subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
At 2004-01-02 03:17, Erik Moeller wrote:
>Jaap-
>>> People will just have to get used to it.
>
>> It's not new.
>
>True, but it's now more ubiquitous than ever.

That's relative.

>> Why not raise much more using advertising and pay the authors
>> some?
>
>But which authors do you want to pay? The guy who writes 200 Star Trek
>episode summaries? The one who collects bird photos? The one who spends 6
>months researching a single subject and then writes a 500 word article
>about it?

Use your imagination. Oops you already did... ;-)

>It would end up being unfair one way or the other.

So because it's never perfect you think no one should
be paid?

>Authors can eventually be paid using a "Free Software Bazaar" like model,
>where people can describe specific projects and individuals supply
>(pooled) funding. Basically WikiMoney without the Wiki.

Huh, I never found that within Wikipedia, could you explain
this in terms of money/time spend and what it gives in return?

>> There still seem to be enough people willing to be amateur
>> writers for a couple of hours a day, but you can't expect
>> professional writers to write for money all day and then
>> write for free in their spare time.
>
>Oh, but I am a professional writer, and I do write for free in my spare
>time.

Why?

>I'm working on a book

Also a book?

>and simulatenously checking RC to look for stuff to edit.

What is RC?

(Probably I should know, but I don't...)

You're a writer and use abbrevs that your audience doesn't
understand?

What Wikipedia needs is more professionalism, not more semi-
profs.

I got interested again through our Dutch 'director' who mentioned
the money drive, which made me look at this Wikipedia folder
again and made me remember old sentiments.

>We've beaten Britannica in terms of quantity in less than 3
>years, and we'll beat them in terms of quality as well, without payment if
>necessary.

And what does that proof?

>> It's probably less bother than having to raise money through
>> charity drives etc.
>
>It's no bother at all. We just need to automate it to some degree, which
>is also true for ads.

So money coming in via charity drives is easy and will be easy?

You have something coming to you... But okay I give
Wikipedia upto 5 years of smooth sailing...

Jimmy is very capable of expressing the right amount of
Bambi-like innosense.

By the way, I haven't the time to read all the messsages
on this mailing list, but I'd propose to have the servers
hosted at a professional hoster, against a certain SLA
(service level agreament).

I think that it should be possible to have some big
organisation like IBM to host it, but any organisation
like that will ask for some contra-prestation and
I wouldn't blame them, so just get a good hoster and
be prepared to pay for it. It should be cheaper than
having to bother with the hardware yourself.

Or be prepared to accept sponsoring and negociate with
the likes of IBM etc. but never negociate yourself, like
in legal cases, always let others do it.

>> I'm against the government subsidizing anything that should
>> be able to gain it's own money.
>
>I'm against silly philosophical justifications for not accepting good hard
>cash ;-).

So you're for accepting any cash whatever it comes from?

Nice. That's something to build a society on.

>The money would likely go to some arms manufacturer, or some
>poorly conceived EU initiative otherwise.

Huh, so you see the ammount of money that whatever government
has is a given fact and it's good to syphon as much as possible
of because otherwise it's used for issues that you don't understand
yet?

>I agree that it's not hard to raise money. I also think that
>it's always a good idea to tap additional sources.

The more the better, right?

>> What is your fundamental problem with advertising, since you
>> seem to have one?
>
>I won't rehearse all the arguments that have been posted a billion times.
>But if you nag me again, maybe I'll put it into an FAQ somewhere. For
>starters, see the K5 discussion:
>http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/12/29/55411/573

Within a discussion it's bad form to refer to external sources
without at least summorizing them, sorry.

>> Advertising when applied properly is also additional information.
>
>Sure, but it's also propaganda.

So what?

>> your project will only get
>> money as long as it's hip and that can change anytime.
>
>Exactly. So let's get it while we're hot!

You're so young...

>> What when the big regular encyclopedia publishers find out
>> and send their flock of lobbyists to Brussels?
>
>None of them is as international as we are, none of them is non-profit and
>open content. And the only company that we should be worried about is
>Microsoft, the others do not have the resources to fight us.

You're so young...

>>> This model of voluntary giving will become much more wide-spread. It's
>>> called the [[gift economy]].
>
>> Like in shareware, which never really worked on a big scale? ;-)
>
>It didn't? I know shareware authors who've made 100K or more only on the
>basis of more or less voluntary donations,

More or less voluntary? Was it voluntary or not?

>and that was before the web and PayPal.

Yes I also heard of one of those cases.

>The key are ease of transaction, reputation mechanisms and some
>kind of feedback. The Dean campaign just made >$1.5 million in one week.
>We can learn a lot from them.

What is the Dean campaign?

>I find it rather funny when people point to the examples of donation
>campaigns that didn't work to prove that gift economies can't work. That's
>like pointing to a failed company to argue that capitalism can't succeed.

Of course gift economies can work as long as people have enough left over
from the real economie to give away. It's a luxery however to give
your surplus away. You're not likely to give anything away when you're
suffering from cold, hunger, shealter, lack of cloths etc.

And seeing how the Americans keep spending although the dollar keeps
soaring compared to the euro and the USA's trade deficit keeps raising
and we europeans keep buying up parts of the USA.

Sooner or later we'll have to come over in low boats and claim the
country the we in the mean time bought (and that was ours anyway
(remember Nieuw Amsterdam)...

But I digress...

Greetings,
Jaap


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Uploading images?

body:
Uploading images - when will this feature be back again?

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


list: wikien-l

from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Outrageous!

body:
In 1536 [Copernicus'] work was already in a definitive form, and some
rumours about his theory had reached the scientists of all Europe. From many
parts of the Continent, Copernicus received invitations to publish it, but
he felt quite apprehensive of persecution for his revolutionary work by the
establishment of the time. The cardinal Nicola Schonberg of Capua wrote him
for a copy of his manuscript, and this made Copernicus, who saw in this a
certain nervousness of the Church, even more frightened of eventual
reactions.

References: From the Wikipedia article, "Nicolaus Copernicus"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus

> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 05:01:58 -0700
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Outrageous!
>
>
>
>> From: Robert Graham Merkel <rgmerk at mira.net>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 20:35:32 +1100
>> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>> Subject: [WikiEN-l] cranks and deleting
>>
>> If the Wikipedia had existed back in the 1530's and
>> user:Copernicus had added a piece on [[Sun-centred universe theory]] we
>> would have been perfectly correct to delete the article after listing on
>> VfD and suggest that he first publish his work elsewhere.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Insufficient primary sources

body:
I think the question of quality of sources cannot be avoided. Where I live
we had a young man who made a living off of stories of flying saucers,
cattle mutilations and similar stuff, none of which was fact based (as I
have lived here for many years, surely I would have observed at least one of
the numberless phenomena he reported). He is notorious enough that should
someone wish to write a Wikipedia article it would not be questioned. Simply
a lot of independent sources doesn't raise crap to fact. The modest article
Ray Gardner wrote about himself falls in an entirely different category,
nothing in his article is subject to serious factual dispute, despite lack
of any way of definitively validating whether, for example, he worked for
Electronic Arts.

Fred

> From: tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 13:22:02 +0000
> To: Wikipedia-En <wikiEN-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Insufficient primary sources
>
> The matter of pet scientific theories and personal biographies have
> something in common: we can't verify them because the only material we
> can find on them is written by the author.
>
> So I suggest that we focus on this angle. We already have a policy that
> "Wikipedia is not a primary source".
> This provides sufficient justification for not having these types of
> articles in WP.
> We should perhaps try to come up with loose guidelines as to how many
> primary sources we require.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Donation History

body:
Jaap van Ganswijk <ganswijk at xs4all.nl> writes:

> What is your fundamental problem with advertising, since you
> seem to have one?

In the end, it is me and you who will have to pay for the advertisments
and they will destroy everything: first, authors like me will stop
working on contents and then article will be written to make them more
suitable to carry ads.  And the ads will distract the readers from
contents.

Of course, one can base a business or a culture of a country on an
advertising economy - some like it, some do not.  I already said good
by to TV and most of our broadcasting stations.

And look at our cities: Graffiti isn't the problem, the problem are the
ads.  Walk thru your city and try to take photograph of famous monument
- you will quickly see what I mean.

Okay, there are some cities, where public advertising isn't allowed ;)

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


from_name: Arnaud G

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Donation History

body:
>>What is your fundamental problem with advertising, since you
>>seem to have one?
>>
>>

For me advertising will destroy the concept of NPOV. Even if all the
contributors respect it the reader will always have a doubt as wikipedia
will be dependent of this money income. And we will lose the trust of many.
For me the only independent press is the one without ads.

Arnaud G (greatpatton)


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Outrageous!

body:
But how much time would we spend on arguing with him whether he was Polish or German?

RickK

tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:

Fred Bauder wrote:

>>From: Robert Graham Merkel
>>
>>
>>If the Wikipedia had existed back in the 1530's and
>>user:Copernicus had added a piece on [[Sun-centred universe theory]] we
>>would have been perfectly correct to delete the article after listing on
>>VfD and suggest that he first publish his work elsewhere.
>>
>>
Ah, but once journals had started covering his story -- even though they
said it was nonsense -- then we WOULD have covered it!

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from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] auto-biography

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>
> The fact is that the history of science is strewn with these false
> steps and original ideas which led nowhere.  Their historical value is
> what makes them encyclopedic, not their content and not their
> theories. Their dubious value to science needs to be remarked but not
> ridiculed, and not obsessively disproved.  (Remember, the burden of
> proof for any scientific theory rests with its proponent; if he hasn't
> carried that burden it is sufficient to say that as simply as
> possible.)  Most of these ideas can be adequately covered in a single
> page, and take much less space than what is used arguing about them.
> Why should contemporary crackpots be viewed with any less regard than
> those from the last century?

