from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Jennifer's dresses

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list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Another copyright question

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from_name: Stephen Gilbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Jennifer's dresses

body:
> Suppose that some copyright owner sues Bomis for
> infringement and damages
> that force Bomis and Jimmy into bancruptcy.  Too bad
> for them.  But the
> contents of Wikipedia is still available under GFDL
> and I suppose many
> people on this list have complete copies at home,
> from which they can
> remove the offending material and put the project up
> on a new website.
> So I don't think the project is at risk.

One of the ideas behind licensing everything under the
GFDL is to allow people to create derivative works
legally. If we, as a project, are not careful about
copyrights, why should anyone trust us when we say,
"Go ahead! Use our material. It's GFDL."? Our
credibility is the issue here.

Lars, if you don't care about Jimmy's legal risk and
don't care if he and Bomis go bankrupt, that's
certainly your perogative. You don't have to remove
any questionable material. But I'm going to remove it
so that people won't have to wonder if using Wikipedia
articles under the terms of our license is really ok.

-- Stephen Gilbert

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes
http://autos.yahoo.com


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Jennifer's dresses

body:
On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:

> 2, when you're dealing with a 600lb gorillas like Microsoft or AOL/Time
> Warner, do not ever expect forgiveness.  They are interested in profits
> and domination;

Correct.  And domination before profits, actually.  But these giants are
interested in stopping the copying where they risk losing money, which
was the case with the original Napster, but is not the case when we have
images and texts that were produced in 1924 and the copyright owner is
unknown.  And neither if someone uses images from a mail order catalog to
illustrate different kinds of dresses.

In addition to the two kinds of material, copyrighted and non-copyrighted,
there is also a third kind, a grey zone, where the copyright status is
unknown or very hard to determine, including material produced in the
1920s and 1930s.  How to treat that kind depends on whether you have an
"ISP policy" (let it be published, but remove it if the owner complains),
or a "safe policy" (refuse publication unless non-copyright can be
proven).  As far as I can see, Jimmy/Bomis is an ISP that hosts Wikipedia.
But I am not a lawyer.

Suppose that some copyright owner sues Bomis for infringement and damages
that force Bomis and Jimmy into bancruptcy.  Too bad for them.  But the
contents of Wikipedia is still available under GFDL and I suppose many
people on this list have complete copies at home, from which they can
remove the offending material and put the project up on a new website.
So I don't think the project is at risk.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/  http://elektrosmog.nu/  http://susning.nu/


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> If somebody is so bored with life that he has to translate all of
>> "Mein Kampf" he's probably desperate for credit, and deserves all he
>> can get. Under the general international rule of life + 50 it went
>> into the public domain on January 1, 1996.
>
> According to the Wikipedia article on the book, the copyright (owned
> by the state of Bavaria) doesn't expire until December 31, 2015. Life
> plus 70 years? Or do the Brazilian clones figure into this? ;)
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Life + 70 is the rule for the European Community.  The general
world-wide rule which applies here in Canada is life + 50.  There is no
obligation for any country to give greater copyright protection to a
foreign writer than it would give to its own citizens.  One very minor
and very technical point, is that copyrights expire on the first day  of
the calendar year following the relevant anniversary, however that
anniversary might be calculated.  ... this may be a concern to the kind
of person that would miss a New Year's Party just to work on a
translation of "Mein Kampf".

Eclecticology


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Jennifer's dresses

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Suppose that some copyright owner sues Bomis for infringement and damages
> that force Bomis and Jimmy into bancruptcy.  Too bad for them.  But the
> contents of Wikipedia is still available under GFDL and I suppose many
> people on this list have complete copies at home, from which they can
> remove the offending material and put the project up on a new website.
> So I don't think the project is at risk.

Maybe, but please have a little mercy on me.  I have a baby to take
care of.

--Jimbo


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

body:
Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
>
> Hi all --
>
> Verlag Bautz, a German printing house, has a totally cool website, the
> "Kirchenlexicon."  It invites contributions, but is also clearly marked
> with a copyright (2001).  My question...are direct translations of
> entire articles, even when credited, fair use?  I'm pretty sure that
> they are not -- I know they wouldn't pass muster at the university copy
> center...
>
> Opinions?

I would say that the act of translation involves a substantial amount of
rewriting and that for a fact-based article it probably becomes an
entirely new piece if it's translated properly.

But if you translate a piece of fiction into another language doesn't it
still remain under the original copyright? You can't translate Mien
Kampfh into English and then claim that you own it...

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Trouble editing

body:
Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
>
> Is there some reason that I can't access and edit the naming conventions
> page?  There's some outdated stuff there, and I would like to change
> it...  Thanks!
>  Jules

If you're using Netscape very long pages are too long to be edited... at
least that's what I've found. There are quite a few pages that I can't
add anything to. I think they're overflowing the buffer or something.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] How do you do the thumbnail link thing?

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Cologne Blue

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from_name: Brion VIBBER

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> One very minor and very technical point, is that copyrights expire on
> the first day  of the calendar year following the relevant
> anniversary, however that anniversary might be calculated.  ... this
> may be a concern to the kind of person that would miss a New Year's
> Party just to work on a translation of "Mein Kampf".

Greenwich mean, or local time?  Uhhh, not that I'm interested in that
particular work, but in general...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
> > Under the general international rule of life + 50 it went
> > into the public domain on January 1, 1996.
>
> According to the Wikipedia article on the book, the copyright (owned
by
> the state of Bavaria) doesn't expire until December 31, 2015. Life
plus
> 70 years?

Yes, I think that's what German copyright law says.

> Or do the Brazilian clones figure into this? ;)

You never know.

Kurt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Page fragment links

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from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Cologne Blue

body:
Could someone perhaps design a CologneBlue Mk2, with the following changes:
* serif font
* clearer toolbar
* key links along the top
* include the wikipedia logo

I agree with all the objections to CB, but I also agree with the need
for a cleaner-looking interface to welcome newcomers.

Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:

>Brion VIBBER wrote:
>Meanwhile, those of us who prefer that the site not scare away potential
>contributors on their first visit by presenting only its bath-avoiding,
>flea-infested, rib-protruding side, will continue to lobby for making CB
>the default look.
>
>
>
>I hate cologne blue for two reasons - firstly, it's a san-serif font
>which is not as good for large slabs of text as a serif font. There's a
>reason why virtually all books are typeset in good old time-roman or
>something similar - it's easier on the eyes...
>
>and secondly, it doesn't have the basic menu options up the top of the
>screen. When I looked at it I had trouble finding 'random page' and
>'recent changes' and 'edit page' because they were buried in the busy
>sidebar instead of being neatly arrayed along the top by themselves.
>
>
>


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Trouble editing

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
>
> At 09:21 AM 7/19/02 +1000, Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> >
> >If you're using Netscape very long pages are too long to be edited... at
> >least that's what I've found. There are quite a few pages that I can't
> >add anything to. I think they're overflowing the buffer or something.
>
> Yes, so let's identify those pages and do something about it. They take
> forever to download and are hard to read anyway.  Ones I've noticed are
> [[Palestine]] and [[famous battles]]. Both could easily be broken into
> several parts, well not Palestine easily...but still ought to be.

For me the biggest culprits are the Bug Reports pages and Features
Wanted. Every time I've come to add something to one of them the page
has been too long! Even though they have been broken into sections,
they're still ever-growing... which is fair enough, but frustrating.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Public domain image resources + metadata w/o the data

body:
If you haven't already, please everybody check out what a couple of users
have cooked up at [[Public domain image resources]]. This has got to be one
the the best organized recourses of this kind I have seen -- with categorized
links to great images. I can't wait for the new software to get online so
that some really interesting things can be done with the image:namespace
(like extended descriptions of what the image is of -- along with the bare
basics of attribution, date taken, where and copyright info).

BTW, the new software does not display the image (data) at the
image:namespace (metadata container) which seems to counter some pretty
standard style "conventions" for the web. Usually when a image of a photo is
clickable, clicking on the "thumbnail" will take the person to a larger
version of the same image. Now I know that much isn't really practical and
goes against what the image:namespace is for (display of metadata), but
wouldn't it at least make some sense to have a non-clickable display of the
same image on the image's image: page? When I first clicked on an image to
test this feature it took me a minute or two to find the link to the image.

If copyright and attribution and other such information (metadata) is going
to be in the image's image: page then it is only logical to have the image
(data) there too by default.

In addition, I do forsee people wanting to print out images hosted on the
server; shouldn't the info contained within the image page (metadata) also be
printed with the image (data)? Of course there is nothing stopping me or
anyone else from adding the image to the image's image: page, but then the
displayed image will be clickable and lead the visitor right back to the same
page (circular link).

I also forsee, given the current setup, that people will start to turn
image:namespace pages into places where they simply will place larger
versions of the same image -- which I'm not sure was the intent (but will
make perfect sense to many visitors and newbies -- may even be pretty darn
useful for any description there -- so long as all the metadata is the same
for both sizes of the image). I rambling again, so I will stop now...

