subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Time to set up Wikimedia ProjectCommittees

body:
Ray Saintonge a ?crit:

> The points that you make are certainly very good in principle.  I may
> question a few details, but that does not detract from the big picture.
> To receive more comment you needed to say something more controversial.
> The problem is that most people would agree as I do.

Ah, hummm, right. Good idea.
Okay, I'll focus on saying controversial things in the next few weeks
then :-)
I suppose that is something I could do.

> The type of charter that you envision should have come first before the
> by-laws.  Once the "charter" was formally accepted the by-laws would
> empower the Trustees to guarantee its being a core principle.
> Unfortunately, agreement appears to be the best way to ensure that
> nothing gets done.  The most effective dictators are the ones who do not
> appear dictatorial.  It's been a long time since I read it, but I think
> that Macchiavelli said something to that effect..  A parent cannot
> forbid a child's first steps out of a fear that the child could thereby
> hurt himself.
> What should have been a credible first draft of the by-laws has by
> virtue of overtly dictatorial adoption become a lightning rod for
> criticism.  It has thus been a counterproductive process, and could even
> be seen by some as an encouragement to establish forks.  Ownership in a
> project depends as much on the intangibles as on the material goods. For
> many of us the selfless commitment of time has been the price of
> ownership, and the mere suggestion that the kid who brought the bats and
> balls can take them all away is bound to send some scurrying to find
> alternative solutions.
>
> In a legal sense the Board of Trustees CAN do anything it wants, but it
> should never emphasize that.  Rather it should emphasize a hands off
> approach, and a commitment to defend core principles without meddling
> beyond that.  That commitment should also be seen as a separate
> commitment by *every* individual member of that Board, reinforced by the
> way in which they participate in plain view across the project.
>
> The charter itself should stick to generalities and principles.  The
> principle of openly available knowledge is good, but restricting it to
> GFDL would not be appropriate even if previous discussions have
> indicated that we may be stuck with it.  The NPOV principle would remain
> as something for which we strive, without making too fine a point of
> just what that means.  Respect for copyright would remain a principle
> without undue emphasis on following the letter of the law in all
> circumstances..
>
> Ec

Shall we make a controversial charter then ?

...ou...apr?s tout...on est chez les fous :-)


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bad drive on susan

body:
I was trying to get a replicated database set up on susan, but have
given up on account of... hard drive errors!

This is a theme with us. Do we have any hard drives that work?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245272
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245272
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245280
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245280
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245288
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245288
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245296
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245296
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245304
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245304
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245312
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245312
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245320
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245320
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245328
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245328
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245336
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245336
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245344
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245344
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245352
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245352
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245360
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245360
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245368
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245368
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245376
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245376
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245384
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245384
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=134343245,
sector=17245392
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:06 (hda), sector 17245392
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040128/cb2c4f1c/attachment.pgp>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] A danger of massive homework and research requests

body:
KNOTT, T wrote:

>As the Guilty party who answered the question. I have to say that I checked out the wikipedia article on the Gulf stream and found it to be rather lacking. There were no details such as flow rate, average temp, etc. No false colour maps. No history of who discovered it etc.
>
>As a result of answering the child's HW question I've added gulf stream and all the other ocean currents to my to do list and will be improving them shortly. The thing is, has the question not been asked I probably would never have looked at the page. SO although I agree that there is a danger of setting a precedent and I do see your point I have to disagree that allowing HW questions on this list is necessarily a bad thing.
>
>
Perhaps we ought to have some sort of a requests list we could
specifically direct these requests to?  That'd probably encourage many
more such requests, but they'd be unobtrusive, in a place where we could
go to find out what sorts of things people are looking for and not finding.

-Mark


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
How about a link on the Main Page: Ask Wikipedia

Fred

> From: "Jake Nelson" <jnelson at soncom.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 06:20:34 -0600
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A danger of massive homework and research requests
>
> Delirium wrote:
>> Perhaps we ought to have some sort of a requests list we could
>> specifically direct these requests to?  That'd probably encourage many
>> more such requests, but they'd be unobtrusive, in a place where we could
>> go to find out what sorts of things people are looking for and not
> finding.
>
> This sounds like a good plan to me. I've never been the sort of person to
> turn away someone with a straightforward question, and I'd like somewhere we
> can answer them off the normal list. Plus, it'd be easier to find archived
> responses to questions if they're not mixed in with the general list
> archive.
>
> -- Jake
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A danger of massive homework and research requests

body:
Ed !

Come around here !

I think we found the mailing list next administrator !!

;-)

Peter Jaros a ?crit:
> On Jan 28, 2004, at 5:07 PM, Anthere wrote:
>
>> it would be nice as well, that people do not reach so easily the
>> mailing lists, so they could ask information on wikipedia itself.
>> Perhaps the way is not clear enough ?
>
>
> That's what I've never understood.  One would think it would be easier
> to click "Edit this page" on a talk page, type in a question, and wait
> for a response, than to track down this mailing list, subscribe,
> confirm, write an email, and scan the entire list's traffic for
> replies.  But maybe that's just me.
>
> Peter
>
>                                  -- ---<>--- --
>                        A house without walls cannot fall.
>           Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org
>                                  -- ---<>--- --


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] news

body:
> > > NAVY removes submarine commander
> > > Norwich Bulletin
> > > ... According to Wikipedia, an online
> > > encyclopedia, the Jimmy Carter is
> > > 100 feet longer than its sister ships and has
> > > been modified for "highly
> > > classified missions ...

...

> Nope, I've had the same one set for a month or two. It's great to see the
> use we get... the last, I find especially amusing, remembering some people's
> complaints about ship and sub articles.

I won't rest until the day we're cited in the Proceedings of the Naval
Institute....  ;->

--
 Sean Barrett     |
 sean at epoptic.com |


from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [WikiEN-l] news

body:
Peter wrote:
> On Jan 28, 2004, at 12:46 AM, Optim wrote:
>
> > NAVY removes submarine commander
> > Norwich Bulletin
> > ... According to Wikipedia, an online
> > encyclopedia, the Jimmy Carter is
> > 100 feet longer than its sister ships and has
> > been modified for "highly
> > classified missions ...
> >
> > from
> > http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/stories/20040127/localnews/
> > 298767.html
> >
> > found from Google News Alerts.
> >
> > I receive some news stories from time to time
> > which talk about wikipedia or use wikipedia as a
> > reliable source. It seems that our work is good
> > and what we do is useful to humanity!
>
> I was just about to post that myself!  I guess I'm *not* the only one
> using Google News Alerts... :)

Nope, I've had the same one set for a month or two. It's great to see the
use we get... the last, I find especially amusing, remembering some people's
complaints about ship and sub articles.

-- Jake


body:
Delirium wrote:
> Perhaps we ought to have some sort of a requests list we could
> specifically direct these requests to?  That'd probably encourage many
> more such requests, but they'd be unobtrusive, in a place where we could
> go to find out what sorts of things people are looking for and not
finding.

This sounds like a good plan to me. I've never been the sort of person to
turn away someone with a straightforward question, and I'd like somewhere we
can answer them off the normal list. Plus, it'd be easier to find archived
responses to questions if they're not mixed in with the general list
archive.

-- Jake


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
Wikipedia is becoming a resource. What more can we ask for? I also answered,
like this:

"Here's a hint for your homework:
Look up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_stream"

It hardly delayed the expansion of Wikipedia. On the other hand, I do think a
place or list for people to ask questions of this kind is a good idea. In
fact, it would be helpful to us in finding out where we should focus some of our
energies to fill in incomplete articles. We could link to it from the Main
Page.

Danny
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20040129/7eb452c1/attachment.htm


subject: [Wikitech-l] mediation committee

body:
The mediation committee has decided to have a chair.

(The proper terminology should be a chairperson, not a chairman please :-)).

here is the outcome of our considerations :

Mediators are independant in their choice of whose case to mediate, and
how to mediate. We want to keep among ourselves,  a collegial type
atmosphere, not a hierarchical group with a leader who has veto power.

As a consequence, the role of the chair will be one of coordination and
facilitation, not of supervision.  There shall be no hierarchy or
specific superauthority in the group.

We wish that all mediators participate to the best of their ability and
desire, to any task necessary within the committee. <br>
However, we also consider the commitee might benefit both of an
organiser and of a minimum of formality, in particular as regards
decisions or recommendations given by the committee itself. For example :
* The chair should help to make sure that the mediators are trained and
standards upheld
* The chair could help to check each request for mediation is being answered
* The chair should help to check everyone has been consulted for a
decision within the community
* The chair could report for the group, when the group wants to speak
with one voice, for official announcements (for example, to announce the
failure of a major mediation and the transfer of the case to arbitration)

Jimbo' s opinion of a chair role
My thinking is that 'hierarchy' isn't what's important, but rather a
sufficient degree of formality so that we have a way of saying "Here's
the outcome of the mediation" or "Here's where we officially say that
mediation hasn't worked, and that the arbitration committee should
look at it now."

The process needs to be knowable and comprehensible to everyone, so
that it's transparent and positive.

--Jimbo

Any of the mediation member may ask to be the chair, and will have be
approved by the other members.  Appointement to the chair position will
be rotating every couple of months. The current Chairperson is Tuf Kat.

