subject: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling

body:
It's really quite simple. Science is mostly something that can be
described in an objective manner while stuff like US presidential
elections, Palestine and the Khmer Rouge for example open up different
emotions in people on either side of the attached arguments. Some
think of the Palestinians as freedom fighters others think of them as
a bunch terrorists and unless some miracle happens, people will always
disagree on such contentious issues.

Secondly, adminship has nothing to do with being left- or right wing
or being a capitalist. Everyone gets their chance to speak up about a
nomination and the main arguments to make someone an admin are based
on their interpersonal and editing skills and not their political
viewpoints.

Admins need to be involved in controversial issues simply because
that's what their delete, revert and protect buttons were made for in
the first place.

The fact that Jimmy Wales is actually taking the time to write a
message to the mailing list about this and express his views should be
an indicator things are getting out of hand and the atmosphere is
growing increasingly hostile.

I think we should write a page on [[Wikipedia:How to deal with getting
blocked]] and clearly note how complaining of admin abuse is NOT the
first line of action. People hardly ever contact the blocking admin
first to clarify the situation. Admins are people to and like anyone
even they can make mistakes.

--Mgm

On 7/8/05, Ruy Lopez <ruy.lopez at mail.com> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > Skyring wrote:
> >> Then try to forget that you are well-regarded and experienced here and
> >> you have a great deal of power. Put yourself in the shoes of a new
> >> editor doing what they see as the right thing and encountering
> >> statements like this one: "I will revert you twice a day, for the rest
> >> of history if needs be. Plus I have more allies than you, so your
> >> attempts to restalinise this article must fail."
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AKhmer_Rouge&diff=14835971&oldid=14831760
> >
> > But in this case, this response was absolutely valid.  Ruy Lopez was
> > engaging in an ongoing campaign of vandalism of the article, and letting
> > him know that we're more patient than he is, is exactly the right thing
> > to do.
>
> A fellow user informed me that Wales called me a vandal on this mailing list, which he believed was unfair, so I came to the archive of this list to see what was said, and now I am responding.
>
> If I would say I'm surprised Wales has weighed in the way he did on this matter, I would be lying.  I have seen the way he has treated even admins like Secretlondon.  I have seen how only admins like 172 get their adminship removed.  Not to mention all of the users who have not become admins (not like anyone who falls on the side of the political spectrum that Secretlondon or 172 does could ever become an admin nowadays).  Or that many of Wikipedia's (in my mind) best contributors have signed up for the project to counter systemic bias from the English language userbase, something I won't go into detail about here, but that so many people who at least I respect have joined it says something to me.
>
> Or perhaps I'll just come out and say it: those who are politically pro-labor, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, what is sometimes called the left, are, I wouldn't even say marginalized on Wikipedia, but attacked.  Those who are anti-labor, pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist, or what is sometimes called the right, are given adminship, made bureaucrats and whatnot.
>
> And why wouldn't it be so?  Wales himself is a capitalist, and an American.  What kind of encyclopedia would one expect to result from the structure put in place by an American millionaire after all the money he made on pornography and whatnot?  Wales sometimes feels he has to position himself above the fray, but the history is clear.  Meaning his actions, such as the attack on Secretlondon, not his noting how he was enthralled with Ayn Rand as a student and that sort of thing, although I'll consider those sorts of things as circumstantial evidence.
>
> I must dive into a tangent for people reading this and thinking, "wait, all admins are not right-wing zealots, I have seen plenty of reasonable ones".  I agree, that is not what I am saying.  So let me jump off into my tangent on this subject.
>
> At the top of Wikipedia's front page are listed the master categories: Culture, Geography, History, Life, Mathematics, Science, Society, Technology.  I think Wikipedia does a great job on some of these master categories, especially science and mathematics.  I think Wikipedia does an awful job on some of these master categories, such as history and society.  I should also say I am not alone in this opinion, I have heard it expressed many times by others, that the articles tending towards the science/math end are great, while the ones tending towards the history/society end are horrible.  This is not even a "left wing" view, I have heard it expressed by many "right wing" users.  I use [[quantum mechanics]] (which is in a subcategory of the science master category) as an example of an article Wikipedia is good at.  Wikipedia is a cooperative enterprise, and most people editing that page are there to help and cooperate with one another, many of whom know what they are talking about, which is why the article is so good.  At the other end of the spectrum, we have articles like [[Khmer Rouge]] (which I'll get back to), or [[Palestine]] (which I don't edit, but which everyone is unhappy with, pro-Palestinian and Zionist), or [[John Kerry]], especially during the presidential race.  In fact, I recall an article about Wikipedia about how the John Kerry and George Bush articles were junk before the elections, and thus it was a negative article about Wikipedia.  Anyhow, clearly, some admins  originally were good users who edited mostly the science and mathematics articles, or perhaps the technology and geography articles.  They were promoted to admins and still focus on these categories.  They are apolitical, and good admins.  So no, I am not saying all admins are biased and right wing.  In fact, I would say the majority aren't.
>
> What I am saying is there are users, some who become admins (or don't) who concentrate on the more controversial master categories like history and society.  And now is when I start pointing fingers.  Because Wales insults even admins like Secretlondon who concentrate on this.  Admins like 172 get de-opped in what I feel is a sneaky manner, while other admins (meaning the ones focused on the more controversial articles) get away with murder.  These are admins, who I felt were some of the few admins who stuck up for people of a more "left" persuasion on Wikipedia.  But they are de-admined, attacked off Wikipedia by it's high mucky-muck and so forth (although after months of being gone, Secretlondon has started to contribute again, thankfully).  I have been on Wikipedia for a long time and this is very clear to me.
>
> Heaven help a user of such a persuasion who is not an admin.  Especially if s/he is new, and is, what I consider to be trying to be baited into a trap.  Wales has countenanced what he calls Carr being "difficult", what I call being insulting and rude.  So new users of a certain persuasion are baited - Carr insults them, they insult back, maybe no one tells them about the 3RR rule, and pretty soon they are blocked, in arbitration and whatnot.  When I see this baiting going on - baiting towards the trap of blocks, arbitration etc., I tell the new user being baited to follow the rules, don't violate 3RR, don't insult users, even if they like Carr are insulting you but Wales allows their "difficult" behavior and so forth.
>
> In fact, it's obvious what a nutty mix we have here.  Wales is someone who has made millions on pornography.  Ed Poor is a moonie, with typical moonie ideas.  Adam Carr is a former Maoist, and now is as fanatically anti-communist as surely as he was probably fanatically communist.  And so on and so forth, this is the cast and crew being dealt with.  And Carr loves to throw mud at me and say I'm some kind of fanatical communist or something.  I mean it's a laugh - he is someone who was in a Maoist cult, people like Ed Poor are still in weird cults, yet I'm the fanatic because I try to make Carr's language on edits POV.
>
> Carr recently edited [[Semyon Budyonny]] changing "Budyonny...was an ally of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin" to "Budyonny...was a crony of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin".  I reverted it back to the former version, my first edit ever on the article.  Carr reverted it back and now the page is locked.  Who is the vandal here?  Who is being difficult?
>
> Frankly, on some level I have given up on Wikipedia ever having decent history and society pages.  If Carr wants to go through all the articles, calling people cronies and whatnot, that's fine by me, I'm sure the Encarta people are laughing their heads off.  I'm not here to kiss Jimbo's ass as so many on this list do, I could really give a damn what the Ayn Rand-reading porn magnate thinks.  I edit Wikipedia from time to time, but I do more work on other wiki encyclopedias.  I know Wikipedia is hopeless on the history and society categories.  Which wiki encyclopedia will overtake Wikipedia for these fields?  Demopedia?  Dkosopedia?  Perhaps something more radical - Anarchopedia, Red Wiki, Infoshop's Openwiki?
>
> I should also note that according to the Wikipedia legend, people having "left" or "right" opinions doesn't matter as long as they are NPOV, don't violate 3RR, discuss changes, don't insult other users and all of that.  I myself see this as one of focus more than anything.  I created [[No Gun Ri]] in April, which not only was not started yet but had no links to it.  So now the article exists, about a My Lai type massacre by US troops during the Korean war.  As I said, I see this as emphasis: this incident did not exist in Wikipedia history until I inserted it, although we have hundreds, thousands of pages on anything any left-wing "regime" ever did wrong.  Of course, as soon as I wrote the article it was descended on by people trying to cast doubt on whether it ever happened, apologizing for the US etc.  If I tried to do even a little of that for an article on China or Cuba, Adam Carr would be screaming I'm a fanatical communist, an apologist for genocide and so forth while Wales would stand by clapping.
>
> As I said before: I think Wikipedia has a bright future in the science/mathematics master categories where everyone is cooperating (and isn't Wikipedia essentially a cooperative enterprise) and headed off the cliff long ago on the history and society master categories.  In fact, most of the original articles for the history of countries was FUNDED BY THE US ARMY.  Virtually all of those not from US government funding were written by the US State Department.  Yes.  Go back and look at the original articles for all "History of so-and-so-country".  I'll use Cuba as an example.  Not that the US army or Bush's State Department can't write an objective history of Cuba, I'm sure the US government can easily put aside the fact that it almost had a nuclear war over Cuba in the 1960's or is currently trying to overthrow, or at elast undermine Cuba.  Anyhow, let's take a look, shall we?
>
> February 2002, [[History of Cuba]]
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Cuba&oldid=52927
>
