subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l digest, Vol 1 #140 - 7 msgs

in_reply_to: <3E4BC250.7020106@snacksoft.com>; from jesse@snacksoft.com on Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 11:05:36AM -0500

body:
Not yet, but I hope that such will exist someday sooner rather than
later.  But to move from our current format to print is a big
undertaking, and I'm not sure we're ready yet to devote a lot of
energy to it.

At some point, this could be the "focal point" of a "sifter" project.
That is, the sifter project could aim to create a paper version of a
particular length (in pages) and use that as a criterion for
determining what goes in and what doesn't.

Jesse Alter wrote:

> Does the Wikipedia have an annual print edition, or something similar? I
> am assuming that it almost definately does not. The reason I ask is that
> a History professor would not allow me to cite the Wikipedia on the
> grounds that there was no print edition available, grouping it right in
> with fobidden Geocities sites.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tony Wilson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please don't let Lir back

body:
Tom wrote my own thoughts exactly:

> I've got a short list of people whose presence in an article means my absence from it.
> Vera Cruz and Lir are both on it.  It will be watchful waiting for me, but
> at the moment I am still cringing from this person's previous
> incarnations.  What has this person acknowledged about past behavior,
> after apparently weeks of private discussion with Jimbo and now Ed
> Poor, that would make anyone want to see this person back?

It doesn't get much clearer than that.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Some warnings

body:
Two16 wrote:
>JTD you are a [[maroon]] writing comments like you do here, when your
>understanding of Wikipedian Ethos is so limited.... there are tons of
>your meally mouthed posts that show your ignorance and stupidity.

This is in violation of our etiquette policy.  I'm going to warn
Two16 today, and further violations will be treated harshly.

I'm going to be issuing warnings like this more often in the coming
days.  In encourage all good people to be particularly scrupulous
about not insulting others under any circumstances.  Let the bad
people show their true colors and rise above it.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

body:
tarquin wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>  It does not single out "Nightfall" alone but cites it as one of
>> three items in a list.  The issue of the most famous Asimov story is
>> a mug's game.
>
> Maybe, but over the past 50 years, the idea that Nightfall is his most
> famous has become part of the general background cultural noise. So we
> have to report that. If it's based on a mistake, let's report that too.

Hmmm.  Maybe Tarquin should feel inspired to write about "[[background
cultural nois]]"

Eclecticology.


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] How hard would this be?

body:
In the old days, RecentChanges was a regular page, and now it's a
special page.  That's sensible, but one thing that we lost was the
ability to edit the text at the top.

Since this is the one page that everyone sees every day, it would be
an ideal place for me to place 'message of the day' type announcements
and reminders.  That's what I used to use it for.

Today I would like to post a gentle reminder about etiquette, because
we've had a few too many etiquette breaches lately, and I want to
remind people that personal attacks are not allowed.

How hard would it be to make this page editable, either just by me, or
whatever?  (This would probably need to be a protected page, as it's a
prime target for vandalism.)

I could always just edit the code, I guess, but that seems icky.

--Jimbo


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Google is not indexing "w"

body:
On ?a?, 2003-02-13 at 03:18, Magnus Manske wrote:
> Maybe it has something to do with excluding Google from pages containing
> "/w/"? The one to avoid Google et al scanning edit pages?

Not unless they're very badly mangling their interpretation of the
robots.txt standard. As our experience with trying to exclude "/w"
shows, they seem to be following it to the letter...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>>
>  It does not single out "Nightfall" alone but cites it as one of three
> items in a list.  The issue of the most famous Asimov story is a mug's
> game.

Maybe, but over the past 50 years, the idea that Nightfall is his most
famous has become part of the general background cultural noise. So we
have to report that. If it's based on a mistake, let's report that too.

Lir, would you also have a problem with this on [[The Four Seasons
(Vivaldi)]]:

Penned in 1723 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1723>, they remain among
the most popular concertos in all music
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music>.


body:
On ?a?, 2003-02-13 at 08:20, Jason Williams wrote:
> It'd be nice if somebody had a few minutes to write a script to
> dump the articles from the database into a text file, run it
> through something like a2ps, and count approximately how many
> A4 pages the encylopedia would run to if printed.

Someone at Enciclopedia Libre (our estranged Spanish cousin) has done
exactly this, I'm sure they'll show you the script if you ask:
http://linuxopensource.com.mx/enciclopedia/

Make sure you've got plenty of paper and a few spare toner carts. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] How hard would this be?

body:
On ?a?, 2003-02-13 at 09:47, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> How hard would it be to make [Recentchanges] editable, either just by me, or
> whatever?  (This would probably need to be a protected page, as it's a
> prime target for vandalism.)

Easy as pie; the text at the top can simply be sucked from the database
instead of a string constant. Adding an "edit this page" link would
require some slight more changes if desired, but just adding
"Wikipedia:Recentchanges" and making it protected should be sufficient.

> I could always just edit the code, I guess, but that seems icky.

Ewwww! :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

in_reply_to: <20030213061706.90815.qmail@web40711.mail.yahoo.com>; from lapollutionestsimauvaise@yahoo.com on Wed, Feb 12, 2003 at 10:17:06PM -0800

body:
Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
> Jimbo wrote me an email:
>> I think this one basically screwed your chances of being allowed
>> back in, ever. Why don't you just give up and go away now?

> Excuse me? I don't see how it is inappropriate to note that the
>statement should be attributed to a source.

Because, as usual, you seem to have absolutely no comprehension of why
you were banned in the first place.

You make no apologies, you promise no changes.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Lir is not coming back

body:
And that's that.

Let's not discuss it anymore.  If you do want to discuss it, with me
or with each other, please do it in private email.

This is a distraction and a waste of time, and it's clear to me that
Adam does not understand why he was banned, and would end up banned
again within days of being reinstated.  There's no point in subjecting
ourselves to that.

I have removed Adam from the mailing list, and he's fully aware that
he is not permitted to edit wikipedia from any user id.

--Jimbo


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Not yet, but I hope that such will exist someday sooner rather than
>later.  But to move from our current format to print is a big
>undertaking, and I'm not sure we're ready yet to devote a lot of
>energy to it.
>
>Jesse Alter wrote:
>
>>Does the Wikipedia have an annual print edition, or something similar? I
>>am assuming that it almost definately does not. The reason I ask is that
>>a History professor would not allow me to cite the Wikipedia on the
>>grounds that there was no print edition available, grouping it right in
>>with fobidden Geocities sites.
>>
It seems to me that the professor is the one that is narrow and offside
here.  There are many things that are on paper that are just as
incredible as some of the things that are on the Net.

A paper edition would be a terribly expensive undertaking, and I don't
know if we can create enough of a market to make it self-sustaining.  I
forsee the CD version as a more practical goal.  If these were sold for
production costs + shipping costs + a small markup to keep the project
capitalized it could be reasonably priced to the public.  CD's are of no
use in the third world where very few people have computers, but once
established they may become a marketting tool for the paper edition.

A published version (whether print or CD) should also have a favourable
effect in protecting copyrights.  I've mentioned before that I see the
biggest long term problem around copyrights will not be about
Wikipedians who copy material belonging to others, but about others who
(over the next 95 years) try to copyright Wikipedia material as if it
were their own.  Some version published outside the Net could be used as
evidence that it was published when it was published in that medium.
 One of the difficulties faced by projects which put material directly
into the public domain or into any kind of open licensing (however that
may be most broadly defined) is that nobody has enough of a vested
interest to defend the material over an extended period of time.
 Altruism often withers in the face of determined self-interest.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikitech-l] How hard would this be?

body:
On ?a?, 2003-02-13 at 10:14, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On ?a?, 2003-02-13 at 09:47, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > How hard would it be to make [Recentchanges] editable, either just by me, or
> > whatever?  (This would probably need to be a protected page, as it's a
> > prime target for vandalism.)
>
> Easy as pie; the text at the top can simply be sucked from the database
> instead of a string constant. Adding an "edit this page" link would
> require some slight more changes if desired, but just adding
> "Wikipedia:Recentchanges" and making it protected should be sufficient.

Okay, go knock yourself out:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Recentchanges

If the page is missing or blank, the default text is displayed.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

body:
This is my last post about Lir today, and I hope my last one ever.

M Carling wrote:
> I've been trying to stay away from controversies here, but at the risk of
> alienation, I have to agree with Jonathan on this one.  Note that I was
> not around when this whole Lir thing got started and haven't read the
> historical context.

Jonathan is not a reliable source for anything related to policy.
He's just one or two steps away from being banned himself.

The problem with Adam is that he refuses, consistently, to acknowledge
his behavioral problems, the problems that led him to being banned in
the first place.  This latest episode is just the last straw.  He was
asked to talk about why he behaved the way he did.  He could have
apologized, but chose instead to obscure the issue by blathering about
inconsequentials.

