subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Optionalizing Real Names

body:
I do not understand well what this roll-out thing mean. I do know that I
would strongly prefer that this is not added to Wikimedia projects for a
bunch of reasons I already outlined. I know not what other people think :-)

Evan Prodromou a ?crit:
> So, there were some questions about using the real names functionality
> added for Wikimedia 1.3. They seem to have been rolled out for
> Wiktionary and other projects without a lot of problem.
>
> I know this sounds lazy, but do I need to take the time to set up a
> boolean variable to hide this field on the login and preferences
> pages? Or will we roll out with the field default-on, and not able to
> be disabled by admins? (Users can always leave the field blank if they
> wish, of course.)
>
> ~ESP
>


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> Readily. In this instance, since posts in French are unusual, I think a
> reasonable case can be made that writing in French actually drew more
> attention than writing in English. That helped accomplish the two things
> my post addressed - promoting the use of foundation-l as the mailing
> list for Wikimedia-wide projects, and highlighting the fact that Jimbo
> wasn't receiving messages from this mailing list. I think both
> situations have significantly improved.

Until yesterday (I think it was yesterday) I did not realize that I was
not getting messages from this list, and I did not realize that there was
an active conversation here!  I thought that foundation-l was just a good
idea that had not yet taken off!  I thought there were no discussions here.

So now I am behind and have to read to catch up.

--Jimbo


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] [freax@arrakis.es: Copyright Violation at Wikipedia]

body:
I see that this is already listed on [[Wikipedia:Copyright problems]],
and I hope that the resolution will be prompt.

----- Forwarded message from Phil Franks <freax at arrakis.es> -----

From: Phil Franks <freax at arrakis.es>
Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 18:31:58 +0200
To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Copyright Violation at Wikipedia

To:

 Jimmy Wales, President
 Wikimedia Foundation
 3911 Harrisburg St. NE
 St. Petersburg, FL 33703

Dear Sir,

I'm writing to you regarding the unauthorized use
of one of my copyright images.

Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Zappa.jpg

My original image is embedded with the Digimarc?
digital watermark, see http://digimarc.com

I declare and state, in good faith, that as
copyright owner, I have not authorized this use
of my copyright image.

I state under penalty of perjury that I am the
sole legal owner of the image and all rights
thereto, and therefore request, in compliance
with the DMCA, now that you have been made aware
of the infringement, that you take all necessary
steps without delay to ensure that this use
ceases, and that your subscriber desist from any
future infringement of my copyright.

Faithfully,

Phil Franks
--
This email and any files transmitted with it are
confidential and intended solely for the use of
the individual or entity to whom they are
addressed. This communication may contain
material protected by attorney-client privilege.
If you are not the intended recipient or the
person responsible for delivering the email to
the intended recipient, be advised that you have
received this email in error and that any use,
dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying
of this email is strictly prohibited.

Phil Franks <mailto:freax at arrakis.es>

URL:http://www.ibiblio.org/mal/MO/philm/

--
Phil Franks
Bungalow #100,
Pasaje Berlin 4,
Haygon 2,
03009,
Alicante,
Spain.

Phone: (+34) 965 181187
Mobile: (+34) 676 214842

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> Yes, but until today, every time I've looked at the list of subscribers,
> Jimbo's email was marked as having list delivery disabled. So as far as
> I know, he hasn't been reading the messages on this list for most or all
> of its existence.

That's correct, but I didn't even know this until yesterday.  I
remember when, once upon a time, my mail was bouncing for a day, and
all the mailing lists automatically marked me as delivery disabled.  I
re-enabled the major lists, but overlooked this one, which had at that
time almost no traffic I think.

Then, I thought that discussion here had fizzled.  I had no idea.

> That's not necessarily a criticism of Jimbo, who has many things to
> attend to, and can't be everywhere at once.

But absolutely nothing (except my family!) takes precedence with me
over Wikimedia Foundation policy.  It's my full-time job, and even
within Wikipedia, anything else I do is tangential.

> But when we collectively, consciously or unconsciously, only discuss
> policy issues "in his presence", our behavior gives the impression
> of Jimbo as a MeatBall:GodKing. A number of people have criticized
> the way these mailing lists operate, and some object to
> participating as a result.

It is my opinion that the people who refuse to participate in the
mailing lists for this kind of alleged reason are being silly and
counter-productive.  The objection is nonsense.

The mailing lists are unmoderated, and even people who are banned or
who don't edit Wikipedia are heartily invited to join the discussions.
The only people who have been kicked off of the mailing lists were
kicked off basically for spamming the list with dozens of SHOUTING
POSTS THAT SAID NOTHING.

> I think the mailing lists are useful, but we need to be aware of
> appearances and not reinforce the image of a cabal.

I do agree with this, but what should we do?  The mailing lists are
wide open to the public, public archives, easy subscription,
unmoderated.  If my participation causes people to say that the lists
are like a "King's Court", what do you recommend that I do about it?

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> > our behavior gives the impression of Jimbo as a
> > MeatBall:GodKing.
>
> .. which he effectively is. He has, however, gradually relinquished power
> to open decision making processes.

And everyone should be aware of a few things in that sort of matter...

1.  I do not like being GodKing, or being viewed as GodKing.  The
extent to which I ever was, was simply a fact that happened, due to
the fact of my founding the Nupedia/Wikipedia community and funding it
and the nature of software and system administration and so on.  It
takes time for community institutions to arise, and in the early days
there was no alternative but for me to be a sort of final arbiter.

2.  It is my intention to continue relinquishing power over time, and
of course the pace may not always be to everyone's liking, but I think
it's important that we consciously manage the process rather than me
just walking away from my responsibilities in this area and leaving
anarchy instead.

3.  On a personal level, it's important to realize how big a part of
my life this is.  It's my full-time job.  If you add up my assets
(house, cars, etc.) and substract my liabilities (mortgage, other
debts) and then compare my net worth to the amount that I've spent on
Wikipedia, you would see that it's no exaggeration to say that I've
sunk my life savings many times over into this project.

This is not self-sacrifice, something that I don't believe in.  But it
is a commitment, a big one, and as a result, if I'm ever slow in
relinquishing anything, it is because, well, this is *everything* to
me.

My goals for the Wikimedia Foundation are similar to, say, the
International Red Cross.  This means that in time, I will be a
historical footnote.  At the centennial celebrations in January 2101,
my portrait will hang on the fall of the foundation offices in Geneva,
New York, and Tokyo.  (Randomly chosen cities!) :-)

We are still a very young project, a very young organization.
Everything seems to move faster in Internet time, but my plans extend
across the next 50 or 500 years, not just the next 6 months.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2u server delivered!

body:
Good news, techsters!

The 2U server has been delivered, yesterday afternoon, 1 day earlier
than my most recent estimate.  (Specifications at the bottom of this
post, after all the blah-blah-blah.)

This means that I can run memtest86 (opteron version) overnight
tonight, and hand it over to the developers tomorrow.

Here is my schedule for today -

1.  At 9AM I have an interview with Voice of America.  That should take
only 10-15 minutes.

2.  After that I will be going to my office downtown to pick up
various this and that (raid card for 1U server, Fedora Core 1 and 2
ISOs etc.) and heading to the colocation facility.

3.  When I get to the colocation facility, I will do whatever I need
to do to get 3 of the 4 1U servers online immediately -- the Wikipedia
seems half dead to me this morning, I have a feeling the Yahoo feed
has launched and we're getting slaughtered.  Hopefully those machines
can be pressed into service almost immediately to help relieve things.

4.  For the "new zwinger", I will need to do whatever I need to do to
get the 2x250gb RAID array with fedora core installed.  I think this
is going to be easy, as I already have 2 hard drives in a mirror with
Fedora core all ready -- but I made these in an old machine of mine,
and nothing ever works as planned with computers.  :-) But once I get
that going, I'll hand that one over as well.

5.  The people at Silicon Mechanics gave me a full explanation of
this, and after we discussed it, they went ahead and shipped the new
server with *32 bit* Fedora Core 1.  That's because *64* bit Fedora
Core 1 would not install.  But Fedora Core 2 (64 bit) *would* install,
and they would have been happy to do it for me, but because they have
a slow isdn line, and didn't have the ISOs yet, it was going to take
them longer than it would take me, so I had them just ship it.

So this means that I will be installing Fedora Core 2 64bit.

Additionally, they set up the RAID 10 like this:
219GB HW RAID 10 (split over 2 Channels)

But James Day has convinced me that this isn't exactly what we want.
I'm going to review our discussions of that, as well as discussions on
the list, and then I'll also show up in IRC to make a final
confirmation of what we want to do.

-------

Here are the specs...

Dual AMD Opteron 248 - 2.2Ghz - 1MB L2 Cache
Memory: 8GB (8x1GB) PC2700 Registered ECC
HDD (6): Seagate Cheetah 15K.3 73GB U320 15KRPM SCA SCSI
SCSI Controller: LSI MegaRaid SCSI 320-2 - 2 Channel U320 RAID 64MB Cache w/BBU
CD-ROM
Floppy
460W hotswap redundant power supplies (to be place on two different
circuits!)

--Jimbo


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
The dispute resolution process is only nonsense if you don't use it
effectively. The way to use it effectively is to read it and follow the
steps. Trying to resolve disputes outside the dispute resolution process can
potentially put you right into it, as a defendent.