> One sentence esays "On May 20, 1902, the United States granted Cuba its independence, but retained the right to intervene to preserve Cuban independence and stability under the Platt Amendment."  Well, isn't that magnanimous, the US is no nice it agreed to risk the lives of its brave young men to "preserve Cuban independence and stability".  Anyhow, where did this come from?  Let's take a look at this current US State Department Background note on Cuba:
>
> http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2886.htm
> "On May 20, 1902, the United States granted Cuba its independence but retained the right to intervene to preserve Cuban independence and stability in accordance with the Platt Amendment."
>
> The current article doesn't have this sentence, because all mention of the Spanish-American war ever taken place has been removed.  Which says a lot about Wikipedia in the history/society categories.  But plenty of the US State Department language is still in the current article, and this State Department and US army stuff permeates the entire encyclopedia.  And the only changes to it is people like Adam Carr coming in and calling various modern Cuban bureaucrats things like cronies.
>
> So as I mentioned before - I think Wikipedia will continue to be good in the science/math master categories and horrible in the history/society master categories.  Wikipedia is also decent in other master categories, depending.  The four middle categories between science/math and history/society vary - technology is pretty good, while the "life" master category is almost as far down in the abyss as the history/society one.  And as I said before, I am sure that for the history, society, life categories, people flee to wiki encyclopedia's that do not have real vandals and trolls like Trey Stone (who has been blocked 8 times since his arbitration started, but is still vandalizing - really vandalizing, despite porn magnate Wales's insults towards me).  Wiki encyclopedias like Demopedia and Dkosopedia - or even more radical ones like Anarchopedia, Red Wiki and Infoshop's Openwiki.  I suggest people check these wikis out, and contribute original material, or public domain English articles (not ones funded by the US army though, please), or translations from encyclopedias in the public domain - there are some very good public domain encyclopedias out there, and I don't mean Encyclopedia Britannica circa the early 20th century.  Why be frustrated here on Wikipedia when you can actually cooperate in a friendly environment with people writing a encyclopedia of articles pertaining to categories like history, society, life and whatnot?  I have.  It will lower your "wiki-stress" level.
>
> I should note I am not telling people to leave Wikipedia, or not to contribute to it.  I think the science and math master categories are great.  But the history and society categories are hopeless.  These categories are already ruled by right-wing kooks on Wikipedia, and always will be, but if you are at an RK or Trey Stone level of fanaticism, perhaps you should check out another right wing nutcases wiki encyclopedia - wikinfo.org.  As far as those who feel close to the workers movements, or who don't go to Pentecostal churches to here preachers railing about how the faggots are taking over America which will lead to the destruction of society, Demopedia and Dkosopedia are out there, as are some more radical ones.
>
> In fact, perhaps this is something everyone would be happy to see.  What would your level of stress be if RK and Trey Stone went to wikinfo.org or wherever, and the Shornes and whatnot all went to Demopedia/Dkosopedia or perhaps Red Wiki or something?  I mean, let's face it, there will NEVER be cooperation on the Palestine page.  Ever.  What's going to fix it, a wiki version of the "peace process" like the one that supposedly has gone on since 1967 in Israel?  With Sharon building new settlements, calling that a peace process is like saying the American slaughter of Indians since 1776 has ben a peace process.  But I shall not get into that - just like I don't much edit the Palestine Israel pages on Wikipedia.
>
> As far as the Khmer Rouge page, I won't go much into that either.  The change I have been trying to make for months is minor, and of course, accurate.  First of all, there is no organization that ever called itself "Khmer Rouge", which is French for "Red Khmers".  It is sort of like calling the Communist Party USA "Red Jews" or "Red Anglo-Saxons".  It's just an insulting propaganda term, like Viet Cong was.  But even if we accept the Communist Party of Cambodia/Kampuchea be called Khmer Rouge, it becomes ridiculous in this article.  The political coalition the Khmer Rouge is in, FUNK, is called...Khmer Rouge.  It would be like calling the Uniti nell'Ulivo (United under the olive tree) coalition in Italy, Democratici di Sinistra (Left Democrats).  Many parties are in Uniti nell'Ulivo so calling the coalition Democratici di Sinistra would be ridiculous, but FUNK is called Khmer Rouge in the article.  That is the least ridiculous incidentally, the government, GRUNK, is called Khmer Rouge as well.  That would be like calling the US government the Republican party.  Which is ridiculous, the Republicans are in control of the federal government, tempered by the Senate filibuster, but the Republican party is not the same thing as the US government.  In the case of Cambodia it is even more ridiculous - the US president is a Republican, but GRUNK was run by the former prince of Cambodia, Sihanouk, who was not in the Khmer Rouge.  Then we get to the army which is again called - the Khmer Rouge.  It would be like calling the US army the Republican party, since the Republican party is in charge.
>
> I should point out that this is not just a view shared by me, and not even by left-wing or liberal writers on Cambodia like Noam Chomsky or Michael Vickery.  Even the US army funded study of Cambodia conceeds all of this.  I should also note that Trey Stone, another person who accuses me of being an apologist for genocide or whatever, has been busy making rationalizations for why the US government began supporting the Khmer Rouge in 1979.  He says they were in a coalition - with Sihanouk, and this made it OK.  Which gets us into another loop, in the 1975 Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk coalition, Adam Carr and Trey Stone are fanatical about erasing Sihanouk from the coalition, after 1979, they are fanatical about erasing the Khmer Rouge from the same damned KR/Sihanouk coalition.
>
> My interest in Cambodia comes from Noam Chomsky, who incidentally has been averse to communism since the 1930s when he felt the communists betrayed the Spanish republic.  He wrote some comments about American news coverage and the type of hysteria the US got into when it lost in Vietnam - hysteria about massacres in Cambodia, congressional hearings over POWs who the Vietnamese were still secretly holding for some reason.  In fact, there's a law that the POW/MIA flag has to fly over all federal buildings at least once a year, on which is a photo of an American soldier the Vietnamese are still holding for some reason.  Well, I don't want to get into a psychological evaluation of self-admitted former Maoists like Adam Carr or the other people.  I just want a rational, logical Khmer Rouge article.  I give up on other articles, but not this one - I am proving a point.  Anyone who is not a hysterically fanatic anti-communist can see how hysteria has gripped this article, and has been winning.  I see it more as a lesson on how Wikipedia does not work for the history master category.  In fact, even if everyone not currently in arbitration decided to be perfectly reasonable about this article, Trey Stone when he is not on one of his eight blocks since he went into arbitration months ago would just come in and muck it up.  It is a testament to how Wikipedia is a complete failure.  And I will continue making my very logical, reasonable and historical edits in the face of the fanaticism that is against me.  And as I said before, even if everyone else is being reasonable, in-arbitration Trey Stone is not being, so that is what I am arrayed against.  But of course, Adam Carr is being completely unreasonable as well.  I would have to get past these two fanatics to even consider if anyone else is being unfair.  And as I said before, all efforts have been made to drive the 172's of Wikipedia off, so it is an often lonely battle on this page.  Poison letters to the Secretlondon's, sneaky admin-removals of the 172s have done their job.  I have no allies on the page, while the "difficult" Adam Carr's are countenanced by Jimbo Wales himself, the Trey Stones revert repeatedly as his ArbCom case drags on forever, and of course, Ayn-Rand reading porn magnate Jimbo Wales calls me a vandal for making the very reasonable change I mentioned earlier.
>
> Please look at the revert war from the time period of that Adam Carr comment, read my earlier comments here (or on the Khmer Rouge discussion page) and see for yourself.  This edit war went on between me and Adam Carr (and Trey Stone) from May until a few days ago, when with this still unresolved, when CJK came in and began making, what else, more pro-US/anti-KR changes, so then the edit war became the old one plus the new CJK one.  For example, CJK said he never heard of the US food aid program to Cambodia - "Ruy goes on to say that 'international food aid' was keeping them alive. I have never heard of this 'food aid' from ANYWHERE ELSE, so Ruy should give a source for that as well."  Since my edits never go through, and no one else ever sources, I barely see the point of giving a reference for this, but I dig up a New York Times article mentioning it anyway.  And note - Cambodia is a subject I know a bit about, and CJK admits he is completely ignorant of things such as the food aid program.  So we have someone who knows quite a bit about this subject (me), and people who know little about it like CJK making edits reverting me.  After I give the source, CJK does not accept it because he says "I think the U.S. gave food aid to the Lon Nol Army, but not civilians".  Amazing!  CJK says he never heard of this program, but as soon as I source it all of a sudden he "thinks" he knows where the food went!  How did he go from knowing nothing, to all of a sudden not only knowing about it, but how it was distributed?  So of course he doesn't accept my changes.  And of course, if he actually read the article, he would see the food was going to civilians.  This is what I have to deal with.
>
> So to those of you not coming to this list to kiss the ass of Ayn Rand reading porn magnate Jimbo Wales - check out the Khmer Rouge article as my personal example of how Wikipedia does not work for the history (or society) master category.  And check out Demopedia, Dkosopedia and the other wiki's I mentioned so we can build a good, cooperative wiki for historical and political articles without having to deal with the RK's and Trey Stones.  The RK's and Trey Stones can go to right-wing nut Fred Bauder's wikinfo.org.  And if you like Wikipedia for it's articles in the master categories of science, mathematics and technology - well, I think Wikipedia is good in those areas as well.  But for history/society it is a lost cause, and I suggest at least trying out these other places before you get frustrated and leave, as so many have done.  These alternative wiki's are all growing, and in a few months they'll reach a level of critical mass.  So check them out.
>
> Ruy
>
> --
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list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Changing username

body:
?var (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:?var_Arnfj?r?_Bjarmason>)
made a tool recently that enables bureaucrats to rename users and told
me yesterday that Tim Starling has just deployed it at the servers.

