from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Project Wikineur

body:
On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 11:03:49 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> One way of dealing with this is by having it as a "Wikicities" project.
> If it pans out, it can always return into the wikimedia fold :) .

Since many are regarding this as something suitable for Wikibooks, it
would not be accepted at Wikicities unless the Wikibooks community
expressly opposed it being part of their project.

However, there is now a Wikicities Scratchpad, which provides a place
for rejected Wikicities, so if someone wants to create this as a
temporary wiki on that site, they can do so. This might be a useful
place for people to demonstrate what their proposal is in order to
show people on this list whether or not the wiki does look right for
Wikibooks.

http://scratchpad.wikicities.com/

Angela.


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Project Wikineur


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sanger response and rating system experiment

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

Stirling Newberry schrieb:
|
| On Jan 31, 2005, at 6:46 PM, David Gerard wrote:
|> I asked on wikitech-l, and Magnus said his rating code is not (in his
|> opinion) ready for prime time yet. Anyone want to beat it into shape in
|> short order?
|>
|>
|
| Link to code?

Main stuff is in

~  phase3/includes/SpecialValidate.php

though there are small parts elsewhere, e.g. display of the additional
"validation" tab.

I remember that, in addition to turning it on with some global variable,
one needs to create a SQL table. Damn if I remember where I stored it
(wasn't too complex, though, I can probably reverse-engineer it from the
PHP).

Note that this will probably break with the 1.5 extensions, as the whole
version counting is redone.

Magnus
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list: foundation-l

from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [Foundation-l] Project Wikineur

body:
On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:47:51 +1100, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Rebecca (misfitgirl at gmail.com) [050201 10:34]:
>
> > Wikibooks are on a specific theme. Work manuals can make good
> > Wikibooks. And Wikibooks, whether single or in a series, can be made
> > consistent, with the same set of headings and the same way of
> > detailing information. I just can't see any reason to make this a
> > seperate wiki - it'd just be a wikibook that we decided to promote
> > above all the others, which isn't fair.
>
> Unless it's Wikipedia, which is fair cos it's by far the hugest wiki book!
>
Or wiktionary.Or wikiquote...

Wikibooks was set up to be the home of textbooks. Not books, but
Textbooks. Hence why wikpedia, wiktionary and wikiquote are not on
wikibooks (other than historical accident). I really dont think it is
fair to the wikibooks community, that we tell every new wikiproject to
go set up on wikibooks. Its in risk of becoming the wikimedia dumping
ground. Either we need to start telling people, go set up on
wikicities, so we can see what happens and then if we like it we might
invite you into the wikimedia family (as Jimbo has suggested) or
create a wikilabs (as me and sj have suggested). There are lots of
things of wikibooks right now that shouldnt be there. Take the
cookbook for example; some wikipedians decided the content wasn't
appropriate for wikipedia, so they pushed it off into wikibooks,
despite it not being a textbook. The gardening book aswell. This is
really the same as saying i dont want to throw this out, and i dont
want to keep it, so ill just put it all in the backyard shed and
pretend its not there.

 I personaly think that something like the cookbook, or the gardening
book should have thier own wikis, and also another wiki with the
working title DIYwiki, should be set up. The DIY wiki would not have
text books, but rather could house lots of the stuff that is currently
on wikibooks, but shouldnt be. Like the bycycle repair book. The
computer repair book. First Aid etc, plus the possiblity for many many
more. I believe that this wiki should not be made up os "books" like
wikibooks, but be more like wikipedia in style. For example: it would
be [[drainage ditch]] not [[farming:drainage ditch]] (wikibooks
style). The article would be a couple of sections
# Intro paragraph on what drainage ditches are, where and how they are used
# TOC
# How to build a dranage ditch
## Method 1
## Method 2
### Minor variation on Method 2
## Method 3
# How to repair a drainage ditch
## Method 1
# Other Important notes on drainage ditches
# Further Reading
# References

/me puts on asbestos underware.
so what do you all think?

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


subject: [Foundation-l] Project Wikineur


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Swedish, Spanish, French Wikinews set up

body:
> That is your opinion. In my opinion, it is the will of the Wikimedia
> community as a whole which counts. Wikimedia is a global project. It's
> not up to the French Wikimedia community to decide by majority that they
> don't want Wikinews, unless they have France-specific reasons for not
> wanting it. And I am supported in this both by policy and by statements
> of the Board to this effect, when I asked them this very question two
> months ago. Yes, I asked the Board whether we should treat the French
> Wikinews differently from the others because of the way the vote went,
> and the answer was no - I can document this with IRC chatlogs if
> necessary. This, by the way, is an interesting test case for language
> autonomy. And I firmly support the principle that Wikimedia-wide
> decisions can overrule local ones.

This worries me for two reasons. One) half (or so) of all wikimedians
are editors on en. Two) most discussion about not just new projects
but everything is in english.

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [Foundation-l] Project Wikineur

body:
> Wikibooks was set up to be the home of textbooks. Not books, but
> Textbooks. Hence why wikpedia, wiktionary and wikiquote are not on
> wikibooks (other than historical accident). I really dont think it is
> fair to the wikibooks community, that we tell every new wikiproject to
> go set up on wikibooks. Its in risk of becoming the wikimedia dumping
> ground. Either we need to start telling people, go set up on
> wikicities, so we can see what happens and then if we like it we might
> invite you into the wikimedia family (as Jimbo has suggested) or
> create a wikilabs (as me and sj have suggested).

I'm not suggesting to use Wikibooks as an incubator, in advance of
giving a project like this full status. I'm suggesting to make it what
it is: a Wikibook about business (it *is* a textbook - even if it
isn't aimed at a scholarly audience). It shouldn't *be* a specific
wiki - the Wikispecies crew browbeat the board into setting a
particularly bad precedent, and then everyone jumped on the bandwagon.
Let us not make the same mistake again.

There are lots of
> things of wikibooks right now that shouldnt be there. Take the
> cookbook for example; some wikipedians decided the content wasn't
> appropriate for wikipedia, so they pushed it off into wikibooks,
> despite it not being a textbook. The gardening book aswell. This is
> really the same as saying i dont want to throw this out, and i dont
> want to keep it, so ill just put it all in the backyard shed and
> pretend its not there.

We can always take Wikimedia in new directions, and I laud such
proposals, but I strongly despise these subject-specific works. They
have limited potential in terms of both readers and participation, are
much less likely to be successful, and would really be much better
suited to, say, setting up a MediaWiki installation on a business
website. Just because it is a wiki doesn't mean that it has to be
under the Wikimedia banner.

They're something altogether different from projects such as
Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource and Wikinews - which are Wikimedia's
mainstay. I think a strong case could be made that Wikicookbook would
fall into the first category, but Wikineur (and the disheartening
plague of similar proposals appearing recently) fall well into the
second.

>  I personaly think that something like the cookbook, or the gardening
> book should have thier own wikis, and also another wiki with the
> working title DIYwiki, should be set up.

I still can't see why it wouldn't just be a Wikibook with a less
scholarly focus. Vocational education can require textbooks, too.

-- ambi


subject: [Foundation-l] Project Wikineur


list: wikitech-l

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Sanger response and rating system
	experiment

body:
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Hash: SHA1

David Gerard schrieb:
| Magnus Manske (magnus.manske at web.de) [050202 00:59]:
|>I remember that, in addition to turning it on with some global variable,
|>one needs to create a SQL table. Damn if I remember where I stored it
|>(wasn't too complex, though, I can probably reverse-engineer it from the
|>PHP).
|
| Cool :-)

That's what I figured about the table:

table "validate"
val_user <=> user_id
val_title <=> cur_title
val_timestamp = timestamp of the version
val_type = key of what was validated (quality, quantity, etc.)
val_value = value on key/type-specific scale (0..X)
val_comment = comment for that vaildation

Types are either varchars or integers...

|>Note that this will probably break with the 1.5 extensions, as the whole
|>version counting is redone.
|
|
| If this implementation was switched on in 1.4 and people loved it and
| wanted to keep the feature, how much of a PITA would this be for 1.5?

Not very painful :-)
Just exchange the timestamp identification for the new, "real" version
number, done! (Not sure about the best way to preserve the 1.4 data,
though, if that's what we want to do anyway)

Magnus
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from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] About language names

body:
> >And Gerard, please note that Alfio, unlike you, is a native Italian speaker.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >
> Which is a totally irrelevant remark. fyi I asked Sabine, she thinks
> that having it as it is written is to be preferrred; her argument is
> that things that are "strange" atract more curiosity. Her credentials as
> to the Italian language are obvious and adequate.

I don't see how it's irrelevant. Alfio's opinion here is a great deal
more valuable regarding Italian punctuation and capitalisation than is
yours because so far you have shown no knowledge of Italian.

> Using this argument is rich when it comes from the "tireless warrior for
> more wikipedia's even though he does not speak all the languages he
> champions". It basically disqualifies you and if you apply this logic to
> yourself, we will not hear that much from you on the mailinglist.

OK, first of all, this is the 7th or 8th time you've used "rich"
towards me when you meant "outrageous" or something along those lines.

Second of all, the difference is that I do not argue finer points of
these languages as do you. I do not say "Not only should the Friulian
Wikipedia exist, but its capitalisation rules should be thus and its
punctuation rules should be thus!!!".

You arguing finer points for Dutch and even English (and perhaps
L?mburgs - I don't know if you know it or not, but there is FYI a
thriving Wikipedia in L?mburgse taol now which not long ago was
proposed for locking as an inactive Wikipedia) is extremely credible
because you claim and even demonstrate fluency and experience with
these languages, but when you argue finer points of languages such as
Italian without saying directly "I was told by..." or "According
to..." it is much, much, less credible.

Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] os.wikipedia.org

body:
Yes, I was going to ask Brion but I didn't see him online for the last few days.

And as regards Latin vs Cyrillic (vs Arabic), I totally agree on
Ossetic, HOWEVER:

Recent growth in the Chuvash and Bashkir Wikipedias has been a sort of
low-key duel between Latin and Cyrillic. It was my impression that
Cyrillic was the /only/ script used now for these languages.
Similarly, the Tatar Wikipedia is written entirely in Latin, while it
was my impression that today Tatar is written /only/ in Cyrillic (and
Arabic in China). The beginnings of the Uyghur Wikipedia have also
been conflicting, since in Chinese Turkestan where most Uyghur
speakers are, the official script is Arabic, but elsewhere some people
use Cyrillic and some people use Latin... it looks like it may become
a problem.

I may be wrong about any of these, but if my impressions are right it
would seem that some or all of these Wikipedias are being written by
activists in a script not used by very many people at all.

Mark

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 17:09:40 +0300, V. Ivanov <amikeco at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 00:54:23 +1100, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > A question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossetic_language says that
> > Ossetic can use Latin script as well as Cyrillic script.
>
> ...been using it in 1920s. There was a general Soviet policy of the
> 1920s to use Latin script in local languages, and even Russian was
> planned to latinization. But then Stalin came to rule, having other
> points of view.
>
> > Does anyone still
> > use Latin?
>
> Noone ever, except situations when Cyrillic keyboard is not available.
> When it's not available, they use "translit" -- a horrible intuitive
> latinization. :)
>
> > Are there important texts in Latin?
>
> I have never seen any Latin script book in Ossetic in all my life. I
> only know, that they have existed.
>
> > Is there a one-to-one
> > correspondence between the Cyrillic and Latin spellings in Ossetic, so that
> > you change one to the other automatically?
>
> Yes.
> Still human post-edition might be needed after such change.
>
> Sl.
> --
> Esperu cxiam!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: V. Ivanov

subject: [Wikipedia-l] os.wikipedia.org

body:
Hello,

For more than a week we have collected signatures for the Wikipedia in
Ossetic -- see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Ossetian.2FOssetic_Wikipedia
-- then I've turned myself to this list. I never received my letter
back, so I am not sure if it ever had appeared here, but it was
answered and the answer was positive. They promised, that the Ossetic
Wikipedia will have it place at http://os.wikipedia.org/

Still lots of time have passed, the enthusiasm is fading, but there is
no place to start the Ossetic wikipedia.

Will somebody help at last? My special notepad-file is full of stubs
allready! :)

Here is more information about the Ossetic:
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=OSE

ISO 639-1: os
Speakers: about 500,000
Language name to appear elsewhere: ??????
Script: Russian Cyrillic + letter æ
Starting language file: Russian.

Respectfully yours,
[[:eo:Vikipediisto:Slavik_IVANOV]]

--
Esperu cxiam!


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikicite project pages (english versions only so
	far)

body:
I think that at the moment credibility is extremely overrated among
Must Add Sources to All Articles Right Now Fanatics.

While it does certainly help, it seems to me that most people take
everything Wikipedia says as true no matter what, despite what the
MASAARNF say - lack of sources vs. presence of sources would only be a
distinguisher for a limited number of people ("intelligent" people as
the case may be, or people to whom credibility is important, ie
somebody who isn't just wanting to know something and doesn't care a
lot about credibility).

Prolonged existance of a fact in en.wikipedia by itself certifies to a
certain degree the credibility of the fact - anything that is absolute
hogwash will usually be removed right away or within a week, and
anything that is hogwash but less so will usually be removed within a
few weeks. The kind of stuff that gets through for months on end is
usually the type of stuff that is only subtly wrong and for most
people is "right enough".

So while I don't propose not giving cites at all, I do propose a
whupping for all those who add cites to articles I wrote completely,
given that I was either too lazy to add cites and theirs are only
guesses, or I didn't add cites because I didn't use any sources other
than myself (Did the person who wrote the first book use cites? No,
because there /was/ nothing to cite - so people judged the content by
itself and not by the citations).

Cites do not ensure credibility, either. I can add loads and loads of
hogwash to [[Indo-European languages]] citing Edo Nyland, yet the
stuff I say will still be hogwash. That it comes with honest cites
attached is only misleading, given the total unreliability of the
resources cited (No expert, in their right mind, will be able to read
anything Mr Nyland has written without falling to the floor and
laughing themselves near to death - although Mr Nyland appears to be
completely serious and believes what he writes).

If I add to [[Basque language]] that "Basque is, along with [[Ainu
language|Ainu]] and the [[Dravidian languages]], the modern descendant
of the Saharan language, and is the origin of all modern languages
which were created by Benedictine priests." and cite Mr Nyland (who
now in addition to his crackpot website has apparently been published
- you can get his crackpot book for 30 US dollars now), that does not
mean it should not be deleted just because it gives a citation, and it
does not mean it should be trusted, either. (in case you couldn't
tell, Benedictine priests are most definitely not responsible for
"inventing" all modern languages from the vocabulary of some
ur-language called "Saharan")

Mark

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:07:43 -0500, Stirling Newberry
<stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikicite
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite
>
> A fact is only as reliable as the ability to source that fact, and the
> ability to weigh carefully that source. Wikipedia's community, in an
> effort to expand its useful sphere of users, increase its reliability,
> usability and credibility has held several related discussions on
> improving the scholarly apparatus of wikipedia. The need to cite
> sources is now in the community standard's list, the desire to upgrade
> the citation of articles is the subject of the Fact and Reference
> Project, and the Encyclopediac Standards project has discussed
> automatic, or at least software assisted citations. There has also been
> a coding effort to support footnoting.
> [edit]
>
> Need for Live Data
>
> These projects, need, not only to be joined together, but to be joined
> together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of
> bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a
> project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create
> an open wiki system which will allow:
>
> 1.  Software assisted citation. To make it easier for editors to cite,
> and to make citations comprehensive to include a link to an author
> article, the book's card and the date as a wikilink.
>
> 2.  Card catalogs which will allow users to annotate the work, and to
> link to other works, which could include later editions, bibliography
> and textual apparatus. To make the card catalog live data, rather than
> dead data.
>
> 3.  Support a footnote system in wikimedia. To improve the ability to
> assess credibility and standards compliance of articles and their
> information.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
I should add that this is especially deceiving because Mr Nyland
shares his name with Dr Edo Nyland, a professor emeritus in geophysics
(not linguistics, but still it gives a false sense of credibility) at
the university of Alberta. (whom he notes, on his homepage, he is NOT)

Mark

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 16:21:04 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that at the moment credibility is extremely overrated among
> Must Add Sources to All Articles Right Now Fanatics.
>
> While it does certainly help, it seems to me that most people take
> everything Wikipedia says as true no matter what, despite what the
> MASAARNF say - lack of sources vs. presence of sources would only be a
> distinguisher for a limited number of people ("intelligent" people as
> the case may be, or people to whom credibility is important, ie
> somebody who isn't just wanting to know something and doesn't care a
> lot about credibility).
>
> Prolonged existance of a fact in en.wikipedia by itself certifies to a
> certain degree the credibility of the fact - anything that is absolute
> hogwash will usually be removed right away or within a week, and
> anything that is hogwash but less so will usually be removed within a
> few weeks. The kind of stuff that gets through for months on end is
> usually the type of stuff that is only subtly wrong and for most
> people is "right enough".
>
> So while I don't propose not giving cites at all, I do propose a
> whupping for all those who add cites to articles I wrote completely,
> given that I was either too lazy to add cites and theirs are only
> guesses, or I didn't add cites because I didn't use any sources other
> than myself (Did the person who wrote the first book use cites? No,
> because there /was/ nothing to cite - so people judged the content by
> itself and not by the citations).
>
> Cites do not ensure credibility, either. I can add loads and loads of
> hogwash to [[Indo-European languages]] citing Edo Nyland, yet the
> stuff I say will still be hogwash. That it comes with honest cites
> attached is only misleading, given the total unreliability of the
> resources cited (No expert, in their right mind, will be able to read
> anything Mr Nyland has written without falling to the floor and
> laughing themselves near to death - although Mr Nyland appears to be
> completely serious and believes what he writes).
>
> If I add to [[Basque language]] that "Basque is, along with [[Ainu
> language|Ainu]] and the [[Dravidian languages]], the modern descendant
> of the Saharan language, and is the origin of all modern languages
> which were created by Benedictine priests." and cite Mr Nyland (who
> now in addition to his crackpot website has apparently been published
> - you can get his crackpot book for 30 US dollars now), that does not
> mean it should not be deleted just because it gives a citation, and it
> does not mean it should be trusted, either. (in case you couldn't
> tell, Benedictine priests are most definitely not responsible for
> "inventing" all modern languages from the vocabulary of some
> ur-language called "Saharan")
>
> Mark
>
> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:07:43 -0500, Stirling Newberry
> <stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikicite
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite
> >
> > A fact is only as reliable as the ability to source that fact, and the
> > ability to weigh carefully that source. Wikipedia's community, in an
> > effort to expand its useful sphere of users, increase its reliability,
> > usability and credibility has held several related discussions on
> > improving the scholarly apparatus of wikipedia. The need to cite
> > sources is now in the community standard's list, the desire to upgrade
> > the citation of articles is the subject of the Fact and Reference
> > Project, and the Encyclopediac Standards project has discussed
> > automatic, or at least software assisted citations. There has also been
> > a coding effort to support footnoting.
> > [edit]
> >
> > Need for Live Data
> >
> > These projects, need, not only to be joined together, but to be joined
> > together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of
> > bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a
> > project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create
> > an open wiki system which will allow:
> >
> > 1.  Software assisted citation. To make it easier for editors to cite,
> > and to make citations comprehensive to include a link to an author
> > article, the book's card and the date as a wikilink.
> >
> > 2.  Card catalogs which will allow users to annotate the work, and to
> > link to other works, which could include later editions, bibliography
> > and textual apparatus. To make the card catalog live data, rather than
> > dead data.
> >
> > 3.  Support a footnote system in wikimedia. To improve the ability to
> > assess credibility and standards compliance of articles and their
> > information.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] "censorship" On Wikipedia

body:
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 22:15:09 -0500, Stirling Newberry wrote:
> http://www.avert.org/evidence.htm

Thank you Stirling for that very comprehensively referenced link.
Perhaps, if it isn't already, that link should be added to some of the
relevant articles. I note we also have an article entitled "AIDS
reappraisal" which discusses many of the claims and counter-claims
relating to this issue.

