body:
Rob wrote:
> On 5/31/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
>
>> The practice of blocking editors for unilaterally changing
>> the cartoon display is a violation to [[WP:NBD]], which goes on saying:
>>
>> <WP:NBD>
>> In order to reach the best possible decisions, we hold it important to
>> listen carefully to each other's arguments, and to try to find mutually
>> acceptable solutions in conflicts. Polls are the exception and not the
>> rule, and where they do exist they are *not binding*.
>> </WP:NBD>
>>
>> Blocking editors a minute after they removed the cartoons
>> without any warning won't ever make that possible.
>
> Removing the image against consensus is not "listen[ing] carefully to
> each other's arguments" or "try[ing] to find mutually acceptable
> solutions".  NBD does not allow you to ignore consensus and directly
> says that: "That does not mean you should ignore a consensual
> decision". It's just saying consensus may change over time.

Please show me the policy which states, that a change against
a 3 month old poll result should result in an immediate block.

Besides removing the image against consensus won't hinder you
to listen carefully to the other's arguments. Even a block
won't hinder you to read other people comments, but a block
definitely will hinder other people to listen to your arguments.

--
Raphael


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: jf_wikipedia at mac.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lovely.

body:
On May 31, 2006, at 3:18 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:

> Do we have a guideline for dealing with off-wiki harassment? We
> probably should, and link it from RfA.

See the recent addition to [[WP:NPA]], as a compromise wording after
no consensus was achieved on a stronger worded version:

[[Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#Off-wiki_personal_attacks]]

I would suggest people in this thread comment on the talk page and
extend this further to encompass not only personal attacks, but
harassment as well.

-- Jossi


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
	userbox

body:
this was a deletion review, with a view to restoration, of a userbox
that said the owner was a satanist.  I have canceled it on the grounds
that such a template could only bring the project into disrepute.

I'm confident that this is best for Wikipedia. I don't think the goal
of producing a high quality encyclopedia can be served by encouraging,
though the provision of templates saying "I'm a satanist" and the
like, the use of Wikipedia's website for social networking and
coordination of work between adherents of satanism. It could only
bring the whole enterprise into disrepute to permit such abuse.
Therefore it's inappropriate to hold a DRV-style debate where
traditionally the item is restored if a certain proportion of editors
vote to restore it. We cannot make such a decision on the basis of
votes. Perhaps a discussion on the talk page of the template might be
appropriate, though I think it would require a very strong case to be
made for this particular template


list: foundation-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Moving the "test Wikipedias"

body:
On 5/31/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
> > keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
> > today and start moving things over.

> +2

+3 ;-). It would also be nice to have an agreement on where
MediaWiki-related content should go; currently it's split between Meta
and mediawiki.org (e.g. extensions are on Meta, some of Brion's recent
specs are on mw).

Erik


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed bzip2

body:
Evan Martin wrote:
> On 5/31/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Between other things I've been working on a distributed bzip2 compression tool
>> which could help speed up generation of data dumps.
>
> Alternatively, have you considered generating deltas?  (Sorry if this
> has been brought up before...)

Many times, but that's not necessarily clear or simple. The generic
delta-generation tools we've tried in the past just choke on our files; note
that the full-history dump of English Wikipedia -- the one we're most concerned
about having archival copies of available -- is over 350 gigabytes uncompressed.

(Clean XML-wrapped text with no scary internal compression or diffing, and a
well-known standard compression format on the outside, is a simple and
relatively future-proof for third-party textual analysis and reuse and long-term
archiving.)

Something application-specific might be possible.

> It seems to me there are two main consumption cases of the wikipedia data:
>  - one-off copies ("most recent" doesn't really matter)
>  - mirrors (will want to continually update)
> If you did a full snapshot once a month, and then daily/weekly deltas
> on top of that, you could maybe save yourself both processing time and
> external bandwidth.

Even if I only did full snapshots a quarter as often, I'd still want them to
take two days instead of ten. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060531/74875317/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Top-posting: was Re: Admin-driven death of Wikipedia: a
	diatribe

body:
On 31 May 2006 at 11:42, Molu <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I notice that throughout your extended grumblings you have never
> managed to tell me how on Earth I'm supposed to stop this thing
> called top-posting.

Your keyboard presumably has a set of arrow keys on it, which you can
use to move the cursor beneath the text you are quoting even if your
program starts it out above.

You might also try to configure your mail program to abide by the
line-length standards of Internet e-mail, while you're at it.

http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/
http://mailformat.dan.info/body/linelength.html
http://mailformat.dan.info/config/

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lovely.

body:
Yes, that's is what needs to be done.

Fred

On May 31, 2006, at 10:04 PM, jf_wikipedia at mac.com wrote:

>
> On May 31, 2006, at 7:48 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>
>> What we are dealing with is psychological warfare. To be taken
>> seriously, to be responded to calmly. The point is to induce panic.
>> The best response is to stay calm, respond in appropriate forums and
>> support those who are attacked.
>>
>
> I do not understand how with these types of behaviors, it is so hard
> to extend the policy of [[WP:NPA]], as can be observed in
> [[Wikipedia_talk:No_personal_attacks]].
>
> Most people in WP, are not aware of harassment of this kind, and that
> it *is* happening.
>
> -- Jossi
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Molu

body:
  On Wed, 31 May 2006 21:26:49 +0100 "Tony Sidaway" wrote:

>this was a deletion review, with a view to restoration, of a userbox
>that said the owner was a satanist. I have canceled it on the grounds
>that such a template could only bring the project into disrepute.

>I'm confident that this is best for Wikipedia. I don't think the goal
>of producing a high quality encyclopedia can be served by encouraging,
>though the provision of templates saying "I'm a satanist" and the
>like, the use of Wikipedia's website for social networking and
>coordination of work between adherents of satanism. It could only
>bring the whole enterprise into disrepute to permit such abuse.
>Therefore it's inappropriate to hold a DRV-style debate where
>traditionally the item is restored if a certain proportion of editors
>vote to restore it. We cannot make such a decision on the basis of
>votes. Perhaps a discussion on the talk page of the template might be
>appropriate, though I think it would require a very strong case to be
>made for this particular template

  This is what I was talking about. When admins consider themselves empowered to completely ignore community consensus on the ground "I know better". The userbox debate has provided the highest amount of this shit, with admins speedying templates kept the day before at TfD. Don't give me that crap about best interests of the encyclopedia, it's subjective and you have no right to overrule community by the virtue of being an administrator. This makes me sick. Thankfully someone with good sense has restored the debate.

  Molu, disgusted

 __________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Lord Voldemort

body:
On 5/31/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There's a difference, at least to the world outside Wikipedia, between
> > an individual Wikipedian making that personal statement on a part of
> > the site, and Wikipedia as an institution giving him a neat little
> > badge for the purpose of making the proclamation.
>
> Wikipedia as an institution is not doing that (Don't know of any
> foundation created userboxes off hand). And:
>
> Evidences?

I think he was simply referring to allowing these to reside in the
Template namespace, rather than simply having the editor write their
beliefs or preferences on their user page.  I think he's saying there
is a difference between the two.  Basically right?
--LV


from_name: Arbeo M

body:
On 5/31/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we
> can
> keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up
> later
> today and start moving things over.

Full support.

Arbeo


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Case inconsistency

body: I guess you're talking about cased-projects, like wiktionaries...


from_name: geni

body:
On 5/31/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> this was a deletion review, with a view to restoration, of a userbox
> that said the owner was a satanist.  I have canceled it on the grounds
> that such a template could only bring the project into disrepute.
>

Doubtful. general readers don't see the userspace and ant wikipedian
who cares what religion another wikipedian is is going to have
problems functioning. The satanist world view may be given to seeing
the world through rose tinted specs but there is no reason they can't
edit wikipedia.

--
geni


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Exactly how does allowing a userbox for people to show they're a satanist
puts Wikipedia in disrepute? We've got userboxes for multiple beliefs and
life styles and satanism is just another to add to the bunch. You act as if
satanism is bad. Perhaps you should read the article on the subject. Just
the lead alone is quite informative.

Besides, it's not exactly a secret we don't select editors on their beliefs.
Deleting one userbox because people mis-associate it with something they
consider evil will only promote ignorance.

Either cut all religious userboxes or keep them all, don't start getting
selective. The box is just as useful as a "I am a Christian"-box. Disrepute
due to beliefs is only an issue if said editors consistently misbehave.

