

    For both of the rename commands, one can optionally choose to edit the
RecentChanges log and/or the text of all pages.  If these are selected (as
they are by default), all references to the old page name will be renamed,
including old kept versions and cached diffs.

* Delete a page.  The page is immediately and completely deleted (along with
all kept revisions).  If the edit-RecentChanges option is selected (as it is
by default), all references to this page are deleted from the RecentChanges
log.  No other pages are changed by this command.  Syntax:

!OldPage

    For example:

=EsperantoLanguage=[[Esperanto Language]]
=[[John F. Kenedy]]=[[John F. Kennedy]]
|[[Some nonexisting name]]|[[Another page name]]
![[Some icky bad no-good page]]
!AnotherIckyPage

    I recommend that all wiki site administrators do a full backup of the
$DataDir regularly, especially before doing commands like editlinks.  Since
the editlinks commands lock the database while operating, I also recommend not
doing more than 10-20 commands in a single request.

    For public participation, I figured that an active wiki might set aside a
page like [[Edit Requests]] for user editing requests.  The admin(s) could
occasionally look over the requests, and cut/paste them to the editlinks page
if they are reasonable.  (Renaming [[Physics]] to [[Icky Science Stuff]]
wouldn't be reasonable.)

            --Cliff
    (Did I mention that I need to improve the documentation? :-)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Slashdot article posted

body:
But the interviews go on for a long time, and there is only one
link to wikipedia in there... we will see some traffic, but we won't
get hammered as much as I had thought (and hoped).

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Comments?

body:
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Jupiter
Comments on the above?

--Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Woo-hoo!

body:
Wow, Wikipedia is growing by leaps and bounds today!  We'll pass 2,000
articles today!

Of course, this isn't a very good measure of how much content we have.
I just discovered a simple trick: search for ",".  I found 1,261 pages;
this excludes all redirection pages as well as mere links pages and
one-liners.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Thinking ahead

body:
I was doing some editing on Wikipedia just now and had the following
thoughts.

I don't think it's going to die down--ever.  It's going to be active,
and while it might die down somewhat, in fact, over the next many
months, it's only going to get ''more'' :-) active.

I think this makes certain improvements, related to scalability,
particularly crucial.  One improvement that Jimmy has mentioned (maybe
just to me--I forget where anyway) is to divide Wikipedia into several
distinct categories.  Perhaps "science, math, and philosophy," "social
science," "applied arts and sciences," and "culture" (as per Nupedia) or
perhaps something finer-grained.  Then, whenever anyone saved a change,
the change would be logged on one (or more) of *several* "recent
changes" pages as indicated by the user.  Then, if I was interested,
then I could look at *only* those changes in the "culture" section.

If we don't do this--or come up with some other solution--we're going to
have a serious problem of a "recent changes" page that just moves far
too fast-and-furious for anyone to follow.  It'll get very sloppy.  The
experience today and yesterday already bears this out.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dungeons and Dragons article--source?

body:
Please see
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Dungeons_and_Dragons

This makes me nervous..


in_reply_to: <004d01c0abfe$ac387d40$3af6ea18@Bomis.com>; from lsanger@nupedia.com on Tue, Mar 13, 2001 at 12:46:26PM -0800

body:
I confirmed the copyright violation (it was copied from a ZDNet article) and
deleted the offending text.

I just made a minor modification to the 'copyright notice' text, admonishing people not
to steal.

Larry Sanger wrote:

> Please see
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Dungeons_and_Dragons
>
> This makes me nervous..
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Most requested pages

body:
Some neat features could perhaps be implemented outside the wiki.cgi framework using
a cron job.  For example, a neat feature would be to go through all the pages of the
site, looking for the "most requested pages", i.e. the terms that are wiki-linked the
most, but for which there exists no page.

This would be useful because it would tell us about major "holes" in our coverage.

Other similar "counting" stuff could be handled by the same script... such as
"How many articles greater than 100 words long?"  "Which existing pages are most linked?"

I have been trying to write a couple of little command-line perl scripts to do such
things, but I am getting very lost.  :-)
--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Foreign characters

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] "DO NOT STEAL"

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Response

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Response

body:
> Plagiarism is copying another authors work _and claiming it as your
> own_, which is fraudulent, and I agree immoral.  Using an author's
> work without his permission for your own use or profit, but openly
> without deception, is copyright infringement, with which I find not
> the slightest moral objection.  This is our moral disagreement.

While we are registering disagreements, let me (publicly this time
rather than privately) register *my* disagreement.  I think it's pretty
obvious that intellectual property rights should be strongly protected.
What *is* interesting is *why* intellectual property is important to
protect.  There are excellent reasons why intellectual property rights
exist and have existed in one form or another in so many places and for
so long; probably the most important is that, without them, artists and
inventors lose an extremely important incentive to carry on their work.
Of course, if one were a luddite, for example, one might want to oppose
intellectual property protections, because getting rid of them would
almost certainly have a very chilling effect on the development of
technology.

Therefore, you may fail miserably in your proselytizing, Lee.  :-)

(Perhaps we can continue this conversation on
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/CopyrightTalk ...)

--Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Response

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Response

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Response

body:
I'll let you have the final word on Wikipedia, Lee, since you want it.
:-)

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Response

body:
I'm willing to make this change.  Mostly I just want to have something
"punchy" that gets the message across.

However, although I'm willing to make the change, I don't agree with
your reasons for it.  The concept "steal" is quite broad -- broader
than theft of property.  If I steal your girlfriend, that doesn't mean
that she's your property or mine.

Similarly, plagiarism is a moral issue quite separate from the legal
status of things.  Even someone opposed to copyright laws can agree
that it is immoral to use an author's work without permission, that it
amounts to stealing, in the broad sense.

But *my* point wasn't to take a specific position _in the Wikipedia_ on
copyright laws.  That's not appropriate for an encyclopedia.  So I'll
make a change.

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> I understand your position, Larry, and I agree that you need the
> warning.  But "DO NOT COPY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL" would work just as
> well, and would not be personally offensive to me and other
> dedicated, moral, hard-working, law-abiding, intelligent people
> working to abolish copyright law as it is today.
>
> Imagine it like this: bigamy is illegal in every state.  It is
> frowned upon by most religions and most people.  But there are some
> people who are quite decent, loving, moral people working to change
> the laws and attitudes to make it legal.  For them (and especially
> those not actively practicing) to see themselves called "perverts"
> or "criminals" in public is offensive, and doing so is most
> definitely a biased expression of political opinion, even though it
> happens to be the opinion of the vast majority.
>
>
> --------------------------------------

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************

----- End forwarded message -----

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Response

in_reply_to: <200103141917.LAA06654@cobrand.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Wed, Mar 14, 2001 at 11:17:25AM -0800

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> Plagiarism is copying another authors work _and claiming it as your
> own_, which is fraudulent, and I agree immoral.  Using an author's
> work without his permission for your own use or profit, but openly
> without deception, is copyright infringement, with which I find not
> the slightest moral objection.  This is our moral disagreement.

O.k., well, then in the concept of the wikipedia, this applies because
we can't really give credit and expect it to remain there with any
certainty.  Anyone might stumble in and edit the work, changing the meaning,
etc.

> I think of ideas like children.  We create them, develop them,
> benefit from them; but once they are released into the world, we no
> longer have any right to control what becomes of them or who benefits
> from them.

O.k., well, I'm thinking we shouldn't argue too much about this here on the
wikipedia list, lest we bore people.  :-)

I'll just say that I tend to agree with you _with respect to ideas_, but copyright
is not about _ideas_.  You can't copyright an _idea_.  So I think that analyzing
the issues has to be a bit more sophisticated than this.

In any event, do you like the change that I made to the notice?

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Britannica news

body:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/is/20010314/bs/brittanica_com_look_under_m_for_mess_1.html

I think that Britannica's woes will only deepen.  It's hard to compete against
_free_ volunteer projects like Nupedia and Wikipedia.  Of course, we aren't really
making a dent in them yet, but anything they do which presupposes that people will
be willing to pay for their content will be disastrous for them in the "long" run --
the 5-10 years it will take for Nupedia to be competitive with them, or the 1-2 years
that Wikipedia will take.

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


from_name: dsaf sdaf

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Response

body:
> This is indeed the common justification for them.
> But clearly the
> entire Renaisance is a counterexample: art,
> invention, culture, and
> creativity flourished as never before in human
> history--witout
> benefit of copyrights or patents.

