from_name: elian

subject: [Wikitech-l] On security

body:
Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

> Last night someone hacked the password of one of the French Wikipedia
> sysops, Youssefsan. (Using IP 217.144.0.5, possibly a proxy?)

Seems to be a jordanian IP-range:
Process query: '217.144.0.5'
Query recognized as IP.
Querying whois.ripe.net:43 with whois.

% This is the RIPE Whois server.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% Rights restricted by copyright.
% See http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/copyright.html

inetnum:      217.144.0.0 - 217.144.6.255
netname:      NEXTJO
descr:        Network Exchange Technology
descr:        Farah Trading & Contracting Co.
descr:        P.O.Box 510449, Amman 11151 Jordan
country:      JO
admin-c:      MF13297-RIPE
tech-c:       MF16025-RIPE
status:       ASSIGNED PA
notify:       mohammad_farraj at hotmail.com
mnt-by:       RIPE-NCC-NONE-MNT
changed:      mohammad_farraj at hotmail.com 20021120
source:       RIPE

> I've changed the sysop's SQL query to use a separate mysql user account
> which has read-only access and isn't allowed to read the email and
> password fields of the user table, which should close the 'malicious
> sysop' hole. (However, developers still have full access.)

fine :-) However, the general problem of stored passwords remains. It
would be inconvenient for sysops but maybe better in regard to security to
generally prohibit storing sysop and developer passwords in permanent
cookies and maybe force a password change from time to time.

greetings,
elian


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright and web cams

body:
> The question:  Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim on
> the picture that I have downloaded?  I suspect not, because he made no
> creative effort to shoot that particular picture.  I would be interested
> in other opinions.

Before we look at this interesting question -- is the picture actually of
sufficient quality for Wikipedia? Webcams I've seen so far tended to be
blurry and low-res, but maybe that has changed.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright and web cams

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> I was looking for supplementary material regarding the [[Quetzal]]
> article, and ended up with a copyright question.
>
> An organization maintains a web-cam in front of a hummingbird feeder
> in Costa Rica.  Most of the time there are no visitors to the feeder.
> On one occasion I find a great specimen has come to feed, and I save
> the picture.  Although the owner of the web-cam maintains an archive,
> I have made a point not to use an archived picture.
> The question:  Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim
> on the picture that I have downloaded?  I suspect not, because he made
> no creative effort to shoot that particular picture.  I would be
> interested in other opinions.

I think it all depends on how we envisage a webcam. Is it:
1) a constant stream of images, like a film, which is being broadcast in
realtime?
or
2) a remote camera which is always switched on?

If it's 1) then it's all copyright. The same way that time-speeded film
in natural history programmes is all copyright, even though they just
set the camera up and left it running for days without touching it.
If it's 2) then copying a picture from it is just like borrowing a
strager's camera to take a picture.

I think we need a lawyer on this one! It might well be uncharted territory.

>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [ANN] locales at Meta

body:
Hello,

I started a page at Metawikipedia to let users without access to the CVS
easily edit the locale files (LanguageXx.php) and maybe also start to
localize Wikipedia in other languages.
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locales_for_the_Wikipedia_Software

I posted the files in iso-latin, maybe someone with a more UTF-8 friendly
system could add the others - I fear to destroy special characters.

greetings,
elian
PS: Is the languages Array really necessary in every locale? I thought
language names should be always the native ones.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Wikitech-l] Accessibility? : Was - Suggestion to promote readability of hyperlinkeddocuments.

body:
Hi Members,

     I found Derek Moore's attitude toward his problem seeing our many
multicolor links in Wikipedia, due to color blindness, a bit startling. He
said, today:
     <snip> I suppose I'm the color blind minority, so I can just put up with
full underlines.

     I have been hoping that someone else would bring up the issue of
accessibility in Wikipedia. Yet, having read over 20 e-mails on the problem of
our many and multi-colored links, I saw no mention of this issue. If Derek
Moore is having trouble with these links, try to imagine how useless these
color schemes are to a blind user. Do all members agree with him, that since he
is in a color blind minority, no attempt should be made to remedy the situation?
     I think at this stage in Wikipedia's development, some of the basic
accessibility features might be incorporated in our software - like not
depending on color coding to convey information, and adding descriptions to all
images. I am strongly in favor of such features. Unfortunately, my programming
skills are not nearly strong enough to try to add any. Hopefully, some of the
developers will agree that accessibility is important and will be willing to
work on adding some of these features.

     Opinion, please.???

     For those members unfamiliar with what kind of features I am talking
about, please see the W3 Consortium's Web Content Guidelines for Accessibility
at:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/

                   As Ever,

                     Ruth Ifcher

--


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Suggestion to promote readability of hyperlinked documents.

body:
On Thu, Jan 02, 2003 at 05:54:02PM -0800, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> On Wednesday 01 January 2003 04:00 am, wikitech-l-request at wikipedia.org wrote:
> > So from a usability perspective it's a good idea to have the Wikipedias
> > look and act the same. When I first visited eo.wikipedia I wasn't even
> > sure if this is the same software, because I hadn't seen the Cologne skin
> > yet.
>
> Why is the default skin on eo set to Cologne blue? I too have been lost while
> visiting eo to update interlanguage links. Since I don't speak Esperanto it
> took me a minute or two to figure out where the edit the page link was. This
> is not a user friendly way of doing things at all. It also really looks the
> eo.wiki is running on different software and gives the impression that it is
> somehow separate from the other wikis.

Cologne Blue is much nicer.
I think it should be default on other Wikipedias too.


from_name: Derek Moore

body:
>What do you think of the version I've just put on test.wikipedia.org
>which doesn't change your browser's font selection and uses only
>relative font sizes?

Much better, much more readable.

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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright and web cams

in_reply_to: <3E135FBB.6040102@telus.net>; from saintonge@telus.net on Wed, Jan 01, 2003 at 01:38:03PM -0800

body:
It's an interesting academic question, but it seems likely that we
could get them to release that particular image under GNU FDL.

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> I was looking for supplementary material regarding the [[Quetzal]]
> article, and ended up with a copyright question.
>
> An organization maintains a web-cam in front of a hummingbird feeder in
> Costa Rica.  Most of the time there are no visitors to the feeder.  On
> one occasion I find a great specimen has come to feed, and I save the
> picture.  Although the owner of the web-cam maintains an archive, I have
> made a point not to use an archived picture.
>
> The question:  Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim on
> the picture that I have downloaded?  I suspect not, because he made no
> creative effort to shoot that particular picture.  I would be interested
> in other opinions.
>
> Eclecticology
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


in_reply_to: <20030102021430.SKET12483.mtiwmhc12.worldnet.att.net@mtiwebc18>; from rose.parks@att.net on Thu, Jan 02, 2003 at 02:14:30AM +0000

body:
rose.parks at att.net wrote:
>      I have been hoping that someone else would bring up the issue
> of accessibility in Wikipedia. Yet, having read over 20 e-mails on
> the problem of our many and multi-colored links, I saw no mention of
> this issue.

I fully agree with Ruth Ifcher that this should be a priority, and
that we should stick to display standards that are simple and
functional rather than beautiful.

>      I think at this stage in Wikipedia's development, some of the
> basic accessibility features might be incorporated in our software -
> like not depending on color coding to convey information, and adding
> descriptions to all images. I am strongly in favor of such
> features. Unfortunately, my programming skills are not nearly strong
> enough to try to add any. Hopefully, some of the developers will
> agree that accessibility is important and will be willing to work on
> adding some of these features.

In my opinion, you are absolutely right.  This is something that would
be easy to forget, but the wikipedia mission of open education for all
is consistent _only_ with efforts to bring our work to everyone in as
fully accessible a manner as possible.

Ruth, I encourage you to keep complaining about this, lest we forget!

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <1041506556.1284.5.camel@chesoo.fokus.gmd.de>; from e.moeller@fokus.gmd.de on Thu, Jan 02, 2003 at 12:22:37PM +0100

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I am all for making Wikipedia more accessible, but not if that happens
> at the disadvantage of the majority of users.

But many of the changes that break accessibility aren't really to the
_advantage_ of the majority of users, except in the sense of
beautification.

I think that the *default* wikipedia should be *highly accessible* in
the sense put forward by Ruth.  Everything about the site should be in
line with normal standards, and nothing should astonish anyone.

Gorgeous fancy stuff can be left optional.

You didn't quite say anything like this, but there's a risk here of an
attitude: "If the blind people don't like the default underlining,
they can always go into the options settings and do this, or they can
always write their own CSS style sheet to do that."  That's a bad
attitude.  Blind people just won't bother.  Color blind people who
find the site unusable aren't likely to bother, either.  They'll just
go away sad.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Something just broke with character references.

body:
>But it should do it that way.
 is for raw code listings, and
>Wikipedia software should neither interpret anything inside it
>nor leave any HTML characters unescaped.

I disagree.
 is for preformatted text, not literal text.  <nowiki> is
for literal text.
 + <nowiki> is for preformatted, literal text.
Otherwise you can't have [[...]]-style wiki links inside a
 block,
which is something people might want, among other things.
 in
Wikipedia should operate like
 in the rest of the world, if we want
usin' Wikipedia to be natural and inuitive, that is.

How else would you propose being able to do the equivalent of:

   a preformatted
  block of text is
looks quite like this

if
 operated as you suggest?