To the original poster, I would like to point out that, while your
frustration is understandable, your claims of "censorship" betray a
slight misunderstanding of the workings of Wikipedia. You talk of
having "posted" information to Wikipedia, terminology generally
associated with online discussion forums, and you talk of "your
censors", implying that there is some identifiable group who have
acquired this role. In fact, what you did [or so I assume] was to edit
an encyclopedia article to contain extra information - your "post"
does not exist as a seperate entity, but is an integral part of the
article. The "censors", meanwhile, are simply fellow editors who felt
- rightly or wrongly - that that information was misplaced; they have
no higher authority than greater experience with the existing content,
and you should not need to challenge them in order for your views to
be heard.

Admittedly, in some cases, views do become entrenched within parts of
Wikipedia, and this is something often discussed - sometimes heatedly.
However, since the discussion and evidence you called for in this case
*do* seem to exist - both within Wikipedia, and more generally - I
don't think this is one of those cases. Clearly, something needs to be
improved, since you did not find the information you were looking for,
but this is most likely a matter of working out how better to
cross-reference existing content, rather than radically re-evaluating
everything on the site.

That said, I have not reviewed any of the content in question in any
detail, and am not an expert in the field, so it may well be that
there *are* glaring inaccuracies, and even some degree of bias, in the
present content. Basically, however, I hope you find the culture of
Wikipedia sufficiently open that you can discuss any such issues you
find (note that every page has a "discussion" page attached to it for
this very purpose) and work towards correcting them in a spirit of
consensus.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] os.wikipedia.org

body:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 00:54:23 +1100, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> A question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossetic_language says that
> Ossetic can use Latin script as well as Cyrillic script.

...been using it in 1920s. There was a general Soviet policy of the
1920s to use Latin script in local languages, and even Russian was
planned to latinization. But then Stalin came to rule, having other
points of view.

> Does anyone still
> use Latin?

Noone ever, except situations when Cyrillic keyboard is not available.
When it's not available, they use "translit" -- a horrible intuitive
latinization. :)

> Are there important texts in Latin?

I have never seen any Latin script book in Ossetic in all my life. I
only know, that they have existed.

> Is there a one-to-one
> correspondence between the Cyrillic and Latin spellings in Ossetic, so that
> you change one to the other automatically?

Yes.
Still human post-edition might be needed after such change.

Sl.
--
Esperu cxiam!


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Requests for new Wiki projects

body:
--- willtop31 at epsfh.com wrote:
> ===Working title===
> *Link to proposal on mailing list: [http://mail.wikipedia.org/]
> *Naming suggestions: ElectroWiki Wikitronics Wikital
> *Domain name: Electrowiki.org
> *Scope: A place to gather international standards for electricity,
> electronics,
> and robotics. Instead of paying large sums of money to the IEEE and ISO for
> access to their standards.
> *Details: Electronics and electrical Wikipedia. This project will grow as
> student contribute and use it as a resource for studying electronics,
> alternative energy, and robotics.
> *Proposer: Craig Topham
> *People interested joining:
> Students of Lane Community College Electronic Technology Programs. Eugene,
> Oregon U.S.A

Sounds like it would make for a great set of books on Wikibooks.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] os.wikipedia.org (Cyrillic only will do)

body:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 01:19:26 +1100, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> I was just wondering :-) It occurred to me that we have some wikis in two
> scripts, e.g. Kurdish (ku.wikipedia.org), which is the same words in Latin
> and Arabic. But if Latin use is negligible, it's probably not worth special
> effort.

Certainly Cyrillic-only Wikipedia for Ossetic will do.
Moreover, because the most part of speakers are bilingual (the second
language being Russian), we'd like to start from the Russian language
file, translating little by little all technical things as well as
writing articles.

I've talked already to .:Ajvol:., who is the chief worker on the
Russian language file, and he agrees to help.

Slavik IVANOV

--
Esperu cxiam!


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] About language names

body:
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:44:22 +0100, Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski
<fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:

> In the Polish language, language names are not capitalized, and
> neither are (for the most part) list members.

Well, I see that "Strona g??wna", "Portal wikipedyst?w", "Bie??ce
wydarzenia", "Ostatnie zmiany", "Losuj stron?", "Pomoc", "Dary
pieni??ne", "Zmiany w dolinkowanych", "Prze?lij plik", "Strony
specjalne" all are capitalised...

> And what about the language list on the main page?

Yeah, what about it?

Andre Engels


list: wikien-l

from_name: steven l. rubenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
Dante Alighieri blocked Jalnet 2 and me for a day, because we both violated
the 3 revert rule.  There is nothing I can do about it, but I do want to
point out (and for now, this is the only available venue) that I think this
is an example of a frivolous application of the rule.  I know that the rule
involves 3 reverts to a person, but in this case the multiple reverts were
over several different edits (in other words, we were not just rallying
between keeping or deleting the same text).  Furthermore, both Jalnet2 and
I were communicating our reasons for the various edits.

Jalnet2 demanded that I be blocked and Dante complied and, in fairness that
I do not mean to belittle, blocked Jalnet2 as well.  Anyone who goes over
the edit history will see that this is not a symmetrical conflict in that
no one who is working on the page has supported Jalnet's edits.  Be that as
it may, I want to emphasize that neither I nor anyone else criticized
Jalnet2 for violating the 3 revert rule, and neither I nor anyone else
asked that he be blocked.  This is a case where I don't think blocking
serves any purpose.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


from_name: willtop31 at epsfh.com

body:
Hello Wikipedia people,

My name is Craig, and I would like to make a proposal. I did make an honest
effort to follow all the instructions correctly, but I don?t feel I got it
right. If I did something wrong please let me know, so I may resubmit. I had
particular trouble posting to the ?Content pages in category "Proposed
projects"?, something did not seem right.

Well, here it is.

===Working title===
*Link to proposal on mailing list: [http://mail.wikipedia.org/]
*Naming suggestions: ElectroWiki Wikitronics Wikital
*Domain name: Electrowiki.org
*Scope: A place to gather international standards for electricity, electronics,
and robotics. Instead of paying large sums of money to the IEEE and ISO for
access to their standards.
*Details: Electronics and electrical Wikipedia. This project will grow as
student contribute and use it as a resource for studying electronics,
alternative energy, and robotics.
*Proposer: Craig Topham
*People interested joining:
Students of Lane Community College Electronic Technology Programs. Eugene,
Oregon U.S.A
**
**
*Relevant links:
http://edt.epsfh.com/electrowiki/index.php  (just starting, very, very much just
starting, not even a zygote)

Thank you,
Craig Topham

Willtop31 at epsfh.com


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Sj -

>I haven't seen anyone accuse you of wrongdoing, only of pissing people
>off.
>
>
Accusing is accusing. Stop this bullshit, please.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Anthere

body:
Erik Moeller a ?crit:

> In the original proposal, I suggested that Wikinews can be set up in
> any  accepted Wikimedia project language where there is at least one
> interested  participant, and that 4 more regulars are required for the
> language to be  recognized as "official", and for the firsts sysops to
> be created.

Ah. I am happy to find out ultimately that I had understood the steps
well. You wrote well here that 5 regulars were needed for the project to
be recognised official.

I see "regular" and I see "official". So my feelings of what the
creation steps should be were just correct.
This is how I interpretated the idea that the creation had to require an
official step somehow, and where I interpretated that bulgarian editors
or editors not active for a month would not be counted for creation of
french speaking wikinews.

I am sure we will agree on this.

So, to end up on this, again, I do not think you broke any policy, I
just think that if we stick blindly to rules, then a rule broken is
problematic. In this case, the rule forgot to mention an editor had to
be able to speak a language to have his name counted for a new project,
so obviously, his name was counted.

We have two choices. Either to make better and more rules, by
mentionning the opinion of a non speaking editor is not useful for the
creation of a certain language, or we just try to be reasonable, take
time before doing things, ask people around. Just another way of doing
things. It takes time indeed, but that might be worth peace.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Squid bug'n'patch

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

http://www.squid-cache.org/Advisories/SQUID-2005_3.txt

Anybody on it?

Magnus
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tYi2i1X/MocXF30j9kxzF5U=
=gIS1
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subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
Hello all

This week, I will go to a meeting in France about
sustainable development and new technologies.
There should be many interesting people, some of them
already know us and are already trying to set
collaborations with us.
There should be discussions about how new technologies
could help underdevelopped countries, or about
structuring information on internet (semantic web,
thesaurus, dictionaries...), or about how to improve
accuracy of information available on the net, open
source software, collaborative platforms, e-learning
etc...

