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

> One really good way to keep me from so much reverting
> (note, my reverts are always reverts of reverts -- I
> don't delete other people's test (I NPOV it instead);
> however, when people delete my text I do tend to
> revert their revert)

Then why do you do that? If you are aware that your reverts are likely
to cause wars, why do you do them? Why not instead leave a note on a
talk page, or perhaps the User's talk page, or perhaps just accept their
revert (maybe it was the right thing to do after all)? How about hoping
for others to reinstate your edit if it was good rather than assuming
that if you don't fight for the Good And True, nobody will? Sorry if
that sounded a bit polemic, but I'm trying to make a point.

Timwi


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: From Tannin, blocked a signed-in user

body:
Theresa Robinson wrote:

> Lord Kenneth is
> alleged to have vandalized of a number of pages, including user pages,
> cleanup, and pages in the main namespace.

This might have nothing to do with it, but when I met him on IRC he was
pretty abusive, rude, and opinionated. Just thought I'd point that out.

Timwi


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: proxy blocker mistakes

body:
"Timwi" <timwi at gmx.net> schrieb:
> Andre Engels wrote:
>
> > I checked, and on de: there are now over 100
> > indefinitely blocked IPs blocked by Proxy blocker
>
> Then you should probably unblock them. I had unblocked all the
> indefinitely-blocked on en after it was switched to banning them only
> for 7 days. I would have thought the other Wikipedias would do the same.

Who, me? I'm not a sysop on de:. And to expect people on all those Wikipedias
to conclude that they should do unblocking because a mailing list message has
said the way of blocking is going to be changed, is rather naive. There's
enough Wikipedias where the admins don't even know what Proxy blocker is, let
alone that its workings have changed, let alone that the change of working
forces them to take action.

Andre Engels


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Patent idea

body:
Till Westermayer wrote:

> Even if it's April1: indymedia.org has the same language-code scheme,
> e.g. de.indymedia.org.

'de' is the only one I could find that works. Its canonical URL,
however, appears to be http://germany.indymedia.org/. Similarly, there
is http://france.indymedia.org/ for France. The English version is at
http://indymedia.org/en/index.shtml.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Localisation (LanguageUk.php)

body:
vlad at isys-software.de wrote:

> I have translated Language.php into ukrainian.

I assume that http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageUk.php is your
version? I have committed that version into CVS; hopefully someone will
look it over and make corrections as necessary. Please try to get as
many proofreaders as possible.

> 1. How can i create new file (LanguageUk.php) in Wikimedia CVS?

I've done it for you.

> 2. How can it be installed an tested for uk.wikipedia.org?

If you're lucky, someone will reply and do that for you. I can't.

Timwi


from_name: Martin Harper

subject: [WikiEN-l] allow people to have two watchlists - done!

body:
> allow people to have two watchlists

Create a page in your user space.
Add links to that page to pages you want to watch carefully.
Click "Related changes" to view your new secondary watchlist.

I hope this helps. Now you have this power, I look forward to a
reduction in your frequency of edit warring.

-Martin


from_name: Paulo Ricardo Colacino

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia PT/BR - Sysop

body:
Dear Admins

I had a SysOp status until 03.abr.2004 at http://pt.wikipedia.org  but today my status was changed.

Two administrators of Portugal had been discuss with me about differences between the language said in Brazil and Portugal.  They are creating rules without consulting the community and had said that they would go to take off my status of administrator because this divergences.

He would like to know which was the reason of the SysOp change and if an administrator of Brazil in Wikipedia PT/BR would be possible. The actual administrators is creating a dictatorship.

Tnks. sorry about my english

Paulo Ricardo Colacino
user: PauloColacino
Rio de Janeiro - Brasil
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from_name: fabiform

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: IPA pronounciation Unicode
	symbols, old browsers and Wikipedia

body:
--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Apr 3, 2004, at 18:55, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> > fabiform <fabiform_wikipedian at yahoo.com> writes:
> >> I'm comfortable with using the IPA, but many people do find all the
> >> symbols
> >> off-putting.  In fact, very few dictionaries use it, presumably for
> >> that
> >> reason.  Perhaps SAMPA is a bit friendlier?

What I meant by this was that at least all the symbols used in SAMPA are
recognisable.  Like in the IPA you have the upsidedown e (schwa), or the E
which is like a rotated 3, or the long s.  These can be off-putting.  It's true
that X-SAMPA is just as complicated though (in fact more so, it has a few extra
symbols).

> > All printed dictionary I am own use the IPA.  Maybe, online ditionaries
> > are different?  If yes, they might be different because editor don't
> > know how to enter IPA symbols.
>
> IPA seems to be fairly uncommon in monolingual English-language
> dictionaries, which tend to use their own idiosyncratic systems. My
> bilingual dictionaries are pretty much all IPA, though.

I don't own any printed dictionaries which use it.  None of my printed English
dictionaries even offer pronunciation guides for words they assume you know how
to pronounce.  Even my bilingual French/English and monolingual French
dictionaries don't use the IPA, although at first glance they appear to
(they've changed at least one symbol).  So, the full OED on CD is the only
dictionary I own which actually uses it (much to my annoyance, I wish they all
would).

Fabi.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway
http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hard-ban User:TDC right away

body:
Both of these users are engaged in systematic point of view editing. This is
the pot calling the kettle black. The saving grace is that both of them seem
to engage in some research. TDC checks into exposes of the horrors of
Communism. 172 parrots the evasions of Marxist totalitarianism (Properly
identified, this too is useful). 172 freely deletes the results of TDC's
research, TDC does the same when he encounters 172's appologies for social
fascism.

As repects possible arbitration, obviously I would recuse myself from any
matter involving either of them.

Fred

> From: "Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 10:13:07 +0000
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Hard-ban User:TDC right away
>
> A typo in my last posting made things pretty confusing. I meant to say that
> TDC wrote the following on my talk page, not me:
>
> I will go on the Marx page 10 times a day to undo any vandalsim you cause.
> Please dont make me write a script to do this automaticly. [[User:TDC|TDC]]
> 06:09, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:172&diff=0&oldid=30496
78> >
>
> -[[User:172]]
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Check out MSN PC Safety & Security to help ensure your PC is protected and
> safe. http://specials.msn.com/msn/security.asp
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: IPA pronounciation Unicode symbols,
 old browsers and Wikipedia

body:
fabiform <fabiform_wikipedian at yahoo.com> writes:

> I'm comfortable with using the IPA, but many people do find all the symbols
> off-putting.  In fact, very few dictionaries use it, presumably for that
> reason.  Perhaps SAMPA is a bit friendlier?

All printed dictionary I am own use the IPA.  Maybe, online ditionaries
are different?  If yes, they might be different because editor don't
know how to enter IPA symbols.

This SAMPA looks very ugly to me and I have never learnt it.

Supporting old browser is nice as long as the rest does not suffer
because of such a support.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] [Fwd: Re: subscribe foundation-l@wikimedia.org]

body:
You were quicker than I Walter :-)

That will be my first testing post then :-)

I would like to know/discuss which role the board will
hold as regards wikimedia project.

--- Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> ------------------------- Oorspronkelijk bericht
> -------------------------
> Onderwerp: Re: subscribe foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> Van:       Adam Sj?gren
> Datum:     Zo, 4 april, 2004 13:36
> Aan:       walter AT wikipedia.be
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The following message is a courtesy copy of an
> article
> that has been posted to gmane.discuss.subscribe as
> well.
>
> On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 11:41:40 +0200, walter AT
> wikipedia.be wrote:
>
> > #gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org Mailing list
> for the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit
> organization in the state of
> Florida which operates the Wikipedia, Wiktionary,
> > Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, and other
> Wikimedia projects.  mailman
> dummy encode=encrypt
>
> >
>
url=http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
> Subscription messages for the requested mailing
> lists have been sent. The
> resulting groups will be created when the first
> message
> arrives from the mailing lists.
>
>
>   Best regards,
>
> --
>  "Og hvis vi skal v?re mere korrekte, s? hedder det
>          Adam Sj?gren
>   Assembly kode og ikke Assembler kode"
>     asjo at koldfront.dk
>
>
>
> So by sending this posting
> nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation
>
> should exist now.
>
> Walter
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New wikipedias: tpi, tp, io

body:
"Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com> schrieb:
> tpi.wikipedia.org - Tok Pisin
> One of the official languages of Papua New Guinea. Some pages should be
> moved from temporary work at bi.wikipedia.org over here.

I did the moving; might be good to have someone delete the (now empty)
pages on bi:

Andre Engels


from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New wikipedias: tpi, tp, io

references:
<CF12FA24-85DA-11D8-BF18-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>
	<shad1s81ja.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>
	<40700773.1030509@livejournal.com>

body:
On Sunday 04 April 2004 09:02, Ralesk Ne'vennoyx wrote:
> Which I remember stated in a document too.  Maybe what's suggested in
> the RFC (1766 and 3066 if I recall the numbers correctly), we should use
> the x primary subtag, and name it x-tp to avoid trouble (such as them
> getting a 3-letter code).  Same goes for Lojban and Ido and Klingon
> which don't seem to have codes yet either.

Lojban has the code "jbo".

phma
--
li fi'u vu'u fi'u fi'u du li pa


body:
On Sunday 04 April 2004 09:07, Ralesk Ne'vennoyx wrote:
> Shame those sources found by Google don't have like half of the codes.
> Klingon and Ido and Lojban (why jbo?!) definitely have their 3-letter
> codes.

"jbo" is the rafsi of "lojbo", the brivla (syntactically a verb, but also used
as an adjective - there are no adjectives or adverbs in Lojban, and brivla
are also used for common nouns) meaning "Lojban". Examples:
jboru'u - the Lojban monetary unit, distinct from ronru'u (Euro), meryru'u
(American dollar), etc.
jbofi'e - "Lojban fish", name (by analogy with "Babelfish") of a program for
parsing and translating Lojban text.

phma
--
li fi'u vu'u fi'u fi'u du li pa


from_name: vlad at isys-software.de

references:
<20040403141559.28058.qmail@softie.isys-software.de>
	<c4nguo$vcn$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<F54ABB9C-85E3-11D8-BF18-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>

body:
Brion Vibber writes:

> On Apr 3, 2004, at 15:21, Timwi wrote:
>> vlad at isys-software.de wrote:
>>> I have translated Language.php into ukrainian.
>>
>> I assume that http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageUk.php is your
>> version? I have committed that version into CVS; hopefully someone will
>> look it over and make corrections as necessary. Please try to get as many
>> proofreaders as possible.
>>
>>> 1. How can i create new file (LanguageUk.php) in Wikimedia CVS?
>>
>> I've done it for you.
>
> I made a couple small fixes so the file would run.
>
>>> 2. How can it be installed an tested for uk.wikipedia.org?
>>
>> If you're lucky, someone will reply and do that for you. I can't.
>
> Done. Give a shout if there are any problems.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

Thanks Timwi! (oder Danke :-)).
Thanks Brion Vibber!
It seems to work.
Now i should fix some translation mistakes :-(.