There is nothing wrong with us having articles on cutting-edge theories,
*that have previously been published and subjected to some sort of peer
review*

The problem is when a lone nut wants to make a mirror of his web page on WP


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autobiograpies

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>To be fair, there is another contingent that has very high standards as to
>what kind of material should be included, which are often in conflict with
>a totally open project like ours.
>
>
"open" means anyone can edit.
it does nmot mean anyone can add any old junk.
Some of us have lofty ambitions for WP, that's all. Others don't take it
as seriously.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
Jaap-

>> Authors can eventually be paid using a "Free Software Bazaar" like model,
>> where people can describe specific projects and individuals supply
>> (pooled) funding. Basically WikiMoney without the Wiki.

> Huh, I never found that within Wikipedia, could you explain
> this in terms of money/time spend and what it gives in return?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiMoney

>> Oh, but I am a professional writer, and I do write for free in my spare
>> time.

> Why?

Because I enjoy providing useful information to others. It's also good not
to have to explain the same issues over and over again, and instead be
able to just point to certain links.

> What is RC?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Recent_changes

> So you're for accepting any cash whatever it comes from?

Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon

>> The money would likely go to some arms manufacturer, or some
>> poorly conceived EU initiative otherwise.

> Huh, so you see the ammount of money that whatever government
> has is a given fact and it's good to syphon as much as possible
> of because otherwise it's used for issues that you don't understand
> yet?

Which part of "would likely go to" do you not understand?

>>> Advertising when applied properly is also additional information.
>>
>> Sure, but it's also propaganda.

> So what?

Propaganda and encyclopedias don't mix well. Look up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia

> Of course gift economies can work as long as people have enough left over
> from the real economie to give away.

The gift economies are just as real, and the more pervasive they become,
the more self-reliant they can be.

Erik


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Insufficient primary sources

body:
tarquin wrote:

> The matter of pet scientific theories and personal biographies have
> something in common: we can't verify them because the only material we
> can find on them is written by the author.
>
> So I suggest that we focus on this angle. We already have a policy
> that "Wikipedia is not a primary source".
> This provides sufficient justification for not having these types of
> articles in WP.
> We should perhaps try to come up with loose guidelines as to how many
> primary sources we require.

Autobiographies can still be moved to user pages.

What you call "primary sources" can be furnished with an appropriate
disclaimer.  I just don't like being in the position where we are
judging whether someone else's ideas are worth publishing.  If there are
no Google hits on the subject other than the author's web page we can
say that; if no books have been published on it we can say that; if
there has been no peer review (an overated criterion) we can say that.
 If the proposed theory threatens to become unduly long, or spills over
into more than one article page we can probably take steps to edit it
down to size.  The long-windedness of some of these people is often more
reflective of their inability to write clearly, than of their theory.
 Many may even thank us for editing things down when they see that it
makes their ideas "clearer".

Discussing "how many primary sources we require" is playing a numbers
game.  It doesn't matter.  It is also not our responsibility to try to
disprove these theories.  That is not a requirement of NPOV; they can be
met by a brief statement as part of the disclaimer.  It often seems that
the compulsion which "science advocates" in our community show for
disproving the unprovable is just another variation of throwing tasty
morsels to the trolls.  Letting our theorsts sit quietly in their
playpens will generate a lot less crying than spanking them.

I take a decidedly history-of-science perspective on these issues where
even the scientifically invalid may neverthess be valid history.  There
are better ways to deal with these issues than simply deleting them.  I
would be glad to work on a respectful boilerplate disclaimerfor these
pages that would also allay the concerns of those who fear that we are
going to be overrun by an endless series of nutball theories.

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tim Thorpe

subject: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

body:
What about sticking the entire cluster on private IP's and having a load
balancing firewall appliance handle traffic flow which would randomly hit
the update box?

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Nick Hill
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 11:58 AM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

Jens Frank wrote:

> The idea of having a dedicated http server for updates relies on DNS
> entries with a very short time to live (TTL). Else DNS servers all
> over the world would cache the DNS entry for updates.wikipedia.org
> for a long time. Most DNS servers handle entries with a short TTL
> correctly, but several browsers don't. They cache IP adresses, but
> don't honor the TTL. Mozilla is one of those. My home box has a
> dyndns.org hostname and Mozilla caches the IP for several days
> despite the TTL being 5 minutes or so.

A way to overcome this problem is to append a random fourth level domain
name to the URLs pointing to the update server. This way, each time the
update server is referenced, the ip address is refreshed.

eg
Where <anything> is replaced by a random string:

http://<anything>.update.wikipedia.org/ resolves via a wildcard DNS
entry to the current ip address of update.wikipedia.org. This way,
whenever an update link is pressed, the most up to date IP address is
fetched from the DNS.

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Outrageous!

body:
tarquin wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>>> From: Robert Graham Merkel <rgmerk at mira.net>
>>>
>>> If the Wikipedia had existed back in the 1530's and
>>> user:Copernicus had added a piece on [[Sun-centred universe theory]] we
>>> would have been perfectly correct to delete the article after
>>> listing on
>>> VfD and suggest that he first publish his work elsewhere.
>>
> Ah, but once journals had started covering his story -- even though
> they said it was nonsense -- then we WOULD have covered it!

Don't count on it!  The Holy Inquisition's Fahrenheit 451 was not
established just to deal with the handful of these people whose works
survived.  It also dealt with some dangerous characters, and that became
a justification for a wide sweep.  We just don't know about those many
who completely failed to escape from that black hole.  (I don't forsee
the Vatican Archives becoming completely open to the public soon.)  I
don't think that a law-abiding 16th century Wikipedia would have had the
courage to stare down the Holy Inquisition. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Outrageous!

body:
Yes, maybe that issue is more important to some Wikipedians than his
ideas about astronumy. ;-)
Ec

Rick wrote:

> But how much time would we spend on arguing with him whether he was
> Polish or German?
>
>
>
> RickK
>
> tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
>
>     Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>     >>From: Robert Graham Merkel
>     >>
>     >>
>     >>If the Wikipedia had existed back in the 1530's and
>     >>user:Copernicus had added a piece on [[Sun-centred universe
>     theory]] we
>     >>would have been perfectly correct to delete the article after
>     listing on
>     >>VfD and suggest that he first publish his work elsewhere.
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Insufficient primary sources

body:
The matter of pet scientific theories and personal biographies have
something in common: we can't verify them because the only material we
can find on them is written by the author.

So I suggest that we focus on this angle. We already have a policy that
"Wikipedia is not a primary source".
This provides sufficient justification for not having these types of
articles in WP.
We should perhaps try to come up with loose guidelines as to how many
primary sources we require.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Outrageous!

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>>From: Robert Graham Merkel <rgmerk at mira.net>
>>
>>
>>If the Wikipedia had existed back in the 1530's and
>>user:Copernicus had added a piece on [[Sun-centred universe theory]] we
>>would have been perfectly correct to delete the article after listing on
>>VfD and suggest that he first publish his work elsewhere.
>>
>>
Ah, but once journals had started covering his story -- even though they
said it was nonsense -- then we WOULD have covered it!


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] squid idea summary

body:
Hi,

i've written a summary of my system ideas based on squid & SuperSparrow:
http://www.aulinx.de/oss/code/wikipedia/

Cheers

Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: WikiTella, of sorts

body:
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 03:10:18AM +0100, zocky wrote:
> Maybe there should be the central server, which would handle the "official"
> copy of the database and process page saves, and several mirrors around the
> world,  which would display pages and previews, but forward all save
> requests to the central server.The central server handles nothing but page
> saves and feeding of mirrors (and probably user logins).
>
> The mirrors could be kept in sync by querying the central server for recent
> changes (i.e. changes since last synchronization). If the syncing is done
> every couple of minutes (or even half an hour for low-usage mirrors), the
> mirrors will be completely useful for browsing and editing. The central
> server doesn't even have to know what's going on with other servers, (who's
> running them, do they work...) since they can't make a wrong save, anyway,
> and the encyclopaedia is safe.
>
> What I don't know is whether this can be made completely transparent to the
> user.

Sounds like the concept Microsoft uses for its Primary Domain Controller and
Backup Domain Controller concept in Windows NT. The BDCs have copies of the
PDC's user database, but use them read only. Any change to the user database
(changing passwords, adding users) is written to the PDC and replicated to
the BDCs.

If the PDC goes down, read access is still possible, so users can still log
in to the domain. If the downtime will last longer, one of the BDCs can be
promoted to PDC. The BDCs use WINS to find the PDC, this would be the tricky
part to implement. As long as the number of mirror DBs is small, this could be done
manualy.

The PHP code would have to know about two different database servers, one
for read access, one for write access.

Regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Web Hosting

body:
So, this is kind of a sideways suggestion, but... we just moved
Wikitravel to a Web hosting service (xlinternet.com). It's working
pretty much great, right out of the box.

Considering that MediaWiki runs on some pretty standard software (PHP,
mySQL), I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to leave most of the
yucky sysadmining problems up to folks who make it their business. I'm
sure that a project as big as Wikimedia could get some special
treatment.

I don't know what kind of bandwidth and storage requirements Wikimedia
has, but I doubt that they'd be insurmountable with any given Web
hosting service.

Just a suggestion to consider.

