from_name: Jovana Milicevic

subject: [Foundation-l] Weekly digest from Wikimedia SCG

body:
February 8th:
Dragan Sataric and Filip Maljkovic speaked in the programe at radio Idea.
Jovana Milicevic talked for radio Belgrade.
February 11th:
In Youth center Dom omladine Wikimedia Serbia and Montenegro in cooperation
with FSN(Free Software Network) and LUG Belgrade( Linux User Group )
organized speach about free software movement and prehistory of idea of free
software.

Jovana Milicevic


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Weekly digest from Wikimedia SCG


list: wikien-l

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia slated in the Sunday Times

body:
On 12/02/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Umm evidence?
>
> Touch?!  I guess I cannot substantiate this other than with basic
> logic, that there are just too many articles for a small core of users
> to have edited.  Even if one in ten were of any quality at all
> (perhaps even just one in a hundred), it is still too many for a small
> group to have reasonably edited.

Lets see.

Geni has 8188 edits, 3329 article edits, over 3351 pages.
Sam has 8814 edits, 3542 article edits, over 4708 pages.
I have 8344 edits, 4647 article edits, over 4369 pages.

Lets assume, since those numbers are broadly similar, that we average
out to a statistically normal "heavy user", who has...

8442 edits, of which 3839 (45%) are to articles. These are over 4143
pages, so our user has perhaps edited 1,880 seperate article pages -
call it 2,000.

Q. How many of those highly active users would we need for it to be
statistically likely that one had, at some point, edited each of our
970,000 articles? (5 marks. Show working)

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


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 2/12/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/02/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Umm evidence?
> >
> > Touch?!  I guess I cannot substantiate this other than with basic
> > logic, that there are just too many articles for a small core of users
> > to have edited.  Even if one in ten were of any quality at all
> > (perhaps even just one in a hundred), it is still too many for a small
> > group to have reasonably edited.
>
> Lets see.
>
> Geni has 8188 edits, 3329 article edits, over 3351 pages.
> Sam has 8814 edits, 3542 article edits, over 4708 pages.
> I have 8344 edits, 4647 article edits, over 4369 pages.
>
> Lets assume, since those numbers are broadly similar, that we average
> out to a statistically normal "heavy user", who has...
>
> 8442 edits, of which 3839 (45%) are to articles. These are over 4143
> pages, so our user has perhaps edited 1,880 seperate article pages -
> call it 2,000.
>
> Q. How many of those highly active users would we need for it to be
> statistically likely that one had, at some point, edited each of our
> 970,000 articles? (5 marks. Show working)

Lots!  I note, though, that I really do not consider myself a heavy
editor.  I consider myself a project person.  I might even try and
write a few full articles one day, rather than just filling in around
the edges!

I suspect Geni is of the same type, though I don't know.  I'm afraid I
don't know about you, either...

While I recognise the validity of your question, I really don't think
I am the person to select for this.  Most of my articlespace edits are
vandalism reverts anyway!

--
Sam


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] File format policy

body:
Gregory,

I'm a bit busy, but I'll have access to an IE machine soon (they're so
elusive these days ;-) so I'll try out the Java solution. I don't think
a reasonably well-policed dual format policy which strikes a balance
between usability and openness would be such a terrible thing, but
patent-encumbered formats should only be a last resort, and we should
spend some more time thinking about how to improve the situation without
taking such potentially divisive steps.

I don't know what caused the troubles at Wikimania - your explanation is
probably correct. As for how users in general perceive the situation, it
might be desirable for us to set up a survey to ask our users, or to
pull an Ellen Reitmeyer and do a real usability test. However, at the
moment, videos on Wikimedia are so elusive that it might not make much
sense.

My own little video contribution, taken during a visit to a Leonardo da
Vinci exhibition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel

More later,

Erik


from_name: Jay Converse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hidden text spam and low traffic wikis...

body:
On 2/12/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> I have started a few wikis (using Mediawiki, and kept up to date) and
> I have found that we are being spammed, about once every ten days.
> Usually links to drug (pharmaceuticals) sales sites in hidden text.
> These wikis are very low traffic but are linked from Metawiki at:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sites_using_MediaWiki
>
> I have also noticed a wiki that has been set up and the WikiSysop has
> no idea how to actually build content in the site. So, what does he
> get? Spam! No content, nothing. Just spam.
>
> It would seem WikiSysops should be made aware of their
> responsibilities, when Mediawiki software is installed. Should theyt
> have to pass a test? It is great that installation is so easy, but
> that lowers the threshold of a potential WikiSysop admin to be
> verging on the almost clueless.
>

This is like saying that before a person is allowed to install vBulletin on
their site, they need to take a test to make sure they know which kinds of
users should be banned and what kind of forums should be made.  You can't
force people to take a test to use software, they can use it however they
see fit, whether they have a clue or not.

--
Jay Converse
I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.


from_name: STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki Classical Dictionary

body:
I know. People already answered me. Thanks, tho.

--- charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:

> STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote
>
>
> > Can we use material from Wiki Classical
> Dictionary?
>
> No. It says 'Material submitted retains your
> copyright, and cannot be used
> elsewhere by anyone except you.'  Therefore no one
> is licensed to use their
> pages.
>
> Charles
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Gordon Joly

body:
At 15:47 +0000 12/2/06, Sam Korn wrote:
>On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  On 2/12/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>  > The Sunday Times (the most popular British Sunday broadsheet)
>>has done a hatchet job on Wikipedia pointing out that it is riddled
>>by vandalism. After lampooning the fact that we have 1000
>>volunteers just to keep the vandalism at bay
>>
>>  We don't. 500 tops.
>
>Not all volunteers are administrators.
>
>--
>Sam

Precisely: we can all fix vandalism!

--
Gordo (aka LoopZilla)
gordon.joly at pobox.com
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
http://www.loopzilla.org/


from_name: John Lee

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Boston Globe: "Bias,	sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free
	world"

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

> http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/12/
> bias_sabotage_haunt_wikipedias_free_world/
>
> First of a two-parter. Seems pretty good to me, the reporter has done
> some work, it's not just a hatchet job. But it's pretty negative
> about Wikipedia.
>
> There is a discrepancy between what WIkipedians know Wikipedia to be
> and what outsiders think it is.
>
> They think it's an encyclopedia.
>
> That discrepancy is going to cause us more and more trouble unless we
> find a better way to deal with it.

That was seriously one of the best articles I've ever seen written about
us. I've shot an email to the author thanking him for doing his research
instead of shabbily ommitting and making up stuff to support a
particular viewpoint as most other journalists do. I don't think it's
negative at all; I find it highlights some of the best and worst parts
of Wikipedia and would probably comply with [[WP:NPOV]], if not [[WP:NOR]].

John


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbcom has completely lost its mind

body:
On 2/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/06, Geoff Burling <geoff at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > To mention a related strategy, I wonder just how many veteran
> > contributors have adopted the following tactic for prevailing in a
> > content conflict:
> >
> > 1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many other
> > articles in need of attention.
> > 2. Wait x number of weeks.
> > 3. Revert opponent's edits while carefully leaving any later contributions
> > intact.
> > 4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 as often as needed.
> >
> > Not to argue that this is the best way to deal with unreasonable
> > partisans, but I can't be the only one who has done this.
>
> I have definitely thought of that strategy, but usually do this instead:
>  1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many
> other articles in need of attention.
>  2. Wait x number of weeks.
>  3. Forget all about it.
>
> I have however had that strategy applied against me. It's very
> frustrating, and boils down to some kind of siege warfare. Best to
> find a different article.
>
> Steve

oh it's nicer than:

1.Figure out your opponent's sleeping patturns
2.keep triggering edit wars with them just before they would otherwise
log off for the night.

--
geni


list: foundation-l

from_name: Paweł Dembowski

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
Robert Scott Horning napisa?u:
>  Obviously Wikipedia opened a can of worms to even allow fair use at all.

Fortunately, more and more language versions are banning fair use (de,
pl, da and others).

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-02-13

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

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test External links: invalid character... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Magic links: PMID incorrectly converts space to underscore... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Link to image page... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 561: {{/Subpage}}... FAILED!
Running test Simple category... FAILED!
Running test Section headings with TOC... FAILED!
Running test Media link with nasty text... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2095: link with pipe and three closing brackets... FAILED!
Running test Sanitizer: Validating the contents of the id attribute (bug 4515)... FAILED!

Passed 264 of 281 tests (93.95%) FAILED!


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> While I recognise the validity of your question, I really don't think
> I am the person to select for this.  Most of my articlespace edits are
> vandalism reverts anyway!