Derek

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from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Copyright question

body:
On 31 Dec 2002 13:56:03 -0800, Brion Vibber
<brion=e+AXbWqSrlAAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

>
> I can't speak for New Zealand, but I'd be very surprised if knowledge of
> historical facts were subject to copyright. Otherwise, you wouldn't be
> allowed to mention anything that you heard about on the radio or TV news
> or read about in a newspaper without getting written permission and
> paying a relicensing fee... ;)
>
It certainly shouldn't be a problem in New Zealand. A year or two ago we
were heading towards such a relaxed copyright law (academic institutions
were to be allowed to copy quite freely) that International textbook
publishers were threatening to make their books unavailable in New Zealand.
I've never actually heard whether that law change was defeated.
Inceidentally (and heading OT), many books published in Britain in the
middle of last century carried the rider "for Copyright reasons this
edition may not be sold in the US and Canada". Does anyone know thether
this was because there were separate territorial publishing deals, or
because of lower legal protection in US/Canada?

--
Richard Grevers


body:
>It worked like what I'm saying in UseMod (and phase 2), then upgrade
>broke it, and restoring old behaviour was requested to make Polish
>Wikipedia work correctly again.

Ah.  Annoying inherited traditions.

>You use spaces in first column if you want to have Wiki markup with
>preformated text.

Oh, yeah.  I keep forgettin' about that.  *grin*

Well, while I was figurin' all this out, I found a bug.  Check out
<http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox>.  Edit the page, and insert a space
at the beginning of the first line, then save.  Now edit the page again, and
put the disappearing space back and try to pad the top of the page with a
bunch o' blank lines, then save again.  Go back into edit, and the blank
lines and space have disappeared.  It appears Wikipedia doesn't like
preformatted text so long as it's at the top of a page or with no text above
it.

Derek

_________________________________________________________________
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from_name: Magnus Manske

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Suggestion to promote readability of	hyperlinked
 documents.

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>On mer, 2003-01-01 at 19:30, Derek Moore wrote:
>
>
>>I think the font sizes in Cologne Blue
>>could stand to be a bit bigger, especially with regard to the menu on the
>>left.
>>
>>
>
>What do you think of the version I've just put on test.wikipedia.org
>which doesn't change your browser's font selection and uses only
>relative font sizes?
>
I like it. Also, I hacked it so that "floating sidebar left" now works
in CB as well. But, the "top bar" scrolling off looked kinda silly, so I
attached that as well.
Test it with http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_long_page
If someone could help me fix that overlapping "options bar" at the bottom...

>(Aside from "the sidebar's way too frelling long", which is true. It
>needs refactoring.)
>
Well, either cut some options off, or use some JavaScript pull-down menus...

Which reminds me: I'd like the Special Pages dropdown toyon CB as well.
Maybe under the wikipedia subtitle?

Magnus


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [Wikitech-l] This and that

body:
As I've been working on my Disinfopedia, a couple of things have come
up that I thought I'd share:

(1) I've decided to use the Wikipedia interface as-is, except that
I've inserted a navigation bar at the top with some local links to
the rest of our PR Watch web site. This means that I've had to insert
a line of code into Skin.php, SkinNostalgia.php, and
SkinCologneBlue.php. The line reads as follows:

      $s .= wfMsg( "navbar" );

In Skin.php, I put this line just before the line that says

      $s .= $this->topLinks();

The actual text and HTML for the navbar appears in Language.php,
where I inserted a definition of "navbar" in the $wgAllMessagesEn
array.

Would it be possible to insert my line of code into Wikipedia's
"official" version of pages Skin.php, SkinNostalgia.php and
SkinCologneBlue.php, along with a definition of "navbar" as a null
string in Language.php? This would make it a little easier for me to
keep my copy of the scripts harmonized with future revisions. Also,
the "navbar" might provide a useful hook to other people who want to
customize the interface.

(2) For the time being, I'm abandoning my original idea of having
separate input templates for different types of articles (e.g.,
articles about people, organizations, etc.). However, I've given a
little more thought to the idea of adding object-typing and
structure, and I wonder if perhaps this could be done through some
additions to the Wiki syntax. Perhaps "::" could be used to specify
an object TYPE, and "->" could be used to specify an object PROPERTY.
Examples:

[[person::Abraham Lincoln]]

[[employee->Archie Bunker]]

In addition, each Wikipedia article could be considered a de facto
object definition, with some syntax that enables explicit
specification of object properties and superclasses. For example, you
might have an article about "person" which includes the following
code:

[[property->date_of_birth]]
[[property->gender]]

A separate article about "Nobel Prize winner" might include the following text:

[[superclass->person]]
[[property->year_of_award]]
[[property->award_category]]

These definitions wouldn't appear in the display versions of
articles, but they could be useful in other ways, e.g., customizing
the input templates for new articles or data mining. For example, an
article about Albert Einstein might include text which says:

[[object_type->Nobel_Prize_winner]]
'''Albert Einstein''' (born [[date_of_birth->March 14, 1879]]), was a
[[physicist]] who first proposed the [[theory of relativity]]. He was
awarded the Nobel Prize in [[year_of_award->1921]]. Notwithstanding
his personal pacifism, he supported the scientific research that led
to the development of the [[weapon_of_mass_destruction::atom bomb]].

Finally, perhaps there could also be some sort of syntax for
automatically inserting a list of all objects of a given type. For
example, the bottom of the article titled "Nobel Prize winner" could
have a line at the bottom that lists all articles with this object
type, sorted by year of award.

What do you think? Is there any merit to these ideas? I'm still a
Wikipedia newbie, so I apologize if this all seems half-baked.
--
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------


body:
>No bug. On saving, it removesblank lines and spaces at the beginning and
>end of the article.Leading blank lines (and the ones at the end, too) look
>ugly, and removing them saves disk space ;-)

Ah, so you just can't have articles that begin with preformatted text.
*grin*  I understand removing blank lines; but in a generic, general sense,
it's probably a good idea to allow articles the ability to start out with
preformatted text.

_________________________________________________________________
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http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Accessibility? : Was - Suggestion to promote
	readability of hyperlinkeddocuments.

body:
On Don, 2003-01-02 at 03:14, rose.parks at att.net wrote:

Happy 2003!

>      I have been hoping that someone else would bring up the issue of
> accessibility in Wikipedia. Yet, having read over 20 e-mails on the problem of
> our many and multi-colored links, I saw no mention of this issue. If Derek
> Moore is having trouble with these links, try to imagine how useless these
> color schemes are to a blind user. Do all members agree with him, that since he
> is in a color blind minority, no attempt should be made to remedy the situation?

I am all for making Wikipedia more accessible, but not if that happens
at the disadvantage of the majority of users. Adding stuff like CSS for
Braille readers and text-to-speech synthesis is reasonable. BTW, if you
disable the "Highlight links to empty topics" user preference, broken
links are rendered

	Nonexistent Page?

instead of

	Nonexistent Page

in red. This is the original wiki style, which is horrible from a
usability perspective, but works better for text-to-speech synthesis and
the like.

If we add the CSS stuff, we need to figure out how to automatically do
this for tables, which are currently not standardized on Wikipedia (i.e.
table designs vary a lot). This would be a good thing to keep in mind
when we address table support in Wiki-syntax.

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


from_name: Derek Ross

subject: [Wikitech-l] Tex update status

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
To: <wikitech-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 10:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Tex update status

> I am 100% for the comments you had about changing the backend to be
> more generalizable.  I think that a plugin type architecture for this
> type of thing would be ideal...
>
> My thoughts:
> We currently have the <math> tags and are considering <music> and
> <tex>, right?  At what point are we going to realize that the stuff
> that goes between these tags all share the same idea.  That is, they
> are all text rendered into images and/or HTML for presentation.  I
> think that it is crazy to add a tag every time we want to support a
> new renderer.  We should use a single tag, and a modifier.  A few
> possible examples:
>
> <render type=tex>\sqrt[3]{x+y}</render>
> <render type=math>\sqrt[3]{x+y}</render>
> <render type=texvc>\sqrt[3]{x+y}</render>
> <render type=lilypond>\notes{r4 <a c e> c e}</render>

While this makes logical sense from a development point of view, it leads to
exactly the kind of unreadable text which frightens non-programmers off.  If
we're going down this road, we might as well drop the Wiki mark up
altogether and replace it by HTML.  At least that way we'd be using a
standard mark up system.

Let's not do any tag design just to make implementation easy.  The goal
should always be to aim at easy editing for authors, not easy code
implementation for developers.

Cheers

Derek


list: wikien-l

from_name: Zoe

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[New Imperialism]]

body:
Please review [[New Imperialism]] and its edit history.  172 has made this dense, what-looks-to-be-copyrighted article with his/her own idiosyncractic markup and tons of oblique references to other items without explaining those other references.  I attempted to do some markup correction, not at all changing the content except for spelling and grammar fixes and a couple of NPOVing attempts, very minor (I took out a characterization of Theodore Roosevelt as racist, for example).  This took about half an hour of work.  172 cavalierly reverted the entire thing without comment.

I asked several questins in Talk, and 172's only answer was, "Look it up in a high school history text."

Zoe

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subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 again

body:
172 says that he/she will revert all of my changes because " I suspect that your some over-zealous right-winger who?s on my case for some inane suspicions"

Zoe

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body:
On Wed, Jan 01, 2003 at 09:46:12PM -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On mer, 2003-01-01 at 19:08, Derek Moore wrote:
> > Inside ampersands that are part of character references inside <pre> ...
> > </pre> are now being translated to & as though they're not a part of an
> > explicit character reference.  I'm experiencing this at [[m:Wikitax]].
>
> Should be back.
>
> While fixing other things, I accidentally overwrote OutputPage.php with
> the (partially) tex-enabled version, which apparently handles <pre> tags
> in a broken way. I'll go fix that.