People worry too much over userboxes. Either take the above suggestion and
make general boxes, or simply make one now and stop the proliferation.

Mgm

On 5/31/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> this was a deletion review, with a view to restoration, of a userbox
> that said the owner was a satanist.  I have canceled it on the grounds
> that such a template could only bring the project into disrepute.
>
> I'm confident that this is best for Wikipedia. I don't think the goal
> of producing a high quality encyclopedia can be served by encouraging,
> though the provision of templates saying "I'm a satanist" and the
> like, the use of Wikipedia's website for social networking and
> coordination of work between adherents of satanism. It could only
> bring the whole enterprise into disrepute to permit such abuse.
> Therefore it's inappropriate to hold a DRV-style debate where
> traditionally the item is restored if a certain proportion of editors
> vote to restore it. We cannot make such a decision on the basis of
> votes. Perhaps a discussion on the talk page of the template might be
> appropriate, though I think it would require a very strong case to be
> made for this particular template
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Case inconsistency

body:
On 5/31/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > This has the effect that it's actually difficult to create the article
> > *other* than going through the redlink - if you try and type in the
> > name, you get silently redirected.
>
> Going through redlinks is how you create pages on a wiki.

It's not the only way. You can type "weather in london" in the search
box on the left side, and you'll be taken to an intermediate screen,
where you can choose to create the page, or try searching again. I
know you know that - I'm just being pedantic.

Seriously though, when you create an article, it's often a good idea
to create redirects for the common case or accentless variations, if
only to reduce the chance of a duplicate getting created. So, for the
article "Lyon M?tro", I would create "Lyon m?tro", "Lyon Metro" and
"Lyon metro". Except, it's not actually possible to easily create
"Lyon metro", except by going through the intermediate step of
creating a page (or at least previewing it) with those fake redlinks
in it.

To Platonides: Wikipedia is "cased". It's just that the first letter
isn't case sensitive. However, "soap" and "SOAP" are definitely two
different entries, for instance. It's just that the interface
apparently does some primitive case resolving when there *aren't* too
separate articles - type NOSTRADAMUS in the search box and it will
take you (silently) to "Nostradamus". Make a link to [[NOSTRADAMUS]]
in an article, and it will be a redlink (and clicking it will
definitely not redirect silently).

Steve


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Case inconsistency

body:
Platonides wrote:
> I guess you're talking about cased-projects, like wiktionaries...
Hoi,
If anything using the case a word is normally written in a sentence, is
the best example of the consistent use of case.
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject:
[Wikitech-l] User-specified JavaScript execution Vuln with two
 specific extensions

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
>> Either option would allow extension authors have to worry less about
>> bad input (by making it more the Parser's problem than the extension's
>> problem).
>
> ... which I think is kinda what you just said to me in private email.
> That'll teach me to send outgoing mail before reading incoming mail,
> so I'll shut up now.

;)

The new one-pass tag stripping* is now in trunk and live on Wikimedia's sites.
It passes all parser tests, and has additionally fixed bug 5384 (<!-- comments
--> in <ref> tags).

* Comments are actually done on a separate pass, but unstripped back into tag
contents where they can be dealt with appropriately by the extension.

If it holds up well for a couple days, it could be backported to 1.6 to provide
some more robustness against extension-nesting problems.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060531/bba1c714/attachment.pgp>


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
> keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
> today and start moving things over.

Since a bug fix took up my evening, this'll happen in the morning...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060531/8cae73bf/attachment.pgp


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
> keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
> today and start moving things over.

Since a bug fix took up my evening, this'll happen in the morning...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060531/8cae73bf/attachment-0001.pgp


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
> keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
> today and start moving things over.

Since a bug fix took up my evening, this'll happen in the morning...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060531/8cae73bf/attachment.pgp>


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
> keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
> today and start moving things over.

Since a bug fix took up my evening, this'll happen in the morning...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060531/8cae73bf/attachment-0001.pgp>


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] nowiki doesn't work

body:
Zordsdavini iz Litvy wrote:
> Hello,
> I was made for the input symbol like
> "<nowiki>Ė̅</nowiki> " but now I don't see the letter -
> I see the code including <nowiki>. It is in samogitian wikipedia.

Looks fine to me.

You may have seen a temporary side effect during file upgrades. Please clear
cache and try ?action=purge on the page. If it persists, please provide the
*EXACT* URL to the page which exhibits the problem.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20060601/a665fdd4/attachment.pgp


body:
On 5/31/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Either cut all religious userboxes or keep them all, don't start getting
> selective. The box is just as useful as a "I am a Christian"-box. Disrepute
> due to beliefs is only an issue if said editors consistently misbehave.

Agreed. One delusion is no more or less reputable than the other. "I
believe in X" userboxes should be deleted or subst:ed generally, or
replaced with "I am interested in X" boxes. Surely, "I am interested
in Satanism" would not be a problem for anyone.

Tony probably knows this and is hoping for exactly such an outcome. :-)

Erik


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-06-01

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!

Passed 324 of 334 tests (97.01%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lovely.

body:
On 5/31/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> One thing that I think editors should do is to make employers and
> such aware of their WP activities as much as possible.

It's probably also true that there is a fair number of people who are
editing Wikipedia under circumstances their boss or supervisor would
disapprove of, including *gasp* some members of the nefarious ruling
class known as "administrators". For those who intend to continue
doing so, using a separate account may be advisable. (Accountability
activism strikes again! Let's stalk people so they tell us more about
themselves!)

Do we have a guideline for dealing with off-wiki harassment? We
probably should, and link it from RfA.

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] nowiki doesn't work

body:
Zordsdavini iz Litvy wrote:
> It is because edit code seems like:
> <nowiki>&#x0116;&#x0305;</nowiki>

This is because a bug was fixed, and apparently someone was relying on that bug
when listing the items in MediaWiki:Edittools.

If you can explain to me what this construct was supposed to accomplish, I can
try to update the charinsert extension to support it more conveniently.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20060601/99b3e631/attachment.pgp


from_name: Jesse W

body:
On Jun 1, 2006, at 12:14 AM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> Yes, in this world filled with ignorance and intolerance, proclaiming
> you're
> a satanist is probably going to get you a different reaction, but my
> point
> is that if Wikipedia wants to get anywhere near neutral we should treat
> anyone who can edit properly equally.
Yes, of course; and if you see an example of us not doing this, please
bring it up.  *This* *was* *not* *one*.  A userbox is not a user.  One
of the troublesome things about userboxes (or any template that
expresses a personal attribute) is that people often mistake them for
the people themselves, and consider an edit to the template to be an
attack on them, personally.  This is an utterly understandable, but sad
and troublesome *mistake*.

Please - put personal expression where it belongs - directly on your
userpage.

Jesse Weinstein


body:
On Jun 1, 2006, at 12:22 AM, Peter Ansell wrote:
> So we can promote things
Could you expand on this?  AFAIK, the topic under discussion was a
template, intended to be placed on user pages, containing the text:
"This user is a Satanist" (IIRC).  Is this intended to promote
something?  Is this intended to promote the improvement of some article
in Wikipedia?  Generally, most things in the non-article space parts of
Wikipedia are designed to assist in writing the encyclopedia, or
reflect on such writing.  Unless I am mistaken, very few if any things
on Wikipedia are designed to promote anything, except possibly
Wikipedia itself.  I look forward to you expanding on what you mean by
this.

<major sniping>

> Wikipedia should allow editors no matter what background they come
> from.
And (baring the Islamic issue discussed here ad nausaum), what evidence
do you have that Wikipedia does not?  Deleting a template is not
blocking anyone from editing the encyclopedia, unless I am seriously
out of touch here...

<further major sniping>

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: le Richard

subject: [WikiEN-l] The shift of Wikipedia

body:
>As a mathematician I'm particularly interested on his contributions to see
>why (if they were correct) were removed and think of possible reasons, but
>again, no user with that username

Sorry I got it wrong. My username on the English wikipedia is Herve661.
And the contribution that was deleted is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mathematics&diff=prev&oldid=26373995

Thanks for the replies, everyone.


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Angela in
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-May/007241.html

How? Previous public Wikimedia meetings have led nowhere and done nothing
other than highlight how few people in the communities are interested in
_doing_ anything - as opposed to debating on mailing lists.
[....]
Nice idea... how about you suggest how that might happen? There are
currently two community representatives on the Board, though it's
increasingly obvious that the community are not using either Anthere or
myself to get anything to happen. Anything that does happen comes through
private mailing lists and an increasing number of internal processes that
even Board members don't always have access to.