Therefore, any bureaucrat can change the username of users on their
wiki using [[Special:Renameuser]].

For more details, please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Changing_username
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Changing_username
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Requests_for_name_changes
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards#Instructions_for_changing_usernames
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats#Instructions_for_changing_usernames

Please translate this into your language and let the people on your
project know about this new process. People on wikis without
bureaucrats can make their request at [[meta:Requests for
permissions]] instead.

Angela.


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Changing username


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Changing username


list: foundation-l

from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: we did it

body:
Bjarte S?rensen wrote:

>On that note, I would like to announce that the four Scandinavian
>language Wikipedias (sv,  no/nb, da, and nn) combined have 150,000
>articles as of early July 2005, all of which are more or less
>intelligible for all who know one of the languages. The biggest
>contributor to this number is of course the Swedish Wikipedia
>currently with >86,000 articles, followed by Norwegian (bokm?l) which
>are about to cross the 30,000 mark, Danish with >26,000 and the
>11-month old Norwegian (nynorsk) Wikipedia with >8,800 articles.
>
>
It would be interesting to know the number of unique articles across the
Scandinavian languages as a group. Presumably this could be calculated
based on interlanguage links.

--Michael Snow


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: we did it


from_name: Muke Tever

subject: [Wiktionary-l] language link structure question

references:
<42C9E707.2040409@telus.net>
	<200507081332.14598.molasses-one@shaw.ca>
	<op.stl6sgep2okkek@arcadia.hsd1.co.comcast.net>
	<200507090026.30754.molasses-one@shaw.ca>

body:
edward molasses <molasses-one at shaw.ca> wrote:
> On Friday 08 July 2005 2:46 pm, Muke Tever wrote:
>> The purpose of interlanguage links is to link to an article on the *same*
>> topic in another language.  For the purpose of a dictionary, this means
>> the same word.  Thus an article that treats the English word 'house' must
>> use interwiki links for other languages with articles also treating the
>> English word 'house'.
>>
>> Some wiktionaries have been using an inline link in the translation table
>> for the kind of link you appear to be looking for, i.e., a link from
>> en:house to it:casa... this generally appears next to the translation as
>> a small symbol such as ^, ??, ???, or ???, depending on the wiktionary.
>>
>> When the Wiktionaries are better written,
>> http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/house will have an actual definition of the
>> word as well.
>>
> Thank you for the help Muke! I'm not sure I understand completely, is it that
> traditionally editors of wiktionary word pages will add the interwiki link
> using the english translation of the word as the page name because they don't
> know what the translated word would be, and the wiki of the other language's
> site will have the intermediate page named with the english translation to
> make it easier for the english wiki to link to it without knowing the
> translation of the word?

No.

The purpose of the interlanguage links is to link to the *same topic* treated
in *another language*.  For wikipedia, this means [[en:house]] would have a
link to [[it:casa]], because wikipedia writes articles about people, places,
things, and ideas, but for wiktionary this means [[en:house]] links to
[[it:house]] -- this is because the subject matter of wiktionary is *words*.

It may help if you consider the page title to be in full "the word 'house'".
The corresponding Italian page has to be "la parola 'house'", which is why
[[en:house]] links to [[it:house]].

Remember, each wiktionary aims to cover all words in all languages.  The
page that links to [[it:casa]] is <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/casa>.

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

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


list: wikien-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A Perhaps OT Post -- My Wikipedia Talk

body:
Geoff Burling a ?crit:
> On Fri, 8 Jul 2005, Anthere wrote:
>
>
>>Thanks for the report Geoff :-) If you could upload (or link) your
>>presentation here (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Presentations), you
>>would be most welcome.
>>
>
> I'll try to get that done soon; since the files all fit into a 20Kb
> tarball, I just might upload it to meta.
>
> I found it noteworthy that there are so few records of Presentations
> in the US. Is it because none of us Americans know about this page
> (my defense), or that none of us have tried to give a formal talk
> about Wikipedia?

I might possibly dare say because many presentations in the usa are
handled by Jimbo ?
But in any cases, the page is not very well known yet. Not all
presentations are listed either (definitly not the last one I made in
english at least :-)), but it gives a good idea of who to ask when a new
presenter want to start from an existing presentation.

> In related news, I just received the latest copy of Linux Journal
> (August, 2005), & was happily surprised to read that LJ chose
> Wikimedia Foundation for its Editor's Choice Award in the category
> "Nontechnical or Community Web Site." Again, am I the only one who
> didn't know we were in the running? Has anyone written a press
> release?
>
> Geoff

I do not think I knew... No press release has been done and afaik, it is
not mentionned on the WMF site... If you write a little text, please
think of telling us :-)

Seriously, the fact is mostly we are getting so big... it is impossible
to know it all. Also, several awards, many big deadlines... lost the
excitement somewhere and fewer press releases were done recently. We hit
2 millions articles recently and I do not think anything was done. I do
not know if good or not good. In many countries, we are well known
enough not to feel so much the need to announce these types of events...
Still, it is important to document them... so that we have some
references to show journalists hungry of such details.

As usual, if some editors are motivated to do it, it will get done.
Otherwise it won't. Wiki way :-)

Ant


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Tables for Ultimate Wiktionary

body:
Yesterday we were talking about tables and structures for Ultimate
Wiktionary.

Repeating basically all we said time and time again. Gerard wrote some
notes on this on his blog.

http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/

The design phase for the tables of UW is apparantly starting .. Please
give us your ideas so that we will have the best UW possible :-)

Ciao, Sabine


body:
Yesterday we were talking about tables and structures for Ultimate
Wiktionary.

Repeating basically all we said time and time again. Gerard wrote some
notes on this on his blog.

http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/

The design phase for the tables of UW is apparantly starting .. Please
give us your ideas so that we will have the best UW possible :-)

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Batch rollback (in 1.5)

body:
Gordon Joly wrote:
> Can I batch rollback 20 or 30 pages (which were spammed on 7th July)?

There is no batch rollback feature, but you can click 'rollback' on 20
or 30 links.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Bjarte Sørensen

subject: [Foundation-l] we did it

body:
On that note, I would like to announce that the four Scandinavian
language Wikipedias (sv,  no/nb, da, and nn) combined have 150,000
articles as of early July 2005, all of which are more or less
intelligible for all who know one of the languages. The biggest
contributor to this number is of course the Swedish Wikipedia
currently with >86,000 articles, followed by Norwegian (bokm?l) which
are about to cross the 30,000 mark, Danish with >26,000 and the
11-month old Norwegian (nynorsk) Wikipedia with >8,800 articles.

Read more about pan-Scandinavian coordination of Wikimedia projects on
our meta-pages at

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Skanwiki

or join our new mailing list at

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiskan-l

Cheers,

Bjarte Sorensen

On 07/07/05, Przykuta <przykuta at o2.pl> wrote:
> We have 2M arts now :))))
>
> Przykuta
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] we did it


subject: [Wikitech-l] Short URLs

body:
Kerim Friedman wrote:
> I just upgraded my Wiki <http://wiki.oxus.net> from 1.3.x to 1.4.x. Everything
> went fine, with one major problem: I no longer have the same URL structure I
> used to have. Before my site urls looked like this:
>
> http://wiki.oxus.net/Main_Page

I strongly recommend against this, as it pollutes your URL namespace and
may create conflicts. You should always put your rewrite area in a
virtual directory.

> now they look like this:
>
> http://wiki.oxus.net/index.php/Main_Page

That's the default. Did you throw away your old LocalSettings.php?

> I tried following the instructions on this page:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Using_a_very_short_URL
>
> But they do not work.

Is that the same as what you did before?

> I did some searching but couldn't find any solution that works with Apache
> 1.3.x, so I thought I'd write to the group to see if anywone has figured out a
> work around?

The rewrite configuration would be exactly the same on 1.3.x and 2.0.x
so far as I know.

> Please write to me off-list at oxusnet+software [at] gmail.com.

Please subscribe to mailing lists that you post to so your message
doesn't go in the spam queue. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Error

body:
Kerim Friedman wrote:
> from within function "SearchUpdate::doUpdate". MySQL returned error "1016: Can't
> open file: 'searchindex.MYI'. (errno: 145) (localhost)".
> Retrieved from "http://wiki.oxus.net/index.php/Main_Page"

Your database appears to be corrupt. Run 'REPAIR TABLE searchindex' in
MySQL.

> Please reply to me off list at oxusnet+software [at] gmail.com.

Please subscribe to mailing lists you post to so your posts don't go in
the spam bin.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Pat Carr

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: more active censorship

body:
> Phil Sandifer wrote:
> > It should probably be noted that in general, the
> user:foo block is
> > renewed very quickly. In your case, last time it
> was renewed within  the
> > first minute of the block, meaning your block
> didn't get extended  by
> > more than a few seconds.

Timwi wrote:
> Huh? For that to be true in general, you would have
> to assert that every
> blocked user attempts to hit "edit" at least once
> every minute.

The "few seconds" applied to one specific case. Since
this block was renewed within the first minute, it's
true that it was only extended by a few seconds.