~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: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikitech-l] user rights

body:
Thomas R. Koll wrote:

>I'd like to ask for a broader spectrum of user rights.
>Not only sysop but also
>* SQL-User
>* delete articles
>* edit protected articles
>* ban user

>We have a request on de: from a experienced user who didn't like the
>sysop-job but now, after being de-sysoped, misses the SQL functions very
>much.

What is "the sysop-job"?

I'm a sysop on [[en:]], and I don't have to do anything except to behave well
(to not abuse the sysop powers).  Do sysops on [[de:]] have to do chores?

Some sysops on [[en:]] only use certain powers and never others;
for example, I never use SQL functions since I don't know SQL.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] user rights

body:
Thomas R. Koll wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Thomas R. Koll wrote:

>>>I'd like to ask for a broader spectrum of user rights.
>>>Not only sysop but also
>>>* SQL-User
>>>* delete articles
>>>* edit protected articles
>>>* ban user

>>>We have a request on de: from a experienced user who didn't like the
>>>sysop-job but now, after being de-sysoped, misses the SQL functions very
>>>much.

>>What is "the sysop-job"?

>>I'm a sysop on [[en:]], and I don't have to do anything except to behave well
>>(to not abuse the sysop powers).  Do sysops on [[de:]] have to do chores?

>>Some sysops on [[en:]] only use certain powers and never others;
>>for example, I never use SQL functions since I don't know SQL.

>SQL is very useful, especially if search is off or you're searching
>for spelling-mistakes or HTML-tables.
>But SQL-Queries can cause heavy load for the server, so it would
>also be good to seperate sysop and sql-rights and make them depending
>of the user's knowledge.

That is a fair point, although it doesn't mean that we need to separate
things in the MediaWiki code.  Since I don't know SQL enough to use it,
I don't run any SQL queries; there's no need to take SQL rights away.
If another sysop only wants to run SQL queries, but not get involved in
deletions or IP blocks, then that's OK too.

This is a matter of trying to keep the administration simple;
I'm not saying that I oppose your idea completely.
But in the case of the experienced user on [[de:]], I would suggest
that this user be given back ''all'' sysop rights, but only ''use'' SQL.
Perhaps this is a problem for some reason -- maybe other Wikipedians
complained about this user as a sysop?

(By the way, you didn't answer my questions.
That's OK, as long as you know that you didn't answer them! ^_^)

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Clearer policy on self-written and obscure biographies

body:
Tarquin wrote in part:

>See for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:M.R.M._Parrott

>On VFD he author argues that nothing in our policy forbids a biography
>of him, even though we've found only two reviews of his books.
>As well as being what we call "non-encyclopedic", these can't be NPOV
>since the facts can't be verified.

We don't need a special policy for autobiographies
which states that unverifiable biographies are unacceptable,
if we already have a policy that all articles must be verifiable.
That said, it's justifiable, in meta pages on biography conventions,
to ''mention'' that all articles, including biographies, should be verifiable.
And it would be a good idea to mention this if there have been problems --
which it seems that there have!  But this is not Yet Another Policy ^_^.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

body:
On Thu, Jan 01, 2004 at 02:16:21PM +0000, Nick Hill wrote:
> I throught I would throw some ideas of configurations for new wikipedia
> systems:
>
> Assuming we have a fast and reliable infrastructure for wikipedia to
> operate on, I would hope and expect many more people to benefit from the
> gret project. The new hardware configuration needs to have redundancy
> built in and reliability.
>
> The DNS system is, by nature, distributed and designed to have many
> systems adding redundancy to the resolution service.
>
> [....]

The idea of having a dedicated http server for updates relies on DNS
entries with a very short time to live (TTL). Else DNS servers all
over the world would cache the DNS entry for updates.wikipedia.org
for a long time. Most DNS servers handle entries with a short TTL
correctly, but several browsers don't. They cache IP adresses, but
don't honor the TTL. Mozilla is one of those. My home box has a
dyndns.org hostname and Mozilla caches the IP for several days
despite the TTL being 5 minutes or so.

I think it's better to have the web servers load balanced by a tool
like http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org/ and have MySQL database
replication between two database servers.

Regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: zocky

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: WikiTella, of sorts

body:
> The BDCs use WINS to find the PDC, this would be the tricky
> part to implement. As long as the number of mirror DBs is small, this
could be done
> manualy.

Since the central server is not going to move rarely, this can be done
manually by mirror admins.

> The PHP code would have to know about two different database servers, one
> for read access, one for write access.

