subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Minimal skin (comments desired)

body:
On Thu, 2003-03-27 at 16:25, Nick Reinking wrote:
> How about a compromise?  No drop-down menu, but how about letting users
> select which languages they would like to see?  I would be more than
> happy to ignore the entire world, except for Japanese and the Queen's
> Eng.... err, English.

That wouldn't help the common case: people using the default options,
who have never logged in, or who are not aware that languages they are
(or will become) interested in are available.

> Some of the other links should be moved elsewhere.  Upload image could
> be on the 'Special:Specialpages' page.  Same with Bug reports, and
> current events.

Upload needs to be better accessible from edit mode, but is less
important when viewing. 'Bug reports' must be prominently available from
any page, or we'll never get any. ;) 'Current events' IMHO is useless,
but maybe other people find it interesting. No reason to put it in
special pages, as it's not a special page...

On Thu, 2003-03-27 at 16:40, Nick Reinking wrote:
> Hate to keep sending out so many emails, but trying to get this to work
> for as many people as possible.  Does anybody know how to make regular
> hyperlinks (rather than buttons) do submits (without Javascript)?

I'm not aware of such a mechanism, and would consider it a gross
violation of user interface standards if there is one. Next step is "how
do I make my application installer enhance Explorer/Finder/Nautilus so
clicking on a regular file deletes it without warning?" ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Thomas Corell

subject: [Wikitech-l] wikipedia dead again

body:
Nick Reinking wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 06:36:29AM +0100, Thomas Corell wrote:
>
>>Oh, they call that an extention. Well. There's a serial/serial8 type in
>>Postgres, which implicitly creates a sequence and you can use the
>>functions nextval() and currval(). So a definition of e.g. "cur_id
>>serial8 PRIMARY KEY" should handle this.
> Or just serial, which would be considerably faster than serial8, unless
> you think that you will end up with more than 2147483648 rows (2^31).

Only to meassure my expectations for wikipedia ;) But keep in mind that
reusing serials is not part of the pg concept, but as far as I know
mysql does. E.g. deleting articles may spend a serial.

Smurf
--
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


from_name: Nick Reinking

subject: [Wikitech-l] Minimal skin (comments desired)

body:
On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 06:14:03PM -0500, Mark Wojtowicz wrote:
> > Okay, how about now?  Any comments would be appreciated.
> >
> > Minimal: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html
>
> IE6 doesn't support CSS2's {position: fixed}. :(

That's strange.  I have it working right here... IE 5.2...

       ... for the Mac.  :P

In all seriousness, IE doesn't allow you to fix elements to the
viewport.  This really isn't something that can be fixed; IE's support
for standards is terribly broken, and there is nothing that I can do
about it.  :(  Still, there are plenty of browsers that work that fully
support these standards (IE 5/Mac, Camino, Safari, Konquerer, Mozilla,
Phoenix, Opera...)

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


from_name: Mark Wojtowicz

body:
> Okay, how about now?  Any comments would be appreciated.
>
> Minimal: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html

IE6 doesn't support CSS2's {position: fixed}. :(

--
Mark


body:
On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 10:30:43PM +0000, tarquin wrote:
>
>
> Nick Reinking wrote:
>
> >Okay, how about now?  Any comments would be appreciated.
> >
> >Original: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit.html
> >Minimal: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html
> >
> >Note that I think the footer (on all the pages) should be changed from
> >'It was last modified...' to '(Article title) was last modified...'; but
> >that isn't part of my skin.  :)
> >
>
> Looking good :)
>
> Personally I would prefer it if we stuck to the current background
> colour schemes -- maybe not brilliant white but lighter than the grey
> you have there (makes me think of Meta and its endless pages of
> SPARCATUS !!!! ;-)
>
> Can you make the dividing lines touch each other?
> Again, my personal taste, feel free to disagree. I would say soften
> them a bit -- lighter grey, or grey with a hint of colour (blue?)
>
> Put a title on the list of language links, like "Other languages:" or
> "This page in other languages".
> It's great to see that list of lang links vertical instead of
> horizontal!!!! :-D
>
> mind if I have a tinker with it?

Go ahead and tinker with it.  It won't hurt my feelings.  :)  I stayed
with the non-touching lines (despite it being a pain in the ass) because
that is what you see on the default theme at Wikipedia.  :)  I think it
looks cool, anyways.  I have changed the colour to the midpoint of meta
and Wikipedia (#EEEEEE).

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


body:
On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 03:49:12PM -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-03-27 at 15:01, Kurt Jansson wrote:
> > Brion Vibber schrieb:
> > > On Thu, 2003-03-27 at 14:30, tarquin wrote:
> > >>It's great to see that list of lang links vertical instead of
> > >>horizontal!!!! :-D
> > >
> > > That's actually going to be problematic, as the floating sidebar can't
> > > be scrolled vertically and the limited vertical space will be quickly
> > > used up, particularly on smaller screens.
> >
> > How about a drop down box?
>
> I believe I've already answered that on wikipedia-l:
>
> > > How about a drop down list box, such as the one on the TEJO site? That
> > > would be very economical as to space and give plenty of options to
> > > choose from.
> >
> > I'm generally leery of drop-down boxes as they don't show the available
> > options until you've gone to the trouble of asking what's available. And
> > if the available options are different for each page, that's going to
> > spell trouble. People will check a few times, then stop looking once
> > they've found that their language never comes up.
> >
> > Wiki is about serendipidous discovery; part of that is seeing that a link
> > to Chinese or Polish or Esperanto or Volapuk or Latin or French is
> > available without having thought to seek it out.
> >
> > However, it's a direction worth looking into.

How about a compromise?  No drop-down menu, but how about letting users
select which languages they would like to see?  I would be more than
happy to ignore the entire world, except for Japanese and the Queen's
Eng.... err, English.

Some of the other links should be moved elsewhere.  Upload image could
be on the 'Special:Specialpages' page.  Same with Bug reports, and
current events.

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


body:
On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 11:14:24PM +0100, Paul Ebermann wrote:
> "Nick Reinking" skribis:
> > Okay, how about now?  Any comments would be appreciated.
> >
> > Original: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit.html
> > Minimal: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html
> >
> > Note that I think the footer (on all the pages) should be changed from
> > 'It was last modified...' to '(Article title) was last modified...'; but
> > that isn't part of my skin.  :)
>
> Did you try to look at this with less than 700 pixel width
> (with Opera and my font size, other may need another number),
> so that the buttons (and part of the text) in the upper bar
> wrap around? They dissapear here ...
>
> I don't know wether (or how) one could make the height of
> the upper bar flexible ...

Strangely enough, Mozilla (1.0-1.3) caused corruption in the scrollbar
when "overflow: hidden;" wasn't set.  If somebody knows how to get the
#topbar to be expandable without causing problems with text overla, let
me know.  I'll poke around with it, and see what I can come up with.
I'm not really a CSS expert, and how it works actually works IRL is
quite fickle.  :(

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


body:
On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 11:14:24PM +0100, Paul Ebermann wrote:
> "Nick Reinking" skribis:
> > Okay, how about now?  Any comments would be appreciated.
> >
> > Original: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit.html
> > Minimal: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html
> >
> > Note that I think the footer (on all the pages) should be changed from
> > 'It was last modified...' to '(Article title) was last modified...'; but
> > that isn't part of my skin.  :)
>
> Did you try to look at this with less than 700 pixel width
> (with Opera and my font size, other may need another number),
> so that the buttons (and part of the text) in the upper bar
> wrap around? They dissapear here ...
>
> I don't know wether (or how) one could make the height of
> the upper bar flexible ...

Hate to keep sending out so many emails, but trying to get this to work
for as many people as possible.  Does anybody know how to make regular
hyperlinks (rather than buttons) do submits (without Javascript)?

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


body:
On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 05:34:57PM -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-03-27 at 16:25, Nick Reinking wrote:
> > How about a compromise?  No drop-down menu, but how about letting users
> > select which languages they would like to see?  I would be more than
> > happy to ignore the entire world, except for Japanese and the Queen's
> > Eng.... err, English.
>
> That wouldn't help the common case: people using the default options,
> who have never logged in, or who are not aware that languages they are
> (or will become) interested in are available.

I'm not proposing this theme replacing the common case.  This theme is
for those who are ipso facto, not using the default themes.  If somebody
wants a minimal theme, they will probably also want to pare down the
number of languages that are displayed.  Maybe we should call these
theme 'Veteran' instead?  ;)

> > Some of the other links should be moved elsewhere.  Upload image could
> > be on the 'Special:Specialpages' page.  Same with Bug reports, and
> > current events.
>
> Upload needs to be better accessible from edit mode, but is less
> important when viewing. 'Bug reports' must be prominently available from
> any page, or we'll never get any. ;) 'Current events' IMHO is useless,
> but maybe other people find it interesting. No reason to put it in
> special pages, as it's not a special page...

Good point, current events is already well represented on the main page.
We should put 'Rabbit' in its stead.  ;)  In any case, I don't have an
overflow rule on the quickbar.  If it gets too long, it should get a
scrollbar, but it should still be fixed to the left.

> On Thu, 2003-03-27 at 16:40, Nick Reinking wrote:
> > Hate to keep sending out so many emails, but trying to get this to work
> > for as many people as possible.  Does anybody know how to make regular
> > hyperlinks (rather than buttons) do submits (without Javascript)?
>
> I'm not aware of such a mechanism, and would consider it a gross
> violation of user interface standards if there is one. Next step is "how
> do I make my application installer enhance Explorer/Finder/Nautilus so
> clicking on a regular file deletes it without warning?" ;)

I'm sure somebody has written an extension for that already.  ;)  I'm
just trying to determine the height of the element.  ems are great when
you are using text, but not so good where there are so many damned
buttons.