But it should do it that way. <pre> is for raw code listings, and
Wikipedia software should neither interpret anything inside it
nor leave any HTML characters unescaped.


subject: [WikiEN-l] It's time for 172 to be banned

body:
He/she is making wholesale reversions to any changes made by anyone in [[New Imperialism]], without comment.

Zoe

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subject:
[Wikitech-l] Accessibility? : Was - Suggestion to promote readability
 of hyperlinkeddocuments.

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>rose.parks at att.net wrote:
>
>
>>I think at this stage in Wikipedia's development, some of the
>>basic accessibility features might be incorporated in our software -
>>like not depending on color coding to convey information, and adding
>>descriptions to all images. I am strongly in favor of such
>>features. Unfortunately, my programming skills are not nearly strong
>>enough to try to add any. Hopefully, some of the developers will
>>agree that accessibility is important and will be willing to work on
>>adding some of these features.
>>
>>
>
>In my opinion, you are absolutely right.  This is something that would
>be easy to forget, but the wikipedia mission of open education for all
>is consistent _only_ with efforts to bring our work to everyone in as
>fully accessible a manner as possible.
>
>
Concerning images:
AFAIK, all the information/description/source stuff should go into the
[[image:xyz.jpg]] text, right?
And, if I remember correctly from my futile attempts with the old
Nupedia software, some "read aloud"-browsers (most of them, actually)
can read aloud the "alt" tag of an image.

So, how about using the [[image:xyz.jpg]] text in the "alt" tag of the
image when displayed?
Of course, there'd be some downsides:
* An extra database access for getting the text.
* Extra text being transmitted (longer loading time).
* If you put the mouse cursor on the image, the "alt" text will appear.
OTOH, that might actually be a good thing.

Magnus


subject: [WikiEN-l] [[New Imperialism]]

body:
And he/she refuses to engage in a civil discussion on any work he/she makes, but reverts all changes with condescension and refuses to compromise.
Zoe
 Tom Parmenter <tompar at world.std.com> wrote:Look at any political article on the list at [[User:172]] and you'll
find the same thick goo. Even when the point is worth making, it is
so coated in leftist attitude as to make the teasing out of the point
no worth doing.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88

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body:
On Don, 2003-01-02 at 15:22, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> You didn't quite say anything like this, but there's a risk here of an
> attitude: "If the blind people don't like the default underlining,
> they can always go into the options settings and do this, or they can
> always write their own CSS style sheet to do that."  That's a bad
> attitude.  Blind people just won't bother.  Color blind people who
> find the site unusable aren't likely to bother, either.  They'll just
> go away sad.

1) The site is not unusable if the broken/non-broken indicator is not
displayed.

2) Using an indicator like the previous ugly ? as the default has a
negative usability effect on a much larger number of users.

3) The proper thing to do is to enable CSS for text-to-speech and
Braille readers in order to transmit the link state information without
a notable effect on average users.
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


subject: [Wikitech-l] asksql bugs and weird database contents

body: First asksql bug:


body:
On Thu, Jan 02, 2003 at 08:53:02AM -0600, Derek Moore wrote:
> >But it should do it that way.
 is for raw code listings, and
> >Wikipedia software should neither interpret anything inside it
> >nor leave any HTML characters unescaped.
>
> I disagree.
 is for preformatted text, not literal text.  <nowiki> is
> for literal text.
 + <nowiki> is for preformatted, literal text.
> Otherwise you can't have [[...]]-style wiki links inside a
 block,
> which is something people might want, among other things.
 in
> Wikipedia should operate like
 in the rest of the world, if we want
> usin' Wikipedia to be natural and inuitive, that is.
>
> How else would you propose being able to do the equivalent of:
>
>

>

>   a preformatted
>  block of text is
> looks quite like this
>

>

>
> if
 operated as you suggest?

It worked like what I'm saying in UseMod (and phase 2), then upgrade
broke it, and restoring old behaviour was requested to make Polish
Wikipedia work correctly again.

You use spaces in first column if you want to have Wiki markup with
preformated text.

Brion, please reapply that fix.


subject: [Wikitech-l] New feature: Go button

body:
I have checked in a new feature that adds a "Go" button next to the
"Search" button (default skin). By using this button, you can display a
page directly instead of first searching for it and then following the
link, e.g. you type "CIA", click "Go", and you are put directly on the
CIA page. Quite handy if you have to jump between articles a lot.

Please let me know if there are any problems.

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


subject: [Wikitech-l] Cologne Blue

body:
I got the "floating left" sidebar working all right (only tested
Mozilla, though...)

Looks really nice, especially with Brion's improved font!

Concerning the long sidebar:
What could go IMHO is:
* New Pages
* Image list
* Statistics
* Bug reports
* Eding help (already on every edit page)
The whole "Page info" section is on the page bottom anyway, so that
could go as well if needed.

Also, "upload file" should be moved to some other section, so it will be
visible on edit pages as well.

My two Euro-cents ;-)

Magnus


subject: [Wikitech-l]

body:
On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 12:13:59AM +0900, Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> Hello there, happy new year !
> Are there any problems to set ^^x^^ (or something else) to be x
> or better x ?
> We frequently use it on french wikipedia and it is a little bit tired to
> write each time.
> Thanks.

You're doing so much math ?
In texvc you'll write ^x


subject: [Wikitech-l] Accessibility

body:
On test.wikipedia.org, I added my proposed"alt" attribute for images if
no explicit description is given in the link.

[[image:foobar.jpg]] will have the description of [[image:foobar.jpg]]
as alt attribute, while

[[image:foobar.jpg|Testing]] will have "Testing" as alt attribute.

Magnus


subject: [Wikitech-l] New feature: Backlink when editing a page

body:
Just checked in:

When editing a page or displaying its history, you now get a link "View
article" / "View user page" etc. to go back to displaying the page. This
is something I have missed badly because I often edit a page and need to
check how the article looked before my edits, but want to keep the edit
window in its current state. Now I can open a new tab with the "View
article" link and compare the two.

As always, please let me know if there are any problems.

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
On Wednesday 01 January 2003 04:00 am, wikitech-l-request at wikipedia.org wrote:
> So from a usability perspective it's a good idea to have the Wikipedias
> look and act the same. When I first visited eo.wikipedia I wasn't even
> sure if this is the same software, because I hadn't seen the Cologne skin
> yet.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

Why is the default skin on eo set to Cologne blue? I too have been lost while
visiting eo to update interlanguage links. Since I don't speak Esperanto it
took me a minute or two to figure out where the edit the page link was. This
is not a user friendly way of doing things at all. It also really looks the
eo.wiki is running on different software and gives the impression that it is
somehow separate from the other wikis.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

WikiKarma Payment. Have you had your wiki today?
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=December_28&diff=540672&oldid=540670


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[New Imperialism]]

body:
|X-Sender: ab007d0224_2 at pop3.blueyonder.co.uk
|From: Rob Brewer <rob at rbrwr.org>
|Sender: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
|Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 22:11:51 +0000
|
|At 13:37 02/01/03 -0800, Zoe wrote:
|
|>Please review [[New Imperialism]] and its edit history.  172 has made this
|>dense, what-looks-to-be-copyrighted article with his/her own
|>idiosyncractic markup and tons of oblique references to other items
|>without explaining those other references.  I attempted to do some markup
|>correction, not at all changing the content except for spelling and
|>grammar fixes and a couple of NPOVing attempts, very minor (I took out a
|>characterization of Theodore Roosevelt as racist, for example).  This took
|>about half an hour of work.  172 cavalierly reverted the entire thing
|>without comment.
|>
|>I asked several questins in Talk, and 172's only answer was, "Look it up
|>in a high school history text."
|>
|>Zoe
|
|
|[[J.A. Hobson]] was also started by 172, is in a similar style, and even
|duplicates some material from [[New Imperialism]]. The first paragraph of
|Hobson is lifted with only minor changes from
|
|http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0823869.html
|
|I'm not sure about the rest of it, but it seems too poorly written to be
|stolen from a pro - I'm never sure when it's paraphrasing Hobson and
|when it's introducing its own analysis. It also makes attributed quotes
|from other authors without giving references. I suspect that it's some
|sort of (undergraduate?) essay that has been dismembered badly.
|
|I've not mentioned this on talk yet because I haven't made sense of it
|all in my mind yet, and I don't know Hobson well enough.
|
|172 seems to lack perspective on what makes good encyclopedia material,
|and to be unnecessarily combative, though I've not had much experience
|with him/her.
|
|
|Rob Brewer
|[[user:Rbrwr]]
|payment: [[Gordon Brown]] at 13:30 GMT
|

Look at any political article on the list at [[User:172]] and you'll
find the same thick goo.  Even when the point is worth making, it is
so coated in leftist attitude as to make the teasing out of the point
no worth doing.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


body:
Derek Moore wrote:

> Well, while I was figurin' all this out, I found a bug.  Check out
> <http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox>.  Edit the page, and insert a
> space at the beginning of the first line, then save.  Now edit the
> page again, and put the disappearing space back and try to pad the top
> of the page with a bunch o' blank lines, then save again.  Go back
> into edit, and the blank lines and space have disappeared.  It appears
> Wikipedia doesn't like preformatted text so long as it's at the top of
> a page or with no text above it.

No bug. On saving, it removesblank lines and spaces at the beginning and
end of the article.Leading blank lines (and the ones at the end, too)
look ugly, and removing them saves disk space ;-)

Magnus


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Accessibility

body:
On ?a?, 2003-01-02 at 08:25, Magnus Manske wrote:
> On test.wikipedia.org, I added my proposed"alt" attribute for images if
> no explicit description is given in the link.
>
> [[image:foobar.jpg]] will have the description of [[image:foobar.jpg]]
> as alt attribute, while

I don't think that's a good idea. The description page often enough
contains the site of origin, contributor, copyright information,
sometimes the f-stop and date of photography, links to related images
(as in a sequence), notes on usage...