The assertion was that the general case is that blocks
are renewed "very quickly". This does seem to be true,
since most blocks are placed due to ongoing edits.
Thus, the blocked user will usually hit edit soon
after the block is in effect.

Carbonite

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


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Writing with our readers in mind

body:
This is quite obvious and most egregious in any topic which can be
related to as concerning philosophy. We have no decent articles for
[[truth]] [[knowledge]] or [[reality]] thanks to academic efforts.

Fred

On Jul 9, 2005, at 11:44 AM, Jon wrote:

> Do we have anywhere a statement that editors should think of their
> readers when writing? For me, that's commonsense: whether at work,
> speaking or writing to different clients, or chatting with friends,
> I always bear in mind who I am communicating with and trying to use
> words, language and style that suits them.
>
> However, increasingly I see other editors deciding they prefer an
> "academic" style. What this means is that, if you are an academic
> in the field being discussed, you can understand what they are
> saying. However, if you are not, the articles remain impenetrable -
> and attempts to tweak them so they are more intelligible to the
> vast majority of readers get rebuffed.
>
> It would be useful (if we don't already have it somewhere that I've
> missed) to have a firm statement that says articles should be
> written to be as intelligible to as many of our readers as
> possible, with our readers being anyone potentially searching for
> English-language information on the internet.
>
> Jon (jguk)
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PCcalling worldwide with
> voicemail
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: ilooy

subject: [Foundation-l] Personal info

body:
Hey Ant,
Congratulations, and I pray everything go
well for you and the little one.
With best regards,
Jay B.
User:ILVI

2005/7/8, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com>:
> Dear all,
>
>
> I find myself in a rather similar situation than 4
> months ago, though my hopes are that it will end up
> well this time.
>
>[...]


subject: [Foundation-l] Personal info


from_name: jwaxberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Etiology of a poker phrase

body: Dear Sirs,  Have been trying for some time to get the derivation of the phrase "Down and Dirty" referring to the last card down in a 7 card poker game.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Ladino Wikis need lad.wikipedia.org and
	lad.wiktionary.org

body:
Hey all,
There's been some talk about natural
language wikis and the formation of
new ones over at the Wikipedia-l.

I started a thread on adding Ladino
wikis and got some good feedback
as to what to do in the next steps.

Well, we're ready for the step where
we need to ask one of our hard-at-work
developers for help in making the space
sub-domain available:
http://lad.wikipedia.org
and
http://lad.wiktionary.org
There are five users who support it,
one is a (N) speaker, I'm quite fluent,
the other's know Standard Spanish
or Interlingua, so following the articles
and making corrections would be a
great exercise too. But most importantly
the addition of these wikis will help give
the Ladino community another great
forum for the presentation of its heritage
and the continuation of the language.

There are 160,000 fluent speakers,
200,000 counting those who grew
up with the language but aren't
active users of it. There are broad-
casts on TV and radio in several
countries, Spain, Turkey, Israel, etc.
and many periodicals in Ladino.
A Ladino Wiki would certainly find
the support of many and the praise
of older folks who've endeavored to
keep their language and culture alive.

So it is with high hopes and definite
expectations of growth that I request
the help of one of our developers in
setting up the space for these wikis.
Ladino Wikipedia and Ladino Wiktionary.
Who may be able to help us?

Thanks, with regards,
Jay B.
User:ILVI
ilooy.gaon at gmail.com


from_name: Kerim Friedman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Short URLs

body:
I just upgraded my Wiki <http://wiki.oxus.net> from 1.3.x to 1.4.x. Everything
went fine, with one major problem: I no longer have the same URL structure I
used to have. Before my site urls looked like this:

http://wiki.oxus.net/Main_Page

now they look like this:

http://wiki.oxus.net/index.php/Main_Page

I tried following the instructions on this page:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Using_a_very_short_URL

But they do not work. It seems that the problem is that I am using a virtual
host/commercial server which is still using Apache 1.3.x not 2.x. I even tried
using the "kludge" method on the page, but it did not work.

I did some searching but couldn't find any solution that works with Apache
1.3.x, so I thought I'd write to the group to see if anywone has figured out a
work around?

Please write to me off-list at oxusnet+software [at] gmail.com.

Thanks for your help.

Kerim


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-free images, there has to be a better way

body:
> Well, it's rare to get permission for GFDL licensing or whatever; I've
> managed to get loads of replies which are happy to give Wikipedia a
> licence, but will not be able to license under GFDL/CC-BY/etc. - dozens
> and dozens of them.

Indeed. To get someone to license under the GFDL
you have to sell them a whole ideology which they
may never have heard of before. This is usually
not possible when the person on the other end
represents an organization (museum, laboratory etc.).

While many people are happy to give Wikipedia a
license they are hesitant to give out a general
license and often don't understand why we're
asking for one. This is understandable considering
that what we're asking would allow the images to
be used to e.g. advertise drugs or decorate political
propaganda. If you're not already sold on GNU ideology
you'll find this hard to swallow - much safer to dole
out permissions one by one.

What I think is probably most effective is not to
try to explain the GFDL or CC licenses and instead
ask them to agree to one of the following:

"Anyone can use this image for any purpose."

"Anyone can use this image for any purpose as long as
it is attributed to us."

"Anyone can use this image for encyclopedia articles
and other educational purposes."

"Anyone can use this image for encyclopedia articles
and other educational purposes as long as it is
attributed to us."

- - -

This is simple enough and clear enough for people to
agree to and it is still good enough for us and most
of our downstream users.

To use one of the examples I keep coming back to we
can probably get the [[Z machine]] picture under the
last license. We already have this:

"encyclopedia articles are fine. We only require a
credit in the form, 'Courtesy, Sandia National Laboratories,'"

I don't think we'll ever get it under a GFDL license,
though, or even a CC-BY license.

> Some of them, I noted, ended up just being grabbed
> and copied for fair use instead (by other users), which is more than
> just a little dispiriting.

I feel your pain.

Regards,
Haukur


subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Short URLs

body:
Kerim Friedman wrote:
> Brion,
>
> Thanks for your reply. I have subscribed to the list, as you suggested.

Looks like you're not subscribed with the address you're posting from,
so the mailing list is still putting your postings in the spam queue.

> I don't understand what you mean by polluting my name space. My URL
> *is* a virtual directory. I use subdomains to keep my domain space
> "unpolluted":
>
> http://kerim.oxus.net
> http://wiki.oxus.net
> http://keywords.oxus.net
> http://forums.oxus.net
>
> This seems like a pretty standard practice on many webservers, not
> sure I understand what MediaWiki has against it. I have never had any
> problems with this, except for WikiMedia 1.4.

See my explanation at eg:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-July/030720.html

Putting the wiki redirector at the base URL obscures real files. If you
make special exceptions for those files (at least, those you think of),
you can never have wiki pages with those titles. If you have wiki pages
with a given title, you can never have a real file with that name. It
creates inconsistencies and holes and bugs, and things that will look
for certain files and get back a wiki page unexpectedly, etc etc.

Bad bad mojo. Don't go there.

Note that files include global crap like robots.txt and favicon.ico, as
well as all the wiki's support files, not just stuff you put in yourself.

>  In fact, you helped me set up the .htaccess when I installed
> WikiMedia 1.5. (At the time I had problems with domain forwarding
> which you helped me resolve.)

If I helped you with that, then I'm sure I warned you at that time not
to use the root directory. Nobody ever heeds my warnings, though. :)

> The settings from my old LocalSettings.php and .htaccess file (both of
> which I have saved) do not seem to work with 1.5.

They should work identically. Any further assistance would require
seeing what these settings are, and a detailed description of what goes
wrong. Please confirm that you have cleared browser caches and the
parser cache ('DELETE FROM objectcache') prior to testing.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: James D. Forrester

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Non-free images, there has to be a better way

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

Michael Snow wrote:

> "Fair use" is laziness too in many cases. But my point was that if
> you're going to the trouble of asking for permission, which is otherwise
> commendable, it is lazy and counterproductive not to take the very
> simple step of asking for permission *under a free license*.

Well, it's rare to get permission for GFDL licensing or whatever; I've
managed to get loads of replies which are happy to give Wikipedia a
licence, but will not be able to license under GFDL/CC-BY/etc. - dozens
and dozens of them. Some of them, I noted, ended up just being grabbed
and copied for fair use instead (by other users), which is more than
just a little dispiriting.

Yours,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Error

body:
I'm having a second issue on my wiki <http://wiki.oxus.net/> as well. Since my
upgrade from 1.3.x to 1.4.x, I now get the following error message after saving
changes to an article. The article changes are saved, it just doesn't seem like
the site is properly navigating back to the article.

----begin error message------

Database error
>From KerimWiki
A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the
software. The last attempted database query was:

    (SQL query hidden)

from within function "SearchUpdate::doUpdate". MySQL returned error "1016: Can't
open file: 'searchindex.MYI'. (errno: 145) (localhost)".
Retrieved from "http://wiki.oxus.net/index.php/Main_Page"

----end error message------

Please reply to me off list at oxusnet+software [at] gmail.com.

Thanks for your help.

Kerim


from_name: Boris Lohnzweiger

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Natural languages and new Wikipedias;
	Chinook Jargon?

body:
I fully agree with Tim here. Wikipedia's aim is to become an encyclopedia like the "Britannica or better". Editions in Volap?k or Pali are plainly counterproductive here. Like I mentioned earlier I attach the same value to each and every single language in the world. And I'm not opposed to any constructed languages as many are great creative works. Furthermore, I fully approve all efforts to preserve and foster minority languages for they are all part of the world's cultural heritage.