This will last two days, but I could only find one day
to get there infortunately. At least, I chose the one
probably most interesting for us.

The organiser of the meeting (Michel Giran of
Planetecologie) invited me for free and will provide
room on his own booth for Wikipedia (booth and
registration was 500 euros otherwise...). Normally, a
poster was done with our logo on it.

I spent the last few days fighting with software to
manage to print business cards and leaflets, and must
say I am *very* proud of the result (eh :-)). The
resulting leaflet is informative, colorful, high
quality printing and fun. I hope other people will use
it as well. Normally, they should not need any update
for a reasonable number of months, and if necessary,
update under Quark Xpress should be easy (as long as
you do not try to mix old macintosh software and
recent PC software... but never mind).

When I came back from Algeria, I had a whole set of
pictures (only part of them have been uploaded yet and
none is labelled :-)). Among these pictures, a photo
of flower of the Thora Thora, a tree which may be
found in Sahara. I just put the picture on my user
page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Anthere)
A few days later, I found that the picture on the
french wikipedia has flowered in a full article about
the thora thora, which I discover, is also known under
the sweet name : Pommier de Sodome (see the reason for
this name on the french article...). Thanks Jeantosti
: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pommier_de_Sodome

I could not resist taking this article as an example,
for being about african flora, for being a very nice
example of our botanic section, and for the little
cultural background. And also, because it was enough
that I put a picture on my user page for this article
to miraculously appear.

Anyway, the resulting pdf which may be printed is
about one mega in size. Where could I host it so that
other people might use it later to print more leaflets
if they wish so ?

Second point is that I had unfortunately to rework
James business cards, because ... of non-operability
between european format and american format :-(
So, now I do have on my computer a high quality
Wikimedia logo and business card models in european
format (adobe illustrator files) which could be easily
reused if needed. Again, where could I host this so to
avoid that anyone has to do this job another time.
Between James cards and mine, we shoud cover 99% of
usual format (I might mention that I basically
followed James design at first, but finally made a
couple of changes).

Ant

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
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subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


body:
Anthere -

>
> Ah. I am happy to find out ultimately that I had understood the steps
> well. You wrote well here that 5 regulars were needed for the project
> to be recognised official.

Please read the complete email. That proposal was never implemented
because it did not receive Board approval.

> We have two choices. Either to make better and more rules

Better, not more, seems reasonable to me. Anything else will lead to
arbitrary outcomes in the creation of new languages.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Gavin Chait

subject: [Foundation-l] re: Project Wikineur

body:
I think it is a wonderful suggestion to set up a pilot on the Scratchpad.

Questions that I would appreciate some guidelines on:

1. What constitutes "proof" that it is indeed viable? (How much information
production, visitors, etc.)
2. Are there other suggestions than the name "wikineur" that anyone would
prefer?
3. What sort of limitations, concerns, etc do I need to address prior to
creating a Scratchpad pilot?

Regards,

Gavin


subject: [Foundation-l] re: Project Wikineur


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikitech-l] Categories in en:Wiktionary

body:
There seems to be some bug in the en:Wiktionary's automatically
generated list of categories.  It continues to show (in red) categories
that have been abandoned, and which have no text of their own.
Editorial controversy about these categories is not an issue.

Is there any way that the category list can be periodically reviewed to
remove the deadwood.  While I understand that amending the list
everytime there is a change could stress the system, a once-a-day purge
would be helpful.

Thanks
Ec


from_name: Pawe³ 'Ausir' Dembowski

body:
If it were to be created, wouldn't it be best to merge it with
Wikibuilder and WikiTech proposals?

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
steven l. rubenstein said:
> Dante Alighieri blocked Jalnet 2 and me for a day, because we both
> violated  the 3 revert rule.  There is nothing I can do about it, but I
> do want to  point out (and for now, this is the only available venue)
> that I think this  is an example of a frivolous application of the
> rule.  I know that the rule  involves 3 reverts to a person, but in
> this case the multiple reverts were  over several different edits (in
> other words, we were not just rallying  between keeping or deleting the
> same text).  Furthermore, both Jalnet2 and  I were communicating our
> reasons for the various edits.

How about, don't get into edit wars?  By your own edit comments on
[[Race]], you made 5 edits there over two days, every one of which was a
revert.  Your last two reverts were removals of the word "some" from a
statement about the rise of population genetics.  Was it really necessary
for this word to be removed from the article after a mere fifty minutes?
If you'd changed to "nearly all" the second time you wouldn't be reading
this email.
In the two before that you completely removed a reference to Risch et al.
Couldn't you just have changed the description?  This was a published
paper in the American Journal of Human Genetics, purporting to find a link
between racial self-identification and DNA profile, so you could hardly
claim that it isn't relevant to the subject.  I see no discussion about
Risch on the talk page.
You also say that nobody supported JalNet's edits.  Well if that were the
case why the hurry to perform these reverts?  Wouldn't it have been better
to wait for some of the other editors, who also opposed Jalnet, to either
edit or revert?
You couldn't compromise with your fellow editors so you were benched.
Tough, but that's how it is.


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Alexander Sigachov wrote:
| By the way, Russian language file at
| http://meta.wikipedia.org/LanguageRu.php recently was updated to rev.
| 1.423 of Language.php
|
| But in CVS we can not update it MORE THEN YEAR!!!

Updating the language files is a big pain in the butt. The vast majority
of submitted updates have not been valid PHP source and do not even
_compile_ as provided, and further are generally do not correctly take
account of differences between the open release and development
branches. Very frequently, submitted language files contain outright
incorrect code such as cut-and-pastes of code from Language.php which
should not be duplicated in child classes.

Checking for validity, fixing the errors, testing basic functioning,
glancing through to make sure there's not a security hole slipped in or
other oddities takes time and isn't particularly fun. 'Language files'
written in pages on meta are particularly likely to be ignored due to
this past history, and will probably *never* be imported into the code
base if simply left up there.

So, don't be surprised if there is not speedy (or much of any) progress
on getting submissions integrated. Sorry if it's annoying; that's the
primary reason we set up the MediaWiki: namespace system.

Updates to any file in MediaWiki should be submitted as a unified diff
against the files in CVS (cvs diff -u) FOR EACH AFFECTED BRANCH (the
REL1_4 release branch is not the same as the current development work in
HEAD), posted as a file attachment to a bug report in Bugzilla.
Assurances that it's been tested are helpful.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] os.wikipedia.org

body:
V. Ivanov (amikeco at gmail.com) [050202 00:06]:

> Still lots of time have passed, the enthusiasm is fading, but there is
> no place to start the Ossetic wikipedia.
> Will somebody help at last? My special notepad-file is full of stubs
> allready! :)

Who's starting new wikipedias now?

> Here is more information about the Ossetic:
> http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=OSE
> ISO 639-1: os
> Speakers: about 500,000
> Language name to appear elsewhere: ????????????
> Script: Russian Cyrillic + letter æ
> Starting language file: Russian.

A question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossetic_language says that
Ossetic can use Latin script as well as Cyrillic script. Does anyone still
use Latin? Are there important texts in Latin? Is there a one-to-one
correspondence between the Cyrillic and Latin spellings in Ossetic, so that
you change one to the other automatically?

- d.


body:
Magnus Manske (magnus.manske at web.de) [050202 00:59]:
> Stirling Newberry schrieb:
> | On Jan 31, 2005, at 6:46 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> |> I asked on wikitech-l, and Magnus said his rating code is not (in his
> |> opinion) ready for prime time yet. Anyone want to beat it into shape in
> |> short order?

> | Link to code?

> Main stuff is in
> ~  phase3/includes/SpecialValidate.php
> though there are small parts elsewhere, e.g. display of the additional
> "validation" tab.
> I remember that, in addition to turning it on with some global variable,
> one needs to create a SQL table. Damn if I remember where I stored it
> (wasn't too complex, though, I can probably reverse-engineer it from the
> PHP).

Cool :-)

> Note that this will probably break with the 1.5 extensions, as the whole
> version counting is redone.

If this implementation was switched on in 1.4 and people loved it and
wanted to keep the feature, how much of a PITA would this be for 1.5?

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strange idea

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com (daniwo59 at aol.com) [050201 23:28]:

> In a message dated 31/01/2005 23:15:55 Eastern Standard Time,
> node.ue at gmail.com writes:
> I thought that perhaps, for a trial period, we could add a
> prominently-placed button in articles for not-logged-in readers with
> the title of "Report an Error or Suggest Information to Add".
> I like it. It could be useful.

Could be nice. Wanna run it past the Village Pump?

What sort of response did de: get from theirs?

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] os.wikipedia.org

body:
V. Ivanov (amikeco at gmail.com) [050202 01:09]:

> On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 00:54:23 +1100, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> > A question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossetic_language says that
> > Ossetic can use Latin script as well as Cyrillic script.
> > Does anyone still
> > use Latin?

> Noone ever, except situations when Cyrillic keyboard is not available.
> When it's not available, they use "translit" -- a horrible intuitive
> latinization. :)

> > Are there important texts in Latin?

> I have never seen any Latin script book in Ossetic in all my life. I
> only know, that they have existed.

I was just wondering :-) It occurred to me that we have some wikis in two
scripts, e.g. Kurdish (ku.wikipedia.org), which is the same words in Latin
and Arabic. But if Latin use is negligible, it's probably not worth special
effort.