> [[image:foobar.jpg|Testing]] will have "Testing" as alt attribute.

(as present)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Rob Brewer

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[New Imperialism]]

body:
At 13:37 02/01/03 -0800, Zoe wrote:

>Please review [[New Imperialism]] and its edit history.  172 has made this
>dense, what-looks-to-be-copyrighted article with his/her own
>idiosyncractic markup and tons of oblique references to other items
>without explaining those other references.  I attempted to do some markup
>correction, not at all changing the content except for spelling and
>grammar fixes and a couple of NPOVing attempts, very minor (I took out a
>characterization of Theodore Roosevelt as racist, for example).  This took
>about half an hour of work.  172 cavalierly reverted the entire thing
>without comment.
>
>I asked several questins in Talk, and 172's only answer was, "Look it up
>in a high school history text."
>
>Zoe

[[J.A. Hobson]] was also started by 172, is in a similar style, and even
duplicates some material from [[New Imperialism]]. The first paragraph of
Hobson is lifted with only minor changes from

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0823869.html

I'm not sure about the rest of it, but it seems too poorly written to be
stolen from a pro - I'm never sure when it's paraphrasing Hobson and
when it's introducing its own analysis. It also makes attributed quotes
from other authors without giving references. I suspect that it's some
sort of (undergraduate?) essay that has been dismembered badly.

I've not mentioned this on talk yet because I haven't made sense of it
all in my mind yet, and I don't know Hobson well enough.

172 seems to lack perspective on what makes good encyclopedia material,
and to be unnecessarily combative, though I've not had much experience
with him/her.

Rob Brewer
[[user:Rbrwr]]
payment: [[Gordon Brown]] at 13:30 GMT


subject: [Wikitech-l] This and that

body:
On ?a?, 2003-01-02 at 09:47, Sheldon Rampton wrote:
> Would it be possible to insert my line of code into Wikipedia's
> "official" version of pages Skin.php, SkinNostalgia.php and
> SkinCologneBlue.php, along with a definition of "navbar" as a null
> string in Language.php? This would make it a little easier for me to
> keep my copy of the scripts harmonized with future revisions.

Sounds reasonable, send a diff and I'll see about it.

> [[object_type->Nobel_Prize_winner]]
> '''Albert Einstein''' (born [[date_of_birth->March 14, 1879]]), was a
> [[physicist]] who first proposed the [[theory of relativity]]. He was
> awarded the Nobel Prize in [[year_of_award->1921]]. Notwithstanding
> his personal pacifism, he supported the scientific research that led
> to the development of the [[weapon_of_mass_destruction::atom bomb]].

It's just crazy enough to sound interesting. :)  Sufficiently free-form
that it shouldn't be too hard to edit or too hard to figure out when you
see one.

The Wiktionary folks might be interested in something like this, too --
I recommend you head over to wiktionary.org and see if you can get
anyone's attention.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
On ?a?, 2003-01-02 at 09:50, Magnus Manske wrote:
> Derek Moore wrote:
> > Edit the page, and insert a
> > space at the beginning of the first line, then save.  Now edit the
> > page again, and put the disappearing space back and try to pad the top
>
> No bug. On saving, it removesblank lines and spaces at the beginning and
> end of the article.Leading blank lines (and the ones at the end, too)
> look ugly, and removing them saves disk space ;-)

The automatic trimming was added specifically to kill trailing newlines
inserted automatically by some web browsers on edit; leading blank
spaces at the beginning can be legitimate and eating them is an
unintended behavior. If there's no objection I'll change the trim() to
rtrim().

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

subject: [Wikitech-l]

body:
Hello there, happy new year !
Are there any problems to set ^^x^^ (or something else) to be x
or better x ?
We frequently use it on french wikipedia and it is a little bit tired to
write each time.
Thanks.

Aoineko


subject: [WikiEN-l] A facelift for the Main Page: Wikipedia Day and 100,000 articles soon

body:
Several of us have been working on improving the Main Page and are pretty
satisfied with the results. See
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page/Temp

And also a before and after screenshot:
http://www.wikipedia.org/upload/1/1e/MainPageTemp-800pxWide.png

Comments about added improvements and edits are welcome.

It would be great if we could work on this some more and then go live with the
new version on January 15th aka Wikipedia Day. It would also be great if we
all concentrated on trying to make 100,000 articles by the 15th.

Speaking of which, a press release is also in order for Wikipedia Day.....

Power to the Wiki and Happy New Year!

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

WikiKarma Payment. Have you had your Wiki today?
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=January_2&diff=551217&oldid=551172


body:
I'm going to try to edit this article today myself.  Usually I try not
to get involved with anything, because I can judge better from the
sidelines.  But I wanted to try something new today.

Zoe wrote:

>
> He/she is making wholesale reversions to any changes made by anyone in [[New Imperialism]], without comment.
>
> Zoe
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
I am reviewing the controversial [[New Imperialism]] article.

One side note is that Tarquin changed 9,000,000 square miles to
23,000,000 square kilometers.  This move was apparently
uncontroversial.

Is that right?  As an American, I frankly confess that the metric
system is a curiosity to me.  9,000,000 square miles, I can grasp,
because I know how long a mile is intuitively.  The kilometer, on the
other hand, is non-intuitive, just an arbitrary length from a
textbook.

Shouldn't we give both, then?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

in_reply_to: <3E1597BF.4020708@epost.de>; from magnus.manske@epost.de on Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 03:01:35PM +0100

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> As a scientist, I have to insist that the metric system is to be the
> main system used on Wikipedia! (Of course, feel free to mention
> miles&co. somewhere too;-)

I have no opposition to including the metric system, and especially in
scientific articles.  But in many articles, Americans will have a hard
time understanding unless English equivalents are given.

I would certainly oppose any idea that the Metric system is better
than English (it isn't, and for many purposes it's provably worse),
and going further, even if Metric were better, it isn't the role of
wikipedia to push it on people.  (The government in the U.S. has been
trying since I was a little kid to encourage the use of Metric, but
with only tiny impact.)

So, I would say that in cases where Americans expect to see miles and
gallons, we should give both miles/kilometers and gallons/liters.

And similarly, of course, in cases where Europeans and British and
Aussies and others expect to see kilometers and liters, we should give
those, as well.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

in_reply_to: <200301030616.13575.nknight@pocketinet.com>; from nknight@pocketinet.com on Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 06:16:13AM -0800

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:
> As an American, I'd much rather have everything in metric, with no American
> measurements in sight, increasing my incentive to get used to the metric
> system, and allowing for easier communication with the /majority/ of the
> world. Note also that the scientific community uses metric measurements.

But this is not NPOV, is it?  NPOV will give both when it's desirable
to do so.

> Personally, I'd rather have it say, "Use metrics. Use only
> metrics. Any use of American or Imperial units is punishable by
> death.", but I doubt I could convince Wikipedians at large of the
> merits of it :).

Fortunately, I think you're right.  You'd never convince me of the
merits of it.

I personally think it's only a matter of time until the rest of the
world catches up to the U.S. and returns to using the English system
in all the cases where it is more sensible to do so.  So we have a
responsibility to use both, to help them get ready for the change.

--Jimbo


from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
On Friday 03 January 2003 05:42 am, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I am reviewing the controversial [[New Imperialism]] article.
>
> One side note is that Tarquin changed 9,000,000 square miles to
> 23,000,000 square kilometers.  This move was apparently
> uncontroversial.

With good reason. Kilometers are a worldwide standard, miles are a measurement
that is now largely unique to the United States.

> Is that right?  As an American, I frankly confess that the metric
> system is a curiosity to me.  9,000,000 square miles, I can grasp,
> because I know how long a mile is intuitively.  The kilometer, on the
> other hand, is non-intuitive, just an arbitrary length from a
> textbook.

As an American, I'd much rather have everything in metric, with no American
measurements in sight, increasing my incentive to get used to the metric
system, and allowing for easier communication with the /majority/ of the
world. Note also that the scientific community uses metric measurements.

>
> Shouldn't we give both, then?

Why? If the reader really needs non-metric measurements, they can consult
[[conversion of units]] (which, actually, may need a bit of expanding for
ease of use as a conversion table... I might look into that in a bit). That
said, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AManual_of_Style currently
reads, in part, "For now, if using American or Imperial, give metric as a
courtesy. If using metric, remember that many readers will not know what you
mean and will be aided by the equivalent.", so yes, provide both, I'm afraid.

Personally, I'd rather have it say, "Use metrics. Use only metrics. Any use of
American or Imperial units is punishable by death.", but I doubt I could
convince Wikipedians at large of the merits of it :).


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

in_reply_to: <20030103142514.GG83162@mrtall.compsoc.man.ac.uk>; from jason@jasonandali.org.uk on Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 02:25:14PM +0000

body:
Jason Williams wrote:
> What if it turns out some people only understand the (hypothetical)
> Elbonian Measurement System? Do we then include three numbers each time we
> give a measurement?

Not unless this is a significant number of people.

Fortunately, cases of this general kind are rare.  There are some
words that are used differently by different English speakers, and
these should be either replaced by more universal words, or explained,
as the situation warrants.

What is desired is that every article can be read clearly by almost
everyone.  Adopting an elitist or majoritarian attitude is unnecessary
when an inclusive and open attitude is available and more effective
for our purposes.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

in_reply_to: <3E159DD3.7020406@epost.de>; from magnus.manske@epost.de on Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 03:27:31PM +0100

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> >I personally think it's only a matter of time until the rest of the
> >world catches up to the U.S. and returns to using the English system
> >in all the cases where it is more sensible to do so.  So we have a
> >responsibility to use both, to help them get ready for the change.