Hmm. My understanding is that the experimentors of the
Renaisance period had financial backing from
inheritance or sponsors amongst the gentry who were
amused by their activities, and often kept the
artistic work in private collections, shown off to
show the wealth of the patron yes but not
'released'... there are many barriers to vast
inheritances now (mainly 'cos they're highly unfair
and keep a lot of ppl poor) and those who are rich
tend to have 'worked their way up' therefore have a
different attitude to those who are just rich from
birth (they tend to either a) want more and more to
'prove themselves' or b) want to donate to charitable
causes to help underprivaleged people get their basic
needs catered for, which is an admirable cause but
doesn't leave the money free to support science and
art). Today's culture wouldn't support 'tinkerers' who
just spent all day playing with things that were of no
commercial or industrial value, because people have
more of a social conscience and direct such free
resources to the truly impoverished, expecting those
with talent to provide towards practical things.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices.
http://auctions.yahoo.com/


body:
Good point...better yet, announce the that-language wiki in the center
column of the page.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cindy Lynn Seeley" <Cindy_Seeley at n-connect.net>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 4:41 PM
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Alternative language wikipedias

> Jimbo wrote:
> > As an example, please examine deutsche.wikipedia.com, which is now
> existing but
> > of course only has a few words of English language from me in it
just now.
> >
> > --Jimbo
>
> Hi Jimmy,
> Shouldn't the Wikipedia links on each language's main Nupedia page
also
> point to the corresponding language Wikipedia?
> Cindy Lynn
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Cindy Lynn Seeley

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Alternative language wikipedias

body:
Jimbo wrote:
> As an example, please examine deutsche.wikipedia.com, which is now
existing but
> of course only has a few words of English language from me in it just now.
>
> --Jimbo

Hi Jimmy,
Shouldn't the Wikipedia links on each language's main Nupedia page also
point to the corresponding language Wikipedia?
Cindy Lynn


body:
I want to set up some alternative language wikipedias.

French and German would be good, and Cdani has offered to not inflict his
terrible English on us if we make a Catalan wikipedia.  :-)  (I'm just
teasing, but he has expressed an interest.)

I intend to setup the following domain names and wikis:

french.wikipedia.com
francais.wikipedia.com
(both pointing to the same thing)

german.wikipedia.com
deustche.wikipedia.com
(both pointing to the same thing)

spanish.wikipedia.com
espanol.wikipedia.com
(both pointing to the same thing)

Are those the right words to use?

I would also consider

nihongo.wikipedia.com
japanese.wikipedia.com

One problem is going to be technical support of these languages, since if there
are "fancy letter" problems, I will not know much how to deal with them.  Japanese
is pretty much _all_ "fancy letters", but I assume that Linux/Apache/Perl will just
magically support it?  Or will they be forced to use non-fancy ASCII urls?

Anyhow, it seems like a useful thing to do this.

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


in_reply_to: <20010315192453.C15942@aristotle.bomis.com>; from jwales@aristotle.bomis.com on Thu, Mar 15, 2001 at 07:24:53PM -0600

body:
As an example, please examine deutsche.wikipedia.com, which is now existing but
of course only has a few words of English language from me in it just now.

--Jimbo

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I want to set up some alternative language wikipedias.
>
> French and German would be good, and Cdani has offered to not inflict his
> terrible English on us if we make a Catalan wikipedia.  :-)  (I'm just
> teasing, but he has expressed an interest.)
>
> I intend to setup the following domain names and wikis:
>
> french.wikipedia.com
> francais.wikipedia.com
> (both pointing to the same thing)
>
> german.wikipedia.com
> deustche.wikipedia.com
> (both pointing to the same thing)
>
> spanish.wikipedia.com
> espanol.wikipedia.com
> (both pointing to the same thing)
>
> Are those the right words to use?
>
> I would also consider
>
> nihongo.wikipedia.com
> japanese.wikipedia.com
>
> One problem is going to be technical support of these languages, since if there
> are "fancy letter" problems, I will not know much how to deal with them.  Japanese
> is pretty much _all_ "fancy letters", but I assume that Linux/Apache/Perl will just
> magically support it?  Or will they be forced to use non-fancy ASCII urls?
>
> Anyhow, it seems like a useful thing to do this.
>
> --
> *************************************************
> *            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
> *      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
> *************************************************
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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body:
> I want to set up some alternative language wikipedias.
> ...
> One problem is going to be technical support of these languages, since if
there
> are "fancy letter" problems, I will not know much how to deal with them.
Japanese
> is pretty much _all_ "fancy letters", but I assume that Linux/Apache/Perl
will just
> magically support it?  Or will they be forced to use non-fancy ASCII urls?

    For German, French, and Spanish wikis I don't see a problem.  (In fact
there are already some semi-private UseModWiki clones for each of these
languages.)  See http://www.wikiservice.at/dse/wiki.cgi?RecentChanges for an
example of a German-language clone of UseMod which forked off as a separate
project a few months ago (at that time I wasn't very interested in translation
work).

    I am uncertain if Japanese would work well.  The FreeLink pattern could be
extended to cover just about anything, but there might be a problem with the
one reserved character value in UseModWiki.  (You can't use the character 0xB3
(decimal 179, superscript-3 in the common Windows/Latin-1 character set)
within a wiki page.  That character value is used internally as a separator in
text processing.  If the 0xB3 character is entered on a page, it will be
automatically removed.)  Removing that restriction would be a major project.
A couple pages that might be helpful for a Japanese wiki are:

* http://todo.org/cgi-bin/jp/tiki.cgi?c=h&p=RecentPages  (a Japanese wiki)
* http://twiki.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/view/Codev/KanjiCharacterSet
(Discussion of Japanese-wiki issues with TWiki)

    Finally, I'm now working on a translation interface for the wiki
interface.  All the wiki messages will go through a translation function.  The
translation messages will be in a separate file for each language (which could
be appended to the main wiki script for efficiency).  At first the translation
will be a sitewide option, but later I may add the ability to allow users to
change their language individually.

    I'm aiming to get most of the "common" interface (regular pages, the edit
page, and RecentChanges) using the translation interface by the next release
(0.92, hopefully in early April).  The release after that should be fully
translated.

            --Cliff
    (Your slightly overwhelmed UseModWiki author)


from_name: rose.parks at att.net

body:
Vote for nihongo.wikipedia.com.
Question: Can people who do not have Japanese Language
Support on their computers see kanji, katakana, hiragana?
i.e. is www.asahishinbun.com viewable on a regular PC,
Mac??? I thought not.

              As Ever,

              Tired....

               Ruth Ifcher

--

> I want to set up some alternative language wikipedias.
>
> French and German would be good, and Cdani has offered to not inflict his
> terrible English on us if we make a Catalan wikipedia.  :-)  (I'm just
> teasing, but he has expressed an interest.)
>
> I intend to setup the following domain names and wikis:
>
> french.wikipedia.com
> francais.wikipedia.com
> (both pointing to the same thing)
>
> german.wikipedia.com
> deustche.wikipedia.com
> (both pointing to the same thing)
>
> spanish.wikipedia.com
> espanol.wikipedia.com
> (both pointing to the same thing)
>
> Are those the right words to use?
>
> I would also consider
>
> nihongo.wikipedia.com
> japanese.wikipedia.com
>
> One problem is going to be technical support of these languages, since if there
> are "fancy letter" problems, I will not know much how to deal with them.
> Japanese
> is pretty much _all_ "fancy letters", but I assume that Linux/Apache/Perl will
> just
> magically support it?  Or will they be forced to use non-fancy ASCII urls?
>
> Anyhow, it seems like a useful thing to do this.
>
> --
> *************************************************
> *            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
> *      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
> *************************************************
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


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in_reply_to: <017701c0adc9$9f9a5fa0$83dd82d1@oemcomputer>; from caadams@frontiernet.net on Thu, Mar 15, 2001 at 10:31:41PM -0500

body:
Clifford Adams wrote:
>             --Cliff
>     (Your slightly overwhelmed UseModWiki author)

Cliff,

I'd like to help.  I have some questions and confusions about how the code
works, though.  Would the best place for those questions be on usemod.com?
(I imagine so...)

I bet we can find some other people to help, as well, and then in a few months,
you'll be able to slip into the "Linus Torvalds" mode.  (He always jokes that
he's basically a very lazy person who likes to take credit for other people's work.)

I'm finding that there's a bit of a learning curve with your code.  It's
good code, no question, but I got lost in it.  I think I could ask you 5-10
questions and then the lightbulb would go on.

Should I do that on the usemod wiki?

