from_name: Robert Graham Merkel

body:
On Tue, 02 Jul 2002 15:22:17 Toby Bartels wrote:
> Robert Merkel wrote in part:

> (Hopefully we would *have* an article on Silent Spring by this point,
> given that we seem to agree that it deserves to be listed on [[1962]]
> itself.)
>
> I also suspect that, if old hands get into arguments with rabid fans,
> that rather than "You need to write an article on this book before
> listing it.",
> the discussion will be more effective it goes like this:
> * "This is not a reasonable subject for an encyclopaedia article."
> * "It is too!!1  Robert Heinlein is the l33test writer ever, d00d."
> * "OK, then prove it: write an interesting, substantive article
>    on this particular book, and ''then'' list it."
> After all, if they meet a challenge put like *that*,
> then it will all be worth it.
>

Agreed, this will be a useful technique for cases like this,
but not the complete solution.

After taking the discussion on this issue on board, I'm going
to try and write a policy proposal for Year in Review that I'll post
on meta sometime this weekend.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

body:
On Tuesday 02 July 2002 02:10 am,  Toby Bartels wrote:
> You know what would make writing unambiguous links easier?
> I'd like to say "[[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]]" without repeating "Mercury".
> Would it work to have a feature such that, say, "[[Mercury]](planet)"
> (with no space) produces that effect?

That would be cool. Or simply have the software, by default ignore anything
in parenthesis and only display the non-parenthetical term:
So that [[Mercury (planet)]] is displayed as simply Mercury. Or if
this is deemed inappropriate default behavior, maybe add just the | and/or ~,
* or whatever to turn this feature on: [[Mercury (planet)|*]] yields
Mercury.

Alleviating the tedium of making links to parenthetical titles would be most
useful.

--maveric149


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] other irrelevant uploads

body:
Well, after a medium amount of digging, I am forced to admit that I
cannot prove that this picture is in the public domain.  I suppose that
means it must be deleted, dangnab it.

Executioner, do your duty.

--
 Sean Barrett      | Necessity is the plea for every
 sean at epoptic.com  | infringement of human freedom. It
                   | is the argument of tyrants; it is
                   | the creed of slaves. --William Pitt

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Vicki Rosenzweig
Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2002 07:50
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] other irrelevant uploads

At 07:32 AM 7/2/02 -0700, Sean Barrett wrote:
>United States government, which was rather interested in the fellow.
>;->
>Specifically the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of
>Congress.
Did the US government produce this image? If so, it's public domain.
Otherwise, probably not: just about everything in copyright in the US is
in the Library of Congress, because of how copyright registration works.

>wow.  My first impression of any post-1900 artwork is "copyrighted."
>Where did you find it (commissioned by the Cuban government?).
>
>kq
>
>You Wrote:
> >Do not delete che.png.  I uploaded it, and it is not a copyright
> >violation.
> >--
> > Sean Barrett     | Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
> > sean at epoptic.com |

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

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server ready for testing

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from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] other irrelevant uploads

body:
On Tuesday 02 July 2002 22:57, Sean Barrett wrote:
> Well, after a medium amount of digging, I am forced to admit that I
> cannot prove that this picture is in the public domain.  I suppose that
> means it must be deleted, dangnab it.
>
> Executioner, do your duty.

His head is gone, if it please your Majesty!

phma


body:
On Wednesday 03 July 2002 02:05, you wrote:
> Well, it's been an interesting week.  Many thanks to everyone who
> tested the new code and found lots of things for me to fix.  I ended
> up having to de-freeze the code and make some real changes, so I'd
> like to get another few days of testing before going live.
>
> The new server is at http://130.94.122.197/
>
> Please test it well.  It's also set up so that every access is timed
> and logged, so we'll be able to get some timing figures to use for
> tuning and profiling.

In Netscape (which I tried first, intending to try to upload the Arabic-named
file which I couldn't in Konqueror), before I logged in, the navbar was on
the left and was separate from the main screen; after I log in, the main
screen is full width, and nothing on the navbar can be clicked, though it can
be seen.

In Konqueror, the navbar is on the left before logging in and on the right
after. Nothing is covered up.

Konqueror is 2.1.1; Netscape is 4.08.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Clearlyu

body:
Is there a way I can make the new site show up in something other than
Clearlyu (and hopefully still see non-Latin characters)? Clearlyu has only
one size and no bold or italics, and I don't like it.

phma


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cannot Connect

body:
Don't usually get this message, but did this morning:

Warning: Too many connections in
/home/wiki-newest/work-http/databaseFunctions.php on line 11
Could not connect to MySQL server:

Fred Bauder


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server

in_reply_to: <3D1479F10000A0FF@mail.epost.de>; from magnus.manske@epost.de on Wed, Jul 03, 2002 at 03:21:30PM +0200

body:
That's very disturbing, yes.  I will check into it.  Bomis itself sits in the
same cage on the same network segment, and is fast.  So that can't be it, or anyhow
that shouldn't be it.

--Jimbo

Magnus Manske wrote:

> I just started testing the new server, or I would have liked to, but is
> really awfully slow. It repeatedly refused connection, and when it displays
> pages at all, it does so very slowly.
> I know that's not the fault of the script (it was much faster on the piclab
> server), and not my Internet connection either (other sites work with normal
> speed).
> It probably ain't the new server, either. So, could it be the Bomis bandwidth?
> That could explain the "getting stuck" of the current software as well.
> Jimbo?
>
> It just took a minute or two to save a "Sandbox" test. Very disturbing.
>
> Magnus
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> Zeitschriftenabos online bestellen - jetzt neu im Infoboten! http://www.epost.de
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Tim Chambers

body:
> The new server is at http://130.94.122.197/

My first few accesses were fine, but now I'm watching a spinning globe
and a blank page in my IE browser. I'll try again later.

But thank you, Lee and everyone else who is working on this!

<>< Tim

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
http://sbc.yahoo.com


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server offline for a while

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from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server

body:
I just started testing the new server, or I would have liked to, but is
really awfully slow. It repeatedly refused connection, and when it displays
pages at all, it does so very slowly.
I know that's not the fault of the script (it was much faster on the piclab
server), and not my Internet connection either (other sites work with normal
speed).
It probably ain't the new server, either. So, could it be the Bomis bandwidth?
That could explain the "getting stuck" of the current software as well.
Jimbo?

It just took a minute or two to save a "Sandbox" test. Very disturbing.

Magnus

________________________________________
Zeitschriftenabos online bestellen - jetzt neu im Infoboten! http://www.epost.de


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server

body:
On Wed, Jul 03, 2002 at 03:21:30PM +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:
> I just started testing the new server, or I would have liked to, but is
> really awfully slow. It repeatedly refused connection, and when it displays
> pages at all, it does so very slowly.
> I know that's not the fault of the script (it was much faster on the piclab
> server), and not my Internet connection either (other sites work with normal
> speed).
> It probably ain't the new server, either. So, could it be the Bomis bandwidth?
> That could explain the "getting stuck" of the current software as well.
> Jimbo?
>
> It just took a minute or two to save a "Sandbox" test. Very disturbing.

Weird, I have no problems with with things taking long, but my edits don't
seem to "stick". If a re-edit a page I don't get the last version but an
older version in my edit box.

-- Jan Hidders


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server

body:
I am now working at home, and the speed is a little better, but not what I
had on the piclab server. What I get is the header and the sidebar, then a
brief pause, then the title and a little text, then a long pause, some more
text, another pause etc.

I noticed the same pattern at work (10 MBit), and here at home (DSL).

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
> Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 4:20 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New server
>
>
> That's very disturbing, yes.  I will check into it.  Bomis itself
> sits in the
> same cage on the same network segment, and is fast.  So that
> can't be it, or anyhow
> that shouldn't be it.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
> > I just started testing the new server, or I would have liked to, but is
> > really awfully slow. It repeatedly refused connection, and when
> it displays
> > pages at all, it does so very slowly.
> > I know that's not the fault of the script (it was much faster
> on the piclab
> > server), and not my Internet connection either (other sites
> work with normal
> > speed).
> > It probably ain't the new server, either. So, could it be the
> Bomis bandwidth?
> > That could explain the "getting stuck" of the current software as well.
> > Jimbo?
> >
> > It just took a minute or two to save a "Sandbox" test. Very disturbing.
> >
> > Magnus
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > Zeitschriftenabos online bestellen - jetzt neu im Infoboten!
http://www.epost.de
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


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from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 130.94.122.197

body:
There were many changes that I like, but several that were bad.
Listing the latter in order of decreasing importance:

<What links here> no longer indicates what links through redirects.
I think that this is a significant loss of function.

The watchlist no longer watches User: pages or Wikipedia: pages.
It's bad enough that User talk: and Wikipedia talk: weren't watched;
now it's worse.

