from_name: xaosflux

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoconfirmed threshold

body:
I like 4 days, AND 25 edits is a good threshold for en:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mets501" <mets501wiki at gmail.com>
To: "'English Wikipedia'" <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 12:56 PM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoconfirmed threshold

> According to Simetrical:
> "It is now possible for wikis to require a certain number of edits, as
> well
> as a certain registration time period, for users to become autoconfirmed.
> Thus, for instance, accounts that have existed for several weeks but have
> made fewer than five edits might be prevented from moving pages or so on.
> If
> a particular wiki would like this enabled for them, it can file a bug
> report
> after community agreement."
>
> I think we should enable this with a threshold of 10 edits.  10 edits is
> reasonable for a vandal to go through the whole warning system and get
> blocked, while at the same time not too much so as to discourage new
> contributors.
> --Mets501
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Microformats

body:
On 1/31/07, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps it is...
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_press_releases/English_Wikipedia_tags_all_links_NoFollow
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow says nofollow "has come to be
> regarded as a microformat."
>
> Wikia hasn't announced anything remotely related to microformats.

Narr... Thats twisted.. and even given that logic, it's still not
right. We've used nofollow just about everywhere except the enwiki
main namespace for a long time.

Oh well.


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Wikitech-l] Our IP was blocked by mistake

body:
On 1/31/07, Webmaster <webmaster at tiosam.com> wrote:
>
> Where can we find them?

http://download.wikimedia.org

Not hard to find. See also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Daniel Arnold

subject: [Wikitech-l] skin design error (splitted from "Major flaws...")

body:
The Monobook skin hardcodes first letter lower case for certain UI-messages
(CSS: .portlet h5, .portlet h6). This is a bad idea considering
languages that use upper case a lot in order to differentiate different words
and meanings. German is probably the most common example for such a language.

As long as you use a monolingual (German) wiki a hackish solution works; see
MediaWiki:Monobook.css/de in your wiki of choice for the CSS code which works
on wikis with German as default language only.

As CSS files can't be (and shouldn't need to be) localisable using the sub
page style the solution doesn't work in mutilingual wikis as you need to
overwrite MediaWiki:Monobook.css with said code and now people of all other
languages complain that their interface strings are upper case. This is due
to the fact that every interface string affected by the ?".portlet
h5, .portlet h6"-rule is written in any language with upper case in the UI
message files.

So the solution is:
Drop the forced lower case in Monobook and if you don't like your UI strings
starting with upper case in your language of choice make these strings lower
case right from the start in vanilla MediaWiki.

It is bad in any skin to rely on global lower case/upper case behaviour as
this is not language independent. And of course Monobook is the default for
the large majority. So it is a bit strange forcing the majority of users into
non-standard language display because of that.

So if someone thinks that some (older) non-default skins shall use in any case
upper case, please insert in these skins a force-upper-case CSS definition.
At least it would hurt way less people than the current scheme.

Arnomane

P.S.: See also this post in the initial thread covering this topic:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2007-January/029275.html


subject:
[Wikitech-l] embedded links in UI messages (splitted from "Major
	flaws...")

body:
Note: The following topic is not about namespace names and not about names of
special pages.

Vanilla Mediawiki UI strings contain hardcoded localised link targets. For
example have a look at MediaWiki:Blockedtext (if you want to get all (?)
affected messages grep for {{ns:project}} in the sources). Well again in
monolingual wikis no problem. These linked pages are supposed to exist but
now consider a multilingual wiki...

For example "Project:Administrateur" is linked in MediaWiki:Blockedtext/fr
from vanilla Mediawiki. Imagine using someone French in a wiki with a
non-french default language which is commonly the case in multilingual wikis
such as Wikimedia Commons (note: French is just an example this holds for
every of the zillions of languages supported by Mediawiki). So UI messages
were created with monolingual wikis in mind and never considering simultanous
usage of different languages.

So in vanilla Mediawiki please do not hardcode any wiki page in message
strings.

Well how to localise embedded link targets in the future?
Use a mechanism that points to mediawiki namespace pages that define these
link targets (like the mediawiki namespace pages defined by
MediaWiki:Sidebar). A possible syntax could be done with
{{subst:Mediawiki:PAGENAME}} templates (however this syntax has some problems
as this would need to expand to a given sub page and would need to check if
that sub page exists and fall back to default if not). Another possible
syntax could be the use of named variables such as $MediaWiki:PAGENAME in
interface strings.

Arnomane


subject: [Wikitech-l] Removing "Disclaimers" link from footer

body:
On Tuesday 30 January 2007 21:53:52 Rajesh Olafson wrote:
> OK - so I got the Disclaimers label fixed. Thank you.
>
> But how do I change another footer string: "Content is available under ..."
>
> I see that the languages/Messages*.php contains this string. However, when
> I change it for English [Messages.php] I see no change in the UI.
>
> Also, when I change my language preference to say French, then this string
> remains the same, while other footer/nav strings appear translated.... ?
>
> Help would be appreciated.

You need to add the following code to you LocalSettings.php:

$wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg = array('copyright');

After that the "Content is available under..." text which is defined by
MediaWiki:Copyright is localised. (for example MediaWiki:Copyright/de now
would be respected when having German interface language in a non-german
wiki).

By the way the "$1 thing" in the message string can be influenced for any
language with these variables in LocalSettings.php:

$wgRightsPage = "THE_PAGE_THAT_DEFINES_YOUR_COPRIGHT_POLICY";
$wgRightsText = "THE_DISPLAYED_LINK_TEXT";

Cheers,
Arnomane


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
On 1/31/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> I bring this up because, when I first came to WP, the one policy I found
> most disturbing was the one concerning ?incivility?. Most especially the
> practice of banning (punishing) members of the WP community for using words
> and phrases considered by whoever made up the policy to be ?offensive?.
> This, to me, made WP free in every thing but speech.

You have precisely two rights as a Wikipedia user:

1. The right to vanish;
2. The right to fork.

There is no right to free speech on Wikipedia.

> If a particular word or phrase offends you hit delete and move on.
>
> What are your thoughts and feelings about this?

Members of the community will tend to DefendEachOther [1] when they
are attacked. This is to be expected and encouraged. This explains why
there is opposition to people who are not civil towards others.

A good metric for whether a statement is offensive is whether the
statement offends anyone. If the community sees fit to defend itself
against a particular instance of incivility, so be it.

--
(1) http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?DefendEachOther

PS, before anyone mentions the First Amendment to the US Constitution,
please read and understand it. Wikipedia is not the United States
Congress.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Microformats

body:
On 31/01/07, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> This isn't us...Jimmy and the Wikia people will need to answer what's up.

Bloody Wikians.

Rob Church


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikitech-l] Microformats

body:
On 1/31/07, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> WTF?
>
> This isn't us...

Perhaps it is...

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_press_releases/English_Wikipedia_tags_all_links_NoFollow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow says nofollow "has come to be
regarded as a microformat."

Wikia hasn't announced anything remotely related to microformats.

Angela


subject: [Wikitech-l] Microformats

body:
On 1/31/07, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/31/07, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > WTF?
> >
> > This isn't us...
>
> Perhaps it is...

I have another theory. They're perceiving the creation of a page by a
repeatedly blocked user as an official announcement...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Microformats was
made a couple of days ago and includes the same wording as the post on
vecosys.

Angela


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 3:39 AM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> I have no problem with the use of spicy epithets on the mailing list,
> and would see no reason to be like television and ban the "seven
> words".  Where I object is with the use of terms as a clear personal
> attack on someone, but I would still give a person time to cool off
> before making a big fuss about it.

It's about intent. Is that intent to harm, or simply to grab your attention
and make oneself absolutely clear?

Some find George Carlin intolerably offensive - I find him hilarious. Of
course that may simply be a statement about me :-).

Marc Riddell


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 6:29 AM, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com at
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

> An argument I have produced before, is that bad language and aggressiveness as
> a routine form of interaction appeals mostly to the young and male. It happens
> that males 20 to 25 might be the most significant group here. I think it is
> also the case that such forms of verbal interaction and self-assertion are
> likely to put off many other demographic groups. So civility policy is one way
> of trying to broaden the base of contributors, or to retain people who profile
> is not a good match to those who think freedom of speech is mostly about the
> right to be f****** rude all the time.

Interesting. You know, as I read all of the responses thus far, the one word
that my eye and brain keep tripping over is "civility" - perhaps I am
associating it with the word "proper" - and that's a button word for me. The
only thing I have ever associated with the word civil is disobedience ;-).

Marc

--
Life is not a novel - it?s a poem --- it?s not supposed to make sense.


from_name: · Firefoxman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoconfirmed threshold

body:
I favor Dalton's idea.

On 1/31/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I think we should enable this with a threshold of 10 edits.  10 edits is
> > reasonable for a vandal to go through the whole warning system and get
> > blocked, while at the same time not too much so as to discourage new
> > contributors.
> > --Mets501
>
> I think 10 edits (and the 4 days that there is now) is a good amount
>
> Would it be possible to unconfirm people when they get blocked
> (possibly as an extra option for admins on the block page)? So they
> have to go another 4 days and 10 edits. It would mean that blocking
> someone for 24 hows stops them editing semi-protected pages for 4
> days, which would be useful - far better to let someone do basic
> editing after a short time, and more damaging editing after a longer
> time.
>
> (I seem to remember than the 4 days thing is actually done as a you
> mustn't be in the most recent 1% of signups, or something, which would
> make resetting that part a little more effort on the part of the
> devs...)
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
-Firefoxman


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 12:29 AM, William Pietri at william at scissor.com wrote:

> Hi, Marc.
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>> I have no doubt that what you say here is true. I simply have a difficult
>> time with telling anyone what they can and cannot say.
>>
>
> Is that always true for you?