What he wants to do here is lead people into the belief that he was
banned for reasons having to do with detailed discussion of complex
questions of NPOV.  That's not true at all.  He was banned for calling
people racists and generally behaving badly, as well as for extremely
low quality and POV edits on a great many subjects.

And now it's all over, so we can get back to work.

--Jimbo


from_name: Jonathan Walther

subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

body:
Lir is correct on this one, Jimmy.  As long as he is showing respect for
the efforts of others, his disagreements shouldn't be cause for banning.
But that isn't what is happening here; Lir has decided to adopt the Wiki
culture, and got slammed for it by you.

I agree; the quote about Nightfall being considered Asimov's greatest
story NEEDS to be attributed; the 1968 consensus of certain Sci-Fi
writers seems like sufficient attribution.

All this "many believe that" crap is very vague and un-encyclopedic.  It
makes it sound like we don't know much about the topics we are writing
about.

No more double standards.  Not for Lir, not for me, not for anyone.

Jonathan

On Wed, Feb 12, 2003 at 10:17:06PM -0800, Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
>   Jimbo wrote me an email:
>
>   I think this one basically screwed your chances of being allowed
>   back in, ever. Why don't you just give up and go away now?
>
>   ----
>
>   Excuse me? I don't see how it is inappropriate to note that the statement
>   should be attributed to a source. You asked for my opinion and you got it.
>   If I had advocated adding to every presidents page:
>
>   George Washington is viewed by  many to be the best president.
>   Abraham Lincoln is viewed by many to be the best president
>
>   etcetc
>
>   Bush is viewed by many to be the best president.
>
>   It would be a bit redundant, no? As you said, "We could say the same thing
>   in a number of articles, and it would be equally uncontroversially true in
>   all of them." Does that merit inclusion in the article? Should we state
>   that Iowa is the most beautiful state (to many), as is Georgia, Wisconsin,
>   Louisiana, California, Texas, and New York? Should we go on to note that
>   Pink Floyd is considered (by many) to be the best band, as is KISS and
>   System of a Down. Should we note that the Blues Brothers is the best movie
>   (as viewed by many) as is Aliens and Chicago?
>
>    "Erwin Rommel is considered by many to be the greatest general of modern
>   times." hardly seems to be informative. Especially when the reader will
>   find the same statement at the page for every single famous general.
>
>   I do not see why you are taking offense at my suggestion that a source be
>   accredited whenever a pov statement is being made. I myself was earlier
>   criticized for saying "Many people believe such and such" as somebody
>   wanted to know WHO these many people are. Now that I agree with the
>   earlier wikipedia consensus I am confronted by yet another contradictary
>   wikipedia consensus. I do not see how it is a "troublesome" or {trollish"
>   or "vindicative" or "immature" for me to try and discuss this with you.
>
>
>
>     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>   Do you Yahoo!?
>   Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day

--
                     Geek House Productions, Ltd.

  Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
  QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
  General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998

Phone:   604-435-1205
Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

body:
Googling reveals that there is an identifiable source for the designation of
Nightfall as the best science fiction short story, a vote in 1968 by the
Science Fiction Writers of America.

Obviously there could be other votes and lists past and future.

Fred

> From: tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 09:54:47 +0000
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV
>
>
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>>
>> It does not single out "Nightfall" alone but cites it as one of three
>> items in a list.  The issue of the most famous Asimov story is a mug's
>> game.
>
> Maybe, but over the past 50 years, the idea that Nightfall is his most
> famous has become part of the general background cultural noise. So we
> have to report that. If it's based on a mistake, let's report that too.
>
> Lir, would you also have a problem with this on [[The Four Seasons
> (Vivaldi)]]:
>
> Penned in 1723 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1723>, they remain among
> the most popular concertos in all music
> <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music>.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] How hard would this be?

body:
On ?a?, 2003-02-13 at 10:35, Magnus Manske wrote:
> Yes, but prior suggestions of that were turned down due to the
> additional database traffic. But, I guess a single query more won't hurt :-)

I can assure you, there's *far* more database traffic from checking the
existence of various linked pages (those linked in the header text as
well as user pages and user talk pages linked throughout the list).

Old code:
	$wgOut->addWikiText( wfMsg( "recentchangestext" ) );

New code:

	$rctext = wfMsg( "recentchangestext" );
	$sql = "SELECT cur_text FROM cur WHERE cur_namespace=4 AND cur_title='Recentchanges'";
	$res = wfQuery( $sql, $fname );
	if( ( $s = wfFetchObject( $res ) ) and ( $s->cur_text != "" ) ) {
		$rctext = $s->cur_text;
	}
	$wgOut->addWikiText( $rctext );

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: M Carling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

body:
I've been trying to stay away from controversies here, but at the risk of
alienation, I have to agree with Jonathan on this one.  Note that I was
not around when this whole Lir thing got started and haven't read the
historical context.

M Carling

On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Jonathan Walther wrote:

> Lir is correct on this one, Jimmy.  As long as he is showing respect for
> the efforts of others, his disagreements shouldn't be cause for banning.
> But that isn't what is happening here; Lir has decided to adopt the Wiki
> culture, and got slammed for it by you.
>
> I agree; the quote about Nightfall being considered Asimov's greatest
> story NEEDS to be attributed; the 1968 consensus of certain Sci-Fi
> writers seems like sufficient attribution.
>
> All this "many believe that" crap is very vague and un-encyclopedic.  It
> makes it sound like we don't know much about the topics we are writing
> about.
>
> No more double standards.  Not for Lir, not for me, not for anyone.
>
> Jonathan
>
> On Wed, Feb 12, 2003 at 10:17:06PM -0800, Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
> >   Jimbo wrote me an email:
> >
> >   I think this one basically screwed your chances of being allowed
> >   back in, ever. Why don't you just give up and go away now?
> >
> >   ----
> >
> >   Excuse me? I don't see how it is inappropriate to note that the statement
> >   should be attributed to a source. You asked for my opinion and you got it.
> >   If I had advocated adding to every presidents page:
> >
> >   George Washington is viewed by  many to be the best president.
> >   Abraham Lincoln is viewed by many to be the best president
> >
> >   etcetc
> >
> >   Bush is viewed by many to be the best president.
> >
> >   It would be a bit redundant, no? As you said, "We could say the same thing
> >   in a number of articles, and it would be equally uncontroversially true in
> >   all of them." Does that merit inclusion in the article? Should we state
> >   that Iowa is the most beautiful state (to many), as is Georgia, Wisconsin,
> >   Louisiana, California, Texas, and New York? Should we go on to note that
> >   Pink Floyd is considered (by many) to be the best band, as is KISS and
> >   System of a Down. Should we note that the Blues Brothers is the best movie
> >   (as viewed by many) as is Aliens and Chicago?
> >
> >    "Erwin Rommel is considered by many to be the greatest general of modern
> >   times." hardly seems to be informative. Especially when the reader will
> >   find the same statement at the page for every single famous general.
> >
> >   I do not see why you are taking offense at my suggestion that a source be
> >   accredited whenever a pov statement is being made. I myself was earlier
> >   criticized for saying "Many people believe such and such" as somebody
> >   wanted to know WHO these many people are. Now that I agree with the
> >   earlier wikipedia consensus I am confronted by yet another contradictary
> >   wikipedia consensus. I do not see how it is a "troublesome" or {trollish"
> >   or "vindicative" or "immature" for me to try and discuss this with you.
> >
> >
> >
> >     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >   Do you Yahoo!?
> >   Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
>
> --
>                      Geek House Productions, Ltd.
>
>   Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
>   QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
>   General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998
>
> Phone:   604-435-1205
> Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
> Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
> Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Googling reveals that there is an identifiable source for the designation of
>Nightfall as the best science fiction short story, a vote in 1968 by the
>Science Fiction Writers of America.
>
>Obviously there could be other votes and lists past and future.
>
>Fred
>
>>From: tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com>
>>
>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>>It does not single out "Nightfall" alone but cites it as one of three
>>>items in a list.  The issue of the most famous Asimov story is a mug's
>>>game.
>>>
>>Maybe, but over the past 50 years, the idea that Nightfall is his most
>>famous has become part of the general background cultural noise. So we
>>have to report that. If it's based on a mistake, let's report that too.
>>
If Fred's reference had been used and cited in the first place the whole
edit war might never have happened.  We would have known that the
original comment was more than one individual's idolatry.

Eclecticology


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

body:
Thank you, Jimbo.  You are doing the right thing.

--
 Sean Barrett     | She is the kind of woman who lives for
 sean at epoptic.com | others. You can spot the others by
                  | their hunted expression. --C.S. Lewis

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2003 10:40
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

This is my last post about Lir today, and I hope my last one ever.

M Carling wrote:
> I've been trying to stay away from controversies here, but at the risk
of
> alienation, I have to agree with Jonathan on this one.  Note that I
was
> not around when this whole Lir thing got started and haven't read the
> historical context.

Jonathan is not a reliable source for anything related to policy.
He's just one or two steps away from being banned himself.