> I think you forgot the ";-)" at the end of the paragraph. You don't
> honestly think so, do you? (Of course, everyone can have an opinion, it
> just strikes me as rather unrealistic)

Yes, I forgot the ;-).  I don't really think that they'll be switching
back.

But I do think that the United States will not be changing anytime in
the next 50 years, at least.  When I was a child, we were taught both
systems, and we were told that the U.S. would be switching within a
few years to metric.  But it didn't "stick".

And I do think that the metric system is inferior to the English
system for the sorts of measurements that ordinary people make all the
time.  It has the advantage of simplicity, to be sure.  But the quirks
of the English system are there for good reasons.

The foot, for example, is evenly divisible into inches by 2, 3, and 4.
That sort of division comes up all the time in carpentry.

Cup, pint, quart, half-gallon, gallon -- binary!  More rational than
decimal, if you're likely to be multiplying and dividing by 2.  (As
in, doubling or halving a recipe.)

The English system is not as simple as the metric system.  But
intelligent people recognize that simplicity is not always the
only virtue.  :-)

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Accessibility? : Was - Suggestion to promote readability of hyperlinkeddocuments.

body:
On 02 Jan 2003 15:55:47 +0100, Erik Moeller
<e.moeller=Ui4TQZZ8pVAPyMaTEpOvjQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> On Don, 2003-01-02 at 15:22, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> You didn't quite say anything like this, but there's a risk here of an
>> attitude: "If the blind people don't like the default underlining,
>> they can always go into the options settings and do this, or they can
>> always write their own CSS style sheet to do that."  That's a bad
>> attitude.  Blind people just won't bother.  Color blind people who
>> find the site unusable aren't likely to bother, either.  They'll just
>> go away sad.
>
> 1) The site is not unusable if the broken/non-broken indicator is not
> displayed.

Agreed

> 2) Using an indicator like the previous ugly ? as the default has a
> negative usability effect on a much larger number of users.

Agreed - because there are so many linked words within the main text,
interrupting the text flow is bad.
>
> 3) The proper thing to do is to enable CSS for text-to-speech and
> Braille readers in order to transmit the link state information without
> a notable effect on average users.

Proper, but in all practicality, pointless. I have done quite a bit of
testing of websites in various talking browsers. Most use the IE rendering
engine and simply read the text that ends up on screen. They are almost
totally dependent on punctuation, and don't respect breaks in HTML (even
list items or table cells). Thus the entire left-hand bar on Wikipedia
would be read as one long sentence - "Main page recent changes random page
current events" etc. None of them know anything about CSS. I believe there
is one project (currently only Linux-based) to build a browser which
understands aural css. Note that I have not tested some of the expensive
products like Jaws, but they make no claims in their promotional material
that suggest they are anything beyond a screen reader like all the rest.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re:

body:
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 00:13:59 +0900, Guillaume Blanchard
<gblanchard=D478G1Wy5/l3+QwDJ9on6Q at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> Hello there, happy new year !
> Are there any problems to set ^^x^^ (or something else) to be
> x
> or better x ?
> We frequently use it on french wikipedia and it is a little bit tired to
> write each time.

Your first markup is much better than the second. The font size change is
better achieved via the stylesheet:

sup, sub {font-size: 83%;}
--
Richard Grevers


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re:

body:
On Fri, 03 Jan 2003 07:26:11 +1300, Richard Grevers
<dramatic=kGM0oXzJM5p02iOg2JU2CQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 00:13:59 +0900, Guillaume Blanchard
> <gblanchard=D478G1Wy5/l3+QwDJ9on6Q=XMD5yJDbdMReXY1tMh2IBg at public.gmane.org>
>
>
> wrote:
>
>> Hello there, happy new year !
>> Are there any problems to set ^^x^^ (or something else) to be
>> x
>> or better x ?
>> We frequently use it on french wikipedia and it is a little bit tired to
>> write each time.
>
> Your first markup is much better than the second. The font size change is
> better achieved via the stylesheet:
>
> sup, sub {font-size: 83%;}

My apologies for transferring this from the tech to the general list. I am
using Opera 7' beta "M2" mail/nes client and it seems to be having some
problems with the fact that these messages are encoded as both a list mail
and a newsgroup item.

--
Richard Grevers


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Accessibility? : Was - Suggestion to promote readability of hyperlinkeddocuments.

body:
On 02 Jan 2003 15:55:47 +0100, Erik Moeller
<e.moeller=Ui4TQZZ8pVAPyMaTEpOvjQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:

(repeating this post to keep it in the correct list/newsgroup - sorry!)

> 1) The site is not unusable if the broken/non-broken indicator is not
> displayed.

agreed

> 2) Using an indicator like the previous ugly ? as the default has a
> negative usability effect on a much larger number of users.

Agreed - because there are so many linked words within the main text,
interrupting the text flow is bad.
>
> 3) The proper thing to do is to enable CSS for text-to-speech and
> Braille readers in order to transmit the link state information without
> a notable effect on average users.

Proper, but in all practicality, pointless. I have done quite a bit of
testing of websites in various talking browsers. Most use the IE rendering
engine and simply read the text that ends up on screen. They are almost
totally dependent on punctuation, and don't respect breaks in HTML (even
list items or table cells). Thus the entire left-hand bar on Wikipedia
would be read as one long sentence - "Main page recent changes random page
current events" etc. None of them know anything about CSS. I believe there
is one project (currently only Linux-based) to build a browser which
understands aural css. Note that I have not tested some of the expensive
products like Jaws, but they make no claims in their promotional material
that suggest they are anything beyond a screen reader like all the rest.
?
assist non-visual browsers is to ensure that the page content comes as
early as possible in the source code. Else on every page the user has to
wade through the same long list of navigation. This can be achieved via CSS
positioning. As a bonus, promoting the page content to the start of the
source code gives a considerable boost to search engine rankings!
As an example, try http://www.electec.co.nz/electrotec.mv - a site that
looks graphics heavy and uses DHTML menus etc. but remains accessible. Try
it in a screen reader, Lynx, or Opera with images and stylesheets off. Note
that I have used css to "hide" punctuation in the navigation and lists -
hence screen readers make a reasonable job of them.
Incidentally, all screen readers I've tried have a separate function to
read all the links on a page, so putting content first does not mean you
have to listen to the entire page before you can navigate anywhere else.
Most talking browsers are aiming to be useable with only half a dozen keys
to control them.

--
Richard Grevers
Christchurch, New Zealand


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> en.wikipedia.org is not us.wikpedia.org. I am not an American or even a
> native English speaker and I read the en.wikipedia a lot, for many different
> reasons. en certainly should accomodate US idiosyncracies, but not to the
> confusion of a more broadly defined target audience.

That's all completely correct.  en should accomodate local
idiosyncracies of any major population in contexts where confusion and
difficulties are likely.

> The right thing to do is to introduce Wiki syntax for formatting units, so
> that they can be converted on the fly. SI should be the default.

I don't agree that this is the right thing to do.  Automatic
conversion is a very bad idea in most cases.

The article that started this discussion is a case in point.  "Europe
added almost 23,000,000 km^2" or "Europe added almost 9,000,000 mi^2"
are both approximate statements.  An automatic conversion would give
an unwarranted impression of precision in this case.

It's easy enough for people from around the world to work together on
the articles to make sure that local idiosyncracies are observed,
_and_ that the degree of precision and grammatical context are
respected.

Never send a computer program to do a human's job.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
Viktor Kuncak wrote:
> Inferring the precision from the number of zerso does not
> seem like an ideal practice (even if it is used in science).

Whether or not it is ideal is different from it being what people
commonly do.  If I tell you it is 10 miles to my office, you'll
naturally assume that I mean "roughly 10 miles".  If I tell you
that it is 16.09 kilometers, you will naturally assume that this
is precise.

Are you engaging in a less than ideal practice by making such an
assumption?  Maybe, but it is natural and common.

> How about writing the numbers as triples
>
>     (number,precision,units)

New readers will have no idea what that means.

I see no reason to automate any of this.  We aren't writing technical
manuals, we're writing an encyclopedia of general knowledge.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Password annoyance attack

body:
On ven, 2003-01-03 at 07:31, Erik Moeller wrote:
> With our current system it is fairly trivial to reset a user's password
> against their will.

My understanding of the present system is:

1. Hit "send new password"
2. Software generates new random password, stores hash in
user_newpassword field and emails raw text in message to the user's
email address
3. When user logs in, check against both user_password and
user_newpassword hashes. If user_newpassword is a match, change
user_password to store the new password hash and clear user_newpassword,
thus making the mailed password the user's 'real' password.
4. With luck, the user changes their password to a new one.

So, to change another user's password against their will, you have to be
able to snarf the e-mail with the new password.

If it actually works differently, that's a bug. (I don't have time to
look at the code right now, gotta run...)

> We don't even check the interval in which the
> password is requested. I suggest we use Scoop's system of password
> mailing:

I agree, but for a different reason - the current system could be used
to mailbomb someone.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
 Viktor Kuncak <vkuncak at mit.edu> wrote:

Not declaring myself as an American or European, but as a
Computer Scientists, why not provide a mechanism for
expressing physical measurements using tags?

Introduce a set of units, and write measurements as pairs
(number,unit) represented in some convenient concrete
syntax. Then the conversion to html can display miles or
kilometers according to the viewer's perspective.

PS. I know I am leaning towards ontologies again, but this is an
example where the benefits seem obvious.

Viktor

I disagree with that option Viktor.

