subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary / blocked an IP

body:
I have to wait for my tech professor to show up at 2:00 to help us resolve an audio problem with the camera we checked out.  So I'm back, as there's little else to do.

I've unblocked the IP.  I'm going to respond to several posts here so there's less crosstalk.

tarquin wrote (in part):
>I see no reason to block, (all part of the
>big tapestry, etc etc), but we should be on
>the lookout for general things which suddenly
>acquire very POV definitions.

The POV of it was an aspect that bothered me a bit, as it would require going through checking things over and NPOVing them.  That with the rate of addition was another big concern.  One every few minutes would (I think) allow people time to go over them.  Also, a list of all articles added might be helpful so we don't miss any, because they /will/ need work.  But it can be a valuable resource if used correctly.

Vicki wrote (in part):
>I'm relieved; I don't mind the entries on things
>found only in the Bible, but they're grossly
>inappropriate as articles on subjects like
>[[anise]]. (I did a quick once-over on that,
>putting a quick definition at the beginning,
>clarifying that the easton is about the bible,
>and making a few links. But it needs lots of
>work--the original author doesn't even seem to
>know which of two botanical names the article
>means when it says "dill."

Historical inaccuracy is another big concern.  I had this problem with the [[Algeria]] article I tried importing from the 1911 Encyclopedia--it required *hours* of fact-checking, and even then I couldn't verify everything, and only added a few paragraphs.  Not, in my mind, worth the trouble--though others may have more patience.

Neil wrote (and Jimbo wrote about the same thing):
>There's also no chance of killing existing
>articles: the script checks in advance, and
>refuses to over-write existing articles.

That was a concern too (one I forgot to mention).  I'm glad you thought of it, Neil, and took precaution against it.

Neil wrote:
>Is your objection
>a) the bias in many of the articles (in which
>case I can add a disclaimer, saying "This is
>from an old Bible Dictionary, and it has the
>biases of its author and period -- please use
>this material as a basis for a new article")
>b) the rate of the scripted additions
>c) auto-addition of any material, even when
>filtered for stubs and nonsense?

a) yes.  The disclaimer would be helfpul, though maybe not enough?  Better, IMO, to have works that are unobjectionable regardless of the religion or lack of religion that people subscribe to.  Would that statement imply a sense of endorsement?  I don't know.  Something to think about, anyway.  Would the disclaimer be a stopgap measure, or would we still work to have the article as NPOV as possible?

b) yes, that one too--I was worried others would not have a chance to go over them and update them, as the additions would quickly be lost in a few days of Recent Changes.  Would it be hard to keep a list of topics added so we can go over them?

c) no, provided (as Jimmy said) the server can handle it.  However, the /rate/ of addition might be slowed a bit.  And I do appreciate the filtering you've done already.

Danny wrote (in part):
>To me, a major part of the problem is that
>the material is so out of date. It fails to
>take into account the past hundred years of
>archeological research, which is essential.
>Furthermore, the statistics it gives about
>places are hopelessly outdated. For example,
>Anatoth, currently 'Anata, is a fair sized
>town today, not a hamlet with about 100 people.

Yes.  Many of the articles will be out of date--badly out of date--and we'll need to be vigilant in updating them.

Best,

kq


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
Neil Harris wrote:

> That was me, pouring in entries from Easton's Bible Dictionary.
>
> Is your objection
> a) the bias in many of the articles (in which case I can add a
> disclaimer, saying "This is from an old Bible Dictionary, and it has the
> biases of its author and period -- please use this material as a basis
> for a new article")
> b) the rate of the scripted additions
> c) auto-addition of any material, even when filtered for stubs and
> nonsense?
>
> I can also set the threshold higher, or do more filtering.
> There's lots of good encyclopedic material in EBD, as the Bible is a
> major cultural source.
>
> Regards,
>
> Neil

This incident says more about some of our sysop members than it does
about the person uploading the material.  Perhaps Neil should have
logged on just as any regular, but he didn't and there's no rule against
that.

In the past he challenged the technical tree by attempting to shake the
bugs out of it.  Now, he may have unwittingly done the same to its human
resources.  If he had identified himself in the first place I doubt that
we would ever have had this fuss.  Instead some sysops saw this as the
irresponsible actions of a newbie, and went straight into panic mode.
 There is nothing wrong with looking at a newbie's contributions more
carefully than you would at those of a known contributor, but the
yardstick that you apply in evaluating those contributions must remain
the same one.

Had these automated entries been been overwriting existing articles
(which they weren't) there would have been a serious problem, but more
in the nature of a system bug than anything that can be attributed to a
newbie.

The presumed newbie did draw attention with the rate of his downloads,
but he did nothing wrong.  Much of the material was very much out of
date, but we all have the right to edit out the errors.  At the rate
that he was dowloading it would have been impossible for him to enter
into edit wars on all the subjects.

By our continuing participation in Wikipedia it is fit and proper that
we assume some sense of guardianship, and there are times when "pig
ignorance" and charging rhinos will try anybody's patience.  Still,
hasty bans, and other drastic action strike me as abusive.  Maybe what
we need is a means of reviewing the actions of sysops that will limit
the perception that they are acting as a cabal.

I like the concept of a knowledge commons and the democratization of
knowledge, but I believe that there is a lot of work yet to be done on
that philosophical concept - and some of that may involve re-inventing
the wheel ..... over and over and over again.  "Owning knowledge" is a
far broader concept than one that involves merely protecting the
financial benefits that flow from that ownership. That aspect only
stands out because it can be so easily codified in copyright laws..
 Institutions are huge repositories of knowledge, but simply opening the
doors of the libraries and inviting the public to view whatever they
want is not likely to accomplish anything.  The tools (as opposed to the
prejudices) required to evaluate the material are just not there.  Their
erosion began in the first grade, or even earlier in the TV generation.
 Of the many on-line communities my view is that the one that has come
closest to building a knowledge commons is the genealogical community.
 Enough philosophy ...

Although it may not have come out as you intended, I still say the test
was a job well done.  Maybe next time it can be from an "@aol" address.

Eclecticology


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] download

body:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> --- lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>>It's in
>>http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/cur_table.sql.gz and
>>http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/old_table.sql.gz
>>(history).
>>Where would be a good place to document this?
>
>
> I'd say on [[Wikipedia:Download]], with a link from
> the front page.

It's presently [[Wikipedia:Database download]], with a link from the
front page. I've made a redirect from [[Wikipedia:Download]] as well, if
you like.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Automated postings.

body:
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:

>I suggest that next time someone starts a round of automatic postings from some
>public domain reference, he or she start at Z instead of A. :)
>
>-- Daniel
>
Great idea!!!  Better still would be to base it on a randomized
alphabet.  Resources for the letter A are already far superior to any
others.  The enormity of a task often sets in before the letter B is
reached, and it is then abandoned.
Eclecticology


from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] blocked an IP

body:
On Wednesday 07 August 2002 11:07, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> just wanted to give you all a heads up:  if you check out
> [[Special:Ipblocklist]] you'll see I just blocked somebody:
>
> * 07:42 Aug 7, 2002, Koyaanis Qatsi blocked 213.253.39.188 (contribs)
> (unblock) (scripting in about 24 Easton's Bible Dictionary entries per
> minute--wikified, which I appreciate, but otherwise untouched, that is,
> heavily biased.)

You did well. The SK uploaded [[Anise]], which didn't exist previously, but
any of several other plant or animal articles could easily have been
overwritten.

phma


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] blocked an IP

body:
At 08:07 AM 8/7/02 -0700, Koyaanis Qatsi wrote:
>just wanted to give you all a heads up:  if you check out
>[[Special:Ipblocklist]] you'll see I just blocked somebody:
>
>* 07:42 Aug 7, 2002, Koyaanis Qatsi blocked 213.253.39.188 (contribs)
>(unblock) (scripting in about 24 Easton's Bible Dictionary entries per
>minute--wikified, which I appreciate, but otherwise untouched, that is,
>heavily biased.)
>
>I email this because I'm about to go pick up equipment for a shoot I'm
>going to in L.A.  I'll be out most of today and I'm leaving Friday morning
>and will be gone until early Sunday a week later.  I'm not dodging the
>debate that will undoubtedly come up.

I'm relieved; I don't mind the entries on things found only in the Bible,
but they're grossly
inappropriate as articles on subjects like [[anise]]. (I did a quick
once-over on that, putting
a quick definition at the beginning, clarifying that the easton is about
the bible, and making
a few links. But it needs lots of work--the original author doesn't even
seem to know which
of two botanical names the article means when it says "dill."

>If you're curious, I consider [[Anger]] a prime example of the bias
>inherent in the dictionary, and think also that many of them are no longer
>historically accurate.  At the rate of 24 a minute, the cleanup (if left
>unchecked) would IMO be quite an undertaking.  Feel free to unblock if
>I've acted unfairly or in haste.  I probably won't be around to discuss it
>until much later tonight.
>
>cheers,
>
>kq
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] blocked an IP

body:
On Wednesday 07 August 2002 11:04, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> You did well. The SK uploaded [[Anise]], which didn't exist previously, but
> any of several other plant or animal articles could easily have been
> overwritten.

Checked again. SK did not overwrite [[Amram]].

phma


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
On Wednesday 07 August 2002 10:09 am, LDC wrote:
> I think it is important that all articles in Wikipedia be
> individually reviewed by a human editor. ?"Data dumping" is not
> building an encyclopedia--quality is important, and out-of-date
> material is not quality.

I strongly agree. A human should read, fix and add to these resources before
porting them to Wikipedia. We should always aim to create something unique
here.

What really is the point of directly porting outdated, pedantic, OCR error
filled material (such as from the 1911 text) into Wikipedia? The material is
already public domain, how is having it mirrored on a GNU FDLd content site
going to serve any greater good (that is; since it has not been changed the
original copyright, or lack thereof, applies)?

This stuff is nearly useless for the science articles and is oftentimes
problematic to use even in the history and mythology articles without
extensive tweaking.

