subject: [Wikitech-l] Error on search in 1.8.3

body:
Thanks Brion...alas, it didn't help.  The query gave an empty set
result.

mysql>   select
     ->     page_id,page_namespace,page_title,page_latest
     ->     from page
     ->     left outer join revision on page_latest=rev_id
     ->     where rev_id is null;
Empty set (0.60 sec)

If I understand the SQL correctly, this looks for pages that have no
entries in revision where rev_id = page_latest, which would happen if
all the revisions for a page got deleted but the entry in page was
still there.  I suspect that the problem is a different kind of
database corruption where there is a match in text that doesn't have
an entry in either revision or page.  But I'm not good enough with
SQL to look for those.

In the meantime, I patched SpecialSearch.php by adding

	if(!$revision) return;

just before line 333.  This is all undoubtedly due to some evil thing
I did when making my script to mimic mediawiki xml for import.  I've
probably made things worse by manually deleting some rows from page
that pointed to the wrong revisions.  Perhaps the additional check on
$revision would be good to add, but then again, perhaps those who go
in and tinker with the database like me should just get what we deserve!

Jim
=====================================
Jim Hu
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2128 TAMU
Texas A&M Univ.
College Station, TX 77843-2128
979-862-4054

On Mar 9, 2007, at 11:47 AM, Brion Vibber wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Jim Hu wrote:
>> [Fri Mar  9 10:04:13 2007] [error] PHP Fatal error:  Call to a member
>> function getText() on a non-object in /Volumes/dimer_web/WebServer/
>> Documents/colimod/colipedia/includes/SpecialSearch.php on line 333
>>
>> When I search for "MG1655" at
>>
>> 	http://ecoliwiki.net/colipedia/index.php
>>
>> But other searches work just fine.  MG1655 does not correspond to an
>> existing page when I add it to the url.  Searching for nonsense
>> strings that don't have pages does not cause this crash.   MG1655
>> occurs as a text match on lots of pages (10069 matches in the text
>> table), but I don't see why line 333 should care.  In fact, I don't
>> see how the code ever reaches 333, which is for a single hit result.
>
> This could perhaps happen if you have some inconsistency in the
> database; for instance if the listed current revision entry is missing
> for the page that matches the search query.
>
> This query will show you any pages where the current revision
> (listed in
> page_latest) doesn't exist, so you can try to clean them up:
>
>   select
>     page_id,page_namespace,page_title,page_latest
>     from page
>     left outer join revision on page_latest=rev_id
>     where rev_id is null;
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFF8Y+twRnhpk1wk44RAhPfAKDGcIVTfYR7aWb5mhdiwmHWKL5fdACfc9Si
> WWe2cJ/EHUofZcb5IhIjZWM=
> =TqU6
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.9.3  (and Wikipedia)

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>I have completed analysis of all downloaded images from Wikipedia for
>>the last dump of enwiki-20070206.  I ran across something that may be of
>>interest.  When images are uploaded and contain unicode HTML strings in
>>the filenames, they are not getting converted into unicode utf8
>>characters after being uploaded.
>>
>>
>
>That would have been fixed a couple of years ago with the fixes for
>Safari; of course some old filenames may still remain.
>
>
>

Ok, you have the list of the older names now.

:-)

Jeff

>- -- 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
>
>iD8DBQFF8eoYwRnhpk1wk44RApYvAKDQcdNHv2ku74EH9Ucpt+5lYFoZTACgxC1x
>Da0OnuEf4hIno6Xn76wyMJU=
>=q96Q
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal for simplified credentials model

body:
On 3/9/07, K P <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:
> IMO, the problem with the Essjay mess (of which I read very little) is that
> someone, the  news media, thought his credentials mattered--apparently as
> much as he did.  Shouldn't the content of what he was writing have spoken
> for itself?  Do we have to buy into the news media putting so much into his
> credentials?

Yeah, a whole bunch of false assumptions instantly get created and
spread around with stories like this:

- an "editor" is a priviledged position at Wikipedia (very common,
presumably because "editor" has such a strong meaning to journalists)
- editors with PHds are treated differently to those without
- Wikipedia is written by so few editors that losing one would matter
- Most editors edit under their real name - EssJay was an exception.

Would using the term "contributor" instead of "editor" help?

Steve


list: foundation-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Foundation-l] Censorship: Speedy deletion of porn articles

body:
On 08/03/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Since the English Wikipedia folks do JUST THAT, as an example. Why
> should there be categories such as
> LGBT entertainers, authors, etc. There are no categories for HETERO
> authors, actors, etc. Oh, I forgot,
> that's a CUTTURAL NORM on the english Wikipedia that we OPENLY DISCUSS
> sexual behavior and put
> labels on people, whether they like it or not, or whatever or not is
> offends others, and then RAM IT DOWN
> EVERYONE ELSE'S THROATS.

No - if someone does not label themselves, we do not label them. If we
do, that is against policy and should be righted.

Your usage of capital letters and inflammatory language is one of the
lesser reasons why you (and all of your sockpuppets) are permanently
banned from the English Wikipedia, the greaters reasons are your
unwillingness to cooperate with the Wiki process and your extensive
use of sockpuppets for malicious purposes. I am still not sure why you
are listened to at all here or why you were trusted with admin privs
at any foundation-run Wiki. And don't claim I am telling a non-truth
here, the first person who claimed such things about you on
mailinglists was Angela Beesley (on wikipedia-l), not me. I think most
people afford her more credibility than they do you.

> In essence, what I am saying here is that the OPENNESS and NPOV
> viewpoints are PART OF THE ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA CULTURE. I agree
> they are erstwhile concepts and important, but they are very much
> European attitudes, and not all cultures embrace them the same way.

No, NPOV is mandatory on all Wikipedias. You may not create a policy
counter to that at a a local Wiki. Whether or not it is ethnocentric
is up for discussion, but it is currently required for everyone. If
you don't like that, you are welcome to start a discussion about the
ethnocentricity and unfairness of the policy, but it is currently a
foundation-wide policy so you may not turn chr.wp or any other Wiki
into your own POV fork.

> And here is a good example on the Cherokee Wikipedia as to why this
> statement has a great deal of merit.
>
> http://chr.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CULTURE

What you forgot to mention is that you are the only active eitopr on
that Wiki, and that you singlehandedly wrote that policy. We have yet
to hear whether or not any other Cherokee speakers support it (I am
not sure I even believe you are one yourself, considering you use a
machine translation engine to write articles and your history of
dishonesty at other projects).

Mark

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


list: wikimedia-l


list: commons-l

from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Commons-l] Join us now and free the video

body:
2007/3/9, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:

> Today's question: what the hell can we do to come up with something
> big content producers will feel able to release under an actually free
> licence? Something they can feel safe to relax control on? If we can
> get one, we can get more. What can we do to get that first one?
>

Well, what about finding something that would be almost worthless for them,
yet quite a bit of a help for us. What I'm thinking of is for example still
shots from video footage. The video itself might be worthwhile, but what use
is there in rights on a single frame? Perhaps one or the other broadcasting
company might be swinged to grant us such a right.

Another thing could be getting a "free advertisement" as the "what's in it
for me?" part. Make a medium quality (or low quality) version of an image
free, but force that you are mentioned, and make this mention such that it
refers to a page where you sell a high-quality version/the full series/the
video it comes from.

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

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Why have admins of unblock-en-l blocked me?

body:
I don't think it was inappropriate. That's what matters here - what I
think, and what the list admins think.

Mark

On 09/03/07, Steve <subsume at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmm, sure. I also think administrative skepticism is > always <
> neccessary, regardless of the tally of charges. Demonization is always
> a very useful tool against people who have done something wrong, and
> is a very effective marginalizer.
>
> Your initial smarmy, condescending rant was totally inappropriate, and
> I was glad that George Herbert followed it up with a measured
> description of the problem.
>
> -S
>
> On 3/9/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It becomes an issue when somebody espouses racism in every post and
> > uses it to personally attack others. "You guys won't listen to me
> > because you must all be Koreans", for example.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 08/03/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> > > Mark Williamson wrote:
> > >
> > > > Because you are a racist :-) You probably even deny the indigenous
> > > > status of the Ainu.
> > >
> > > I would hope that's not the reason... if we were to block people for
> > > holding objectionable opinions (even exceedingly objectionable ones), I
> > > could submit a very long list of names of people to be blocked,
> > > including many admins!
> > >
> > > -Mark
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 3/9/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> luke brandt wrote:
>
> >Yonatan Horan wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Some claim
> >>that a rule has been passed but many admins disagree with this. The "vote"
> >>was passed about two years ago and had 10-20 participants. In addition to
> >>this, the vote came at a time when the Hebrew Wikipedia was repeatedly
> >>vandalized by a certain user and many of the voters supposedly for the
> >>banning of porn articles referred only to this specific case (this is
> >>supported by their comments on the page).
> >>
> >>By the way, just so nobody corrects me, on the Hebrew Wikipedia *there are
> >>votes* since consensus is hardly ever reached and the total needed to pass a
> >>vote is a ridiculous 55%. Anyway, despite all the above, a few admins have
> >>
> >>
> >Why not try and organize another vote on the issue to gauge local
> >opinion without the vandalism issue to affect the voting. Perhaps your
> >views will now prevail? - Best, luke
> >
> This seems to be closer to the real issue.  NPOV doesn't really enter
> into this unless there is some doubt that the person is really a
> "star".  There seems to be no doubt that the person in fact did make movies.
>
> I've consistently upheld the importance of project autonomy, even if it
> results in articles with very different language versions.  When another
> language is involved it's difficult or impossible for any non-speakers
> to evaluate the content.  Discussions that led to acceptance on enwp
> could have had a parallel discussion in another language with exactly
> the opposite result.  Anything else would allow the larger project to
> dominate the smaller.
>
> What worries me is this tendency to treat votes as final.  A 55% passing
> vote may be quite valid, but then so too should a 55% negative vote a
> month later.  The circumstances when the broader community intervenes in
> the internal afairs of a project need to be extremely limited; most
> issues relating to which articles should be allowed and what the
> articles should contain must be left to the project itself.  The
> takeover of a project by a small group intent on driving a project in a
> particular direction over the wishes of that community may be valid
> grounds for intervention, but I am not in a position to state that this
> is or is not now happening in hewp.
>
> Ec