Anthere in
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-May/007298.html

One of the hardest things is to identify the needs of "system Foundation",
talk about these needs, and read criticism from people belonging to "system
Wikipedia", who have no beginning of an idea of
where the need comes from, why it is critical... but who considers they have
a say nevertheless.

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

I am still amazed at how quickly Wikimedia transforms, politically speaking.

Less than two years ago Angela and Anthere were voted into the first
Wikimedia board. They had to invent their own role, as people had forgotten
to discuss the mission of the board and decision making procedures in any
detail. I repeat this remark that I made earlier, because I think it is
important to not make this same mistake again when a CEO is hired or voted
for (not that I favour a CEO per se).

In the beginning both Angela and Anthere opposed vocal members of the
community who urged the board to take a stand in matters that were hardly or
not at all discussed on the mailing lists. Kudoos for that.

Later we got closed wikis and private board chats as a side affair. Recent
statements like the ones quoted above give the impression that both board
members find the Wikimedia community has become a pain in the neck at times,
better to be ignored, or kept in the dark. Fortunately they make these
remarks still in the open, so there is hope :)

I still believe in both Angela's and Anthere's good intentions, they did and
do generally a tremendous job, to be sure, and therefore I really think it
is the burden on their shoulders that has become too large. May I suggest a
wikibreak? After all Jimbo has returned to this mailing list after relative
absence for several months. He can step in for a while I would hope.

I agree the board is understaffed. Or rather they have too many self chosen
obligations. An attempt to introduce checks and balances in the form of a
wikicouncil (initiative by the board!) died a quick death, maybe partly
because it was hardly advertised, or maybe because it was launched too soon.
So now we have a self appointed government without a parliament to guide and
control them. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicouncil Self appointed
because the original purpose of the board was to serve for external
representation, as a compromise towards an outer world that stil used the
outdated paradigm of official representatives, see
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2004-May/000065.html and
what follows.

Let us assume a larger board would be the way to go. Anthere expressed her
wish to have one board member from each committee. As far as I know most or
all members on these committees were appointed by the board, without public
vote or even much prior public discussion. I'd rather be called critical
than cynical, so I'll resist the temptation to extrapolate where this
'representational model' might lead us in a year from now.

Erik Zachte


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [Wikipedia-l] nowiki doesn't work

body:
Zordsdavini iz Litvy wrote:
> It has to write a piece of code into artisle. In html
> Ė̅ and ė̅ is two letters that we use. If
> <nowiki>Ė̅</nowiki> code is in article (not edit tools)
> it gives me letter.

In that case you can simply put the letters into the <charinsert> in
MediaWiki:Edittools then; in my testing it appears to work fine. Can you show a
situation where it doesn't work? (If so please provide details of exactly what
doesn't work as expected, how, and when using what browser version and OS.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20060601/766c67ef/attachment.pgp


from_name: Anthere

body:
Samuel Klein wrote:
> On Wed, 31 May 2006, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>
>>I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
>>keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
>>today and start moving things over.
>
>
> +2

+3


subject: [Wikitech-l] Error when using MediaWiki search functionality

body:
thomas Armstrong wrote:
> Using MediaWiki v1.4.rc1 with mySQL 3.23.58, I get this error message
> when trying
> to search any word with MediaWiki search functionality:

Upgrade for the love of all that is holy.

Why on earth are you running a two-year-old release candidate?

(Note that 1.6 requires MySQL 4.0.x, we no longer support the ancient 3.23.x
series. Either upgrade MySQL as well or run the older MediaWiki 1.5. Please
install the *MOST CURRENT* 1.5 release if you do.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060601/35b30c08/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 5/31/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Using Tony's argument about disrepute (possibly based around the
> Christian American society view), if a general reader stumbled over "I
> am interested in Satanism" on a user page they would be just as
> disgusted.

There's a difference, at least to the world outside Wikipedia, between
an individual Wikipedian making that personal statement on a part of
the site, and Wikipedia as an institution giving him a neat little
badge for the purpose of making the proclamation.


body:
Thanks for the response...

On Jun 1, 2006, at 1:56 AM, Peter Ansell wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
>> On Jun 1, 2006, at 12:22 AM, Peter Ansell wrote:
>>> So we can promote things
>> Could you expand on this?  AFAIK, the topic under discussion was a
>> template, intended to be placed on user pages, containing the text:
>> "This user is a Satanist" (IIRC).  Is this intended to promote
>> something?  Is this intended to promote the improvement of some
>> article
>> in Wikipedia?  Generally, most things in the non-article space parts
>> of
>> Wikipedia are designed to assist in writing the encyclopedia, or
>> reflect on such writing.  Unless I am mistaken, very few if any things
>> on Wikipedia are designed to promote anything, except possibly
>> Wikipedia itself.  I look forward to you expanding on what you mean by
>> this.
>>
>> <major sniping>
>>
>>> Wikipedia should allow editors no matter what background they come
>>> from.
>> And (baring the Islamic issue discussed here ad nausaum), what
>> evidence
>> do you have that Wikipedia does not?  Deleting a template is not
>> blocking anyone from editing the encyclopedia, unless I am seriously
>> out of touch here...
>
> You make it seem like the issue about templates and articles are two
> totally different issues.
Er, I asked for two things. 1) What did you mean by "promote"?  2) What
evidence do you have that Wikipedia is not allowing people to edit
because of their background?  Unless I am misunderstanding, you didn't
provide either of these in your response. I look forward to you doing
so.

<part of original message removed>

>  Calling my post major sniping seems very premature when you didn't
> understand that.
As for the comment about "major sniping", that was a typo. ;-)  I meant
to say <large parts of the original message removed>.  Sorry about
that.

Continuing to wonder about "promote",
	Jesse Weinstein


body:
On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a difference, at least to the world outside Wikipedia, between
> an individual Wikipedian making that personal statement on a part of
> the site, and Wikipedia as an institution giving him a neat little
> badge for the purpose of making the proclamation.

Wikipedia as an institution is not doing that (Don't know of any
foundation created userboxes off hand). And:

Evidences?
--
geni


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the very philosophy
> that made WP a success is not applicable to organizations. Wikimedia
> will become a functioning non-profit with the usual bureucratic
> processes, some successful fundraising, a few good partnerships here
> and there, a bunch of "professionals", lots of infighting among
> volunteers, etc. It will not become the open platform for social and
> technological change that it could be -- the wide network of people
> who are interested in building a free knowledge and free culture
> movement.  And who is to blame for that? Not the people who made it
> so. They have only the best interests of Wikimedia in mind and work
> their ass of to do what they can to make it a success. The people who
> are to blame are those who did not participate in turning Wikimedia
> into something else, something larger, when it mattered.
>

Well, Jimmy Wales has his vision for the future of Wikimedia, and it
doesn't really match with any of my views of what it should be.
However, he's in charge and has said in no uncertain terms that he's not
going to open up a majority of the board to community elections anytime
in the near future.  So, I don't see what can really be done about
that.  I'm pretty resigned to the fact that committees, lawyers, and
other random things seem to spring from nowhere without anyone,
sometimes even the two elected board members, having heard about them.
Clearly we aren't in control of the organization, and I don't see how
that's likely to change.

In general, this doesn't feel like a free-culture organization.  I don't
require Richard Stallman clones to be heading up all such organizations
(although at least then there'd be no doubts), but this place feels more
like, say, Red Hat---a commercial entity involved in free culture and
making concessions to maintain community support---than it feels like a
thoroughly free-culture organization like Debian.  For the most part the
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a fine ISP hosting Wikipedia, but I
certainly don't feel like they represent me or reflect my values,
besides the single value of "producing a copyleft encyclopedia", the
betterment of which strangely rarely seems to be among the various
proposals I've been seeing lately.  I don't really see what can be done
about that besides damage control or, if absolutely necessary, a fork.

Now as for damage control---you *do* see people get quite involved when
it looks like the beaurocracy is intruding into the reason we
free-content people are here in the first place, Wikipedia.  You'll
notice the series of WP:OFFICE interventions on en.* attracted
considerable community "participation".  Failing a WMF that represents
my interests, I'll at least work for a WMF that serves as an acceptable
ISP for Wikipedia.

Now perhaps it isn't completely impossible, but I think it'll be a
continual uphill battle without significant high-level change.  I would
feel much more comfortable, for example, with a board that consisted of
Jimbo, Anthere, Angela, and two other prominent community
representatives chosen by some reasonable election process.  In
principle, influencing things from the minority is possible (Jimbo
presumably doesn't want to run everything on 3-2 votes), but it colors
the whole process.