--Jimbo

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


in_reply_to: <20010316054356.MGWZ9562.mtiwmhc23.worldnet.att.net@webmail.worldnet.att.net>; from rose.parks@att.net on Fri, Mar 16, 2001 at 05:43:55AM +0000

body:
That's right, Ruth.  Unless you go through some special steps, you generally
can't just see kanji, katakana, and hiragana.  It just looks like modem noise.
(Of course, even if you _are_ seeing it, it might look like modem noise to some!)
:-)

rose.parks at att.net wrote:

> Vote for nihongo.wikipedia.com.
> Question: Can people who do not have Japanese Language
> Support on their computers see kanji, katakana, hiragana?
> i.e. is www.asahishinbun.com viewable on a regular PC,
> Mac??? I thought not.
>
>               As Ever,
>
>               Tired....
>
>                Ruth Ifcher
>
> --
>
> > I want to set up some alternative language wikipedias.
> >
> > French and German would be good, and Cdani has offered to not inflict his
> > terrible English on us if we make a Catalan wikipedia.  :-)  (I'm just
> > teasing, but he has expressed an interest.)
> >
> > I intend to setup the following domain names and wikis:
> >
> > french.wikipedia.com
> > francais.wikipedia.com
> > (both pointing to the same thing)
> >
> > german.wikipedia.com
> > deustche.wikipedia.com
> > (both pointing to the same thing)
> >
> > spanish.wikipedia.com
> > espanol.wikipedia.com
> > (both pointing to the same thing)
> >
> > Are those the right words to use?
> >
> > I would also consider
> >
> > nihongo.wikipedia.com
> > japanese.wikipedia.com
> >
> > One problem is going to be technical support of these languages, since if there
> > are "fancy letter" problems, I will not know much how to deal with them.
> > Japanese
> > is pretty much _all_ "fancy letters", but I assume that Linux/Apache/Perl will
> > just
> > magically support it?  Or will they be forced to use non-fancy ASCII urls?
> >
> > Anyhow, it seems like a useful thing to do this.
> >
> > --
> > *************************************************
> > *            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
> > *      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
> > *************************************************
> > [Wikipedia-l]
> > To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> > http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


body:
Lee Crocker wrote:
> The current Wiki
> ASCII codes page will be entirely replaced--the characters on that
> page don't even correspond to the codes that label them--perhaps Wiki
> software munged them at some point.

I'm assuming you know what you're doing, but it's perhaps worth pointing
out that when (per the instructions on
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Wiki_ASCII_codes_page )
I hold down alt key and then, using the number pad, type the number of
the character in question, I do indeed get the character in question.
I'm fairly sure it works the same way for many other people, too.

I'm probably not understanding what you're saying.  I just hope you
won't change this information, because it does appear to be accurate and
useful.  You could supplement it with more information, of course.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] German Wikipedia

body:
From: Sonic <sonic at arcormail.de>
To: deutsch-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Deutsch-L]Deutsch Wikipedia
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 01:23:42 +0100
Reply-To: deutsch-l at nupedia.com

Larry Sanger schrieb:

> Please see
> http://deutsche.wikipedia.com/
>
> Should this be
> deutsche.wikipedia.com or
> deutsch.wikipedia.com ?
>
> The latter, I thought.  Oder?

either the latter or simply de.wikipedia.com (which is the ccTLD and
used for
many German divisions of international sites (like de.yahoo.com)). Both
versions sound funny, because deutsche implies a female gender while
Wikipedia is no German word and thus has no gender (of course you could
create one, but it still sounds strange), while "deutsch" has no
grammatical
relation to "Wikipedia" at all (in German, two nouns cannot be placed
next to
each other).

Bye,

A.f.


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] German Wikipedia

body:
Sonic,

How would one say "This is the German language Wikipedia" in German?

I can make all of these point to the same place, but we will still
want one of them to be 'canonical'.

Larry Sanger wrote:

> From: Sonic <sonic at arcormail.de>
> To: deutsch-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Deutsch-L]Deutsch Wikipedia
> Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 01:23:42 +0100
> Reply-To: deutsch-l at nupedia.com
>
> Larry Sanger schrieb:
>
> > Please see
> > http://deutsche.wikipedia.com/
> >
> > Should this be
> > deutsche.wikipedia.com or
> > deutsch.wikipedia.com ?
> >
> > The latter, I thought.  Oder?
>
> either the latter or simply de.wikipedia.com (which is the ccTLD and
> used for
> many German divisions of international sites (like de.yahoo.com)). Both
> versions sound funny, because deutsche implies a female gender while
> Wikipedia is no German word and thus has no gender (of course you could
> create one, but it still sounds strange), while "deutsch" has no
> grammatical
> relation to "Wikipedia" at all (in German, two nouns cannot be placed
> next to
> each other).
>
>
> Bye,
>
> A.f.
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] German Wikipedia

body:
Dear Jimmy,

It would seem that this question should go to deutsch-l,
or Andreas Flack at
sonic at arcormail.de
who speaks both German and English well, and is the co
ordinator of the German translation project. Or,
perhaps, it has? It will take less than a minute to come
up with an answer.

            As Ever,

                Ruth Ifcher

--

> Sonic,
>
> How would one say "This is the German language Wikipedia" in German?
>
> I can make all of these point to the same place, but we will still
> want one of them to be 'canonical'.
>
>
> Larry Sanger wrote:
>
> > From: Sonic <sonic at arcormail.de>
> > To: deutsch-l at nupedia.com
> > Subject: Re: [Deutsch-L]Deutsch Wikipedia
> > Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 01:23:42 +0100
> > Reply-To: deutsch-l at nupedia.com
> >
> > Larry Sanger schrieb:
> >
> > > Please see
> > > http://deutsche.wikipedia.com/
> > >
> > > Should this be
> > > deutsche.wikipedia.com or
> > > deutsch.wikipedia.com ?
> > >
> > > The latter, I thought.  Oder?
> >
> > either the latter or simply de.wikipedia.com (which is the ccTLD and
> > used for
> > many German divisions of international sites (like de.yahoo.com)). Both
> > versions sound funny, because deutsche implies a female gender while
> > Wikipedia is no German word and thus has no gender (of course you could
> > create one, but it still sounds strange), while "deutsch" has no
> > grammatical
> > relation to "Wikipedia" at all (in German, two nouns cannot be placed
> > next to
> > each other).
> >
> >
> > Bye,
> >
> > A.f.
> >
> > [Wikipedia-l]
> > To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> > http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
> --
> *************************************************
> *            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
> *      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
> *************************************************
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia article-a-day

body:
I think it's time to start a wikipedia article-a-day feature!  Every
morning, the system could send a Wikipedia article out to whoever wants
one.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia article-a-day

in_reply_to: <00ba01c0b316$a20590a0$3af6ea18@Bomis.com>; from lsanger@nupedia.com on Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 01:25:34PM -0800

body:
Great idea!  Perhaps we could start a queue for you... the basic idea is that you
would have a file on the server where you could enter in articles that you think are
basically "good enough".  Each morning, a cron job opens that file, takes out the first
line, and emails that story to everyone.  You'd be warned by email if there were fewer
than 10 articles in the queue, or some such.

The hardest part of this, in my opinion, is having a script that opens up Cliff's data
files and constructs a story from it.  I don't yet understand how the data is stored.
It seems complex, but perhaps I just don't *get* something.

Larry Sanger wrote:

> I think it's time to start a wikipedia article-a-day feature!  Every
> morning, the system could send a Wikipedia article out to whoever wants
> one.
>
> Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fw: Nupedia: system up; Wikipedia started; German and Slashdot invasion

body:
Expect an influx of traffic.