With that said, it probably wouldn't hurt too much to simply take Pierre's
advice and submit one entry every 10 or 20 minutes with a "from an old
dictionary" flag in the edit summary field and at the bottom of the article.
This will give us humans plenty of time to fix the article if need be.

True it would probably take many months to finish but I think the result will
be far better.

--mav


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
To me, a major part of the problem is that the material is so out of date. It
fails to take into account the past hundred years of archeological research,
which is essential. Furthermore, the statistics it gives about places are
hopelessly outdated. For example, Anatoth, currently 'Anata, is a fair sized
town today, not a hamlet with about 100 people. I don't know how they will
deal with places like Dan, Gezer, Megiddo, Hazor, etc. but they have been
major excavation sites this century, so most of what we know about them
(apart from conjecture) could not possibly appear in a nineteenth century
work.

Danny


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mr 24

in_reply_to: <20020807191656.LCAZ221.sccrmhc02.attbi.com@there>; from maveric149@yahoo.com on Wed, Aug 07, 2002 at 12:10:41PM -0700

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Jimbo, was this block intended to be for life? If not I will remove it based
> on your and/or the list's assessment on how long the block should last.

I don't care one way or the other.  He never emailed me or anyone else
to complain.  I think the block just proved to him that he was right
all along, and he'll never be back.

We might as well get rid of it.  If he comes back and behaves, that's
fine.  But if he comes back and annoys us in the slightest, we know
how to get rid of him.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
On Wednesday 07 August 2002 11:10, Neil Harris wrote:
> That was me, pouring in entries from Easton's Bible Dictionary.
>
> I've Wikified it, and filtered out short articles and those without
> commas or the string "he" in.
>
> There's also no chance of killing existing articles: the script checks
> in advance, and refuses to over-write existing articles.
>
> Is your objection
> a) the bias in many of the articles (in which case I can add a
> disclaimer, saying "This is from an old Bible Dictionary, and it has the
> biases of its author and period -- please use this material as a basis
> for a new article")
> b) the rate of the scripted additions
> c) auto-addition of any material, even when filtered for stubs and
> nonsense?

The rate of addition. Try setting it to one every 20 minutes. We should be
able to handle that.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] XMMS is broken and the ogg player got lost

body:
Skizie, having uploaded a WMA file a few times, seems to have figured out
that we use Ogg around here and uploaded what may be the same thing in Ogg.
(I have no way of checking, since I have nothing that reads WMA files.) I
tried to add it to the playlist, but it wouldn't add, and I found that a
program oggenc, which is used in a script I wrote many months ago, is
missing. I have libogg0-1.0-0.beta4.1mdk and
xmms-oggvorbis-0.0.20000904-12mdk. What do I need to fix XMMS or play Ogg
files from the command line?

I have a mind to delete the thing anyway, since the images he's uploaded are
junk.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mr 24

body:
I carried over Jimbo's block on 24's IP to Lee's software right after the
change-over (this was the only IP I transfered because this was the only one
Jimbo blocked himself).

Jimbo, was this block intended to be for life? If not I will remove it based
on your and/or the list's assessment on how long the block should last.

--mav


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
> There is nothing wrong with looking at a newbie's contributions
> more carefully than you would at those of a known contributor,
> but the yardstick that you apply in evaluating those
> contributions must remain the same one.

I don't see any evidence at all that KQ's action was anything
but a sincere and restrained attempt to protect the project from
an action that appeared to be dangerous, and both he and Neil
worked it out admirably.  This episode is, if anything, a
testament to how /well/ the process we have works.  I find your
suggestion that KQ's motives were personal in any way offensive,
and I think you owe him an apology.

Sysops are here for good reason: because some people can cause
damage to the project, well-meaning and otherwise, and someone
has to take responsibility for guiding the project toward its
stated goals.  So far, everyone has done that in a an honest,
fair, reasonable, and restrained way.  The continued harping on
by some about "cliquism" or "cabals" is as tiresome as it is
completely falsified by the evidence of the actual actions here.
The Wikipedia process we have works very well--if you want to
fix it, you'll have to first show me where it's broken, and I
just haven't seen that today.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
> Just to clarify things: I was perfectly happy with the temporary
> ban. Both the human and software systems worked fine, and I got a
> message saying why my bot was IP-banned. I'm not upset at all:
> things like this tend to happen when you unleash automated tools,
> which is why they should be tested before they are run and
> monitored as they run: both of which I did - but no-one was to
> know that.

By the way--you can always try things like that on

http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml

if you like.


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
Those are good suggestions.  And thank you for being so gracious about the whole thing.  I didn't mean any offense.

kq

Neil wrote (in part):
>* The only thing missing, from my perspective of being on the end of an
>IP ban, was a way to contact the administrator: perhaps banned IP's
>should have a single 'talkback' page that they could be allowed to write
>to, or a way of notifying the list via an E-mail gateway.
>* Perhaps I should notify the list before running this sort of tool, to
>avoid confusion.
>* A general "You have mail: click here to read" flag for a user would be
>useful: maybe based on an update to their user talk page more recent
>than their most recent visit to that page.
>
>Neil


from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Please test sound clips.

body:
Hi Members,

     As requested below, I have tested the Simon and
Garfunkel Ogg Vorbis files that Lee uploaded. I am no
pro here, but they sound good to me. They, also, took
only a few seconds to download. However, I was only able
to hear them by downloading them. I would think we would
want to be able to just play them, as well. If there is
a way to do this with the current coding, I don't know
how to do it. Anyone?
     On another note ;-) , the latest release of Winamp,
version 2.80, has the ability to play Ogg Vorbis files
incorporated into it and no longer requires a plug-in.

          As Ever,

              Ruth Ifcher

--

> I'd like to flesh out the policies on sounds, so I'd appreciate it if
> a few of you could test things out a bit.  I cleaned up all the
> [[Simon and Garfunkel]] articles and added a few samples (since I have
> a good S&G collection to use).  Let me know how easy or hard it is to
> set up your browser to hear them, whether or not they sound reasonably
> good, and whether or not they take too long to download.  I can adjust
> recommended encoder usage, recommended bitrates, etc., based on your
> feedback.
>
>
>
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
On 8/7/02 1:32 PM, "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> In the past he challenged the technical tree by attempting to shake the
> bugs out of it.  Now, he may have unwittingly done the same to its human
> resources.  If he had identified himself in the first place I doubt that
> we would ever have had this fuss.  Instead some sysops saw this as the
> irresponsible actions of a newbie, and went straight into panic mode.
> There is nothing wrong with looking at a newbie's contributions more
> carefully than you would at those of a known contributor, but the
> yardstick that you apply in evaluating those contributions must remain
> the same one.

What panic mode? I'm as suspicious as the next, but the only thing that
happened was that the automatic text-adder had its IP blocked, since that
was the only easy way to stop it.

I didn't see much recrimination, just action.


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)

body:
this from RC:

213.253.39.188 (block
<http://www.wikipedia.com/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Blockip&ip=213.253.39.188>)
/(from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897))/

whoever this chap is, he's importing pages at a rate of knots.
most of them are biblical obscuria, but once in a while there's
something like [[Anger]], which I'm delighted to find is sinful (for
those not yet used to my sense of humour: that was British sarcasm :-) )
I see no reason to block, (all part of the big tapestry, etc etc), but
we should be on the lookout for general things which suddenly acquire
very POV definitions.
We're still in "A" and they seem to have stopped for now.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Please test sound clips.

body:
rose.parks at att.net wrote:

> However, I was only able
>to hear them by downloading them. I would think we would
>want to be able to just play them, as well. I
>
I think that's to do with the web browser. When I click on .ogg links in
Mozilla it offers to open it in WinAmp for me. :)


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
That was me, pouring in entries from Easton's Bible Dictionary.

I've Wikified it, and filtered out short articles and those without
commas or the string "he" in.

There's also no chance of killing existing articles: the script checks
in advance, and refuses to over-write existing articles.

Is your objection
a) the bias in many of the articles (in which case I can add a
disclaimer, saying "This is from an old Bible Dictionary, and it has the
biases of its author and period -- please use this material as a basis
for a new article")
b) the rate of the scripted additions
c) auto-addition of any material, even when filtered for stubs and nonsense?

I can also set the threshold higher, or do more filtering.
There's lots of good encyclopedic material in EBD, as the Bible is a
major cultural source.

Or, if this is not useful, I can just stop.

Regards,

Neil


subject: [Wikipedia-l] blocked an IP

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:

> I'm relieved; I don't mind the entries on things found only in the
> Bible, but they're grossly
> inappropriate as articles on subjects like [[anise]]. (I did a quick
> once-over on that, putting
> a quick definition at the beginning, clarifying that the easton is
> about the bible, and making
> a few links. But it needs lots of work--the original author doesn't
> even seem to know which
> of two botanical names the article means when it says "dill."
>
I fixed [[Ammonite]] & [[Anger]].
Seems I was too lenient (or still toe-dipping my sysop powers...) Good
call kq.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
I see that the zmiku is starting from Z this time. Z in transliterated Hebrew
names often represents tsadi, as in Zidon which is actually Tsidon. Would
anyone who knows his zayin from his tsadi please go over the articles and
note that.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
I already noted it in Talk:Zidon. We have duplication with Sidon.

In a message dated 8/7/2002 4:25:41 PM Eastern Standard Time,
phma at webjockey.net writes:

> I see that the zmiku is starting from Z this time. Z in transliterated
> Hebrew
> names often represents tsadi, as in Zidon which is actually Tsidon. Would
> anyone who knows his zayin from his tsadi please go over the articles and
> note that.
>
> phma
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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from_name: Jaap van Ganswijk

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Control language alternatives, was: Link Syntax

body:
At 2002-08-07 04:33 -0700, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>I think it should be dropped too. It's such a small
>convenience and confusing to newcomers. It's really
>not very difficult to type [[George W. Bush|Bush]],
>and it's easy for a newbie to see how it works.