Which is, incidentally, my main problem with a paid staff.  If they do
only technical things like file paperwork, that's fine, but I'm quite
sure there will be a slippery slope there, judging from past experience
in this organization.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Essjay

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
>> keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
>> today and start moving things over.
>>
>
> Since a bug fix took up my evening, this'll happen in the morning...
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
Guessing you can speak this all into being with your uber-godmode
developer powers, ("...And Brion said 'Let there be wiki, and there
was'...") but if you need any help with anything (deleting the old meta
pages or whatever), let us know.

Essjay

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
--- Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Later we got closed wikis and private board chats
> as a side affair. Recent
> > statements like the ones quoted above give the
> impression that both board
> > members find the Wikimedia community has become a
> pain in the neck at times,
> > better to be ignored, or kept in the dark.
>
> No. What Angela pointed out is that there was an
> open meeting about
> the committees, about the need for a CEO, and so on
> (we created a
> separate meeting specifically to discuss the
> ExecCom). For arguing for
> the open meeting, Angela and myself received little
> but scorn from the
> existing group of people who were likely to serve on
> these committees.
> (Anthere was in the middle of her pregnancy at the
> time.) The
> community members from the outside who joined hardly
> participated at
> all.
>
> This wasn't a small number of people, something like
> 70 in the main
> meeting. See the logs at:
>
> http://scireview.de/wiki/com2/channel.log
>
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_committee/February_11%2C_2006_open_meeting_log
>
> Note that to this day, the second log contains a
> claim by Jimbo that I
> "deeply misrepresented" him during the ExecCom
> meeting, without any
> actual elaboration of why or how that is the case. I
> will not repeat
> some of the other things that have been said.
>
> You will also note that in the end, it was mostly me
> and another small
> group of people arguing. I know you were there, but
> there are many
> people who are on this list who weren't. Now we are
> given the usual
> round of whining: "I don't like IRC!" "I wasn't
> informed!" "My cat ate
> my homework!"
>
> Participating in these meetings, for me, has not
> exactly been an
> exercise in gaining popularity or favor; rather the
> opposite. Taking a
> stand against a prevailing line of thinking strains
> relations with
> people, and that should not be done unless there is
> a clear benefit.
>
> This was a crucial meeting where a case could have
> been made, by the
> community, for organizing and structuring Wikimedia
> in an open and
> participatory fashion. There are very few people who
> were willing to
> actually make that case.
>
> For the "inside people" this is easy to explain: as
> we see with
> adminship on Wikipedia, open and accountable models
> are quickly
> subjected to constant harassment by self-appointed
> "accountability
> activists". Having your private little clubs and
> mailing lists (some
> of which, as we have heard, even the Board doesn't
> know about or have
> access to) makes things so much easier. Why put up
> with the hassle of
> an open meeting when you can have a closed one?
>
> As for the outside people, perhaps their lack of
> participation is
> because they don't care about "organizational
> stuff," perhaps it's
> because Wikimedia has historically been so opaque
> that people have
> expected that it needs to stay that way. Whatever
> the reason, people
> like myself frankly lose the motivation to invest
> time in a lost
> cause.
>
> Just like Wikipedia has to deal with vandalism and
> trolls for allowing
> anyone to edit, an open organization would have to
> deal with
> incompetence and maliciousness in return for rapid
> growth and network
> benefits. Rather than invent the organizational
> equivalent of wiki
> processes -- something which would require a lot of
> creative thinking
> from the brightest minds of Wikimedia -- it's much
> more convenient to
> say: "wiki and organization are different things and
> need to be kept
> separate." And, guess what, the lawyers agree!
>
> There is virtually no active pressure or demand from
> the actual
> community for openness, participatory processes and
> transparency
> within the Wikimedia Foundation. As a result, there
> are very little.
> The committees which have been formed are useful,
> but they pick and
> choose their members on a case by case basis (or
> perhaps I should say
> "face by face") -- cf. GerardM's rejected membership
> application to
> the Special Projects committee. At least during the
> transitional
> phase, the amount of bureauracy is even worse than
> it was at the time
> we were ruled by the Board and the Board alone.
>
> A process whereby every committee holds open, widely
> announced
> meetings and where advisor status is granted
> instantly without
> bureaucratic process was discussed, but does not
> seem to be practiced
> by any of the committees.
>
> Even a trivial idea like putting a couple of new
> community-elected
> members on the Board has been proposed years ago but
> never
> implemented. But, then again, has there been any
> pressure from the
> community for such change to hapepn? Hardly at all.
> When a couple of
> "big shot" outside people are appointed to Board
> positions and the
> Board remains otherwise as it is, sure, there will
> be the usual round
> of whining. But during the processes that actually
> matter, the people
> who whine later tend to be conspicuously absent.
>
> So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the
> very philosophy
> that made WP a success is not applicable to
> organizations. Wikimedia
> will become a functioning non-profit with the usual
> bureucratic
> processes, some successful fundraising, a few good
> partnerships here
> and there, a bunch of "professionals", lots of
> infighting among
> volunteers, etc. It will not become the open
> platform for social and
> technological change that it could be -- the wide
> network of people
> who are interested in building a free knowledge and
> free culture
> movement.  And who is to blame for that? Not the
> people who made it
> so. They have only the best interests of Wikimedia
> in mind and work
> their ass of to do what they can to make it a
> success. The people who
> are to blame are those who did not participate in
> turning Wikimedia
> into something else, something larger, when it
> mattered.
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________

Without knowing the full history, or many details at
all, I can understand both sides of this.  It is a
difficult issue.  Right now, the people who will end
up with access to the system, will simply be those who
have made themselves known to the people with access.
This is generally how the world works, and there has
been some discusion about the problems with this in
the Checkuser thread as well.  Within an organization
like WMF, this leads to a few problems in my eyes.
One you miss out on the qualified, experienced
people's input who do not happen to have a political
bent. And most importantly you skew the whole
organization away from the diverse and global feel.
That saddens me sitting here in the US, so I imagine
is really upsets the more "diverse" people  around.
This is also the reason there is the blurry line
between en.WP and WMF that has been brought up here.
Because most people only get access to the latter is
through the former.

That said it is much easier to get things done when
they are kept closed.  I cannot imagine how a truly
open system would work, and can easily believe it
would not work well.  I am not so much of an idealist
as I once was to insist on principles.  I understand
the need for pragmatism.  However, I would like
encourage everyone to take a minute to examine where
we are.  Examine what are the criteria for information
being put in a public area vs. a closed one.  Be sure
things are pushed to open areas whenever it is
practical.  Make a real effort to recruit more people
in from smaller languages instead of just waiting for
them to show up here.  I think more recruiting should
be done period.  For needed skill sets, etc.  I have
never seen the WMF foundation asking the communities
for anything besides money and trust.  I believe the
communities have much more to offer.

Honestly I trust you all, I don't need to read all the
discussions to feel comfortable here.  However, I
think that by doing things as you are, you are
overwhelming yourselves and missing out on the
experience available in the wider communities.  I
think anyone who reads this list must get the feeling
many people are simply overwhelmed with what they have
taken on.  The idea seems to be this will be fixed by
hiring professionals, but the further that route is
followed the more closed this will become.  Or else we
will have major retention problems.  I can not imagine
having my *job* open to the critique of all of you.
The email where it was misunderstood that BradP was a
paid employee is the tip of the iceberg.  I would
suggest putting out a call for volunteers for specific
tasks, and ask for resumes(which is a good example of
something that *should* be kept closed).  Look for
people with actual experience and that can work
together so no one is overwhelmed.  And whenever
possible people you do *not* already know well.
Seriously on a wiki a through read of someone
contributions can tell you most all the things you
would learn from a solid acquaintance.

I truly believe if there is not a effort made to keep
everything as open as possible now, there will be when
the chapters come into thier own.  So I am not too
concerned.  Although it would be better from a
practical standpoint, if the middle ground could be
found now.

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
On 6/1/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think he was simply referring to allowing these to reside in the
> Template namespace, rather than simply having the editor write their
> beliefs or preferences on their user page.  I think he's saying there
> is a difference between the two.  Basically right?
> --LV

Evidence that the world outside Wikipedia understands namespaces.