When I work with french people in wheat business, I need to express myself in quintaux/hectares (and euros). With british people, in tons/hectares (and pounds). Thank god, both are weight measurements. Both british and french are able to communicate easily on those.

Then, when I work with americans, I have to deal with bushels/acres (and dollars), which are volume measurements. And they won't hear anything different :-(
I will be happy when all three groups accept the difference and learn to cope themselves with it (that is when american agree our way is best ;-)).

 Right now, it is not the case, and an article automatically adapting itself to one regional options is not going to help. One way to learn to evaluate different unit is to see it next to the one you know, not to suppress it.

As for using the SI above all systems, I wonder. In chemistry, C is carbon, N nitrogen and Ni nickel. But for metallurgists, C is chromium, N is nickel and Az is nitrogen. In an article on metallurgy, mentionning common alloy, that might be worth mentionning ;-)

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from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
On Friday 03 January 2003 09:30, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Yes, I forgot the ;-).  I don't really think that they'll be switching
> back.
>
> But I do think that the United States will not be changing anytime in
> the next 50 years, at least.  When I was a child, we were taught both
> systems, and we were told that the U.S. would be switching within a
> few years to metric.  But it didn't "stick".
>
> And I do think that the metric system is inferior to the English
> system for the sorts of measurements that ordinary people make all the
> time.  It has the advantage of simplicity, to be sure.  But the quirks
> of the English system are there for good reasons.
>
> The foot, for example, is evenly divisible into inches by 2, 3, and 4.
> That sort of division comes up all the time in carpentry.

The acre is some weird number of square feet. It's not even square. I draw
lots and wonder when they're going to change. Of course all the easements are
currently round numbers of feet, but for the lengths that are
130*sin(rodbo'e)-66*cos(daidza), it doesn't matter what unit you measure them
in, they'll be neither round nor square.

If the people lead, will the liters follow?

phma


from_name: Viktor Kuncak

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
Not declaring myself as an American or European, but as a
Computer Scientists, why not provide a mechanism for
expressing physical measurements using tags?

Introduce a set of units, and write measurements as pairs
(number,unit) represented in some convenient concrete
syntax.  Then the conversion to html can display miles or
kilometers according to the viewer's perspective.

PS. I know I am leaning towards ontologies again, but this is an
example where the benefits seem obvious.

  Viktor


subject: [Wikitech-l]

body:
> > Hello there, happy new year !
> > Are there any problems to set ^^x^^ (or something else) to be
x
> > or better x ?
> > We frequently use it on french wikipedia and it is a little bit tired to
> > write each time.
> > Thanks.
>
> You're doing so much math ?
> In texvc you'll write ^x

It's not for mathematics. But in french we need to wrote all 1st 2nd 3rd....
as 1st, 2nd... etc...
We use it for centuries, dynasties numbers...
If it's possible, it may be nice to be able to make ^^x^^ to be x for a better lookinh.
texvc & LaTeX are install on french wikipedia ???

Aoineko


subject: [Wikitech-l] Accessibility

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>On ?a?, 2003-01-02 at 08:25, Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>
>>On test.wikipedia.org, I added my proposed"alt" attribute for images if
>>no explicit description is given in the link.
>>
>>[[image:foobar.jpg]] will have the description of [[image:foobar.jpg]]
>>as alt attribute, while
>>
>>
>
>I don't think that's a good idea. The description page often enough
>contains the site of origin, contributor, copyright information,
>sometimes the f-stop and date of photography, links to related images
>(as in a sequence), notes on usage...
>
>
Yes, it might contain all that. OTOH, I remember writing some image
descriptions for the "visually impaired" (is that the correct political
expression at the moment?) at back Nupedia (actually, Ruth Ifcher wrote
most of them;-), and there's no way a text like that could fit into
[[image:foobar.jpg|Description]].
AFAIK, the description *should* go into the [[image:foobar.jpg]]
article, not into the articles that use the image.

I say better give more information than needed than none at all.Of
course, I'm open for better ideas...

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
 > The article that started this discussion is a case in point.  "Europe
 > added almost 23,000,000 km^2" or "Europe added almost 9,000,000 mi^2"
 > are both approximate statements.  An automatic conversion would give
 > an unwarranted impression of precision in this case.

Inferring the precision from the number of zerso does not
seem like an ideal practice (even if it is used in science).
How about writing the numbers as triples

    (number,precision,units)

reflecting the fact that these are really intervals or
probabilistic distributions centered around "number".

 > Never send a computer program to do a human's job.

Unless computer can actually do the job, in which case it will
probably do it better.

   Viktor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

in_reply_to:
<3E15A26A.8080009@planetunreal.com> (message from tarquin on Fri,
	03 Jan 2003 14:47:06 +0000)

body:
As I always say in these debates:

1 -- Except for temperature (the degrees are just too big), the metric
system is better worked out than the American, easier to use in many
applicatoins, etc.

2 -- The purpose of the encyclopedia is not to make people better, it
is to impart information to readers.

3 -- Millions of American encyclopedia readers cannot do the
conversions in their heads and should be provided with useful
information on the height and weight of the hippopotamus.

Apropos Jimbo's point about the superiority of the American system, as
in the case of temperature, the American system is superior on account
of its stronger relationship to the human scale, an inch is a knuckle,
a yard is a pace, a foot is as long as a foot, a mile is a long walk,
and our zero degrees is actually cold and not just brisk and our 100
degrees is body temperature.

On the other hand, a system that goes from 1/16 to 1/8 to 1/4 to 5/16
to 3/8 etc can really wear you out.  And 40 below zero is cold no
matter how you count it.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: This and that

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>Sounds reasonable, send a diff and I'll see about it.

How do I "send a diff"? Do I just email you the text of the changes I
want, or post it to this list?
--
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
Jason Williams wrote:

>What if it turns out some people only understand the (hypothetical)
>Elbonian Measurement System? Do we then include three numbers each time we
>give a measurement?
>
I'll wait until there is serious argumention from the Elbonians to
consider that possibility.  One place where three numbers should be
given is in liquid measurements.  Remember that the Imperial gallon is
still bigger than the U.S. gallon.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: This and that

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>It's just crazy enough to sound interesting. :)  Sufficiently free-form
>that it shouldn't be too hard to edit or too hard to figure out when you
>see one.
>
>The Wiktionary folks might be interested in something like this, too --
>I recommend you head over to wiktionary.org and see if you can get
>anyone's attention.

I spent a few minutes there but couldn't find anyplace that serves as
a venue for discussing things with anyone. There's no listserv and no
"metapedia" (metactionary?).

Also, I noticed a problem with the domain name. I get to Wiktionary
OK with the following URL:
http://wiktionary.org/

However, I get redirected to WIKIPEDIA if I enter the following:
http://www.wiktionary.org/
--
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------


from_name: Bridget

from_email: Bridget

subject: [Wikipedia-l] significant figures

body:
jimbo - you are forgetting significant figures, 10 miles is not 16.09 km

---------------------------------
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
At 05:42 03/01/03 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Shouldn't we give both, then?

[[Wikipedia:Manual of Style]] says yes, by and large. There's lots
of talk about this issue at [[Wikipedia:Measurements Debate]].

Rob


from_name: Jason Williams

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 05:42:41AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Is that right?  As an American, I frankly confess that the metric
> system is a curiosity to me.  9,000,000 square miles, I can grasp,
> because I know how long a mile is intuitively.  The kilometer, on the
> other hand, is non-intuitive, just an arbitrary length from a
> textbook.
>
> Shouldn't we give both, then?

Bit ugly, don't you think? I'd prefer metric measurements, linked to
a page of conversion factors.

--
jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 06:03:23AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I would certainly oppose any idea that the Metric system is better
> than English (it isn't, and for many purposes it's provably worse),
> and going further, even if Metric were better, it isn't the role of
> wikipedia to push it on people.  (The government in the U.S. has been
> trying since I was a little kid to encourage the use of Metric, but
> with only tiny impact.)

What if it turns out some people only understand the (hypothetical)
Elbonian Measurement System? Do we then include three numbers each time we
give a measurement?

--
jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>
>>As a scientist, I have to insist that the metric system is to be the
>>main system used on Wikipedia! (Of course, feel free to mention
>>miles&co. somewhere too;-)
>>
>>
>
>I have no opposition to including the metric system, and especially in
>scientific articles.  But in many articles, Americans will have a hard
>time understanding unless English equivalents are given.
>
The [[Orders of Magnitude]] group of pages should help with this --
wherever units are given they should link to one of the "chain pages"
that give comparisons & conversions.

Besides, the metric system is really not hard to grasp. There's one
basic unit for each type of measurement that can be used for anything.
and the same multipying prefixes apply to all units.

>
>So, I would say that in cases where Americans expect to see miles and
>gallons, we should give both miles/kilometers and gallons/liters.
>
The problem is that most US / Imperial units are ambiguous:
there are two gallons -- see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallon
there are 3 miles.

Furthermore, the units aren't consistently applied -- different units
for different circumstances of the same measurement.
I found articles on water reservoirs that gave capacity in something
bizarre I can't remember (YARD-FEET or something).
Then you have *dry* measures of volume, barrels for oil & so on.

There is a very good reason why countries across the world have adopted
the SI system. It's simpler, and if everybody uses the same system we
don't get problems like this.

>
>
>
>


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] rclimit

body:
rclimit changed its meaning from "number of modified articles"
to "number of modifications", and that means that less changes
are displayed that it used to be the case.

Could it be changed to higher default on all Wikipedias ?
Oh, and could some higher option be added like 1000 (which would
display more or less as many as old 500) ?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
At 06:30 03/01/03 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>The foot, for example, is evenly divisible into inches by 2, 3, and 4.
>That sort of division comes up all the time in carpentry.
>
>Cup, pint, quart, half-gallon, gallon -- binary!  More rational than
>decimal, if you're likely to be multiplying and dividing by 2.  (As
>in, doubling or halving a recipe.)