In my work (which is a large part of my life) yes. In my personal life I
don't find words directed at me to be harmful - simply educational. Persons
teach me a great deal about themselves by how they express themselves.
>
> If people would like to say something privately, or even in a public
> square, I'm not willing to tell them they can't, even when I might be
> happy to say that they're wrong.
>
> But a couple of times I have without hesitation thrown people out of
> events at my house for mistreating my guests. Do you draw lines like that?

Yes. If the words and/or behavior are meant to harm, I will intervene as
best I can.
>
> For me, Wikipedia is more akin to the latter than the former. It's
> different in that the standards are something we come up with together.
> But it's the same in that I have caution but no compunction in enforcing
> those standards when somebody is harming what brings us together.

I absolutely agree with you. Nicely said. Thank you.

Marc
>
> William
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 7:39 AM, David Gerard at dgerard at gmail.com wrote:

> Wikipedia is a working environment - a volunteer one (which has its
> own social rules, of course), but nevertheless it's a project with a
> particular purpose. I've seen how obnoxious editors scare off newbies,
> and it's not nice at all and is actually damaging to the project.
>
> Other collaborative volunteer projects work other ways. The Linux and
> OpenBSD mailing lists are famously abrasive. But, as noted, no-one's
> started a "Nastypedia" ...
>
> I think the basic rule, which I hold is the fundamental rule of all
> social spaces, is "Don't be a dick." Every other social rule we have
> is a special case of that.

Terrific! I much prefer the term "Don't be a dick" to "incivility"; can we
make the change :-).

Seriously, is there an attempt made by other, more seasoned editors, to give
support to these newbies to assure them they are supported by the majority
of the project?

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] New adminbot request

body:
Please see [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Cydebot 3]] for a new
request for an admin bot.

Thank you,
xaosflux


from_name: Keitei

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
On Jan 31, 2007, at 7:59, Marc Riddell wrote:
> Terrific! I much prefer the term "Don't be a dick" to "incivility";
> can we
> make the change :-).

I have to agree that "Don't be a dick" is a far better handling of
the policy... "Be civil" means "respect our social contract"; "don't
be a dick" is the contract. Much more to the point.

But clearly we can't use such foul language!
/me mutters about fuckheads...

--keitei


list: foundation-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
On 31/01/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> Our working assumption there is "so what?", and that nobody's going to
> come after the foundation for any of the IP involved, again because
> there's no money in it and the horrible publicity which would ensue.

It should be pointed out that our powers of horrible publicity are
pretty strong, as long as we try very hard not to use them. c.f. the
Microsoft-Wikipedia press from last week - if (for some stupid reason)
we'd *wanted* to keep that in the media, it would still be going now.
Just in time for the Vista launch!

If we're ever attacked badly enough, we could really make the attacker
deeply regret trying.

- d.


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Microformats

body:
On 31/01/07, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have another theory. They're perceiving the creation of a page by a
> repeatedly blocked user as an official announcement...
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Microformats was
> made a couple of days ago and includes the same wording as the post on
> vecosys.

Well. It's a good thing the press is officially a Reliable Source!

- d.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>
>> Andrew Gray schreef:
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 30/01/07, teun spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Does this imply that an Italian chapter could be sued for fair use images on
>>>> the english wiki?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> It has been an absolute principle that Chapters Are Not Responsible In
>>> any Way For The Projects. They're associated bodies, but there should
>>> never be any implication they're publishers.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Hoi,
>> It is OUR principle that this is the case. It does not mean that a judge
>> will see it that way. In Germany we have already had the German chapter
>> in court because of content on the German language Wikipedia.
>>
>>
> That had nothing to do with copyright, and we won anyways.
Hoi,
That it did have anything to do with copyright nor that we won has
anything to do with the fact that the German chapter had to be in court
because of the *content *of the German Wikipedia. It destroys the notion
that our absolute principle is respected by the laws of the countries we
have a chapter in.

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
2007/1/31, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>:

> I would be curious to here if there has even been a single legal case
> dealing with the transitivity of fair use.
>

Probably not, because our situation is one that is very uncommon. Normally
people grant others rights to their copyrighted works not in such a general
manner - "you may put this-and-that chapter from my book unchanged/changed
in the way that you showed me in this-and-that book of yours", not "you may
take my book or any derived work of it and do with it whatever you like".

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] table text is full

body:
Hi Nick,

Thanks.

I tried that - but it appears that the subsequent call to getItem also
fails. I think I've found the problem, it seems like these entries are
self-referencing.

It look a HistoryBlobStub just points to another row in the text table. For ex:

mysql> select old_text from text where old_id=305923

returns

O:15:"HistoryBlobStub":3:{s:6:"mOldId";s:6:"163388";s:5:"mHash";s:32:"f7b8c3ca281ce771ac06fd23131dbe08";s:4:"mRef";s:6:"305923";}

When I load the revision that has rev_text_id=305923 it actually loads
the text row where old_id = 163388, which is found in the contents of
the serialized object for id 305923; This old version loads without
problem for me from the page history:

But check out the entry I'm having problems with:

mysql> select old_text from text where old_id=246631;

O:15:"HistoryBlobStub":3:{s:6:"mOldId";s:6:"246631";s:5:"mHash";s:32:"c87a9d76bbd59c9a1218c5620fc889dd";s:4:"mRef";s:6:"246631";}

The OldId in the serialized object references itself - the same Id:
246631 - so it will never load the text.

It seems that compressOld messed this entry up, and it looks like we
have about 466 of these self-referencing entries.

Any ideas on how to fix this, or what could have caused it?

Thanks,
Travis


from_name: Schuyler Thompson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Groups Suggestion

body:
I personally would have no idea how I would read these lists without gmail's
excellent thread feature :D

Schuyler Thompson
[[user:xxpor]]

On 1/28/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/28/07, George Drummond <georgedrummond at gmail.com> wrote:
> > For novices i think it is difficult to read these mailing lists.
> >
> > I think that it would be an idea to have the mailing lists
> > archived to google groups (which i believe is possible)
> >
> > If you are worried about the possibility of spam etc we could
> > set the group to announce, so it is viewable on google groups
> > but to reply users must sign up in usual way. It would then just
> > be like a mirror of this groups messages but more easily viewed.
> >
> > Just a suggestion
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > George
>
> I don't know whether this is what you want, but there is a newsgroup
> interface using gmane. The adress is
> nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english
>
> Google group is just essentially a web newsreader interface, but you
> can use any newsreader you like (makes it very easy to see threads and
> the like, it's much easier to use an actual application rather than
> google groups). You can also do it through a web interface through
> gmanes homepage
> http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english
>
> See here for more information
> http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english
>
> There are some other options, but I've never tried any of them. You
> can find more information at the wikipedia mailing list page:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ML
>
> Personally, I love how this list works, especially using gmail. It
> doesn't thread, but that isn't much of an issue. It works great for
> me.
>
> --Oskar
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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

later,
Schuyler

AIM: skydawg1990
MSN: thekid at xbox-irc.net
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/schuyler_skooz


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
On 30 Jan 2007 at 20:56, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net>
wrote:

> If you?re restricted to what is - you are cut off from - - what could be.

You still have some character set problems with your mail program, as
seen whenever you try to use an apostrophe and it comes out as a
question mark in the digest version.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
On 30 Jan 2007 at 23:15, SonOfYoungwood@{gag,vomit,retch}aol.com
wrote:

> Exactly; I get this all the time when I go into a group and try to beat the
> heck out of their nostalgic groupthink masturbation. I'm also guilty of
> groupthink in some instances, though. I guess it's human nature.

When you enter a new group with the intent of trying to beat the heck
out of the regulars there, it exhibits an attitude problem on your
own part, doesn't it?

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoconfirmed threshold

body:
On 31 Jan 2007 at 00:57, "xaosflux" <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:

> I like 4 days, AND 25 edits is a good threshold for en:

But those numbers should reset every time you do something clueless,
like top-posting a response on a mailing list.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


list: commons-l

subject:
[Commons-l] Commons search engine ranking,
	Was: Killing the main namespace?

body:
On 1/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 31/01/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Problem with search engines is that they are being too inteligent.
> > Posible solutions:
> > *Use <a type="text/html" href=".../Image:Foo.png">
> > **I wasn't expecting it, but the a element *supports* the type attribute.
> > **Validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional
> > **Search engines probably don't support it, but we are providing the tags.
> Run it past someone suitable at Google, Yahoo and MSN, let Slashdot
> know so everyone else knows?
>
> The image search engines would undoubtedly want to index our image
> pages; if we can distinguish image pages ending in .jpg from actual
> JPEGs in a proper and conformant way, that should I expect be just
> what they would need to work with.

Cute. I like, but it may be akin to moving the earth.

Alternatively, we could also just find some character that we don't
accept in file names, but which is valid in URLs, and make it a
synonym for . in image page names.. then change our software to link
to that form.

I would suggest "/" as a character that we will not be permitting in
file names.. (probably not even after the filesystem decoupling of the
names)

So http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ferrofluid_large_spikes.jpg
 would also be http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ferrofluid_large_spikes/jpg

I suspect this could be done with a very minor change to mediawiki.
(If it's image namespace convert all / to . ... and in image page
links convert . to /) ... The question is if we, and more importantly,
Brion, think it's just too ugly. :)


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoconfirmed threshold

body:
On 1/31/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> Would it be possible to unconfirm people when they get blocked
> (possibly as an extra option for admins on the block page)?