My questions:

Is the current he.wp rules structure which allegedly forbids the
pornographic references documented?

If so, is there an english translation for those of us not enlightened
enough to read Hebrew?

Right now, we are all speculating in the dark.

If there is no written policy and people are banned for violating an
unwritten policy, then I believe there is a Foundation issue.

If there is a written policy that is in conflict with Foundation
policy, then I believe there is a Foundation issue.

If there's a written policy in accord with Foundation policy, then
there's a he.wp user education problem, and possibly a lack of AGF,
but those aren't really Foundation problems per se.

Or, possibly, we're just being trolled.

I think we currently lack enough info to determine which of these
cases is actually going on.  Can someone who isn't involved but who
can read Hebrew research and give us a report?

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Look Who's Using Wikipedia ... gerardm

body:
Well, you could certainly take the lead by writing good articles for
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/kok/ . It is currently empty
because of lack of participation.

Mark

On 09/03/07, Frederick Noronha <fred at bytesforall.org> wrote:
> Let's have a race war then :-) BTW, despite my name (or because of
> it), I'm Indian/South Asian.
>
> Now, to shift to a more serious subject. I think the good side of the
> Wikipedia is that it is relatively more open to all compared to any
> other form of knowledge production and agglomeration that we have
> known till this point in history. Tell me if I'm wrong.
>
> What however needs to be taken into account, following up on Walter
> van Kalken, is that people in the global South/Third
> World/"developing" countries simply aren't contributing as much. So
> that diversity isn't getting reflected here. This happens because of
> various reasons. Lack of access, stronger tradition in oral cultures
> rather than written ones, lack of peer groups to encourage this,
> difficulties in keying-in non-Romanised texts (specially Asian
> languages) via computers.. whatever.
>
> It would help if Wikipedia took on efforts to spur such contributions.
> Once they start, I have no doubt that the trickle will turn into a
> mighty river. Till that time, hold on to your faith.-- FN in
> Goa/India.
>
> On 07/03/07, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> > The problem is with the current rules on en.wikipedia which are totally
> > geared towards western style relevance and references ,and the bias
> > amongst editors,  it is difficult to get the same debt for Africa, Asia
> > and South America. Something has got to give. And the rules will never
> > be changed because of the western pov of most of our editors. So we will
> > have to accept that we will be weak in these areas forever. Or somehow
> > with a miracle an exception clause has to be made for topics regarding
> > this area.
>
> --
> FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
> http://fn.goa-india.org  http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
> What bloggers are saying about Goa: http://planet.goa-india.org/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


body:
Florence Devouard wrote:

>Mark and Jeff
>
>I had requests to moderate you on that list again.
>That is a warning sign.
>Please consider a break
>
>thank you :-)
>
>anthere
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
Anthere,

Please remove Mark's personal attacks from the list archive. I have no
desire to get into an debate with this person.

Thanks

Jeff


from_name: Berto 'd Sera

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conspicuous only in its absence (was Moldavian)

body:
Hoi!

> As to the valid ISO 639 code.. It is valid indeed in the eyes of the ISO,
> but also according to the official POV of the Party of Communists in RM (I
> suspect), of the Transnistrian authorities and might have been in the eyes
> of the Soviet Authorities.

That's where his mask fell... He is a bloody communist!!!! The Gravity Law
was valid for the Soviets and... Liviu DOES NOT FLY!!!!!!!!!!! Now THIS is a
proof!

Shoot the red bastard and let's be over with it.

Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


from_name: Gary Kirk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Telegraph article on Essjay

body:
What's the newswatch facility? I've clicked the 'Errors/corrections?'
link elsewhere on bbc.co.uk informing them the white parts actor in
[[Goodness Gracious Me (TV and radio)]] is Dave Lamb not Roger Lamb -
twice - and it still says Roger. But yeah...

I also contacted The Register, but they neither responded or corrected
their 'comment' ('Farewell, Wikipedia?')

On 09/03/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > (They refuse to see their biased use of
> > the term "Irish Republic" as unacceptable - it's not like Irish
> newswriters
> > use silly terms like British State for the United Kingdom).
>
> How is "Irish Republic" biased? It's has exactly the same meaning as
> "Republic of Ireland", it's just a different way of saying it. It's
> probably wrong, strictly speaking, but it isn't biased. For something
> to be biased it has to come from a particular POV, what POV are you
> accusing the BBC of having?
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: Jim Hu

subject: [Wikitech-l] Error on search in 1.8.3

body:
maintenance/deleteOrphanedRevisions.php found 34 inactive revisions
and deleted them.  But I'm leaving the $revisions test in until I
forget the next time we upgrade and it gets overwritten.

JH
=====================================
Jim Hu
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2128 TAMU
Texas A&M Univ.
College Station, TX 77843-2128
979-862-4054

On Mar 9, 2007, at 3:39 PM, Jim Hu wrote:

> Thanks Brion...alas, it didn't help.  The query gave an empty set
> result.
>
> mysql>   select
>      ->     page_id,page_namespace,page_title,page_latest
>      ->     from page
>      ->     left outer join revision on page_latest=rev_id
>      ->     where rev_id is null;
> Empty set (0.60 sec)
>
> If I understand the SQL correctly, this looks for pages that have no
> entries in revision where rev_id = page_latest, which would happen if
> all the revisions for a page got deleted but the entry in page was
> still there.  I suspect that the problem is a different kind of
> database corruption where there is a match in text that doesn't have
> an entry in either revision or page.  But I'm not good enough with
> SQL to look for those.
>
> In the meantime, I patched SpecialSearch.php by adding
>
> 	if(!$revision) return;
>
> just before line 333.  This is all undoubtedly due to some evil thing
> I did when making my script to mimic mediawiki xml for import.  I've
> probably made things worse by manually deleting some rows from page
> that pointed to the wrong revisions.  Perhaps the additional check on
> $revision would be good to add, but then again, perhaps those who go
> in and tinker with the database like me should just get what we
> deserve!
>
> Jim
> =====================================
> Jim Hu
> Associate Professor
> Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
> 2128 TAMU
> Texas A&M Univ.
> College Station, TX 77843-2128
> 979-862-4054
>
>
> On Mar 9, 2007, at 11:47 AM, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Jim Hu wrote:
>>> [Fri Mar  9 10:04:13 2007] [error] PHP Fatal error:  Call to a
>>> member
>>> function getText() on a non-object in /Volumes/dimer_web/WebServer/
>>> Documents/colimod/colipedia/includes/SpecialSearch.php on line 333
>>>
>>> When I search for "MG1655" at
>>>
>>> 	http://ecoliwiki.net/colipedia/index.php
>>>
>>> But other searches work just fine.  MG1655 does not correspond to an
>>> existing page when I add it to the url.  Searching for nonsense
>>> strings that don't have pages does not cause this crash.   MG1655
>>> occurs as a text match on lots of pages (10069 matches in the text
>>> table), but I don't see why line 333 should care.  In fact, I don't
>>> see how the code ever reaches 333, which is for a single hit result.
>>
>> This could perhaps happen if you have some inconsistency in the
>> database; for instance if the listed current revision entry is
>> missing
>> for the page that matches the search query.
>>
>> This query will show you any pages where the current revision
>> (listed in
>> page_latest) doesn't exist, so you can try to clean them up:
>>
>>   select
>>     page_id,page_namespace,page_title,page_latest
>>     from page
>>     left outer join revision on page_latest=rev_id
>>     where rev_id is null;
>>
>> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
>> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>>
>> iD8DBQFF8Y+twRnhpk1wk44RAhPfAKDGcIVTfYR7aWb5mhdiwmHWKL5fdACfc9Si
>> WWe2cJ/EHUofZcb5IhIjZWM=
>> =TqU6
>> -----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


from_name: Aphaia

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Reminder] Transcom open meeting, March 9, 2007,
	0800 UTC

body:
Hello guys,
in a half hour, Transcom second open meeting is coming as well
announced on the recent newsletter. This is just a reminder for you:

Place: irc://irc.freenode.com/wikimedia-translation
Date: 0800 UTC, March 9, 2007 (Friday)

It is not for specific emergency but mainly for keep a regular contact
between involved people in this sphere. Some possible topics are found
at [[m:Transcom/meetings]]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/meetings

If you have anything to comment about Wikimedia translation, feel free
to jump in and input your opinion :)

Duration of meeting is planned about 2 hours.
See you soon,

--
KIZU Naoko
Wikimedia Communications Committee member
Transcom newsletter: The Babylonian #2 is available online
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/Newsletter/2007-03


from_name: stvrtg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Telegraph article on Essjay

body:
On 3/9/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/9/07, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/9/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > How is "Irish Republic" biased? It's has exactly the same meaning as
> > > "Republic of Ireland", it's just a different way of saying it. It's
> > > probably wrong, strictly speaking, but it isn't biased. For something
> > > to be biased it has to come from a particular POV, what POV are you
> > > accusing the BBC of having?
> >
> > It's probably an [[informal code word]] or something.
>
> I'm guessing it's like when creationists use the word Darwinism, or
> something.

I'm guessing that the BBC might have a... British bias? The kind that
perhaps waxes nostalgically about Cromwell's conquest of Ireland and the
rebuked Protestant Ascendency, still holding on in some parts...

In that context, it seems rather appropriate to refer to the Republic of
Ireland as an Irish Republic. One is a "Republic." The other is just
"Irish."

:-)
-SV


body:
On 3/9/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> It all comes down to starting with the assumption that people are
> basically honest and not going to lie. As I said, after this Essjay
> disaster, *no one* of good faith is going to fib about their
> credentials to cover their tracks ...

Yes, but will they still fib about their *names*? ;-)

-SV


subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
On 3/8/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:

> I agree with this completely. I'd add that I think benevolent
> dictatorships generally work in inverse proportion to the amount the
> dictator has to intervene. So I'd rather we take any ex-cathedra
> intervention as an opportunity to find out how the community can handle
> things next time on its own.

You must mean there needs to be some other form of public expression other
than "hang him!"

I agree, and if Jimbo wasn't in the sticks he might have been more clear on
what was going on,
and his calls for a "calm, loving" approach might not have been ignored.

-Stevertigo


from_name: Steve

body:
Hmm, sure. I also think administrative skepticism is > always <
neccessary, regardless of the tally of charges. Demonization is always
a very useful tool against people who have done something wrong, and
is a very effective marginalizer.

Your initial smarmy, condescending rant was totally inappropriate, and
I was glad that George Herbert followed it up with a measured
description of the problem.

-S

On 3/9/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> It becomes an issue when somebody espouses racism in every post and
> uses it to personally attack others. "You guys won't listen to me
> because you must all be Koreans", for example.
>
> Mark
>
> On 08/03/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> > Mark Williamson wrote:
> >
> > > Because you are a racist :-) You probably even deny the indigenous
> > > status of the Ainu.
> >
> > I would hope that's not the reason... if we were to block people for
> > holding objectionable opinions (even exceedingly objectionable ones), I
> > could submit a very long list of names of people to be blocked,
> > including many admins!
> >
> > -Mark
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Kat Walsh

subject:
[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a
	proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

body:
On 3/5/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 3/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > There are two parts to the suggestion: 1) marking some statements with
> > a "verified credentials" tag, and 2) a "policy of gentle (or firm)
> > discouragement for people to make claims like those that EssJay made,
> > unless they are willing to back them up".
>
> I'm cross-posting this to wikipedia-l and foundation-l, because it may
> very well become a Foundation-level issue at some point.
>
> I would support the following:
>
> 1) Any user can ask for his or her professional credentials to be verified.
>
> 2) Making up professional credentials is prohibited, and may result in
> a ban. (This may or may not be covered by existing policy, but judging
> from the Essjay case, it is probably not sufficiently clear.) This is
> independent of whether or not the user asks for credentials to be
> verified. We may investigate claims that are dubious when they are
> pointed out to us.
>
> 3) Any user trusted on admin level or higher who makes a statement of
> credentials on their user page must have them verified through a team
> of volunteers designated to this role by the Wikimedia Foundation (we
> may want to involve the chapters if this becomes international). The
> process of verification could be similar to what Citizendium uses,
> i.e.:
> a) have an existing, credentialed user vouch for the credentials to be
> correct based on personal knowledge,
> b) respond to an email associated with a reliable institution, and
> point us to a web page of that institution where their credentials are
> listed,
> c) point to someone associated with a reliable institution we can
> contact to verify the credentials.
>
> We may extend this to regular users if it proves to scale well.
>
> 4) Users with verified credentials will get a little "Verified
> credentials on <date>" marker on their user page, nothing more. This
> marker would ideally be independent of the wikitext of the page, and
> set in the user table instead.
>
> I am opposed to any marker of edit contributions and such -- users who
> care about credentials can look them up, those who do not care should
> not be bothered by them in discussions or contributions.

As many others do I believe this is too bureaucratic, and I don't
think it will ever be followed on a wide enough scale to be useful.

I believe that for all but the most hardcore contributors it is too
much bother; they won't do it. And among the more dedicated
contributors, many will be against it. There's a reason we don't
simply take experts at their word -- not because we do not respect
expertise, but because for our purposes we need to know *where* the
experts got what they know so that someone can independently verify
it, no matter how reliable the contributor may personally be.

And how reliable that person is does not necessarily match up to how
well-qualified they are... or how much information they are willing to
give. There are plenty of cranks who are more than happy to prove six
ways from sunday that they have a load of letters after their names,
in the hopes that you will be impressed enough to defer to their
crankish viewpoint. And plenty of solid contributors who are
uncredentialed, who aren't willing to go to the trouble, or who don't
believe that it should be required and wouldn't want to use them to
influence discussion anyway, who will not participate.

Is it wrong to claim you are something you are not in order to
influence decisions? Sure, and I don't condone that. But mandatory
credential verification is not something I see as effectively
addressing the problem. For whatever reason, some people make things
up. Most people don't lie, and I do not think that telling everyone
who says on their user page "hi, I live in Arizona, I have a Ph.D. in
math, and I want to edit articles about graph theory" that they have
to let someone check credentials is going to go over well -- nor is it
necessary.

Positions of personal-level trust are different -- checkusers, press
contacts, and similar. And for those, I don't care about credentials,
unless the credentials are in some way related to what they are doing
-- just identity, that they are who they say they are. Already we ask
that stewards prove they are over age 18; checkusers *should* be the
same. I'm sure we will be more stringent about checking on the
identities of press contacts in the future. It is reluctantly that I
can accept restricting users from being able to fill these positions
without proving identity, because I want to trust that people will not
misrepresent themselves, but I recognize that they do not always do
so.

As for admins? I'm afraid it may even be counterproductive. It implies
that credentials and identity are important to adminship. And this is
exactly the wrong impression. It says that we care what kind of
standing our admins have for adminship -- separate from their roles as
content editors. (And many of the most well-regarded and prolific
content editors are not admins.) There is nothing about adminship that
needs special qualification other than experience with the site. I
care that people who are contributing content are not backing up their
statements with false authority -- false credentials, misquoted
references, hoaxes, anything of the like -- regardless of their status
as admins or not. There is nothing about the position of admin that
requires us to know anything other than their history with the site.
(The press likes to make a big deal about admins, but if we are doing
something in response to press alone against our better judgment we
are in a sad state.)

Even assuming we all thought this was a great idea and we were all on
board, who is going to be doing the checking? How deep is this going
to be? Is someone who has a diploma mill Ph.D. still able to say "I
have a a Ph.D." or will all instances needed to be marked with
{{unaccredited}}?

I am afraid this is a knee-jerk response, and I am also afraid that
saying to the media that we are going to do it (and that is what has
been said so far) foolishly commits us to something that may not be a
good idea even if we had the resources to do it. And so even as I am
for knowing the identities of those in positions of trust, I am
against this proposal.

-Kat
who advises you to take all of the above with a grain of salt; she
only has a BA, which no one here has personally checked up on

--
Wikimedia needs you: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
* *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:Mindspillage
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Accountability: bringing back a
	proposal I made nearly 2 years ago


from_name: Kirill Krasnov

subject: [Wikitech-l] Error on install

body:
Hi All.