...but strangely, when I try to explain to Americans how money worked
in Britain before 1971, they think I'm crazy. ;-)

Rob


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>One side note is that Tarquin changed 9,000,000 square miles to
>23,000,000 square kilometers.  This move was apparently
>uncontroversial.
>
>Is that right?  As an American, I frankly confess that the metric
>system is a curiosity to me.  9,000,000 square miles, I can grasp,
>because I know how long a mile is intuitively.  The kilometer, on the
>other hand, is non-intuitive, just an arbitrary length from a
>textbook.
>
>
As a Eurpoean, I never touched miles, yards, etc. until I worked in the
US for a few month. Always missed these highway exits ;-)

As a scientist, I have to insist that the metric system is to be the
main system used on Wikipedia! (Of course, feel free to mention
miles&co. somewhere too;-)

Magnus


from_name: Alexander Stephen Bradbury

body:
I think the new main page is looking pretty good, I wouldn't mind changing
the current one for it. I think going live with it on Wikipedia Day (if
people agree, obviously) would be great. It would certainly great if we
could get 100,000 articles by Wikipedia Day, but unless we got thousands
of bot generated articles, I can't see it happening. We definitely need a
press release though. Some statistics (like in the PG newsletters) would
be nice, what we've achieved, what we need to do. Has anyone drafted
anything yet?

ASB [[User:Smelialichu]]
--
<signature>
There are only 10 types of people in this world;
Those that know binary...and those that don't
</signature>

> Several of us have been working on improving the Main Page and are
> pretty  satisfied with the results. See
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page/Temp
>
> And also a before and after screenshot:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/upload/1/1e/MainPageTemp-800pxWide.png
>
> Comments about added improvements and edits are welcome.
>
> It would be great if we could work on this some more and then go live
> with the  new version on January 15th aka Wikipedia Day. It would also
> be great if we  all concentrated on trying to make 100,000 articles by
> the 15th.
>
> Speaking of which, a press release is also in order for Wikipedia
> Day.....
>
> Power to the Wiki and Happy New Year!
>
> --Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>
> WikiKarma Payment. Have you had your Wiki today?
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=January_2&diff=551217&oldid=551172
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>>Personally, I'd rather have it say, "Use metrics. Use only
>>metrics. Any use of American or Imperial units is punishable by
>>death.", but I doubt I could convince Wikipedians at large of the
>>merits of it :).
>>
>>
>
>Fortunately, I think you're right.  You'd never convince me of the
>merits of it.
>
Well, know you have my sympathies ;-)
We changed our currency from Deutschmark to Euro a year ago, and people
still compare prices in Deutschmark...

>I personally think it's only a matter of time until the rest of the
>world catches up to the U.S. and returns to using the English system
>in all the cases where it is more sensible to do so.  So we have a
>responsibility to use both, to help them get ready for the change.
>
I think you forgot the ";-)" at the end of the paragraph. You don't
honestly think so, do you? (Of course, everyone can have an opinion, it
just strikes me as rather unrealistic)

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
At 10:06 03/01/03 -0500, Pierre Abbat wrote:

>The acre is some weird number of square feet.

There's nothing weird about it. It's a furlong by a chain. ;-)

Rob

(as penance I have added this fact to [[Acre]])


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Password annoyance attack

body:
With our current system it is fairly trivial to reset a user's password
against their will. We don't even check the interval in which the
password is requested. I suggest we use Scoop's system of password
mailing:

* When the user requests a password, check if he has requested one
within the last two hours or so
* If so, show error message
* If he hasn't, send the user a confirmation mail with an URL
* When the user clicks the URL, send the user the new password.

Anyone who disagrees with this proposal will get their password reset by
me 300 times ;-)

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Accessibility? : Was - Suggestion to promote
	readability of hyperlinkeddocuments.

references:
<20030102021430.SKET12483.mtiwmhc12.worldnet.att.net@mtiwebc18>
	 <1041506556.1284.5.camel@chesoo.fokus.gmd.de>
	 <20030102062232.J28875@joey.bomis.com>
	 <1041519347.1285.9.camel@chesoo.fokus.gmd.de>
	 <opridybitlk4g8ki@news.gmane.org>

body:
On Don, 2003-01-02 at 19:43, Richard Grevers wrote:
> Proper, but in all practicality, pointless. I have done quite a bit of
> testing of websites in various talking browsers. Most use the IE rendering
> engine and simply read the text that ends up on screen. They are almost
> totally dependent on punctuation, and don't respect breaks in HTML (even
> list items or table cells). Thus the entire left-hand bar on Wikipedia
> would be read as one long sentence - "Main page recent changes random page
> current events" etc. None of them know anything about CSS.

I've done a search a few months ago and found a couple that claimed to
be aural CSS compliant. Can't find them again, though. This may be the
Linux project you referred to: http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/

I don't know if these are actually used. But it seems to me that it's a
better long-term plan to use these standards rather than to accomodate
the idiosyncratic behavior of current speech browsers.

I'd also like to get feedback from blind/disabled users on this.

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


subject: [Wikitech-l] Should we render links in Recentchanges?

body:
Should we render links in Recentchanges? Many people are already using
them in their changelog comments. Disadvantage: RC might get slower,
esp. if we check for brokenness.
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


subject: [Wikitech-l] Anons can no longer make minor edits

body:
It is my understanding that this was the consensus, so I have disabled
the "minor edit" checkbox for anonymous users. The reasoning here is
that an anon can never gain the trust necessary to have his edits
ignored by some users.

Note that the checkbox is simply not rendered, an anon can theoretically
still get an edit marked as minor with URL magic. I'll try to get to
that later.

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:

>>Shouldn't we give both, then?
>>
>>
>
>Why? If the reader really needs non-metric measurements, they can consult
>[[conversion of units]] (which, actually, may need a bit of expanding for
>ease of use as a conversion table... I might look into that in a bit). That
>said, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AManual_of_Style currently
>reads, in part, "For now, if using American or Imperial, give metric as a
>courtesy. If using metric, remember that many readers will not know what you
>mean and will be aided by the equivalent.", so yes, provide both, I'm afraid.
>
>
Cleaning up orphan articles (more than 500 again!), I found
    http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_Table%3Acm-inches

Maybe it should be deleted, though...

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
> I have no opposition to including the metric system, and especially in
> scientific articles.  But in many articles, Americans will have a hard
> time understanding unless English equivalents are given.

en.wikipedia.org is not us.wikpedia.org. I am not an American or even a
native English speaker and I read the en.wikipedia a lot, for many different
reasons. en certainly should accomodate US idiosyncracies, but not to the
confusion of a more broadly defined target audience.

The right thing to do is to introduce Wiki syntax for formatting units, so
that they can be converted on the fly. SI should be the default.

Regards,

Erik

--
+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net +++
NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. Rund um die Uhr f?r 1 ct/ Min. surfen!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>>I have no opposition to including the metric system, and especially in
>>scientific articles.  But in many articles, Americans will have a hard
>>time understanding unless English equivalents are given.
>>
>>
>
>en.wikipedia.org is not us.wikpedia.org. I am not an American or even a
>native English speaker and I read the en.wikipedia a lot, for many different
>reasons. en certainly should accomodate US idiosyncracies, but not to the
>confusion of a more broadly defined target audience.
>
I tend to agree with that :-)

>The right thing to do is to introduce Wiki syntax for formatting units, so
>that they can be converted on the fly. SI should be the default.
>
How about extending the variables?
{{10|m2}} would be 10 square meters
{{50|ft}} would be 50 feet
etc.

Display would be dependent on
* which wikipedia you're using: de has only metric units, en shows
metric with us (like this)
* can be overridden by a user option

Should be easy to implement.

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Metric v. English

body:
I personally would prefer the metric system, but I understand others may
not agree with that. Can't we just include both? I mean some people will
be alot more familiar with metric measurements than imperial. Which one
goes first I guess depends on who is writing the article, and from where
the figure is obtained (converting a rounded figure, and then rounding it
again seems bad to me, and it should be obvious that the first figure is
the most accurate, or at least the figure as released by whoever came to
it.

ASB [[User:Smelialichu]]

--
<signature>
There are only 10 types of people in this world;
Those that know binary...and those that don't
</signature>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
> The article that started this discussion is a case in point.  "Europe
> added almost 23,000,000 km^2" or "Europe added almost 9,000,000 mi^2"
> are both approximate statements.  An automatic conversion would give
> an unwarranted impression of precision in this case.

Just add a ~ or ~~ before the number to indicate the degree of imprecision
and the converter finds the best approximation.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
> How about extending the variables?
> {{10|m2}} would be 10 square meters
> {{50|ft}} would be 50 feet
> etc.

The pipe is unnecessary, and the {{ }} does not look very readable. How
about double backtics or double underscores? (``50 cm``, __50 cm__).
Backtics are common in Unixland for stuff that is dynamically interpreted
and replaced.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Anons can no longer make minor edits

body:
On 1/3/03 10:56 AM, "Erik Moeller" <e.moeller at fokus.gmd.de> wrote:

> It is my understanding that this was the consensus, so I have disabled
> the "minor edit" checkbox for anonymous users. The reasoning here is
> that an anon can never gain the trust necessary to have his edits
> ignored by some users.
>
> Note that the checkbox is simply not rendered, an anon can theoretically
> still get an edit marked as minor with URL magic. I'll try to get to
> that later.
>
This is not good. Please change it back until this can be better discussed.