Not at the present.  You could file a feature request at
bugs.wikimedia.org.  But it doesn't seem terribly useful to me (you
have to simmer for four days before making trouble again?).

> (I seem to remember than the 4 days thing is actually done as a you
> mustn't be in the most recent 1% of signups, or something, which would
> make resetting that part a little more effort on the part of the
> devs...)

It was eventually changed to just use four days from signup, when (I
guess) a signup-date field was added to the user table.  It makes no
difference from the point of view of resetting it, which would
probably need an explicit override group either way.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
on 1/31/07 9:57 AM, Daniel R. Tobias at dan at tobias.name wrote:

> You still have some character set problems with your mail program, as
> seen whenever you try to use an apostrophe and it comes out as a
> question mark in the digest version.

Thanks for letting me know, Dan. I thought I had set the text preferences
correctly. For now I will avoid contractions (the language is going to sound
a bit stilted) and send the problem off to a higher power (my computer tech
guy).

Thanks, again,

Marc


subject: [Wikitech-l] Microformats

body:
Evan Prodromou schreef:
> So, my vanity Google Alert turned up this doozie yesterday:
>
> http://www.vecosys.com/2007/01/29/wikipedia-adopts-microformats/
>
> Per the post, "Wikipedia has just announced that are also looking at how
> they can use Microformats on Wikipedia (and, more generally, in
> WikiMedia)?"
>
> I can't seem to find any such announcement; my guess is that it's either
> a typical mixup of "Wikipedia" for "Wikia", or maybe just some blogger
> getting his wires crossed.
>
> In any event, Wikitravel's had uF's for a while now, and if there really
> is someone working on this, I'd love to collaborate. I think uF's are
> pretty cool and I'd like to see them more available for MW in general.
>
> ~Evan
Hoi,
This is indeed really nice stuff.  What grabbed my eye was the species
proposal. For OmegaWiki it would be possible to support this as we are
working towards the moment where we will indeed include taxonomical data
as well. The benefit OmegaWiki can provide is to include the vernacular
name for the same species ie dog Hund hond chien etc. You may notice
that in our dog record, we have relations to two breeds of dog already.
We can create relations to either the latest scientific name of older
scientific names given a name. OmegaWiki also aims to include links to
Wikipedia articles. This will allow people who need encyclopaedic
information find it in the language of their choice.

This week we discussed including Latin in OmegaWiki and have a special
designation for the Latin used in the taxonomy of species. This is
something that we have to sort out because the Latin names used in the
taxonomy are not Latin in the sense of it conforming to the rules of the
Latin language, it is also not what you want to find in a Latin spell
checker. It will mean that Latin names have to disappear from definitions.

Technically requesting information from OmegaWiki using the microformat
as the input for a request seems feasible to me. OmegaWiki does use
MediaWiki, it is MediaWiki :) .
Thanks,
    GerardM

http://microformats.org/wiki/species
http://www.omegawiki.org/DefinedMeaning:dog_%28966%29


from_name: Mark Jaroski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Microformats

body:
Evan Prodromou wrote:
> In any event, Wikitravel's had uF's for a while now, and if there really
> is someone working on this, I'd love to collaborate. I think uF's are
> pretty cool and I'd like to see them more available for MW in general.

That would be me.  But of course you knew that. ;)

-mark

--
--
=================================================================
-- mark at geekhive dot net --


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] What is in the "page extracts for Yahoo" file?

body:
> > http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20070124/ - "page abstracts for
> > Yahoo" - what is this file?
>
> [... snip ...]
>
> 		<title>Wikipedia: April</title>
> 		<url>http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/April</url>
> 		<abstract>
> April is the fourth month of the year with 30 days.  The name April
> comes from that Latin word aperire which means "to open".
> </abstract>

Just out of curiosity, how is that abstract generated, and could
it be generated quickly on the fly?

The reason I ask is that sometimes I'm reading an article, and see
a linked term, and ask "What's that?". A lot of the time, I don't
particularly need or want the full explanation - a quick two or three
sentence summary would do fine.

In such a situation, hovering a mouse cursor over the link, and
having some JavaScript fire off to fetch the two or three sentence
abstract, which was then shown in a tooltip, could be ideal.

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Ligulem

subject: [Wikitech-l] Microformats

body:
On 31.01.2007 04:54, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> So, my vanity Google Alert turned up this doozie yesterday:
>
> http://www.vecosys.com/2007/01/29/wikipedia-adopts-microformats/
>
> Per the post, "Wikipedia has just announced that are also looking at how
> they can use Microformats on Wikipedia (and, more generally, in
> WikiMedia)?"
>

As a side note, Wikipedia user Omegatron added support for COinS tags to
the template cite book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Cite_book#COinS_tags_for_machine-readable_metadata
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COinS

I'm not sure if this qualifies as a microformat. Firefox plugin zotero
can pick-up book data thanks to this.

Moving support for something like cite book into MediaWiki might be
interesting, as the current template using parser functions is seen as a
hack by some wikipedians ("ridiculously complex", etc) and impossible to
understand by the so called "average" wikipedian.


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
> Marc Riddell wrote
>
>
>> Terrific! I much prefer the term "Don't be a dick" to "incivility"; can we
>> make the change :-).
>>
>
> Well, no. Why replace a good dictionary word with a profanity? Are you assuming that everyone who edits the English Wikipedia is a native speaker of English, who shares your likes and dislikes? You'd be very wrong about that. In fact the very acceptance of WP:DICK shows a basic level of crassness, if you ask me.
>
I agree that it's not really suitable across the entire English-speaking
world, but ironically, it probably gets the message across best to those
who are most prone to dickitude. :-)

Stan


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New version of Python Wikipediabot Framework

body:
A new issue of the Python Wikipediabot framework has been released, and can
be downloaded at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93107
. Everyone who does not update from CVS is advised to download this. Note
that this release does not include the wordlists, those who want to use
spellcheck.py should download a wordlist from
http://pywikipediabot.cvs.sourceforge.net/pywikipediabot/pywikipedia/spelling/(English
and Dutch wordlists are available, the French one is only small).
Note that one is advised to have the most recent version of Python (2.5) to
use with the bot.

The main changes since the previous release are:

new bots:
* clean_sandbox.py: empties the Sandbox (except for what should not be
removed)
* disambredir.py: goes through disambiguation pages to (ask whether to)
change redirect links on these pages
* inline_images.py: Searches and removes images that are linked inline
* isbn.py: Converts ISBN-10 to ISBN-13

category.py:
* Mode 'listify' added: gets a list of the pages that are in a specific
category.
* category.py remove can have customized edit summaries using the -delsum
option

commons_link.py:
* Can also be used to find categories rather than galleries
* Puts its template above categories and interwiki instead of all at the
bottom

copyright.py:
* Various fixes and improvements

delete.py:
* More options to decide which pages to delete: -ref (pages linking to a
specific page), -page (a single page), -file (a file with the pagenames),
-images (all images on a specific page)

featured.py:
* Now puts the template before categories and interwikis instead of after
the interwiki link
* Gives its command line options when -help is used

image.py:
* New option -loose: replaces the image new everywhere where it occurs. This
means that no occurences of the image are skipped, but also that there's
more risk of making errors.

interwiki.py:
* Quicker removal of links to different namespaces (they are removed when
there is a correct link or the option '-autonomous' is used)
* When the -ignore option is used, the page is also ignored if found as a
redirect
* It is now possible to combine -cat and -start to do a part of a category's
pages
* The -whenneeded option becomes slightly stricter (it does not change links
if the only problem was that there were links to be removed)
* Option -link renamed -links

movepages.py:
* Option -new to work on the new pages
* Options -from and -to to specify on the command line from and to which
title to move the page

pagefromfile.py:
* Option -notitle to not include the line containing the title in the page
to be created

replace.py:
* New options -allowoverlap and -recursive to change overlapping and
recursive occurences
* New option -nocase to make all regexes case insensitive
* New option -summary for custom edit summaries
* Does not crash on meeting the spam filter, but tells the problem and goes
on with the next page
* replace.py -fix:interproject has been deprecated

selflink.py:
* New option -xml to work from an XML dump

solve_disambiguation.py:
* The -primary option now works when the page is a disambiguation page (for
cases where [[X]] is a redirect to [[X (subject)]] with a disambiguation
page at [[X (disambiguation)]])
* More ignored pages for nl:

template.py:
* Now works on templates that have brackets in their name

touch.py:
* Does not do cosmetic changes, even when the bot normally does do so

upload.py:
* Is better (though possibly not yet perfect) in checking whether the upload
succeeded

weblinkchecker.py:
* Fakes being Firefox because some websites block unknown user agents

for programmers:
* Page objects now have a protect() method
* new method setUserAgent(). Uses the same user agent always.
* pagegenerators.py has a class CommandLineGenerator to automagically add
generator options to a bot
* Page.getReferences() gets a parameter

general:
* if a certain Mediawiki message is not found in the list the bot has, it
will first try reloading the messages before spawning an error
* many bugfixes
* large code refactoring in interwiki.py, pagegenerators.py
* namespace names updated
* more localization of edit summaries

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Wikitech-l] New version of Python Wikipediabot Framework


subject:
[Foundation-l] We really need to avoid the next Microsoft-Wikipedia
	bad publicity storm

body:
I got a call yesterday from a press officer for a major UK bank. My
number was one of the few contact numbers they could find.

They spent lots of time yesterday morning adding stuff to the bank's
article from their websites and having it reverted as a copyright
violation. They couldn't work out what she was doing wrong, so they
called me. They hadn't heard about the Microsoft mess at all. Oh dear.