However, I think it's finally time to realize that not every language is suitable for a wikipedia. Matter of fact, from a realistic perspective we have more Wikipedias that aren't working than ones that are. The moment we focus on what an encyclopedia is really about (i. e. collecting and transfering information, not language which only serves as a vehicle) we'll see more clearly that e. g. languages with no native speakers will not serve our principal aim.

Boris

wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 08.07.05 01:18:16:

As far as I'm concerned, Lojban and Gothic are in the same category,
they both have a very small speaker population with 100% bilingualism,
and Esperanto and English are in the same category, they both have a
speaker population larger than the native language of many people. I'd
like to see a focus on effective information transfer rather than
language preservation, restoration and construction, but I think I'm
fighting a losing battle.

-- Tim Starling

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

_________________________________________________________________________
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from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling

body:
On Sat, 9 Jul 2005, Jack Lynch wrote:

> We need better ways of catagorising one another than troll, admin,
> left -right, or whatever. These are ambiguous terms, and with the
> possible exception of "admin", each person who uses them defines them
> differently.
>
Well, having given this some thought for my presentation last Thursday,
the way I explained the issue was to first categorize conflicts into
"good faith" & "bad faith". Good faith is where two or more people
disagree on the matter, but are willing to discuss the matter in a
civil manner towards a consensus -- even if the consensus is nothing
more than to agree to disagree (which is one way *I* explain the NPOV).

Bad faith are specific destructive acts or types of people -- vandals,
cranks & troublemakers. And these labels shuold only be applied where
there is no ambiguity about the situation:

* A vandal is someone who thinks adding nonsense or offensive material
to an article is proper behavior -- e.g. taking the statement
"George Bush is president of the United States" & changing "president"
to another word like "war criminal", "wanker" or "donkey".

* A crank is someone who insists that her/his POV is the only correct
one, & that anyone who does not agree with her/his POV is absolutely
*wrong*. When confronted on this assertion, the crank will not provide
logical positive arguments for the POV, but use various non-logical
arguments to defend her/hisself -- e.g., attack the other person,
claim that a conspiracy is "keeping the truth from being known", etc.

* A troublemaker is someone who has no clear agenda for their acts
like a vandal, but unlike a vandal does not limit their actions to
simple edits. I feel that in many cases where people on Wikipedia
use the word "troll", they mean "troublemaker".

In my presentation my audience did not need me to explain these terms,
but I did make the point that people with good faith conflicts, if not
treated civilly & with respect often lapse into the bad faith behavior
I listed. (Unfortunately, there are some people who are treated civilly
& with respect who lapse into bad faith behavior -- but there is rarely
any way to know this beforehand.)

Geoff


from_name: Zoney

body:
On 7/8/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:
>
> >I've got one more question on our
> >Lindisfarne Gospels image. Since it
> >would almost certainly be "protected"
> >under British law I wonder if the
> >[[Berne Convention]] would require the
> >United States to uphold this protection.
> >
> Not at all.  Even assuming that the museum's dubious claims were upheld
> by British courts, the operating principle in the US would be not to
> give greater protection than would be available in a comparable
> situation in the US, i.e. of source material owned by a US museum.  The
> US courts have already gone further in determining the
> non-copyrightability of such materials.
>
> Ec
>

Again, I thought the main concern with image licensing, after avoiding
legal issues with wikipedia.org, was to ensure the encyclopaedia was
"free" for others to use (presumably by extension, outside the US, in
the UK, etc.) At the moment, simply a mirror in some other countries
will have copyright violations, regardless of the same images not
being problematic in the US.

The issue of only US law applying to wikipedia.org is surely
irrelevant even if it is true - as far as creating a "free"
encyclopaedia for all goes.

Zoney

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


from_name: Gordon Joly

subject: [Wikitech-l] Batch rollback (in 1.5)

body:
Can I batch rollback 20 or 30 pages (which were spammed on 7th July)?

I am in the process of uppgrading from 1.5 beta1 to beta3.

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Policy clarification: separate Wikipedias for
	cultures, peoples, and countries, or for languages?

body:
> Is it considered acceptable to have spearate Wikipedias for different
cultures and peoples rather than languages?

No.

> Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in
the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people,
and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good,
since only 5% of Maori people are fluent in Maori.

Wrong. Maori means Maori language, not Maori people. "English Wikipedia" doesn't mean "Wikipedia for people living in England" but rather "Wikipedia written in English language".

> Similarly, he wanted to add English content to the Samoan Wikipedia
because "tens of thousands" of Samoans speak English fluently.

Can somebody please explain to him how Wikipedia works? Or could I please add German content to the Chinese Wikipedia because I don't know Chinese and "tens of thousands" of Chinese speak German?

P.S. If there are no competent Maori or Samoan editors we'd better lock those Wikipedia before further damage is done.

Boris

Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 08.07.05 02:57:11:

Hi all,

I would like to ask for some clarification of Wikimedia policy.

Is it considered acceptable to have spearate Wikipedias for different
cultures and peoples rather than languages? Are any existing
Wikipedias considered in this capacity?

Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in
the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people,
and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good,
since only 5% of Maori people are fluent in Maori.

Similarly, he wanted to add English content to the Samoan Wikipedia
because "tens of thousands" of Samoans speak English fluently. It
should be noted that neither of these languages are his native
languages. Maori, he lists as a Babel template level of 1 (his French
and German are better), yet he is the sole administrator at the Maori
Wikipedia. He noted on his Samoan userpage that he knows only a
handful of Samoan words, yet he tried to apply there for sysop
anyways.

Mark
_______________________________________________
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Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

_________________________________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Short URLs

body:
Kerim Friedman wrote:
> Brion,
>
> Hopefully my e-mail address now matches the send address...

Yep, it's working now. :)

>>See my explanation at eg:
>>http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-July/030720.html
>
> I'll take your word for it, although WordPress seems to handle such
> exceptions fairly robustly without any errors.

I'm under the impression that WordPress URLs tend to look like
"/archives/2005/07/09/some-kind-of-topic", with the rewritten area
segregated out into its own space ('archives') -- exactly the kind of
thing I recommend for the wiki.

Your WordPress blog seems to follow this convention. :)

> Finally, I have another problem, but I am not sure if it is related or
> not. Whenever I save changes to a page I get the following message:
>
>  A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug
> in the software. The last attempted database query was:
>
>     (SQL query hidden)
>
> from within function "SearchUpdate::doUpdate". MySQL returned error
> "1016: Can't open file: 'searchindex.MYI'. (errno: 145) (localhost)".

Probably your search table is corrupt. Run 'REPAIR TABLE searchindex'.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

body:
On Sat, Jul 09, 2005 at 01:37:50PM +0200, Boris Lohnzweiger wrote:
> However, I think it's finally time to realize that not every language is suitable
> for a wikipedia. Matter of fact, from a realistic perspective we have more
> Wikipedias that aren't working than ones that are.

You lost historical perspective. I remember times when German Wikipedia had
so friggin awesome 1200 articles (mostly stubs, by today's standards),
and we tried to get over 500 on the Polish Wikipedia.
It wasn't such a long time ago. Now the German Wikipedia seems like the best
German-language encyclopedia ever made, and the Polish Wikipedia is likely to
reach similar status in a year or two.

On the other hand Kashubian Wikipedia has now 661 articles and
so many people consider it a hopeless effort that can't possibly work.

Not all of the currently small Wikipedias will grow, but it's very likely
that most of them will get to into "useful" (10k+ articles) range in just
a few years, and by then we will have a lot of new small Wikipedias
that people will keep whining about, how hopeless their efforts supposedly are.

I, for one, believe the Kashubian Wikipedia and others like it have future.


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling

body:
Norath Norath wrote:
> I am sure that you believe that allowing these admins
> to make any decision they like, without reference to
> community made policy, is for the best, but if this is
> true, it would be more honest simply to say that from
> now on, policy is irrelevant and admins can simply
> block whomever they like.

Straw man argument.  I obviously don't support that and nothing that I
said could lead any reasonable person to think so.

Like I said, if you have something serious to say, I'm all for it.  But
making up random garbage as a form of protest is just pointless.

Please?

--Jimbo


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] A Perhaps OT Post -- My Wikipedia Talk

body:
Thanks Geoff,

It's nice to see something Wikipedia related that isn't about problems
and disagreements. It lightened up the list and this was certainly the
right place to post it. Talks like yours are what we need to raise
interest in new members.

Good job.

--Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The ongoing trolling

body:
Jack Lynch wrote:
> For an example of a legitimate case for complaint, see
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Personal_Abuse
>
> and
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Arthur_Wellesley%2C_8th_Duke_of_Wellington#Back_to_basics
>
> (same case)
>
> Jack (Sam Spade)

Exactly!  This is really very important.

The mailing list is clogged up with wild accusations with no links to
diffs, no actual evidence, and clearly false claims.

Meanwhile, there *are* interesting cases (see the links above) which do
warrant a serious discussion on this list about policy, Wikilove,
adminship, etc.

This is one of the worst things about tolerating nonsensical trolls --
we become desensitized to actual cases of abuse.

In the links above, you'll see an admin in a fight with a user who (it
appears to me) was just wrong about a minor issue, and the admin says
"fuck you" and calls the other fellow an "asshole" and an "absurd person".

That's pretty sad.