Regards,
Gutsul


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: proxy blocker mistakes

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

> "Timwi" <timwi at gmx.net> schrieb:
>
>>Andre Engels wrote:
>>
>>>I checked, and on de: there are now over 100
>>>indefinitely blocked IPs blocked by Proxy blocker
>>
>>Then you should probably unblock them. I had unblocked all the
>>indefinitely-blocked on en after it was switched to banning them only
>>for 7 days. I would have thought the other Wikipedias would do the same.
>
> Who, me?

No, the sysops in general.

> And to expect people on all those Wikipedias
> to conclude that they should do unblocking because a mailing list message has
> said the way of blocking is going to be changed, is rather naive.  There's
> enough Wikipedias where the admins don't even know what Proxy blocker is, let
> alone that its workings have changed, let alone that the change of working
> forces them to take action.

Well, obviously someone should tell them about it then. Is it so hard
for at least one of them to read either the mailing list or at least
something like [[Wikipedia:Goings-on]] and/or [[meta:Goings-on]]? If
none of them do that, then that's really their own problem, but then
again, it probably also means their Wikipedia is so small that the
permanently-blocked IPs probably don't make much difference anyway.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: edit wars

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

> It may be easy to criticize me, because I communicate
> about the edit wars I am in. However, I think your
> criticism would be far more useful if directed at
> those who refuse to communicate.

The criticism Jimmy and I gave were highly constructive. What's bad
about that? ... I suppose if you are having problems accepting even
constructive criticism, then it's not much of a surprise that you are
having problems accepting a revert too (which is a form of criticism
that may or may not be constructive depending on the situation).

> Never in my history here at the wikipedia, never has
> someone replaced text of mine that was deleted --

To me, that would be an indication that the text should probably stay
deleted.

> In any case, if you want to decrease the number of
> edit wars -- allow people to have two watchlists, so
> they can use one watchlist solely to watch articles at
> which they are involved in an "edit crisis". This will
> allow people the luxury of not having to worry that
> they will forget about the incident.

I couldn't follow this paragraph at all, nor could I follow the logic in
your previous posting. I don't understand why you think the availability
of a second watchlist would encourage people to edit-war less.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: allow people to have two watchlists - done!

body:
Martin Harper wrote:

>>allow people to have two watchlists
>
> Create a page in your user space.
> Add links to that page to pages you want to watch carefully.
> Click "Related changes" to view your new secondary watchlist.

Hah! Very good one. I totally didn't think of "Related Changes". I never
use it. :-)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:

>fabiform <fabiform_wikipedian at yahoo.com> writes:
>
>>I'm comfortable with using the IPA, but many people do find all the symbols
>>off-putting.  In fact, very few dictionaries use it, presumably for that
>>reason.  Perhaps SAMPA is a bit friendlier?
>>
>All printed dictionary I am own use the IPA.  Maybe, online ditionaries
>are different?  If yes, they might be different because editor don't
>know how to enter IPA symbols.
>
>This SAMPA looks very ugly to me and I have never learnt it.
>
I also find many of its usages to be counterintuitive.  The advantage of
the "unusual" symbols is that the reader does not have preconceptions
about what they mean.

Ec


body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:

> Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:
>
>>tp.wikipedia.org - Toki Pona
>>Toki Pona is a more recent conlang, but with a relatively active and
>>enthusiastic user base. ('tp' is not assigned as a 2-letter code, and
>>ISO isn't assigning any more 2-letter codes. Rather than fight about
>>what to call it, I figured 'tp' will do.)
>
> This is not the right approach; if there is no code assigned and if it
> is an artificial language, use "art-" as a prefix:
>
>     art-toki-pona.wikipedia.org

Far too long.


from_name: Abe Sokolov

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hard-ban User:TDC right away

body:
User:TDC needs to be hard banned right away.

Recently, a well respected user called TDC an "obnoxious, immature,
POV-pushing, insult-spewing" user. Of course, this isn't unusual on
Wikipedia. But lately TDC's behavior has gotten far more alarming than what
Wikipedia usually sees.

On 4/1, e.g., he posted this unforgivably offensive message on the talk page
of a longtime user and admin, and earned himself a 24 hour period:

Now, I know you Marxist types dont believe in an afterlife and the like, but
if I were to hold a seance and channel Marx's spirit through you, do you
think you would try and suck your own dick.  [[User:TDC|TDC]] 04:15, 1 Apr
2004 (UTC)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Slrubenstein&diff=3013952&oldid=3004687>

After the 24 hours, TDC's behavior has gotten worse. To demonstrate this,
I'll avoid telling a long, drawn out story, and instead refer to the
relevant links and briefly state my conclusions . Since he isn't very well
known among most mailing list readers (he's been trolling only a small
number of articles), the links and talk page excerpts below will allow other
users to examine this problem on their own.

IMO, his behavior is in league with the hard banned vandals. [[User:Kenne?]]
(see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Kenne%F0&action=history>),
e.g., was banned in 8/03 for making rambling threats seemingly coming out of
nowhere. TDC has been doing the same (my examples are placed below this
paragraph). [[User:JoeM]] was banned for blatant POV trolling and vandalism
(see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JoeM/ban>). TDC has been doing
the same for months. [[User:Michael]] has been known to target specific
users. Over the past week, TDC has been explicitly stating that he intends
to do the same.

TDC user has been given multiple chances, aside from being allowed to return
after the 24 hour ban. Also on 4/1, a poll was started on [[Talk:Fascism]].
An number of other users and I were hoping that since an overwhelming
consensus of users disagreed with TDC's view of the way things are (as of
now, twenty users have voted no; TDC is the lone yes vote), he'd get the
message and start moderating his behavior. BTW, if anyone's interested, the
results below are taken from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fascism>
([[Talk:Fascism]]).

-------

===Yes===

[[User:TDC|TDC]] 05:09, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

===No===
#[[User:John Kenney|john]] 04:50, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Raul654|→Raul654]] 04:55, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Eloquence|—Eloquence]] 04:55, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Meelar|Meelar]] 04:56, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:AndyL|AndyL]] 05:13, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Danny|Danny]] 05:24, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC) (in protest--I think voting on
this is ridiculous)
#[[User:Infrogmation|Infrogmation]] 05:26, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Mackensen|Mackensen]] 05:44, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:The Anome|The Anome]] 05:57, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Methylsoy|Methylsoy]] 06:54, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Jamesday|Jamesday]] 07:27, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Vardion|Vardion]] 08:51, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:172|172]] 12:39, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC) (Ugh. The crap being pushed on
this page grows more asinine by the day. Here's a better proposition to vote
on: "Poll: Should TDC and other extreme POV pushers with strong opinions but
little to no knowledge on the subject be banned from trolling this article."
[[User:172|172]] 12:39, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Skatehorn|Skatehorn]] 16:49, 1 Apr 2004 (CEST)
#[[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 17:13, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Jmabel|Jmabel]] 07:30, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Tillwe|till we *)]] 17:48, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC) (and agrees withh Danny)
#[[User:G-Man|G-Man]] 19:27, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Slrubenstein|Slrubenstein]] 21:11, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
#[[User:Hauser|Hauser]] 22:10, 3 Apr 2004 (NZEST) (Bloody pathetic, then
again it's kinda ironic the fact that I am complaining about a emocratic
insitution in a discussion about Fascism :P)

-------

However, his behavior has dramatically worsened. In his 04:58, 1 Apr 2004
(UTC) edit to [[Talk:Karl Marx]], he started harassing a respected user
because of his academic background. TDC wrote:

BTW, you are a bunch of soft-minded artsy morons, thats why you choose
professions, like sociology, that have no demand or real value in society.
[[User:TDC|TDC]] 04:58, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Karl_Marx&diff=3005125&oldid=3005118>

As an aside, hating "sociologists" seems to be among his array of weird
quirks. Roughly a month and a half earlier, he made roughly the same
"sociologist" crack about me: "secondly what productive activity could a
sociologist actually engage in? I mean, seriously?"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Sandinista&diff=2383169&oldid=2383143>
BTW, just to give you an idea about how clueless the guy is, neither of us
two "soft-minded artsy morons" are sociologists. My field is history. The
same for the other user.