Wik was protected or let us say he was supported by a few friends. That
support is wasted as he continues to struggle in one way or another to have
it "his way". At this point he has very little support for continued
aggressive cowboying, nor will you.

Fred

From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 20:05:50 -0700 (PDT)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

What good would that do?  He's obviously protected, and besides, the
arbitration process is nonsense.

RickK

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
Several people have noticed and he has had his ban extended (not by the
arbitrators but by a sysop who banned him anew). His case is still in
arbitration. You are welcome to this information to the evidence page and to
request relief on [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wik2]].

Fred

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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_______________________________________________
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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside GFDL
	source?

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> RMS threatened to start GNUpedia if Nupedia didn't change to the GNU
> FDL (and Wikipedia inherited Nupedia's license decision).

I understand that this is a popular view of what happened back then,
but I wanted to just say that I think it's unfair to RMS to put it
that way at all.  That's just not really accurate history.

What happened was that some people approached RMS about the idea of
starting a "GNUpedia" and he said yes.  He had, prior to that, seen
Nupedia, which at the time didn't yet have a license, just a promise
to come up with an appropriate free license, and he mistakenly assumed
that it was just another proprietary project trading on the popularity
of the "open source" concept.

We did quickly (perhaps too quickly) adopt the GNU FDL at that time,
in order to demonstrate that a fork was not needed and that we were
indeed a genuine free project.

Additionally, RMS has given me favorable indications that he would
like to see some simplifications and changes to the license, and I'm
going to be meeting with at least Larry Lessig (who is now a board
member at FSF) in Berlin, and probably some other FSF people as well,
to give our input on work that is already underway regarding such
issues as license compatibility (with Creative Commons licenses) and
simplicity, etc.

I am very optimistic about beneficial changes soon, but of course
everyone involved (including me!) prefers to take these things slowly
and thoughtfully.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
KNOTT, T wrote:
> Rick what do you want done? Tell me something practical and I'll do it.

I second this. It is just not clear to me what RickK thinks anyone
could do differently.  It's quite east to accuse others of protecting
Wik, or to accuse the arbitration process of being nonsense, but much
harder to propose something practical and constructive.

As far as I can see, people have been protecting pages and banning ip
numbers and sock puppets as they arise.  What else can be done?

One thing that could be done, that hasn't been done to the degree that
I would like, is for Cantus/Quagga to just *drop it*.  Repeatedly
doing stuff back to Wik as punishment for what Wik has done is wrong
and juvenile.

Leave a clean paper trail, always remember that.  Each of us should
let our own behavior be totally pure, sot hat when trouble does arise,
it is easy to see who is in the wrong.

--Jimbo


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
I don't know.  Maybe some help with the vandalism instead of getting attacked for doing the right thing?  Maybe not have people unblocking him when he's destroying people's pages?

RickK

"KNOTT, T" <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:

Rick what do you want done? Tell me something practical and I?ll do it.

Theresa

---------------------------------
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Friends.  Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
I went through the process in my first attempt at arbitration with Wik, and he got a slap on the wrist and was allowed to continue with his vandalism and antithetical behavior, and *I* was slapped down for doing the right thing.  And gee, guess what, here you are doing the same thing.

RickK

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
The dispute resolution process is only nonsense if you don't use it effectively. The way to use it effectively is to read it and follow the steps. Trying to resolve disputes outside the dispute resolution process can potentially put you right into it, as a defendent.

Wik was protected or let us say he was supported by a few friends. That support is wasted as he continues to struggle in one way or another to have it "his way". At this point he has very little support for continued aggressive cowboying, nor will you.

Fred

From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 20:05:50 -0700 (PDT)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

What good would that do?  He's obviously protected, and besides, the arbitration process is nonsense.

RickK

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
Several people have noticed and he has had his ban extended (not by the arbitrators but by a sysop who banned him anew). His case is still in arbitration. You are welcome to this information to the evidence page and to request relief on [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wik2]].

Fred

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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

---------------------------------
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
Maybe if people stopped unblocking the anons, that would be a start.

Quagga denies that he is Cantus, but has admitted that he is Dagestan.  I have requested that he stop antagonizing, but as I've said on your Talk page, it's completely understandable, since Wik began deleting and moving Quagga's pages for no reason.

I see no reason to stay clean any more when people are allowing this guy to do whatever he feels like doing.

RickK

Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
KNOTT, T wrote:
> Rick what do you want done? Tell me something practical and I'll do it.

I second this. It is just not clear to me what RickK thinks anyone
could do differently. It's quite east to accuse others of protecting
Wik, or to accuse the arbitration process of being nonsense, but much
harder to propose something practical and constructive.

As far as I can see, people have been protecting pages and banning ip
numbers and sock puppets as they arise. What else can be done?

One thing that could be done, that hasn't been done to the degree that
I would like, is for Cantus/Quagga to just *drop it*. Repeatedly
doing stuff back to Wik as punishment for what Wik has done is wrong
and juvenile.

Leave a clean paper trail, always remember that. Each of us should
let our own behavior be totally pure, sot hat when trouble does arise,
it is easy to see who is in the wrong.

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

---------------------------------
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Friends.  Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger
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from_name: Nikola Smolenski

body:
On Wednesday 26 May 2004 20:12, Stan Shebs wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> >The GNU FDL is a complicated mess. The sooner we can be free of it, the
> > better. IMO.
>
> It's basically impossible to change the license at this point; since
> all writers still own the copyrights to their material, every single
> one of them would have to be contacted and agree to the change of
> license.

For any given point of time, once there will be more material written after
that point then before it. If everyone agrees that, in principle, it would be
good if Wikipedia would be dual-licenced, change the licence now and
eventually most of Wikipedia will be dual-licenced. If a lot of contributors
agree to accept new licence for their former work, it would be even better,
but even if they don't it doesn't matter.


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [[Anti-French sentiment in the United States]]

body:
Michael Snow wrote

>. I guess it just goes to show the poverty of thought that
> accompanies prejudice.

Why being a satirist is never completely out of style.  An encyclopedia of
human knowledge talks itself into taking human ignorance as a concern.

Charles


from_name: KNOTT, T

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
Rick what do you want done? Tell me something practical and I'll do it.

Theresa

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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Role of Wikipedia is to promote understanding

body:
--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>...
> With great power comes great responsibility. We must continue our
> stewardship wisely. Let us work together in a spirit of harmony to
> describe our world and its people and ideas as clearly and truthfully as
> we can. This is the great task Wikipedia was born to fulfill.

Very wise words. Thanks for the message Ed!

--mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
Ignorance is one of the chief enemies of mankind, and encyclopedias like
Wikipedia are in a position to dispel this ignorance by providing
accurate and useful knowledge.

Often we are much quicker than other encyclopedias, but we are not bound
by the 24-hour news cycle. We need not "rush into print" to grab
headlines to promote newsstand sales or generate broadcast ratings. We
have gradually entered the top 1,000 of websites by simply being the
best at what we do.

Periodicals like the Washington Post or Business Week generally force
their workers to produce articles under a deadline. There's always a
point where they say, "That's good enough for this edition." But if
there are mistakes or significant omissions these are rarely corrected.
Why bother? Bolstering an old article with an additional fact or two,
putting a quotation into context, etc., doesn't generate additional
advertising revenue.

Ironically, it is the person or institution who is most willing to
acknowledge its ignorance which inspires the most trust. "We were wrong,
and have now corrected it." For those people who really want to know
what is going on, or what occurred, the most trustworthy source is that
which is most willing to correct itself. This is why science as an
institution inspires so much confidence. As the years and decades have
gone by -- especially in the last 100 or so years -- the body of
accurate, useful scientific knowledge has steadily increased. Old
hypotheses are refined or even discarded as new evidence is found.

Likewise, to the astonishment of many, the encyclopedia with the most
"corrections" is starting to be known as the most reliable. At least on
SOME subjects. It's so easy to correct a Wikipedia article. To submit a
correction, you simply click the SUBMIT button! No approving body is
needed -- except for a smattering of "protected" articles on the most
highly controversial subjects.

This works because everybody else who has contributed to that article
(or otherwise cares about it) can instantly see and review your changes.

Wikipedia breaks down the barriers that have kept collaborators apart.
Anyone, regardless of their "real world" credentials can edit any
article. What amazing freedom! No wonder BusinessWeek can't even GRASP
the concept. It's like Plato's cave: they can't even CONCEIVE of a world
outside of the shadows cast by the flames.

Wikipedia is not even 4 years old, yet Jimbo and Larry's idea has
captured the imagination of an entire world of contributors. I predict
that in coming years, academics will join in greater numbers.
Heretofore, the idea of open collaboration has not attracted enormous
numbers of highly regarded published authors or department chairmen. I
think this is largely because of two reasons: (1) lack of publicity for
the project, and (2) the incredible newness of the concept of using Wiki
software for collaboration.

This will gradually change, as public awareness increases. Imagine
Wikipedia as a top 100 website (it's already flirting with the top-500
boundary, you know). Forget the slashdot effect; think about Wikipedia
as a rival to Google!

With great power comes great responsibility. We must continue our
stewardship wisely. Let us work together in a spirit of harmony to
describe our world and its people and ideas as clearly and truthfully as
we can. This is the great task Wikipedia was born to fulfill.

Ed Poor
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from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and Quaker meetings

body:
Subject line says all: is there an organizational similarity between Wikipedia and Quaker meetings?