------

well, at least, I hope that this is a correct perception of our
agreement :-))))


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: mediation committee

body:
Anthere a ?crit:

> Mediators are independant in their choice of whose case to mediate, and
> how to mediate.

errr...which case, rather than whose case I guess

Mailing lists are ridiculous, we can not correct ourselves afterwards

bring me a wiki !


from_name: Elly Waterman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Minor changes by anonymous user

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Evan Prodromou" <evan-+DxIcwYt55H9qxiX1TGQuw at public.gmane.org>
> I've made it optional on a per-installation basis to allow minor edits
> by anonymous editors. The option is off by default.
>
> ~ESP
>

Thanks, Elly


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: mediation committee

body:
May someone say I was very sleepy for sending this here ?

Apologies

Anthere a ?crit:
>
>
> Anthere a ?crit:
>
>> Mediators are independant in their choice of whose case to mediate,
>> and how to mediate.
>
>
> errr...which case, rather than whose case I guess
>
> Mailing lists are ridiculous, we can not correct ourselves afterwards
>
> bring me a wiki !


subject: [WikiEN-l] mediation committee

body:
Let's give it another try

The mediation committee has decided to have a chair.

(The proper terminology should be a chairperson, not a chairman please :-)).

here is the outcome of our considerations :

Mediators are independant in their choice of which case to mediate, and
how to mediate. We want to keep among ourselves,  a collegial type
atmosphere, not a hierarchical group with a leader who has veto power.

As a consequence, the role of the chair will be one of coordination and
facilitation, not of supervision.  There shall be no hierarchy or
specific superauthority in the group.

We wish that all mediators participate to the best of their ability and
desire, to any task necessary within the committee. <br>
However, we also consider the commitee might benefit both of an
organiser and of a minimum of formality, in particular as regards
decisions or recommendations given by the committee itself. For example :
* The chair should help to make sure that the mediators are trained and
standards upheld
* The chair could help to check each request for mediation is being answered
* The chair should help to check everyone has been consulted for a
decision within the community
* The chair could report for the group, when the group wants to speak
with one voice, for official announcements (for example, to announce the
failure of a major mediation and the transfer of the case to arbitration)

Jimbo' s opinion of a chair role
My thinking is that 'hierarchy' isn't what's important, but rather a
sufficient degree of formality so that we have a way of saying "Here's
the outcome of the mediation" or "Here's where we officially say that
mediation hasn't worked, and that the arbitration committee should
look at it now."

The process needs to be knowable and comprehensible to everyone, so
that it's transparent and positive.

--Jimbo

Any of the mediation member may ask to be the chair, and will have to be
approved by the other members.  Appointement to the chair position will
be rotating every couple of months. The current Chairperson is Tuf Kat.

------

well, at least, I hope that this is a correct perception of our
agreement :-))))


from_name: KNOTT, T

body:
As the Guilty party who answered the question. I have to say that I checked out the wikipedia article on the Gulf stream and found it to be rather lacking. There were no details such as flow rate, average temp, etc. No false colour maps. No history of who discovered it etc.

As a result of answering the child's HW question I've added gulf stream and all the other ocean currents to my to do list and will be improving them shortly. The thing is, has the question not been asked I probably would never have looked at the page. SO although I agree that there is a danger of setting a precedent and I do see your point I have to disagree that allowing HW questions on this list is necessarily a bad thing.

Theresa
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert [mailto:rkscience100 at yahoo.com]
Sent: 28 January 2004 21:41
To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] A danger of massive homework and research requests

>But there is a great danger
to directly answering questions like these: In a short
amount of time Wikipedia might become known as a place
where people can mail in requests for info, and then we
will be flooded with thousands of requests each month for
help on homework and research. We'd get questions from
people in junior high, high school, and college.


from_name: Optim

body:
I am also interested in ocean currents although I
know nothing about them.

Recently I wrote [[Cromwell current]]. May you
check it for correctness and improve it? thnx.

--Optim .'.

--- "KNOTT, T" <TKNOTT at qcl.org.uk> wrote:
> As the Guilty party who answered the question.
> I have to say that I checked out the wikipedia
> article on the Gulf stream and found it to be
> rather lacking. There were no details such as
> flow rate, average temp, etc. No false colour
> maps. No history of who discovered it etc.
>
> As a result of answering the child's HW
> question I've added gulf stream and all the
> other ocean currents to my to do list and will
> be improving them shortly. The thing is, has
> the question not been asked I probably would
> never have looked at the page. SO although I
> agree that there is a danger of setting a
> precedent and I do see your point I have to
> disagree that allowing HW questions on this
> list is necessarily a bad thing.
>
> Theresa
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert [mailto:rkscience100 at yahoo.com]
> Sent: 28 January 2004 21:41
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] A danger of massive
> homework and research requests
>
> >But there is a great danger
> to directly answering questions like these: In
> a short
> amount of time Wikipedia might become known as
> a place
> where people can mail in requests for info, and
> then we
> will be flooded with thousands of requests each
> month for
> help on homework and research. We'd get
> questions from
> people in junior high, high school, and
> college.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A danger of massive homework and research requ ests

body:
How about [[Wikipedia:Reference desk]] ?

--Optim .'.

--- "Mills, Billy" <billy.mills at thomson.com>
wrote:
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Anthere [mailto:anthere8 at yahoo.com]
> > Sent: 29 January 2004 13:02
> > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> >
> > Seriously, during my 2 weeks taking care of
> the english list, member
> > restricted, I had up to 30 mails per day to
> check.
> > with several ones per days infested by virus
> or worms.
> > We just can't have an open list any more, if
> a solution to found for
> > 1) limit spam
> > 2) improve security for the recipiendaries
> >
> Why not a [[Wikipedia: Ask Wikipedia]] page
> linked form the Main Page?
> Currently a lot of stuff ends up on Village
> Pump that would naturally go to
> an Ask page if it existed. Of course, others
> may well have already suggested
> this.
>
> Billy Mills
>
>
> DISCLAIMER: This message has been scanned by
> Norton Antivirus (using the
> latest definitions) for all known Viruses.
> The information in this message is confidential
> and is intended solely for
> the use of the named addressee. If you are not
> the intended recipient, you
> must not copy, distribute or use this email or
> the information contained in
> it for any purpose other than to notify us. If
> you have received this
> message in error, please notify the sender
> immediately, and delete this
> email from your system. Thank you.
>
>
> >
_______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] PROPOSED: Prohibition of alternate displayable
	usernames

body:
I suggest to prohibit users from changing their
displayed username when they vote, discuss or
participate in talk pages.

It creates confusion and I find this action
highly suspicious.

For example a user may have the username
"Blablabla" but he/she signs with "Mr12356".

Somebody could have a user account "Blablabla"
and sign as "Optim". The link, of course, will
lead to User:Blablabla... We can still
investigate who wrote what by examining the
username link.

But those who don't examine the links, will

Why people do this thing?

If somebody wants to hide his/her username, how
can I trust him/her or pay attention to his/her
vote or message?

If you want to hide your name, you can logoff and
write as an anonymous IP address. Or change your
username, or don't sign, or create more user
accounts, or go to... {CENSORED} :)

May I call you (those who hide their name) to
stop this behaviour, please?

If you just want to individualise your sign, you
can do that with HTML, colours or whatever... but
please let your username intact... So that we can
know who votes or talks without having to examine
the links.

Don't put "masks" on your usernames. I find this
action as antisocial.

Because I notice several users, both new and old
ones, who do that, I suggest to make a new policy
in order to prohibit this phenomenon.

--Optim

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What is a minor change?

body:
that's right.
--Optim .'.

--- Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> The semi-intuition that has established itself
> within the community of
> Wikipedia regulars as to what a "minor edit"
> should be, goes somewhat
> counter to what a newbie would think is
> intuitively "minor".
>
> The opposite of minor is major. I believe most
> newbies would think a
> major edit would be a rewrite of a section of
> the article or the entire
> article. Addition of a sentence, although it
> adds actual information to
> the article, is not generally called a "major"
> edit of the article.
>
> What regulars have come to think of as "minor"
> is what I would call
> "trivial".
>
> Timwi

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Minor changes by anonymous user

body:
Yann Forget wrote:
> > I use Mozilla and Firebird and the auto-login does not work. I must login
> > several times a day. When not active for a while i am log out. Because my
> > username and password are already automatically insert by the browser this
> > goes fast and easy.
>
> Then your setup is broken. I use Mozilla also and I am always logged in.

I used to have exactly the same problem.  I agree with Yann, it was
probably that my setup was broken.  But, I had no idea how to make it
be not broken, so I lived with it for a long time.

I no longer have this problem.

--Jimbo


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Question about Special:ipblocklist

body:
Angela wrote:
> It is the IP of a user whose user name is blocked. For
> example, if you block "User:Angela", my IP is also
> blocked, but for privacy reasons, that is shown as
> #number, rather than displaying my actual IP.
>
> This IP block happens automatically as soon as a user
> blocked by name tries to access the site. If I dialled
> up with a different IP and tried to log in as Angela,
> that IP would be auto-blocked as well, showing up in
> the block log as #1234 and I would see a message
> telling me I was autoblocked because I share an IP
> with Angela.
>
> It is possible to unblock one but not the other.
>
> Angela.
>
>  --- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote: > On
> Special:ipblocklist, I see three basic types of
>
>>entries.  I
>>only understand two of them.
>>
>>First, there's the ip block, for example:
>>'Joe Sysop blocked 123.123.123.123'
>>
>>Second, there's the username block:
>>'Jane Sysop blocked ReallyOffensiveName'
>>
>>Third, there's these:
>>'Joe Sysob blocked #1521'
>>
>>What are those?  There's no link to the contribs, so
>>it's impossible
>>to see what they are.  The number appears to be the
>>number of the block,
>>not an identifier of what was blocked.