In one of the articles recently cited I noticed a misleading
statistic, that 50% of all edits were made by some fairly small (600?)
number of editors. It's the problem of not having a smaller unit of
change than "an edit". Bots, punctuation fixers, vandalism fixers etc
all have massive numbers of edits, but it doesn't mean they're big
"contributors".

Again I call for more edit summary flags. A "reverting vandalism" flag
would be nice. It's ironic in that vandal tool program that can't
distinguish between vandalism and reverting vandalism - both appear as
massive additions/deletions of text.

Steve


body:
On 2/12/06, Geoff Burling <geoff at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> To mention a related strategy, I wonder just how many veteran
> contributors have adopted the following tactic for prevailing in a
> content conflict:
>
> 1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many other
> articles in need of attention.
> 2. Wait x number of weeks.
> 3. Revert opponent's edits while carefully leaving any later contributions
> intact.
> 4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 as often as needed.
>
> Not to argue that this is the best way to deal with unreasonable
> partisans, but I can't be the only one who has done this.

I have definitely thought of that strategy, but usually do this instead:
 1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many
other articles in need of attention.
 2. Wait x number of weeks.
 3. Forget all about it.

I have however had that strategy applied against me. It's very
frustrating, and boils down to some kind of siege warfare. Best to
find a different article.

Steve


body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Sure. Pre the introduction of no anons creating articles you could
>>roughly work out how much vandle fighting an admin was doing by their
>>deletion rate. Someone posted a list of the number of admin actions
>>had been done by each admin in the last month. About 200 admins racked
>>up over 100 actions. Once you factor in all the admins who got their
>>100 by doing things other than vandalism (mine tend to come from
>>WP:CP) you end up with less than 200. Factor in growth from then and
>>you probably have around 200 admins vandle fighting.
>>
>>
>
>Your statement fails to acknowledge that the admins who don't make 100
>deletions in a month are still active and still are fighting
>vandalism.  I don't delete 100 articles a month.  I doubt I ever have,
>but I certainly used to be very active in combatting vandalism.
>
>You underestimate the good that many people doing a little can do.
>
>--
>Sam
>
>
"Admin actions" include blocking. (Not agreeing with geni, just pointing
out a fact.)

John


from_name: Ilya N.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki Classical Dictionary

body:
Hmm...I wonder how they do 'each contributor retains copyright' if anyone is
free to edit?

Couldn't you say that by editing someone's work, I am building a derivative
work of their copyrighted text?
Also, which part of the article is copyright to whom, and how long would it
take to find that out using the history for large articles?

On 2/13/06, STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA <wizzard_bane at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I know. People already answered me. Thanks, tho.
>
> --- charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
> wrote:
>
> > STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote
> >
> >
> > > Can we use material from Wiki Classical
> > Dictionary?
> >
> > No. It says 'Material submitted retains your
> > copyright, and cannot be used
> > elsewhere by anyone except you.'  Therefore no one
> > is licensed to use their
> > pages.
> >
> > Charles
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki Classical Dictionary

body:
STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote

> Can we use material from Wiki Classical Dictionary?

No. It says 'Material submitted retains your copyright, and cannot be used
elsewhere by anyone except you.'  Therefore no one is licensed to use their
pages.

Charles


body:
Steve Bennett" wrote

>I have however had that strategy applied against me. It's very
frustrating, and boils down to some kind of siege warfare. Best to
find a different article.

It often is better to move off, than to edit when a page is crowded or an
edit war is causing over-reaction.  But long-termism about WP articles is
hardly an evil-minded strategy.  You know, using the watchlist, adding
quotes when they come up in other reading, filling in red links instead of
squabbling about prominence and ordering in the main article, all that good
stuff.

Charles


from_name: Jon

body:
The Sun, Britain's biggest selling daily tabloid has also picked up on the story:

  http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006070112,00.html

  Jon

Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
  On 2/12/06, Jon wrote:
> Mind you, when WP has more people keeping the idiots at bay rather than writing content (as most likely is the case now), something has gone wrong.

Ah, but those aren't mutually exclusive in the slightest. I try to
both keep idiots at bay AND write new content, as do many others on
here! Adding, editing, and maintaining -- all in a day's wikiwork.

FF
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 8p a photo.


body:
"Jon" wrote:

> The Sun, Britain's biggest selling daily tabloid has also picked up on the
> story:
>
>  http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006070112,00.html

Got to hand it to them: the verbosity in the Sunday Times version has been
scraped right off.

Charles


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/12/06, Geoff Burling <geoff at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > > To mention a related strategy, I wonder just how many veteran
> > > contributors have adopted the following tactic for prevailing in a
> > > content conflict:
> > >
> > > 1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many other
> > > articles in need of attention.
> > > 2. Wait x number of weeks.
> > > 3. Revert opponent's edits while carefully leaving any later contributions
> > > intact.
> > > 4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 as often as needed.
> > >
> > > Not to argue that this is the best way to deal with unreasonable
> > > partisans, but I can't be the only one who has done this.
> >
> > I have definitely thought of that strategy, but usually do this instead:
> >  1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many
> > other articles in need of attention.
> >  2. Wait x number of weeks.
> >  3. Forget all about it.
> >
> > I have however had that strategy applied against me. It's very
> > frustrating, and boils down to some kind of siege warfare. Best to
> > find a different article.
> >
> > Steve
>
> oh it's nicer than:
>
> 1.Figure out your opponent's sleeping patturns
> 2.keep triggering edit wars with them just before they would otherwise
> log off for the night.
>
> --
> geni

Best one I've seen is:

1) Talk to a fellow admin about it on IRC.
2) Revert.
3) Have the fellow admin protect.

Happened quite often before the introduction of three revert rule
enforcement.  Now colluding pairs can simply team up directly.

Anthony


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Boston Globe: "Bias,
	sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world"

body:
There are three other Boston Globe articles.

  The other one appearing on 12 February, entitled Questions of Fact, is here:

  http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/02/12/questions_of_fact/

  The second part of the main story, Many contributors, common cause, is here:

  http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/02/13/many_contributors_common_cause/

  which includes comments from a number of local (to Boston, MA) Wikipedians.

  Accompanying today's article is another piece, The idealists, the optimists, and the world they share, which has further comments from WPians:

  http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/02/13/the_idealists_the_optimists_and_the_world_they_share/

Kind regards

  Jon

  The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
  On 2/12/06, John Lee wrote:
> Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>
> > http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/12/
> > bias_sabotage_haunt_wikipedias_free_world/
> >
> > First of a two-parter. Seems pretty good to me, the reporter has done
> > some work, it's not just a hatchet job. But it's pretty negative
> > about Wikipedia.
> >
> > There is a discrepancy between what WIkipedians know Wikipedia to be
> > and what outsiders think it is.
> >
> > They think it's an encyclopedia.
> >
> > That discrepancy is going to cause us more and more trouble unless we
> > find a better way to deal with it.
>
> That was seriously one of the best articles I've ever seen written about
> us. I've shot an email to the author thanking him for doing his research
> instead of shabbily ommitting and making up stuff to support a
> particular viewpoint as most other journalists do. I don't think it's
> negative at all; I find it highlights some of the best and worst parts
> of Wikipedia and would probably comply with [[WP:NPOV]], if not [[WP:NOR]].

I think it places too much emphasis on the idea of fighting vandalism,
but then so do a lot of editors these days. I wrote the author about
the obvious factual error, "On his own, Seigenthaler tracked down the
saboteur to a business in Nashville." As if.
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
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from_name: Lolo Buell

subject: [Wikitech-l] How can I disable the link on the pictures ?

body:
Hi,

All is in the subject ;o)
I would like to disable the link on each pictures I put on the pages.
For example, for a picture on the page index.php :
http://mysite/wiki/index.php?title=Image:mypicture.jpg

Thanks for your help.


from_name: Ilya Haykinson

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> > "It is allowed to upload files in patent-encumbered formats like MP3 or
> > the MPEG-4 codecs only provided that a version in a non-encumbered
> > format is also uploaded. Files which are only provided in
> > patent-encumbered formats should be deleted."

I don't see this as an openness-of-content issue at all; I see it as a
technological problem.  Our organizational desire is to provide open
access to data; to some degree this means using open,
patent-unencumbered formats such that patent restrictions will not be
an obstacle to viewing our content.

On the other hand, a large part of our organizational desire is to
actually provide the data.  Currently our video content is accessible
to a very small subset of users; just like we present our
database-persisted data using XHTML that is understood by web
browsers, we need to present video data in some format that's
understandable by most computers out there.

