subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
I would like to go on record saying that ISBN numbers are utterly
useless. Consider this:

 * older books don't have ISBN numbers,
 * the hardcover and softcover version of the same book have
   completely unrelated ISBN numbers,
 * different editions of a book have completely unrelated
   ISBN numbers,
 * even different printings of one and the same edition get
   different ISBN numbers.

Because of this, it is impossible to reliably locate a book by ISBN in
a library or bookstore. The system is broken by design. A much more
rational way to code book references would be with the Library of
Congress classification codes (which can be found inside the front
cover of every book, right above the ISBN).

Axel


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> At 02:44 PM 8/28/02 -0700, Jimbo wrote:
> >Maybe we should have both.

> The way it is now this coding "ISBN 0000000000" gives pricescan through the
> wiki software. To create an AddAll link you have to create a special link
> that works around the Wiki coding. What I want is to at least allow how to
> create a wiki link be in the ISBN article, but at best putting AddAll into
> the wiki coding instead of pricescan.

Right, yes, what I meant was: maybe we should change the software so
that ISBN wiki code creates two links, one to addall and one to
pricescan.

--Jimbo


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] German speakers, please test

body:
Why not use the language code in addition to the correct word, as in
"de:bild" or "bild:de"?

Jason

Pierre Abbat wrote:

> On Wednesday 28 August 2002 20:03, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > I would think the simplest way to do it is to have [[image:...]]
> > reference the English wiki, and [[bild:...]] the German one.
>
> So what do you call the French one? And isn't "bild" also in some other
> Germanic language?
>
> phma
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


from_name: Guillaume

body:
> Your new software is up and running.  I think it looks o.k., but I'm often
wrong
> about such things.  :-)
>
> If this goes well, then which language is next?  :-)

French, French, French !!!

Aoineko ;o)


from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
Okay, I just wanted to say "Thank you!" to everybody who made this
possible: Lee, Brion, Magnus, and everybody else involved. The new
software has a really nice "feel", and the features are just great. I
knew the software from the English Wikipedia, but it's another thing to
see it on "our own" wiki.

Brion is working on the upper to lower case script, so that problem will
be solved soon.

I'd like to delete a few pages (empty ones, of course <g>), and make
some database queries (yes, I'll be careful), so could someone please
make me admin, sysop or whatever I need to be able to do this?

It would be nice to have the old German usemod Wikipedia on a subdomain,
just in case something got lost on the way to the new database (like the
talk pages from our HomePage). If we do this, could we prevent google
and others from indexing it?

Google has indexed test-de.wikipedia.com and de-beta.wikipedia.com, so
maybe we should redirect from there to www.wikipedia.de, if we don't
already do this.

Kurt


body:
> Choose a volunteer, then go to http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net .
> Browse the new codebase in CVS, and look at the files
> "Language.php" and "LanguageDe.php" for an example of what
> needs to be done for the translation.  As soon as someone
> makes me a "LanguageFr.php" that's reasonably complete, we
> can move forward.

We finised translation some weeks ago.
But it's seem the version we translated is not the more recent version...
I'm waiting about Brion feedback.

Aoineko


body:
> Sorry, I haven't gotten a chance to work on it yet; I just finished the
> Esperanto one. By all means, start work on converting the French!

Thank you very much.
If we can help, please tell !

Aoineko


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] list madness

body:
On Thursday 29 August 2002 03:56 pm, you wrote:
> is it just me or has anyone else noticed the sheer
> amount of lists that we have? running a title search
> for the word 'list' will come up with such bizarre
> pages as [[List of places and things named Oxford]].
>
> I know list can be usefull but isn't this going a bit too far?
> (especially that we've got a decent search function now).
> Shouldn't the lists be simply attached to the main article
> without creating a new page for each and every on of
> them?
>
> regards,
> [[list of people and things named WojPob]]

Long lists are not appropriate for encyclopedia articles (why force somebody
on dial-up to download a 20 KB list just to read a 1 KB article?). Wikipedia
is not paper and many almanac-like lists do add peripheral content to
particular subjects. When a list in an encyclopedia article gets
distractingly long it is then necessary to create a "list of" subarticle.

These lists are almost always only linked from their parent article so I
don't see what the fuss is about. On
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Statistics I've already proposed
that almanac-like entries (such as lists) be included in a separate total
article count (I once didn't even consider lists to be articles but have
since accepted the fact that this type of almanac-like info has always and
will always be with wikipedia).

If you don't like lists, then don't contribute to their creation or better
yet make them more useful by adding some content to naked lists (that is;
birth and death dates by names, major attributes, etc.). Different people
contribute in different ways and it is interesting to sometimes see a list of
biologists after reading the article on biologists -- the search function
yields messy results for this type of thing.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

PS [[List of places and things named Oxford]] is a disambiguation page that
is only linked from a disambiguation block in [[Oxford]]. I just gave it a
better name; [[Oxford (disambiguation)]] (disambiguation pages is another
thing I have proposed to treat differently in the total article count).


from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] German speakers, please test

body:
On 28-08-2002, Anthere wrote thusly :
> --- Pierre Abbat <phma at webjockey.net> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 28 August 2002 15:29, Jimmy Wales
> > wrote:
> > > Your new software is up and running.  I think it
> > looks o.k., but I'm often
> > > wrong about such things.  :-)
> > >
> > > If this goes well, then which language is next?
> > :-)
> > I'd like to see French.
Look at the statistics ! The Polish of course. Recently we
have had an influx of English-speaking contributors so willing
to help us that they learn Polish on courses advertised on Google
"Polish in 3 hours".
;-)
And they are telling us Phase III is a must or else they go.
;-)

Seriously Usemod also has a small bug that prevents us from
linking *.JPG images from the Wikipedia-en image repository.

Best regards,
kpjas.


from_name: Julie Hofmann Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Regnal Chronicles on the hostking site

body:
Hi all -- I can't speak to the more modern stuff, but I am very leery of
using this for Late Antiquity (what the author calls the Dark Ages) and
the Middle Ages.  It's not so much that he's wrong, but what he's done
is often a bit misleading and *not right*.  I think the basic problem is
that he's tried to do what a lot of folks do -- force a more modern idea
of a boundaried kingdom on a geographical area, and then try to make a
list of rulers that fit a preconceived notion of what a kingdom (or
duchy) was like.  Then, you try to create some kind of coherent dynasty,
generally based on rights of primogeniture that did not exist among
Germanic people at the time.

I'm probably saying more than is necessary, but this is stuff I'm pretty
comfortable with.  I'd better be!  This rigidity often gets in the way
of good scholarship.

By the way -- as an interesting aside, for those of you who have been
keeping up with the Oda von Haldesleben front, a couple of things I have
no way of proving (no documentary sources in the manner of land
transactions, necrologies, etc to hand -- probably not in this country)
have popped into my head.  Otto is what is known as a "leading name" in
the (most likely) Frankish family we call the Liudolfinger
(Liudolfings).  We know that they held lands in what became Saxony (then
around the Saxon and Northern marches.  Oda's father was Theoderic,
Count of the Northern March (not strictly an inherited position at this
time, but often held by successive members of a family).  Some (mostly
genealogical) sources call him Count of Saxony -- making little sense,
because if anybody's claiming connected, heritable lands and titles in
"Saxony", it's the Liudolfinger.  But -- Oda is the feminine form of
Otto -- a Liudolfinger leading name.  My guess, based on very little
evidence, is that Oda was a peripheral member of the Liudolfinger -- a
distant cousin of Otto the Great (I say distant, because I don't think
Theoderic is a name found much among the L's, but he could have married
a female liudolfing, and it would have been normal to give a leading
name to strengthen the impression of connection to this really important
family).   So, via marriage, Mieszko I may have been trying to
ameliorate relations with the Ottonians (by the late tenth c. the name
more commonly used for the Liudolfinger).   Or, I could be totally off
base.  Still, I think it explains why Miesko would kidnap a nun.

Thanks for putting up with my mad rantings --

Jules

Regards,

Julie Hofmann Kemp
253-638-1944
206-310-3461

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020829/8d1797f7/attachment.htm


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikipedia-l] On the uselessness of stubs

body:
"Lars Aronsson" <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> Maybe each article could be assigned points from 0 (doesn't exist), 1
> (very short stub), 2 (20 words or a single comma), up to 5 (brilliant
> prose).  Then each user could set a threshold so only links pointing
> to 3 or more are rendered as links.  This would allow stubs for people
> who are involved in writing articles while hiding them from people who
> just want to browse.  (This is an idea from the design of Slashdot.)

That's a very interesting idea. I suspect it would be more appropriate for
a Wikipedia derivative than Wikipedia itself.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

in_reply_to: <E079C39257D0D845AC39E2CA261C43E0070655@sm-nyny-xm04.nena.wdpr.disney.com>; from Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com on Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 02:11:27PM -0400

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> The Wikipedia might even make money on referrals. I think Amazon has
>a program that permits referrers to collect a small percentage if a
>buyer follows the referrer's link.

Many "open source" and "free software" people hate Amazon.  So we don't want to make
that the default, for sure.

> Couldn't the User Preferences page contain an option letting the
>reader choose Price Scan, Amazon, or whatever?

This makes sense to me.


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] What makes a worthwhile article?

body:
I think it comes down to one thing - how much information does it
provide? Not necessarily 'what information am I personally interested
in' because my tastes don't agree with everyone else's... but how much
information is there that someone else will find potentially useful? I
don't think there's any more essential merit in an article about the
'Outer Mongolian horned lizard' or the planet Venus than there is in one
on 'custard' or 'love-letters'. They could all be potentially useful to
somebody, if they are written properly.