There are a few links that are now available only from the Quickbar:
<Watch this page>, <What links here>, and <User contributions>.
Can these *please* at least be listed at the bottom of the page?
(I'd actually prefer to keep these items at the top, but the bottom will do.)
The new format is slightly too wide for my window with the Quickbar,
which however isn't a problem if I have the Quickbar turned off,
but I make heavy use of the first of these two links.
I can accept being condemned to an ugly display for my particular setup
if this makes things nicer for a wide class of other users,
but I don't see how putting *anything* *only* on the Quickbar helps *anybody*.

The watchlist also no longer displays nonexistent pages that I'm watching.
You may not believe it, but I actually look at this list.

A construction like "[[thing]]s" no longer mimics "[[things|thing]]"
if the page [[thing]] doesn't exist.  This is difficult to read.

"~~~" doesn't change to my name in the <Preview> anymore, only in the <Save>.
This is largely cosmetic, but I still find the change undesirable.

The red colour of unwritten links is different from before --
in fact, hard to distinguish from the purple colour of followed links.
(The purple is provided by my browser, of course, but is very common.
This is M$IE 5 for SunOS Unix.  Netsacpe 4.5 looks better than this,
but still worse than before.)

BTW, I haven't had any problems with response times --
indeed, <130.94.122.197> is much faster than <www.wikipedia.com>!

-- Toby Bartels
   toby at math.ucr.edu


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote in part:

>How I implemented it in the new code is like this: a link in
>the form [[mercury (planet)|]] (i.e., with an empty text form)
>will be converted to [[Mercury (planet)|mercury]] upon save;
>the context is just dropped for the text form. a link like
>[[|mercury]] (i.e. with a text form but empty link) well be
>replaced by [[Mercury (context)|mercury]] if the page has a
>context in parentheses, or just [[mercury]] if it doesn't.
>So, for example, the link [[|call]] on the page "Raise (poker)"
>will be replaced with [[Call (poker)|call]].

Wow, that works great!!!
I only wish that it showed up in <Preview> like "~~~" does (or used to),
so that I could make sure that I didn't make any typos.
(I still mix up the two sides of the pipe occasionally '_`.)
But if there's some reason why that just isn't possible,
well, it's still a pretty great new system.

-- Toby Bartels
   toby at math.ucr.edu


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 130.94.122.197

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from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> Netscape 4.X has problems with the sidebar that I'm not going
> to fix, especially a version as ancient as 4.08.  4.7 was for a
> long time a mainstay of Unix machines, so I want the system to
> be usable there, but there's two ways to do that: don't use the
> quickbar at all (it can be turned off and the site should be
> quite usable without it), and move to Mozilla, which should be
> available on all those Unix boxes now.

LOTS of people (like my whole family) use Netscape 4.7 and have no
intention of upgrading it... it may be old but it's hardly obsolete, and
I would suggest that it is not good policy to deliberately make the
pedia inaccessible to ANY major browser. I know that certain sites on
the internet are not usable in netscape and while I started running
different browsers to get to them but it's too much effort and wastes
too much time so they just don't get used.

You want the wikipedia to have MAXIMUM availability, not to lock out
about 30% of the internet using population.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Paris and Disambiguation block

body:
What I meant by the disamiguation block idea was this:

have the article for Paris, the city in France on the page [[Paris]]
with the block there.
The idea was that the principal article on Paris is on the simple-name
page, so at least a proportion of people following a [[paris]] link land
immediately on what they want.

I don't see much point in putting a disamiguation block on [[Paris,
France]] and making [[Paris]] a mere redirect.

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>On Monday 01 July 2002 07:34 am, you wrote:
>
>
>>I'd also like to suggest that in cases where one context of an article
>>title is particularly prominent, we use a "disambiguation BLOCK" instead
>>of a page -- that is, open with the standard disambiguation text and
>>links, but run the principal article below on that page.
>>
>>
>>tarquin
>>
>>
>
>Sounds good to me - just have to work some type of acceptable format.
>
>--maveric149
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 130.94.122.197

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body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> > LOTS of people (like my whole family) use Netscape 4.7 and have
> > no intention of upgrading it... it may be old but it's hardly
> > obsolete, and I would suggest that it is not good policy to
> > deliberately make the pedia inaccessible to ANY major browser.
>
> I agree, and I tested with Netscape 4.7.  The site is totally
> usable and functional with Netscape 4.7--just not the sidebar.
> The site is quite usable with the sidebar turned off, and works
> great even with Lynx, which I also tested.  The site is 100%
> validated HTML 4, and will always be available from any browser.
> The sidebar is an "extra" feature that may only work on more
> standards-compliant ones (and actually it too works fine in
> Lynx--which is better than Netscape in that regard).  If I can
> figure out how to get one of the sidebar options to work with
> Netscape as well without screwing up modern browsers, I'll be
> happy to do that too, but I haven't figured it out yet--the code
> is good, Netscape just can't handle it.
>
> It is not possible to make every feature, every user setting,
> and every skin in all combinations work on all browsers.  And it
> would be equally bad policy to tell users of modern browsers
> that we won't implement a feature for them just because some
> people with old versions of Netscape won't be able to use it.

OK... I guess I misunderstood. Sorry to make a fuss.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 130.94.122.197

body:
On Thu, Jul 04, 2002 at 03:38:34AM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
>
> <What links here> no longer indicates what links through redirects.
> I think that this is a significant loss of function.

On a related note: shouldn't we disallow redirects to redirects?

I saw duplicates on the "what links here" pages. A simple DISTINCT in
the concerning SQL should solve that.

I also saw that there is no longer an 'unsuccesful searches' page. I
personally don't mind that but perhaps other people might.

Finally I still have absolutely no problems with slowly loading pages or
anything. Even the "heavy" pages with lots of database processing are very
snappy. (Yes, I know, wait until the load gets realistic.) All login/logout
problems I had and settings for the quickbar that did not seem to
effectuated were because my IE6.0 was doing some unexpected caching, so that
has all been resolved.

-- Jan Hidders


body:
On Thursday 04 July 2002 12:01 pm, you wrote:
> What I meant by the disamiguation block idea was this:
>
> have the article for Paris, the city in France on the page [[Paris]]
> with the block there.
> The idea was that the principal article on Paris is on the simple-name
> page, so at least a proportion of people following a [[paris]] link land
> immediately on what they want.
>
> I don't see much point in putting a disamiguation block on [[Paris,
> France]] and making [[Paris]] a mere redirect.

Unfortunately, [[City, Nation]] is now the general naming convention for
cities -- even for famous ones like Paris, France (of course, with US cities
being at [[City, State]] due to internal conflicts). Ideally, [[Paris]] would
be only a disambiguation page pointing to the various uses of the term. But
since the most famous Paris has been and will continue to be mostly linked by
someone typing [[Paris]], it is not yet possible to make [[Paris]] into a
disambiguation page (as Bryan would like) -- at a bare minimum all the
current links to [[Paris]] would have to be fixed to point to the correct
articles first (but then it would be a maintenance issue to constantly
recheck and fix links -- that's why I would prefer [[Paris]] to remain a
redirect to [[Paris, France]]).

You simply can't have consistency in naming conventions and have blatant and
obvious exceptions like the most famous Paris AND also be able to preserve
past and future direct links UNLESS pages like [[Paris]] redirect to [[Paris,
France]] and any disambiguation occurs at the target.

The disambiguation block is just to catch anybody who might have gotton lost
by clicking on [[Paris]] intending to go to [[Paris, Texas]] or [[Paris
(mythical figure)]] (Is this figure known by any other longer name than
simply "Paris"? I hate having to use parentheticals.)

I don't think people will be confused by landing at [[Paris, France]] by
clicking on [[Paris]] -- at the top of the page it already says "Redirected
from [[Paris]]" or something like that. And since this bock will be minimal
in size, I also don't think it would seem too out of place by people clicking
through from a link to [[Paris, France]].

Hum, I just thought of something potentially cool: Have a software feature
that deals with these types of disambiguation issues. This feature would work
by amending a short disambiguation block to the top of [[Paris, France]]
whenever some one got there by clicking on [[Paris]].

One way for a contributor to code this would be to add the text for the
disambiguation block below the #REDIRECT [[Paris, France]] that is now at
[[Paris]]. Then, the only time somebody will see the disambiguation block is
when they clicked on [[Paris]]. Not sure if this would be worth the effort
just to minimize some minor ugliness at [[Paris, France]] for those that
click to that article directly. Coding crew -- what do you think?

But then we could just quickly say: "[[Paris]] redirects here. This article
is about Paris, France....blah, blah, blah," and try to keep that to a single
line at 800 x 600 for those with standard sized font's (least common
denominator is, unfortunately, MS Windows defaults).