I explained that editing the article about yourself is a conflict of
interest, and pointed them at the talk page and said this was the
right place to put stuff - that they should introduce themselves, etc.
And that people might argue, but that happens on the Internet. I also
said I'd have a look myself.

Well, that's one more innocent disaster averted ...

But we really need something to handle this sort of thing and make it
widely known. Something as n00b-friendly as possible - just type on a
page (or in a form) or send an email.

Which will mean another firehose of crap to find volunteers to deal
with. This is the tricky bit. Compare to OTRS, which has the twin
problems of (1) a firehose of crap with a few important things in it
and (2) too few volunteers, who then get (understandably) tetchy and
close to burnout, and not great success at recruiting more.

So:

0. I submit that we really do need this.
1. Most n00b-friendly interface possible. This is not a big problem.
2. How to get volunteers interested in wanting to look at this? This
is the tricky one.

Ideas please!

(I'm tempted to submit this to Ask Slashdot for ideas ... any objections?)

Another bad publicity storm such as happened last week to Microsoft is
absolutely not in Wikipedia or Wikimedia's interests. We don't want to
make organisations fearful of coming near us.

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] We really need to avoid the next Microsoft-Wikipedia bad
	publicity storm


body:
I accidentily hit send when I wasn't ready yet... Here is what I had not
included yet.

interwiki.py:
* Now handles sections correctly. It used to be that the bot did not see
links to sections correctly unless the section title contained only
non-space ASCII characters. It should now work for all sections.

for programmers:
* Page.getReferences() gets a parameter redirectsOnly, to only show
redirects to the page
* Page.getVersionHistory() also gives the oldid of the old versions
* Colours can now be used on input as well as output

general:
* Adapted to changes in MediaWiki
* Moving and deleting pages are now throttled

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Microformats

body:
On Wed, 2007-31-01 at 06:06 +0000, Angela wrote:

> I have another theory. They're perceiving the creation of a page by a
> repeatedly blocked user as an official announcement...
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Microformats was
> made a couple of days ago and includes the same wording as the post on
> vecosys.

Wow! Great detective work. That has _got_ to be it.

It's probably wishful thinking on the part of the blogger. I haven't
seen this mentioned elsewhere, so it seems like no-harm no-foul.

Anyways, it's been a good instigation to get more general microformats
support out in either an extension or as an optional part of core. We've
been using uF's on Wikitravel for a while, and I know that Wikevent has
a lot of them going, too.

~Evan

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20070131/d78b3403/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject:
[WikiEN-l] We really need to avoid the next Microsoft-Wikipedia
	bad publicity storm

body:
On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:46:03 +0000, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Which will mean another firehose of crap to find volunteers to deal
>with. This is the tricky bit. Compare to OTRS, which has the twin
>problems of (1) a firehose of crap with a few important things in it
>and (2) too few volunteers, who then get (understandably) tetchy and
>close to burnout, and not great success at recruiting more.

I volunteered for OTRS, and was contacted back a while ago, but have
heard nothing more since.  Maybe there are volunteers after all...

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject:
[Foundation-l] We really need to avoid the next
	Microsoft-Wikipedia bad publicity storm

body:
On 31/01/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> There are a number of people who would come to mind for this work. I
> don't think Slashdot's wisdom, may the IPU bless them, will help us
> here; like so many other things, it's really a matter of investing the
> resources in getting the tech work done.

Mmm. I don't think the tech side is a problem - a web form that goes
to a publicly-viewable or somewhat-viewable queue maybe.

The big issue in my mind is how to get people interested in even
dealing with such a queue. wikien-l, the most likely first source of
volunteers, was pretty tepid about the idea, some even questioning it
was appropriate at all. I still think we do need something like this
to avoid the next media silliness.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoconfirmed threshold

body:
On 1/31/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> The reason I suggest it is because the reason most people give for an
> edit count requirement is that once you've reached X edits, we'll know
> if you're a vandal or not. However, us knowing isn't much good if you
> get autoconfirmed anyway. Unless we want to indef block all registered
> vandals as their first block, an edit count is useless without it
> being possible to prevent autoconfirming if the edits aren't
> acceptable ones.

Interesting point.  At present, the reason for autoconfirmed is
basically to stop certain forms of casual vandalism.  You have to do
some preparation if you want to engage in page-move vandalism, which
due to software limitations has historically been more of a pain to
deal with.  I would tend to view edit counts as an extension of this:
not only must you sign up and wait, you also have to make some
innocuous edits.

I suspect that if a user is dedicated and sinister enough to plan out
ten edits and four days to get autoconfirmed before going on a
page-move spree, he's probably going to make some whitespace changes
with his ten edits, not vandalism, so I'm not sure this will help at
all.


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
Marc Riddell wrote

>I have been
> doing minor editing in WP for a year now and, time permitting, would like to
> participate more actively in the project. And, like anything a person is
> considering becoming a part of, I want to get a sense of its beliefs and
> values.
>
> My work and passion has been, is now, and probably always will be, persons
> and their interactions. That is why this issue is so important to me.

An argument I have produced before, is that bad language and aggressiveness as a routine form of interaction appeals mostly to the young and male. It happens that males 20 to 25 might be the most significant group here. I think it is also the case that such forms of verbal interaction and self-assertion are likely to put off many other demographic groups. So civility policy is one way of trying to broaden the base of contributors, or to retain people who profile is not a good match to those who think freedom of speech is mostly about the right to be f****** rude all the time.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
On 1/31/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
> On 30 Jan 2007 at 23:15, SonOfYoungwood@{gag,vomit,retch}aol.com
> wrote:
>
> > Exactly; I get this all the time when I go into a group and try to beat
> the
> > heck out of their nostalgic groupthink masturbation. I'm also guilty of
> > groupthink in some instances, though. I guess it's human nature.
>
> When you enter a new group with the intent of trying to beat the heck
> out of the regulars there, it exhibits an attitude problem on your
> own part, doesn't it?

This is all dependent on assumptions; nonetheless the symptoms may exist
through quit observation.  An internal regulatory system in the best
circumstances is designed to foster critical thinking and self examination.
Groupthink occurs when the internal regulators too often befall consensus.
And an intimidation factor is all present -- critical thinkers of the
project, within the project, join consensus by keeping silent.

nobs01


subject: [Wikitech-l] table text is full

body:
Line 252 of wiki/includes/HistoryBlob.php reads:
$obj->uncompress();

And $obj is unserialized (and sometimes uncompressed) from the text table.

$obj in the backtrace you gave is a HistoryBlobStub ; and as you point out, HistoryBlobStub does not have an uncompress function.
The only thing with an uncompress function is ConcatenatedGzipHistoryBlob.

So as a stab in the dark, if you're feeling lucky, you could try this as an ugly hack and see what happens :

---------------------------------------------
     // Save this item for reference; if pulling many
     // items in a row we'll likely use it again.
-    $obj->uncompress();
+    if( $obj instanceof ConcatenatedGzipHistoryBlob ) {
+         $obj->uncompress();
+    }
     $wgBlobCache = array( $this->mOldId => $obj );
---------------------------------------------

All the best,
Nick.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of Travis
> Derouin
> Sent: Wednesday, 31 January 2007 10:42 AM
> To: Wikimedia developers
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] table text is full
>
>
> Great. Thanks for the help.
>
> So far so good. I fixed the table by increasing max_rows on the table
> and the file can now grow past 4GB. I've enabled $wgCompressRevisions
> and run compressOld.php, just waiting for the nightly backup to
> optimize the table and it should be ok.
>
> We're seeing this error now while grabbing some old revisions from the
> history of page, any ideas? It only happens on some articles and I did
> see some debugging output when I ran compressOld.php. It doesn't
> appear HistoryBlobStub has an uncompress function:
>
> Fatal error: Call to undefined method HistoryBlobStub::uncompress() in
> wiki/includes/HistoryBlob.php on line 25
>
> Backtrace:
>     * HistoryBlob.php line 257 calls wfBacktrace()
>     * Revision.php line 533 calls HistoryBlobStub::getText()
>     * Revision.php line 677 calls Revision::getRevisionText()
>     * Revision.php line 435 calls Revision::loadText()
>     * Article.php line 522 calls Revision::getRawText()
>     * Article.php line 384 calls Article::fetchContent()
>     * Article.php line 192 calls Article::loadContent()
>     * Article.php line 863 calls Article::getContent()
>     * Wiki.php line 337 calls Article::view()
>     * Wiki.php line 50 calls MediaWiki::performAction()
>     * index.php line 123 calls MediaWiki::initialize()
>
> $flags are:
>
> Array
> (
>     [0] => object
>     [1] => utf-8
> )
>
> $obj before being unserialized is:
>
> O:15:"HistoryBlobStub":3:{s:6:"mOldId";s:6:"246631";s:5:"mHash";s:32:"c87a9d76bbd59c9a1218c5620fc889dd";s:4:"mRef";s:6:"246631";}
>
> Any help would be appreciated,
>
> Thanks,
> Travis
>
>
> On 1/27/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Travis Derouin wrote:
> > > We have reached the maximum table size limit of 4GB for our text table
> > > - what's the best way around or to fix this?
> >
> > Well, the best is probably to use InnoDB tables instead of MyISAM. :)
> >
> > But see the general documentation which shows a number of possible
> > issues and workarounds:
> > http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/full-table.html
> >
> > Also consider using compression in MediaWiki to save space
> > ($wgCompressRevisions to gzip newly saved revisions, and/or run
> > maintenance/storage/compressOld.php to perform batch compression.) But
> > fix the table first!
> >
> > - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> >
> > iD8DBQFFuv2twRnhpk1wk44RAuXaAJ95Vo66bjCOx+CBLONInaeyuje8tQCfV7Nn
> > l7/55qarL9U3NvEpnCbr//8=
> > =aFUU
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject:
[WikiEN-l] We really need to avoid the next Microsoft-Wikipedia
	bad	publicity storm

body:
 "David Gerard" wrote

> Another bad publicity storm such as happened last week to Microsoft is
> absolutely not in Wikipedia or Wikimedia's interests. We don't want to
> make organisations fearful of coming near us.