Anyone is theoretically authorized to speak/contribute; some (elders/sysops) are slightly more equal than others; subtle social mechanisms make the overall process more orderly than one might expect; decision-making is done by consensus; deliberately disruptive behavior occasionally occurs and is dealt with but the process is not easy...


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Optionalizing Real Names

body:
>>>>> "A" == Angela  <sloog77 at yahoo.co.uk> writes:

    A> Until this is made reversible in the same way normal edits are,
    A> I think this feature has a high chance of being misused,
    A> particularly on the larger wikis where retaliatory vandalism
    A> against sysops is common.

My first response is: perhaps there's retaliatory vandalism because
sysops let themselves be trolled so easily. I find it hard to believe
that grown men and women could let themselves be baited by this brand
of kindergarten tactic.

My second response is: there are a couple of things we can do about
it. Obviously, real names aren't unique, but user names _are_. We can
handle this on the RDF side by making sure that not just names but
also user names are listed in the RDF. This is a little hairy in the
simple Dublin Core metadata schema we have, but the Qualified Dublin
Core schema does allow for multiple data points on a single
contributor.

In contributor credit blocks, we can link to the user page, like this:

   Evan Prodromou

My last response is: since there are objections, I'll try to do the
legwork to disable real names globally in 1.3. It does sadden me that
there's such a troll-driven culture of fear on Wikimedia projects that
something as simple as adding a real name can be cause for alarm.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://wikitravel.org/en/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Tân PekTiong

subject: [Wikitech-l] New Wikipedia request: Minnan

body:
*We would like to request a new Wikipedia for the Minnan language.
The genetic classification looks like
Min-nan \in Min \in Chinese \in Sino-Tibetan.

*For information about Minnan, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-nan

*For information about Minnan spoken in Taiwan (i.e. Taiwanese), see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_(linguistics)

*Following is the relevant language code information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_(linguistics)
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=CFR
ISO 639-1: zh
RFC 3066: zh-min-nan
ISO 639-2(B): chi
ISO 639-2(T): zho
SIL language code: CFR

*We would like to suggest to use
http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org
as the URL of of the Minnan wikipedia

*We would like to suggest to use en(utf8) for user interface when
creating the Minnan wikipedia. We will then do the L10N gradually.

best
Pektiong


from_name: Ricky Beam

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2u server delivered!

body:
On Thu, 27 May 2004, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>3.  When I get to the colocation facility, I will do whatever I need
>to do to get 3 of the 4 1U servers online immediately -- the Wikipedia

I'll assume somewhere in there you'll make some attempts to get SATA DMA
enabled as per our earlier discussions off list?  I tried both those
kernels on my Dell Diminsion 8300 which has a similar ICH5 although
the Dell BIOS doesn't support putting the controller in "legacy" mode.
Both see the PATA and SATA drives just fine w/ DMA.  The console
log is in the same place as the kernels.

I would not recommend using either of those kernels for anything but
tests as I didn't have enough information to know exactly what needs
to be enabled (eg. I might not have built the right network driver
module...)

>they have a slow isdn line

I feel their pain (and moved to a cable modem.)

>Here are the specs...
...

Do you know what MB is in the system?  Is the memory configuration NUMA --
each CPU has it's own memory pool? (This is a important thing to know
and should be noted for building an optimized kernel.  There is a slight
performance penalty for "off cpu" memory access.)

--Ricky


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New Wikipedia request: Aromanian (and Klingon)

body:
"Tim Starling" <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> schrieb:
> Gutza wrote:
> > Aromanian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromanian) is a Romanian
> > language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_language) dialect.
> >
> > A new Wikipedia is requested for this language on the Romanian Wikipedia
> > (http://ro.wikipedia.org) by Aromanians who don't know where else to
> > turn. Romanian wikipedians have "offered" temporary demo space for the
> > Aromanian Wikipedia main page at
> > http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Prota_padzin%C3%A2
> >
> > As far as rigid official ethnography language codes are concerned, all I
> > was able to find regarding Aromanian was ISO 639-2, along with a "SIL"
> > language code, as described in
> > http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=RUP
>
> After a discussion between Brion and I over standard compliance (he's
> such a stickler) and appropriate names, we eventually decided on:
>
> http://roa-rup.wikipedia.org

Will it also be available in interwikis using [[roa-rup:subject]]?

Andre Engels


from_name: Fennec Foxen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
On Thu, 27 May 2004 15:21:14 +0100, KNOTT, T <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:
> One more (sorry I should have checked this earlier but was getting timeouts)
> >Maybe if people stopped unblocking the anons, that would be a start.
> I've just checked to block log. No one is unblocking the anons. Well Guanaco unblocked several range blocks, one because it was done incorrectly, the other because you put (idiot) as the reason. If this IP was Wik you should say so. Incidentally for the user who clearly was wik he reblocked with a clearer reason in the summary box.
I mentioned this on your talk page as well. TimStarling seemed unsure
why the /48 range block didn't actually block the entire Internet. :)
And when you're banning blocks of 65,536 users at a time, it is
important for an average random person off the street to be able to
know why the range is blocked, rather than just seeing "idiot" or
"blocking the idiot again".

Be clear and *verbose* with block reasons.


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
--- Dan Drake <dd at dandrake.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 May 2004 13:59:43 UTC, "KNOTT, T"
> <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:
>
> > He's been banned for a week, let's enforce that ban.
>
> Does this mean that at the end of the week, he comes back unbanned?  I
> find that completely incredible, if true(*).  How many times must we
> appeal to the Supreme Court to get a user banned permanently when he
> immediately violates a ban that the AC spent vast amounts of deliberation
> on?  Just how meaningless *is* and arbitration decision?  We seem to be
> exploring the limits.

Absent a 142.177/EoT/24-type range block directed at the ISP and city a person
edits from, it is not possible to prevent somebody from editing (even then they
could edit from another computer or switch their ISP). So all we can do is
block reincarnations as they come up. The AC ruling also has provisions for
what to do in case of violations. However, the AC is not a police force - it is
up the the Admins to enforce the ruling and for the users to inform the Admins.

-- mav

__________________________________
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http://messenger.yahoo.com/


subject: [Wikitech-l] 2u server delivered!

body:
On Fri, 28 May 2004, Jerome Jamnicky wrote:
>> Do you know what MB is in the system?  Is the memory configuration NUMA --
>
>Jimbo is in the colo now, and by visual inspection, the mobo is:
>on the 4 new P4s: Superdot P4SCE, Rev. 2.1
>on the older P4s: Superdot P4SCE, same as above, except Rev. 2.01

SuperMicro... super with a filled in "O".  That's a nice little board.
Heh, "Optional CPU overclocking"

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/P4/E7210/P4SCE.cfm

These have a hardware watchdog that could be of great value (esp. to
whomever has to drive over to the colo to reset a hung box.)

On the BIOS Advanced Settings->BIOS Features screen, enable APIC mode if
available.  It'll improve IRQ routing.  An SMP kernel will be needed to
use this capability.

On the BIOS Advanced Settings->Advanced Chipset Control, "On-Chip Serial
ATA" might need to be set to "Enhanced Mode".  Auto might also work.  "SATA
Mode" should be "IDE" (RAID is intel's software raid.  linux doesn't support
it at the moment.)  Set the S-ATA port modes to SATA Master.  In theory,
that should get the SATA drives off by themselves at full SATA-150 speeds.

--Ricky


subject: [Wikitech-l] 2u server delivered!

body:
On Fri, 28 May 2004, Jerome Jamnicky wrote:
>> Do you know what MB is in the system?  Is the memory configuration NUMA --
...

(forgot to add)
The numa question is w.r.t. the Opteron systems.  The P4 systems will not
be NUMA -- they don't need to be.

--Ricky


from_name: Pochung Chen

body:
*We would like to request a new Wikipedia for the Minnan language.
The genetic classification looks like
Min-nan \in Min \in Chinese \in Sino-Tibetan.

*For information about Minnan, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-nan

*For information about Minnan spoken in Taiwan (i.e. Taiwanese), see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_(linguistics)

*Following is the relevant language code information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_(linguistics)
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=CFR
ISO 639-1: zh
RFC 3066: zh-min-nan
ISO 639-2(B): chi
ISO 639-2(T): zho
SIL language code: CFR

*We would like to suggest to use
http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org
as the URL of of the Minnan wikipedia

*We would like to suggest to use en(utf8) for user interface when creating
the Minnan wikipedia. We will then do the L10N gradually.

best
Pektiong


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
>One thing that could be done, that hasn't been done to the degree that
>I would like, is for Cantus/Quagga to just *drop it*.  Repeatedly
>doing stuff back to Wik as punishment for what Wik has done is wrong
>and juvenile.

I completely agree. It doesn't even punish Wik. It punishes the rest of
us who are trying to sort things out. I also think that if we present a
united front (and I'm talking to Rick here), block every IP Wik uses to
try and violate the ban AND delete any page that quaggo makes in order
to bait Wik, then Wik will get bored and go away.

Theresa


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
>I don't know.? Maybe some help with the vandalism instead of getting attacked for doing the right thing?

Rick If I came across as if I were attacking you I apologise. It was not my intention. Let's not fight among ourselves eh?

> Maybe not have people unblocking him when he's destroying people's pages?

Who unblocked him? I've been blocking every proxy he uses. So have several others.