I agree.

Another thing I'd like to see is the '|' replaced
by tokens like '<-' and '->' or '<' and '>'.
The '|' suggests in most languages that
the parts at both end are equal in function and that
it is either the on or the other. I also have
trouble remembering which is the part that goes
into the text and which the name of the page that
it is linked to. It would have designed it the
other way round. I would first like to write
what I wanted to write and then bother with what
it is linked to. The current order is probably
based on the HTML syntax:
Bush but I don't see
that as a valid reason. In my prefered syntax
it would become:
[[Bush->George W. Bush]] (prefered)
or
[[George W. Bush<-Bush]]

I also wrote a language to code my site in and
the linking of words is mainly done automatically,
so 'Bush' would always be linked to an article
called 'Bush' if it would exist. To be able to
link combinations of words I use ``, the quotes
that I don't normally use in any text. It just
functions to indicate which words belong together
like in `George W. Bush`. This would then
automatically link to an article called
'George W. Bush' if it existed. With a '$' after
the term like: Bush$ or `George Bush`$. I
indicate that a term should be defined here
(but there are other ways too). With Bush| I
would indicate that the term should not be linked
here. For example in the article about Bush himself.

Here is an example of how this automatic linking
turns out even when an email is added written by
someone else:
http://www.chipdir.org/proj/
It's very little work since the computer does it
all automatically, but sometimes words are linked
that shouldn't be.

I'm not suggesting that it's also a better way
to do things in Wikipedia.

As regards tables. I can define tables in my language
in several ways, like:

table border=1
  tr
    td width=50%
      - text for entry00
    td
      - text for entry01
  tr
    td
      - text for entry10
    td
      - text for entry11

this can be abbreviated to:

table border=1
  row
    - text for entry00
    - text for entry01
  row
    - text for entry10
    - text for entry11

or even

table border=1
  ^ text for entry00 ^ text for entry01
  ^ text for entry10 ^ text for entry11

About my site:
I started it (and it's language) late 1994. It's
about 35 Mbyte big (10 Mbyte zipped). It has 1000's
of pages, mainly generated from lists of chips etc.
There are 30 voluntary mirror sites and it's visited
by about 100,000 unique visitors per month who each
look at about three pages. I live from the ad
revenues.

http://www.chipdir.org/

Greetings,
Jaap


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
>> * The only thing missing, from my perspective of being on the
>> end of an IP ban, was a way to contact the administrator: perhaps
>> banned IP's should have a single 'talkback' page that they could
>> be allowed to write to, or a way of notifying the list via an
>> E-mail gateway.

I've already planned a "mail this user" feature; maybe the "you've
been blocked" page should have a link to mail the specific sysop
who did the block.

It's pretty easy to post to Wikipedia-L though; nothing blocks that.

>> * A general "You have mail: click here to read" flag for a user
>> would be useful: maybe based on an update to their user talk
>> page more recent than their most recent visit to that page.

That's not a bad idea either; I perfer actual email for direct
communication, but user talk pages are there, and are being used
for that  There's already a link to your user page at the top of
the page (at least in the standard skin; I don't remember about
CB); perhaps we should have a flag next to it with a link that
only appears when there have been changes to your user talk since
you last visited it.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary (resend)

body:
At 06:29 PM 8/7/02 +0100, Neil Harris wrote:
>This is a trimmed-down version of my earlier over-length post.

All in all, a fine thing; below are a couple of specific suggestions for
further improvement.

>I've now added an extra filter, so that entries whose titles  occur in a
>very large list of common words are rejected.

That sounds useful--it'll save us from having to rewrite articles about
spices and such, and provide some useful stuff on less common topics.

>Thus, the script will now not attempt to transfer the entry for "Wheel"
>or "Silk" or other common words, regardless of whether Wikipedia has an
>entry for that word. This is in addition to the check for not clobbering
>existing articles.
>
>I have also eliminated any articles containing the words "modern" or
>"current", which seems to catch a lot of stuff that refers to the
>author's contemporary information.

Again, a good idea: the Easton stuff seems more useful as a source of
information about the Bible as a document than about the contemporary
Middle East.

>I have also pushed the length filter up to 500 characters.
>
>Doing all of these takes the list down to around 640 filtered articles.
>Wiki links to the non-imported topics still remain, inviting Wikipedians
>to write new articles about these topics. These remaning articles are
>almost entirely about obscure figures and places from the Bible.
>
>I intend to add a header to each imported article, reading something like:
>
>     ''This is an entry from Easton's Bible Dictionary. The material in it
>is written from the viewpoint of the 19th century, and may be
>out-of-date or biased. Please review and edit this article to bring it
>up to date''

Maybe that could be expanded to note what sort of 19th century viewpoint:
it's clearly Christian, but if it's a particular denomination, that's
relevant (I
can tell immediately that it wasn't put together by a 19th-century Jew,
let alone a Buddhist or atheist).

>and a trailer:
>
>     From [[Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)]]
>
>I intend to drip-feed the finished articles in at a rate of one every 20
>minutes, allowing lots of time for human review and assimilation, once
>I  think that there is a consensus that this is OK.
>
>Can anyone suggest any further improvements, short of proof-reading all
>1200 articles?

One practical fix: when I was editing the [[Amon]] article this morning, I
found that
it linked to itself in a couple of places. Can you tweak the script to not
create
self-links.

Also, someone's going to have to proofread the articles--and I'd rather it
be someone
with more of an interest in the matter than I have, if only because such a
person is
more likely to catch misspellings of names.

And why not resume at Q or something, instead of back at the beginning of the
alphabet?
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Is nowiki broken?

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:
> Some days ago, I added a couple of empty links on my user page. They showed,
> so I enclosed them in <nowiki> so that they would be passed through as HTML
> and be invisible. I just checked and they are visible. Was something changed?

<Nowiki> no longer passes through arbitrary HTML. Think Javascript...
Java... ActiveX... (shudder!)

Since HTML is for our purposes a subset of wikicode, it ought not to be
allowed as ''code'' inside a <nowiki>...</nowiki> block. Hence, the <
and > characters inside such a block are passed through as the character
entities < and > so that the ''text'' is not interpreted by your
browser as HTML ''code''.

Unless, of course, you have a better idea.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
This is a trimmed-down version of my earlier over-length post.

I've now added an extra filter, so that entries whose titles  occur in a
very large list of common words are rejected.

Thus, the script will now not attempt to transfer the entry for "Wheel"
or "Silk" or other common words, regardless of whether Wikipedia has an
entry for that word. This is in addition to the check for not clobbering
existing articles.

I have also eliminated any articles containing the words "modern" or
"current", which seems to catch a lot of stuff that refers to the
author's contemporary information.

I have also pushed the length filter up to 500 characters.

Doing all of these takes the list down to around 640 filtered articles.
Wiki links to the non-imported topics still remain, inviting Wikipedians
to write new articles about these topics. These remaning articles are
almost entirely about obscure figures and places from the Bible.

I intend to add a header to each imported article, reading something like:

     ''This is an entry from Easton's Bible Dictionary. The material in it
is written from the viewpoint of the 19th century, and may be
out-of-date or biased. Please review and edit this article to bring it
up to date''

and a trailer:

     From [[Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)]]

I intend to drip-feed the finished articles in at a rate of one every 20
minutes, allowing lots of time for human review and assimilation, once I
  think that there is a consensus that this is OK.

Can anyone suggest any further improvements, short of proof-reading all
1200 articles?

Neil

--------------------------------

Here are some of the results of the filtering of the original Easton's
topics:

lines with the word TITLE at the start denote articles that passed;
lines with the word BAD represent articles that failed to pass the
filter, with the reason for failure.

BAD A = familiar word
BAD A type Adam = no comma
BAD AEnon = too short
BAD Aaron = familiar word
BAD Aaronites = too short
BAD Abaddon = too short
BAD Abagtha = no comma
BAD Abana = modern
TITLE 1 510 Abarim
BAD Abba = familiar word
BAD Abda = too short
BAD Abdeel = too short
BAD Abdi = no he
BAD Abdiel = familiar word
TITLE 2 745 Abdon
BAD Abednego = too short
BAD Abel = familiar word
BAD Abel-beth-maachah = modern
BAD Abel-cheramim = too short
TITLE 3 551 Abel-meholah
BAD Abel-mizraim = too short
BAD Abel-shittim = too short
BAD Abez = too short
BAD Abi-albon = too short
BAD Abia = too short
BAD Abiasaph = too short
TITLE 4 1872 Abiathar
BAD Abib = too short
BAD Abida = too short
BAD Abidan = too short
BAD Abieezer = too short
BAD Abiel = too short
BAD Abiezrite = too short
BAD Abigail = familiar word
BAD Abihail = too short
TITLE 5 891 Abihu
BAD Abihud = too short
TITLE 6 2766 Abijah
BAD Abijam = too short
BAD Abilene = too short
BAD Abimael = too short
TITLE 7 3025 Abimelech
TITLE 8 817 Abinadab
BAD Abinoam = too short
TITLE 9 574 Abiram
TITLE 10 502 Abishag
TITLE 11 911 Abishai
BAD Abishua = too short
BAD Abishur = too short
BAD Abital = too short
BAD Abitub = too short
BAD Abjects = too short
BAD Ablution = familiar word
BAD Abner = familiar word
BAD Abomination = familiar word
BAD Abomination of Desolation = too short
BAD Abraham = familiar word
BAD Abraham's bosom = too short
BAD Abram = familiar word
BAD Abronah = too short
BAD Absalom = familiar word
BAD Acacia = familiar word
TITLE 12 1943 Accad
TITLE 13 574 Accho
BAD Accuser = familiar word
BAD Aceldama = modern
TITLE 14 767 Achaia
BAD Achaichus = too short
TITLE 15 823 Achan
BAD Achbor = too short
TITLE 16 1026 Achish
BAD Achmetha = familiar word
BAD Achor = familiar word
BAD Achsah = too short
BAD Achshaph = modern
BAD Achzib = modern
BAD Acre = familiar word
TITLE 17 5435 Acts of the Apostles
BAD Adah = too short
BAD Adam = familiar word
BAD Adamah = modern
BAD Adamant = familiar word
BAD Adar = familiar word
BAD Adbeel = too short
BAD Addar = no he
BAD Adder = familiar word
BAD Addi = too short
BAD Addon = too short
BAD Adiel = familiar word
BAD Adin = familiar word
BAD Adina = no he
BAD Adino = too short
BAD Adjuration = familiar word
BAD Admah = too short
BAD Adnah = too short
TITLE 18 1328 Adoni-zedec
BAD Adonibezek = too short
TITLE 19 984 Adonijah
BAD Adonikam = too short
BAD Adoniram = familiar word
BAD Adoption = familiar word
BAD Adoram = no he
BAD Adore = familiar word
BAD Adrammelech = familiar word
BAD Adramyttium = too short
BAD Adria = modern
BAD Adriel = too short
BAD Adullam = familiar word
BAD Adullamite = familiar word
BAD Adultery = familiar word
TITLE 20 571 Adummim
BAD Adversary = familiar word
BAD Advocate = familiar word
BAD Affection = familiar word
BAD Affinity = familiar word
BAD Afflictions = too short
BAD Agabus = too short
BAD Agag = familiar word
BAD Agagite = too short
BAD Agate = familiar word
BAD Age = familiar word
BAD Agee = familiar word
BAD Agony = familiar word
BAD Agriculture = familiar word
TITLE 21 615 Agrippa I
TITLE 22 655 Agrippa II
BAD Ague = familiar word