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Cologne Blue

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:
>
> Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> > --- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> >
> >>This is just me but ...
> >>I hate Cologne Blue.
> >
> >  This is just me, but ...
> > I love Cologne Blue.
> >
> > Perhaps you are scared of change. Perhaps you are a
> > Wikipedia fundamentalist. Perhaps you just don't like
> > Cologne Blue.
>
> The toolbar needs some reworking for maximum usability (someone recently
> posted some suggestions for that in wikitech-l), but by and large I find
> that my eyes are seared out by the ugliness of the old interface when I
> visit Wikipedia from a computer where I'm not logged in with CB selected.
>
> Those who prefer to sleep on cold stone floors, eat naught but cold
> oatmeal, and spend two hours each morning flagellating themselves to
> expiate the sins of their fellow Wikipedians are free to select the
> classic skin.
>
> Meanwhile, those of us who prefer that the site not scare away potential
> contributors on their first visit by presenting only its bath-avoiding,
> flea-infested, rib-protruding side, will continue to lobby for making CB
> the default look.

I hate cologne blue for two reasons - firstly, it's a san-serif font
which is not as good for large slabs of text as a serif font. There's a
reason why virtually all books are typeset in good old time-roman or
something similar - it's easier on the eyes...

and secondly, it doesn't have the basic menu options up the top of the
screen. When I looked at it I had trouble finding 'random page' and
'recent changes' and 'edit page' because they were buried in the busy
sidebar instead of being neatly arrayed along the top by themselves.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


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body:
I don't really know any html... but I see that some people upload a
small version and a large version of the same picture. How do you make
the small picture into a link? Do you have to manually insert the html,
and what codes do you have to put?

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bagworm

body:
I dumped what I know of bagworms in the bagworm article, but the only bagworm
I know is Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis, and there are others. (There are
several Thyridopteryges in some trees near here, and I've met them in Ohio
too. I once saw a baby one crawling up my apartment door, leaving a zigzag
trail of silk.) Are there any psychidologists who can describe other kinds of
bagworm?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Clouds was Thumbnail

body:
On Friday 19 July 2002 20:51, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> Hm.  Well it's been done already on [[cumulus]].  The person put the link
> in brackets: the source link followed by the display "text," e.g.
> [http://www.wikipedia.com/uploads/cumulus.jpg
> http://www.wikipedia.com/uploads/cumulusthumb.jpg] or something to that
> effect.

There are cumulonimbus clouds, nimbostratus clouds, and stratocumulus clouds.
There are cumulus clouds and stratus clouds. Why no nimbus clouds?

phma


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Public domain image resources + metadata w/o
    the data

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subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Public domain image resources + metadata
    w/othe data

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subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Public domain image resources + metadataw/othe
    data

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body:
On Saturday 20 July 2002 01:19 am, you wrote:
> I'm not a big fan of thumbnails, personally, unless they're on a page with
> a lot of images--which most of our pages won't be. ?I prefer to have an
> image 300-400 pixel across its widest dimension in the article, which IMO
> can usually be small enough to load quickly, give a sense of detail, and
> not distract too much from the article itself.
>
> kq

Just remember that a very large chunk of people visiting wikipedia have
browser windows of about 750 pixels wide (or less). This doesn't leave much
room for the sidebar, image and text when the displayed image is 400 pixels
wide. Although this isn't an issue for images that stand alone in the text,
it is an issue when an image has text flowing around it. When that is the
case, I aim to have the image no more than 250 pixels wide (otherwise half
the image dominates the text flowing around it for those with 800 x 600
screen resolutions). Just something to consider when sizing images.

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Jennifer's dresses

body:
--- Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> > Lars, if you don't care about Jimmy's legal risk
> and
>
> No, Stephen, that conclusion would be wrong.  I do
> care about Jimmy's
> risk.

That's not necessarily my conclusion; it's simply an
"if you don't..." statement. I'm glad you you're not
indifferent to Jimmy's situation.

> But I am also capable of separating it from
> the project's risk.
> As a contributor, my primary concern is with the
> project and the pages
> that I have edited.  Rather than starting to police
> other users in order
> to protect Jimmy, I'm asking Jimmy what he feels I
> can do to help him.
>
> The background was this: I had earlier claimed that
> the fear of copyright
> violation was exaggerated and that really only Jimmy
> and Bomis were at
> risk.  Someone else then claimed that the entire
> project was at risk, and
> now I tried to demonstrate that this was in fact not
> the case.

I did post a reason how a lack of vigilance could put
the project's credibility at risk. Of course, that
doesn't mean the entire project would come crashing
down, but it is enough to make me adopt the "better
safe than sorry" approach.

-- Stephen Gilbert

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Creating redirects for spelling mistakes

body:
--- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
> Should we really be setting up redirect pages for
> every mis-spelling we
> see in Unsuccessful Searches, eg Idendity
> <http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Idendity>, Colombus
> <http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Colombus> etc.
>
> I'm inclined to say Wikipedia Is Not a Spellchecker.

I only redirect common misspellings. In this case, I
would redirect "Colombus" and ignore "Idendity".

-- Stephen Gilbert

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] eBay Images

body:
The other day I was looking at silver pennies and silver denarius es on
eBay. I had got curious after working on some coin articles. Turns out
there are quite a few being offered on eBay of both at any time; usually
with two images of the coin.  Now, this is not about using the image from
eBay on Wikipedia.

What it is about is that in the case of collectibles or other items that an
eBay search for will generate a reasonable number of hits that one might
include in an article the information that an eBay search for "silver
penny" or "silver denarius" will yield a number of illustrated hits.

For example:

Silver pennies are a [[collectible]] and are frequently offered for sale on
[[eBay]]. To view silver pennies on eBay enter a search for "silver penny."

A link to an eBay search page is probably not too good as it will contain
information about your ebay cookies, unless you know how to remove that info.

Any comments?

Fred Bauder


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Deleting pages

body:
What's the proper procedure to determine that a page should be deleted, and
not stubbed or redirected?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Jennifer's dresses

body:
At 10:25 AM 7/20/02 +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote:

I had earlier claimed that the fear of copyright
>violation was exaggerated and that really only Jimmy and Bomis were at
>risk.  Someone else then claimed that the entire project was at risk, and
>now I tried to demonstrate that this was in fact not the case.

An injunction against publishing wikipedia (a likely remedy should gross
violations occur) would affect the entire project.

The trick really is to avoid even having to prepare for serious litigation.
Use your own camera...

And by the way, expect in any infringement case to have the contents of
this mailing list entered as evidence. Showing a cavalier attitude would be
part of proving the case. On our side showing due diligence would be part
of defending the case.

Fred Bauder


subject: [Wikipedia-l] eBay Images

body:
At 08:01 AM 7/20/02 -0400, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote in reference to my
earlier posting:

>I don't like it. I don't like anything that basically comes down to "go
>offsite and
>run a search", and I really don't like doing that when what will turn up is
>variable
>over short time periods. (A Google image search is at least likely to change
>more slowly.) I also don't like the implicit endorsement of a specific
>commercial
>auction service.

What turns up is not variable any more than a view of Niagara Falls is.
Collectibles is an industry and just like one may expect to view hot dogs
at the grocery one may expect silver pennies on eBay. A Google search in
this particular case is quite unsatisfactory since the words "silver penny"
are attractive as a name for websites, businesses etc. In the first 10
Google hits nothing has to do with coins, although better results would
occur if coin was also searched for.

I guess my attitude is explained by my common practice. Part of my knowing
how to find things includes searching on eBay.

"Endorsing a specific commercial auction service"

It's a very good question whether eBay will ever have a viable competitor.

BTW might look at the eBay article I just wrote.

Fred Bauder

>At 05:06 AM 7/20/02 -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:
>>The other day I was looking at silver pennies and silver denarius es on
>>eBay. I had got curious after working on some coin articles. Turns out
>>there are quite a few being offered on eBay of both at any time; usually
>>with two images of the coin.  Now, this is not about using the image from
>>eBay on Wikipedia.
>>
>>What it is about is that in the case of collectibles or other items that an
>>eBay search for will generate a reasonable number of hits that one might
>>include in an article the information that an eBay search for "silver
>>penny" or "silver denarius" will yield a number of illustrated hits.
>>
>>For example:
>>
>>Silver pennies are a [[collectible]] and are frequently offered for sale on
>>[[eBay]]. To view silver pennies on eBay enter a search for "silver penny."
>>
>>A link to an eBay search page is probably not too good as it will contain
>>information about your ebay cookies, unless you know how to remove that
info.
>
>
>
>--
>
>vr at redbird.org
>http://www.redbird.org
>
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
At 10:53 AM 7/20/02 +0100, tarquin wrote:
>Should we really be setting up redirect pages for every mis-spelling we
>see in Unsuccessful Searches, eg Idendity
><http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Idendity>, Colombus
><http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Colombus> etc.
>
>I'm inclined to say Wikipedia Is Not a Spellchecker.

Well being a serious misspeller I am one of the offenders here. The way it
goes is you first misspell the link then you write a long article on the
misspelled page, then discover an article spelled right, or finally
discover the misspelling, see where I'm going...

Really need to delete the misspelled page but having saved it you end up
redirecting it.

Other than the really common misspellings or cases like [[color]]
[[colour]] I think all such pages should be deleted.