So, if anyone interprets my plea that we stop putting up with trolling
on this list as a plea to ignore complaints, that's a mistake.  We
should investigate real complaints and kick some of the trolls out of
here so we can get on with the real work of ensuring due process and
fairness and admin responsibility.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage

body:
> Ron has done quite a job on the article [[Katt]], in a huge effort to
convert it from Patentplatt to real Platt.

Hi Mark!

Nice job. As far as I'm able to able to judge, the overall language quality of the article was clearly improved. But I think it's an exaggeration to say the article was written in a fake Platt before and is "real" now. Authenticity is often a matter of perspective. Most of the alterations made are not so much about real vs. phony but rather a matter of spelling, dialect differences or even a matter of taste. Some changes aren't really necessary e. g. replacing the very common "mooken" by a seldomly used "m?ken". One thing I really can't grasp is why Ron/Reinhard introduces the letter "?" (which is never used in Germany), e. g. when replacing the authentic Platt word "?kelnaam" by a weird-looking "?kelnaam" for no visible reason.

Best,
Boris

Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 08.07.05 01:18:55:

Hi all,

Ron has done quite a job on the article [[Katt]], in a huge effort to
convert it from Patentplatt to real Platt.

Diff: http://nds.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Katt&diff=21797&oldid=18531

Mark

On 06/07/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Boris,
>
> I personally think that if in that sample the only extreme differences
> are "mer" and the future tense, this should not be insurmountable.
>
> Brazilian and Iberian Portuguese similarly have some vast differences
> in verb conjugations (although they use the same orthography...), yet
> they have a single Wikipedia.
>
> I'm sure many Portuguese people are a little bit annoyed when they see
> people using the second-person singular conjugations for both
> second-person singular and second-person plural... but then, they're a
> little bit used to it since Portuguese often visit Brazilian websites,
> read Brazilian books, watch Brazilian movies... and vice-versa but to
> a lesser degree.
>
> Nevertheless, the fact alone that you were able to identify it as the
> future tense (as opposed to just completely not knowing) counts for
> something.
>
> Surely, although it might be a bit annoying at first, such a
> linguistic difference as use or non-use of the future tense is
> surmountable.
>
> Mark
>
> On 05/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Servien!
> >
> > Thanks for informing me about that. I must admit, I've never heard or read about ANS. So, like the name suggests that's supposed to work in but countries? A good idea for sure. However (and that's a big however), as far as I can tell noboby in Germany ever writes that way. Just have a look a websites from Germany written in nds. You won't ever find all those y's and v's there. Neither in Plattd??tsch literature you can find in book stores in Northern Germany. While that ANS spelling system might be a good thing in theory, I think you just couldn't re-educate thousands of people in order to have one single nds Wikipedia. But I guess I don't have to convince _you_ anyway.
> >
> > Thanks for the sample phrase. Here's my try:
> >
> > "Wenn <or "As"> en Minsch nich faken noog ruut <"na buten" would also work> k?mmt ward he ook nich <equivalent for "h?yl" would be "heel" but is usually not used here> bruun <future tense "w?yrden" also omitted here> s?nnern blievt witt. <Note: I can`t really think of a word for "pale" now - you could possibly take "bleek" (without "witt" in that case) but I'm not 100% sure here>
> >
> > Even though I have tried to stick to your wording as closely as possible, I think the differences are quite tremendous here. They go far beyond spelling. What was most striking to me was the use of the future tense in your sample phrase. The Plattd??tsch I know just doesn't have that - just like in spoken High German where that tense is not used either. But also the word "mer" (that's like "maar" in Dutch, isn't it?) wouldn`t be understood by readers in Germany. Other differences are less severe, of course. E. g. "genog" instead of "noog" would surely be understood, especially since we have "genug" in German. But take "kump" (do you speak an "?" or an "u" there?) for "k?mmt" for example or even "ie/y" instead of "he". If the decision about a Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia were in my hands and I had to make that decision solely based on this one example - I would most definately create it! Not because I want to separate Dutch and German wikipedians - it's the 21st century and thank God we're good neighbours - but only of the language facts.
> >
> > Boris
> >
> > Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 15:33:43:
> >
> > Hi Boris,
> >
> > The orthography used in that text seems to me is de Algemeyne
> > Neddersassische Schryvwys'... I also used to use it, but people don't
> > seem to understand it quite as well in the Netherlands and Germany, I
> > must honestly say I understand the ANS writing system way better then
> > the one you used at the bottom (of course there are words which are
> > completely unknown to me...)
> >
> > Here is a sample of DLS in ANS writing system:
> > As 'n mins ny vaak genog buyten kump sal y ok ny h?yl bruyn w?yrden
> > mer sal y spyrwit blyven.
> >
> > And here in the traditional one:
> > As 'n mins nie vaok genog buut'n kump zal ie ok nie heul bruun wurd'n
> > mer zal ie spierwit bliev'n/blyv'n.
> >
> > This is the one I use:
> > As 'n mins nie vaok genog buten kump sal ie ok nie heul bruun wurden
> > mer sal ie spierwit blyven. (it's a mixture of the traditional one and
> > a little from ANS, I don't use the apostrophes because like in the
> > word blyv'n is pronounced as "bliem" and this is confusing because
> > bak'n [bake] is also pronounced differently like "bakng".)
> >
> > (Translation of the text:
> > If a person doesn't go outside much then he won't have a tanned look,
> > but will be pale white.)
> >
> > Servien
> >
> > 2005/7/5, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de>:
> > >
> > > > Ahh wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which is "based on Missingsch.
> > >
> > > Ok "Patentplatt" or "Fernsehplatt" (TV Platt) as it is called sometimes - that really seems to happen. I think that word is less misleading. Of course, different people will have different views on what is unique and what is not. Languages like German or French have had established unified standards for centuries, so there is hardly ever any doubt what's linguistically correct or not at de: or fr:. Obviously, at nds: you don`t have that degree of unambiguousness. I would really appreciate any efforts to improve the linguistic quality of the Low Saxon Wikipedia. After all, it is still at an early stage. Unfortunetaly, I can't really help here for, being a native in High German, I'd probably only worsen the problem of "Patentplatt".
> > >
> > >
> > > > A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:
> > > > Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un > "dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.
> > >
> > > Where does that come from? The vocabulary is mostly alright. But the spelling looks awfully articifial to me. Never before have I seen anyone using "y" in written Platt. And why should you write "v" when you say "f". Just too make look "less German"? Also, the diphtong "ou" might somehow reflect the pronounciation but is certainly not usually used in Northern Germany. And why should one want to use "kk" instead of "ck"? Just because it's written that way in the Netherlands?? And why is there an apostrophe in " Elv' "? Just because the word is "Elbe" in High German. Complete nonsense, in my humble opinion. I don't want to comment comment on the "real Platt" word "kuntray" but the "I" at the beginning of the last sentence is either Bavarian or English but surely not Platt.
> > >
> > > Coming from the "?nner-Elv'" myself, let me try it:
> > >
> > > Liek so kannst dat in'n poor Dialekten vun de ?nnerelv (in Hamborg un ?mto) ook seggen. "Wat" kann dor in d?sse/s?kse F?llen liek as "dat" un "de" bruken. Ick/Ik do dat ook faken, man tomeest wenn ick/ik snack.
> > >
> > > Hmm...
> > >
> > > Boris
> > >
> > > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 08:34:13:
> > >
> > > Hi Boris,
> > >
> > > I'm a bit perplexed as this accusation has been made by a number of
> > > people on Lowlands-l, most of the accusers being native speakers of
> > > Low German, and at least one (RF Hahn) also speaking Missingsch. Ahh
> > > wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which
> > > is "based on Missingsch".
> > >
> > > Accusations: "Unalike the Laich Saxon edeetion whase warkers dinna
> > > actually ken the leid.
> > > (It's oor Jonny's pet plaint, his windmill faes, an that richtly.)"
> > >
> > > "It doesn't help that language competency is wanting in the current
> > > WikiPlatt team.  Those folks are enthusiastic, and I laud that.  But
> > > they don't know the language well enough.  Much or most of it is
> > > "Patentplatt" (based on Missingsch), i.e. invented on the basis of
> > > German.  I am not at all opposed to introducing technical neologisms,
> > > but there needs to be first of all a firm grasp of the basic language,
> > > the grammar and the authentic idiom."
> > >
> > > Information on Patentplatt: "The number of Lowlands Saxon speakers ...
> > > would be large if it included people who are somewhat conversant ...
> > > and it would be even larger if it included those who ... can really
> > > only manage lexically, idiomatically and grammatically deficient,
> > > German-based, "made-up Platt" (Patentplatt)."
> > >
> > > This is very concerning, and is clearly a major factor in the
> > > difficulty people from the Netherlands are having reading NDS.wiki. I
> > > just dashed off an e-mail to Ron to remind him that he is always
> > > welcome to "fix" the Patentplatt, because of course it's Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > Obviously, this isn't the only factor, and I'm not sure if it's even
> > > the greatest factor. But, I feel that we should explore that.
> > >
> > > A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:
> > >
> > > Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un
> > > kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un
> > > "dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.
> > >
> > > Hmm...
> > >
> > > Best
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On 04/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi Mark!
> > > >
> > > > I was quite perplexed to read that they write Missingsch in the Low Saxon Wikipedia. So I just went there and checked out ten random pages. Having grown up in a rural area near Hamburg, it`s easy for me tell apart Low Saxon from Missingsch. The whole issue seems to be very exaggerated. All ten articles I've read were without a doubt in Plattd??tsch. Of course single articles might not be - I haven`t checked the whole Wikipedia. However, one can note that depending on the subject of the article the share of words that very closely resemble standard German words or are even identical (in writing !) is sometimes quite high. But this is a usual phenomenon in Low Saxon. Generally speaking, the more scientific a text gets the closer it comes to Hochdeutsch. Surely, sometimes this can lead to the fact that certain passages of articles don`t look too much like Platt. This can been seen very clearly in this article: http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilia . It has two sections, both written by the same author, as far as I can tell. The first ("Nordd??tsche Slangen") is very "pure" Low Saxon. The second ("Systematik") looks very much like standard German, due to its topic. I think even without knowing both languages in detail you can easily tell the difference. But this is not to be confused with Missingsch. You just couldn`t say that differently or more "real", if you want.
> > > >
> > > > I don`t who actually brought up this Missingsch issue (native speaker? hobby linguist?). But as a matter of fact, nds-WP is written in Low Saxon. If individual pages are in other languages (which to some degree happens in many Wikipedias) the guys at nds can certainly cope with that. However,  I disbelieve that this part of the reason native speakers of Low Saxon in the Netherlands ask for a separate WP.
> > > >
> > > > Boris
> > > >
> > > > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 04.07.05 01:38:06:
> > > >
> > > > Also, it seems to me that Walter, Wouter, and Servien are intent on
> > > > ignoring the issue of nds.wiki being in Missingsch rather than real
> > > > nds. But this is a real issue, and we need to deal with it. I have
> > > > personally received complaints from members of lowlands-l about
> > > > nds.wiki being in Missingsch, which is not actually Low Saxon but
> > > > rather a "contact variety".
> > > >
> > > > Surely, mutual intelligiblity would be increased very much if this
> > > > huge problem were solved. I'm sure one of the main problems is the
> > > > fact that it's written in Missingsch.
> > > >
> > > > Perhaps before starting nds-nl.wiki, somebody should start
> > > > real-nds.wiki, and after that we can see if things are any better.
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > > >
> > > > _________________________________________________________________________
> > > > Mit der Gruppen-SMS von WEB.DE FreeMail k?nnen Sie eine SMS an alle
> > > > Freunde gleichzeitig schicken: http://freemail.web.de/features/?mc=021179
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> > > QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> > > POSSIT MATERIARI
> > > ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
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> > >
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> > >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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> >
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> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> --
> SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> POSSIT MATERIARI
> ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
>