Going back to highschool, in English we were taught that writing was
supposed to consider the five 'W's - Who, What, When, Where, and Why? If
a wikipedia article follows that policy then I don't see how it can go
wrong. I'd think we can also add another one - how? I would see 'how to
keep budgerigars as a pet without killing them' as being a logical
extension of the article on budgies.

I've posted articles on food and recipes to the wikipedia... and no
doubt I'll do more of it, because again I don't see the essential
difference between telling you what an ingredient is and where it comes
from, and telling you how to use it. The good thing about the wikipedia
is that you can do both...

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature that
will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

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
Ample Aussies Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>>The way it is now this coding "ISBN 0000000000" gives pricescan through the
>>wiki software. To create an AddAll link you have to create a special link
>>that works around the Wiki coding. What I want is to at least allow how to
>>create a wiki link be in the ISBN article, but at best putting AddAll into
>>the wiki coding instead of pricescan.
>
> Right, yes, what I meant was: maybe we should change the software so
> that ISBN wiki code creates two links, one to addall and one to
> pricescan.

Perhaps the ISBN number might link to a dynamically generated page which
will explicitly link to several such sites, listed by name?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


in_reply_to: <3D6DDF6A.1080008@pobox.com>; from brion@pobox.com on Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 12:46:34AM -0800

body:
Done...

Brion VIBBER wrote:

> Kurt Jansson wrote:
>
> ...
>
> test-de.wikipedia.com needs to be changed in the DNS. Jimbo, Jason?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
> Perhaps the ISBN number might link to a dynamically generated
> page which will explicitly link to several such sites, listed
> by name?

That's what I expected to do; looks like that priority should
be moved up.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Page deletion policy

body:
It seems to me we are trying to impove the number and quality of our articles, merely by making a policy:

1. All articles will be brilliant prose.
2. No useless stubs!

This is futile. (It reminds me of Robert Heinlein's "Friday", in which the state of California, having noted that college graduates have significantly higher income than non-grads, officially awarded every resident of California a college degree. Needless to say, the policy did not have the desired effect.)

Our problem is not "stub policy". We just don't have enough contributors.

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Recruiting more contributors

body:
Let's focus on strategies to increase the number of qualified contributors.

1. Everyone personally recruit three more contributors. (Okay, at least one!)

2. Advertise for writers.

3. Create a profile of the "ideal contributor".

4. Divide up the work into roles, such as Vandalism Cop, Spellcheck Clerk, Neutrality Umpire, Cheerleading Squad, Hospitalty Crew (add more here!!).

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
> I'd like to give readers the choice of where the ISBN links go to.
> ...

It's actually easier to implement as a special page as Brion
points out: ISBNs will generate a link to
"/wiki/Special:Booksources?isbn=XXXXX", and that special page
will have links to Pricescan, AddAll, Amazon, or whatever else
we feel like adding, and even text explaining the different
benefits of each site.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Purging vandalism

body:
I got a request via email to purge the history records of our latest
goatse.cx vandal, lest some poor unsuspecting wikipedian later come
across them by accident.  While there may be arguments for keeping
such a historical record, I think in this case they are outweighed by
the benefits of just deleting them.  I did a database backup, just in
case we get subpoenaed to produce them or something, and then I
removed them.  The banned IP list clearly shows what happened, when,
and why, so we aren't losing that information, just 54 edit records
that were all reverted (interstingly, he also seems to have made
exactly one legitimate edit, which is still here).

I thought the list should know when things like that are done in case
there's some serious objection to it.


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Page deletion policy

body:
Wikipedia is still young; we can expect quite a lot of
embarassing stubs so far because there's so much work ahead
of us still.  I'm not discouraged about it because I think it's a
realistic expectation that we /will/ have many stubs with less than
2 years of contributions logged.  Personally, I'm not thinking so
much of immediate gratification: I expect stubs, and so I'm
pleasantly surprised when I run across an article that's
informative and nearly complete.  I think it just takes time and
diligent effort.

This is the Great Wall of China of encyclopedias we're building
here, and I'm content to add a layer here, patch up the mortar
there, and help cart bricks over there.  Personally, I expect to be
quite proud of wikipedia and my contributions to it by the time I'm
50 (I'm 27).  I don't expect to be proud of wikipedia tomorrow,
except as a proof of concept and a thumbing of the nose to
copyright.

kq

Ed Wrote:
>It seems to me we are trying to impove the number and quality
of our articles, merely by making a policy:
>
>1. All articles will be brilliant prose.
>2. No useless stubs!

<snip>

>Our problem is not "stub policy". We just don't have enough
contributors.


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Page deletion policy

body:
|content-class: urn:content-classes:message
|Content-Type: text/plain;
|	charset="iso-8859-1"
|X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.0.5762.3
|X-MS-Has-Attach:
|X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
|Thread-Topic: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #601 - 12 msgs
|Thread-Index: AcJOguAne7vomrbCTaCiLRy/S9pD5AA6Z3uw
|From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
|X-OriginalArrivalTime: 29 Aug 2002 15:10:12.0156 (UTC) FILETIME=[2BEA2FC0:01C24F6E]
|X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by ross.bomis.com id g7TFB3Z23095
|Sender: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
|X-BeenThere: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
|X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.4
|Precedence: bulk
|Reply-To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
|List-Help: <mailto:wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com?subject=help>
|List-Post: <mailto:wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
|List-Subscribe: <http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l>,
|	<mailto:wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com?subject=subscribe>
|List-Id: An unmoderated discussion of all things Wikipedia <wikipedia-l.nupedia.com>
|List-Unsubscribe: <http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l>,
|	<mailto:wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com?subject=unsubscribe>
|List-Archive: <http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/>
|Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 11:10:11 -0400
|
|It seems to me we are trying to impove the number and quality of our articles, merely by making a policy:
|
|1. All articles will be brilliant prose.
|2. No useless stubs!
|
|This is futile. (It reminds me of Robert Heinlein's "Friday", in
|which the state of California, having noted that college graduates
|have significantly higher income than non-grads, officially awarded
|every resident of California a college degree. Needless to say, the
|policy did not have the desired effect.)
|

When Mensa took over Springfield on The Simpsons, they observed that
traffic moved faster when the lights were yellow, so they kept them
yellow all the time.

There won't ever be a workable stub policy that is better than regular
contributors paying attention.  It certainly reduces the available
information for there to be an article consisting of a short random
string which shows up without the ? in wikipedia displays.  On the
other hand, I have recently jumped in to rescue three legitimate
topics -- [[Mouthpiece]], [[Ununennium]], and [[Arts and Crafts
Movement]] -- where if there hadn't been a stub that someone was hot
to delete, I never would have known that additional information that I
had was needed for the articles.

|
|Our problem is not "stub policy". We just don't have enough contributors.
|
|Ed Poor
|

It may be that outsiders, coming across an article reading in its
entirety "Dallas is in Texas" are more inspired to contribute than
outsiders coming across an article reading "There is currently no text
on this page."

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


body:
Ed, I like the first three of your ideas but really don't care for the
4th.  I'll be all of those or none of those as I see fit; I think that's
part of the beauty of wikipedia: contribute where you think you're
needed; your help is welcome.

kq

Ed Wrote:
>Let's focus on strategies to increase the number of qualified
contributors.
>
>1. Everyone personally recruit three more contributors. (Okay, at
least one!)
>
>2. Advertise for writers.
>
>3. Create a profile of the "ideal contributor".
>
>4. Divide up the work into roles, such as Vandalism Cop,
Spellcheck Clerk, Neutrality Umpire, Cheerleading Squad,
Hospitalty Crew (add more here!!).
>
>Ed Poor
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Ready to slit my damned wrists -- there is a French Helga

body:
It used to be I was trying to deny German history in favor of the Slavs
-- now I'm accused of trying to deny Frence history in favor of the
Germans.  Is this an encyclopedia or a resting-place for irredentism?
Sheesh!

To be fair, DW writes some really good stuff, but doesn't seem to care
that scholarship has moved on in the past 30-50 years if it affects la
Gloire de la France.   I'm beginning to think there's no room here for
experts.

Jules
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020829/fb9a060c/attachment.htm


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> It's actually easier to implement as a special page as Brion
> points out: ISBNs will generate a link to
> "/wiki/Special:Booksources?isbn=XXXXX", and that special page
> will have links to Pricescan, AddAll, Amazon, or whatever else
> we feel like adding, and even text explaining the different
> benefits of each site.

This has the added benefit for the paranoid anti-corporate set of not
making it look like Wikipedia is forcing commercial links down the
throats of the unwary.  Remember, we don't want to end up looking like
The Fact Factory. ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Purging vandalism

body:
>lcrocker at nupedia.com writes:
>> interstingly, he also seems to have made exactly one legitimate
>> edit, which is still here

> Just out of interest, what was it?

A spelling fix on "Enigma".

Pierre's point is a good one--if someone complained to his ISP,
their investigation would not see the purged history (though as
I said, I can produce them from backups if needed).  I don't know
of any AUPs up-to-date enough to cover wiki vandalism.  Maybe a
general "posting obscene content" or something might cover it.