- d.


body:
Petr Kadlec wrote:

>The Special:Categories page shows all categories that contain at least
>one article, not taking into account whether the category has its own
>page or not. Try this: click at the red link, it will take you to the
>edit box of the category page. There, click Cancel or the "category"
>tab at the top of the page. It will take you to the category page,
>where you will see the list of articles that are still in this (as you
>say "abandoned") category. As soon as all those articles have their
>[[Category:ThisAbandonedCategory]] removed, the category will
>disappear from the list. (Or, that is the way it should work, at
>least.)
>
>HTH,
>-- [[ :cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec ]]
>
Big thanks.  In 3 years I have never used the "Cancel" link (None of
these boxes had a category tab.)  I think that I had always misread that
link as meaning "Cancel the edit that I've just done and start over."
One is never around so long as to be unable to learn a new trick on the
Wiki. :-)

Ec


body:
Do you not realise that because of this, these changes will not be
viewable to people trying to use the Russian interface on other
Wikipedias? For the single reason that you people don't update the
language files much at all (obviously it IS your choice, but it's not
like anybody else has the ability), some people are deprived entirely
of the function of multilingual interface capability, and some people
are deprived ENTIRELY of interface capabilities in their language (the
entire Panjabi language file has been translated, but there are
currently no sysops who can commit them to the MediaWiki namespace.)

Mark

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 00:46:58 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Alexander Sigachov wrote:
> | By the way, Russian language file at
> | http://meta.wikipedia.org/LanguageRu.php recently was updated to rev.
> | 1.423 of Language.php
> |
> | But in CVS we can not update it MORE THEN YEAR!!!
>
> Updating the language files is a big pain in the butt. The vast majority
> of submitted updates have not been valid PHP source and do not even
> _compile_ as provided, and further are generally do not correctly take
> account of differences between the open release and development
> branches. Very frequently, submitted language files contain outright
> incorrect code such as cut-and-pastes of code from Language.php which
> should not be duplicated in child classes.
>
> Checking for validity, fixing the errors, testing basic functioning,
> glancing through to make sure there's not a security hole slipped in or
> other oddities takes time and isn't particularly fun. 'Language files'
> written in pages on meta are particularly likely to be ignored due to
> this past history, and will probably *never* be imported into the code
> base if simply left up there.
>
> So, don't be surprised if there is not speedy (or much of any) progress
> on getting submissions integrated. Sorry if it's annoying; that's the
> primary reason we set up the MediaWiki: namespace system.
>
> Updates to any file in MediaWiki should be submitted as a unified diff
> against the files in CVS (cvs diff -u) FOR EACH AFFECTED BRANCH (the
> REL1_4 release branch is not the same as the current development work in
> HEAD), posted as a file attachment to a bug report in Bugzilla.
> Assurances that it's been tested are helpful.
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (Darwin)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFCAJOBwRnhpk1wk44RAhIyAJ91qx5aMDLLorVGo7QRQd3K5aeKsQCfcI80
> zLt1OX6seqWK8Irxzc14iYo=
> =5D+I
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> You couldn't compromise with your fellow editors so you were benched.
> Tough, but that's how it is.

I don't agree with this attitude at all.

Steven is a longtime, high quality editor.  His point in this
particular case is that a mechanical rule like 3RR is flawed when it
is applied in this fashion.  The reverts were to different aspects of
the article, and the participants were communicating.

Steven did not demand that he be unblocked, he did not ask for
arbitration, he took it in good spirit while pointing out what is in
fact a legitimate problem with mechanical rules like this.

Now, my own personal opinion, and this might be one that Steven
shares, is that given the ongoing problems with revert wars and
pointless edit wars in general, the 3RR is necessary and useful *even
though* it also has some unfortunate negative side effects.

But I see no reason at all to take an attitude that Steven "was
benched" or that he "couldn't compromise with his fellow editors".

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] CheeseDreams rant

body:
--- "csherlock at ljh.com.au" <csherlock at ljh.com.au> wrote:
> So tell me, how do I stop getting harassed by this notorious POV pusher?
> I don't think I've been unfair to them so far, and I haven't pushed by
> POV onto any of the articles.

She is under a few different ArbCom orders. One of which is a prohibition on
editing Christianity-related articles for a year. For violating this she was
recently blocked for 24 hours and for trying to evade that block she was banned
for 5 days.

Her case closed on 12 January:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/CheeseDreams#Remedies

The ArbCom has also noted that CheeseDreams has asked a real-world friend of
hers to make proxy edits at least one Christianity-related article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:CheeseDreams&diff=prev&oldid=9822823
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cultural_and_historical_background_of_Jesus&diff=9832045&oldid=9830724

This person was blocked for doing so.

Hopefully CD and her friend will act more appropriately after they return from
their WikiLockups.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________________________
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from_name: DIG

subject: [Wikitech-l] short URLs (really short, almost tiny)

body:
Hello,

This is a feature suggestion.  I also submitted it through Mediazilla (#1450).
(It could be that something like this was already proposed, I just haven't found it).

It is nice to see what the URL is pointing to in English (or any ASCII-7 based alphabet).  Unfortunately, it is not the case for most other languages.  For most of them, especially for the languages which are not based on Latin alphabet, URL-escaping makes URL unreadable and very very long.  So, it would be nice to have some kind of short URLs for wikipedia pages.  This will make it easier for the user to copy and paste the short URL into e-mail or on the web page.  (I saw the reference to the wikipedia article in Russian in e-mail -- it is horrible: 3 lines of 80 chars each, absolutely unreadable).

The short URL itself could be something like this:

  http://www.wiki???????.org/u/xyzuv

where

  ????? is a project name ({m,p}edia, etc)
  u     is a special prefix (may be empty);
  xyzuv is an "encoded" form of longer URL
        (very much like tinyurl.com's one).

It also would be nice to have this short URL on the printed page (as text, as well as a link).

As a side-effect, the bots on #XXrc-channel will be less verbose.  We, at #ru.wikipedia, are using such short URLs, they seem more practical, and overall impression is better, than while using wprc-bots directly.

Shorter URLs, happier users.

Best regards,

--
DIG (Dmitri I GOULIAEV)
1024D/63A6C649: 26A0 E4D5 AB3F C2D4 0112  66CD 4343 C0AF 63A6 C649


subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> > You couldn't compromise with your fellow editors so you were benched.
> > Tough, but that's how it is.
>
> I don't agree with this attitude at all.

Me neither. Tony's whole email seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited to me.

> Steven is a longtime, high quality editor.

Very much so, yes.

> His point in this
> particular case is that a mechanical rule like 3RR is flawed when it
> is applied in this fashion.  The reverts were to different aspects of
> the article, and the participants were communicating.

No argument from me there. But that opinion on how the 3RR should work is
apparently a minority one. I base this on asking several other ArbCom members
and making an inquiry on the 3RR talk page. The rule states 'no more than 3
reverts on any page in 24 hours.' Most people take that very literally (for
better or worse). I interpret 'reverts' to be the same or substantially the
same revert. Oh well.

> Now, my own personal opinion, and this might be one that Steven
> shares, is that given the ongoing problems with revert wars and
> pointless edit wars in general, the 3RR is necessary and useful *even
> though* it also has some unfortunate negative side effects.

I also share that opinion.

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject:
[WikiEN-l] I just had to forward this little nugget onto fellow
	editors


from_name: NSK

body:
On Wednesday 02 February 2005 08:24, DIG wrote:
> The short URL itself could be something like this:

The code that does this job exists and it is GPL, so it can be incorporated in
MW easily: The code lies in the Drupal CMS where every node can be accessed
via a number/code and optionally a full name (full URL).

Like this:

http://portal.wikinerds.org/node/183

or
http://portal.wikinerds.org/ivan-noble

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org/freehosting


from_name: Petr Kadlec

body:
The Special:Categories page shows all categories that contain at least
one article, not taking into account whether the category has its own
page or not. Try this: click at the red link, it will take you to the
edit box of the category page. There, click Cancel or the "category"
tab at the top of the page. It will take you to the category page,
where you will see the list of articles that are still in this (as you
say "abandoned") category. As soon as all those articles have their
[[Category:ThisAbandonedCategory]] removed, the category will
disappear from the list. (Or, that is the way it should work, at
least.)

HTH,
-- [[ :cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec ]]


from_name: sean inglis

subject: [Wikitech-l] WIN32 to Linux Migration

body:
Hi,

I've been runnning MediaWiki as a proof-of-concept for technical documentation.
It's gained a lot of support, and so it's being moved from it's current home on
my development box to a production server.

The version I'm running at the moment is WIN32 based using EasyPHP.

The intention is to move to Linux.

Can anyone give me any pointers for performing this migration?

Presumably I can take the current MySql datafiles and copy them across
unaltered, but I'd have a tidying up exercise when it comes to uploaded
images/document, and their relative paths?

Any advice/pointers appreciated

Sean


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
I must say this is a surprise to me too. I would interpret it to mean 3
reverts of the same material not of three different additions to the same
article.

The interpretation you argue for makes removal of nonsense unnecessarily
burdensome and risky.

If it is to be interpreted that way it needs to be changed.

Fred

> From: Frank v Waveren <fvw.wikipediaml at var.cx>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:24:17 +0100
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts
>
> Both clearly state:
>
> Don't revert any page more than three times within a period of 24 hours.
>
> I don't see how that could be read as anything but "make one revert.
> Allowed. Make another revert. Allowed. Make another revert. Allow. Make
> another revert. Not allowed."


subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>>
>>>You couldn't compromise with your fellow editors so you were benched.
>>>Tough, but that's how it is.
>>>
>>>
>>I don't agree with this attitude at all.
>>
>>
>Me neither. Tony's whole email seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited to me.
>
It's all about a literal vs. a common sense approach to rules.  A
strict  literal interpretation which Tony has apparently applied then
starts to beg questions like, "How exactly do we interpret 'revert'?"
Lying in wait like a stalking lion for anyone to violate the 3RR
anywhere is clearly an abuse of process

Before applying such a rule people need to look at what is going on to
see if there is any hope that the warring parties may find a solution.
There is no obligation to ban anybody on a fourth revert as soon as it
is made; it merely becomes an available tool if it should be necessary.