Later, Stevertigo and Fred Bauder placed TDC on the 24 hour ban, hoping that
this would give him some time to cool off. The discussion of the ban is
pasted below:

Now, I know you Marxist types dont believe in an afterlife and the like, but
if I were to hold a seance and channel Marx's spirit through you, do you
think you would try and suck your own dick.  [[User:TDC|TDC]] 04:15, 1 Apr
2004 (UTC) For your information, this sort of remark is unacceptable.
[[User:Fred Bauder|Fred Bauder]] 19:51, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

I agree - a day or two ban is in order.
-[[User:Stevertigo|SV]][[User_talk:Stevertigo|(talk)]] 21:35, 1 Apr 2004
(UTC)
UPDATE!: Ban will last 24 hours. Please use this free time to meditate on
your behaviour, and read up on your [[Wikipedia:Civility|wikicivics]].
-[[User:Stevertigo|SV]][[User_talk:Stevertigo|(talk)]] 21:46, 1 Apr 2004
(UTC)

See
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:TDC&dummy=1&diff=3030615&oldid=3012818>
([[User talk:TDC]])

TDC has been meditating on his behavior since then. Unfortunately, he's been
drawing far worse conclusions. I wrote on my talk page:

I will go on the Marx page 10 times a day to undo any vandalsim you cause.
Please dont make me write a script to do this automaticly. [[User:TDC|TDC]]
06:09, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:172&diff=0&oldid=3049678>

Then, on his user page, he was even more charming. Here he effectively
proclaims that he's a Sadist:

172, if that is indeed your ''real'' name, believe you me that you have met
in TDC the biggest most stubborn prick on the face of planet earth, and I
will not stop until your stomach churns with bile at the site of [TDC]. I
dont feel that this is a waste of time, I get a great deal of satisfaction
out of this.[[User:TDC|TDC]] 06:02, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:TDC&diff=0&oldid=3049556>

TDC has contributed nothing to WP other than threats, insults, and the need
to protect articles with which he's obsessed. After seeing the recent
comments, I'm not sure if this guy isn't enough of a nutcase to start
personally tracking down users whom he deems his enemies. He ought to be put
on a hard ban right away, while he's accumulated only a small number of
targets for venting his frustrations (anger, paranoia, whatever?). The
longer he's on Wiki, the more users he'll start harassing and threatening.
So, it's best to put him on a hard ban before this gets out of hand.
-[[User:172]]

_________________________________________________________________
Limited-time offer: Fast, reliable MSN 9 Dial-up Internet access FREE for 2
months!
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup&pgmarket=en-us&ST=1/go/onm00200361ave/direct/01/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: foundation-l mailing list created

references:
<966S3IPhpVB@erik_moeller> <c4jadv$89v$2@sea.gmane.org>
	<loom.20040402T114206-2@post.gmane.org>

body:
Walter Vermeir wrote:

> Timwi <timwi at ...> writes:
>
>>How long until gmane.org will mirror it?
>
> I have send the request to gmane.org for the creation
> of "gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation"

Thanks!

> The are usually fairley quick to act.

Not this time :(


subject: [WikiEN-l] Hard-ban User:TDC right away

body:
A typo in my last posting made things pretty confusing. I meant to say that
TDC wrote the following on my talk page, not me:

I will go on the Marx page 10 times a day to undo any vandalsim you cause.
Please dont make me write a script to do this automaticly. [[User:TDC|TDC]]
06:09, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:172&diff=0&oldid=3049678>

-[[User:172]]

_________________________________________________________________
Check out MSN PC Safety & Security to help ensure your PC is protected and
safe. http://specials.msn.com/msn/security.asp


body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>"Ralesk Ne'vennoyx" <ralesk at livejournal.com> schrieb:
>
>>Which I remember stated in a document too.  Maybe what's suggested in
>>the RFC (1766 and 3066 if I recall the numbers correctly), we should use
>>the x primary subtag, and name it x-tp to avoid trouble (such as them
>>getting a 3-letter code).  Same goes for Lojban and Ido and Klingon
>>which don't seem to have codes yet either.
>>
>Those have all been assigned codes, Ido even a 2-letter code:
>
>Ido has 3-letter code 'ido' and 2-letter code 'io' since January 2002.
>Lojban has 'jbo' since Sptember 2003.
>Klingon has 'tlh' since February 2004.
>
>See http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/codechanges.html
>
>Same site does say "Both code lists are considered open lists (i.e., it is
>possible for new entries to be added to the lists)." by the way. (see
>http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/faq.html). What source does Brion
>have to claim ISO 639-1 is not, if I may ask?
>
Without necessarily addressing the immediate issue, it would be a good
idea for consistently dealing with this kind of issue.
    1. 2-letter ISO codes (ISO 639-1) should be applied strictly and no
new ones should be invented by us.
    2. 2-letter "w" codes (including w+numeral) that do not refer to a
language (only "wa" and "wo" are so defined) should be reserved for
interwiki links. (i.e. "wp" = wikipedia; "wq" = wikiquote, etc.)
    3. 3-letter ISO codes (ISO 639-2) should be preferred when 2-letter
codes don't exist.
    4. 3-letter SIL codes should be preferred in the absence of a an ISO
639-2 code, providing that the choice does not create a conflict with
any other existing ISO-639 code.  (SIL codes should be treated as case
insensitive)
    5.  3-letter (case insensitive) codes of our own invention may only
be used if none of the above applies, and the invented code does not
conflict with any other existing ISO 639-2 code or SIL code.

Ec


body:
Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

> tp.wikipedia.org - Toki Pona
> Toki Pona is a more recent conlang, but with a relatively active and
> enthusiastic user base. ('tp' is not assigned as a 2-letter code, and
> ISO isn't assigning any more 2-letter codes. Rather than fight about
> what to call it, I figured 'tp' will do.)

This is not the right approach; if there is no code assigned and if it
is an artificial language, use "art-" as a prefix:

    art-toki-pona.wikipedia.org

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


body:
> >This SAMPA looks very ugly to me and I have never learnt it.
> >
> I also find many of its usages to be counterintuitive.  The advantage of
> the "unusual" symbols is that the reader does not have preconceptions
> about what they mean.
>
> Ec

That's not true of SAMPA or the IPA.  For example they both use j for a y sound
(as in "yes") and y for a oo vowel sound (as in French "tu").  Also, SAMPA uses
symbols like @{}&123456789 etc, and you can't say you have preconceived ideas
of how to pronounce those.  :)

But I feel like we're wandering further and futher off-topic, so I'll stop
there.

By the way, arial unicode ms is on sourceforge, so I finally have a decent font
which can handle the IPA.  All my previous comments about SAMPA having maximum
cross-browser compatability still stand though.

Fabi.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway
http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: IPA pronounciation
	Unicode	symbols, old browsers and Wikipedia

body:
fabiform wrote:

>>>This SAMPA looks very ugly to me and I have never learnt it.
>>>
>>I also find many of its usages to be counterintuitive.  The advantage of
>>the "unusual" symbols is that the reader does not have preconceptions
>>about what they mean.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>That's not true of SAMPA or the IPA.  For example they both use j for a y sound
>(as in "yes") and y for a oo vowel sound (as in French "tu").  Also, SAMPA uses
>symbols like @{}&123456789 etc, and you can't say you have preconceived ideas
>of how to pronounce those.  :)
>
I wouldn't be so sure of that.  I would be inclined to pronounce "@" as
in "at" thus "cat" becomes /k@/   ;-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Hard-ban User:TDC right away

body:
Fred,

Stop it with the ad hominems once and for all. I usually look the other way
when you periodically come out of nowhere with crackpot statements
associating me with Mao and Stalin on the mailing list. But I'm getting sick
of being misrepresenting so often. I'm not a member of any Marxist,
Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyite, Maoist, Titoist, Enverist, etc., etc.
party, and I've stated so repeatedly. Not to rehash controversies from the
2003 [[Communist state]] edit war, but my opposition to your edits, along
with Jtdirl's, had nothing to do with POV but with concerns about the
relevance of the content that you'd wanted to add.

I know that once you're stuck on an idea, despite its scant relationship to
reality, you're not changing your mind. However, at least as a courtesy,
could you stop writing crap accusing me of "systematic point of view
editing? [that] parrots the evasions of Marxist totalitarianism" without any
evidence or basis? At least try not to be such a curmudgeon.

-[[User:172]]

_________________________________________________________________
Get rid of annoying pop-up ads with the new MSN Toolbar ? FREE!
http://toolbar.msn.com/go/onm00200414ave/direct/01/


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Apr 4, 2004, at 16:17, Andre Engels wrote:
> Same site does say "Both code lists are considered open lists (i.e.,
> it is
> possible for new entries to be added to the lists)." by the way. (see
> http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/faq.html). What source does Brion
> have to claim ISO 639-1 is not, if I may ask?

In RFC 3066:

   NOTE: In order to avoid versioning difficulties in applications such
    as that of RFC 1766, the ISO 639 Registration Authority Joint
    Advisory Committee (RA-JAC) has agreed on the following policy
    statement:

      "After the publication of ISO/DIS 639-1 as an International
      Standard, no new 2-letter code shall be added to ISO 639-1 unless a
      3-letter code is also added at the same time to ISO 639-2.  In
      addition, no language with a 3-letter code available at the time of
      publication of ISO 639-1 which at that time had no 2-letter code
      shall be subsequently given a 2-letter code."

    This will ensure that, for example, a user who implements "hwi"
    (Hawaiian), which currently has no 2-letter code, will not find his
    or her data invalidated by eventual addition of a 2-letter code for
    that language."

Looks like I misremembered it; 2-letter codes *may* be added (but only
along with 3-letter codes, and only if there wasn't already a 3-letter
code.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


in_reply_to:
<c4oitc$imu$2@sea.gmane.org> (timwi@gmx.net's message of "Sun,
	04 Apr 2004 10:01:06 +0100")

references:
<CF12FA24-85DA-11D8-BF18-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>
	<shisgg86nd.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de> <c4oitc$imu$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> writes:

> Karl Eichwalder wrote:
>
>> Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:
>>
>>>tp.wikipedia.org - Toki Pona
>>>Toki Pona is a more recent conlang, but with a relatively active and
>>>enthusiastic user base. ('tp' is not assigned as a 2-letter code, and
>>>ISO isn't assigning any more 2-letter codes. Rather than fight about
>>>what to call it, I figured 'tp' will do.)
>> This is not the right approach; if there is no code assigned and if it
>> is an artificial language, use "art-" as a prefix:
>>     art-toki-pona.wikipedia.org
>
> Far too long.

Then go for art-tp.wikipedia.org, but that's cryptic and
tp.wikipedia.org is simply misleading and sooner or later 'tp' will
become an official ISO-639 language code.  These two-letter codes are
precious.

Better use a long name now for a fun project than asking for trouble
in the future.

"art-" is a official recommendation.  In the TP
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/translation/ we have "art-lojban".

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [MediaWiki-CVS] phase3/includes Parser.php, 1.45,
	1.46

body:
On Sat, 03 Apr 2004 18:43:38 -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Apr 3, 2004, at 17:45, Gabriel Wicke wrote:
>> * invalid anchor names- attention! this might break links! Replacing
>> [^a-z0-9] -> '_' now
>
> That's going to be pretty bad for languages that don't write in Latin
> script, isn't it?

Yes, i know. Looking up the spec on anchor names, will change it to a
positive range. The trouble is that % isn't allowed as well, so urlencode
doesn't work.
--
Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Jay Bowks

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New Logos for vo.wiki and la.wiki

body:
Hi,
I just uploaded a logo with the
new wiki-sphere for the Volap?k
wiki. How do we make it go to
the corner, not that it's misbehavin'
or anything like that. It's now just
hanging at the bottom of the page...