 In new install I see this error:

# Environment checked. You can install MediaWiki.
#

Generating configuration file...
# Database type: MySQL
# Loading class: DatabaseMysql
# Attempting to connect to database server as ttd_wiki...success.
# Connected to 4.1.10-standard
# Database ta_wiki exists
# Creating tables... using MySQL 4 table defs...
Warning: fopen(../maintenance/tables.sql) [function.fopen]: failed to
open stream: No such file or directory in /home/xxx/public_html/wiki/includes/Database.php on line 1959
Could not open "../maintenance/tables.sql".

--
Best regards,
Kirill Krasnov
ICQ 82427351


subject: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with juvenile vandalism

body:
Another idea might be to show diffs in the comment lines.

Some of us use navpops and you can preview a diff in a popup,
but including a diff within a comment would
of course make it so anybody could spot plain vandalism from whatever
RC they are using.

I dont know how diffs could actually be made more concise in order to best
fit, but it seems that we can at least indicate whether text has been added
or removed
and what text that is.

-Stevertigo


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikigadugi GFDL Compliance

body:
Hi all,

I am going to take Anthere's suggestion to go on a wikibreak for a
while.   Don't read anything into this, it is very much my decision and
this is something I have been considering for a while in any event since
I have a lot of work on Cherokee translation and Cherokee enabled
Language support I am involved in which needs my complete focus.  I have
deliverables for the Cherokee Nation due this month and I spend too much
time on Wikipedia.

I will still be involved in WikiGadugi and MediaWiki development.  I
have made an obscene amount of money this year and have been putting in
18 hour days and I do need to spend some time with my family for a much
needed vacation and rest, and to focus on deliverables for the Cherokee
and Creek Nations which are due this month, and the month after.     (I
am a tribal member of the Cherokee Nation in answer to previous
questions).  I do not know for certain if the Nation is going to host
WikiGadugi after the technology is handed off to our language folks, but
it is a possiblity.

I have completed GFDL enablement of the WikiGadugi site and placed the
license and links as requested.    I would appreciate if someone would
review and update the mirrors and fork pages on Wikipedia to reflect
that the site is 100% compliant with the GFDL.

donada gohvi
unelanvhi udadolisdi
gega
wado

:-)

Jeff
waya getlvhvsdi


subject: [Foundation-l] BitTorrent Downloads of enwiki Images

body:
I have compiled the entire library of Wikipedia's images and have a
bittorrent server ready to export this library on the internet.  I am
awaiting
word back from the Foundation for approval to enable the torrents.

I have developed an automated C based server system which mirrors all
Wikipedia images and compiles them into .bz2 archives as a library based
on XML revision and dump.   When I get final approval, I will export
these torrents to allow the images to be available from the internet.
I will be in Arizona meeting with Dine (Navajo) folks next week on their
projects, but will have email access.

The torrents will be available at

http://www.wikigadugi.org:2780

At some point.  I will let folks know when and if the Foundation has
approved this.

:-)

Jeff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Telegraph article on Essjay

body:
On 3/8/07, Gary Kirk <gary at xinki.org.uk> wrote:
>
> I dropped the journalist who wrote this article:
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/06/wwiki106.xml

a note commenting on a few errors and she corrected it to this version:
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/07/nspam207.xml
>
> which is more accurate.
> To let people know :)

How is that more accurate? About half the article was cut out, including
this important caveat:
"Asked about the incident's impact on Wikipedia's credibility, Mr Wales told
the paper: "It is not good, obviously, but the interesting thing is that Mr
Jordan was an excellent editor, credentials or no. His work was extremely
positive for Wikipedia."

Strange that an email from someone claiming to be an expert would cause a
newspaper to change its article so drastically.

-Stevertigo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Telegraph article on Essjay

body:
On 3/9/07, stvrtg <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Strange that an email from someone claiming to be an expert would cause a
> newspaper to change its article so drastically.
>

PS: I  suppose thats the irony someone (above) was talking about.  :)


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/9/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Today's question: what the hell can we do to come up with something
> big content producers will feel able to release under an actually free
> licence? Something they can feel safe to relax control on? If we can
> get one, we can get more. What can we do to get that first one?
>

Going back to the original question could we not try a different point
along the chain.

For athletic events with lower profile than say the 100 meters might
it be possible to get the people selling the TV rights to change the
terms they sell under. Rather than selling the rights to
semi-exclusive use forever perhaps they could be persuaded to sell the
semi exclusive rights for 2 months after which the material has to be
realised under a free licence. It would allow them to raise the
profile of their sport while at the some time having a reduced impact
on TV company revenues and thus the amount they are prepared to pay
for the licence. Heh suggest the idea to the event sponsors. People
may be prepared to edit out ad breaks but few people are going to
consider editing out the adverts the athletes are wearing.

--
geni


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject:
[Wikitech-l] "Planet" feed aggregators ( now running at
	http://WikiBlogPlanet.com/ )

body:
> http://planet.wikimedia.org/ up now

Yay!

> The template (default) & CSS/logos (customized) are available on our SVN:
> http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/tools/planet/

Cool, and thanks to r20261 I didn't even have to exert any effort to work
out how to add Planet Wikimedia to the sidebar :-)

> Nick, I'd love it if you can keep Wiki Blog Planet around as a more
> "flavorful" channel, while Planet Wikimedia will remain a little more
> focused.

For sure! And just to complicate matters, I'm going to try setting up yet
another planet, at http://open.wikiblogplanet.com , this one highly experimental,
which could well end up being the most "out-there" channel of them all! The
general idea is explained here:
http://blog.nickj.org/2007/03/09/first-post-wiki-related-planets-and-a-new-very-experimental-planet/

All the best,
Nick.


body:
Of course you don't. The fact that continue it is equally pitiful.

Please elaborate on your class-system idea of this list. I'm sure its
very fascinating.

-S

On 3/9/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't think it was inappropriate. That's what matters here - what I
> think, and what the list admins think.
>
> Mark
>
> On 09/03/07, Steve <subsume at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hmm, sure. I also think administrative skepticism is > always <
> > neccessary, regardless of the tally of charges. Demonization is always
> > a very useful tool against people who have done something wrong, and
> > is a very effective marginalizer.
> >
> > Your initial smarmy, condescending rant was totally inappropriate, and
> > I was glad that George Herbert followed it up with a measured
> > description of the problem.
> >
> > -S
> >
> > On 3/9/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It becomes an issue when somebody espouses racism in every post and
> > > uses it to personally attack others. "You guys won't listen to me
> > > because you must all be Koreans", for example.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On 08/03/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> > > > Mark Williamson wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Because you are a racist :-) You probably even deny the indigenous
> > > > > status of the Ainu.
> > > >
> > > > I would hope that's not the reason... if we were to block people for
> > > > holding objectionable opinions (even exceedingly objectionable ones), I
> > > > could submit a very long list of names of people to be blocked,
> > > > including many admins!
> > > >
> > > > -Mark
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

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

Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> I have completed analysis of all downloaded images from Wikipedia for
> the last dump of enwiki-20070206.  I ran across something that may be of
> interest.  When images are uploaded and contain unicode HTML strings in
> the filenames, they are not getting converted into unicode utf8
> characters after being uploaded.

That would have been fixed a couple of years ago with the fixes for
Safari; of course some old filenames may still remain.

- -- 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

iD8DBQFF8eoYwRnhpk1wk44RApYvAKDQcdNHv2ku74EH9Ucpt+5lYFoZTACgxC1x
Da0OnuEf4hIno6Xn76wyMJU=
=q96Q
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
On 3/8/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 08/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> > Authority here derives from the monarch, but is vested in others, and
> > any attempt to exercise power against the will of the people would
> > cause problems.
>
>
> Historically, *really* pushing it gets your head cut off, which means
> sensible monarchs get very good at reading the public mood in both the
> short and long terms.
>
>
> >  It took us a couple of hundred years to get the
> > balance right, and it's still changing.  But over that entire period,
> > the country remained governable and tolerably well-regulated.  Is that
> > so bad?
> > To paraphrase a fellow Englishman, Jimbocracy is the very worst system
> > of government, apart from all the others.
>
>
> Indeed. We're doing things that have NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE; if we
> didn't do some *really stupid* things in the process, it'd be a clear
> case of not being nearly adventurous enough.
>
>
> - d.

Yah but see you're all back to talking about persons and personalities
whereas what's needed is an independent Commission Review, kinda like the
911 Commission, not to point fingers and find fallguys, but to examine
institutional failings and weaknesses, and make dispassionate
recommendations on how to avoid or manage future crisis.


body:
On 3/9/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:

> stvrtg wrote:

> Would somebody please provide a source for the claim that he used his fake
> > credentials to "strongarm people" or to influence "content disputes?"
>
> I was hoping not to rehash this stuff anytime soon, but strictly because
> you asked on the list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_noticeboard/Essjay#Outside_finding_of_fact_by_Doug_Bell

I didnt ask you if you could provide links to examples where he flaunted his
credentials.
I asked you to provide a source for the claim that he used his flaunted
credentials in the ways that people have characterized him to have done.

