from_name: James Hare

body:
Ah.

Basically, a repository of copyleft/uncopyrightable things like code and
boilerplate messages that people can copy and paste for their own use?

Not a bad idea!

On 8/4/06, Jerome Baum <gratemyl at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry for the post under the wrong subject - I receive digest and
> forgot to change it. Anyway:
>
> I have created a site at http://speedwiki.elwiki.com/ which I am now
> setting up. I will start it there, and hope to move to WikiMedia soon.
>
> I will now update the links in the Meta, and then go to sleep (02:09,
> germany).
>
> Maybe somebody already feels like contributing...
>
> Anyways, good night / gute nacht!
>
> --
> Yours,
>
> Jerome Baum
> --
> pegwit v8 public key
> =b04220a315671b9351f71b6db4870ead7234316727d2c2f14b276e8575a5b3bd
> --
> e-gold Account Number: 3400024
> Create an Account / Commit Payment: http://3400024.e-gold.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposed WikiMedia Project


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-08-06

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

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test Magic Word: {{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}}... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


list: foundation-l

from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[Foundation-l] The Atlantic & Colbert - two great tastes that
	taste great together

body:
Ah, my 15 paragraphs of pseudonymous fame.

On 8/2/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> So not one but two must-read/sees in the same news cycle...
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia
>
> by Marshall Poe
>
> and "Wikiality" on "The Word" on the Colbert Report.
>
> http://www.powerpage.org/archives/2006/08/stephen_colbert_v_wikipedia.html
>
> Did you know the number of elephants in Africa has tripled in the past 10
> years? 8-D
>
> Enjoy!
>
>
> --
> Brad Patrick
> General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> bradp.wmf at gmail.com
> 727-231-0101
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Saqib Kadri

subject: [Wikitech-l] Steps in wikifying a URI string?

body:
Does anyone know what all the steps are for the process of wikifying
(and de-wikifying) a string for URI use? e.g., replacing spaces with
underscores, urlencode()ing, etc.

Cheers,
Saqib


list: wikien-l

from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject:
[WikiEN-l] In 2006,
	Wikipedia started to exist (according to the world of Britannica)

body:
Hey,

I just came across http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9433599, which
is the lead section of the Encyclopaedia Britannica article about
wikipedia. There is also one about wikis in general:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9404276.

These articles appear to be taken from the current revision of the EB
itself, not the yearbook or any other of these sources (on this web
site, you can never be sure).

EB is now the second (or third, depending on how you count)
encyclopedia to mention wikipedia. The Columbia Encyclopedia has one
and the 21st edition of the Brockhaus encyclopedia (in German).

I don't have full access to the EB article from here and I am very
curious about its accuracy :)

Fun fact: Last time I checked, Brockhaus refused to call Wikipedia an
encyclopedia.

Mathias


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wiktionary-l] [Fwd: Re:  WZ Timeline.]

body:
Re-sending my mail from yesterday ... for some reason it does not go
through.

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Betreff: 	Re: [Wiktionary-l] WZ Timeline.
Datum: 	Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:29:12 +0200
Von: 	Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it>
An: 	The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list
<wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org>
Referenzen: 	<9c00d9790608042051k6ec4195dn2ddd9eea56ff936a at mail.gmail.com>

Hi Michael,

that timeline you saw is quite an old one.

As for now we have the following dates:
- versioning should work by the end of August/beginning of September
- by October there should be a publicly editable version

As you probably know sometimes unforeseen things happen - so the dates I
am giving here are purely indicative and could change a bit.

You can already edit on WiktionaryZ right now, but it is us to give you
edit rights for the wikidata part, since versioning is not working
properly and we only can give edit rights to people we know and trust. I
suppose that is understandable. Of course the ordinary wiki pages can be
edited by anyone (well, it's a wiki :-)

Wishing you a great week-end!

Sabine

Michael Monaghan schrieb:
> Hi,
>
> Could someone estimate when a stable alpha/beta WZ might be available?
> [give or take a few months].
>
> Is http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Timetable is the best page
> to keep an eye on for this info?
>
> Thanks,
>
> ~mm
> _______________________________________________
> Wiktionary-l mailing list
> Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
>
>

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Clueful help needed

body:
Acadamenorth was indef-blocked due to disruption, harrassment and
general trolling, but the autoblock is causing issues for user Jack
O'Lantern.  I tried a one second block of Jack, should that fix it?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ok, so about that ISBN template...

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Now that I've read the reasoning
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_9)...
>
> Here's the deal. I created this ISBN template {{ISBN}} which does
> nothing very exciting. It simply substitutes the text "ISBN {{{1}}}".
> However, my reasoning for creating it seemed sound: to provide an
> abstraction layer so users don't have to learn the rather arbitrary
> syntax that Wikipedia uses to deal with ISBN codes. Instead, they can
> use the same syntax they use everywhere: {{template name|argument}}.
>
> Is this a bad idea? Personally, I find the ISBN markup extremely
> arbitrary and maybe not that well thought out. We apparently only
> allow pure ISBN numbers, with no hyphens, spaces or slashes, although
> they are usually presented that way in other  contexts. By wrappering
> this syntax in standard template syntax, we would clear the way for a
> future, more forgiving ISBN syntax to be implemented.
[...]

You're allowed hyphens but not slashes. Are ISBNs sometimes written with
slashes? If so, we'll add that to the character list. We have to be
fairly conservative with the regular expression when we're detecting
things in plain text. I don't think there's any need to introduce a new
"abstract" syntax before we can make that change.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Michael Monaghan

subject: [Wiktionary-l] [Fwd: Re:  WZ Timeline.]

body:
Thanks for the response Sabine,

> As for now we have the following dates:
> - versioning should work by the end of August/beginning of September
> - by October there should be a publicly editable version

With versioning working, would that be an alpha release?

Or what other features are required for the alpha version?

I have been looking for a feature list for WZ - but the best I have
been able to find is
http://wiktionaryz.org/index.php/Functionality_wanted_.. - which
appears to be a list of requested features, rather than features that
have been committed to.

Is there another place I should be looking?

> As you probably know sometimes unforeseen things happen - so the dates I
> am giving here are purely indicative and could change a bit.

Fair enough, I understand.

> You can already edit on WiktionaryZ right now, but it is us to give you
> edit rights for the wikidata part, since versioning is not working
> properly and we only can give edit rights to people we know and trust. I
> suppose that is understandable.

Yes.

> Of course the ordinary wiki pages can be
> edited by anyone (well, it's a wiki :-)
>
> Wishing you a great week-end!

Thanks again,

~mm

> Sabine
>
>
> Michael Monaghan schrieb:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Could someone estimate when a stable alpha/beta WZ might be available?
> > [give or take a few months].
> >
> > Is http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Timetable is the best page
> > to keep an eye on for this info?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > ~mm
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wiktionary-l mailing list
> > Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
> >
> >
>
>
>
> Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
>  http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
>
>


from_name: Jürgen Herz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Suggest

body:
Julien Lemoine wrote:

Hi,

> I have wrote a "google suggest" like service for wikipedia under GPL
> licence [1].
> By the way, I am not sure if this project will interest you, I am open
> to all comments from your community.
>
> I wrote a simple web site for english/french on
> http://suggest.speedblue.org, all software are available in the download
> section.

That reminds me of http://wiki.lumrix.net/en/. Don't know how that
works, but maybe you'll have a look.

J?rgen


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Foundation-l] complaining to ISPs

body:
On Aug 5, 2006, at 3:18 AM, Lars Aronsson wrote:

> James Hare wrote:
>
>> Yes... stating on a page "VERIZON IS BANNED!" for example would
>> definitely
>> make them scared and start taking actions against jerks.
>>
>
> Oh, really?  Have you tried?  Are you speaking from experience?

Better to try first to enlist them on our side. We might be able to
force the issue, but it is an unpleasant and possibly ineffective way
to go.

Fred


subject: [Foundation-l] complaining to ISPs


from_name: Julien Lemoine

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Suggest

body:
Hello,

I have done some modifications this WE : moslty on the compiler side :
 - I added a small heuristic inside the compiler to have only unique
articles in the best records ;
 - I added a backend in the compiler using slist to use less memory ;
 - I added all php/html/js pages in the tgz (in the extra directory) ;
 - I also improved a little the README (I added your comments).

You can view results on http://suggest.speedblue.org (with redirections)
You can download the source from
http://suggest.speedblue.org/tgz/wikipedia-suggest-0.2.tar.gz
You can download compiled resources (for little endian only because my
serialization is endianess dependant) :
for English :
http://www2.speedblue.org/download/WikipediaSuggestCompiledEN.tar.bz2
for French :
http://www2.speedblue.org/download/WikipediaSuggestCompiledFR.tar.bz2

I will have a look at the sql dumps available at download.wikipedia.org
and I will try to wrote a compiler using only sql resources.
Which kind of database is used for wikipedia, mysql ? I will probably
use OTL (otl.sourceforge.net), which will use unix-odbc for mysql.

I am open for any kind of suggestion/modification.
Best Regards.
Julien Lemoine

Nick Jenkins wrote:
> Hi Julien,
>
>
>>> == UI stuff ==
>>>
>>> The only two constructive suggestions for the User-Interface that I
>>> would make are:
>>>
>> These two features are available now. You can use them :)
>>
>
> Excellent! Thank you, they work great.
>
> A few more suggestions / comments / ideas after compiling it:
>
> == Small addition for README file ==
>
> Perhaps add this to the end of the README file (about lib
> requirements) - (these worked for me) :
>
> # If you're on Debian/Ubuntu, you can probably install expat & icu with:
> apt-get install libicu34 libexpat1 libexpat1-dev libicu34-dev
>
> # The compile with:
> ./configure
> make
>
> == Pull data from MySQL? ==
>
> Currently the data used by cmd/Analyzer appears to be generated from
> the XML data file (e.g. the 1.1 gigabyte XmlEnWikipedia.tar.bz2 file).
>
> Could it be possible instead to generate the required data from a
> MySQL database? That way the whole XML step could be avoided by just
> connecting directly to the database, and generating the required data
> directly from the database.
>
> Also this way, you _may_ be able to get away with reading far less
> data, and so it could potentially be quicker. Also it would be more
> up-to-date, because there would be intermediate step to add to the
> latency.
>
> For example, this way you could get the number of links to each page
> by doing something like this:
> select pl_title, count(*) from pagelinks group by pl_title;
>
> ... and you could get the valid page names by doing something like this:
> select page_title from page where page_namespace = 0;
>
> == Maybe include JS / HTML files ==
>
> Maybe bundle the JS / HTML / PHP / Perl files that you're using at
> http://suggest.speedblue.org/ with the wikipedia-suggest.tar.gz
> archive? Basically I'd like to try and reproduce what you've got
> happening on your website so that I can play with it too ;-)
>
> == Documentation for Gumbies ==
>
> Potentially stupid question, but how do I use the resulting executable
> files in the 'cmd' directory? I couldn't see documentation on this in
> the wikipedia-suggest.tar.gz archive (but it is version 0.1, so it's
> not unexpected). Or to put it differently, what series of commands did
> you use to get your http://suggest.speedblue.org/ site working?
>
> E.g.
> wget http://www2.speedblue.org/download/XmlEnWikipedia.tar.bz2
> # How did you create XmlEnWikipedia.tar.bz2 by the way? E.g. Did it
> come from doing something to
> http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20060717/enwiki-20060717-pages-articles.xml.bz2
> ?
>
> cmd/Analyzer XmlEnWikipedia.tar.bz2 fsa.bin page.bin
> # (i.e. Not sure what creates fsa.bin & page.bin , or how to persuade
> it to do so )
>
> Then presumably either cmd/Query or cmd/TcpQuery is invoked on fsa.bin
> and page.bin, and connected to somehow to query for results.
> # What's the difference between these two versions? E.g. is one the
> DiskQuery implementation, and the other the MemoryQuery
> implementation? Or is it just how you connect to them (e.g. one via
> TCP/IP, the other via some other method?)
>
> Sorry to ask so many questions!
>
> All the best,
> Nick.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] complaining to ISPs

body:
Surprisingly, I've never been unable to edit due to my IP being blocked (for
someone else's wrongdoing). So no, I'm not speaking from experience.

On 8/5/06, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
>
> James Hare wrote:
> > Yes... stating on a page "VERIZON IS BANNED!" for example would
> definitely
> > make them scared and start taking actions against jerks.
>
> Oh, really?  Have you tried?  Are you speaking from experience?
>
>
> --
>   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] complaining to ISPs


from_name: Simetrical

body:
On 8/6/06, Saqib Kadri <web at saqibkadri.net> wrote:
> Does anyone know what all the steps are for the process of wikifying
> (and de-wikifying) a string for URI use? e.g., replacing spaces with
> underscores, urlencode()ing, etc.

I assume you want Parser::replaceInternalLinks (strings are processed
differently depending on what they're being processed for).  You might
want to check it out for yourself at
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/includes/Parser.php?view=markup.
 It's a bit more involved than just replacing spaces with underscores
and urlencode()ing; in addition to encoding differently for anchors,
you need to handle subpages, prohibited characters, and so on.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Stable versions ante portas?

body:
On 8/6/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Who's gonna see the stable version, if there is any? Anons, of course.
> What about the google bots? Probably the same.

Google bots had better get exactly the same page as anons, if you
don't want Wikipedia deindexed for cloaking.  ;)


body:
Regarding stable versions . . . could these be applied to non-articles
as well?  High-use templates are all full-protected, at least on
enwiki, which is horribly anti-wiki: you have to discuss any but the
most trivial changes for days, then get a sysop to institute them.
It's impossible to be bold.  A similar concept could be used in lieu
of any protection, in fact (well, except the GFDL page and maybe main
page, but including interface changes), given that a sysop has to
approve the changes eventually, which would make the entire process
much more wiki without actually reducing security.  Too many people
forget that protection is evil, and given that it seems largely
unnecessary as well . . .

A related point is that in cases where this concept solely replaces
protection against vandalism, it would be good to have delayed
automatic approval, i.e., changes automatically go through if not
reverted within a certain period.  High-use templates could have edits
frozen for a day or so to stop people from inserting penises into
70,000 pages at once or edit-warring and continually clearing the
cache for no reason, while still allowing people to be bold and make
changes, even anons.


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 4 Aug 2006 at 21:51, "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> What about http://magic.formatting.com ? Is that a necessary evil?

It gets me a domain-parking page with lots of pay-per-click pseudo-
search/portal links... the sort of thing an awful lot of URLs get to
these days.  I wouldn't use the term "evil" for this, but certainly
it's an annoyance.

--
== 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: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fakes and people who cant tell the difference

body:
On 8/5/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Thought this was funny enough to list.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Gandhi_Boer_War_1899.jpg
>
> I don't see the point in these exertions. I have provided the source, which is indeed,
> a "very reputable" newspaper (italics to add to your scare-quotes) and one could
> reasonably expect you to provide something other than bare and repeated assertion.
>
> SV
>
> __________________________________________________
> 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
>

by the way, this is tangentially related to a cfd that it's already
past due date
Category:Images claimed as photographs from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_28


from_name: maru dubshinki

body:
On 8/6/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I just came across http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9433599, which
> is the lead section of the Encyclopaedia Britannica article about
> wikipedia. There is also one about wikis in general:
> http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9404276.
>
> These articles appear to be taken from the current revision of the EB
> itself, not the yearbook or any other of these sources (on this web
> site, you can never be sure).
>
> EB is now the second (or third, depending on how you count)
> encyclopedia to mention wikipedia. The Columbia Encyclopedia has one
> and the 21st edition of the Brockhaus encyclopedia (in German).
>
> I don't have full access to the EB article from here and I am very
> curious about its accuracy :)
>
> Fun fact: Last time I checked, Brockhaus refused to call Wikipedia an
> encyclopedia.
>
> Mathias

Well, EB is not afraid to call us an Encyclopedia, although there is
an amusing focus on Seigenthaler, and some things which I think may be
factually incorrect.

For example:
"The author of this information could not be identified, since all
that is known about contributors is their computers' IP, or Internet
protocol, addresses (many of which are randomly generated each time a
user goes online). (The contributor later confessed and apologized,
saying that he wrote the false information as a joke.)"

Maybe it is me, but this looks like a contradiction- if the author
could not be identified (we all know he could and was) then how could
he later apologize? Quite aside, IPs are not randomly generated...

Or:
Wikipedia administrators now have the power to block particular IP
addresses?a power they used in 2006 after it was found that staff
members of some U.S. congressional representatives had altered
articles to eliminate unfavourable information. Articles on political
subjects have become the greatest test of Wikipedia's principle of
neutrality."

Here I'm not sure whether he is implying or stating that admins only
got the power to block IPs and users *after* the Seigenthaler affair
or just before the House of Representatives scandal. Either way, he's
wrong: IP blocks were implemented years and years ago; didn't Jimmy
ban a user in the first year?

There are other more minor points, like for example, in the following
where he uses "anonymous", it should really be pseudonymous:

"These observers point out that identifiable individuals are far
easier to hold accountable for mistakes, bias, and bad writing than is
a community of anonymous volunteers, but other observers respond that
it is not entirely clear if there is a substantial difference."

And there are some odd passages, where it could be read as damning or
praising Wikipedia:

"Regardless of such controversies?perhaps in part because of
them?Wikipedia has become a model of what the collaborative Internet
community can and cannot do."

All in all, a decent article. Newspapers usually do a lot worse, FWIW.

~maru


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Last month, someone (from the US Navy, actually) wrote me to check on
the status of my stable versions extension. I told him it basically
should work, but has never been tested in a live environment. He got it
to work (on a 1.6 MediaWiki) and tells me "everything is working fine",
with some minor hacks he made, and which I checked into SVN for him.
There is an issue with caching, though, which will prove to be no real
obstacle but just a little work to fix it.

Sadly, I didn't have time to come to Wikimania this year, but I listened
to Jimbo's opening speech today. I was very pleased to hear that
finally, we're going to get stable versions, and as a German, I concur
that de.wikipedia is a perfect testing environment for this (we've
banned all non-free images, and stubs; stable versions are the logical
next step). I also agree with Jimbo to just start with the simplest
possible solution, see how it works, and modify it from there. Releasing
software very early has been my motto from the start, much to the pain
of our CTO ;-)

Anyway, I'd like to know if there'd be a point in me fixing the caching
issue. Brion, will you roll your own implementation, or use mine? If
it's the latter, should I apply final polish to it so you can get single
login up and running first?

Apart from that, some general thoughts:

While the "simplest possible solution" would, of course, be another
field slapped to the page table, it seems to me that any expansion from
there (multiple stable versions, different kinds of stable versions -
vandalism-free to peer-reviewed, etc.) will end up using its own table.

Should there be a new group of "stable version editors"? Should these be
initially identical with admins to give it a kick-start? But that would
already be covered with the code we have, right?

Don't forget to implement "oldid=stable" to return the stable revision.
What if there's no stable revision? Return a blank page, a note, or just
the current version?

Who's gonna see the stable version, if there is any? Anons, of course.
What about the google bots? Probably the same. And new users? Yes, to
prevent culture shock ;-) And add a user option to change that. Current
users, however, should have the "show stable version by default" option
turned /off/ by default to keep the current behaviour working. Least
surprise, right?

Oh, and, of course, an additional dump with just the stable versions
instead of the current ones. Also a "mixed" one, with stable version if
existing, and current ones otherwise?

There should be a special page to list pages
* with stable versions
* without stable versions
* pages with stable version, sorted by how much time/how many edits/mor
many bytes are the difference between the stable and the current version

So much from Germany, and have fun at the last Wikimania day,
Magnus


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] enwiki dumps are busted/ISP Response to Fred

body:
Does anyone know when the enwiki dump will get fixed?

In response to Fred, I doubt you will ever get any of the ISP's on
anyone's side but their own.    They have no incentive to listen
and Wikipedia has a serious credibility problem with many of them due to
the fact that any of the 600+ admins can file these
reports, and many of them are malicious and spoofed.  Your suggestion
they should only come from the ARBCOM is a good
one.  Last time an administrator sent an ISP complaint in on me last
year, the email was thrown in the trash -- and after they
reviewed the article on me and the press issues with the JFK story, they
told me they won't ever accept them again from
Wikipedia.

There's also the problem with the Asian ISP's -- they could care less
and won't respond, esspecially the ones in Taiwan --
I've tried.

Jeff


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Interesting article from last "Signpost"

body:
User:Ragesoss has been doing a lot of great work in publicizing
Wikipedia collaborations within his (and my) relevant academic
communities. Aside from creating a History of Science Wikiproject, he
also sends notices of the History of Science Collaboration of the
Month to the largest listserv in the profession.

I think this is a great thing to do. It not only bridges much of the
gap between academics and Wikipedia (it makes it clear that academics
DO work on Wikipedia as well -- it is not just something "external" to
academia), but it also encourages further participation from experts
as well as normalizing the idea that an academic might find it
worthwhile to contribute. He also puts his own name and reputation on
the line, since he does not edit anonymously and makes his academic
affiliations very clear.

I think steps like this are the sort of thing which can help build a
better, or at least less one-sided, rapport between Wikipedia and
relevant expert communities. Even though Wikipedia is open for all
there is no great reason that experts should be discouraged from
participating. We have a lot of academics at Wikipedia, it would be
great if they were willing to defend it to their relevant communities,
especially since it appears to have a fairly low standing in academia
(due to its sloppy use as a source by sloppy students -- the problem
here is not Wikipedia specifically; they'd probably use uncritically
whatever came up first in Google, and we happened to be it).

FF

On 8/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>   Apologies to those who read it, but there was an interesting article
> about the value of Wikipedia in academia, based on several academic
> mailing lists:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-07-31/Listserv
>
> It includes this rich quote: "...it is extremely useful as a
> springboard for further research. It will be impossible to find
> anything on "goosing" or "Dirty Sanchez" in the more respectable
> (elitist?) encyclopedias, or much on more obscure forms of sexual
> behaviour."
>
> I can't wait to see this get used in future AfDs :)
>
> 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
>


body:
On Aug 6, 2006, at 9:02 PM, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

> In response to Fred, I doubt you will ever get any of the ISP's on
> anyone's side but their own.

Actually I am getting cooperation. The technician has suggested a
good solution is to put their customer who is behind Tojo on a fixed
ip. This solution does not require them to lose a customer. In fact,
it is a sort of upgrade.

Fred


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 06/08/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:

> > Is this a bad idea? Personally, I find the ISBN markup extremely
> > arbitrary and maybe not that well thought out. We apparently only
> > allow pure ISBN numbers, with no hyphens, spaces or slashes, although
> > they are usually presented that way in other  contexts. By wrappering
> > this syntax in standard template syntax, we would clear the way for a
> > future, more forgiving ISBN syntax to be implemented.
> [...]
>
> You're allowed hyphens but not slashes. Are ISBNs sometimes written with
> slashes? If so, we'll add that to the character list. We have to be
> fairly conservative with the regular expression when we're detecting
> things in plain text. I don't think there's any need to introduce a new
> "abstract" syntax before we can make that change.

Hyphens are, I believe, the only punctuation in the standard -
certainly I've never encountered anything else whilst cataloguing
books.

What would be nice is implementing ISBN-colon-space as well as just
ISBN-space as a prefix, so that both

ISBN 0123456789
and
ISBN: 0123456789

produce the booksources link.

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


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail setup change

body:
Hello,

some spammer was (or still is) sending spam with faked @wikipedia.org
sender addresses. The bounces for this spam were sent back to our mail
gateways, overloading them yesterday and today.

We changed the setup of the backup MX. It now knows about the existing
mailboxes and rejects mail to unknown recipients directly. In the past,
it accepted any mail for wikipedia.org or wikimedia.org. With this
change, the load on the primary mail server has gone down dramatically.

At noon, our primary MX goeje was handling 200 concurrent mail connections,
this was it's hard limit. After setting the limit to 500, 500
connections were established, but the box started heavy swapping.

The secondary MX has a relay_recipient_maps list configured, which is
updated every 15 minutes from goeje. If a new mailbox or mailing list is
set up, it takes up to 15 minutes until this mailbox is accessible via
the backup MX.

Regards,

	jens


body:
Nathan Carter wrote:

>On 8/7/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Does anyone know when the enwiki dump will get fixed?
>>
>>In response to Fred, I doubt you will ever get any of the ISP's on
>>anyone's side but their own.    They have no incentive to listen
>>and Wikipedia has a serious credibility problem with many of them due to
>>the fact that any of the 600+ admins can file these
>>reports, and many of them are malicious and spoofed.  Your suggestion
>>they should only come from the ARBCOM is a good
>>one.  Last time an administrator sent an ISP complaint in on me last
>>year, the email was thrown in the trash -- and after they
>>reviewed the article on me and the press issues with the JFK story, they
>>told me they won't ever accept them again from
>>Wikipedia.
>>
>>There's also the problem with the Asian ISP's -- they could care less
>>and won't respond, esspecially the ones in Taiwan --
>>I've tried.
>>
>>Jeff
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>Basically, the foundation needs to make these complaints via official
>channels. There is no use for each admin to bombard them with such
>complaints.
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
Absolutely correct. They WILL take a letter from Brad or Fred seriously.
No Question of that.

Jeff


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>On Aug 6, 2006, at 9:02 PM, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>In response to Fred, I doubt you will ever get any of the ISP's on
>>anyone's side but their own.
>>
>>
>
>Actually I am getting cooperation. The technician has suggested a
>good solution is to put their customer who is behind Tojo on a fixed
>ip. This solution does not require them to lose a customer. In fact,
>it is a sort of upgrade.
>
>Fred
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
Fred,

I agree that coming from someone reputable like you or Brad will
probably work. And getting Toyo in Japan
to respond quickly is amazing. They also have a pretty high powered
relationship with NTT in Japan, who runs
all the phone companies ....

Jeff


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> On Aug 6, 2006, at 9:02 PM, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> In response to Fred, I doubt you will ever get any of the ISP's on
>>> anyone's side but their own.
>>>
>>
>> Actually I am getting cooperation. The technician has suggested a
>> good solution is to put their customer who is behind Tojo on a fixed
>> ip. This solution does not require them to lose a customer. In fact,
>> it is a sort of upgrade.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
> Fred,
>
> I agree that coming from someone reputable like you or Brad will
> probably work. And getting Toyo in Japan
> to respond quickly is amazing. They also have a pretty high powered
> relationship with NTT in Japan, who runs
> all the phone companies ....
>
> Jeff

And I don't know what the heck happened at Wikimania, but I am getting
1720 visitors and 50,000+ hits an hour in Wikigadugi.org which started
about noon yesterday and has been increasing at a rate of 6% an hour.
Anyone know what happened? I think it's great, but did the site get
mention to folks in the press or something? I had to add two more proxy
servers this morning before heading up into the Kamas wilderness with
the family for the afternoon to handle the caching load.

Jeff

*period* 	Month Aug 2006
*First visit* 	NA
*Last visit* 	06 Aug 2006 - 22:29
	Unique visitors 	Number of visits 	Pages 	Hits 	Bandwidth
Viewed traffic* 	*1329*
	*1720*
(1.29visits/visitor) 	*7982*
(4.64pages/visit) 	*23214*
(13.49hits/visit) 	*365.03 MB*
(217.32KB/visit)
Not viewed traffic*
	*15965* 	*16007* 	*138.70 MB*


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Clueful help needed

body:
On top of the block log is a link to find autoblocks which should help you
lift the autoblock from the IP so Jack can continue editing. I don't think a
one-sec block on Jack stops the autoblock from working.

Mgm

On 8/6/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> Acadamenorth was indef-blocked due to disruption, harrassment and
> general trolling, but the autoblock is causing issues for user Jack
> O'Lantern.  I tried a one second block of Jack, should that fix it?
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Clueful help needed

body:
On Sun, 6 Aug 2006 22:56:09 +0200, "MacGyverMagic/Mgm"
<macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

>On top of the block log is a link to find autoblocks which should help you
>lift the autoblock from the IP so Jack can continue editing. I don't think a
>one-sec block on Jack stops the autoblock from working.

Thing is, I am not sure how to lift an autoblock from an IP.  For
shame, eh?  But everyone has to learn sometime :-)

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: xaosflux

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail setup change

body:
I've been getting tons of fake @wikipedia.org emails (up to 1000 a day) at
my business SMTP.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jens Frank" <jf at mormo.org>
To: <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 4:16 PM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail setup change

> Hello,
>
> some spammer was (or still is) sending spam with faked @wikipedia.org
> sender addresses. The bounces for this spam were sent back to our mail
> gateways, overloading them yesterday and today.
>
> We changed the setup of the backup MX. It now knows about the existing
> mailboxes and rejects mail to unknown recipients directly. In the past,
> it accepted any mail for wikipedia.org or wikimedia.org. With this
> change, the load on the primary mail server has gone down dramatically.
>
> At noon, our primary MX goeje was handling 200 concurrent mail
> connections,
> this was it's hard limit. After setting the limit to 500, 500
> connections were established, but the box started heavy swapping.
>
> The secondary MX has a relay_recipient_maps list configured, which is
> updated every 15 minutes from goeje. If a new mailbox or mailing list is
> set up, it takes up to 15 minutes until this mailbox is accessible via
> the backup MX.
>
> Regards,
>
> jens
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL compliance

body:
What the link?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Guy Chapman aka JzG" <guy.chapman at spamcop.net>
To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 3:30 PM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL compliance

> There is a picture on another project which would be good in an
> article on en:.  Only problem is, the other project is
> Uncyclopaedia...
>
> I'm guessing the licensing is incompatible, and i can't trace the
> original source.  Bummer, really.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-08-07

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

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test Magic Word: {{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}}... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL compliance

body:
On 8/5/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Fair use?

"i can't trace the original source" is generally a good sign that we
can not claim fair use.

:)


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Most controversial FPC in a while

body:
Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote: Check it out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates#Wikipe-tan

Steve
_______________________________________________
It's summer on most of the planet.  Have you run out of bugs and blooming plants already?  Even if it's an GPL anime character, it seems like you could have picked a GPL anime bug or plant.~~Pro-Lick

---------------------------------
Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls.  Great rates starting at 1?/min.


subject: [WikiEN-l] en: well on the way to ... 2 million!

body:
On Aug 7, 2006, at 4:46 AM, David Gerard wrote:

> en:wp article 1,000,000 was four months ago. en: is already over
> 1,300,000. Two million will happen by April at latest, probably
> earlier.
>
> :-O
>
> This may be a useful number to mention when asked about Jimbo's
> comments on quality rather than quantity!
>
> What's the new stuff been? Is there any broad characterisation we can
> apply? I've been doing a lot of article work recently and may be
> responsible for ten or twenty of them ;-)
>
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics

I did [[Chalk Bluffs]]. I was interested in it because I had lived
for years within a few miles of this interesting feature but had
never heard of it or gone out there. I think it is notable enough,
but I think it is a typical new article. The old days are gone, when
you could start a new article, like [[Colorado]].

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Challenge: explain NPOV in a sentence.

body:
On Aug 7, 2006, at 6:30 AM, David Gerard wrote:

> I'm sorely lacking in snappy quotes, though. I ask your assistance:
> Explain NPOV in a sentence.

Amazing that an arbitrator would not be familiar with this:

[[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] contemplates inclusion of all
significant points of view regarding a subject.

Fred


from_name: SPUI

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> All of which is to say, the "magic word", while undoubtedly useful and
> intuitive to those naively adding ISBN numbers (not necessarily
> expecting a link), is not actually necessary. And, if any bot
> substitution was to occur, I would actually find substitition *to* the
> template syntax "cleaner" than substiution to the magic word syntax.
>
> It's more portable anyway.

What's your opinion on stuff like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Njt-sta ?


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 8/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Heh, funny. This opening description is interesting: "...encyclopaedia
> operating under an open-source management style...uses a collaborative
> software known as wiki that facilitates the creation and development
> of articles." What an interesting idea to describe our "management
> style" as "open-source" and to relegate the role of the wiki as just
> "facilitating" article creation and development. Is this the prejudice
> of a "traditional" encyclopaedia which has rigid management
> structures, and sees that as the most striking difference?
>
What would you say is the most striking difference?  I'd say it's a
close tie between free as in open source and open as in...wiki.  In
most news reports I've heard the first part is less emphasized though.

As for relegating the role of the wiki to just "facilitating" article
creation and development, what would you say it does?  The wiki
certainly doesn't write the articles, people do!

Anyway, I'd say the much worse snippet is the one linked to by "open source":

"computer software whose source code is put into the public domain,
subject to the restriction that any improvements or derived software
also include the source code and be put into the public domain."

I suppose the term "public domain" has other meanings apart from the
technical "copyright free" one, but that's still damn confusing for
someone who doesn't know that open source software is still
copyrighted.

Looking at the rest of the snippet though, I see "Open source refers
to both a model of software development and an ideology of
intellectual property."  There again are those two things which I
think are the most striking difference(s) in Wikipedia.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Willy on Wheels and ISP Reporting Changes

body:
Dear Fred,

He appears to be in the UK, not Canada as you mentioned.

en.wikigadugi.org

See recent changes for Willy's visit.

I think this guy is one of your admins.   Here's his IP log for an ISP
report.  This is a good test of your new policy.  Since
this person is a bane not only on Wikimedia, but anyone on any projects
supporting Wikimedia content, would be a good
test.

80-195-236-221.cable.ubr02.hari.blueyonder.co.uk

:-)

Jeff


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 8/7/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> It gets me a domain-parking page with lots of pay-per-click pseudo-
> search/portal links... the sort of thing an awful lot of URLs get to
> these days.  I wouldn't use the term "evil" for this, but certainly
> it's an annoyance.

Heh, I knew I should have checked the URL. I actually just meant the
fact that http://.... urls are automatically linked from Wikipedia. My
question was, is that behaviour necessary?

(you may have just been being funny)

Steve


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gordhan Das Valasai

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New language

body:
New language is Meghwarki. It is written in Urdu format. It is spoken by
almost 0.5 million Meghwars living in Tharparkar and Rajistan.

--
Gordhan Das Valasai,
Ph D Scholar,
MUET, Jamshoro, Sindh.
03332743180


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Dear Fred,
>
>He appears to be in the UK, not Canada as you mentioned.
>
>en.wikigadugi.org
>
>See recent changes for Willy's visit.
>
>I think this guy is one of your admins.   Here's his IP log for an ISP
>report.  This is a good test of your new policy.  Since
>this person is a bane not only on Wikimedia, but anyone on any projects
>supporting Wikimedia content, would be a good
>test.
>
>80-195-236-221.cable.ubr02.hari.blueyonder.co.uk
>
>:-)
>
>Jeff
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
Also, the digitally signed pcap trace files generated by the DSFS
forensic file system
which detail Willy's visits, routes, transactions, and other information
along with all packet
traffic captured around this time are at:

ftp.wikigadugi.org/wiki/trace

to verify this information and give you some idea of what an "ironclad"
ISP forensic trace
looks like.

Jeff


body:
On 8/6/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Should there be a new group of "stable version editors"? Should these be
> initially identical with admins to give it a kick-start? But that would

Absolutely not - admins are appointed on the basis of their vandalism
skills and trustworthiness, not on their knowledge of content. I would
actually recommend a much broader set of users, like "everyone with
the project for 3 months and with 250 edits" or something, and taking
away those privileges liberally as needed.

Steve


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
David Gerard wrote:
>On 07/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates#Wikipe-tan
>
> I'm going to regret reading the list again, aren't I?

I dunno, but I'm going to regret reading this response of yours
to a message I'd otherwise have overlooked!

Is there a word for someone who leaps all over every "Oppose"
comment and debates it to death, even if it's a matter of
subjective opinion which the commenter ought to be entitled to?
(And is there further a word for the insertion, just before
such a dissection, of a methinks-the-lady-doth-protest-too-much
disclaimer like "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be one of those users
who just 'has to' address every opposing comment, but..."? :-) )


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
On Aug 7, 2006, at 8:09 AM, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

> Dear Fred,
>
> He appears to be in the UK, not Canada as you mentioned.
>
> en.wikigadugi.org
>
> See recent changes for Willy's visit.
>
> I think this guy is one of your admins.   Here's his IP log for an ISP
> report.  This is a good test of your new policy.  Since
> this person is a bane not only on Wikimedia, but anyone on any
> projects
> supporting Wikimedia content, would be a good
> test.
>
> 80-195-236-221.cable.ubr02.hari.blueyonder.co.uk
>
> :-)
>
> Jeff

He's not editing Wikipedia from that address, but the ip is probably
blocked due to past activities.

Fred


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>Dear Fred,
>>
>>He appears to be in the UK, not Canada as you mentioned.
>>
>>en.wikigadugi.org
>>
>>See recent changes for Willy's visit.
>>
>>I think this guy is one of your admins.   Here's his IP log for an ISP
>>report.  This is a good test of your new policy.  Since
>>this person is a bane not only on Wikimedia, but anyone on any projects
>>supporting Wikimedia content, would be a good
>>test.
>>
>>80-195-236-221.cable.ubr02.hari.blueyonder.co.uk
>>
>>:-)
>>
>>Jeff
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>Also, the digitally signed pcap trace files generated by the DSFS
>forensic file system
>which detail Willy's visits, routes, transactions, and other information
>along with all packet
>traffic captured around this time are at:
>
>ftp.wikigadugi.org/wiki/trace
>
>to verify this information and give you some idea of what an "ironclad"
>ISP forensic trace
>looks like.
>
>Jeff
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
Any 71.X.X.X addresses come from a residential gateway half the
neighborhood is on, so you may see a lot of teenager content on it. Be
warned.

Jeff


from_name: 田中 万太郎

subject: [Wikitech-l] LIVE MIRRORS: status (not good)

body:
Hello

I am finding more and more live mirrors like the ones I
reported recently. I have posted a list HERE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Mirrors_and_forks#Mass_Live_Mirror.2C_GFDL_violation.2C_webspam_Problem

Please note these are not only Live Mirrors but GFDL /
Copyright violators too.

TANAKA

--------------------------------------
Let's start Yahoo! Auction  -  Free Campaign Now!
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/auction/


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Explain NPOV in a sentence.  Two sentences if you have to.

	For even the most controversial subjects, Wikipedia
	strives to construct a single description which partisans
	on all sides can agree with.  Such a "neutral point of
	view" description involves a certain amount of compromise,
	but more importantly, it requires stripping the discussion
	of hyperbole, speculation, and judgemental tone, and instead
	confining the discussion to something approximating objective
	truth.

This has a couple of problems, but it might be a decent starting point.

1. The words "description" and "discussion" are repeated and not
quite right.

2. The last four words are a bit too grandiose, and will invite
especial criticism from moral relativists who believe there's
no such thing as objective truth.  I'd originally written
"...confining the discussion to well-sourced facts", but
that's weak, and invites a different sort of debate since our
verifiability policies, though important, are problematic.


from_name: Nathan Carter

subject: [Foundation-l] complaining to ISPs

body:
On 8/7/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>
> On Aug 5, 2006, at 3:18 AM, Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
> > James Hare wrote:
> >
> >> Yes... stating on a page "VERIZON IS BANNED!" for example would
> >> definitely
> >> make them scared and start taking actions against jerks.
> >>
> >
> > Oh, really?  Have you tried?  Are you speaking from experience?
>
> Better to try first to enlist them on our side. We might be able to
> force the issue, but it is an unpleasant and possibly ineffective way
> to go.
>
> Fred
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

This should only happen as a last resort. It is difficult for me to edit
from work as most of the IPs of our rolling cache are blocked. It is so
frustrating it isnt funny. I dont think alienating valid users is the way to
go.


subject: [Foundation-l] complaining to ISPs


from_name: Ligulem

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/6/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>> Should there be a new group of "stable version editors"? Should these be
>> initially identical with admins to give it a kick-start? But that would
>
> Absolutely not - admins are appointed on the basis of their vandalism
> skills and trustworthiness, not on their knowledge of content.

Sure. That's why it currently needs an admin to edit
[[MediaWiki:Common.css]] or [[template:cite book]] on en, right :)?

> I would
> actually recommend a much broader set of users, like "everyone with
> the project for 3 months and with 250 edits" or something, and taking
> away those privileges liberally as needed.
>
> Steve


body:
On 8/7/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think steps like this are the sort of thing which can help build a
> better, or at least less one-sided, rapport between Wikipedia and
> relevant expert communities. Even though Wikipedia is open for all
> there is no great reason that experts should be discouraged from
> participating. We have a lot of academics at Wikipedia, it would be
> great if they were willing to defend it to their relevant communities,
> especially since it appears to have a fairly low standing in academia
> (due to its sloppy use as a source by sloppy students -- the problem
> here is not Wikipedia specifically; they'd probably use uncritically
> whatever came up first in Google, and we happened to be it).

The problem is partially that academics who have had bad experiences
with Wikipedia (students citing it, or them getting into edit wars
with laypeople) are very vocal about it. Those that have positive
experiences keep them to themselves. It's probably the nature of the
game - Wikipedia thrives on quiet contributors, strong personalities
tend to cause problems.

Steve


body:
On 8/6/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I just came across http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9433599, which
> is the lead section of the Encyclopaedia Britannica article about
> wikipedia. There is also one about wikis in general:
> http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9404276.

Heh, funny. This opening description is interesting: "...encyclopaedia
operating under an open-source management style...uses a collaborative
software known as wiki that facilitates the creation and development
of articles." What an interesting idea to describe our "management
style" as "open-source" and to relegate the role of the wiki as just
"facilitating" article creation and development. Is this the prejudice
of a "traditional" encyclopaedia which has rigid management
structures, and sees that as the most striking difference?

Pity I don't have the whole thing to read. It would be interesting to
compare four articles: WP on WP, WP on EB, EB on WP and EB on EB. How
do we each do for our biases? Do our biases line up as expected - that
EB has a much lower opinion of us, than we do of them?

Steve


body:
On 8/5/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Thought this was funny enough to list.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Gandhi_Boer_War_1899.jpg

What *is* it? A montage of several photographs and a hell of a lot of photoshop?

Steve


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>On Aug 7, 2006, at 8:09 AM, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>Dear Fred,
>>
>>He appears to be in the UK, not Canada as you mentioned.
>>
>>en.wikigadugi.org
>>
>>See recent changes for Willy's visit.
>>
>>I think this guy is one of your admins.   Here's his IP log for an ISP
>>report.  This is a good test of your new policy.  Since
>>this person is a bane not only on Wikimedia, but anyone on any
>>projects
>>supporting Wikimedia content, would be a good
>>test.
>>
>>80-195-236-221.cable.ubr02.hari.blueyonder.co.uk
>>
>>:-)
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>
>
>He's not editing Wikipedia from that address, but the ip is probably
>blocked due to past activities.
>
>Fred
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
I'll take the traces down then. If you need any more trace files on
Willy, let me know. I wanted to illustrate
what you can do with a forensic file system that not only captures
traffic, but does route discovery and detects
addresses behind proxies with modified cookies and other techniques. I
have some folks from the church who
use the wireless gateway and trace files to investigate porn usage in a
local neighborhood as well. The Wiki
Appliances come installed with DSFS by default, so you can track down
anyone doing site abuse.

Jeff


body:
On 8/7/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
> > Absolutely not - admins are appointed on the basis of their vandalism
> > skills and trustworthiness, not on their knowledge of content.
>
> Sure. That's why it currently needs an admin to edit
> [[MediaWiki:Common.css]] or [[template:cite book]] on en, right :)?

Yeah, it's a far from ideal situation. "Vandal fighters" definitely
shouldn't be messing with the site-wide style sheets, and admins who
primarily reorganise images and recover deletions shouldn't be banning
or unbanning users. It's a problem.

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Suggest

body:
On 8/6/06, Julien Lemoine <speedblue at happycoders.org> wrote:
> You can view results on http://suggest.speedblue.org (with redirections)

The redirection stuff is really great. I'll try and come up with
something to quibble about soon.

Steve


body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:

>On 8/7/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Fred Bauder wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>On Aug 7, 2006, at 8:09 AM, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Dear Fred,
>>>>
>>>>He appears to be in the UK, not Canada as you mentioned.
>>>>
>>>>en.wikigadugi.org
>>>>
>>>>See recent changes for Willy's visit.
>>>>
>>>>
>
>At the risk of sounding negative and repeating myself: I fail to see
>how this thread (this one in particular, without claiming the
>otherwise for other threads) is in any way related to the Wikimedia
>Foundation. Could you please have this discussion somewhere
>appropriate? Alternative: Explain to me how this topic is at least
>partly related to the WMF.
>
>Thanks in advance and sorry for bothering.
>
>Mathias
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
Fred was discussing ISP changes and Willy came up in the discussion with
Fred.

Good point, thread ended.

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] enwiki database dumps still busted and hung

body:
Back on topic since I have wiki work to do, the enwiki dumps are busted
and frozen
for the enwiki.

Is the dump going to be skipped for enwiki for this period?  If so, I
will perform the
updated translation runs on the previos build and post them.

Thanks

Jeff


from_name: Nathaniel Sheetz

body:
On 8/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Incidentally, anyone know a site/tool that will give you a list of all
> the articles (ideally, without redirects) that you've started?

[[User:Interiot]] has a script that does this (though I think it includes
redirects), and accepts requests on his talk page.  I'm not sure if it uses
the toolserver data or not (which of course is two months old).

Nathaniel


references:
<44D7498A.3010505@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<DAF157A5-073B-4D78-B43F-EDF4FD927B0B@ctelco.net>
	<44D76104.9090405@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
On Aug 7, 2006, at 9:49 AM, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

> I'll take the traces down then. If you need any more trace files on
> Willy, let me know. I wanted to illustrate
> what you can do with a forensic file system that not only captures
> traffic, but does route discovery and detects
> addresses behind proxies with modified cookies and other techniques. I
> have some folks from the church who
> use the wireless gateway and trace files to investigate porn usage
> in a
> local neighborhood as well. The Wiki
> Appliances come installed with DSFS by default, so you can track down
> anyone doing site abuse.
>
> Jeff

I chickened out when I connected to those. But let's keep talking
about them.

Fred


body:
On Aug 7, 2006, at 9:22 AM, Mathias Schindler wrote:

> On 8/7/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>> Fred Bauder wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Aug 7, 2006, at 8:09 AM, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Dear Fred,
>>>>
>>>> He appears to be in the UK, not Canada as you mentioned.
>>>>
>>>> en.wikigadugi.org
>>>>
>>>> See recent changes for Willy's visit.
>>>>
>
> At the risk of sounding negative and repeating myself: I fail to see
> how this thread (this one in particular, without claiming the
> otherwise for other threads) is in any way related to the Wikimedia
> Foundation. Could you please have this discussion somewhere
> appropriate? Alternative: Explain to me how this topic is at least
> partly related to the WMF.
>
> Thanks in advance and sorry for bothering.
>
> Mathias

I'm not sure where it belongs. But I'll think about where it ought to
go.

Fred


from_name: maru dubshinki

body:
On 8/7/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> The press concentrate on the wiki method and editability as the most
> amazing thing about Wikipedia.
>
> But I think NPOV is possibly a more important innovation. Other
> sources aim to explain the view they hold or to be authoritative; NPOV
> describes the views and has whatever authority that confers.
>
> I'm sorely lacking in snappy quotes, though. I ask your assistance:
> Explain NPOV in a sentence.
.....
> - d.

"NPOV is fairly describing things or beliefs without succumbing to them."

~maru


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/7/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
>>> Absolutely not - admins are appointed on the basis of their vandalism
>>> skills and trustworthiness, not on their knowledge of content.
>> Sure. That's why it currently needs an admin to edit
>> [[MediaWiki:Common.css]] or [[template:cite book]] on en, right :)?
>
> Yeah, it's a far from ideal situation. "Vandal fighters" definitely
> shouldn't be messing with the site-wide style sheets, and admins who
> primarily reorganise images and recover deletions shouldn't be banning
> or unbanning users. It's a problem.

The problem is rather the other way round: those that are trusted and
knowledgeable to edit [[MediaWiki:Common.css]] or [[template:cite book]]
shouldn't need to go requesting the whole set of admin tools (or an
ambassador title, as someone put it on en :).

It's not a problem that those who have an "ambassador" title on en *are*
allowed to edit [[MediaWiki:Common.css]]. Ambassadors usually are
competent enough to recognize when they lack the skills needed to edit
these pages. But they might be capable to delegate this due to their
trust they own.

Maybe a finer access mechanism would be helpful here. For example an
admin A should be able to give a user U the right to edit
[[MediaWiki:Common.css]] specifically, because he "knows" that U is
capable to do that and that A is capable to survey what's happening on
[[MediaWiki:Common.css]] (site looks like shit after edit x of U, U has
no reasonable explanation for his botch and A thus removes U's access
right to edit [[MediaWiki:Common.css]]).

But this might rather be a wiki-political thing, which should be solved
be the users and not by the devs. However, sometimes a bold developer
action can solve a Gordian (wiki-)Knot.

For the moment, we could try once again using current capabilities of
MediaWiki on en and split off some of the current "ambassador" tools
into a new user group. The "protect" right might be a good starter to
split off from "ambassador" :)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Suggest

body:
On 8/6/06, Julien Lemoine <speedblue at happycoders.org> wrote:
> I am open for any kind of suggestion/modification.

Ok, here's an example of something which doesn't work quite right:
look up "IPA". There are two problems:

1) The most likely interpretation is "International Phonetic
Alphabet", which is returned as the first link, but via a bizarre
redirect: "IPAlpha". Is it possible to take into account how often a
redirect is linked to?
2) The very useful link "IPA (disambiguation)" does not appear at all.

Thus my suggestions for the heuristic:
* Any page that exactly matches the search term (redirect or not) should be #1
* Any page which is the search term + " (disambiguation)" [or
equivalent for other languages] should be #2
* Ranks #3-10 should be sorted by links as present.

Steve


body:
On 8/7/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
> The problem is rather the other way round: those that are trusted and
> knowledgeable to edit [[MediaWiki:Common.css]] or [[template:cite book]]
> shouldn't need to go requesting the whole set of admin tools (or an
> ambassador title, as someone put it on en :).

Yes, certainly. The tools given to admins are pretty varied, and don't
represent one specific role. You could group them like this:

Vandalism: Rollback, [un]banning, [un/semi]protection
Page management: Moving special cases, deletion, undeletion (restoring
old pages), renaming categories
Site development: Modifying special pages like style sheets, skins etc
Publishing: Modifying pages like main page which are Wikipeida's public face

The category of "page management" above could even be split to reflect
the fact that being able to see old versions of ceratin pages involves
a certain amount of trust due to confidential revisions being
present...

What else am I missing? Is this a fair categorisation of the tools
avaliable to admins?

Now, there are admins (on en) who have been knocked back for admin
despite most people agreeing they would make good use of vandal
fighting tools. Why? Because they weren't mature enough to handle the
other roles.

Should we consider breaking up the "admin" role into these subroles
and being more selective about what rights we give whom?

Steve


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>On Aug 7, 2006, at 9:49 AM, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>I'll take the traces down then. If you need any more trace files on
>>Willy, let me know. I wanted to illustrate
>>what you can do with a forensic file system that not only captures
>>traffic, but does route discovery and detects
>>addresses behind proxies with modified cookies and other techniques. I
>>have some folks from the church who
>>use the wireless gateway and trace files to investigate porn usage
>>in a
>>local neighborhood as well. The Wiki
>>Appliances come installed with DSFS by default, so you can track down
>>anyone doing site abuse.
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>
>
>I chickened out when I connected to those. But let's keep talking
>about them.
>
>Fred
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
Ok. I think if you need any of them in the future I should create an
account in the server and give you access to
the entire library in a non-public forum so you can surgically extract
just the content needed for each case. We should
probably be careful about the accesses of legitimate people to the site
who may not want their IP info public. I
have offered to provide licensed copies of the DSFS file system at no
cost for the foundation or perhaps a standalone appliance
which will allow you and other folks to capture all network traffic for
Wikimedia. With this, you can track
down anyone anywhere anytime and provide ironclad forensic traces to
back up ISP reports. We have LARGE
customers using this technology. One of our appliances can capture full
traffic up to 500 megabyte/second loads. So
a single appliance could do all of Wikipedia and be 98% idle most of the
time.

Jeff


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Incidentally, anyone know a site/tool that will give you a list of all
> the articles (ideally, without redirects) that you've started?

One simple thing I've wished for would just be for the
"My contributions" page to include an N flag, the same way
Special:Recentchanges does.


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 8/7/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/7/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Aug 7, 2006, at 6:30 AM, David Gerard wrote:
> >
> > > I'm sorely lacking in snappy quotes, though. I ask your assistance:
> > > Explain NPOV in a sentence.
> >
> > Amazing that an arbitrator would not be familiar with this:
> >
> > [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] contemplates inclusion of all
> > significant points of view regarding a subject.
>
> I'd add one more sentence on there, something like, "Wikipedia does
> not attempt to describe truth itself, but rather to represent the
> truth as regarded by relevant experts." Except snappier. I think
> that's a key part of the epistemological position Wikipedia takes --
> we shove off the hard issue of "truth" onto others. (In this respect
> the line between NPOV and NOR is pretty blurry.)

Blurring the NPOV/NOR line in a brief description like this may be a good
thing, because if may lead to an opportunity to give a one to two sentence
followup about NOR.

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


body:
On 8/7/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> You're piping the link with "ISBN <number>", which the parser is
> picking up as a magic word and rewriting. I've edited the page to
> break that action - it now works as you intended.

Yeah, intriguing. I've restored the original code below for
comparison. What's really bizarre is the treatment of [[test|ISBN
52859844893549]]...

In summary, it looks like:
* Plain text like "ISBN 123" gets mapped to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Booksources/isbn123
* Plain text with slashes or hyphens or whatever are mapped to
different URLs (slashes, fwiw, are mapped to underscores), which all
behave identically - extraneous characters are treated as though
they're not there
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Booksources/isbn1_2-3
* You can access this page via [[Special:Booksources/isbn123]]
* When a link to an ISBN page like that is piped via an "ISBN" text,
the actual link is ignored, and the piped label is used instead:
[[Special:Booksources/isbn123|ISBN 456]] actually links to the ISBN
page for 456, and the link reads "ISBN 456".

So far so good? Well, it's odd, but explainable by the "ISBN ..." text
being parsed and treated later in the cycle. Now, here's the killer:
*[[Test|ISBN 456]] links to Test!

(see the example at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Stevage/sandbox )

That's the one I can't understand - putting "ISBN xxx" in the piped
part of a link only overrides the actual link if it it's to an ISBN
page. This is most unexpected. I suppose it has some strange "prevent
misleading ISBN links" benefit, but it's just...odd.

To be honest, the fact that the piped label gets "interpreted" for
magic words at all just looks like a bug, or an oversight, or a
misfeature or whatever. From some more testing it looks like some
"magic word" behaviour gets interpereted in piped links and some
doesn't - http:// links *don't* override the actual link for instance.

> Note that directly linking to [[Special:Booksources]] is more flexible
> than the magic word behaviour; it allows you to use slashes, for
> example.

Yes, though my insistance on slashes was a bit misguided, they're
apparently not used.

> {{ ISBN | <number> }} which maps to [[ Special:Booksources / <number>
> ]] is useful, it provides a way to abstract the link to the
> booksources page.
>
> However {{ ISBN | <number> }} which maps to "ISBN <number>" is not
> useful; the magic word syntax is already an abstraction layer, there
> is no need to lay another one over the top, if it does not perform any
> additional function of its own. Do you see my point?

I'm not convinced that a wrapper function has to perform any
additional functionality to be useful. Simply homogenising an
interface for the end user can be beneficial. In this case, placing a
"good" abstraction layer on top of a "bad" abstraction layer (to
whatever extent "ISBN xxx" is really "bad"...) achieves that, at
least. But I don't feel very strongly about it.

> You should ask the developers why this was implemented as a magic word
> in the first place, I'm not really sure of their reasons.

Most likely it was a very quick and easy way to make a large number of
existing ISBN numbers suddenly come to life.

Steve


body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

>Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>
>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I chickened out when I connected to those. But let's keep talking
>>about them.
>>
>>Fred
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
Fred,

I checked on arrangements and if the foundation is interested in an
appliance, I will pick up the costs for it and
donate it to the Foundation at no cost. My contribution to Wikimedia
this year if they wish to use it.

Jeff


from_name: David Gerard

body:
en:wp article 1,000,000 was four months ago. en: is already over
1,300,000. Two million will happen by April at latest, probably
earlier.

:-O

This may be a useful number to mention when asked about Jimbo's
comments on quality rather than quantity!

What's the new stuff been? Is there any broad characterisation we can
apply? I've been doing a lot of article work recently and may be
responsible for ten or twenty of them ;-)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics

- d.


from_name: Fastfission

body:
Looks like a lithograph or some related process -- adds a hazy, drawn
quality to photographs. Very common way of processing photos for
reprinting in news sources amongst countries with less developed
printing presses. The Soviet Union used this extensively throughout
the 1950s; I don't know if it was ever very popular in the United
States, and certainly hasn't been used there much in the 20th century.
At least, this is what I recall reading somewhere, a long time ago,
cobbled together with my own experience with old newspapers. I might
be wrong many points, but it resembles a lot of the Soviet-era
photographs I have seen, at the very least.

FF

On 8/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/5/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Thought this was funny enough to list.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Gandhi_Boer_War_1899.jpg
>
> What *is* it? A montage of several photographs and a hell of a lot of photoshop?
>
> 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] UK Wikipedians needed for BBC 'Imagine' programme

body:
I've been speaking to a few people at the BBC about this. I'll be
helping them with whatever I can, but they could do with more of the
fiercely addicted editors, particularly those who've been on Wikipedia
for a fair while! Here's something they sent me to send to you all:

"BBC ONE's 'Imagine' programme is looking for UK-based regular
Wikipedia contributors.  We are making a film about how the internet
has changed our culture and want to show how Wikipedia has developed
and the way it works.  We're especially keen to hear from people
who've had a 'Featured Article' on the homepage, or who contribute
very regularly.  Please contact us at imagineinternet at hotmail.co.uk,
and leave your phone number plus an outline of your subject
interests."

So far they seem very clueful and like they're going to try hard to do
us justice. All good :-) I should be meeting up with them some time
this week (helps that I work just nearby ;-).

- d.


body:
> [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] contemplates inclusion of all
> significant points of view regarding a subject.

Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy (NPOV) contemplates fair
representation of all significant points of view which have been
published in reliable sources regarding a subject.

Fred


body:
The author of the EB article (Michael Aaron Dennis) is a very sharp
guy, and a very sensitive thinker, I know of his work (he is a
historian of science, or sociologist of science, or some combination
of the two). He is currently an independent scholar; I have
corresponded with him a few times on issues unrelated to Wikipedia,
and the work of his I know is really quite excellent. So there's my
bias on the table.

I think the article is pretty fair on the whole. I think describing
"open source" as the management style and Wiki as the way of
facilitating it is not entirely inaccurate, at least along the lines
of "open source" as described by someone like Eric Raymond, which is
not dependent on any particular technology but rather on an adherance
to certain authorship principles and copyright practices.

He takes the time to get the core aspects of Wikipedia correct, I
think. For example, how many other articles on Wikipedia have bothered
to outline something like this in the very beginning of the article
(third paragraph, following the lead and the brief "history of
nupedia"):

"In some respects, Wikipedia's open-source production model is the
epitome of the so-called Web 2.0, an egalitarian environment where the
web of social software enmeshes users in both their real and
virtual-reality workplaces. The Wikipedia community is based on a
limited number of standard principles. One important principle is
neutrality; another is the faith that contributors are participating
in a sincere and deliberate fashion. Readers can correct what they
perceive to be errors, and disputes over facts and possible bias are
conducted through contributor discussions, with Wales remaining as the
final arbiter. Three other "pillars of wisdom" are not to use
copyrighted material, not to contribute original research, and not to
have any other rules. The last pillar reinforces the project's belief
that the open-source process will make Wikipedia into the best product
available, given its community of users."

Now this doesn't actually mirror the [[Wikipedia:Five pillars]]
perfectly, but it covers most of the bases (NOR, NPOV, free content,
code of conduct, no firm rules).  He follows it by a paragraph
describing the fact that some users don't gives sources, but that all
users are expected to be able to monitor articles for problems and
hopefully catch them.

He has one paragraph on the Seigenthaler incident, citing it as a
highly-publicized *example* of some of the difficulties related to
content problems. I don't think that's a bad approach. Some of the
computing details are a little fuzzy -- I don't know how big proxy
servers generate IPs but it is definitely not random, and in any case
the contributor was indeed eventually identified through his IP
address. He also says that Wikipedia in 2006 has the power to block IP
addresses, but that power has been around for a long time. Regardless,
despite being incorrect, the conclusion of the paragraph is ultimately
in favor of Wikipedia, saying essentially that Wikipedia has developed
better methods of content verification and control in the wake of the
incident. I don't think this is entirely incorrect. He ends the
paragraph with somewhat of a neutral non-sequitur, "Articles on
political subjects have become the greatest test of Wikipedia's
principle of neutrality."

The final paragraph is ultimately a fairly balanced view:

"For many observers of these controversies, a troubling difference
between Wikipedia and other encyclopaedias lies in the absence of
editors and authors who will accept responsibility for the accuracy
and quality of their articles. These observers point out that
identifiable individuals are far easier to hold accountable for
mistakes, bias, and bad writing than is a community of anonymous
volunteers, but other observers respond that it is not entirely clear
if there is a substantial difference. Regardless of such
controversies?perhaps in part because of them?Wikipedia has become a
model of what the collaborative Internet community can and cannot do."

I think that's a pretty fair assessment, if one is willing to step
outside of the "Wikipedia is great and will eventually work
perfectly!" boosterism that is naturally part of one's enthusiasm to
work on such a project, and instead look at it from the point of view
as a scholar attempting to situate Wikipedia within the history of
publishing, authorship, and computers.

I think most of us on the list have somewhat too high expectations
about how Wikipedia is covered elsewhere. On the list we are happy to
go back and forth about the problems and possible changes and so
forth. But we expect everyone else to look at it only in the most
positive of lights. This is not an unexpected phenomena -- most
members of organizations will happily take part in
intra-organizational dispute but will unite against perceived threats
from outside.

I don't think this is a threat. For something published by
they-who-feel-most-threatened-by-us (EB), it is remarkably balanced,
and attempts to highlight the positive aspects of Wikipedia as well as
pointing out the common criticisms. It is much shorter than anything
which would exist on Wikipedia itself, which limits its scope and
scale. As a concise summary of What-Wikipedia-Is and
What-People-Think-About-It, I don't think it's far off the mark.

Nevertheless, if there was an "edit this page" option (or even a
"submit a bug report") we could fix up a few of the simple errors on
it. Despite being from an identifiable, respected professional, and
despite going through the seive of professional editors, it still
contains errors, and, perhaps worse than Wikipedia itself, it gives no
citations for further follow-up or critical evaluation. This is a
problem with the content model, though. Encyclopedia Brittancia has
become a model of what exclusive and controlled editorship can and
cannot do.

FF

On 8/6/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I just came across http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9433599, which
> is the lead section of the Encyclopaedia Britannica article about
> wikipedia. There is also one about wikis in general:
> http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9404276.
>
> These articles appear to be taken from the current revision of the EB
> itself, not the yearbook or any other of these sources (on this web
> site, you can never be sure).
>
> EB is now the second (or third, depending on how you count)
> encyclopedia to mention wikipedia. The Columbia Encyclopedia has one
> and the 21st edition of the Brockhaus encyclopedia (in German).
>
> I don't have full access to the EB article from here and I am very
> curious about its accuracy :)
>
> Fun fact: Last time I checked, Brockhaus refused to call Wikipedia an
> encyclopedia.
>
> Mathias
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 07/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Good to hear from you, was wondering where you'd gotten to :)

Hiding. Doing Foundation press. Avoiding en: politics and writing some
of those "article" things that those "readers" who keep hitting our
servers complain about in the press. Foolish humans. Not reading the
list. I've just switched list mail on for this address, so
INCOMING!!!!!

- d.


body:
On 07/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Check it out...
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates#Wikipe-tan

I'm going to regret reading the list again, aren't I?

- d.


body:
On 8/7/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> The author of the EB article (Michael Aaron Dennis) is a very sharp
> guy, and a very sensitive thinker, I know of his work (he is a
> historian of science, or sociologist of science, or some combination
> of the two). He is currently an independent scholar; I have
> corresponded with him a few times on issues unrelated to Wikipedia,
> and the work of his I know is really quite excellent. So there's my
> bias on the table.
....
> FF

If you've corresponded with him before, why not send him some of this
thread? I'm sure he wasn't intentionally making those mistakes, and
he'd probably appreciate the corrections.  I tried to find his email
address so I could CC: my own critique, but I eventually gave up and
just sent to only to wikien-l.

~maru


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Aug 7, 2006, at 10:35 AM, David Gerard wrote:

> (I create tons of redirects to enhance our usefulness - a forest of
> sensible redirects helps people find what they're looking for when
> they type something into the search box. Article-space redirects
> should almost never be removed unless they're actually misleading or
> derogatory or something.)

Inclusionist bastard.

Best,
Phil Sandifer
sandifer at english.ufl.edu

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

 >


body:
NPOV is the radical notion that people can draw conclusions from
information.

NPOV is the idea that one can and should separate presentations of
fact from interpretations of them.

NPOV is the belief that the most horrible thing we can do to our
crazy contributors is accurately describe their viewpoints.

NPOV is the belief that for any viewpoint, reasonable or crazy, the
fairest thing to do with it is describe it accurately.

Best,
Phil Sandifer
sandifer at english.ufl.edu

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

 >

On Aug 7, 2006, at 8:30 AM, David Gerard wrote:

> The press concentrate on the wiki method and editability as the most
> amazing thing about Wikipedia.
>
> But I think NPOV is possibly a more important innovation. Other
> sources aim to explain the view they hold or to be authoritative; NPOV
> describes the views and has whatever authority that confers.
>
> I'm sorely lacking in snappy quotes, though. I ask your assistance:
> Explain NPOV in a sentence.
>
> Two sentences if you have to. But we need something that's not only
> accurate and complete, but shows it's obviously the right thing once
> explained.
>
> This is what I said in an email interview a few months ago. Note it's
> horribly long-winded because I couldn't think of a short way to put
> it. Your suggestions are most welcomed.
>
> "One of the keys to Wikipedia's success in my mind is the Neutral
> Point
> of View. I think this is actually our 'secret sauce.' Rather than
> advocate something or hold it to be the Truth (capital T), it tries to
> describe views of the truth per their relevance. This is an editorial
> judgement call, and perfect neutrality is of course an unachievable
> goal, but I do think it provides a good editorial compass for us. And
> neutral-point-of-view writing on subjects seems to be drastically
> rare. That's something Wikipedia does that no-one else in fact has as
> a key goal. One of my specialist subjects is Scientology (I am
> apparently what passes for an expert critic) and there's nearly no
> neutral writing on the subject outside Wikipedia - critical sites are
> detailed but really impassioned, Church sites are low-key but miss
> lots of stuff the critics consider important; the coverage in
> Wikipedia, by writing neutrally with high-quality and verifiable
> references, is often very good. It's far from perfect, but it's an
> interesting thing we do, other than the wiki work method, that is
> actually *new*. NPOV is basically how 20,000 active editors with
> wildly divergent views can keep from being at each others' throats.
> (Most of the time ;-)"
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
The press concentrate on the wiki method and editability as the most
amazing thing about Wikipedia.

But I think NPOV is possibly a more important innovation. Other
sources aim to explain the view they hold or to be authoritative; NPOV
describes the views and has whatever authority that confers.

I'm sorely lacking in snappy quotes, though. I ask your assistance:
Explain NPOV in a sentence.

Two sentences if you have to. But we need something that's not only
accurate and complete, but shows it's obviously the right thing once
explained.

This is what I said in an email interview a few months ago. Note it's
horribly long-winded because I couldn't think of a short way to put
it. Your suggestions are most welcomed.

"One of the keys to Wikipedia's success in my mind is the Neutral Point
of View. I think this is actually our 'secret sauce.' Rather than
advocate something or hold it to be the Truth (capital T), it tries to
describe views of the truth per their relevance. This is an editorial
judgement call, and perfect neutrality is of course an unachievable
goal, but I do think it provides a good editorial compass for us. And
neutral-point-of-view writing on subjects seems to be drastically
rare. That's something Wikipedia does that no-one else in fact has as
a key goal. One of my specialist subjects is Scientology (I am
apparently what passes for an expert critic) and there's nearly no
neutral writing on the subject outside Wikipedia - critical sites are
detailed but really impassioned, Church sites are low-key but miss
lots of stuff the critics consider important; the coverage in
Wikipedia, by writing neutrally with high-quality and verifiable
references, is often very good. It's far from perfect, but it's an
interesting thing we do, other than the wiki work method, that is
actually *new*. NPOV is basically how 20,000 active editors with
wildly divergent views can keep from being at each others' throats.
(Most of the time ;-)"

- d.


body:
Check it out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates#Wikipe-tan

Steve


from_name: Luiz Augusto

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania Media

body:
Sorry for my English. To prevent loss of data, is possible to upload all
video and audio files from Wikimania 2006 in Wikimedia servers? Keeping this
only in freehosting services isn't a good idea.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania Media


body:
On 8/7/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> What's the new stuff been? Is there any broad characterisation we can
> apply? I've been doing a lot of article work recently and may be
> responsible for ten or twenty of them ;-)

Good to hear from you, was wondering where you'd gotten to :)

Steve


body:
On 8/7/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Does anyone know when the enwiki dump will get fixed?
>
> In response to Fred, I doubt you will ever get any of the ISP's on
> anyone's side but their own.    They have no incentive to listen
> and Wikipedia has a serious credibility problem with many of them due to
> the fact that any of the 600+ admins can file these
> reports, and many of them are malicious and spoofed.  Your suggestion
> they should only come from the ARBCOM is a good
> one.  Last time an administrator sent an ISP complaint in on me last
> year, the email was thrown in the trash -- and after they
> reviewed the article on me and the press issues with the JFK story, they
> told me they won't ever accept them again from
> Wikipedia.
>
> There's also the problem with the Asian ISP's -- they could care less
> and won't respond, esspecially the ones in Taiwan --
> I've tried.
>
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Basically, the foundation needs to make these complaints via official
channels. There is no use for each admin to bombard them with such
complaints.


body:
On 8/7/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> On Aug 7, 2006, at 6:30 AM, David Gerard wrote:
>
> > I'm sorely lacking in snappy quotes, though. I ask your assistance:
> > Explain NPOV in a sentence.
>
> Amazing that an arbitrator would not be familiar with this:
>
> [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] contemplates inclusion of all
> significant points of view regarding a subject.

I'd add one more sentence on there, something like, "Wikipedia does
not attempt to describe truth itself, but rather to represent the
truth as regarded by relevant experts." Except snappier. I think
that's a key part of the epistemological position Wikipedia takes --
we shove off the hard issue of "truth" onto others. (In this respect
the line between NPOV and NOR is pretty blurry.)

FF


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Too bad I'm not UK based...

On 8/7/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've been speaking to a few people at the BBC about this. I'll be
> helping them with whatever I can, but they could do with more of the
> fiercely addicted editors, particularly those who've been on Wikipedia
> for a fair while! Here's something they sent me to send to you all:
>
> "BBC ONE's 'Imagine' programme is looking for UK-based regular
> Wikipedia contributors.  We are making a film about how the internet
> has changed our culture and want to show how Wikipedia has developed
> and the way it works.  We're especially keen to hear from people
> who've had a 'Featured Article' on the homepage, or who contribute
> very regularly.  Please contact us at imagineinternet at hotmail.co.uk,
> and leave your phone number plus an outline of your subject
> interests."
>
> So far they seem very clueful and like they're going to try hard to do
> us justice. All good :-) I should be meeting up with them some time
> this week (helps that I work just nearby ;-).
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Simetrical

body:
On 8/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, certainly. The tools given to admins are pretty varied, and don't
> represent one specific role. You could group them like this:
>
> [etc]

You know, only about three hours before you made that post, I
independently wrote up a very similar proposal at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_on_Adminship/a_la_carte.
 It's been rejected before, I think, but who knows, maybe now is the
time . . .


from_name: tim at greenscourt.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] Where are the Extensions

body:
I am looking for the "Reviews" extension which I believe was written by
Magnus Manske and feel lost in a maze.

Several messages posted to the MediaWiki-L mailing list refer to updates
to this code as follows:
  Update of /cvsroot/wikipedia/extensions/Review
  In directory sc8-pr-cvs1.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv22161

The page at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_extensions links to
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/extensions/#dirlist, but
this location just times out for me.

I've tried going to http://sourceforge.net/projects/wikipedia/ but I
can't seem to find where the extensions are hiding there.

Can anyone point me to the direction for the extensions in the
repository?

Thanks!

Tim