The Latin wiki also has the new
"VicipaediA" logo, but as I found
out the page is locked and I don't
have Admin priviledges there. I've
uploaded this to my own domain
http://bowks.net/wiki/la/vicipaedia.png
where there are other images that
belong in the wiki database also...

Could someone grant me adminship
to la.wiki? I've been there since the
wiki-dot-com days as User:ILVI and
it was me who did the look of the
present Hompage at la.wiki.

With thanks and regards,
Jay B.


subject: [Wikitech-l] New Logos for vo.wiki and la.wiki


subject: [Wikitech-l] Geoffrin woes

body:
Shaihulud's been running the Mersenne Twister calculation as a CPU
stress test on geoffrin. Related or not, things seem to have gone
south; it comes up with "I/O error" in response to most commands, I
can't even tell it to shutdown or reboot.

Log fragment:
Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel: EXT3-fs error (device sd(8,7)) in
ext3_reserve_inode_write: IO failure
Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel: SCSI disk error : host 0 channel 0 id
0 lun 0 return code = 25040001
Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel:  I/O error: dev 08:07, sector 0
Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel: SCSI disk error : host 0 channel 0 id
0 lun 0 return code = 25040001
Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel:  I/O error: dev 08:07, sector 60715128
Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel: SCSI disk error : host 0 channel 0 id
0 lun 0 return code = 25040001
Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel:  I/O error: dev 08:07, sector 60715008

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Arwel Parry

body:
In message <F54ABB9C-85E3-11D8-BF18-000A95DAA284 at pobox.com>, Brion
Vibber <brion-e+AXbWqSrlAAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>On Apr 3, 2004, at 15:21, Timwi wrote:
>> vlad-6O4s9yG3FcddgG6+X1Sd1g at public.gmane.org wrote:
>>> I have translated Language.php into ukrainian.
>>
>> I assume that http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageUk.php is your
>>version? I have committed that version into CVS; hopefully someone
>>will look it over and make corrections as necessary. Please try to get
>>as many proofreaders as possible.
>>
>>> 1. How can i create new file (LanguageUk.php) in Wikimedia CVS?
>>
>> I've done it for you.
>
>I made a couple small fixes so the file would run.
>
>>> 2. How can it be installed an tested for uk.wikipedia.org?
>>
>> If you're lucky, someone will reply and do that for you. I can't.
>
>Done. Give a shout if there are any problems.

Brion, out of interest, are you still monitoring
[meta:Language_files_to_be_updated]? There are a number of language
files there which have been awaiting updates for quite some time.

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


from_name: Walter Vermeir

body:
------------------------- Oorspronkelijk bericht -------------------------
Onderwerp: Re: subscribe foundation-l at wikimedia.org
Van:       Adam Sj?gren
Datum:     Zo, 4 april, 2004 13:36
Aan:       walter AT wikipedia.be
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to gmane.discuss.subscribe as well.

On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 11:41:40 +0200, walter AT wikipedia.be wrote:

> #gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation foundation-l at wikimedia.org Mailing list
for the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization in the state of
Florida which operates the Wikipedia, Wiktionary,
> Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, and other Wikimedia projects.  mailman
dummy encode=encrypt

>   url=http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Subscription messages for the requested mailing lists have been sent. The
resulting groups will be created when the first message
arrives from the mailing lists.

  Best regards,

--
 "Og hvis vi skal v?re mere korrekte, s? hedder det           Adam Sj?gren
  Assembly kode og ikke Assembler kode"                  asjo at koldfront.dk

So by sending this posting
nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation

should exist now.

Walter


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Fwd: Re: subscribe foundation-l@wikimedia.org]


from_name: Evan Prodromou

in_reply_to:
<shisgg86nd.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de> (Karl Eichwalder's message
	of "Sun, 04 Apr 2004 10:54:46 +0200")

body:
>>>>> "KE" == Karl Eichwalder <ke at gnu.franken.de> writes:

    KE> This is not the right approach; if there is no code assigned
    KE> and if it is an artificial language, use "art-" as a prefix:

    KE>     art-toki-pona.wikipedia.org

I thought 'x-' was the recommended prefix. 'x-toki-pona'.

On this subject: isn't the toki pona Wikipedia just going to have,
like, 12 articles? It's a minimal conlang language that explicitly
renounces talking or writing about complicated, technological, or
other 'bad' subjects.

~ESP

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


from_name: Timwi

subject:
[Wikitech-l]
 Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: IPA pronounciation Unicode symbols, old browsers
 and Wikipedia

body:
fabiform wrote:

> What I meant by this was that at least all the symbols used in SAMPA are
> recognisable.  Like in the IPA you have the upsidedown e (schwa), or the E
> which is like a rotated 3, or the long s.  These can be off-putting.

This makes no sense to me. Whether it's an ? (rotated 3) or an "{", you
still have to learn what it means. In fact, having symbols that already
have a different meaning may be even more off-putting. Especially when
you have a "{" without a matching "}"? :-p  At least IPA uses
letter-like symbols, so you can assume that things that look like an s
(s, ?, ?) have a pronunciation somewhere close to s. Even moreso with
vowels.

Timwi


body:
Gabriel Wicke wrote:

> On Sat, 03 Apr 2004 18:43:38 -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>>On Apr 3, 2004, at 17:45, Gabriel Wicke wrote:
>>
>>>* invalid anchor names- attention! this might break links! Replacing
>>>[^a-z0-9] -> '_' now
>>
>>That's going to be pretty bad for languages that don't write in Latin
>>script, isn't it?
>
> Yes, i know. Looking up the spec on anchor names, will change it to a
> positive range. The trouble is that % isn't allowed as well, so urlencode
> doesn't work.

You could just simply hexdump it, without the '%'.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Hard-ban User:TDC right away

body:
Abe Sokolov wrote:

> User:TDC needs to be hard banned right away.

You seriously need to lighten up a bit and learn a few very important
things.

1) You can exaggerate your use of terms like "unforgivably offensive
    messages" as much as you want, it's not going to make people ban TDC
    sooner or for longer, nor will it make your statements appear more
    convincing.

2) Your assessment of the situation is so blatantly POV that you have
    little credibility. Firstly, it reads like the only thing you are
    absolutely interested in is having TDC banned, rather than having
    Wikipedia become a better place. Secondly, people will only be less
    likely to use the evidence you have collected because your collection
    is likely to be biased.

3) The following:

> Recently, a well respected user called TDC an "obnoxious, immature,
> POV-pushing, insult-spewing" user.

    speaks against said "well respected user" more than it does against
    TDC.

Timwi


from_name: Ralesk Ne'vennoyx

references:
<CF12FA24-85DA-11D8-BF18-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>	<shisgg86nd.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>
	<c4oitc$imu$2@sea.gmane.org> <shad1s81ja.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>

body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Then go for art-tp.wikipedia.org, but that's cryptic and
> tp.wikipedia.org is simply misleading and sooner or later 'tp' will
> become an official ISO-639 language code.  These two-letter codes are
> precious.
>

To quote Brion:
'tp' is not assigned as a 2-letter code, and ISO isn't assigning any
more 2-letter codes. Rather than fight about what to call it, I figured
'tp' will do.
-.-.-.-

Which I remember stated in a document too.  Maybe what's suggested in
the RFC (1766 and 3066 if I recall the numbers correctly), we should use
the x primary subtag, and name it x-tp to avoid trouble (such as them
getting a 3-letter code).  Same goes for Lojban and Ido and Klingon
which don't seem to have codes yet either.


references:
<CF12FA24-85DA-11D8-BF18-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>	<shisgg86nd.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>	<c4oitc$imu$2@sea.gmane.org>
	<shad1s81ja.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>
	<40700773.1030509@livejournal.com>

body:
Ralesk Ne'vennoyx wrote:
> Which I remember stated in a document too.  Maybe what's suggested in
> the RFC (1766 and 3066 if I recall the numbers correctly), we should use
> the x primary subtag, and name it x-tp to avoid trouble (such as them
> getting a 3-letter code).  Same goes for Lojban and Ido and Klingon
> which don't seem to have codes yet either.

Shame those sources found by Google don't have like half of the codes.
Klingon and Ido and Lojban (why jbo?!) definitely have their 3-letter codes.

Sorry.


references:
<CF12FA24-85DA-11D8-BF18-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>	<shisgg86nd.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>	<c4oitc$imu$2@sea.gmane.org>	<shad1s81ja.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>	<40700773.1030509@livejournal.com>
	<407008AB.7030507@livejournal.com>

body:
Ralesk Ne'vennoyx wrote:

> Lojban (why jbo?!)

Seeing as Klingon has tlh, which is equally unobvious to people who
don't know Klingon, "jbo" shouldn't seem too unplausible.

Timwi


from_name: Nikola Smolenski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: logo update

body:
On Saturday 03 April 2004 11:03, Walter Vermeir wrote:
> Nikola Smolenski wrote:
> > On Saturday 03 April 2004 01:46, Walter Vermeir wrote:
> >>http://sr.wikipedia.org/
> >>http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/e/e3/Nohat-logo-X-sr.png
> >
> > The Serbian logo at least is wrong.
>
> Then it must be fixt. To be fixt the error must be reported.
>
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia_in_other_languages

That'll be the fifth time I'm fixing that text...


from_name: Ray Kiddy

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Yahoo! XML feed

body:
On Apr 3, 2004, at 1:38 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Ray Kiddy wrote:
>> MySQL handles all this "changed since" checking and such. It also does
>> it more efficiently than a PHP script. So, what problem are you all
>> trying to solve?
>
> We have another organization (Yahoo in this instance, but to make the
> problem more general, let's assume that other cases will arise) which
> we would like to accomodate by supplying for them a feed that is ready
> made for their existing software.  They have a specification for input
> which we can easily meet.  We want to do so in the most efficient way.
>

But there are people at Yahoo who know MySQL. Jeremy Zawodny comes to
mind. He works there and his O'Reilly book called 'High Performance
MySQL' is coming out soon. The word "Replication" is in the title of
the book, so they could probably even help set this up so as not to
impact the wikipedia over-all.

It will probably not be too difficult to come up with a feed oriented
to them, but what happens when another organization wants the same
feed. But, oh yes, in a slightly different form. And another. And
another.