If someone did complain to Shaw cable, and they respond to you
asking for evidence, I'll be happy to provide it.  In fact, I'll
bet they would generally expect such material to have been
removed, and would request information from logs and backups.


in_reply_to: <200208291845.g7TIjcM10585@ross.bomis.com>; from koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com on Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 11:45:38AM -0700

body:
Well, one thing I like about his idea is that he's given friendly and
fun names for different roles.  People who might not feel that they
want to contribute by writing whole articles from scratch should
understand that there's lots of different ways to contribute, all
respected and worthwhile.

koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:

> Ed, I like the first three of your ideas but really don't care for the
> 4th.  I'll be all of those or none of those as I see fit; I think that's
> part of the beauty of wikipedia: contribute where you think you're
> needed; your help is welcome.
>
> kq
>
> Ed Wrote:
> >Let's focus on strategies to increase the number of qualified
> contributors.
> >
> >1. Everyone personally recruit three more contributors. (Okay, at
> least one!)
> >
> >2. Advertise for writers.
> >
> >3. Create a profile of the "ideal contributor".
> >
> >4. Divide up the work into roles, such as Vandalism Cop,
> Spellcheck Clerk, Neutrality Umpire, Cheerleading Squad,
> Hospitalty Crew (add more here!!).
> >
> >Ed Poor
> >[Wikipedia-l]
> >To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> >http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

in_reply_to: <3D6E82EA.90505@pobox.com>; from brion@pobox.com on Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 12:24:10PM -0800

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:
> This has the added benefit for the paranoid anti-corporate set of not
> making it look like Wikipedia is forcing commercial links down the
> throats of the unwary.  Remember, we don't want to end up looking like
> The Fact Factory. ;)

As the recipient of such negative sentiments, I think this is pretty
important.

It would not be a bad thing for these links to generate money for the
project, so that the project can buy the next round of servers instead
of me buying the next round of servers.  But, we have a _mission_ here
that's very important.  We want to avoid even the appearance of
impropriety.

The wiki nature provides a fairly absolute check against corporate money
influencing the reporting of the encyclopedia, but nevertheless, we want to
stay squeaky clean on that front, even if we do someday choose to generate
revenue from affiliate book links.

One way to do that would be to say: look, here's a bunch of book
stores.  Use the one that's best for you.  We don't like Amazon much,
for reasons X, Y, and Z.  But if you are going to shop there anyway,
please use this link so that they make less money and wikipedia can
have a little dough for new servers and what not.

I also think full disclosure of any revenue, when and if that happens, will
be important.

But seriously, I think that the best method of revenue will be a
program of sponsorship where we can accept credit cards and people can
sign up for a monthly patronage.  I think plenty of the regulars would
be willing to chip in $10 or $20 a month, particularly if they could
see, transparently, that the money would not be to finance my
extravagant lifestyle, but to directly benefit the project through
hardware purchases and whatnot.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Purging vandalism

in_reply_to: <200208291841.g7TIfqr09531@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 11:41:52AM -0700

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> I thought the list should know when things like that are done in case
> there's some serious objection to it.

Anyone who objects is required to open up http://www.goatse.cx and contemplate it
for 10 minutes before complaining.  :-)

When I first saw it, about a year ago I guess, I thought "O.k., that's
it, we're done.  Turn off the Internet, because there's nothing left
to see."

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Brion VIBBER wrote:
>
>>Perhaps the ISBN number might link to a dynamically generated page which
>>will explicitly link to several such sites, listed by name?
>
>
> Isn't that exactly what pricescan already does?

Does PriceScan list other sites that do roughly what PriceScan does, but
which also list sites that PriceScan does not?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Matthew Woodcraft

subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

in_reply_to: <200208290309.FAA14560@linde.uni-paderborn.de>; from axel@uni-paderborn.de on Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 05:09:42AM +0200

body:
On Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 05:09:42AM +0200, Axel Boldt wrote:
> I would like to go on record saying that ISBN numbers are utterly
> useless. Consider this:
>
>  * older books don't have ISBN numbers,
>  * the hardcover and softcover version of the same book have
>    completely unrelated ISBN numbers,
>  * different editions of a book have completely unrelated
>    ISBN numbers,
>  * even different printings of one and the same edition get
>    different ISBN numbers.

This last one isn't true. 'completely' unrelated is too strong in the
other cases, too, as they will typically have the same publisher code.

> A much more rational way to code book references would be with the
> Library of Congress classification codes (which can be found inside
> the front cover of every book, right above the ISBN).

Only a tiny minority of the books I own have this data. The great
majority have ISBNs.

-M-


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation - Altering Entry Titles?

body:
Tesla Coil wrote:

>The Wikipedia entry for "Bloody Sunday" contains reference
>to "Bloody Sunday - Northern Ireland," 30 January 1972, but
>not Ireland's earlier "Bloody Sunday" of 20 November 1920.
>
>While true that "Bloody Sunday" of 1972 is distinguished by
>having occurred in *Northern* Ireland, standard practice in
>indexing books of Irish history is to distinguish by year.
>
>Without alteration of titles, one ends with entries perhaps:
>
>"Bloody Sunday - Northern Ireland"
>"Bloody Sunday - Ireland - 1920"
>
>Which seems less optimal toward disambiguation than:
>
>"Bloody Sunday - Ireland - 1920"
>"Bloody Sunday - Ireland - 1972"
>
>So, I'm new here.  How does one resolve such circumstance?
>
Even for those of us who are a little more practised in the art of
disambiguation, there are always new issues to present challenges.  I
note that there were several othe Bloody Sundays in other places.  The
Irish cannot maintain a monopoly on such events.

There are two separate issues involved: disambiguating agent and format.
 The latter I raise because of your being new.  Had the disambiguator
been otherwise been propertly chosen the current preferred format would
be [[Bloody Sunday (Northern Ireland)]] but the article appears to have
been started before that was the practice.  Your approach is a sound one
but should be in the format [[Bloody Sunday (Ireland 1920)]] and
[[Bloody Sunday (Ireland 1972)]].  There is always the risk that this
approach to the 1972 massacre could be seen as supporting a united
Ireland.  If you see that as a realistic fear than I would suggest using
the city names for the events [[Bloody Sunday (Dublin)]] and [[Bloody
Sunday (Derry)]].  Nobody can argue that these town aren't where they are.


body:
Tesla Coil wrote:

>The Wikipedia entry for "Bloody Sunday"
>
One more advice to you as a newbie:  If you agree with me ... just do it.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

in_reply_to:
<3D6E6A11.3070306@pobox.com> (message from Brion VIBBER on Thu,
	29 Aug 2002 10:38:09 -0800)

body:
|From: Brion VIBBER <brion at pobox.com>
|User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.1b) Gecko/20020721
|X-Accept-Language: eo, ia, en-us, en, fr
|Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
|Sender: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
|X-BeenThere: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
|X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.4
|Precedence: bulk
|Reply-To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
|List-Help: <mailto:wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com?subject=help>
|List-Post: <mailto:wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
|List-Subscribe: <http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l>,
|	<mailto:wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com?subject=subscribe>
|List-Id: An unmoderated discussion of all things Wikipedia <wikipedia-l.nupedia.com>
|List-Unsubscribe: <http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l>,
|	<mailto:wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com?subject=unsubscribe>
|List-Archive: <http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/>
|Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 10:38:09 -0800
|
|Jimmy Wales wrote:
|> Fred Bauder wrote:
|>>The way it is now this coding "ISBN 0000000000" gives pricescan through the
|>>wiki software. To create an AddAll link you have to create a special link
|>>that works around the Wiki coding. What I want is to at least allow how to
|>>create a wiki link be in the ISBN article, but at best putting AddAll into
|>>the wiki coding instead of pricescan.
|>
|> Right, yes, what I meant was: maybe we should change the software so
|> that ISBN wiki code creates two links, one to addall and one to
|> pricescan.
|
|Perhaps the ISBN number might link to a dynamically generated page which
|will explicitly link to several such sites, listed by name?
|
|-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Why make it more complicated?

If AddAll includes used as well as new books, let's go AddAll.  Since
it isn't a link, but a service provided at a different level, we could
change it again any time a better choice for listing books comes
along.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Why external images should not be allowed

body:
Some moron thought that it would be 'funny' to link a really revolting
pornographic photograph into a random article, and unfortunately before
I could remove it I had to LOOK at it.

Anyway, if the image had had to be uploaded it would have been caught in
the net, but the jerkwad could just put http://etc and the picture
showed up on the page all by itself.

I know that 24.70.159.4 is probably a random passerby with a perverted
sense of humour, but it was gross and disgusting and made me physically
ill. Oh... looking at recent changes the same person has been hitting a
myriad of articles in the last fifteen minutes. I just blocked him, and
I see I was the third person to do it.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature that
will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

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
Ample Aussies Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


body:
>
>
>> Google has indexed test-de.wikipedia.com and de-beta.wikipedia.com,
>
Somebody complained recently that Google had fallen behind in indexing.
 It's comforting thay they are now considering test and beta pages to be
useful data!

Ec.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
I'd like to give readers the choice of where the ISBN links go to.

If the ISBN link goes to amazon.com I can see a fuller description, which helps me decide whether to buy the book.

The Wikipedia might even make money on referrals. I think Amazon has a program that permits referrers to collect a small percentage if a buyer follows the referrer's link.

Couldn't the User Preferences page contain an option letting the reader choose Price Scan, Amazon, or whatever?

Ed Poor (like when you have no money)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Page deletion policy

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>(It reminds me of Robert Heinlein's "Friday", in which the state of California, having noted that college graduates have significantly higher income than non-grads, officially awarded every resident of California a college degree. Needless to say, the policy did not have the desired effect.)
>
Chairman Mao solved this in the opposite way.  He sent the university
personnel out to the countryside to be farmers, and called it the
cultural revolution.


subject: [Wikitech-l] International images (Was: German speakers, please test)

body:
I definitely agree here...