The original behaviour of the feature was to block both the user's name
and IP address. Allan Crossman pointed out in this message:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-September/005857.html

that this feature could be used by sysops to quietly gain the IP address
of any user, by blocking them briefly then unblocking them before they
made an edit. To address this, I added the "ipb_auto" field to the block
table, which is set for any automatically generated row. On
automatically generated rows, the primary key is shown instead of the IP
address.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikitech-l] More problems installing MediaWiki

body:
On Jan 29, 2004, at 07:36, Timwi wrote:
> I'm trying to compile texvc so I can use <math>:
>
> 	kern:~/mediawiki-1.1.0/math$ make
> 	ocamlopt -c texvc.ml
> 	File "texvc.ml", line 8, characters 14-27:
> 	Unbound value Digest.to_hex
> 	make: *** [texvc.cmx] Error 2

What version of ocaml is installed? The one in debian-stable *doesn't
work*.

3.06 or 3.07 should work.

> Oh, and P.S.: I got it to work on MySQL 3.2! SQL statements like this:
>
>     wfQuery("DELETE linkscc FROM linkscc,brokenlinks WHERE
>              lcc_title=bl_from AND bl_to='{$ptitle}'", DB_WRITE);
>
> are new in MySQL 4. I solved it by replacing it with something like
> this:

Disable $wgEnablePersistentLC to skip these. If you're using MySQL 3.2
performance will suck on a large site anyway, and it won't make that
big a difference to a small site.

> There was also one query where it was using "links" instead of
> "brokenlinks".

Could you point out where?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040129/2c6c31cf/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

body:
 > From: daniwo59 at aol.com
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A danger of massive homework
> and research requests
> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 07:27:52 EST
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>
> Wikipedia is becoming a resource. What more can we
> ask for? I also answered,
> like this:
>
> "Here's a hint for your homework:
> Look up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_stream"
>
> It hardly delayed the expansion of Wikipedia. On the
> other hand, I do think a
> place or list for people to ask questions of this
> kind is a good idea. In
> fact, it would be helpful to us in finding out where
> we should focus some of our
> energies to fill in incomplete articles. We could
> link to it from the Main
> Page.
>
> Danny

Isn't that what Wikibooks's completely neglected
[[Study help desk]] was supposed to be for?

LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


body:
No good. Probably all the mediators and arbitrators need to edit, and fuss,
under alternate names to keep bad feelings from developing toward them when
they play their mediator or arbitrator role.

Fred

> From: Optim <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 09:54:05 -0800 (PST)
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] PROPOSED: Prohibition of alternate displayable
> usernames
>
> I suggest to prohibit users from changing their
> displayed username when they vote, discuss or
> participate in talk pages.
>
> It creates confusion and I find this action
> highly suspicious.
>
> For example a user may have the username
> "Blablabla" but he/she signs with "Mr12356".
>
> Somebody could have a user account "Blablabla"
> and sign as "Optim". The link, of course, will
> lead to User:Blablabla... We can still
> investigate who wrote what by examining the
> username link.
>
> But those who don't examine the links, will
>
> Why people do this thing?
>
> If somebody wants to hide his/her username, how
> can I trust him/her or pay attention to his/her
> vote or message?
>
> If you want to hide your name, you can logoff and
> write as an anonymous IP address. Or change your
> username, or don't sign, or create more user
> accounts, or go to... {CENSORED} :)
>
> May I call you (those who hide their name) to
> stop this behaviour, please?
>
> If you just want to individualise your sign, you
> can do that with HTML, colours or whatever... but
> please let your username intact... So that we can
> know who votes or talks without having to examine
> the links.
>
> Don't put "masks" on your usernames. I find this
> action as antisocial.
>
> Because I notice several users, both new and old
> ones, who do that, I suggest to make a new policy
> in order to prohibit this phenomenon.
>
> --Optim
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Dan Carlson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Trouble deleting images?

body:
I'm having trouble deleting some images that were uploaded to my
MediaWiki-powered website.

In these cases, there's only one version of the image available.  In
the listing, I see the appropriate link for (del) and (cur) -- without
a link -- appears right after it.

However, when I try to click the (del) link, I'm given a message that
says "bad title".  Is this a bug in the software?  Or am I going about
deleting images the wrong way.  Some help would be appreciated.

Here's the location of one of the images I'm trying to delete:
http://memoryalpha.st-minutiae.com/wiki/Image:Enterprise_Starships.jpg

Thanks,
Dan Carlson


from_name: Mills, Billy

body:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anthere [mailto:anthere8 at yahoo.com]
> Sent: 29 January 2004 13:02
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>
> Seriously, during my 2 weeks taking care of the english list, member
> restricted, I had up to 30 mails per day to check.
> with several ones per days infested by virus or worms.
> We just can't have an open list any more, if a solution to found for
> 1) limit spam
> 2) improve security for the recipiendaries
>
Why not a [[Wikipedia: Ask Wikipedia]] page linked form the Main Page?
Currently a lot of stuff ends up on Village Pump that would naturally go to
an Ask page if it existed. Of course, others may well have already suggested
this.

Billy Mills

DISCLAIMER: This message has been scanned by Norton Antivirus (using the
latest definitions) for all known Viruses.
The information in this message is confidential and is intended solely for
the use of the named addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, you
must not copy, distribute or use this email or the information contained in
it for any purpose other than to notify us. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender immediately, and delete this
email from your system. Thank you.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20040129/f92b279b/attachment.htm


body:
daniwo59 at aol.com a ?crit:
> Wikipedia is becoming a resource. What more can we ask for? I also
> answered, like this:
>
> "Here's a hint for your homework:
> Look up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_stream"
>
> It hardly delayed the expansion of Wikipedia. On the other hand, I do
> think a place or list for people to ask questions of this kind is a good
> idea. In fact, it would be helpful to us in finding out where we should
> focus some of our energies to fill in incomplete articles. We could link
> to it from the Main Page.

True, but if you set such a list, it has to be open (not member
restricted)...and then, I really suggest that we set an anti-spam list.

Seriously, during my 2 weeks taking care of the english list, member
restricted, I had up to 30 mails per day to check.
with several ones per days infested by virus or worms.
We just can't have an open list any more, if a solution to found for
1) limit spam
2) improve security for the recipiendaries


from_name: Timwi

body:
Hello,

thanks for helping me with my previous problem. Here's the next :)

I'm trying to compile texvc so I can use <math>:

	kern:~/mediawiki-1.1.0/math$ make
	ocamlopt -c texvc.ml
	File "texvc.ml", line 8, characters 14-27:
	Unbound value Digest.to_hex
	make: *** [texvc.cmx] Error 2

How might I solve this problem? The line in question is:

     let md5 = Digest.to_hex (Digest.string outtex) in

Do I need to install any extra packages for this?

Thank you,
Timwi


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
I don't think we should do students' homework for them. Queries in the
form of, "My professor assigned me to answer this question; please give
me the answer" are an invitation to help a student cheat. I choose to
decline such invitations.

If the information required isn't in the Wikipedia, then by all means
let's respond to the query by adding that information. I'd love to know
more about ocean currents, myself.

There's been discussion (last year, was it?) about how Wikipedia is like
a library, or perhaps not like one. The reference librarian is happy to
help you FIND YOUR OWN ANSWERS, thus facilitating your homework -- not
doing it for you.

The point is to help you learn, to let you know.

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: German Wikipedia slow?

body:
Not just the German, en is at a crawl.

Nils Kehrein wrote:

> What do you mean? There's nothing sloooooooooo[connection timeout]
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

DISCLAIMER: This message has been scanned by Norton Antivirus (using the
latest definitions) for all known Viruses.
The information in this message is confidential and is intended solely for
the use of the named addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, you
must not copy, distribute or use this email or the information contained in
it for any purpose other than to notify us. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender immediately, and delete this
email from your system. Thank you.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040129/2fc278bc/attachment.html>


subject:
[Wikitech-l] (in case someone wants to install MediaWiki on MySQL
	3.2)

body:
Oh, and P.S.: I got it to work on MySQL 3.2! SQL statements like this:

     wfQuery("DELETE linkscc FROM linkscc,brokenlinks WHERE
              lcc_title=bl_from AND bl_to='{$ptitle}'", DB_WRITE);

are new in MySQL 4. I solved it by replacing it with something like this:

     $ptitle = wfStrencode( $to->getPrefixedDBkey() );
     $sql = "SELECT bl_from FROM brokenlinks WHERE bl_to='{$ptitle}'";
     $res = wfQuery ($sql, DB_READ, $fname);
     if (wfNumRows ($res) != 0) {
         $inlst = "";
         while ($obj1 = wfFetchObject ($res)) {
             if ($inlst != "") { $inlst = $inlst + ","; }
             $inlst = $inlst + $obj1->bl_from;
         }
         wfQuery("DELETE FROM linkscc WHERE lcc_pageid IN ({$inlst})",
                 DB_WRITE);
     }

If anyone can see any obvious bug in this, let me know, but it seems
that it's working quite fine! :-)

There was also one query where it was using "links" instead of
"brokenlinks". It had two individual DELETE queries that I have merged
into one. I believe that gives better performance, no? :-)

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Being sysop

body:
Sorry, here's another (somewhat related) question. How do I make someone
a sysop? How do I grant privileges to users?

Thanks,
Timwi


from_name: Nils Kehrein

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: German Wikipedia slow?

body:
Thomas Luft wrote:
> right now (21:03 UTC) the German Wikipedia is rather slow.  [..]