> Yahoo wants an XML file of a particular kind.  It's not complex for us
> to generate it.  We may wonder why they want this file, and of course
> based on feedback from here, either Jason or I will talk to them to
> propose something else if it seems helpful to do so.  But, this is the
> format that they want, and we want them to have it.
>

Again, the people you might be talking to might not be the database
people, so maybe they think that the solution they need is not a
database solution.

But you can let them replicate the database. It will be as efficient as
any application-level solution and they can do anything they want with
that data, spiced to their tastes.

Respectfully, I would say that if there are two things that wiki people
could spend their time on:

1) growing the wiki community and the database that keeps the
collective corpus together, and

2) feeding this to various corporate clients, again and again and
again, with all their ever-changing requirements

then one of these seems to be closer to the core mission than the other.

- ray


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [MediaWiki-CVS] phase3/includes
	DefaultSettings.php, 1.81, 1.82 GlobalFunctions.php, 1.73,
	1.74 OutputPage.php, 1.121, 1.122 Skin.php, 1.130, 1.131

body:
On Apr 4, 2004, at 14:58, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> If these features are turned on (with global flags), a metadata link
> tag is
> provided to the appropriate action ('dublincore' or
> 'creativecommons'). When
> the wiki script receives these actions, it creates RDF files on the
> fly.

Neat! Don't forget to check in Metadata.php...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
"Ralesk Ne'vennoyx" <ralesk at livejournal.com> schrieb:

> Which I remember stated in a document too.  Maybe what's suggested in
> the RFC (1766 and 3066 if I recall the numbers correctly), we should use
> the x primary subtag, and name it x-tp to avoid trouble (such as them
> getting a 3-letter code).  Same goes for Lojban and Ido and Klingon
> which don't seem to have codes yet either.

Those have all been assigned codes, Ido even a 2-letter code:

Ido has 3-letter code 'ido' and 2-letter code 'io' since January 2002.
Lojban has 'jbo' since Sptember 2003.
Klingon has 'tlh' since February 2004.

See http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/codechanges.html

Same site does say "Both code lists are considered open lists (i.e., it is
possible for new entries to be added to the lists)." by the way. (see
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/faq.html). What source does Brion
have to claim ISO 639-1 is not, if I may ask?

Andre Engels


body:
On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 14:39:16 +0100, Timwi wrote:

> You could just simply hexdump it, without the '%'.

No, there are a few characters not allowed in anchor names, current
replacement is now this:
$canonized_headline = preg_replace("/[ &\\/<>\\(\\)\\[\\]=,+]+/", '_',
html_entity_decode( $tocline));

Validates ok now (at least in utf-8), but i might still have missed some
invalid characters.

--
Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia PT/BR - Sysop

body:
"Paulo Ricardo Colacino" <colacino at terra.com.br>
wrote in message news:00b301c41a09$7b82bd10$7cd2fea9 at COLACINO...
>Dear Admins
>
>I had a SysOp status until 03.abr.2004 at http://pt.wikipedia.org  but
today my
>status was changed.
>
>Two administrators of Portugal had been discuss with me about differences
>between the language said in Brazil and Portugal.  They are creating rules
>without consulting the community and had said that they would go to take
off
>my status of administrator because this divergences.
>
>He would like to know which was the reason of the SysOp change and if an
>administrator of Brazil in Wikipedia PT/BR would be possible. The actual
>administrators is creating a dictatorship.
>
>Tnks. sorry about my english

I desysopped Paulo after consultation with two active users on pt: JorgeGG
and Joao Miranda. Jorge came to me on IRC saying that he had given Paulo
administrator access recently, but that he was mistaken and he wanted to
reverse this error. Paulo was ignoring the existing policies of the wiki,
and refused to listen to the other administrators when confronted. Armed
with my trusty machine translator, I checked out the debate, and found that
Joao Miranda had also attempted to set Paulo straight on wiki policy. I
asked Joao if he agreed with JorgeGG on desysopping. He said (on my user
talk page):

"I don't know. It has been difficult to make PauloColacino follow the rules
established by the community. We had some problems with him because of some
page deletions and copyright violations. But I don't like the idea of
removing his access to administrative powers because that could make him
radicalise his positions. I'm in favour of removing his administrative
access if he abuses his administrative powers again. pt:Usu?rio:JoaoMiranda
"

Two days later, JorgeGG contacted me again, saying that Paulo's behaviour
had worsened. He said that he was sure Joao would now change his mind, and
that he was happy to wait until that happened before I performed the
desysopping. Sure enough, within hours I received this from Joao:

"It's me again. I lost any hope that PauloColacino will ever change his
attitude. Today he is using every pretext he can find to start conflicts
with me and pt:Usu?rio:Jorge and abused his powers by blocking some pages
(he thinks he can block pages from other administrators). So I have to ask
you to remove administrator access from PauloColacino.
pt:Usu?rio:JoaoMiranda "

In response, I desysopped Paulo.

I didn't hold a vote for two reasons. Firstly, it's a small wiki with only a
few active users. Secondly, I sympathised with JorgeGG's desire to be able
to correct his own mistakes. A sysop should have the trust of the large
majority of the community. I was confident that if these two active users
felt that Paulo shouldn't be a sysop -- indeed, the only two users who had
commented on Paulo's behaviour -- then he shouldn't be a sysop.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Peter Jaros

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Why am I blocked ?

body:
On Apr 2, 2004, at 5:58 AM, Eric Demolli wrote:

> I have to say that I'm not a Unix guru at all.

And I bet more non-gurus will run into this problem.

> I would suggest to improve the proxy blocker :
> - By reporting what kind of security hole was discovered,

I'd suggest accompanying the report with some instruction on patching
the hole.
I myself am not a guru in this area, so I don't know how much detail
automatically selected instructions could have in this case.

Peter

                                  -- ---<>--- --
                        A house without walls cannot fall.
           Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org
                                  -- ---<>--- --


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Patent idea

body:
On Apr 2, 2004, at 10:43 PM, Michael Snow wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Wesley Sheldahl wrote:
>>
>>> True. However, the historical stated purpose of patents is to allow
>>> an inventor to profit from his or her invention for a period of time
>>> before everyone else starts profiting from the invention, and
>>> thereby provide incentive for further innovation.  What other
>>> benefit would there be to patenting something?  There needs to be
>>> some benefit to justify the expense involved.
>>
>> For some the bragging rights are the only benefit that they need. :-)
>
> And then, there are even people out there who would consider patenting
> something, just to deprive the rest of the world the use of it.
> Remember, a patent is the right to prevent use by others; the
> patentholder is not obligated to make the patented thing available to
> the public.

The same can be said about copyright, and yet we retain copyright on
all (or
most) of our contributions.  Why is that?

Peter

                                  -- ---<>--- --
                        A house without walls cannot fall.
           Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org
                                  -- ---<>--- --


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages: crossing a border?

body:
On Apr 4, 2004, at 21:26, Erik Moeller wrote:
[snip]
> I realize that Brion is a fan of languages, and since he sets up those
> wikis he pretty much decides what is acceptable. Shouldn't those
> languages
> undergo some basic public approval process first, though, so that we
> can
> determine whether there is really any value in creating them? In my
> opinion, Wikipedia should not be a promotional vehicle for other
> people's
> pet projects.

The value of a Wikipedia project wiki comes in several ways:

First, there's the long-term goal of being a useful informational
resource for the public.

Second, there's the short-term enjoyment we Wikipedians get from
working on the project.

Third, there's spill-over in getting people involved. Grabbing people's
interest for one project can get them interested in another one, or
more generally in the Free/Open Source ideals.

Certainly there are people who have derided the existence of the
Esperanto-language Wikipedia, but having it has brought a number of
people to Wikipedia in general, such as myself, who might not have been
called to it otherwise. I started patching the old UseMod wiki to
better support Esperanto and Unicode, and ended up pretty much
maintaining the software and server config.

Will an Esperanto-language Wikipedia really educate lay readers in the
future better? Maybe, maybe not. But as a recruiting tool it's
certainly been a success, and I'd rather not begrudge that chance to
others.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Timwi,

Let me tell you something. I've had disagreements with many users before,
and as far as I can remember, I don't usually go on the mailing list and
request a ban. I don't even remember having even done this before. So, I
don't know where you come off trying to write me off and attack me,
Impugning my credibility among the mailing list readership?

Moreover, the message you posted on the mailing list made it clear that
you'd only read the first paragraph. You aren't following the instances of
trolling and vandalism by TCD that Slrubenstein, John Kenney, Andy L, and I
have been forced to deal with, yet you rudely brushed me off right away out
of nowhere. If you didn't bother to take the time and even read the entire
message, that you should've kept your mouth shut. Even if I were being an
asshole, you didn't know enough at the time to be sure of that.

This made me go to the mailing list:

172, if that is indeed your ''real'' name, believe you me that you have met
in TDC the biggest most stubborn prick on the face of planet earth, and I
will not stop until your stomach churns with bile at the site of [TDC]. I
dont feel that this is a waste of time, I get a great deal of satisfaction
out of this.[[User:TDC|TDC]] 06:02, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Do you think this is normal? This guy's a waste of time for us to deal with
and unreasonable.

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee?
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963


body:
On Apr 4, 2004, at 21:50, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Brion-
>> Certainly there are people who have derided the existence of the
>> Esperanto-language Wikipedia,
>
> Esperanto has an estimated number of 2 million speakers. That is larger
> than many tribal cultures or ethnic groups which have their own
> language,
> and far greater than the proposed 10,000 speaker requirement. It is the
> most widely accepted artificial language. It is therefore hardly a
> valid
> comparison to Toki Pona or Klingon.

There are also many endangered languages with *fewer* speakers than
there are active speakers of Toki Pona or Klingon. Getting _them_ to
put together some encyclopedia material in their native languages would
probably earn somebody a nice PhD in linguistics or anthropology, and
would be very very worthy of our support.

The idea of a 10,000-speaker limit is absolutely abhorrent, and I can
only assume you haven't thought it through. Arbitrary limits are
inappropriate.

> I'm all for people enjoying themselves and working on Wikipedia
> because of
> that, however, as with everything, you have to do a cost-benefit
> analysis.
> And there is certainly a cost associated with letting every pet
> language
> have its own Wikipedia.

The cost is minor, and we've got plenty of "real languages" with fewer
interested contributors (total speakers or not), with dozens of
barely-scratched wikis already set up and unused. If you want to
improve the signal/noise ratio, I humbly suggest you concentrate on
boosting the signal. Putting down somebody else's effort isn't
productive even if it is satisfying.