Anything he can do can be sorted out. Let's not get emotional about it. He's been banned for a week, let's enforce that ban. He's said he'll leave for good. Great! He's far more trouble than he is worth IMO. Let's just let him go. I can't help but feel quagga is enjoying the fight and doesn't want Wik to go. I feel that Quagga is not in any way acting in the best interest of wikipedia.

Theresa


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
?
>I see no reason to stay clean any more when people are allowing this guy to do whatever he feels like doing.

Rick you are too emotionally involved in this matter. That's completely understandable, but it is clouding your good judgement. Loads of people are trying to stop him from doing whatever he feels like. If you don't stay clean you make it harder to punish Wik. Why would you want that?

Theresa
?


from_name: Gerrit

subject:
[Foundation-l] Legal issue: info un-freely available digitally,
	freely available non-digitally

body:
Hello,

I am considering to add stub articles about municipalities in Switserland to
Wikipedia (EN, NL, DE). The population per municipality is publicly
available, as well as the canton it's located. I'm also able to include
URI's to the homepage. Maps are available but may, unfortunately, not
be reproduced.

However, the map machine[1] offers more than maps. When one searches
for, for example, Zernez, the postal code is given along with the map.
Further, the URI of the referenced image contains geographical
coordinates.

The copyright [2] clearly states that information may not be
redistributed, etc., etc. However, the postal code is freely available
from other sources, though not in digital form. The geographical
coordinates only state where the town is located: this information can
also be retrieved without the map machine. Does the copyright statement
apply to this information?

Is it legal to retrieve postal codes and geographical coordinates from
this map machine? I'd use the geographical coordinates to describe where
the town is located (north, south, east, west, maybe "near Zurich"), all
automated.

regards,
Gerrit Holl.

[1] http://www.swissgeo.ch
[2] http://www.swissgeo.ch/haut_int.php3?id_rubrique=6012&id_point_interet=2287213&id_menu=21&langue2=D

--
Weather in Twenthe, Netherlands 27/05 13:25:
	13.0?C Few clouds overcast wind 2.2 m/s WNW (57 m above NAP)
--
Ervaringen met het Syndroom van Asperger:
	http://topjaklont.student.utwente.nl
Socialistische Partij:
	http://www.sp.nl/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
One more (sorry I should have checked this earlier but was getting timeouts)

>Maybe if people stopped unblocking the anons, that would be a start.

I've just checked to block log. No one is unblocking the anons. Well Guanaco unblocked several range blocks, one because it was done incorrectly, the other because you put (idiot) as the reason. If this IP was Wik you should say so. Incidentally for the user who clearly was wik he reblocked with a clearer reason in the summary box.
?
Like a said in my other post. We are all trying to block Wik. Let's bee cool, calm, and professional as we do it.

Theresa


body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> He is banned for 1 week after his last attempt to log on. So long as he
> keeps tying to log in his week has not started. In my opinion...

IMO as well. Admins should continue to block Wik each time he tries to subvert
the ban. They should also document their efforts so that the AC can look at the
evidence to see if Wik's activity is a breach of the AC ruling. When/if Wik
comes back after a week of no edits, then he may get banned for a month because
of his attempts to subvert the week ban. Per the enforcement ruling here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Wik2/Decided#Enforcement

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
His editing was restricted and has been even more restricted by Wik2 and now
he has been banned for 7 days (I voted for 3 months). You might feel
insulted but absolutely no action was taken against you.

Fred

From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 06:53:38 -0700 (PDT)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

I went through the process in my first attempt at arbitration with Wik, and
he got a slap on the wrist and was allowed to continue with his vandalism
and antithetical behavior, and *I* was slapped down for doing the right
thing.  And gee, guess what, here you are doing the same thing.

RickK

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body:
He is banned for 1 week after his last attempt to log on. So long as he
keeps tying to log in his week has not started. In my opinion...

Fred

> From: "Dan Drake" <dd at dandrake.com>
> Reply-To: dd at dandrake.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 17:56:41 +0000 (UTC)
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Wik's vandalism and threats
>
> On Thu, 27 May 2004 13:59:43 UTC, "KNOTT, T"
> <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:
>
>> He's been banned for a week, let's enforce that ban.
>
> Does this mean that at the end of the week, he comes back unbanned?  I
> find that completely incredible, if true(*).  How many times must we
> appeal to the Supreme Court to get a user banned permanently when he
> immediately violates a ban that the AC spent vast amounts of deliberation
> on?  Just how meaningless *is* and arbitration decision?  We seem to be
> exploring the limits.
>
>
> (*) Say it ain't so.
>
>
> --
> Dan Drake
> dd at dandrake.com
> http://www.dandrake.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] bans and vandalism (was Wik)

body:
The ban needs to be extended to Mr. Natural Health or anyone else who
participates in this kind of evasion.

Fred

> From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 22:54:10 +0000
> To: martin at myreddice.co.uk, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] bans and vandalism (was Wik)
>
> On 05/27/04 19:08, Martin Harper wrote:
>
>> C) Evading a ban is itself a bannable offence - doing so automatically
>> triples the ban
>> length (after which, (B) applies).
>
>
> I would welcome your thoughts on this offer:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Iridology&diff=3628508&oldid=3
> 628347
>
> (User:Irismeister is banned from editing [[Iridology]];
> User:Mr-Natural-Health offers to act as a proxy for his edits.
> Is this different from using an anonymous web proxy?)
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
>...
>> With great power comes great responsibility.

>Very wise words. Thanks for the message Ed!

>--mav

it's spiderman isn't it?

Theresa


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
Why would that matter?  Unless people are trying to find any reason they possibly can to give him a break.

RickK

"KNOTT, T" <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:

>I see no reason to stay clean any more when people are allowing this guy to do whatever he feels like doing.

Rick you are too emotionally involved in this matter. That's completely understandable, but it is clouding your good judgement. Loads of people are trying to stop him from doing whatever he feels like. If you don't stay clean you make it harder to punish Wik. Why would you want that?

Theresa

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

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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik's vandalism and threats

body:
KNOTT, T (tknott at qcl.org.uk) [040527 17:29]:

>    Rick what do you want done? Tell me something practical and I'll do it.

Build bridges between him and MNH and irismeister?

/me runs away v fast

- d.


from_name: Dan Drake

body:
On Thu, 27 May 2004 13:59:43 UTC, "KNOTT, T"
<tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:

> He's been banned for a week, let's enforce that ban.

Does this mean that at the end of the week, he comes back unbanned?  I
find that completely incredible, if true(*).  How many times must we
appeal to the Supreme Court to get a user banned permanently when he
immediately violates a ban that the AC spent vast amounts of deliberation
on?  Just how meaningless *is* and arbitration decision?  We seem to be
exploring the limits.

(*) Say it ain't so.

--
Dan Drake
dd at dandrake.com
http://www.dandrake.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] bans and vandalism (was Wik)

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> If the rest of the arbitration committee agrees, it could be added to the
> Irismeister decree.
>
> Fred

I agree.

-- mav

> > From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 23:55:26 +0000
> > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] bans and vandalism (was Wik)
> >
> > On 05/27/04 22:42, Fred Bauder wrote:
> >> From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
> >>> On 05/27/04 19:08, Martin Harper wrote:
> >
> >>>> C) Evading a ban is itself a bannable offence - doing so automatically
> >>>> triples the ban
> >>>> length (after which, (B) applies).
> >
> >>> I would welcome your thoughts on this offer:
> >>>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Iridology&diff=3628508&oldid
> >>> =3
> >>> 628347
> >>> (User:Irismeister is banned from editing [[Iridology]];
> >>> User:Mr-Natural-Health offers to act as a proxy for his edits.
> >>> Is this different from using an anonymous web proxy?)
> >
> >> The ban needs to be extended to Mr. Natural Health or anyone else who
> >> participates in this kind of evasion.
> >
> >
> > I'd have thought so too. So how do we get there from here?
> >
> >
> > - d.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
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Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] bans and vandalism (was Wik)

body:
If the rest of the arbitration committee agrees, it could be added to the
Irismeister decree.

Fred

> From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 23:55:26 +0000
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] bans and vandalism (was Wik)
>
> On 05/27/04 22:42, Fred Bauder wrote:
>> From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>>> On 05/27/04 19:08, Martin Harper wrote:
>
>>>> C) Evading a ban is itself a bannable offence - doing so automatically
>>>> triples the ban
>>>> length (after which, (B) applies).
>
>>> I would welcome your thoughts on this offer:
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Iridology&diff=3628508&oldid
>>> =3
>>> 628347
>>> (User:Irismeister is banned from editing [[Iridology]];
>>> User:Mr-Natural-Health offers to act as a proxy for his edits.
>>> Is this different from using an anonymous web proxy?)
>
>> The ban needs to be extended to Mr. Natural Health or anyone else who
>> participates in this kind of evasion.
>
>
> I'd have thought so too. So how do we get there from here?
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New Wikipedia request: Minnan

body:
T?n PekTiong wrote:
> *We would like to request a new Wikipedia for the Minnan language.
> The genetic classification looks like
> Min-nan \in Min \in Chinese \in Sino-Tibetan.
>

Following the ISO-SIL scheme:

http://zh-cfr.wikipedia.org/

-- Tim Starling


list: textbook-l

from_name: kofi acquah

subject: [Textbook-l] confirmation to subscribe

body:
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from_name: sylvain letuffe

subject: [Wikitech-l] google indexing of urls

body:
I am new to wikipedia and I have notice that all article can be joined by
an url like :
http://*.wikipedia.org/wiki/words_in_the_subject_of_the_page

I suppose this choice
better than http://*.wikipedia.org/wiki/article.php?id=12343234234
was to have easier url and better indexed urls
However I am surprised, the choice of "_" ( underscore ) in the url is not
as good as "-" (dash) or even "." ( dot ) in the url

could the developer rewrite the url function ?
this would lead to much more traffic comming from google

see that :
http://www.markcarey.com/googleguy-says/archives/ \
underscores-are-not-word-seperators-in-google.html

I have tested it and that's true !


from_name: james schinner

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking

body:
I recently did some vandalism on Wikipedia, and made some racially insensitive remarks. I must note that not only was I in a very childish mood, of which I will not attempt to excuse myself, but was also mildly intoxicated. I assure you it will not happen again.