OK. How long is it going to take before self-styled "press officers" actually inform themselves _properly_ about WP?

I mean, the teaboy in the PR room is going to be given the job of actually editing the site. But people who are _employed_ to know about PR should be _professional_ in their approach. Not assume that 'free to edit' is 'free PR'; that's an entirely amateur view, that it costs nothing and never can have any downside or fallout.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


from_name: Alex Powell

body:
I agree that Firebug times are erratic. I have put much of this down to
normal network lag/server lag. I am running a windows server running PHP
using the DLL version, and I think it sometimes gets locked during the
request. I am looking into getting FastCGI working to see if it is more
consistant but have never been fond of recompiling and XAMPP doesn't seem to
like to load any of the versions out there.

Don't suppose anyone has any experience of FastCGI under windows? Is it
worth it over the DLL? Does it make the server more stable? I'm running PHP
5.2.0 with APC at the mo.

If the timings of loading the user style sheet is wrong, then fine. Might be
worth hacking in an optional timing into output=js as a JS comment, to prove
it once and for all.

On 1/31/07, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well I'm not running squid, and here's the test script I'm running and the
> timing results I'm seeing on my local test wiki:
>
> --------------------------------------
> root at bling:~/tmp# cat test.sh
> #!/bin/bash
> time wget --output-document=index-1.js  "http://192.168.0.64/wiki/index.php?title=-&action=raw&smaxage=0&gen=js
> "
> time wget --output-document=index-2.css
> "http://192.168.0.64/wiki/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=18000
> "
> time wget --output-document=index-3.css
> "http://192.168.0.64/wiki/index.php?title=-&action=raw&gen=css&maxage=18000&smaxage=0&ts=20070129214411
> "
> root at bling:~/tmp#
> root at bling:~/tmp# ./test.sh
> --12:40:44--  http://192.168.0.64/wiki/index.php?title=-&action=raw&smaxage=0&gen=js
>           => `index-1.js'
> Connecting to 192.168.0.64:80 <http://192.168.0.64/>... connected.
> HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
> Length: 3,788 (3.7K) [text/javascript]
> 12:40:45 (212.50 MB/s) - `index-1.js' saved [3788/3788]
>
>
> real    0m0.237s
> user    0m0.004s
> sys     0m0.000s
> --12:40:45--  http://192.168.0.64/wiki/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=18000
>           => `index-2.css'
> Connecting to 192.168.0.64:80 <http://192.168.0.64/>... connected.
> HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
> Length: 28 [text/css]
> 12:40:45 (2.97 MB/s) - `index-2.css' saved [28/28]
>
>
> real    0m0.198s
> user    0m0.008s
> sys     0m0.004s
> --12:40:45--  http://192.168.0.64/wiki/index.php?title=-&action=raw&gen=css&maxage=18000&smaxage=0&ts=20070129214411
>
>           => `index-3.css'
> Connecting to 192.168.0.64:80 <http://192.168.0.64/>... connected.
> HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
> Length: 75 [text/css]
> 12:40:45 (8.94 MB/s) - `index- 3.css' saved [75/75]
>
>
> real    0m0.228s
> user    0m0.004s
> sys     0m0.004s
> root at bling:~/tmp#
> --------------------------------------
>
> I.e. total time = 0.237 + 0.198 + 0.228 = 0.663 seconds.
>
> I take it for the Firebug timing values, that you're going Tools ->
> Firebug -> Open Firebug -> click on "Net" -> make sure "All" is
> selected -> read the timing values for the various scripts?
>
> If so, my times are 10 ms, 150 ms, and 160 ms, respectively for the above
> 3 files.
>
> However, ajaxwatch.js for me shows as taking 351 ms, which seems rather
> long.
>
> However, when I try to fetch ajaxwatch on the command line, I get a very
> different result:
>
> --------------------------------------
> root at bling:~/tmp# time wget --output-document=ajaxwatch.js "http://192.168.0.64/wiki/skins/common/ajaxwatch.js
> "
> --12:56:20--  http://192.168.0.64/wiki/skins/common/ajaxwatch.js
>           => `ajaxwatch.js'
> Connecting to 192.168.0.64:80 <http://192.168.0.64/>... connected.
> HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
> Length: 3,916 (3.8K) [application/x-javascript]
> 12:56:20 (219.68 MB/s) - `ajaxwatch.js' saved [3916/3916]
>
>
> real    0m0.008s
> user    0m0.004s
> sys     0m0.004s
> root at bling:~/tmp#
> --------------------------------------
>
> I.e. only 2.3% of the time that Firebug reports. A 43-times difference
> like this is an enormous difference - the difference between
> blazingly fast, and pig slow.
>
> Refreshing the page shows that Firebug thinks Monobook.css took 791 ms;
> however the command line repeatably shows values between
> 0.197s and 0.210s.
>
> I think there may be a few problems or explanations here:
> * The Firebug times I suspect include the time that Firefox spends
> client-side processing the CSS or JS (i.e. not just the time to
> fetch from the network). I.e. image rendering times, JavaScript execution
> times, page layout times, etc. If that's correct, what
> would be useful would be is if the Firebug times separated out network
> fetch times, and local client processing times, for each
> item.
> * The Firebug times do not seem to be as repeatable as one would like for
> systematic testing ( e.g. total page display times varied
> between 2.5 seconds and 3.5 seconds). Part of this may be the Observer
> effect (i.e. Firebug is embedded in Firefox, and the act of
> observing Firefox and continuously reporting on its rendering times
> probably makes Firefox slower, and/or introduces variability).
> * I have gzip compression turned on, and probably Firefox uses this,
> whereas wget probably does not.
>
> Basically, I'm unsure what to make of the Firebug times, except to say
> that the times Firebug reports do not immediately appear to
> correlate well with the time taken to retrieve the raw content from the
> network.
>
> Also, on a related note, for requesting ajaxwatch.js, we should probably
> be tacking on the "?52" version string thing somewhere
> (which from the Firebug output it looks like we're not currently doing).
>
> All the best,
> Nick.
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> > [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of Alex Powell
> > Sent: Wednesday, 31 January 2007 2:18 AM
> > To: Wikimedia developers
> > Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Performance of loading custom style sheets
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > No not that. I have a 2 GHz core duo at both ends, runnning no AV
> software
> > (!), or anything else. The machine is "sufficient". Wiki pages without
> those
> > two (stripped them out) take 180millis by Firebug.
> >
> > Testing against the wikipedia, it took 200millis on first hit, and then
> 16
> > millis on subsiqent. I suspect the squid caches had it in their mits at
> that
> > point. The page is pulled with some unusual parameters, I was wondering
> if
> > that was pushing the code down an unusual path...
> >
> > Alex
> >
> >
> > On 1/29/07, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Alex Powell wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > Mediawiki's performance has improved substantially over the
> versions.
> > > and
> > > > 1.9 seems the snappiest yet. When I upgraded I found I had some slow
> > > stuff
> > > > being loaded in addition to MW. Using Firebug beta (v cool BTW) I
> > > noticed
> > > > something odd. The index.php for the page loads blindingly fast, but
> the
> > > > following:
> > > >
> > > > /index.php?title=-&action=raw&smaxage=0&gen=js<
> > >
> http://www.exscien.com/internal/index.php?title=-&action=raw&smaxage=0&gen=js
> > > >
> > > > /index.php?title=MediaWiki:
> > > Common.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=18000<
> > >
> http://www.exscien.com/internal/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=18000
> > > >
> > > > /index.php?title=User:Alexp/monobook.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css<
> > > http://www.exscien.com/internal/index.php?title=User:Alexp/monobook.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css
>
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> /index.php?title=-&action=raw&gen=css&maxage=18000&smaxage=0&ts=20070129214411<
> > >
> http://www.exscien.com/internal/index.php?title=-&action=raw&gen=css&maxage=18000&smaxage=0&ts=20070129214411
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ... seem to run very slowly (one was taking 2 seconds and each take
> over
> > > > .5secs, on a page that took 16ms to render). What can be done to
> speed
> > > them?
> > > > As far as I can see they are just simple js direct from the DB. Am I
> > > missing
> > > > something or is there a performance hole there?
> > >
> > > Get a better computer. Seriously, I suspect firebug is timing the
> > > firefox rendering time (for css) and execution time (for js). Try
> using
> > > wget, it will be faster (or disable javascript).
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
> > > http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
> > > IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Luna

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
On 1/30/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> But, in the context of WP, how does this apply? How does what two people
> say
> to each other on their personal Talk Pages disrupt the Project? For that
> matter, in that two-way conversation, if it is one person flailing at the
> other, can?t that other person simply not respond? How does what one
> person
> writes in this Mailing List disrupt the progress of an issue being
> discussed? Simply ignore it ? or, as computer challenged as I am, even I
> know where the DELETE button is :-).

Well, let's offer a counter-example -- suppose one person blanks a talk page
and replaces it with "FUCK YOU." Suppose they do this several times a day.
Suppose they use sockpuppets and various IP addresses to do so. Is this
offensive? Definitely. Is this disruptive? Definitely. I would anticipate
very little disagreement with a proposal to discourage such behavior.