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Is nowiki broken?

body:
> Some days ago, I added a couple of empty links on my user page.
> They showed, so I enclosed them in <nowiki> so that they would be
> passed through as HTML and be invisible. I just checked and they
> are visible. Was something changed?

Well, it's either broken or fixed, depending on your point of
view.  I was convinced by requests in the bug tracker that the
"right" thing to do was not parse HTML inside nowiki blocks.
If you want to hide something on your user page, put it in HTML
comments: <!-- like this --> (and comments can't span lines, BTW).


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Is nowiki broken?

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> That broke my work on Sainfoin:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.com/w/wiki.phtml?title=Sainfoin&oldid=143534

It was broken HTML in any case; the <style> element is illegal except in
the <head>...</head> section. On top of that, it was missing the
required "type" attribute.

As has been hinted at previously, we should have a standard method of
including style sheet information, preferably that can be applied to
many articles simultaneously. For instance, a magic [[style:]] namespace
(or if that's trouble, something else).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>

> >> * A general "You have mail: click here to read" flag for a user
> >> would be useful: maybe based on an update to their user talk
> >> page more recent than their most recent visit to that page.
>
> That's not a bad idea either; I perfer actual email for direct
> communication, but user talk pages are there, and are being used
> for that  There's already a link to your user page at the top of
> the page (at least in the standard skin; I don't remember about
> CB); perhaps we should have a flag next to it with a link that
> only appears when there have been changes to your user talk since
> you last visited it.

I think this would be a neat feature.  Particularly for users
preferring the meta for discussions, without reliable email, or
uninterested in Wikipedia-L.

regards, mirwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
I've noticed that many of the entries being submitted are orphans. Can a list
with these entries be made so that somebody/script can go through it later,
search for those terms on Wikipedia and link them?

There also are a lot of multiple links to the same term in the entries.

--mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Is nowiki broken?

body:
> That broke my work on Sainfoin:
> http://www.wikipedia.com/w/wiki.phtml?title=Sainfoin&oldid=143534

I'm not sure there's a downside there; it looked pretty, but it
was even more hopelessly uneditable.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Is nowiki broken?

body:
>> Well, it's either broken or fixed, depending on your point of
>> view.  I was convinced by requests in the bug tracker that the
>> "right" thing to do was not parse HTML inside nowiki blocks.
>> If you want to hide something on your user page, put it in HTML
>> comments: <!-- like this --> (and comments can't span lines, BTW).

> I'm not sure whether the spambots will find them if they are
> commented out. I just turned them into two single-nbsp links;
> I'm not sure how to make them more invisible.

Text within <!-- --> comments is totally removed before rendering,
and will not appear in the served page as a comment.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 8/7/02 1:32 PM, "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>In the past he challenged the technical tree by attempting to shake the
>>bugs out of it.  Now, he may have unwittingly done the same to its human
>>resources.  If he had identified himself in the first place I doubt that
>>we would ever have had this fuss.  Instead some sysops saw this as the
>>irresponsible actions of a newbie, and went straight into panic mode.
>>There is nothing wrong with looking at a newbie's contributions more
>>carefully than you would at those of a known contributor, but the
>>yardstick that you apply in evaluating those contributions must remain
>>the same one.
>>
>>
>
>What panic mode? I'm as suspicious as the next, but the only thing that
>happened was that the automatic text-adder had its IP blocked, since that
>was the only easy way to stop it.
>
>I didn't see much recrimination, just action.
>
>
>

Just to clarify things: I was perfectly happy with the temporary ban.
Both the human and software systems worked fine, and I got a message
saying why my bot was IP-banned. I'm not upset at all: things like this
tend to happen when you unleash automated tools, which is why they
should be tested before they are run and monitored as they run: both of
which I did - but no-one was to know that.

My posting script does not do cookies, so I can't easily do it under a
login.  IP banning is a good way to stop such a bot, and did so effectively.

Lessons learned:

* The only thing missing, from my perspective of being on the end of an
IP ban, was a way to contact the administrator: perhaps banned IP's
should have a single 'talkback' page that they could be allowed to write
to, or a way of notifying the list via an E-mail gateway.
* Perhaps I should notify the list before running this sort of tool, to
avoid confusion.
* A general "You have mail: click here to read" flag for a user would be
useful: maybe based on an update to their user talk page more recent
than their most recent visit to that page.

Neil

>
>


from_name: Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Automated postings.

body:
I suggest that next time someone starts a round of automatic postings from some
public domain reference, he or she start at Z instead of A. :)

-- Daniel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Is nowiki broken?

body:
Some days ago, I added a couple of empty links on my user page. They showed,
so I enclosed them in <nowiki> so that they would be passed through as HTML
and be invisible. I just checked and they are visible. Was something changed?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Is nowiki broken?

body:
On 8/7/02 10:25 PM, "Brion VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> Pierre Abbat wrote:
>> Some days ago, I added a couple of empty links on my user page. They showed,
>> so I enclosed them in <nowiki> so that they would be passed through as HTML
>> and be invisible. I just checked and they are visible. Was something changed?
>
> <Nowiki> no longer passes through arbitrary HTML. Think Javascript...
> Java... ActiveX... (shudder!)
>
> Since HTML is for our purposes a subset of wikicode, it ought not to be
> allowed as ''code'' inside a <nowiki>...</nowiki> block. Hence, the <
> and > characters inside such a block are passed through as the character
> entities < and > so that the ''text'' is not interpreted by your
> browser as HTML ''code''.
>
> Unless, of course, you have a better idea.
>
That broke my work on Sainfoin:

http://www.wikipedia.com/w/wiki.phtml?title=Sainfoin&oldid=143534


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Is nowiki broken?

body:
On Wednesday 07 August 2002 21:57, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > Some days ago, I added a couple of empty links on my user page.
> > They showed, so I enclosed them in <nowiki> so that they would be
> > passed through as HTML and be invisible. I just checked and they
> > are visible. Was something changed?
>
> Well, it's either broken or fixed, depending on your point of
> view.  I was convinced by requests in the bug tracker that the
> "right" thing to do was not parse HTML inside nowiki blocks.
> If you want to hide something on your user page, put it in HTML
> comments: <!-- like this --> (and comments can't span lines, BTW).

I'm not sure whether the spambots will find them if they are commented out. I
just turned them into two single-nbsp links; I'm not sure how to make them
more invisible.

Can you think of any good places to put them? How much traffic does Wikipedia
get from spambots?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How does one block a user?

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:
> Ss just uploaded a PHP script, which was promptly deleted by Brion Vibber,
> and an incomprehensible image, which I deleted. According to Brion, it was a
> cracking tool.

Well, I don't know if the image was a cracking tool or not, it was just
pointless and incomprehensible. :)

The PHP script (which incidentally was harmless, as scripts in our
uploads directory are _not_ parsed or executed, but passed on just like
text files) was a version of "phpRemoteView", a remote filesystem browser.

 > How can this user be blocked?

(See Lee's answer to this question.)

I doubt we'll see anything more from "Ss"; I imagine the account was
created solely to upload a couple files, and with their failure they'll
probably move on somewhere else.

That reminds me, though, of a long-ago feature request for something
like a watchlist for users; it might be nice to be able to keep an eye
on edits by specific users/IPs, either because you really like
somebody's edits, or because you don't trust them. :) The 'user
contributions' link handles this individually, but not en masse.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
> Ss just uploaded a PHP script, which was promptly deleted by
> Brion Vibber, and an incomprehensible image, which I deleted.
> According to Brion, it was a cracking tool. How can this user
> be blocked?

There's no interface for it yet, but any of the developers can
do it if we need to.  But his stuff has been deleted and he
doesn't seem to be doing any other damage.  If he doesn't just
go away on his own I'll do the blocking.


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> To me, a major part of the problem is that the material is so out of date. It
> fails to take into account the past hundred years of archeological research,
> which is essential. Furthermore, the statistics it gives about places are
> hopelessly outdated. For example, Anatoth, currently 'Anata, is a fair sized

I think I have a working solution to this sort of problem:

Old texts should be scanned (in facsimile if possible) and put on a
read-only website which allows deep linking.  For example, the article
on the Electric Telegraph from a 19th century Swedish encyclopedia is
available on the URL http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nfad/0192.html
(have a look, nice pictures, all public domain).