What do you mean? There's nothing sloooooooooo[connection timeout]


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Platform of Choice

body:
On Jan 29, 2004, at 16:24, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> I want to set up a Wiki using WikiMedia on a virtual server. I have
> available a BSD server, a Linux server and a Windows server.
>
> I would guess that it would work best on the system you are using on
> Wikipedia, although this might be debatable to some extent.
>
> So, what is the server type you are using, (versions of OS and PHP,
> etc.) and is that the best overall platform?

Our live servers all run Red Hat Linux 9 (except the database server,
an Opteron box which came with SuSE 8.something preinstalled). My test
box at home runs FreeBSD 5.2.

Windows can be made to work, but it's not extensively tested and
probably some portions won't work right.

For the web server, we use Apache 1.3.29 (with a patch to fix &
characters in rewritten URLs; you'll find this in the maintenance/
subdirectory of the MediaWiki distribution). Apache 2.0.x may have
occasional oddities but should work (it's what I test with at home).

For the database, use the current MySQL 4.0 release (4.0.17). The 3.2.x
releases should work (if you set $wgEnablePersistentLC = false; in
LocalSettings.php) but will not perform as well, particularly on a
large database.

PHP 4.3.4 is recommended, installed as an Apache module (either static
or as a DSO should be fine). 4.1.x and 4.2.x may work. 4.0.x will not
work. It's highly recommended to include zlib support; see the INSTALL
file in the MediaWiki distribution for some sample configure switches
and be sure to set register_globals = On in your php.ini.

A PHP opcode cache is recommended if you have any significant load; try
one of these:
http://turck-mmcache.sourceforge.net/ (open source)
http://www.php-accelerator.co.uk/ (proprietary non-commercial)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040129/58c4ea55/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Kelly Anderson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Platform of Choice

body:
I want to set up a Wiki using WikiMedia on a virtual server. I have
available a BSD server, a Linux server and a Windows server.

I would guess that it would work best on the system you are using on
Wikipedia, although this might be debatable to some extent.

So, what is the server type you are using, (versions of OS and PHP, etc.)
and is that the best overall platform?

My wiki will be www.codewiki.com and org, for source code in a Wiki format.
Thanks!

-Kelly


from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] newspaper article - please keep the servers up

body:
A newspaper article of Erik M?ller about Wikipedia was printed today in the
"S?ddeutsche Zeitung", one of the largest newspapers in Germany (circulation
about 450.000). In addition, we had a snow chaos last night and they link
prominently to our article on [[Schnee]]. So, please, if possible, don't do
anything which will bring down the servers from now on (it's 5:30 pm in
Germany right now, people come back from work now) until tomorrow, unless
it's really really necessary. There might be many people wanting to have a
look at us today.

Uli


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Being sysop

body:
Gabriel Wicke wrote:

> On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 16:04:42 +0000, Timwi wrote:
>
>>Sorry, here's another (somewhat related) question. How do I make someone a
>>sysop? How do I grant privileges to users?
>
> You have run a sql query by hand. The lazy way i did it was to save
> 'sysop, developer' into a text file and upload it into the rights field of
> the user through phpmyadmin.

Thanks. I've looked at the user table and performed the following query:
update user set user_rights='sysop,developer' where user_name='Timwi';
and that seems to have worked. Thank you! :)

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What is a minor change?

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> There is no official definition of what a "minor change" is. My
> working definition is "anything that my fellow contributors would
> agree is minor".

The semi-intuition that has established itself within the community of
Wikipedia regulars as to what a "minor edit" should be, goes somewhat
counter to what a newbie would think is intuitively "minor".

The opposite of minor is major. I believe most newbies would think a
major edit would be a rewrite of a section of the article or the entire
article. Addition of a sentence, although it adds actual information to
the article, is not generally called a "major" edit of the article.

What regulars have come to think of as "minor" is what I would call
"trivial".

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Learning from Experience

body:
Sheldon Rampton wrote:

> Perhaps it would be a good idea to try setting up a separate wiki
> specifically for the purpose of discussing and recording policy
> decisions, actions and precedents. We could call it a "Wikislature."

[[meta:]] can be used for that...


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Being sysop

body:
On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 16:04:42 +0000, Timwi wrote:

>
> Sorry, here's another (somewhat related) question. How do I make someone a
> sysop? How do I grant privileges to users?

You have run a sql query by hand. The lazy way i did it was to save
'sysop, developer' into a text file and upload it into the rights field of
the user through phpmyadmin.
It's a blob, so phpmyadmin won't let you edit it directly
--
Gabriel Wicke


from_name: A

from_email: A

subject: [WikiEN-l] 168... should be desysoped

body:
168... has protected [[DNA]] despite his being
involved in the edit war there. He has repeatedly
refused to discuss the article on the talk page.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] 168... should be desysoped

body:
A [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:

>168... has protected [[DNA]] despite his being
>involved in the edit war there. He has repeatedly
>refused to discuss the article on the talk page.
>
>
We already have a space for discussing these sorts of things, near the
bottom of [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]].

-Mark


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikitech-l] list admin

body:
though I removed myself from the list admin of wikien-l, I am still
receiving mails from the mailing list, as if I was still an admin on it.
I checked the administration interface, I am no more listed.

Could someone please find why I am still receiving the spam and virus
please ?

thanks in advance


from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Homework and research direct requests

body:
It used to be true, and may still be, that when you bought a print copy
of the Britannica and do all the things they want you to do (like
subscribing to their yearbook), the price also entitled you to submit a
limited number of research requests to the Britannica. You were allowed
five a year, or something like that.

Soooooo... by analogy... should the price that people pay for Wikipedia
similarly entitle them to a limited number of research requests?

:-)

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at world.std.com alternate:
dpbsmith at alum.mit.edu
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 01/29/04 19:28, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> From: daniwo59 at aol.com

>>It hardly delayed the expansion of Wikipedia. On the
>>other hand, I do think a
>>place or list for people to ask questions of this
>>kind is a good idea. In
>>fact, it would be helpful to us in finding out where
>>we should focus some of our
>>energies to fill in incomplete articles. We could
>>link to it from the Main
>>Page.

> Isn't that what Wikibooks's completely neglected
> [[Study help desk]] was supposed to be for?

As the Usenet 2 FAQ points out, naming is everything.

A link from the main page might be good. "Got a question
and the answer isn't [http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awikipedia.org
here]? Ask at the Wikipedia [[Wikipedia:reference desk]]!"

The problem would be the bottom 1% of respondents: the people
with an overwhelming sense of entitlement. "You didn't answer
my question. You suck."

- d.


body:
On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:01:34 +0100, Anthere wrote:

> We just can't have an open list any more,
> if a solution to found for 1) limit spam
> 2) improve security for the recipiendaries

I have spamassassin running on my server for all mail accounts- it works
just great- even without training. Filtered 1600 spams in the last three
months, missed four, no false positives.
--
Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wikitech-l] Login problem

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hi,

Le Thursday 29 January 2004 19:23, Jimmy Wales a ?crit :
> Yann Forget wrote:
> > > I use Mozilla and Firebird and the auto-login does not work. I must
> > > login several times a day. When not active for a while i am log out.
> > > Because my username and password are already automatically insert by
> > > the browser this goes fast and easy.
> >
> > Then your setup is broken. I use Mozilla also and I am always logged in.
>
> I used to have exactly the same problem.  I agree with Yann, it was
> probably that my setup was broken.  But, I had no idea how to make it
> be not broken, so I lived with it for a long time.

May be check the cookie settings and/or remove the actual cookie and log
again.

> I no longer have this problem.
>
> --Jimbo

Yann
- --
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAGWyAm4KYjQo0y9oRAl+0AKCDRUBBcYhZky3UDfdus+Qa215g9gCfaRPW
kx9iCaJlRTZz54uj5mNGVGY=
=7KKK
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Wikitech-l] Trouble deleting images?

body:
On Jan 29, 2004, at 09:18, Dan Carlson wrote:
> I'm having trouble deleting some images that were uploaded to my
> MediaWiki-powered website.
>
> In these cases, there's only one version of the image available.  In
> the listing, I see the appropriate link for (del) and (cur) -- without
> a link -- appears right after it.
>
> However, when I try to click the (del) link, I'm given a message that
> says "bad title".  Is this a bug in the software?  Or am I going about
> deleting images the wrong way.  Some help would be appreciated.

This was fixed in the November 18, 2003 release, and it should work
fine in the 1.1.0 release currently available at
wikipedia.sourceforge.net/

(Mental note: add a user-visible release version indicator.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040130/b94e232a/attachment.pgp>


from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Another Wikipedia mention

body:
Hi,

     I am still always surprised to see "Wikipedia" mentioned in a
newsletter, article, etc.
     Tonight, I found another favorable mention of Wikipedia in a newsletter
I have been reading for years. This is Karen Kenworthy's Newsletter, a weekly
e-mail that explains and later improves on a dozen or so freeware utilities
for Windows.
See:

http://www.karenware.com/newsletters/2004/2004-01-29.asp

in which she cites resources on acronyms:
Interesting Links:

http://www.acronymfinder.com/
http://www.ucc.ie/cgi-bin/acronym
http://www.acronyms.ch/
http://www.wikipedia.org/ - lots of fascinating info about nearly everything

                       As Ever,

                          Ruth Ifcher

--


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What is a minor change?

body:
My rule of thumb is that a "minor edit" (by whatever
name you choose to call it) is one to which no one
could possibly object. Fixing a clear-cut spelling
error would fall into this category (although I like
to try to make sure it's not a spelling variant).
Fixing a link may NOT fit into this category, unless I
know for certain that the link I'm making is the one
that was intended.

I still believe in being bold in editing. I'm just
VERY careful about using "minor edit". Again, as far
as I'm concerned, the feature is virtually useless.