----- Original Message -----
From: <system at nupedia.com>
To: <lsanger at nupedia.com>
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 10:42 AM
Subject: Nupedia: system up; Wikipedia started; German and Slashdot
invasion

>
> March 22, 2000
>
> Dear Nupedians,
>
> It's been quite a long time since our last update (it was last
December!)--that's mainly because we've been so busy.  But I'll keep
this update brief and informal.
>
> As most of you already know, the much-heralded new web-based system is
now up and running:
> http://www.nupedia.com/newsystem/member.phtml
> To see it operate in its full splendor, you'll have to be logged in.
I have promised to add more instructions (where text is underlined) but
have always seemed to lack time to finish this task.  Meanwhile, the
system is simple enough, with enough instructions already in place, for
many people to have started using it; others, I'm afraid, might feel
they've been left high and dry.  My apologies; I'll try to get those
instructions written.  In the meantime, of course, help is available
from many different people.
>
> A conversation with a friend in early January about the so-called
"WikiWiki" software led to the creation of Wikipedia, a new encyclopedia
project complementary to Nupedia:
> http://www.wikipedia.com/
> Basically, *anyone* can go to any page of that website and, by simply
pressing the "edit text" link, edit the text of the page.  As of this
moment (Thursdy, March 22, 12:57 PM Pacific Time), we have 2,953 (yes,
2,953) pages in Wikipedia.  Of these, 1,816 are relatively substantial
articles.  We started in January, 2001, so we've made incredible
progress--even we are surprised.  Maybe you think that Wikipedia would
end up being a rather low-quality product, since it's open to everyone.
But perhaps it's the fact that it is open to everyone that makes a lot
of these articles in fact not so bad, and ever-improving.  We tend to
cater to the highest common denominator--"lower denominators" usually
don't touch articles they know nothing about.
>
> PLEASE note: the editorial processes and policies of Wikipedia and
Nupedia are totally separate; Nupedia editors and peer reviewers do not
necessarily endorse the Wikipedia project, and Wikipedia contributors do
not necessarily endorse the Nupedia project.  I personally am working on
both projects, as are a number of Nupedia members.  I think that the
projects might eventually develop a very interesting symbiotic
relationship.  But nothing along those lines is official, and no changes
are anticipated in the near future.  Certainly no changes will be made
without consulting Advisory-L and Nupedia-L.
>
> In January and February, we had an enormous influx of traffic due to
coverage of Nupedia by the German press agency DPA and by the hugely
popular computer programmer website, Slashdot.org (twice!).  (This has
led, by the way, to my getting far behind in my e-mail--something for
which I apologize, but it really couldn't be helped.)
>
> As a result, we have set up Deutsch-L, a mailing list, ably led by
Andreas Flack, which has been producing German translations of various
Nupedia pages.  See:
> http://www.nupedia.com/de/
> And as a result of *that*, we've accepted translations of the home
page in French, Italian, and Spanish (as well as German of course).
We've set up Interpret-L for general translation issues, and Francais-L,
a nascent French language translation project.  We might soon set up
Espanol-L.  See this page for more information:
> http://www.nupedia.com/translating.shtml
>
> Another piece of news is that we have found an able Chief Copyeditor
who may be contacted via the following web pages:
> http://www.nupedia.com/copyediting.shtml
> http://www.nupedia.com/newsystem/copyediting.phtml
>
> Those, then, are some news highlights.  There has been much other
news; but I did promise to try to keep this short.  If you're curious,
you could join Nupedia-L or simply poke around the website to see what
you've been missing.
>
> Kind regards to all,
> Larry
>
> Lawrence M. Sanger, Ph.D.
> Nupedia editor-in-chief
> lsanger at nupedia.com
>
> ====================================================================
>  You've received this mail because you signed up as a Nupedia
>  member.  To stop these announcements, please just go to
>  http://www.nupedia.com/member/editother.phtml where you can easily
>  unsubscribe yourself.  Log in as "" (your member ID).
> ====================================================================
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Your opinion solicited


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Foreign characters, etc.

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Everything2

body:
I have a request.  Is there anyone on the list who is on Everything2?
If so, could you go talk up Wikipedia on Everything2?  I have a feeling
we could get a lot of good people from them.

Let me know if you do this.  If no one else does, I might just have to
myself...

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Everything2

body:
Well, I just went there and discovered that there *is* a Wikipedia
entry.  How about that.  I don't know if there's anything more that
could be done.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Encyclopedia entry about the President

body:
Dear Mr. President,

While I know you are busy, if you have an idle minute or two, we would
like to invite you to correct any factual errors and otherwise honor us
with your presence on our community-built encyclopedia project.  You can
find our article about you here:

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/George_W._Bush

(Of course, any person who actually reads this e-mail will be welcome as
well.)

Best regards and keep up the good work,

Larry Sanger

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
 Lawrence M. Sanger, Ph.D. ||   lsanger at nupedia.com
 Editor-in-Chief, Nupedia  ||  http://www.nupedia.com
 Ordinary Wikipedian       || http://www.wikipedia.com
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Encyclopedia entry about the President

body:
So, what do you think--will he reply???

Waiting on pins and needles,
Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Sanger" <lsanger at nupedia.com>
To: <president at whitehouse.gov>
Cc: "wikipedia-l" <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 2:20 PM
Subject: Encyclopedia entry about the President

> Dear Mr. President,
>
> While I know you are busy, if you have an idle minute or two, we would
> like to invite you to correct any factual errors and otherwise honor
us
> with your presence on our community-built encyclopedia project.  You
can
> find our article about you here:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/George_W._Bush
>
> (Of course, any person who actually reads this e-mail will be welcome
as
> well.)
>
> Best regards and keep up the good work,
>
> Larry Sanger
>
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>  Lawrence M. Sanger, Ph.D. ||   lsanger at nupedia.com
>  Editor-in-Chief, Nupedia  ||  http://www.nupedia.com
>  Ordinary Wikipedian       || http://www.wikipedia.com
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>


body:
Opinion-he just dumb enough to...:-).

        Anonymous Coward

--

> So, what do you think--will he reply???
>
> Waiting on pins and needles,
> Larry
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Larry Sanger" <lsanger at nupedia.com>
> To: <president at whitehouse.gov>
> Cc: "wikipedia-l" <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 2:20 PM
> Subject: Encyclopedia entry about the President
>
>
> > Dear Mr. President,
> >
> > While I know you are busy, if you have an idle minute or two, we would
> > like to invite you to correct any factual errors and otherwise honor
> us
> > with your presence on our community-built encyclopedia project.  You
> can
> > find our article about you here:
> >
> > http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/George_W._Bush
> >
> > (Of course, any person who actually reads this e-mail will be welcome
> as
> > well.)
> >
> > Best regards and keep up the good work,
> >
> > Larry Sanger
> >
> > <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> >  Lawrence M. Sanger, Ph.D. ||   lsanger at nupedia.com
> >  Editor-in-Chief, Nupedia  ||  http://www.nupedia.com
> >  Ordinary Wikipedian       || http://www.wikipedia.com
> > <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> >
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Boston and Russia, here I come

body:
Dear all,

I'm going to Boston and then Russia!

These last few weeks and the next few have been and are going to be a
bit hectic for me.  I've got the plane tickets, the passport, the
laptop, Jimbo's blessing ;-), money saved, and the visa is on its way.
I have much else to get ready, of course.  So if I seem a bit slow in
replying and short in my replies, that might explain it.  (Another
explanation I guiltily admit is that I have been helping Wikipedia
along.  But I have been vowing to spend more time on the more important
project, viz., Nupedia, now that Wikipedia really is moving along
wonderfully.)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo

body:
I think Wikipedia's logo is groovy, but it says nothing about the fact
that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.  That was my first thought.  Then I
looked at a page and imagined that I had just stumbled across it on the
net, and had no idea what it was about.  It is simply not immediately
obvious that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia!

So, maybe what we could do is have a logo that says that Wikipedia is an
encyclopedia.  At the same time we might adopt a slogan, something like
"The user-created encyclopedia."  Ideas?

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo

body:
Along these lines, I've been thinking of modifying the page so that
there's a block of text (similar in look to the Nupedia attribution
requirement) that says something short and to the point.  "This is
a User Created Encyclopedia.  Click here to learn how to
contribute."

When they click there, they get to some of our pages about how to
contribute, how to make pages, etc.

Other ideas would be:
"Wikipedia: The user created encyclopedia with 2,173 articles!  Click
here to learn how to contribute!"

Where the count is updated automatically from time to time.

Larry Sanger wrote:

> I think Wikipedia's logo is groovy, but it says nothing about the fact
> that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.  That was my first thought.  Then I
> looked at a page and imagined that I had just stumbled across it on the
> net, and had no idea what it was about.  It is simply not immediately
> obvious that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia!
>
> So, maybe what we could do is have a logo that says that Wikipedia is an
> encyclopedia.  At the same time we might adopt a slogan, something like
> "The user-created encyclopedia."  Ideas?
>
> Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

body:
We could make www.wiktionary.com -- a wiki-based dictionary.  I probably
wouldn't want to work much on it myself, but other people might.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

in_reply_to: <003c01c0c767$c96e93c0$25a7baac@mshome.net>; from lsanger@nupedia.com on Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 10:50:55AM -0700

body:
This is a great idea.  We could even seed it with an existing out-of-copyright
dictionary.

I'm not sure that the wiki software is the right thing to use for this, though.
The wiki "style" is exactly right for it, but there are probably some added
features that would make a dictionary much better.