The URL up to ...runeberg/ is the name of the website and "nf" is for
the encyclopedia and "nfad" is the 4th volume of the 1st edition.

Then in the wiki, a rule is added so the shorthand "nf:ad0192" is
automatically recognized and converted into a hypertext link, in a
fashion similar to ISBN numbers.  The example is found on the wiki
page http://susning.nu/Telegraf
where the wiki text "nf:ad0192" is converted into (my translation)

  See [http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nfad/0192.html the article]
  in the 1st edition of [[Nordisk familjebok]], volume 4, 1881.

and then into HTML.

So, what you need is a stable and deep-linkable read-only website with
the old contents that you want to use, and a shorthand linking scheme
in the wiki software.  You do not want old text copied into the wiki.

Easton's Bible Dictionary is available in a deep-linkable, stable,
read-only website, the Christian Classics Ethereal Library,
starting on http://www.ccel.org/e/easton/ebd/

For example, the article on Anatoth is available on the URL
http://www.ccel.org/e/easton/ebd/ebd/T0000200.html#T0000233
apparently with 100 articles per HTML page, and this is article 233.

If this is a work that you often want to refer to, add the following
pattern rule to the wikipedia source code for the English Wikipedia,

  ebd:([0-9]+)           e.g. ebd:233

translated into

  'See [http://www.ccel.org/e/easton/ebd/ebd/' +
  sprintf("T%05d00.html#T%07d", $1/100, $1) +
  ' the article] in [[Easton's Bible Dictionary]] (1897)

Adding this "ebd:" rule to the wikipedia software doesn't hurt
anybody, since 99.99% of all articles will not contain the ebd:
pattern.  But as soon as anybody, who knows EBD and this rule, starts
to use it, it saves a lot of time and effort in creating links instead
of copying useless text into the wiki.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary


body:
Ss just uploaded a PHP script, which was promptly deleted by Brion Vibber,
and an incomprehensible image, which I deleted. According to Brion, it was a
cracking tool. How can this user be blocked?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Data for map projections

body:
I'd like to make some examples of map projections. Does anyone know where I
can get numerical data that show the outlines of the continents?

phma


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
--- "Michael R. Irwin" <mri_icboise at surfbest.net>
wrote:

> Interesting.  I was unaware that 24 was banned.  How
> was this decided?
>
> Was there a decision made to not ban me (mirwin)?  I
> was attacked
> for merely stating my personal opinion that I did
> not consider "24"
> a troll.

24 was banned by Jimmy Wales because he issued threats
against another Wikipedian. No one has ever considered
banning you or anyone else, other than persistant
vandals and people who threaten physical violence.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
Michael,

You're certainly welcome to your opinion. You should
take notice, however, that even though you stood up
for some of 24's ideas, participated in his various
meta pages, argued that he was not a troll (which
prompted Larry to label *you* a troll), offered to
work with him in order to shake up the Wikipedia
status quo, and erased an entire article in order to
start from scratch, no one even *suggested* that you
should be banned. Nor is anyone suggesting it now as
you reiterate your position.

I don't want to fan the flames again. I do want to say
that you're welcome to participate in this project and
hold any view you like. Just aim for the NPOV when
writing articles. And hey, if you're worried about the
Amazon articles, click the link and jump in with both
hands on your keyboard. ;-)

Stephen G.

--- "Michael R. Irwin" <mri_icboise at surfbest.net>
wrote:
>
>
> koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> >
> > Well, he also said Larry Sanger was not a human
> and something else--I forgot what exactly--that
> sound very much like a threat.  That was the final
> straw, as it were: Jimbo banned him, and he's been
> banned ever since (and for good reason!)
>
> Perhaps you should quote the entire argument or some
> context.
>
> 24 alleged the first thing Larry Sanger said to him
> was an attack.
>
> The "threat" in context appeared to be rhetorical
> hyperbole
> to me.  Further, it was stated in the form that
> people like
> Larry (clearly referring to his attitudes and
> prejudices that
> were being applied to "24", deserved to have bad
> things happen
> to them)  It appeared to be an angry response to
> pretty intense
> steady harrassment in the stacks because some
> regulars did
> not like "24"'s material, beliefs, attitude, etc.
> There appeared
> to be some rather abrubt deletion taking place.
> Several times
> material that I was attempting to NPOV ended with
> abrubt
> deletion/erasure of the entire article or content in
> the middle
> of my editing.
>
> This got extremely irritating to me, I am sure it
> probably
> bothered "24".   When I erased the biased [software
> engineering]
> article in its entirety it seemed to provoke an
> astonishingly
> intense reaction from "64" (maveric149) and Lee
> Crocker.  Perhaps
> they were involved in writing it.
>
> Later, when I reviewed this mailing list archive,
> several
> "regulars" had started wondering out loud whether
> they should
> fear for their personal safety.   Quite a leap in my
> opinion.
> It clearly escalated the controversy.
>
> Perhaps the reason for banning appeared to good to
> you.
>
> To me it looks like "24" was banned because he had
> interests
> similar to my own in participating in establishing
> or modifying
> the community standards and processes.    "24"
> appeared interested
> in methods that would support large diverse
> participation
> levels.  "24" was apparently interested in green
> issues and
> other political activism.
>
> "24" was interested in establishing community
> processes that
> would be compatible or attractive to people who
> could help
> fill in gaps in those areas.
>
> You say he was banned appropriately in effect,
> because he would be
> not nice when Mr. Wales contacted him privately
> because the "community"
> complained of his behavior and opinions and good
> riddance.
>
> I say he was banned inappropriately because
> when he brought up issues of community governance
> and content
> completeness and attempted to add his own
> perceptions to the
> gesalt he would not quietly roll over when
> arbitrarily
> trumped by "long standing respected community
> members".
> This appeal to authority persisted along with
> refusal to
> engage in any meaningful dialogue regarding how to
> establish
> a participatory process.   I do not allege that Mr
> Wales
> actions were inappropriate but that the "community"
> created
> the situation in which the controversy between "24"
> and others
> were not resolved amicably.   Rather "24"s material
> and opinions
> were routinely arbitrarily deleted and dismissed out
> of hand
> by long term participants and their cronies.  When
> "24"s
> provoked behavior got offensive enough, Mr. Wales
> was called
> in for totalitarian action and apparently "24"
> resisted his
> attempts to exercise a calming influence.
>
> The reasons were poor and, in my opinion, do not
> bode well for
> the unstated goal of Wikipedia to be a high quality
> NPOV
> encyclopedia.  The stated goal of 100K articles is
> quite
> achievable by a small closed "community", 35K and
> counting.
>
> I wonder if, after passing the 100K mark, I will be
> able to
> find anything authoritative, comprehensive, fun,
> informative,
> wonderous, astonishing, etc. regarding the Amazon
> basin provided
> by native English speakers or translated from the
> Spanish
> Wikipedia or if I will have to proceed to the
> English translation
> of the Spanish Fork?
>
> regards,
> mirwin
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia toolbar

body:
--- "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpj at kki.net.pl> wrote:

> For some time now I have installed Google toolbar.
> It is very convenient
> and speeds up web browsing considerably.
>
> From time to time instead of (using right mouse
> button) looking up
> something through Google I'd like to find out what
> Wikipedia knows
> about the given subject.
>
> Would it be difficult to :
> * implement Wikipedia toolbar
> * prepare Wikipedia entry as a search engine for the
> Mozilla sidebar

Axel Boldt whipped up some Wikipedia bookmarklets that
do pretty much that same thing. You can find them
here:
http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/bookmarklet.html

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] DICT protocol

body:
--- lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> But again, I think it needs to develop in a
> centralized way for
> a while before risking that.  I may be labelled a
> heretic for
> saying this, but part of what make Wikipedia great
> is its /lack/
> or freedom and universal participation.  Everything2
> showed us
> what that devolves into.  We have a central goal
> here--a narrow
> focus, and people to keep the masses pointed in the
> right direction.

Yeah, I think that's kind of heretical. But you write
good articles *and* software, so I'll engage in some
religious tolerance. :)

Has anyone ever surfed around H2G2.com? Its entries
seem to be of consistantly better quality than most of
Everything2, and they have a peer-review system in
place. I'm going to poke around there a bit and see if
they have any useful techniques that could be adapted
to Wikipedia. Fishing out a few new Wikipedians
wouldn't hurt either.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
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body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> There's no interface for it yet, but any of the developers can
> do it if we need to.  But his stuff has been deleted and he
> doesn't seem to be doing any other damage.  If he doesn't just
> go away on his own I'll do the blocking.

At Disney World, they have very little problem with graffiti.  The
reason is that they have a system whereby all the restrooms are
checked frequently, and when graffiti is discovered, it is painted
immediately.  There are two beneficial effects to this -- first, the
vandal is deprived of an audience, so that there's little point to
doing in the first place, and second, it seems that when there is
*some* grafitti on a wall, other people think it's "o.k." and so
further grafitti appears at a faster rate.

The fact that we've got a decent crowd more or less around the clock
means that 'grafitti' gets 'painted over' quickly.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
Just as a historical footnote -- I banned '24' for, as I recall,
either 24 or 48 hours, as a warning.  I intended to unban him after
that.  I think the archives will reflect that this is what I said
about it at the time.

However, the peace and quiet which ensued was so soothing that I
forgot to unban him.  He never wrote to me to complain, and we never
heard from him again.

To ban him at all was a difficult decision which I agonized over for
several days.  But it seems to have worked out fine.

And I don't agree with Michael Irwin that banning 24 in any way sets a
precedent of diminishment of diversity of participation.  24 made some
noise about this sort of thing being his goal, but let's speak
frankly: he was WAY "out there" in terms of an ability to communicate
a coherent thought.