The problem with Adam is that he refuses, consistently, to acknowledge
his behavioral problems, the problems that led him to being banned in
the first place.  This latest episode is just the last straw.  He was
asked to talk about why he behaved the way he did.  He could have
apologized, but chose instead to obscure the issue by blathering about
inconsequentials.

What he wants to do here is lead people into the belief that he was
banned for reasons having to do with detailed discussion of complex
questions of NPOV.  That's not true at all.  He was banned for calling
people racists and generally behaving badly, as well as for extremely
low quality and POV edits on a great many subjects.

And now it's all over, so we can get back to work.

--Jimbo
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Some warnings

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Two16 wrote:
>
>>JTD you are a [[maroon]] writing comments like you do here, when your
>>understanding of Wikipedian Ethos is so limited.... there are tons of
>>your meally mouthed posts that show your ignorance and stupidity.
>>
>This is in violation of our etiquette policy.  I'm going to warn
>Two16 today, and further violations will be treated harshly.
>
>I'm going to be issuing warnings like this more often in the coming
>days.  In encourage all good people to be particularly scrupulous
>about not insulting others under any circumstances.  Let the bad
>people show their true colors and rise above it.
>
This is a welcome approach.  It helps to get the "facts" on the table
for a permanent record.  The way some of these have been kicked around
in the past has often obscured precisely what the problem is.

Eclecticology

>
>


from_name: Jesse Alter

body:
Does the Wikipedia have an annual print edition, or something similar? I
am assuming that it almost definately does not. The reason I ask is that
a History professor would not allow me to cite the Wikipedia on the
grounds that there was no print edition available, grouping it right in
with fobidden Geocities sites.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

in_reply_to: <8flPinVCpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 08:23:00PM +0100

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Does this mean we now have perpetual bans? I'm not very comfortable
> with that idea.

Eternity is a very long time.  If Adam wants to reapply for admission
in a couple of years, after he's grown up some, that'll be for us to
look at in the future.

There could be permanent bans, in the case of threats of lawless
violence, or repeated attempts to violate a ban.  But by and large,
no, we don't have to go that far.

But at some point we do have to stop talking about particular cases.
Some people need to go, and when it's time to go, it's time to go.

This has been going on (Lir/Vera Cruz/Adam/Bridget) for months now.
Enough is enough, that's all I'm saying.

--Jimbo


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] readability of recentchanges

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>1) Use tables, as shown here:
>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_Changes_redesign
>
I tried that design at the test site once, but couldn't get the
"folding" mechanism to work with tables. Really strange.

>2) Use icons for some stuff (User talk, block IP, diff, history, perhaps
>the minor/new identifiers which are confusing to newbies)
>
I also tried "[-]" for diff and "[H]" for history at athe test site, but
was immediately asked to replace them with "diff" and "hist" again.
Also, icons could only be an option (text browsers etcl!)

>3) Use two lines per change if necessary to get decent link titles
>
>
Which would really work much better in a table. My Phase II table design
wasn't widely appreciated, though ;-)

Magnus


body:
Giskart wrote:

>Brion Vibber <vibber=pP0CIj1Nv7XQAyQhgwMYSA at public.gmane.org> wrote in
>news:Pine.GSO.4.33.0302121136270.16218-100000 at aludra.usc.edu:
>
>
>
>>They all have identical robots.txt files; I can't imagine what problem
>>there could be on our end. (Perhaps google is indexing in alphabetical
>>order and just hasn't got that far??)
>>
>>-- brion
>>
>>
>
>I see also no logical reason. And the are not new pages.
>The used to be found by google. I will follow it.
>
>
Maybe it has something to do with excluding Google from pages containing
"/w/"? The one to avoid Google et al scanning edit pages?

Magnus


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

body:
|From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
|Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
|Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 21:18:10 -0800
|
|Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:

<snip isaac asimov, retain rommel>

|
|> The article remains POV as it contains a POV statement which has
|>been given no source. In the Erwin Rommel article I could say, "Erwin
|>Rommel is considered to be the greatest general ever".
|
|Notice how you've dropped a *key* phrase, i.e. "by many".
|
|It is perfectly fine to say "Erwin Rommel is considered by many to be
|the greatest general of modern times."  It's much better to say who
|the 'many' are, and to give a cite that involves some kind of actual
|counting.  But neither are _required_ if it is in fact widely so
|thought.
|
|--Jimbo
|_______________________________________________

The judgment of one noted military historian on Rommel:

    "We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may
     I say across the havoc of war, a great General."

This from Winston Churchill.  He was speaking in Parliament, the wartime
prime minister, facing a censure vote for not having defeated Rommel,
and yet managed to express a high opinion of Rommel.  I think it is
fairly safe for Wikipedia to do the same 60 years later.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


from_name: Zoe

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please let Lir back

body:
I disagree with this.  I don't care if Lir is male or female, I don't care if Lir is using his real name or not.  All I care about is collegiality on the Wikipedia.
Zoe
 Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:I would only support allowing Lir back if Lir resolve's Lir identity
crisis and operates under his real name, taking responsibility for
his actions, and accepting criticism for dissenting views. I don't
really think he has an excuse for anonymity, seeing as he has
evidently abused of this in the past.

Anything short of that is, in my opinion, going to generate hundreds
of emails and an eventual ban.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] OFFLIST (was: The Bewildering Stories Quote)

body:
Lir,

Please stop discussing Asimov on the mailing list. You have bigger fish to fry, and besides issues like whose version is more NPOV are best addressed in the Talk pages -- not on the mailing list.

If I were a Moderator of the mailing list, I wouldn't even have let the message below be distributed.

C'mon, work with me here, buddy.

Uncle Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] [mailto:lapollutionestsimauvaise at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2003 6:40 AM
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Bewildering Stories Quote

Although I disagree with stating that many people feel Nightfall is the bestest sci-fi short story ever (as it leads to a ridiculous degree of redundancy where every article will assert its importance and popularity) I do think the quote should more or less remain, although perhaps it should be somewhat modified given the above-mentioned re-quoting:

Asimov met editor Frederik Pohl, who discussed Asimov's rejections and
> later printed a number of stories in Astonishing Stories and
> Super-Science Stories (Clute and Edwards 56; Asimov, "Letters" 12).
> These stories led to the publication of some of the most famous
> science-fiction stories of all time: the positronic robot stories, the
 Foundation stories, and "Nightfall."

Certainly there is no need to restate the whole paragraph, but note that the robot stories are ALL short stories, with Nightfall being a standalone of note.

I would rewrite the relevant section as so:

Asimov began contributing stories to science fiction magazines in 1939 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939> ; his short story "  <http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Nightfall&action=edit> Nightfall" ( 1941 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1941> ) is described in Bewildering Stories, issue 8, as one of "the most famous science-fiction stories of all time"  <http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue8/asimov.html> [1], along with his robot stories.

The robot <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot>  stories, many of which were collected in I, Robot <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%2C_Robot>  ( 1950 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950> ), promulgated a set of ethical rules for intelligent machines (see Three Laws Of  <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_Of_Robotics> Robotics), an idea which greatly influenced other writers and thinkers. One such short story,  <http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=The_Bicentennial_Man_(short_story)&action=edit> The Bicentennial Man has been made into a movie.

In 1942 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942>  he began the Foundation stories, later collected in the Foundation  <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_Trilogy> Trilogy: Foundation <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation>  ( 1951 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951> ),  <http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Foundation_and_Empire&action=edit> Foundation and Empire ( 1952 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952> ), and  <http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Second_Foundation&action=edit> Second Foundation ( 1953 <http://www!.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953> ), which recount the collapse and rebirth of an interstellar empire. Years later, he continued the series with Foundation's  <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation%27s_Edge> Edge ( 1982 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982> ) and Foundation and  <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_and_Earth> Earth ( 1986 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986> ) and then wrote the prequels,  Prelude to  <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_to_Foundation> Foundation ( 1988 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988> ) and !  <http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Forward_the_Foundation&action=edit> Forward the Foundation ( 1992 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992> ).

He also wrote a spoof science article The  <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline> Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline in 1948 which he feared would affect the obtaining of his degree.

My version, no longer refers to the empire of foundations as being vast (as certainly there have ben sci-fi empires in comparison to which this one was small and insignificant) nor does it refer to Foundations as Asimov's most famous work. (Which begs the question of whether Nightfall or Foundations is more famous and popular) It also fails to note that Robin Williams was the star of Bicentennial Man, as that seems to be information which belongs on the page for Bicentennial Man, and is hardly directly relevent to the topic at hand. My version also mentions the word "robots" a little less and does not note that the effects of the Rules of Robotics were mostly limited to people writing in the same field as Isaac Asimov, that being somewhat obvious. My version also does not describe the empire of Foundations as being "futuristic", as talk of an interstellar empire and science fiction is inherently futuristic. Even Star Wars, despite being technically in the past, is still s! o clearly futuristic that to mention it is over-stating and redundant.