Larry Sanger wrote:

> We could make www.wiktionary.com -- a wiki-based dictionary.  I probably
> wouldn't want to work much on it myself, but other people might.
>
> Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

in_reply_to: <200104180101.SAA13803@cobrand.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 06:01:41PM -0700

body:
I like LDC's variant on the idea.  The original (public domain)
version could be held sacrosanct.  Visitors could leave commentary,
add new meanings, and even add new words.  (I don't think any public
domain dictionaries will have a definition of the word 'sendmail', for
example.)  But the new stuff would always appear slightly separated
from the original.

I don't think this should be a "ghetto" for too-short wikipedia entries,
but a separate thing.  And I think that the software should be as simple
and easy to use as wiki software, but made especially for this project.

I could write a super simple version pretty quickly.

Does anyone know where I can get a sensibly-delimited public domain dictionary
to get started?  I know that one exists somewhere.

--Jimbo

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

body:
Hi,

     I am wondering what the purpose of a wiki
dictionary is. A dictionary normally gives
the "standard" definition of a word, based on a great
deal of research, the pronunciation, using that
dictionaries own guide, an etymology in some
dictionaries, and examples of usage, in some
dictionaries.
    Are we in a position to determine "standard" usage
and, if so, on what basis?
    There are numerous online dictionaries with good
reputations. What can we do to improve on this?
     Is this a place to "dump" entries that are
definitional and no more?

          As Ever,

             Ruth Ifcher

--

> We could make www.wiktionary.com -- a wiki-based dictionary.  I probably
> wouldn't want to work much on it myself, but other people might.
>
> Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

body:
A place to start might be here.  This search resulted in 329 dictionaries.
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/1,10150,0-10000-103-0-1-7,00.html?tag=src
h&qt=dictionary&cn=&ca=10000

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 9:05 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

I like LDC's variant on the idea.  The original (public domain)
version could be held sacrosanct.  Visitors could leave commentary,
add new meanings, and even add new words.  (I don't think any public
domain dictionaries will have a definition of the word 'sendmail', for
example.)  But the new stuff would always appear slightly separated
from the original.

I don't think this should be a "ghetto" for too-short wikipedia entries,
but a separate thing.  And I think that the software should be as simple
and easy to use as wiki software, but made especially for this project.

I could write a super simple version pretty quickly.

Does anyone know where I can get a sensibly-delimited public domain
dictionary
to get started?  I know that one exists somewhere.

--Jimbo

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************
[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

body:
http://www.libraryspot.com/dictionaries.htm

http://www.onelook.com/browse.shtml 682 online dictionaries indexed here.

http://www.onelook.com/more.shtml more online dictionaries including "build
your own" dictionary.

These may be even better...
Cindy Lynn :-))

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Cindy Lynn Seeley
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 8:14 AM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

A place to start might be here.  This search resulted in 329 dictionaries.
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/1,10150,0-10000-103-0-1-7,00.html?tag=src
h&qt=dictionary&cn=&ca=10000

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 9:05 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

I like LDC's variant on the idea.  The original (public domain)
version could be held sacrosanct.  Visitors could leave commentary,
add new meanings, and even add new words.  (I don't think any public
domain dictionaries will have a definition of the word 'sendmail', for
example.)  But the new stuff would always appear slightly separated
from the original.

I don't think this should be a "ghetto" for too-short wikipedia entries,
but a separate thing.  And I think that the software should be as simple
and easy to use as wiki software, but made especially for this project.

I could write a super simple version pretty quickly.

Does anyone know where I can get a sensibly-delimited public domain
dictionary
to get started?  I know that one exists somewhere.

--Jimbo

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************
[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

body:
Additionally, a search at http://www.gnu.org on "dictionary" resulted in 212
matches, including implementation.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Cindy Lynn Seeley
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 8:34 AM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

http://www.libraryspot.com/dictionaries.htm

http://www.onelook.com/browse.shtml 682 online dictionaries indexed here.

http://www.onelook.com/more.shtml more online dictionaries including "build
your own" dictionary.

These may be even better...
Cindy Lynn :-))

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Cindy Lynn Seeley
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 8:14 AM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

A place to start might be here.  This search resulted in 329 dictionaries.
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/1,10150,0-10000-103-0-1-7,00.html?tag=src
h&qt=dictionary&cn=&ca=10000

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 9:05 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

I like LDC's variant on the idea.  The original (public domain)
version could be held sacrosanct.  Visitors could leave commentary,
add new meanings, and even add new words.  (I don't think any public
domain dictionaries will have a definition of the word 'sendmail', for
example.)  But the new stuff would always appear slightly separated
from the original.

I don't think this should be a "ghetto" for too-short wikipedia entries,
but a separate thing.  And I think that the software should be as simple
and easy to use as wiki software, but made especially for this project.

I could write a super simple version pretty quickly.

Does anyone know where I can get a sensibly-delimited public domain
dictionary
to get started?  I know that one exists somewhere.

--Jimbo

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************
[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

[Wikipedia-l]
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

body:
Hi,

     My only suggestion is that whatever dictionary you
use as base should be current. Part of what "standard
usage" means is "current usage."
     You might have sections for "new words" and a place
to add unusual, but fairly main stream uses of common
words.
     That would put new words, that is "coined words"
say alphabetically at the end. New usages could be added
to the main entries in the read-write area. Of course,
such usages would be better documented with the source,
sort of like the OED, allowing all media as sources.

     Just a suggestion.

           As Ever,

             Ruth Ifcher

--

> I like LDC's variant on the idea.  The original (public domain)
> version could be held sacrosanct.  Visitors could leave commentary,
> add new meanings, and even add new words.  (I don't think any public
> domain dictionaries will have a definition of the word 'sendmail', for
> example.)  But the new stuff would always appear slightly separated
> from the original.
>
> I don't think this should be a "ghetto" for too-short wikipedia entries,
> but a separate thing.  And I think that the software should be as simple
> and easy to use as wiki software, but made especially for this project.
>
> I could write a super simple version pretty quickly.
>
> Does anyone know where I can get a sensibly-delimited public domain dictionary
> to get started?  I know that one exists somewhere.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
>
> --
> *************************************************
> *            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
> *      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
> *************************************************
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Kaki Nix Sain

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #33 - 10 msgs

body:
> On a slightly different subject. Over several months I have gathered
> some 500 medical abbreviations. Where would they fit ? In wikipedia ?
> In the Wiktionary ? Or in a stand-alone abbreviation Wiktionary ?

	umm, just an etymology point/question.  wouldn't "wikition-ary"
mean 'things belonging to or connected with wikition'?
	isn't the idea captured by the term "dictionwiki"?

	--sorry, I just got out of a philosophy class and I may be overly
analytic.--


from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

body:
On 17-04-2001, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote thusly :
> I can see three major advantages of a Wiktionary over a traditional
> online dictionary, and several disadvantages.  On the positive side,
> (1) it would not be constrained by space limitations, so it could be
> completely unabridged, contain many examples and citations, and be
> more clearly written with fewer abbreviations etc., (2) it could take
> advantage of the specialized knowledge of readers beyond what
> lexicographers would be interested in, especially useful for
> technical terms that many dictionaries, frankly, get just plain
> wrong, and (3) it would be open content.
> The major disadvantage, as Rose points out, is that Wikification puts
> at risk a lot of good research by lexicographers, and would sacrifice
> the their credibility.  It would also suffer Wikipedia's depth-versus-
> breadth problems, and probably encourage production of lots of
> frivolous content for slang-of-the-moment and such.
> Perhaps something like a user-annotated but not directly editable
> version?  The dictionary could be seeded from a credible paper
> dictionary source and the main entries protected from editing;
> then "discussion" pages attached to each entry (and free-form new
> entries) could be added to by users, and some formal editing process
> could be used to update the formal entries when appropriate from the
> information gathered.
I second that proposal. But wouldn't it slow down the creation process ?

On a slightly different subject. Over several months I have gathered
some 500 medical abbreviations. Where would they fit ? In wikipedia ?
In the Wiktionary ? Or in a stand-alone abbreviation Wiktionary ?

Best regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Je?eli co? si? mo?e nie uda?, to si? nie uda.
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Murphy
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


from_name: Olivier G�rard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

in_reply_to: <200104181725.KAA03256@cobrand.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 10:25:44AM -0700

body:
Dear Larry and all

On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 10:25:44AM -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> The more I think about it, the less I like my own idea.  The
> dictionaries available on the net now are great resources, even if
> they are a bit thin on technical detail.  That kind of technical
> detail is exactly what Wikipedia/Nupedia are designed to create, and
> splitting the project further will surely result in duplication of
> effort and less cross-linking.  Furthermore, it reinforces the
> distinction between "dictionary" and "encyclopedia" which I still see
> as an artificial one.
>
I agree because the distinction has its root in physical constraints
of paper based works. The important thing about computer based
collections is that they have the potential to be any mix between
a dictionnary and an encyclopedia.  What we need is features which
emulates the qualities of both.