We should strongly welcome progressives, greens, libertarians,
anarchists, Christians, Muslims, etc., SO LONG AS they aren't trying
to turn wikipedia into a "progressive encyclopedia" or a "libertarian
encyclopedia" or a "Christian encyclopedia", etc.  Of course there will
be arguments and struggles to find an NPOV, including, at times, hurt
feelings and incorrect assumptions that the other person is trying to
push an ideology.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Data for map projections

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:

>I'd like to make some examples of map projections. Does anyone know where I
>can get numerical data that show the outlines of the continents?
>
>phma
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>
>

Try http://www.maproom.psu.edu/dcw/

It's going to be a huge dataset, though, and contains overwhelmingly
more detail than you need.

This looks interesting, too: http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/ima.html

Neil


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Data for map projections

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:

 >I'd like to make some examples of map projections. Does anyone know
where I
 >can get numerical data that show the outlines of the continents?
 >
 >phma
 >[Wikipedia-l]
 >To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
 >http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >

...and this might be what you want:

http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/geoid/metadata/htmls/geography/landocean.html

from this site:

http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/

Neil


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Search - problems

body:
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Today I spotted one problem and one minor (?) glitch in the Wikipedia's
> internal search engine.
>
> Using lynx to change the number of displayed entries gives "Bad request
> error".
>
> I think the extra space character is the culprit.
>
> http://www.wikipedia.com/w/wiki.phtml?search=History &limit=50&offset=0

Hmm, spaces should be escaped when they appear.

> I looked up "History" and it was rather strange that "History of Asia"
> was not listed in article titles section but only in article text section.

Click "next 50", it's in there:

http://www.wikipedia.com/w/wiki.phtml?limit=50&offset=50&search=History

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
"Michael R. Irwin" wrote:
>
> lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> >
>
> > >> * A general "You have mail: click here to read" flag for a user
> > >> would be useful: maybe based on an update to their user talk
> > >> page more recent than their most recent visit to that page.
> >
> > That's not a bad idea either; I perfer actual email for direct
> > communication, but user talk pages are there, and are being used
> > for that  There's already a link to your user page at the top of
> > the page (at least in the standard skin; I don't remember about
> > CB); perhaps we should have a flag next to it with a link that
> > only appears when there have been changes to your user talk since
> > you last visited it.
>
> I think this would be a neat feature.  Particularly for users
> preferring the meta for discussions, without reliable email, or
> uninterested in Wikipedia-L.

That would be a VERY neat feature... I don't pay very close attention to
my user page, and it would be great if a little flag popped up next to
my user name to tell me that somebody had left me a message there... Of
course, Mav's flag would never go away! lol

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature that
will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
Ample Aussies Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Automated Article Submission

body:
Regarding the drip-feed idea:

>I intend to drip-feed the finished articles in at a rate of one every 20
>minutes, allowing lots of time for human review and assimilation, once
>I think that there is a consensus that this is OK.

Is there a way to label automatic submissions? If you could somehow fill in the summary field, we could see "(automated upload)" or something similar on the Recent Changes page. Then those of us interested in such articles could see them easily.

Or how about logging in as "Easton Bible Robot" so we could look at its "contributions" page?

We have all sorts of tools for making and viewing an audit trail. Let's use them.

Ed Poor


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Meta-Tree

body:
tarquin wrote:

> So much for meta-wikipedia being a quiet corner to work things out...
> Someone on Wikipedia:Village pump recently wrote "I stumbled across
> Tarquin's style guide for the layout of contents of these pages".
>
> I haven't had much feedback on this, I'm presuming either a) the list
> approves and therefore doesn't have much to comment, or b) you're
> still all baffled by the whole concept.
>
> I don't think I can do much more by way of working out a useful
> structure in what is effectively Sandbox mode, so I propose to move
> the pages to the wikipedia: namespace, so we can start actually using
> it and refine it as we go.
>
You can't have it both ways!  Either you'll find a quiet sandbox to
build castles, or all the kids will come along and destroy it with their
wonder.  The lack of feedback is probably because most people haven't
noticed yet rather than because of either of your two suggestions.

Apart from my complaint that it should be French "Departments" on the
English Wikipedia rather than "Departements", I do find that there is
some merit to the general concept.  I would suggest moving slowly,
probably starting with the "Meta-Wiki - General" page.  Lately, since
the recent changes page has been listing every time an article changes,
I've been finding that page to be overwhelming with its nearly 2,000
entries every day.  By putting too many pages at once you may find them
all accepted by default, and not as a result of due consideration.

I also think that we do need some mechanism for gauging the level of
acceptance that a proposal has.  There has been some value to people
expressing their view about the acceptability of a particular rule.  In
many cases acceptance appeared unanimous.  In a significant propotion,
however, either outright opposition was recorded, or small amendments
were suggested to make it more acceptable.  The mechanism seemed to be
lacking to carry the matter any further.  Instead style debates have
erupted on the talk pages for specific articles without regard to the
presence of a page that discusses the issue in more general terms.

Any ideas on how we can gauge the acceptability of a rule, especially a
naming convention?

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Search - problems

body:
>> Using lynx to change the number of displayed entries gives
>> "Bad request error".
>> I think the extra space character is the culprit.
>> http://www.wikipedia.com/w/wiki.phtml?search=History
&limit=50&offset=0

I can't see how you managed to enter that extra space.  Spaces
are illegal in URLs, and I couldn't find any way to get Lynx to
let me enter one.  The links on the page are correct, the code
does exactly the right thing, and even when I typed in the URL
manually Lynx removed the space for me.

In any case there's nothing I can do--you are in fact making
an illegal request, and software is correctly reporting that fact.
If the software were itself /generating/ a bad link or someting,
then that would be a bug.

>> I looked up "History" and it was rather strange that
>> "History of Asia" was not listed in article titles section
>> but only in article text section.

It shows as listed for me--it's #73.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>
> --- "Michael R. Irwin" <mri_icboise at surfbest.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Interesting.  I was unaware that 24 was banned.  How
> > was this decided?
> >
> > Was there a decision made to not ban me (mirwin)?  I
> > was attacked
> > for merely stating my personal opinion that I did
> > not consider "24"
> > a troll.
>
> 24 was banned by Jimmy Wales because he issued threats
> against another Wikipedian. No one has ever considered
> banning you or anyone else, other than persistant
> vandals and people who threaten physical violence.

I never saw any direct threats from 24 as in:

I (24) am going to physically hurt you (someone).

The opinion stated (that I saw) was of the form: [Big X is a terrible
person and bad things (some vivid gory wishlist imagery here) should
happen to terrible people.]

Similar to the form {opinion, wish} or {why I wish, wish}
which Big X also used extensively during the heated rhetorical
episodes which preceeded 24's banning:

[Mirwin is a troll and should be ignored.]
[24 is a troll and should be ignored.]

<Spam insert begins here>

It is not currently possible to ignore trolls and vandals and
guarantee delivery of high quality content.

I reason thusly:  Positive action is required to delete errors,
nonsense, and inappropriate material from the current pages served
to the public.

</Spam insert ends here>

<Inuendo insert begins here>

Perhaps Big X meant that I should be physically eliminated
by his unknown associates or himself next time he is in town?

Now I am not sure I want my email address, personal data,
or physical address findable by miscellaneous Wikipedia
users/editors.

</Inuendo insert ends here>

I did see some statements from 24 worded as threats that 24 might
invite indymedia.org participants to participate at Wikipedia.

It was implied that our feeble consensus building processes
would be quickly overwhelmed with dire consequences for the
viability of the Wikipedia.  Unfortunately when someone
double dog dared 24 to issue the recruiting pitch he/she
either spitefully refused, is ineffectual at writing invitations,
is a procrastinator, the indymedia masses looked us over and found
us so wanting as to not currently be worth the effort, or some
other manifestation of the universe has occurred which I
have failed to articulate and/or perceive.

I hardly think inviting virtual visitors to participate
at Wikipedia to serve nefarious purposes can be construed
as a "physical threat".

In the course of the dispute I saw a specific threat to "out" 24
despite Wikipedia's explicit and implicit policy of allowing anonymous
participation.  In my opinion this would have been highly unethical.
Not to mention a potential personal problem should my fearful
fantasies regarding Big X have any merit or congruence with reality.

To summarize:

Wishes are not fishes or apparently I would be not be
involved with Wikipedia, simply ignored.

regards, mirwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>
> Michael,
>
> You're certainly welcome to your opinion. You should
> take notice, however, that even though you stood up
> for some of 24's ideas, participated in his various
> meta pages, argued that he was not a troll (which
> prompted Larry to label *you* a troll), offered to
> work with him in order to shake up the Wikipedia
> status quo, and erased an entire article in order to
> start from scratch, no one even *suggested* that you
> should be banned. Nor is anyone suggesting it now as
> you reiterate your position.

Thank you.  I understand.

>
> I don't want to fan the flames again. I do want to say
> that you're welcome to participate in this project and
> hold any view you like. Just aim for the NPOV when
> writing articles. And hey, if you're worried about the
> Amazon articles, click the link and jump in with both
> hands on your keyboard. ;-)

8)  You apparently forget my lack of expertise on the
Amazon Basin and related political activism issues,
means, and methods.   I was hoping to leverage of off
others knowledge in this area, not even contemplating
years of fun researching it personally.  Merely some idle
browsing occasionally and the ability to brag about the
completeness of our knowledge base to potential users,
editors and fellow Wikipedians alike.  8)

regards,
mirwin


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
Tarquin wrote:

>The meta-tree (anyone think of a better name?) will
have the following
>entry points:
>* wikipedia:naming conventions
>* wikipedia:WikiProjects
>* wikipedia:MetaTree

I'm still baffled. Your original idea appeared to me
as an attempt to replace naming conventions and
WikiProjects and somehow combine the two (which I
still totally oppose). But now it looks like you want
to augment them. I've already taken a look at the meta
and I'm even more confused. I really do not like the
term "MeatTree". Whatever the goal of such a system,
why can't it live over on the meta? We should be using
meta more anyway -- possibly even moving the
WikiProject stuff over there when meta gets its
wikiware upgraded. Please don't port the Meta-Tree
over - yet at least.