-Rich Holton (a.k.a. Anthropos)

--- Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
> Theresa wrote
>
> >That's very sensible. Can we have "minor edit"
> renamed "trivial edit" to
> make things clear ?
>
> Hmmm - how about 'maintenance edit'.  I don't think
> maintenance is at all
> trivial - keep the flower beds weeded, and a good
> impression is made on
> visitors.  I do consider a high proportion of my
> minor edits to fall in that
> category.
>
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reference Desk or Ask Wikipedia

body:
I don't think it's necessary to create a fork in order to implement this
idea when most responses have been positive. But "Last Call".

Fred

> From: "Alex R." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:20:51 -0500
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Homework and research direct requests
>
> What price?  The Charter of Wikimedia states the the
> purpose of that organization is to "Create and freely distribute
> a free encyclopedia in all the languages of the world" (Article III).
> There have been something like $40,000 in donations to date
> just in the first seven months of the Foundation's existence.
> http://www.sunbiz.org/COR/2003/0620/90039369.tif
>
> Wikipedia will remain free, even if Wikimedia is dissolved or
> becomes insolvent. Why?  Because all the work distributed on
> all the Wikipedias and related projects are released under the
> GFDL a license that allows liberal copying.
>
> Anyone can create a "fork" of Wikipedia, or a mirror site
> (under their own name as Wikipedia is a trademark). If you
> want to start a homework service using Wikipedia info, go
> right ahead, but "the price that people pay for Wikipedia"
> will always be free, there is nothing however stopping someone
> from starting a homework service that using the Wikipedia
> database (note the warranty disclaimer notice on each page,
> however).
>
> Alex756
>
> From: "Daniel P.B.Smith" <dpbsmith at world.std.com>
>> It used to be true, and may still be, that when you bought a print copy
>> of the Britannica and do all the things they want you to do (like
>> subscribing to their yearbook), the price also entitled you to submit a
>> limited number of research requests to the Britannica. You were allowed
>> five a year, or something like that.
>>
>> Soooooo... by analogy... should the price that people pay for Wikipedia
>> similarly entitle them to a limited number of research requests?
>>
>> :-)
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Optim

subject: [Wikipedia-l] comment on wikipedia

body:
I was describing to someone how Wikipedia works:
"anyone can edit" etc.

He answered with this argument:
"Wikipedia is the triumph of the average person!
of the man in the street!)"

(average meaning: not good, not bad, just OK)

I asked "why?"

His explanation:
"Great brilliant works are built by individuals.
Groups of people can only create average works.
If someone writes something good in the wiki,
other average persons will intervene with his/her
work and turn it into an average work. If someone
writes something bad in the wiki, the others will
again turn it into something of average value.
with your system (meaning: Wikipedia's system)
you can be sure that you will never create
something too bad but also never something too
good. You can create only average articles."

The idea behind his argument was that Wikipedia
will be a good resource as long as it attracts
good cotnributors. but it will soon become an
average site/encyclopaedia because it allows
anyone to join the project and edit, and most
people are just average persons and not brilliant
writers.

Do you think it's true? and how can we answer
this argument?

--Optim

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] External links

body:
Which subdomains are linked to most often as 'external links' in
Wikipedia?

Looking for bias in this list is a dangerous activity.

I personally think that the BBC is horribly biased, and so I was
alarmed to see how often we link to them, as compared to other sources
that may give a more "fair and balanced" perspective (yes, you know
what I mean, and yes I'm having fun).  HOWEVER, a huge proportion of
hte BBC links are from the page *about* the BBC, which links to lots
of divisions of the BBC.

Most of the other cases are similar.

Still, I found the list interesting enough to pass along...

us.imdb.com - 519

www.geocities.com - 487

www.imdb.com - 327

www.wikipedia.org - 297

www.bbc.co.uk - 271

onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu - 267

www.nytimes.com - 258

www.house.gov - 202

www.guardian.co.uk - 190

dmoz.org - 166

www.ietf.org - 156

www.cnn.com - 149

34sp.eurosong.net - 149

www.google.com - 137

www.nobel-winners.com - 136

www.nobel.se - 132

www.pbs.org - 132

www.meritbadge.com - 121

members.aol.com - 120

quote.wikipedia.org - 119

www.washingtonpost.com - 118

www.ibiblio.org - 117

www.webelements.com - 111

www.yale.edu - 106

www.indianchild.com - 106

www.world-gazetteer.com - 100

www.nps.gov - 99

www.duke.edu - 98

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov - 97

environmentalchemistry.com - 97

www.newadvent.org - 96

www.angelfire.com - 91

www.itis.usda.gov - 90

www.amazon.com - 85

www.baseball-reference.com - 83

www.cbc.ca - 83

www.wired.com - 80

www.ethnologue.com - 80

www.heise.de - 80

www.w3.org - 79

members.tripod.com - 78

www.research.att.com - 78

www.history.navy.mil - 78

directory.google.com - 77

slashdot.org - 77

groups.google.com - 76

www.faqs.org - 75

www.fas.org - 75

www.tat.or.th - 75

mathworld.wolfram.com - 73

kanchanapisek.or.th - 73

www.archives.gov - 72

www.whitehouse.gov - 71

www.un.org - 71

www.insecula.com - 70

www.metrodemontreal.com - 70

www.us-israel.org - 66

groups.yahoo.com - 66

www.fishbase.org - 65

wikiquote.org - 62

www.bartleby.com - 62

www.fordham.edu - 61

bioguide.congress.gov - 61

www.gnu.org - 58

www.copsrus.com - 58

www.nsdl.arm.gov - 55

www.epinions.com - 54

www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk - 53

ull.chemistry.uakron.edu - 51

www.seds.org - 51

www.plattegronden.nl - 51

www.state.gov - 49

www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com - 49

www.conigliofamily.com - 48

www.salon.com - 48

www.xs4all.nl - 48

www.schoolhouserock.tv - 48

www.time.com - 47

memory.loc.gov - 45

www.zmag.org - 45

www.nlm.nih.gov - 45

www.tsha.utexas.edu - 45

www.cdc.gov - 45

www.defenselink.mil - 45

www.globalsecurity.org - 45

zdnet.com.com - 45

www.adl.org - 43

www.microsoft.com - 43

www.ie.lspace.org - 43

www.snopes.com - 42

www.info.gov.hk - 42

www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk - 41

europa.eu.int - 41

www.rfc-editor.org - 41

www.loc.gov - 40

www.apple.com - 40

www.washtimes.com - 40

plato.stanford.edu - 40

scriptures.lds.org - 40

citeseer.nj.nec.com - 40

digital.library.upenn.edu - 39

www.HavenWorks.com - 39

www.nature.com - 39

www.machall.com - 38

www.ccel.org - 37

arxiv.org - 37

www.vatican.va - 37

web.mit.edu - 37

wiktionary.org - 36

news.com.com - 36

etext.lib.virginia.edu - 35

sources.wikipedia.org - 35

www.sdu.nl - 35

foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk - 34

www.allmusic.com - 34

home.earthlink.net - 34

www.nba.com - 34

tisue.net - 34

www.theregister.co.uk - 33

abcnews.go.com - 33

java.sun.com - 33

sunsite.berkeley.edu - 31

www.counterpunch.org - 31

www.religioustolerance.org - 31

biodiversity.uno.edu - 31

www.straightdope.com - 31

www.livius.org - 31

www.abc.net.au - 31

www.crimelibrary.com - 31

www.marxists.org - 30

www.aozora.gr.jp - 30

www.synaptic.bc.ca - 29

www.unicode.org - 29

caselaw.lp.findlaw.com - 29

www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk - 29

www.tvtome.com - 29

www.battle.net - 29

www.foxnews.com - 29

www.npr.org - 29

www.ex.ac.uk - 28

www.msnbc.com - 28

www.statistik.admin.ch - 28

www.newscientist.com - 28

story.news.yahoo.com - 28

www.eia.doe.gov - 28

web.archive.org - 28

www.cbsnews.com - 28

earthobservatory.nasa.gov - 28

www.olympic.org - 28

www.sfgate.com - 28

imdb.com - 28

www.astronautix.com - 27

usinfo.state.gov - 27

etext.library.adelaide.edu.au - 27

ourworld.compuserve.com - 27

www.peakware.com - 27

www.pokemondungeon.com - 27

pdreader.org - 26

skepdic.com - 26

education.jlab.org - 26

msdn.microsoft.com - 26

www.mozilla.org - 26

www.shakespeare-literature.com - 26

www.tate.org.uk - 26

www.acmuller.net - 25

www.epa.gov - 25

www.cia.gov - 25

www.egs.edu - 25

edition.cnn.com - 25

sourceforge.net - 25

www.sacred-texts.com - 25

mozillaquest.com - 25

www.grida.no - 24

www.lysator.liu.se - 24

www.rcsb.org - 24

www.usatoday.com - 24

www.sff.net - 24

www.census.gov - 24

www.mapquest.com - 24

www.klov.com - 23

www.hrw.org - 23

www-aus.cricket.org - 23

www.kuro5hin.org - 23

www.mfa.gov.il - 23

www.travelchinaguide.com - 23

www.kirjasto.sci.fi - 23

www.thrale.com - 23

www.artcyclopedia.com - 23

www.stanford.edu - 23

www.rootsweb.com - 23

www.math.miami.edu - 23

biz.yahoo.com - 23

www.hku.hk - 23

www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk - 22

lcweb2.loc.gov - 22

en.wikipedia.org - 22

www.telegraph.co.uk - 22

www.cl.cam.ac.uk - 22

www.disinfopedia.org - 22

www.idf.il - 22

www.btinternet.com - 22

www.ebible.org - 22

lwn.net - 22

www.theatlantic.com - 21

www.usdoj.gov - 21

www.omniglot.com - 21

home.att.net - 21

www.jsc.nasa.gov - 21

www.globeandmail.com - 21

classics.mit.edu - 20

www.columbia.edu - 20

www.adherents.com - 20

www.eff.org - 20

media.guardian.co.uk - 20

www.senate.gov - 20

www.biblegateway.com - 20

www.maintour.com - 20

primes.utm.edu - 20

www.pitt.edu - 20

www.amorc.org - 20

www.newsfactor.com - 20


subject: [Wikipedia-l] comment on wikipedia

body:
Gareth Owen wrote:
> Optim <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk> writes:
>
> > Do you think it's true?
>
> No.  I've seen no evidence of this process.