> Per enjoyment alone, we should probably set up a big-ass Wikimedia
> gameserver, that would certainly attract thousands of possible
> Wikipedia
> recruits. (No, I am *not* suggesting that we do so.)

Capture-the-Troll? :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: XHTML

body:
On Sat, 03 Apr 2004 17:53:16 -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:

> Things aren't 100% clean yet, but some tweaks are starting to go in to
> make output pass as XHTML.

The parser is mostly on track now, some remaining problems are
* pre areas still sometimes nested in p's
* conversion of '&' -> & (especially in urls)

Most problems remain in the edit screens and image pages now, see
http://validator.aulinx.de/cgi-bin/validate.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwiki.aulinx.de%2FMain_Page&warnings=yes&spider=yes
for a recursive validation.
--
Gabriel Wicke


body:
fabiform wrote:

>>>This SAMPA looks very ugly to me and I have never learnt it.
>>
>>I also find many of its usages to be counterintuitive.  The advantage of
>>the "unusual" symbols is that the reader does not have preconceptions
>>about what they mean.
>
> That's not true of SAMPA or the IPA.  For example they both use j for a y sound
> (as in "yes") and y for a oo vowel sound (as in French "tu").  Also, SAMPA uses
> symbols like @{}&123456789 etc, and you can't say you have preconceived ideas
> of how to pronounce those.  :)

I don't know about others, but I have the preconceptions that (a) digits
have numerical values and nothing to do with pronunciations; (b) curly
brackets usually occur in matching pairs, and serve to parenthesise
other semantic symbols rather than being a semantic symbol itself.

I also don't like how these ASCII-IPA systems are completely backwards
and outdated, but that's POV.

Timwi


body:
Gabriel Wicke wrote:

> On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 14:39:16 +0100, Timwi wrote:
>
>>You could just simply hexdump it, without the '%'.
>
> No, there are a few characters not allowed in anchor names

0-9 and a-f are allowed in anchor names. That's all you need for a hexdump.


body:
Abe Sokolov wrote:

> Moreover, the message you posted on the mailing list made it clear that
> you'd only read the first paragraph.

You cannot know that. What you really meant to say is that what I wrote
only referred to the first paragraph of your message, and that is
correct. -- So according to your logic, the first paragraph loses its
meaning or significance with the rest of the message? If that is the
case, why did you write it at all? Maybe next time your first paragraph
should be a more representative summary of the rest?

> You aren't following the instances
> of trolling and vandalism by TCD that Slrubenstein, John Kenney, Andy L,
> and I have been forced to deal with,

That is true. I have better things to do. Like improving articles. If
you look at my messages, you will notice that I have never denied the
possibility that TDC may be a menace, bannable, or whatever. In fact,
from what I've seen in what you quoted (which *may* have been selective)
it pretty much looks like he is. But, as you said, I'm not following it,
so who am I to judge.

> yet you rudely brushed me off right away out of nowhere.

Why? Because you think I lowered your chances of being taken seriously?
I don't think I did.

Timwi


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I have no opinion on Toki Pona (It is well known I have no problem with
original research on Wikipedia anyway). However, as respects dead languages
which no one speaks, lets say Anglo-Saxon, or especially Native American
languages with very few speakers, I think they are very very good if someone
wants to do them. The only problem I see is having many (and paying for
websites) which don't ever develop into anything.

Fred

> From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller)
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: 05 Apr 2004 07:37:00 +0200
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Languages: crossing a border?
>
> Concentrate, yes. Ignore the noise, no. We have to draw the line
> *somewhere*, and if you do not suggest an alternative to the 10,000
> speaker requirement I have to presume that you want to draw it *nowhere*.
> The inclusion of Toki Pona sets a highly questionable precedent.


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Brion-
>
>>There are also many endangered languages with *fewer* speakers than
>>there are active speakers of Toki Pona or Klingon.
>>
>Well, considering Toki Pona has about a handful of "speakers" (none of
>which speak Toki Pona exclusively or even for a substantial amount of
>their time), I doubt that they would be worth including.
>
I don't know enough about Toki Pona to make an informed comment about
this specific language, but I can certainly view the proponents of
Klingon with benign condescension.

>>Getting _them_ to
>>put together some encyclopedia material in their native languages would
>>probably earn somebody a nice PhD in linguistics or anthropology, and
>>would be very very worthy of our support.
>>
>Why? They can set up their own wiki (or use my affordable wiki hosting
>service). Wikipedia is about building an encyclopedia, not about earning
>PhDs in linguistics. You are entering original research territory here.
>Not everything that some people may consider worth doing is worth doing on
>Wikimedia's property.
>
I would view the PhD as merely an incidental benefit.  Like Fred I'm not
completely averse to original research, but I don't think that
other-language Wikipedias necessarily means original research.  The
people with a direct interest in developing an endangered language
Wikipedia may not be in a position to pay you for your "affordable" wiki
hosting service.  A supportive on-line community is sometimes a
requirement to keep something going.  The resource shortage is not just
a financial one, but the paucity of speakers of the language also
implies a shortage of intellectual resources for doing the work.

>>The cost is minor,
>>
>I disagree. If we lose professionals because of our Elvish or Klingon
>factions, that is a major cost. If this whole multilanguage thing gets out
>of control, that is more and more likely to happen.
>
Maybe we would lose some, but to say that those losses would be
significant is entirely speculative.  Far more are likely to look at the
long list of languages with pride, even though they feel no need to
visit what's happening in these other languages.  Klingon may merit a
shrug or a head-scratch, but it won't drive people away.  Businesses and
other enterprises grow by taking bold steps; Wikipedia's growth has come
from taking bold and innovative steps, not by conservatively spending
its energy protecting its past accomplishments.  As a people's
encyclopedia we let all sorts of people edit with no special status
being granted to professionals.  If a professional can't live with that,
maybe he should leave.

>>If you want to
>>improve the signal/noise ratio, I humbly suggest you concentrate on
>>boosting the signal.
>>
>Concentrate, yes. Ignore the noise, no. We have to draw the line
>*somewhere*, and if you do not suggest an alternative to the 10,000
>speaker requirement I have to presume that you want to draw it *nowhere*.
>The inclusion of Toki Pona sets a highly questionable precedent.
>
Some of us are flexible enough to live in communities where lines are
never drawn.  The passion that some people have for making rules
probably drives more people away than our support for obscure languages.

Ec

>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Patent idea

references:
<20040401155608.H86478-100000@unity.copyleft.no>
	<9686GvW8bzB@westermayer-74391.user.cis.dfn.de>
	<c4ngip$u41$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 00:15:14 +0100, Timwi wrote:

> Till Westermayer wrote:
>
>> Even if it's April1: indymedia.org has the same language-code scheme,
>> e.g. de.indymedia.org.
>
> 'de' is the only one I could find that works. Its canonical URL, however,
> appears to be http://germany.indymedia.org/. Similarly, there is
> http://france.indymedia.org/ for France. The English version is at
> http://indymedia.org/en/index.shtml.

http://de.yahoo.com/, iirc ibm also used/uses de.ibm.com for mail
addresses, i'm sure there are more.

--
Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
The Toki Pona language was constructed by Sonja Kisa. Sonja Kisa is also
User:Sonjaaa and the primary instigator of the Toki Pona Wikipedia. Toki
Pona is not an officially recognized language anywhere.  Now the Toki Pona
Wikipedia is effectively not an encyclopedia, but a language development
wiki for the TP language.

So, where do we stop? A few years ago I scribbled down the beginnings of
an artificial language somewhere. Can I have my own Wikipedia, too? Yeah,
it's not really complete, but I can develop it as I go along, right? There
are 133 Google hits on Sonja Kisa's name. There are 13,100 hits on my
name. Heck, there are only 894 hits on "Toki Pona" and Google thinks I
misspelled "Toki Ona" (whatever that is). I bet I could push an artificial
language I create to 5,000 hits within a couple of months.

I realize that Brion is a fan of languages, and since he sets up those
wikis he pretty much decides what is acceptable. Shouldn't those languages
undergo some basic public approval process first, though, so that we can
determine whether there is really any value in creating them? In my
opinion, Wikipedia should not be a promotional vehicle for other people's
pet projects.

To me, it matters not whether a language is artificial or whether it has
naturally developed over hundreds of years. It does matter, however, how
many speakers there are, and if we can realistically create a complete and
accurate encyclopedia with that number of speakers. I'd say a minimum of
10,000 active speakers is a requirement for creating an encyclopedia.
Neither Klingon nor Toki Pona meet that requirement.

But they don't harm anyone, right? Well, they do clutter the list of
interlanguage links, and they do have the potential to harm our reputation
as a serious project. When a professional historian reads our article
about the Holocaust, and there's a "Klingon" link right next to Japanese,
that might be seriously off-putting. Especially if there's also Tolkien's
Elvish, and maybe some language from the Buck Rogers universe. I'm sure
the furries also have their own languages.

IMHO this puts us into a similar realm as the micronations, of which there
are also thousands. Creating Wikipedias for all these unused languages is
like formally acknowledging them. Furthermore, this will bleed into all
other Wikimedia projects.

I'd prefer it if these languages were developed on separate wikis, until
they have a meaningful number of active speakers. And I also think the
decision whether to start a particular language should be made by the
community.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Michael Wolf

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Starting a new language: Upper Sorbian

body:
Hi everyone,

I'm new at Wikipedia and I want to start a wiki in Upper Sorbian. Upper
Sorbian is one of the 2 Sorbian languages spoken in East Germany in the
Federal country of Saxony. The other Sorbian language (Lower Sorbian) si
spoken in the Federal country of Brandenburg. The name of the region
where both Sorbian languages are spoken is Lusatia. Uppe Sorbian is
spoken in Southern part of Lusatia called Upper Lusatia. Upper Sorbian
is spoken by ca. 40,000 people. You can already find some information
about the Sorbian language in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbian_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Sorbian_language

What I have to do? AFAIK there must be translated the file Language.php
and copied to LanguageHsb.php. This I've alread done and I wrapped the
LangageHsb.php into a zip archive languagehsb.zip that you can find on:

http://www.michalupo.de/wikipedia/languagehsb.zip

I hope it will work. Could anybody create the domain
http://hsb.wikipedia.org?