>>His point in this
>>particular case is that a mechanical rule like 3RR is flawed when it
>>is applied in this fashion.  The reverts were to different aspects of
>>the article, and the participants were communicating.
>>
>>
>No argument from me there. But that opinion on how the 3RR should work is
>apparently a minority one. I base this on asking several other ArbCom members
>and making an inquiry on the 3RR talk page. The rule states 'no more than 3
>reverts on any page in 24 hours.' Most people take that very literally (for
>better or worse). I interpret 'reverts' to be the same or substantially the
>same revert. Oh well.
>
Literalism creates unhappy communities.  The people who use it may be
perfectly correct, but have as much social grace as an enraged gorilla.

>>Now, my own personal opinion, and this might be one that Steven
>>shares, is that given the ongoing problems with revert wars and
>>pointless edit wars in general, the 3RR is necessary and useful *even
>>though* it also has some unfortunate negative side effects.
>>
>>
>I also share that opinion.
>
>
If in the course of these reverts there is also movement in the
controversy, that is a sign of progress.  The possibility remains that
the combatants may find an agreeable solution after a few more reverts.
The 3RR can prevent the solution.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] [harrypasternak@sympatico.ca: HIV+AIDS+Wikipedia]

body:
This should really have gone to the wikien-l list

----- Forwarded message from harry <harrypasternak at sympatico.ca> -----

From: harry <harrypasternak at sympatico.ca>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 11:21:57 -0500
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: HIV+AIDS+Wikipedia

Without Prejudice

a) I am baffled about  what's being posted about HIV and AIDS on
Wikipedia. Despite the number of pages given to HIV and AIDS - the two
critical piece of information are missing. First of all, there is not
one reference on Wikipedia to a study published in a scientific
scholarly journal with peer review that shows that "HIV is the probable
cause of AIDS". Secondly, there is not one electron microscopic picture
of the HIV.
You all know that there is a disease called Polio. You also understand
that not only are there electron microscopic pictures of the Polio
virus - there is also a vaccine which prevents Polio.

Why is the "study published in a scientific scholarly journal with peer
review that shows that "HIV is the probable cause of AIDS" " required?
Because that is the accepted test/standard all over the world. The peer
review examines the validity of the process, data and analysis used in
the study - included is a review whether study results have been
replicated by others. Just because 3 people at Wikipedia says something
is true  - doesn't make it "true"!

b) At first I posted an alternative viewpoint by Nobel Laureate in
Chemistry Dr. Kary Mullis - it was then followed by a comment that
stated that Dr. Mullis viewpoint was in the minority. Yet no reference
was made to prove that is the case. Nor did the person who posted the
comment - then post a reference to a study published in a scientific
scholarly journal with peer review that shows that "HIV is the probable
cause of AIDS"

When I attempted to add some background to why many
professors/researchers are more than happy to say that (HIV=AIDS)
(because they get $300,000 grants from the NIH) - my entire post was
removed! So the pro-advocates of HIV=AIDS can post whatever they want;
but, are required to prove that HIV=AIDS (because everyone knows that's
true??!!) - while at the same time an alternative viewpoint is
dismissed (censored).

I assume that Wikipedia is after the truth. I am interesting in
sponsoring a live audio debate (in aacPlus codec) on the WWW - with Dr.
Kary Mullis and anyone one of Wikipedia  "censors" or so-called
"experts" on HIV=AIDS, I am sure that we would have thousands of
listeners (from readers of Wikipedia and other news sources) - what
date and time would "you" prefer for this debate so that I can finalize
arrangements with Dr. Mullis. (Any takers here??) Below is in essence
what I attempted to post:

 Dr. Kary Mullis, is a biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize For
Chemistry - he invented the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a central
technique in molecular biology which allows the amplification of
specified DNA sequences. I wonder how many inventions or Nobel Prizes
the Wilkipedia censor(s) have?

Dr. Kary Mullis states that there is not one scientific study published
in a scholarly journal with peer review the shows that "HIV is the
probable cause of AIDS" (notice PROBABLE). In Mullis book 'Dancing
Naked In The Mind Field" - Mullis states:

"I was going to a lot of meetings and conferences as part of my job. I
got in the habit of approaching anyone who gave a talk about AIDS and
asking him or her what reference I should quote for that increasingly
problematic statement, "HIV is the probable cause of AIDS."
After ten or fifteen meetings over a couple of years, I was getting
pretty upset when no one could site the reference. I didn't like the
ugly conclusion that was forming in my mind: The entire campaign
against a disease increasingly regarded as a twentieth- century Black
Plague was based on a hypothesis whose origins no one could recall.
That defied both scientific and common sense.

"Finally I had an opportunity to question one of the giants in HIV and
AIDS research, Dr. Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute, when he
gave a talk in San Diego. It would be the last time I would be able to
ask my little question without showing anger, and I figured Montagnier
would know the answer. So I asked him.
With a look of condescending puzzlement, Montagnier said, "Why don't
you quote the report from the Centers for Disease Control?"
I replied, "It doesn't really address the issue of whether or not HIV
is the probable cause of AIDS does it?"
"No," he admitted, no doubt wondering when I would just go away. He
looked for support to the little circle of people around him, but they
were all awaiting a  more definitive response, like I was.
"Why don't you quote the work on SIV [Simian Immunodeficiency Virus]?"
the good doctor offered.
"I read that too, Dr. Montagnier," I responded. "What happened to those
monkeys didn't remind me of AIDS. Besides, that paper was just
published only a couple of months ago. I'm looking for the original
paper where somebody showed that HIV caused AIDS."
This time, Dr. Montagnier's response was to walk quickly away to greet
an acquaintance across the room. "

My second post about HIV=AIDS

As you may or may not "know" - over 60 billion dollars over a 25 year
period in the USA was spent primarily by the USA government tax dollars
trying to find a virus that causes cancer (see Mullis). There is no
vaccine to prevent breast cancer - why? - because not one virus was
found that causes cancer in humans! (If you don't believe me - then
name one virus that causes cancer in humans!) Well, Dr. Kary Mullis,
the Nobel Prizewinner in Chemistry, states in his book "Dancing Naked
In The Mind Field" that the same people who were working on "VIRUSES
Causes Cancer" then switched to HIV=AIDS when the funding dried up for
"VIRUS Causes Cancer" (because no viruses were found to cause cancer).

You know that people in general have participated in unethical, immoral
behaviour when money comes into the picture - and when it comes to
so-called medical research we are reminded on a daily basis about the
misinformation/withheld information that the drug industry puts out on
prescription drugs - e.g. VIOX apparently has killed 56,000 people.

The NIH (National Institute Of Health) gives out $300,000 research
grants (for each and every grant) to people "studying" HIV=AIDS.
$100,000 goes directly to the person getting the grant - a further
$200,000 is available for hiring and paying TA's (teaching assistants)
who are in graduate programs at universities. The pressure on
professors to bring grant research money into a university is enormous
- to the point that teaching students is secondary compared to the need
to bring money into a university department. Without this grant money
many universities would not be able to function - because the hired
Teaching Assistants who carry out a very large proportion of what a
professor is supposed to do in class. How to verify this? If you want
I'll arrange a meeting with a professor at Cornell University - who
after two years of teaching at Cornell, could not get one research
grant and was going to resign because the pressure was just to great.

- Harry Pasternak

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

--
"La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
Frank v Waveren wrote:

>On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 11:00:15AM -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote:
>
>
>>topic.  When Jalnet2 insists on making uninformed claims, he is not
>>insulting me -- he is insulting the hard work of scores of evolutionary
>>scientists, and dishonoring the integrity of Wikipedia, which depends on
>>editors doing some research.
>>
>>
>I'd advise you not to see edits you disagree with as insults, no
>matter how stupid you find them; Whether you considerd them insults to
>you or things you hold dear doesn't matter, in the end no good can
>come of it. Think of them as mistakes or disagreements, it gives a
>much more pleasant atmosphere.
>
If you believe your own rhetoric you would say the same about those who
have a quick trigger finger for applying 3RR.

Ec


from_name: Alexander Sigachov

body:
> we'd like to start from the Russian language
> file, translating little by little all technical things as well as
> writing articles.

By the way, Russian language file at
http://meta.wikipedia.org/LanguageRu.php recently was updated to rev.
1.423 of Language.php

But in CVS we can not update it MORE THEN YEAR!!!

See:
* http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1416
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_languageXX.php_update

--
Cxio la plej helan,
Alexander "Ajvol" Sigachev


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Squid bug'n'patch

body:
I guess WCCP is not in WM deployment.

Domas

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Magnus Manske
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 9:20 PM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Squid bug'n'patch

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

http://www.squid-cache.org/Advisories/SQUID-2005_3.txt

Anybody on it?

Magnus
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFB/9ZMCZKBJbEFcz0RAo9gAJ9e6O8qrN9JbcSwBn8ytv6UsEFD6gCdFHfA
tYi2i1X/MocXF30j9kxzF5U=
=gIS1
-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> No argument from me there. But that opinion on how the 3RR should work is
> apparently a minority one. I base this on asking several other ArbCom members
> and making an inquiry on the 3RR talk page. The rule states 'no more than 3
> reverts on any page in 24 hours.' Most people take that very literally (for
> better or worse). I interpret 'reverts' to be the same or substantially the
> same revert. Oh well.