Without compromising our stance, we could insist on all uploads to be
open formats (like .ogg) but transcode to common viewable formats as
an option for viewers who don't have OGG players. I don't see how that
would be in conflict with our core mission.

-ilya haykinson


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: So much for GFDL compatibility with cc-by-sa

body:
"Fastfission" <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:98dd099a0602111852n115fe3d4jf496abd6e2ddb6d0 at mail.gmail.com...
[quoting from RMS]
> "As your question illustrates, people have a tendency to disregard the
> differences between the various Creative Commons licenses, lumping
> them together as a single thing. That is as mixed-up as supposing San
> Francisco and Death Valley have similar weather because they're both
> in California.

...or like supposing the whole of Scotland is either covered in snow or
pouring with rain :-)

But...forgive me if my USAian geography is not up to scratch, you're several
thousand miles away and this window is dirty...aren't there some states
where the weather **is** pretty uniform throughout?

HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Juriwiki-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
On 2/12/06, Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:

> Aren't all Wikicities also GFDL?

Yes, they are. Also, a wiki makes little sense for something under a
non-derivative license since it is not allowed to be edited.

Angela.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Modify modifiy

body:
Hi,

Where can I modify and renam the label
[edit<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Radio_drama&action=edit&section=1>]
wich is on each section of a page ?

Thanks for your help.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia slated in the Sunday Times

body:
"charles matthews"
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote in
message news:004a01c63074$67ea0f50$99ac0656 at NorthParade...
> "Jon" wrote:
>
>
>> The Sun, Britain's biggest selling daily tabloid has also picked up on
>> the story:
>>
>>  http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006070112,00.html
>
> Got to hand it to them: the verbosity in the Sunday Times version has been
> scraped right off.

Yes.

FWIW I manfully avoided clicking on the link
titled "Lodge on for P3 Valentine: See beautiful babes with a phew of past"
mostly because I wasn't quite certain whether it meant anything like what it
looks like. I'm pretty certain all those words are English, but the sentence
itself makes no sense. Is this some "young person thing?

--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [[WP:PROD]] - a lightweight deletion process

body:
"Jesse W" <jessw at netwood.net> wrote in message
news:8f3ddabfe54d225b9b9d9bc9501e2d3f at netwood.net...
> On Feb 10, 2006, at 3:37 PM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
[snip]
> There is a log of the current status of any article which has had the
> PROD tag added to it at any time; i.e. if someone removes the tag, it
> shows up in this log - with the username, edit summary, and the current
> status of the article(AfD'd, deleted, copyvio, etc) visible in the log.
> That log is here:
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/queries/en_prod_history

That's a very handy tool, which would likely prove useful in other contexts
also, assuming it can be generalised to monitor other notices?

One thing: could the HTML be fixed so that it actually wraps to the browser
window (instead of fixing the width, which is currently way too wide for my
browser)?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Zwinger down: single point of failure?

body:
We appear to have suffered a complete site outage because "zwinger" is down.

What does this machine do, and why is there not a backup for it?

Are there any tasks which can *not* have backup machines?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Sherool

body:
On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 08:46:22 +0100, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> The Sun, Britain's biggest selling daily tabloid has also picked up on
> the story:
>  http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006070112,00.html

Slow news day I guess...

Still waiting for someting like this:

"For a whole 5 seconds the Wikipedia claimed that George W. Bush is in
fact 'poop' yesterday, no comment from the White house so far, stay tuned
for more shocking relevations".

*rolleyes*

--
[[User:Sherool]]


body:
At 07:46 +0000 13/2/06, Jon wrote:
>The Sun, Britain's biggest selling daily tabloid has also picked up
>on the story:
>
>   http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006070112,00.html
>
>

Let me get this straight: Max Clifford ate Beckham's hamster?

--
Gordo (aka LoopZilla)
gordon.joly at pobox.com
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
http://www.loopzilla.org/


from_name: Carl Fûrstenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fatal error!

body:
I think someone forgot to allocate space enought for the images...

*Fatal error*: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to
allocate 23040 bytes) in */usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5
/includes/Image.php* on line *333*


subject: [Wikitech-l] fatal error (wrong list at first)

body:
*Fatal error*: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to
allocate 23040 bytes) in */usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5
/includes/Image.php* on line *333*


body:
geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:  On 2/12/06, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 2/12/06, Geoff Burling wrote:
> > To mention a related strategy, I wonder just how many veteran
> > contributors have adopted the following tactic for prevailing in a
> > content conflict:
> >
> > 1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many other
> > articles in need of attention.
> > 2. Wait x number of weeks.
> > 3. Revert opponent's edits while carefully leaving any later contributions
> > intact.
> > 4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 as often as needed.
> >
> > Not to argue that this is the best way to deal with unreasonable
> > partisans, but I can't be the only one who has done this.
>
> I have definitely thought of that strategy, but usually do this instead:
> 1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many
> other articles in need of attention.
> 2. Wait x number of weeks.
> 3. Forget all about it.
>
> I have however had that strategy applied against me. It's very
> frustrating, and boils down to some kind of siege warfare. Best to
> find a different article.
>
> Steve

oh it's nicer than:

1.Figure out your opponent's sleeping patturns
2.keep triggering edit wars with them just before they would otherwise
log off for the night.

--
geni
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

I preferred:

  1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many
other articles in need of attention.
2. Wait x number of weeks.
  3. See that other editors have restored what I was trying to do (because I was right all along:) )and that I needn't do a thing.

  :)

  The only downside is where you are up against those trying to make a point rather than make a good, well-referenced article, when you end up with:

  1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many
other articles in need of attention.
2. Wait x number of weeks.
  3. See that other editors have removed all the references from the bit you added (so that it looks like it's entirely unsupported), added lots of dubious unreferenced information, and added some stuff you can't even understand (let alone consider whether you agree with it or not).

  Of course, in that instance, the article's deteriorating anyway, and you're unlikely to stop the rot.

  Jon (now over at Wikibooks, which seems far calmer, and where it is easier to get things done)

---------------------------------
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Fun with Zwinger

body:
Zwinger went down last night with some sort of disk problem. Although we've
removed most of the dependencies on Zwinger's NFS, a few had escaped noticed and
it took us a while to get things balanced right again.

* /home/wikipedia/htdocs was used via a redirect from /usr/local/apache/htdocs
(not really used for anything, just broke apache restart. this should be moved
to an empty local directory)

* /home/wikipedia/conf/php*.ini was symlinked instead of copied around, so PHP
was misconfigured until we got the files copied back.

* math renderings are on amane, but mounted through /home/wikipedia/ someplace.
this made the directory inaccessible and complicated the unmount process.

There were some other annoyances such as having /home/wikipedia/bin in the PATH.
In general having the NFS go down is a big pain in the ass to recover from; with
a lot of things hanging on it it's virtually impossible to unmount and remount
another server short of rebooting.

After rebooting things to clear up the broken mounts, we had to hassle around
fixing the above glitches and fixing some cache inconsistencies, so the
databases were locked for a couple extra hours while we fixed that.

The /home NFS server has been moved to suda; zwinger is now back online doing
mail and DNS until we get that moved off.

A few weeks ago we tried removing the /home mount from Amane to protect it
against Zwinger failures. This has been working pretty well so far, so what I'd
like to see us do is get rid of the /home mounts entirely from most servers. We
don't _really_ need them, though they're convenient when working.

This will remove the temptation to be sloppy and use files off of NFS instead of
syncing them with the other source and config directories.

The main point where this could be difficult is with the debugging and
monitoring logs we write to from the wiki; we might store those on another
server, like the upload server, or just find better NFS settings where it fails
gracefully and quickly, or something... Or we could switch to a log server of
some kind (eg syslog).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Rob Church

body:
It's not a bug. The pages exist, and are thus eligible for indexing.
Negotiate a solution if you wish, but please don't falsely label the
issue.

Rob Church

On 13/02/06, homey2005 at sympatico.ca <homey2005 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> The problem is it's a bug and adds wikipedia-generated garbage to search engines which I would think dilutes the value of wikipedia entries on google.
>
> Also, it partly defeats the purpose of protected a deleted page in that it encourages vandals to force deletion protection because, at least, they'll have some way of embarassing a non-notable person they target, particularly if there are uncharitable comments on the linked to AFD page.
>
> >
> > From: The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com>
> > Date: 2006/02/12 Sun PM 01:04:46 EST
> > To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> > Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Protected deleted pages and google
> >
> > On 2/11/06, homey2005 at sympatico.ca <homey2005 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> > > Can something be done to prevent "protected deleted" pages from being indexed by google? See, for instance, http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=shane+ruttle&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
> > >
> > Oh my god! Someone might learn about Shane Ruttle!
> >
> > I fail to see what the problem is here.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki Classical Dictionary

body:
STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
> Can we use material from Wiki Classical Dictionary? Is
> that site a part of Wikipedia, or is it like the
> Orthodox Wikipedia, with some material being
> copyrighted? The article in question is actually
> posted on a different site, but WCD was given
> permission to publish it on their site.
>
> Link: http://www.ancientlibrary.com/wcd/Drangiana
>

See http://www.ancientlibrary.com/wcd/WCD:Copyrights - it's very heavily
copyrighted, and NOT copyleft.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia down/struggling?

body:
Hi all,
Sorry for lame email - I'm struggling to get to EN at all, incredibly
slow login etc, and search is disabled. Since I don't have IRC access
here, can someone tell me what's up?