A bit, but nothing very sophisticated. A mirror that works like that could
be easily developed now, all you would need from the central server is to
get recent changes in a friendly format.

~~~~zocky


from_name: Nick Hill

subject: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

body:
Jens Frank wrote:

> The idea of having a dedicated http server for updates relies on DNS
> entries with a very short time to live (TTL). Else DNS servers all
> over the world would cache the DNS entry for updates.wikipedia.org
> for a long time. Most DNS servers handle entries with a short TTL
> correctly, but several browsers don't. They cache IP adresses, but
> don't honor the TTL. Mozilla is one of those. My home box has a
> dyndns.org hostname and Mozilla caches the IP for several days
> despite the TTL being 5 minutes or so.

A way to overcome this problem is to append a random fourth level domain
name to the URLs pointing to the update server. This way, each time the
update server is referenced, the ip address is refreshed.

eg
Where <anything> is replaced by a random string:

http://<anything>.update.wikipedia.org/ resolves via a wildcard DNS
entry to the current ip address of update.wikipedia.org. This way,
whenever an update link is pressed, the most up to date IP address is
fetched from the DNS.


from_name: Robert Graham Merkel

subject: [WikiEN-l] cranks and deleting

body:
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:33:30AM +0000, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:
> The recently written "No original research" provision appears to focus
> on science, and "new scientific theories" and completely ignores other
> areas of study.  The most disturbing aspect is that it uses Jimbo's
> comments from the mailing list as though he were speaking "ex cathedra".
>  Jimbo has on several occasions stated that he avoids editing articles
> to avoid a misperception that he is exercising his dictatorial powers.
>  There are times when he has opinions like any others of us and should
> have a right to express them without creating a big splash in the wading
> pool..  From my perspective, the degree of authority with which he
> speaks should depend on how close the subject is to the core values of
> the general undertaking and its operational necessities.  His
> recognition that other projects within the family will develop their own
> policies based on an infinite range of parameters speaks to that.
>

That was added to "What Wikipedia is not" way back in January 2003.  It
has recently been modified to state "no *primary* research", which is a
better description of what the rule was intended to cover.

> Using Jimbo's mailing list opinion as a technique for imposing a
> particular POV does not address the issue.  That article does appear to
> give objective criteria for determining when a scientific article is to
> be viewed as original research.  It gives no reason for why these
> articles should be excluded other than "Jimbo says so."  It is
> completely silent about original research in fields outside of
> "science", and how to identify it  In one sense every article in
> Wikipedia is original research except those that plagiarize another source.
>

See above.  Yes, this rule has problems for areas not covered by
academic journals, but so far these kind of disputes have not come up
that often in such areas.

As far as "Jimbo says so", I think you'll find that this rule has wide,
though not necessarily universal, support, for very good reasons.  One
is that original research has not yet gone through the peer review of
experts in the field and is thus unverified and possibly unverifiable.
It is therefore an excellent tool for weeding through patent nonsense.

> The fact is that the history of science is strewn with these false steps
> and original ideas which led nowhere.  Their historical value is what
> makes them encyclopedic, not their content and not their theories.
>  Their dubious value to science needs to be remarked but not ridiculed,
> and not obsessively disproved.  (Remember, the burden of proof for any
> scientific theory rests with its proponent; if he hasn't carried that
> burden it is sufficient to say that as simply as possible.)  Most of
> these ideas can be adequately covered in a single page, and take much
> less space than what is used arguing about them.  Why should
> contemporary crackpots be viewed with any less regard than those from
> the last century?
>

If a crackpot theory attracts enough attention, Wikipedia should write
about it - case in point, [[Timecube]].  Until that attention is gained
through other means, we shouldn't.

If the Wikipedia had existed back in the 1530's and
user:Copernicus had added a piece on [[Sun-centred universe theory]] we
would have been perfectly correct to delete the article after listing on
VfD and suggest that he first publish his work elsewhere.


subject: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

body:
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:59:14PM -0800, Tim Thorpe wrote:
> What about sticking the entire cluster on private IP's and having a load
> balancing firewall appliance handle traffic flow which would randomly hit
> the update box?

I think Nick is trying to have a global cluster, and you can not achieve
this with a simple load balancer. If one data center goes down, the load
balancer would go down, too.

DNS has ways to handle outage of a server, and Nick tries to use these.

JeLuF


subject: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

body:
Tim Thorpe wrote:
> What about sticking the entire cluster on private IP's and having a load
> balancing firewall appliance handle traffic flow which would randomly hit
> the update box?

There would be several points of failure with such a system.

To make a system really reliable, all single points of failure need to
be removed.

Eg: Building specific hazards- power loss (UPS sometimes fail), network
cables cut, fire, burglary, landlord reposession, hosting company
bankruptcy, malicious attack, human error, plane crash etc.

Machine specific hazards- any single machine failing in the system
bringing everything down- either hardware failure or malicious attack.

Any single segment of the network failing bringing the system down-
hardware failure, human error or malicious attack.

I believe a design philosophy where the system is immune from any single
element failing is both the most cost-effective and the most reliable.
Rather than invest heavily for reliability in mission-critical systems,
make no system mission critical. No system then needs to have
mission-critical investment. The overall system will then be cheaper and
more reliable.

To put it another way:
All systems will fail. The probability of a single reliable costly unit
failing is still fairly high. The probability of many fairly reliable
cheap units with no common point of failure breaking down
simaultaneously is much lower than the probability of a costly reliable
unit failing.

If no single machine is critical and machines are widely separated, we
would not even need to worry whether the machines are equipped with UPS
or redundant supplies.


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

subject: [Wikitech-l] user rights

body:
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 03:00:23PM -0800, Toby Bartels wrote:
> Thomas R. Koll wrote:
>
> >I'd like to ask for a broader spectrum of user rights.
> >Not only sysop but also
> >* SQL-User
> >* delete articles
> >* edit protected articles
> >* ban user
>
> >We have a request on de: from a experienced user who didn't like the
> >sysop-job but now, after being de-sysoped, misses the SQL functions very
> >much.
>
> What is "the sysop-job"?
>
> I'm a sysop on [[en:]], and I don't have to do anything except to behave well
> (to not abuse the sysop powers).  Do sysops on [[de:]] have to do chores?
>
> Some sysops on [[en:]] only use certain powers and never others;
> for example, I never use SQL functions since I don't know SQL.

SQL is very useful, especially if search is off or you're searching
for spelling-mistakes or HTML-tables.
But SQL-Queries can cause heavy load for the server, so it would
also be good to seperate sysop and sql-rights and make them depending
of the user's knowledge.

ciao, tom
--
http://www.tomk32.de - just a geek trying to change the world
   -.-       http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
   /|>	           http://tomk32.bookcrossing.com
   / \                 http://tinyurl.com/u6de


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Compressed old revisions -- please test

body:
I'm checking in some code to deal with compressing data in the old
table. The primary motivation here is to decrease the amount of disk
and cache space necessary for storing page revision data, without the
complications and fragility of differential compression.[1]

Compression is done with gzdeflate() / gzinflate(), which requires zlib
support compiled into PHP. This is the same compression that would be
used in a gzip file, but without the header bytes.

Compressed revisions are marked with old_flags="gzip". The old_flags
column has existed unused for quite some time, so no schema change is
necessary. The compressed data goes back into old_text; I don't think
there is a problem with storing binary data in a TEXT field, as
supposedly TEXT and BLOB differ only in matching and sorting
characteristics.

Article::getRevisionText() accepts a row object (as from wfFetchObject)
containing both old_text and old_flags fields and returns the text,
uncompressed if necessary.

This scheme also works in the archive table, maybe... there are
probably problems with undeletion that need to be checked.

So far there's no on-the-fly compression; a maintenance script
compressOld.php is provided to batch-compress old revisions. It can be
given an arbitrary starting point old_id, and will go until it gets to
the end of the table or you kill it. It should be safe to run in the
background while the wiki is live; it makes single-row UPDATEs keyed by
old_id. On my 2 GHz Athlon XP this goes at about 10,000 rows per minute
otherwise unloaded.

I haven't done any comparative testing of load times, but the effect
should be dwarfed by parse/render times and will only come up on old
and diff views and a few other rare places.

I tested with the New Years' dump of the French Wikipedia (about 200k
rows in old).

Raw dump size:
old_table.sql 1,210,368,249
old_compressed.sql 485,536,046
Space saved: ~60%

If these ratios hold, I estimate the total savings at about 14
gigabytes, bringing our total db usage to something more like 20 GB.
This is a reasonably big improvement for very small changes in code.
(Note that the innodb data storage space never shrinks; to reclaim disk
space for purposes other than storing the next couple million edits
would require dumping everything and reimporting it fresh.)

There are a couple of downsides. The SQL dumps get slightly more
illegible, and old revisions won't be loadable on a MediaWiki installed
with some configurations of PHP (the default configure options don't
include zlib). Also, recompressing the resultant dump doesn't do so
well:

old_table.sql.bz2 199,394,376
old_compressed.sql.bz2 416,208,437

This doubles the size of the raw dumps. Ouch! Well, we should be
looking at a more usable dump format anyway.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

[1] Ultimately we'd probably save a lot of disk space by storing diffs
between revisions, but loading an individual revision then requires
sifting through multiple revisions from the last checkpoint, and
requires extra work to ensure that intermediate revisions are not
corrupted, reordered, removed, etc. By compressing each revision
separately, we still maintain the integrity of the rest of the history
if any one revision is corrupted, if histories are reordered or
recombined, if individual revisions are plucked out or blanked for
legal reasons, etc.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Suggested policy on autobiographies

body:
I think I have made up my mind about what Wikipedia's policy ought to be.
Looking at the comments made on Votes for Deletion regarding MRM Parrott it
seems that the amount of heat generated by those who feel Wikipedia is being
used for self-promotion far outweighs the amount of knowlege that is
imparted in the article, MRM Parrott.

I also note that the debate rapidly turns nasty with Mark (MRM Parrott}
being protrayed as essentially, "no good", a gross exaggeration of whatever
defects he may have.

It is hard to establish presence on the internet and in popular and academic
culture. You can have a really cool website, have great ideas, write and
publish books, some of them quite good and not much happens. Your books
don't get reviewed in important media by significant reviewers, not even bad
reviews. Your books don't sell, even a good one with something to say. And
it is frustrating. It is understandable why people in such circumstances try
to promote themselves.

Therefore I propose that when an apparent autobiography is encountered that
a note be made in the talk page of the article, and on the page of the
editor if they are a wikipedia user linking to our autobiographical policy
(Which ought to clearly state that it is against Wikipedia policy to engage