I must also note that on my note of blocking it says I was warned. No such thing ever happened, and I would surely like to see an explanation for it.

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from_name: Martin Harper

subject: [WikiEN-l] bans and vandalism (was Wik)

body:
> Does this mean that at the end of the week, he comes back unbanned?

Note that, in the unlikely event that Wik returns after his ban expires, the other
components of the arbitration ruling will still apply. However, there is a broader point.
There are roughly three schools of thought:

A) A ban of one month lasts one month, regardless of attempts at evasion.
B) A ban of one month requires one month of uninterrupted absence from Wikipedia -
any attempt to evade that ban automatically resets the ban timer. Banned users with
poor self-control may end up banning themselves indefinately.
C) Evading a ban is itself a bannable offence - doing so automatically triples the ban
length (after which, (B) applies).

(B) has precedent in that it's how we dealt with Cantus when he evaded a quickpoll ban.
I'm unaware of any other precedents on the matter, so I intend to write this into
[[wikipedia:banning policy]], and copy this post to the Talk page. Those who favour a
different approach are welcome there.

Another issue that has come up in this case is dealing with known users who go on a
"vandalism spree", which I believe may apply to at least two people in this case. In the
past this has been a quickpoll matter leading to a one day ban, but that process was
suspended for 30 days, owing largely to disputes over its application to revert wars, but
a sufficiently bold member of the cabal may wish to ressurect it for dealing with
vandalism sprees. There may also be an option for sysops to make unilateral
judgements to temp-ban following vandalism sprees, even for users who have made a
few non-vandalising edits, but I'm not clear on this, so perhaps someone more
experienced in vandalism-defence could clue us in?

-Martin


from_name: Peter Jaros

body:
On May 27, 2004, at 6:55 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

...
> --
> This email and any files transmitted with it are
> confidential and intended solely for the use of
> the individual or entity to whom they are
> addressed. This communication may contain
> material protected by attorney-client privilege.
> If you are not the intended recipient or the
> person responsible for delivering the email to
> the intended recipient, be advised that you have
> received this email in error and that any use,
> dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying
> of this email is strictly prohibited.

Er... *smile*

Peter

                            -- ---<>--- --
                  A house without walls cannot fall.
     Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org
                            -- ---<>--- --


from_name: Anthere

body:
Evan Prodromou a ?crit:

> My last response is: since there are objections, I'll try to do the
> legwork to disable real names globally in 1.3. It does sadden me that
> there's such a troll-driven culture of fear on Wikimedia projects that
> something as simple as adding a real name can be cause for alarm.

Fear of trolls is not the reason why I am unfavorable to this.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and Quaker meetings

body:
Sorry, what is particular to a quaker meeting ?

dpbsmith at verizon.net a ?crit:
> Subject line says all: is there an organizational similarity between Wikipedia and Quaker meetings?
>
> Anyone is theoretically authorized to speak/contribute; some (elders/sysops) are slightly more equal than others; subtle social mechanisms make the overall process more orderly than one might expect; decision-making is done by consensus; deliberately disruptive behavior occasionally occurs and is dealt with but the process is not easy...


body:
On May 27, 2004, at 8:59 AM, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> This will gradually change, as public awareness increases. Imagine
> Wikipedia as a top 100 website (it's already flirting with the top-500
> boundary, you know). Forget the slashdot effect; think about Wikipedia
> as a rival to Google!

Indeed, I have come to depend on the Wikipedia as a reader.  Looking
things up in the 'Pedia was become a reflex, as Googling has been
for me for a while.  I actually have an impulse to look things up
when I'm not at my computer.  I've started making lists of things
to look up later.  I find that I can soak up knowledge like a sponge
in wiki format.  It's kind of like in the Matrix, the way Trinity
learns to fly the helicopter, or Neo does his combat training.  If I
don't know something I need to know, I just type it in the box, hit
"Go", read a little and...I know kung fu.

One of these days I'll outfit my Newton with a WiFi card so I can
take the Wikipedia with me wherever I go.  And while I'm dreaming,
I'd like a pony...

Peter

                            -- ---<>--- --
                  A house without walls cannot fall.
     Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org
                            -- ---<>--- --


subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness

body:
Since we are talking about fairness in elections, I
need help.

I was notified my candidacy statement was unfair.

I, on the other hand, think that elections are unfair
to those who are not native english. It takes us a lot
of time to answer questions, and it is difficult to
write a short statement, while trying to make it sound
and clear to anyone. Thus, I would like that a real
english speaker edit my statement to make it appear
good, clear, respect editorial rules, style, spelling
and such. It also needs to be shorten (though I would
not say of how much exactly since I thought I was
below 500 caracters).

I would like to mention that we are trying to set a
Foundation to help a world wide project which will be
a real revolution, and I think fighting over a couple
of characters in a candidacy statement is not exactly
what I perceive as terribly interesting.

I would have preferred that candidates discuss with
each other on their background, on their opinions, on
their positions, on what they did not know, on what
they loved in the project. It would be more
constructive to do that, and it would have given more
opportunity for participants from all projects to get
to know the candidates better.

I also think comparisons of positions, and
consequently opportunity to have two candidates
working together as beneficial or destructive would
have been more easily perceived upon reading
discussions between candidates, than reading about
little fights upon the fairness of representativity.
Complaining over the fairness of 10 characters when
half of the candidates can not technically provide a
fully professional candidacy statement is ridiculous.

If the validity of my candidacy is impaired by the
length of my statement, and by adding a short
description of my contributions while it was written
nowhere it was forbidden, then I think I am not
interested in being a candidate anymore, and you may
strike my name Danny. I am not here to play
seek-and-hide game.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/


subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Anthere-

>> My last response is: since there are objections, I'll try to do the
>> legwork to disable real names globally in 1.3. It does sadden me that
>> there's such a troll-driven culture of fear on Wikimedia projects that
>> something as simple as adding a real name can be cause for alarm.

> Fear of trolls is not the reason why I am unfavorable to this.

I agree with Anthere on this one. The real names feature simply adds
unnecessary complexity. It's difficult enough to convey the difference
between usernames and nicknames without an additional layer.

What we should instead work towards is easy changing of usernames. This
requires a database redesign (planned anyway) and rethinking signatures
(which we may also want to do to implement things like comment replies).
Essentially, we need to use the user ID instead of the username whenever
possible, and resolve it dynamically.

For example, a talk page thread could look like this:

== Chess ==

!52 at 408@200105151455< Dr. Floyd?>

!44 at 409@408 at 200105151456< Yes?>

!52 at 410@409 at 200105151457< Would you like to play a game of chess?

I play very well.>

Here, every line of dialogue begins with a sequence which contains a user
ID (52, 44), a comment ID (408-410), an optional parent comment ID, and a
timestamp. This allows us to dynamically render it like this:

  Posted by: HAL 9000 on May 15, 2001, 14:55 UTC

  Dr. Floyd?
  [reply] [edit]

Editing full talk pages would only be done for refactoring and archiving,
where you don't need to see the user name anyway (the "Edit this page" on
talk pages should probably be moved to somewhere less prominent and
replaced with "Post a comment"). Section editing would be replaced on talk
pages with comment editing.

It would be possible to mess up the page by editing comment IDs etc., but
that's inevitable when you have thread-like features combined with full-
page editing.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] bans and vandalism (was Wik)

body:
On 05/27/04 19:08, Martin Harper wrote:

> C) Evading a ban is itself a bannable offence - doing so automatically triples the ban
> length (after which, (B) applies).

I would welcome your thoughts on this offer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Iridology&diff=3628508&oldid=3628347

(User:Irismeister is banned from editing [[Iridology]];
User:Mr-Natural-Health offers to act as a proxy for his edits.
Is this different from using an anonymous web proxy?)

- d.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I remember when, once upon a time, my mail was bouncing for a day, and
>all the mailing lists automatically marked me as delivery disabled.  I
>re-enabled the major lists, but overlooked this one, which had at that
>time almost no traffic I think.
>
>Then, I thought that discussion here had fizzled.
>
It had fizzled. It took a little bit of concerted effort to get
sustained conversations going.

>> But when we collectively, consciously or unconsciously, only discuss
>> policy issues "in his presence", our behavior gives the impression
>> of Jimbo as a MeatBall:GodKing. A number of people have criticized
>> the way these mailing lists operate, and some object to
>> participating as a result.
>...
>> I think the mailing lists are useful, but we need to be aware of
>> appearances and not reinforce the image of a cabal.
>
>I do agree with this, but what should we do?  The mailing lists are
>wide open to the public, public archives, easy subscription,
>unmoderated.  If my participation causes people to say that the lists
>are like a "King's Court", what do you recommend that I do about it?
>
>
I don't have a recommendation for what you should do, because I think
the problem is not with your participation, but with our collective
behavior, as I indicated. "Our" including myself and everybody _except_
you. It's not just how you behave that determines whether you're a
GodKing, it's how we behave toward you. (Though your disavowal of that
status is helpful, and it is reassuring to know you have plans on how to
transfer responsibilities to the community.)