  _____

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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: readability of recentchanges

body:
>...
>Which would really work much better in a table.
>My Phase II table design wasn't widely appreciated,
>though ;-)
>
>Magnus

I /really/ appreciated it and I told LDC this when he
didn't bother porting this feature to Phase III - but
he didn't think it was important. For me, having all
user names lined-up really makes vandal and newbie
hunting /much/ easier.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

WikiKarma:
Added events to [[February 6]]; updated all linked
year pages and many other articles.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] What server does Wikipedia run on?

body:
On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Christian List wrote:
> There is a journalist from a danish technical weekly newspaper writing an
> article about Wikipedia.
> I can answer most of his questions myself, but I need some help on these:
>
> - What server does Wikipedia run on?
> I need some details about CPU, speed, RAM, harddrive and stuff like that.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Technical_FAQ

Hard drive is an IBM DDYS-T36950N.

> - What software is running on the server?
> I know we use Apache, MySQL and PHP, but what versions?

Apache 1.2.26 (we don't use SSL, so haven't yet upgraded for the SSl bug.)
MySQL 3.2.54
PHP 4.2.2

> Do we use more programs?

TeX math rendering uses TeX, Imagemagick, and ghostscript.

> - How many hits a day does Wikipedia get?
> Preferably I would like to know the numbers for the Danish Wikipedia and the
> English Wikipedia.
> I have seen http://www.wikipedia.org/stats/ but does that include the Danish
> Wikipedia?

That's just for the English wiki, and a little out of date. I'll run
updated stats in a bit...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
>> 1) Use tables, as shown here:
>> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_Changes_redesign
>>
> I tried that design at the test site once, but couldn't get the
> "folding" mechanism to work with tables. Really strange.

It should work; K5 uses tables extensively and also has a dynamic mode.
We'll have to look into this.

>> 2) Use icons for some stuff (User talk, block IP, diff, history, perhaps
>> the minor/new identifiers which are confusing to newbies)
>>
> I also tried "[-]" for diff and "[H]" for history at athe test site, but
> was immediately asked to replace them with "diff" and "hist" again.
> Also, icons could only be an option (text browsers etcl!)

"Text icons" don't really work. [-] and [H] are even worse than "cur" and
"hist". Finding the right icons is hard - I don't really like the icons
used by MoinMoin, for example (the only obvious ones are the magnifying
glass and the printer). But a comic-style balloon for User talk would
certainly work. For diff I'm thinking of something like this:

        _________    _________
       |         \  |         \
       |          | |          |
       |          | |          |
       |    A    /---\    B    |
       |         \---/         |
       |          | |          |
       |__________| |__________|

>> 3) Use two lines per change if necessary to get decent link titles

> Which would really work much better in a table. My Phase II table design
> wasn't widely appreciated, though ;-)

If you give me screenshots I can tell you why ;-)

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vandal on Meta

body:
On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, tarquin wrote:
> And AFAIK, nobody is a sysop on meta.

Magnus and I are both sysops on meta.

> could a dev ban them?

Done.

> (and make some people sysops for Meta while they're at it)

Volunteers?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vandal on Meta

body:
On Fri, 14 Feb 2003, Erik Moeller wrote:

> > Volunteers?
>
> Please give me sysop status on Meta; I plan to do some work there on
> coordinating the development process.

Done.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jason Williams

body:
On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 12:16:11PM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
> I also tried "[-]" for diff and "[H]" for history at athe test site, but
> was immediately asked to replace them with "diff" and "hist" again.
> Also, icons could only be an option (text browsers etcl!)

Surely that problem is effectively dealt with by ALT tags?

--

jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail adress

body:
Good evening

I'd like to change my mailing adress for the mailing
list. Can it be done ? Or should I need to unregister
from one adress and then register again from the new
one ?

Anth?re

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] is our *software* open source?

body:
On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> I know the Wikipedia itself is open source, but is the software for the
> Wikipedia engine open source?

Yes, our software is under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 07:58:07AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Not yet, but I hope that such will exist someday sooner rather than
> later.  But to move from our current format to print is a big
> undertaking, and I'm not sure we're ready yet to devote a lot of
> energy to it.

It'd be nice if somebody had a few minutes to write a script to
dump the articles from the database into a text file, run it
through something like a2ps, and count approximately how many
A4 pages the encylopedia would run to if printed.

--

jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail adress

body:
On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Anthere wrote:
> I'd like to change my mailing adress for the mailing
> list. Can it be done ? Or should I need to unregister
> from one adress and then register again from the new
> one ?

Hmm, I think that's how it's done.

There may be a way for a list admin to do it directly, but I don't know.
Unsubscribe & resubscribe will do the job, though.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail adress

body:
I can make the change for all of your list memberships...  Just let me
know where you want it sent.

Jason

Anthere wrote:

> Good evening
>
> I'd like to change my mailing adress for the mailing
> list. Can it be done ? Or should I need to unregister
> from one adress and then register again from the new
> one ?
>
> Anth?re
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
> http://shopping.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] texvc and performance

body:
Short quiz:
Performance bottleneck for <math>-using pages is ...
a) texvc
b) latex
c) database

The answer is of course c.
One query is done for every occurence of <math>something</math>
to check if it's cached. Usually it is, and neither texvc nor latex
is run.

The solution would be to make only one such query per page,
and if something's missing run texvc only once and pass all
math formulas to it, and then update database in single INSERT
query.

But that has low priority for me - it's pretty fast as is,
and no Main Page uses <math>.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vandal on Meta

body:
--- Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, tarquin wrote:
> > And AFAIK, nobody is a sysop on meta.
>
> Magnus and I are both sysops on meta.
>
> > could a dev ban them?
>
> Done.
>
> > (and make some people sysops for Meta while
> they're at it)
>
> Volunteers?

Yes me. If only to better clean up the mess after me...

__________________________________________________
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from_name: A Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Welcome to the "Wikipedia-l" mailing list

body:
--- wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org wrote:
> Welcome to the Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org mailing
> list!
>
> To post to this list, send your email to:
>
>   wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org

Hello, this is the new "me", one year older :-)

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vandal on Meta

body:
--- Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, tarquin wrote:
> > And AFAIK, nobody is a sysop on meta.
>
> Magnus and I are both sysops on meta.
>
> > could a dev ban them?
>
> Done.
>
> > (and make some people sysops for Meta while
> they're at it)
>
> Volunteers?

Yes me. If only to better clean up the mess after
me...

(this is the last me, I am one year older now)

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vandal on Meta

body:
On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Anthere wrote:
> > > (and make some people sysops for Meta while
> > they're at it)
> >
> > Volunteers?
>
> Yes me. If only to better clean up the mess after
> me...

Done.

> (this is the last me, I am one year older now)

For a six-year-old you're remarkably articulate! :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vandal on Meta

body:
--- Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Anthere wrote:
> > > > (and make some people sysops for Meta while
> > > they're at it)
> > >
> > > Volunteers?
> >
> > Yes me. If only to better clean up the mess after
> > me...
>
> Done.

 Merci

> > (this is the last me, I am one year older now)
>
> For a six-year-old you're remarkably articulate! :)

N'est-il pas ? (I am sure you had never guessed before...:-))

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] mail

body:
Hello Jason,

I think I got mixed up between the two mail
boxes...and I missed your mail...

I created new accounts by hand for main, en, tech,
announ, inter.

I don't need the old mailing list accounts any more
(anthere5yahoo.com). Is it possible for you to remove
them quickly ? Otherwise I'll go back to do it.

Thanks for your help anyway

Anthere6

--- Jason Richey <jasonr at bomis.com> wrote:
> I can make the change for all of your list
> memberships...  Just let me
> know where you want it sent.
>
> Jason
>
> Anthere wrote:
>
> > Good evening
> >
> > I'd like to change my mailing adress for the
> mailing
> > list. Can it be done ? Or should I need to
> unregister
> > from one adress and then register again from the
> new
> > one ?
> >
> > Anth?re
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
> > http://shopping.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> >
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
> --
> "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Christian List

body:
There is a journalist from a danish technical weekly newspaper writing an
article about Wikipedia.
I can answer most of his questions myself, but I need some help on these:

- What server does Wikipedia run on?
I need some details about CPU, speed, RAM, harddrive and stuff like that.

- What software is running on the server?
I know we use Apache, MySQL and PHP, but what versions?
Do we use more programs?

- How many hits a day does Wikipedia get?
Preferably I would like to know the numbers for the Danish Wikipedia and the
English Wikipedia.
I have seen http://www.wikipedia.org/stats/ but does that include the Danish
Wikipedia?

Regards
Christian


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
I know the Wikipedia itself is open source, but is the software for the
Wikipedia
engine open source? (Another project I'm involved with is discussing using a
wiki-style engine to improve its documentation.)
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On Thu, 2003-02-13 at 19:03, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> I know the Wikipedia itself is open source, but is the software for the
> Wikipedia
> engine open source? (Another project I'm involved with is discussing using a
> wiki-style engine to improve its documentation.)