It means advanced kind of search, or better page selections and sorting.
Easy Links, RecentChanges and Basic Search are great when creating pages in a browsing
manner, but not adapted to other kinds of queries and lookup.

> Here's another suggestion: once we get version 0.92 of the Wiki
> software, Cliff promises us parentheses.  We can recommend that
> information about words themselves be placed in pages
> like "Mathematics (word)".  That page can go into excruciating detail
> about the etymology of the word, various senses, and usage (perhaps
> seeded by the now-PD 1913 Webster or the soon-to-be-PD 1928 OED),
> while the page "Mathematics" treats the subject of the word's primary
> sense, so that ad-hoc links go to the right place.  These primary
> pages can contain links to the (word) page if appropriate.
> 0

I agree with the necessity to distinguish pages, but I am
not sure that surcharging the title in that way is the correct thing to do.

What about an extension of the wiki syntax, like the #REDIRECT,
which would allow to categorize pages, (the title would be changed accordingly)
and would allow to narrow search on the wiki database ?
#WORD
#LANGUAGE=SWAHILI

Olivier


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiktionary

body:
In haste...

I've explained on Wikipedia how I regard the difference between a dictionary
and an encyclopedia is, and that there is good reason, not founded merely in
paper, for the distinction.  Mere assertions to the contrary are not
persuasive.

However, I do think that it's an interesting idea to find some *consistent*
way to mark all mere dictionary-type entries in Wikipedia.  I think that
could be a good way to solve the problem I raised on Wikipedia about the
difference between an encyclopedia and a dictionary.

Obviously, as I said, I can't be responsible for this project.  :-)  If it
happens, unless Jimbo specifically asks me to do it, I won't be the one to
make the executive decisions.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo

body:
> Along these lines, I've been thinking of modifying the page so that
> there's a block of text (similar in look to the Nupedia attribution
> requirement) that says something short and to the point.  "This is
> a User Created Encyclopedia.  Click here to learn how to
> contribute."
>
> When they click there, they get to some of our pages about how to
> contribute, how to make pages, etc.
>
> Other ideas would be:
> "Wikipedia: The user created encyclopedia with 2,173 articles!  Click
> here to learn how to contribute!"
>
> Where the count is updated automatically from time to time.

I think either of these would be an improvement.  Probably the most suitable
existing starter page is the one you wrote:

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Welcome,_newcomers

It's now a general introduction, with links to other introductory material.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Human vs animal

body:
All I can say is -- that's a good question!

There are many questions of this type.  Perhaps we should have
this:

Heart -- about the organ in general, in all kinds of animals
Heart/Human
Heart/Reptile
Heart/Amphibian

These might also be categorized under

Reptilian_Anatomy/Heart
Amphibian_Anatomy/Heart
Human_Anatomy/Heart

My general feeling is that in many cases we should just do "all of the above".

But other people might have a more clever perspective than I can muster
this morning. :-)

Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:

>
> Hello Wikipedians,
>
> How do I reconcile situations when I write about, for instance,
> human heart and reptile or amphibian hearts ?
> Wouldn't the links clash ? Am I supposed to write [[Heart - human]] and
> [[Heart - reptile]] ?
>
> Regards,
> kpj.
> --
> Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Pi?kna kobieta jest rzek? w kt?rej ton? m?drcy.
> Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Przys?owie perskie
> Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Target audience

body:
I'd say we should have information at every level of generality and detail:
so we can begin with a simple presentation and then get progressively more
detailed.  We don't have to choose!

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Target audience

body:
Hello Wikipedians,

Please I'd like to know what is the the audience we are targeting.
It is, I think, of vital importance because if I write an article
for Wikipedia about, let's say, brain tumours am I to write for
general public with due simplification or as close to recent
scientific advances as possible ?

Is there a policy on that issue ?
In my opinion it would be inadvisable to produce a mixture of both
because readers/surfers could easily get confused reading closely
related articles.

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Oto para idealna, on Amor, ona amoralna. Jan
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Sztaudynger
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Human vs animal

body:
Hello Wikipedians,

How do I reconcile situations when I write about, for instance,
human heart and reptile or amphibian hearts ?
Wouldn't the links clash ? Am I supposed to write [[Heart - human]] and
[[Heart - reptile]] ?

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Pi?kna kobieta jest rzek? w kt?rej ton? m?drcy.
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Przys?owie perskie
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Human vs animal

in_reply_to: <20010421163045.J12225@aristotle.bomis.com>; from jwales@aristotle.bomis.com on Sat, Apr 21, 2001 at 04:30:45PM -0500

body:
On 21-04-2001, Jimmy Wales wrote thusly :
This solution is of course helpful.
And we are coming back to the good ol' encyclopedia approach
we we have multiple entries or entries with "subentries".

There's another issue - nearly flat ( with one subpage level ) or
hierarchical design of wikipedia. Computer storage and the web
in particular is mostly hierarchical and tree-like.
I understand constraints of the usemod engine but it would be
helpful to have some sort of 'behind the scenes' hierarchy so that
we could make links 'smarter'.
Regards,
kpj.
> There are many questions of this type.  Perhaps we should have
> this:
> Heart -- about the organ in general, in all kinds of animals
> Heart/Human
> Heart/Reptile
> Heart/Amphibian
> These might also be categorized under
> Reptilian_Anatomy/Heart
> Amphibian_Anatomy/Heart
> Human_Anatomy/Heart
> My general feeling is that in many cases we should just do "all of the above".
> But other people might have a more clever perspective than I can muster
> this morning. :-)
> > How do I reconcile situations when I write about, for instance,
> > human heart and reptile or amphibian hearts ?
> > Wouldn't the links clash ? Am I supposed to write [[Heart - human]] and
> > [[Heart - reptile]] ?
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | ?aden cz?owiek nie chce umrze?. Ale tak rzadko
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | si? zdarza to, co cz?owiek chce. Stanis?aw Tym
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Human vs animal

body:
I think that the biggest reason to avoid deeper hierarchy is not
constraints of the usemod engine, but constraints of our feeble
human minds.  It's hard to remember hierarchy.  Does 'Collie' go
under /animals/pets/dogs/breeds or does it go under /animal/canine/breeds
or what?

Also, one reason for the success of the project so far is that
it is instantly accessible.  We have a concept which people
grasp intuitively: "encyclopedia".  And we have software that
is usable with virtually no learning of any kind.

Still, I do like the idea of having some more "behind the scenes"
structure.

Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:

> On 21-04-2001, Jimmy Wales wrote thusly :
> This solution is of course helpful.
> And we are coming back to the good ol' encyclopedia approach
> we we have multiple entries or entries with "subentries".
>
> There's another issue - nearly flat ( with one subpage level ) or
> hierarchical design of wikipedia. Computer storage and the web
> in particular is mostly hierarchical and tree-like.
> I understand constraints of the usemod engine but it would be
> helpful to have some sort of 'behind the scenes' hierarchy so that
> we could make links 'smarter'.
> Regards,
> kpj.
> > There are many questions of this type.  Perhaps we should have
> > this:
> > Heart -- about the organ in general, in all kinds of animals
> > Heart/Human
> > Heart/Reptile
> > Heart/Amphibian
> > These might also be categorized under
> > Reptilian_Anatomy/Heart
> > Amphibian_Anatomy/Heart
> > Human_Anatomy/Heart
> > My general feeling is that in many cases we should just do "all of the above".
> > But other people might have a more clever perspective than I can muster
> > this morning. :-)
> > > How do I reconcile situations when I write about, for instance,
> > > human heart and reptile or amphibian hearts ?
> > > Wouldn't the links clash ? Am I supposed to write [[Heart - human]] and
> > > [[Heart - reptile]] ?
> --
> Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | ?aden cz?owiek nie chce umrze?. Ale tak rzadko
> Czestochowa, Poland ...       | si? zdarza to, co cz?owiek chce. Stanis?aw Tym
> Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Target audience

in_reply_to: <003301c0caac$557e4c60$4e5191ac@mshome.net>; from lsanger@nupedia.com on Sat, Apr 21, 2001 at 05:42:41PM -0400

body:
Larry Sanger wrote:
> I'd say we should have information at every level of generality and detail:
> so we can begin with a simple presentation and then get progressively more
> detailed.  We don't have to choose!