To me, this isn't a black-and-white issue. There's a question of degrees.
Surely not all examples of disruptive behavior are quite as severe as what I
just offered, but once we admit that there *are* cases where offensive
behavior is bad and should be stopped, then it becomes a question of where
we draw the line.

My personal metrics? (1) Is the person acting in good faith? (2) Is the
person helping solve more problems then they help to create? Once we've
answered those two questions, the path to an answer will frequently become
more apparent.

Just my thought.
-Luna


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Copyright violation warnings should point users to the appropriate contact
details to let us know they own the copyright and specifically tell them
about what email address to use to contact us, so the process is
stream-lined (avoiding long exchanges with users being told new info one bit
at a time).

Mgm

On 1/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I got a call yesterday from a press officer for a major UK bank. My
> number was one of the few contact numbers they could find.
>
> They spent lots of time yesterday morning adding stuff to the bank's
> article from their websites and having it reverted as a copyright
> violation. They couldn't work out what she was doing wrong, so they
> called me. They hadn't heard about the Microsoft mess at all. Oh dear.
>
> I explained that editing the article about yourself is a conflict of
> interest, and pointed them at the talk page and said this was the
> right place to put stuff - that they should introduce themselves, etc.
> And that people might argue, but that happens on the Internet. I also
> said I'd have a look myself.
>
> Well, that's one more innocent disaster averted ...
>
> But we really need something to handle this sort of thing and make it
> widely known. Something as n00b-friendly as possible - just type on a
> page (or in a form) or send an email.
>
> Which will mean another firehose of crap to find volunteers to deal
> with. This is the tricky bit. Compare to OTRS, which has the twin
> problems of (1) a firehose of crap with a few important things in it
> and (2) too few volunteers, who then get (understandably) tetchy and
> close to burnout, and not great success at recruiting more.
>
> So:
>
> 0. I submit that we really do need this.
> 1. Most n00b-friendly interface possible. This is not a big problem.
> 2. How to get volunteers interested in wanting to look at this? This
> is the tricky one.
>
> Ideas please!
>
> (I'm tempted to submit this to Ask Slashdot for ideas ... any objections?)
>
> Another bad publicity storm such as happened last week to Microsoft is
> absolutely not in Wikipedia or Wikimedia's interests. We don't want to
> make organisations fearful of coming near us.
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 1/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> But we really need something to handle this sort of thing and make it
> widely known. Something as n00b-friendly as possible - just type on a
> page (or in a form) or send an email.

Yes.  I suggested in the past adding a "submit review" form for
external editorial reviews, which is a similar use scenario to
complaints and corrections. However, I don't think that just adding a
tiny new feature is going to cut it. If we want this to be used, it
needs to be visible and tie into the existing talk page process.

The real underlying problem is that our talk page process is
essentially broken. And I don't just mean broken as in "newbies don't
get it, everyone else does"; it lacks all the functionality one would
want from a threaded discussion system. For this particular use,
tracking and categorization of single threads (and assignment of
threads to volunteers who need to look at them) is especially
important.

There exists a prototype system that could largely replace talk pages;
LiquidThreads. It combines wiki elements with threaded discussion,
treating essentially every comment as a wiki page with its own
history. It was developed by David McCabe as part of the Google Summer
of Code. Unfortunately, it appears to be no longer in active
development as David has been caught up in school work, unable to
continue the project. I think WMF should hire a skilled developer to
continue this work, and lead towards integrating our communication
systems.

There are a number of people who would come to mind for this work. I
don't think Slashdot's wisdom, may the IPU bless them, will help us
here; like so many other things, it's really a matter of investing the
resources in getting the tech work done.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Parker Peters

subject: [WikiEN-l] I go away for a few days and all this happens?

body:
I'm amazed.

I'll be writing in-depth responses to a few people shortly, but I'm amazed
at everything that happens when I just go away for a few days.

Parker


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
On 31/01/07, SonOfYoungwood at aol.com <SonOfYoungwood at aol.com> wrote:

> Exactly; I get this all the time when I go into a group and try to beat the
> heck out of their nostalgic groupthink masturbation.

I think that's what we call "a hiccup in diplomacy." You catch more
flies with honey than Uzis.

> I'm also guilty of
> groupthink in some instances, though. I guess it's human nature.

There's also the outside possibility that if everyone seems to be
disagreeing with me, I might actually be wrong ... Nah, that can't
happen.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
"Consensus" is what you get when you have a group of people working on
things, each independently reaching the same conclusion or being convinced
by evidence.

It morphs into "groupthink" when one of two things happens:

- Someone new arrives with new evidence and is attacked for "going against
consensus"

- the same "consensus" sits for too long and begins attaining force of
"law."

Wikipedia has a problem in this regard. The problem relates to WP:OWN as
well as WP:CIVIL, and is a natural consequence of bowing at the altar of
"Consensus" to the exclusion of factual accuracy.

The natural progression problem is that the more a small group of editors
"tunes" an article to whatever standard, the more they feel they "own" that
article, and the more they will actively oppose any other editors (other
than the group) working on it. Eventually this transforms into groupthink
and abuse towards newcomers becomes common. The smaller the group is, the
worse it becomes; the editor who feels himself "creator" of an article, and
therefore feels he has "ownership" of it, is the worst of all, but our
various POV-pushing cliques on various topics are also good examples; each
clique has what it calls a "consensus" which is actually a Groupthink, and
feels fully justified in "Punishing" (with admin tools in many cases) anyone
who is outside of what they inaccurately claim is "consensus."

The same is true of this mailing list. There are a number of "groupthink
items" that are instantly shouted down whenever addressed, often with
derisive in-jokes and buzzwords deliberately made and used to make outsiders
feel even more confused and rejected.

It's a general Wikipedia cultural attitude problem.

Parker

On 1/28/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Seeing how a few detractors here have been throwing around the term
> "groupthink" I have to ask, is there any real difference between the
> two or does it depend on which side of a "consensus" decision you are
> on? That is, if an article you wrote/are involved with survives AFD,
> then it's "consensus", if it gets deleted, it's "groupthink". Of
> course it's the other way around if it's an article you don't like.
>
> Same with an edit to an active article. If the edit stands, it's
> "consensus" if it's constantly reverted and your persistence gets you
> banned by a "rogue admin (tm)", it's "groupthink".
>
> Therefore, I have to wonder if "groupthink", as long as it doesn't
> lead to an [[Abilene paradox]] might not just be another way of saying
> "consensus" which can either be good or bad. Good if the "consensus"
> decision squares with previously established policies, bad if it
> doesn't.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 31/01/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:

> Problem with search engines is that they are being too inteligent.
> Posible solutions:
> *Use <a type="text/html" href=".../Image:Foo.png">
> **I wasn't expecting it, but the a element *supports* the type attribute.
> **Validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional
> **Search engines probably don't support it, but we are providing the tags.

Run it past someone suitable at Google, Yahoo and MSN, let Slashdot
know so everyone else knows?

The image search engines would undoubtedly want to index our image
pages; if we can distinguish image pages ending in .jpg from actual
JPEGs in a proper and conformant way, that should I expect be just
what they would need to work with.

- d.


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoconfirmed threshold

body:
> I think we should enable this with a threshold of 10 edits.  10 edits is
> reasonable for a vandal to go through the whole warning system and get
> blocked, while at the same time not too much so as to discourage new
> contributors.
> --Mets501

I think 10 edits (and the 4 days that there is now) is a good amount

Would it be possible to unconfirm people when they get blocked
(possibly as an extra option for admins on the block page)? So they
have to go another 4 days and 10 edits. It would mean that blocking
someone for 24 hows stops them editing semi-protected pages for 4
days, which would be useful - far better to let someone do basic
editing after a short time, and more damaging editing after a longer
time.

(I seem to remember than the 4 days thing is actually done as a you
mustn't be in the most recent 1% of signups, or something, which would
make resetting that part a little more effort on the part of the
devs...)


subject: [WikiEN-l] First Amendment? - a Problem Mediation to consider

body:
I see a problem case for our "Mediation Cabal" here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-12-08_Beit_Hanoun_November_2006_incident

Mediator's result:
"Pursuant to the First Amendment, the photos are allowed.
Wiki<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wikizach>
e <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EA>Zach|
talk<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wikizach>19:20, 26 January
2007 (UTC)"

There are two main problems with this:
#1 - the dispute was never about the "First Amendment", but about whether
the photos and quotations in question were violations of NPOV standards (and
for that matter, whether they were genuine or not). This is not looked at at
all by the mediator's result, nor commented on anywhere by the mediator.

#2 - As referenced by another thread on this mailing list, Wikipedia is not
bound by the US Constitution nor the First Amendment thereof. Therefore, the
"result" of the Mediation has no basis in policy.

I find it to be a bad mediation.

Parker


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Commons-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2006

body:
The Commons Picture of the Year 2006 will be chosen in February.
Participate by voting for a picture out of the featured pictures
promoted in 2006. This vote is open to every established Wikimedian.

The election has two phases. In the first phase, taking place from 1st
to 14th February 2007, the ten best pictures will be chosen among all
2006 Featured Pictures.

At the end of phase 1, the top 10 images by number of votes will go to
phase 2 (the final). Only images with 3 or more votes are eligible for
phase 2.

During the final, to take place from 15th February to 28th February,
the Commons Picture of the Year 2006, and the two runners-up, will be
chosen from the eligible images.