--
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QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
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from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Shouldn't we kick paedophiles off Wikipedia?

body:
On 7/9/05, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Let me ask the question again - is Wikipedia a haven for paedophiles? If so, I can see many parents banning their children from using it - to the detriment of us all.

Let's not be silly.  Wikipedia provides no mechanism for private
communication: all communication between Wikipedia users (exclusive of
emails) is in full public view.  Because of this, there is no risk
whatsoever that a pedophile will "recruit" on Wikipedia: anyone who
does will get quickly caught.

Pedophiles are people too, and they're entitled to their opinions, and
to express their opinions, as long as they don't act on them.

Kelly


subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Short URLs

body:
Brion,

Thanks for your reply. I have subscribed to the list, as you suggested.

I don't understand what you mean by polluting my name space. My URL
*is* a virtual directory. I use subdomains to keep my domain space
"unpolluted":

http://kerim.oxus.net
http://wiki.oxus.net
http://keywords.oxus.net
http://forums.oxus.net

This seems like a pretty standard practice on many webservers, not
sure I understand what MediaWiki has against it. I have never had any
problems with this, except for WikiMedia 1.4.

 In fact, you helped me set up the .htaccess when I installed
WikiMedia 1.5. (At the time I had problems with domain forwarding
which you helped me resolve.)

The settings from my old LocalSettings.php and .htaccess file (both of
which I have saved) do not seem to work with 1.5.

Thanks for your help!

Kerim

From: Brion Vibber <brion <at> pobox.com>
Subject: Re: Short URLs
Newsgroups: gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical
Date: 2005-07-09 18:28:23 GMT (1 hour and 9 minutes ago)

Kerim Friedman wrote:
> I just upgraded my Wiki <http://wiki.oxus.net> from 1.3.x to 1.4.x. Everything
> went fine, with one major problem: I no longer have the same URL structure I
> used to have. Before my site urls looked like this:
>
> http://wiki.oxus.net/Main_Page

I strongly recommend against this, as it pollutes your URL namespace and
may create conflicts. You should always put your rewrite area in a
virtual directory.

> now they look like this:
>
> http://wiki.oxus.net/index.php/Main_Page

That's the default. Did you throw away your old LocalSettings.php?

> I tried following the instructions on this page:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Using_a_very_short_URL
>
> But they do not work.

Is that the same as what you did before?

> I did some searching but couldn't find any solution that works with Apache
> 1.3.x, so I thought I'd write to the group to see if anywone has figured out a
> work around?

The rewrite configuration would be exactly the same on 1.3.x and 2.0.x
so far as I know.

> Please write to me off-list at oxusnet+software [at] gmail.com.

Please subscribe to mailing lists that you post to so your message
doesn't go in the spam queue. :)

-- brion vibber (brion  <at>  pobox.com)

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body:
Hi Tomasz,

By stating the fact that they aren't working now I didn't mean to imply that they will never work. Me too, I believe the Kashubian Wikipedia has a future. But I think one also has to acknowledge that presently roughly half of all Wikipedias look different than the German, Polish or even Kashubian editions in their early days (=historical perspective). It's not like they grow slowly - they don't grow at all even though many of them have existed for two or more years now. The reasons are manifold, of course, and have been discussed here before.

I fully agree with you that any useful encyclopedia needs 10k+ (quality) articles to be a useful source of information. Think of a printed encyclopedia with less articles. You'd never be able to find the information you're looking for and it would probably only tell you things you already know. I'd most likely just throw it away. Bottom line: it takes a huge number of articles and that takes a large number of editors (with good language skills, preferably native speakers). And I think it's this very fact that people ignore when suggesting e. g. a Wikipedia in Chinook Trade Jargon. Who is supposed to write that encyclopdia?

Just like you, Tomasz, I expect and hope many of the minor WPs to grow in the future. But I doubt that e. g. Interlingue, Nauruan, Yiddish, Lojban, Klingon, Volap?k, Hawaiian, Aromanian, Manx, Gothic, Pali, Aramaic, Choctaw, Hiri Motu or Muscogee will ever reach that critical mass where they can rightly be considered as encyclopedias. In my opion, that's a fact we must not overlook when discussing about new language editions of Wikipedia.

Boris

wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 09.07.05 14:25:56:

On Sat, Jul 09, 2005 at 01:37:50PM +0200, Boris Lohnzweiger wrote:
> However, I think it's finally time to realize that not every language is suitable
> for a wikipedia. Matter of fact, from a realistic perspective we have more
> Wikipedias that aren't working than ones that are.

You lost historical perspective. I remember times when German Wikipedia had
so friggin awesome 1200 articles (mostly stubs, by today's standards),
and we tried to get over 500 on the Polish Wikipedia.
It wasn't such a long time ago. Now the German Wikipedia seems like the best
German-language encyclopedia ever made, and the Polish Wikipedia is likely to
reach similar status in a year or two.

On the other hand Kashubian Wikipedia has now 661 articles and
so many people consider it a hopeless effort that can't possibly work.

Not all of the currently small Wikipedias will grow, but it's very likely
that most of them will get to into "useful" (10k+ articles) range in just
a few years, and by then we will have a lot of new small Wikipedias
that people will keep whining about, how hopeless their efforts supposedly are.

I, for one, believe the Kashubian Wikipedia and others like it have future.
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from_name: Cyclotron / Daryl

subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: wikicurrency

body:
Hello all.

I have initiated a project proposal. Please check it out
at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#WikiCurrency
and remember to follow the details link when you've read that
synopsis! Following the new project policy I have also mentioned
this proposal on goings-on and pump.

Keep well all,
Daryl

My mail address: cyclotron at bigfoot.com


body:
> I'm listening, believe me.  I'm sure you'll agree these are complex
> issues with many delicate legal and social ramifications for the project.

Yes, I agree. And I'm glad that you're considering
all aspects of this. I think what makes you a good
dictator is that you almost never exercise your power.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Norath Norath

subject: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling

body:
Once again, no reference to the actual issue.
I was blocked - the reference has been supplied.
No good reason was given.
No explanation has been provided.
My conclusion is that policy is not important.
What other conclusion could I come to?

Norrath

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Norath Norath wrote:
> > I am sure that you believe that allowing these
> admins
> > to make any decision they like, without reference
> to
> > community made policy, is for the best, but if
> this is
> > true, it would be more honest simply to say that
> from
> > now on, policy is irrelevant and admins can simply
> > block whomever they like.
>
> Straw man argument.  I obviously don't support that
> and nothing that I
> said could lead any reasonable person to think so.
>
> Like I said, if you have something serious to say,
> I'm all for it.  But
> making up random garbage as a form of protest is
> just pointless.
>
> Please?
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Why will David Gerard not answer this simple question?

body:
Again, you continue to avoid the simple question:

Which piece of policy justifies an instant and
indefinate block for asking a question of another
admin?

Your weasling ("no one cares", "others support me" is
irrelevant to the question of why you feel it is ok to
ignore community made policy.

You are simply hoping that if you ignore the question
long enough you will appear justified in kicking me
off the list for asking it too many times.