--
geni


body:
On 6/1/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think he was simply referring to allowing these to reside in the
> Template namespace, rather than simply having the editor write their
> beliefs or preferences on their user page.  I think he's saying there
> is a difference between the two.  Basically right?

Yes.  See for instance here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion&oldid=52889031

A project page in the Wikipedia namespace provided a satanist template
(now deleted and under review) residing in the template namespace.

To the outside world (and to me) it thus appears that the Wikipedia
project is providing all users with a facility to label themselves
according to beliefs, and by implication, encouragement to do so.
This is especially problematic with disreputable religions and
pseudoreligions (I apologise if this offends American sensibilities
attuned to First Amendment absolutism) such as Satanism, Scientology
and the like.


body:
On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes.  See for instance here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion&oldid=52889031
>
> A project page in the Wikipedia namespace provided a satanist template
> (now deleted and under review) residing in the template namespace.
>
> To the outside world (and to me) it thus appears that the Wikipedia
> project is providing all users with a facility to label themselves
> according to beliefs, and by implication, encouragement to do so.

No it doesn't. The outside would doesn't see that page. The outside
world sticks to articles.

A far better canandidate for that claim would be say:

http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Or

http://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destp%C3%AAk

> This is especially problematic with disreputable religions and
> pseudoreligions (I apologise if this offends American sensibilities
> attuned to First Amendment absolutism) such as Satanism, Scientology
> and the like.

What exactly is disreputable about say LaVeyan Satanism?

--
geni


from_name: English Wikipedia

subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
 userbox

body:
Peter Ansell wrote:

>So we can promote things only if they are not divisive and
>inflammatory in American English Christian culture? Because saying
>that you are a christian will be extremely inflammatory in some parts.
>And non-religious people may not even take offense to the satanist
>statement.
>
>
>
>
Actually, the christian userbox is up for deletion as well.  This isn't
about prejudice.

Jareth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jareth)


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Are phone books reliable sources?

body:
On 5/31/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >On 5/30/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>If among all those Ngs
> >>there is only one Egg Foo Ng it might still be useful there.
> >>
> >>
> >I don't see how.  Just because there is only Egg Foo Ng in the phone
> >book still doesn't mean that there is only one Egg Foo Ng in the area
> >served by that phone book.  I just don't see how such information can
> >be useful, especially considering how easy it is to put false
> >information into a phone book (in my experience there is generally no
> >verification of the names at all).
> >
> People can indeed put false information into phone books, and into many
> other publications.  Most don't.  Assume good faith is as important for
> reading phone books as for reading Wikipedia edits.  It also happens
> that widows leave the phone listing in their husband's name long after
> his death.  The average person wants the phone book information to be
> correct.  That's how people find him.  The value of a phone book when
> used as a sole source of information is limited, but it can be very
> helpful when used in conjunction with other references.  It is poor
> research to prejudicially dismiss any source.
>
> >>And we
> >>haven't even mentioned the usefulness of the yellow pages in
> >>establishing the existence of a business over a time frame.
> >>
> >>
> >It's even easier to put false information into the yellow pages section.
> >
> So?  That doesn't mean that every entry has false information.
>
No, it doesn't.  However, it does mean that a phone book isn't a
*reliable* source.


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
--- GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hoi,
> You assume that people get to know the Wikimedia
> Foundation through
> Wikipedia.

I do not assume this, it just seems to be most often
the case to me.  *I* certainly did not come to this
list from Wikipedia.

A common assumption but it is wrong in
> that the Wikimedia
> Foundation is there not only for Wikipedia but also
> for Wikipedia.
>
> There are other project and when people consider
> things it is most
> often seen in the light of what is good for
> Wikipedia must be good for
> the rest. Well, suprise that is a fallacy.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
>

I think you misunderstand me.  I was trying to speak
in general terms, but of course I see this problem
every day.  For example a simple bug request is put in
by a Wikisource editor.  This causes many WP editors
to reply saying, "Don't implement this.  WP articles
should never use anything like this, so it should not
be available."  There is little concern shown that
such a thing may be appropriate at a different
project.  I agree with you that this attitude "of what
is good for Wikipedia must be good for the rest" is
problamatic.  This is one reason I am advocating an
active recruitment of people from smaller langs and of
course other projects.  I am sorry I was not clear
before.

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:

> Later we got closed wikis and private board chats as a side affair. Recent
> statements like the ones quoted above give the impression that both board
> members find the Wikimedia community has become a pain in the neck at times,
> better to be ignored, or kept in the dark.

No. What Angela pointed out is that there was an open meeting about
the committees, about the need for a CEO, and so on (we created a
separate meeting specifically to discuss the ExecCom). For arguing for
the open meeting, Angela and myself received little but scorn from the
existing group of people who were likely to serve on these committees.
(Anthere was in the middle of her pregnancy at the time.) The
community members from the outside who joined hardly participated at
all.

This wasn't a small number of people, something like 70 in the main
meeting. See the logs at:

http://scireview.de/wiki/com2/channel.log
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_committee/February_11%2C_2006_open_meeting_log

Note that to this day, the second log contains a claim by Jimbo that I
"deeply misrepresented" him during the ExecCom meeting, without any
actual elaboration of why or how that is the case. I will not repeat
some of the other things that have been said.

You will also note that in the end, it was mostly me and another small
group of people arguing. I know you were there, but there are many
people who are on this list who weren't. Now we are given the usual
round of whining: "I don't like IRC!" "I wasn't informed!" "My cat ate
my homework!"

Participating in these meetings, for me, has not exactly been an
exercise in gaining popularity or favor; rather the opposite. Taking a
stand against a prevailing line of thinking strains relations with
people, and that should not be done unless there is a clear benefit.

This was a crucial meeting where a case could have been made, by the
community, for organizing and structuring Wikimedia in an open and
participatory fashion. There are very few people who were willing to
actually make that case.

For the "inside people" this is easy to explain: as we see with
adminship on Wikipedia, open and accountable models are quickly
subjected to constant harassment by self-appointed "accountability
activists". Having your private little clubs and mailing lists (some
of which, as we have heard, even the Board doesn't know about or have
access to) makes things so much easier. Why put up with the hassle of
an open meeting when you can have a closed one?

As for the outside people, perhaps their lack of participation is
because they don't care about "organizational stuff," perhaps it's
because Wikimedia has historically been so opaque that people have
expected that it needs to stay that way. Whatever the reason, people
like myself frankly lose the motivation to invest time in a lost
cause.

Just like Wikipedia has to deal with vandalism and trolls for allowing
anyone to edit, an open organization would have to deal with
incompetence and maliciousness in return for rapid growth and network
benefits. Rather than invent the organizational equivalent of wiki
processes -- something which would require a lot of creative thinking
from the brightest minds of Wikimedia -- it's much more convenient to
say: "wiki and organization are different things and need to be kept
separate." And, guess what, the lawyers agree!

There is virtually no active pressure or demand from the actual
community for openness, participatory processes and transparency
within the Wikimedia Foundation. As a result, there are very little.
The committees which have been formed are useful, but they pick and
choose their members on a case by case basis (or perhaps I should say
"face by face") -- cf. GerardM's rejected membership application to
the Special Projects committee. At least during the transitional
phase, the amount of bureauracy is even worse than it was at the time
we were ruled by the Board and the Board alone.

A process whereby every committee holds open, widely announced
meetings and where advisor status is granted instantly without
bureaucratic process was discussed, but does not seem to be practiced
by any of the committees.

Even a trivial idea like putting a couple of new community-elected
members on the Board has been proposed years ago but never
implemented. But, then again, has there been any pressure from the
community for such change to hapepn? Hardly at all. When a couple of
"big shot" outside people are appointed to Board positions and the
Board remains otherwise as it is, sure, there will be the usual round
of whining. But during the processes that actually matter, the people
who whine later tend to be conspicuously absent.

So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the very philosophy
that made WP a success is not applicable to organizations. Wikimedia
will become a functioning non-profit with the usual bureucratic
processes, some successful fundraising, a few good partnerships here
and there, a bunch of "professionals", lots of infighting among
volunteers, etc. It will not become the open platform for social and
technological change that it could be -- the wide network of people
who are interested in building a free knowledge and free culture
movement.  And who is to blame for that? Not the people who made it
so. They have only the best interests of Wikimedia in mind and work
their ass of to do what they can to make it a success. The people who
are to blame are those who did not participate in turning Wikimedia
into something else, something larger, when it mattered.