Jason

Toby Bartels wrote:

> LDC (?) wrote:
>
> >I would think the simplest way to do it is to have [[image:...]]
> >reference the English wiki, and [[bild:...]] the German one.
>
> It's already been remarked that these words are not unique,
> so that some language marker must be used.
>
> For user friendliness, to link from one language's wiki to another's data,
> I'd allow using *both* language's term for the upload space.
> For example, if I (on [[en:]]) want to use [[de:bild:foo.png]],
> then I should be able to do it with "[[de:image:foo.png]]"
> (so that I don't need to know what they call the namespace on [[de:]])
> *or* "[[de:bild:foo.png]]" (so that I can cut and paste the wiki
> from the page where I found the image on [[de:]]).
>
>
> -- Toby
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


in_reply_to: <001801c24fa9$638abfe0$41b3e6d9@maximilian>; from jansson@gmx.net on Fri, Aug 30, 2002 at 12:11:44AM +0200

body:
Hmm... DNS is a tricky beast, maybe it just hasn't propagated to you.
Also, I didn't make any changes on the new server.  Apache may be
serving the english wiki for that sub-domain...

Jason

Kurt Jansson wrote:

> Thanks, but I can only see the English Wikipedia.
>
> > Done...
> >
> > Brion VIBBER wrote:
> >
> > > Kurt Jansson wrote:
> > >
> > > ...
> > >
> > > test-de.wikipedia.com needs to be changed in the DNS. Jimbo, Jason?
> > >
> > > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> > > http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
> > --
> > "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> > http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
LDC (?) wrote:

>I would think the simplest way to do it is to have [[image:...]]
>reference the English wiki, and [[bild:...]] the German one.

It's already been remarked that these words are not unique,
so that some language marker must be used.

For user friendliness, to link from one language's wiki to another's data,
I'd allow using *both* language's term for the upload space.
For example, if I (on [[en:]]) want to use [[de:bild:foo.png]],
then I should be able to do it with "[[de:image:foo.png]]"
(so that I don't need to know what they call the namespace on [[de:]])
*or* "[[de:bild:foo.png]]" (so that I can cut and paste the wiki
from the page where I found the image on [[de:]]).

-- Toby


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> I think Wikipedia would be better served by having edit links pointing to
> an empty page, rather than misleading people into thinking there's some
> kind of useful information there.

Maybe each article could be assigned points from 0 (doesn't exist), 1
(very short stub), 2 (20 words or a single comma), up to 5 (brilliant
prose).  Then each user could set a threshold so only links pointing
to 3 or more are rendered as links.  This would allow stubs for people
who are involved in writing articles while hiding them from people who
just want to browse.  (This is an idea from the design of Slashdot.)

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


from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Purging vandalism

body:
On Thursday 29 August 2002 14:41, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> I got a request via email to purge the history records of our latest
> goatse.cx vandal, lest some poor unsuspecting wikipedian later come
> across them by accident.  While there may be arguments for keeping
> such a historical record, I think in this case they are outweighed by
> the benefits of just deleting them.  I did a database backup, just in
> case we get subpoenaed to produce them or something, and then I
> removed them.  The banned IP list clearly shows what happened, when,
> and why, so we aren't losing that information, just 54 edit records
> that were all reverted (interstingly, he also seems to have made
> exactly one legitimate edit, which is still here).

That means that if Shaw hasn't looked into my complaint, which gave the list
of contributions page, yet, they won't see that anything happened.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Help page

body:
>One of the pages hit by the latest
>vandal from Shaw Cable is
>Wikipedia:Help.
>Should that be protected?
>
>phma

I don't think so - It's not a policy page and it isn't
hit by vandals all that often. Just put it on your
watch list as I have.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com


body:
Jason Richey wrote:
> Hmm... DNS is a tricky beast, maybe it just hasn't propagated to you.
> Also, I didn't make any changes on the new server.  Apache may be
> serving the english wiki for that sub-domain...

Oops, I forgot to change the apache config. It should now be serving up
the right stuff on test-de.wikipedia.com.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Ready to slit my damned wrists -- there is a
  French Helga

body:
At 12:04 PM 8/29/02 -0700, Jules wrote:

>It used to be I was trying to deny German history in favor of the Slavs --
>now I'm accused of trying to deny Frence history in favor of the
>Germans.  Is this an encyclopedia or a resting-place for irredentism?  Sheesh!

I've spoken up on your behalf, for whatever good it will do. Nationalism
gets weird.

>To be fair, DW writes some really good stuff, but doesn't seem to care
>that scholarship has moved on in the past 30-50 years if it affects la
>Gloire de la France.   I'm beginning to think there's no room here for experts.

There is. There'd better be--I can't write or research all this stuff, and
I'm not an expert, so
I need some who are.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
I implemented a new system for ISBN links.  Please check
it out (for example, see "Oliver Goldsmith"), and let me know
what other text you might add to that page, or what other
sites you might want to link to.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> I implemented a new system for ISBN links.  Please check
> it out (for example, see "Oliver Goldsmith"), and let me know
> what other text you might add to that page, or what other
> sites you might want to link to.

Perfect!

I'd throw the ISBN into the text of the page as well, though.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] "(film)" vs. "(movie)"

body:
I notice that we have about 50-60 pages titled "XXX (movie)",
and maybe a dozen titled "XXX (film)".  I'd like to see these
merged, and obviously it's less work to settle on "(movie)"
as our standard.  Are there any film buffs out there with a
good argument why our standard should be "(film)", or why there
might actually be a distiction?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] "(film)" vs. "(movie)"

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> I notice that we have about 50-60 pages titled "XXX (movie)",
> and maybe a dozen titled "XXX (film)".  I'd like to see these
> merged, and obviously it's less work to settle on "(movie)"
> as our standard.  Are there any film buffs out there with a
> good argument why our standard should be "(film)", or why there
> might actually be a distiction?

"Film" is slightly more highbrow. (But still below "pi?ce du cin?ma"...)
  Using "movie" won't hurt nuthin' but my pride.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
|From: "Julie Hofmann Kemp" <juleskemp at yahoo.com>
|Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
|	boundary="----=_NextPart_000_000A_01C24F54.3007CD20"
|X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
|X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
|Importance: Normal
|X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
|Sender: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
|X-BeenThere: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
|X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.4
|Precedence: bulk
|Reply-To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
|List-Help: <mailto:wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com?subject=help>
|List-Post: <mailto:wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
|List-Subscribe: <http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l>,
|	<mailto:wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com?subject=subscribe>
|List-Id: An unmoderated discussion of all things Wikipedia <wikipedia-l.nupedia.com>
|List-Unsubscribe: <http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l>,
|	<mailto:wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com?subject=unsubscribe>
|List-Archive: <http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/>
|Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 12:04:11 -0700
|
|This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
|
|------=_NextPart_000_000A_01C24F54.3007CD20
|Content-Type: text/plain;
|	charset="us-ascii"
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
|
|It used to be I was trying to deny German history in favor of the Slavs
|-- now I'm accused of trying to deny Frence history in favor of the
|Germans.  Is this an encyclopedia or a resting-place for irredentism?
|Sheesh!
|
|To be fair, DW writes some really good stuff, but doesn't seem to care
|that scholarship has moved on in the past 30-50 years if it affects la
|Gloire de la France.   I'm beginning to think there's no room here for
|experts.
|
|Jules
|

Julie,

How about beefing up the [[Irredentism]] and [[Revanchism]] articles
and adding a link to them on every page where this stuff comes up?  If
those articles mentioned disputes about the proper nationality of
Transcarpathian Ruthenia, and all the others, then the cross-reference
would alert readers whenever there was any such in the referring
article.

I personally suspect you represent the Julian family of emperors and
are planning to retake the whole Roman Empire back from usurpers.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] "(film)" vs. "(movie)"

body:
"Flick" -- I vote for "[[XXX (flick)]]"

Just to be obnoxious.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Brion VIBBER
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 18:37
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] "(film)" vs. "(movie)"

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> I notice that we have about 50-60 pages titled "XXX (movie)",
> and maybe a dozen titled "XXX (film)".  I'd like to see these
> merged, and obviously it's less work to settle on "(movie)"
> as our standard.  Are there any film buffs out there with a
> good argument why our standard should be "(film)", or why there
> might actually be a distiction?

"Film" is slightly more highbrow. (But still below "pi?ce du cin?ma"...)
  Using "movie" won't hurt nuthin' but my pride.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
At 11:27 AM 8/29/02 -0700, you wrote:
>> I'd like to give readers the choice of where the ISBN links go to.
>> ...
>
>It's actually easier to implement as a special page as Brion
>points out: ISBNs will generate a link to
>"/wiki/Special:Booksources?isbn=XXXXX", and that special page
>will have links to Pricescan, AddAll, Amazon, or whatever else
>we feel like adding, and even text explaining the different
>benefits of each site.
>

Perhaps a link [Find the book] with links to Library of congress, CARL,
AddAll, Addall Used,  Pricescan, ABEbooks, etc. Some of these will find
used books, some will find copies of books without ISBNs.

Fred Bauder


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> One way to do that would be to say: look, here's a
> bunch of book
> stores.  Use the one that's best for you.  We don't
> like Amazon much,
> for reasons X, Y, and Z.  But if you are going to
> shop there anyway,
> please use this link so that they make less money
> and wikipedia can
> have a little dough for new servers and what not.

The problem is, such a strategy would probably drive
away a significant amount of people. "Wikipedia
doesn't like Amazon, but they make money off of Amazon
sales? Humph." It's not worth a couple of bucks.

That being said, I don't think we should expect Jimbo
to keep us in servers for the rest of his life...

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] list madness

body:
It depends on the size of the list. Small and relevant
lists, such as the works of an author, could be kept
on the article page. Huges lists should be spun off
onto their own page, and annotated.

Stephen G.

--- wojtek pobratyn <wojtek.pobratyn at gmx.net> wrote:
> is it just me or has anyone else noticed the sheer
> amount of lists that we have? running a title search
> for the word 'list' will come up with such bizarre
> pages as [[List of places and things named Oxford]].
>
> I know list can be usefull but isn't this going a
> bit too far?
> (especially that we've got a decent search function
> now).
> Shouldn't the lists be simply attached to the main
> article
> without creating a new page for each and every on of
>
> them?
>
> regards,
> [[list of people and things named WojPob]]
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com


body:
On Thursday 29 August 2002 11:10, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Let's focus on strategies to increase the number of qualified contributors.
>
> 1. Everyone personally recruit three more contributors. (Okay, at least
> one!)
>
> 2. Advertise for writers.
>
> 3. Create a profile of the "ideal contributor".
>
> 4. Divide up the work into roles, such as Vandalism Cop, Spellcheck Clerk,
> Neutrality Umpire, Cheerleading Squad, Hospitalty Crew (add more here!!).

Don't forget Wikipediatrician! :) They work at the hospital with the
hospitalty crew.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga again

body:
I see that Helga is back, again not signing in, and again messing with stuff on
the Polish-German border: see
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Silesia&oldid=181988

Jimbo, were you aware of this? What's the status of your discussions with her?
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Purging vandalism

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com writes:

> interstingly, he also seems to have made exactly one legitimate edit, which
> is still here

Just out of interest, what was it?

> I thought the list should know when things like that are done in case
> there's some serious objection to it.

Cunc?
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] "(film)" vs. "(movie)"

body:
I don't remember the discussion leading up to the decision, and I'm very much a film buff, but anyway the decision was for "(movie)."  I'll look for the ones that are at other names, if they haven't all been found already.

kq

LDC Wrote:
>I notice that we have about 50-60 pages titled "XXX (movie)",
>and maybe a dozen titled "XXX (film)".  I'd like to see these
>merged, and obviously it's less work to settle on "(movie)"
>as our standard.  Are there any film buffs out there with a
>good argument why our standard should be "(film)", or why there
>might actually be a distiction?


from_name: Guillaume

subject: [Wikitech-l] HELP !

body:
Bonjour,
I don't know if you remember the problems we had with named Mulot (or
12.28.55.xxx or proxy.culture.fr).
She is now making chaos on the french wikipedia.
Both of me and Shaihulud tried to temporary banish her, but it's don't seem
to work :o(
I don't know what way Shaihulud used, but I have tried by Editing Banned
list (http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=editbanned).
I don'y know Perl at all, then perhaps I was mistaken.
Please we need quick help !!
Thanks,

Guillaume (Aoineko)


from_name: Tim Marklew

subject: [Wikipedia-l] List of articles in Wikipedia namespace

body:
Astronomer wrote:
>I think it should be good to be able to make searches
>in any on the namespaces, specially the wikipedia
>namespace. In the meantime, could someone make a
>list  of all the pages on the wikipedia namespace,
>and put it somewhere visible? (Yes, I know that I
>could do it myself with a SQL query, but I haven't
>gotten into that yet).
Done - see [[Wikipedia:List of articles in Wikipedia: namespace]]

Tim (Enchanter)

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:
> Perhaps the ISBN number might link to a dynamically generated page which
> will explicitly link to several such sites, listed by name?

Isn't that exactly what pricescan already does?

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:

>I seem to be the only one around here with a visceral hatred for
>ISBN numbers, so I suggest the following experiment:
>
You are not unique,   I have a personal library that exceeds 10,000
items, and I can proudly say that ISBN (or ISSN) numbers were never a
factor in any acquisition.

>The first search gave you a single book, and in three years it won't
>give you anything, because that  book will be out of print. The second
>search gave you 44 different editions, from different publishers,
>ranging from leather bound to softcover and even an audio edition.
>
I've sometimes wondered about the purposes of the ISBN links in
articles, especially when they appear without the author or title of the
publication being mentioned.  For me links to books are more in the
nature of bibliography.  Wikipedia is not in the business of book
promotion, and even less in the business of promoting these books as
produced by specific publishers.  Your experience with the Goldsmith
book is highly illustrative.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
|From: lcrocker at nupedia.com
|Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 16:38:02 -0700
|
|I implemented a new system for ISBN links.  Please check
|it out (for example, see "Oliver Goldsmith"), and let me know
|what other text you might add to that page, or what other
|sites you might want to link to.
|

Added a sentence to your text:

You have reached this page by clicking on the ISBN number of a book.
Below is a list of links to other sites that sell new and used books.
*Click on one of these sites for more information on the book you are
interested in.*  These sites may also have further information about
other books you are looking for. Wikipedia is not affiliated with any
of these businesses, and this list should not be construed as an
endorsement.

Also, will this be a regular article or resource reachable by the
index?  In that case there would have to be a more elaborate
explanation.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


from_name: Jens Frank

body:
On Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 12:04:11PM -0700, Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
> It used to be I was trying to deny German history in favor of the Slavs
> -- now I'm accused of trying to deny Frence history in favor of the
> Germans.  Is this an encyclopedia or a resting-place for irredentism?
> Sheesh!
>
> To be fair, DW writes some really good stuff, but doesn't seem to care
> that scholarship has moved on in the past 30-50 years if it affects la
> Gloire de la France.   I'm beginning to think there's no room here for
> experts.

I'm a little concerned about the images DW's uploading. I've got the
impression that those are not in the public domain. The image uploaded
for [[Chenonceaux]] seems to be by a photograph who's selling posters:
http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=939101&item=1641

	Regards,

		JeLuF


from_name: wojtek pobratyn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] list madness

body:
is it just me or has anyone else noticed the sheer
amount of lists that we have? running a title search
for the word 'list' will come up with such bizarre
pages as [[List of places and things named Oxford]].

I know list can be usefull but isn't this going a bit too far?
(especially that we've got a decent search function now).
Shouldn't the lists be simply attached to the main article
without creating a new page for each and every on of
them?

regards,
[[list of people and things named WojPob]]


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Purging vandalism

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> If someone did complain to Shaw cable, and they respond to you
> asking for evidence, I'll be happy to provide it.  In fact, I'll
> bet they would generally expect such material to have been
> removed, and would request information from logs and backups.

Would not hurt to cc them a copy of
the emails explaining the inappropriate material has
been removed but is available to investigators
via backup.

regards,
Mike Irwin


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Book links (was: ISBN links)

body:
>It's actually easier to implement as a special page as Brion
>points out: ISBNs will generate a link to
>"/wiki/Special:Booksources?isbn=XXXXX", and that special page
>will have links to Pricescan, AddAll, Amazon,

Why not allow for
   Special:Booksources?isbn=XXXXX&titlewords=YYYY&author=ZZZ
with all values optional. All the above mentioned sites can search
books based on author and title. We could then also add ebay links for
example, as well as links to catalogs of libaries which participate in
interlibrary loan.

The Title/Author combination has the advantage that it captures all
editions and therefore doesn't age like ISBN numbers do.

We just have to come up with some catchy wiki notation for the book
links. Maybe
   [[book:Douglas Hofstadter|Godel, Escher, Bach|0465026567]]
(again with all fields optional) could turn into a
link to Special:Booksources and render as something like
"(find this book)".

Axel


from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
Thanks, but I can only see the English Wikipedia.

> Done...
>
> Brion VIBBER wrote:
>
> > Kurt Jansson wrote:
> >
> > ...
> >
> > test-de.wikipedia.com needs to be changed in the DNS. Jimbo, Jason?
> >
> > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> > http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
> --
> "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
> Oops, I forgot to change the apache config. It should now be serving
up
> the right stuff on test-de.wikipedia.com.

Everything's fine now.

Kurt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
> I implemented a new system for ISBN links.  Please check
> it out (for example, see "Oliver Goldsmith"),

I seem to be the only one around here with a visceral hatred for
ISBN numbers, so I suggest the following experiment:

* Go to [[Oliver Goldsmith]]
* Click on the first ISBN, for "The Vicar of Wakefield"
* Click on the first search service, "Addall".

* Now, in a different window, go to www.addall.com
* Do "Search by Title", enter "The Vicar of Wakefield"
* Hit "Find it"

The first search gave you a single book, and in three years it won't
give you anything, because that  book will be out of print. The second
search gave you 44 different editions, from different publishers,
ranging from leather bound to softcover and even an audio edition.

Axel


from_name: Giskart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload trouble whit audio

body:
Hy,

After a lot of effort i have get the creator of some audio so far to release his content under GNU/FDL
http://www.pagel.clara.net/mp3

But when i attempt to upload the audio on wikipedia i always get
<quote>
"Internal error


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

in_reply_to: <3D6F0119.5010707@telus.net>; from saintonge@telus.net on Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 10:22:33PM -0700

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I've sometimes wondered about the purposes of the ISBN links in
> articles, especially when they appear without the author or title of the
> publication being mentioned.  For me links to books are more in the
> nature of bibliography.  Wikipedia is not in the business of book
> promotion, and even less in the business of promoting these books as
> produced by specific publishers.  Your experience with the Goldsmith
> book is highly illustrative.

As a point of history, it just happened that the original Usemod
software had this feature, for whatever reason, and so people started
using it.  I'm not sure we would have done it in that way had we started
from scratch.

On the other hand, although wikipedia is not in the business of book
promotion, I think it's very useful to have an easy way to auto-link
book titles to places where people can obtain the book, either through
purchase or interlibrary loan, or whatever.

Often, I might be researching some topic and of course I turn to wikipedia
first.  Having learned about such-and-such author, I now want to buy a book.
It's nice to be able to just click and go.

I certainly agree that we should have a diversity of sources, so that
we don't appear to be endorsing any specific merchant.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
At 10:24 PM 8/29/02 -0400, you wrote:
>|From: lcrocker at nupedia.com
>|Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 16:38:02 -0700
>|
>|I implemented a new system for ISBN links.  Please check
>|it out (for example, see "Oliver Goldsmith"), and let me know
>|what other text you might add to that page, or what other
>|sites you might want to link to.
>|
>
>Added a sentence to your text:
>
>You have reached this page by clicking on the ISBN number of a book.
>Below is a list of links to other sites that sell new and used books.
>*Click on one of these sites for more information on the book you are
>interested in.*  These sites may also have further information about
>other books you are looking for. Wikipedia is not affiliated with any
>of these businesses, and this list should not be construed as an
>endorsement.
>
>Also, will this be a regular article or resource reachable by the
>index?  In that case there would have to be a more elaborate
>explanation.
>
>Tom Parmenter
>Ortolan88

I rather like the simple 4 choices there now. AddAll and Pricescan are
price based searches with Addall searching for used (and expanding
gradually in that area) and Pricescan listing some deep discount sellers.
Amazon and Barnes & Noble offer related book, book reviews and reviews by
book buyers.

I've started an article [[How to find a book]] which I invite participation
on. It will cover all the finer points including library searchs. When it
is in reasonable shape a link from the new page would be helpful.

Might later do a [[How to buy a book]] too, but the finding article is
enough for now.

Listing a few useful books under '''Further Reading''' is I think a good
practice, although the selection is certainly subject to edit. Sometimes
certain books become the standard reference in a area or offer a great deal
of material that could be used by anyone working on the article.

The ISBN system started about 1970 and only refers to a particular edition
of a book, obviously title and author search will return much more
information. It's good if the book used in '''Further Reading''' has been
searched first by title and a later edition that is available for a nominal
cost used is cited.  Many many books that have been published lately are
available for 75 cents plus postage.

Fred Bauder


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Browser stats

body:
On Friday 30 August 2002 06:51 pm, Lee wrote:
> Konqueror and Opera show up at 18,000 and 8,000. ?Lynx is about
> 2,000, below even some off-line tools like Wget.

It would be interesting to know what browsers contributors use -- since they
are at least (if not more) important than mere visitors. I use Konqueror and
would /not/ be too pleased at all if it were not tested too.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
>Is it possible, instead of an ISBN link, to send a query consisting of author
>and title to the service that the user has selected in preferences?
>
>Tom Parmenter
>Ortolan88

In some cases yes, in some no, results may vary. Here's one link that would
allow that:

http://isbn.nu/advanced.html

Here's the AddAll used search:

http://used.addall.com/

The ABE advanced search:

http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BookSearch

The Alibris advanced search:

http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?S=R

And the Library of Congress Advanced Search:

http://lcweb.loc.gov/cgi-bin/zgate?ACTION=INIT&FORM_HOST_PORT=/prod/www/data/z39
50/locils.html,z3950.loc.gov,7090&CI=110214

After a bit this gets pretty complicated and unless you are going to go
into the business you run into diminishing returns.

Fred


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga again

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> Jimbo, were you aware of this? What's the status of your discussions with her?

I have told her that she needs to sign onto this mailing list and talk
with us or risk being banned.

My intention is to temporarily ban her - to get her attention -
tomorrow, if she doesn't respond to me with either a refusal to join
the list, with a reason, or by joining the list and posting something.

If she refuses to talk about her actions, and refuses to join the list
to work out the problems she's causing for other contributors, I think
it is unfair to others to allow her to continue.

I'm not happy about the content of her writing -- but I'm
significantly *less* happy with her attitudes and behaviors towards
others.

I don't want to pick on Ed Poor, because I'm sure there are other
examples I could use.  But I think Ed Poor believes a lot of false
things.  I'm sure he thinks that I believe a lot of false things.
Maybe I think he's a nut.  Maybe he thinks I'm a nut.

Fair enough, but he and I are both polite and reasonable, and I find
it hard to envision a situation where we couldn't agree on what an
encyclopedia article should say.

--Jimbo


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload trouble whit audio

body:
> But when i attempt to upload the audio on wikipedia I always
> get <quote> "Internal error From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
>
> Could not copy file "" to
>  "/usr/local/apache/htdocs/upload/d/d3/Ww1_rap_by_pagel.ogg".
> </quote>
>
> Is this normal ? The file is 2.11mb
> Giskart

Yes, there's a hard limit of 1Mb for uploads.  It's not
recommended to upload images larger than 100k, or sounds
much larger than 200k.  2Mb is definitely larger than
would be useful for an encyclopedia.  Such a file should
be on an external site and merely referenced from here.


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
Is it possible, instead of an ISBN link, to send a query consisting of author
and title to the service that the user has selected in preferences?

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88

|From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
|Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 06:35:39 -0600
|
|At 10:24 PM 8/29/02 -0400, you wrote:
|>|From: lcrocker at nupedia.com
|>|Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 16:38:02 -0700
|>|
|>|I implemented a new system for ISBN links.  Please check
|>|it out (for example, see "Oliver Goldsmith"), and let me know
|>|what other text you might add to that page, or what other
|>|sites you might want to link to.
|>|
|>
|>Added a sentence to your text:
|>
|>You have reached this page by clicking on the ISBN number of a book.
|>Below is a list of links to other sites that sell new and used books.
|>*Click on one of these sites for more information on the book you are
|>interested in.*  These sites may also have further information about
|>other books you are looking for. Wikipedia is not affiliated with any
|>of these businesses, and this list should not be construed as an
|>endorsement.
|>
|>Also, will this be a regular article or resource reachable by the
|>index?  In that case there would have to be a more elaborate
|>explanation.
|>
|>Tom Parmenter
|>Ortolan88
|
|I rather like the simple 4 choices there now. AddAll and Pricescan are
|price based searches with Addall searching for used (and expanding
|gradually in that area) and Pricescan listing some deep discount sellers.
|Amazon and Barnes & Noble offer related book, book reviews and reviews by
|book buyers.
|
|I've started an article [[How to find a book]] which I invite participation
|on. It will cover all the finer points including library searchs. When it
|is in reasonable shape a link from the new page would be helpful.
|
|Might later do a [[How to buy a book]] too, but the finding article is
|enough for now.
|
|Listing a few useful books under '''Further Reading''' is I think a good
|practice, although the selection is certainly subject to edit. Sometimes
|certain books become the standard reference in a area or offer a great deal
|of material that could be used by anyone working on the article.
|
|The ISBN system started about 1970 and only refers to a particular edition
|of a book, obviously title and author search will return much more
|information. It's good if the book used in '''Further Reading''' has been
|searched first by title and a later edition that is available for a nominal
|cost used is cited.  Many many books that have been published lately are
|available for 75 cents plus postage.
|
|Fred Bauder
|
|[Wikipedia-l]
|To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
|http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
|


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikitech-l] HELP !

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> Bonjour,
> I'm a little bit disappointed we don't receive any clue to our vandalism
> problem !?
> Someone can help ?

Sorry, but I at least have no idea how the usemod banning system works. :(

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Karl Juhnke

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Median article size stablizes

body:
I don't know whether all the talk about stubs has had some effect, but
over the past week the median article sized has stopped dropping.

Date  Median article size in bytes
----  ----------------------------
8/15  1001
8/18   999
8/19   997
8/20   995
8/21   995
8/22   991
8/23   990
8/24   989
8/25   988
8/26   990
8/27   990
8/28   990
8/29   991
8/30   990

By the way, I love the new stats which have been posted in
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Statistics

If we are too wedded to the current front page count to change it (i.e.
if we don't want to drop back below 30,000 "articles" just after having
broken 40,000) at least we could have the more conservative count
generated and explained on some other page, e.g. [[Wikipedia:What is an
article]].

Peace,
-Karl

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] HELP !

body:
--- Brion VIBBER <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> > Bonjour,
> > I'm a little bit disappointed we don't receive any
> clue to our vandalism
> > problem !?
> > Someone can help ?
>
> Sorry, but I at least have no idea how the usemod
> banning system works. :(
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Intlwiki-l mailing list
> To unsubscribe and otherwise manage your list
> subscription, please go to
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/intlwiki-l
> Intlwiki-l at nupedia.com

Thank you for answering at least Brion. It is very
nice of you. I was planning to leave u a message on
the en.wiki. So I guess, it will be of no use. Neither
public, nor private call for help seems to trigger any
interest.

Honestly, today, I have the feeling the international
wikipedias are of absolutely no interest to the
english one. Maybe are we there just here for the
galery...

In case anybody remembers how he used to ban people
before february (?) (such a loooong time ago, it's
amazing everybody forgot), please do it for us. You
are leaving us helpless.

Peace

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com


body:
Anthere wrote:
> Thank you for answering at least Brion. It is very
> nice of you. I was planning to leave u a message on
> the en.wiki. So I guess, it will be of no use. Neither
> public, nor private call for help seems to trigger any
> interest.

Anthere; prior to about April or so, the *only* people who were allowed
to ban IPs on the English wiki were Larry Sanger (who is no longer with
the project), and perhaps Jimmy Wales (who is quite busy and doesn't
answer as much e-mail as sometimes we like).

As a result, it's likely that very few (if any) of us have ever used the
Usemod banning function and know how to help in this case, and we've all
just been waiting for someone else to reply usefully.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga again

body:
Vicki,

Gareth and I revised the offending passage. Thanks for pointing it out.

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga again

in_reply_to: <E079C39257D0D845AC39E2CA261C43E007039E@sm-nyny-xm04.nena.wdpr.disney.com>; from Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com on Fri, Aug 30, 2002 at 03:16:14PM -0400

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> But seriously, isn't there any way to configure the software so that
>Helga could contribute only when logged in? That is, ban her IP
>address, but not her user ID (if you know what I mean)?

I guess we could do that -- what would the purpose be, though?  To force her to
log in?  I'm not sure how that helps anything.

> Mav and others have told me that Helga's been a thorn in the
>project's side for a year. But I think the way you've responded has
>been inflammatory. No offense meant.

Well, if that's true, all I ask is that she come here and talk about
it.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga again

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> And I refuse to write "although most scholars believe Hitler was always a
> Jew-hater, some people claim that the Jews declared war on Nazi Germany first",
> which is what we'd need to include Helga's theses.

And you're absolutely right about that.

I think we could say: "Tensions between Jews and non-Jews in Germany
had been growing for several years, as evidenced by thus and such
actual facts that actually happened."


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

body:
To my knowledge, no one except maybe Jimbo and Larry Sanger /could/ ban anyone before February.  Thanks for being generous in your assumptions.  :-)  (I for one would certainly help, if I knew how).

kq

Anthere wrote:
>In case anybody remembers how he used to ban people
>before february (?) (such a loooong time ago, it's
>amazing everybody forgot), please do it for us. You
>are leaving us helpless.
>
>Peace


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] "(film)" vs. "(movie)"

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> I notice that we have about 50-60 pages titled "XXX (movie)",
> and maybe a dozen titled "XXX (film)".  I'd like to see these
> merged, and obviously it's less work to settle on "(movie)"
> as our standard.  Are there any film buffs out there with a
> good argument why our standard should be "(film)", or why there
> might actually be a distiction?

(film) was the original delinianator(sp?) and then (movie) was decided
on when the matter was discussed at exhaustive length a few months ago
:) So change them over by all means!

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature that
will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

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
Ample Aussies Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


body:
I've put the question to Tarquin, whom a google search reveals is an admin at another wiki which uses UseModWiki.  See http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Tarquin&redirect=no  .  I hope we can help soon.  (I never banned anyone under UseModWiki; IIRC Larry did all that).  Cheers,  kq

Anthere wrote:
>Thank you for answering at least Brion. It is very
>nice of you. I was planning to leave u a message on
>the en.wiki. So I guess, it will be of no use. Neither
>public, nor private call for help seems to trigger any
>interest.
>
>Honestly, today, I have the feeling the international
>wikipedias are of absolutely no interest to the
>english one. Maybe are we there just here for the
>galery...
>
>In case anybody remembers how he used to ban people
>before february (?) (such a loooong time ago, it's
>amazing everybody forgot), please do it for us. You
>are leaving us helpless.
>
>Peace


subject: [Wikitech-l] German wiki software reverts?

body:
Yesterday I fixed a couple typos in LanguageDe.php (Portugiesisch and
Schwedisch were misspelled in the list of interlanguage links). I
committed the fixes to CVS, and copied the updated version onto the live
server, and everything was hunky-dory.

Today around 2 pm (PDT) somebody copied the old version back with
misspellings intact... I put the latest CVS version back in its place;
if there was a reason for the revert (such as other changes made),
please commit the changes to CVS and make sure a current, consistent
version is put on the live server.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga again

body:
>I don't want to pick on Ed Poor, because I'm sure there are other
>examples I could use.  But I think Ed Poor believes a lot of false
>things.  I'm sure he thinks that I believe a lot of false things.
>Maybe I think he's a nut.  Maybe he thinks I'm a nut.
>
>Fair enough, but he and I are both polite and reasonable, and I find
>it hard to envision a situation where we couldn't agree on what an
>encyclopedia article should say.

What higher praise could one get? "Polite, reasonable nut". I like that :-)

But seriously, isn't there any way to configure the software so that Helga could contribute only when logged in? That is, ban her IP address, but not her user ID (if you know what I mean)?

Mav and others have told me that Helga's been a thorn in the project's side for a year. But I think the way you've responded has been inflammatory. No offense meant.

Instead of hitting her over the head verbally with phrases like "she's at it again" and "removed NPOV text" -- why not take a more low-key approach? It's working for me in the Arab-Israeli conflict articles:

"Removed to talk" -- concise, unemotional: clearly the text hasn't disappeared but will be found on the talk page in a moment.

"According to ..."
"Some advocates claim ..."
"Although most scholars believe X ..."

The above 3 phrases deftly inserted into the article text work wonders. *sigh* if only Larry were still here.

Ed Poor


body:
> Today around 2 pm (PDT) somebody copied the old version back with
> misspellings intact... I put the latest CVS version back in its
> place; if there was a reason for the revert (such as other changes
> made), please commit the changes to CVS and make sure a current,
> consistent version is put on the live server.

That may have been me--I made changes to that file today to fix
the "Benutzer_Diskussion" bug, and add the ISBN update.  I'm
usually pretty good about keeping up with CVS, but I may have
dropped the ball on this one.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Browser stats

body:
I did some analysis of the browsers accessing Wikipedia, to get
an idea of what the software should be optimized for.

By far the most accesses to Wikipedia use MSIE 5.X and
MSIE 6.X, with over 1.4 million accesses from those browsers.
Nothing else even comes close (and they are about equal to
each other).

Next are the Netscape 4.X family and compatibles, with
180,000 accesses.  Obsolete, but apparently still popular :-(

Gecko-based browsers (essentially Mozilla, Galeon, and a few
stragglers) account for 140,000. (barely beating out Googlebot).

Other Netscapes and compatibles add up to about another 140,000.

Konqueror and Opera show up at 18,000 and 8,000.  Lynx is about
2,000, below even some off-line tools like Wget.

I have no idea who or what "Wikipedia Spy" is, but he's accessed
the server 406 times.

The practical upshot of this is that any code changes we make
that affect the HTML output should continue to be tested on MSIE
5 and 6 (both if possible), Gecko, and (alas) Netscape 4.


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga again

body:
At 03:16 PM 8/30/02 -0400, you wrote:
> >I don't want to pick on Ed Poor, because I'm sure there are other
> >examples I could use.  But I think Ed Poor believes a lot of false
> >things.  I'm sure he thinks that I believe a lot of false things.
> >Maybe I think he's a nut.  Maybe he thinks I'm a nut.
> >
> >Fair enough, but he and I are both polite and reasonable, and I find
> >it hard to envision a situation where we couldn't agree on what an
> >encyclopedia article should say.
>
>What higher praise could one get? "Polite, reasonable nut". I like that :-)
>
>But seriously, isn't there any way to configure the software so that Helga
>could contribute only when logged in? That is, ban her IP address, but not
>her user ID (if you know what I mean)?
>
>Mav and others have told me that Helga's been a thorn in the project's
>side for a year. But I think the way you've responded has been
>inflammatory. No offense meant.
>
>Instead of hitting her over the head verbally with phrases like "she's at
>it again" and "removed NPOV text" -- why not take a more low-key approach?
>It's working for me in the Arab-Israeli conflict articles:

We tried that. It didn't work.

>"Removed to talk" -- concise, unemotional: clearly the text hasn't
>disappeared but will be found on the talk page in a moment.
>
>"According to ..."
>"Some advocates claim ..."
>"Although most scholars believe X ..."

And I refuse to write "although most scholars believe Hitler was always a
Jew-hater, some people claim that the Jews declared war on Nazi Germany first",
which is what we'd need to include Helga's theses.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Tesla Coil

body:
On 29 Aug 2002, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Your approach is a sound one but should be in the format
> [[Bloody Sunday (Ireland 1920)]] and  [[Bloody Sunday
> (Ireland 1972)]].  There is always the risk that this
> approach to the 1972 massacre could be seen as supporting
> a united Ireland.  If you see that as a realistic fear
> than I would suggest using the city names for the events
> [[Bloody Sunday (Dublin)]] and [[Bloody Sunday (Derry)]].
> Nobody can argue that these town aren't where they are.

Thanks.  Taking cue from survey of library subject headings,
I chose [[Bloody Sunday (Ireland 1920)]] and [[Bloody Sunday
(Northern Ireland 1972)]].

I'll defer writing the [[Bloody Sunday (Ireland 1920)]] entry
however, as multiple sources I've consulted so far are in no
agreement regarding the number of causalties on *either* side.

I prefer to focus instead on 18th Century Irish history, when
times were less contentious.

Okay, they weren't, but that's my excuse for now.

I believe [[Bloody Sunday - Northern Ireland]] now a redirect
to which no page points.


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

subject: [Wikitech-l] HELP !

body:
Bonjour,
I'm a little bit disappointed we don't receive any clue to our vandalism
problem !?
Someone can help ?
For french speaking people you found the subject of the problem at those
address:
http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?XIX?me_Si?cle/Discuter
http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Wikipedia-Vandalisme

To block address, we tried all the list bellow :
\..proxy.culture.fr$
\.proxy.culture.fr$
#\.proxy.culture.fr$
\proxy.culture.fr$
proxy.culture.fr$
^proxy.culture.fr$
^12.28.55.
^12.28.55.$
#^12.28.55.
#^12.28.55.$
^12.28.55.*
^12.28.55.*$
^12.28.55.xxx
^12.28.55.xxx$

I don't know if one of those lines are right, but the vandal didn't
reappear.
I also want to know if there are any solution to see the IP address of
someone using a pseudonym.
We planed to clear the banish list in few days, but if the vandal reappear
with pseudonym we will not be able to identify it.
Please help.

Guillaume (Aoineko)


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga again

body:
--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Mav and others have told me that Helga's been a
> thorn in the project's side for a year. But I think
> the way you've responded has been inflammatory. No
> offense meant.
>
> Instead of hitting her over the head verbally with
> phrases like "she's at it again" and "removed NPOV
> text" -- why not take a more low-key approach? It's
> working for me in the Arab-Israeli conflict
> articles:

Ed, people have spent many, many hours trying your
"low key" approach. It hasn't worked. Some Wikipedians
have spent most of their Wikipedia time following
Helga around, trying to work with her, fix up her
contributions and explain why in non-confrontational
ways. People have left the project in frustration
because of her.

It's a little frustrating to hear people implying that
everyone has treated Helga harshly and unfairly.

> *sigh* if only Larry were still
> here.

Larry's not a magic bullet. I respect Larry, and I
think he deserves a lot of the credit for getting this
project off the ground. He has, however, been less
than diplomatic in certain past situations.

Come now, Ed. There's no need to wish for a knight in
shining armour whenever we have a problem. ;-)

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright violation template

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:
> I've seen a couple of references on decopied pages to a copyright violation
> template. Where is the template?

It's on Mav's meta goodies page:

http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=User:Maveric149/miscellaneous

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Julie Hofmann Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Helga again

body:
Jimmy Wales said:
I think we could say: "Tensions between Jews and non-Jews in Germany had
been growing for several years, as evidenced by thus and such actual
facts that actually happened."

-- Jimmy, even that kind of implies a some kind of mutual antagonism --


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikitech-l] HELP !

body:
> I also want to know if there are any solution to see the IP address of
> someone using a pseudonym.

Put your mouse over the pseudonym on RecentChanges and wait a second.

Maybe these pages can help you, but I have no clue about these things:

http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Actions
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?AdminFeatures

Kurt


from_name: Pierre Abbat

body:
I've seen a couple of references on decopied pages to a copyright violation
template. Where is the template?

phma


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Purging vandalism

body:
LDC wrote:

>I got a request via email to purge the history records of our latest
>goatse.cx vandal, lest some poor unsuspecting wikipedian later come
>across them by accident.  While there may be arguments for keeping
>such a historical record, I think in this case they are outweighed by
>the benefits of just deleting them.  I did a database backup, just in
>case we get subpoenaed to produce them or something, and then I
>removed them.  The banned IP list clearly shows what happened, when,
>and why, so we aren't losing that information, just 54 edit records
>that were all reverted (interstingly, he also seems to have made
>exactly one legitimate edit, which is still here).

Someday we will have a regular policy on
removing copyright violations from the history,
and it'll be a shame if this says "or pornographic"
(or if the history is incomplete in unadvertised ways).
So you can put me down as wanting these returned.

However, I can certainly see my way to accepting
that they stay off until external images no longer work.
We *are* going to stop those from working, right?

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga again

in_reply_to:
<20020831005759.64795.qmail@web21101.mail.yahoo.com> (message
	from Stephen Gilbert on Fri, 30 Aug 2002 17:57:59 -0700 (PDT))

body:
Ed, take a look at [[Eisenhower and German POWs]] and its talk page
for a fair sample of dealing with Helga.  She got her article into the
Wikipedia, but many people had to fight like hell to keep it from
being pure anti-semitism from one single, dubious source, and after
all that it still consists mainly of unproven asservations.  Or follow
some [[Copernicus]] links and look at the associated talk pages.  On
all those talk pages you will see people bending over backwards to be
polite, following up her suggested references, suggesting wording to
get controversial points of view past NPOV, and generally giving her
every chance to make a positive contribution while she grinds her axe,
but all she wants to do is grind her axe.

She is dogged, impervious to suggestion, and absolutely clueless as to
what makes an encyclopedia article or a worthwhile historical proof.
She wants back those German lands that were "stolen" (by the Germans
losing wars that they started), she want Copernicus to be a German,
and, one suspects, she has other minority German enthusiasms as well.
As I said before, "She's had her chance, but she's more trouble than
she's worth."

As far as I know, her most positive contribution was getting Senator
Capehart into the Wikipedia, where he now receives credit as the
marketing genius behind the 20th century popularity of the jukebox.
She put him in originally because he once made an obscure speech that
Helga thought proved some point of hers, which some of us turned into
an article about the Senator himself.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88

|From: Stephen Gilbert <canuck_in_korea2002 at yahoo.com>
|Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 17:57:59 -0700 (PDT)
|
|
|--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
|> Mav and others have told me that Helga's been a
|> thorn in the project's side for a year. But I think
|> the way you've responded has been inflammatory. No
|> offense meant.
|>
|> Instead of hitting her over the head verbally with
|> phrases like "she's at it again" and "removed NPOV
|> text" -- why not take a more low-key approach? It's
|> working for me in the Arab-Israeli conflict
|> articles:
|
|Ed, people have spent many, many hours trying your
|"low key" approach. It hasn't worked. Some Wikipedians
|have spent most of their Wikipedia time following
|Helga around, trying to work with her, fix up her
|contributions and explain why in non-confrontational
|ways. People have left the project in frustration
|because of her.
|
|It's a little frustrating to hear people implying that
|everyone has treated Helga harshly and unfairly.
|
|> *sigh* if only Larry were still
|> here.
|
|Larry's not a magic bullet. I respect Larry, and I
|think he deserves a lot of the credit for getting this
|project off the ground. He has, however, been less
|than diplomatic in certain past situations.
|
|Come now, Ed. There's no need to wish for a knight in
|shining armour whenever we have a problem. ;-)
|
|Stephen G.
|


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ISBN links

body:
Jimbo wrote at last:

>But seriously, I think that the best method of revenue will be a
>program of sponsorship where we can accept credit cards and people can
>sign up for a monthly patronage.  I think plenty of the regulars would
>be willing to chip in $10 or $20 a month, particularly if they could
>see, transparently, that the money would not be to finance my
>extravagant lifestyle, but to directly benefit the project through
>hardware purchases and whatnot.

Ah, but this finances your extravagant lifestyle *indirectly*,
if subscriptions purchase hardware that you otherwise would have.

^_^

-- Toby


body:
Axel Boldt wrote:

>Why not allow for
>   Special:Booksources?isbn=XXXXX&titlewords=YYYY&author=ZZZ
>with all values optional. All the above mentioned sites can search
>books based on author and title. We could then also add ebay links for
>example, as well as links to catalogs of libaries which participate in
>interlibrary loan.

You know what would really work out?
If you could look up a book by the ISBN
and then get links to all versions of that book ever.
This combines:
* not being restricted to one instance of publication;
* looking things up by a code that isn't subject to variations of spelling;
* being able to copy it down from your copy even if it's not too recent.

LC number satisfies the others but not the last.
As time goes on, and more and more books are printed with their LC numbers,
that code would end up coming out as even better.
Right now, there just isn't anything perfect.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga again

body:
Ortolan88 wrote:

>Ed, take a look at [[Eisenhower and German POWs]] and its talk page
>for a fair sample of dealing with Helga.

Actually, Ed was involved with that case, according to the history.
I must say that Ed's continued optimism about Helga is wondrous to behold.
^_^

>She got her article into the
>Wikipedia, but many people had to fight like hell to keep it from
>being pure anti-semitism from one single, dubious source,

What are you talking about?  Helga never mentioned Jews, or the Shoah.
She linked to a revisionist web site, but not to an anti-Jewish page,
and she probably found the page with Google,
neither knowing nor caring about the site that it was on.

There are a lot of problems with Helga, but hatred of Jews
isn't one that I've ever noticed.  No, I haven't read all of Helga
and perhaps she really is a Jew-hater (perhaps you can point me
to evidence of this on Wikipedia).  But [[Dwight Eisenhower]]
and [[Eisenhower and German POWs]] don't contain this,
and you sound as if you're the one with a chip on your shoulder
(when I know, from reading her stuff, that Helga has one of these)
when you say such things.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Image Copyright questions

body:
Hi all  --
Please  'scuse the phone numbers on my last -- if there's any way to
edit out that part, I'd really appreciate it.

Here's my question.  As you know, we've had LOTS of images uploaded
lately.  Since Isis was one of the people doing a lot of uploading, I
asked her about the copyright.  She claimed that,

"Yes, they're in the public domain because I've put them there now. I
created them from works that were not under copyright, most of which
(the paintings and such) were created 100s of years ago, and my work in
creating and manipulating the digital images makes them my own
work-product, just as a photographer owns the rights to the pictures he
takes but not whatever he takes the picture of."
Montrealis then asked about the use of videotape covers, etc, and this
was the response:
"They fall under the "fair use" doctrine for documenting sources in
scholarly works but, even if they didn't, the remedy for infringement is
disgorgement of the profits, and there are none here. (The covers are
like your face: When you're in public, anyone who wants to can take a
picture of you, but if they try to use it to make money, you can either
stop them from using it or make them pay you what they got from using
it.) But the question is academic, because as a practical matter it's
free publicity to entities that live on publicity. And if you've ever
tried to report bootleg tapes to the companies that own the rights, you
know that they don't care." isis

The thing is, this just sounds wrong to me, based on personal
experience.  When I wrote my dissertation, University Microfilms was
very clear on using images from other sources.  I couldn't.  Not even my
own re-workings from reproductions of old maps.       Isis may be a
lawyer and correct about all of this, but it just sounds iffy to me,
especially in light of the second answer, which sounds like "it could
be, but they won't prosecute".
Does anyone have a definite answer?
Jules

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020830/f8e7ca2e/attachment.htm