Fred Bauder


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] eBay Images

body:
At 05:06 AM 7/20/02 -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:
>The other day I was looking at silver pennies and silver denarius es on
>eBay. I had got curious after working on some coin articles. Turns out
>there are quite a few being offered on eBay of both at any time; usually
>with two images of the coin.  Now, this is not about using the image from
>eBay on Wikipedia.
>
>What it is about is that in the case of collectibles or other items that an
>eBay search for will generate a reasonable number of hits that one might
>include in an article the information that an eBay search for "silver
>penny" or "silver denarius" will yield a number of illustrated hits.
>
>For example:
>
>Silver pennies are a [[collectible]] and are frequently offered for sale on
>[[eBay]]. To view silver pennies on eBay enter a search for "silver penny."
>
>A link to an eBay search page is probably not too good as it will contain
>information about your ebay cookies, unless you know how to remove that info.

I don't like it. I don't like anything that basically comes down to "go
offsite and
run a search", and I really don't like doing that when what will turn up is
variable
over short time periods. (A Google image search is at least likely to change
more slowly.) I also don't like the implicit endorsement of a specific
commercial
auction service.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Idea for a statistics-based main menu

body:
What if the main menu was entirely based on statistics, with the most
frequently requested URL at the top.  I bet Recent Changes would be at the
top, and the "diff for this page" in 2nd place and "edit this page" 3rd.
Maybe it would be very useful.

Before you collect the statistics, you would have to substitute all the
page names with something like "%s" that can later be substituted back
with the actual page name.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/  http://elektrosmog.nu/  http://susning.nu/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Numbered section headings within an article

body:
On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Toby Bartels wrote:
> Then [[Chemistry#history]] could render as

I think this is a mistake.  It's subpages all over again.
Only this time they are inline.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/  http://elektrosmog.nu/  http://susning.nu/


body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> > I don't really know any html... but I see that some people
> > upload a small version and a large version of the same picture.
> > How do you make the small picture into a link? Do you have to
> > manually insert the html, and what codes do you have to put?
>
> You can't do that with the current or with the new software.
> The [[image:xxx]] link inserts the image, and makes it a link to
> the image description page.  If you want a link to a larger
> version of the image, you'll have to make a separate link,
> perhaps putting it on the description page of the smaller one
> or else making it an external link (see "Sainfoin", for example).
>
> The latter method will be a little more difficult with the new
> software, because you'll have to upload the image first before
> you can determine what its URL will be.

Hmmm... I didn't think you could. Perhaps that's something to work on in
the future? I'm downloading fullscreen images from the free websites and
cutting them down to a postable size myself, but there are definitely
times when being able to see the larger image as well would be good (for
example my entry on the difference between butterflies and moths, where
quite a lot of the detail disappeared from the image when I reduced it
for better display.)

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Jennifer's dresses

body:
On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> Lars, if you don't care about Jimmy's legal risk and

No, Stephen, that conclusion would be wrong.  I do care about Jimmy's
risk.  But I am also capable of separating it from the project's risk.
As a contributor, my primary concern is with the project and the pages
that I have edited.  Rather than starting to police other users in order
to protect Jimmy, I'm asking Jimmy what he feels I can do to help him.

The background was this: I had earlier claimed that the fear of copyright
violation was exaggerated and that really only Jimmy and Bomis were at
risk.  Someone else then claimed that the entire project was at risk, and
now I tried to demonstrate that this was in fact not the case.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/  http://elektrosmog.nu/  http://susning.nu/


body:
Should we really be setting up redirect pages for every mis-spelling we
see in Unsuccessful Searches, eg Idendity
<http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Idendity>, Colombus
<http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Colombus> etc.

I'm inclined to say Wikipedia Is Not a Spellchecker.

tarquin


from_name: Dan Keshet

subject: [Wikitech-l] bot indexing of edit pages

body:
If you visit http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awikipedia.com+edit,
you'll notice that google indexes all our edit pages.  I find this
moderately annoying, as I don't want to find the edit link when I search
and new people not familiar with wikipedia won't know what to do when
they're confronted with a textarea.  Also, I don't know what percentage
of accesses are from bots, but you may be able to cut down on useless
accesses.

I have a solution in mind: make an apache rewrite rule that rewrites
something like:

http://www.wikipedia.com/edit/Wikipedia:Bug_reports

into:

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Bug_reports&action=edit

Make the edit links go to the first version, then use robots.txt to
request that bots not harvest anything under /edit/*

I'm sending this here as it's not a feature request for the php script,
but rather site-specific for wikipedia.  If there's a better place,
please tell me.

BTW, great work on the script.  It just keeps getting better.  I look
forward to Software Phase III. :)

--Dan Keshet


subject: [Wikipedia-l] arlek

body:
Anybody know what arlek.jpg is? It was uploaded by zi'o with no description
and doesn't look like it belongs here.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Public domain image resources + metadata w/othe data

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> > BTW, the new software does not display the image (data) at the
> > image:namespace (metadata container)...If copyright and
> > attribution and other such information (metadata) is going to be
> > in the image's image: page then it is only logical to have the
> > image (data) there too by default.
>
> If an author wants it there, he's free to put it there.  But
> that's his choice.  He might put a larger version of the image
> instead, or multiple versions, or just links, or just text.  The
> software should make it easy for authors to do what they want,
> but it shouldn't restrict their choices or usurp their authority.
> Automatically repeating the image on the description page seemed
> too automatic for my taste.
>
> There /is/ a link to the image at the top of the page.
> 0
When I was testing it out I couldn't find it... I uploaded an image and
then couldn't find any way to preview it, and I wasn't at all sure how
to link it into an article. Maybe that's just me... I'm pretty
technically ignorant and if it's not obvious I won't spot it.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Public domain image resources + metadataw/othe data

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> > When I was testing it out I couldn't find it... I uploaded an
> > image and then couldn't find any way to preview it, and I wasn't
> > at all sure how to link it into an article. Maybe that's just
> > me... I'm pretty technically ignorant and if it's not obvious I
> > won't spot it.
>
> I don't see any uploads from you recently; at least not since
> the latest updates.  Anyway, you'll probably be able to test it
> on the main site by the time you get this.
>
> After you upload, the success message now points you to the
> description page and suggests that you fill it in with the source
> of the image and other info.  When you go to that link, the image
> istelf can be seen by clicking on either the image's name at the
> top of the screen (next to the "printable version" link) or the
> dates on the history list.
> 0
I didn't leave the image in the database - I tested the upload to see
how it worked with an old bitmap cartoon I drew and then I deleted it
again. I'll see how it works now :) So I gather the new version is up
and running? Yay!

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Creating redirects for spelling mistakes

body:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:

>I only redirect common misspellings. In this case, I
>would redirect "Colombus" and ignore "Idendity".

[[Colombus]] is arguably a variant spelling, not a misspelling.
But [[Idendity]] certainly shouldn't redirect to [[Identity]],
since [[Identity]] doesn't even exist!!!

-- Toby


body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Then [[Chemistry#history]] could render as

>I think this is a mistake.  It's subpages all over again.
>Only this time they are inline.

If they're limited only to use within a single article,
then they're really nothing like subpages,
with their problem of unnatural names that always require pipes.

-- Toby Bartels
   toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Public domain image resources + metadataw/othe data

body:
At 01:17:44 -0700, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

>No, I just expected it to be by the time you got the message--it's
>about  12 hours away still.

That deadline passed about 5:30 hours ago,
and I still get only an uneditable snapshot (or the beta).
I realise that things can take longer than expected,
so I'm not complaining, but is there an estimate of
when I should check back?

-- Toby Bartels
   toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu


in_reply_to: <20020721014316.GC2208@math-lw-n02.ucr.edu>; from toby+wikipedia-l@math.ucr.edu on Sat, Jul 20, 2002 at 06:43:16PM -0700

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> >No, I just expected it to be by the time you got the message--it's
> >about  12 hours away still.
>
> That deadline passed about 5:30 hours ago,
> and I still get only an uneditable snapshot (or the beta).
> I realise that things can take longer than expected,
> so I'm not complaining, but is there an estimate of
> when I should check back?

The new software is what I get at www.wikipedia.com.  Very nice stuff.


body:
--- Pierre Abbat <phma at webjockey.net> wrote:
> On Saturday 20 July 2002 21:34, Toby Bartels wrote:
> > Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> > >I only redirect common misspellings. In this
> case, I
> > >would redirect "Colombus" and ignore "Idendity".
> >
> > [[Colombus]] is arguably a variant spelling, not a
> misspelling.
> > But [[Idendity]] certainly shouldn't redirect to
> [[Identity]],
> > since [[Identity]] doesn't even exist!!!
>
> "Colombus" could just as easily be a typo for
> "Colobus". I think we shouldn't
> be making disambigs for typos, so the page should be
> deleted.

I agree, disambigs for typos would be a bad idea.
Redirects for common misspellings have proven useful,
however. If a person typed "colombus" but meant to
type "colobus", they would end up at the wrong page
with or without a redirect.

-- Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New server online?

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>The new software is what I get at www.wikipedia.com.  Very nice stuff.

OK, I don't know *what* is wrong with my system.

I have two web browsers available, IE 5 and Netscape 4, both for Unix.
I've been using IE, since Netscape 4 is too out of date
to have the special characters for the math articles.

When I go to www.wikipedia.com using IE,
I get a snapshot that was apparently taken shortly after 10:48.
The Recent Changes on that snapshot begin:

(diff) Wikipedia:Unsuccessful searches (2002-07); 19:32 (1 change) . . . M [Unsuccessful search for force maje]
(diff) Log:Uploads; 15:29 (1 change) . . . PierreAbbat M [Deletion of file Fade.class]
(diff) Isla Perejil; 10:48 . . . Caltrop N [In the news....]
...

But when I go to www.wikipedia.com using Netscape,
I get a new server, with all kinds of recent changes since 17:33:

...
* (diff) (hist) . . Main Page; 17:33 . . Lee Daniel Crocker
* (diff) (hist) . . M Wikipedia:Unsuccessful searches (2002-07); 11:19 . . Unknown (Unsuccessful search for lena olin)
* (diff) (hist) . . M Isla Perejil; 10:48 . . Caltrop (In the news....)
...

I'm Shift-Refreshing like mad, and IE just doesn't work.
Considering that I didn't even look at the site today until after 17:33,
how can this even be happening, much less be fixed?

...

Well, I just deleted all of my temporary Internet files for IE.
Now it's working!  But I still wonder what was going on.

-- Toby Bartels
   toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu


subject: [Wikipedia-l] GPL Photos

body:
[GPL photos at http://gnuart.net incompatible with Wikipedia's GFDL]
I wrote:

> I've sent an e-mail to the GNUArt folks asking if they have an opinion
> on the matter... in the worst case, of course, we can contact the
> individual photographers and negotiate a separate GFDL license if
> they're willing. (Many of them have a contact e-mail address listed in
> the gallery.)

My question got forwarded to the GNUArt announcement mailing list
(http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/gnuart/ -- in French), so if anyone
does want to use an image from there, go ahead and e-mail the creator
thereof and ask for permission; at least they should know what you're
babbling about if you mention "GFDL" and "Wikipedia'. :)

I can categorize the image galleries, but I'm not sure they should go
into the list in [[Public domain image resources]], since they're not
unencumbered.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Deleting pages

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:
> What's the proper procedure to determine that a page should be deleted, and
> not stubbed or redirected?

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Policy_on_permanent_deletion_of_pages

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New server online?

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> When I go to www.wikipedia.com using IE,
> I get a snapshot that was apparently taken shortly after 10:48.
[..]
> But when I go to www.wikipedia.com using Netscape,
> I get a new server, with all kinds of recent changes since 17:33:
[..]
> Well, I just deleted all of my temporary Internet files for IE.
> Now it's working!  But I still wonder what was going on.

To hazard a guess, IE was preserving the IP address for the former
www.wikipedia.com (130.94.122.195) in some sort of cache. The new
www.wikipedia.com (130.94.122.197) has the new live server.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New server online?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>When I go to www.wikipedia.com using IE,
>>I get a snapshot that was apparently taken shortly after 10:48.
[..]
>>Well, I just deleted all of my temporary Internet files for IE.
>>Now it's working!  But I still wonder what was going on.

>To hazard a guess, IE was preserving the IP address for the former
>www.wikipedia.com (130.94.122.195) in some sort of cache. The new
>www.wikipedia.com (130.94.122.197) has the new live server.

When I try it at 130.94.122.195, I get an error page with a Nupedia logo.
But if you copied down the wrong IP #, then that seems reasonable.

A suggestion then:
Somebody with the appropriate access should go to the original IP #
and edit the main page so that it tells people that the IP # changed,
and urge them to take appropriate corrective action.
There must be others besides me thinking that the site is still down.

-- Toby Bartels
   toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu


body:
On Saturday 20 July 2002 21:34, Toby Bartels wrote:
> Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> >I only redirect common misspellings. In this case, I
> >would redirect "Colombus" and ignore "Idendity".
>
> [[Colombus]] is arguably a variant spelling, not a misspelling.
> But [[Idendity]] certainly shouldn't redirect to [[Identity]],
> since [[Identity]] doesn't even exist!!!

"Colombus" could just as easily be a typo for "Colobus". I think we shouldn't
be making disambigs for typos, so the page should be deleted.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Files, at least some of which were uploaded or deleted after the move started

body:
On 2002-07-20 15:29:17, PierreAbbat deleted file Fade.class
On 2002-07-20 13:19:05, PierreAbbat deleted file class information
On 2002-07-20 13:07:53, PierreAbbat deleted file scroller.js
On 2002-07-20 13:06:37, PierreAbbat deleted file dhtmllib.js
On 2002-07-20 12:31:33, PierreAbbat deleted file all3.jpg
On 2002-07-20 12:29:45, PierreAbbat deleted file all3.gif
On 2002-07-20 12:25:16, [Da BrEaD]? uploaded file cards.gif
On 2002-07-20 12:23:45, [Da BrEaD]? uploaded file all3.gif
On 2002-07-20 12:09:12, [Da BrEaD]? uploaded file all3.jpg [cards]
On 2002-07-20 12:06:18, [Da BrEaD]? uploaded file all3.jpg [cards]
On 2002-07-20 11:23:48, Caltrop uploaded file cayenne.png [French Guiana]
On 2002-07-20 10:15:45, Caltrop uploaded file perejil.png [Isla Perejil]

I suspect that the move started between 10:15 and 11:23, because cayenne.png
is empty and perejil.png isn't. (BTW, is the new server running on UTC? It's
easier to remember the conversion - our friends in, say, Portugal, don't have
to remember two different DST rules as they would when converting to an
American time zone.)

dhtmllib.js and scroller.js are JavaScript programs from dynamicdrive.com.
The license prohibits redistribution, so I deleted them. class information is
an HTML file with file: references to nonexistent directories. Fade.class is
a Java bytecode file uploaded by zi'o. The rest are empty.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Deleting pages

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:
> On Sunday 21 July 2002 00:52, Brion VIBBER wrote:
>>Pierre Abbat wrote:
>>
>>>What's the proper procedure to determine that a page should be deleted,
>>>and not stubbed or redirected?
>>
>>http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Policy_on_permanent_deletion_of_pages
>
> That's a policy, not a procedure. Step 1 is that someone votes for a page to
> be deleted. Then what happens, and in what order? What decisions are made?
> Can you draw a flowchart, or write an algorithm?

Okay, you asked for it. :)

              +----------------------------------------+
              | Someone votes for a page to be deleted |
              +----------------------------------------+
                                  |
                                  V
           +----------------------------------------------+
           | Someone notices the vote and decides whether |<-----------\
           | they agree that deleting would match policy  |            |
           +----------------------------------------------+            |
            |                   |                       |              |
            V                   V                       V              |
+------------------+ +-------------------+ +------------------------+ |
| Agrees strongly: | | Agrees mildly or  | |Disagrees: posts reason | |
| Deletes the page | |  isn't an admin:  | |  and/or removes from   | |
+------------------+ | post an agreement | |   the delete queue     | |
                      +-------------------+ +------------------------+ |
                                  |                                    |
                                  \------------------------------------/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikipedia-l] arlek

body:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2002 at 03:34:18PM -0400, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> Anybody know what arlek.jpg is? It was uploaded by zi'o with no description
> and doesn't look like it belongs here.

It's a harlequin. See http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Arlecchino
Found it via http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?search=arlek

	Regards,

		jens


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Deleting pages

body:
On Sunday 21 July 2002 00:52, Brion VIBBER wrote:
> Pierre Abbat wrote:
> > What's the proper procedure to determine that a page should be deleted,
> > and not stubbed or redirected?
>
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Policy_on_permanent_deletion_of_pages

That's a policy, not a procedure. Step 1 is that someone votes for a page to
be deleted. Then what happens, and in what order? What decisions are made?
Can you draw a flowchart, or write an algorithm?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Undead images

body:
I am finding images on the new server that were deleted from the old one
before the migration. How does this happen?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New server online?

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>>To hazard a guess, IE was preserving the IP address for the former
>>www.wikipedia.com (130.94.122.195) in some sort of cache. The new
>>www.wikipedia.com (130.94.122.197) has the new live server.
>
> When I try it at 130.94.122.195, I get an error page with a Nupedia logo.
> But if you copied down the wrong IP #, then that seems reasonable.

130.94.122.195 is shared between a bunch of named virutal servers;
you'll only get Wikipedia out of it if your browser tells the server
that it's expecting to talk to "www.wikipedia.com".

> A suggestion then:
> Somebody with the appropriate access should go to the original IP #
> and edit the main page so that it tells people that the IP # changed,
> and urge them to take appropriate corrective action.
> There must be others besides me thinking that the site is still down.

On that note; is there a way we can still (deliberately) access the
read-only old wikipedia (eg, to check out reports of articles with
missing edit histories)?

To answer my own question: yes! http://old.wikipedia.com/ (but you have
to put the "old" in after every click; it's still configured to provide
every link with the "www" in the URL. Lee, can you change that?)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Deleting pages

body:
On Saturday 20 July 2002 12:01 pm, you wrote:
> What's the proper procedure to determine that a page should be deleted, and
> not stubbed or redirected?
>
> phma

See:

http://beta.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_policy_on_permanent_deletion_of_pages

If you have any suggestions on changes please bring them to the list.

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Ideas on improving image history

body:
Here is a copy of a recent feature request I made. The last part of this
feature request would need list approval so I am copying the request here:

In the past I have provided very important source information to the summary
field provided when uploading an image (alas, now this is gone from the log
-- where is it?). It would be /very/ useful and important to have this same
text become part of the image's history.

It seems odd that this isn't now the case: Logically, uploading an image
"creates" the image in the database so whatever is said in the summary field
at that time should be entry #1 in the image's history, no?

In addition, for one image we have; the image history, the history of edits
to the image page and the uploads log -- which is a bit confusing. I'm not
sure how to remedy this particular thing though....

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia:Upload_log

BTW, it is way cool that URLs in the upload summary fields now are active.
Perhaps we should encourage (maybe even require...) uploaders to provide a
weblink to the media's source /if/ that media were obtained from another
website. This would make checking for copyright compliance a snap.

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Lots of broken picture links :(

body:
On Sunday 21 July 2002 04:06, Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> I wondered why I was seeing a lot of VERY big pictures with no articles
> linking to them and I've just realised why they're there. In the old
> wikipedia, some people were manually encoding a link into their page to
> take you from the thumbnail of an image to the fullsized version, and in
> the transfer to the image: namespace all of the links have been broken.
>
> Looking at these images somebody badly needs to downsize them too - some
> of them are over a megabyte in size.

There is a bug in the orphan pictures page. After you get to the Z's, it
starts over with pictures that appear on one page.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Most wanted error

body:
At 10:03 AM 7/21/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Before the move, the most wanted page was Nian Hao, followed closely by a
few
>other Hao. Now it is Investments. Wiki claims that there are 78 links to
>Investments, but when asked what they are, it provides only two. What's
wrong?

Article titles are a little undeveloped in this area. There is an article
called [[finance and investment]] which contains some information about
options for individual investing including [[investing on the stock
market]] which I used in my article on the [[Stock Market Crash of 2002]]
but investment as in [[finance and investment]] is more an economic term as
opposed to [[investing]] as might be done by an individual. Possible
[[finance and investment]] should be abandoned and new articles
[[finance]], [[investment]] and [[investing]] could be created with perhaps
articles on specific topics like [[investing on the stock market]] or
[[investing in real estate]].

Fred Bauder [[user:Fredbauder]]


body:
At 03:58 PM 7/21/02 +1000, Karen aka Kajikit wrote:
> > I agree, disambigs for typos would be a bad idea.
> > Redirects for common misspellings have proven useful,
> > however. If a person typed "colombus" but meant to
> > type "colobus", they would end up at the wrong page
> > with or without a redirect.
>
>The way I look at it is this - I am a reasonably good speller, but I am
>dyslexic and there are some very common mistakes that I make often -
>confusing 'a's and 'e's in words, ommitting or adding double letters
>where they dont' belong... and if I realise that I have misguidedly
>tried to link to one of these words then I make it into a redirect
>because it's not a rare mistake. On the other hand, there's not much
>point in redirecting more than half of the misspellings or it'll get too
>confusing. Someone once suggested a special type of redirect
>''misspelling of'' that would differentiate between alternative names
>for something (like Alexandre Dumas and Alexander Dumas) and
>misspellings (margarine and margerine - one of my most-confused
>words...).

The problem here is figuring out what the common misspellings and
typos are, and which can be misspellings for two or more equally
reasonable encyclopedia entries. (My first typing of this sentence
read "fro two or more"--we don't want to redirect real words because
they can also be typos.) It's not safe to assume that my typos or
common errors are globally common: I always get "weird" right, but
for years typed "frined" more often than "friend." I don't think either
of these is true in general.

Suggestion: before setting up a misspelling redirect, people should
(a) google or otherwise check to make sure that the misspelling of
their desired word A isn't a real word B that we're likely to want an entry
on, and (b) check to make sure that the target of the redirect exists.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Most wanted error

body:
Before the move, the most wanted page was Nian Hao, followed closely by a few
other Hao. Now it is Investments. Wiki claims that there are 78 links to
Investments, but when asked what they are, it provides only two. What's wrong?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] the new software

body:
This isn't exactly a bug: I've noticed that talk pages no longer show up on the
list of newly created pages, and I for one find them useful as alerts to
things that
need working on. (I know they're being omitted because I created one last
night.)

Vicki
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Imran Ghory

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New server online?

body:
On 21 Jul 2002, at 0:25, Brion VIBBER wrote:

> Toby Bartels wrote:
> > Brion Vibber wrote:
> >>To hazard a guess, IE was preserving the IP address for the former
> >>www.wikipedia.com (130.94.122.195) in some sort of cache. The new
> >>www.wikipedia.com (130.94.122.197) has the new live server.
> >
> > When I try it at 130.94.122.195, I get an error page with a Nupedia
> > logo. But if you copied down the wrong IP #, then that seems
> > reasonable.
>
> 130.94.122.195 is shared between a bunch of named virutal servers;
> you'll only get Wikipedia out of it if your browser tells the server
> that it's expecting to talk to "www.wikipedia.com".

That would explain why wikipedia.com still gives the old page.

Imran
--
TheOpenCD Project
Promoting Open Source on Windows
http://www.theopencd.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] error in links between the pedias

body:
I've also submitted this to sourceforge--where I didn't think of using an
underscore in
my username and am therefore "rosvicl", in case anyone is wondering where that
user came from.

The [[French Guiana]] article links to the Esperanto and Dutch pedias. However,
the links are failing, because the software is reading only the first word
on those
links, and thus produces "describe the new page here" (in eo and nl, of course)
on pages for "Franca" and "Frans" (i.e., "French").

This is a heads-up on the sourceforge id as well as the bug.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Popularity counter is reset

body:
Hello all,

The popularity counter starts from 0 after the move.
Is this the right thing to do ?

What do you think ?

Regards,
kpj.
--
http://www.medleksykon.prv.pl - Informacje medyczne dla pacjent?w


from_name: Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New server online?

body:
On Sat, 20 Jul 2002, Brion VIBBER wrote:

>> Well, I just deleted all of my temporary Internet files for IE.
>> Now it's working!  But I still wonder what was going on.

> To hazard a guess, IE was preserving the IP address for the former
> www.wikipedia.com (130.94.122.195) in some sort of cache. The new
> www.wikipedia.com (130.94.122.197) has the new live server.

Browsers have a tendency to do their own dns lookups (to avoid blocking
(remember netscape 3 on Linux)) and to cache the results. This can be
especially frustrating when trying to debug dns round-robin setups. :)

-- Daniel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Redirect to special isn't working

body:
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/New_topics
can someone fix it?

phma


from_name: bderksen

body:
>===== Original Message From "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpj at kki.net.pl> =====
>Hello all,
>
>The popularity counter starts from 0 after the move.
>Is this the right thing to do ?
>
>What do you think ?

Personally, I think the popularity counters should be reset to 0 on a regular
basis. Otherwise the results are permanently skewed to favor older popular
pages over newer ones, pages that have remained where they are over ones which
have been recently moved, etc. A counter that never resets is only fair for an
encyclopedia that never changes its contents, IMO.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:

>"Colombus" could just as easily be a typo for "Colobus". I think we shouldn't
>be making disambigs for typos, so the page should be deleted.
>
This example illustrates that redirecting typos can easily become monkey
business.

Trying to second guess somebody else's errors means jumping to often
erroneous conclusions.  I've already complained about somebody
redirecting "pogram" to "program".  Who's to say that the searcher
wasn't looking for "pogrom"?  To me "pogrom" is a far more likely
subject for an encyclopaedia article than such a broadly generic term as
"program".

Eclecticology


from_name: Neil Harris

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Some stats for service times with the new server under real loads,
 and a bit of analysis

body:
Here are some service times for the new Wikipedia server under actual
user load, and a bit of analysis: see futher down the page for more details.

Sample set was the subset of logfile entries up to my sampling time,
with timestamps starting 20020721
Here is a summary of all pages served in less than 30 seconds.

Values on a line are, from left to right:
* service time bin (bin n is all pages serviced in n <= time < n+1 seconds)
* number of pages served in that time bin
* cumulative fraction of pages serviced in that time bin or less

0 12734 0.830171458374
1 1295 0.914596779451
2 493 0.946737075429
3 259 0.963622139644
4 116 0.971184562227
5 80 0.976400026077
6 59 0.980246430667
7 46 0.983245322381
8 24 0.984809961536
9 15 0.985787861008
10 15 0.98676576048
11 27 0.988525979529
12 17 0.989634265597
13 15 0.990612165069
14 15 0.991590064541
15 11 0.992307190821
16 7 0.992763543908
17 7 0.993219896995
18 7 0.993676250081
19 5 0.994002216572
20 7 0.994458569659
21 7 0.994914922746
22 2 0.995045309342
23 2 0.995175695938
24 3 0.995371275833
25 2 0.995501662429
26 3 0.995697242323
27 2 0.99582762892
28 3 0.996023208814
29 3 0.996218788709

Here are the outlier pages that took 30 seconds or more to service, with
their timestamps.

20020721000038 194.499 /wiki/Astronomer
20020721000439 67.529 /
20020721000905 210.965 /
20020721000946 83.656 /w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Palestine&diff=0&oldid=0
20020721001035 512.128 /wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus
20020721001354 199.017 /wiki/Astronomy_and_astrophysics
20020721001715 70.412 /wiki/Galileo_Galilei
20020721001745 31.105 /w/wiki.phtml?search= football world cup 2002
20020721002017 122.17 /wiki/Astronomer
20020721002314 134.53 /wiki/Hipparchus
20020721002316 65.866 /wiki/Astronomers_and_Astrophysicists
20020721002354 171.431 /wiki/Astronomer
20020721002729 36.432 /wiki/Johannes_Kepler
20020721002825 110.615 /wiki/Astronomer
20020721003134 68.176 /wiki/Astronomer
20020721003725 35.912 /wiki/Astronomers_and_Astrophysicists
20020721003758 159.654 /wiki/Astronomer
20020721004535 142.506 /wiki/Sir_Francis_Bacon
20020721010559 193.656 /wiki/Balance
20020721010559 233.676 /wiki/Measuring instrument
20020721010919 67.078
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=3&limit=500
20020721013508 32.212
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=14&limit=1000
20020721013817 49.659
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=14&limit=1000
20020721015410 57.194
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=3&limit=2000
20020721015558 43.563
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=3&limit=2000
20020721015705 43.681
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=3&limit=2000
20020721015828 42.666
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=3&limit=2000
20020721020143 56.721
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=3&limit=2000
20020721020456 93.871 /wiki/2001 U.S. Attack on Afghanistan
20020721021425 52.227 /wiki/Osama_bin_Laden
20020721021601 30.76 /wiki/Particle_physics&action=print
20020721022123 32.322 /wiki/Taliban
20020721023913 43.72
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=3&limit=500
20020721024042 31.297 /wiki/September_11%2C_2001_Terrorist_Attack
20020721024151 35.013 /
20020721024352 31.545 /wiki/Special:Recentchanges
20020721024626 94.781 /wiki/Special:Recentchanges
20020721024637 31.751 /wiki/Special:Recentchanges
20020721025053 30.813 /wiki/September_11%2C_2001_Terrorist_Attack
20020721030026 30.034 /wiki/Cantor_Fitzgerald
20020721030106 60.296 /wiki/2001 U.S. Attack on Afghanistan
20020721031414 42.459 /wiki/Special:Wantedpages
20020721031427 55.526 /wiki/Special:Wantedpages
20020721031428 37.361 /wiki/Computing_timeline
20020721032613 32.112 /wiki/Earth_impacts
20020721032628 30.052 /wiki/20th_century
20020721033849 39.932
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&days=3&limit=1500
20020721035505 146.219 /
20020721035824 31.713 /wiki/Special:Recentchanges
20020721035853 52.951 /wiki/Special:Recentchanges
20020721040232 224.979 /wiki/British_Open
20020721040525 54.24 /
20020721043452 104.493 /wiki/Special:Recentchanges
20020721043455 95.882 /wiki/India
20020721050334 81.403 /wiki/Philosophy
20020721052726 32.934
/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Wantedpages&limit=500&offset=100
20020721053950 45.24 /wiki/Free_On-line_Dictionary_of_Computing/C_-_D
20020721054101 37.168 /wiki/Free_On-line_Dictionary_of_Computing/C_-_D

Concentrating on just one page that appears more than once in the
outliers, and looking at all accesses in the sample whether outlines or
not, it is interesting to look at the variation in service times for
this page.

20020721000038  0194.499        /wiki/Astronomer
20020721001207  0018.859        /wiki/Astronomer
20020721002017  0122.170        /wiki/Astronomer
20020721002354  0171.431        /wiki/Astronomer
20020721002825  0110.615        /wiki/Astronomer
20020721003134  0068.176        /wiki/Astronomer
20020721003758  0159.654        /wiki/Astronomer

**Most** accesses to this particular page seem to have taken **over 1
minute**, and yet there appears to be nothing pathological about the
contents of the page. This is interesting!

Neil


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Most wanted error

body:
On Sunday 21 July 2002 12:01 pm, you wrote:
> Hi,
>
> the wiki counts multiple links to the same article no longer as only one
> link as it did before. Investments is linked many times from the September
> 11 article.
>
> ????????Regards,
>
> ????????????????jens

Now there is something that really needs to be fixed. Even though proper wiki
style states that only the first occurrence of a term should be linked,
oftentimes a table in an article will have something linked as well as the
text of the same article.

Some people will look at the table first, others will look at the text first,
so one can't arbitrarily link just one and not the other. This is especially
true for tables with standardized layouts (like the element tables or
organism tables -- either of which would also look weird if certain terms in
one article's table were not linked but were in other similar articles).

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] "Move this page bug" -- do NOT use this feature until it's fixed!

body:
The move page function seems to have a new and exciting bug which can
damage the edit history of the page you move by combining it with the
edit history of the associated talk page. (This makes diffs very
interesting!)

I'd recommend against using it for the time being.

See bug report:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=584649&group_id=34373&atid=411192

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] "Move this page bug" -- do NOT use this feature until it's fixed!


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

body:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>
> --- Pierre Abbat <phma at webjockey.net> wrote:
> > On Saturday 20 July 2002 21:34, Toby Bartels wrote:
> > > Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> > > >I only redirect common misspellings. In this
> > case, I
> > > >would redirect "Colombus" and ignore "Idendity".
> > >
> > > [[Colombus]] is arguably a variant spelling, not a
> > misspelling.
> > > But [[Idendity]] certainly shouldn't redirect to
> > [[Identity]],
> > > since [[Identity]] doesn't even exist!!!
> >
> > "Colombus" could just as easily be a typo for
> > "Colobus". I think we shouldn't
> > be making disambigs for typos, so the page should be
> > deleted.
>
> I agree, disambigs for typos would be a bad idea.
> Redirects for common misspellings have proven useful,
> however. If a person typed "colombus" but meant to
> type "colobus", they would end up at the wrong page
> with or without a redirect.

The way I look at it is this - I am a reasonably good speller, but I am
dyslexic and there are some very common mistakes that I make often -
confusing 'a's and 'e's in words, ommitting or adding double letters
where they dont' belong... and if I realise that I have misguidedly
tried to link to one of these words then I make it into a redirect
because it's not a rare mistake. On the other hand, there's not much
point in redirecting more than half of the misspellings or it'll get too
confusing. Someone once suggested a special type of redirect
''misspelling of'' that would differentiate between alternative names
for something (like Alexandre Dumas and Alexander Dumas) and
misspellings (margarine and margerine - one of my most-confused
words...).

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:

>"Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" wrote:
>
>>
>>The popularity counter starts from 0 after the move.
>>Is this the right thing to do ?
>>
>
>i think it should be reset on the first of every month to give a more
>useful and interesting set of figures. Otherwise it just shows that
>'sex' and sex-related topics are the most popular... it's more
>interesting to see that in February, people wanted to find out about St
>Francis and the history of Zimbabwe.
>
I don't think that resetting at the beginning of each month would work
either.  That would cause erratic lists in the early part of each month.
 More interesting would be the most popular in a floating period of the
last 30 or 60 days.  A result that shows a several of these amounts
could also be interesting.
    Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Most wanted error

body:
On Sun, Jul 21, 2002 at 10:03:35AM -0400, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> Before the move, the most wanted page was Nian Hao, followed closely by a few
> other Hao. Now it is Investments. Wiki claims that there are 78 links to
> Investments, but when asked what they are, it provides only two. What's wrong?
>

Hi,

the wiki counts multiple links to the same article no longer as only one link
as it did before. Investments is linked many times from the September 11
article.

	Regards,

		jens


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Recent changes and personal caches

body:
Last night I shut down for the night at about 1 am, and was back into
Wikipedia about 12 hours later at 1 pm.  Naturally, the first place
visited on line was "Recent changes",  where I had to crank it up to
1000 items before I could pick up my shut-down time.  That's ok, and it
doesn't bother me to see that someone else had saved their article
several times before being satisfied with his or her own work.  (In fact
it made me feel good to see that I was not the only one who had to do this.)

Once I've picked up my prior shut-down time I begin to go through the
articles more or less chronologically reading changes that I might find
interesting.  When I've finished reading a change, and sometimes made
related corrections or contributions,   I back button to the recent
changes list to look for the next interesting article.

Before the current update back button would bring me back to my cached
list at the place on the list where I left off.  When I reached the top
of the list I could use reload to get the most recent of the most recent.

With the updated system I find that the back button now forces a reload
of the most recent changes, and puts me at the top of the revised list.
 I then have to scroll through the list to find where I left off.  I
really would like to at least have the option of back-buttoning to my
cached page.

Since the circulated test results show that Recent Changes with a large
parameter of articles continue to be one of the slow response request,
the last thing the system needs is a number of forced reloads of Recent
Changes.  My 1000 articles was based on only 12 hours.  At that rate 3
days would require a 5000 article request for recent changes.

Eclecticology


from_name: Julie Hofmann Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] What happened to "diff"?

body:
Hi all -- mostly love the new stuff (although the layout will take some
getting used to) -- but what happened to the "diff" function?  Help!

Jules


subject: [Wikitech-l] Some stats for special pages and actions

body:
Here are some statistics for special pages and actions taken from
today's real user data. This should help with ergonomic design for the
user interface.

I will be able to re-run these tests later in the week, when we have
more data.

Observations:
* pages are opened for edit roughly 5 times as often as their edits are
submitted
* some of the CamelCase special pages listed do not actually exist on
the new server: they are presumably links referenced on the old server
main page being given to the new server.

Here are some ordinary pages for comparison:

Main Page (2320 views)
Biographical Listing/A (152 views)
Current events (105 views)

In descending order of frequency, the special pages and actions are:

1241 action=edit
760 Special:Recentchanges
293 Special:Randompage
263 action=history
240 action=submit
141 Special:Preferences
110 Special:Userlogin
83 Special:Whatlinkshere
73 Special:Specialpages
69 Special:Statistics
60 Special:Imagelist
54 Special:Watchlist
48 Special:Contributions
30 Special:Wantedpages
28 action=print
27 Special:Recentchangeslinked
27 Special:Allpages
26 Special:Upload
26 Special:Lonelypages
19 Special:Popularpages
15 action=watch
12 Special:Ipblocklist
11 Special:Listusers
10 Special:Unusedimages
8 Special:Newpages
7 action=view
7 action=delete
7 Special:Userlogout
7 Special:Longpages
4 Special:Shortpages
3 Special:RecentChanges
3 Special:AllPages
2 action=unwatch
2 Special:Movepage
1 Special:UserLogin
1 Special:Recentchanges/
1 Special:RandomPage/
1 Special:RandomPage
1 Special:NewPages/
1 Special:AllPages/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Attempt at making ergonomic groups, for review

body:
This is an attempt to divide the special functions and actions into
functional groups, whilst still preserving the general frequency order.

Top picks:
  Main Page
  Edit this page
  Recent changes
  Random page
  History
  Current events
  What links here
  Special pages
  Statistics

Login area:
  Preferences
  User login
  Log out

User pages only:
  This user's contributions

Special pages in general - these are all global:
  List uploaded images
  Most wanted pages
  List of all pages
  Upload image files
  Show orphan pages
  Show most popular pages
  Blocked IP addresses
  List all users
  List unused images
  List new pages
  List of long pages
  List of short pages

Page-related, but less common:
  Print this page
  Recent changes in linked pages

Logged-in user page-related features:
  Watch list
  Watch this page
  Stop watching this page
  Move this page
  Delete this page


body:
I wondered why I was seeing a lot of VERY big pictures with no articles
linking to them and I've just realised why they're there. In the old
wikipedia, some people were manually encoding a link into their page to
take you from the thumbnail of an image to the fullsized version, and in
the transfer to the image: namespace all of the links have been broken.

Looking at these images somebody badly needs to downsize them too - some
of them are over a megabyte in size.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
and now Ample Aussies Mailing List:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Admin status?

body:
Although I'm not very involved in looking after Wikipedia in the large,
preferring to write articles about mathematics most of the time,
I've wanted to copyedit protected pages enough times now
that I'd like to be given the admin status necessary to do so.
The latest stuff on the policy pages seems to indicate
that Jimbo will give this to anybody that emails him
(except that only certain designated people should delete pages).
My problem is that I can't find an email address for Jimmy.
But he reads this list, I gather -- so can I?

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


body:
"Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> The popularity counter starts from 0 after the move.
> Is this the right thing to do ?
>
> What do you think ?

i think it should be reset on the first of every month to give a more
useful and interesting set of figures. Otherwise it just shows that
'sex' and sex-related topics are the most popular... it's more
interesting to see that in February, people wanted to find out about St
Francis and the history of Zimbabwe.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
and now Ample Aussies Mailing List:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Photo request page

body:
Any chance of getting [[Requested pictures]] linked to from the
main page ?

Imran

--
TheOpenCD Project
Promoting Open Source on Windows
http://www.theopencd.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] OK, it's official...

body:
I am not a fan of the new software for one simple reason.  If there's a
way of seeing the edits other people have made, I can't find it.  This
means that it's incredible hard to track vandalism, for one thing.  For
another, it makes it infuriating and pointless to have watched pages.
Why watch a page (especially if you know the page is being used to push
an agenda and you are trying to make sure it remains NPOV), if you have
to read through a couple of versions of a longish article to try and
find the changes.  Couple this with the fact that the watched list seems
to only show the most recent change (or maybe that was just a bug), and
I'm screwed.  Real-world example:  Helga (the bane of the historian) is
tweaking Prussia again from various angles to make sure we understand
it's innate German-ness.  I go to see what those changes are, and if
they are valid, or if she's tried to de-polanize  something -- no diff.
My watch list says this is the only change since I last checked, but the
article history says Helga has made a couple of changes, and so has
Eclecticology, a reasonable contributor.  This is not useful.

Oh -- I also miss the link from the talk: page back to the related
article.

Otherwise, it seems very nice ;-)

Jules
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Huge apologies!!!

body:
D'oh --

Looked at the history page in more detail and saw the improved
functionality.  Please ignore, disregard, and accept my humblest
apologies for the last letter!

Jules

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body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:
>
> On Sunday 21 July 2002 04:06, Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> > I wondered why I was seeing a lot of VERY big pictures with no articles
> > linking to them and I've just realised why they're there. In the old
> > wikipedia, some people were manually encoding a link into their page to
> > take you from the thumbnail of an image to the fullsized version, and in
> > the transfer to the image: namespace all of the links have been broken.
> >
> > Looking at these images somebody badly needs to downsize them too - some
> > of them are over a megabyte in size.
>
> There is a bug in the orphan pictures page. After you get to the Z's, it
> starts over with pictures that appear on one page.

Actually I noticed something rather strange. A lot of these orphan
images are actually linked, but not in the form that the pedia seems to
expect - they have a text link on the entry page with 'click here' or
'fullsized image' which takes you to the actual url for the picture.
Apparantly the software can't recognise the links even though they're
there.  Not sure whether this is something that should be addressed...
and that doesn't change the fact that some of these images are MASSIVE -
they still need to be better compressed! Nobody wants to download an
image that's two screens wide on a 19inch monitor and more than a
megabye in size... do they?

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
and now Ample Aussies Mailing List:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Years in review and the need for editorial judgement

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

> On Fri, 28 Jun 2002, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > One of our "discoveries" is that people of very diverse opinions can
> > write encyclopedia articles together, using NPOV as a guideline to
> > mediate conflict.  It works remarkably well.  It would not work for
> > poetry, for political commentary, for fiction, etc.
>
> Is this a discovery that is unique to Wikipedia?
>
> Couldn't the same discovery be expressed: "it is possible (no matter who
> does it) to write articles (in an encyclopedia or newspaper), using NPOV
> as a guideline, so that no reader would care to protest against the
> wording of the text".
>
> I think that this is the same approach that has been used by every
> encyclopedia and newspaper editor, ever.  Only they might have called it
> "factualism and objectivity" rather than NPOV.
>
> Or is this wrong?

Sounds about right to me.

I make no claim that we've discovered anything very original.  I do
think it is astounding that the wikipedia community works at all, much
less as well as it does.  I mean, traditionally, with encyclopedias
and newspaper editors, there is "control from above".  Here, there
really isn't.  This doesn't mean that there is *no* control, in the
sense of wild chaos.  And that's a surprise.

Even Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki concept, once said
something to the effect that wikipedia wouldn't really be an
encyclopedia, but that it would be a wiki.  I am not 100% sure that I
know what he meant, so I'm not 100% sure if he's been proven wrong.
But, I think so, if I understand him.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <3D3C3F27.40203@pobox.com>; from brion@pobox.com on Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 09:21:43AM -0800

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:
> The difference is "every encyclopedia and newspaper *editor*". We're
> giving every crank off the street his own shot at the presses and
> politely asking him to clean up after the mess the last crank left.
>
> It works surprisingly well. :)

Yes.  I'm telling you, I never cease to be astounded that it works *at
all*.

Really, and I've said something similar before, this is the most
idiotic and foolhardy way I can think of to run a website.  It can't
possibly work.  Just go onto Usenet or any mailing list, and just imagine
if those screaming fanatics could edit each others' work.  It's just
impossible, and it can't possibly work.

But it does.  The experience has changed my perspective on human
nature.

--Jimbo


from_name: Brion VIBBER

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Jun 2002, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>One of our "discoveries" is that people of very diverse opinions can
>>write encyclopedia articles together, using NPOV as a guideline to
>>mediate conflict.  It works remarkably well.  It would not work for
>>poetry, for political commentary, for fiction, etc.
>
> Is this a discovery that is unique to Wikipedia?
>
> Couldn't the same discovery be expressed: "it is possible (no matter who
> does it) to write articles (in an encyclopedia or newspaper), using NPOV
> as a guideline, so that no reader would care to protest against the
> wording of the text".
>
> I think that this is the same approach that has been used by every
> encyclopedia and newspaper editor, ever.  Only they might have called it
> "factualism and objectivity" rather than NPOV.
>
> Or is this wrong?

The difference is "every encyclopedia and newspaper *editor*". We're
giving every crank off the street his own shot at the presses and
politely asking him to clean up after the mess the last crank left.

It works surprisingly well. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] OK, it's official...

body:
Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
> Oh -- I also miss the link from the talk: page back to the related article?

It's now called "Subject page". That threw me off for a while, as it had
been "Topic" under Cologne Blue previously.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> The [[French Guiana]] article links to the Esperanto and Dutch pedias.
> However, the links are failing, because the software is reading only the first
> word on those links, and thus produces "describe the new page here" (in eo and nl, of
> course) on pages for "Franca" and "Frans" (i.e., "French").

Yes, this is a bit annoying. As a work-around until the fix (which
should be a one-liner) gets installed, when you notice one of these just
edit the links and change any spaces into underscores, thus:

   [[eo:Franca_Gviana]][[nl:Frans_Guyana]]

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/New_topics
> can someone fix it?

I've fixed the link (names of special pages are now case-sensitive), but
it still won't redirect.

I've submitted a bug report:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=585002&group_id=34373&atid=411192

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New server online?

body:
I am also having some problems.
* When I go to recent changes, I get the recent changes from Saturday night,
ending with McGovern,
* I can only see the latest changes to an article if I go through History
* I can''t find the "show new changes only" command.

Danny


from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikitech-l] Orphaned image page

body:
I think that the orphaned image page should be linked from the list of images.

phma


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New server online?

in_reply_to: <200207221833.g6MIXI924153@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 11:33:18AM -0700

body:
(Moved this to tech.)

Lee, what "many other things" will reassigning wikipedia.com affect?

Fortunately, we have no wikipedia webmail, so that complication doesn't exist.

I *think* I can change wikipedia.com, while leaving *.wikipedia.com to the old
machine.  This is important until we move the Intl wikis over.

We need a migration plan for those, too, of course.

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

>
> > To answer my own question: yes! http://old.wikipedia.com/ (but
> > you have to put the "old" in after every click; it's still
> > configured to provide every link with the "www" in the URL. Lee,
> > can you change that?)
>
> No, but Jimbo can.  Jimbo, could you (a) set up DNS so that
> "old.wikipedia.com" points to ross, and (b) change the
> wikiLocalSettings.php file in the old system to put "old." into
> the internal links?
>
> The fact that "wikipedia.com" still points to ross is a problem
> for some people as well I understand, but I'm reluctant to ask
> you to change that specifically, since that will affect many
> other things
>
>
>
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [Fwd: [ wikipedia-Bugs-584804 ] URL followed by punctuation->broken
 link]

body:
The old software knew that 99.9% of the time humans don't _really_ mean
it when they put a comma, period, or other such item of punctuation
immediately after a URL, but that these are rather intended as, well,
punctuation.

The new phase III software trusts us more; URLs that are followed
immediately by punctuation (period, comma, paren, semicolon, etc) now
include this punctuation in the hyperlink, which leads to a lot of
broken external links where URLs are put casually into text,
particularly on talk pages.

Bug or feature? You decide!

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [ wikipedia-Bugs-584804 ] URL followed by punctuation->broken link
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 10:34:59 -0700
From: noreply at sourceforge.net
To: noreply at sourceforge.net

Bugs item #584804, was opened at 2002-07-22 02:04
You can respond by visiting:
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=411192&aid=584804&group_id=34373

Category: Page rendering
Group: None
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Brion Vibber (vibber)
Assigned to: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker)
Summary: URL followed by punctuation->broken link

Initial Comment:
If a URL is put directly into article text, and is
followed immediately by a punctuation character, that
character is in many common cases misparsed as part of
the URL. This usually results in a 404 or other
page-not-found error when a user clicks on the link.

Example:
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SandBox
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SandBox"
both render and parse correctly, and the link is
clickable. The quote mark is not parsed as part of the
link.

But:
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SandBox.
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SandBox,
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SandBox:
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SandBox;
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SandBox!
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SandBox?
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SandBox)
all include an extra character on the end, resulting in
failure when the link is followed. This is contrary to
the functionality of software phase I and II, and will
break a lot of links to external sites, particularly in
talk pages but also in some articles.  (Note that the
question-mark link here in fact works by happy
coincidence, but is still incorrectly included in the
URL where it really oughtn't to be.)

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

Comment By: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker)
Date: 2002-07-22 10:16

Message:
Logged In: YES
user_id=3076

This was brought up before, and I rejected it, because things
like commas and periods are perfectly legal URL characters;
it would be wrong to not to parse them as such.  But I'm
willing to be swayed by consensus here--if the community
really thinks we /should/ do it "wrong" and leave out
punctuation in certain contexts, I'll do that. But it will have to
be defined precisely and agreed upon.

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

 >Comment By: Brion Vibber (vibber)
Date: 2002-07-22 10:34

Message:
Logged In: YES
user_id=446709

Yes, those are all valid characters in URLs. However,
they're all _very_ rare at the _end_ of URLs, yet very
common as punctuation in English text. Some people will
deliberately leave a space after a URL before using
punctuation on the assumption that some stupid piece of
software is going to try to make a link that includes the
punctuation, but this is A) ugly and B) not done often
enough that we ought to rely on it.

People _do_ put punctuation immediately at the end of links,
and they seem to expect that the software will _not_ give
them a 404 error because of it... especially the software
has been handling the case correctly for as long as they've
used it.

Not taking this fact into account violates the principle of
least surprise and breaks far more links than it corrects
(if any). On the rare occasion that a URL actually ends in
one of the above characters, we have the [URL URL] syntax.

I'm forwarding this bug report to wikipedia-l for a group vote.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can respond by visiting:
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=411192&aid=584804&group_id=34373


in_reply_to: <20020722184802.GA8898@tavaiah>; from taw@users.sourceforge.net on Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 08:48:02PM +0200

body:
I'm all for it.  I'm going to repoint all the .org domains to the new machine, and
we can start using them in a couple of days, after we are sure that they point to the
right place.

All the old .com urls must be supported forever, of course.  But we can make the
default be .org.

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 10:38:56AM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > (Moved this to tech.)
> >
> > Lee, what "many other things" will reassigning wikipedia.com affect?
> >
> > Fortunately, we have no wikipedia webmail, so that complication doesn't exist.
> >
> > I *think* I can change wikipedia.com, while leaving *.wikipedia.com to the old
> > machine.  This is important until we move the Intl wikis over.
> >
> > We need a migration plan for those, too, of course.
>
> Shouldn't we switch from .com to .org or .net now ?
> .com url is bad for PR.


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Admin status?

body:
>I've wanted to copyedit protected pages enough times now
>that I'd like to be given the admin status necessary to do so.

User "Toby Bartels" now has sysop status.  He certainly meets
all of my criteria (useful contributior, participates on the
list, has a working email address).  If anyone objects
to this, let me know.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Some stats for service times with the new server under real loads,

body:
>20020721000038  0194.499        /wiki/Astronomer
>20020721001207  0018.859        /wiki/Astronomer
>20020721002017  0122.170        /wiki/Astronomer
>20020721002354  0171.431        /wiki/Astronomer
>20020721002825  0110.615        /wiki/Astronomer
>20020721003134  0068.176        /wiki/Astronomer
>20020721003758  0159.654        /wiki/Astronomer

I just removed a boatload of extraneous links from that page.
Check again after a day or two to see if that improved things.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New server online?

body:
> To answer my own question: yes! http://old.wikipedia.com/ (but
> you have to put the "old" in after every click; it's still
> configured to provide every link with the "www" in the URL. Lee,
> can you change that?)

No, but Jimbo can.  Jimbo, could you (a) set up DNS so that
"old.wikipedia.com" points to ross, and (b) change the
wikiLocalSettings.php file in the old system to put "old." into
the internal links?

The fact that "wikipedia.com" still points to ross is a problem
for some people as well I understand, but I'm reluctant to ask
you to change that specifically, since that will affect many
other things


subject: [Wikitech-l] Some stats for service times with the new server

body:
>>The "Astronomer" page contains an extraordinary number of links,
>>mostly to "year" pages.  Each link on a page requires a database
>>lookup (a quick one, but still a lookup).  "Current events" had
>>the same problem before I reorganized it.  I'm inclined to just
>>remove the year links here.  They don't really serve much purpose.

>Argh! I didn't notice that. Thanks for pointing that out.
>Wouldn't page caching sort this, though?

I have something of a love/hate relationship with caching. It
solves some problems, and it creates others.  I'd like to avoid
it if possible, and I think it is possible.  But I may be proven
wrong about that if people create lots of other link-fest pages.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New server online?

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>>To answer my own question: yes! http://old.wikipedia.com/ (but
>>you have to put the "old" in after every click; it's still
>>configured to provide every link with the "www" in the URL. Lee,
>>can you change that?)
>
> No, but Jimbo can.  Jimbo, could you (a) set up DNS so that
> "old.wikipedia.com" points to ross, and (b) change the
> wikiLocalSettings.php file in the old system to put "old." into
> the internal links?

For reference, the line should be:

   $wikiCurrentServer = "http://old.wikipedia.com";

> The fact that "wikipedia.com" still points to ross is a problem
> for some people as well I understand, but I'm reluctant to ask
> you to change that specifically, since that will affect many
> other things

Such as?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com


body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> Ray Saintonge suggested that I should break up the 'top picks' into
> page-related and others. Thanks, Ray.
> I've also made some other changes.
>
> OK, how's this for a recommended ordering of commands/options? I've
> changed some sublists to alphabetical order, as there is not much
> 'gradient' in their frequencies, and there should always be some kind of
> organising principle.

Sounds pretty good! A couple random comments:

> This page: (in frequency order: there is a real gradient here)
> Edit this page <--- bold
> History
> What links here

That reminds me: it would be nice if "What links here" were directly
accessible from the edit page (did it used to be? I have a vague
impression). I frequently find myself going to a nonexistent page and
checking to see what else links to it, for instance to check if
disambiguation is going to be needed or just to gauge interest.

History and Talk/Subject links would also be useful for reference while
editing an existing page.

> Logged-in user page-related features: (in alphabetical order)
> Stop watching this page
> Watch list
> Watch this page

I find myself going to the watchlist a lot more the last couple of days,
just because it's much harder to keep track of Recentchanges if I've
been away for a few hours.

For me at least, I'd like to keep the watchlist functions easily accessible.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)