Steve


from_name: Ed Peschko

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] File format policy

body:
On Sun, Feb 12, 2006 at 05:51:56AM -0500, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 2/12/06, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> > Yes, there were misunderstandings -- that doesn't change the facts: that
> > Windows does not support Ogg Theora natively
>
> Our media help page provides a half dozen players with Theora support.

>
> Windows also does not support SVG natively, IE renders PNG with
> transparency wrong (at least I think it still does). There was also a
> time when Windows included no support for MP3. Windows 2000 didn't
> ship with an MPEG4 codec, and I don't think that XP does either
> (although it will happily download one).
>
> A huge amount of streaming video on the Web requires codec downloads,
> but Windows Media player will autodownload most of them, although it
> will not autodownload theora this is why the en vogue video glurge
> sites use flash based players.
>
> If you want mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
> you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
> certantly possible).

I just wanted to throw in my two cents here - why don't you see if you can't
google to provide their video player?

It works great here, where quicktime, real, and microsoft video fail
due to proxying issues. It also is quite easy on bandwidth use.

Ed


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>Now, the question of do they really have a leg
>to stand on is a separate matter, but can count on a dispute being
>costly either way... We can already see how this is panning out in the
>industry: Everyone of substantial size pays the protection fee.
>
"Protection fee" is an interesting choice of terminology.

>Generally the enforcement (and licensing costs) of this stuff is tuned
>to keep the economics in favor of supporting the proprietary formats
>and avoiding the push to free formats. If the licensors were to make
>too much of a nuisance of themselves, the public would take the one
>time change out cost to switch entirely to free formats and the
>licensors would lose out massively while the public would benefit
>greatly so the situation remains carefully controlled.
>
The irony is that if the licensors make too much of a fuss it could kill
their cash cow.  The one thing that supporters of free software and
materials can't afford to spend a lot of money on is PR and
advertising.  As more and more good free alternatives become available,
the proprietary industry's strongest argument (software reliability)
becomes less credible.  When they screw up their publicity by being too
aggressive against the little guy it only drives the customers toward
the free alternative.

>The preservation of these costly (to society) proprietary formats is
>possible because the primary decision makers in this grand game are
>obligated to maximize profits above all other motives, this provides a
>knob hook for the patent holders to tweak to keep the situation under
>their control.
>
Those managers of proprietary enterprises who attack every little
violation of the company's rights as a threat to the bottom line can
easily find that such actions are counterproductive.  It's a bit like
industry's counterpart to our wiki-lawyers. :-)

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia down/struggling?

body:
Well as far as I understand basically the entire architecture (or an
important part of it) imploded.

Personally, I can't stay logged in so I'm going on wikibreak tonight. It
breaks my heart to have to ;P

On 2/13/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> Sorry for lame email - I'm struggling to get to EN at all, incredibly
> slow login etc, and search is disabled. Since I don't have IRC access
> here, can someone tell me what's up?
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
sannse wrote:

> If one of the legal team could say specifically "fair use images are
> fine on personal user pages" or "fair use images must be removed from
> personal user pages" then maybe the argument will be over and all the
> drama will stop.
>
> --sannse

This is a policy decision, not a legal issue.  All the legal teams can
say is if it is legally permissible for image X to be considered fair
use in a given context.  As policy, it should either be debated within
the project community (preferred) or decided by fiat by the Foundation
board.

The fact that it is very difficult even for the brightest legal minds to
give you a final answer for many fair-use images should give you a clue
as to how tricky this area can be.  Fair-use does not grant permission
to copy an image, just that you are using an image within a legally
acceptable constraints.

About the only fair-use images that I've seen used properly on Wikipedia
are the commercial logos on company pages, used in the context of
describing the company and showing its outward symbol representing that
company.  Perhaps this is what needs to be done on Wikipedia where
specific fair use applications are formally accepted and declare all
other fair use images are considered copyright violations unless a
specific application has been approved via policy change.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia down/struggling?

body:
Hey Angela (and everyone). I think we need to deprecate the berliOS status
site (which, BTW, is hosted on an old wiki software and is hard to update)
and use Ambush Commander's implementation at <
http://www.thewritingpot.com/wikistatus/>. I find it to be a lot easier and
better looking, and it's specifically designed for this purpose.

On 2/13/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/14/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > Sorry for lame email - I'm struggling to get to EN at all, incredibly
> > slow login etc, and search is disabled. Since I don't have IRC access
> > here, can someone tell me what's up?
>
> There's an explanation of yesterday's problems at
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-February/034007.html
>
> For future problems, you can get updates on the status at
> <http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status>
> and <http://www.thewritingpot.com/wikistatus/>
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
On 2/12/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> That was seriously one of the best articles I've ever seen written about
> us. I've shot an email to the author thanking him for doing his research
> instead of shabbily ommitting and making up stuff to support a
> particular viewpoint as most other journalists do. I don't think it's
> negative at all; I find it highlights some of the best and worst parts
> of Wikipedia and would probably comply with [[WP:NPOV]], if not [[WP:NOR]].

I agree it is one of the better newspaper stories about Wikipedia. The
fact that it's the subject of a "two-part series" is a nod to
Wikipedia's prominence.

However, the concept of NPOV was not explained significantly, which
would have given the casual reader a better understanding of how the
community works. The only mention was in a list of other Wikipedia
values:

"However many there are, the Wikipedians have developed a complex and
more-or-less democratic system of rules and policies for
contributions, such as neutral point of view, civility, citation of
sources, and no libel or vandalism."

Even the phrase "more-or-less democratic" makes me wince. The word
"consensus" is not used at all in the two articles.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: Ilya N.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia down/struggling?

body:
Oh whoops...sorry I didn't notice that Angela included a link to it in her
original e-mail.

Either way we should deprecate the old one :\

On 2/13/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hey Angela (and everyone). I think we need to deprecate the berliOS status
> site (which, BTW, is hosted on an old wiki software and is hard to update)
> and use Ambush Commander's implementation at <
> http://www.thewritingpot.com/wikistatus/>. I find it to be a lot easier
> and better looking, and it's specifically designed for this purpose.
>
> On 2/13/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 2/14/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > > Sorry for lame email - I'm struggling to get to EN at all, incredibly
> > > slow login etc, and search is disabled. Since I don't have IRC access
> > > here, can someone tell me what's up?
> >
> > There's an explanation of yesterday's problems at
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-February/034007.html
> >
> >
> > For future problems, you can get updates on the status at
> > <http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status>
> > and <http://www.thewritingpot.com/wikistatus/>
> >
> > Angela.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ~Ilya N.
> http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
> http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki Classical Dictionary

body:
On 2/13/06, STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA <wizzard_bane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Okay, I'm confused now. Is that site a part of
> Wikipedia, or are they just using the Wiki engine?

It has nothing to do with Wikipedia. They just use the same software
(<http://mediawiki.org>), as do thousands of other sites
(<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sites_using_MediaWiki>).

Angela.


body:
David Newton wrote:

>I tried to get a definitive statement, of the type that you just made,
>out of people on this very mailing list. I also posted things on the
>Scriptorium at Wikisource to get input there. The result was more
>confusion. I then got interested parties to chat in IRC (those
>interested parties that were actually interested enough at the time to
>respond) to see what should be done about this. The copyright page of
>the main Wikisource domain was altered with a note making it clear
>that this was a trial. Nothing was said about it for a month and so
>the page that was referred to earlier in this thread was altered.
>
>It wasn't exactly like this alteration was made in secret and it
>wasn't exactly like this alteration was made without trying to get the
>opinion of the Foundation on the matter. After all that's precisely
>why I posted about it on this very mailing list!
>
One needs to understand the decision making dynamics around the wikis.
A lack of responses  does not equate to disinterest or agreement.  Most
people don't feel like carrying on discussions ad nauseam when it
doesn't affect what they are personally doing.  Most policy discussions
are inconclusive and very, very tedious.  When you change a "policy"
page, most people don't notice it.