The three winning pictures will be displayed on the Main Page and
enter the History Books of Wikimedia Commons forever :-)

Participate! The election is open from tomorrow on
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006 !


subject: [Foundation-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2006


body:
On 1/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mmm. I don't think the tech side is a problem - a web form that goes
> to a publicly-viewable or somewhat-viewable queue maybe.

What is this web form going to say, and where is it going to be? How
do you avoid people using it for general article feedback that
_really_ should be on the talk page where the right people see it? A
"complaints" tab that goes to OTRS & cross-posts to the talk page
might be an intermediate solution, but I don't think it's a good long
term strategy.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: WIKIPEDIA IS A FRAUD

body:
Tariq,

I just got back to town and started going through my email.

I get the feeling you're just mad that I so thoroughly debunked your claims
of good faith and the actions of your friend Itaqallah a while back on this
mailing list.

http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l/2006-December/058693.html
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l/2006-December/058763.html
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l/2006-December/058777.html

Parker

On 1/27/07, Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu- <tariqabjotu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And what about Parker Peters? (see
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-January/061849.html)
>
> -- Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-
>
> Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> > And please ban him, from looking through his contributions and his 2
> > mails to this list, it is certainly justified.
> >
> > --Oskar
> >
> > On 1/28/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I think this discussion is over; please put Michael on moderation or
> >> drop him from the list.
> >>
> >>
> >> -george
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >> From: Michael Smith <runechozo at gmail.com>
> >> Date: Jan 27, 2007 2:51 PM
> >> Subject: Re: WIKIPEDIA IS A FRAUD
> >> To: George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>
> >>
> >>
> >> Bullshit you fucking liar.
> >>
> >>
> >> On 1/27/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On 1/27/07, Michael Smith <runechozo at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I was abused, stalked, hounded, and the one who did it got off with
> nothing
> >>>> happening to him because you like beating up on people.And why?
> BECAUSE I
> >>>> WAS TRYING TO MAKE AN ARTICLE BETTER.
> >>>>
> >>> No, you've been blocked, and may well be banned now, because you can't
> >>> respond politely and in an adult and civil manner to complaints.
> >>>
> >>> Until you understand that you entirely did this to yourself, I don't
> >>> see how you can continue participating in Wikipedia.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> -george william herbert
> >>> george.herbert at gmail.com
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> --
> >> -george william herbert
> >> george.herbert at gmail.com
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> WikiEN-l mailing list
> >> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> >
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Platonides

subject:
[Wikitech-l] embedded links in UI messages (splitted from
	"Major flaws...")

body:
Daniel Arnold escribi?:
> Note: The following topic is not about namespace names and not about names of
> special pages.
>
> Vanilla Mediawiki UI strings contain hardcoded localised link targets. For
> example have a look at MediaWiki:Blockedtext (if you want to get all (?)
> affected messages grep for {{ns:project}} in the sources). Well again in
> monolingual wikis no problem. These linked pages are supposed to exist but
> now consider a multilingual wiki...
>
> For example "Project:Administrateur" is linked in MediaWiki:Blockedtext/fr
> from vanilla Mediawiki. Imagine using someone French in a wiki with a
> non-french default language which is commonly the case in multilingual wikis
> such as Wikimedia Commons (note: French is just an example this holds for
> every of the zillions of languages supported by Mediawiki). So UI messages
> were created with monolingual wikis in mind and never considering simultanous
> usage of different languages.
>
> So in vanilla Mediawiki please do not hardcode any wiki page in message
> strings.
>
> Well how to localise embedded link targets in the future?
> Use a mechanism that points to mediawiki namespace pages that define these
> link targets (like the mediawiki namespace pages defined by
> MediaWiki:Sidebar). A possible syntax could be done with
> {{subst:Mediawiki:PAGENAME}} templates (however this syntax has some problems
> as this would need to expand to a given sub page and would need to check if
> that sub page exists and fall back to default if not). Another possible
> syntax could be the use of named variables such as $MediaWiki:PAGENAME in
> interface strings.
>
> Arnomane

Localization is done by volunteers, sometimes with contradictory guidelines.
Changing the link to [[{{MediaWiki:grouppage-sysop}}|administrateur]]
fixes it.

[[{{MediaWiki:grouppage-sysop}}|{{MediaWiki:group-sysop}}]] may be
preferred if you use special names for the groups (e.g. wikidictator
instead of sysop). However people won't understand it (what is a
yll?pit?j?t??).

There are 10 ocurrences of [[Wikipedia:Administrators|administrator]] on
[[en:Special:Allmessages]], all of them on customized messages.

Be aware that when translators start using it and most references have
been changed to this geeky code, some server admin will start
complaining about slow rendering and undo all/invent a new way. ;)

Platonides


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
On 31/01/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Interesting. You know, as I read all of the responses thus far, the one word
> that my eye and brain keep tripping over is "civility" - perhaps I am
> associating it with the word "proper" - and that's a button word for me. The
> only thing I have ever associated with the word civil is disobedience ;-).

Wikipedia is a working environment - a volunteer one (which has its
own social rules, of course), but nevertheless it's a project with a
particular purpose. I've seen how obnoxious editors scare off newbies,
and it's not nice at all and is actually damaging to the project.

Other collaborative volunteer projects work other ways. The Linux and
OpenBSD mailing lists are famously abrasive. But, as noted, no-one's
started a "Nastypedia" ...

I think the basic rule, which I hold is the fundamental rule of all
social spaces, is "Don't be a dick." Every other social rule we have
is a special case of that.

- d.


from_name: Keitei

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
On Jan 31, 2007, at 11:27, <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> In fact the very acceptance of WP:DICK shows a basic level of
> crassness, if you ask me.

And "dick" itself is a euphemism for "fuckhead." The original essay
is very interesting. As I said before though, being civil means
following our rules; it doesn't delineate those rules (although the
policy page does try to do that).

--keitei


subject: [Wikitech-l] Account mix-up and other anomalies

body:
Bug 6464: Logged on as someone else.

Info attached to http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6464#c34
by Simetrical

We thought it solved, but it seems it's not. Please collect as info
about it as you can.


from_name: wiki_tomos at inter7.jp

body:
Some strange anomalies are reported on Japanese Wikipedia.

I am not sure if this is a bug in software or something else,
so I am reporting it here first.

#1 Three users indicated that their edit records include
edits they had never made - wrong attribution.

#2 One of those users reported that while he was editing,
he "became" another user - he was logged on as another user.
He could see email address, watchlist, etc. associated with
that account. The account he was switched to was also among
one of the three users mentioned in #1.

To be more specific, the following three users reported
wrong attribution.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%A9%E7%94%A8%E8%80%85:Avanzare
reported his edit record include edit(s) he never made.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%A9%E7%94%A8%E8%80%85:Trashwriter
said that he had never made this edit:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E4%B8%AD%E4%BA%AC%E9%AB%98%E7%AD%89%E5%AD%A6%E6%A0%A1&diff=10322213&oldid=10298692

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%A9%E7%94%A8%E8%80%85:Kunipoo
said that he had never made this edit:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E3%83%98%E3%82%A2%E3%83%8C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89&diff=10324017&oldid=9992509

Also,
User:Trashwriter reported he once became User:Avanzare.

User:Kunipoo reported he once saw the user name displayed at
the upper right corner became NNNN or NNNNN. He experienced
other error messages and slow responce when this happened.
(User:NNNN and User:NNNNN do exist in Japanese Wikipedia,
although the former has only one edit and the latter none.)

Is this something that might occur in relation to server
overload?

Best,

Tomos


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

references:
<45BCAEB4.70606@netzero.net>	<45BCF1E6.9080203@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<45BD03F1.3020000@netzero.net>
	<45BFCD70.2060009@telus.net>

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>
>
>
>>I am being told that the one and only way that these images are going to
>>possibly be removed from Wikipedia is through a WP:OFFICE action.  I
>>think that is one of the most ridiculous sentiments ever made.  For
>>example, see the "disclaimer" that was thrown onto this image:
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image%3AHand_with_Reflecting_Sphere.jpg
>>
>I looked at that "disclaimer", and found it excessively
>confrontational.  I was tempted to at least edit off the rough edges,
>but though it better not to meddle with what you are trying to do..  I
>saw no mention of WP:OFFICE.
>
>Ec
>
The point I was trying to make here is that the only option that our
"desgnated agent" could do here (aka Brad, if he were contacted by the
Escher Foundation to remove this content) is to invoke WP:OFFICE and
have the content removed.  I see no reason that such a disclaimer needs
to be here in this first place, and am arguing that this is strongly
suggesting that perhaps even having this image on Wikipedia is illegal.
 I'm sure that somebody thought to add the disclaimer as a form of CYA
(cover your assetts), but if you are in doubt in the first place
wouldn't it simply be better to remove the image completely?

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] table text is full

body:
Ok,

Looking at the structure of things, it looks like the first revision
gets stored as a ConcatenatedGzipHistoryBlob which has all of the
revisions compressed into one, and subsequent revisions are replaced
with Stubs that point to the initial ConcatenatedGzipHistoryBlob
revision.

The problem that I'm having is that there is no initial
ConcatenatedGzipHistoryBlob revision for these problematic histories,
all of the revisions are stubs, which looks like the data was lost for
these affected pages when I ran compressOld.php.

This is not good! We have backups, but it will be a pain to fix. Is
the best way to load the old back up into a separate db and then do
something like

UPDATE current_wiki.text
 SET current_wiki.text.old_text = backup_wiki.text.old_text,
          current_wiki.text.old_flags = backup_wiki.text_old_text
   (assign other relevant fields here)
WHERE
          current_wiki.text.old_id = backup_wiki.text_old_id
AND current_wiki.text.old_id in (BAD TEXT ENTRIES)

Or is there something more complicated that's required?