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


from_name: tarquin

body:
Nick Reinking wrote:

>Okay, how about now?  Any comments would be appreciated.
>
>Original: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit.html
>Minimal: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html
>
>Note that I think the footer (on all the pages) should be changed from
>'It was last modified...' to '(Article title) was last modified...'; but
>that isn't part of my skin.  :)
>

Looking good :)

Personally I would prefer it if we stuck to the current background
colour schemes -- maybe not brilliant white but lighter than the grey
you have there (makes me think of Meta and its endless pages of
SPARCATUS !!!! ;-)

Can you make the dividing lines touch each other?
 Again, my personal taste, feel free to disagree. I would say soften
them a bit -- lighter grey, or grey with a hint of colour (blue?)

Put a title on the list of language links, like "Other languages:" or
"This page in other languages".
It's great to see that list of lang links vertical instead of
horizontal!!!! :-D

mind if I have a tinker with it?

>
>
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] City names argument resurrected

body:
Okay, 24 hours and no more objections -- that's close enough to a consensus
for me.

-- Tim Starling

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.?Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Paul Ebermann

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: is it possible?

body:
"Chuck Smith" skribis:

> Is it possible if someone types the name of an article
> which doesn't yet have any text that that person could
> be sent to a search page for that topic.  Thus, if I
> type http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen, instead
> of getting a page saying that this page doesn't exist,
> I would instead get the search results page?  Would
> anyone else want this?

Another option: only show additionally to the

    "There is currently no text in this page"

an

    "Search for Schengen"

link, which directs you to the search page.
So you could search with one more click, and
create the article directly (or doing nothing
at all) otherwise.

Paul


body:
"Nick Reinking" skribis:
> Okay, how about now?  Any comments would be appreciated.
>
> Original: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit.html
> Minimal: http:///www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html
>
> Note that I think the footer (on all the pages) should be changed from
> 'It was last modified...' to '(Article title) was last modified...'; but
> that isn't part of my skin.  :)

Did you try to look at this with less than 700 pixel width
(with Opera and my font size, other may need another number),
so that the buttons (and part of the text) in the upper bar
wrap around? They dissapear here ...

I don't know wether (or how) one could make the height of
the upper bar flexible ...

Paul


subject: [Wikitech-l] wikipedia dead again

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

> But the issue is not just the database--it's how to implement the
> wfInsertID() function in the wiki code. PHP's Postgres functions don't
> have anything like it, so you'll have to do something like get_last_oid()
> and then retrieve the serial field value by OID.

Why I think I misunderstood something? Please tell me what's wrong.

The wfInsertID() funktion is used to get a unique autoincremented number
in mySQL. And PHP has a function to return this number to you.
I would now do the pg implementation by adding a 'serial' type to the
table. Usually I don't do anything with this value, because pg will
handle the autoincrement. Normaly mysql should do the same. If you for
some reasons will know which value currently is used, you can get this
in pg by the function currval(sequence_name) and the next value you can
get by nextval(sequence_name).

Current PHP:
function wfInsertId() {return mysql_insert_id( wfGetDB() );}

with pg:
function wfInsertId() {
   return pq_query( wfGetDB(), "select currval('sequence_name')\;");
}

But usually if you e.g. fetching the data to display an articel you will
get the serial as well.

By the way: using OID's is bad, very bad. Thats an internal value,
noboby should use.

Smurf
--
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
Brion Vibber schrieb:
> On Thu, 2003-03-27 at 14:30, tarquin wrote:
>
>>Put a title on the list of language links, like "Other languages:" or
>>"This page in other languages".
>>It's great to see that list of lang links vertical instead of
>>horizontal!!!! :-D
>
>
> That's actually going to be problematic, as the floating sidebar can't
> be scrolled vertically and the limited vertical space will be quickly
> used up, particularly on smaller screens.

How about a drop down box?

Kurt


from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Links Within a Table

body:
On Thu, 27 Mar 2003 03:04:19 -0700, Fred Bauder
<fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> On Internet-Encyclopedia, for example at
>
> http://www.internet-encyclopedia.info/wiki/history
>
> if there is a table all links (whether an article exits or not) are in
> blue.
>
> Any clue as to what is happening?
>
It's probably browser specific. Some browsers (Netscape 4, IE 5) have bugs
where they don't inherit styles into tables. This can be overcome by
something like:
foo, TD foo {color:red;}
--
Richard Grevers


from_name: Anthere

body:
He !

Thanks for adding a picture, for the Nick link only
displayed "server cannot be found for me"

That looks good.
I don't like too much to bottom vertical bar though.

Still, most of this article belongs to the
[[cuniculture]] article, not to the rabbit one :-)

--- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
>
>
> Nick Reinking wrote:
>
> >Go ahead and tinker with it.  It won't hurt my
> feelings.  :)  I stayed
> >with the non-touching lines (despite it being a
> pain in the ass) because
> >that is what you see on the default theme at
> Wikipedia.  :)  I think it
> >looks cool, anyways.  I have changed the colour to
> the midpoint of meta
> >and Wikipedia (#EEEEEE).
> >
> >
> I've softened the look a bit - blocks of colour
> instead of lines
> & I've changed the DTD so Mozilla goes into
> standards mode rather than
> Quirks.
>
> I've switched to ems -- try scaling the fonts up now
> :-) the top bar and
> the side bar both grow to fit
>
> I've used part of the hack here:
> http://devnull.tagsoup.com/fixed/
>
> to make it work in IE-6 -- the quickbar is no longer
> fixed, but the page
> is readable :-)
>
>
>
>
>
---------------------------------
Rabbit - Wikipedia
body { margin: 0px; padding: 0px; } body.article {
background: #f8f8f8; } body.meta { background: #eef;
}/* text */a.stub, a.new, a.internal, a.external {
text-decoration: underline; }a.new { color: #CC2200;
}a.interwiki, a.external { color: #3366BB;
}a.printable { text-decoration: underline; }a.stub {
color:#772233; text-decoration:none; }form.inline {
display: inline; }h1.pagetitle { font-size:2.25em;
margin:0em; padding:0em; }h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
margin-bottom: 0; }h2 { font-size: 125%; }h3 {
font-size: 112.5%; }h4 { font-size: 106.25%; }h5 {
font-size: 103.125%; }h6 { font-size: 100%; }p.bottom
{ border-bottom: 2px solid #000000; }p.subpages {
font-size:small;}p.subtitle { padding-top: 0;
margin-top: 0; }td.top { border-bottom: 2px solid red;
}td.bottom { border-top: 2px solid green; }/*
structural */#topbar { margin-left: 9em; /* !! QB
WIDTH */ background:#eee; /* border-bottom: 1px solid
#000; */ padding: 0.25em; }#content { margin-left:
9em; /* !! QB WIDTH */ padding: 0.5em; }#quickbar {
width: 9em; /* !! QB WIDTH */ position: fixed; top:
0px; left: 0px; bottom: 0px; height:100%; padding:
0em; background-color: #eef; }#quickbar a.new { color:
#CC2200; }#quickbar h1 { font-size:1.125em;
margin:0em; padding:0em 0.3em; }#quickbar div {
margin: 0em; padding:0.5em 0.3em; border-bottom: 1px
solid #fff; }.qbsection { }.qblang { }.tbform {
text-align: right; }#footer { margin-left: 9em; /* !!
QB WIDTH */ padding: 0.5em 0.25em; background:#eee;
}#pagestats { font-size: 9pt; }        /* dirty hack
for IE6. */    #quickbar {   position: absolute;   }
209.32.156.19 (Talk) |Log in |Help [input]  [input]
[input]   [input]   [input] Rabbit


body:
On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 10:34:50AM +0000, tarquin wrote:
>
>
> Nick Reinking wrote:
>
> >Go ahead and tinker with it.  It won't hurt my feelings.  :)  I stayed
> >with the non-touching lines (despite it being a pain in the ass) because
> >that is what you see on the default theme at Wikipedia.  :)  I think it
> >looks cool, anyways.  I have changed the colour to the midpoint of meta
> >and Wikipedia (#EEEEEE).
> >
> >
> I've softened the look a bit - blocks of colour instead of lines
> & I've changed the DTD so Mozilla goes into standards mode rather than
> Quirks.
>
> I've switched to ems -- try scaling the fonts up now :-) the top bar and
> the side bar both grow to fit
>
> I've used part of the hack here:
> http://devnull.tagsoup.com/fixed/
>
> to make it work in IE-6 -- the quickbar is no longer fixed, but the page
> is readable :-)

Unfortunately, the topbar is also absolute in your version, that is
something that I think is very useful to have fixed (seeing as I am
often jumping from article to article, and always having an available
'Go' and 'Edit' button would be very convenient.

I know other hacks that will work with IE-6, but I didn't want to add
them in until the regular version had settled down.  I will peek at your
ems code.  :)  Also, I miss the borders.  Would people rather have the
bordered, or non-bordered version?

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


body:
On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 03:53:45AM -0800, Anthere wrote:
> He !
>
> Thanks for adding a picture, for the Nick link only
> displayed "server cannot be found for me"

<points out that he was linking directly against the Wikipedia image,
and if it was displaying any errors, than Brion is to blame.>
I'll move a copy to my local server and change the link.

> That looks good.
> I don't like too much to bottom vertical bar though.
>
> Still, most of this article belongs to the
> [[cuniculture]] article, not to the rabbit one :-)

I know, I know.  We got that all hashed out in Talk: Rabbit (Australia).
I'll get to moving everything around one of these days.

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


from_name: Leonard Tulipan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Drop MySQL3 Support (Was: Re: wikipedia dead again)

body:
> Message: 10
> Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 11:24:07 -0600
> From: Nick Reinking <nick at twoevils.org>
> To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] wikipedia dead again
> Reply-To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
>
> >
> > Only to meassure my expectations for wikipedia ;) But keep in mind that
> > reusing serials is not part of the pg concept, but as far as I know
> > mysql does. E.g. deleting articles may spend a serial.
>
> Fair enough, I do believe you're right.  Still, deleted articles are not
> terribly common, and I think we should design this with maximum
> performance in mind.  If we hit some odd 1.8B articles in the future, we
> can always figure out a way to change it to serial8.  :)
>
> Speaking of maximum performance... I have a question concerning our
> implementation.  What will be more important in the future, clean and
> efficient code, or backwards compatibility?  Especially when you
> consider the reverse_timestamp hacks everywhere that won't be needed in
> MySQL4 (or PostgreSQL), I would think that we should just drop MySQL3
> support (especially considering that it is easy to upgrade, and nobody
> will be using it in a year or two).  But, maybe I'm crazy - anybody else
> have any comments?
>
> --
> Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN
>
In accordance with Lee Daniel Crocker's comments I would say, that you
shouldn't really care that much about backward compatibility. As long as
there are some scripts which can handle import/export from older
versions (which you need to write anyways), this isn't really a problem.
Of course people like me, who use wikipedia as their primary wiki becaus
it is "so cool" will always know how to install, as long as the
requirements are written down somewhere.
So: Go for it. Upgrade your code
Maybe use some kind of Database abstraction (Like
http://php.weblogs.com/ADODB), also it might require some more hacks,
you can in theory support nearly any DB backend.

Cheers
Leo


body:
Nick Reinking wrote:

>Go ahead and tinker with it.  It won't hurt my feelings.  :)  I stayed
>with the non-touching lines (despite it being a pain in the ass) because
>that is what you see on the default theme at Wikipedia.  :)  I think it
>looks cool, anyways.  I have changed the colour to the midpoint of meta
>and Wikipedia (#EEEEEE).
>
>
I've softened the look a bit - blocks of colour instead of lines
& I've changed the DTD so Mozilla goes into standards mode rather than
Quirks.

I've switched to ems -- try scaling the fonts up now :-) the top bar and
the side bar both grow to fit

I've used part of the hack here:
http://devnull.tagsoup.com/fixed/

to make it work in IE-6 -- the quickbar is no longer fixed, but the page
is readable :-)

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body:
On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 04:18:17PM +0000, tarquin wrote:
>
>
> Nick Reinking wrote:
>
> >On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 10:34:50AM +0000, tarquin wrote:
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >Unfortunately, the topbar is also absolute in your version, that is
> >something that I think is very useful to have fixed (seeing as I am
> >often jumping from article to article, and always having an available
> >'Go' and 'Edit' button would be very convenient.
> >
> The problem with that is that with large font sizes the top bar becomes
> two lines. The margin-top given to the content can't cope with that
> eventuality.
> At that point, it either overflows or is partially obscured :(
> (I *wish* CSS absolutes & fixed could be made to affect flow!)
>
> >
> >I know other hacks that will work with IE-6, but I didn't want to add
> >them in until the regular version had settled down.  I will peek at your
> >ems code.  :)  Also, I miss the borders.  Would people rather have the
> >bordered, or non-bordered version?
> >
>
> Like so?
> I like both :-)
> since the HTML is identical, we can provde alternative stylesheets --
> Mozilla and Opera users will be able to choose a colour (&border) scheme :-D
>
> >
> >

I had actually changed the topbar to use ems last night - now,
everything up to 150% text size looks fine in Mozilla, and ever 200% is
workable.  Note that a 200% zoom in Mozilla gets about 10 words to a
line, so I doubt anybody will ever zoom to that size (they will likely
use zooming tools that allow you to zoom over sections).

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


body:
--- Nick Reinking <nick at twoevils.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 03:53:45AM -0800, Anthere
> wrote:
> > He !
> >
> > Thanks for adding a picture, for the Nick link
> only
> > displayed "server cannot be found for me"
>
> <points out that he was linking directly against the
> Wikipedia image,
> and if it was displaying any errors, than Brion is
> to blame.>
> I'll move a copy to my local server and change the
> link.

Brion is always the one getting blame :-(((

> > That looks good.
> > I don't like too much to bottom vertical bar
> though.
> >
> > Still, most of this article belongs to the
> > [[cuniculture]] article, not to the rabbit one :-)
>
> I know, I know.  We got that all hashed out in Talk:
> Rabbit (Australia).
> I'll get to moving everything around one of these
> days.

Hu ? We ? I don't know ? Who are you ? :-)

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Links Within a Table

body:
On Thu, 27 Mar 2003 15:20:31 -0700, Fred Bauder
<fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> Ok, Try:
>
> http://www.internet-encyclopedia.info/wiki.phtml?title=History
>
In opera, I sed red, I see red, I see red (apologies to Split Enz)
--
Richard Grevers


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikitech-l] Introducing InfoWrangler for Wikipedia

body:
On 3/28/03 10:53 AM, "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

>> In order to demonstrate the capability of our product across an entire
>> encyclopaedia we have fully integrated it with Wikipedia. The advantage for
>> Wikipedia users is that each time they view an article from the
>> encyclopedia they are provided with an automatically generated list of
>> related Wikipedia articles.
>
> Hmmm, how is this information more accurate than that provided by the
> "What links here" feature (which enumerates backlinks to an article)?
> Incidentally, "What links here" doesn't work on your site, probably
> because the links table has not been generated.
>
> In any case, do you plan to keep up the site? A Wikipedia mirror would
> certainly be nice.
>
It would be if it respected the copyright of the text and the code. It
clearly doesn't, yet. For one thing, they need to change the name of their
mirror. But I hope they're willing to work with us to make it comply with
the GFDL. There are also questions about the GPL phpwiki code that are
raised, though it does seem at first blush that they're properly keeping
their code separate from ours.


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Announce-l] slight change to the announce-l list

body:
I have made the ANNOUNCE-L list stop advertising itself on
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo.  Also, I have added
wikitech-l and wikipedia-l as subscribers to the list.

To my knowledge (and from looking at the archives), this list has
never been used, except to discuss whether or not it should be used
for announcements.  This being the case, I was getting tired of having
to discard the spam messages that come in on it.  I'm hoping that
removing the list from those advertised on the listinfo pag, I will
reduce the amount of junk that comes in on the list.

This list was originally meant as THE place for wikipedia
announcements (software changes, policy changes, etc.).  So, it only
makes sense that all lists that might be interested in such
information should be on the memberlist.  Of course, none of this
matters unless poeple start using it.

I'm happy either way.

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>

_______________________________________________
Announce-l mailing list
Announce-l at wikipedia.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/announce-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] [Announce-l] slight change to the announce-l list


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Thomas Corell wrote:
> a closer look in the maintenance directory from cvs esp.
> BuildTables.[inc|sql] showed differencs between those two files.
> (e.g. table user, user_touched).

buildTables.inc is currently canonical. It consists of a bunch of SQL
statements which are executed in turn, which strikes me as kind of silly.

I intended that buildTables.sql replace it, but it hasn't been kept up to
date and isn't yet used by anything.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Pedro M.V.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] is it possible?

body:
When typing this page, you recieve like result:

(There is currently no text in this page)

So, you can edit it and include text.

If your goal relating this page is look for another pages related with schengen ( this is, search topic related pages ), it?s very interesting the system would include automatically the text "schengen" in the search box, so you only have to click in the search button.

This would be a very interesting and usefull utility.

Regards.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brion Vibber" <vibber at aludra.usc.edu>
To: <wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 11:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] is it possible?

> On Tue, 25 Mar 2003, [iso-8859-1] Chuck Smith wrote:
> > Is it possible if someone types the name of an article
> > which doesn't yet have any text that that person could
> > be sent to a search page for that topic.  Thus, if I
> > type http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen, instead
> > of getting a page saying that this page doesn't exist,
> > I would instead get the search results page?  Would
> > anyone else want this?
>
> Already proposed, not yet implemented:
>
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_page_page
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 10:46:19AM -0800, Anthere wrote:
> > > Still, most of this article belongs to the
> > > [[cuniculture]] article, not to the rabbit one :-)
> >
> > I know, I know.  We got that all hashed out in Talk:
> > Rabbit (Australia).
> > I'll get to moving everything around one of these
> > days.
>
> Hu ? We ? I don't know ? Who are you ? :-)

I'm Marumari.  :)

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia HTML standards

body:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > (Nick Reinking <nick at twoevils.org>):
> > <SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript"> (capitalization suckiness)
>
> I did settle on lowercase tags--somebody else added that SCRIPT,
> which I'd love to remove as soon as I figure out what it's there
> for.

That's for the optional 'enhanced recentchanges', I believe. It should be
moved to a .js file and only referenced when using said enhanced
recentchanges.

>  Quotes are trickier: I can't just change them all unilaterally
> because they are chosen based on the possible values of the
> attribute: i.e., those that might possibly contain single quotes
> are put in doubles, and vice versa.

Better IMHO to always use htmlspecialchars() to escape attribute values
that aren't guaranteed to be safe (like integers that you've just
calculated).  Reduces the nasty-mistake potential.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
> (Thomas Corell <tcorell at igd.fhg.de>):
> Hello,
> a closer look in the maintenance directory from cvs esp.
> BuildTables.[inc|sql] showed differencs between those two files.
> (e.g. table user, user_touched).
>
> Possibly someone can tell me how the real tables look like, it will make
> porting Wikipedia to e.g postgeSQL easier.

buildTables.inc, which is included by createdb.php, is always the
most up-to-date schema. Older databases can be updated using the
valious "patch" files.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia HTML standards

body:
> >- All output, both inside the article text and outside, must
> > be fully W3C-compliant HTML 4.0 for now, and XHTML 1.0 at some
> > point in the future.
> >
> We need to close our <P> tags before we validate!

Only for XHTML, and we aren't there yet. The pages should
validate as HTML 4.0 Transitional now, modulo any bugs that
may have been introduced since I last did that (I know of
one I'm working on).

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia HTML standards

body:
On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 01:14:11PM -0600, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > >- All output, both inside the article text and outside, must
> > > be fully W3C-compliant HTML 4.0 for now, and XHTML 1.0 at some
> > > point in the future.
> > >
> > We need to close our
 tags before we validate!
>
> Only for XHTML, and we aren't there yet. The pages should
> validate as HTML 4.0 Transitional now, modulo any bugs that
> may have been introduced since I last did that (I know of
> one I'm working on).

I don't believe closing your
 tags violates 4.01, and it moves us
closer to XHTML.  As such, it seems like a damned good idea to me.  :)
What annoys me more is how ugly our HTML looks.  I'll admit; ugly HTML
is not wrong, but it is pretty distasteful.  Kind of like playing gothic
rock at a funeral.  :P  Could we settle on a standard look for our HTML?
I see things like this all the time (pulled out of rabbit):


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia HTML standards

body:
> (Nick Reinking <nick at twoevils.org>):
>
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
Hello,
a closer look in the maintenance directory from cvs esp.
BuildTables.[inc|sql] showed differencs between those two files.
(e.g. table user, user_touched).

Possibly someone can tell me how the real tables look like, it will make
porting Wikipedia to e.g postgeSQL easier.

Smurf
--
  --- Anthill Inside! ---


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia HTML standards

body:
On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 01:36:50PM -0600, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > (Nick Reinking <nick at twoevils.org>):
> >
> >


from_name: Chuck Smith

subject: [Wikipedia-l] most excellent!

body:
> Message: 5
> From: "Pedro M.V." <macv at interlap.com.ar>
> To: <wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] is it possible?
> Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 12:43:55 +0100
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
>
> When typing this page, you recieve like result:
>
> (There is currently no text in this page)
>
> So, you can edit it and include text.
>
> If your goal relating this page is look for another
> pages related with schengen ( this is, search topic
> related pages ), it?s very interesting the system
> would include automatically the text "schengen" in
> the search box, so you only have to click in the
> search button.
>
> This would be a very interesting and usefull
> utility.
>
> Regards.

This sounds most excellent!

Chuck

=====
Learn Esperanto! - http://www.lernu.net/
Enciklopedio: http://eo.wikipedia.org/

___________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia HTML standards

body:
> (Nick Reinking <nick at twoevils.org>):
>
> Oh, and one other thing.  It seems to me that it could be good to
> shorten the name of some of the styles.  I mean, it may seem silly to
> shorten 'internal' to 'int' and 'external' to 'ext', but hear me out.
> Say, these appear 20 times on the average page (probably low, they
> appear 55 times on Rabbit.)

I'm not at all resistant to that idea--also, making the internal
links use relative URLs should tighten things up as well.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
> (Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu>):
> On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Thomas Corell wrote:
> > a closer look in the maintenance directory from cvs esp.
> > BuildTables.[inc|sql] showed differencs between those two files.
> > (e.g. table user, user_touched).
>
> buildTables.inc is currently canonical. It consists of a bunch of SQL
> statements which are executed in turn, which strikes me as kind of silly.
>
> I intended that buildTables.sql replace it, but it hasn't been kept up to
> date and isn't yet used by anything.

Originally it was the .sql, but I changed it to PHP code because
proper initialization of the database requires filling in some data
from variables defined in LocalSettings.php. The only reasonable
way to do that is with PHP code.

Of course, we could change the PHP code to read all the CREATE
TABLE/CREATE INDEX type statements from a .sql file.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


body:
Nick Reinking wrote:

>On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 10:34:50AM +0000, tarquin wrote:
>
>
>>
>>
>Unfortunately, the topbar is also absolute in your version, that is
>something that I think is very useful to have fixed (seeing as I am
>often jumping from article to article, and always having an available
>'Go' and 'Edit' button would be very convenient.
>
The problem with that is that with large font sizes the top bar becomes
two lines. The margin-top given to the content can't cope with that
eventuality.
At that point, it either overflows or is partially obscured :(
(I *wish* CSS absolutes & fixed could be made to affect flow!)

>
>I know other hacks that will work with IE-6, but I didn't want to add
>them in until the regular version had settled down.  I will peek at your
>ems code.  :)  Also, I miss the borders.  Would people rather have the
>bordered, or non-bordered version?
>

Like so?
I like both :-)
since the HTML is identical, we can provde alternative stylesheets --
Mozilla and Opera users will be able to choose a colour (&border) scheme :-D

>
>
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia HTML standards

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

>If you want redesign wikipedia's look or add a skin, here's
>what I consider to be the basic requirements. Others may want to
>add to or quibble with these, but I consider them important to
>the point where I would not be likely to implement anything
>that violates them:
>
>- All output, both inside the article text and outside, must
>  be fully W3C-compliant HTML 4.0 for now, and XHTML 1.0 at some
>  point in the future.
>
>
>
We need to close our <P> tags before we validate!


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
> In order to demonstrate the capability of our product across an entire
> encyclopaedia we have fully integrated it with Wikipedia. The advantage for
> Wikipedia users is that each time they view an article from the
> encyclopedia they are provided with an automatically generated list of
> related Wikipedia articles.

Hmmm, how is this information more accurate than that provided by the
"What links here" feature (which enumerates backlinks to an article)?
Incidentally, "What links here" doesn't work on your site, probably
because the links table has not been generated.

In any case, do you plan to keep up the site? A Wikipedia mirror would
certainly be nice.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
On Sat, 29 Mar 2003, Thomas Corell wrote:
> Ok, usually the next question is: any further 'useless' files?

Yes, plenty. Start with the documentation, it's all wrong. ;)

Not even sure what these are:
SkinFramed.php
SpecialNeglectedpages.php
SpecialVote.php
sql/

Not yet used:
stylesheets/wikibits.js
  Javascript code for enhanced recentchanges (use this instead
  of pumping it into the page header), plus unfinished code
  for checking client's timezone.

SpecialIntl.php
  New interlanguage link code. Experimental, not yet enabled.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Nick Reinking wrote:

>
>I had actually changed the topbar to use ems last night - now,
>everything up to 150% text size looks fine in Mozilla, and ever 200% is
>workable.  Note that a 200% zoom in Mozilla gets about 10 words to a
>line, so I doubt anybody will ever zoom to that size (they will likely
>use zooming tools that allow you to zoom over sections).
>
Let's have a fixed topbar then :-)
can we fool IE into displaying *something* reasonable for that too?
it would be great if this works on all browsers -- we can have this as
the new default skin. :-D

Have you considered using this for the left and righ portions of the
topbar instead of the table:

div.lefthalf {
    text-align:left;
    }
div.righthalf {
    float:right;
}

>
>
>


from_name: Langdon Stevenson

body:
Dear Wikipedia Technical Team,

Object Positive is a developer of innovative information management tools
based in Sydney, Australia. We have just launched a new product which uses
a "smart" technology to improve the users' experience when using
information systems like Wikipedia.

Our flagship product is InfoWrangler Sever. InfoWrangler Server is an
application which discovers additional information within a set of data. If
a user finds some information they are interested in, InfoWrangler can
assist them in finding more information that is relevant - information
which cannot easily be found by conventional search processes.

In order to demonstrate the capability of our product across an entire
encyclopaedia we have fully integrated it with Wikipedia. The advantage for
Wikipedia users is that each time they view an article from the
encyclopedia they are provided with an automatically generated list of
related Wikipedia articles.

To view a demonstration of InfoWrangler Server working with Wikipedia
please visit the demo page of our web site:
http://www.infowrangler.com/demo.html

We would appreciate any feedback you could provide on this enhancement to
Wikipedia. If you feel that it is of value then we would be happy to
investigate ways in which we may be able to work with Wikipedia moving
forward.

Looking forward to your comments.

Regards - Langdon Stevenson

----------------------------------------------------
Managing Director
Object Positive
Sydney, Australia

Ph: + 61 2 9659 2344
Fx: + 61 2 9659 2355

http://www.infowrangler.com
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
On Sat, 29 Mar 2003, Thomas Corell wrote:
> Yust another thing to ask, to avoid mistakes. I hope I got this right:
>
> On the real server there exists for each language a database, in the
> creation scripts usually called wikidb. The php-scripts exists only one
> time (I remember Brion told me that not long ago) and there is some
> function which selects the right database. I think depending on the
> domain name or so. (I will find this in the near future, but it's not
> important for database design)

Mmm, not exactly. They all use the same base source, but they're
duplicated in a series of directories. Each has various settings in
LocalSettings.php different, such as language selection, name of database
to use, the URL to use for self-links, etc.

The Apache webserver is configured with name-based virtual hosts to use
this or that directory as the web root depending on the domain name used
to access it (so thus the language / meta / wiktionary / test).

> Are there any bad mistakes, I made in this statements?
>
> Just because I ran over it: There was the idea of having a unique userid
> in all wikis. Login once, registerd everywhere ;)
> There is the hard way: everybody register again,

Ouch! :)

> or the soft way: we
> design a 'master'-userid, and the users can 'attach' language specific
> UID's and Names to this 'master-UID'. (thats just an idea wandering
> around in my brain, may be impossible to implement ;)

My present master plan is that we'll reassign all user_ids. This will be
an automatic process, for the most part: no one needs to know their
user_id (the auto-incremented integer key), we just need to match up all
the identical accounts, merge them into a central user database, and
swap out all the numbers in the cur & old tables.

Everyone needs new login cookies at that point, of course, since it would
run over all subdomains of .wikipedia.org, so no problem that the id is
different.

However, there are two potential pitfalls:
- People using different login _names_ on different wikis would have to
settle on one.

- There might be some cases of duplicate names on different wikis which
belong to different people. We can verify if they're the same by checking
that passwords match, but some people may use different passwords, so we
can't be 100% sure in that case.

> Ok, I will download one of the database dumps tomorrow, after getting 3
> to 4 hours of sleep ;)

'Night. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: legal liability issues

body:
I don't know which article of the constitution it is
in. I read it in the book "Cyber Rights" by Mike
Goodwin. I guess it was inaccurate.

> Oh, really?  Which article would that be?

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
On 3/28/03 8:15 PM, "Tim Starling" <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I've just written a bot,
> and Wikipedia policy says it should be approved before I set it loose.
>
> I recently moved [[Brisbane, Queensland]] to [[Brisbane]], and then started
> fixing the links to those pages. I got through about 100 pages and I wasn't
> even a third of the way there, and I though "it would be easier to just
> write a bot". So I did.
>
> The bot takes a list of article titles, and runs a Perl search and replace
> operation on the HTML escaped wikitext. The idea is to manually extract the
> list of titles from Special:Whatlinkshere, and then replace all links to the
> old page with links to the new page.
>
> It will be running from username "Timbot". I've tested it on
> test.wikipedia.org. It runs in "trickle" mode, i.e. like this:
>
Is it just for Brisbane, Queensland?

An easier thing to do might be to request the change be made from the
backend instead.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l digest, Vol 1 #234 - 11 msgs

body:
I was under the impression that the default query was
to place the AND results before the OR results, which
seems to get a lot of results in the right order.

> It seems to me the query "and" rather than "or"
> makes
> sense. Could the search functionality be easily
> improved that way ?
>
> Yours,
> Athypique

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
On Fri, 2003-03-28 at 20:47, Tim Starling wrote:
> >Is it just for Brisbane, Queensland?
> >
> >An easier thing to do might be to request the change be made from the
> >backend instead.
>
> No, it's not just for Brisbane, Queensland, it's for whatever I need it for
> in the future. In the near future, there's a few other cities and towns I
> want to move. And it wouldn't be easier in terms of human effort, since the
> bot's already written and ready to go. It's only ~70 lines -- it's rather
> scary how easy these things are, especially since it's one of the first
> things I've ever written in perl and it only took me a few hours. Of course
> there's the issue of swamping RC -- if someone is happy to do it from the
> backend to reduce the annoyance level, then that's alright with me.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
We'd be much better off if we add the needed functionality on the
serverside, I believe.

If you could describe exactly what the problem is that you wrote the
code to solve, that would be very helpful.

I'm not saying "don't ever run this"; I'm saying that we should think
about the consequences of this.

I really think we should err on the side of not worrying so much about
"fixing" links, if the redirects go to the right place. Redirects don't
affect the functionality for the user, and because of that, there should
be a degree of intransigence about adding complexity/running bots to fix
a problem that isn't much of a problem.

Please send me the code.


subject: Fwd: Re: [Wikitech-l] Introducing InfoWrangler for Wikipedia

body:
On Fri, 2003-03-28 at 23:59, Langdon Stevenson wrote:
>
> > > In any case, do you plan to keep up the site? A Wikipedia mirror would
> > > certainly be nice.
> > >
> >It would be if it respected the copyright of the text and the code. It
> >clearly doesn't, yet. For one thing, they need to change the name of their
> >mirror. But I hope they're willing to work with us to make it comply with
> >the GFDL.
>
> Wikipedia is a great resource (that I have personally enjoyed contributing
> information to) and we respect the work and effort that has gone into its
> creation.  We want to support that effort, and definitely want to comply
> with the licence terms.  Any assistance (by pointing out problems) you can
> give us is greatly appreciated.  We will modify our installation to make it
> compliant.

Excellent! I'm noone official, but I've done a serious study of the
GFDL, etc. and discussed its implementation with RMS, so I have a pretty
good handle on what to do.

There are two primary obligations of a mirror/redistribution of the
Wikipedia content under the GFDL: rename it (that is, don't let visitors
think that they are seeing the Official Wikipedia), and add a "History"
page.

It gets slightly more complicated if you make your version of the site
editable; then you have to make sure that the changed source content is
regularly updated and readily available.

The "History" page would look something like this:

History

    Wikipedia: The Free Encylopedia, 2001-2003, Wikipedia
    Contributors, http://www.wikipedia.org/

    InfoWrangler Wikipedia Mirror, 2003, Object Positive Staff,
    Object Positive

The wiki source used for the InfoWrangler Wikipedia Mirror is
    available at <some url>

> >There are also questions about the GPL phpwiki code that are
> >raised, though it does seem at first blush that they're properly keeping
> >their code separate from ours.
>
> Yes, we believe this is the case.  InfoWrangler Server is a stand alone
> application that provides a service to Wikipedia.  It does not rely on any
> database info, or code from Wikipedia.
>
> We have of course modified some of the PHP code of Wikipedia so that
> appropriate calls are made to InfoWrangler Server when a page is
> viewed/created/edited.  This is currently being packaged and will be
> released to the Wikipedia development team when its ready.

Excellent. Actually, as long as the InfoWrangler code is independent of
Wikipedia, the terms of the GPL only obligate you to share modifications
of the Wikipedia code if you ever sell/redistribute that code to third
parties--not if you simply *run* the modified code.

That is, we definitely welcome any improvements/extensions to the code
you make, but simply running a modified version of the Wikipedia code
puts you under no code-sharing obligations.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Bot approval request

body:
On Saturday 29 March 2003 12:02 am, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> Looks like you've done you're homework. To run the bot the first time,
> I'd set the delay to something nice and long like 30 seconds, and run
> it at some off-peak hour, and go to RecentChanges and check its work
> while it runs.
>
> But if this is something that will need to be done a lot, then we
> probably should look at doing it directly to the backend database,
> because that will use less server bandwidth and not clutter up the
> recent changes and the article histories.
>
> And yes, I'd like to see the code before you unleash it.

Eh? Why not just "approve" the bot so that any edits made by user:Timbot do
not show-up in RC? Then Tim can run the bot at full speed and not bug
anybody. But a developer should take a look at the code first, as you say.

--mav


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
> (Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com>):
> I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I've just written a
> bot, and Wikipedia policy says it should be approved before I set it loose.

Looks like you've done you're homework. To run the bot the first time,
I'd set the delay to something nice and long like 30 seconds, and run
it at some off-peak hour, and go to RecentChanges and check its work
while it runs.

But if this is something that will need to be done a lot, then we
probably should look at doing it directly to the backend database,
because that will use less server bandwidth and not clutter up the
recent changes and the article histories.

And yes, I'd like to see the code before you unleash it.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: Thomas Corell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>>(Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu>):
>>On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Thomas Corell wrote:
>>
>
>>buildTables.inc is currently canonical. It consists of a bunch of SQL
>>statements which are executed in turn, which strikes me as kind of silly.
>>I intended that buildTables.sql replace it, but it hasn't been kept up to
>>date and isn't yet used by anything.
> Originally it was the .sql, but I changed it to PHP code because
> proper initialization of the database requires filling in some data
> from variables defined in LocalSettings.php. The only reasonable
> way to do that is with PHP code.
> Of course, we could change the PHP code to read all the CREATE
> TABLE/CREATE INDEX type statements from a .sql file.

Ok, usually the next question is: any further 'useless' files? Possibly
deleting this file (cvs usually still keeps a copy as far as I know)
will cause less confusion ;) Ot at least, if someone plans to use it in
the future, add a appropriate comment.

Sorry for asking such a lot silly questions, but it is very hard to get
a overview of the code for me. No problem for someone coded and cared
for it a long time, of course, but for someone you to it :(

Smurf
--
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Mar 2003, Thomas Corell wrote:
>>Ok, usually the next question is: any further 'useless' files?
> Yes, plenty. Start with the documentation, it's all wrong. ;)
*sight* I understood sofar: RTFS ;)

Yust another thing to ask, to avoid mistakes. I hope I got this right:

On the real server there exists for each language a database, in the
creation scripts usually called wikidb. The php-scripts exists only one
time (I remember Brion told me that not long ago) and there is some
function which selects the right database. I think depending on the
domain name or so. (I will find this in the near future, but it's not
important for database design)

So in the start of it, a connection to the appropriate database is
opened, and the thing starts running.

Are there any bad mistakes, I made in this statements?

Just because I ran over it: There was the idea of having a unique userid
in all wikis. Login once, registerd everywhere ;)
There is the hard way: everybody register again, or the soft way: we
design a 'master'-userid, and the users can 'attach' language specific
UID's and Names to this 'master-UID'. (thats just an idea wandering
around in my brain, may be impossible to implement ;)

Ok, I will download one of the database dumps tomorrow, after getting 3
to 4 hours of sleep ;)

Smurf
--
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] Be on the lookout, 172 is back

body:
172 seems to really like his dictators and only appears to think warm, cozy
thoughts about them.

He has just added a lot of text to [[Saddam Hussein]]. Now it is not as bad as
what I've been hearing from the Iraqi Information Ministry but 172's text has
failed to mention /anything/ bad about the man (POV of omission) and has
failed to attribute many controversial statements to their adherents (it
reads like an essay - Hm. I see is editing it some right now making it a
little better).

Could somebody in the know bring some balance to this article (for example
there is nothing in the article mentioning the oppressive policies of Hussein
or the fact that he has terrorized his own people to such and extent that
speaking out against him can get you killed - not to mention his ordering the
use of chemical weapons against the Iranians and Kurds and the brutal
crushing of uprisings following the Gulf War. Also the fact that the Arab
world doesn't much care for him at all except for the fact that he has been
standing up against American imperialism)?

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

WikiKarma
The usual at [[March 21]]


body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 172 seems to really like his dictators and only
> appears to think warm, cozy
> thoughts about them.
>
> He has just added a lot of text to [[Saddam
> Hussein]]. Now it is not as bad as
> what I've been hearing from the Iraqi Information
> Ministry but 172's text has
> failed to mention /anything/ bad about the man (POV
> of omission)

Funny :-)
Just as Fox News fail to mention /anything/ bad about
Bush !

> Could somebody in the know bring some balance to
> this article (for example
> there is nothing in the article mentioning the
> oppressive policies of Hussein
> or the fact that he has terrorized his own people to
> such and extent that
> speaking out against him can get you killed - not to
> mention his ordering the
> use of chemical weapons against the Iranians and
> Kurds and the brutal
> crushing of uprisings following the Gulf War. Also
> the fact that the Arab
> world doesn't much care for him at all except for
> the fact that he has been
> standing up against American imperialism)?

And for sure, it is not as if this "except" was
important :-)

Tough to imagine a tyran may have good points for him,
eh ? lol

Oooooups

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com


from_name: Oualmakran Youssef

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Announce-l] slight change to the announce-l
 list

body:
Hello,

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AEmbassy is a good place to
announce such things.

Regards
Youssef


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Mmm, not exactly. They all use the same base source, but they're
> duplicated in a series of directories. Each has various settings in
> LocalSettings.php different, such as language selection, name of database
> to use, the URL to use for self-links, etc.

Just to be sure, you could change some code in any of the php files in
the e.g. german wikipedia only? I though the only file which is language
  dependend are the Language*.php ones and Localsettings.php.

> However, there are two potential pitfalls:
> - People using different login _names_ on different wikis would have to
> settle on one.
> - There might be some cases of duplicate names on different wikis which
> belong to different people. We can verify if they're the same by checking
> that passwords match, but some people may use different passwords, so we
> can't be 100% sure in that case.

Well, that are problems you got, if you take the easy way. First of all,
you save the passwords in clear text in the db? *running to the source*
found md5 *wipe* But no salt. Only the hash! *shiver*.  I see the urgent
reason to get new user accounts and passworts.

I still not shure why we can't have both, Single sign on (I like those
buzzwords ;) and different names. A table like this:

create table userid_at_wiki (
   newuserid int references user(userid),
   wikidb varchar(25),
   olduid int,
   oldname  varchar(255)
);

SELECT userid_at_wiki.newuserid,
        userid_at_wiki.wikidb,
        userid_at_wiki.olduid,
        userid_at_wiki.oldname,
        user.name
FROM userid_at_wiki JOIN user
ON userid_at_wiki.newuserid = user.newuserid
WHERE user.name = 'Smurf';
Result:
11245, 'meta', 1565, 'Smurf', 'Smurf'
11245, 'de', 756, 'Smurf', 'Smurf'
11245, 'foo', 345, 'yawn', 'Smurf'
(3 rows)

will get around some of you problems brion, IMHO .

Smurf
--
Examples and code are fully experimental and untested, use without
warranty.
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
On Sat, 2003-03-29 at 00:06, Thomas Corell wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > Mmm, not exactly. They all use the same base source, but they're
> > duplicated in a series of directories. Each has various settings in
> > LocalSettings.php different, such as language selection, name of database
> > to use, the URL to use for self-links, etc.
>
> Just to be sure, you could change some code in any of the php files in
> the e.g. german wikipedia only?

One could, but one would only rarely want to.

There are a few performance tweaks that have been hacked into the
English wiki specifically (page counters disabled; redirect search to
google during peak hours), and the Chinese and Meta stylesheets have
been tweaked a little, but other than they all should be identical aside
from LocalSettings.php.

>  I though the only file which is language
>   dependend are the Language*.php ones and Localsettings.php.

That's right. The above are installation-dependent, not
language-dependent.

> Well, that are problems you got, if you take the easy way. First of all,
> you save the passwords in clear text in the db? *running to the source*
> found md5 *wipe* But no salt. Only the hash! *shiver*.  I see the urgent
> reason to get new user accounts and passworts.

Suggestions on improving security are always welcome...

> I still not shure why we can't have both, Single sign on (I like those
> buzzwords ;) and different names.

Mainly because that would be strange and inconsistent. :) We need
single-name ability to prevent name-snatching. For instance, someone
other than Aoineko signed up the Aoineko name on meta.wikipedia.org in
order to slyly misattribute posts under his name.

Now, hypothetically we could _also_ allow other names to be hung onto
that account, but that seems excessive IMHO.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Hi Erik

> > In order to demonstrate the capability of our product across an entire
> > encyclopaedia we have fully integrated it with Wikipedia. The advantage for
> > Wikipedia users is that each time they view an article from the
> > encyclopedia they are provided with an automatically generated list of
> > related Wikipedia articles.
>
>Hmmm, how is this information more accurate than that provided by the
>"What links here" feature (which enumerates backlinks to an article)?

InfoWrangler doesn't necessarily provide more "accurate" links to related
material, but it will provide a more thorough set of links without the
author having to physically construct (or maintain) them.

In the case of the Gawain page in Wikipedia there are three entries in the
"What links here" page (as viewed on the main site, we will have a look at
generating the links for our install).  They are:
Solar Deity
Prince Valiant
King Arthur
By contrast InfoWrangler has listed 20 links (which is a configured maximum
in this demonstration) that are all on topic.
King Arthur
Sir Galahad
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Tintagel, Cornwall, England
Lancelot
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Arthur, Prince of Wales
Prince Valiant
Talk:Dubious historical resources
Arthur of Britain
Arthurian legend
Arthur
Guinevere
Uther Pendragon
Round Table
Literature cycle
Merlin
Bodmin Moor
Holy Grail
Monty Python and the Holy Grail/Black Knight
The notable inclusion is the third entry "Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight".  This doesn't appear in the back links page as neither author
thought to provide a link on the name Sir Gawain.  InfoWrangler generated
links are not intended to replace links/back links, but to complement them.

These links are generated automatically, without the need for any user
input.  If I were to add another article related to the topic of Sir Gawain
(and didn't know that the original existed), then InfoWrangler would notice
the association and link the docs up.  No human intervention required.  No
maintenance issue.  No fore-knowledge required.

This issue has been under discussion recently on the
gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc list in the post "most
excellent!".  This post discussed a requirement for a feature that would
show a Wikipedia author, pages related to the one they are working on.  If
I am reading that post right, I think that we are providing that kind of
feature.

>Incidentally, "What links here" doesn't work on your site, probably
>because the links table has not been generated.

Thanks for pointing that out, we will set it up.

>In any case, do you plan to keep up the site? A Wikipedia mirror would
>certainly be nice.

We do intend to keep the demonstration on-line.  Making it a proper mirror
to www.wikipedia.org is an option, but may require that we upgrade the
hardware hosting it (and pay for more band-width as well, depending on
traffic).  There are also technical issue of synchronisation to be
addressed.  We are happy to discuss this further.

Regards - Langdon
----------------------------------------------------
Managing Director
Object Positive
Sydney, Australia

Ph: + 61 2 9659 2344
Fx: + 61 2 9659 2355

http://www.infowrangler.com
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from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
As Mav said, he is at it again, this time at Mugabe, removing any information
that can be perceived as a critique.

Danny
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> Excellent! I'm noone official,

I'm someone official, and what Cunc says sounds right to me!

> It gets slightly more complicated if you make your version of the site
> editable; then you have to make sure that the changed source content is
> regularly updated and readily available.


subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
I have just protected the page Robert Mugabe. Everything even somewhat
critical of Mugabe is being removed by 172 and called POV.

Danny
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body:
Anthere wrote:
> >  Now it is not as bad as
> > what I've been hearing from the Iraqi Information
> > Ministry but 172's text has
> > failed to mention /anything/ bad about the man (POV
> > of omission)
>
> Funny :-)
> Just as Fox News fail to mention /anything/ bad about
> Bush !

Well, clearly, we hold ourselves to a higher standard than either the
Iraqi Information Ministry or Fox News.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
In a message dated 3/29/2003 11:32:48 AM Eastern Standard Time,
sannse at delphiforums.com writes:

> I think if the page is to be protected it should be in the pre-edit war
> state.  I've reverted to the version from 24th March.
>
>

In fact, that was the material that 172 was removing. My argument with him
began when he took out the materials because he claimed that they were POV.

Danny
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from_name: Thomas R. Koll

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Announce-l] slight change to the announce-l list

body:
> [...] Of course, none of this matters unless poeple start using it.

I?ll do so now.
Could you annonce that the German Wikipedia has hit 13.000 articles tonight?

ciao, TomK32

--
www.TomK32.de -- just a geek trying to change
the world


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I've just written a bot,
and Wikipedia policy says it should be approved before I set it loose.

I recently moved [[Brisbane, Queensland]] to [[Brisbane]], and then started
fixing the links to those pages. I got through about 100 pages and I wasn't
even a third of the way there, and I though "it would be easier to just
write a bot". So I did.

The bot takes a list of article titles, and runs a Perl search and replace
operation on the HTML escaped wikitext. The idea is to manually extract the
list of titles from Special:Whatlinkshere, and then replace all links to the
old page with links to the new page.

It will be running from username "Timbot". I've tested it on
test.wikipedia.org. It runs in "trickle" mode, i.e. like this:

while (<ARTICLES>) {
    chomp($_);
    DoPage($_);
    if (time - $lastTime < $delay) {
        sleep($delay - $lastTime + $time);
    }
    $lastTime = time;
}

I'm open to suggestions as to the setting of $delay. If anyone wants to see
the rest of the code, I'll send it by private email.

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.?Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
>Is it just for Brisbane, Queensland?
>
>An easier thing to do might be to request the change be made from the
>backend instead.

No, it's not just for Brisbane, Queensland, it's for whatever I need it for
in the future. In the near future, there's a few other cities and towns I
want to move. And it wouldn't be easier in terms of human effort, since the
bot's already written and ready to go. It's only ~70 lines -- it's rather
scary how easy these things are, especially since it's one of the first
things I've ever written in perl and it only took me a few hours. Of course
there's the issue of swamping RC -- if someone is happy to do it from the
backend to reduce the annoyance level, then that's alright with me.

-- Tim Starling

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.?Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


body:
> > In any case, do you plan to keep up the site? A Wikipedia mirror would
> > certainly be nice.
> >
>It would be if it respected the copyright of the text and the code. It
>clearly doesn't, yet. For one thing, they need to change the name of their
>mirror. But I hope they're willing to work with us to make it comply with
>the GFDL.

Wikipedia is a great resource (that I have personally enjoyed contributing
information to) and we respect the work and effort that has gone into its
creation.  We want to support that effort, and definitely want to comply
with the licence terms.  Any assistance (by pointing out problems) you can
give us is greatly appreciated.  We will modify our installation to make it
compliant.

>There are also questions about the GPL phpwiki code that are
>raised, though it does seem at first blush that they're properly keeping
>their code separate from ours.

Yes, we believe this is the case.  InfoWrangler Server is a stand alone
application that provides a service to Wikipedia.  It does not rely on any
database info, or code from Wikipedia.

We have of course modified some of the PHP code of Wikipedia so that
appropriate calls are made to InfoWrangler Server when a page is
viewed/created/edited.  This is currently being packaged and will be
released to the Wikipedia development team when its ready.

Once again, we wish to support the Wikipedia project and respect the
licensing scheme it is released under.

Regards - Langdon

----------------------------------------------------
Managing Director
Object Positive
Sydney, Australia

Ph: + 61 2 9659 2344
Fx: + 61 2 9659 2355

http://www.infowrangler.com


from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
Danny wrote:

>>I have just protected the page Robert Mugabe. Everything even somewhat
critical of Mugabe is being removed by 172 and called POV.

I think if the page is to be protected it should be in the pre-edit war
state.  I've reverted to the version from 24th March.

I probably could have left the first two of today's edits, which I think
were neutral, but thought it best to take it right back to before today..

Anyway, I don't know what should be done now - I'll leave it to the more
experienced among you to decide.

sannse


subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
> As Mav said, he is at it again, this time at Mugabe, removing any
> information that can be perceived as a critique.

I checked out the Mugabe edits; while they're not as bad as I feared, 172
was clearly confrontational, and his reasoning flawed (he called
attributed statements he did not like non-NPOV). Please keep an eye on his
edits.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
> I have just protected the page Robert Mugabe. Everything even somewhat
> critical of Mugabe is being removed by 172 and called POV.

This is a violation of sysop guidelines. You are not allowed to protect a
page where an edit war occurs in which you yourself are involved. Please
do not do this. I have unprotected the page.

Sysops are NOT editors.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Iraq and chemical weapons

body:
This would be a great place for wikimedia news reporting. There shouldn't be encyclopedia articles on current events. If there is a contraversy about what the facts are, then any product that comes out will have to be unencyclopedic.  We don't want to just be a quote book. Instead, we should have a seperate branch of wikipedia.  We were talking about it before but the conversation just petered out and everyone forgot about it all. The changes in code would be trivial: just a few text changes. Somebody registered Wikimedia.org for wikipedia (I'm not sure about the state of the transfer of ownership) and I think it would be great to put it on the server and turn "current events" into a link to it.  The news is unfitting for an encyclopedia.  History, even recent history, however, is. Maybe news from a month or more ago should have a clone transfered to Wikipedia so that if you edit one it changes both.

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikitech-l] FW: Code for Timbot

body:
----------
From: "Tim Starling" <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 10:56:46 +1000
To: fredbaud at ctelco.net
Subject: Re: Code for Timbot

>Please send me the code for Timbot.

No.

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
> From: "Tim Starling" <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2003 12:15:51 +1100
> To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request
>
>

"I'm open to suggestions as to the setting of $delay. If anyone wants to see
the rest of the code, I'll send it by private email.

-- Tim Starling."

What's up with this guy?

Fred


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
Tim,

I noticed that when you applied to be a sysop you said you had never been in
an edit war, that seemed kind of funny at the time. The thing is anyone who
tries hard here to write NPOV articles will eventually bump up against
someone like RK who wants to argue. That has nothing at all to do with the
technical side. I have only a normal interest in looking at the code. If
someone who has received it would send it I would appreciate it. Paranoia
about a revert bot is really out of place.

Fred

> From: "Tim Starling" <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 12:07:20 +1000
> To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request
>
>>
>> "I'm open to suggestions as to the setting of $delay. If anyone wants to
>> see
>> the rest of the code, I'll send it by private email.
>>
>> -- Tim Starling."
>>
>> What's up with this guy?
>>
>> Fred
>
> Sorry if I gave the wrong impression, but the reason I'm sending it by
> private email is so that I control who gets it. As I said on User:Timbot:
>
> :In keeping with Wikipedia policy, the source code is secret,
> :however, it will be made available via email to well-behaved
> :users if required
>
> Fred, you've been here only since November, your first post to wikitech-l
> was in February. With those 224 edits, you've only managed to piss me off
> with a non-productive and persistent edit war over chiropractic medicine. In
> that short time, you've managed to form an impression in my mind of
> unilateralism and an aversion to real debate. You're not in a position to
> contribute to the approval process, so why do you want the bot code? That
> bot could be used very destructively if it fell into the hands of someone
> interested in enforcing partisan article names. With a minor modification,
> it could be made into an automated revert-bot.
>
> Perhaps if The Cunctator or Lee have formed a better impression of you, you
> can convince one of them to give you the code.
>
> -- Tim Starling.
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.?Go to
> http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database Tables

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>>Well, that are problems you got, if you take the easy way. First of all,
>>you save the passwords in clear text in the db? *running to the source*
>>found md5 *wipe* But no salt. Only the hash! *shiver*.  I see the urgent
>>reason to get new user accounts and passworts.
> Suggestions on improving security are always welcome...

Something like  $hash =  md5( $userid . $passwort );
I think thats a common way for md5 passwords.

> Mainly because that would be strange and inconsistent. :) We need
> single-name ability to prevent name-snatching. For instance, someone
> other than Aoineko signed up the Aoineko name on meta.wikipedia.org in
> order to slyly misattribute posts under his name.

Oh, well this was only intended to be a solution for old users. I
possibly missed to write this.

Make a list of uid's and names of all wiki's with the wiki name. Block
all the used names for a while (any idea about removing/timing accounts
out in mind?) and every old user can 'promote' an old uid to a new uid
with the right passwort, or add it to the 'alternate names list', or
possibly remove the old name from the blocking list with the right
passwort, of course.

That will be a script totaly outside normal wiki pages, becouse after
some month you can throw it in the virtual paper basket ;)

But, of course we can start although a run to the new names ;)
Smurf
--
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] It is time to ban Michael

body:
He has not at all headed the advice or warnings of anybody and continues to
not even attempt to accommodate other users. He has yet to answer and
follow-up on /a single/ question or plea on his talk page about his behavior.
The closest he has come has been a response to Tarquin about the the KROQ
articles. But most of the time he just blanks his talk page or says "OK",
"fine" or "whatever" and then continues to do the /same/ things he was asked
not to do. Now he just replied to another suggestion;

:Yeah, yeah, yeah. ''WHAT'' ''FUCKING'' ''EVER!'' - Michael

I'm fed-up with watching other contributions get worn-down by this
unrepentant, unreformable, anti-social behavior. Everything this user
"contributes" has to be checked for accuracy and a good deal of it is just
plain wrong. Worse, after he is informed that it is wrong he has /reinserted/
the same "information".

I have seen no improvement since Jimbo's warning and I think it is now to kick
Michael off the island (in fact, his response to Jimbo's message was to blank
his talk page). He does edit each day with a different IP but we have learned
with 142.177 that simply reverting everything he posts soon after posting it
(SoftSecurity) should do the job (an IP block would be nearly useless here
since he edits in the 64.175.xxx.xxx range)

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

WikiKarma
The usual at [[March 23]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: It is time to ban Michael

body:
"He has not at all headed the advice or warnings of anybody"

 Replace "headed" with "heeded"

Damn dyslexia.

--mav


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
>We'd be much better off if we add the needed functionality on the
>serverside, I believe.

Perhaps, but I believe in the motto "if you want something done, do it
yourself." Who's going to write this server-side code -- you're obviously
not interested.

>If you could describe exactly what the problem is that you wrote the
>code to solve, that would be very helpful.
>
>I'm not saying "don't ever run this"; I'm saying that we should think
>about the consequences of this.
>
>I really think we should err on the side of not worrying so much about
>"fixing" links, if the redirects go to the right place. Redirects don't
>affect the functionality for the user, and because of that, there should
>be a degree of intransigence about adding complexity/running bots to fix
>a problem that isn't much of a problem.

I think you basically understand why I wrote it - to fix links after a page
move. There's a few hundred national parks articles that have been created
with a bot/template -- they form the bulk of the work. I understand your
point of view -- no, it doesn't really matter when there are working
redirects. I'm just a perfectionist, that's all.

Please understand that this bot will be make much less impact on RC than if
I did it by hand. Like I said, I did about 100 of them manually. I was able
to get them out quite quickly, doing them in batches of 15 or so I
absolutely swamped RC for about 20 minutes. No-one complained about that.

>Please send me the code.

Done, and I sent a copy to Lee as well.

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
>But if this is something that will need to be done a lot, then we
>probably should look at doing it directly to the backend database,
>because that will use less server bandwidth and not clutter up the
>recent changes and the article histories.

The kind of task I'm doing is done by hand fairly regularly on Wikpedia,
although perhaps on a smaller scale per job. It would be nice to provide a
proper "Special:" interface to allow contributors (perhaps just sysops) to
be able to do this more easily. However, I'm not holding my breath waiting.
I can always do it by hand (or pretend I'm doing it by hand).

As for the impact of this particular bot -- I think it will be on the scale
of hundreds (not thousands) of edits. I'm aware of the general suspicion
regarding bots around here -- I'll only use it when it's really necessary
(i.e. important enough to have been done by hand).

>And yes, I'd like to see the code before you unleash it.

Done.

-- Tim Starling

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.?Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
On Sat, 2003-03-29 at 01:21, Tim Starling wrote:
> >We'd be much better off if we add the needed functionality on the
> >serverside, I believe.
>
> Perhaps, but I believe in the motto "if you want something done, do it
> yourself." Who's going to write this server-side code -- you're obviously
> not interested.

Meanwhile, you obviously _are_ interested in making this ability
available. If you'd like to try your hand, I'd be delighted.

As a temporary solution, I've no objection to a bot, but it is something
that would be better off available in the software as something that
could be done in conjunction with a rename operation. Someone who wants
to do this frequently would probably prefer that to running a bot over
and over and over.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] weekeepeedee-uh Libel

body:
>Dan>"According to the constitution of the united states,
libel   should be solved out of the courts simply by
notifying everyone of the incorrect information."

>Sean>Oh, really?  Which article would that be?

The idea I think Dan is getting at is 'good faith' - If a good faith effort
isnt made to deal with the issue.. vis a vis.. a retraction, etc... then a
judge is likely to view the issue as beneath the court.
We had a brief talk about this..
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3ALibel

The thing I'm curious about is, with regard to the setting up of a Wikimedia
foundation... and the necessary formalizing of some sort of policy.. vis a
vis libel issues...  The creation of an NPO would take some of the heat off
of Jim, but would also put the WP in the hands of essentially...
beaurocrats.. some of whom would no doubt 'fit a certain mold.' Just poking
my nose in... -DK


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [WikiEN-l] weekeepeedee-uh Libel

body:
On Sat, 2003-03-29 at 20:41, Stevertigo wrote:
> The thing I'm curious about is, with regard to the setting up of a Wikimedia
> foundation... and the necessary formalizing of some sort of policy.. vis a
> vis libel issues...

What would such a policy need to say that the Neutral Point of View
policy does not?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Anthere

body:
--- "Thomas R. Koll" <tomk32 at gmx.de> wrote:
> > [...] Of course, none of this matters unless
> poeple start using it.
>
> I?ll do so now.
> Could you annonce that the German Wikipedia has hit
> 13.000 articles tonight?

Eh great ! good for you

We will soon be at 9000 on the fr

Hum, that leads me to the following points

1. Was the count system for pages changed ? If it was,
when was it ? When it is changed, could it be
announced on the "announced list" please ? It will
also need to be made obvious on the stats pages

2. When are we going to have the counts of hits per
page up again on the english wiki ? with the new
server ? when is that new server expected ? could we
have any time line here ?

3. Could it be possible that the "random page" be (per
option) chosen with a size threashold ? This would be
to avoid all these pages about dates and french little
villages that keep on appearing on random pages :-).
Editors would put the option without threashold for
article-to-improve, and readers would have a
threashold to remove stubs when just chasing
interesting articles to *read*
(this request reported from some french people)

4. Could we slightly improve the search box, maybe by
having a drop down menu aside from it : search in
encyclopedia by default as right now, search in
personnal pages, search in meta pages...but have it at
first level, not on a second page, after a first
unfruitful search.

Some French people have replaced "comma" hunting, by
"redirect" hunting, and it is making very tough (and
very server demanding) to repeat two times the search
when you don't remember how to get to the page about
mispellings

5. About mispellings : French people are suffering a
lot each time they see a mispelling; that's a
biological issue I guess.
Some started removing any redirection of common
mispellings, upon the reason having these mispelled
pages is somehow a way to give officiality (to
recognise) to the mispelling.
So, since others protest and undelete the
redirections, some asked if it would be possible to
somehow catch mispellings, redirect the mispelled
title to the right-spelled page, *and* dynamically
display a message at the top of the article saying
"you asked for "fachisme", this word does not exist,
and is probably a mispelling of "fascisme".

In short, google.

This is a reported suggestion

__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com


body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> >> [...] Of course, none of this matters unless
> poeple start using it.
>
> > I?ll do so now.
> > Could you annonce that the German Wikipedia has
> hit 13.000 articles tonight?
>
> Is that a magic number or something? No offense, but
> please do not spam
> the lists with useless announcements.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Erik

Greetings Erik,

You may not know for sure, but maybe the 13000 is a
magic number for German speaking people, just as 100
000 was for the english. Maybe they had set a sort of
a goal...

In any case, maybe an announcement for the new system
of pages counting could be on the way ? We know little
of it since you announced the result. Usually, after
something is voted, it is enforced/applied. Unless
there are some issues about the validity of the vote ?

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
--- Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Fred, you've been here only since November, your
> first post to wikitech-l
> was in February. With those 224 edits, you've only
> managed to piss me off
> with a non-productive and persistent edit war over
> chiropractic medicine. In
> that short time, you've managed to form an
> impression in my mind of
> unilateralism and an aversion to real debate. You're
> not in a position to
> contribute to the approval process, so why do you
> want the bot code?

Hello Tim,

what does that mean "you are not in a position to
contribute to the approval process" ???

Cheers, ant

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Changes and suggestions (was Re: slight change to the announce-l
 list)

body:
On Sat, 2003-03-29 at 23:52, Anthere wrote:
> 1. Was the count system for pages changed ? If it was,
> when was it ? When it is changed, could it be
> announced on the "announced list" please ? It will
> also need to be made obvious on the stats pages

The official vote results were to count pages in article space that are:
* not completely empty (size greater than 0 bytes)
* contain at least one link (search for "[[" should do)

Unless someone else snuck it in and forgot to tell me, the change has
not yet been put in effect, as I'm a lazy, grumpy bastard and way way
too busy of late. :)

> 2. When are we going to have the counts of hits per
> page up again on the english wiki ? with the new
> server ?

Maybe. I'm not terribly interested in the counts, so it's a very low
priority for me. If performance picks way up (or someone else
contributes a more server-friendly count method), it'll go back in.

>  when is that new server expected ? could we
> have any time line here ?

I know nothing... Jason? Jimbo? While I'm asking, Jimbo, how's that
foundation coming along? :)

> 3. Could it be possible that the "random page" be (per
> option) chosen with a size threashold ? This would be
> to avoid all these pages about dates and french little
> villages that keep on appearing on random pages :-).

Hehe... Traditionally people asked for that to keep out the city pages
on the English wiki, which wouldn't help at all since those pages are at
or _above_ the median article size...

> Editors would put the option without threashold for
> article-to-improve, and readers would have a
> threashold to remove stubs when just chasing
> interesting articles to *read*
> (this request reported from some french people)

Hmm, maybe. Personally I may find short articles more fun to read than
20-page dense monstrosities on n-dimensional topology. My personal
opinion is simply that if you don't like what the random selection turns
up, you should keep pushing the button! It isn't clear to me that
fudging the selection in one direction or another is a better default.

> 4. Could we slightly improve the search box, maybe by
> having a drop down menu aside from it : search in
> encyclopedia by default as right now, search in
> personnal pages, search in meta pages...but have it at
> first level, not on a second page, after a first
> unfruitful search.

Yes, that would be lovely.

> So, since others protest and undelete the
> redirections, some asked if it would be possible to
> somehow catch mispellings, redirect the mispelled
> title to the right-spelled page, *and* dynamically
> display a message at the top of the article saying
> "you asked for "fachisme", this word does not exist,
> and is probably a mispelling of "fascisme".

It has in the past been suggested to have a special type of redirect for
misspellings. These could have a "you're an illiterate idiot, from now
on please type 'X'" message display when visited or searched, but be
hidden from lists like the Allpages list or general search results.

Would that be a help?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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