--mav

__________________________________________________
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HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Graffiti painted over

body:
Jimbo wrote:
>>At Disney World, they have very little problem with graffiti.  The
reason is that they have a system whereby all the restrooms are
checked frequently, and when graffiti is discovered, it is painted
immediately.

Jimbo's got a great idea there. It's the mainstay of the wiki concept.
See the Wikipedia article on "Broken Windows".

Ed Poor


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Votes for deletion

body:
Two points:

1. Has anyone with admin access taken a look at 'Wikipedia: Votes for
   deletion' recently? There is no automatical voting system any more,
   but the page is still being used.
2. At Wiki_Administrators I saw
   "Current Wikipedia policy is to grant this access fairly liberally
    to anyone who has been a Wikipedia contributor for a while and is
    generally a known and trusted member of the community. If you
    would like such access, send an e-mail to Jimbo Wales."
   I thought I would qualify, so decided to send the email - but then
   could nowhere find Jimbo's email addres...

Andre Engels


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Meta-Tree

body:
> Any ideas on how we can gauge the acceptability of a rule,
> especially a naming convention?

All of the policy pages have talk pages, many with comments
about who supports which rule and who doesn't.  If a certain
page or its talk page becomes too long to follow, refactor it.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
On 8/8/02 5:50 PM, "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm still baffled. Your original idea appeared to me
> as an attempt to replace naming conventions and
> WikiProjects and somehow combine the two (which I
> still totally oppose). But now it looks like you want
> to augment them. I've already taken a look at the meta
> and I'm even more confused. I really do not like the
> term "MeatTree". Whatever the goal of such a system,

Mmmm...meat tree.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Meta-Tree

body:
So much for meta-wikipedia being a quiet corner to work things out...
Someone on Wikipedia:Village pump recently wrote "I stumbled across
Tarquin's style guide for the layout of contents of these pages".

I haven't had much feedback on this, I'm presuming either a) the list
approves and therefore doesn't have much to comment, or b) you're still
all baffled by the whole concept.

I don't think I can do much more by way of working out a useful
structure in what is effectively Sandbox mode, so I propose to move the
pages to the wikipedia: namespace, so we can start actually using it and
refine it as we go.

The meta-tree (anyone think of a better name?) will have the following
entry points:
* wikipedia:naming conventions
* wikipedia:WikiProjects
* wikipedia:MetaTree


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mh hammer |1.jpg

body:
> The listing of this file has twice been removed from the votes for
> deletion, once by Andre Engels and once by Kaji, both with a note
> that they are removing from the list pages that have been removed
> from the server. The file still exists.

Why do you think the file still exists?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mh hammer |1.jpg

body:
> Oh... I get it now - somebody uploaded an image with the |
> character in the title, so it's basically irremovable :(

I'm obviously missing something.  There's no such image in the
upload directory, no such entry in the database, and no such
description page.  What is it, exactly, that you don't think has
been deleted?


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Trigger Words

body:
At 04:43 AM 8/9/02 +0200, Erik wrote:
>Hi,
>
>it occurred to me that certain words may well be used as search patterns to
>find low quality and non-NPOV articles. For example, there is hardly any
>valid encyclopedic use for the word "ironically" -- I have tried to go
through
>the articles that contain it and fix them one by one, but there are too
many of
>them.  Other emotional words such as "bizarre", and vulgar ones, such as
>"stupid" and "crap", may also be useful for finding articles that need to be
>edited.
>
>How about a page that lists such "trigger words" for others to search for
>them and fix the articles that contain them? Where should such a page be put?

Tried that on "stupid" and found [[cow tipping]]. Fascinating...

Fred Bauder


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mh hammer |1.jpg

body:
When I tried to delete it, it seemed to cooperate.

--~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Pierre Abbat
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 20:59
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Mh hammer |1.jpg

On Thursday 08 August 2002 23:51, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > The listing of this file has twice been removed from the votes for
> > deletion, once by Andre Engels and once by Kaji, both with a note
> > that they are removing from the list pages that have been removed
> > from the server. The file still exists.
>
> Why do you think the file still exists?

It did when I wrote that. It was deleted immediately afterward. It is
now in
the past tents.

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


from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Search - problems

body:
Hi,

Today I spotted one problem and one minor (?) glitch in the Wikipedia's
internal search engine.

Using lynx to change the number of displayed entries gives "Bad request
error".

I think the extra space character is the culprit.

http://www.wikipedia.com/w/wiki.phtml?search=History &limit=50&offset=0

I looked up "History" and it was rather strange that "History of Asia"
was not listed in article titles section but only in article text section.

Is it a new problem ?

Regards,
kpj.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
On Thursday 08 August 2002 08:20 pm, tarquin wrote:
> The reasoning was fairly simple: Wikiprojects are organized in a
> hierarchy. Naming conventions are increasingly hierarchic too.
> When I create a page, I seek information about how to name it and how to
> present it. It's stupid having to career halfway across the Wikipedia to
> find those two pieces of information.

Then just add links. Example; in WikiProject Countries add a link to the city
naming convention, in WikiProject Biographies add a link to common name
naming convention etc. There is also no reason why there shouldn't be links
on the naming conventions pages (not the main one) to related WikiProjects.
All naming convention pages are unprotected except the main one.

I refactored the whole naming conventions page so that it only has one or two
sentence summaries of each convention with links to the full conventions (on
separate unprotected pages). Link away, but do make note of the fact that
WikiProject guidelines are very loose while our naming conventions are
semi-policy for practical reasons in order to facilitate linking and reduce
duplication.

Also keep in mind that the only content policy we have is NPOV (everything
else is just a 'rule to consider') -- I do not want to have WikiProject
guidelines even to begin to appear as if they are a kind of content policy
(which may occur if naming conventions are stated on the same page).

Also troubling is the term "Presentation Conventions" which is /far/ too
similar to "naming conventions" and will cause confusion with newbies about
the importance that naming conventions have in relation to any presentation
"conventions". As a matter of fact, I do not want us to have /any/ content
convention other than NPOV -- anything more will tend to stifle innovation
(consistency is nice, and I do strive for that, but it should /not/ be in any
way confused with policy).

Just some things to keep in mind -- please don't think I am suggesting
anything by my above statements since I still not sure what you want to do
(although from what I've seen on the meta much of the above does at least
appear to be founded).

--mav


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Trigger Words

body:
I did a search for the word ironically, and most of the articles seem to use
it well, without violating NPOV.

Danny

In a message dated 8/8/2002 9:43:59 PM Eastern Standard Time,
erik_moeller at gmx.de writes:

> Hi,
>
> it occurred to me that certain words may well be used as search patterns to
> find low quality and non-NPOV articles. For example, there is hardly any
> valid encyclopedic use for the word "ironically" -- I have tried to go
> through
> the articles that contain it and fix them one by one, but there are too
> many of
> them.  Other emotional words such as "bizarre", and vulgar ones, such as
> "stupid" and "crap", may also be useful for finding articles that need to
> be
> edited.
>
> How about a page that lists such "trigger words" for others to search for
> them and fix the articles that contain them? Where should such a page be
> put?
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
>
> --
> GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
> http://www.gmx.net
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mh hammer |1.jpg

body:
The listing of this file has twice been removed from the votes for deletion,
once by Andre Engels and once by Kaji, both with a note that they are
removing from the list pages that have been removed from the server. The file
still exists. The link doesn't work; it shows up as "1.jpg" and when you
click on it it takes you to "Image:Mh hammer ", which doesn't exist. Should
this be removed or not?

phma


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>I'm still baffled. Your original idea appeared to me
>as an attempt to replace naming conventions and
>WikiProjects and somehow combine the two (which I
>still totally oppose).
>
The reasoning was fairly simple: Wikiprojects are organized in a
hierarchy. Naming conventions are increasingly hierarchic too.
When I create a page, I seek information about how to name it and how to
present it. It's stupid having to career halfway across the Wikipedia to
find those two pieces of information.

As to where the structure lives and what to call it -- minor points.


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Meta-Tree

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>
> Any ideas on how we can gauge the acceptability of a rule, especially a
> naming convention?

Perhaps if site statistics are available votes could be tallied and
normalized against the number of repeat logged in editors in the last
90 days.  A percentage count of supporters amongst regulars along
with the comments might provide some insight.

For example:  If we have 30 regulars in the quorum call period and
10 have registered positive votes and 6 negative ones.
We have 30% registered votes for and 20% against.

The percentages could be recalculated once a day or when a vote
is registered.

The rules could be sorted based on the ratio of for/against so the
listing portrays the level of community consensus, strongest custom
at the top to the weakest at the bottom.

Linking to the discussion pages enables an ongoing poll as long
as only logged in users can vote.

regards, mirwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mh hammer |1.jpg

body:
On Thursday 08 August 2002 23:51, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > The listing of this file has twice been removed from the votes for
> > deletion, once by Andre Engels and once by Kaji, both with a note
> > that they are removing from the list pages that have been removed
> > from the server. The file still exists.
>
> Why do you think the file still exists?

It did when I wrote that. It was deleted immediately afterward. It is now in
the past tents.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Transitioning toward a clean wiki syntax.

body:
Whatever we decide the final wiki syntax is going to look like (and
I'll write up my vision on that shortly), it's clear that to avoid
massive culture shock we should transition gradually.  With that in
mind, I'd like to propose a change or two to make right away, and
I'd like to get opinions on what the impact might be.

The first thing I'd like to do is eliminate the non-bracketed
external URL syntax.  Specifically, I'd like to keep the single-
bracket syntax [url text] for external URLs, and double brackets
for internal page links and images, and eliminate entirely the
interpretation of URLs in plain text.  It would simplify the
syntax, eliminate the problem of punctuation after URLs, it would
make all the image links report correctly (ones that look external
don't show up as links on the image's page), and eliminate a whole
bug-prone pass in the interpreter.  I's also eliminate the auto-
numbering thing and make a bracketed simple URL without text just
show the URL like an unbracketed one does now.  Finally, I would
not interpret external links to images as inline images, so /only/
the [[image:]] syntax would work for images (though you could still
link to external images; they just won't be rendered on the page).