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
On 6/1/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> >
> > There's a difference, at least to the world outside Wikipedia, between
> > an individual Wikipedian making that personal statement on a part of
> > the site, and Wikipedia as an institution giving him a neat little
> > badge for the purpose of making the proclamation.
> >
>
> ... which is the exact problem of allowing templates to be used for such
> boilerplate expression of personal opinions.

Absolutely.  The nature of the opinion being expressed here (Satanism)
merely makes the difference more apparent.  A hospital that permits it
staff to wear political insignia is one thing; a hospital that
provides political insignia to its staff is quite another.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Top-posting: was Re: Admin-driven death of
	Wikipedia: a diatribe

body:
Aaaaaarggggghhhhh!  The Eternal Thread Of Death!

Please do not reply to this thread, on pain of  severe sarcasm.


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [Wikitech-l] Case inconsistency

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/31/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > Going through redlinks is how you create pages on a wiki.
>
> It's not the only way... It's just that the interface
> apparently does some primitive case resolving when there *aren't* too
> separate articles - type NOSTRADAMUS in the search box and it will
> take you (silently) to "Nostradamus". Make a link to [[NOSTRADAMUS]]
> in an article, and it will be a redlink (and clicking it will
> definitely not redirect silently).

Although there is another way to get there -- just type
NOSTRADAMUS into the browser's address bar.

Personally, I'd like it if the interface did a little *more*
of that "primitive case resolving", because creating all those
redirects seems like a waste of time, a task which could better
be handled in software.  Some work has been done on this over at
en.wiktionary, although in a somewhat ad-hoc way.

[[Lyon M?tro]] is a good example, because a hypothetical
more-than-primitive search resolution process ought to handle
presence/absence of diacritics, too.  On the one hand this
can quickly get nontrivial, but on the other hand the Unicode
consortium has published some pretty concise normalization
and collation algorithms which directly address this problem.
(See e.g. UAX 15 "Unicode Normalization Forms" at
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/, and UTS10 "Unicode
Collation Algorithm" at http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr10/.)


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] General Eisenhower

body:
On 5/31/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/31/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Is General Eisenhower aka, Dwight Eisenhower, still alive? Would it be
> > logical for someone to mistake this user with the famous american?
> > Famous live people may be disruptive, but how famous is famous?
>
> That's a separate issue - disruption by choosing an inflammatory (as
> opposed to confusing) name. Sort of like we probably wouldn't allow a
> name with the word "jihad" in it...
>
> Steve

How long exactly would it take for someone to find out whether it
really is a General Eisenhower, come back from the dead to edit random
wikipedia articles? It would be a lot less confusing than a bunch of
admins/interested users trying to figure out just which potential
usernames are confusing and which are not.

BTW, how did inflammatory make its way into your reply, I didn't quite
make the connectiion.

Peter Ansell


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin-driven death of Wikipedia: a diatribe

body:
On 5/31/06, Molu <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I notice that throughout your extended grumblings you have never managed to tell me how on Earth I'm supposed to stop this thing called top-posting.

Sorry to be uncivil, but I notice that throughout his extended
grumblings, he has never explained *why* people should not top-post.
It seems to me to be a question of taste, and both forms have their
advantages and disadvantages. Someone is sure to point me to an RFC
which proves that the unix community decided once and for all that
top-posting is evil, but amongst the wider community of internet
users, I don't think there is anything remotely approaching consensus.

If top-posting is preventing people reading or following
conversations, then by all means point it out in private mail. But
these continued petulant "I have fixed your top-posting" remarks are
actually more annoying than the supposed sin they're addressing.

</rant>

Steve


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Later we got closed wikis and private board chats as a side affair. Recent
>>statements like the ones quoted above give the impression that both board
>>members find the Wikimedia community has become a pain in the neck at times,
>>better to be ignored, or kept in the dark.
>
>
> No. What Angela pointed out is that there was an open meeting about
> the committees, about the need for a CEO, and so on (we created a
> separate meeting specifically to discuss the ExecCom). For arguing for
> the open meeting, Angela and myself received little but scorn from the
> existing group of people who were likely to serve on these committees.
> (Anthere was in the middle of her pregnancy at the time.) The
> community members from the outside who joined hardly participated at
> all.

The meeting was on the 11th of feb.
The baby born on the 7th.

So, I rather was in the middle of my hospital stay :-)

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
On 6/1/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/31/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Either cut all religious userboxes or keep them all, don't start getting
> > selective. The box is just as useful as a "I am a Christian"-box. Disrepute
> > due to beliefs is only an issue if said editors consistently misbehave.
>
> Agreed. One delusion is no more or less reputable than the other. "I
> believe in X" userboxes should be deleted or subst:ed generally, or
> replaced with "I am interested in X" boxes. Surely, "I am interested
> in Satanism" would not be a problem for anyone.
>
> Tony probably knows this and is hoping for exactly such an outcome. :-)
>
> Erik

Using Tony's argument about disrepute (possibly based around the
Christian American society view), if a general reader stumbled over "I
am interested in Satanism" on a user page they would be just as
disgusted. Wikipedia accepts editors without regard to their outside
lives.

Peter Ansell


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] The shift of Wikipedia

body:
"le Richard" wrote

> Sorry I got it wrong. My username on the English wikipedia is Herve661.
> And the contribution that was deleted is:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mathematics&diff=prev&oldid=26373995

I'm not surprised.

Charles


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 6/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
> MacGyverMagic wrote:
> > Either cut all religious userboxes or keep them all, don't start getting
> > selective. The box is just as useful as a "I am a Christian"-box.
> Disrepute
> > due to beliefs is only an issue if said editors consistently misbehave.
> >
> > People worry too much over userboxes.
>
> On the one hand, I agree, the ongoing train wreck that is the
> userbox "war" is silly and unnecessary.  On the one hand, I
> agree, all "I am a whatever-tian" boxes should either stand
> together or fall together.  Personally, I don't care if you
> proclaim yourself to be a Christian or a Satanist or a Democrat
> or a Republican or a vegetarian or a Martian or a pedophile or a
> Nazi; the only thing that matters to me is whether you can edit
> encyclopedia articles intelligently, cooperatively, and
> productively.
>
> But.  On the other hand:
>
> If you honestly believe, in this society, that there is no
> difference between saying "I am a Christian" and "I am a
> Satanist", you are either being wilfully ignorant, or disruptive
> to make a point.  And it's exactly this sort of wilfulness,
> disruption, and point-making that gives rise to big problems
> with those seemingly silly, unimportant userboxes.

Yes, in this world filled with ignorance and intolerance, proclaiming you're
a satanist is probably going to get you a different reaction, but my point
is that if Wikipedia wants to get anywhere near neutral we should treat
anyone who can edit properly equally.

Mgm


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the	satanism
 userbox

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

Nick Boalch stated for the record:

> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
>>>>If you honestly believe, in this society, that there is no difference between
>>>>saying "I am a Christian" and "I am a Satanist", you are either being wilfully
>>>>ignorant, or disruptive to make a point.
>>>
>>>Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between Christianity
>>>and Satanism (whether Theistic or LaVeyan) is that Christianity was made
>>>up longer ago...
>>
>>Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between you and a
>>banned troll is that you're not banned yet...
>
>
> Does [[WP:NPA]] apply to the mailing list?

If it did, your attack on religious believers would eliminate the
difference between you and a banned troll.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | You'll never find a more wretched hive
 sean at epoptic.com | of scum and villainy. --Obi-Wan Kenobi
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEfxTFMAt1wyd9d+URAo2wAJ9Maqe+6aeDI8hlOOQZ0Ri4j1TLTACfQ5/z
KNu2bj3ulaMIXlukTx63Upw=
=u5OZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
On Jun 1, 2006, at 2:33 AM, Peter Ansell wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
>> On Jun 1, 2006, at 1:56 AM, Peter Ansell wrote:
<various multi-level quotes removed>
>>> You make it seem like the issue about templates and articles are two
>>> totally different issues.
>> Er, I asked for two things. 1) What did you mean by "promote"?  2)
>> What
>> evidence do you have that Wikipedia is not allowing people to edit
>> because of their background?  Unless I am misunderstanding, you didn't
>> provide either of these in your response. I look forward to you doing
>> so.
>
> The promote statement was a rhetorically worded question, which
> implied a position based on the previous post which implied that any
> other action was disruption of wikipedia (which is a serious and
> blockable offense no less).
Thank you, that explains it.  Promote was indeed the wrong word, but
one that is an easy mistake to make when considering matters related to
userboxes, as they have a great tendency to provoke such mistakes,
blurring as they do the distinctions between userpages and public parts
of the wiki, and between public expressions of personal attributes and
promotion and advocacy of those attributes.  This is yet another reason
why userboxes are a troubling thing to both the community and the wiki.