>I suggest that you be the one to make the policy clear on Wikisource.
>I also suggest that you be the one to tag the hundreds of UN
>resolution copyvios on there for deletion. If this is to be the
>confirmed policy I will remove work that I have done on starting to
>put some British legislation online, which is under Crown copyright
>and hence incompatible with the GFDL. Prepare for a storm of protest,
>particularly about the UN resolutions (although I happen to agree that
>they are copyvios in that case).
>
>If Wikisource is not to be a repository of works that are freely
>reproducable, but not compatible with the terms of the GFDL then I
>think starting something on Wikicities would be in order. I originally
>intended to use the Wiki format to create copies of the original
>legislation online and then create amended copies of them as they
>appeared at various points. Since the promised British Government
>statute law database is currently mired in developmental purgatory
>that seemed a very useful thing to do and perfect for Wikisource.
>
The copyright status of statutes is highly debatable.  The US believes
that its own statutes should be freely reproducible, but this is not the
case in many other countries.  I am not familiar enough with the case
law for this in those countries to make an informed comment on how such
arguments would turn out.   Suffice it to say that there is an important
public policy issue involved that would not be relevant to most other
allegations of coyright infringement.

>Good luck in implementing (properly this time) the copyright policy of
>the Foundation. You'll need it given the number of those willing to
>wilfully violate copyright on Wikisource.
>
To say that these activities are wilfull violations is an improper
accusation.  There can be no wilfull violation when there is significant
doubt that an action is a violation in the first place.

Ec


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
>> ...or like supposing the whole of Scotland is either covered in
>> snow or
>> pouring with rain :-)
>
> That, of course, would be Wales.

Jimbo's either covered in snow or pouring with rain? He seems pretty
dry in most of the pictures I've seen.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
On 2/13/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> I also see the assertion made multiple times that the number of users
> who can view this content is greatly diminished... but I've yet to see
> this substantiated with data.  If you count users who must install a
> codec as unable, then you must also realize that the proposed
> alternative proprietary formats are also not installed by default on a
> great many (a majority?) of computers.

My overall point is that our mission contains the need to maintain
content in an open format, so that the knowledge we accumulate is
accessible in the present and future to those unable or unwilling to
pay for this collection of knowledge, and to not be beholden to the
whims of patentholders.

However, the most important mission is to provide content.  Despite
your suggestion otherwise, I hold that the 98% of the web browsers
that have flash, and the 80%+ people who run Windows, are actually
somewhat likely to view a video whereas the (definitely more than) 90%
of the people who have computers with no Theora codec are not.

In keeping with our primary mission to provide the knowledge, I think
we need to be flexible and accepting of a compromise of accumulating
knowledge in an open format but providing it in such ways as are
actually likely to be useful to people, now.

-ilya


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


from_name: Gianluigi Gamba

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
> Fortunately, more and more language versions are banning fair use (de,
> pl, da and others).

The current policy on it.wikipedia is to allow the fair use just for few
specific cases

* coat of arms, flags, seals, etc. of administrative entities, political
authorities and institutions
* coins, banknotes, stamps
* company logos and trademarks
* software screenshots

the question whether to allow or not a broader usage of the fair use has
been raised recently at the local Village Pump, but the major part of the
community expressed the opinion to keep the current restrictions.

My two cents,
Bye all.
G. (aka Paginazero)


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> A huge amount of streaming video on the Web requires codec downloads,
> but Windows Media player will autodownload most of them, although it
> will not autodownload theora this is why the en vogue video glurge
> sites use flash based players.
>
> If you want mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
> you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
> certantly possible).

Fluendo's got a GPL'd Java applet player that can play streaming Ogg Vorbis and
Theora. I've tossed up a quick test page using a random short video clip I
grabbed off of Commons:

http://test.leuksman.com/video/

Seems to work for me in:
* Mac OS X 10.4: Safari 2
* Mac OS X 10.4: Firefox 1.5
* Windows XP SP2: IE 7
* Windows XP SP2: Firefox 1.5

I haven't tested other systems extensively but would like to see some
compatibility feedback.

NullC reports it works with gcjwebplugin on Linux/Firefox, though perhaps slowly.

Unfortunately the market penetration of Java on Windows and Linux isn't what it
was at the peak of the browser wars; Microsoft no longer seems to bundle Java
and many Linux distributions still aren't shipping a Java plugin. So it may
require some people to separately download and install Java.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> A huge amount of streaming video on the Web requires codec downloads,
> but Windows Media player will autodownload most of them, although it
> will not autodownload theora this is why the en vogue video glurge
> sites use flash based players.
>
> If you want mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
> you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
> certantly possible).

Fluendo's got a GPL'd Java applet player that can play streaming Ogg Vorbis and
Theora. I've tossed up a quick test page using a random short video clip I
grabbed off of Commons:

http://test.leuksman.com/video/

Seems to work for me in:
* Mac OS X 10.4: Safari 2
* Mac OS X 10.4: Firefox 1.5
* Windows XP SP2: IE 7
* Windows XP SP2: Firefox 1.5

I haven't tested other systems extensively but would like to see some
compatibility feedback.

NullC reports it works with gcjwebplugin on Linux/Firefox, though perhaps slowly.

Unfortunately the market penetration of Java on Windows and Linux isn't what it
was at the peak of the browser wars; Microsoft no longer seems to bundle Java
and many Linux distributions still aren't shipping a Java plugin. So it may
require some people to separately download and install Java.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> A huge amount of streaming video on the Web requires codec downloads,
> but Windows Media player will autodownload most of them, although it
> will not autodownload theora this is why the en vogue video glurge
> sites use flash based players.
>
> If you want mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
> you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
> certantly possible).

Fluendo's got a GPL'd Java applet player that can play streaming Ogg Vorbis and
Theora. I've tossed up a quick test page using a random short video clip I
grabbed off of Commons:

http://test.leuksman.com/video/

Seems to work for me in:
* Mac OS X 10.4: Safari 2
* Mac OS X 10.4: Firefox 1.5
* Windows XP SP2: IE 7
* Windows XP SP2: Firefox 1.5

I haven't tested other systems extensively but would like to see some
compatibility feedback.

NullC reports it works with gcjwebplugin on Linux/Firefox, though perhaps slowly.

Unfortunately the market penetration of Java on Windows and Linux isn't what it
was at the peak of the browser wars; Microsoft no longer seems to bundle Java
and many Linux distributions still aren't shipping a Java plugin. So it may
require some people to separately download and install Java.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> A huge amount of streaming video on the Web requires codec downloads,
> but Windows Media player will autodownload most of them, although it
> will not autodownload theora this is why the en vogue video glurge
> sites use flash based players.
>
> If you want mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
> you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
> certantly possible).

Fluendo's got a GPL'd Java applet player that can play streaming Ogg Vorbis and
Theora. I've tossed up a quick test page using a random short video clip I
grabbed off of Commons:

http://test.leuksman.com/video/

Seems to work for me in:
* Mac OS X 10.4: Safari 2
* Mac OS X 10.4: Firefox 1.5
* Windows XP SP2: IE 7
* Windows XP SP2: Firefox 1.5

I haven't tested other systems extensively but would like to see some
compatibility feedback.

NullC reports it works with gcjwebplugin on Linux/Firefox, though perhaps slowly.

Unfortunately the market penetration of Java on Windows and Linux isn't what it
was at the peak of the browser wars; Microsoft no longer seems to bundle Java
and many Linux distributions still aren't shipping a Java plugin. So it may
require some people to separately download and install Java.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> A huge amount of streaming video on the Web requires codec downloads,
> but Windows Media player will autodownload most of them, although it
> will not autodownload theora this is why the en vogue video glurge
> sites use flash based players.
>
> If you want mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
> you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
> certantly possible).

Fluendo's got a GPL'd Java applet player that can play streaming Ogg Vorbis and
Theora. I've tossed up a quick test page using a random short video clip I
grabbed off of Commons:

http://test.leuksman.com/video/

Seems to work for me in:
* Mac OS X 10.4: Safari 2
* Mac OS X 10.4: Firefox 1.5
* Windows XP SP2: IE 7
* Windows XP SP2: Firefox 1.5

I haven't tested other systems extensively but would like to see some
compatibility feedback.

NullC reports it works with gcjwebplugin on Linux/Firefox, though perhaps slowly.

Unfortunately the market penetration of Java on Windows and Linux isn't what it
was at the peak of the browser wars; Microsoft no longer seems to bundle Java
and many Linux distributions still aren't shipping a Java plugin. So it may
require some people to separately download and install Java.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: sannse

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> Dealing with fair use images is slightly different from normal copyright
> problems, I would think. Since the fairness depends on the type of use,
> it ought to be sorted out where the image is being used. If there's an
> inappropriate claim of fair use somewhere, remove the image from the
> article (or user page, as the case may be). Acting unilaterally in that
> regard is just being bold, doesn't require adminship, and is not
> something to punish unless you have an edit war about it.
>
> If the removal of the image holds, then the rest is really quite simple.
> Once the image is an orphan, there is no longer any basis for a fair use
> claim, and it can be deleted using the normal processes. No need to
> punish anyone for unilateral action.
>
> --Michael Snow

I guess you haven't seen the recent flaps and fracas over fair-use
images on user pages.  Removing them is highly likely to cause an edit
war, with a lot of people under the firm impression that "fair use"
means "I can use it because it's pretty".

The sides are sharply divided and are not likely to come to any happy
resolution any time soon - unless there is a clear statement from
someone appropriate as to what we should do in such cases.

If one of the legal team could say specifically "fair use images are
fine on personal user pages" or "fair use images must be removed from
personal user pages" then maybe the argument will be over and all the
drama will stop.

--sannse


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: U. S. weather

body:
Wow this tangent from a CC vs. GFDL 3 conversation

On 2/13/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
> Sure, there are some states where the weather is fairly uniform.
> Still, even a dinky little state like Massachusetts has _very_
> significant differences in weather; the eastern end is on the coast
> and the western end is 140 miles inland. You don't think of Wisconsin
> as a big state, yet Northern Wisconsin is significantly colder than
> Southern Wisconsin, and there are differences in the native plant and
> animal species because of it.
>
> California is smaller than Texas in area but is huge in its linear
> extent: almost 800 miles from north to south; and it has huge
> differences in elevation.
>
> When I visited Texas I was interested to see that the newspapers and
> television stations give five separate weather reports for different
> regions.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
sannse wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>> Dealing with fair use images is slightly different from normal
>> copyright problems, I would think. Since the fairness depends on the
>> type of use, it ought to be sorted out where the image is being used.
>> If there's an inappropriate claim of fair use somewhere, remove the
>> image from the article (or user page, as the case may be). Acting
>> unilaterally in that regard is just being bold, doesn't require
>> adminship, and is not something to punish unless you have an edit war
>> about it.
>>
>> If the removal of the image holds, then the rest is really quite
>> simple. Once the image is an orphan, there is no longer any basis for
>> a fair use claim, and it can be deleted using the normal processes.
>> No need to punish anyone for unilateral action.
>>
>> --Michael Snow
>
> I guess you haven't seen the recent flaps and fracas over fair-use
> images on user pages.  Removing them is highly likely to cause an edit
> war, with a lot of people under the firm impression that "fair use"
> means "I can use it because it's pretty".

Actually, I'm aware of this, and it's a big reason why I recently argued
on another of our lists that people should be more assertive about
editing the user pages of others.

> The sides are sharply divided and are not likely to come to any happy
> resolution any time soon - unless there is a clear statement from
> someone appropriate as to what we should do in such cases.
>
> If one of the legal team could say specifically "fair use images are
> fine on personal user pages" or "fair use images must be removed from
> personal user pages" then maybe the argument will be over and all the
> drama will stop.

The problem with this solution is twofold. The first issue is that just
in terms of the legal analysis, it's difficult to make such categorical
statements about fair use without knowing the nature of the particular
use. The second follows somewhat from the first, in that I'm skeptical
that such a statement from me alone would accomplish this. For now, a
policy declaration of this nature probably still needs to come from Jimmy.

There are also other principles in play here. One is that Wikipedia is
here to write an encyclopedia; another is that we are not here to
provide free personal web hosting. Fair use images on user pages have no
connection to the first principle, and violate the second. Between that
and the legal issues, I certainly do recommend having a policy that fair
use images generally should not appear on user pages. And I'm sure that
people would have the good sense to recognize the rare exception when an
image is, say, part of a draft encyclopedia article being worked on
temporarily in user space. But I can't force people to adopt my
recommendation.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: U. S. weather

body:
Sure, there are some states where the weather is fairly uniform.
Still, even a dinky little state like Massachusetts has _very_
significant differences in weather; the eastern end is on the coast
and the western end is 140 miles inland. You don't think of Wisconsin
as a big state, yet Northern Wisconsin is significantly colder than
Southern Wisconsin, and there are differences in the native plant and
animal species because of it.

California is smaller than Texas in area but is huge in its linear
extent: almost 800 miles from north to south; and it has huge
differences in elevation.

When I visited Texas I was interested to see that the newspapers and
television stations give five separate weather reports for different
regions.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
On 2/12/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Dealing with fair use images is slightly different from normal copyright
> problems, I would think. Since the fairness depends on the type of use,
> it ought to be sorted out where the image is being used. If there's an
> inappropriate claim of fair use somewhere, remove the image from the
> article (or user page, as the case may be). Acting unilaterally in that
> regard is just being bold, doesn't require adminship, and is not
> something to punish unless you have an edit war about it.
>
> If the removal of the image holds, then the rest is really quite simple.
> Once the image is an orphan, there is no longer any basis for a fair use
> claim, and it can be deleted using the normal processes. No need to
> punish anyone for unilateral action.

This path (orphan and later delete) is fairly effective at removing
bogus fair use.

But it's only effective in terms of raw numbers: it's worked on tens
of thousands, but there are thousands more that should be removed
which can't simply be worked through that process... The job isn't
done until it's all right.

There still are a great number of images which are not approiate as
fair use but people insist on using them (esp decorative use). It
takes, quite litterly  more 500x the amount of work on my part to
clean up an inapproiate use of copyrighted material once there is even
*one* active user who is working to keep it.  So long as this is the
case we will be unable to clean up the violations.

This also doesn't address the far worse situation of mistagged
content...  There is a lot of stuff tagged as 'free use image' which
was clearly simple pulled from websites (and about 1/3rd of that
category is already fully orphaned)... The 'orpahan then delete'
process fails to work for those, becuase they aren't fair use and
other users will demand that you prove they are fair use.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

references:
<43EF0174.2@gmx.de> <dsomas$lfp$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<876962d30602130928o7124d50fle80f0bbad86cfc3b@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 2/13/06, Ilya Haykinson <haykinson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't see this as an openness-of-content issue at all; I see it as a
> technological problem.  Our organizational desire is to provide open
> access to data; to some degree this means using open,
> patent-unencumbered formats such that patent restrictions will not be
> an obstacle to viewing our content.
>
> On the other hand, a large part of our organizational desire is to
> actually provide the data.  Currently our video content is accessible
> to a very small subset of users; just like we present our
> database-persisted data using XHTML that is understood by web
> browsers, we need to present video data in some format that's
> understandable by most computers out there.
>
> Without compromising our stance, we could insist on all uploads to be
> open formats (like .ogg) but transcode to common viewable formats as
> an option for viewers who don't have OGG players. I don't see how that
> would be in conflict with our core mission.

I don't see how transcoding to a proprietary format would be much
different than offering up our text alternative non-free license.

I also see the assertion made multiple times that the number of users
who can view this content is greatly diminished... but I've yet to see
this substantiated with data.  If you count users who must install a
codec as unable, then you must also realize that the proposed
alternative proprietary formats are also not installed by default on a
great many (a majority?) of computers.

The complexity of getting working players to users is high enough that
a great many video sites such as video.google.com and youtube are
using flash and java based players.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Boston Globe:
	"Bias,	sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world"

body:
G'day Charles,

> "Daniel P. B. Smith" wrote
>
>> There is a discrepancy between what WIkipedians know Wikipedia to be
>> and what outsiders think it is.
>>
>> They think it's an encyclopedia.
>
> A modest suggestion.  We protect all the articles, prior to deleting
> them here (let the mirrors take all the traffic.)  Then we can
> concentrate on the really important issues for the future of the project.

Excellent idea!  How are we supposed to concentrate on userboxen and
other such Earth-shattering issues when all these idiots keep cropping
up and saying "we should be working on the encyclopaedia!"

I reckon if we removed the articles from Wikipedia, these people would
go away and allow us to continue the betterment of mankind unmolested.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.6/257 - Release Date: 10/02/2006


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
On 2/13/06, Ilya Haykinson <haykinson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/13/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I also see the assertion made multiple times that the number of users
> > who can view this content is greatly diminished... but I've yet to see
> > this substantiated with data.  If you count users who must install a
> > codec as unable, then you must also realize that the proposed
> > alternative proprietary formats are also not installed by default on a
> > great many (a majority?) of computers.
>
> My overall point is that our mission contains the need to maintain
> content in an open format, so that the knowledge we accumulate is
> accessible in the present and future to those unable or unwilling to
> pay for this collection of knowledge, and to not be beholden to the
> whims of patentholders.