I don't see that this will lose any functionality at all, but if I'm
wrong, or this will break something useful, or if there's a lot of
people who will scream, let me know.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Trigger Words

body:
I've been periodically searching for profanity in
order to catch vandalism that may have slipped under
the Recent Changes radar.

Whatever the page is called, it should be in the
Wikipedia: namespace. Direct URLs would be most
useful. Is there an existing page that could be used
for this purpose?

Stephen G.

--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> it occurred to me that certain words may well be
> used as search patterns to
> find low quality and non-NPOV articles. For example,
> there is hardly any
> valid encyclopedic use for the word "ironically" --
> I have tried to go through
> the articles that contain it and fix them one by
> one, but there are too many of
> them.  Other emotional words such as "bizarre", and
> vulgar ones, such as
> "stupid" and "crap", may also be useful for finding
> articles that need to be
> edited.
>
> How about a page that lists such "trigger words" for
> others to search for
> them and fix the articles that contain them? Where
> should such a page be put?
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
>
> --
> GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
> http://www.gmx.net
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Meta-Tree

body:
I think the method we've been using since the
beginning is pretty good. It is as follows:

1. Propose a convention.
2. Discuss the convention with any interested parties.
Note objections and proposed improvements.
3. If most people agree, start using the convention.
4. If it's not working, or if Wikipedians don't find
the convention useful, stop using it.

Rules and bureaucracy would just kill the organic
development that we have here.

Stephen G.

--- "Michael R. Irwin" <mri_icboise at surfbest.net>
wrote:
>
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> >
> > Any ideas on how we can gauge the acceptability of
> a rule, especially a
> > naming convention?
>
> Perhaps if site statistics are available votes could
> be tallied and
> normalized against the number of repeat logged in
> editors in the last
> 90 days.  A percentage count of supporters amongst
> regulars along
> with the comments might provide some insight.
>
> For example:  If we have 30 regulars in the quorum
> call period and
> 10 have registered positive votes and 6 negative
> ones.
> We have 30% registered votes for and 20% against.
>
> The percentages could be recalculated once a day or
> when a vote
> is registered.
>
> The rules could be sorted based on the ratio of
> for/against so the
> listing portrays the level of community consensus,
> strongest custom
> at the top to the weakest at the bottom.
>
> Linking to the discussion pages enables an ongoing
> poll as long
> as only logged in users can vote.
>
> regards, mirwin
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

__________________________________________________
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body:
--- lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> The first thing I'd like to do is eliminate the
> non-bracketed
> external URL syntax.  Specifically, I'd like to keep
> the single-
> bracket syntax [url text] for external URLs, and
> double brackets
> for internal page links and images, and eliminate
> entirely the
> interpretation of URLs in plain text.  It would
> simplify the
> syntax, eliminate the problem of punctuation after
> URLs, it would
> make all the image links report correctly (ones that
> look external
> don't show up as links on the image's page), and
> eliminate a whole
> bug-prone pass in the interpreter.  I's also
> eliminate the auto-
> numbering thing and make a bracketed simple URL
> without text just
> show the URL like an unbracketed one does now.

I have one problem and one request. First, the
problem.

I think parsing [http://www.someurl.com] as [1] is very useful
for documenting sources within articles, particularly
quotes from web-accessible material. See the
breastfeeding article, for example.

And now the request. When placing external links at
the bottom of an article, I currently use just the
bare URL  plus a separate description (e.g.
http://www.someurl.com -- An excellent example of what
this article is talking about). I do this instead of
[http://www.someurl.com description] because if
someone want to print the article, the URL would be
lost. However, I think it makes things look messy.
Would it be possible to have [http://www.someurl.com
description] expanded in the printable version?

Stephen G.

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from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Trigger Words

body:
Hi,

it occurred to me that certain words may well be used as search patterns to
find low quality and non-NPOV articles. For example, there is hardly any
valid encyclopedic use for the word "ironically" -- I have tried to go through
the articles that contain it and fix them one by one, but there are too many of
them.  Other emotional words such as "bizarre", and vulgar ones, such as
"stupid" and "crap", may also be useful for finding articles that need to be
edited.

How about a page that lists such "trigger words" for others to search for
them and fix the articles that contain them? Where should such a page be put?

Regards,

Erik

--
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
http://www.gmx.net


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Link Syntax

body:
Jaap van Ganswijk wrote in part:

>table border=1
>  tr
>    td width=50%
>      - text for entry00
>    td
>      - text for entry01
>  tr
>    td
>      - text for entry10
>    td
>      - text for entry11

>table border=1
>  row
>    - text for entry00
>    - text for entry01
>  row
>    - text for entry10
>    - text for entry11

>table border=1
>  ^ text for entry00 ^ text for entry01
>  ^ text for entry10 ^ text for entry11

Seeing these 3 (of out myriads) possibilities next to each other,
the middle one jumps out at me as clearly the best.
Unlike the others, it's easy to read what things mean.
None of this incomprehensible HTMLish gobbledygook like "tr",
and none of this incomprehensible wikiish gobbledygook like "^".
Anybody that sees it for the first time knows what it is and why,
and anybody can reproduce it with very little learning curve.

It just needs something to distinguish it from
what the same syntax already means in our own wiki,
and which somebody might reasonably want to put on a page.
That means *one* wiki symbol -- which might well be

.

(You may assume that I have just made similar comments
about all of the other table proposals.)

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
Several thoughts on the issues involved:

== Blocking IPs ==

I think that KQ did what needed to be done, or might have been needed.
I'm going to post another letter about 24 soon,
where I express disapproval of blocking IPs without clear policy guidelines.
But this case was different; from the reports here,
it seems that there were downloads coming every few seconds.
Regardless of the inappropriateness or POV bias of some of the downloads,
it was reasonable of KQ to place a temporary ban to avoid what
was a possible attack that humans haven't the speed to cope with.

As it turned out, Neil's intentions were the best,
and KQ didn't really have to react so quickly.
But there was no way to know this at the time.
That said, we're lucky that Neil understood so readily,
and all of his suggestions about how to improve IP blocking
seem to be good ideas.  He's probably the only person on this list
ever to have their IP blocked at Wikipedia, so we should listen to him.

== Copying old public domain works ==

This is a bad idea, whether 1897 Bible dictionaries or 1911 encyclopaedias.
A human needs to go over all of these *before* they appear in our articles,
or it lowers our average quality while falsely making it appear
as if articles already exist and don't need to be written now.
(I have the same opinion about most cases of stubs, too,
and would rather delete nonsense pages than replace them with stubs.)

It's unreasonable for people to copy in these old texts,
include a warning that the material may be biased or out of date,
and then expect somebody watching Recentchanges to fix them.
If I create or edit an entry, then *I* am responsible
for checking that the material is netural and accurate.
This isn't asking for perfection, a standard that I don't meet anyway,
but for a reasonable human judgement that the material is good.
Mass copying, whether by a script or not, whether filtered or not,
doesn't provide this.

This means that I'm coming out against Neil's plan entirely.
As I mentioned under the last heading, his intentions were good,
but the plan itself, not just the execution, was IMO flawed.
If we want to use the EBD to write Biblically themed articles,
then that's great, and I don't expect Neil to do it all himself,
but we should set up a Bible article writing group to do it,
with human editing for each entry before it appears (in the [[:]] namespace).

== Automatic downloads ==

Both of the above comments combine to show that
automatic downloads are bad and should be deprecated.
They inspire the reasonable suspicion of an attack,
however false that may be, and prevent human intervention.
Fast downloads coming every few seconds are worst,
because humans have no chance of keeping up with them,
but any automatic system is bad.  Articles meant to be read by humans
must be written by humans, and at a human speed.
At best we can automatically download what has been written offline,
but even this should be done slowly.

== Easton's Bible Dictionary itself ==

As for this particular reference work, I only saw one entry,
[[Spritual Gifts]] (now [[Spiritual gift]]), which was voted for deletion.
That vote was wrong IMO, and I moved and edited the article.
I did notice that it had a strong bias, and one that might be hard to spot,
which was against Pentecostalism.  Pentecostalists believe that
the gifts of the Spirit are still given to Christians today,
while this dictionary made a point of denying that possibility.
There was no mention of dissent; judging by our [[Pentecostalism]] article,
it was written 6 years before Pentecostalism began anyway.

I myself only noticed this because my roommates are Pentecostals.
So if we use this resource (and we probably should),
then we should watch out not only for Christian and 19th century biases,
but for biases *within* Christianity as well.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


body:
Lee (?) wrote:

>The first thing I'd like to do is eliminate the non-bracketed
>external URL syntax.  Specifically, I'd like to keep the single-
>bracket syntax [url text] for external URLs, and double brackets
>for internal page links and images, and eliminate entirely the
>interpretation of URLs in plain text.  It would simplify the
>syntax, eliminate the problem of punctuation after URLs, it would
>make all the image links report correctly (ones that look external
>don't show up as links on the image's page), and eliminate a whole
>bug-prone pass in the interpreter.  I's also eliminate the auto-
>numbering thing and make a bracketed simple URL without text just
>show the URL like an unbracketed one does now.  Finally, I would
>not interpret external links to images as inline images, so /only/
>the [[image:]] syntax would work for images (though you could still
>link to external images; they just won't be rendered on the page).

All of these seem OK as changes to the way new articles work.
I only worry about backwards compatibility but, in this case,
that's not really much of a problem, since a URL in running text,
while less helpful if you can't click on it, does the job.

If numbered links are good for sources at the bottom
(and I've rarely seen them used for this), then that's still possibile,
using syntax like "[http://www.com/page.html 1]".
Anybody that writes that out deliberately will probably remember
to put the URL itself at the bottom under == Sources ==,
so that will prevent the misuse (probably accidental) that I see now.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>