Ironically, I asked for this same clarification on [[Essjay controversy]] -
adding a {{fact}} tag to the statement: "However, after reviewing evidence
that the false credentials had been used in Wikipedia content disputes with
other editors." The {{fact}} was replaced by a ref to the NYT article, but
the NYT article itself doesnt assert this claim, but rather it cites two
interpretations, one by Michael Snow:
  MS: "People have gone through his edits and found places where he was
basically cashing in on his fake credentials to bolster his arguments,"
"Those will get looked at again."

The other is by Jimbo, made in his own defense: "my past support of Essjay
in this matter was fully based on a lack of knowledge about what has been
going on."   The statement "What has been going on" is ambiguous: someone
who knows "what's going on" might understand Essjay's misrepresentations to
be unacademic and damaging to himself, but it also leaves the door open to
the overstated view that he "abused his fake credentials"... "in the context
of disputes."

The NYT story doesnt support the latter, (hence it doesnt satisfy the
{{fact}} tag and has to be removed) but instead states it properly (as a
POV) that: "Some Wikipedia users argued that Essjay had compounded the
deception by flaunting a fictional Ph.D. and professorship to influence the
editing on the site."

Interpretations made by Wikipedians are quoted in a newspaper, which is in
turn cited in Wikipedia. Where are the RS nazis when you need them?

Note that I personally don't think part was a huge deal; as I mention
> elsewhere, this is not an uncommon thing for a teenager with a shiny new
> identity to do, and from there it looks like he just let it get out of
> control. Since he didn't do it a lot, and since we are famously
>
uninterested in credentials anyhow, I think this did little harm.

Its nice to hear you moderating your tone. "Didn't do a lot" is
interpretive. 20K edits is plenty, and as some news stories have spun it,
represent a possibly contaminated body of work.

Essjay's internal standing was not based on his academics. However, his
> standing when he wrote to professors as a "fellow professor" and his
> social standing in the New Yorker article were based his claim of high
> academic success.

No, they were based on a recommendation by the Foundation. The scandal
(internal) is that Jimbo placed trust in him in accordance with his wiki
credentials, and the story (media) is how the worlds of academic
representation and internet identity collided.

> Whether or not people should have taken him more
> seriously because of that is an interesting question, but not one that's
> relevant. They did, and they will continue to hold professors in high
> regard no matter what we think about it.

Over time Wikipedia has grown in its appeal to experts. It started off as
something experts wouldnt touch, and has proven itself to be worthwhile for
them to contribute to. There still remains the damaging perception that
Wikipedia's openness is its peril. Sadly, I think the only peril here came
with Jimbo's appointment of Essjay. Perhaps all of this anger at Essjay is
really just a dislike how Jimbo's powers of appointment somehow represents a
dismissal for the wisdom of the masses. Unfortunately there was no such
wisdom that found Essjay out until after he was appointed. This whole asking
for credentials thing only has meaning in the context of Jimbo making
appointments. If Essjay had been elected, the community itself would have
been duped and there wouldn't have been much of a stink made about it. An
election process would no doubt have involved a prior investigation in which
case there would have been no after the fact scandal.

-Stevertigo


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Learning - 2

body:
Hello,

A couple of days ago, I posted this as a thought:

We are born naked, screaming, and reaching.
Soon afterwards we are taught to cover up, keep our mouths shut, and keep
our hands to ourselves.

One person felt this represented "citizenship".

Hmm.?.

How about this, instead:

We cover up when we need to protect ourselves. We keep our mouths shut when
the need is to listen. And we keep our hands to ourselves when the person we
are reaching out to asks that we do.

Marc Riddell


from_name: Dan Collins

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Survives Monkey
	Attack!!

body:
unsubscribed, I think...

On 3/9/07, The Wikipedia Documentary <info at wikidocumentary.org> wrote:
>
> As our crew ventures deeper into India with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales
> and his ongoing to quest to spread information about free digital knowledge,
> they encounter an ancient (but rapidly modernizing) culture in a beautiful
> setting-- only to come face to face with one of the oldest forms of social
> collaborative networking: a coordinated monkey attack!
>
> Check out the latest production podcast from Varanasi, India here:
> www.wikidocumentary.org
>
> Thanks!
> -WikiDoc
>
> _____________________________
> Change address / Leave mailing list:
> http://ymlp.com/u.php?Ferrisito+wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Hosting by  YourMailingListProvider
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


body:
rather, unsubscribe them, I think.

On 3/9/07, Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> unsubscribed, I think...
>
> On 3/9/07, The Wikipedia Documentary <info at wikidocumentary.org> wrote:
> >
> > As our crew ventures deeper into India with Wikipedia founder Jimmy
> > Wales and his ongoing to quest to spread information about free digital
> > knowledge, they encounter an ancient (but rapidly modernizing) culture in a
> > beautiful setting-- only to come face to face with one of the oldest forms
> > of social collaborative networking: a coordinated monkey attack!
> >
> > Check out the latest production podcast from Varanasi, India here:
> > www.wikidocumentary.org
> >
> > Thanks!
> > -WikiDoc
> >
> > _____________________________
> > Change address / Leave mailing list:
> > http://ymlp.com/u.php?Ferrisito+wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > Hosting by  YourMailingListProvider
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ST47
> Editor, en.wikipedia

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


list: textbook-l

from_name: Robert Horning

subject: [Textbook-l] [Fwd: Wikibooks e-mail]Link spamming

body:
Martin Swift wrote:
> Hi Rob and gang,
>
>
<snip>
> Perhaps, we should rather have the server administrator send a single,
> to-the-point email stating that this person has been in breach of the
> terms of usage (I'm assuming there are such) and that continued abuse
> will result in being barred from using the server.
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
>
OK, here is the original e-mail:

<MESSAGE>

(from bushi_bashir2010 at yahoo.com)

Hi there,

I hope this email will find you in good health.  I am working on a website of "Computer Networking".

I need to have Unique articles for my website on any topic of computer networking, hardware, wireless networking
computer troubleshooting, data communication etc.

In return I will give you permanent credit in the form of a link to your URL with every article you provide for my website.

I will also promote your Computer Networking related books on my website if you allow me. Hopefully you will get good traffic towards your website(s) through my website.

I will be very much thankful to you if you can provide me any kind of help in this regard.
Looking forward to have a positive reply from you.

Best Regards

</MESSAGE>

If you are talking about a server administrator, who might that be?  This was sent via the web interface on en.wikibooks, of which I'm an administrator there.

My main point is that I believe that this individual has likely spammed privately several individuals on not only Wikibooks but other Wikimedia projects as well.  This must have been a fairly tedious process, as the MediaWiki interface is not really set up to send bulk e-mails, but there are some motivated individuals.

My experience with yahoo is that they don't really care when these things get sent, and shutting down the account will do little good, as least from their perspective.  This is a throw-away e-mail account that is here one day and gone the next.  I know, I've made a few myself (mainly as an anti-spam measure when I've used them).  Still, I suppose that in this case it might be worth it to try.

-- Robert Horning

P.S. I forgot the Wikimedia mailing list server strips off all attachments.... this was previously a forwarded message.


body:
Really...

On 3/9/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/03/07, Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > rather, unsubscribe them, I think.
>
>
> This is actually for real ... it's the documentary makers following
> Jimbo around Asia.
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Telegraph article on Essjay

body:
On 3/9/07, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/9/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > How is "Irish Republic" biased? It's has exactly the same meaning as
> > "Republic of Ireland", it's just a different way of saying it. It's
> > probably wrong, strictly speaking, but it isn't biased. For something
> > to be biased it has to come from a particular POV, what POV are you
> > accusing the BBC of having?
>
> It's probably an [[informal code word]] or something.

I'm guessing it's like when creationists use the word Darwinism, or something.

--Oskar


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>>> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>>>>> not the case. Most Americans think "tyre" is a typo, not a British
>>>>> spelling.
>> So, how do the British spell "Nineveh?"
>>
> See John Masefield's poem "Cargoes" for an example.

Ooh! Ooh! I think know that one! It goes:

Chicargoes!

Stacker of Coal,
Player with Road-rails,
Firewood Cutter,
Forger of Iron-ware,
Maker of Cheap Tin Trays
And Pig-lead Butcher to the Nation!


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
It is fine to have an article on porn. It is not reasonable to insist on
documenting individual porn stars. If your whole argument can be reduced to
your indignation that an article translated by you was deleted without much
discussion, then I do think this is not the place to discuss it either,
discuss it on the he.wikipedia.