My god. People have really hacked up the Wikipedia stuff--it's
essentially impossible to find links to the software. I've restored
[[Wikipedia:PHP Script]] (aka [[Wikipedia:Software]]} to be informative.

I also have to say I liked the friendlier Main Page text a lot better
than what we have now.

Grump grump....

tc


subject: [Wikitech-l] How hard would this be?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>On ?a?, 2003-02-13 at 09:47, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>
>>How hard would it be to make [Recentchanges] editable, either just by me, or
>>whatever?  (This would probably need to be a protected page, as it's a
>>prime target for vandalism.)
>>
>>
>
>Easy as pie;
>
Yes, but prior suggestions of that were turned down due to the
additional database traffic. But, I guess a single query more won't hurt :-)

Magnus


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stating Judgements (Was: Asimov-still POV)

body:
I hope I'm adding to the signal, & not to the noise, of this
discussion with my contribution.

One problem I see in this discussion about the individual in
question is that he/she has found a serious weakness in the
rule concerning NPOV. If one were to submit to Wikipedia a comment
like "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is considered the finest musical
piece written" or "Tolstoy's two novels _War and Peace_ and
_Anna Karinina_ are considered his best writings", one could
insist that this is not a valid submission -- even though these
are judgements that are widely held and considered by many
people statements of fact, rather than opinion. And even
conceding the point that they are opinions, it would not be
that hard to find justification for this opinion, along the
lines of "Orson Welles' 'Citizen Kane' was voted the best
motion picture by the American Film Institute."

I'm punting on that last example -- I don't know if that is
what they agreed to, but I hope all of you see what I am trying
to explain: a given group who is considered authoritative in
a given field, makes a judgement. And that judgement is recorded
in Wikipedia as a fact.

However, all that does in move the problem of subjectivity to
another area: how do we then determine if the authority cited
is truly authoritative? What if some troll insists on countering
the reasonable example I made above about "Citizen Kane" with
her/his own citation, "Joe Blow considers 'Manos, the Hands of
Fate' to be the best motion picture ever made"?

We could avoid this problem entirely by refusing to state that
any given work or object is considered by anyone to be the
"best", "most influential", "best known", et cetera, of its
classification. However, this runs headlong into another problem,
which I would argue is equally important: by doing so, we
contributors cannot acknowledge the existence of certain opinions,
either widely-held, or the result of informed, educated discussion.
Ignoring the fact, for example, that certain authors of literature
belong in a "canon" and should be taught in schools because of
their skill with language, ability of perception, or influence of
ideas, means that Wikipedia abdicates helping a user decide if,
as an example, V. C. Andrews should be considered the equal of
Homer, Tolstoy or Virginia Wolf. Making a statement such as,
"The UNIX operating system is favored by programmers because of
its many tools and its successful abstraction of system resources
as files" then becomes impossible and prohibited. And the same
with a statement like "Although newcomers are often daunted by the long
periods of overcast skies and long rainstorms, native Oregonians
apparently take this weather in stride."

I don't have an answer to help Wikipedia out of this dilemma.
All I can do in this email is point to it, ask that everyone
acknowledges that it is a problem that needs solving, & hope that
we can discuss this as adults.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Asimov-still POV

body:
Lir/Jimbo:-
> Jimbo wrote me an email:
> I think this one basically screwed your chances of being allowed
> back in, ever. Why don't you just give up and go away now?

Does this mean we now have perpetual bans? I'm not very comfortable with
that idea.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] A suicide note on the Wikipedia?????

body:
Please review [[Commit Suiside]].  URL 66.210.117.46 has written what appears to be a suicide note.  But it could be a troll.  Anyone have any suggestions?

Zoe

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
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subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

body:
The MIT vandal is back, vandalizing [[Woman]] with his misogynistic work.  I've repeatedly asked him to tell us what his information means and to give us supporting documentation, but he refuses, and continues to put his "trademark" words into the document.  He's logged in twice tonight, first as Qcix, second as Abcde.

Zoe

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
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body:
On ?a?, 2003-02-13 at 21:09, Zoe wrote:
> Please review [[Commit Suiside]].  URL 66.210.117.46 has written what
> appears to be a suicide note.  But it could be a troll.  Anyone have
> any suggestions?

The IP address belongs to a private school in Connecticut:
http://www.cheshireacademy.org/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Server clock drift

body:
The server has some mad clock drift; it's currently about 4 minutes slow
compared to official time as reported by www.time.gov. The hardware
clock is actually only about one minute off -- the other three minutes
of drift have apparently accumulated over less than ten days of uptime!

Is there a more or less authoritative time server in or about Bomis-land
to sync with, or should I go looking for a public Network Time Daemon
server?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vandal on Meta

body:
And AFAIK, nobody is a sysop on meta.

could a dev ban them?
(and make some people sysops for Meta while they're at it)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vandal on Meta

body:
> Volunteers?

Please give me sysop status on Meta; I plan to do some work there on
coordinating the development process.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> I know the Wikipedia itself is open source, but is the software for
> the Wikipedia engine open source? (Another project I'm involved with
> is discussing using a wiki-style engine to improve its
> documentation.)

Yes, our softwrae is open source, GNU GPL all of it.  It would be
great if others wanted to use it, but...

1.  We develop with an eye toward our own (content) project, not as a
general-purpose wiki software.  Much of what we do may or may not make
sense in other content-contexts.

2.  Since we're developing for our own use, we haven't paid much
attention to making the software nice to install, etc.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stating Judgements

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:
> If one were to submit to Wikipedia a comment
> like "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is considered the finest musical
> piece written" or "Tolstoy's two novels _War and Peace_ and
> _Anna Karinina_ are considered his best writings", one could
> insist that this is not a valid submission -- even though these
> are judgements that are widely held and considered by many
> people statements of fact, rather than opinion.

Consider three alternatives:

BAD: "Orson Welles' [[Citizen Kane]] is the best motion picture ever
made."

BETTER: "Orson Welles' [[Citizen Kane]] is considered by many experts
to be the the best motion picture ever made."

STILL BETTER: "Orson Welles' [[Citizen Kane]] is considered by many
experts to be the best motion picture ever made.  For example, in
1998, the [[American Film Institute]] voted..."

Notice that I didn't say "Best" because there's likely always going
to be a possible improvement.  :-)

> to explain: a given group who is considered authoritative in
> a given field, makes a judgement. And that judgement is recorded
> in Wikipedia as a fact.

There's an important distinction here between saying that a particular
judgment is _true_, i.e. for the wikipedia to actualy _assert_ it,
versus saying that a particular judgment is widely held, or widely
held by experts, or held by these experts but not those.

It's important and informational to include judgments that are widely
held, but not to assert them ourselves.  If the reader thinks that
*we* are asserting it, well, they aren't reading carefully enough.

> However, all that does in move the problem of subjectivity to
> another area: how do we then determine if the authority cited
> is truly authoritative?

We just use judgment and good sense.  It's not hard.

People "these days" are often very concerned about answering the
hardcore skeptic or relativist.  I'm not.  We can use judgment and
good sense, and let the postmodernists deconstruct how many angels
aren't dancing on a pinhead.

> What if some troll insists on countering the reasonable example I
> made above about "Citizen Kane" with her/his own citation, "Joe Blow
> considers 'Manos, the Hands of Fate' to be the best motion picture
> ever made"?

Is Joe Blow widely considered to be an expert?  Probably not.

> I don't have an answer to help Wikipedia out of this dilemma.
> All I can do in this email is point to it, ask that everyone
> acknowledges that it is a problem that needs solving, & hope that
> we can discuss this as adults.

I don't think any solution is needed, because I don't see the problem.

Joe Blow's opinions on films are not encyclopedic.  The votes of the
American Film Institute are.

Maybe this will help: "encyclopedic" is not necessarily the same thing
as "true".  Every statement that is encyclopedic should be true, but
not every true statement belongs in an encyclopedia.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <1045202302.3510.2.camel@rdaneel.vibber.org>; from brion@pobox.com on Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 09:58:22PM -0800

body:
I forwarded this information to the administrators there.  If it's
real, perhaps they can help.  If it's a prank, hopefully they can deal
with that, too.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Server clock drift

in_reply_to: <1045204448.3506.32.camel@rdaneel.vibber.org>; from brion@pobox.com on Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 10:34:08PM -0800

body:
A public daemon would be best, I think.

Brion Vibber wrote:

> The server has some mad clock drift; it's currently about 4 minutes slow
> compared to official time as reported by www.time.gov. The hardware
> clock is actually only about one minute off -- the other three minutes
> of drift have apparently accumulated over less than ten days of uptime!
>
> Is there a more or less authoritative time server in or about Bomis-land
> to sync with, or should I go looking for a public Network Time Daemon
> server?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

body:
I have information, and a question...