This is a wikipedia-l issue, not wikitech-l issue.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: This and that

body:
On ven, 2003-01-03 at 11:47, Sheldon Rampton wrote:
> I spent a few minutes there but couldn't find anyplace that serves as
> a venue for discussing things with anyone. There's no listserv and no
> "metapedia" (metactionary?).

I mentioned it in the [[Talk:Main Page]]. Try also [[Wiktionary]] on
meta.wikipedia.org, but that's been largely usurped by the various talk
pages and [[Wiktionary:*]] meta pages on wiktionary.org itself.

> However, I get redirected to WIKIPEDIA if I enter the following:
> http://www.wiktionary.org/

Oops, fixed.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: This and that

body:
On ven, 2003-01-03 at 10:36, Sheldon Rampton wrote:
> >Sounds reasonable, send a diff and I'll see about it.
>
> How do I "send a diff"? Do I just email you the text of the changes I
> want, or post it to this list?

Sure. (If you're using cvs, you can use the cvs 'diff' command to get a
diff file listing the changes between the repository version and your
local modified copy, eg "cvs diff -u Skin*.php".)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism by 172.147.58.92: Doctor Who?

body:
172.147.58.92 made some badly titled articles such as [[of the]] and pointers
to them; I blocked the address, and I and someone else reverted the edits.
172.147.58.92 also made some changes to [[Doctor Who]] and a couple of other
articles which I don't know whether are vandalism or not. Someone who knows,
please check.

The address is in AOL, but appears not to be a proxy from its name.

phma


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [WikiEN-l] minor changes to [[New Imperialism]]

body:
Connoisseurs of "minor" changes will enjoy a walk through the recent
history of [[New Imperialism]].


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. US

body:
And what about being able to choose in the prefs some
regional settings, us or metrics.

Then, an editor would write the measurement with his
prefered system in a tag : <tag>xx miles</tag>

Then, if the editor's unit system is the same than the
reader's system, say us, will be displayed :

bla bla xx miles.

When the editor's unit system is not the reader's
prefered system, will be displayed :

bla bla xx miles (yy km).

magic ?

__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
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from_name: Jonathan Walther

body:
On Sat, Jan 04, 2003 at 10:14:32AM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
>>>It is my understanding that this was the consensus, so I have disabled
>>>the "minor edit" checkbox for anonymous users. The reasoning here is
>>>that an anon can never gain the trust necessary to have his edits
>>>ignored by some users.
>>>
>>>
>>This is not good. Please change it back until this can be better discussed.
>>
>>
>It *was* that way (no minor edits for anons) some time ago, then it was
>changed back for some reason (maybe for no reason...).
>
>Just leave it as "no minor edits for anons", until there's good reason
>to change it again.

I think there shouldn't be any "minor edits" flag at all; we have the
ability to have the software determine if an edit is "minor"; why not
let the software flag a change as minor in the html if only a few bytes
have changed?  We already do something similar for the links on article
pages, where we classify the links according to their size.

Jonathan

--
                     Geek House Productions, Ltd.

  Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
  QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
  General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998

Phone:   604-435-1205
Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
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body:
On Sat, Jan 04, 2003 at 10:25:00AM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
>> I think there shouldn't be any "minor edits" flag at all; we have the
>> ability to have the software determine if an edit is "minor"; why not
>> let the software flag a change as minor in the html if only a few bytes
>> have changed?
>
>Richard Wagner was an anti-Semite
> ->
>Richard Wagner was not an anti-Semite
>
>4 bytes. Minor edit?

The current system also fails to catch that one, since a person making a
change like that would probably mark it as minor.  My proposal to let
the software do the work is no worse than the current system, and is a
win from a usability point of view.

--
                     Geek House Productions, Ltd.

  Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
  QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
  General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998

Phone:   604-435-1205
Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
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from_name: rose.parks at att.net

body:
Hi Erik Moeller and Members,

     I did a search on "aural + CSS" in google and found that the W3C has a
working group on this subject, as of 2/2001, that 2 members had their own
implementations of a browser using aural CSS, and that IBM's Home Page Reader
is referred to as a aural CSS-enabled-wrapper for Internet Explorer 5. I
realize by the date that this is not as recent as one would hope, but there is
nothing newer on the subject.
     Home Page Reader is available as a 30 day trial download from IBM (or was.)
     The search also lead to a number of tutorials on aural CSS.
     For W3C working group notes see:

http://www.openebook.org/members/ps/20010214.htm

                  As Ever,

                     Ruth Ifcher

--

> On Don, 2003-01-02 at 19:43, Richard Grevers wrote:
> > Proper, but in all practicality, pointless. I have done quite a bit of
> > testing of websites in various talking browsers. Most use the IE rendering
> > engine and simply read the text that ends up on screen. They are almost
> > totally dependent on punctuation, and don't respect breaks in HTML (even
> > list items or table cells). Thus the entire left-hand bar on Wikipedia
> > would be read as one long sentence - "Main page recent changes random page
> > current events" etc. None of them know anything about CSS.
>
> I've done a search a few months ago and found a couple that claimed to
> be aural CSS compliant. Can't find them again, though. This may be the
> Linux project you referred to: http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/
>
> I don't know if these are actually used. But it seems to me that it's a
> better long-term plan to use these standards rather than to accomodate
> the idiosyncratic behavior of current speech browsers.
>
> I'd also like to get feedback from blind/disabled users on this.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> --
> FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
> Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Metric v. English

body:
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:13:06 -0500, Tom Parmenter
<tompar=Jk6FQSss4Zz2eFz/2MeuCQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:

>
> As I always say in these debates:
>
> 1 -- Except for temperature (the degrees are just too big), the metric
> system is better worked out than the American, easier to use in many
> applicatoins, etc.
>
> 2 -- The purpose of the encyclopedia is not to make people better, it
> is to impart information to readers.
>
> 3 -- Millions of American encyclopedia readers cannot do the
> conversions in their heads and should be provided with useful
> information on the height and weight of the hippopotamus.
>
I was in school when NZ metricated and am still capable of using inches and
millimetres in the same sentence. I also hobbywork in a theatre where most
of our stock set has imperial dimensions thanks to its age. But I would
argue for metric any day.
And if you try to play the numbers game, the US will lose, particularly if
you throw a billion Indians into the mix. English is also the Lingua Franca
of much of Africa, and even though internet use is still very limited in
these countries, Wikipedia is a site that could easily end up with a much
higher profile there than in the 2nd World.
--
Richard Grevers
Christchurch, New Zealand


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metric v. English

body:
On sab, 2003-01-04 at 07:14, Lars Aronsson wrote:
> As for the idea about special markup for measures, is there a need for
> any markup at all?  Cannot the PHP software do a reg.exp matching for
> a number of digits followed by the word "miles" or "metres", and
> automatically do the right thing?

Digits vs words (in many languages), comma vs period vs space separators
for thousands and digits, decimals vs fractions, abbreviations vs words,
in various grammatical numbers and cases, hypenation, etc. Not to
mention the precision issue.

Tell you what, you write code that does The Right Thing reliably and
I'll be happy to put it in.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Giskart

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Anons can no longer make minor edits

body:
The Cunctator <cunctator=+4VDYf+6WHMAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote
in news:BA3BAE8A.5DF3%cunctator at kband.com:

>
> This is a wikipedia-l issue, not wikitech-l issue.
>

If it is for all wikipedia's, it is a Intlwiki-l issue. Wikipedia-l is only
the second list of en.wikipedia.

--
Contact: giskart AT wikipedia.be
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? Wikipedia, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Anons can no longer make minor edits


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Anons can no longer make minor
 edits

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 1/3/03 10:56 AM, "Erik Moeller" <e.moeller at fokus.gmd.de> wrote:
>
>
>
>>It is my understanding that this was the consensus, so I have disabled
>>the "minor edit" checkbox for anonymous users. The reasoning here is
>>that an anon can never gain the trust necessary to have his edits
>>ignored by some users.
>>
>>
>This is not good. Please change it back until this can be better discussed.
>
>
It *was* that way (no minor edits for anons) some time ago, then it was
changed back for some reason (maybe for no reason...).

Just leave it as "no minor edits for anons", until there's good reason
to change it again.

Magnus


from_name: Rob Brewer

body:
At 22:48 03/01/03 -0500, Pierre Abbat wrote:
>172.147.58.92 made some badly titled articles such as [[of the]] and pointers
>to them; I blocked the address, and I and someone else reverted the edits.
>172.147.58.92 also made some changes to [[Doctor Who]] and a couple of other
>articles which I don't know whether are vandalism or not. Someone who knows,
>please check.

The [[Doctor Who]] edit was one sentence of POV commentary: "Daleks are
so cool". The [[Colin Baker]] and [[Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers]]
articles which were started by this IP are trivial, light-hearted and
opinionated, but are about genuine(-ish) topics and aren't obscene. All
five edits made by this IP fall into the category of "newbie experiment"
rather than vandalism, and I think blocking was very harsh.

Rob
[[user:Rbrwr]]
wikikarma: [[Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers]] at 10:12 GMT


body:
> I think there shouldn't be any "minor edits" flag at all; we have the
> ability to have the software determine if an edit is "minor"; why not
> let the software flag a change as minor in the html if only a few bytes
> have changed?

Richard Wagner was an anti-Semite
 ->
Richard Wagner was not an anti-Semite

4 bytes. Minor edit?

Regards,

Erik


body:
> If it is for all wikipedia's, it is a Intlwiki-l issue. Wikipedia-l is only
> the second list of en.wikipedia.

intwiki-l should be abolished and the wikipedia / wikien-l distinction
should be more actively enforced.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Anons can no longer make minor edits