The thing that prompted my comments was the differences I could observe
between this list, which you hadn't been reading, and the other lists
where you clearly are reading and participating. I'm sure people have
also observed how some threads take on a much greater importance simply
because you're participating in the thread. Some of that, I believe, is
that people fail to see the point in raising and discussing issues when
you're not obviously part of the conversation. We need to be more
willing to discuss (not necessarily decide) issues without your
"presence" to assist us. It's the difference between being a community
that deliberates over the issues, with a leader to assist in the
decision-making process, and being a bunch of courtiers who jockey with
each other in order to present their petitions to the king.

You don't wish to be a GodKing. I don't wish to be part of a cabal. But
wishing alone does not make it so - part of what determines these things
is the perspectives of outsiders. I agree with you that the mailing
lists are as accessible as we can make them, and that deciding not to
participate can be counterproductive. Part of what makes us "elitist" is
having people avoid joining us because we're supposedly elitist. But we
still have to keep their perspective in mind, and do our best not to
reinforce such views. The problem will not go away, we must learn to
live with it.

Anyway, this has become sort of a longish sermon, and unfortunately my
solutions have more of sentiment than specificity, so I'll cut it off here.

--Michael Snow
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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I remember when, once upon a time, my mail was bouncing for a day, and
>all the mailing lists automatically marked me as delivery disabled.  I
>re-enabled the major lists, but overlooked this one, which had at that
>time almost no traffic I think.
>
>Then, I thought that discussion here had fizzled.
>
It had fizzled. It took a little bit of concerted effort to get
sustained conversations going.

>> But when we collectively, consciously or unconsciously, only discuss
>> policy issues "in his presence", our behavior gives the impression
>> of Jimbo as a MeatBall:GodKing. A number of people have criticized
>> the way these mailing lists operate, and some object to
>> participating as a result.
>...
>> I think the mailing lists are useful, but we need to be aware of
>> appearances and not reinforce the image of a cabal.
>
>I do agree with this, but what should we do?  The mailing lists are
>wide open to the public, public archives, easy subscription,
>unmoderated.  If my participation causes people to say that the lists
>are like a "King's Court", what do you recommend that I do about it?
>
>
I don't have a recommendation for what you should do, because I think
the problem is not with your participation, but with our collective
behavior, as I indicated. "Our" including myself and everybody _except_
you. It's not just how you behave that determines whether you're a
GodKing, it's how we behave toward you. (Though your disavowal of that
status is helpful, and it is reassuring to know you have plans on how to
transfer responsibilities to the community.)

The thing that prompted my comments was the differences I could observe
between this list, which you hadn't been reading, and the other lists
where you clearly are reading and participating. I'm sure people have
also observed how some threads take on a much greater importance simply
because you're participating in the thread. Some of that, I believe, is
that people fail to see the point in raising and discussing issues when
you're not obviously part of the conversation. We need to be more
willing to discuss (not necessarily decide) issues without your
"presence" to assist us. It's the difference between being a community
that deliberates over the issues, with a leader to assist in the
decision-making process, and being a bunch of courtiers who jockey with
each other in order to present their petitions to the king.

You don't wish to be a GodKing. I don't wish to be part of a cabal. But
wishing alone does not make it so - part of what determines these things
is the perspectives of outsiders. I agree with you that the mailing
lists are as accessible as we can make them, and that deciding not to
participate can be counterproductive. Part of what makes us "elitist" is
having people avoid joining us because we're supposedly elitist. But we
still have to keep their perspective in mind, and do our best not to
reinforce such views. The problem will not go away, we must learn to
live with it.

Anyway, this has become sort of a longish sermon, and unfortunately my
solutions have more of sentiment than specificity, so I'll cut it off here.

--Michael Snow
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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I remember when, once upon a time, my mail was bouncing for a day, and
>all the mailing lists automatically marked me as delivery disabled.  I
>re-enabled the major lists, but overlooked this one, which had at that
>time almost no traffic I think.
>
>Then, I thought that discussion here had fizzled.
>
It had fizzled. It took a little bit of concerted effort to get
sustained conversations going.

>> But when we collectively, consciously or unconsciously, only discuss
>> policy issues "in his presence", our behavior gives the impression
>> of Jimbo as a MeatBall:GodKing. A number of people have criticized
>> the way these mailing lists operate, and some object to
>> participating as a result.
>...
>> I think the mailing lists are useful, but we need to be aware of
>> appearances and not reinforce the image of a cabal.
>
>I do agree with this, but what should we do?  The mailing lists are
>wide open to the public, public archives, easy subscription,
>unmoderated.  If my participation causes people to say that the lists
>are like a "King's Court", what do you recommend that I do about it?
>
>
I don't have a recommendation for what you should do, because I think
the problem is not with your participation, but with our collective
behavior, as I indicated. "Our" including myself and everybody _except_
you. It's not just how you behave that determines whether you're a
GodKing, it's how we behave toward you. (Though your disavowal of that
status is helpful, and it is reassuring to know you have plans on how to
transfer responsibilities to the community.)

The thing that prompted my comments was the differences I could observe
between this list, which you hadn't been reading, and the other lists
where you clearly are reading and participating. I'm sure people have
also observed how some threads take on a much greater importance simply
because you're participating in the thread. Some of that, I believe, is
that people fail to see the point in raising and discussing issues when
you're not obviously part of the conversation. We need to be more
willing to discuss (not necessarily decide) issues without your
"presence" to assist us. It's the difference between being a community
that deliberates over the issues, with a leader to assist in the
decision-making process, and being a bunch of courtiers who jockey with
each other in order to present their petitions to the king.

You don't wish to be a GodKing. I don't wish to be part of a cabal. But
wishing alone does not make it so - part of what determines these things
is the perspectives of outsiders. I agree with you that the mailing
lists are as accessible as we can make them, and that deciding not to
participate can be counterproductive. Part of what makes us "elitist" is
having people avoid joining us because we're supposedly elitist. But we
still have to keep their perspective in mind, and do our best not to
reinforce such views. The problem will not go away, we must learn to
live with it.

Anyway, this has become sort of a longish sermon, and unfortunately my
solutions have more of sentiment than specificity, so I'll cut it off here.

--Michael Snow
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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I remember when, once upon a time, my mail was bouncing for a day, and
>all the mailing lists automatically marked me as delivery disabled.  I
>re-enabled the major lists, but overlooked this one, which had at that
>time almost no traffic I think.
>
>Then, I thought that discussion here had fizzled.
>
It had fizzled. It took a little bit of concerted effort to get
sustained conversations going.

>> But when we collectively, consciously or unconsciously, only discuss
>> policy issues "in his presence", our behavior gives the impression
>> of Jimbo as a MeatBall:GodKing. A number of people have criticized
>> the way these mailing lists operate, and some object to
>> participating as a result.
>...
>> I think the mailing lists are useful, but we need to be aware of
>> appearances and not reinforce the image of a cabal.
>
>I do agree with this, but what should we do?  The mailing lists are
>wide open to the public, public archives, easy subscription,
>unmoderated.  If my participation causes people to say that the lists
>are like a "King's Court", what do you recommend that I do about it?
>
>
I don't have a recommendation for what you should do, because I think
the problem is not with your participation, but with our collective
behavior, as I indicated. "Our" including myself and everybody _except_
you. It's not just how you behave that determines whether you're a
GodKing, it's how we behave toward you. (Though your disavowal of that
status is helpful, and it is reassuring to know you have plans on how to
transfer responsibilities to the community.)

The thing that prompted my comments was the differences I could observe
between this list, which you hadn't been reading, and the other lists
where you clearly are reading and participating. I'm sure people have
also observed how some threads take on a much greater importance simply
because you're participating in the thread. Some of that, I believe, is
that people fail to see the point in raising and discussing issues when
you're not obviously part of the conversation. We need to be more
willing to discuss (not necessarily decide) issues without your
"presence" to assist us. It's the difference between being a community
that deliberates over the issues, with a leader to assist in the
decision-making process, and being a bunch of courtiers who jockey with
each other in order to present their petitions to the king.

You don't wish to be a GodKing. I don't wish to be part of a cabal. But
wishing alone does not make it so - part of what determines these things
is the perspectives of outsiders. I agree with you that the mailing
lists are as accessible as we can make them, and that deciding not to
participate can be counterproductive. Part of what makes us "elitist" is
having people avoid joining us because we're supposedly elitist. But we
still have to keep their perspective in mind, and do our best not to
reinforce such views. The problem will not go away, we must learn to
live with it.

Anyway, this has become sort of a longish sermon, and unfortunately my
solutions have more of sentiment than specificity, so I'll cut it off here.

--Michael Snow
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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I remember when, once upon a time, my mail was bouncing for a day, and
>all the mailing lists automatically marked me as delivery disabled.  I
>re-enabled the major lists, but overlooked this one, which had at that
>time almost no traffic I think.
>
>Then, I thought that discussion here had fizzled.
>
It had fizzled. It took a little bit of concerted effort to get
sustained conversations going.