Yes, and there are some good reasons to interpret it fairly literally,
while at the same time leaving a little breathing room for common
sense recognition that randomly changing one irrelevant word in a
different part of the article is still a revert.

The main reason to be fairly literal about it (but not obsessively so)
is that the whole point of it is to keep enforcement simple.

--Jimbo

--
?\"La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
Brion:
> So, don't be surprised if there is not speedy (or much of any) progress
> on getting submissions integrated. Sorry if it's annoying; that's the
> primary reason we set up the MediaWiki: namespace system.

However, that only works on single Wikis. If you want to change
something on various wikis, the MediaWiki-namespace should be edited
on all of them. If you want to change it for people using a
different-language interface, even that does not work.

Could not some system be developed to enable people to submit these?
As things are now, language files will only continue to drag further
and further behind the rest of MediaWiki. Go on this way, and soon we
might not need language files at all any more. Because the difference
isn't that big between going through the MediaWiki namespace to
translate half of it, and going through the MediaWiki namespace to
translate all of it. Except perhaps that a half-English
half-chosen-language interface on a third language is still better
than an all-English one.

Andre Engels


from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Anyway, the resulting pdf which may be printed is
> about one mega in size. Where could I host it so that
> other people might use it later to print more leaflets
> if they wish so ?

Is this just a general request for someone to offer to host it on a web
server somewhere, or are you looking to connect it to the Wikimedia
family of sites somewhere (or are you asking something else entirely)?
If the former, I've got a little webspace and bandwidth to spare.

--
Chad


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [Foundation-l] re: Project Wikineur

body:
On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 11:16:09 +0200, Gavin Chait <gchait at gmx.net> wrote:
> When I go to a library, I don't ask for a book.  I ask for books on a
> specific subject.  When I go to a university, I don't just ask to do a
> degree.  I get one in a specific subject.  The whole basis of education is
> "subject-specific works".  That is how universities divide themselves up:
> different schools run independently but under the broad "brand" of a single
> institution.
>
> The Wiki Foundation is your broad brand.
>
> If Wikibooks is "a place to build just about any non-fiction reference book
> with, and this is critical, a finite end size (if you want to explore a
> subject area in more detail than that, start other books). The 'finite' part
> excludes potentially huge or even practically infinitely-sized things such
> as a general quote book, dictionary, or encyclopedia."  There is immediately
> an exclusion since there are, potentially, an infinite number of different
> types of businesses.  Take a walk down any main street in even the smallest
> town and the number of different businesses present runs into the hundreds.
>
> I'm also not too sure about "They have limited potential in terms of both
> readers and participation."

By this line of reasoning, you could argue that any subject-specific
work deserves its own project. I'm not arguing that a business wiki
along these lines is inherently a bad idea - just that it's most
unsuitable for a seperate project under the Wikimedia banner. As I
said previously, I think it could well be suited to setting up an
installation of MediaWiki (the open-source software that runs all the
Wikimedia projects) on a business website. Or, alternatively, you
could do as that paragraph says, and just create a second book when
necessary.

Virtually any literate person is capable of adding material to
Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wikiquote, or Wikisource. Wiktionary has similar
general appeal, if not so complete, and many people can edit Wikibooks
due to its diverse nature. It's these projects, with their diverse
appeal, that are Wikimedia's mainstay. This just isn't the case with
*any* of these subject-specific works. It's also interesting to note
that arguably the two least successful projects at this point -
Wiktionary and Wikibooks (and the complete failure of Wikispecies,
which I don't even count) - are those that perhaps not everyone is
capable of adding material to.

I wish you luck with this - be it at Wikibooks or Wikicities, but I
will strongly oppose this project becoming one of Wikimedia's.
Wikispecies was an abomination, and I'm determined to do my best to
see that the mistake isn't repeated.

-- ambi


subject: [Foundation-l] re: Project Wikineur


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
Thanks Jimbo -- you understand my view perfectly.  I fully support the 3
revert rule in principle, what I question is only its mechanical, automatic
application.  I know that Dante was being fair when he blocked both me and
Jalnet2.  I guess that what I should have said is, it would have been just
as fair not to have blocked either of us.

I am, however, sorry that Tony Sidaway so capably manages to combine
ignorance with arrogance.  I say this in good faith: Tony, before putting
in your two cents (not adjusted for inflation), please check out the
history of the conflict.  I have been working on the Race article for some
time, and I can tell the difference between someone who knows what they are
doing and someone who does not.  Jalnet has for the past two weeks been
pushing an agenda which, basically, involves highlighting the views of two
psychologists in the introduction of the article.  Why did I revert the
word "some?"  Because keeping it rendered the article inaccurate.  I
explained to Jalnet why it renders the sentence inaccurate.  I also asked
Jalnet to provide any counter-examples, and he couldn't, or wouldn't
provide any.

I know that at this point someone like Cheese Dreams will point to this as
evidence that I am arrogant.  But my insistence on deleting the word "some"
is not based on any high opinion I have of myself.  It is based on the fact
that I have gone to the library and read a number of articles recently
published in major peer-reviewed journals, and I have read books on the
topic.  When Jalnet2 insists on making uninformed claims, he is not
insulting me -- he is insulting the hard work of scores of evolutionary
scientists, and dishonoring the integrity of Wikipedia, which depends on
editors doing some research.

You also mention my deleting the Rische article reference.  You neglect to
mention three salient points.  First, Jalnet2 put information from this
study into a section on populations and clines.  It simply did not fit into
that section.  There are other sections where this information would
fit.  By the way, Jalnet2's style of editing, although shared by many
people at Wikipedia, is very bad style and I think we should all discourage
it.  His style is, whenever he sees a claim made he doesn't like, he puts
in a counter-argument immediately following the claim.  If everyone
practiced this, we would not have articles, we would have Talmudic
debate.  Now, I love the Talmud, but I do not think it is a good model for
an encyclopedia article.  Yes, we must represent all views -- but not in
the format of a "Crossfire" debate.  The Race article has different
sections for each major view.  Jalnet2 is not interested in putting forward
useful information; he is instead interested in disrupting the presentation
of views he does not like.

Second, Jalnet2 was using a press release as his source, which is not a
very good source of information on something as complex as population genetics.

Third, Rikurzhn had already put this information into the article, in the
appropriate section, with a citation to the 2005 article from the American
Journal of Human Genetics!!

If Jalnet put the Risch citation back into the article, in the same place
he put it yesterday, would I delete it again?  You bet I would!

I have a long enough record of compromising with many editors.  But maybe
my idea of compromise is different from yours.  When I make a claim like
"Everyone says ..." and another editor claims "No one says ..." my idea of
a compromise is not to just change it to "Some say ..." and leave it at
that.  This notion of compromise is not going to help us produce quality
encyclopedia articles.  My idea of compromise is more like this: if an
editor makes a different claim than I do, I provide my source and ask him
or her to do the same.  We discuss the nature of the two sources, and make
sure that we are each interpreting them properly.  Then we discuss how best
to represent these views, however diverse, in the article.

Now, I know a good deal of the literature on race, human evolution, and
population genetics.  And there are people working on the race article who
know more than I do (like Rikurzhen).  Rikurzhen and I have argued, but we
have always been able to reach compromises that improve the article.

When someone comes along and asserts claims that to my knowledge have no
support whatsoever, and then refuses to provide adequate sources, and I am
fairly confident about my research, I will delete what they have
written.  Tony, you can call me an edit-warrior all you like.  But let me
tell you: your success at Wikipedia depends largely on your understanding
of our policies, your willingness to follow discussions on talk pages in
order to get some context for your understanding of how the article came to
reach its present state -- and, most important of all, your willingness to
do some research and assert claims only when you know what you are talking
about.  Tough, but that's how it is.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Do you not realise that because of this, these changes will not be
[snip]

Do you not realize that actual human beings have to expend time and
effort to make the software work at all? It doesn't happen by magic.
It's not as though the default state of the software is constant change,
and there's a bunch of nasty people sitting there stopping it from
moving. There is a limited amount of available developer time, and time
spent on one thing comes out of time that could be spent on another (bug
fixes, performance tweaks, maintenance, adding new wikis).

Unfortunately in this situation not everything gets done as quickly as
we might hope. Yes, that fact sucks, but it's a fact. One alternative
would be to slap up any old file and have things constantly break
completely because the files are wrong. When this happens people
complain at us, so we don't generally do that.

I'm sorry if explaining this fact and giving tips on how to get a
language file update accepted and installed faster has offended you.

Unfortunately I don't see you doing anything to help, like testing files
and checking them against the CVS branches. And I certainly don't see
you coding up an alternative message store system that would eliminate
most of the need to update syntax-sensitive code files (which is the
painful part). When you can do that, please post again and include
something helpful.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] WIN32 to Linux Migration

body:
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sean inglis wrote:
| Presumably I can take the current MySql datafiles and copy them across
| unaltered, but I'd have a tidying up exercise when it comes to uploaded
| images/document, and their relative paths?

Make sure ownership/permissions are correct on the uploads; the
directories in there need to be writable by the web server.

Other than that I can't think of any clear problems. You'll have to fix
up paths in LocalSettings.php, obviously.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
> Updates to any file in MediaWiki should be submitted as a unified diff
> against the files in CVS (cvs diff -u) FOR EACH AFFECTED BRANCH (the
> REL1_4 release branch is not the same as the current development work in
> HEAD), posted as a file attachment to a bug report in Bugzilla.
> Assurances that it's been tested are helpful.

Thanks. I'll do it today.

Can I post you answer to Meta:Requests_for_languageXX.php_update page?