Still, I think there is something to it, and I have strong doubts that
a wiki or similarly "wide-open" collaborative process could produce a
great novel or play or poem.

An encyclopedia is particularly well suited to the wiki process,
because it isn't really _supposed_ to be individualistic in that way.
_Greatness_ for an encyclopedia article involves a pretty healthy dose
of "averaging" as one of it's essential components.

Britannica sells a delightful volume of classic articles, many written
by prominent people with an axe to grind.  They're great essays, but
as encyclopedia articles, to my mind they fall short significantly of
the kind of neutrality that we're so good at.

--Jimbo


from_name: Alex R.

body:
What price?  The Charter of Wikimedia states the the
purpose of that organization is to "Create and freely distribute
a free encyclopedia in all the languages of the world" (Article III).
There have been something like $40,000 in donations to date
just in the first seven months of the Foundation's existence.
http://www.sunbiz.org/COR/2003/0620/90039369.tif

Wikipedia will remain free, even if Wikimedia is dissolved or
becomes insolvent. Why?  Because all the work distributed on
all the Wikipedias and related projects are released under the
GFDL a license that allows liberal copying.

Anyone can create a "fork" of Wikipedia, or a mirror site
(under their own name as Wikipedia is a trademark). If you
want to start a homework service using Wikipedia info, go
right ahead, but "the price that people pay for Wikipedia"
will always be free, there is nothing however stopping someone
from starting a homework service that using the Wikipedia
database (note the warranty disclaimer notice on each page,
however).

Alex756

From: "Daniel P.B.Smith" <dpbsmith at world.std.com>
> It used to be true, and may still be, that when you bought a print copy
> of the Britannica and do all the things they want you to do (like
> subscribing to their yearbook), the price also entitled you to submit a
> limited number of research requests to the Britannica. You were allowed
> five a year, or something like that.
>
> Soooooo... by analogy... should the price that people pay for Wikipedia
> similarly entitle them to a limited number of research requests?
>
> :-)
>


from_name: KNOTT, T

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What is a minor change?

body:
-----Original Message-----
From: Timwi [mailto:timwi at gmx.net]
Sent: 29 January 2004 18:07
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Cc: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What is a minor change?

>What regulars have come to think of as "minor" is what I would call
"trivial".

>Timwi

That's very sensible. Can we have "minor edit" renamed "trivial edit" to
make things clear ?

Theresa


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Spam Assassin

body:
Gabriel wrote:

> On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:01:34 +0100, Anthere wrote:
>
> > We just can't have an open list any more,
> > if a solution to found for 1) limit spam
> > 2) improve security for the recipiendaries
>
> I have spamassassin running on my server for all mail
> accounts- it works just great- even without training.
> Filtered 1600 spams in the last three months, missed
> four, no false positives.

Brion,

Can we install Spam Assassin software on the wikien-l mailing list? How
about other mailing lists?

Anthere and I have gotten tired of reading and deleting up to 30 daily
spam, spam, spam, ham, eggs and spam (hasn't got MUCH spam in it) every
day -- the joke gets old after a while.

Ed Poor
Wikien-l Admin Emeritus


subject: [Wikitech-l] Spam Assassin


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What is a minor change?

body:
Theresa wrote

>That's very sensible. Can we have "minor edit" renamed "trivial edit" to
make things clear ?

Hmmm - how about 'maintenance edit'.  I don't think maintenance is at all
trivial - keep the flower beds weeded, and a good impression is made on
visitors.  I do consider a high proportion of my minor edits to fall in that
category.

Charles


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Spam Assassin

body:
On Jan 30, 2004, at 06:41, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Can we install Spam Assassin software on the wikien-l mailing list? How
> about other mailing lists?

Do you know how to set it up properly as a machine-wide service?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040130/a3cad584/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Dan Carlson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Trouble deleting images?

body:
On Jan 30, 2004, at 3:12 AM, Brion Vibber wrote:

>> However, when I try to click the (del) link, I'm given a message that
>> says "bad title".  Is this a bug in the software?  Or am I going
>> about deleting images the wrong way.  Some help would be appreciated.
>
> This was fixed in the November 18, 2003 release, and it should work
> fine in the 1.1.0 release currently available at
> wikipedia.sourceforge.net/

Ah, okay.

In that case, is there any place I can be referred to for upgrading a
MediaWiki installation without access to the command line?  I'm running
on a shared (virtual) hosting account.

Thanks again,
Dan Carlson


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] why an average person would wish to ruin a good
	article?

body:
The average person has taken a course at university in the subject and
stands ready to regurgitate what they "learned". Such material has the
support of other "educated" users.

Fred

> From: Gareth Owen <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: 30 Jan 2004 16:28:33 +0000
> To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] comment on wikipedia
>
> Ask him why an average person would wish to ruin a good article?
> And why the community would then leave those detrimental changes unreverted.


body:
You're changing the subject. Which is that an excellent article written by a
knowledgable person which CONFORMS TO THE ACCEPTED CANON OF KNOWLEDGE can be
trashed back to the level of what the average users remember from their
undergraduate courses.

Fred

> From: Gareth Owen <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: 30 Jan 2004 17:38:49 +0000
> To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] why an average person would wish to ruin a good
> article?
>
> Well, wikipedia is not a place for original research and theorising.


subject: [WikiEN-l] New servers delivered!

body:
Sorry for the massive crossposting, but this is big good news.

The new colocation facility (Neutelligent/Hostway, Tampa) just called
me and they are at this moment taking delivery of 9 new servers
belonging to the Wikimedia Foundation.  :-)

I'm heading over there now with Michael and we will be spending as
long as it takes to install them.

It's more up to Brion and the other developers as to when we'll be
able to go live on these.  I'm just going to get them up and running
and make sure that the latest (most secure) ssh is on them.

Since I'm on my way out the door and need a quick list of names

suidas
beauvais
glanwilla
moreri
hoffman
bayle
coronelli
zwinger
browne

are taken from "Notable encyclopedists before 1700",
in the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New servers delivered!


subject: [Wikitech-l] New servers delivered!


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] External links

body:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Which subdomains are linked to most often as 'external links' in
> Wikipedia?
>
> Looking for bias in this list is a dangerous activity.

I feel a useful, if not particularly exciting, Wikipedia task is to
periodically check these links, to verify that they still work, that
they offer useful material, etc.
>
> I personally think that the BBC is horribly biased, and so I was
> alarmed to see how often we link to them, as compared to other sources
> that may give a more "fair and balanced" perspective (yes, you know
> what I mean, and yes I'm having fun).

I didn't know Al Franken had a web page.

More seriously, I guess this preference of links to news sites with a
center to left POV reflects the interests & nature of the WP community.
All of my links to news sites have been to my local newspaper, which
historically presents a Republican POV (although it has been gradually
drifting to the left relative to the rest of the media).

>       HOWEVER, a huge proportion of
> hte BBC links are from the page *about* the BBC, which links to lots
> of divisions of the BBC.
>
> Most of the other cases are similar.

One catagory that surprised me was the number of external links back to
Wikipedia. Surely most of them can be modified to a simple hyperlink.

I wasn't surprised at the number of links to the Internet Movie Database,
though; variations on its URL make it the first & third most linked
site. However, having used it frequently over the years (since it was
nothing more than a collection of perl scripts on a server in Wales),
I know that as a resource it is thin in facts as compared to WP currently,
& even admitting many of our articles need work.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] External links

body:
I'm surprised that there are only 40 links to the Washington Times. Is
someone going around behind me and removing these? Or are they just
expiring because they embargo their news after a couple of weeks?

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikitech-l] New servers delivered!

body:
On Jan 30, 2004, at 11:27, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> The new colocation facility (Neutelligent/Hostway, Tampa) just called
> me and they are at this moment taking delivery of 9 new servers
> belonging to the Wikimedia Foundation.  :-)

Neat!

> It's more up to Brion and the other developers as to when we'll be
> able to go live on these.  I'm just going to get them up and running
> and make sure that the latest (most secure) ssh is on them.

We will do *nothing* with them until they've passed thorough memory
tests and maybe some disk grinding for good measure.

If you guys could run a few passes of memtest86 on each machine before
setting them up and putting them on a nework, that would be great. We
can run memtester inside the OS but that's not necessarily as reliable.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040130/665ddd50/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Delirium

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>You're changing the subject. Which is that an excellent article written by a
>knowledgable person which CONFORMS TO THE ACCEPTED CANON OF KNOWLEDGE can be
>trashed back to the level of what the average users remember from their
>undergraduate courses.
>
>
That I'll agree is true.  There are plenty of fields where the state of
the art has advanced considerably in the past 10-20 years, but where the
general state of education in the field is still mostly teaching the
state of the art circa 10-20 years ago.  In those cases someone who
knows what they're talking about will have to insist that it stay with
the updated version, even if the newer material is only taught in
graduate courses--as long as there are references to it indeed being the
current state of the field.