Thank you in advance and kind regards,

Michael Wolf


body:
Brion-
> Certainly there are people who have derided the existence of the
> Esperanto-language Wikipedia,

Esperanto has an estimated number of 2 million speakers. That is larger
than many tribal cultures or ethnic groups which have their own language,
and far greater than the proposed 10,000 speaker requirement. It is the
most widely accepted artificial language. It is therefore hardly a valid
comparison to Toki Pona or Klingon.

I'm all for people enjoying themselves and working on Wikipedia because of
that, however, as with everything, you have to do a cost-benefit analysis.
And there is certainly a cost associated with letting every pet language
have its own Wikipedia.

Per enjoyment alone, we should probably set up a big-ass Wikimedia
gameserver, that would certainly attract thousands of possible Wikipedia
recruits. (No, I am *not* suggesting that we do so.)

Regards,

Erik


body:
Brion-
> There are also many endangered languages with *fewer* speakers than
> there are active speakers of Toki Pona or Klingon.

Well, considering Toki Pona has about a handful of "speakers" (none of
which speak Toki Pona exclusively or even for a substantial amount of
their time), I doubt that they would be worth including.

> Getting _them_ to
> put together some encyclopedia material in their native languages would
> probably earn somebody a nice PhD in linguistics or anthropology, and
> would be very very worthy of our support.

Why? They can set up their own wiki (or use my affordable wiki hosting
service). Wikipedia is about building an encyclopedia, not about earning
PhDs in linguistics. You are entering original research territory here.
Not everything that some people may consider worth doing is worth doing on
Wikimedia's property.

> The cost is minor,

I disagree. If we lose professionals because of our Elvish or Klingon
factions, that is a major cost. If this whole multilanguage thing gets out
of control, that is more and more likely to happen.

> and we've got plenty of "real languages" with fewer
> interested contributors (total speakers or not), with dozens of
> barely-scratched wikis already set up and unused.

Most of the inactive wikis at least have the realistic potential to become
highly active when the respective speaking population gains Internet
access, and they can read whatever it is we produce (given a print
edition).

> If you want to
> improve the signal/noise ratio, I humbly suggest you concentrate on
> boosting the signal.

Concentrate, yes. Ignore the noise, no. We have to draw the line
*somewhere*, and if you do not suggest an alternative to the 10,000
speaker requirement I have to presume that you want to draw it *nowhere*.
The inclusion of Toki Pona sets a highly questionable precedent.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>It varies, but then, it also varies for some much larger languages (Marathi
>with 65 million speakers has only 4 pages, for example). There's four
>Wikipedia languages with less than 100.000 speakers, none of them getting
>anywhere serious, however the fifth smallest language (Icelandic, 250.000
>speakers) managed to get to a number of 9 Wikipedians (with 10 or more
>logged-in edits), and is seriously trying to make something.
>
>Wikipedia languages with less than 1 million speakers:
>
>             speakers   Wikipedians  pages
>Manx             250      0             1
>Nauruan        7.000      2            16
>Maori         50.000      0             8
>Scottish      60.000      1            14
>Icelandic    250.000      9           209
>Irish        260.000      3            62
>Corsican     340.000      0            14
>Occitan      350.000      7           493
>Welsh        600.000      9           954
>Basque       600.000      5          2319
>Frisian      700.000      9           881
>
Regretably, in a few instances the proponents start the wiki in their
language just to see if it can be done.  When they have immediate
success, they lose interest.  I suppose that a seriously inactive
Wikipedia could be put into suspense, and the work that has already been
done could be revived if there is a renewed interest.  From the above
list Manx, Maori, and Corsican would be candidates for suspension
depending on how long since their last activity.
There would need to be a prominent mention somewhere (perhaps after the
list of active pedias) inviting people to breathe life back into them.

Ec


body:
"Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> schrieb:

> Concentrate, yes. Ignore the noise, no. We have to draw the line
> *somewhere*, and if you do not suggest an alternative to the 10,000
> speaker requirement I have to presume that you want to draw it *nowhere*.
> The inclusion of Toki Pona sets a highly questionable precedent.

10,000 speakers, or whichever other number, does not sound like the best of
limits. For one thing, I don't want to disqualify the Nauruan Wikipedia (or
the Manx one, for that matter). I'd say the rules for ISO 639-2 are quite
close to what we would want: One needs to be able to prove that there are
5 institutes which taken together and discounting equal documents, have 50
documents in the language.

I'd say that a similar requirement, but used less strict, would be a good
criterium. Thus I would propose to allow languages in the following three
categories:
* that are on the ISO 639-2 list
* for which it is made likely that there are 50 or more different documents
  in various archives
* which are spoken by at least 10,000 people, provided there exists some kind
  of generally accepted spelling

As another thing, what do we do with dialects? Would dialects with a reasonable
amount of speakers and some kind of literature in the dialect be allowed to
get their own Wikipedia version?

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikitech-l] Geoffrin woes

body:
Camille Constans wrote:

>2 Days of run and yet calculation problem and scsi pb....
>
>It would be a good idea to get a refund from Penguin  I think.....
>And get a good decent db server.
>
It is very difficult for a penguin to recognize a lemon when he has had
lemon juice squirted into his eyes. :-)

Ec


body:
"Peter Gervai" <grin at tolna.net> schrieb:

> As a sidenote: Hungary have a population of 10,000,000 people (with speakers
> approximated around 15,000,000) and we have around 5 permanent active
> editors. (Though I expect that raise soon since there going to be some press
> activity.)
>
> I always wondered what can a wikipedia do supporting a language of, say,
> 100,000 people. Half an editor?
>
> I haven't checked what's about wikipedias with small speaker base after 3-6
> months, what activity they possess. I wonder.

It varies, but then, it also varies for some much larger languages (Marathi
with 65 million speakers has only 4 pages, for example). There's four
Wikipedia languages with less than 100.000 speakers, none of them getting
anywhere serious, however the fifth smallest language (Icelandic, 250.000
speakers) managed to get to a number of 9 Wikipedians (with 10 or more
logged-in edits), and is seriously trying to make something.

Wikipedia languages with less than 1 million speakers:

             speakers   Wikipedians  pages
Manx             250      0             1
Nauruan        7.000      2            16
Maori         50.000      0             8
Scottish      60.000      1            14
Icelandic    250.000      9           209
Irish        260.000      3            62
Corsican     340.000      0            14
Occitan      350.000      7           493
Welsh        600.000      9           954
Basque       600.000      5          2319
Frisian      700.000      9           881

Andre Engels


from_name: Peter Gervai

body:
On Mon, Apr 05, 2004 at 04:29:18AM +0200, Michael Wolf wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm new at Wikipedia and I want to start a wiki in Upper Sorbian. Upper
[...]
> is spoken by ca. 40,000 people. You can already find some information
[...]

As a sidenote: Hungary have a population of 10,000,000 people (with speakers
approximated around 15,000,000) and we have around 5 permanent active
editors. (Though I expect that raise soon since there going to be some press
activity.)

I always wondered what can a wikipedia do supporting a language of, say,
100,000 people. Half an editor?

I haven't checked what's about wikipedias with small speaker base after 3-6
months, what activity they possess. I wonder.

Do not misunderstand me, I am not against the new languages! They take up
small disk space, subdomains are free, so they should be opened by all
means, because it makes people happy to see their language supported.

I just wonder whether they serve a purpose after a while or not.

Peter


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Extension_Syntax

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:

>Can we start vote at
>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extension_Syntax ?
>If noone else want to do it, I can attend to this vote process.
>
The problem with voting on something like this is that most of us
understand absolutely nothing about it.  This effectively leaves the
decision in the hands of the techno-nerds.

For those of us who stand outside of that elite crowd, we are most
likely to ask
    1) What does the result look like? and
    2) How easy is it to use?

It seems from the meta article that some of these proposals may be
easily learned, (but I can't be sure.)  On the other hand, except for a
couple of very short mathematical expressions, there are no examples of
what these might look like, particularly for the hieroglyphics and
musical material.

I fully recognize that several specialized subjects require specialized
tools, and they should be available to those who want to write about
such subjects.  I hope that whatever is adopted will be adequately
documented for the rest of us.  Also a person who wants to enter music
(for example) should not need to learn how to enter mathematical formulas.

Ec


from_name: RolyPhotography at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] submitting pictures

body:
I was approached some time ago about donating pictures to the site and was
interested in doing so. I received an email back then on the specific steps and
image size that was needed, but i no longer have that information. If someone
can get back to me regarding this, i'd appreciate it.
thanks
roly
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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Googlebombing by activists raising Wikipedia article
	ranking

body:
Robert Graham Merkel wrote:

> In the features section of the Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com),
> there is a report about the efforts of a New York based activist who
> is using Googlebombing (essentially, convincing others to set up links
> in a particular manner) to change the search engine's top ranked answer
> to the query term "Jew".

We already know this since Friday. Wikipedia's [[Jew]] article was the
fourth search result then, and the third since Saturday. I suppose we
could all participate in this easily - if each Wikipedian set only one
link to [[Jew]] (with the link text "Jew") on a website of their own
(e.g. a blog), that would be a heck of a lot of links and would probably
help enormously to raise the article to rank 1.


body:
Andre-
> 10,000 speakers, or whichever other number, does not sound like the best of
> limits. For one thing, I don't want to disqualify the Nauruan Wikipedia (or
> the Manx one, for that matter).

I personally don't think Nauruan and Manx will ever get anywhere, and
speakers of both are almost always bilingual in English (the ones who
aren't are unlikely to have access to Wikipedia). Nauru today is primarily
an Australian prison colony for "dirty immigrants".

However, in the interest of wikipeace I would be willing to accept your 50
document requirement, provided that we are talking about *non-digital*
archives (the word archive is far too vague otherwise). The burden of
proof should be on the person who wants to start a new Wikipedia.

Furthermore, I suggest that the Toki Pona Wikipedia is removed from
Wikimedia and moved to the Unilang wiki instead:
http://www.unilang2.org/main/wiki/wiki.phtml

It seems to be perfectly suitable for that purpose.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Ray-
> The people with a direct interest in developing an endangered language
> Wikipedia may not be in a position to pay you for your "affordable" wiki
> hosting service.  A supportive on-line community is sometimes a
> requirement to keep something going.