I agree with Larry, except to say that, insofar as possible, we should
write even high-level articles under the assumption that the person reading
only knows as much as was given in the low-level article.

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Human vs animal

in_reply_to: <20010422152616.D16921@aristotle.bomis.com>; from jwales@aristotle.bomis.com on Sun, Apr 22, 2001 at 03:26:16PM -0500

body:
On 22-04-2001, Jimmy Wales wrote thusly :
> I think that the biggest reason to avoid deeper hierarchy is not
> constraints of the usemod engine, but constraints of our feeble
> human minds.  It's hard to remember hierarchy.  Does 'Collie' go
> under /animals/pets/dogs/breeds or does it go under /animal/canine/breeds
> or what?
Some remedy might be what is at the top of Cardiology "ghost" page.
> Also, one reason for the success of the project so far is that
> it is instantly accessible.  We have a concept which people
> grasp intuitively: "encyclopedia".  And we have software that
> is usable with virtually no learning of any kind.
Agreed. I remember amazment at the instant availabaility of creating
a new page/entry without all the fuss of hierarchies.
> Still, I do like the idea of having some more "behind the scenes"
> structure.
Regards,
kpj.
> > On 21-04-2001, Jimmy Wales wrote thusly :
> > This solution is of course helpful.
> > And we are coming back to the good ol' encyclopedia approach
> > we we have multiple entries or entries with "subentries".
> > There's another issue - nearly flat ( with one subpage level ) or
> > hierarchical design of wikipedia. Computer storage and the web
> > in particular is mostly hierarchical and tree-like.
> > I understand constraints of the usemod engine but it would be
> > helpful to have some sort of 'behind the scenes' hierarchy so that
> > we could make links 'smarter'.
> > > There are many questions of this type.  Perhaps we should have
> > > this:
> > > Heart -- about the organ in general, in all kinds of animals
> > > Heart/Human
> > > Heart/Reptile
> > > Heart/Amphibian
> > > These might also be categorized under
> > > Reptilian_Anatomy/Heart
> > > Amphibian_Anatomy/Heart
> > > Human_Anatomy/Heart
> > > My general feeling is that in many cases we should just do "all of the above".
> > > But other people might have a more clever perspective than I can muster
> > > this morning. :-)
> > > > How do I reconcile situations when I write about, for instance,
> > > > human heart and reptile or amphibian hearts ?
> > > > Wouldn't the links clash ? Am I supposed to write [[Heart - human]] and
> > > > [[Heart - reptile]] ?
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | M??czyzna uwa?a, ?e wie, ale kobieta wie
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | lepiej. Przys?owie chi?skie
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Where now

body:
Dear all,

I'm writing this from atop the tallest building on the tallest hill in
Izhevsk, Russia, a city of about 800,000 with a definite small town feel to
it.  It's a very nice view.  (Perhaps I'll send Bomis a photo to scan in and
post for you.)  I've managed to get connected to the Internet here earlier
than I expected I would, so things should now, I hope, proceed as usual.
Perhaps the only difference you might notice is that I am working from 9ish
PM to 5ish AM, Pacific Standard Time!  (The largest time difference possible
from Nupedia's server!)

I'm very pleased to say that, despite the "down time" travelling (and sick
one day--also travel-induced, I suspect!) recently, I'm still essentially
caught up with e-mail.  Those expecting e-mail replies should receive them
within the next 24 hours.  Moreover, I have been working away at the latest
(extremely extensive) revisions/updates to the Nupedia policy guidelines.
As long as there aren't any enormous interruptions or drains on my time, I
should have this finished and posted on Advisory-L and Nupedia-L, for
comment, within a week.  I shouldn't make predictions beyond that but I
think there's a good chance I'll be able to devote more time to such
essential but long-neglected and time-consuming tasks as finding editors for
certain categories.

I had two great meetings in Boston with Nupedia editors: Michael Witbrock
and Gaytha Langlois.  That was fun in both cases and I feel that I
understand them and their enthusiasm much better.  We're very lucky to have
enthusiastic people like this on board!

Best,
Larry


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikipedia-l] migration to new server

body:
Wikipedia will be moving to a new server tomorrow, May 3rd.  The
change will cause an outage of about half an hour.  This outage will
occur sometime between 11:00am and 2:00pm PST.  I expect this
transition to be much smoother than the nupedia transition was
(apologies to those who were adversely affected by the nupedia
transition), because it is a far simpler site.

Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions.

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia migration

body:
The wikipedia migration seems to have gone without a hitch.  Anyone
disagree?  Please send any bug reports to me.

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia migration

body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Web links subpage

body:
Hello all,

I wonder whether we need another default link in the header/footer
of every Wikipedia page.
Almost all Wikipedia pages could and should have a subpage with
related links on the World Wide Web.
I think addition of a link called 'Related webpages' next to
'Preferences' would be desirable.

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D |
Czestochowa, Poland ...       |
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Krzysztof_P._Jasiutowicz


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Do we need templates ?

body:
Hello all,

Do we need templates of pages ?
Groups of pages - rock bands, biographies, film entries share common
features and therefore want some kind of templates.
Pages of the same category edited by different people tend to follow
sometimes incompatible patterns or disagree with each other.

Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D |
Czestochowa, Poland ...       |
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Krzysztof_P._Jasiutowicz


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Web links subpage

in_reply_to: <005101c0d650$19ef1300$d8c20ed9@mshome.net>; from lsanger@nupedia.com on Sun, May 06, 2001 at 09:05:29PM +0500

body:
On 06-05-2001, Larry Sanger wrote thusly :
> We'd do this only if we were trying to create yet another web directory.
> It's an interesting idea, but there are already too many web directories,
> aren't there?  Why should Wikipedia start one, and thereby distract
> attention from the main mission of building an encyclopedia?
In some respects Wikipedia is (at the moment) limited. Linking to graphical
and other multimedia resources seems worthwhile.
> By the way, I think the "talk" page for every page should be automatic, one
> of the default links in the header/footer.  That makes sense to me, anyway.
Agreed.

Regards,
kpj.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at promail.pl>
> To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
> Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2001 12:53 PM
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Web links subpage
> > Hello all,
> > I wonder whether we need another default link in the header/footer
> > of every Wikipedia page.
> > Almost all Wikipedia pages could and should have a subpage with
> > related links on the World Wide Web.
> > I think addition of a link called 'Related webpages' next to
> > 'Preferences' would be desirable.
> >
> > Regards,
> > kpj.
> > --
> > Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D |
> > Czestochowa, Poland ...       |
> > http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Krzysztof_P._Jasiutowicz
> > [Wikipedia-l]
> > To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> > http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Kanibale wol? tych, co nie maj? ko?ca.
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | Stanis?aw Jerzy Lec
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Web links subpage

body:
We'd do this only if we were trying to create yet another web directory.

It's an interesting idea, but there are already too many web directories,
aren't there?  Why should Wikipedia start one, and thereby distract
attention from the main mission of building an encyclopedia?

By the way, I think the "talk" page for every page should be automatic, one
of the default links in the header/footer.  That makes sense to me, anyway.

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at promail.pl>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2001 12:53 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Web links subpage

>
> Hello all,
>
> I wonder whether we need another default link in the header/footer
> of every Wikipedia page.
> Almost all Wikipedia pages could and should have a subpage with
> related links on the World Wide Web.
> I think addition of a link called 'Related webpages' next to
> 'Preferences' would be desirable.
>
> Regards,
> kpj.
> --
> Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D |
> Czestochowa, Poland ...       |
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Krzysztof_P._Jasiutowicz
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Do we need templates ?

body:
From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at promail.pl>
> Do we need templates of pages ?
> Groups of pages - rock bands, biographies, film entries share common
> features and therefore want some kind of templates.
> Pages of the same category edited by different people tend to follow
> sometimes incompatible patterns or disagree with each other.

One of the reasons that Wikipedia *works*--why it is developing so quickly
and is so attractive to contributors (compelling, one might say...) is that
anyone can come in and contribute in practically any fashion.  Instigating
templates has a number of implications for how we might begin to think of
Wikipedia: it would become a collection of standardized information rather
than a collection of information that people just happen to feel inspired to
input.  Who is interested in inputting "standardized information"?  Maybe
some people, but surely not nearly as many as those who are interested in
inputting whatever information they know.

Suppose we were to require (somehow) that everyone writing about the
countries of the world input the information in exactly the format of the
CIA Factbook.  Who, honestly, would *want* to do that?  And on the other
hand, who would want to contribute a lot of generally accurate, useful
information that will eventually add up to weighty, detailed articles, not
necessarily all in the same format?