<part of original message removed>

>  The word promote may not have been the right word,
> however, the action which based the wikipedia definition of
> inflammatory and divisive in the american christian way of life has
> not been rebutted.
I realize this.  I have no comment either way on that subject at this
time.

> I didn't actually say that wikipedia was not allowing people to edit
> based on their background. I apologise if it came across that way.
Understood.  But if Wikipedia is not preventing people from editing
based on their background, but instead, not providing them with
pre-made templates to express one aspect of that background - I don't
really see the connection here.  You imply that not providing a
pre-made template to express every aspect of every contributor would be
a violation of our principle of encouraging edits by any serious,
good-faith contributor.  I don't see where you justify this.

Thanks for the response!
Jesse Weinstein


body:
On May 31, 2006, at 6:13 PM, George Herbert wrote:
> If it were applied globally to the religious userboxes, I wouldn't
> have objected at all.
May I quote you on that?  Specifically, may I have your explicit
permission and request (on this mailing list) for anyone with the sysop
bit on the English edition of Wikipedia to speedy delete all the
userboxes listed on
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Userboxes/
Religion&oldid=56262627 under the criteria CSD T2.  If you truly agree
with this, it would certainly help.

Thanks!

	Jesse Weinstein


body:
Peter Ansell wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> ...On the one hand, I agree, all "I am a whatever-tian" boxes
>> should either stand together or fall together.  Personally,
>> I don't care if you proclaim yourself to be a Christian or a
>> Satanist or a Democrat or a Republican or a vegetarian or
>> a Martian or a pedophile or a Nazi...
>>
>> But.  On the other hand:
>>
>> If you honestly believe, in this society, that there is no
>> difference between saying "I am a Christian" and "I am a
>> Satanist", you are either being wilfully ignorant, or disruptive
>> to make a point.  And it's exactly this sort of wilfulness,
>> disruption, and point-making that gives rise to big problems
>> with those seemingly silly, unimportant userboxes.
>
> So we can promote things only if they are not divisive and
> inflammatory in American English Christian culture?

Did you even read any of my "On the one hand" paragraph?

> Because saying that you are a christian will be extremely
> inflammatory in some parts.

Indeed, and I apologize for my ill-advised use of the somewhat
vague and admittedly parochial term "this society".  (But on the
other hand, this *is* the mailing list for the English Wikipedia.)

> Your point of view is no better than any other point of view.
> Stop revealing your biases in such a tangible way.

Do please explain what my bias is here.

> Also, calling someone disruptive because they dont hold your point of
> view is poor form.

Oh, please.  I did not say it was disruptive because
MacGyverMagic doesn't hold my point of view.  I said it's
disruptive because it's a simple *fact*.  There are people who
will become upset if you wave the statement "I am a satanist"
in their face.  (But yes, yes, it's equally true that there are
people who will become upset if you wave the statement "I am a
Christian" in their face.)


from_name: Zordsdavini iz Litvy

subject: [Wikipedia-l] nowiki doesn't work

body:
Hello,
I was made for the input symbol like
"<nowiki>Ė̅</nowiki> " but now I don't see the letter -
I see the code including <nowiki>. It is in samogitian wikipedia.
Arns Udov???

--
Ok^ ek^ besla ikv Olmok Vzauep^evk
:)


body:
MacGyverMagic wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> If you honestly believe, in this society, that there is no
>> difference between saying "I am a Christian" and "I am a
>> Satanist", you are either being wilfully ignorant, or disruptive
>> to make a point.
>
> Yes, in this world filled with ignorance and intolerance, proclaiming
> you're a satanist is probably going to get you a different reaction,
> but my point is that if Wikipedia wants to get anywhere near neutral
> we should treat anyone who can edit properly equally.

Indeed, and agreed, on both counts.  But my point is that,
ignorant and intolerant though the world certainly is, Wikipedia
user pages are not the place to get this particular injustice
redressed.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] nowiki doesn't work

body:
In normal view it looks fine but in edit window toolbar seems with
code not letter :(
For example:
http://bat-smg.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tel%C5%A1%C4%93&action=edit
edit -> redaguoti
Arns Udov???

2006/6/1, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>:
> Zordsdavini iz Litvy wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I was made for the input symbol like
> > "<nowiki>Ė̅</nowiki> " but now I don't see the letter -
> > I see the code including <nowiki>. It is in samogitian wikipedia.
>
> Looks fine to me.
>
> You may have seen a temporary side effect during file upgrades. Please clear
> cache and try ?action=purge on the page. If it persists, please provide the
> *EXACT* URL to the page which exhibits the problem.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>

--
Ok^ ek^ besla ikv Olmok Vzauep^evk
:)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] nowiki doesn't work

body:
It is because edit code seems like:
<nowiki>&#x0116;&#x0305;</nowiki>
:(

2006/6/1, Zordsdavini iz Litvy <zordsdavini at gmail.com>:
> In normal view it looks fine but in edit window toolbar seems with
> code not letter :(
> For example:
> http://bat-smg.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tel%C5%A1%C4%93&action=edit
> edit -> redaguoti
> Arns Udov???
>
> 2006/6/1, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>:
> > Zordsdavini iz Litvy wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > I was made for the input symbol like
> > > "<nowiki>Ė̅</nowiki> " but now I don't see the letter -
> > > I see the code including <nowiki>. It is in samogitian wikipedia.
> >
> > Looks fine to me.
> >
> > You may have seen a temporary side effect during file upgrades. Please clear
> > cache and try ?action=purge on the page. If it persists, please provide the
> > *EXACT* URL to the page which exhibits the problem.
> >
> > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Ok^ ek^ besla ikv Olmok Vzauep^evk
> :)
>

--
Ok^ ek^ besla ikv Olmok Vzauep^evk
:)


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] General Eisenhower

body:
On 6/1/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> How long exactly would it take for someone to find out whether it
> really is a General Eisenhower, come back from the dead to edit random
> wikipedia articles? It would be a lot less confusing than a bunch of
> admins/interested users trying to figure out just which potential
> usernames are confusing and which are not.
>
> BTW, how did inflammatory make its way into your reply, I didn't quite
> make the connectiion.

We were talking about potentially confusing names like Stallman, where
it's conceivable that the actual person is editing. The objection to
names such as General Eisenhower, on the other hand, arises not from
fear of confusion, but from concerns that the name is inflammatory.

I don't think it's a particularly inflammatory name, but maybe
late-to-middle aged German person might disagree (though I doubt it).
A name like "Saddam rules" might be different...

Steve


subject: [Wikipedia-l] nowiki doesn't work

body:
It has to write a piece of code into artisle. In html
Ė̅ and ė̅ is two letters that we use. If
<nowiki>Ė̅</nowiki> code is in article (not edit tools)
it gives me letter.
Arns

2006/6/1, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>:
> Zordsdavini iz Litvy wrote:
> > It is because edit code seems like:
> > <nowiki>&#x0116;&#x0305;</nowiki>
>
> This is because a bug was fixed, and apparently someone was relying on that bug
> when listing the items in MediaWiki:Edittools.
>
> If you can explain to me what this construct was supposed to accomplish, I can
> try to update the charinsert extension to support it more conveniently.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>

--
Ok^ ek^ besla ikv Olmok Vzauep^evk
:)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Case inconsistency

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> Although there is another way to get there -- just type
>> NOSTRADAMUS into the browser's address bar.
>
> No good for accents, punctuation etc.

No?  It tends to work for me -- must be a browser thing.
(But I think I agree, the "Go" box ought to work just like the
address bar.)

>> Personally, I'd like it if the interface did a little *more*
>> of that "primitive case resolving"...
>
> Yep, but there is a fundamental issue which is that in *some* cases
> case is significant, and in others it isn't.

Yup.

> Without looking, do you know whether "Bell Tower" is the same thing as
> "Bell tower"? (no, I don't either).

Well, the simplistic answer (but I would think the answer to go
with) is that if they both exist they're different, but if not
they're probably the same.

> On the other hand, there are definitely cases where case should be
> more significant: I noticed today that someone had linked to
> [[foreland]], whereas [[Foreland]] came up.

But of course there, if nothing else, you're butting up against
Wikipedia's special-casing (er, special uncasing) of the first
character.