How would this be any different than offering to sell the text under a
non-copyleft license?  Surely there are some additional avenues of
distribution which could be better exploited if only we dropped that
pesky copyleft...

> However, the most important mission is to provide content.  Despite
> your suggestion otherwise, I hold that the 98% of the web browsers
> that have flash, and the 80%+ people who run Windows, are actually
> somewhat likely to view a video whereas the (definitely more than) 90%
> of the people who have computers with no Theora codec are not.

How did 98% of web browsers get flash? I'm fairly confident that they
did not ship with it, windows doesn't. In most cases I'm aware of,
flash was installed via the flash website by the user. I'd suspect
that in many of those cases flash was installed in order to view a
website with far less popularity than Wikipedia.

> In keeping with our primary mission to provide the knowledge, I think
> we need to be flexible and accepting of a compromise of accumulating
> knowledge in an open format but providing it in such ways as are
> actually likely to be useful to people, now.

Our primary mission is not just to provide content, it is to provide
free content. The unfree encyclopedia has already been done several
times over and many of them are better *encyclopedias* than what we
have today.  Some of them even make substantial amounts of content
available at no cost via the internet.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


subject: [Wikitech-l] url filtering to limit access

body:
rmFine32 at aol.com wrote:
> If I want to restrict read access to certain namespaces (template,
> special pages, mediawiki), other than main and talk namespaces, where is
> the best single entry point place to do this using a regex expression? I
> am aware of hidden page patch and the extension to limit access based on
> pages or groups. I am looking for a very simple solution to a very
> specific problem. If you are not a sysop, then I want to limit access to
> talk and main namespace.

Create a second wiki which is restricted-access, and put your hidden pages there.

You can use interwiki links to link between the two conveniently, and can share
a user table.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mirroring article onto another website

body:
I want to be able to mirror an article from our wiki onto a separate
website, leaving out the navigation links, tabs and other material
that isn't specific to my article. Is there a technique for doing this?

--Sheldon Rampton


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Create a second wiki which is restricted-access, and put your hidden pages there.
>
> You can use interwiki links to link between the two conveniently, and can share
> a user table.

I should add here that URL filtering would provide absolutely no protection,
since page content can be gotten in many other ways.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia slated in the Sunday Times

body:
On 13 Feb 2006 at 12:19, Sherool <jamydlan at online.no> wrote:

> Still waiting for someting like this:
>
> "For a whole 5 seconds the Wikipedia claimed that George W. Bush is in
> fact 'poop' yesterday, no comment from the White house so far, stay tuned
> for more shocking relevations".

I would edit that to a more formal, encyclopedic style and call him
"feces".

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


from_name: Griffin Watkins

subject: [WikiEN-l] Repeated vandalism?

body:
Hi, all-

Firstly, many thanks to everyone who is, or who has been, involved in the
success of Wikipedia.  It is undoubtedly one of the most impressive academic
and democratic endeavours to have ever developed on the Internet.  I use the
site frequently as an intellectual resource and I greatly appreciate the
efforts of all who are involved.  Wikipedia's standards of quality, ease of
use, and vast wealth of information make it the single best catch-all
reference source of which I know.

Sadly, these quality standards may have recently been misapplied, I believe,
in Paul Bauder's blocking of my abilities to edit a Wikipedia entry.  As I
have never edited informational content in an entry (though I have
occasionally corrected a few grammatical errors), I am not certain that I
could have committed "repeated acts of vandalism."  As I do not make it a
habit to edit articles frequently, being blocked is more offensive as a
matter of principle than as an accurate accusation.  I would like to have
the situation reviewed so that I may contribute to the Wikipedia project if
possible.

My info is as follows:
IP: *68.180.65.172*
Name: Griffin Watkins

Thanks Again,
Griffin


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 2/13/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...or like supposing the whole of Scotland is either covered in snow or
> pouring with rain :-)

That, of course, would be Wales.

--
Sam


from_name: geni

body:
On 2/13/06, Geoff Burling <lywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> Ugh. Not something I've experienced, nor would I want to. I assume you
> found a solution that did not involve violence by long-distance proxy.
>
> Geoff

Sure. Who needs sleep anyway?

--
geni


body:
G'day SPUI,
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>> On 2/11/06, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hello Jimmy. Thanks for fueling the recent moral panic that convinced me
>>> to stop contributing.
>>
>> You weren't banned because of moral panic.  Your userpage wasn't
>> deleted because of moral panic. Your talk page hasn't been protected
>> because of moral panic.  All these things happened because you decided
>> to engage in trolling instead of discussion.  And trolling isn't
>> allowed on Wikipedia.
>
> I was having some fun in my userspace. You decided to react badly to it.

"Having some fun"?  Worl, trolling *can* be fun.  Hell, I've enjoyed it
myself (*not* on Wikipedia!).

Having fun is not necessarily harmless.  You trolled, quite blatantly,
and you know it.  Crying because your silliness wasn't tolerated is
*most* unbecoming.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.6/257 - Release Date: 10/02/2006


body:
On 2/13/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> The Sun, Britain's biggest selling daily tabloid has also picked up on the story:
>
>   http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006070112,00.html
>
>
>   Jon

This is what happens when we don't include enough pictures of [[Titmouse|Tits]]

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:PROD]] - a lightweight deletion process

body:
G'day Alphax,

> Who /is/ representative of Wikipedia consensus on deletion?

I am.  In fact, I represent consensus on *all* controversial issues,
from deletion of articles to the manual of style, to whether or not
calling Bush a "tyrant" is NPOV, to what sort of tie helps Jimmy Wales
look his best.

I think you'll *all* find that a lot of issues would become a lot
simpler if you'd just ask me ahead of time, and accept my rulings
without question.  After all, I *am* consensus (if you disagree, you'd
best ask the person who represents consensus --- i.e., me --- who it is
that truly represents consensus).

Sooner or later someone will come along who'll agree to the above.  I
can wait ...

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.6/257 - Release Date: 10/02/2006


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
On 2/13/06, sannse <sannse at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
[snip]
> I guess you haven't seen the recent flaps and fracas over fair-use
> images on user pages.  Removing them is highly likely to cause an edit
> war, with a lot of people under the firm impression that "fair use"
> means "I can use it because it's pretty".
[snip]

What I've found to be more the case more often is that in *most* cases
the response from users is actually no too bad... just a little bit of
patience and explanation is required. However, the burden of
undertaking this process is great when you consider that there are
thousands of cases currently.

The bigger problem is that there is a small but non-trivial number of
users who will basically make your life a nightmare if you try... and
you never know who is going to snap at you... although there does
appear to be a relationship between that attitude and people who have
more userboxes than article edits as well as people with big notices
telling you that you must ask their permission before editing their
user page.  :)

When you combine these two you find that you have a large scale
problem, whos solution can not be effectively automated, which no user
in the right mind wishes to undertake.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Announce-l] Wikizine - number: 13

body:
On 2/13/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there any evidence that this service has been abused by spammers?
> Since tinyurl links wouldn't increase the page rank of a spammer's
> site, I don't see why they'd bother using it, especially since most
> wiki spam is now hidden from humans in invisible div tags, meaning the
> only aim can be to influence search results.
>
> The Spam Blacklist is shared by a lot of non-Wikimedia sites, so we
> need to be sure the URLs listed there are really spam, and not
> something which is going to cause problems for valid links on other
> wikis.

I believe they were being used by GNAA to vandalise the featured
article on enwiki with redirections to pornography sites.

--
Sam


from_name: rmFine32 at aol.com

body:
If I want to restrict read access to certain namespaces (template,
special pages, mediawiki), other than main and talk namespaces, where
is the best single entry point place to do this using a regex
expression? I am aware of hidden page patch and the extension to limit
access based on pages or groups. I am looking for a very simple
solution to a very specific problem. If you are not a sysop, then I
want to limit access to talk and main namespace.

Thanks,
Jamil


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-02-14

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

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test External links: invalid character... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Magic links: PMID incorrectly converts space to underscore... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Link to image page... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 561: {{/Subpage}}... FAILED!
Running test Simple category... FAILED!
Running test Section headings with TOC... FAILED!
Running test Media link with nasty text... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2095: link with pipe and three closing brackets... FAILED!
Running test Sanitizer: Validating the contents of the id attribute (bug 4515)... FAILED!

Passed 264 of 281 tests (93.95%) FAILED!


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia down/struggling?

body:
All good and well, but I like how Berlios turns up easy to find on top of
the Google rankings when I look for "Wikipedia Status". Deprecating berlios
will only work when the alternative is just as easy to find for oldbies like
me. Besides, either of them could be down. Isn't it useful to have a backup
for the status reporting site?

Mgm

On 2/14/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Oh whoops...sorry I didn't notice that Angela included a link to it in her
> original e-mail.
>
> Either way we should deprecate the old one :\
>
> On 2/13/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hey Angela (and everyone). I think we need to deprecate the berliOS
> status
> > site (which, BTW, is hosted on an old wiki software and is hard to
> update)
> > and use Ambush Commander's implementation at <
> > http://www.thewritingpot.com/wikistatus/>. I find it to be a lot easier
> > and better looking, and it's specifically designed for this purpose.
> >
> > On 2/13/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 2/14/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Hi all,
> > > > Sorry for lame email - I'm struggling to get to EN at all,
> incredibly
> > > > slow login etc, and search is disabled. Since I don't have IRC
> access
> > > > here, can someone tell me what's up?
> > >
> > > There's an explanation of yesterday's problems at
> > >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-February/034007.html
> > >
> > >
> > > For future problems, you can get updates on the status at
> > > <http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status>
> > > and <http://www.thewritingpot.com/wikistatus/>
> > >
> > > Angela.
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ~Ilya N.
> > http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
> > http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ~Ilya N.
> http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
> http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

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

Gareth Hughes stated for the record:

> And the moral of the story is: don't press that 'Save page' button
> until your article looks like it's going somewhere good.

As noted earlier in this thread, that is exactly the moral I've learned.
 Wikipedia has no tolerance for works in progress.

I'm thinking of putting together another Web site where people will have
a chance to collaborate in a friendly environment on incrementally
improving articles.  We might submit finished articles to the Wikipedia
Editorial Board for their professional, well-credentialed approval.
Then again, we might adopt an incompatible license....

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Back off, man, I'm a scientist.
 sean at epoptic.org | --Dr. Peter Venkman
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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UswHOS2ZNQLZf8t99qQ0PO8=
=C6eS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


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

On 2/13/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:

>But...forgive me if my USAian geography is not up to scratch, you're several
>thousand miles away and this window is dirty...aren't there some states
>where the weather **is** pretty uniform throughout?

For large enough values of "uniform," yes.  But here in Los Angeles, the
Valley can easily be 10 degrees Celsius hotter than the Basin.

Of course it is also quite possible for one part of LA to be having a
freeway-overpass-dropping earthquake while another is having very stable
weather.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Back off, man, I'm a scientist.
 sean at epoptic.org | --Dr. Peter Venkman
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b5fWO1VGLxaXi8LbM16eVkY=
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from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 2/13/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> But...forgive me if my USAian geography is not up to scratch, you're several
> thousand miles away and this window is dirty...aren't there some states
> where the weather **is** pretty uniform throughout?

Rhode Island?

Steve


body:
On 2/13/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> "However many there are, the Wikipedians have developed a complex and
> more-or-less democratic system of rules and policies for
> contributions, such as neutral point of view, civility, citation of
> sources, and no libel or vandalism."

Is this the first article to correctly spell "Wikipedian"? And not
"Wikitopian" or "Wikipodian"?

Steve


from_name: FlaBot

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Mirroring article onto another website

body:
I found a much easier way in php. 5 lines .. but i thinks its not an
good idea to post it here.
You only need 3 regex-lines.
Flacus

2006/2/14, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com>:
> > I want to be able to mirror an article from our wiki onto a separate
> > website, leaving out the navigation links, tabs and other material
> > that isn't specific to my article. Is there a technique for doing this?
>
> Not that I am aware of, but (depending on how badly you want this
> behaviour), and assuming you always want the latest "live" version,
> you could perhaps have the separate website call Special:Export (e.g.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export/test ), then parse the
> XML, to get the raw wiki text, and then manually remove any links, and
> then display it in the way that you want.
>
> e.g. in PHP you could do all of the above apart from removing the
> links and the displaying like so:
> ======================================
> function getWebArticleText($title) {
>     // build the URL
>     $url = "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export/" . $title;
>
>     // init CURL resource
>     $ch = curl_init();
>
>     // set url to pull
>     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
>
>     // return pulled web text into a variable.
>     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
>
>     // retrieve the web text.
>     $str = curl_exec ($ch);
>
>     // if we encountered an error, then log it, and exit.
>     if (curl_error($ch)) {
>         trigger_error("Curl error #: " . curl_errno($ch) . " - " .
> curl_error ($ch) );
>         print "Curl error #: " . curl_errno($ch) . " - " . curl_error
> ($ch) . " - exiting.\n";
>         exit();
>     }
>
>     // close the CURL resource
>     curl_close ($ch);
>
>     // just want article wiki text found in via [[Special:export]] XML
> output
>     xml_parse_into_struct(xml_parser_create('UTF-8'), $str, $val, $ind);
>
>     // if we got valid data.
>     if (isset($ind['TEXT'][0])) {
>         $text = $val[$ind['TEXT'][0]]['value'];
>     }
>     // otherwise we got invalid data (most likely article was deleted,
> or possibly wikipedia may be malfunctioning)
>     else {
>         $text = "";
>     }
>
>     // return the article's wiki text.
>     return $text;
> }
> ======================================
> Then you'll need some regexes to remove the links, and then have to
> work out how to display it (given that it's wiki text, and you want
> HTML presumably).
>
> All the best,
> Nick.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
[[:de:Benutzer:Flacus]][[:de:Benutzer:FlaBot]]
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~flacus/IWLC/


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

body:
On 2/14/06, Guy Chapman <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> But in the end what is in the main article space *is* Wikipedia, and you don't
> publish half a sentence and a "back in ten" notice in a paper encyclopaedia.

Part of the reason I started contributing to Wikipedia was the (then)
tolerance for good-faith works in progress.

I still believe the rate of addition of new articles is not so great
that we cannot stop and check a few things before nominating for
deletion.  I feel a good proportion of the problem is that patrolling
new pages attracts the immediateist and impatient above the
eventualist and patient contributor.

-Matt


from_name: Daniel Schwen

body:
Works ok, minor video artifacts. The demo on the fluendo website even has
working sound.
* Debian Sid: Konqueror 3.5.1 (Blackdown j2re1.4)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbcom has completely lost its mind

body:
On 2/13/06, Geoff Burling <lywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> While that is probably the mature thing to do, I've found that there is
> a psychological cost to constantly running away from fights. And that
> leads to the impulsive decision to stay & get involved in some truly
> stupid fights over content. I tell myself that I'm following my strategy --
> even if I end up following Steve's -- in the hope my ego won't see it
> as a retreat.

It depneds how you look at it. By completely abandoning one article to
the stubborn, I can do some productive work on ten others.

Sort of like how a politician can spend all day arguing with one
person who probably won't vote for them anyway, or spend it talking to
100 undecideds.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Repeated vandalism?

body:
Steve, he wasn't blocked for his own actions, but because Fred Bauder
placed a range block on a whole /16. From Special:Ipblocklist:

15:56, February 12, 2006, Fred Bauder (Talk) blocked 68.180.0.0/16
(contribs) (infinite) (Unblock) (Persistant vandalism by a user.
Please contact me regarding assistance in arranging for access)

I believe there is something on [[WP:RFCU]] about this.  Fred claimed
at the time that there were no legitimate edits from this range, which
may be now shown to be not so.

-Matt

On 2/14/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>   Silly question perhaps, but why don't you use a user account rather
> than editing anonymously? Your chances of being mistaken for a vandal
> would be a lot less...
>
> On 2/14/06, Griffin Watkins <agriffinw at gmail.com> wrote:
> > My info is as follows:
> > IP: *68.180.65.172*
> > Name: Griffin Watkins
>
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Repeated vandalism?

body:
On 2/14/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> I believe there is something on [[WP:RFCU]] about this.  Fred claimed
> at the time that there were no legitimate edits from this range, which
> may be now shown to be not so.

Clarification: the section 'Suspected Mcfly85 sockpuppets'.

-Matt


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia down/struggling?

body:
On 2/14/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> Sorry for lame email - I'm struggling to get to EN at all, incredibly
> slow login etc, and search is disabled. Since I don't have IRC access
> here, can someone tell me what's up?

There's an explanation of yesterday's problems at
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-February/034007.html

For future problems, you can get updates on the status at
<http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status>
and <http://www.thewritingpot.com/wikistatus/>

Angela.