Norrath

> Considering the adverse community reaction has been
> zero and the positive
> community reaction has been quite a few, I suggest
> you are completely out
> of touch with the community whose name you are
> invoking.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling

body:
According to Wikipedia's article, he is a troll if
someone else thinks he is a troll. The word is used to
describe someone whose opinions we feel threatened by.

Norrath

--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> Ruy Lopez is not a troll.
>
> Fred
>
> On Jul 9, 2005, at 7:41 AM, Mark Ryan wrote:
>
> > On 7/9/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >> I do regret that Jimbo was not more sensitive to
> your feelings. I
> >> don't know why Adam Carr can do no wrong in his
> eyes. I don't find
> >> him that good an editor to start with.
> >>
> >> Fred
> >>
> >
> > I feel that's uncalled for. The correct response
> was to ignore the
> > troll, not counter his insult with an insult
> levelled against another
> > Wikipedia contributor.
> >
> > ~Mark
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling

body:
Absolutely. If we stopped using the language of the
witch-hunt or lynch-mob, we would be forced to examine
the behavior.

Focussing on speculation about intent, labelling and
mud-slinging is a major part of the issue.

What part of my behavior caused David Gerard to block
me?

Norrath

--- Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:

> We need better ways of catagorising one another than
> troll, admin,
> left -right, or whatever. These are ambiguous terms,
> and with the
> possible exception of "admin", each person who uses
> them defines them
> differently.
>
> Rather than labeling each other, I'd say it is
> better to label the
> ''conduct''. If someone says or does something rude,
> I think it is the
> job of others (particularly admins, and in this case
> list admins) to
> respond to that in a proper manner. Assumably admins
> themselves would
> be above any improper conduct themselves, but
> unfortunately were all
> human. I think this current problem is not so much
> the act of
> whistleblowing, but of how it is responded to.
> Personally, I would not
> have allowed the numerous threads of complaints
> regarding edit warring
> / page-blocking @ [[feces]], for example (and chose
> not to read or
> respond to them ;)
>
> Jack (Sam Spade)
>
> Perhaps it was a poor choice of words on my part.
> Replace "troll" with
> "problem user".
>
> ~Mark
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Stop Trolling Rosa - Get to the back of the bus!

body:
> Well, having given this some thought for my
> presentation last Thursday,
> the way I explained the issue was to first
> categorize conflicts into
> "good faith" & "bad faith". Good faith is where two
> or more people
> disagree on the matter, but are willing to discuss
> the matter in a
> civil manner towards a consensus -- even if the
> consensus is nothing
> more than to agree to disagree (which is one way *I*
> explain the NPOV).
>
> Bad faith are specific destructive acts or types of
> people -- vandals,
> cranks & troublemakers. And these labels shuold only
> be applied where
> there is no ambiguity about the situation:
>
> * A vandal is someone who thinks adding nonsense or
> offensive material
> to an article is proper behavior -- e.g. taking the
> statement
> "George Bush is president of the United States" &
> changing "president"
> to another word like "war criminal", "wanker" or
> "donkey".

This sounds very cut and dried, but in reality there
are good faith people who would insist that George
Bush IS a war criminal. It sounds like we are in
danger of telling Rosa Parks to stop disrupting the
bus because the rest of us want to sit down. Surely
she is just doing that to cause havoc? What reasonable
black person would try to sit in the white portion of
the bus? There are unpopular opinions that we need to
listen to.

Let's focus on behaviors, like clear vandalism and
personal attacks, and stop getting wound up about
people's political opinions.

Norath

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subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Short URLs

body:
Brion,

Hopefully my e-mail address now matches the send address...

See below:

On 7/9/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> See my explanation at eg:
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-July/030720.html

I'll take your word for it, although WordPress seems to handle such
exceptions fairly robustly without any errors. But, like I said, since
I'm already set up this way it seems too late to change without
breaking all the links (including some links that are in published
articles.)

>
> > The settings from my old LocalSettings.php and .htaccess file (both of
> > which I have saved) do not seem to work with 1.5.
>
> They should work identically. Any further assistance would require
> seeing what these settings are, and a detailed description of what goes
> wrong. Please confirm that you have cleared browser caches and the
> parser cache ('DELETE FROM objectcache') prior to testing.

OK. I've applied the old settings exactly. It isn't as bad as I thought!

The first problem was that the stylesheets weren't getting applied.
But I have been able to fix that by changing "stylesheets" to "skins"
in both the localsettings.php file and the .htaccess file. So far so
good.

The bigger problem is with the way urls are displayed by default:

http://wiki.oxus.net/Main_Page

works, but by deafault all links within the site appear as:

http://wiki.oxus.net/index.php/Main_Page

This isn't too serious, but I'd like to fix it. It was not like this
in version 3.

Finally, I have another problem, but I am not sure if it is related or
not. Whenever I save changes to a page I get the following message:

 A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug
in the software. The last attempted database query was:

    (SQL query hidden)

from within function "SearchUpdate::doUpdate". MySQL returned error
"1016: Can't open file: 'searchindex.MYI'. (errno: 145) (localhost)".

The page is actually saved correctly - so I don't know why I'm getting
these error messages.

Thanks for your help!

Kerim


subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Short URLs

body:
> The bigger problem is with the way urls are displayed by default:
 by deafault all links within the site appear as:
>
> http://wiki.oxus.net/index.php/Main_Page
>
> This isn't too serious, but I'd like to fix it. It was not like this
> in version 3.

This seems to be fixed now. I guess it was that internal cache that
you told me to clear out, but I didn't quite understand your
instructions :-)

That just leaves this SQL query problem, which might be unrelated:

>
> Finally, I have another problem, but I am not sure if it is related or
> not. Whenever I save changes to a page I get the following message:
>
>  A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug
> in the software. The last attempted database query was:
>
>     (SQL query hidden)
>
> from within function "SearchUpdate::doUpdate". MySQL returned error
> "1016: Can't open file: 'searchindex.MYI'. (errno: 145) (localhost)".
>
> The page is actually saved correctly - so I don't know why I'm getting
> these error messages.
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> Kerim
>

--
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This address is for BULK mail only.
My private address is: kerim (dot) my last name (at) oxus (dot) net.
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from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Thoughts on the process of requesting adminship

body:
JAY JG wrote:
> From: Timwi <timwi at gmx.net>
>
>> You are asserting that "what we have now works fine" even though I
>> have already mentioned numerous times why I think it does *not* work
>> fine. I have provided what I think is a compelling reason to change in
>> the first place.
>
> Your argument boils down to this; it's not working fine because I think
> the bar is set too high.

Not quite. I don't just "think the bar is set too high". I think that
there are many people who should be admins, but aren't BECAUSE the bar
is set too high. The high bar is the cause of the problem; the resultant
problem is having good folks not be admins.

>> and we have rather few good admins as a result (500 out of 25500, less
>> than 2%).
>
> Ah, but how many regularly active editors?  Probably no more than 1000.

Ah, but how many regularly active admins? Probably no more than 20.

Timwi


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Natural languages and such

body:
-> "Klingon is a constructed language from the television show Star Trek,
which has enjoyed enough popularity amongst fans to get Klingon listed
as an "official" language, in much the same way as Star Wars fans have
attempted to have "Jedi" listed as an official religion.

This post has no point whatsoever. If you have decoded this, good for
you. Now stop arguing, the lot of you!"

Trrm Nycunk, jung n jnfgr bs gvzr! V jbaqre ubj znal crbcyr jrag naq
qrpbqrq gung, bayl gb svaq lbhe zrffntr jnfa'g irel... jryy... funyy V
fnl, "eryrinag"?

Vg'f crbcyr yvxr lbh jub znxr yvsr fb [vafreg nqwrpgvir urer].

Va pnfr lbh pbhyqa'g gryy, V'z xvqqvat. Nyy va tbbq sha.

Vs lbh'ir qrpbqrq guvf, pbatenghyngvbaf. Lbh jnfgrq rira zber gvzr!

Znex

On 09/07/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: RIPEMD160
>
> Tim Starling wrote:
> > I don't think he's the one losing perspective. You can hardly compare
> > two languages based on the number of articles in their Wikipedia
> > editions. We currently have only 195 articles in Urdu, and I'll do
> > whatever is necessary to support its growth into the hundreds of
> > thousands. But a Wikipedia written in Klingon is a complete waste of
> > time whether it has 100 articles or 100,000. You may as well write it in
> > ROT13-encoded English. The measure of success should be information
> > transfer, not information content.
> >
>
> Xyvatba vf n pbafgehpgrq ynathntr sebz gur gryrivfvba fubj Fgne Gerx,
> juvpu unf rawblrq rabhtu cbchynevgl nzbatfg snaf gb trg Xyvatba yvfgrq
> nf na "bssvpvny" ynathntr, va zhpu gur fnzr jnl nf Fgne Jnef snaf unir
> nggrzcgrq gb unir "Wrqv" yvfgrq nf na bssvpvny eryvtvba.
>
> Guvf cbfg unf ab cbvag jungfbrire. Vs lbh unir qrpbqrq guvf, tbbq sbe
> lbh. Abj fgbc nethvat, gur ybg bs lbh!
>
> - --
> Alphax
> OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
> and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
> Lewis
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFCz/TG/RxM5Ph0xhMRAxX7AJ423MhOezezV3436jDr3Eom96vaagCgmz4g
> PiAlpgUCNzIDSLfC+pwNxqc=
> =QFJb
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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>

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