If Danny wants to spend time on it in his free time, he can do so. I fail to
see why this should merit the attention of the Wikimedia Foundation. As I
indicated there are many more relevant things that need to be addressed.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 3/9/07, Yonatan Horan <yonatanh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/9/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > There is no reason at all why all subjects that are permitted on the
> > English
> > Wikipedia should be permitted on another project. The notions of the
> > English
> > Wikipedia are not universal. Individual Pokemon articles et al are
> denied
> > on
> > the German Wikipedia and when individual people and or movies notable in
> > the
> > porn industry are not permitted on a particular project, I have no
> problem
> > with it at all.
>
>
> I never said that every other Wikipedia needs to go by the same standards
> as
> the English Wikipedia just that you can't censor a certain topic just
> because you don't like it, especially when there's nowhere near community
> consensus on the issue.
>
> There are much more important issues to do with censorship on Wikipedia
> > projects. On some projects articles on the holocaust are severely
> censored
> > because "it is not an accepted fact that it happened the way you have it
> > portrayed". This means that articles, even featured articles of the
> > English
> > Wikipedia associated with the second world war, cannot be literally
> > translated into these particular language versions of Wikipedia.
>
>
> Then that's an even bigger problem that should be dealt with as well.
>
> In many cultures the porn industry is not noted nor is porn permitted.
> > Insistence on having it included in Wikipedia is against the laws and
> > morals
> > of such countries. I stand by my position that a comparison with the
> > Pokemon
> > characters is valid; a Wikipedia article does not have to allow the
> > inclusion of all of them.
>
>
> Luckily for us, we have someone who is well aware of Israeli and Hebrew
> culture and who knows that in this aspect (to be specific, me). Israeli
> society is very similar to American or European society in that there are
> the conservatives, but they are not the majority (and of course there are
> no
> "porn laws"). Your argument might be valid for the Arabic Wikipedia (since
> in that case, a ban may reflect Arabic society and morals), however a
> country that has the playboy channel, et cetera, is obviously not the
> country that you imagine. You seem to have a strong misconception of the
> Hebrew culture.
>
> The porn industry *is* notable in Israeli\Hebrew culture. Again, even the
> ones arguing against the inclusion of pornographic articles in the Hebrew
> Wikipedia ARE NOT saying that it isn't notable. I didn't say the Hebrew
> Wikipedia needs to allow writing about Angel Cutexxx (fictional name) or
> any
> other esoteric actor/actress just that articles on subjects that are
> clearly
> notable cannot be speedy deleted. I'd have much less of a problem if
> someone
> nominated the article for deletion as non-notable but this is not what is
> happening, an article about a subject that has something to do with porn
> is
> deleted... for no reason other than the fact that it has something to do
> with porn (and nobody is claiming otherwise, or using non-notability as an
> excuse).
>
> Fine, you don't trust my judgment as obviously I have a POV here but
> someone
> like Danny (and I know who Danny is and how busy he is) is someone who can
> judge the situation in a better way since he is familiar with the culture,
> speaks the language and is a trusted person.
>
> PS I am not outraged, I think your premise is wrong.
>
>
> If you look over your initial response, you may see why I perceived it
> that
> way.
>
> Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> > On 3/8/07, Yonatan Horan <yonatanh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I strongly resent your reply. It seems like you have some similar
> issues
> > > with Pokemon articles and that's the reason you lashed out the way you
> > > did.
> > > The reason I raised this issue on this mailing list is not because of
> > some
> > > misplaced sense of outrage. The incident I was talking about took
> place
> > > two
> > > months ago and the only reason I mentioned it was to fully disclose
> any
> > > relevant information so other people don't come on here later on and
> say
> > > that the only reason I'm bringing this issue to the attention of
> others
> > is
> > > due to a vendetta against the Hebrew Wikipedia or something of the
> sort.
> > > This isn't about me trying to provoke anything. It's about a certain
> > group
> > > of admins ignoring the fact that speedy deletion of porn articles was
> > > never
> > > passed as a policy on hewp (and there is more than one sysop who can
> > > attest
> > > to this). As I said previously, I don't have any particular interest
> in
> > > porn
> > > and the fact that I've never edited an article that has anything to do
> > > with
> > > this topic on the english wikipedia supports that. Ron Jeremy and
> Jenna
> > > Jameson are both notable enough to have their own article on any
> > > wikipedia,
> > > whether it be English, Hebrew or Malaysian. Attempts have been made to
> > > resolve this issue "in-house" have failed, otherwise I wouldn't have
> > > posted
> > > it to this mailing list. I can't find the specific meta page at the
> > moment
> > > but it isn't English Wikipedia only policy that wikipedia isn't
> > censored.
> > > If
> > > the german wikipedia decided to delete all articles regarding Nazi
> > > Germany,
> > > etc. would you have reacted the same way? Or maybe if the Chinese
> > > Wikipedia
> > > decided to ban all articles on the issue of democracy? I hope you
> > rethink
> > > your response and maybe try not to treat me as a troll when I really
> am
> > > not
> > > one.
> > >
> > > -Yonatan
> > >
> > > On 3/8/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hoi,
> > > > When you think that people are interested in what can be perceived
> as
> > a
> > > > provocation, you are wrong. What makes you think that details about
> > porn
> > > > is
> > > > of sufficient relevance to warrant an article? You have to
> appreciate
> > > that
> > > > some Wikipedias are quite happy to even disallow articles about
> > Pokomon
> > > > characters. Now Pokomon creatures are much more educational. They
> are
> > > the
> > > > staple diet of our youth.
> > > >
> > > > Danny is a WMF employee, I believe he has more important things to
> do
> > > than
> > > > to indulge your misplaced sense of outrage.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >    GerardM
> > > >
> > > > On 3/8/07, Yonatan Horan <yonatanh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Hi,
> > > > >
> > > > > It has recently (about two months ago) come to my attention that
> > > > articles
> > > > > on
> > > > > the Hebrew Wikipedia are speedy deleted. I translated the Jenna
> > > Jameson
> > > > > article from the English Wikipedia and it was very quickly speedy
> > > > deleted
> > > > > and I was indefinitely blocked due to being a sockpuppet of some
> guy
> > > (of
> > > > > course no checkuser request was done). By the way, I don't
> > > particularly
> > > > > like
> > > > > porn articles or anything of the sort; in fact, I don't believe
> I've
> > > > ever
> > > > > edited a porn article on the enwp which I'm very active on. After
> a
> > > few
> > > > > days
> > > > > (during which I complained on Danny's enwp talk page and thus got
> > the
> > > > > attention of a Hebrew Wikipedia admin and later spoke on the phone
> > > with
> > > > > another admin from hewp) I was unblocked. I'm guessing there have
> > > > probably
> > > > > been other people who just gave up after they were banned and
> didn't
> > > > > return.
> > > > >
> > > > > The situation is basically that if a user who isn't well-known on
> > the
> > > > hewp
> > > > > (someone outside of a group of about 100 users) creates such an
> > > article
> > > > he
> > > > > will probably be perm-banned and if anyone else does so, the
> article
> > > > will
> > > > > probably just be speedy deleted. No rule has been passed on the
> > Hebrew
> > > > > Wikipedia regarding this and even if it had been passed, it would
> be
> > > in
> > > > > violation of WMF (?) guidelines as Wikipedia is not censored. Some
> > > claim
> > > > > that a rule has been passed but many admins disagree with this.
> The
> > > > "vote"
> > > > > was passed about two years ago and had 10-20 participants. In
> > addition
> > > > to
> > > > > this, the vote came at a time when the Hebrew Wikipedia was
> > repeatedly
> > > > > vandalized by a certain user and many of the voters supposedly for
> > the
> > > > > banning of porn articles referred only to this specific case (this
> > is
> > > > > supported by their comments on the page).
> > > > >
> > > > > By the way, just so nobody corrects me, on the Hebrew Wikipedia
> > *there
> > > > are
> > > > > votes* since consensus is hardly ever reached and the total needed
> > to
> > > > pass
> > > > > a
> > > > > vote is a ridiculous 55%. Anyway, despite all the above, a few
> > admins
> > > > have
> > > > > said that they will speedy delete any porn articles created on the
> > > > Hebrew
> > > > > Wikipedia. Currently there are a few porn articles which are about
> > the
> > > > > movie
> > > > > Deep Throat and two other articles that I don't recall at the
> > moment.
> > > > This
> > > > > is a foundation issue because the situation right now is
> effectively
> > > > > censorship of articles that some people feel do not have a place
> on
> > > the
> > > > > wikipedia. I know I will probably have those who disagree with me
> be
> > > > > notified of this discussion at some point at which point the
> > > slandering
> > > > > will
> > > > > begin and I will be called a "snitch" and possibly other more
> > colorful
> > > > > terms
> > > > > so I ask ahead of time for this discussion to remain civil.
> Although
> > I
> > > > > hate
> > > > > to burden Danny, who probably has a lot of more important things
> to
> > > do,
> > > > he
> > > > > is the only one who speaks both Hebrew and English and could take
> > care
> > > > of
> > > > > this issue since he is obviously a person trusted by most. Anyway
> I
> > > > think
> > > > > I've written more than enough on an issue that should be pretty
> > > > > straightforward, that is, that wikipedia is not censored.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > Yonatan
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Yonatan Horan

body:
On 3/9/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There is no reason at all why all subjects that are permitted on the
> English
> Wikipedia should be permitted on another project. The notions of the
> English
> Wikipedia are not universal. Individual Pokemon articles et al are denied
> on
> the German Wikipedia and when individual people and or movies notable in
> the
> porn industry are not permitted on a particular project, I have no problem
> with it at all.