--
Cxio la plej helan,
Alexander "Ajvol" Sigachev


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
>I must say this is a surprise to me too. I would interpret it to mean 3
>reverts of the same material not of three different additions to the same
>article.

As would I.

>The interpretation you argue for makes removal of nonsense unnecessarily
>burdensome and risky.

Agreed.

>If it is to be interpreted that way it needs to be changed.

I haven't seen any other admins interpreting it that way.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
>I've already stated that I regard the 3RR as unsatisfactory, underpowered
>because it tolerates a very high level of pointless edit warring.  With
>the alternate interpretation, in my opinion, it's worse than useless, at
>the very best just a drain on sysop time.  It would magnify the power of
>determined edit warriors by giving them carte blanche to perform up to
>three daily individual reverts on separate sections on the same article.
>If the alternate interpretation gains wide currency among edit warriors
>(and it's only a matter of time), the effects will be to intensify the
>problem that 3RR was intended to ease.

It has been my impression that the common interpretation of the 3RR (that it
only involves the same piece of text), and its enforcement as such, has led
to significantly less edit warring.  Not perfect, of course, but better than
it was.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
On February 2 Frank v Waveren wrote:

>On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 11:00:15AM -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote:
> > topic.  When Jalnet2 insists on making uninformed claims, he is not
> > insulting me -- he is insulting the hard work of scores of evolutionary
> > scientists, and dishonoring the integrity of Wikipedia, which depends on
> > editors doing some research.
>I'd advise you not to see edits you disagree with as insults, no
>matter how stupid you find them; Whether you considerd them insults to
>you or things you hold dear doesn't matter, in the end no good can
>come of it. Think of them as mistakes or disagreements, it gives a
>much more pleasant atmosphere.

Frank, you are absolutely right, and I thank you for making this point.  To
be clear, though, my intention in the passage you quote is that I do not
take Jalnet2's reversions personally -- I do not think he is insulting me.

The issue in this particular case was that over the course of Jalnet2 was
making a variety of edits almost all of which were variations on the same
point, since November 11, and I am one of eight editors who has reverted
this point.  His point being that most evolutionary scientists or most
social scientists accept an essentialist notion of race, and if he has any
evidence of this he has never presented it.  In the countless reverts since
he first inserted this point on 11/11, various people have provided
explanations in the talk section; he has never given a substantive
response.  (by way of contrast, I think he is the only one who has reverted
any of my work on this page -- at least since 11/11/04.  There are, of
course, many who have edited my contributions; sometimes I see their point
immediately, other times we discuss it in the talk pages, all I can say for
myself is that I have always been satisfied that whatever the outcome of
these edits and discussions has been, it has led to the improvement of the
article).

So I do see in Jalnet2's edits a real disregard for our process and for the
principles of verification and quality of edits.  On the other hand, his
edits have been limited to this one point, so he has not done any of the
kind of damage to an article that would lead me to RfC or mediation.  I
have to add that I am not sure how that would help.  My complaint about
Jalnet2 is not that he often reverts my edits, and I really do not care
about how he has treated me.  My complaint is that he keeps asserting
something that is wrong, and one would have to know a fair amount about
population genetics and human evolution to see that.  In short, his
behavior does irritate me, but not enough that I feel justified making a
formal complaint.  It is the content that concerns me, and my sense is that
our process for resolving conflicts focusses on behavior rather than
content.  I just do not see this as useful here.  So what if Jalnet2 limits
himself to two reverts a day?  As long as the content of his edits are
wrong, they just have to be deleted.

I want to be crystal clear about what I think is the main point here: in
the two-plus months that Jalnet2 has been making edits, there has been no
evolution or change in his view.  His basic point remains the same.  It is
one thing if you make 100 mistakes but they are all different mistakes.  It
is another if you make the same mistake 100 times.  There has been enough
discussion on the talk page over the past two and a half months to show
that Jalnet2 is the only editor currently making this mistake; none of the
others active on the article have agreed with him, and many have explained
why on the talk page.  As long as Jalnet2 persists in putting misleading
information into the article, someone is going to have to revert it.

Someone claimed that I was moaning about the three-revert rule.  I really
do stand by it -- it is clear that we need it, and even if I think Dante's
action yesterday was unnecessary, I am more than willing to live with it as
the consequence of a needed policy.

However, I think the real need for the 3-revert rule is to put a brake on
serious behavioral problems.  The problem with the 3-revert rule is that it
is utterly neutral to content.  I think when there are repeated problems
with content, we may need other mechanisms.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

body:
Frank v Waveren wrote:

>On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 10:00:59AM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>>I'd advise you not to see edits you disagree with as insults, no
>>>matter how stupid you find them; Whether you considerd them insults to
>>>you or things you hold dear doesn't matter, in the end no good can
>>>come of it. Think of them as mistakes or disagreements, it gives a
>>>much more pleasant atmosphere.
>>>
>>>
>>If you believe your own rhetoric you would say the same about those who
>>have a quick trigger finger for applying 3RR.
>>
>>
>Hmm? If it gives you any comfort, you should know I've never been
>offended or insulted by a 3RR violation, nor by a block because of a
>3RR violation. Is that what you meant?
>
>
What I meant is that the atmosphere is far more pleasant when you cut
some slack for those editors who normally behave in a reasonable way.

Ec


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] CheeseDreams rant

body:
OK, I've got to get this off my chest. I just noticed the following
harassment from CheeseDreams:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dante_Alighieri&diff=9863471&oldid=9841175],
where she implies that I have been posting anonymous abusive comments
from Victoria, Australia (of all places). I live in Sydney, in a totally
different state of Australia!

Now couple this with her harassement of Slrubenstein (she asked for a
request for arbitration that was rejected unanymously by Grunt, Ambi,
Neutrality, mav, sannse, David Gerard and the Epopt; then she relisted
it again, saying that she doesn't accept the decision!), her poor
research (for instance, in [[Historicity of Jesus]] she quotes The Two
Babylon's as verifiable research that is undisputed - where in fact it's
tenuous nonsense), her willingness to continue editing Christian
articles (she added a whole bunch of material about Jesus into
[[Osiris-Dionysus]], see
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Osiris-Dionysus&diff=9801869&oldid=9775252)
even after being banned for POV pushing, getting her friend to post
stuff for her (see [[WP:AN]]), I really need to start asking what the
hell is going on here?!?

Is something going to be done? I've listed her on RFC, but it seems
noone gives a damn as noone has even bothered to edit the page yet!

So tell me, how do I stop getting harassed by this notorious POV pusher?
I don't think I've been unfair to them so far, and I haven't pushed by
POV onto any of the articles.

TBSDY


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [Foundation-l] re: Project Wikineur

body:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 10:51:01 +1100, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> Virtually any literate person is capable of adding material to
> Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wikiquote, or Wikisource. Wiktionary has similar
> general appeal, if not so complete, and many people can edit Wikibooks
> due to its diverse nature. It's these projects, with their diverse
> appeal, that are Wikimedia's mainstay. This just isn't the case with
> *any* of these subject-specific works. It's also interesting to note
> that arguably the two least successful projects at this point -
> Wiktionary and Wikibooks (and the complete failure of Wikispecies,
> which I don't even count) - are those that perhaps not everyone is
> capable of adding material to.

Can, i just add a little off topic plug for wiktionary here. I think
that it has really improved over the last year, and while still not a
real threat to the oxford, its getting to be quite useful to people
(such as myself) who are interested in translating things between
languages. To anyone who hasn't looked at wiktionary lately id suggest
having a gander, cause i think its just freaking awesome, and that in
another 4 or 5 years, the OED will be as obsolete as the britanica is
now. But yes ambi, you are right about it having a smaller possible
base of users, since some basic knowledge of how languages work is
needed for a lot of the work they do over there.

paz y amor
~~~~

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


subject: [Foundation-l] re: Project Wikineur


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Võro Vikipeediä

body:
I propose that we use something like fiu-voro as the language code
(there is no ethnolgue code for Voro because it lists it as a dialect
of Estonian).

The issue of a code nonwithstanding, I think it should be set up right away.

Mark

On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 18:11:58 +0000, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Forwarding from foundation-l to wikipedia-l since there was no
> reaction on that list....
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Sulev Iva <juvasul at ut.ee>
> Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 19:43:52 +0200
> Subject: [Foundation-l] V?ro Vikipeedi?
> To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
> Dear members of the foundaton,
> I'm a user of Estonian (V?rok) and English Wikipedia (V?rolang) and a
> native speaker,
> researcher and activist of the V?ro language spoken in Estonia. V?ro
> (native name V?ro
> or V?ro kiil?) belongs to the Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric
> languages. It has about
> 70.000 speakers mostly in southern Estonia.
> Language codes (not yet official) are Vro and Vr. See more about V?ro in
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V?ro and http://www.wi.ee/.
>
> I and my friends would like to begin with V?ro language Wikipedia. We
> can translate
> Estonian language file to V?ro (actually we have already started) and begin with
> creation of new articles. Of course your objection may be that there are too few
> speakers of V?ro. Yes, but the speakers are quite active and
> computerized people and
> the V?ro language community needs an encyclopedia in their own
> language. I'm sure the
> number of potential editors in V?ro is not smaller than the Kashoub,
> Cornish, Gaelic,
> Faroese or Saami's or many other small languages' one. I have
> discussed the idea of
> V?ro Wikipedia with Estonian Wikipedia developers: Andres, Ker, Klaus etc.
> (http://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipeedia:Community_Portal#V.C3.B5rukeelne_Wikipedia).
> They are supporting the idea and will help us. I hope you will support us too.
> Best regards, V?rolang -- 80.235.61.143 11:33, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>