If Wikimedia wants to provide charitable wiki hosting for worthwhile
projects then we should explicitly make this part of our mission
statement. Furthermore, if we want to do so, the respective wikis should
be independent of the main Wikipedia project, or any Wikipedia project,
and hosted on wikimedia.org instead, e.g.

tokipona.wikimedia.org
klingon.wikimedia.org
elvish.wikimedia.org

This prevents the "bleed-over" effect into other wiki projects, where we
will inevitably get a Toki Pona Wikibooks, a Toki Pona Wikiquote etc., all
of which would effectively be original research wikis.

Furthermore, any such charitably hosted wiki should be approved by the
community at large.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Patent idea

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> Even if Magnus Manske (or whoever it was) wanted to patent the language
> code thing, it couldn't be patented anyway, because it is not new.

Theoretically speaking, yes, you're right, and we all know that. But the
same applies to Ideaflood's patent. And yet, in practice, that patent
was granted...


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Starting a new language: Upper Sorbian

body:
Michael Wolf wrote:

> What I have to do? AFAIK there must be translated the file Language.php
> and copied to LanguageHsb.php. This I've alread done and I wrapped the
> LangageHsb.php into a zip archive languagehsb.zip that you can find on:
>
> http://www.michalupo.de/wikipedia/languagehsb.zip

Whoa. Why did you do that?

Please post the file to http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageHsb.php
instead. Don't forget to wrap it into <pre>...</pre> tags so it displays
correctly. Also, please copy the paragraph about the GPL (see
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageFr.php for example).

Then encourage a few friends of yours to proofread it and make edits
accordingly. When it's stable, notify us again :)

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Languages: crossing a border?

body:
Timwi-

> myself, I respect Toki Pona and believe that having a Wikipedia in it is
> OK; not because it has a high number of Google hits, but because I came
> across the language, found it interesting, and realised that it is a
> much more complete and serious conlang project than most other conlangs.

That's nice, but it effectively turns Wikimedia into a promotional agency
for a language which doesn't have any active speakers yet. It is not our
job to judge which languages are "worth learning" and set up projects so
people can do so. We need to define objective criteria rather than
subjective ones. The criteria Andre proposed seem reasonable.

Analogously, you might say we could have articles about persons on
Wikipedia who have a high potential for doing something meaningful in
their lives, in order to let people learn about it so they can get in
touch. Of course we don't do that, because judging who has a potential for
doing something is a highly subjective endeavor, and a promotional one to
boot (and therefore POV).

> (2) You mentioned that people who come across the English (or any other
> major language) article on some popular topic, and see an "Elvish" or
> "Klingon" or "Toki Pona" link at the top in the "Other languages:" row,
> would take this as an indication that Wikimedia is not serious enough or
> has no credibility. This is your opinion that you are generalising to
> all (or most) people. Myself, I think most people would react in a more
> positive way: "Whee, they have a sense of humour too, just like Google."
> Speaking of which, according to your logic Google would not be taken
> seriously either because it has Klingon and h4x0r translations.

That is an invalid comparison. Google is merely an indexing service which
is not directly associated with the information it provides. We, on the
other hand, are the direct providers of knowledge on a variety of highly
sensitive subjects. Some of these are subjects which people kill over and
die for, in other words, subjects people associate strong emotions with
and do not like to see portrayed in a whimsical light. If you try to find
out credible information about a terrorist attack in which you have lost
one of your loved ones, for example, having Elvish or Klingon prominently
featured at the top and the bottom of the article may immediately turn you
away from the project, it may feel like a mockery of your pain. That
reaction is not entirely irrational, furthermore, it is completely
justifiable.

In addition, in Google's case, the language appears in a single list of UI
translations, in this case, it would appear (if the projects are
successful to any reasonable extent) on hundreds of pages in dozens of
languages.

> The important question here is whether or not the amount of people
> recruited as a result of this fun factor outweighs the amount of people
> driven away

Yes and no. You also have to look at the kind of people you will attract
with any "fun project". It's not like we have a shortage of Tolkien fans.
Again, if we just wanted high numbers, we could as well run a gameserver.
There are lots of skript kiddies who have plenty of time at their hands.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> The Toki Pona language was constructed by Sonja Kisa. Sonja Kisa is also
> User:Sonjaaa and the primary instigator of the Toki Pona Wikipedia. Toki
> Pona is not an officially recognized language anywhere.  Now the Toki Pona
> Wikipedia is effectively not an encyclopedia, but a language development
> wiki for the TP language.
>
> [...] There
> are 133 Google hits on Sonja Kisa's name. There are 13,100 hits on my
> name. Heck, there are only 894 hits on "Toki Pona" and Google thinks I
> misspelled "Toki Ona" (whatever that is). I bet I could push an artificial
> language I create to 5,000 hits within a couple of months.

It seems that you are working from (at least) two assumptions:

(1) It seems that you think your Google counts have some sort of
significance or meaning. I think this assumption is dangerous to make.
Especially your own assessment that you would be able to create 5,000
hits within a couple of months, should repel this myth easily. As for
myself, I respect Toki Pona and believe that having a Wikipedia in it is
OK; not because it has a high number of Google hits, but because I came
across the language, found it interesting, and realised that it is a
much more complete and serious conlang project than most other conlangs.

(2) You mentioned that people who come across the English (or any other
major language) article on some popular topic, and see an "Elvish" or
"Klingon" or "Toki Pona" link at the top in the "Other languages:" row,
would take this as an indication that Wikimedia is not serious enough or
has no credibility. This is your opinion that you are generalising to
all (or most) people. Myself, I think most people would react in a more
positive way: "Whee, they have a sense of humour too, just like Google."
Speaking of which, according to your logic Google would not be taken
seriously either because it has Klingon and h4x0r translations.

The important question here is whether or not the amount of people
recruited as a result of this fun factor outweighs the amount of people
driven away under the sentiment that Wikimedia is "not serious". Your
assumption is that it doesn't, but this is open to speculation.
Analogously, most people assume that Wiki wouldn't work because they
think the amount of people who would vandalise and wreak havoc would
outweigh the amount of dedicated volunteers who clean up after them. In
that sense, we have already seen that these kinds of assumptions can be
majorly wrong.

> Shouldn't those languages
> undergo some basic public approval process first, though, so that we can
> determine whether there is really any value in creating them?

Yes, maybe we should. I'm pretty sure Toki Pona would make it.

Timwi


body:
>>>>> "BV" == Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

    BV> The idea of a 10,000-speaker limit is absolutely abhorrent,
    BV> and I can only assume you haven't thought it
    BV> through. Arbitrary limits are inappropriate.

For Wikitravel, we have a 5-member limit. We have to have 5 people say
that they'll work on the wiki, including one person to act as an
initial admin and go-between to work with the rest of the Wikitravel
community, before we start one.

~ESP

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Standardisation re copyright messages

body:
LS,
There is a bot in use that finds pictures in wikipedias that are linked to an article. It allows you to select among the wikipedias that have a picture and, it will upload the picture for you including the messages associated with the picture on the original picture.

The problem is that these messages may be in a language that is not readily understood. To compensate for that, it might be an idea to use messages in all wikipedia's that have a localised content. In the en:wikipedia and the nl:wikipedia for instance several messages exist to tell about copyright. My proposal is to make the names and content of all existing messages the same and, translate them to the wikipedia's. Meta would be an ideal place for such an endeavour ??

Thanks,
	Gerard Meijssen


from_name: Adam Bishop

body:
I'm sure there are more than 10 000 people who Latin too, but none of them
are using the Latin Wikipedia :) Fluency in Latin on la: ranges from maybe
one or two people who are Latin scholars, to people who don't know it at
all...added to this is the fact that we can't even communicate with each
other, because not everyone understands Latin to the same degree, and there
is no other common language for us because some people speak English, some
Dutch, some Greek, some Japanese, etc.

But I complain about this all the time, I should really stop it :)

Adam Bishop

>From: Peter Gervai <grin at tolna.net>
>Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Languages: crossing a border?
>Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 18:23:50 +0200
>
>On Mon, Apr 05, 2004 at 05:47:46PM +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
> > Does Latin meet that requirement?  The aboriginal Sami minority in
>
>I'm sure there are more than 10000 people who knows latin. At least
every
>doctor in Hungary ought to. :)
>
> > If this is the problem, why not solve this problem.  Split the
lists
> > in two or three different lists: Languages with more than 20K
articles
> > can be considered "useful" encyclopedias, languages with
1K-20K
> > articles can be listed as "developing" encyclopedias,
and languages
> > with less than 1K articles are "experimental".
>
>Allright. So I am going on with my bot to create year articles (let's
start
>with 3000), and create cities (~4500) and maybe country templates and
...
>and...
>
>Yep. We have ~600 articles, but they are _real_. Not templates. Not
>automatically created. I believe I can create around 10000 of those
without
>much thinking. So we can be "useful" in, say, I week. Progress
is fast
>nowadays, isn't it?
>
>(All I wanted to say: article count isn't god's way to rate us. Apart
from
>the problem that there ain't no god.)
>
>--grin
>
>ps: ...on the other hand the number of speakers of a language.... (much
>harder to boost artifically)
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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from_name: Camille Constans

subject: [Wikitech-l] Geoffrin woes

body:
On Sun, 4 Apr 2004 13:58:56 -0700
Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> Shaihulud's been running the Mersenne Twister calculation as a CPU
> stress test on geoffrin. Related or not, things seem to have gone
> south; it comes up with "I/O error" in response to most commands, I
> can't even tell it to shutdown or reboot.
>
> Log fragment:
> Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel: EXT3-fs error (device sd(8,7)) in
> ext3_reserve_inode_write: IO failure
> Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel: SCSI disk error : host 0 channel 0 id
> 0 lun 0 return code = 25040001
> Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel:  I/O error: dev 08:07, sector 0
> Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel: SCSI disk error : host 0 channel 0 id
> 0 lun 0 return code = 25040001
> Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel:  I/O error: dev 08:07, sector 60715128
> Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel: SCSI disk error : host 0 channel 0 id
> 0 lun 0 return code = 25040001
> Apr  4 19:05:02 geoffrin kernel:  I/O error: dev 08:07, sector 60715008

2 Days of run and yet calculation problem and scsi pb....

It would be a good idea to get a refund from Penguin  I think.....
And get a good decent db server.

Shaihulud