I never said that every other Wikipedia needs to go by the same standards as
the English Wikipedia just that you can't censor a certain topic just
because you don't like it, especially when there's nowhere near community
consensus on the issue.

There are much more important issues to do with censorship on Wikipedia
> projects. On some projects articles on the holocaust are severely censored
> because "it is not an accepted fact that it happened the way you have it
> portrayed". This means that articles, even featured articles of the
> English
> Wikipedia associated with the second world war, cannot be literally
> translated into these particular language versions of Wikipedia.

Then that's an even bigger problem that should be dealt with as well.

In many cultures the porn industry is not noted nor is porn permitted.
> Insistence on having it included in Wikipedia is against the laws and
> morals
> of such countries. I stand by my position that a comparison with the
> Pokemon
> characters is valid; a Wikipedia article does not have to allow the
> inclusion of all of them.

Luckily for us, we have someone who is well aware of Israeli and Hebrew
culture and who knows that in this aspect (to be specific, me). Israeli
society is very similar to American or European society in that there are
the conservatives, but they are not the majority (and of course there are no
"porn laws"). Your argument might be valid for the Arabic Wikipedia (since
in that case, a ban may reflect Arabic society and morals), however a
country that has the playboy channel, et cetera, is obviously not the
country that you imagine. You seem to have a strong misconception of the
Hebrew culture.

The porn industry *is* notable in Israeli\Hebrew culture. Again, even the
ones arguing against the inclusion of pornographic articles in the Hebrew
Wikipedia ARE NOT saying that it isn't notable. I didn't say the Hebrew
Wikipedia needs to allow writing about Angel Cutexxx (fictional name) or any
other esoteric actor/actress just that articles on subjects that are clearly
notable cannot be speedy deleted. I'd have much less of a problem if someone
nominated the article for deletion as non-notable but this is not what is
happening, an article about a subject that has something to do with porn is
deleted... for no reason other than the fact that it has something to do
with porn (and nobody is claiming otherwise, or using non-notability as an
excuse).

Fine, you don't trust my judgment as obviously I have a POV here but someone
like Danny (and I know who Danny is and how busy he is) is someone who can
judge the situation in a better way since he is familiar with the culture,
speaks the language and is a trusted person.

PS I am not outraged, I think your premise is wrong.

If you look over your initial response, you may see why I perceived it that
way.

Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> On 3/8/07, Yonatan Horan <yonatanh at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I strongly resent your reply. It seems like you have some similar issues
> > with Pokemon articles and that's the reason you lashed out the way you
> > did.
> > The reason I raised this issue on this mailing list is not because of
> some
> > misplaced sense of outrage. The incident I was talking about took place
> > two
> > months ago and the only reason I mentioned it was to fully disclose any
> > relevant information so other people don't come on here later on and say
> > that the only reason I'm bringing this issue to the attention of others
> is
> > due to a vendetta against the Hebrew Wikipedia or something of the sort.
> > This isn't about me trying to provoke anything. It's about a certain
> group
> > of admins ignoring the fact that speedy deletion of porn articles was
> > never
> > passed as a policy on hewp (and there is more than one sysop who can
> > attest
> > to this). As I said previously, I don't have any particular interest in
> > porn
> > and the fact that I've never edited an article that has anything to do
> > with
> > this topic on the english wikipedia supports that. Ron Jeremy and Jenna
> > Jameson are both notable enough to have their own article on any
> > wikipedia,
> > whether it be English, Hebrew or Malaysian. Attempts have been made to
> > resolve this issue "in-house" have failed, otherwise I wouldn't have
> > posted
> > it to this mailing list. I can't find the specific meta page at the
> moment
> > but it isn't English Wikipedia only policy that wikipedia isn't
> censored.
> > If
> > the german wikipedia decided to delete all articles regarding Nazi
> > Germany,
> > etc. would you have reacted the same way? Or maybe if the Chinese
> > Wikipedia
> > decided to ban all articles on the issue of democracy? I hope you
> rethink
> > your response and maybe try not to treat me as a troll when I really am
> > not
> > one.
> >
> > -Yonatan
> >
> > On 3/8/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hoi,
> > > When you think that people are interested in what can be perceived as
> a
> > > provocation, you are wrong. What makes you think that details about
> porn
> > > is
> > > of sufficient relevance to warrant an article? You have to appreciate
> > that
> > > some Wikipedias are quite happy to even disallow articles about
> Pokomon
> > > characters. Now Pokomon creatures are much more educational. They are
> > the
> > > staple diet of our youth.
> > >
> > > Danny is a WMF employee, I believe he has more important things to do
> > than
> > > to indulge your misplaced sense of outrage.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >    GerardM
> > >
> > > On 3/8/07, Yonatan Horan <yonatanh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > It has recently (about two months ago) come to my attention that
> > > articles
> > > > on
> > > > the Hebrew Wikipedia are speedy deleted. I translated the Jenna
> > Jameson
> > > > article from the English Wikipedia and it was very quickly speedy
> > > deleted
> > > > and I was indefinitely blocked due to being a sockpuppet of some guy
> > (of
> > > > course no checkuser request was done). By the way, I don't
> > particularly
> > > > like
> > > > porn articles or anything of the sort; in fact, I don't believe I've
> > > ever
> > > > edited a porn article on the enwp which I'm very active on. After a
> > few
> > > > days
> > > > (during which I complained on Danny's enwp talk page and thus got
> the
> > > > attention of a Hebrew Wikipedia admin and later spoke on the phone
> > with
> > > > another admin from hewp) I was unblocked. I'm guessing there have
> > > probably
> > > > been other people who just gave up after they were banned and didn't
> > > > return.
> > > >
> > > > The situation is basically that if a user who isn't well-known on
> the
> > > hewp
> > > > (someone outside of a group of about 100 users) creates such an
> > article
> > > he
> > > > will probably be perm-banned and if anyone else does so, the article
> > > will
> > > > probably just be speedy deleted. No rule has been passed on the
> Hebrew
> > > > Wikipedia regarding this and even if it had been passed, it would be
> > in
> > > > violation of WMF (?) guidelines as Wikipedia is not censored. Some
> > claim
> > > > that a rule has been passed but many admins disagree with this. The
> > > "vote"
> > > > was passed about two years ago and had 10-20 participants. In
> addition
> > > to
> > > > this, the vote came at a time when the Hebrew Wikipedia was
> repeatedly
> > > > vandalized by a certain user and many of the voters supposedly for
> the
> > > > banning of porn articles referred only to this specific case (this
> is
> > > > supported by their comments on the page).
> > > >
> > > > By the way, just so nobody corrects me, on the Hebrew Wikipedia
> *there
> > > are
> > > > votes* since consensus is hardly ever reached and the total needed
> to
> > > pass
> > > > a
> > > > vote is a ridiculous 55%. Anyway, despite all the above, a few
> admins
> > > have
> > > > said that they will speedy delete any porn articles created on the
> > > Hebrew
> > > > Wikipedia. Currently there are a few porn articles which are about
> the
> > > > movie
> > > > Deep Throat and two other articles that I don't recall at the
> moment.
> > > This
> > > > is a foundation issue because the situation right now is effectively
> > > > censorship of articles that some people feel do not have a place on
> > the
> > > > wikipedia. I know I will probably have those who disagree with me be
> > > > notified of this discussion at some point at which point the
> > slandering
> > > > will
> > > > begin and I will be called a "snitch" and possibly other more
> colorful
> > > > terms
> > > > so I ask ahead of time for this discussion to remain civil. Although
> I
> > > > hate
> > > > to burden Danny, who probably has a lot of more important things to
> > do,
> > > he
> > > > is the only one who speaks both Hebrew and English and could take
> care
> > > of
> > > > this issue since he is obviously a person trusted by most. Anyway I
> > > think
> > > > I've written more than enough on an issue that should be pretty
> > > > straightforward, that is, that wikipedia is not censored.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Yonatan
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia to seek proof of credentials (Sify.com,
	India)

body:
On 09/03/07, Frederick Noronha <fred at bytesforall.org> wrote:

> http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14405629
> Wikipedia to seek proof of credentials

This is still a matter of tremendous community discussion on en:wp.
See wikien-l recently. There's disagreement and discussion of (1)
whether it's a good idea at all (2) whether it's workable if it is a
good idea. All still ongoing.

(Personally I suspect it isn't needed - after the Essjay controversy,
no editor of good faith is going to put a false claim on their user
page. The community outrage makes it clear that that's something one
*just doesn't do* - and that that was an implicit rule even if it
wasn't an explicit one.)

- d.


body:
On 09/03/07, Kat Walsh <kat at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Positions of personal-level trust are different -- checkusers, press
> contacts, and similar. And for those, I don't care about credentials,
> unless the credentials are in some way related to what they are doing
> -- just identity, that they are who they say they are. Already we ask
> that stewards prove they are over age 18; checkusers *should* be the
> same. I'm sure we will be more stringent about checking on the
> identities of press contacts in the future. It is reluctantly that I
> can accept restricting users from being able to fill these positions
> without proving identity, because I want to trust that people will not
> misrepresent themselves, but I recognize that they do not always do
> so.

Something to note: the functions you speak of are really Foundation
positions, not encyclopedia project positions. That's why the
Foundation has to keep tabs on them.

- d.


body:
On 07/03/07, Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think en.wikipedia does reasonably better than the other wikipedias on
> this, because there are so many non-native speakers that write on it. It is
> easier to drift towards a "national" POV with languages that no one speaks
> outside a country. It's still not perfect, but it could be worse.

Indeed. The hard part can be getting people to use and contribute to
the Wikipedia in their own language rather than just using the English
one.

- d.


from_name: Gary Kirk

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Wikimediauk-l] Radio 2, this afternoon

body:
I take it you've searched?

On a PDA with no RealPlayer etc I managed to find this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio2_promo.shtml

Can't see if it works though, it was all frames.

On 09/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Do you have a link to this?
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>

--
Gary Kirk


body: Do you have a link to this?


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
I'm not the one who used the words "smarmy" and "condescending".

In response to Steve, the class system here is similar to that on
Wikipedia - if you are not a list admin, what you think of people has
little impact, while if you are, you can place them on moderation if
you feel they are "smarmy and condescending" enough that they should
not be tolerated.

Mark

On 09/03/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/9/07, Steve <subsume at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Of course you don't. The fact that continue it is equally pitiful.
> >
> > Please elaborate on your class-system idea of this list. I'm sure its
> > very fascinating.
> >
> > -S
> >
> > On 3/9/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I don't think it was inappropriate. That's what matters here - what I
> > > think, and what the list admins think.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On 09/03/07, Steve <subsume at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Hmm, sure. I also think administrative skepticism is > always <
> > > > neccessary, regardless of the tally of charges. Demonization is always
> > > > a very useful tool against people who have done something wrong, and
> > > > is a very effective marginalizer.
> > > >
> > > > Your initial smarmy, condescending rant was totally inappropriate, and
> > > > I was glad that George Herbert followed it up with a measured
> > > > description of the problem.
> > > >
> > > > -S
> > > >
> > > > On 3/9/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > It becomes an issue when somebody espouses racism in every post and
> > > > > uses it to personally attack others. "You guys won't listen to me
> > > > > because you must all be Koreans", for example.
> > > > >
> > > > > Mark
> > > > >
> > > > > On 08/03/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> > > > > > Mark Williamson wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Because you are a racist :-) You probably even deny the indigenous
> > > > > > > status of the Ainu.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I would hope that's not the reason... if we were to block people for
> > > > > > holding objectionable opinions (even exceedingly objectionable ones), I
> > > > > > could submit a very long list of names of people to be blocked,
> > > > > > including many admins!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > -Mark
>
> Please stop trolling Mark here...
>
> The reasons that our Asian user was removed from the list have been
> explained.  That some of the unblock-en-l participants have also
> vented that they don't like him is perhaps not the single most focused
> calm response, but neither do they reflect a generic list intolerance
> for minority opinions.
>
> We didn't remove them from the list because they're personally
> distasteful; we removed him from the list because he's abusive and he
> absolutely should not still be seeing anyone else's unblock request
> filings.
>
> Had this been an official policy or position statement, it would also
> have been inappropriate for Mark to mention that here.  But it was
> just an informational response to queries.
>
> I think it's unreasonable to expect us not to form personal opinions
> regarding some of the unblock-en-l complaintants.  It's reasonable for
> the community to insist that we still deal with them professionally,
> and I think we're doing that.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Error on install

body:
On 09/03/07, Kirill Krasnov <krasnovforum at gmail.com> wrote:
>  In new install I see this error:

Did you try reading it?

/home/xxx/public_html/wiki/includes/Database.php on line 1959
> Could not open "../maintenance/tables.sql".

Is the referenced file

* there?
* readable by the user Apache is running as?

Rob Church


from_name: Voice of All

subject:
[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a
 proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

body:
I'd rather not have this involve the foundation, but rather some local
"approvals" committe like the bot approvals group or something similar,
though a bit more serious.

One advantage to this would be for constructing the user groups needed for
revision tagging.

Erik Moeller-4 wrote:
>
> On 3/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>> There are two parts to the suggestion: 1) marking some statements with
>> a "verified credentials" tag, and 2) a "policy of gentle (or firm)
>> discouragement for people to make claims like those that EssJay made,
>> unless they are willing to back them up".
>
> I'm cross-posting this to wikipedia-l and foundation-l, because it may
> very well become a Foundation-level issue at some point.
>
> I would support the following:
>
> 1) Any user can ask for his or her professional credentials to be
> verified.
>
> 2) Making up professional credentials is prohibited, and may result in
> a ban. (This may or may not be covered by existing policy, but judging
> from the Essjay case, it is probably not sufficiently clear.) This is
> independent of whether or not the user asks for credentials to be
> verified. We may investigate claims that are dubious when they are
> pointed out to us.
>
> 3) Any user trusted on admin level or higher who makes a statement of
> credentials on their user page must have them verified through a team
> of volunteers designated to this role by the Wikimedia Foundation (we
> may want to involve the chapters if this becomes international). The
> process of verification could be similar to what Citizendium uses,
> i.e.:
> a) have an existing, credentialed user vouch for the credentials to be
> correct based on personal knowledge,
> b) respond to an email associated with a reliable institution, and
> point us to a web page of that institution where their credentials are
> listed,
> c) point to someone associated with a reliable institution we can
> contact to verify the credentials.
>
> We may extend this to regular users if it proves to scale well.
>
> 4) Users with verified credentials will get a little "Verified
> credentials on <date>" marker on their user page, nothing more. This
> marker would ideally be independent of the wikitext of the page, and
> set in the user table instead.
>
> I am opposed to any marker of edit contributions and such -- users who
> care about credentials can look them up, those who do not care should
> not be bothered by them in discussions or contributions.
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
>
> "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
> free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>

--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A--WikiEN-l--Accountability%3A-bringing-back-a-proposal-I-made-nearly-2-years-ago-tf3350677.html#a9408203
Sent from the WikiMedia Foundation mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-10

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20308).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  18 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 493 of 511 tests (96.48%)... 18 tests failed!


body:
GOM, if not KNN. As Frederick is Goan and that is (afaik) the major
variety, I can but assume that is the one they will use.

Mark

On 09/03/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Frederick Noronha schreef:
> > Yeah, I'm trying... but it has not been very easy convincing others
> > about what seems to be a "counter-intuitive" idea ... ("anyone being
> > able to edit me writing... whaaat?")
> >
> > We're also having a script war going on here amidst Kok. But I think
> > it will happen one day, hopefully sooner rather than later. FN
> >
> > On 10/03/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Well, you could certainly take the lead by writing good articles for
> >> http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/kok/ . It is currently empty
> >> because of lack of participation.
> >>
> Hoi,
> I have had a look at Konkani, the code currently in use on the Incubator
> will not necessarily lead to new project. Konkani is in ISO-639-3 no
> longer considered to be a single language. There are currently seven
> languages that all make up Konkani; they are
>
>     Katkari  [kfu
>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kfu>] (India
>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
>
>     Konkani  [knn
>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=knn>] (India
>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
>
>     Konkani, Goanese  [gom
>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gom>] (India
>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
>
>     Kukna  [kex <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kex>]
>     (India <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
>
>     Phudagi  [phd
>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=phd>] (India
>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
>
>     Samvedi  [smv
>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=smv>] (India
>     <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
>
>     Varli  [vav <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=vav>]
>     (India <http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN>)
>
> This means that you can forget about a script war; the paricipant of
> these script wars will probably belong to one of these seven. The first
> battle you will have to fight is the clarification of what it is that
> you want.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
>
> http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=92010
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


body:
No other Konkani-speaking Wikipedians already on, say, en:?

Mark

On 09/03/07, Frederick Noronha <fred at bytesforall.org> wrote:
> Yeah, I'm trying... but it has not been very easy convincing others
> about what seems to be a "counter-intuitive" idea ... ("anyone being
> able to edit me writing... whaaat?")
>
> We're also having a script war going on here amidst Kok. But I think
> it will happen one day, hopefully sooner rather than later. FN
>
> On 10/03/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well, you could certainly take the lead by writing good articles for
> > http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/kok/ . It is currently empty
> > because of lack of participation.
> --
> FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
> http://fn.goa-india.org  http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
> What bloggers are saying about Goa: http://planet.goa-india.org/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.