Zoe wrote:
> The MIT vandal is back, vandalizing [[Woman]] with his misogynistic
>work.  I've repeatedly asked him to tell us what his information means
>and to give us supporting documentation, but he refuses, and continues
>to put his "trademark" words into the document.  He's logged in twice
>tonight, first as Qcix, second as Abcde.

INFORMATION:
There's a POST at 14/Feb/2003:02:39:10 in the access_logs.  This
corresponds with an edit by Qcix.  The ip address of that edit
resolves to scadm28-19231.fas.harvard.edu.

QUESTION:
This is the disputed text:
- * More women than men suffer from [[anorexia]] and [[bulimia]]
- * More women than men suffer from [[borderline personality
disorder|borderline]], [[histrionic personality disorder]] and
[[hysteria]]

Are these things not true?  Why should they be omitted from the
article, if true?


body:
At 03:05 AM 2/14/03 -0800, you wrote:
>Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> > I know the Wikipedia itself is open source, but is the software for
> > the Wikipedia engine open source? (Another project I'm involved with
> > is discussing using a wiki-style engine to improve its
> > documentation.)
>
>Yes, our softwrae is open source, GNU GPL all of it.  It would be
>great if others wanted to use it, but...
>
>1.  We develop with an eye toward our own (content) project, not as a
>general-purpose wiki software.  Much of what we do may or may not make
>sense in other content-contexts.
>
>2.  Since we're developing for our own use, we haven't paid much
>attention to making the software nice to install, etc.

The person in question specifically said they liked the Wikipedia engine,
so I asked, and have passed on the information. I was surprised to see
the interest, myself--I don't think they need anything on this scale.

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Disputes and attribution (was: The MIT vandal is
	back)

body:
On ven, 2003-02-14 at 06:30, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Wherever there's dispute,
> We've got to attribute!
> --Copyright 2003, Ed Poor and freely distributable under the GPL

Can we set this to music? I think it would make a nice jingle; we could
have an mp3 play every time someone opens an article for editing. ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Qualifiers (was: Stating Judgements)

body:
Geoff,

I'm chiming in to agree with Jimbo, and to give a few illustrations of a simple way to attribute point of view.

I understand that this is a serious problem. Please don't think I'm taking it too light-heartedly if I suggest that the solution is very simple.

In a word: use qualifiers.

What are qualifiers? They are words that qualify (or attribute) points of view. Here are some examples.

Change:
* Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is considered the finest...
To:
* Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is _widely_ considered the finest...

Change:
* Tolstoy's two novels... are considered to be his best.
To:
* Tolstoy's two novels... are considered _by many_ to be his best.

The next requires a slight rewording, but the principle is the same.

Change:
* The UNIX operating system is favored by programmers because of
its many tools and its successful abstraction of system resources
as files
To:
* _Many programmers favor_ the UNIX operating system because of...

Uncle Ed, aka Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Disputes and attribution (was: The MIT vandal is back)

body:
Regarding Jimbo's QUESTION:

This is the disputed text:
- * More women than men suffer from [[anorexia]] and [[bulimia]]
- * More women than men suffer from [[borderline personality
disorder|borderline]], [[histrionic personality disorder]] and
[[hysteria]]

Are these things not true?  Why should they be omitted from the
article, if true?
----

I have composed a little poem to help as remember one of the ways disputed text can be made to conform to Jimbo's neutral-point-of-view policy:

Wherever there's dispute,
We've got to attribute!
--Copyright 2003, Ed Poor and freely distributable under the GPL

Thus, edit the two passages above as follows.

* According to Dr. Effie Nymist, more women than men suffer from [[anorexia]] and [[bulimia]] (source: Annals of statistical medicine, 23:456 June 1997)

* Dr. Mael Fraud of the San Francisco Street People's Clinic observed in his 1997-2001 study of drug addicts and street people that more women than men suffer from [[borderline personality disorder|borderline]], [[histrionic personality disorder]] and [[hysteria]]. Dr. Fraud wrote in Psychology Today, December 2002, that his findings can be generalized to the American public with a 0.0003% chance of certainty.

Okay, maybe the second example is a bit far-fetched, but the idea is to attribute each POV to its adherent. Thus, the Wikipedia itself will not be seen as endorsing that POV but as remaining neutral on the issue.

Uncle Ed, aka Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV humor

body:
Here are some limericks I made up after a friend said I had problems with my meter:

There once came a man with a view
Which aroused such a hullaballoo
That all of us said,
"It should only be read,
If attributed clearly to you!"

There once was a man with a view
About which was made a to-do
The people said, "See?
It's his own P.O.V.!"
Attribute the thing, and we're through.

Happy Valentines Day!
Uncle Ed


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vandal on Meta

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>
>
>>(and make some people sysops for Meta while they're at it)
>>
>>
>
>Volunteers?
>
>
>
Me. :-)


subject: [Wikitech-l] [rubenste@ohiou.edu: Re: help?]

body:
Something to do with web proxies and caching?

----- Forwarded message from "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu> -----

From: "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 14:01:01 -0500
To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Re: help?

Hi,

I am having a strange and irritating problem: whenever I click on recent
changes, all I get are changes as recent as "18: 38" which was about 20
minutes ago.  If I click on "last 50 changes" I get the last 50 changes
starting from the present time.  But if I click on "recent changes" again I
go back 20 minutes into the past!

Also, when I try to open an article I only get the version as of 20 minutes
ago.  Only if I click on "edit this page" do I then see the current version.

I cleared my cache (which is the only thing I can think of) and I am not
having problems on any other web-pages.

If this isn't a problem on your end, I am sorry to bother you!

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.449 / Virus Database: 251 - Release Date: 1/27/2003

----- End forwarded message -----


body:
(CC'd to slrubenstein)

On Fri, 14 Feb 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > Also, when I try to open an article I only get the version as of 20 minutes
> > ago.  Only if I click on "edit this page" do I then see the current version.
>
> Something to do with web proxies and caching?

If it's regularly 20 minutes off, that could be due to a combination of
bad clocks -- our server is 4 minutes slow, and if a proxy server is 16
minutes slow and doesn't obey the caching instructions we give it, it may
not bother to pass on requests to verify that pages are current. (Even
though all pages are pre-expired and a "must-verify" cache control is
set, so it really should check.)

(Incidentally, if there's anyone more familiar with caching issues than I,
please take a look at the headers we send to see if they're correct.
There may also be some funny interaction with PHP's session handling
system that could be sending conflicting headers, but I'm not sure.)

As a temporary workaround, try a browser other than Internet Explorer --
pages should then be marked as uncacheable and it would take a *very*
broken proxy to not obey that. (If you're using Opera, make sure it's set
not to identify itself as Internet Explorer.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

body:
It's the exact same wording as the text inserted by the MIT vandal.  I asked the person inserting it to give us some information to prove the assertion, and I asked if it was true for the entire world, or only certain cultures.  The person declined to do so.
Zoe
 Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:I have information, and a question...

Zoe wrote:
> The MIT vandal is back, vandalizing [[Woman]] with his misogynistic
>work. I've repeatedly asked him to tell us what his information means
>and to give us supporting documentation, but he refuses, and continues
>to put his "trademark" words into the document. He's logged in twice
>tonight, first as Qcix, second as Abcde.

INFORMATION:
There's a POST at 14/Feb/2003:02:39:10 in the access_logs. This
corresponds with an edit by Qcix. The ip address of that edit
resolves to scadm28-19231.fas.harvard.edu.

QUESTION:
This is the disputed text:
- * More women than men suffer from [[anorexia]] and [[bulimia]]
- * More women than men suffer from [[borderline personality
disorder|borderline]], [[histrionic personality disorder]] and
[[hysteria]]

Are these things not true? Why should they be omitted from the
article, if true?
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
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from_name: Jonathan Walther

subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

body:
On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 12:32:27PM -0800, Zoe wrote:
>   It's the exact same wording as the text inserted by the MIT vandal.  I
>   asked the person inserting it to give us some information to prove the
>   assertion, and I asked if it was true for the entire world, or only
>   certain cultures.  The person declined to do so.

The information is not misogynistic, it is true.  Labelling this person
a vandal does a disservice to the Wikipedia.  The traditional treatment
in the West for hysteria was for the doctor to massage a womans genitals
by hand until she got some relief.  The most extreme forms of hysteria
are not seen very much in modern times; some attribute this to a greater
interest in giving sexual satisfaction to women.  The milder forms of
hysteria still abound; if males have a propensity for hysteria, it is
socialized out of them at a very young age.

Jonathan

--
                     Geek House Productions, Ltd.

  Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
  QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
  General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998

Phone:   604-435-1205
Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A suicide note on the Wikipedia?????

body:
On Friday 14 February 2003 04:00 am, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I forwarded this information to the administrators there.  If it's
> real, perhaps they can help.  If it's a prank, hopefully they can deal
> with that, too.

Yes it was the real thing and after I asked if anybody had contacted the local
police Stevertigo then called the Cheshire PD about it.