Academia is sometimes compared to the marketplace of ideas.  That's also an
apt description of Wikipedia at present: it's unregulated (except for some
basic ground rules), and anyone can come in and "set up shop" (write an
article), but other "business owners" (contributors) can "compete" (improve
the article) according to their understanding of what the facts are, what
the best way to express them is, etc.  Competition improves articles.
Regulation tends to stifle free competition.

Eventually, I suspect, we're going to have huge amounts of information, and
it will be possible for people to go in and render related entries in a
similar format.  It's generally better to impose order *after* creation, in
a way that reflects the natural categories of things as information is
given.  That's how good researchers work, by the way.  They observe the
data, or read the literature, very broadly and in-depth, letting it "speak
for itself" as much as possible, and without trying to impose theories on
the facts before all the available facts are in.  In a similar way, in a
constantly-growing, constantly-improving encyclopedia, why not just let
people add whatever information they want, and when it's reached a certain
level of maturity, only then start imposing some uniformity on the way
similar information is presented?

All this being said, there's nothing stopping you from proposing on the wiki
some templates that you would like others to follow (without presenting them
as "The Wikipedia Format for X-type Articles"), and maybe Wikipedia will be
better for it.

That's my way of thinking at present, though my mind could certainly be
changed.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Web links subpage

body:
From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpjas at promail.pl>
> In some respects Wikipedia is (at the moment) limited. Linking to
graphical
> and other multimedia resources seems worthwhile.

I thought you were suggesting simply that we add a "web links" feature to
each page, not a web links-limited-to-multimedia-resources feature.  Hmmm...

--Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] This will happen someday

body:
Someday, someone will use Wikipedia to write a daily news summary, which
will be archived and extensively wikified.  We will have set up a
mail-this-page-daily feature for Wikipedia, perhaps, and people will be able
to receive this by e-mail.  What will be cool about this is that one will be
able instantly to get background on the subjects of the news because the
news summaries will be wikified.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Nupedia mentioned in Stallman speech

body:
http://media-in-transition.mit.edu/forums/copyright/index_transcript.html

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


from_name: Wojciech Pobratyn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] banner

body:
hi all.

Q: does wikipedia/nupedia habe a banner of some sort that one could place on
a website?

regards,

wojpob

----
Wojciech Pobratyn
Wirtschaftsuniversit?t Wien
mailto:wojciech.pobratyn at wu-wien.ac.at

"In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"
                             H.P. Lovecraft

"Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle and quick to
anger"


subject: [Wikipedia-l] banner

body:
You could use the banner at the top of http:/www.nupedia.com or any of the
others...

I don't think we have a Wikipedia banner, though.

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wojciech Pobratyn" <wojtek at pobratyn.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 3:21 AM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] banner

> hi all.
>
> Q: does wikipedia/nupedia habe a banner of some sort that one could place
on
> a website?
>
> regards,
>
> wojpob
>
> ----
> Wojciech Pobratyn
> Wirtschaftsuniversit?t Wien
> mailto:wojciech.pobratyn at wu-wien.ac.at
>
> "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"
>                              H.P. Lovecraft
>
> "Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle and quick
to
> anger"
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] This will happen someday

in_reply_to: <000a01c0d914$eeaa85e0$c7c20ed9@mshome.net>; from lsanger@nupedia.com on Wed, May 09, 2001 at 02:43:42PM +0500

body:
On 09-05-2001, Larry Sanger wrote thusly :
> Someday, someone will use Wikipedia to write a daily news summary, which
> will be archived and extensively wikified.  We will have set up a
> mail-this-page-daily feature for Wikipedia, perhaps, and people will be able
> to receive this by e-mail.  What will be cool about this is that one will be
> able instantly to get background on the subjects of the news because the
> news summaries will be wikified.
Nice visionary idea.
On a slightly related subject see http://www.wikipedia.com/Link_madness

kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Ka?da nasza my?l unicestwia ?wiat. Emil Cioran
Czestochowa, Poland ...       |
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server slow

body:
Hello,

I'm not sure if this is just my experience but while the old server was
blazingly fast the new one is terribly slow. I get time-outs on Recent
Changes constantly.

kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | W ?yciu mo?na liczy? tylko na siebie. A i tego
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | nie radz?. Tristan Bernard
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl


subject: [Wikipedia-l] new language wikis

body:
Toan and I added 9 new other-language wikis to the mix.  So, now you
are all welcome to use:

catalan.wikipedia.com
chinese.wikipedia.com
esperanto.wikipedia.com
french.wikipedia.com
deutsche.wikipedia.com
hebrew.wikipedia.com
italian.wikipedia.com
japanese.wikipedia.com
portuguese.wikipedia.com
spanish.wikipedia.com
russian.wikipedia.com

We are aware that the naming convention is wrong.  Why use "Deutsche"
instead of "German" in one place, and "Spanish" instead of "Espanol"
in another?  Simple.  We just don't know the correct words or even the
characters to use in many cases.  So, tell us what it *should* be, and
we'll make it so...

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

body:
hi all.

I have a bit of a moral dilemma here: some articles on wikipedia seem to
pop-up non-wikified and written slightly 'too well'. It seems obvious that
it is a copy/paste job from another source. What should we/I do in such a
case? Delete it? It could be from a free source or someone's work for
work/uni/school that he just wishes to share with the community... Plz help
me out on this one.

regards

WojPob

ps. who subscribes to this list anyway? could mailman give us a list of
members?

----
Wojciech Pobratyn
Wirtschaftsuniversit?t Wien
mailto:wojciech.pobratyn at wu-wien.ac.at

"In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"
                             H.P. Lovecraft

"Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle and quick to
anger"


subject: [Wikipedia-l] new language wikis

in_reply_to: <20010511172737.A16730@aristotle.bomis.com>; from jasonr@aristotle.bomis.com on Fri, May 11, 2001 at 05:27:37PM -0500

body:
The proper thing to do, it was decided, is to use the 'language codes'.  You
can find this in the discussion on wikipedia, or...

http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm

The two letter codes should be preferred, but the 3 letter codes should probably
just magically work if someone happens to use one of them.

Jason Richey wrote:

> Toan and I added 9 new other-language wikis to the mix.  So, now you
> are all welcome to use:
>
> catalan.wikipedia.com
> chinese.wikipedia.com
> esperanto.wikipedia.com
> french.wikipedia.com
> deutsche.wikipedia.com
> hebrew.wikipedia.com
> italian.wikipedia.com
> japanese.wikipedia.com
> portuguese.wikipedia.com
> spanish.wikipedia.com
> russian.wikipedia.com
>
> We are aware that the naming convention is wrong.  Why use "Deutsche"
> instead of "German" in one place, and "Spanish" instead of "Espanol"
> in another?  Simple.  We just don't know the correct words or even the
> characters to use in many cases.  So, tell us what it *should* be, and
> we'll make it so...
>
> --
> "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

in_reply_to: <NEBBLOFBEMNGMPADANMEMEHKCAAA.wojtek@pobratyn.com>; from wojtek@pobratyn.com on Sat, May 12, 2001 at 02:12:42PM +0200

body:
Wojciech Pobratyn wrote:
> I have a bit of a moral dilemma here: some articles on wikipedia seem to
> pop-up non-wikified and written slightly 'too well'. It seems obvious that
> it is a copy/paste job from another source. What should we/I do in such a
> case? Delete it? It could be from a free source or someone's work for
> work/uni/school that he just wishes to share with the community... Plz help
> me out on this one.

What I generally do is search for snippets of the text on Google or Altavista.
Generally, finding the source is easy whenever there has been plagiarism.

Also, usually the source will make it self-evident whether reuse is permissible.

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] cut/paste

body:
On 12-05-2001, Wojciech Pobratyn wrote thusly :
> I have a bit of a moral dilemma here: some articles on wikipedia seem to
> pop-up non-wikified and written slightly 'too well'. It seems obvious that
> it is a copy/paste job from another source. What should we/I do in such a
> case? Delete it? It could be from a free source or someone's work for
> work/uni/school that he just wishes to share with the community... Plz help
> me out on this one.
> ps. who subscribes to this list anyway? could mailman give us a list of
> members?
I do subscribe to the list but regettably I am not likely to contribute
any more to Wikipedia since the new server has become so horribly slow :-((
Regards,
kpj.
--
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | Z jednego systemu nie wydob?dziemy si? d?ugo:
Czestochowa, Poland ...       | ze s?onecznego. Stanis?aw Jerzy Lec
Wi?cej cytat?w : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl