subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units converstion?

body:
On 31/10/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just found this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood
>
> Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
> to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
>
> That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
> conversion appropriate within the quote?
>
> It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.

I confess I'm one of the real hardliners who says we shouldn't even
wikilink in quotes! One of my real bugbears is people helpfully
correcting unusual date formats without checking to see if they're in
a direct quote, or in the title of a cited source, or something...
really we shouldn't be altering or muddying the text of a quote any
more than we have to.

With the exception of rectifications to make something actually parse
better - changing "all the underaforesaid shall" to "[they] shall" -
I'd personally feel happier with using footnotes to annotate the
quotation, if you feel the need to annotate it at all. And even that
should be done sparingly unless it's truly confusing to the average
reader... and, if at all possible, not a mindless numerical
conversion.

[Going beyond the example a little...]

In general, don't give us more numbers to explain numbers! This is
only really helpful when the original is a highly familiar concept but
expressed in an unusual system. Turn "Ivan was stranded in the forest
and had to walk twenty versts in the snow to reach shelter" into miles
or kilometers, sure.

But for something less immediately recognisable, like "The Earl was
granted twelve thousand acres of desmene land", annotating it with
(almost half the cultivated land in the entire county) or (easily
large enough for twenty manors) is much smarter than to just quote a
modern number that is equally meaningless to most readers.

Giving a "familiar" number looks helpful, and in some ways it is - but
in some ways, where concepts have changed over time or across
cultures, it can obfuscate as much as it clarifies, and we should be
alert for those so we can provide a useful and meaningful context. The
farmland example I quote above... well, twelve thousand acres of
cultivable land meant a very different thing in medieval England than
it would mean in contemporary Kansas, and any explanatory note should
try to explain the former rather than just quoting a number and
leaving the reader to try to guess what it means.

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


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Translation subcommittee issues their newsletter

body:
Hello,
We Translation subcommittee issue the newsletter, nicknamed _The Babylonians_.
The latest version is available on translators-l at wikimedia.org archive or meta
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/Newsletter/2006-11

It is in public domain, so if your friend is interested in
translation, please feel free to send the copy.

Feedback will be welcome at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications_subcommittees/Trans/Newsletter

Cheers,

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Doing backups and avoiding downtime

body:
George Herbert wrote:
> This may be an argument for using PostgreSQL instead of MySQL for your site
> - the PostgreSQL "pg_dump" command doesn't cause a read or write lock on the
> database, so nobody using it gets blocked.  Things do slow down a bit, but
> you can keep right on reading or updating through the dump.
>
> Even mysqlhotcopy has a moderate lock window.

mysqldump on InnoDB is the same, if you use the right options. No locking,
just multi-versioned copy-on-write tables. That's how we used to do backups
before we had slaves that we could stop.

-- Tim Starling


list: wikien-l

from_name: Simon Blandford

subject:
[WikiEN-l] User responds to personal talk in three places at
 once

body:
Hi Angela,

Really appreciate your intervention and the advice of others who have
replied. I think I can safely add a link to my own talk page to the
other talk page.

I will post specific links in future, thanks for the advice.

Thanks & regards,
bksimonb

Angela wrote:
> On 10/31/06, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
>
>> I'd say replace the copies on your talk page and the article
>> discussion with links to the user's talk page. Replying to all three
>> is inviting a forest fire.
>>
>
> I agree. I just removed it from the article talk page citing the same
> forest fire reason.
>
> Simon - it would help if you gave links in future to explain what
> you're talking about. :)
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [Foundation-l] Report from Frankfurt - October 2006

references:
<mailman.5181.1162243422.9920.foundation-l@wikimedia.org>
	<4546BB5C.9010005@earthlink.net> <ei8oo1$78k$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<71cd4dd90610311644m62ddf1b6vbea59684ffab2e4@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 11/1/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 10/31/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Long before the retreat, I raised my concern about the "vision" and the
> > "mission statement". During the retreat, both Erik and I agreed on the
> > fact there was information missing about it, so we collectively drafted
> > a new text.
>
> "to provide the necessary functions for supporting the legal basis,
> essential technical operations and broad financial means for the
> global collaborative content communities that empower individuals
> to become active participants in knowledge sharing and dissemination."

No I think you've been looking at a photo of my personal version of
the mission statement.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: Anthony

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Intellipedia the intelligence version of Wikipedia
	launched

body:
On 11/1/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > In this case both sides are appropriate.  Intellipedia is a wiki, and
> > it's an encyclopedia.  But calling it "The Intelligence Wikipedia"
> > would draw ire from the trademark wonks.
> >
> > Still, it's a good thing Ward isn't as bigheaded as another free
> > content leader.  Wiki/Intellipedia anyone?
> >
>
> I didn't know that Hawaiian words could be trademarked.
>
Wikipedia is not a Hawaiian word.

Of course, Hawaiian words *can* be trademarked.  English words too.
For instance, "Windows", "Apple", "Best", "Discover", etc.

Anthony


from_name: phoebe ayers

body:
See also Chris Bronk's talk about Wikimania this year about Diplopedia, a
pilot project within the U.S. Department of State to provide information to
diplomats and increase information sharing within the department. I'm not
sure if the projects are related.
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:CB1

-- phoebe

On 10/31/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Fantastic.  Over the years there have been these recurring stories about
> spies who go so caught up looking for secret information that they
> forgot to take into account the information that was already available.
>
> A few years ago it was only low ranking USAF personnel that was trying
> to use Wikipedia to find out about the missiles on her base.  So now it
> has reached the highest levels that Wikipedia information is superior to
> what is discovered by military intelligence. ;-)
>
> Ec
>
> Keith Old wrote:
>
> >Folks,
> >
> >C/Net reports that the US intelligence community has launched its version
> of
> >Wikipedia.
> >
> >
> http://news.com.com/Intelligence+czar+unveils+spy+version+of+Wikipedia/2100-7348_3-6131309.html
> >
> >*The U.S. intelligence community on Tuesday unveiled its own secretive
> >version of Wikipedia, saying the popular online encyclopedia format known
> >for its openness is key to the future of American espionage.*
> >
> >The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced
> Intellipedia,
> >which allows intelligence analysts and other officials to collaboratively
> >add and edit content on the government's classified Intelink Web much
> like
> >its more famous namesake on the
> >Web<
> http://news.com.com/Study+Wikipedia+as+accurate+as+Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html?tag=nl
> >.
> >
> >A "top secret" Intellipedia system, currently available to the 16
> agencies
> >that make up the U.S. intelligence community, has grown to more than
> 28,000
> >pages and 3,600 registered users since its introduction on April 17. Less
> >restrictive versions exist for "secret" and "sensitive but unclassified"
> >material.
> >
> >Intellipedia is currently being used to assemble a major intelligence
> >report, known as a national intelligence estimate, on Nigeria as well as
> the
> >State Department's annual country reports on terrorism, officials said.
>


from_name: Emmanuel Engelhart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with mwdumper or the last frwiki dump

body:
Thank you Felipe for your answer.

The solution was the following one :
max_allowed_packet = 16M in my.cnf

But I have an other question:
Does mwdumper allow to generate gzipped article text to insert into
the old revision table ?
How to do that ?

Best regards

Emmanuel

2006/10/31, Felipe Ortega <glimmer_phoenix at yahoo.es>:
> You shouldn't need to specify a -classpath argument for mysql-connector.
>
> mwdumper. jar works fine simply calling the JRE 1.5 with the appropiate .bz2 archive.
>
> Try exactly the command in the README file, or in:
>
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MWDumper
>
> All the best.
>
> Felipe.
>
> Emmanuel Engelhart <emmanuel at engelhart.org> escribi?: HI
>
> I have downloaded the last frwiki dump, in particulary:
> http://download.wikimedia.org/frwiki/latest/frwiki-latest-pages-meta-history.xml.bz2
>
> I have checked the md5.
>
> I have tried to upload with the following command:
>
> /home/kelson/tools/jre1.5.0_06/bin/java -server -classpath
> /home/kelson/tools/mysql-connector-java-5.0.4/mysql-connector-java-5.0.4-bin.jar:/home/kelson/tools/mwdumper.jar
> org.mediawiki.dumper.Dumper
> --output=mysql://localhost/frwiki?user=*******\&password=********
> --format=sql:1.5 frwiki-latest-pages-meta-history.xml.bz2 >& titi
>
> And that's what I have got on stderr :
>
> 8 pages (1,26/sec), 1000 revs (157,456/sec)
> 10 pages (0,712/sec), 2000 revs (142,339/sec)
> 16 pages (0,712/sec), 3000 revs (133,583/sec)
> 20 pages (0,631/sec), 4000 revs (126,267/sec)
> 28 pages (0,759/sec), 5000 revs (135,45/sec)
> 32 pages (0,744/sec), 6000 revs (139,519/sec)
> Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: java.sql.SQLException:
> Not a valid escape sequence:
> {[Mm]sg:/{{/',530,'Orthogaffe','20040603204946',...........
>
> Any idea what goes wrong
>
> Kelson
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> LLama Gratis a cualquier PC del Mundo.
> Llamadas a fijos y m?viles desde 1 c?ntimo por minuto.
> http://es.voice.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Intellipedia the intelligence version of
	Wikipedia	launched

body:
geni wrote

> The issue is more likely that "pedia" stuck on the end of a word tends
> to flow better than having "wiki" crowbared in.

Yes, dactyls have it over spondees, in English. Yesterday's Guardian had a back-handed tribute, a column called Ignorapedia.

Charles

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subject: [Foundation-l] Clifford Geertz

body:
Clifford Geertz, the great American anthropologist, died a couple of days
ago. There's this quote from his obituary at the IAS* which struck me as
being relevant to our projects:

In *Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author* (1988), Geertz stated,
"The next necessary thing...is neither the construction of a universal
Esperanto-like
culture...nor the invention of some vast technology of human management. It
is to enlarge the possibility of intelligible discourse between people quite
different from one another in interest, outlook, wealth, and power, and yet
contained in a world where tumbled as they are into endless connection, it
is increasingly difficult to get out of each other's way."

Though through the mechanism of a technology that wasn't imagined through
most of Dr. Geertz's lifetime, it seems to me that's what we're doing:
enlarging the possibility of intelligent discourse between people. It's a
worthy goal.

-- phoebe

* http://www.ias.edu/Newsroom/announcements/Uploads/view.php?cmd=view&id=354


subject: [Foundation-l] Clifford Geertz


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Board officers elected; Anthere is Chair!

body:
It's like how you have some sort of de facto leadership over Wikinews, right
Erik?

(Pardon me if this statement explodes into a huge debate about Erik's role,
which BY THE WAY is indeed recognized.)

On 11/1/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> On 11/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > A shift in power. With the change in board positions the last
> > justification for his past role is gone. Arbcom's power comes from the
> > community not from jimbo. You know this. Thus the community should as
> > much as posible be the final abitor of arbcoms membership.
>
> This is not a WMF issue - it's an en.wp issue. If you want to question
> Jimbo's role there, take it to wikien-l, please. Jimmy's community
> role is not an official Wikimedia Foundation role.
>
> There has been some confusion about this in the past; we've discussed
> it at the Board retreat. In the future it will be much clearer when
> the Board makes any kind of official decision regarding the projects
> (which will probably be very rare). Otherwise, what Jimmy can and
> cannot do as a community member is up to each community to figure out.
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>
> DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Keith Old

body:
Folks,

C/Net reports that the US intelligence community has launched its version of
Wikipedia.

http://news.com.com/Intelligence+czar+unveils+spy+version+of+Wikipedia/2100-7348_3-6131309.html

*The U.S. intelligence community on Tuesday unveiled its own secretive
version of Wikipedia, saying the popular online encyclopedia format known
for its openness is key to the future of American espionage.*

The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced Intellipedia,
which allows intelligence analysts and other officials to collaboratively
add and edit content on the government's classified Intelink Web much like
its more famous namesake on the
Web<http://news.com.com/Study+Wikipedia+as+accurate+as+Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html?tag=nl>.

A "top secret" Intellipedia system, currently available to the 16 agencies
that make up the U.S. intelligence community, has grown to more than 28,000
pages and 3,600 registered users since its introduction on April 17. Less
restrictive versions exist for "secret" and "sensitive but unclassified"
material.

The system is also available to the Transportation Security Administration
and national laboratories.

Intellipedia is currently being used to assemble a major intelligence
report, known as a national intelligence estimate, on Nigeria as well as the
State Department's annual country reports on terrorism, officials said.

___________________________________________________________

Intelligence officials are so enthusiastic about Intellipedia that they plan
to provide access to Britain, Canada and Australia.

Even China could be granted access to help produce an unclassified
intelligence estimate on the worldwide threat posed by infectious diseases.

More in story.

I wonder what happens to vandals.

Regards

*Keith Old*


body:
I didn't mean Special Power, I meant being recognized as the guy who is a
Bureaucrat and has all the cool ideas.

On 11/1/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> On 11/1/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's like how you have some sort of de facto leadership over Wikinews,
> right
> > Erik?
>
> Not quite. I've never claimed or used any special authority on WN (or
> en.wn specifically, which is the only one where I could remotely get
> away with it), and I would have been whacked from above and below if I
> had. ;-)
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>
> DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Felipe Ortega

body:
As far as I know, it doesn't.

You can get XML dumps with mwdumper and perform some basic filter options (as
you can see in the documentation available), as well as produce gzip output data.

But you cannot filter individual tables. The XML dump must have been filtered
previously. I don't know how the XML dump process (not the recovery) is
implemented (perhaps Brion or someone else could help you... if they're not very
busy).

Regards,

Felipe.

Emmanuel Engelhart <emmanuel at engelhart.org> escribi?: Thank you Felipe for your answer.

The solution was the following one :
max_allowed_packet = 16M in my.cnf

But I have an other question:
Does mwdumper allow to generate gzipped article text to insert into
the old revision table ?
How to do that ?

Best regards

Emmanuel

2006/10/31, Felipe Ortega :
> You shouldn't need to specify a -classpath argument for mysql-connector.
>
> mwdumper. jar works fine simply calling the JRE 1.5 with the appropiate .bz2 archive.
>
> Try exactly the command in the README file, or in:
>
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MWDumper
>
> All the best.
>
> Felipe.
>
> Emmanuel Engelhart  escribi?: HI
>
> I have downloaded the last frwiki dump, in particulary:
> http://download.wikimedia.org/frwiki/latest/frwiki-latest-pages-meta-history.xml.bz2
>
> I have checked the md5.
>
> I have tried to upload with the following command:
>
> /home/kelson/tools/jre1.5.0_06/bin/java -server -classpath
> /home/kelson/tools/mysql-connector-java-5.0.4/mysql-connector-java-5.0.4-bin.jar:/home/kelson/tools/mwdumper.jar
> org.mediawiki.dumper.Dumper
> --output=mysql://localhost/frwiki?user=*******\&password=********
> --format=sql:1.5 frwiki-latest-pages-meta-history.xml.bz2 >& titi
>
> And that's what I have got on stderr :
>
> 8 pages (1,26/sec), 1000 revs (157,456/sec)
> 10 pages (0,712/sec), 2000 revs (142,339/sec)
> 16 pages (0,712/sec), 3000 revs (133,583/sec)
> 20 pages (0,631/sec), 4000 revs (126,267/sec)
> 28 pages (0,759/sec), 5000 revs (135,45/sec)
> 32 pages (0,744/sec), 6000 revs (139,519/sec)
> Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: java.sql.SQLException:
> Not a valid escape sequence:
> {[Mm]sg:/{{/',530,'Orthogaffe','20040603204946',...........
>
> Any idea what goes wrong
>
> Kelson
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> LLama Gratis a cualquier PC del Mundo.
> Llamadas a fijos y m?viles desde 1 c?ntimo por minuto.
> http://es.voice.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

---------------------------------

LLama Gratis a cualquier PC del Mundo.
Llamadas a fijos y m?viles desde 1 c?ntimo por minuto.
http://es.voice.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Odd election of contents in Wikipedia dumps

body:
A very simple question:

Why the stub-meta-history-xml.gz version of the dumps does NOT include page_len information in table 'page'?

On the other hand, the latest-pages-meta-history-xml.7z version does include that info, as well as the page.sql.gz archives....

It simply contributes to mess things up (you've got to manually 'paste' that info to a stub dump from page.sql.gz if you want it). Crazy....

Felipe.

---------------------------------

LLama Gratis a cualquier PC del Mundo.
Llamadas a fijos y m?viles desde 1 c?ntimo por minuto.
http://es.voice.yahoo.com


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 11/1/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Fastfission wrote:
> <snip>
> > My purely speculative guess is that  -- like large universities and
> > other slow-to-change bureaucracies which have no profit motive, tight
> > funds, and no customer-feedback systems -- they think in terms of
> > big, uniform solutions that cost lots of money, are hard to upgrade,
> > and are centrally controlled.
> >
>
> On the contrary, universities *do* have profit motives, money available,
> and customer feedback systems. They still use big, uniform solutions
> that cost lots of money, are hard to upgrade, and are centrally
> controlled, but they generally manage to upgrade things at the end of
> each academic year.
>

They do have the summer to make upgrades, unlike most 24x7x365.35 government
institutions.

That said, at one point I worked for someone closely involved with the N-1th
US Internal Revenue Service major systems upgrade, and that was
approximately criminally mishandled.