> There is currently no way to force [[foreland]] to give a redlink.

Hmm.

> You either have to unlink it entirely, link it and hope that someone
> will realise that they're not at the right article, or go to [[Foreland]]
> and add a red dablink (a very weird concept). All bad solutions.

I see what you mean, although I have to wonder if perhaps this is
a problem that's not worth solving (law of diminishing returns,
and all that).

> The best solution would:
> a) be consistent between typing in the search box, and following a [[link]]
> b) propose choices when the exact choice wasn't found, involving
> diacritic and case allowances

Strictly speaking there are at least four cases: the search
box when hitting "Go", the search box when hitting "Search",
wikilinks, and incoming external links (or, equivalently, users
typing directly into the address bar).  At some point I want to
sit down and map out exactly how these are the same and
different, and exactly which sorts of fuzziness ought to apply
where.  (It's tempting to suggest that three out of the four
ought to be identical in every respect, but there are enough
weirdnesses lurking nearby that I'm not ready to make that
assertion yet.)

There are also nuances depending on how likely it is that the
user is searching for something that ought to exist, versus
preparing to create something that doesn't exist.  (This
distinction is mostly aligned with wither the user is hitting the
Noarticletext or Newarticletext page.)  For example, if you map
case too aggressively in the case where only one variant exists,
you can make it impossible for anyone to ever create the other ones.

> I'm sure we've all gone "name fishing" before - you don't know what a
> thing is called, but hope to use the most canonical name by adding
> (film) or (food) or something afterwards. In such cases you do
> definitely want some name resolving. If a thing by that name existst
> and it' sthe wrong thing...you'd like to turn it off somehow...

Well, when I go fishing in that way and get a false positive,
it's always from the Go/Search box, and I just go back and hit
Search instead of Go.


from_name: thomas Armstrong

body:
Hi.

Using MediaWiki v1.4.rc1 with mySQL 3.23.58, I get this error message
when trying
to search any word with MediaWiki search functionality:
-----------
A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in
the software. The last attempted database query was:

    SELECT cur_id, cur_namespace, cur_title, cur_text FROM
`cur`,`searchindex` WHERE cur_id=si_page AND MATCH(si_title)
AGAINST('+foo' IN BOOLEAN MODE) AND cur_namespace IN (0) LIMIT 0,20

from within function "". MySQL returned error "1064: You have an error
in your SQL syntax near 'BOOLEAN MODE) AND cur_namespace IN (0) LIMIT
0,20 ' at line 1 (localhost)".
------------------

Any similar experience?


from_name: Robert Rapplean

subject: [Wikitech-l] Threads: any plans

body:
For those of you who have been following this, Wikimania declined my
presentation submission.  The search goes on...

On 5/16/06, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
>
> >>>>> "Robert" == Robert Rapplean
> >>>>> <mythobeast at gmail.com> writes:
>
>    Robert> I've replied to Uwe in private.  If anyone else is
>    Robert> interested in the consensus engine, please let me know and
>    Robert> I'll send instructions on how to check out the wiki.
>
>
>
>    Robert> On 5/12/06, Uwe Brauer
>    Robert> <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
>    >>
>    >> May be this is off topic, but would it be possible to add Talk
>    >> Pages, a nntp interface, so that they could be displayed with a
>    >> newsreader?
>
>
>    Robert> Is this in relation to the consensus engine, or in regard
>    Robert> to Media Wiki?
>
> Well both in principle
>
>
> Uwe
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On 6/1/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So we can promote things only if they are not divisive and
> inflammatory in American English Christian culture?

No, this is an encyclopedia.  We do not promote ANYTHING.

However, if we're going to have to debate this issue thousands of
times (roughly once per five userboxes removed, I suspect) then at
least we can weed out the obviously absurd reviews.  Such as those
that should be rejected on other grounds, even if people are prepared
to pack polls and vote against "What Wikipedia is NOT".


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject:
[Wikitech-l] User-specified JavaScript execution Vuln with two
	specific extensions

body:
Hi All,

There is a mouseover user-specified JavaScript execution vulnerability
affecting MediaWiki 1.6.6 when running with two specific extensions.

One of those extension is installed on the Wikipedia, but the other is
not. Therefore the Wikipedia (and most MediaWiki installations) are
not affected.

Details have been provided to security at wikimedia.org as per the
instructions at: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Security , and will be
made public in due course at: http://nickj.org/MediaWiki

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed bzip2

body:
mdd4696 at gmail.com wrote:
> Actually, I just downloaded enwiki-20060518-pages-meta-history.xml.7z
> and when I did a "7za l enwiki-20060518-pages-meta-history.xml.7z" it
> said that the archive would be 692686106434 bytes (645 GB)
> uncompressed. Is that inaccurate?

Hopefully. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060601/ae1f89c1/attachment.pgp>


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/1/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> > On May 31, 2006, at 6:13 PM, George Herbert wrote:
> > > If it were applied globally to the religious userboxes, I wouldn't
> > > have objected at all.
> > May I quote you on that?  Specifically, may I have your explicit
> > permission and request (on this mailing list) for anyone with the sysop
> > bit on the English edition of Wikipedia to speedy delete all the
> > userboxes listed on
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Userboxes/
> > Religion&oldid=56262627 under the criteria CSD T2.  If you truly agree
> > with this, it would certainly help.
>
> Those who complain that the T1 speedy deletion criterion is being
> applied unevenly are barking up the wrong tree.  They'll all go in
> good time, but it would be wrong to delete them all at once, without
> allowing time for discussion over the application of policy, which is
> still ongoing.  The results of this slow, measured pace have been a
> growing confidence and a steadier support for a broad application.
> Although applications for deletion review are made more often for
> templates than for any other type of deletion, there are relatively
> few successful undeletions.  Wikipedia policy is being restored to
> template space.

The problem with making this claim now is that you have rather explicitly
said that you went after Satanism because it was disreputable and would
bring Wikipedia into disrepute by having the userbox.  Whether this is part
of a larger campaign intended to get them all eventually or not, you've
rather conclusively identified that you are using your personal judgement
and religous biases in selecting who goes when and how.

That's blatantly POV and disruptive.

Again: Deleting them all is fine by me.  Tony deciding to delete the little
fringe ones that he personally hates first, not fine.

Agreeing with the end goal does not require agreeing with the methods or
ethics of someone's attempt to reach it.  The presense of userboxes is not
as disruptive as tha approach you have chosen to take in trying to delete
them all, in my opinion.  You think it's the way to gain consensus slowly on
the big issue.  I agree that slowly gaining consensus is good, but this
method is disruptive and abusive.

(this posting and my previous one on this thread may be freely used under CC
attribution share-alike 2.5)

-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / gherbert at gmail.com


body:
On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/1/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The problem with making this claim now is that you have rather
> explicitly
> > said that you went after Satanism because it was disreputable and would
> > bring Wikipedia into disrepute by having the userbox.
>
> This is not a problem.   That is precisely what I did.

Tony... When engaged in a general campaign regarding a class of things, the
LAST thing you do is to initiate it starting with a particular item which
you personally despise, while admitting publically that you despise it.

As a rule, nobody ever believes that you didn't simply have an ulterior
motive to the campaign as a whole afterwards, and it brings the whole
campaign against the class into disrepute.

It is not enough that you have no conflicts of interest.  You have to avoid
appearances of conflict of interest.

This is politics 101.  The way you have done this has brought the whole
effort to delete all the religious userboxes (which I agree with in
principle) into disrepute.

Like it or not, the current WP structure is in large part a political game,
a large part of which is an engaged group of editors with less experience
(both in WP and in online activities).  Complaining that it has come to that
is one thing.  Acting in a manner which is antagonistic towards it is folly.
Worse than folly, it is counterproductive and disruptive.

-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com
CC A-SA 2.5


body:
On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Tony... When engaged in a general campaign regarding a class of things,
> the
> > LAST thing you do is to initiate it starting with a particular item
> which
> > you personally despise, while admitting publically that you despise it.
>
> Well I don't see why not--if I were to particularly despised it.

WP is NOT your dictatorship, unless your real name is Wales.

Your authority here is no more than any other administrators, modulo the
clerk duties.

You don't have to play nice with others.  But ultimately, that's going to
determine the effectiveness of doing what you want done.  If you keep doing
things in a politically abusive manner, consensus will continue to turn
against you quite often, and it will end up blocking your goals.

You need to open your eyes and see how needlessly disruptive you are.

-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com