in writing self-promoting aricles about yourself or your projects). We
should also make a reasonable attempt to contact them by email (googling for
their websites may work for anonymous editors) and explain the policy.

After a reasonable chance to respond (here it gets a bit tricky, since they
usually  can't delete the page they made themselves) then the page should be
listed on votes for deletion or simply deleted with the authors consent now
that they understand the policy. I think the rule probably needs to be hard
and fast, all autobiographies are to be deleted, regardless of fame or lack
of it. In the case of folks who rate an article for some reason we can trust
someone will eventually write one.

In summary, we should be courteous, understanding, and bottom line, firm.

Hopefully we can minimize hurt feelings and maintain encyclopedic policy.

Fred

> From: tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2004 11:46:45 +0000
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Clearer policy on self-written and obscure biographies
>
>
>
> Toby Bartels wrote:
>
>> We don't need a special policy for autobiographies
>> which states that unverifiable biographies are unacceptable,
>> if we already have a policy that all articles must be verifiable.
>> That said, it's justifiable, in meta pages on biography conventions,
>> to ''mention'' that all articles, including biographies, should be
>> verifiable.
>> And it would be a good idea to mention this if there have been problems --
>> which it seems that there have!  But this is not Yet Another Policy ^_^.
>>
>>
>>
> Agreed.
> It's making a page to explain this particular aspect of existing policy.
> My motivation is that when I directed MRM Parrott to "what WP is not" he
> said that nothing there prevented him having an article.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] user rights

body:
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 04:18:39PM -0800, Toby Bartels wrote:
> Thomas R. Koll wrote:

> I'm not saying that I oppose your idea completely.
> But in the case of the experienced user on [[de:]], I would suggest
> that this user be given back ''all'' sysop rights, but only ''use'' SQL.
> Perhaps this is a problem for some reason -- maybe other Wikipedians
> complained about this user as a sysop?

But he doesn't want to be a full sysop, don't know his excact reasons.
He was but gave his rights back a few months ago.

> (By the way, you didn't answer my questions.
> That's OK, as long as you know that you didn't answer them! ^_^)

(Uhh, what was the question again?)
--
http://www.tomk32.de - just a geek trying to change the world
   -.-       http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
   /|>	           http://tomk32.bookcrossing.com
   / \                 http://tinyurl.com/u6de


from_name: Ruimu

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autobiograpies

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "tarquin" <tarquin at planetunreal.com>
>
> My point was that it's a terrible idea.
> This guy MRM Parrott is basically abusing the open nature of Wikipedia
> and using it as a platform for self-promotion.

        In short: I would leave autobiographies growing alone without
        particular rules. I think the pov problem is not so different than
        in other cases. (In fact, it's easyier to address for autobio.)
        I don't think self-promotion is efficient on Wikipedia.

It is obvious that this guy is using Wikipedia for self-satisfaction while
writing his own autobiography, and Wikipedia probably wouldn't work without
this powerful self-fuelling system, but how could this "promotion" have the
sligthest efficiency? One article in Wikipedia in an ant in the ant hill. If
he wants to promote himself, he'd better go on the streets and do a naked
headstand, or simply troll the usenet (where many readers will see his prose
without having to ''look for'' it).

If I were God, I would gently remove him for list of ethicist, but leave him
in list of persons (already done by someone else). I would leave him his
page, but remove existing pov-erties if any.

Someone said here or somewhere that Wikipedia have no roof and no walls. If
there is list of programmers, there is maybe a list of unreal programmers.
If you have released a software for unreal, your name is to be on this list.
If your name is on the list, it should (have to?) be a wikilink. If there is
an empty wikilink, it means that an article has to be written, by anyone
including you.

If you or Mr Parrott are stupid enough (I know you are not, I'm just weaving
the thread) to write an autobiography that is obviously biaised, and can't
retain yourself from stating that unreal or post-modernism is the best thing
in the world because you feel better after saying that on something that
matters to you, then it is likely that you will not be more neutral in
contributing on [[unreal]] or [[post-modernism]] than on your own bio page
(even worse: people will pay less attention on your edits). (Sorry for the
length of previous sentence)

Ruimu


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New system ideas

body:
On Fri, 02 Jan 2004 23:34:14 +0000, Nick Hill wrote:

> The probability of many fairly reliable
> cheap units with no common point of failure breaking down
> simaultaneously is much lower than the probability of a costly reliable
> unit failing.

I agree with all you're saying and like the thought of having a global
cluster with arbitration, but i have some doubts:

* What's the minimum hardware capable of running the databases, the
webserver, the cache etc? Is all this possible on a cheap unit while still
being fast? I would expect a RAM requirement of at least 4Gb, but i might
be wrong. This would certainly increase once more languages start to grow,
so it might be necessary to have separate machines for separate languages.

* With the number of nodes increasing, replication traffic might be fairly
high (imagine mass undoing somebody's changes replicated to ten machines)

* encryption of replication traffic will drain the cpu, even a simple scp
does this- imagine the same for ten streams

> If no single machine is critical and machines are widely separated, we
> would not even need to worry whether the machines are equipped with UPS
> or redundant supplies.

If the switchover is quick, this would be perfect- no need for separate
backups and so on.

To get an idea of the hardware requirements it would be nice if somebody
could install all of wikipedia on a cheap box and do some load testing on
it ( if possible with replication).

Gabriel Wicke


subject: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

body:
The obstacle is the DB server, to have an offsite dump 24/7 of the DB server
would effective double the bandwidth used for each transaction. I work for
an ISP N+1 takes care of most DC internal issues, the DC that is being used
is Verio which is a VERY large hosting company, I don't see them going down
any time soon. Some advanced routers have a dial up redundancy capability
where it can phone on a separate land line an off-site router to inform it
that there is a network issue on one end and that all data needs to be
re-routed to the secondary stack.

You can never eliminate all single points of failure, but I also see that
some of us are loosing our heads when it comes to solutions. Some suggested
solutions would cost not in the tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands
to implement.

Remember the golden rule to network engineering, KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID! ;).

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Nick Hill
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 3:34 PM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

Tim Thorpe wrote:
> What about sticking the entire cluster on private IP's and having a load
> balancing firewall appliance handle traffic flow which would randomly hit
> the update box?

There would be several points of failure with such a system.

To make a system really reliable, all single points of failure need to
be removed.

Eg: Building specific hazards- power loss (UPS sometimes fail), network
cables cut, fire, burglary, landlord reposession, hosting company
bankruptcy, malicious attack, human error, plane crash etc.

Machine specific hazards- any single machine failing in the system
bringing everything down- either hardware failure or malicious attack.

Any single segment of the network failing bringing the system down-
hardware failure, human error or malicious attack.

I believe a design philosophy where the system is immune from any single
element failing is both the most cost-effective and the most reliable.
Rather than invest heavily for reliability in mission-critical systems,
make no system mission critical. No system then needs to have
mission-critical investment. The overall system will then be cheaper and
more reliable.

To put it another way:
All systems will fail. The probability of a single reliable costly unit
failing is still fairly high. The probability of many fairly reliable
cheap units with no common point of failure breaking down
simaultaneously is much lower than the probability of a costly reliable
unit failing.

If no single machine is critical and machines are widely separated, we
would not even need to worry whether the machines are equipped with UPS
or redundant supplies.

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New system ideas

body:
Gabriel Wicke wrote:

> I agree with all you're saying and like the thought of having a global
> cluster with arbitration, but i have some doubts:
>
> * What's the minimum hardware capable of running the databases, the
> webserver, the cache etc? Is all this possible on a cheap unit while still
> being fast? I would expect a RAM requirement of at least 4Gb, but i might
> be wrong. This would certainly increase once more languages start to grow,
> so it might be necessary to have separate machines for separate languages.

This depends on the size of data sets. The most busy fine grained data
can be held in memory, eg a ramdisk. A machine with dual 64Bit Opteron,
8Gb ram and an Eric remote administration card weighs in at around
US$4500. The machine can be upgraded to 16Gb. 64 bit is necessary for
machines of over 4Gb. 4Gb is an addressable limit for 32bit.

I posted a possible hardware config to wikitech-l on 01/01/04 14:16.

>
> * With the number of nodes increasing, replication traffic might be fairly
> high (imagine mass undoing somebody's changes replicated to ten machines)
>
> * encryption of replication traffic will drain the cpu, even a simple scp
> does this- imagine the same for ten streams

A compressed SCP connection using blowfish cypher for English text
between two AMD Athlon XP2200+ CPUs gives a throughput of
3.3Megabytes/sec. The majority of the load is on the sending machine. A
dual Opteron 240 with a 64 bit optimised cipher algorithm can probably
transfer 12Mb/sec or more.

>
>
>>If no single machine is critical and machines are widely separated, we
>>would not even need to worry whether the machines are equipped with UPS
>>or redundant supplies.
>
>
> If the switchover is quick, this would be perfect- no need for separate
> backups and so on.
>
> To get an idea of the hardware requirements it would be nice if somebody
> could install all of wikipedia on a cheap box and do some load testing on
> it ( if possible with replication).

I agree.

Running the fine-grained database (article database, not media,
graphics) from ramdisk could eliminate I/O blocking and wear on hard
drives possibly increasing performance by a massive degree. We should
really experiment with this.

Do we have means to replay typical wikipedia activity from a log file? I
am thinking of a PERL script which reads a real wikipedia common log
file replaying the same load pattern at defineable speeds.

If someone has a pre-configured server image and some real log files, I
can do this.

I have already written a simple PERL script which can be modified to
replay server load in real time from log files.


body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>We don't need a special policy for autobiographies
>which states that unverifiable biographies are unacceptable,
>if we already have a policy that all articles must be verifiable.
>That said, it's justifiable, in meta pages on biography conventions,
>to ''mention'' that all articles, including biographies, should be verifiable.
>And it would be a good idea to mention this if there have been problems --
>which it seems that there have!  But this is not Yet Another Policy ^_^.
>
>
>
Agreed.
It's making a page to explain this particular aspect of existing policy.
My motivation is that when I directed MRM Parrott to "what WP is not" he
said that nothing there prevented him having an article.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Insufficient primary sources

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>
> Discussing "how many primary sources we require" is playing a numbers
> game.  It doesn't matter.  It is also not our responsibility to try to
> disprove these theories.  That is not a requirement of NPOV; they can
> be met by a brief statement as part of the disclaimer.  It often seems
> that the compulsion which "science advocates" in our community show