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


subject:
[Foundation-l] Fw: [sorabia] CIA creates computer spy system
	using Wikipedia's software

body:
On 11/1/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Indeed - we are proud our software is good enough to be used by spooks.

I didn't see in the story if it confirmed that they're using MediaWiki.

Do you have independent confirmation?

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


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> Aphaia wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> We Translation subcommittee issue the newsletter, nicknamed _The Babylonians_.
>> The latest version is available on translators-l at wikimedia.org archive or meta
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/Newsletter/2006-11
>>
>>
> The tower of babel was unrelated to the civilization of babylon in the
> bible, if thats what you meant.
> Call it "Babelfish weekley" or something more related to the tower of
> babel. Just a suggestion.
>

Both the estate of Douglas Adams and Altavista may have issues with that
name...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> Aphaia wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> We Translation subcommittee issue the newsletter, nicknamed _The Babylonians_.
>> The latest version is available on translators-l at wikimedia.org archive or meta
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/Newsletter/2006-11
>>
>>
> The tower of babel was unrelated to the civilization of babylon in the
> bible, if thats what you meant.
> Call it "Babelfish weekley" or something more related to the tower of
> babel. Just a suggestion.
>

Both the estate of Douglas Adams and Altavista may have issues with that
name...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> Aphaia wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> We Translation subcommittee issue the newsletter, nicknamed _The Babylonians_.
>> The latest version is available on translators-l at wikimedia.org archive or meta
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/Newsletter/2006-11
>>
>>
> The tower of babel was unrelated to the civilization of babylon in the
> bible, if thats what you meant.
> Call it "Babelfish weekley" or something more related to the tower of
> babel. Just a suggestion.
>

Both the estate of Douglas Adams and Altavista may have issues with that
name...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> Aphaia wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> We Translation subcommittee issue the newsletter, nicknamed _The Babylonians_.
>> The latest version is available on translators-l at wikimedia.org archive or meta
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/Newsletter/2006-11
>>
>>
> The tower of babel was unrelated to the civilization of babylon in the
> bible, if thats what you meant.
> Call it "Babelfish weekley" or something more related to the tower of
> babel. Just a suggestion.
>

Both the estate of Douglas Adams and Altavista may have issues with that
name...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
On 11/1/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Jimmy gave a speech to the intelligence community earlier this year.
> We were independently contacted by the State Department some months
> ago to submit forms to allow the US Government to proceed with use of
> MediaWiki.  This was the subject of some talks at Wikimania in
> Cambridge this summer.
>
> This is, in other words, not new news (at least to us).
>
> On 11/1/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 11/1/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Indeed - we are proud our software is good enough to be used by
> spooks.
> >
> >
> >
> > I didn't see in the story if it confirmed that they're using MediaWiki.
> >
> > Do you have independent confirmation?

Thanks for the info, for those of us who weren't able to make it to
Wikimania.

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


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 11/1/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder what happens to vandals.

Or how they'll handle POV-pushing. I'm imagining rather humorous edit
wars between characters with usenames like StateDeptDude and CIA4life.

FF


body:
On 11/1/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> John le Carre, of course, had his equivalent, which was an alcohol-sodden woman with cats and no life, who had apparently memorised the Circus's database.

That's still just a database, of sorts; Connie Sachs wasn't editable!

> I don't know why the spooks didn't get to wiki before WP. It's obviously ideal, when trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, to try to get NPOV pages, with Talk and sourced information.

There was a news story earlier in the year that reported that
something like half of the FBI didn't even have e-mail working yet,
and that they (or was it the CIA?) were having endless problems trying
to set up a standard database for their intelligence info. These guys
seem to be constantly way behind the times in terms of individual
computer technology. My purely speculative guess is that  -- like
large universities and other slow-to-change bureaucracies which have
no profit motive, tight funds, and no customer-feedback systems --
they think in terms of big, uniform solutions that cost lots of money,
are hard to upgrade, and are centrally controlled.

FF


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Emmanuel Engelhart wrote:
> But I have an other question:
> Does mwdumper allow to generate gzipped article text to insert into
> the old revision table ?

Not at this time.

> How to do that ?

Write some Java code that does that? :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 11/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does this mean that jimbo will not be involved in the upcoming
> elections in a role other than as a voter?
>
> Such a switch would reflect the chnageing position of arbcom and the
> increaseing role of things like community bans.

Jimbo's position with regard to en.wp ArbCom is as Jimbo, not as
Chairman of the WMF.  I can't see how this would alter that situation
in the slightest.

--
Sam


from_name: Brad Patrick

body:
Indeed - we are proud our software is good enough to be used by spooks.

Hint: they use Linux too; does that make them evil as well?

On 11/1/06, ?ukasz Garczewski <tor at oak.pl> wrote:
> angelina markovic napisa?(a):
> > Yep, :(
>
> Why the sad emote?
>
> This just goes to show that the wiki model is versatile and that
> MediaWiki is a good piece of software (goot enough for the CIA at least).
>
> Nothing to be sad about, really.
>
> --
> TOR
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


from_name: geni

body:
On 11/1/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jimbo's position with regard to en.wp ArbCom is as Jimbo, not as
> Chairman of the WMF.  I can't see how this would alter that situation
> in the slightest.
>
> --
> Sam

A shift in power. With the change in board positions the last
justification for his past role is gone. Arbcom's power comes from the
community not from jimbo. You know this. Thus the community should as
much as posible be the final abitor of arbcoms membership.

--
geni


body:
Jimmy gave a speech to the intelligence community earlier this year.
We were independently contacted by the State Department some months
ago to submit forms to allow the US Government to proceed with use of
MediaWiki.  This was the subject of some talks at Wikimania in
Cambridge this summer.

This is, in other words, not new news (at least to us).

On 11/1/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/1/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Indeed - we are proud our software is good enough to be used by spooks.
>
>
>
> I didn't see in the story if it confirmed that they're using MediaWiki.
>
> Do you have independent confirmation?
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 01/11/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> Does this mean that jimbo will not be involved in the upcoming
> elections in a role other than as a voter?
> Such a switch would reflect the chnageing position of arbcom and the
> increaseing role of things like community bans.

Jimbo's position on en:wp is somewhat different to his position
regarding any other wiki hosted by the Foundation.

i.e., he's still the local Jimbo.

- d.


body:
On 01/11/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/1/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Jimbo's position with regard to en.wp ArbCom is as Jimbo, not as
> > Chairman of the WMF.  I can't see how this would alter that situation
> > in the slightest.

> A shift in power. With the change in board positions the last
> justification for his past role is gone. Arbcom's power comes from the
> community not from jimbo.

This is, of course, precisely backwards. The ArbCom is an embodiment
of Jimbo's power, that's where it comes from. Jimbo has power because
that's how we do it, i.e. the community lets him. (Note that the
community frequently tells Jimbo to get knotted.)

> You know this. Thus the community should as
> much as posible be the final abitor of arbcoms membership.

I think Jimbo agrees, but doesn't try to rewrite history to argue the point.

- d.


body:
On 01/11/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 11/1/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:

> > It's like how you have some sort of de facto leadership over Wikinews, right
> > Erik?

> Not quite. I've never claimed or used any special authority on WN (or
> en.wn specifically, which is the only one where I could remotely get
> away with it), and I would have been whacked from above and below if I
> had. ;-)

The history as I understand it, please correct as needed:

en:wp was the first Wikipedia and is by far the largest and most
problematic. (I find it a perenially fascinating problem to get press
to realise Wikimedia does anything else, or even that there is a
Wikipedia in their own language.) As founder, Jimbo had and has a role
as the person ultimately empowered to say "um, no, you're being a
dick; stop it." He really hates using this power and is very unsure of
how to, so doesn't a whole lot.

In late 2003/early 2004, Jimbo and James Forrester set up the
Arbitration Committee to solve the problem that Jimbo doesn't scale.
So twelve or so foolish volunteers have the job of bouncer, and throw
out really sorely problematic patrons of en:wp. (Though in the last
year or so, the admins have gotten reasonably skilled at discerning
the utterly impossible and kicking them out by popular acclaim - a
"community ban", on the principle that if you can't get *one* of the
1000+ en:wp admins to unban you, you just might be hopelessly at odds
with the way en:wp works.)

Jimbo's power is to be the Constitutional Monarch, but his power works
as far as and as long as the community - the volunteers who do
everything, after all - consider it does. So far the arrangement works
pretty well. IMO it produces better results than a pure community
approach does, because that results in utter jawdropping idiocy like
RFCs against people for deleting copyright-violating userboxes without
proper community consultation (whatever that is when they're breaking
the law).

- d.


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special page names case-insensitive and localisable

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
>
> I've just committed a change to make special page names case-insensitive and
> localisable. The default name for a special page can be changed, but a
> redirect from the English name will always be kept. At present, there are no
> local sets of names committed, although one has been proposed for German.

So what would be the canonical name of the page that is currently
[[Special:Recentchanges]]? You see, you said "the English name", but in
my dictionary, "Recentchanges" is not an English word. It should be
[[Special:Recent changes]]. The same applies to more than half of all
the special pages. :)

Timwi


body:
On 11/1/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is, of course, precisely backwards. The ArbCom is an embodiment
> of Jimbo's power, that's where it comes from. Jimbo has power because
> that's how we do it, i.e. the community lets him. (Note that the
> community frequently tells Jimbo to get knotted.)

That was the case that isn't the case any more.

he appearance of "community blocks" shows that at least the admin
community regards its self as holding powers that were once
exclusively Jimbo's and without any obvious link back to Jimbo.
Arbcom's power no longer comes from "Jimbo has said that we can do
this" but from "the community said we can do this".

That isn't to say that there is no role for Jimbo (I can't at short
notice come up with a replacement system for appointing backup arbcom
members that doesn't have an unacceptably high bureaucratic overhead)
but the election should be the preserve of the community unless the
board formally decides to intervene (and if they felt the need to I
think we would have a very very serious problem).

--
geni


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 11/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> A shift in power. With the change in board positions the last
> justification for his past role is gone. Arbcom's power comes from the
> community not from jimbo. You know this. Thus the community should as
> much as posible be the final abitor of arbcoms membership.

This is not a WMF issue - it's an en.wp issue. If you want to question
Jimbo's role there, take it to wikien-l, please. Jimmy's community
role is not an official Wikimedia Foundation role.

There has been some confusion about this in the past; we've discussed
it at the Board retreat. In the future it will be much clearer when
the Board makes any kind of official decision regarding the projects
(which will probably be very rare). Otherwise, what Jimmy can and
cannot do as a community member is up to each community to figure out.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
On 11/1/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's like how you have some sort of de facto leadership over Wikinews, right
> Erik?

Not quite. I've never claimed or used any special authority on WN (or
en.wn specifically, which is the only one where I could remotely get
away with it), and I would have been whacked from above and below if I
had. ;-)
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: angelina markovic

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fw: [sorabia] CIA creates computer spy system using
	Wikipedia's software

body:
Yep, :(

FYI

CIA creates computer spy system using Wikipedia's software

Front page <http://english.pravda.ru/>  / World
<http://english.pravda.ru/world/>  / Americas
<http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/>

01.11.2006    <http://english.pravda.ru/img/ar_gr.gif> Source:
<http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/01-11-2006/85315-Wikipedia%20encycl
opedia%20Wikipedi-0#>

<http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/01-11-2006/85315-Wikipedia%20encycl
opedia%20Wikipedi-0> Increase font size

<http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/01-11-2006/85315-Wikipedia%20encycl
opedia%20Wikipedi-0>
<javascript:printopen('/print/world/americas/85315-Wikipedia encyclopedia
Wikipedi-0');>
<http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/01-11-2006/85315-Wikipedia%20encycl
opedia%20Wikipedi-0#>

The U.S. intelligence community on Tuesday unveiled its own secretive
version of Wikipedia saying the popular online encyclopedia
<http://english.pravda.ru/filing/encyclopedia_/> format known for its
openness is key to the future of American espionage.

The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have created a computer system
that uses software from a popular Internet encyclopedia site to gather
content on sensitive topics from analysts across the spy community, part of
an effort to fix problems that plagued prewar estimates on Iraq .
The system, dubbed Intellipedia because it is built on open-source software
from Wikipedia <http://english.pravda.ru/filing/Wikipedia/> , was launched
earlier this year. It already is being used to assemble intelligence reports
on Nigeria and other subjects, according to U.S. intelligence officials who
on Tuesday discussed the initiative in detail for the first time, Los
Angeles Times reports.

A "top secret" Intellipedia system, currently available to the 16 agencies
that make up the U.S. intelligence
<http://english.pravda.ru/filing/intelligence_/> community, has grown to
more than 28,000 pages and 3,600 registered users since its introduction on
April 17. Less restrictive versions exist for "secret" and "sensitive but
unclassified" material.

The system is also available to the Transportation Security Administration
and national laboratories <http://english.pravda.ru/filing/laboratories/> .

Intellipedia is currently being used to assemble a major intelligence
report, known as a national intelligence estimate, on Nigeria as well as the
State Department's annual country reports on terrorism, officials said.

Some day it may also be the path intelligence officials take to produce the
president's daily intelligence briefing, Reuters reports.

Source: agencies

Prepared by Alexander Timoshik
Pravda.ru

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/01-11-2006/85315-Wikipedia%20encyclopedia%20Wikipedi-0


from_name: phoebe ayers

body:
On 11/1/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/1/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Jimmy gave a speech to the intelligence community earlier this year.
> > We were independently contacted by the State Department some months
> > ago to submit forms to allow the US Government to proceed with use of
> > MediaWiki.  This was the subject of some talks at Wikimania in
> > Cambridge this summer.
> >
> > This is, in other words, not new news (at least to us).
> >
> > On 11/1/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 11/1/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Indeed - we are proud our software is good enough to be used by
> > spooks.
> > >
> > > I didn't see in the story if it confirmed that they're using
> MediaWiki.
> > >
> > > Do you have independent confirmation?
>
> Thanks for the info, for those of us who weren't able to make it to
> Wikimania.

Sorry, I sent this to en-wp but missed this list:

See also Chris Bronk's talk about Wikimania this year about Diplopedia, a
pilot project within the U.S. Department of State to provide information to
diplomats and increase information sharing within the department.
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:CB1

-- phoebe


from_name: Łukasz Garczewski

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fw: [sorabia] CIA creates computer spy system
 using	Wikipedia's software

body:
angelina markovic napisa?(a):
> Yep, :(

Why the sad emote?

This just goes to show that the wiki model is versatile and that
MediaWiki is a good piece of software (goot enough for the CIA at least).

Nothing to be sad about, really.

--
TOR


from_name: Aphaia

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wiki trademark issue for ZH Wikipedia in
	mainland China

body:
And any update?
As for translated trademark issues, I have seen some Japanese company
failed to be recognized officially since they left challengers who had
tried to registered translation of a certain trademark for years
(Crayon Shinchan Issue) and it has therefore been said that the best
defence in the PRC market would be registration beforehand even if you
have no intention to join that market at that moment. Hopefully it
wouldn't be our case but there is no information at any rate.

On 4/24/06, Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll get in touch with a chinese law firm through our japanese law firm.
>
> Best,
>
> Jean-Baptiste Soufron
> wikimedia foundation
> chief legal officer
>
> Le 23 avr. 06 ?? 19:47, Andre Engels a ??crit :
>
> > 2006/4/23, THD <theodoranian at gmail.com>:
> >> Hi,
> >> There are some things different between Chinese characters and
> >> English word.
> >> Every Chinese character has its own meaning. When we translate a
> >> foriegn
> >> language into Chinese, sometimes we do it by meaning, but more
> >> often we use
> >> characters with similar pronunciation for translation. Wiki is a
> >> generic
> >> name, so it can't be a trade mark. In Chinese sphere, wiki can be
> >> translate
> >> in many ways. Such as ?S?? (now all the Wikimedia projects in
> >> Chinese
> >> language, the first one pronunces as "wei", and the second
> >> pronunces as
> >> "gee"), ???o(first "wei", second "gee"), and ?S??(first "wei" ,
> >> second "ke")etc.
> >> ?S?? is one of translations of the word "wiki", and it was chosen
> >> by Chinese
> >> Wikipedians to be the only name of Chinese Wikipedia. Before Chinese
> >> Wikipedian's choosing ?S?? as the name, there was no famous name
> >> of wiki
> >> technology. The problem is "if we don't register ?S??, the
> >> Chinese Wikipedia
> >> will face the challenge of changing its name (in Chinese)".
> >> Wikipedia is one
> >> word, but ?S?????? have 4 characters.  In Chinese text trade
> >> mark, the
> >> government protect the usage of charater singly.When someone
> >> registers ?S??,
> >> other people can't use ?S?? in their own trade mark. So the
> >> situation is not
> >> the same.
> >> THD
> >
> > I am not into Chinese trademark law, but in general is it not a
> > defense against a claim of trademark violation that one used the
> > trademark continuously since BEFORE the person claiming violation used
> > it? I know that this is the case here in the Netherlands, there is
> > even the rule that if that other person knew about your previous use
> > of the trademark, their registration is considered mala fide, and can
> > be cancelled on those grounds.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> > ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


from_name: oscar

body:
this has absolutely nothing to do anymore with the current thread, and i
strongly support erik moellers kind request to please take this discussion
off this list unto the discussionlist of the english wikipedia.
thank you.

On 11/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/1/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This is, of course, precisely backwards. The ArbCom is an embodiment
> > of Jimbo's power, that's where it comes from. Jimbo has power because
> > that's how we do it, i.e. the community lets him. (Note that the
> > community frequently tells Jimbo to get knotted.)
>
> That was the case that isn't the case any more.
>
> he appearance of "community blocks" shows that at least the admin
> community regards its self as holding powers that were once
> exclusively Jimbo's and without any obvious link back to Jimbo.
> Arbcom's power no longer comes from "Jimbo has said that we can do
> this" but from "the community said we can do this".
>
> That isn't to say that there is no role for Jimbo (I can't at short
> notice come up with a replacement system for appointing backup arbcom
> members that doesn't have an unacceptably high bureaucratic overhead)
> but the election should be the preserve of the community unless the
> board formally decides to intervene (and if they felt the need to I
> think we would have a very very serious problem).
>
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Intellipedia the intelligence version of Wikipedia
 launched

body:
Anthony wrote:
> On 11/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 11/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>>> There's something interesting -- and a little sad -- going on
>>> here with respect to language evolution.  Just about everyone has
>>> heard of Wikipedia by now, but most people don't know where the
>>> name comes from.  So they're apt to seize on the wrong part of
>>> the word when creating derived terms.  More and more we're seeing
>>> the stem "pedia" used to mean "an open, collaborative repository
>>> that anyone can quickly and easily edit".  Sorry, Ward.
>> http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
>> http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/WikiFur_Furry_Central
>> http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Entryway
>> http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Muppet_Wiki
>> http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
>>
>> The issue is more likely that "pedia" stuck on the end of a word tends
>> to flow better than having "wiki" crowbared in.
>>
> In this case both sides are appropriate.  Intellipedia is a wiki, and
> it's an encyclopedia.  But calling it "The Intelligence Wikipedia"
> would draw ire from the trademark wonks.
>
> Still, it's a good thing Ward isn't as bigheaded as another free
> content leader.  Wiki/Intellipedia anyone?
>

I didn't know that Hawaiian words could be trademarked.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Clifford Geertz

body:
On 11/2/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Clifford Geertz, the great American anthropologist, died a couple of days
> ago. There's this quote from his obituary at the IAS* which struck me as
> being relevant to our projects:
>
> In *Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author* (1988), Geertz stated,
> "The next necessary thing...is neither the construction of a universal
> Esperanto-like
> culture...nor the invention of some vast technology of human management. It
> is to enlarge the possibility of intelligible discourse between people quite
> different from one another in interest, outlook, wealth, and power, and yet
> contained in a world where tumbled as they are into endless connection, it
> is increasingly difficult to get out of each other's way."
>
> Though through the mechanism of a technology that wasn't imagined through
> most of Dr. Geertz's lifetime, it seems to me that's what we're doing:
> enlarging the possibility of intelligent discourse between people. It's a
> worthy goal.
>
> -- phoebe
>
> * http://www.ias.edu/Newsroom/announcements/Uploads/view.php?cmd=view&id=354

Thanks very much for passing this on Phoebe - and I heartily concur
with this goal. I'm saddened though to hear of Dr Geertz's death - I
hadn't heard. He was and is a beacon of light to anyone who wants to
understand human nature and society.

Cormac


subject: [Foundation-l] Clifford Geertz


subject: [WikiEN-l] Excessive units conversion?

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>> George Herbert wrote:
>>
>>> I just found this:
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood
>>>
>>> Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
>>> to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
>>>
>>> That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
>>> conversion appropriate within the quote?
>>>
>>> It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.
>>>
>> It's a questionable practice.  It is in square brackets to show that
>> it's an addition, but I think a footnote would be better in this case.
>> Why too is it in km^2 instead of hectares?
>
> Because it's Bobblewik.
>

Hasn't Bobblewik been banned for mindlessly running an unauthorised bot?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject:
[Foundation-l] How to develop policy in a multilingual
	organization

body:
Being on a wikiholiday (really I *am* on holidays), digging a pile of
mails when I was on another forced holiday, I reached to this mail
(for your information: due to machine trouble, I had no access to the
Net from 05/11/24 till a certain day of last December)

I agree generally with Elian and Delphine, while I am not sure if we
can say in all cases English is the only valid version, even assuming
it would be so in most cases. Among all proposed things, I support the
part we need a policy for translation. I think we would do better
works within a more shared and clarified scheme based on well-definied
ideas.

I feel our activities for multilingal audience supported by many
goodwill translators but I am not sure what kind of ideas we who is
engaged in translation and/or coordination are now sharing and not.
That is partly because I proposed to have an open meeting of
translators.

If the Foundation, as an organisational body, expresses its ideas how
the translation of its official statement is expected to work, for
instance, I assume it would be helpful for both translators and
coordinators. It could be a sort of mission statement rather than
policy. Or not. Or we need both. I myself feel we need both - mission
statement of translators as grand design and policy which would be
considered in implementations/particular translating works.

I would like to know what you all - responsible people / translators /
people of the community either English native or not - think about
such necessity to have officially defined documents about
translation/realisation of multilingualism.

On 11/30/05, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oooops. missing part of a sentence.
>
> On 11/30/05, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I like the idea, because I believe we need to pay more attention to
> > those "cultural differences". And I am not for literal translations
> > either, because...
>
> ...because those, as you pointed out, do not take into consideration
> concepts, ideas, core values that a language carries, and even
> sometimes possible interpretations due to the language that would
> change the meaning entirely.
>
> >
> > However, where possible, I really think we should make the
> > translations of policies as "official" as possible, especially for
> > things as important as the privacy policy.
> >
> > I would hate us to fall in the GFDL pit of having one unintelligible
> > policy in English and arguing that it was the only valid one. For some
> > languages (unfortunately not for all), we probably have enough people
> > with the skills to make sure the policy has the same core meaning as
> > the English one, that it takes into consideration the specificities of
> > one language and/or culture. If it can be approved by the relevant
> > people and made official, all the better. Creative Commons did it...
> > if anyone else, I think *we* can do it too. ;-)
> >
> > But still, I think your idea is a good one, and should be adopted widely.
>
>
> Delphine
>
> --
> ~notafish
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


from_name: Gordon Joly

body:
At 00:36 +0100 2/11/06, ?ukasz Garczewski wrote:
>angelina markovic napisa?(a):
>>  Yep, :(
>
>Why the sad emote?
>
>This just goes to show that the wiki model is versatile and that
>MediaWiki is a good piece of software (goot enough for the CIA at least).
>
>Nothing to be sad about, really.
>
>--
>TOR

Mediawiki has some applications, such as Wikipedia, to which is suited.

However, the Commons has noted that Mediawiki may
not be the best software for the Commons
"archive". I think Mediwiki has some weakness in
the forming categories, searching and indexing.

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


from_name: Liz Kim

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image Links?

body:
Is it possible to have images as links?? HOW??
THANKS!


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
Fastfission wrote

> There was a news story earlier in the year that reported that
> something like half of the FBI didn't even have e-mail working yet,
> and that they (or was it the CIA?) were having endless problems trying
> to set up a standard database for their intelligence info. These guys
> seem to be constantly way behind the times in terms of individual
> computer technology. My purely speculative guess is that  -- like
> large universities and other slow-to-change bureaucracies which have
> no profit motive, tight funds, and no customer-feedback systems --
> they think in terms of big, uniform solutions that cost lots of money,
> are hard to upgrade, and are centrally controlled.

Yup, they are way ahead in bureaucracy and infighting. WP's competitive edge is really that we come at things from the other end. This is why the concept of wiki is hardly explicable in terms of the past experience of most successful people. It's counter-intuitive for those who know how organisations work, that follow the post-WWII corporate patterns of command-and-control.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Liz Mathews

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New at starting a wiki

body:
I've been trying to follow the directions towards starting a separate wiki,
not necessarily in a different language but definitely for another purpose.
I'm using it to categorize and organize data for my boss.

So how do I actually go about making a main page and moving it to another
domain?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New at starting a wiki

body:
Ah, much obliged.  I'll poke.

Thanks for the prompt response!


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Fastfission wrote:
<snip>
> My purely speculative guess is that  -- like large universities and
> other slow-to-change bureaucracies which have no profit motive, tight
> funds, and no customer-feedback systems -- they think in terms of
> big, uniform solutions that cost lots of money, are hard to upgrade,
> and are centrally controlled.
>

On the contrary, universities *do* have profit motives, money available,
and customer feedback systems. They still use big, uniform solutions
that cost lots of money, are hard to upgrade, and are centrally
controlled, but they generally manage to upgrade things at the end of
each academic year.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Steve

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New at starting a wiki

body:
Someone could probably direct you better but I think you're on the wrong
list. Poke around for the Development list.

As for making a main page, you'll have to download the package onto your
server, unzip it, and then go through the installation process.

-Steve

On 11/2/06, Liz Mathews <kalifla at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've been trying to follow the directions towards starting a separate
> wiki,
> not necessarily in a different language but definitely for another
> purpose.
> I'm using it to categorize and organize data for my boss.
>
> So how do I actually go about making a main page and moving it to another
> domain?
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New at starting a wiki

body:
Yeh. Not the most helpful but I've installed it before. When I did the
process was somewhat rocky and I had to login to the IRC channel to get all
kinds of specific help. Surely its a lot smoother now. Hopefully, anyway. =)

-S

On 11/2/06, Liz Mathews <kalifla at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ah, much obliged.  I'll poke.
>
> Thanks for the prompt response!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject:
[Foundation-l] Good news everyone (tax, servers,
	amsterdam and wikimedia germany)

body:
Hi all,

Wikimedia Deutschland is happy to announce that the German tax office
just confirmed the Verein's tax-exempt status. We now have the
continuing ability to issue donation receipts until October 2011.

We're also glad to tell you that we've ordered 15 servers for more
than 50.000 Euros to serve as squids in the NOC in Amsterdam. Even if
this is not much in comparison to the whole Wikimedia server cluster,
it will more than double the server capacities in Europe, which is a
good start, isn't it?

More information (in German):
http://www.wikimedia.de/2006/11/gute-nachrichten/
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/80424

Mathias


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [WikiEN-l] couple OTRS questions

body:
I was wondering if you could update OTRS/personnel adding me, (I could
do it, but I don't know if it's appropiated).

I've also translated 4 new email templates for info-es
(the last 4 at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/es )

* '''es-Borrado de cuenta''' For people requesting account deletion
* '''es-?Puedo escribir sobre X?''' For people requesting we add some
article or are sending us text for inclusion on wikipedia
* '''es-?Porqu? borraron mi art?culo?''' People asking why their
articles got deleted
* '''es-?Sobre cual art?culo comentas?''' People email us, but they
don't mention which article is being discussed, and therefore we
request more information

Also, I'd like to point a change on a title:
* '''es-Autor reclamando sus derechos''' should be changed to
'''es-Solicitud m?s espec?fica de permiso''' since the content of the
template is we asking for a more clear and
specific statement, it's not about him claiming his rights.

Can you help me getting the new templates added to the info-es choices?

User:Drini
Pedro S?nchez


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 02/11/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:

> We're also glad to tell you that we've ordered 15 servers for more
> than 50.000 Euros to serve as squids in the NOC in Amsterdam. Even if
> this is not much in comparison to the whole Wikimedia server cluster,
> it will more than double the server capacities in Europe, which is a
> good start, isn't it?

Excellent!

Er, does this create any sort of publisher liability for WM DE?
Something that a judge could try to use in Tron II?

- d.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Good news everyone (tax, servers,
 amsterdam and wikimedia germany)

body:
Mathias Schindler napisa?(a):
> Hi all,
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland is happy to announce that the German tax office
> just confirmed the Verein's tax-exempt status. We now have the
> continuing ability to issue donation receipts until October 2011.
>
> We're also glad to tell you that we've ordered 15 servers for more
> than 50.000 Euros to serve as squids in the NOC in Amsterdam. Even if
> this is not much in comparison to the whole Wikimedia server cluster,
> it will more than double the server capacities in Europe, which is a
> good start, isn't it?

Yay! Congratulations.

Here, have a stroopwafel... :P

Argh, first the retreat and now this -- another text I have to translate
into Polish. *grumble* Enough of the important good news already, OK? :P

--
TOR


from_name: Anthere

body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland is happy to announce that the German tax office
> just confirmed the Verein's tax-exempt status. We now have the
> continuing ability to issue donation receipts until October 2011.
>
> We're also glad to tell you that we've ordered 15 servers for more
> than 50.000 Euros to serve as squids in the NOC in Amsterdam. Even if
> this is not much in comparison to the whole Wikimedia server cluster,
> it will more than double the server capacities in Europe, which is a
> good start, isn't it?
>
> More information (in German):
> http://www.wikimedia.de/2006/11/gute-nachrichten/
> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/80424
>
> Mathias

yo !

great and congrats

ant


body:
On 11/2/06, ?ukasz Garczewski <tor at oak.pl> wrote:

> Argh, first the retreat and now this -- another text I have to translate
> into Polish. *grumble* Enough of the important good news already, OK? :P

Next time I will present good news to this list, I expect the whole
community to shout "You forgot Poland!" :)

Mathias "my next announcement will be in Polish" Schindler


subject: [Foundation-l] benefactors page

body:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors

Is probably outdated. Could someone from last wikimania add information
about last event (2006) sponsorship ?

Also, would there be any new names we could add to the list of
benefactors. Most is at best early 2006. No big support since then ?
I would actually suggest we put the most recent donations top down rather
than down to top.

Also... might it make sense to mention the participation of the german
chapter to the hardware effort ? If you look at it, it seems to be of the
same level than Yahoo support.... and may clarify to donors that chapters
are indeed here to support the projects.

What do you think ?

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] benefactors page


from_name: Arne Klempert

body:
On 11/2/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We're also glad to tell you that we've ordered 15 servers for more
> > than 50.000 Euros to serve as squids in the NOC in Amsterdam. Even if
> > this is not much in comparison to the whole Wikimedia server cluster,
> > it will more than double the server capacities in Europe, which is a
> > good start, isn't it?
> >
>
> Hooray! Hardware! Does that mean... toolserver improvements? :)

Not really. Afaik there is no need to expand the toolserver hardware
at the moment. If this is wrong and there is something we can do,
please let us know. We were happy to buy some more toolserver stuff,
since the toolserver has been a great investment so far.

Arne


body:
On 11/2/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Er, does this create any sort of publisher liability for WM DE?
> Something that a judge could try to use in Tron II?

Providing servers (especially squids) doesn't create publisher
liability for us. We've discussed this with our lawyers at great
length. But in the end, you never know if every single judge will
agree. So time will tell.

Arne


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mailing list search changes

body:
I'm setting up htdig search integration for the mailing lists; once
that's working, list archives for all remaining lists will be forbidden
from robots.txt.

This should hopefully cut down on requests to remove items from the list
archives due to someone's name showing up on Google from posting a
message to a public list.

The mail server will be briefly shut down while upgrading.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] slow diffs

body:
Hey Tim,

It seems like if

#include <assert.h>

is added to DiffEngine.h, it takes care of this problem.

Thanks,
Travis

On 10/25/06, Travis Derouin <travis at wikihow.com> wrote:
> Upgrading swig seemed to get me by the first part. Which version of
> GCC did you use? I'm getting compilation errors as well:
>
> g++ -O3 `php-config --includes` -shared -fPIC -o php_wikidiff2.so
> wikidiff2.cpp wikidiff2_wrap.cpp
> DiffEngine.h: In member function `void _DiffEngine<T>::diff(const
>    std::vector<T, std::allocator<_CharT> >&, const std::vector<T,
>    std::allocator<_CharT> >&, Diff<T>&) [with T = std::string]':
> DiffEngine.h:560:   instantiated from `Diff<T>::Diff(const
> std::vector<T, std::allocator<_CharT> >&, const std::vector<T,
> std::allocator<_CharT> >&) [with T = std::string]'
> wikidiff2.cpp:15:   instantiated from here
> DiffEngine.h:196: error: `assert' undeclared (first use this function)
> DiffEngine.h:196: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once for
>    each function it appears in.)
> DiffEngine.h: In member function `void _DiffEngine<T>::diff(const
>    std::vector<T, std::allocator<_CharT> >&, const std::vector<T,
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>
> On 10/25/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > Travis Derouin wrote:
> > > Thanks Tim.
> > >
> > > Is there any documentation for wikidiff2 other than the readme file?
> >
> > I doubt it.
> >
> > > I'm having issues compiling (wikidiff2.i:13: Syntax error in input.)
> >
> > We seem to be using swig version 1.3.21, you might want to try something
> > similar.
> >
> > > and am not sure how to configure it - what settings do I change to
> > > enable it?
> >
> > "make install" will install the shared library into the PHP extensions
> > directory. Then in LocalSettings.php, put:
> >
> > $wgExternalDiffEngine = 'wikidiff2';
> >
> > That will tell MW to use wikidiff2, and if necessary, to do a dl() to load
> > the extension on demand. Apparently dl() is deprecated these days, so to be
> > completely pure and true you might want to avoid it by putting:
> >
> > extension=php_wikidiff2.so
> >
> > in php.ini.
> >
> > -- Tim Starling
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>


from_name: Steve Sanbeg

subject: [Wikitech-l] regression testing parser functions?

body:
I've written an extension that includes a parser function, but I can't
figure out how to load it into a regression test.

It appears that maintenance/parserTests.php doesn't call setFunctionHook
anywhere, and I haven't seen any examples of this.

Is regression testing for custom parser functions supported?

Thanks
   -Steve


body:
At wikisource, I'm working on an extension to transclude marked sections
of a document, which would allow marking sections like this, so you
could transclude a language from a multi-lingual document.

There is a discussion at
http://en.wikisource.og/wiki/project:labeled_section_transclusion

Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 10/31/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>disappear. What Multilingual MediaWiki will do is make it possible to
>>have content indicated as being of a language at the article level in
>>stead of at the database level. Then again, you may have read the
>
>
> Only at the article level, and not at some section or even paragraph
> level? Pity, because already at commons there are lots of articles
> that have individual paragraphs labelled "de: " or "fr: " or whatever.
> Some clever way of only showing one of multiple translations based on
> preferences would be cool...
>
> Steve


body:
yay! herzlich gratuliere!
a very very very good start indeed :-)

when will they be installed, operational etc?

oscar

On 11/2/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland is happy to announce that the German tax office
> just confirmed the Verein's tax-exempt status. We now have the
> continuing ability to issue donation receipts until October 2011.
>
> We're also glad to tell you that we've ordered 15 servers for more
> than 50.000 Euros to serve as squids in the NOC in Amsterdam. Even if
> this is not much in comparison to the whole Wikimedia server cluster,
> it will more than double the server capacities in Europe, which is a
> good start, isn't it?
>
> More information (in German):
> http://www.wikimedia.de/2006/11/gute-nachrichten/
> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/80424
>
> Mathias
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I'm setting up htdig search integration for the mailing lists; once
> that's working, list archives for all remaining lists will be forbidden
> from robots.txt.
>
> This should hopefully cut down on requests to remove items from the list
> archives due to someone's name showing up on Google from posting a
> message to a public list.
>
>
> The mail server will be briefly shut down while upgrading.

Mail is back online. Searching should be available after indexes are
built, if all goes well.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Now, only if you could remove the mailing list submissions from those
third party mirrors.... :)

Travis

On 11/2/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> I'm setting up htdig search integration for the mailing lists; once
> that's working, list archives for all remaining lists will be forbidden
> from robots.txt.
>
> This should hopefully cut down on requests to remove items from the list
> archives due to someone's name showing up on Google from posting a
> message to a public list.
>
>
> The mail server will be briefly shut down while upgrading.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On 11/2/06, oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> yay! herzlich gratuliere!
> a very very very good start indeed :-)

Vielen Dank :)

> when will they be installed, operational etc?

They will probably arrive in Amsterdam next week. The rest is up to
Mark and the other tech people.

Arne


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New at starting a wiki

body:
Had to maneuver around an unchangable server timeout of 30 seconds last
time. =)

Like I said. Its probably all taken care of now.

-S

On 11/2/06, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Steve"
> > Yeh. Not the most helpful but I've installed it before. When I did the
> > process was somewhat rocky and I had to login to the IRC channel to get
> > all
> > kinds of specific help. Surely its a lot smoother now. Hopefully,
> anyway.
> > =)
> >
> > -S
>
> I haven't got problems for the installing. Uncompress the files, go with
> the
> browser and have the php install do almost everything. At last you need to
> copy LocalSettings.php from the config folder to the mediawiki root.
> Launching it is easy. It's a bit more difficult for more complex installs
> ;-)
>
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Chris Picone

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bill Knapp's slaughter

body:
so.. even if there's a splinter of proff of notability, then it goes
to AFD, right?

On 10/31/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/31/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hey, i didn't know lack of notability was valid CSD.
> >
>
> A7
>
> Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article
> about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web
> content that does not assert the importance or significance of its
> subject. If the assertion is controversial or there has been a
> previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead. Note:
> Avoid the word "vanity" in deletion summaries since it may be
> insulting.
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Mike O

subject: [Wikitech-l] Trouble downloading image archive on Debian

body:
Hi, I'm having a problem trying to download the images archive on Debian with the latest updates installed.

When I try wget it fails completely, even when I set a timeout value of 900 seconds. I only get about 4K and then the attempted download stops.

When I try lftp (pget URL) or curl they both will download between 300MB and 600MB and then the OS freezes with no indication of why in the syslog.

Anyone else had this problem or know a way around it?

One more question, can the images be obtained on CD?

--
_______________________________________________
Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way:
Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com

Powered by Outblaze


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> I'm setting up htdig search integration for the mailing lists; once
>> that's working, list archives for all remaining lists will be forbidden
>> from robots.txt.
>>
>> This should hopefully cut down on requests to remove items from the list
>> archives due to someone's name showing up on Google from posting a
>> message to a public list.
>>
> Mail is back online. Searching should be available after indexes are
> built, if all goes well.

Seems to more or less work now. Not all lists are indexed yet, so have
patience; lists will be reindexed nightly.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof problems

body:
On 11/2/06, Neil Harris <neil at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Luiz,
>
> I think that numbers-only usernames are, in general, a bad idea.
> However, all rules can have exceptions...
>
>  From a technical viewpoint, since the blocking only applies to
> registration, not use (already-registered names are "grandfathered"), it
> would always be possible to make a special exception for you on a
> one-time basis, either by quickly turning the blocking off then on again
> to let you register, by doing a quick temporary hack to the code to make
> an exception to this username, or even by poking the right values into
> the database by hand.

Short numbers (or other letterless strings) seem okay to me, and even
really long ones can have sufficient mnemonic value to be potentially
acceptable (e.g., leetspeak of some kind), subject to judgment of
local admins.  I would drop the letters requirement, myself.


from_name: Luiz Augusto

subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof problems

body:
Some days ago I tried to create a user account for myself on
wikimania2007.wikimedia.org. But I receveid the message ''Login error: The
name "555" is not allowed to prevent confusing or spoofed usernames: Does
not contain any letters. Please choose another name.''. I'm a active editor
since July 2004 and use the User:555 in lots of wikis since 23 May 2005.
[[:en:555 (number)#Other fields|Wikipedia have a article devoted to the
number 555]].

Is really necessary this in AntiSpoof extension? I don't imagine any vandal
naming in numbers-only usernames, but something like ''User:5559854123 is
the phone number of the mother of Jimmy'' is possible using numbers '''+'''
letters.


from_name: Tian-Jian "Barabbas" Jiang

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikimania 2007 Hacking Days call-for-help

body:
Dear Mr. Starling,

    I am very sorry about that, seems my information was out-of-dated. It is
pretty good to know that Wikipedia sites applied Lucene, then it will be
more feasible to further applications of cross-lingual information
retrieval.

    Best Regards,
Mike

2006/10/31, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org>:
>
> Tian-Jian "Barabbas" Jiang at Gmail wrote:
> >           o Site searching (Is there any plan to make Lucene available
> >             for other languages besides English?)
>
> It already is.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Michael Bimmler

subject: [WikiEN-l] couple OTRS questions

body:
On 11/2/06, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was wondering if you could update OTRS/personnel adding me, (I could
> do it, but I don't know if it's appropiated).
>
Well, do you already have an account on OTRS? If yes, you're welcome
to add yourself to the mentioned list on meta, if not, you first need
the account itself, because adding yourself to the "for reference
only" personnel list on meta won't yet give you access to anything...
if you'd like an account, contact one of the persons mentioned in
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS#Accounts_on_OTRS  (the people
referred to as "Contacts")
These persons are also responsible for addding templates to queues.
Michael

> I've also translated 4 new email templates for info-es
> (the last 4 at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/es )
>
> * '''es-Borrado de cuenta''' For people requesting account deletion
> * '''es-?Puedo escribir sobre X?''' For people requesting we add some
> article or are sending us text for inclusion on wikipedia
> * '''es-?Porqu? borraron mi art?culo?''' People asking why their
> articles got deleted
> * '''es-?Sobre cual art?culo comentas?''' People email us, but they
> don't mention which article is being discussed, and therefore we
> request more information
>
> Also, I'd like to point a change on a title:
> * '''es-Autor reclamando sus derechos''' should be changed to
> '''es-Solicitud m?s espec?fica de permiso''' since the content of the
> template is we asking for a more clear and
> specific statement, it's not about him claiming his rights.
>
> Can you help me getting the new templates added to the info-es choices?
>
> User:Drini
> Pedro S?nchez
> _______________________________________________
> 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: The Uninvited Co., Inc

subject: [WikiEN-l] Classical tape recordings from the 1950s and 1960s

body:
Recently I have been on a geeky reel-to-reel tape kick and have picked
up a vintage tape recorder and some tapes on eBay.  It's a
manifestation of the sort of pointless vintage analog technology kink
that is impossible to explain.  Probably a result of the onset of
middle age.

During the 1950s and 1960s, tape was the premium media for audio.  It
was available in stereo format several years prior to the commercial
availability of stereo phonograph records, and did not suffer from pops
and scratches even when played and handled multiple times.  Prerecorded
tapes were marketed to audiophiles and other serious listeners as a
better-quality alternative to records.  Casual listeners of today would
notice no difference in quality between the best tape recordings of the
early 1960s and the CDs of today.

While I am unsure of the dates and exact details, it is my understanding
that recordings published prior to 1968 enjoyed copyright protection for
mechanical rights only, that is, the rights of the songwriter.  Music
for which mechanical rights were in the public domain at the time the
recording was published (which would include classical works of the
19th century and earlier) enjoyed no copyright protection.  Further,
during this era, a copyright notice was required and its absence on a
published work would be indicative of a release to the public domain.

I have in my hand a tape recording published by the Deutche Grammphon
Gesellschaft that was published in the USA during this era.  All of the
original packaging is intact and no copyright notice is present.  It
contains a collection of important sacred arias and choruses performed
by leading performers of the day, and the musical and audio quality is
beyond criticism.  I bought it for a few bucks on eBay.  There are many
other such recordings available on eBay and elsewhere, and they could
readily be converted to Ogg Vorbis and uploaded.  Their value both to
the public at large and to the articles they could illustrate is
tremendous.

Am I misreading the legal situation, or is this an opportunity which
interested volunteers should exploit to the extent feasible?

The Uninvited Co., Inc.
(a Delaware corporation)


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] On the tangled skein of copyrights...

body:
I ran across a review of this in the TLS today, when going through
back issues at work, and thought it sounded of some interest to many
here:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/193763.ctl

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, then it's a good bet that at
least half of those words relate to the picture's copyright status.
Art historians, artists, and anyone who wants to use the images of
others will find themselves awash in byzantine legal terms, constantly
evolving copyright law, varying interpretations by museums and
estates, and despair over the complexity of the whole situation." ...
"Permissions, A Survival Guide explores intellectual property law as
it pertains to visual imagery. How can you determine whether an
artwork is copyrighted? How do you procure a high-quality reproduction
of an image? What does "fair use" really mean?"

I can't comment on the book itself - though I ordered a copy on spec -
but it certainly sounds to be promising. Anyone read it?

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


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image Links?

body:
"Liz Kim"
> Is it possible to have images as links?? HOW??
> THANKS!

* If you want to show the image use: [[Image:imagename]]
* If you want to link to the image page use [[:Image:imagename]]
* If you want to link to the file use [[Media:imagename]]
* If you want to link to the file from outside the wiki use
http://XX.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Filepath/imagename

If you wanted to read the fine manual go to
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Images


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image Links?

body:
On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 10:53:37AM -0800, Liz Kim wrote:
> Is it possible to have images as links?? HOW??

Look around for a template called "Click"; we use it on the front page
of wiki.mythtv.org, and it works nicely.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New at starting a wiki

body:
"Steve"
> Yeh. Not the most helpful but I've installed it before. When I did the
> process was somewhat rocky and I had to login to the IRC channel to get
> all
> kinds of specific help. Surely its a lot smoother now. Hopefully, anyway.
> =)
>
> -S

I haven't got problems for the installing. Uncompress the files, go with the
browser and have the php install do almost everything. At last you need to
copy LocalSettings.php from the config folder to the mediawiki root.
Launching it is easy. It's a bit more difficult for more complex installs
;-)

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof problems

body:
Luiz Augusto wrote:
> Some days ago I tried to create a user account for myself on
> wikimania2007.wikimedia.org. But I receveid the message ''Login error: The
> name "555" is not allowed to prevent confusing or spoofed usernames: Does
> not contain any letters. Please choose another name.''. I'm a active editor
> since July 2004 and use the User:555 in lots of wikis since 23 May 2005.
> [[:en:555 (number)#Other fields|Wikipedia have a article devoted to the
> number 555]].
>
> Is really necessary this in AntiSpoof extension? I don't imagine any vandal
> naming in numbers-only usernames, but something like ''User:5559854123 is
> the phone number of the mother of Jimmy'' is possible using numbers '''+'''
> letters.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>
Luiz,

I think that numbers-only usernames are, in general, a bad idea.
However, all rules can have exceptions...

 From a technical viewpoint, since the blocking only applies to
registration, not use (already-registered names are "grandfathered"), it
would always be possible to make a special exception for you on a
one-time basis, either by quickly turning the blocking off then on again
to let you register, by doing a quick temporary hack to the code to make
an exception to this username, or even by poking the right values into
the database by hand.

-- Neil


subject: [Wikitech-l] Image Links?

body:
On Fri, Nov 03, 2006 at 03:01:08PM +1100, Angela wrote:
> On 11/3/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 10:53:37AM -0800, Liz Kim wrote:
> > > Is it possible to have images as links?? HOW??
> >
> > Look around for a template called "Click"; we use it on the front page
> > of wiki.mythtv.org, and it works nicely.
>
> It's not recommended since it won't work in all browsers, but you can
> find it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Click

You have any pointers on that, Angela?  I don't think we knew that...

(And, on an unrelated topic, what happened to bestpractices.wikia?  It
seems to have evaporated, and I didn't hear a thing...)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland is happy to announce that the German tax office
> just confirmed the Verein's tax-exempt status. We now have the
> continuing ability to issue donation receipts until October 2011.
>
> We're also glad to tell you that we've ordered 15 servers for more
> than 50.000 Euros to serve as squids in the NOC in Amsterdam. Even if
> this is not much in comparison to the whole Wikimedia server cluster,
> it will more than double the server capacities in Europe, which is a
> good start, isn't it?
>

Hooray! Hardware! Does that mean... toolserver improvements? :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland is happy to announce that the German tax office
> just confirmed the Verein's tax-exempt status. We now have the
> continuing ability to issue donation receipts until October 2011.
>
> We're also glad to tell you that we've ordered 15 servers for more
> than 50.000 Euros to serve as squids in the NOC in Amsterdam. Even if
> this is not much in comparison to the whole Wikimedia server cluster,
> it will more than double the server capacities in Europe, which is a
> good start, isn't it?
>

Hooray! Hardware! Does that mean... toolserver improvements? :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland is happy to announce that the German tax office
> just confirmed the Verein's tax-exempt status. We now have the
> continuing ability to issue donation receipts until October 2011.
>
> We're also glad to tell you that we've ordered 15 servers for more
> than 50.000 Euros to serve as squids in the NOC in Amsterdam. Even if
> this is not much in comparison to the whole Wikimedia server cluster,
> it will more than double the server capacities in Europe, which is a
> good start, isn't it?
>

Hooray! Hardware! Does that mean... toolserver improvements? :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland is happy to announce that the German tax office
> just confirmed the Verein's tax-exempt status. We now have the
> continuing ability to issue donation receipts until October 2011.
>
> We're also glad to tell you that we've ordered 15 servers for more
> than 50.000 Euros to serve as squids in the NOC in Amsterdam. Even if
> this is not much in comparison to the whole Wikimedia server cluster,
> it will more than double the server capacities in Europe, which is a
> good start, isn't it?
>

Hooray! Hardware! Does that mean... toolserver improvements? :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Christophe Henner

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Search in Category" function for MediaWiki

body:
Hi
Still about Category search, I looked for something about it but
didn't found, what about something making possible to have all the
article matching x categorys.
For exemple giving the list of all the articles both in
[[Category:Writer]] and [[Category:Born in London]].
Have a nice day
--
schiste


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] benefactors page

body:
--- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
> Also, would there be any new names we could add to the list of
> benefactors. Most is at best early 2006. No big support since then ?
> I would actually suggest we put the most recent donations top down rather
> than down to top.

Keeping this page up-to-date should be the responsibility of a few different committees; fundcom,
events, and special projects (IIRC, that is were the grants function is). However, nobody in the
fundcom currently has access to easy to parse donor info (all we have is what everybody can see ;
the PayPal donation tracking pages). Would be neat to treat 'Anonymous' as a single donor.

In short, more analysis needs to be done to find out who our big donors are. The fundcom is
working on this though.

I would also like to link the benefactors page from very visible real estate on each page on each
wiki. That page is virtually hidden from the content wikis atm. We also need to make sure that
translations for the top 10 or so languages are kept up to date.

-- mav

____________________________________________________________________________________
Get your email and see which of your friends are online - Right on the New Yahoo.com
(http://www.yahoo.com/preview)


subject: [Foundation-l] benefactors page