I'm going to try to reproduce what happened to see if I can narrow
down the problem.

Travis


body:
> I am pretty sure the file storage transition thing will also allow
> image renaming as a consequence.
>
> The limited details I have found about it are at
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_roadmap ("Expand FileStore to
> all image storage for filename reform, better cache/mirroring
> ability")
> and http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/FileStore .

I wouldn't expect it before a year after SUL...

 >> It's in the long term plans for mediawiki to support filenames which
 >> are unrelated to the file type.... but even using that will require
 >> massive renames on commons.  Does anyone have any suggestions?
 >> There are a lot of possibilities.
 >
 > I would imagine some renaming thing would be part of the transition,
 > don't you? Even if it was just Foo.jpg to Foo-jpg or 'Foo jpg'.

I don't see why 'massive renames' would be needed (ie. people renaming
images).
The software treating Image:Foo as the former Image:Foo.png wouldn't be
*so* difficult. The script would only have problems with Image:Foo.png
and Image:Foo.jpg

Problem with search engines is that they are being too inteligent.
Posible solutions:

*Use <a type="text/html" href=".../Image:Foo.png">
**I wasn't expecting it, but the a element *supports* the type attribute.
**Validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional
**Search engines probably don't support it, but we are providing the tags.

*Append .html to image pages.
**URLs will look ugly /wiki/Image:Foo.png.html

*Use index.php URLs
**Either
***/w/index.php?title=Image:Foo.png
***/w/index.php/Image:Foo.png
**Not-so-nice urls.
**/w/ URLs are currently blocked on robots.txt
**Squids would cache less.

Platonides


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>
>>I should note that I got into this whole mess because I was involved
>>with a group that was trying to write a Wikibook about M.C. Escher, and
>>I tried to point out that they couldn't reproduce the Escher artwork
>>unless they somehow were able to obtain a license that could be used
>>under the GFDL.  The response was that the images were being used on
>>Wikipedia, so why not Wikibooks?  The Escher reproductions are claiming
>>fair use, but I think it has gone way too far on Wikipedia, as I believe
>>these to be merely a copyright violation.
>>
>>
>>
>I would observe that there is one significant difference between the two
>situations.  It is one thing to use a couple of Escher's art works in
>Wikipedia to illustrate a biographical article about him; in my mind
>that could reasonably be viewed as fair use.  The wholesale reproduction
>of his works in Wikibooks would probably not be.  The difference is in
>the application in the substantiality rule of fair use law.
>
>Of course, it doesn't help to know that some of Escher's works MAY be in
>the public domain, but it's not up to us to research and make that case
>on behalf of the uploader.
>
>Ec
>
I am curious if anybody who is a regular participant on this mailing
list has ever come across an equivalent peer to Wikipedia (aka
Britannica or a major website like cnn.com) that would use modern art
works (I'm defining modern as created by anybody who has died since
1924) and publish reproductions of them using fair-use as the only
justification for their inclusion?

I have asked this question repeatedly, and the deafing silence on the
response is leading me to strongly think that there is no major
publisher who would want to touch these kind of images in the first
place without formally contacting the copyright owner in advance and
obtaining permission to use these sorts of images.  I can't imagine even
a book about modern art that is being used as a textbook (by any
publisher selling to a college market) that would go into critical depth
about a few iconic works of modern art that would be using fair use
rationale for reproducing that artwork.

Having been published by Prentice-Hall for a Spanish-language textbook
suppliment where I was a co-author, I vaguely remember this issue coming
up when I was working with my main editor.  Fortunately, I was given
access to an image repository that was owned by the textbook publisher,
and had so much content that trying to find something that might have
pushed the envelope was more a waste of time for me.

I do know that copyright paranoia is hardly the best way to describe the
attitude they had regarding the content we were putting together.  It
was more like copyright insanity where they were questioning nearly
every word that was written, and in my case every word that was used in
the software code (it was a CD-ROM suppliment).  The rationale that is
being used here by some Wikipedia users wouldn't have been tolerated for
5 minues if they had tried to get away with some of the more
questionable images and been working for this particular publisher.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
On 31/01/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 1/31/07 6:29 AM, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com at
> charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
>
> > An argument I have produced before, is that bad language and aggressiveness as
> > a routine form of interaction appeals mostly to the young and male. It happens
> > that males 20 to 25 might be the most significant group here. I think it is
> > also the case that such forms of verbal interaction and self-assertion are
> > likely to put off many other demographic groups. So civility policy is one way
> > of trying to broaden the base of contributors, or to retain people who profile
> > is not a good match to those who think freedom of speech is mostly about the
> > right to be f****** rude all the time.
>
> Interesting. You know, as I read all of the responses thus far, the one word
> that my eye and brain keep tripping over is "civility" - perhaps I am
> associating it with the word "proper" - and that's a button word for me. The
> only thing I have ever associated with the word civil is disobedience ;-).

Proper, decent, civil... it may be worth remembering that "decent
human behaviour" and "campaigns for decency" use the same words, but
mean very different moral principles :-)

A thing which I feel needs to be brought out in this discussion is
that (with a few fundamental exceptions), policies and guidelines are
*descriptive*, not *prescriptive* - our policy on Foo is effectively
saying "the community, when doing Foo, strongly favours the following
approach and may get very upset if you ignore it", rather than "the
law says Foo should be handled thusly"; it's the way the community
works, and thus the way it expects its members to work. So "civility"
isn't a rule against being nasty to people; it's a statement that "the
community expects civil behaviour", and... well, an instruction on how
not to fall out with them.

[I have not read the civility policy or guideline or whatever it is.
But I know what it needs to say - "play nice"]

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
On 31/01/07, Keitei <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 31, 2007, at 7:59, Marc Riddell wrote:
> > Terrific! I much prefer the term "Don't be a dick" to "incivility";
> > can we
> > make the change :-).
>
> I have to agree that "Don't be a dick" is a far better handling of
> the policy... "Be civil" means "respect our social contract"; "don't
> be a dick" is the contract. Much more to the point.

This summary wins a small prize. I think we need it enshrined somewhere.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoconfirmed threshold

body:
On 31/01/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Would it be possible to unconfirm people when they get blocked
> (possibly as an extra option for admins on the block page)? So they
> have to go another 4 days and 10 edits. It would mean that blocking
> someone for 24 hows stops them editing semi-protected pages for 4
> days, which would be useful - far better to let someone do basic
> editing after a short time, and more damaging editing after a longer
> time.

Interesting premise, but it does fail to differentiate between
"something's gone wrong, stop this person for five minutes" blocks,
and 'punishment'/'cooling-off' blocks. Hmm.

> (I seem to remember than the 4 days thing is actually done as a you
> mustn't be in the most recent 1% of signups, or something, which would
> make resetting that part a little more effort on the part of the
> devs...)

It used to be "the most recent n% of users", and was used to determine
who could move pages. Then we enabled semi-protection, and it seemed
sensible to reuse this definition as the target group. At about the
same time the definition was changed from something based on number of
accounts to a fixed three-or-four day limit, which was roughly the
same period of time but less of a logistical hassle (and harder to
game by flooding new accounts)

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I got a call yesterday from a press officer for a major UK bank. My
> number was one of the few contact numbers they could find.
>
> They spent lots of time yesterday morning adding stuff to the bank's
> article from their websites and having it reverted as a copyright
> violation. They couldn't work out what she was doing wrong, so they
> called me. They hadn't heard about the Microsoft mess at all. Oh dear.
>

Eh normally that kind of person doesn't have permission to release the
companies property under the GFDL.

> I explained that editing the article about yourself is a conflict of
> interest, and pointed them at the talk page and said this was the
> right place to put stuff - that they should introduce themselves, etc.
> And that people might argue, but that happens on the Internet. I also
> said I'd have a look myself.
>
> Well, that's one more innocent disaster averted ...
>
> But we really need something to handle this sort of thing and make it
> widely known. Something as n00b-friendly as possible - just type on a
> page (or in a form) or send an email.
>
> Which will mean another firehose of crap to find volunteers to deal
> with. This is the tricky bit. Compare to OTRS, which has the twin
> problems of (1) a firehose of crap with a few important things in it
> and (2) too few volunteers, who then get (understandably) tetchy and
> close to burnout, and not great success at recruiting more.
>
> So:
>
> 0. I submit that we really do need this.
> 1. Most n00b-friendly interface possible. This is not a big problem.
> 2. How to get volunteers interested in wanting to look at this? This
> is the tricky one.
>
> Ideas please!

How pragmatic are you prepared to be? From a purely PR viewpoint It
doesn't matter so much if a minor company screws up.

Thus we are only interested in making sure major companies have some
way to make contact.

One approach would be to launch a new service for them to moan at us
and see if we can get mentioned in the various trade magazines (there
is a
Financial Director magazine I assume there is a PR person magazine)

Try and directly mention it to as many of the fortune 500, FTSE 200,
whatever the equiv is for other countries companies as possible.
Probably going to have to throw in most media groups as well.

This should get the word out while keeping the whole thing as focused
on the group we are interested in as possible.

As I said before your best bet for recruiting is to go and ask newbie
admins directly on their talk pages and see if any sensible people
have failed RFA of late (has the side benefit of annoying the RFA
regulars).

>
> (I'm tempted to submit this to Ask Slashdot for ideas ... any objections?)

You think you will be able to pick them out between the the anti
Microsoft rants and the fights between the pro and anti wikipedians?

Remember whatever we do we can't stop companies being stupid.
--
geni