>> But when we collectively, consciously or unconsciously, only discuss
>> policy issues "in his presence", our behavior gives the impression
>> of Jimbo as a MeatBall:GodKing. A number of people have criticized
>> the way these mailing lists operate, and some object to
>> participating as a result.
>...
>> I think the mailing lists are useful, but we need to be aware of
>> appearances and not reinforce the image of a cabal.
>
>I do agree with this, but what should we do?  The mailing lists are
>wide open to the public, public archives, easy subscription,
>unmoderated.  If my participation causes people to say that the lists
>are like a "King's Court", what do you recommend that I do about it?
>
>
I don't have a recommendation for what you should do, because I think
the problem is not with your participation, but with our collective
behavior, as I indicated. "Our" including myself and everybody _except_
you. It's not just how you behave that determines whether you're a
GodKing, it's how we behave toward you. (Though your disavowal of that
status is helpful, and it is reassuring to know you have plans on how to
transfer responsibilities to the community.)

The thing that prompted my comments was the differences I could observe
between this list, which you hadn't been reading, and the other lists
where you clearly are reading and participating. I'm sure people have
also observed how some threads take on a much greater importance simply
because you're participating in the thread. Some of that, I believe, is
that people fail to see the point in raising and discussing issues when
you're not obviously part of the conversation. We need to be more
willing to discuss (not necessarily decide) issues without your
"presence" to assist us. It's the difference between being a community
that deliberates over the issues, with a leader to assist in the
decision-making process, and being a bunch of courtiers who jockey with
each other in order to present their petitions to the king.

You don't wish to be a GodKing. I don't wish to be part of a cabal. But
wishing alone does not make it so - part of what determines these things
is the perspectives of outsiders. I agree with you that the mailing
lists are as accessible as we can make them, and that deciding not to
participate can be counterproductive. Part of what makes us "elitist" is
having people avoid joining us because we're supposedly elitist. But we
still have to keep their perspective in mind, and do our best not to
reinforce such views. The problem will not go away, we must learn to
live with it.

Anyway, this has become sort of a longish sermon, and unfortunately my
solutions have more of sentiment than specificity, so I'll cut it off here.

--Michael Snow
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subject: [Foundation-l] licence

body:
I would like some help about licensing and association
status. I remember that several months ago, when I
tried to draft a mission statement, and mentionned
gfdl would be the license of our content, Ec
mentionned that some of our projects were not or would
not be under gfdl. I would like more precision on the
topic, for tax deductions.
How would you describe generally the content of our
projects, in terms of reusability/freedom so we could
get tax deduction. Is there a general term/reference
which could be used, or may we cite a list of licenses
? Who could help me here ? Eclecticology, what do you
think ?

ant

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/


subject: [Foundation-l] licence


subject: [WikiEN-l] bans and vandalism (was Wik)

body:
On 05/27/04 22:42, Fred Bauder wrote:
>From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>>On 05/27/04 19:08, Martin Harper wrote:

>>>C) Evading a ban is itself a bannable offence - doing so automatically
>>>triples the ban
>>>length (after which, (B) applies).

>>I would welcome your thoughts on this offer:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Iridology&diff=3628508&oldid=3
>>628347
>>(User:Irismeister is banned from editing [[Iridology]];
>>User:Mr-Natural-Health offers to act as a proxy for his edits.
>>Is this different from using an anonymous web proxy?)

> The ban needs to be extended to Mr. Natural Health or anyone else who
> participates in this kind of evasion.

I'd have thought so too. So how do we get there from here?

- d.


from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Questia link

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> On this page:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedia_articles_based_upon_websites
>
> we have a link to
> http://www.questia.com/
>
> Questia has offered to pay us $12 per signup through that link, but we
> would have to change the link to a tracking url.

Sorry I'm replying to such an old message, but ... why can't they just
use the HTTP Referer header?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Error message when site is down

body:
Hi,

has anyone done this? I saw this error message yesterday I think, and it
was still the old one.

Thanks,
Timwi

Timwi wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> when the site is down we currently get this error message:
>
>     Sorry! The wiki is experiencing some technical difficulties,
>     and cannot contact the database server.
>
> In the interest of user interface design, please could someone change
> this to
>
>     Wikipedia is currently experiencing technical difficulties.
>     Please try again later. We apologise for the inconvenience.
>
> Thanks!
> Timwi


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2u server delivered!

body:
For those who haven't been living on IRC the last day...

New machines yongle, maurus, rabanus, and perhaps will have been added
to the apache cluster. If DNS isn't quite updated:
207.142.131.237 yongle yongle.wikimedia.org
207.142.131.238 maurus maurus.wikimedia.org
207.142.131.239 rabanus rabanus.wikimedia.org
207.142.131.243 will will.wikimedia.org

We apparently now know how to get DMA working on those SATA drives,
thanks the combination of a BIOS tweak and Ricky Beam's magical kernel
concoctions.

Tim's updated the dormant parser cache in 1.3 with memcached support,
which will give us a great way to fill up the memory on those new
machines with pre-parsed HTML and save a lot of unnecessary re-rendering.

Whee!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Ivan Krstic

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with Klingon Wikipedia

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Er, excuse me? Who did this and why? I thought we had agreed to put these
> borderline languages on hold until there's a consensus on how to deal with
> them. I'm not very happy about facts being made through administrative
> action. As far as I can tell, there was no vote and no discussion on this.

Erik beat me to the punch. I'm not sure this discussion belongs on
tech-l, but as this is the only Wikipedia list I subscribe to and I
think the topic is serious enough, I'll voice my thoughts: get Klingon
wikipedia away from wikipedia.org, and do it fast.

After people are told how wikipedia works ("you mean EVERYONE can edit
ANYTHING?" "yes" "clearly then it's completely useless"), convincing
them of its value as a useful and convenient source of information is
difficult enough as is. Adding an inexistent, overtly nerdy language to
the list of translations is putting words in the mouth of the
incredulous who will be ever so delighted to ask "Wikipedia? You mean
the pretend-encyclopedia that is available in Klingon?"

Don't give them the luxury. Jimbo - Wikipedia is a serious project and
one that, I think, has a very bright future - don't taint it with this
type of exercise in pointlessness (how many users do you think will use
this?). I'd suggest this language is shut down immediately and relocated
offsite (possibly to http://www.memory-alpha.org/ in this case, which
also runs MediaWiki and is topically correct). A list of 'Non-endorsed,
unofficial Wikipedia translations' may perhaps be kept at Wikipedia, but
these borderline languages should in no way be mistakable for "official"
Wikipedias.

Cheers,
Ivan.
P.S. Before someone points out 'Google does it!' as an admissible
argument, let me remind them that Google does *not* provide content. We,
on the other hand, do.


from_name: Jerome Jamnicky

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2u server delivered!

body:
On Fri, 28 May 2004 02:07, Ricky Beam wrote:
> On Thu, 27 May 2004, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >3.  When I get to the colocation facility, I will do whatever I need
> >to do to get 3 of the 4 1U servers online immediately -- the Wikipedia
>
> I'll assume somewhere in there you'll make some attempts to get SATA DMA
> enabled as per our earlier discussions off list?  I tried both those
> kernels on my Dell Diminsion 8300 which has a similar ICH5 although
> the Dell BIOS doesn't support putting the controller in "legacy" mode.
> Both see the PATA and SATA drives just fine w/ DMA.  The console
> log is in the same place as the kernels.
>

> Do you know what MB is in the system?  Is the memory configuration NUMA --

Jimbo is in the colo now, and by visual inspection, the mobo is:
on the 4 new P4s: Superdot P4SCE, Rev. 2.1
on the older P4s: Superdot P4SCE, same as above, except Rev. 2.01

> each CPU has it's own memory pool? (This is a important thing to know
> and should be noted for building an optimized kernel.  There is a slight
> performance penalty for "off cpu" memory access.)
>
> --Ricky
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Ivan Krstic wrote:

> After people are told how wikipedia works ("you mean EVERYONE can edit
> ANYTHING?" "yes" "clearly then it's completely useless"), convincing
> them of its value as a useful and convenient source of information is
> difficult enough as is. Adding an inexistent, overtly nerdy language
> to the list of translations is putting words in the mouth of the
> incredulous who will be ever so delighted to ask "Wikipedia? You mean
> the pretend-encyclopedia that is available in Klingon?"

That argument is speculative and alarmist.  There is no evidence
whatsoever to support any significant loss of support would result from
having a Klingon Wikipedia.  You seem to forget that the very thing
which has made Wikipedia popular is that very right to allow "EVERYONE"
to "edit ANYTHING".  Counterintuitive as you may find it, it is a fact
of life.  I frequently mention Wikipedia to others, and I also am met
with the same incredulous responses.  I am, nevertheless, confident
enough and patient enough to know that in time they will change their
mind.

I do agree that Klingon to be completely useless. If it is that useless
then after a flurry of initial activity people will just ignore it, and
it can safely be allowed to die "not with a bang but a whimper."  It is
unlikely that I will ever participate in the Klingon project, but I can
respect the desire of others to do so.

Wikipedia works best when the rights of people with useless ideas are
respected.  There is always ample opportunity to disagree with the ideas.