-Mark


subject: [Wikitech-l] January 29 backup dump

body:
Haven't got the pretty version up yet, but I was reminded that it
should be up at all. :)

http://gunther.wikimedia.org:8080/archives/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040130/75c324ff/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Spam Assassin

body:
Brion Vibber idly wondered,

> > Can we install Spam Assassin software on the wikien-l mailing list?
> > How about other mailing lists?
>
> Do you know how to set it up properly as a machine-wide service?

Are you kidding? All I know is VB and Java on Windows. The only service
I know anything about takes place on Sundays at my church...

But I know what e-mail filtering is: certain combinations of keywords
tip off the software to flag a message as spam, and automatically moves
it to another bin. You can either leave the suspected spam in the bin,
or double-check it, or just have it automatically deleted.

Ed Poor


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Statement of principles

body:
>>>>> "MS" == Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> writes:

    MS> I would interpret this as saying that Wikipedia content should
    MS> be independent of, and normally not discuss, internal
    MS> Wikipedia/Wikimedia politics and management issues. The
    MS> primary forum for that discussion should be the mailing lists.

Wha...? Not the Wikipedia: namespace or meta.w.o? I guess I need to
read up some more.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] A request for prayers (for the new servers!)

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> I would like to humbly request that we pray for God's blessing upon the
> new servers -- that they will work well and that they will serve all of
> humanity with accurate and useful knowledge.
>
> For those of you who do not believe in God, try this formula:
>
> "Oh, God, if there is a God..."

O capricious Eris, turn thy face from our servers!  Do not consider our
humble enterprise, so unworthy of thine attention!  Stay thy hand from
... no, wait!  Don't look at m*#${{{

NO CARRIER

--
  Sean Barrett
  sean at epoptic.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] uploading non-recommended file formats broken

body:
On Jan 30, 2004, at 13:41, David Friedland wrote:
> ".pdf" is not a recommended image file format.
>
> But no form to submit anyway appears. Thus I cannot upload the files.
> Is this a bug, the intended behavior, or a misconfiguration?

This was a misconfiguration (using the now default extra-strict mode
instead of the more lenient mode we want for Wikipedia) which was fixed
yesterday, then accidentally put back in place. Should be fixed now.

It'll now completely refuse to accept a few formats, but should be
again overrideable for formats that it just doesn't recognize.

Here are the defaults for 'recommended' file formats and the blacklist:

# This is the list of preferred extensions for uploading files.
Uploading
# files with extensions not in this list will trigger a warning.
$wgFileExtensions = array( "png", "jpg", "jpeg", "ogg" );

# Files with these extensions will never be allowed as uploads.
$wgFileBlacklist = array(
         # HTML may contain cookie-stealing JavaScript and web bugs
         "html", "htm",
         # PHP scripts may execute arbitrary code on the server
         "php", "phtml", "php3", "php4", "phps",
         # Other types that may be interpreted by some servers
         "shtml", "jhtml", "pl", "py",
         # May contain harmful executables for Windows victims
         "exe", "scr", "dll", "msi", "vbs", "bat", "com", "pif" );

The blacklist isn't foolproof, but it's just a little extra precaution.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040130/834f493c/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Mills, Billy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What is a minor change?

body:
Generally speaking, I reserve Minor edit for clear-cut typos and for changes
to my user page. Every time I see a vote on VfD marked minor, I think the
option should be turned off.

Billy Mills (Bmills)

DISCLAIMER: This message has been scanned by Norton Antivirus (using the
latest definitions) for all known Viruses.
The information in this message is confidential and is intended solely for
the use of the named addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, you
must not copy, distribute or use this email or the information contained in
it for any purpose other than to notify us. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender immediately, and delete this
email from your system. Thank you.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20040130/b6037f80/attachment.htm


body:
I would like to humbly request that we pray for God's blessing upon the
new servers -- that they will work well and that they will serve all of
humanity with accurate and useful knowledge.

For those of you who do not believe in God, try this formula:

"Oh, God, if there is a God..."

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed


from_name: cprompt

subject: [WikiEN-l] External links

body:
On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 14:57, Peter Bartlett wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
>
> >I personally think that the BBC is horribly biased, and so I was
> alarmed to see how often we link to them, as compared to other sources
> that may give a
> >more "fair and balanced" perspective (yes, you know what I mean, and
> yes I'm having fun).
>
> I am not sure what you mean, but I am glad you are having fun. You say
If I'm not mistaken, he's referring to Fox News, which touts itself as
"fair and balanced". It's not.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Platform of Choice

body:
>>>>> "KA" == Kelly Anderson <kelly at acoin.com> writes:

    KA> I have available a BSD server, a Linux server and a Windows
    KA> server.

The pilot announces that the plane is going down, and that there are
only two parachutes, one of which he's taking. So the Windows server
says to the BSD server, ... B-)

~ESP

P.S. I think Wikimedia sites all run on Linux, and there's some
recommended PHP and MySQL versions in the INSTALL file.

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: More problems installing MediaWiki

references:
<bvb99e$2oa$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<9FCC8DFC-528F-11D8-9648-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>
	<bvepuv$ji7$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Jan 30, 2004, at 15:38, Timwi wrote:
> Is *anything* useful in debian-stable at all? Not MySQL 4, not OCamL.
> :(

Nope, Debian-stable sucks. :)

> Is it possible to install/use OCamL without being root?

Hmm, should work. Grab the source distribution:
http://caml.inria.fr/ocaml/distrib.html

You should be able to install it under your home directory by
configuring the compilation like this: ./configure --prefix ~

Note that "--prefix=~" won't work, you need a space instead of an =.
It's not GNU autoconf but some kind of custom script that doesn't work
the same way.

>>> There was also one query where it was using "links" instead of
>>> "brokenlinks".
>> Could you point out where?
>
> Article.php, line 902:
>
> if ( $wgEnablePersistentLC ) {
>         // Purge related entries in links cache on delete,
>         wfQuery("DELETE linkscc FROM linkscc,links ".
>             "WHERE lcc_title=links.l_from AND l_to={$id}", DB_WRITE);
>         wfQuery("DELETE FROM linkscc WHERE lcc_title='{$t}'",
> DB_WRITE);

No, that's correct. The links haven't at that point been switched from
links to brokenlinks.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040130/edf26ef8/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Wikitech-l] New servers delivered!

body:
> If you guys could run a few passes of memtest86 on each machine before
> setting them up and putting them on a nework, that would be great. We
> can run memtester inside the OS but that's not necessarily as reliable.

Not this weekend, I can't.  It's already past closing time and they've
let me stay here this long.  But I'll be here on Monday to do that,
yes.  (I thought they would let me be here all weekend, but apparently
only if I beg.  I don't think I need to be here, though, because once
I finish tonight, they'll all at least be on the net so much can be
done from home.)

Right now, they are all on the net, and Jason is following behind me
upgrading SSH and generally locking things down.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New servers delivered!

body:
Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> It would be nice if you could swap some of the ram around while you're
> there- the Squids will need 3 or (better) 4 Gb ram. Then the hardware
> tests could be done with the final config.

Erp.  Well, they're about ready for me to blow out of here, so this
will have to wait until Monday.  Let's chat this weekend about the
exact configuration everyone wants for the squids, webservers, etc.

We can go ahead and get the software installed and tested this weekend,
I guess, even if some little things aren't quite 100%.

On Monday I'll move the RAM sticks around to everyone's satisfaction
and pound away with memtest86, *especially* on the dual Opteron.

My feeling is that we should not rush these into production, but
then again, it shouldn't take us that long, either.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] tomeraider files?

body:
From: xxxx
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 19:31:30 +0100
To: jwales at bomis.com
Subject: Tomeraider files wikipedia not downloadable, dead link

Dear sir,

Great initiative, wikipedia.

I tried to download the Tomeraider version of Wikipedia, but the
downloadlink is dead.

Can you fix this link?

Thanks,


from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] comment on wikipedia

body:
Optim <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk> writes:

> Do you think it's true?

No.  I've seen no evidence of this process.

> and how can we answer this argument?

Ask him why an average person would wish to ruin a good article?
And why the community would then leave those detrimental changes unreverted.

Furthermore, ask them to point out a selection of good articles that was
edited to averageness by the intervention of the mediocre.
Theories that don't have confirming instances may cheerfully be disregarded.
--
Gareth Owen
"The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity"
                  --  W. B. Yeats forsees the standard of debate on wikipedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] External links

body:
Surely every news source has its biases. I don't see how we Wikipedians
would (or could) ever be able to agree that any particular newspaper was
"really telling the truth", given that we Wikipedians also have our
biases.

One thinks the Guardian or the New York Times is "objective,
truth-based, etc." while another condemns both as hopelessly entrenched
bastions of liberal bias.

How do we each decide which news source to trust? If you're like me, you
probably measure the reliability of a source in terms of how much of its
"news" agrees with what you already "know".

If you're a fan of socialism, and "his" source criticizes socialism,
then obviously that source is biased. If you're a US Republican, and
"her" source criticizes Bush, then obviously, etc.

Larry and Jimbo wisely crafted the Neutral Point of View formula as the
only workable way to deal with this mess, and it seems to be holding up
rather well.