In the future we should act on this even faster than we did (it was nearly 3
hours before the cops were called). It is up the cops, not us, to determine
whether or not stuff like this is a prank and take the appropriate action
(even if it is just to give a warning to a prankster).

Forward:
> To: 'steve'
> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 4:38 AM
> Subject: RE: thank you
>
> Thank you, Cheshire PD alerted us and we took immediate action.  The
> Student is in Yale-New Haven Hospital for assessment/observation.  Thank
> you for your assistance.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: A suicide note on the Wikipedia?????


from_name: rednblack at alum.mit.edu

subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

body:
Bah... this is definitely not a neutral point of view. Many people would
even question the existence of "hysteria" as an actual thing rather than a
construct created by a largely-male medical establishment, aside from those who
would simply question the neutrality of the largely-male medical establishment
in deciding when a woman is being "hysterical" and when she is not.

Anyway, regardless of whether it's "true" or not, I don't think it's vandalism.

Saurabh

------
"[L]iberals and conservatives alike can find catered news that does not
 challenge their prejudices but rather reinforces them." -- Nicholas Kristof

In message <20030214232125.GA16429 at reactor-core.org>, Jonathan Walther said:
>
>--vkogqOf2sHV7VnPd
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>Content-Disposition: inline
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
>On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 12:32:27PM -0800, Zoe wrote:
>>   It's the exact same wording as the text inserted by the MIT vandal.  I
>>   asked the person inserting it to give us some information to prove the
>>   assertion, and I asked if it was true for the entire world, or only
>>   certain cultures.  The person declined to do so.
>
>The information is not misogynistic, it is true.  Labelling this person
>a vandal does a disservice to the Wikipedia.  The traditional treatment
>in the West for hysteria was for the doctor to massage a womans genitals
>by hand until she got some relief.  The most extreme forms of hysteria
>are not seen very much in modern times; some attribute this to a greater
>interest in giving sexual satisfaction to women.  The milder forms of
>hysteria still abound; if males have a propensity for hysteria, it is
>socialized out of them at a very young age.
>
>Jonathan
>
>--=20
>                     Geek House Productions, Ltd.
>
>  Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
>  QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
>  General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998
>
>Phone:   604-435-1205
>Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
>Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
>Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
>
>--vkogqOf2sHV7VnPd
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>
>--vkogqOf2sHV7VnPd--
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [WikiEN-l] trying hard to do a list right

body:
Tokerboy and I are having a conversation about a list of songwriters.

He started with [[List of songwriters/temp]].  I made some comments on
the talk page and then started [[List of songwriters/temp2]] with
further talk page discussion.  I followed the idea we had discussed
here of using other people's lists as the basis of a Wikipedia list.

I'm not really wild about either the first idea, list the top 12 in
each genre, nor the second idea, use the lists from Songwriter Halls
of Fame, because they are so long.

Even if you aren't interested in songwriters, the issue is a recurring
one and hard to solve, so maybe you'd like to chime in.

Ortolan88
Tom Parmenter


subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

in_reply_to:
<20030214232125.GA16429@reactor-core.org> (message from Jonathan
	Walther on Fri, 14 Feb 2003 15:21:25 -0800)

body:
|From: Jonathan Walther <krooger at debian.org>
|Content-Disposition: inline
|Sender: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
|Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 15:21:25 -0800
|
|
|--vkogqOf2sHV7VnPd
|Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
|Content-Disposition: inline
|Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
|
|On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 12:32:27PM -0800, Zoe wrote:
|>   It's the exact same wording as the text inserted by the MIT vandal.  I
|>   asked the person inserting it to give us some information to prove the
|>   assertion, and I asked if it was true for the entire world, or only
|>   certain cultures.  The person declined to do so.
|
|The information is not misogynistic, it is true.  Labelling this person
|a vandal does a disservice to the Wikipedia.  The traditional treatment
|in the West for hysteria was for the doctor to massage a womans genitals
|by hand until she got some relief.  The most extreme forms of hysteria
|are not seen very much in modern times; some attribute this to a greater
|interest in giving sexual satisfaction to women.  The milder forms of
|hysteria still abound; if males have a propensity for hysteria, it is
|socialized out of them at a very young age.
|
|Jonathan
|
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subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

body:
|From: Jonathan Walther <krooger at debian.org>
|Content-Disposition: inline
|Sender: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
|Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 15:21:25 -0800
|
|
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|
|On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 12:32:27PM -0800, Zoe wrote:
|>   It's the exact same wording as the text inserted by the MIT vandal.  I
|>   asked the person inserting it to give us some information to prove the
|>   assertion, and I asked if it was true for the entire world, or only
|>   certain cultures.  The person declined to do so.
|
|The information is not misogynistic, it is true.  Labelling this person
|a vandal does a disservice to the Wikipedia.  The traditional treatment
|in the West for hysteria was for the doctor to massage a womans genitals
|by hand until she got some relief.  The most extreme forms of hysteria
|are not seen very much in modern times; some attribute this to a greater
|interest in giving sexual satisfaction to women.  The milder forms of
|hysteria still abound; if males have a propensity for hysteria, it is
|socialized out of them at a very young age.
|
|Jonathan
|

A misogynist, but not a vandal.  Anorexia, bulimia, borderline
personality disorder,, and histrionic personality disorder are
generally more common in women, according to my wife, the
psychotherapist.

She adds, however, that hysteria is the NPOV ringer here, being a 19th
century diagnosis that is no longer used (nor is the treatment
mentioned above).  Even in the 19th, men were diagnosed with it, but
not given the analogous treatment.

More common in men than women: anti-social personality disorder.  The
prisons are full of them, she says.  Also, most psychopaths and
sociopaths are men.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


body:
On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 10:00:35PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote:
>I'm not really wild about either the first idea, list the top 12 in
>each genre, nor the second idea, use the lists from Songwriter Halls
>of Fame, because they are so long.
>
>Even if you aren't interested in songwriters, the issue is a recurring
>one and hard to solve, so maybe you'd like to chime in.

I don't see lists as belonging on the Wikipedia at all.  However, I do
see them as an important affiliated project, in a way similar to the
Wiktionary.

Jonathan

--
                     Geek House Productions, Ltd.

  Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
  QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
  General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998

Phone:   604-435-1205
Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
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subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

in_reply_to:
<200302150355.WAA28040@TheWorld.com> (message from Tom Parmenter
	on Fri, 14 Feb 2003 22:55:26 -0500)

body:
please pardon mail glitch, only one response, the other two were
brainos.
tomp


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

body:
sannse at delphiforums.com wrote:

>Jonathan Wrote:
>
>>>The information is not misogynistic, it is true.  Labelling this
>>>person a vandal does a disservice to the Wikipedia.
>>>
>The content is irrelevant here.  If this is our MIT vandal, then he
>caused hours of work for mav and others with numerous random text
>deletions and malicious changes under numerous user names.
>
>If the information he is added is relevant, a neutral party can add it
>back at a later date.  (I'm leaving out my own views on the information
>he is adding because, as I said, that's not relevant to the question of
>whether he should be allowed to edit here).
>
There's always a need to separate the writing from the person who wrote
it.  Just as we are not justified in claiming personal ownership to any
of our contributions then similarly we are not justified in giving a
vandal credit for his work.  Most of what these people write is nonsense
or offensive, and is justifiably deleted.  If, however, in some rare
instance our same vandal happened to write something meaningful and
useful, there is no reason why that particular bit of writing should be
deleted out of spite. Each contribution should be judged on its own merits

Eclecticology


body:
Tom Parmenter wrote:

>Tokerboy and I are having a conversation about a list of songwriters.
>
>He started with [[List of songwriters/temp]].  I made some comments on
>the talk page and then started [[List of songwriters/temp2]] with
>further talk page discussion.  I followed the idea we had discussed
>here of using other people's lists as the basis of a Wikipedia list.
>
>I'm not really wild about either the first idea, list the top 12 in
>each genre, nor the second idea, use the lists from Songwriter Halls
>of Fame, because they are so long.
>
>Even if you aren't interested in songwriters, the issue is a recurring
>one and hard to solve, so maybe you'd like to chime in.
>
This is often a no win kind of article.  This kind of problem came up at
[[List of famous Canadians]] with DW involved in his usual techniques
for making friends. Eventually people just went away.  If you try to
keep the lists short somebody will always be upset when you leave off
their favorite.  If they are open-ended they get awfully long, but can
still be useful as a wish-list for future articles.

Some kind of weighted voting feature could be handy here.  Voting for a
list would be left perpetually open, and running vote totals maintained.
 Unlike voting on policy proposals, the results will not affect anything
else, and that's what makes it philosophically workable.

Eclecticology


body:
Jan Hidders wrote:

>  If you want only the most popular 12 you put
>it under something like "list of 12 most popular songwriter per genre". Et
>cetera.
>
That's where the priblems lies.  There is no unanimity on just who
belongs on that top 12 lis.