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: 130.94.122.197

body:
On Thursday 04 July 2002 12:01 pm, Toby Bartels wrote:
> There were many changes that I like, but several that were bad.
> Listing the latter in order of decreasing importance:
>
> <What links here> no longer indicates what links through redirects.
> I think that this is a significant loss of function.

I agree -- I in fact submitted a bug report on this but it was rejected. The
current 'pedia wikiware lists articles linked through redirects in a separate
section and each item linked that way has "(via [[{redirect's name}]])" right
next to it. I'm pretty sure Brion is the one who did this and he was prompted
to do so by a feature request I made so that articles like [[Sutter's Fort]]
wouldn't be counted as orphans just because it is only linked to other
articles by [[Sutters Fort]].

I can understand if this feature was dropped for fat-cutting reasons in order
to improve performance, but I have not received an indication that this is
the reason. If the reason was to improve performance, then maybe list
redirects to an article separately under a heading like "Pages that redirect
here" (a good idea either way). Then maybe also have a link next to each of
these redirects to "Pages that link to {redirect's name}".

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] AW: Re: [Wikipedia-l] 130.94.122.197

body:
>Finally I still have absolutely no problems with slowly loading pages or
>anything. Even the "heavy" pages with lots of database processing are very
snappy. (Yes, I know, wait until the load gets realistic.)

The test server works fast for me today as well.

For the missing/changed features that were mentioned, IMHO all functions
of the current software should be working in the new one as well, except
they have become unnecessary or are merged within other functions.

That said, I believe we can live with minor items not working in the beginning.
Since we (Lee, mostly:) have now root access to the server, I expect testing
of new/improved functions to be more organized, and fixes to be installed
faster than under the current system (no offense, Jimbo;).

Magnus

________________________________________
Zeitschriftenabos online bestellen - jetzt neu im Infoboten! http://www.epost.de


subject: [Wikipedia-l]  130.94.122.197

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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikitech-l] Stress tester for the Wikipedia test site

body:
If anyone's interested, here's a little spider program in Python for
exercising the Wikipedia test site.
Tested in Python 2.2.1 for Win32, although it should run on other OS's
just fine. A few instances of this
running at once should give the test site a good stress test. Notice
that it will go places where proper spiders dare not tread --
intentionally.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Stressbot: a stress tester for the Wikipedia test site
# * Makes GET requests aggressively at random
# * Ignores embedded robots metadata entirely
# * Won't do POSTs, so shouldn't corrupt the database
# * Won't stray outside the site

import urllib, re, string, random

def proc_href(str):
    str = re.sub(r'<[Aa][^>]*?[hH][rR][eR][fF] *= *"([^"]*)"[^>]*?>',
r'\1', str)
    # handle entities buried in the HREF
    return string.replace(str, "&", "&")

def get_hrefs(text):
    hrefs = re.findall(r'<[Aa][^>]*?[hH][rR][eR][fF] *=
*"[^"]*"[^>]*?>', text)
    return map(proc_href, hrefs)

home_url = "http://130.94.122.197/"
history = []

url = home_url
while 1:
    print 'opening', url
    text = urllib.urlopen(url).read()
    # Make a note in a limited-length history
    # This is to stop endless revisiting of the standard special pages
    history.append(url)
    history = history[-50:]
    # Parse out all the A HREFs
    url_list = get_hrefs(text)
    # Limit to the local site
    url_list = filter(lambda u: u[:len(home_url)] == home_url, url_list)
    # Don't revisit a page we have been to recently
    url_list = filter(lambda u: u not in history, url_list)
    print len(text), 'bytes', len(url_list), 'non-recent local A HREFs'
    # The home page is the last resort, and we should also force it
occasionally
    # to get us out of pathological dead-end subspaces
    if not url_list or random.choice(range(10)) == 0:
        url_list.append(home_url)
    url = random.choice(url_list)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 1911encyclopedia.org copyright nonsense

body:
To my mild shock, I have just read a copyright notice at 1911encyclopedia.org:

".....
Use on Other Web Sites.  The Contents are licensed only for the personal,
household, educational use by a single individual.  Reproducing Content on
another site or redistributing Content is forbidden. Taking Content from this
site and editing it and posting it on another site is also forbidden. Framing
of this site is forbidden.
......"

Full text: http://www.1911ency.org/legal.htm

Sound familiar (esp. the editing part)? Should we de-list this resource from
[[wikipedia:Public domain resources]] and only use the very incomplete
Project Gutenberg or should we risk an expensive lawsuit by PageWise? I know
their claim is almost certainly bull sh*t, but our blatant use of their
material nontheless would probably be enough to start expensive legal
proceedings.

<sarcasm>They did modify the public domain info by introducing OCR errors, in
effect creating a derivative work.</sarcasm>

Companies that do wholesale copies of public domain material and then slap an
onerous copyright onto the unimproved text make me sick.

--maveric149


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body:
Besides, I'm not cut'n'pasting from that site; I'm typing articles in by
hand from my personal copy of that 1911 encyclopedia, and I'd like to
see them try to prove otherwise.

Of course, anyone who does simply cut'n'paste their scano-riddled crap
is making it trivial for them to prove copying....

--
 Sean Barrett     | If you want to impress people with your
 sean at epoptic.com | computer literacy, add the words "dot com"
                  | to the end of everything you say, dot com.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of lcrocker at nupedia.com
Sent: Friday, July 05, 2002 01:02
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] 1911encyclopedia.org copyright nonsense

> To my mild shock, I have just read a copyright notice at
> 1911encyclopedia.org: "... The Contents are licensed only
> for the personal, household, educational use by a single
> individual.  Reproducing Content on another site or
> redistributing Content is forbidden. Taking Content from this
> site and editing it and posting it on another site is also
> forbidden...
> Full text: http://www.1911ency.org/legal.htm

They can _claim_ anything they like, but they're full of hot
air.  Scanning is not "creative expression" protected by
copyright.  The 1911 text is public domain--it belongs as
much to you and me as it does to them, regardless of whatever
legal-sounding bullshit they care to post.
0


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

body:
At 08:10 PM 7/5/02 +1000, you wrote:
>lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>>
>> A few problems I thought were important enough to fix: the quickbar on
>> Netscape 4.X (turned out to be an easy fix),
>
>The sidebar is still a little dodgy in netscape. When I logged in the
>sidebar was superimposed on top of the main text. Changing to 'floating
>left' seems to have repaired the problem. 'Fixed left' works ok too.
>'Fixed right' causes the display error.

The sidebar defaulted for me on Netscape 4.7 to the left side which was
awkward. Had the same problems Karen had when I tried fixed right, some
double image with floating left too.

I would prefer default to be fixed right so don't have to move screen to
edit. (using a small screen portable).

Also default edit at first seemed way bigger than 80 columns, but changing
preference fixed that.

The special pages feature works maybe better than sidebar for small
screens, never noticed that before.

Fred Bauder


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikitech-l] Analyzing response times of new server

body:
Lee, it would be good if the response times you posted on wikipedia-l
could be annotated with the exact time when the requests arrived at
the server (should be contained in the server's log file).

Maybe the server slows down when too many requests arrive in a short
time interval, or in a short time interval following some special
request. Also, we need to know in chronological order which requests
preceeded the slow ones; I don't think your list contains that
information.

Axel


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Putting the title of the article in bold in the first line of
 the article

body:
I just did a stub on [[Adams State College]] and while I was still editing
someone jumped in and inserted a '''Adams State College''' in the first
line. (so that was saved before my edit could be)

First, I don't like the practice of repeating the title that way. Although
that could be standard, would hardly matter.

Second, very seldom do I get anything right the first time and before I'm
done someone is jumping in.  Might be nice to let the ink cool, before
jumping in on new articles.

Fred Bauder


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

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subject: [Wikipedia-l]  130.94.122.197

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> > If the reason was to improve performance, then maybe list
> > redirects to an article separately under a heading like
> > "Pages that redirect here" (a good idea either way). Then
> > maybe also have a link next to each of these redirects to
> > "Pages that link to {redirect's name}".
>
> It wasn't a performance issue--just a matter of personal
> choice, but since there's now two complaint I suppose I'm
> outvoted.  Very well then, I'll have the page show the current
> list (pages that link here), followed by pages that link to
> each of those pages on the first list that are redirects.
> I just don't want the two mixed together.
> 0

I think showing redirects is a good thing... because it makes it easier
to make sure that all important redirects have been made. There isn't
really any way to check apart from trying to make the redirect pages and
discovering that they do or don't exist already.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Putting the title of the article in bold in
    the first line of the article

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

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from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Putting the title of the article in bold in the
	first line of the article

body:
On 7/5/02 7:32 AM, "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> I just did a stub on [[Adams State College]] and while I was still editing
> someone jumped in and inserted a '''Adams State College''' in the first
> line. (so that was saved before my edit could be)
>
> First, I don't like the practice of repeating the title that way. Although
> that could be standard, would hardly matter.

It has been accepted as standard practice for Wikipedia. I'm not a huge fan
of it myself, but it is useful. Makes the google search text look good :)
>
> Second, very seldom do I get anything right the first time and before I'm
> done someone is jumping in.  Might be nice to let the ink cool, before
> jumping in on new articles.
>
Fred, I understand your frustration. Part of that's unavoidable when working
with a wiki. In fact, it's much of the benefit. However, if you're working
on a complicated article and would like people to stay away for a little
bit, ask people to do so in the Talk for that article. It's always the best
move to trust that everyone else will be respectful of your desires if you
express them.


from_name: Tobias Hoevekamp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

body:
I am not really sure what the 'watch links' link at the bottom of each page
is supposed to be/do but always getting:

   'Recent changes'
   (to pages linked from "xxxx")
   ----
   Below are the last 200 ...
   <nothing else>
   'Main Page', etc.

seems to be - at least - strange.

Otherwise, it works fine for me.
THANKS for technically improving Wikipedia :-) I would be lost on doing so...

Bye

Tobias

>
> As before, the test site is http://130.94.122.197/
>

TOBIAS HOEVEKAMP
mailto:tobias.hoevekamp at ilw.agrl.ethz.ch
http://www.vt.ilw.agrl.ethz.ch/~hoevekam
WORK: ETH Zurich, LFO E21, CH-8092 Zurich, +41 1 632 3304
HOME: Anna Heer-Str. 2,  CH-8057  Zurich,  +41 1 350 5986

-------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through IMP 3.0 at http://email.ethz.ch/horde/imp


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

body:
On Friday 05 July 2002 11:36, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> "Red: sounded a little too hard-coded to me...it prevents me from
> taking advantage of whatever other form of highlighting might be
> useful in the future, or whatever might work better with a
> different skin.

Or different eyes. Some people can't see red.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

body:
On Fri, Jul 05, 2002 at 02:13:02AM -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> [...] and redirects in "what links here".  In this last case I made it
> recursive, showing three levels of links to redirects in-order.

I still think the script should disallow redirects to redirects, but
anyways, here's a small bug: (if you think it's a big one I'll add it to bug
tracker)

   I have made the pages "Redirect" and "Redirect to a redirect" such that
   they redirect to each other, and made links to both on "user:Jan Hidders".
   When I ask "What links here" for "Redirect to redirect" I get

   * Redirect (redirect page)
     o User:Jan Hidders
   * User:Jan Hidders

   which is correct but when I ask the same for "Redirect" I get

   * user:Jan Hidders

   which is not correct because the redirect from "Redirect to a redirect"
   is missing.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

in_reply_to: <1025861226.3d25666aeadc1@email.ethz.ch>; from tobias.hoevekamp@ilw.agrl.ethz.ch on Fri, Jul 05, 2002 at 11:27:06AM +0200

body:
On Fri, Jul 05, 2002 at 11:27:06AM +0200, Tobias Hoevekamp wrote:
> I am not really sure what the 'watch links' link at the bottom of each page
> is supposed to be/do but always getting:
>
>    'Recent changes'
>    (to pages linked from "xxxx")
>    ----
>    Below are the last 200 ...
>    <nothing else>
>    'Main Page', etc.
>
> seems to be - at least - strange.

The 'watch links' page gives you the recent changes for the links on the
page you were watching. So if you select this for "Main page" you get the
recent changes for the pages that are linked to from the Main page and since
these were not changed the list is empty, although I just saw that
[[Geography]] has now been updated. :-) This is very useful if you want to
keep an eye on all the important pages for Biology or Mathematics for
example.

--  Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] junk upload problem

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] can't delete subpages

body:
I have deleted Transportation, Transnational Issues, and Communications.
I'm not convinced that you have incorporated all useful information from
the other subpages; for example, I find it interesting that the governor
of Svalbard does not report to the king but rather to the Polar
Department of the Ministry of Justice.

--
 Sean Barrett     | Our strength is as the strength of ten
 sean at epoptic.com | because there are fourteen of us!

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Vicki Rosenzweig
Sent: Friday, July 05, 2002 18:29
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] can't delete subpages

I have integrated the subpages of [[Svalbard]] into the main article.

Every time I try to delete the subpages, I get a 404 error. But as long
as
I leave
them there, people keep putting them back into the [[Svalbard]] article,
ignoring
the comments on the talk page.

Can someone go into the database and get rid of these pages, so they'll
stop
turning up in "orphans".

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

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] can't delete subpages

body:
I take back nine-tenths of my earlier comment; you've done a fine job of
incorporating the subpages.  I have deleted all of them except
Government and Geography, and I'll delete them Real Soon Now.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Vicki Rosenzweig
Sent: Friday, July 05, 2002 18:29
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] can't delete subpages

I have integrated the subpages of [[Svalbard]] into the main article.

Every time I try to delete the subpages, I get a 404 error. But as long
as
I leave
them there, people keep putting them back into the [[Svalbard]] article,
ignoring
the comments on the talk page.

Can someone go into the database and get rid of these pages, so they'll
stop
turning up in "orphans".

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

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

in_reply_to: <200207051526.g65FQ9f26294@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Fri, Jul 05, 2002 at 08:26:09AM -0700

body:
On Fri, Jul 05, 2002 at 08:26:09AM -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > I still think the script should disallow redirects to redirects,
> > but anyways, here's a small bug: (if you think it's a big one I'll
> > add it to bug tracker)
>
> It does ignore double-redirects, and always has.  I don't know
> what you mean by "disallow"...I could intercept the page-save
> function and check to see if the page being saved is a redirect
> to a redirect and fail to save it, but that would be throw away
> user edits that might be valuable, and it still wouldn't catch
> the case where the user saved a redirect to a full page, then
> edited that full page to be a redirect.

The simplest would be just to not allow the edit of turning a page X into a
redirect to Y if

1. Y is a redirect, or
2. there is a page Z that redirects to X

and show a message that redirects to redirects are not allowed. The only
thing that would be lost is the text of the redirect. If this happens and
the user want to make the redirect anyway then he or she should

1. see where Y redirects and redirect X to that, and
2. change all redirects to X to redirects to Y if Y is not a redirect or to
   Y' if Y is a redirect to Y'.

It's the (2.) part that is probably the most annoying and it would be the
most elegant if this was automated for the user and the script would
automatically short-circuit all indirect redirects this way when saving a
page. The biggest problem I see (apart from the extra work for you) is that
this save will then possibly affect more pages than just the saved page.
Note that you only need to know what Y redirects to and which pages redirect
to X, assuming that there are no indirect redirects in the database. Another
nice property is that once this works you can remove all indirect redirects
by saving them all like this once.

> > [what links here] is not correct because the redirect from
> > "Redirect to a redirect" is missing.
>
> You somehow managed to create the "Redirect to a redirect"
> page without updating the link tables.  I'm curious how you
> managed that.  When I edited that article and resaved it. it
> worked fine.

Here's my recipe:
- created on 'user:Jan Hidders' the links 'Blurp1' and 'Blurp2'
- made Blurp1 redirect to Blurp2, and vice versa
- result of "what links here" for 'Blurp2': "no pages link here"
- result for 'Blurp1': "* Blurp2 (redirect page)
- after a resave of Blurp1 "w.l.h" says:
  * Blurp2 (redirect page)
    o Blurp1 (redirect page)
       * Blurp2 (redirect page)
- and w.l.h. on Blurp2 then says:
  * Blurp1 (redirect page)
    o Blurp2 (redirect page)
      * Blurp1 (redirect page
- Note: the link from "user:Jan Hidders" is still missing
- after an extra save of "user:Jan Hidders" this is remedied

Kind regards,

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] High traffic

body:
On Friday evening, a sad confession, indeed... I'm having no trouble
accessing Wiki. Somehow it's a volume problem I think. Which doesn't mean
the situation could not somehow be handled. It may be not just the number
of connections but also some grinding away process that's happening.

Fred Bauder


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

body:
Wow! That sounds pretty cool and useful!!! I am looking forward to the
new software finally running at wkipedia.

Tobias

>
> The 'watch links' page gives you the recent changes for the links on the
> page you were watching. So if you select this for "Main page" you get the
> recent changes for the pages that are linked to from the Main page and since
> these were not changed the list is empty, although I just saw that
> [[Geography]] has now been updated. :-) This is very useful if you want to
> keep an eye on all the important pages for Biology or Mathematics for
> example.
>
> --  Jan Hidders
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

-------------------------------------------------
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> A few problems I thought were important enough to fix: the quickbar on
> Netscape 4.X (turned out to be an easy fix), additional page-bottom
> links, CB indenting of lists, some validation tweaks, and redirects in
> "what links here".  In this last case I made it recursive, showing
> three levels of links to redirects in-order.

Hmmm... let's see how it works. I don't know if these are bugs or
intentional so I'll just write what I see happening. :)

The sidebar is still a little dodgy in netscape. When I logged in the
sidebar was superimposed on top of the main text. Changing to 'floating
left' seems to have repaired the problem. 'Fixed left' works ok too.
'Fixed right' causes the display error.

'Random page' takes me to the same page every single time... I'm not
sure whether that's a bug or not.

There is text showing up in red here and there and I'm not sure why. My
favourite feature in the wikipedia is the ability to show up nonexistent
links in red - it jumps out at you from the page rather than your having
to search for little blue question marks... I can't find it in my
preferences, so I guess it's been removed from this version? Oh, Ok, I
just found it. It wasn't obvious to me that 'highlight links to empty
topics' meant 'show them in red'.

I made a test page via a link, but when I click on 'what links here'? It
says that there are no links to the page. The link did not show up until
I went back and edited the 'Interest' page again.

Something a little strange in a circular redirect. I linked from
'Interest' to 'Interested' which is a redirect to 'Intrest'. 'Intrest'
in turn redirects back to 'Interest'. Intrest now appears to be
uneditable. When I attempt to edit the intermediary page 'Interest'
shows up in the edit window.

Overall, it looks pretty good! Great work. :)lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server updates

body:
Another thing...

I picked an entry from the 'most wanted' list  ('Cinderella') and made
it. But it didn't show up as having any links to it using 'what links
here' even though there should have been seven links listed. The same
thing happened with 'Cashew'. The only links that showed up on 'what
links here' were ones that I made manually after creating the page.
eg.'Cashew' links to 'nut' and vice versa.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] can't delete subpages

body:
At 09:29 PM 7/05/02 -0400, you wrote:
>I have integrated the subpages of [[Svalbard]] into the main article.
>
>Every time I try to delete the subpages, I get a 404 error. But as long as
>I leave
>them there, people keep putting them back into the [[Svalbard]] article,
>ignoring
>the comments on the talk page.

This bug can be worked around. Manually edit the URL that gives you a 404
during deletion and replace the URL-encoded slashes (%2F, I believe) with
ordinary slashes. So, for example,
"http://www.wikipedia.com/blahblah?Svalbard%2Fsubpage?action=whatever"
would become
"http://www.wikipedia.com/blahblah?Svalbard/subpage?action=whatever".

--
"Let there be light." - Last words of Bomb #20, "Dark Star"


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] can't delete subpages

body:
I have integrated the subpages of [[Svalbard]] into the main article.

Every time I try to delete the subpages, I get a 404 error. But as long as
I leave
them there, people keep putting them back into the [[Svalbard]] article,
ignoring
the comments on the talk page.

Can someone go into the database and get rid of these pages, so they'll stop
turning up in "orphans".

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] can't delete subpages

body:
At 06:53 PM 7/5/02 -0700, you wrote:
>I take back nine-tenths of my earlier comment; you've done a fine job of
>incorporating the subpages.  I have deleted all of them except
>Government and Geography, and I'll delete them Real Soon Now.

Thanks!

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] junk upload problem

body:
koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:

>Something just occurred to me: what about if, when we migrate to the new software, we have the "upload files" link be an option that is by default off.  That way the upload link will fall off the search engine results since robots won't find the link since they won't be logged in.  Then by the time new users make enough edits to decide to stay, finding how to upload pics to help illustrate a point will be a minor bonus.
>
>We could of course explain on a page how to upload files--log in and turn that link option on--but removing that page from Google etc. may help stem the tide of junk uploads.
>
>KQ
>
>0
>
That's an excellent idea!

Neil


from_name: Marian Steinbach

subject: [Wikitech-l] Search bug?

body:
Hi!

Is it possible that there is some weird debugging code showing up when
searching for something like

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?search=%22football%22

or anything else containing quotes or backslashes?

(it shows "grrrgrrr" on top of my browser window within the cologne blue
skin.)

Also, searches for one backslash appears as two backslashes in the
search form after submission. Probably striplslashes() should be applied
to the text shown in the html search form.

Cheers,

Marian

--
Marian Steinbach
http://www.ds.fh-koeln.de/~marian/
ICQ# 9790691


subject: [Wikitech-l] mathml at ORCCA

body:
Here's a TeX to MathML convertor project, with an online demo -- and I
was surprised and pleased to see that Mozilla 1.0 for Win32 has MathML
enabled!

http://www.orcca.on.ca/mathml/projects.html#tex2mml

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subject: [Wikitech-l] TTH: the TEX to HTML translator

body:
Also see this (but it's commercial, except for limited exceptions, and
there's no source).
Available in HTML and MathML versions.

http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/tth/index.html

Neil

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subject:
[Wikitech-l] Suggested mechanism for math formulas and other
 on-the-fly graphics

body:
Jan.Hidders wrote:

>On Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 01:45:07AM +0200, Marian Steinbach wrote:
>
>
>>would using MathML (an XML language for description of mathematic
>>formulas) be an option?
>>
>>
>
>That has been suggested before and there has been quite some debate over
>that. As far as I remember most people were in the end in favour of
>TeX/LaTeX because:
>- it displays on a wider range of browsers
>- its easier to read
>- more people know it
>
>-- Jan Hidders
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at ross.bomis.com
>http://ross.bomis.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>
I've just had a look at the TeX to HTML convertor: the results are
horrible on my browser: mathML or rendered images from source is the way
to go, I think.

I suggest something like this:

0 Use TeX in the Wiki source (perhaps in <tex> </tex> delimiters?)
1 Convert TeX to MathML.
2 Serve MathML to modern browsers
3 Serve rendered images of MathML (eg, using the Gecko engine) to users
with old browsers.

Why not render TeX directly? Because the MathML "bottleneck" will ensure
that everyone sees the same thing,
and it also provides a way to move eventually to supporting native
MathML in the source, when MathML is a mature, editable, format in most
browsers. Even better would be if we could do a 2-way TeX <-> MathML
conversion, but that's probably asking too much.

Neil


body:
Axel Boldt wrote:
>>by blindly executing TeX when someone edits a page, we are assuming
>>that they haven't included any malicious code in their TeX source.
>
>
> TeX has two dangerous commands: shell escapes and writing to an
> arbitrary file. Both can be globally disabled (and are disabled by
> default in most TeX distributions). It is fairly easy however to write
> TeX which eats memory like crazy (TeX allows recursion :-), so we
> would have to somehow restrict the resources available to the TeX
> process. But we are of course right now already wide open to all sorts
> of denial-of-service attacks.
>
> Axel

Hey guys,

would using MathML (an XML language for description of mathematic
formulas) be an option?

I am not part of the math community, but I could imagine that a good
part of the people who are either already use tools that produce MathML
or they know the syntax from the top of their hads.

There are probably also tools around that allow for automated rendering
of images from a MathML formulae.

Mozilla even provides an editor for MathML. See
http://www.newmexico.mackichan.com/MathML/mathmled.htm

Marian

--
Marian Steinbach
http://www.ds.fh-koeln.de/~marian/
ICQ# 9790691


subject: [Wikitech-l] Search bug?

body:
On Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 12:57:08AM +0200, Marian Steinbach wrote:
>
> Is it possible that there is some weird debugging code showing up when
> searching for something like
>
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?search=%22football%22
>
> or anything else containing quotes or backslashes?
>
> (it shows "grrrgrrr" on top of my browser window within the cologne blue
> skin.)

I believe that is Brion's frustration showing through when he tried to make
sense of my code for the search expression parser. :-)

> Also, searches for one backslash appears as two backslashes in the
> search form after submission. Probably striplslashes() should be applied
> to the text shown in the html search form.

Yes, that is part of the problem. This is fixed in the new code base
that we will soon change to.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] TTH: the TEX to HTML translator

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

>>Also see this (but it's commercial, except for limited
>>exceptions, and there's no source).
>>Available in HTML and MathML versions.
>>http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/tth/index.html
>>
>>
>
>There was lots of discussion about that too (there's a
>Wikipedia page for it--check it out), but that's not an
>acceptable option because it requires Windows-only fonts.
>0
>
Here's a nasty idea: use big PNGs, resized downwards to fit, for the
awkward characters (like square root and integral),
and use standard HTML tables, entities, etc, for the rest. It's not
quite as daft as it seems: only a few big PNGs would be needed, and they
would be cached by browsers.

Probably only worth considering to reject it, though: making it work
right on every browser and font set would be a nightmare, and I still
like the MathML / image combo best.

Neil


subject: [Wikitech-l] Suggested mechanism for math formulas and other on-the-fly graphics

in_reply_to: <3D262F83.20801@ds.fh-koeln.de>; from marian@ds.fh-koeln.de on Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 01:45:07AM +0200

body:
On Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 01:45:07AM +0200, Marian Steinbach wrote:
>
> would using MathML (an XML language for description of mathematic
> formulas) be an option?

That has been suggested before and there has been quite some debate over
that. As far as I remember most people were in the end in favour of
TeX/LaTeX because:
- it displays on a wider range of browsers
- its easier to read
- more people know it

-- Jan Hidders


in_reply_to: <3D263D5C.9080502@mediachannel.ltd.uk>; from neil.harris@mediachannel.ltd.uk on Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 01:44:12AM +0100

body:
On Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 01:44:12AM +0100, Neil Harris wrote:
>
> Why not render TeX directly? Because the MathML "bottleneck" will ensure
> that everyone sees the same thing,
> and it also provides a way to move eventually to supporting native
> MathML in the source, when MathML is a mature, editable, format in most
> browsers.

Unless you plan to move to a MathML-only solution on the short term, say two
years or so, I don't see the point of such a dual system. It would make
things more complex than necessary. If you only render TeX then everything
also looks the same to everybody and you have the benefit of a notation that
is easier to read and write. The only drawback I see is that you need to
install TeX and that gif's don't scale when people use different font sizes
but if you look on www.planetmath.org you can see that it works even then
quite well.

Really, your enthousiasm is greatly appreciated but accesability is quite
important for Wikipedia, so even if Mozilla & IE would fully support MathML
then I doubt that it would switch to a MathML-only set up.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] can't delete subpages

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>I take back nine-tenths of my earlier comment; you've done a fine job of
>incorporating the subpages.  I have deleted all of them except
>Government and Geography, and I'll delete them Real Soon Now.

Aren't we supposed to redirect these instead of deleting them,
in case search engines have indexed them?

BTW, you missed [[/History]], probably because it isn't an orphan.
But it's been incorporated just like all of the others.
I made it a redirect for now.

-- Toby Bartels
   toby at math.ucr.edu


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 130.94.122.197

body:
Mysteriously, wikipedia-l itself wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>><What links here> no longer indicates what links through redirects.
>>I think that this is a significant loss of function.

>I need to be convinced that this is the right thing to do.
>The redirect pages themselves /are/ listed, and you can likewise
>see a list of what links to them.  If the function automagically
>skipped over redirects to list two-level links mixed with one-
>level links, the list would be a bad picture of the real state
>of the database.  Maybe it could list them separately (i.e.,
>just do a second lookup for every link page found that is a
>redirect).  That's not a bad idea.

Indeed, that's exactly what the old version currently does.
But your new new system is even better.

>>The watchlist no longer watches User: pages or Wikipedia: pages.
>>It's bad enough that User talk: and Wikipedia talk: weren't
>>watched; now it's worse.

>I don't know what you're talking about here.  You can add any page
>from any namespace to your watchlist, and it will work just fine.
>In addition, if you watch an encyclopedia page, it will automatically
>add the corresponding talk page to the watch.

I've figured out what's going on.
In the old version, if I watched any page of the form, say, [[*:Wesley]],
then this put [[Wesley]], [[Talk:Wesley]], and [[User:Wesley]]
(but not [[User talk:Wesley]], even if that's the page I watched)
in my watchlist, all as part of watching for [[Wesley]].
In the new system, OTOH, [[Wesley]] and [[Talk:Wesely]] are one thing,
while [[User:Wesley]] and [[User talk:Wesley]] are completely different.
When you converted the database to your new system,
you kept [[Wesley]] on my watchlist, but not [[User:Wesley]].
The only error, then, is in the conversion process.
All the [[User:]] and [[Wikipedia:]] articles were dropped from my watchlist
(because they were never there in the first place, only the [[:]] versions).

>That's a reasonable thing.  Please add it as a feature request to
>Sourceforge so it won't get lost.

Yeah, I didn't see how to do this Sourceforge stuff right away,
which is why I posted all of my comments to the mailing list.
Don't worry, I get it now; what you haven't implemented already
will be there shortly.

>It was previously the exact red color of followed links, and I
>made it a darker red so it wouldn't conflict.  If your followed
>links are purple, that's a personal browser setting.  Most
>browsers use red.

Really?  I've never seen this.  All of my graphical browsers
use purple (by default, that is -- they're all adjustable).
Anyway, if the colours used to conflict and don't know,
then I'll gladly live with *similar* colours to keep others from seeing
*identical* colours.  Maybe even modernise my browsers' settings ^_^.

-- Toby Bartels
   toby at math.ucr.edu

PS: Any idea why I stopped receiving this mailing list around July 2?
    I've been reading it in the archives since then.
    Does this happen by chance sometimes and I just need to resubscribe?


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Putting the title of the article in bold in the first line of the article

body:
If I'm conducting several edits on a page, I usually
type something like "Still editing, please wait..." in
the edit comment box. Usually that keeps people
watching Recent Changes from jumping in too soon.

-- Stephen Gilbert

--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> On 7/5/02 7:32 AM, "Fred Bauder"
> <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> > I just did a stub on [[Adams State College]] and
> while I was still editing
> > someone jumped in and inserted a '''Adams State
> College''' in the first
> > line. (so that was saved before my edit could be)
> >
> > First, I don't like the practice of repeating the
> title that way. Although
> > that could be standard, would hardly matter.
>
> It has been accepted as standard practice for
> Wikipedia. I'm not a huge fan
> of it myself, but it is useful. Makes the google
> search text look good :)
> >
> > Second, very seldom do I get anything right the
> first time and before I'm
> > done someone is jumping in.  Might be nice to let
> the ink cool, before
> > jumping in on new articles.
> >
> Fred, I understand your frustration. Part of that's
> unavoidable when working
> with a wiki. In fact, it's much of the benefit.
> However, if you're working
> on a complicated article and would like people to
> stay away for a little
> bit, ask people to do so in the Talk for that
> article. It's always the best
> move to trust that everyone else will be respectful
> of your desires if you
> express them.
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] junk upload problem

body:
Bingo! Mr. Q, you are a genius!

-- Stephen Gilbert

--- koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> Something just occurred to me: what about if, when
> we migrate to the new software, we have the "upload
> files" link be an option that is by default off.
> That way the upload link will fall off the search
> engine results since robots won't find the link
> since they won't be logged in.  Then by the time new
> users make enough edits to decide to stay, finding
> how to upload pics to help illustrate a point will
> be a minor bonus.
>
> We could of course explain on a page how to upload
> files--log in and turn that link option on--but
> removing that page from Google etc. may help stem
> the tide of junk uploads.
>
> KQ
>
> 0

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] junk upload problem

body:
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from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] yixiang's cursor is not being deleted

body:
Can someone with access to the server get rid of it? It appears to be a
program for surreptitiously sending email to someone.

phma


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] on redirection

body:
On Saturday 06 July 2002 05:57 am, you wrote:
> Sean Barrett wrote:
> >I take back nine-tenths of my earlier comment; you've done a fine job of
> >incorporating the subpages. ?I have deleted all of them except
> >Government and Geography, and I'll delete them Real Soon Now.
>
> Aren't we supposed to redirect these instead of deleting them,
> in case search engines have indexed them?
>
> BTW, you missed [[/History]], probably because it isn't an orphan.
> But it's been incorporated just like all of the others.
> I made it a redirect for now.
>
>
> -- Toby Bartels

Yes they are supposed to be redirected to whereever the content was moved to
-- that is made very clear on our policy of permanent deletion of pages. I
just did a Google search on Svalbard and did see all the / pages for that
article, clicked on Svalbard/Communications and got a blank page stating
"Describe the new page here." -- which isn't good.

Being careful not to break links is one of the central concepts of good
webpage design -- please redirect in the future. Redirects are harmless and
as soon as the move feature is fixed, will be easier to make than manually
moving material to new page names and deleting the old page titles (although
in this case, the subpages should have been simply redirected to [[Svalbard]]
since their content was moved and integrated there).

--maveric149


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] ahem... somebody thought they were writing
	Jeopardy questions!

body:
On 7/6/02 2:24 AM, "Karen AKA Kajikit" <kaji at labyrinth.net.au> wrote:

> I'm currently deleting entries with no content and no links to them and
> I found a rather 'interesting' stub.
>
> Title - Millions of worthless entries'
> Content - What is the Wikipedia
>
> lol
>
> It's gone...

I hope you added it to Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense
(http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/wikipedia%3ABad+jokes+and+other+deleted+nonse
nse)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] junk upload problem

body:
As Google is probably not logged in correctly when browsing wikipedia
pages;) why not turn off the upload function unless you're logged in? No
need for yet another user option then. That will also reduce the random
troll from uploading stuff.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Stephen Gilbert
> Sent: Saturday, July 06, 2002 2:50 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] junk upload problem
>
>
> Bingo! Mr. Q, you are a genius!
>
> -- Stephen Gilbert
>
> --- koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> > Something just occurred to me: what about if, when
> > we migrate to the new software, we have the "upload
> > files" link be an option that is by default off.
> > That way the upload link will fall off the search
> > engine results since robots won't find the link
> > since they won't be logged in.  Then by the time new
> > users make enough edits to decide to stay, finding
> > how to upload pics to help illustrate a point will
> > be a minor bonus.
> >
> > We could of course explain on a page how to upload
> > files--log in and turn that link option on--but
> > removing that page from Google etc. may help stem
> > the tide of junk uploads.
> >
> > KQ
> >
> > 0
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] ahem... somebody thought they were writing Jeopardy questions!

body:
I'm currently deleting entries with no content and no links to them and
I found a rather 'interesting' stub.

Title - Millions of worthless entries'
Content - What is the Wikipedia

lol

It's gone...

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] ahem... somebody thought they were
    writingJeopardy  questions!

body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] junk upload problem

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from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] ahem... somebody thought they were writingJeopardy
  questions!

body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> BTW, the 'delete this page' option is very handy in the stub and orphan
> list... but I really doubt that it belongs in the 'long articles'
> listing.

Well, if there were a page listed there with a length of several million
bytes, you might well suspect it to be deletable material.

 > It's rather dangerous! I doubt that the people who wrote
> treatises on various things would like to see them casually deleted by a
> passer-by or a troll...

Passers-by and trolls haven't been granted sysop status, so don't have a
"delete this page" option.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] junk upload problem

body:
Heh. Glad to be of service. ;-)

- Stephen

--- koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> LOL.  And I woke up in a foul mood.  Thanks.
>
> kq
>
> You Wrote:
> >Bingo! Mr. Q, you are a genius!
> >
> >-- Stephen Gilbert
> 0

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New server ready for testing

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

>Well, it's been an interesting week.  Many thanks to everyone who
>tested the new code and found lots of things for me to fix.  I ended
>up having to de-freeze the code and make some real changes, so I'd
>like to get another few days of testing before going live.
>
>The new server is at http://130.94.122.197/
>
>Please test it well.  It's also set up so that every access is timed
>and logged, so we'll be able to get some timing figures to use for
>tuning and profiling.
>
>0
>
I'm planning to post about 100,000 dummy articles to the new server,
each with about 50 links to other random articles which may or may not
exist.

Article titles for all of the dummy articlse will be of the form [[Dummy
article 50672]].

This is intended to stress-test the article submission mechanism and
database, and to test scaling to a larger Wikipedia over the longer term.

Neil


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] ahem... somebody thought they were writingJeopardy
 questions!

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
>
> On 7/6/02 2:24 AM, "Karen AKA Kajikit" <kaji at labyrinth.net.au> wrote:
>
> > I'm currently deleting entries with no content and no links to them and
> > I found a rather 'interesting' stub.
> >
> > Title - Millions of worthless entries'
> > Content - What is the Wikipedia
> >
> > lol
> >
> > It's gone...
>
> I hope you added it to Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense
> (http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/wikipedia%3ABad+jokes+and+other+deleted+nonse
> nse)

Alas it didn't occur to me! Or rather it did, but I couldn't remember
what the page name was where that junk went... somebody obviously made
it as a joke, but there were a lot more that were deliberate and crude
vandalism :(

I was very busy yesterday deleting empty pages and correcting poor
disabled redirects and deleting vandalised entries with no other
content, history or links... I really fail to see why some people find
it funny to take a blank entry and write an obscenity in it. There were
at least a dozen of them in the first page of the stub list...

BTW, the 'delete this page' option is very handy in the stub and orphan
list... but I really doubt that it belongs in the 'long articles'
listing. It's rather dangerous! I doubt that the people who wrote
treatises on various things would like to see them casually deleted by a
passer-by or a troll...

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] ahem... somebody thought they werewritingJeopardy
 questions!

body:
koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> I thought the "delete this page" option was only available to sysops,
> and that sysop status was granted only after people hung around long
> enough to be determined not to be a troll or vandal?  Is that still
> the case?

I think it is. But this isn't from the side menu. This is an option
added into the page listings between name of page and what links here.
It just seems rather like inviting accidents to me.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] ahem... somebody thought they were
 writingJeopardyquestions!

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:
>
> Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> > BTW, the 'delete this page' option is very handy in the stub and orphan
> > list... but I really doubt that it belongs in the 'long articles'
> > listing.
>
> Well, if there were a page listed there with a length of several million
> bytes, you might well suspect it to be deletable material.
>
>  > It's rather dangerous! I doubt that the people who wrote
> > treatises on various things would like to see them casually deleted by a
> > passer-by or a troll...
>
> Passers-by and trolls haven't been granted sysop status, so don't have a
> "delete this page" option.

I wasn't sure whether that particular option was available to anyone
from those menus or just to sysops. And it's true that if the largest
file was incredibly long then you'd want it to go :)

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] darn... the pedia is suddenly unaccessible again :(

body:
I was happily editing boulders and trying to link some pages together
and now I can't access the site because it's timing out on me. Darn...

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


body:
Hmmm... ten minutes later it's working again. I guess it must have been
a logjam somewhere along the information route :)

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking of wayward users

body:
user:Kadandaly just blotted out Koyaanis Qatsi's sunflower picture with a
text file named "sunflower.jpg" because KQ had previously deleted one of
Kadandaly's illegal uploads.

It would be nice if I had the ability to determine this person IP so that I
could block it. PLEASE make this possible in the new software version.

--maveric149


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body:
On Sunday 07 July 2002 17:56, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> user:Kadandaly just blotted out Koyaanis Qatsi's sunflower picture with a
> text file named "sunflower.jpg" because KQ had previously deleted one of
> Kadandaly's illegal uploads.
>
> It would be nice if I had the ability to determine this person IP so that I
> could block it. PLEASE make this possible in the new software version.

And block the user too. There is no record of Kadandaly previously uploading
a sunflower, so he's not complaining about his sunflower being overwritten
(unless the record of K uploading a sunflower didn't get recorded; such
happens).

phma


body:
Google has no idea who or what Kadandaly is. Can someone look at the web log
and figure it out?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fabaceae

body:
Does anyone have a complete genus list of Fabaceae? I'd like to taxonomize
it, but Delta (my usual mainstay when it comes to listing of genera of
flowering plants) has only a few, and Itis is incomplete (it lists Lablab,
but not Lablab lablab, nor Dolichos, which is where the lablab was moved).
Neither lists which genera are in which subfamily, which I'd like to include.

phma


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] "Wanted pages" fix

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] "Wanted pages" fix

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] What is the purpose of the 'le-(number)' series of articles?

body:
They're all stubs with no content, so apparantly somebody made a blank
template and put it on these pages, but there is no explanation as to
what it actually means. If someone knows anything about it maybe they
should write a short general explanation that can be pasted into each
entry to at least make it make SOME sense? Either that or delete them if
they're not needed. At present they're just as bad as a blank page
because that's essentially what they are.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Grand Wikipedia Reunion

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] a (somewhat) rhetorical question

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] "Wanted pages" fix

in_reply_to: <200207082003.g68K3jF05781@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 01:03:45PM -0700

body:
On Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 01:03:45PM -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> One of the things I found was that the present query for Wanted pages
> counts only the distinct pages with a broken link to the wanted page,
> even if that page has two or more broken links to the same title.  It
> seems to me that's not important--I'd just as soon have it count all
> links so I know how many to fix, and that's just as good a metric
> of "wantedness", I think.  And it's not very different in any case--
> multiple broken links to the same title on one page are rare.
>
> Changing it to count all links speeds it up quite a bit (from 30-40
> seconds to 6-7).

There's two things I don't understand here. At the test site this query now
seems to take around 7 seconds. So did you already implement this there?
Secondly, I don't see why counting links should be easier unless you are
doing something really weird like allowing duplicates in the table
'brokenlinks'. You are still using this table, are you?

>  Also, I'm throwing away all wanted pages with only
> a single link--that reduces the size of the temp file needed for
> sorting by number of links.

Temp file? Are you now doing the sorting yourself?

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Tim Chambers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Grand Wikipedia Reunion

body:
> I may be 39, but I'm also a Extropian cryonicist (Alcor #A-1701)...

How apropos! I saw "Vanilla Sky" last night for the first time. A
little bit "Jerry Maguire," a little bit "Born on the 4th of July," a
little bit "Matrix," a little bit "Total Recall," and an ending with a
little "Wizard of Oz" thrown in.

As for Life Extension, Inc. -- I'll wait until a few more get
defrosted before I put my hope in it. :-)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Grand Wikipedia Reunion

body:
Some of us are approaching 40, so truly long-term planning is not
feasible anymore...

I propose a Grand Wikipedia Reunion, to be held in San Diego on the
weekend of January 3-5, 2031, to celebrate the thirty year anniversary
of Wikipedia.

A planning committee should be appointed in due time.

Axel


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] "Wanted pages" fix

in_reply_to: <200207082301.g68N1cA26744@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 04:01:38PM -0700

body:
(It seems that we're discussing a bit too much technical stuff here instead of
wikitech-l?)

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> MySQL is doing it, but it uses a temp file ("explain" on the query
> says so, anyway).  And the error we were getting before was the size
> of the tempfile bumping into a disk quota.

Since the new machine is wikipedia-only, and since it has a bigger disk,
then if there is a way to increase this quota, we might want to feel free
to do it.

Although, for performance reasons, we might strongly prefer to force ourselves
not to go about sorting long lists willy-nilly anyway.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <200207090154.g691swP12541@ross.bomis.com>; from koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com on Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 06:54:58PM -0700

body:
I think that's a very interesting question.

But I think that the GNU FDL doesn't let the user add more restrictive
conditions.  If there are more restrictive conditions having to do
with not violating some laws, that's a different issue from GNU FDL
issues.

So I don't think there's a problem.

I think it'd be great if there were a large community of GNU FDL paparazzi.
Individual little people fan sites are constantly harassed, and rightly so under
the copyright laws, for stealing pictures.  It'd be neat if there were a repository
of GNU FDL photos that fans could use without permission.

--Jimbo


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
At 06:54 PM 7/8/02 -0700, you wrote:
>Suppose I were in New York and went to TeaNY and took a picture of Moby
waiting tables (he does sometimes; he owns the place).  I would then own
the copyright to that picture.  /But/ could it ever be released under the
GNU FDL?  See, there are limitations on what can be done with pictures of
living (or even recently deceased) people--they can't, for instance, be
used to advertise anything without the permission of that person or the
estate.  These conditions seem more restrictive than those of the GNU FDL.
So is it at all possible to release a picture like that onto wikipedia?
Who knows anything about this?
>
>I ask this not as a /completely/ rhetorical question--my town is somewhat
active politically, and we have had several famous & controversial people
come speak--e.g. Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and Bobby Seales within the
last few years.  And I could easily enough get a picture of them myself; a
few months back Seales spoke in a room barely bigger than my living room.
>
>regards,
>
>kq
>

Outfits such as the New York Times and CBS News regularly take pictures of
public figures and use them for informational purposes.  Publishing
representations of private persons can be a privacy problem. So don't
illustrate the article on sexuality with just anyone. Some public figures
sell their visages and images and have a legally recognized right to be
paid. Some, such as Paul Newman, are quite sensitive about the matter.

Generally, like with Bobby Seale, you might ask if you can take a picture,
explaining what you intend to use it for. It's a long shot, but explaining
all about Wikipedia to say, Bobby Seale, may get them started themselves
(everybody had idle time) and serve to spread the word.

Fred Bauder


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> If you take a short movie of him [Paul Newman] and enter it at
> Sundance maybe there is a legal problem or maybe not.

As long as you didn't do anything illegal to take the movie, there
would be no legal problem with this.  Celebrities do have a "right of
publicity", which means that their likeness can not be used to sell
products, which seems fair enough.  But this right does not extend very
far -- and is often trumped by 1st Amendment rights.

For example, Time magazine might buy a photo of Britney Spears getting
into a limo.  The photo could be taken by any random passerby on the
street.  Then they use that photo, on the cover of the magazine, to
sell more magazines.  This might seem like a violation of Ms. Spears
right of publicity, but it is not.

> Of course that is why celebrities avoid the public and tend to go to
> certain places where that sort of situation is customarily avoided such as
> Aspen.

*nod* As I understand it, there's an unwritten and sometimes breached
code of conduct.  The celebs make enough public appearances in
controlled settings (movie premieres, posh nightclubs, awards
ceremonies, etc.) to keep the tabloids supplied with sufficient shots,
and in exchange, the tabloids don't send people to harass them outside
their homes and so forth.  Problems arise when there is a huge demand
for photos, and the celeb doesn't make the customary public
appearances, or when there is a "special event".

But none of those types of arrangements have any legal standing, they
are just customs.  There's a symbiotic relationship between the
tabloids and the celebrities.  Celebrities need to be on the cover of
the magazines.  The tabloids need to have pictures of the celebrities.

Even so, there's pretty much no legal restriction on using photos in
any sort of journalistic rather than strictly commercial/advertising
fashion.  No permission is needed.

--Jimbo


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

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body:
At 06:19 AM 7/9/02 -0700, you wrote:
>Oh no, not the p-word.  :-)  I would never invade privacy or be
confrontational when taking a picture--just if it's in public then I have a
right to take the picture the same as any journalist, because I'm under the
same 1st amendment laws that they are.

  >>I think it'd be great if there were a large community of GNU FDL
paparazzi.

>>--Jimbo

Good point, You do have the right to say, take a picture of Paul Newman if
you encounter him walking on the beach. He doesn't have the right to punch
you in the nose, but he may.

If you take a short movie of him and enter it at Sundance maybe there is a
legal problem or maybe not.

Of course that is why celebrities avoid the public and tend to go to
certain places where that sort of situation is customarily avoided such as
Aspen.

Fred Bauder


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sakaguchi?

body:
Someone uploaded a picture called sakaguchi.gif. There is mention in the
pedia of Hironobu Sakaguchi, but no page yet. Is it his picture?

phma


body:
At 07:08 AM 7/9/02 -0700, kq wrote:

>I'm in the clear as long as I don't set foot on private property.

That goes back to the original question about MOBY in the tea room, and
applies at many concerts, malls, etc.

So MOBY may or may not have given notice that permission for entry into the
tearoom, includes not taking pictures, as is usual at a concert, but he
might be able to ask you to leave.

There are a number of "public spaces" particularly malls which are not in
fact public spaces in the law, but private property where some rather
onerous restrictions can apply.

Fred Bauder


from_name: Imran Ghory

subject: [Wikipedia-l] "Wanted pages" fix

body:
On 8 Jul 2002, at 13:03, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> One of the things I found was that the present query for Wanted pages
> counts only the distinct pages with a broken link to the wanted page,
> even if that page has two or more broken links to the same title.  It
> seems to me that's not important--I'd just as soon have it count all
> links so I know how many to fix, and that's just as good a metric of
> "wantedness", I think.  And it's not very different in any case--
> multiple broken links to the same title on one page are rare.

Incidently does the system count broken links from #redirects once
or does it count all the links to the page with the #redirect on it ?

Imran

--
TheOpenCD Project
Promoting Open Source on Windows
http://www.theopencd.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] This Espa�ol/Castellano split

body:
I just noticed that in addition to the
Spanish/Castilian wikipedia at
http://es.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Portada (using the
old, ugly and difficult to use UseMod wikiware) with
1400 articles there is a very lively FDL?d Spanish
wiki encyclopedia at http://enciclopedia.us.es/ (using
php wikiware) with nearly 9,000 articles.

Did the Spanish wikipedia fork into two projects? And
if so why? Seems like a lot of wasted effort to have
two projects in the same language and also wasted
interwiki link functionality since the more popular
Spanish wiki is not on the same server (could we make
interwiki links anyway?). This Espa?ol/Castellano
split makes about as much sense as having separate
American English and British English wikipedias would.

BTW, why are we reporting the stats of the
http://enciclopedia.us.es for the Spanish wikipedia?
Also, when in the world are the non-English wikipedias
going to get a software upgrade? I would love to start
adding inter wiki lingua links in many of the
non-English articles to point back to the English
versions (esp. the German chemistry articles ? which
are quite good, oftentimes better than their English
counterparts).

Hum, I just read their about page (warning, my Spanish
is rusty). From what I read, they seem to be rather
critical of Wikipedia, citing as fact that Wikipedia
is a ?for-profit project of a North American company?
and something about the fact that Wikipedia is at a
?dotcom? address. Then they go on to state, again as
fact, that the English wikipedia has an ?elite with
administrator privileges? who ?harasses contributors?
and ?censure content? and ?prohibit editing of certain
pages?. Yikes! Do we deserve this?

--maveric149

=====

__________________________________________________
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Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
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from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Grand Wikipedia Reunion

in_reply_to: lcrocker@nupedia.com's message of "Mon, 8 Jul 2002 18:43:44 -0700"

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com writes:

> I may be 39, but I'm also a Extropian cryonicist (Alcor #A-1701),
> so I'll see you at the centennial in 2101.

Can you bring Ted Williams along?
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)