Uncle Ed


subject: [WikiEN-l] External links

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:

> I personally think that the BBC is horribly biased,

Right-o, Jimbo.
I'll see to it that the two most senior managers resign forthwith.
--
Gareth Owen


from_name: David Friedland

body:
When I try to upload a .pdf or .gif via

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

I get:

Upload warning

".pdf" is not a recommended image file format.

But no form to submit anyway appears. Thus I cannot upload the files. Is
this a bug, the intended behavior, or a misconfiguration?

- David [[User:Nohat]]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] comment on wikipedia

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:

> Still, I think there is something to it, and I have strong doubts that a
> wiki or similarly "wide-open" collaborative process could produce a great
> novel or play or poem.

Well that's something else entirely.  We're not writing a poem.
More imaginative creative endeavours require a singularity of vision that, as
you point out, is often detrimental to encyclopedias.
A group of poets of mixed ability can produce a great anthology.

> _Greatness_ for an encyclopedia article involves a
> pretty healthy dose of "averaging"

Balancing of content, but thats not the same as but averaging of quality.
--
Gareth Owen
"The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity"


subject: [Wikitech-l] Trouble deleting images?

body:
On Jan 30, 2004, at 07:04, Dan Carlson wrote:
> In that case, is there any place I can be referred to for upgrading a
> MediaWiki installation without access to the command line?  I'm
> running on a shared (virtual) hosting account.

Check the RELEASE-NOTES file to see if it mentions any SQL patches that
need to be run for manual update, then copy in the updated *.php and
.phtml files.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040130/a921de4c/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Spam Assassin

body:
> It kills zip files, too, but this shouldn't be a
> problem for the mailing
> list. In fact we might want to filter all mails that
> contain attachments -
> use URLs instead.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

I don't think that's such a good idea, since some
people attach PGP public keys to all of their outgoing
mail.

LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] comment on wikipedia

body:
Alex T. wrote:

>This brings up an interesting point regarding copyright. If the content is
>so generic as just to be knowledge then it is not really copyrightable as
>it would fall in the public domain.
>
>This would also mean that the copyright claim is so weak that very liberal
>fair use could be made of Wikipedia.
>
>So you don't even have to worry  about the GFDL and its adaption to
>the Wiki process as broad fair use and a large dose of public domain
>knowledge means it is very hard to infringe on Wikipedia to begin with.
>
>Perhaps once could even go so far as to suggest that the perfect NPOV
>article
>cannot have a copyright as it is so objective that there is no personal
>expressiveness in it, it is a conglomeration only of knowledge.
>
>
At the risk of treading into wikilegal-l ground again, I think it'll
probably take a big shift in copyright law interpretation before
something like Wikipedia is deemed uncopyrightable.  It's true that
facts and plain knowledge aren't copyrightable, but so far that's been
interpreted mainly to mean things like lists of telephone numbers in a
phone book.  It's a pretty big jump from that to an encyclopedia, which
is at the very least several orders of magnitude more creative.  If
nothing else, it takes a certain measure of creative prose to explain
complex issues succinctly and clearly, as evidenced by the large amount
of factual stuff out there that is neither succinct nor clear.

-Mark


body:
(Sorry if this is a duplicate, but posting via gmane seemed to not work)

When I try to upload a .pdf or .gif via

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

I get:

Upload warning

".pdf" is not a recommended image file format.

But no form to submit anyway appears. Thus I cannot upload the files.
Is this a bug, the intended behavior, or a misconfiguration?

- David [[User:Nohat]]


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Spam Assassin

body:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:41:54 -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>
> Can we install Spam Assassin software on the wikien-l mailing list? How
> about other mailing lists?
>
> Anthere and I have gotten tired of reading and deleting up to 30 daily
> spam, spam, spam, ham, eggs and spam (hasn't got MUCH spam in it) every
> day -- the joke gets old after a while.
>
> Ed Poor
> Wikien-l Admin Emeritus

I have to add that spamassassin uses a bit of cpu for its processing, but
at the rather low volume of mails processed by the mailing lists this
shouldn't be a problem.
--
Gabriel Wicke


body:
Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> writes:

> The average person has taken a course at university in the subject and
> stands ready to regurgitate what they "learned".

Ooh, scare quotes.

> Such material has the support of other "educated" users.

Well, wikipedia is not a place for original research and theorising.
Can I recommend Usenet.
--
Gareth Owen
"I love the wikipedia, but sometimes I get the impression that certain people
 on this list are very bored, and so argue about something when there's really
 bugger all to argue about. Edit some articles, for god's sake." -- LP


from_name: Tan PekTiong

subject: [Wikitech-l] About LanguageXX.php (Language setup)

body:
I have a question and a suggestion about the Language setup. After
installing mediawiki 1.1.0 on my powerbook with OSX 10.3, I was playing
around with the language setup and encounter the following problem:

Suppose I want to try to do a L10N for a language whose LanguageXX.php
is not contained in the source of mediawiki. So I try to, say, copy
LanguageFr.php into LanguageXx.php and set $wgLanguageCode = "xx" in
LocalSettings.php. But it seems that it doesn't work. French interface
won't show up and it falls back to English interface. How do I fix this
problem? Also, does the language code need to be two letters? Can I
have $wgLanguageCode = "xyz" or "xx-yyy" ,etc.

And this links to my suggestion. Is it possible to let user choose the
user interface language? Even in the case of xx.wikipedia.org, where
there is definitely strong correlation between the language used for
the content and for the interface. It might be desirable for some
people sometimes to choose a interface language which is different from
the language used for the content. (and it will be even more desirable
if the content of the site is multi-lingo in nature). But it seems to
me that the current code does NOT provide this flexibility? (I might be
wrong).

best
pochung


from_name: Rob Hooft

subject: [Wikitech-l] Minor changes by anonymous user

body:
>>>2) Have 3 states for "Recent Changes": show all edits, hide minor
>>>   changes, hide minor changes from logged-in users

There are already multiple views on recent changes. There is now two
that are called "RecentChanges": all, and only non-minor changes. But
the watchlist feature actually is a third one: recent changes to pages I
am especially interested in. Ideally I would say there might be a fourth
one: recent changes by "untrusted people". To be able to implement this,
it would be necessary to be able to mark people as trusted friends such
that modifications by these people can be suppressed from the recent
changes list.

Rob

--
Rob W.W. Hooft  ||  rob at hooft.net  ||  http://www.hooft.net/people/rob/


body:
On Jan 30, 2004, at 18:13, Tan PekTiong wrote:
> I have a question and a suggestion about the Language setup. After
> installing mediawiki 1.1.0 on my powerbook with OSX 10.3, I was
> playing around with the language setup and encounter the following
> problem:
>
> Suppose I want to try to do a L10N for a language whose LanguageXX.php
> is not contained in the source of mediawiki. So I try to, say, copy
> LanguageFr.php into LanguageXx.php and set $wgLanguageCode = "xx" in
> LocalSettings.php. But it seems that it doesn't work. French interface
> won't show up and it falls back to English interface. How do I fix
> this problem?

First, double-check that you put the file in the right place. Then,
double-check that you're not seeing a cached copy; visit a brand-new
page.

If it's still coming up in English, the most likely thing is that
there's some little syntax error in the new language file; error
messages are suppressed on the include so that a language that hasn't
been localized will silently fall back on defaults. To expose the
errors, find this line at the bottom of Language.php:

@include_once( "Language" . ucfirst( $wgLanguageCode ) . ".php" );

and remove the "@". Reload, and you may find your screen filled with
lovely error messages.

>  Also, does the language code need to be two letters? Can I have
> $wgLanguageCode = "xyz" or "xx-yyy" ,etc.

It can be three or more letters, sure. I don't think dashes will
currently work, as the LanguageXx-yyy subclass wouldn't be a valid
symbol. You could get around this by fiddling with Setup.php.

> And this links to my suggestion. Is it possible to let user choose the
> user interface language?

Not yet. In theory this is possible, though it would actually be harder
with changes we've recently made that make various interface text bits
editable. That makes them tied to the particular database in use.

Currently things that are inherent to how the wiki works (what page is
the main page, the names of namespaces, how to munge URLs and search
text) are tied together with interface language.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040130/27f46f60/attachment.pgp>


body:
Another thing to check; if you just copy LanguageFr.php without
changing it, it won't work. Each language file defines a subclass of
Language (or LanguageUtf8), eg LanguageEn, LanguageFr. If the name
doesn't match the given language code, it won't be loaded.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20040130/ea78b138/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Squid integration now in CVS

body:
I've committed the Squid-related changes to HEAD.

To activate Squid purging, adjust these settings in LocalSettings.php:

# Squid-related settings
#
# Enable/disable Squid
 $wgUseSquid = true;
# Internal server name as known to Squid, if different
# $wgInternalServer = 'http://yourinternal.tld.:8000';
# A list of proxy servers (ips if possible) to purge on changes
# don't specify ports here (80 is default)
 $wgSquidServers = array('127.0.0.1');

More details about the changes at http://wiki.aulinx.de/.
--
Gabriel Wicke


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Spam Assassin

body:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:54:47 -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Jan 30, 2004, at 06:41, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>> Can we install Spam Assassin software on the wikien-l mailing list? How
>> about other mailing lists?
>
> Do you know how to set it up properly as a machine-wide service?

I've done this on my server (running Debian), i might be able to help with
the setup.
--
Gabriel Wicke


subject: [WikiEN-l] External links

body:
> I personally think that the BBC is horribly
> biased, and so I was
> alarmed to see how often we link to them, as
> compared to other sources
> that may give a
> more "fair and balanced" perspective (yes, you
> know what I mean, and
> yes I'm having fun).

That's strange. I always thought of you as
free-thinking and rational.

LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/