Eclecticlogy


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
> Jan Hidders wrote:
>
>> If you want only the most popular 12 you put
>> it under something like "list of 12 most popular songwriter per genre". Et
>> cetera.
>>
> That's where the problems lie.  There is no unanimity on just who
> belongs on that top 12 list.
>
> Eclecticlogy

Here's a link to lists of classic science fiction, done pretty well. He uses
several lists and by processing information from the lists arrives at a
score for each work.

http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/

Some works appear near the top of all the lists and thus get a high score.

Even a long list is not an endless list.

Fred


from_name: sannse at delphiforums.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

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body:
I agree with Daniel on this one.  We should have acted faster.  As for
me, when I saw it, it was already a few hours old and I assumed that
something had been done, or it was too late.  In retrospect, I would
have acted differently.

So, what's the proper course of action in a case like this?  I mean,
who should one call?  The police in that town?

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Server clock drift

in_reply_to: <200302151140.40259.phma@webjockey.net>; from phma@webjockey.net on Sat, Feb 15, 2003 at 11:40:40AM +0100

body:
Just a thought: in the past, I have always had good results from using
'rdate' on a chron.  If you set the clock once a day, it never varies
by more than a second or two, which is very much close enough for our
purposes.

Real ntp software is amazing, but really overkill for our purposes?


subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

body:
Jonathan Walther wrote:
> The information is not misogynistic, it is true.  Labelling this person
> a vandal does a disservice to the Wikipedia.

Jonathan, this person is a true vandal.  We aren't talking about a
single controversial edit, but an ongoing series of attacks, including
cursing and so on.

Last Saturday, he was hopping from ip number to ip number, userid to
userid, defacing pages left and right.

Your toleration of vandalism is noted.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

in_reply_to: <200302142340.h1ENeOeY011805@genovevo.net>; from rednblack@alum.mit.edu on Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 06:40:23PM -0500

body:
rednblack at alum.mit.edu wrote:
> Anyway, regardless of whether it's "true" or not, I don't think it's
>vandalism.

This particular incident, taken out of context, would not qualify as
vandalism -- just a really bad edit.  But we have more context here.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

in_reply_to: <104529706801@mail1.emumail.net>; from sannse@delphiforums.com on Sat, Feb 15, 2003 at 04:17:48AM -0400

body:
sannse at delphiforums.com wrote:
> >>The information is not misogynistic, it is true.  Labelling this
> >>person a vandal does a disservice to the Wikipedia.
>
> The content is irrelevant here.  If this is our MIT vandal, then he
> caused hours of work for mav and others with numerous random text
> deletions and malicious changes under numerous user names.  Since then he
> has returned to make other deletions and changes, and promised to keep
> vandalising articles until Wikipedia is completely unusable.  *That's*
> the vandalism in question, not the "annoying edits" on the woman page
> (and others).

Absolutely!  Well said.

This is a true simple vandal with a track record.  He's banned from
wikipedia, and that's that.  We must not encourage him by considering
each of his edits independently.  Anything he writes should be
reverted instantly, and his username vaporized as fast as possible.

And we should keep logs so that we can track him down and report him.

(He's at Harvard now, not MIT.)

> If the information he is added is relevant, a neutral party can add it
> back at a later date.  (I'm leaving out my own views on the information
> he is adding because, as I said, that's not relevant to the question of
> whether he should be allowed to edit here).

That's right, 100%.  His stuff *is* bad, but at this point it's
irrelevant to debate the details.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

in_reply_to: <3E4E01A0.1000504@telus.net>; from saintonge@telus.net on Sat, Feb 15, 2003 at 01:00:16AM -0800

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
>  Most of what these people write is nonsense
> or offensive, and is justifiably deleted.  If, however, in some rare
> instance our same vandal happened to write something meaningful and
> useful, there is no reason why that particular bit of writing should be
> deleted out of spite. Each contribution should be judged on its own merits

I disagree in most cases.  There must be flexibility, of course.
However, it is not *just* pointless and stupid for us to look at every
edit of the MIT vandal and study whether it is NPOV or not.  It's
actually worse than that.

If we start treating him as "semi-banned", then he has strong
encouragement to keep coming back.  He knows that if he can write
something semi-plausible, he can trick us into debating it, discussing
it, and so forth.  That's a big mistake.

The best way to get rid of a vandal is to simply erase everything he
does immediately.

In the real world, the most effective anti-grafitti campaigns involve
simply cleaning it up as fast as possible.  It would only encourage it
to convene artistic committees to study the artistic quality of each
one to determine if it's an improvement.

--Jimbo


from_name: Jan Hidders

in_reply_to: <200302150300.WAA02603@TheWorld.com>; from tompar@world.std.com on Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 10:00:35PM -0500

body:
On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 10:00:35PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote:
>
> Tokerboy and I are having a conversation about a list of songwriters.
>
> He started with [[List of songwriters/temp]].  I made some comments on
> the talk page and then started [[List of songwriters/temp2]] with
> further talk page discussion.  I followed the idea we had discussed
> here of using other people's lists as the basis of a Wikipedia list.
>
> I'm not really wild about either the first idea, list the top 12 in
> each genre, nor the second idea, use the lists from Songwriter Halls
> of Fame, because they are so long.
>
> Even if you aren't interested in songwriters, the issue is a recurring
> one and hard to solve, so maybe you'd like to chime in.

Maybe I am missing something but the solution seems rather obvious. If
someone wants a list of all songwriters then let them make it under the
title "list of all songwriters" and sort them alphabetically. If someone
wants to make a list sorted by genre then you put that under the title "list
of all songwriters by genre". If you want only the most popular 12 you put
it under something like "list of 12 most popular songwriter per genre". Et
cetera.

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Matthew Woodcraft

body:
On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 10:56:51PM -0800, Jonathan Walther wrote:
> I don't see lists as belonging on the Wikipedia at all.  However, I do
> see them as an important affiliated project, in a way similar to the
> Wiktionary.

Even when lists aren't of much interest in themselves, they can be
useful to help people find articles.

It's not uncommon that there's a name you can't remember, but you'd
recognise if you saw it. A list page is much better than a search,
then.

-M-


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Album listings

body:
tarquin Wrote:
>What do we think about all these pages about music albums, which give
>just a track listing and nothing else?

I've disliked those from the start.  It seems very little thought went
into them, not even enough to establish barebones context (e.g. artist
and genre), much less a greater historical or social context (e.g. why
we should care).  (something we often fail to establish, me included,
though with the basics down it's easier to get there).

>[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]] - now *that*'s an encyclopedia
>article!

yes.

kq

wikikarma: stub for [[Baraka (film)]]--and now I'm off to continue
editing my own film, tho one that almost certainly will not merit an
article.  :-)


subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

in_reply_to:
<3E4E01A0.1000504@telus.net> (message from Ray Saintonge on Sat,
	15 Feb 2003 01:00:16 -0800)

body:
I was hoping we'd have this conversation on the mentioned talk pages
and not on this list.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikitech-l] Server clock drift

body:
On Friday 14 February 2003 12:39, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> A public daemon would be best, I think.

There's a list at http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/servers.html, and if
you cast chrony, you'll get all the ones that I found had addresses when I
wrote the spell.

phma


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] One more variable needed

body:
On sab, 2003-02-15 at 11:33, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> One more variable is needed for Polish Wikipedia:
> genetive form of name of month.

On that note; I'd like to generalize a few things like all the
appearences of "Wikipedia" into their own LocalSettings-able variables
so that people using PediaWiki for other sites (or even our own
Wiktionary) don't have to go through quite so much search-and-replacing
rigamarole.

What grammatical forms need to be available for various languages, just
so we can keep naming consistent? Ie something like:

en:
$wgSiteName = "Wikipedia";

pl:
$wgSiteName = "Wikipedia";
$wgSiteNameGen = "Wikipedii"; # ???
# ...??

eo:
$wgSiteName = "Vikipedio";
$wgSiteNameAcc = "Vikipedion";

etc

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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in_reply_to:
<20030215101309.A14910@chiark.greenend.org.uk> (message from
	Matthew Woodcraft on Sat, 15 Feb 2003 10:13:09 +0000)

body:
|From: Matthew Woodcraft <mattheww+wikipedia at chiark.greenend.org.uk>
|Content-Disposition: inline
|Sender: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
|Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 10:13:09 +0000
|
|On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 10:56:51PM -0800, Jonathan Walther wrote:
|> I don't see lists as belonging on the Wikipedia at all.  However, I do
|> see them as an important affiliated project, in a way similar to the
|> Wiktionary.
|
|Even when lists aren't of much interest in themselves, they can be
|useful to help people find articles.
|
|It's not uncommon that there's a name you can't remember, but you'd
|recognise if you saw it. A list page is much better than a search,
|then.
|
|-M-
|

Lists are less useful in a print encyclopedia, but invaluable in an
online encyclopedia, particularly if they are not just names, but
names annotated with some kind of one-liner identifying the name.

Tom P.
O88