> Don't give them the luxury. Jimbo - Wikipedia is a serious project and
> one that, I think, has a very bright future - don't taint it with this
> type of exercise in pointlessness (how many users do you think will
> use this?). I'd suggest this language is shut down immediately and
> relocated offsite (possibly to http://www.memory-alpha.org/ in this
> case, which also runs MediaWiki and is topically correct). A list of
> 'Non-endorsed, unofficial Wikipedia translations' may perhaps be kept
> at Wikipedia, but these borderline languages should in no way be
> mistakable for "official" Wikipedias.

There is a difference between a serious project, and taking one's view
of the project too seriously.  Your view is reminiscent of one who
guides his views by what the neighbours think.  It's like being
intimidated by the old neighbourhood busybody who is always looking out
of her window to see what everyone is doing just so she can have
ammunition for her next session of hen cackling.

Wikipedia should not reduce itself to being solely a refuge for academic
elitists.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Problem with Klingon Wikipedia

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>"Tim Starling" <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> schrieb:
>
>>imbo said he wanted it. As far as I'm concerned, developers are still
>>answerable to him not the other way around. If you want to hold a site
>>wide vote, go for your life. If there's enough support, we'll delete the
>>wiki.
>>
>>
>
>No, Jimbo did not see that, all he said was that "I have no objections
>to it." That's quite a bit different from wanting it. Also, the
>developers should not be answerable to Jimbo (nor the other way around).
>They should be answerable to the community.
>
This sounds like an argument about which conflicting passage of the
Bible is more valid. :-)

>My personal opinion on Klingon is a hesitating 'for', where however my
>reasoning has nothing to do with 'embarassment' but with the question
>whether it's really a language used for communication. Regarding the
>other languages, I am in favor of deleting Toki Pona, see no reason to
>keep Serbocroatian, and would not object against deletion of Moldovan.
>
>
These are supportable arguments.  I also have doubts about the validity
of treating Bosnian as a separate language.

Ec


body:
Hi,

first of all, thanks for setting up the Klingon Wikipedia :)

However, we need you to set this option that allows us to have article
titles in lower-case. Example:

http://tlh.wikipedia.org/wiki/TlhInganpu%27

This article should be at [[tlhInganpu']], with a lower-case t, not T.

Thanks!
Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with inter-wiki links

body:
Hi,

it seems that the Toki Pona inter-wiki links have stopped working again,
apparently both on en and on eo (and I don't know what else). Please
could someone fix this for good?

Thanks,
Timwi


from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
Gerrit wrote in part:

>The copyright [2] clearly states that information may not be
>redistributed, etc., etc. However, the postal code is freely available
>from other sources, though not in digital form. The geographical
>coordinates only state where the town is located: this information can
>also be retrieved without the map machine. Does the copyright statement
>apply to this information?

COPYRIGHT DOES NOT APPLY TO INFORMATION.

I put this in all caps not to be annoying,
but to highlight how fundamental and important this is.
You can't copy the maps, which have been designed;
just as you can't copy a paragraph of factual text,
which has been written.  But you can copy data.
The postal code "XYZ123" and the coordinates "23N56' 12E9'"
are not covered by copyright law (at least not in the US,
where Wikimedia's servers reside).

>Is it legal to retrieve postal codes and geographical coordinates from
>this map machine? I'd use the geographical coordinates to describe where
>the town is located (north, south, east, west, maybe "near Zurich"), all
>automated.

Yes.  IANAL, but several lawyers have told me this before.

It's possible for information to be covered under Trade Secret law,
but that doesn't affect Wikipedia's relationship to your submission.
You should know if you've signed a nondisclosure agreement. ^_^

It's even possible that copying information like postal codes
violates the Terms of Use of the web site that you visited.
I suspect that web site's Terms of Use have very little legal force;
but even so, the only danger should be your personal liability --
Wikipedia's use of the information is still free from copyright.

If you want to automate things, then you need to get a registered bot.
It may well be good policy not to use a bot that violates Terms of Use.
I don't know what bot policy is like these days.

-- Toby


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Jimmy Wales (jwales at bomis.com) [040527 23:06]:

> We did quickly (perhaps too quickly) adopt the GNU FDL at that time,
> in order to demonstrate that a fork was not needed and that we were
> indeed a genuine free project.
> Additionally, RMS has given me favorable indications that he would
> like to see some simplifications and changes to the license, and I'm
> going to be meeting with at least Larry Lessig (who is now a board
> member at FSF) in Berlin, and probably some other FSF people as well,
> to give our input on work that is already underway regarding such
> issues as license compatibility (with Creative Commons licenses) and
> simplicity, etc.
> I am very optimistic about beneficial changes soon, but of course
> everyone involved (including me!) prefers to take these things slowly
> and thoughtfully.

That's excellent news!

Having the FSF lawyers around, particularly Lessig (we have all read 'Free
Culture', yes? [1]), will make sure the result is sensible.

- d.

[1] http://www.free-culture.com/ - full text in several formats.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I object. Putting us all on a war footing is not worth it. When and if Wik
accepts the brief ban that was imposed on him is soon enough. If that is
never, so be it. It is very difficult to decide whether this or that
sockpuppet is really Wik so we will certainly disrupt others if we are too
aggressive. Removing stuff from Jimbo's talk page (if indeed it was Wik and
not some provocateur) is a really bad idea.

Fred

> From: "KNOTT, T" <tknott at qcl.org.uk>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 08:38:54 +0100
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] How we should be dealing with Wik
>
> Wik has declared a "War" on Jimbo's talk page. He appears to feel that
> since there are a large number of proxies he could use, that there is
> nothing we can do to stop him. I disagree. There is only one of him, and
> hundreds of us. I suggest we adopt the following approach.
>
> For admins
>
> 1) revert anything wik posts no matter what it is or where it is posted
> to. (Jimbo has a note on his talk page asking people not to revert,
> Jimbo would make an exception in this case please, Wik needs to get the
> message that he is not permitted to post anywhere for a period of 7
> days)
> 2) Block the IP in question for 7 days
> 2) If he is logged in as a sockpuppet do not bother to warn if you are
> _sure_ it's him.
>
> For non admins
> 1) revert as above and make sure you put Wik as the reason in the
> summary box. That way any admin RC watching can block the IP in question
>
> For everyone
> Keep an eye on [[wikipedia:block log]] look out for mistakes by admins,
> we don't want to block innocents. Check range blocks very carefully to
> make sure they are legit, done correctly, and have an appropriate
> message so that innocents don't get confused.
>
>
> _Do not_ under _any_ circumstances speak to Wik. Not to antagonize him,
> or to support him. He is banned for 7 days. He is not respecting it but
> we all should. (Lot's have people have argued that the AC is too
> reluctant to act, or that they are too powerless; in this case the AC
> has acted. The AC's authority comes from us, if _we_ don't respect AC
> rulings  then _we_ undermine the AC's power. An important precedent is
> being set here, no matter how much we hate or love Wik we _must_ support
> the AC by our own actions)
>
> Keep this up until we have a 7 day period of no posting by Wik. Once the
> 7 days are up, unblock all Wik accounts and welcome him back (unless the
> AC decide otherwise in the meantime).
>
>
> Any objections?
>
> Theresa
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness

body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Since we are talking about fairness in elections, I
> need help.
>
> I, on the other hand, think that elections are unfair
> to those who are not native english. It takes us a lot
> of time to answer questions, and it is difficult to
> write a short statement, while trying to make it sound
> and clear to anyone. Thus, I would like that a real
> english speaker edit my statement to make it appear
> good, clear, respect editorial rules, style, spelling
> and such. It also needs to be shorten (though I would
> not say of how much exactly since I thought I was
> below 500 caracters).

Sure - I just saved an edit of your statement. Revert anything you didn't like.
I did not shorten it though (that is up to the election committee).

> I would like to mention that we are trying to set a
> Foundation to help a world wide project which will be
> a real revolution, and I think fighting over a couple
> of characters in a candidacy statement is not exactly
> what I perceive as terribly interesting.

Yes - I agree.

> I would have preferred that candidates discuss with
> each other on their background, on their opinions, on
> their positions, on what they did not know, on what
> they loved in the project. It would be more
> constructive to do that, and it would have given more
> opportunity for participants from all projects to get
> to know the candidates better.

Each candidate should do this. You in fact discovered a flaw in the template
and you filled it in a logical way. That is why I copied your idea - I thought
it was neat.

> I also think comparisons of positions, and
> consequently opportunity to have two candidates
> working together as beneficial or destructive would
> have been more easily perceived upon reading
> discussions between candidates, than reading about
> little fights upon the fairness of representativity.
> Complaining over the fairness of 10 characters when
> half of the candidates can not technically provide a
> fully professional candidacy statement is ridiculous.

Some organized debates would have been nice. Unfortunately it is probably too
late to allow a few days for that. I think it is odd that the day after the
candidates have to say they were running is the same day that people can start
to vote.

> If the validity of my candidacy is impaired by the
> length of my statement, and by adding a short
> description of my contributions while it was written
> nowhere it was forbidden, then I think I am not
> interested in being a candidate anymore, and you may
> strike my name Danny. I am not here to play
> seek-and-hide game.

Please don't do that Anthere - a great many people respect you and will vote
for you (myself included on both counts). Their voice needs to be heard.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness


body:
Timwi-

> Hi,

> first of all, thanks for setting up the Klingon Wikipedia :)

Er, excuse me? Who did this and why? I thought we had agreed to put these
borderline languages on hold until there's a consensus on how to deal with
them. I'm not very happy about facts being made through administrative
action. As far as I can tell, there was no vote and no discussion on this.

Erik