> for disproving the unprovable is just another variation of throwing
> tasty morsels to the trolls.  Letting our theorsts sit quietly in
> their playpens will generate a lot less crying than spanking them.

A numbers game is a bad idea. For each case we must use or judgement on
how much source material there is and what its quality is

>
> I take a decidedly history-of-science perspective on these issues
> where even the scientifically invalid may neverthess be valid
> history.  There are better ways to deal with these issues than simply
> deleting them.  I would be glad to work on a respectful boilerplate
> disclaimerfor these pages that would also allay the concerns of those
> who fear that we are going to be overrun by an endless series of
> nutball theories.

There are nutball theories and nutball theories.
The "aquatic ape" theory is an example of a nutball theory we should
cover, because it's been discussed and reviewed.
Now if I wrote a webpage saying I think the universe is made of
plasticine and Lego bricks, then spammed the URL around Usenet for a few
months -- surely you don't suggest that be included in WP?


from_name: Arvind Narayanan

subject: [Wikitech-l] user rights

in_reply_to:
<20040103001839.GB7088@math-rs-n03.ucr.edu>;
	from toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu on Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at
	04:18:39PM -0800

body:
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 04:18:39PM -0800, Toby Bartels wrote:

> >SQL is very useful, especially if search is off or you're searching
> >for spelling-mistakes or HTML-tables.
> >But SQL-Queries can cause heavy load for the server, so it would
> >also be good to seperate sysop and sql-rights and make them depending
> >of the user's knowledge.
>
> That is a fair point, although it doesn't mean that we need to separate
> things in the MediaWiki code.  Since I don't know SQL enough to use it,
> I don't run any SQL queries; there's no need to take SQL rights away.
> If another sysop only wants to run SQL queries, but not get involved in
> deletions or IP blocks, then that's OK too.
I agree. If someone is given sysop powers it means that we trust them
to know what they don't know :)

Arvind
--
Its all GNU to me


subject: [WikiEN-l] "working..."

body:
What does it mean why I try to bring up Wikipedia and all I get is a blank screen that says "working..."?

RickK

---------------------------------
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from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] auto-biography

body:
On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> [ ...] I find it
> difficult to deal with those that want to suppress all knowledge that
> has nothing to do with their unique visions of just what an encyclopedia is.
>
> There are of course many of these that are really user pages.  Wouldn't
> it be simpler if the material were just moved to the relevant user page,
> and a notice were left at the page where the autobiography was to say
> something like, "The material formerly here was autobiographical
> material.  It has been moved to [[User:....]]".  Most will accept this
> change.  Those that don't agree may restore the material.  That's OK.
>  They then need to understand that it may then be subject to  merciless
> editing to an extent that would not happen on a user page.  With enough
> merciless editing they may get the point.  Blanket deletions of such
> pages only provokes animosities.

A bit of communicative sugar always helps. Unfortunately, there are
people who act as if anything except unqualified agreement with them as
vicious harassment. I'll admit I have no clue of how best to deal with
these people.
>
> The recently written "No original research" provision appears to focus
> on science, and "new scientific theories" and completely ignores other
> areas of study.  The most disturbing aspect is that it uses Jimbo's
> comments from the mailing list as though he were speaking "ex cathedra".
>  Jimbo has on several occasions stated that he avoids editing articles
> to avoid a misperception that he is exercising his dictatorial powers.

Interesting. I've been attempting to apply this rule to those articles on
history that I have encountered -- as well as any topic that it fits.
While this does tend to give a historiographical slant to articles
(that is, writing a history of the history of the subject -- ugh),
I think it takes at least one step towards the ideal of NPOV.

And it is applicable. Take a look at the various articles on Chronology
of Ancient History (e.g., [[Egyptian Chronology]], [[Chronology of
Babylonia and Assyria]]): either we have assertions that the current
chronological structure is untenable (without a clear explanation why),
or the results of calculating eclipses into the 3rd millenium BC without
any explanation why (or how) they are important; in one case we have
a problem with NPOV, in another, it's clearly original research.
(Perhaps I'm revealing my own bias in this manner, since I
believe these articles should *explain* how the chronology was determined,
rather than put forth one -- or more -- different chronological schemes.)

The fact that some use Jimbo's comments as the final word is disturbing,
but my feeling is that this usage occurs when a point has been debated to
death, yet one person or a small group simply refuses to understand &
let the matter drop. (Wikipedia does not seem to have any other way to
end debate.) If Jimbo's opinions are used in any other way, then it is
wrong.
>
> Using Jimbo's mailing list opinion as a technique for imposing a
> particular POV does not address the issue.  That article does appear to
> give objective criteria for determining when a scientific article is to
> be viewed as original research.  It gives no reason for why these
> articles should be excluded other than "Jimbo says so."  It is
> completely silent about original research in fields outside of
> "science", and how to identify it  In one sense every article in
> Wikipedia is original research except those that plagiarize another source.

As I understand it, the intent of this rule is to discourage the use of
Wikipedia as a means to ``publish" one's discoveries, be it concerning
Faster Than Light travel, one's proof that Brooklyn was founded by the
Atlanteans, etc. An article should be reporting or summarizing material
that appears in printed sources -- any published sources. This guarrantees
that it is part of the history of ideas in at least some small way,
& not the isolated rantings of some lone individual in a basement
apartment, eager for the attention & approval of an imagined audience.

(Hmm. That last comment could apply to myself, except that I own my house.)

An example of something that clearly violates the ``No Original Research"
rule can be seen in the article [[Heberite]]. From the text, I have no
idea whether this describes an idea held by anyone except its author.
For all I know, this is what is taught in Moscow Public schools -- in which
case it belongs in Wikipedia; and it asserts a number of items without
providing any proof. (It should probably be placed on VfD, but I will
recuse myself from further action concernign this artilce for reasons
that are clear in the Talk: section.)
>
> The fact is that the history of science is strewn with these false steps
> and original ideas which led nowhere.  Their historical value is what
> makes them encyclopedic, not their content and not their theories.
>  Their dubious value to science needs to be remarked but not ridiculed,
> and not obsessively disproved.  (Remember, the burden of proof for any
> scientific theory rests with its proponent; if he hasn't carried that
> burden it is sufficient to say that as simply as possible.)  Most of
> these ideas can be adequately covered in a single page, and take much
> less space than what is used arguing about them.  Why should
> contemporary crackpots be viewed with any less regard than those from
> the last century?
>
I simply want proof that they have some effect on the history of thought,
at least in some small way. The requirement of the use of printed sources
is a small hurdle that keeps most of the unsuitable material out, although
this rule may handicap in the writing of articles regarding computers or
Internet folklore.

Geoff


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
Nikola Smolenski wrote:
>I don't really understand what is the problem with
>autobiographies and why are they more unverifiable
>then biographies written by someone else.

Because Wikipedia is not a primary source. Once and /if/ that person is able
to get a real publisher to publish their autobiography, then and /only/ then
do we use their autobiography as a source.

We need some sort of filter.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: New system ideas

body:
On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 11:41:59 +0000, Nick Hill wrote:

> Do we have means to replay typical wikipedia activity from a log file? I
> am thinking of a PERL script which reads a real wikipedia common log
> file replaying the same load pattern at defineable speeds.
>
> If someone has a pre-configured server image and some real log files, I
> can do this.
>
> I have already written a simple PERL script which can be modified to
> replay server load in real time from log files.

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~rz5b/software/logreplayer-manual.htm
could be useful, or http://opensta.org/.

Even more useful would be a full incoming traffic dump and a full disk
image of the start condition (it's mainly the editing that is
interesting). tcpdump and tcpreplay might be good candidates for this.

If it turns out that the minimum server for the current database
indeed would be a 64bit, 8Gb 'cheap' machine- then it might get pretty
hard when the database grows (especially with multiple languages etc).
Just an import of http://www.meyers-konversationslexikon.de/ into the
german wikimedia (not to think of its nice illustrations) would create
problems i guess.

> A compressed SCP connection using blowfish cypher for English text
> between two AMD Athlon XP2200+ CPUs gives a throughput of
> 3.3Megabytes/sec. The majority of the load is on the sending machine. A
> dual Opteron 240 with a 64 bit optimised cipher algorithm can probably
> transfer 12Mb/sec or more.

The sending machine would have to create compressed & encrypted streams
for whatever the number of mirrors is. It's not its main job, but
something that takes some cpu time away from doing the database work etc.
How high was the cpu load of just the scp process on the Athlon?

Gabriel Wicke


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Members only list now

body:
With the exception of a short list of people, all non-members posting to this
list will be automatically discarded. I'm tired of all the spam. Our Staff
lounge should be enough for newbies - everyone else will have to join the
list.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Jan 3, 2004, at 13:46, Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> What kind of caching is done at the moment? And what are the current
> timeouts?

Every page view comes in through wiki.phtml as the entry point. This
runs some setup code, defines functions/classes etc, connects to the
database, normalizes the page name that's been given, and checks if a
login session is active, loading user data if so.

Then the database is queried to see if the page exists and whether it's
a redirect, and to get the last-touched timestamp.

If the client sent an If-Modified-Since header, we compare the given
time against the last-touched timestamp (which is updated for cases
where link rendering would change as well as direct edits). If it
hasn't changed, we return a '304 Not Modified' code. This covers about
10% of page views.

If it's not a redirect, we're not looking at an old revision, diff, or
"printable view", and we're not logged in, the file cache kicks in.
This covers some 60% of page views. If saved HTML output is found for
this page, it's date is checked. If it's still valid, the file is
dumped out and the script exits. The cache file is a complete gzipped
HTML page; if the browser doesn't advertise understanding gzip, we
decompress it on the fly. (Note that this may affect benchmarks in
comparison to actual browsers in use, I don't know.)

If the cached page doesn't exist or is out of date, page rendering
continues as normally, and the output is compressed and saved at the
end. About 2% of page views involve saving a new cached page.

There's no timeout; pages are invalidated immediately by updating their
last-touched timestamps. A global cache epoch can be set on the server
to invalidate all old cached pages (server- or client-side), and
individual user accounts also have a cache epoch which is reset on
login, when user options are changed, and when talk page notification
comes on/off.

If this is a redirect, old page view, diff, or printable view, or if
the user is logged in, then we don't do any server-side caching (yet)
and parse/render the whole page. Some speedups have been accomplished
by precaching link lookup info in easily-loadable chunks. E23's been
working on storage of the HTML-rendered wiki pages to be inserted into
the overall layout, but this needs some more finalization (various user
options may affect the rendering of the page).

Ideally we'd be putting cached data into memcached, which can run
in-memory on the web server (or as a distributed cache over a web
server cluster) without grinding down the disks. So far we use
memcached just for some common data (localized messages, utf8
translation tables, interwiki prefix lookup) and login sessions.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Adam Bishop

subject: [WikiEN-l] "working..."

body:
It means "patience is a virtue."

>From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] "working..."
>Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 13:20:28 -0800 (PST)
>
>What does it mean why I try to bring up Wikipedia and all I get is a blank
>screen that says "working..."?
>
>RickK
>
>
>
>---------------------------------
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: GreenMountain

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: user rights

body:
Arvind Narayanan writes:

> On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 04:18:39PM -0800, Toby Bartels wrote:
>
>> >SQL is very useful, especially if search is off or you're searching
>> >for spelling-mistakes or HTML-tables.
>> >But SQL-Queries can cause heavy load for the server, so it would
>> >also be good to seperate sysop and sql-rights and make them depending
>> >of the user's knowledge.
>>
>> That is a fair point, although it doesn't mean that we need to separate
>> things in the MediaWiki code.  Since I don't know SQL enough to use it,
>> I don't run any SQL queries; there's no need to take SQL rights away.
>> If another sysop only wants to run SQL queries, but not get involved in
>> deletions or IP blocks, then that's OK too.
> I agree. If someone is given sysop powers it means that we trust them
> to know what they don't know :)
>
> Arvind

Yes, I agree.  I think that a sysop should be responsible.  If I
were a sysop, and I didn't know anything about SQL, I wouldn't
mess with sql queries, and I would hope that other sysops would
do the same. (note, this is just hypothetical as I know about
SQL and I am not a sysop.)  Still, I hope that only individuals
who
are responsible are given powers.  On the other hand, I think
that individuals who aren't sysops, might become, "SIP's"
(sysops in training,) and they could edit protected pages, and
could not delete, or block.  Using this method, we could better
test if newer wikipedians will abuse sysop powers.  As I said,
I'm not a sysop, so I can't comment as well on the way powers
work, but this is just my thought on the issue.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Get your free 15 Mb POP3 email @alexandria.cc
Click here -> http://www.alexandria.cc/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Insufficient primary sources

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Tarquin wrote:

>>The matter of pet scientific theories and personal biographies have
>>something in common: we can't verify them because the only material we
>>can find on them is written by the author.

Right!  And by "verify them", you ''don't'' mean
?verify that they are correct? but instead
?verify that this is indeed what people believe about them?.
(This may have confused Fred below???)

>>So I suggest that we focus on this angle. We already have a policy that
>>"Wikipedia is not a primary source".
>>This provides sufficient justification for not having these types of
>>articles in WP.
>>We should perhaps try to come up with loose guidelines as to how many
>>primary sources we require.

I doubt that it would work well to specify a ''specific'' number of sources;
the question is whether other Wikipedians can independently verify things.

A possible way to manage it:
* Person A is enamoured with subject B (a theory of physics, a person, etc).
* So A writes the article [[B]] to get the word out to the world.
* Other Wikipedians think B is insignificant and want to delete [[B]].
* A gives (or is asked for) an independent reference C about B.
* Either:
** Other Wikipedians use C to verify the facts in [[B]]; and
** [[B]] is allowed to remain (perhaps improved in various ways).
* Or:
** Other Wikipedians follow C and find no verification of [[B]]; and
** [[B]] is deleted.

This outline assumes that verifiability is (in the end) the only reason
to delete [[B]] (which isn't really true, as with vandalism for example),
and it assumes that reference C settles the matter;
A may need to come back with reference D or whatever.
And if A is new, then A may not understand things,
so that (the first) reference C is written ''by'' A
(hence not independent) or some other problem;
people will have to try to work things out in good faith.
But the bottom line is that, if A is fighting for the life of [[B]],
then A needs to provide a way for other Wikipedians
to independently verify it.

It would help to cultivate a culture of mentioning sources on talk pages.
Most of the time, we don't do this for uncontroversial matters
(and I'm as guilty of this omission as anybody else is).
But mentioning sources in the absence of controversy
will help smooth things over when controversy appears.
Sources are the obvious (not the only) ways to get independent verification;
since each Wikipedian can check the source independently.

>I think the question of quality of sources cannot be avoided. Where I live
>we had a young man who made a living off of stories of flying saucers,
>cattle mutilations and similar stuff, none of which was fact based (as I
>have lived here for many years, surely I would have observed at least one of
>the numberless phenomena he reported). He is notorious enough that should
>someone wish to write a Wikipedia article it would not be questioned. Simply
>a lot of independent sources doesn't raise crap to fact.

This situation seems entirely correct to me.
Wikipedia is not interested in establishing fact.
(There is the technical meaning of the term "fact"
in LMS' exposition of NPOV, and that ''is'' what Wikipedia covers;
but that's not as broad as the common meaning of the term.)
That is, Wikipedia doesn't care if your neighbour's ideas are true.
But if he is notorious, then there should be independent evidence
of ''what his ideas are'', and Wikipedia can write about '''that'''.
And if he is notorious, then Wikipedia ''should'' write about him too!

-- Toby


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] help needed for arabic wikipedia

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

Hello,

I would like to invite people to join the Arabic wikipedia, but at the
moment editing is almost impossible there (at least for me). Try for
yourself (for example to create a link)

http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_edit_Arabic_pages
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox

With the help of Ibn Alnatheer I localized some parts of the GUI, but
after half an hour work there I need an aspirin...

Can something be done to make editing there easier? How does Hebrew
wikipedia handle the RTL stuff?

If there are unsolved problems, maybe the people from arabeyes.org can help.

greetings,
elian

PS:For recentchanges the order (same as Hebrew):

(comment) (talk) user time article hist diff

would look much better than the mess now. Could someone please change this?
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body:
Tarquin wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>We don't need a special policy for autobiographies
>>which states that unverifiable biographies are unacceptable,
>>if we already have a policy that all articles must be verifiable.
>>...
>>And it would be a good idea to mention this if there have been problems --
>>which it seems that there have!  But this is not Yet Another Policy ^_^.

>Agreed.
>It's making a page to explain this particular aspect of existing policy.
>My motivation is that when I directed MRM Parrott to "what WP is not" he
>said that nothing there prevented him having an article.

I don't think that there ''is'' anything on WWIN that:
* prevents this article; ''and''
* pertains particularly to biographies.
Since the page is long, that might explain why Parrott missed the bits that:
* prevent this article for more generic reasons. ^_^

Perhaps he should be pointed to [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]],
particularly [[#Obscure topics]]?  (This is just ideas on tactics.)

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] user rights

body:
Thomas R. Koll wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>I'm not saying that I oppose your idea completely.
>>But in the case of the experienced user on [[de:]], I would suggest
>>that this user be given back ''all'' sysop rights, but only ''use'' SQL.
>>Perhaps this is a problem for some reason -- maybe other Wikipedians
>>complained about this user as a sysop?

>But he doesn't want to be a full sysop, don't know his excact reasons.
>He was but gave his rights back a few months ago.

Many Wikipedians (mostly in places other than this mailing list)
are concerned about hierarchy and levels of access/power/authority,
so it will be controversial to make the hierarchy more complicated.
Also it's a Bad Thing in general to complicate code more than necessary.
So my impulse is still to tell this guy ?We don't mind if you're a sysop
and you only use your SQL powers, and it's painless, so just do that.?.

But if there is a real need to complicate the hierarchy and the code ...
well, I won't make any more fuss about it.

-- Toby

>>(By the way, you didn't answer my questions.
>>That's OK, as long as you know that you didn't answer them! ^_^)

>(Uhh, what was the question again?)

They were:

>>>>What is "the sysop-job"?

and:

>>>>Do sysops on [[de:]] have to do chores?

It may be best just to go back to the original for context:
<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2004-January/007609.html>.
(And it's OK to ignore these specific questions now that we've gone on,
unless you think think that they're still relevant.
So this whole thing is a digression. ^_^)


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikitech-l] user rights

body:
"Thomas R. Koll" <tomk32 at gmx.de> writes:

Thanks Thomas, for taking care of my issue.  I just decide to join this
mailing list as well - one more list cannot hurt...

> But he doesn't want to be a full sysop, don't know his excact reasons.
> He was but gave his rights back a few months ago.

It's me.  I neither like the term/title sysop nor admin (resp. the
German translation "Administrator").  I simply don't want to be
responsible, I don't want to defend the WP in court. Etc. pp.  Change
the word sysop/admin to something else like "advanced user" and I would
be happy again.

"GreenMountain" <greenmountain at alexandria.cc> writes:

> Yes, I agree.  I think that a sysop should be responsible.

I don't want to be responsible as a sysop; I want to be responsible for
my own edits only.

> On the other hand, I think that individuals who aren't sysops, might
> become, "SIP's" (sysops in training,) and they could edit protected
> pages, and could not delete, or block.

I'm not interested in those actions.  I'm just interested in SQL.
Maybe the Term/title ("SIP's" (sysops in training)) is good enough; to
be translated as "Anw?rter" ;)

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Jan 3, 2004, at 17:33, Gabriel Wicke wrote:
>> If the client sent an If-Modified-Since header, we compare the given
>> time against the last-touched timestamp (which is updated for cases
>> where link rendering would change as well as direct edits).
>
> Ah- so this would be the point to hook in for downstream cache
> invalidation (PURGE requests). Great news, then the timeout for
> anonymous
> views could be really high on the squids, practically static serving.
> Reallly fast...

In theory, yeah, that should rock. :)

> Squid would cache both the compressed and the decompressed page- Vary:
> Accept-Encoding, Cookie does this. It will most propably cache two or
> three variants of the Accept-Encoding value (Browsers differ in what
> they
> advertise).

I seem to recall some trouble with Vary headers other than "Vary:
User-Agent" and Internet Explorer. This can probably be worked around
in some way, I hope.

> What is the reason for sending a session cookie for anonymous users?
> User
> tracking? This collides with downstream caching (Vary: Cookie), so if
> this
> could be switched off the only issue would be solved.

There's no real good reason for it, just laziness. Session tracking
isn't actually used outside of a login session, so it's just annoying
for people who browse in with their browser set to prompt about
cookies.

In theory, we should be able to switch on the session system only after
either a) checking that a session cookie is present or b) establishing
a login session on Special:Userlogin.

Note however that we want to be able to display talk page notifications
to individual anonymous users, as well; currently this requires a hit
to the server to check if the IP is marked. It may be sufficient to
start up the cookie session on edit; most casual visitors may never get
there, and talk notifications aren't too likely to happen to somebody
who's not editing at the time.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: user rights

body:
Karl Eichwalder writes:

> "GreenMountain" <greenmountain at alexandria.cc> writes:
>
>> Yes, I agree.  I think that a sysop should be responsible.
>
> I don't want to be responsible as a sysop; I want to be responsible for
> my own edits only.
>
>> On the other hand, I think that individuals who aren't sysops, might
>> become, "SIP's" (sysops in training,) and they could edit protected
>> pages, and could not delete, or block.
>
> I'm not interested in those actions.  I'm just interested in SQL.
> Maybe the Term/title ("SIP's" (sysops in training)) is good enough; to
> be translated as "Anw?rter" ;)

I think that SQL could/should be taken away from those who abuse
the privlege, but it should be granted by default.  When I said
responsible, I meant "use powers responsibly", not what you
thought.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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subject: [Wikitech-l] user rights

body:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:

>It's me.  I neither like the term/title sysop nor admin (resp. the
>German translation "Administrator").  I simply don't want to be
>responsible, I don't want to defend the WP in court. Etc. pp.  Change
>the word sysop/admin to something else like "advanced user" and I would
>be happy again.

IMO, "advanced user" is a better name anyway.
Even better are "trusted user" and "old hand" (maveric149's suggestion).

>GreenMountain wrote:

>>I think that a sysop should be responsible.

>I don't want to be responsible as a sysop; I want to be responsible for
>my own edits only.

I'm pretty sure that this is just what GreenMountain meant.
(Well, change "edits" to "actions" to be more general.)
In context, an administrator is responsible for their own SQL queries.
But administrators aren't responsible for anybody else's actions.

>>and they could edit protected pages, and could not delete, or block.

>I'm not interested in those actions.  I'm just interested in SQL.
>Maybe the Term/title ("SIP's" (sysops in training)) is good enough; to
>be translated as "Anw?rter" ;)

We already have a position for somebody that wants to do SQL queries
but doesn't want to edit protected pages, [un]delete, or [un]block,
and who is trusted by other Wikipedians to do what they say.
This position is called "Administrator" (or a translation thereof),
popularly called "sysop".

Both of these names are bad, IMO.  I would support a change in names --
which should probably be taken to <wikipedia-L>.

But in the meantime, if you become "Administrator" on [[de:]]
(or whatever y'all say in German), then you will not be responsible
for any actions other than your own edits and your own SQL queries.
If you doubt my word, I am certain that Jimbo himself will back that up.

-- Toby


body:
On Jan 3, 2004, at 04:32, Brion Vibber wrote:
> This scheme also works in the archive table, maybe... there are
> probably problems with undeletion that need to be checked.

I haven't yet found any problems with viewing or editing old revisions,
looking at diffs, or doing reverts. I  haven't yet tested
deletion/undeletion.

> So far there's no on-the-fly compression;

Now there is. Set $wgCompressRevision = true in LocalSettings to
compress old revisions on page save. Article::compressRevisionText()
does the deed; I'm not sure I like its interface but it seems to work.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Why we redirect instead of deleting

body:
I'm going through my watchlist now, and I found some talk pages
about [[AIDS Kills Fags Dead]] and all its many variations.
These pages were deleted sometime, and they were deleted long enough ago
that even though I'm an admin on [[en:]],
I can't view the deleted revisions anymore.

I hopped around links for a while,
until discovering that old talk is at [[Talk:AKFD]] and its subpages.
>From the edit history, I see that Martin reorganised the subpages,
although I'd have to look through all of his edits in order
to discover ''where'' my watched material ended up.

Fortunately, my plans are to remove all of this stuff
from my watchlist, and nothing more, so I'm OK.
But what if I'd wanted to track down changes?
With some work, I think that I could straighten it out --
but if I were inexperienced with Wikipedia,
then I might have never found [[Talk:AKFD]] in the first place.

If another person, following our advice at [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]]
had linked back to the edit histories of these pages
in lieu of determining 5 significant authors,
then this other user would be in violation of the GFDL.

All of this is why, when we change the title of pages,
we should turn them into redirects instead of deleting them.
I almost left out the word "should" in the line above,
and a year ago I would have been able to do that.

-- Toby


body:
Angela wrote in small part:

>Deleting redirects is a problem, but sometimes keeping
>them is more of a problem. For example where it makes
>it unreasonably difficult to find similarly named
>articles, where the redirect might cause confusion,
>the redirect is offensive or the redirect makes no
>sense. There are more details and discussion of the
>policy at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion]] and
>[[Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/redirects]].

I was going to reply on a couple of points,
but since discussion on just this matter exists there,
then I'll look at those pages instead for now.

-- Toby


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: New system ideas

body:
On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 11:37:04 -0800, Tim Thorpe wrote:

> The obstacle is the DB server, to have an offsite dump 24/7 of the DB
> server would effective double the bandwidth used for each transaction. I
> work for an ISP N+1 takes care of most DC internal issues, the DC that is
> being used is Verio which is a VERY large hosting company, I don't see
> them going down any time soon. Some advanced routers have a dial up
> redundancy capability where it can phone on a separate land line an
> off-site router to inform it that there is a network issue on one end and
> that all data needs to be re-routed to the secondary stack.
>
> You can never eliminate all single points of failure, but I also see that
> some of us are loosing our heads when it comes to solutions. Some
> suggested solutions would cost not in the tens of thousands but hundreds
> of thousands to implement.
>
> Remember the golden rule to network engineering, KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!
> ;).

I agree.

The idea of a WikiTella thing is fascinating but seems to be very hard to
implement now.

Factors that would help WikiTella:
* hardware performance grows really fast
* bandwidth gets really cheap

If somebody would manage to get a prototype of this working under load and
with little bandwidth requirements i would be all for this solution, but i
have some doubts that this will happen soon.
A 'cheap computer' that would work in such a setup would most propably
need to be quite a few times quicker than the current cheap ones. And
wikipedia's demand might grow quicker than cheap computer's
performance. Mirrors could hardly be simple (old) boxes provided by a
university or isp. They would have to be brand new machines bought by
wikipedia or sponsored. Or a similar setup as the current one with
multiple machines and the associated administration work (but this might
buy more horsepower for the money).

Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Mark Krueger

subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
What's about the amazon.com Honor System as an alternative for a more modest
fund raising policy? (not sure if the link functions
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/subst/fx/home.html/ref=zm_pb_h_09/058-46741
05-1865461 )
Mark

-----Ursprungliche Nachricht-----
Von: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org]Im Auftrag von Jaap van
Ganswijk
Gesendet: Freitag, 2. Januar 2004 01:14
An: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Betreff: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

At 2004-01-01 07:05, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>I'm sure that the foundation will receive much more
>than that. I plan to start figuring out the dos and
>don't of grant writing later in January. This may be
>an area where it would make sense to hire a
>professional grant writer but I still want to do some
>research on the subject anyway. At the very least it
>will inform us better about what we should tell the
>grant writer.
>
>However I am confident that a majority of the money we
>get through donations will be from individual donors,
>not charitable foundations. All the better as far as I
>am concerned (foundation money often comes with at
>least implied strings attached to do certain things).

I don't think Wikipedia should be build on grants and
subsidies etc.

It seems that paying for the hardware and bandwidth
can be done by the authors, but I don't think it should.
The readers should pay for it, either directly or by
having to lookat/ignore advertisements.

I also donated $20 to Wikipedia some days ago, but
when I thought some more about it later, I started
to see a strange irony:

I make my money with a 'Wikipedia kind-of' free
information site about chips and other electronics:

http://www.chipdir.org/

And I make that money by selling ad-space on the site.

It's quite ironic (or even 'hypocrital'?) to keep
Wikipedia free of advertisements by having it
sponsored by a site that makes it's money from
selling advertising space itself.

I think that Wikipedia should reconsider putting
advertising on it's pages. (Perhaps only on pages
about popular subjects for example.)

I make $180..$250 per month from Google's Adwords and
those ad's are half-way pages on spots that I otherwise
would have trouble to sell to individual advertisers,
so Wikipedia should be able to do much better.

For the time being Wikipedia should have enough money
but I think that this anti-advertising attitude should
be reconsidered, because there is nothing against modest,
on-topic advertising. I never got a complaint (but in
my information-intensive field on-topic ad's are
usually considered to be extra information).

Why not at least set up a test, for example on all the
Britney Spears and Lord of the Rings pages and such?

Greetings,
Jaap

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Fri, 02 Jan 2004 13:35:33 +0100, Gabriel Wicke wrote:

> http://www.aulinx.de/oss/code/wikipedia/

Update: added apachebench run- current performance from Germany is 5.37
requests/second (http://en.wikipedia.org/, 50 requests in 9.314 seconds,
concurrency 7).

What kind of caching is done at the moment? And what are the current
timeouts?

Gabriel Wicke


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 14:43:02 -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:

Hi Brion,

thanks for this in-depth explanation!
I'll add some comments regarding a possible squid integration:

> Then the database is queried to see if the page exists and whether it's
> a redirect, and to get the last-touched timestamp.
>
> If the client sent an If-Modified-Since header, we compare the given
> time against the last-touched timestamp (which is updated for cases
> where link rendering would change as well as direct edits).

Ah- so this would be the point to hook in for downstream cache
invalidation (PURGE requests). Great news, then the timeout for anonymous
views could be really high on the squids, practically static serving.
Reallly fast...

> if the browser doesn't advertise understanding gzip, we
> decompress it on the fly. (Note that this may affect benchmarks in
> comparison to actual browsers in use, I don't know.)

Squid would cache both the compressed and the decompressed page- Vary:
Accept-Encoding, Cookie does this. It will most propably cache two or
three variants of the Accept-Encoding value (Browsers differ in what they
advertise).

> A global cache epoch can be set on the server
> to invalidate all old cached pages (server

This would need a call to a wildcard purge for all languages.

> and
> individual user accounts also have a cache epoch which is reset on
> login, when user options are changed, and when talk page notification
> comes on/off.

No squid caching here, no action.

> If this is a redirect, old page view, diff, or printable view,

All these could most propably be cached as well. Squid caches the headers
as well, so the redirect does what it's supposed to do. The printable view
would need to be purged with the page, the others propably never change,
i'm not shure.

> Ideally we'd be putting cached data into memcached, which can run
> in-memory on the web server (or as a distributed cache over a web server
> cluster) without grinding down the disks. So far we use memcached just
> for some common data (localized messages, utf8 translation tables,
> interwiki prefix lookup) and login sessions.

Squid uses a freely configurable memcache (config options include size,
max object size, different replacement algolorithms) by default- the
bigger, the better for the disk and the better the speed of course.

What is the reason for sending a session cookie for anonymous users? User
tracking? This collides with downstream caching (Vary: Cookie), so if this
could be switched off the only issue would be solved.

Gabriel Wicke