from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] apache restarted

body:
Restarting doesn't fix the bug. The bug is in the source code. It has to be found -- and fixed.

Ed Poor
Professional Software Tester

----------------------------------------
N.B. -- my opinions DO NOT REFLECT the policy of my employer. Whenever I post to this list, it's always me talking for myself only.
----------------------------------------


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Possible clue to the cause of random page error

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>>As I've mentioned before, I'm pretty sure it's the encoding hack
>>I set up to keep ampersands in titles _in_ the titles instead of
>>as raw ampersands that indicate the beginning of the next variable
>>in the query string:
>>
>>    RewriteEngine On
>>    RewriteMap urlencode prg:/usr/local/bin/urlencode
>>    RewriteRule ^/wiki/(.*)$ /w/wiki.phtml?title=${urlencode:$1} [L]
>>
>>If the hackish little external program should die or get out of
>>sync, we end up with the wrong URLs. But this ugliness *shouldn't*
>>be needed. We *should* be able to use the internal function that
>>Apache provides for this...
>
> You are mistaken that Apache is doing the wrong thing: ampersands
> are /not/ supposed to be urlencoded--they are valid and meaningful
> characters needed for URLs.

It's not the wrong thing in _all_ cases, but it's definitely the wrong
thing for the case of "take an arbitrary string and put it as a value in
a key=value pair in a URL-encoded query string", which is the main
reason I would use such a function in URL-rewriting.

>  But ampersands do need to be messed with
> for Wikipedia-specific reasons: since article titles must appear as
> values in the query string (which is separated by ampersands), they
> must be escaped somehow for that function.  Also, the
> non-escaped ampersands in the URL must be HTML-escaped when they
> appear as attribute values, such as HREFs.  These are both entirely
> separate issues, and the code formerly dealt with them correctly,
> although in a way that you didn't like.  We may have to compromise;
> accept the double-encoding for ampersands that you removed for other
> characters.  Either that, or come up with some other escaping
> mechanism for ampersands in titles.

Aside from my general distaste of the double-encoding, it doesn't handle
the case of manual input: someone who types
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/AT&T into their URL bar shouldn't end up
at [[AT]].

See attached patch for the Apache source which adds a rewrite map
function which encodes ampersands only. It works nicely on my test
server, but I don't want to mess with installing it on the main server;
I'm not sure exactly how the compile configuration was set up, and I've
done enough damage lately. :)

Once installed, the rewrite map can look like this:

     RewriteEngine On
     RewriteMap urlencode int:ampencode
     RewriteRule ^/wiki/(.*)$ /w/wiki.phtml?title=${urlencode:$1} [L]
     ...

If it looks reasonable, please go ahead and set it up.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
I wrote:
> Once installed, the rewrite map can look like this:
>
>     RewriteEngine On
>     RewriteMap urlencode int:ampencode
...
 > +static char *rewrite_mapfunc_ampescape(request_rec *r, char *key);

Err, make that "RewriteMap urlencode int:ampescape".

BTW, the code for rewrite_mapfunc_ampescape() is mainly ripped out of
the URI-encoding function ap_os_escape_path() in main/util.c

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Moving the wikis (en.wikipedia.org vs
	www.wikipedia.org/xx/)

body:
On 10/15/02 3:04 PM, "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> tarquin wrote:
>> At any rate, have we agreed on the move
>> from www. to en. ?
>
> I kinda like the idea of doing the reverse now; have
> all the language wikis at www.wikipedia.org via the
> syntax www.wikipedia.org/xx/ where xx is the language
> code. Brion is floating a similar idea over at the
> meta
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_language_integration
> . However his proposal leaves-out the www which I
> think is a mistake since www.foobar.org is universally
> recognized as an Internet address whereas forbar.org
> is not. I like this idea because every language will
> then have the promotional benefit of being at the
> www.wikipedia.org address and no language is left at
> the rather odd looking, IMO, xx.wikipedia.org. This
> also improves the url for the English Wikipedia;
> instead of being at the redundant
> www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ it will be at the cleaner
> www.wikipedia.org/en/
>
Though I think this is a mistaken priority, this is definitely a step in the
right direction.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #753 - 16 msgs - pour Matt

body:
--- "Matt M." <matt_mcl at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> > way, we write "fran?ais" for the language and
> > "Fran?ais" for the french man. These two words are
> > absolutely not interchangeable. That's both
> grammar
> > flaw and countrycentrism.
>
> ?a me semble que dans une liste on devrait mettre
> une majuscule comme ?a:
>
> - Anglais
> - Fran?ais
> - Espagnol
> - Latin
> - Esp?ranto
>
> n'est-ce pas?

Et non !

Apr?s un "-" ou tiret, les r?gles typographiques de
langue fran?aise indiquent que la minuscule est de
r?gle
ex
Les articles seront en :
- anglais;
- fran?ais;
- espagnol;
- latin;
- esp?ranto.

De m?me qu'? l'int?rieur d'un paragraphe de lignes
pleines :
ex
"Les langues de la communaut? wikip?dienne sont : 1?
l'anglais ; 2? le fran?ais; 3? le javanais"

Par contre, apr?s un num?ro ou une lettre de
classification, majuscule:
ex
Les langues suivantes sont utilis?es
1. Anglais;
2. Polonais;
3. Allemand.

LOL. Sorry (muttering excuses, I'll try not to do it
again)

Mais de toute fa?on, in English we try
> not to say "the
> Frenchman" if referring to an indefinite person;
> that's sexist. We say "a
> French person." But I don't think you were trying to
> be sexist - all this to
> say that we should cut each other a little slack
> when dealing with languages
> not their own.
>
> Matt (Montrealais)
> Montreal, Quebec

Yep. But we say canadien. pas personne canadienne.

I was not trying to be sexist *at all* (this time).
Just maybe indicating it was very common that french
langage was confused with french people, which would
be further increased by using a french person to
represent the langage.

NB : Suite ? ton article sur non-sexist language, et ?
un commentaire de Francis, j'ai d?cid? de favoriser
l'usage des tirets plut?t que des parenth?ses.
D?sormais, je parle des wikip?dien-ne-s plut?t que des
wikip?dien(ne)s. Francis pointed out putting females
in () had a pretty heavy meaning; while joining males
and females by a - had a whole different one. Makes
sense. Though hardly giving us more in reality :-)

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

body:
> Aside from my general distaste of the double-encoding, it doesn't
> handle the case of manual input: someone who types
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/AT&T into their URL bar shouldn't
> end up at [[AT]].

If you ask me, they should.  People who don't care about the
details of HTML/HTTP/etc. will either follow links or type "AT&T"
into the search box, and all is well.  If they want to type in
URLs, then they have already committed themselves to knowing
about the quirks of URLs.  One of those quirks is that the URL
http://...AT&T is badly formed, and the browser is allowed to
interpret it in more than one way.  It might choose to interpret it
as "fetch the page http://...AT" and pass it the query string "T".
URLs are code--URLs are not user interface elements.  If people who
choose to use URLs have to contend with their nuances as code,
that's OK.

Now, all that said, I understand that the web rose so fast that
we never had a chance to replace URLs with something usable, so
many users are forced to use them when they never should have been.
So I'm not opposed to making them easier sometimes.  Let's make
them as simple as possible /but no simpler/.  If we have to muck
with ampersands a bit just as we convert spaces to underscores,
then that's what we'll have to do.


body:
> Err, make that "RewriteMap urlencode int:ampescape".
> BTW, the code for rewrite_mapfunc_ampescape() is mainly ripped
> out of the URI-encoding function ap_os_escape_path() in main/util.c

BTW, would you mind putting source like that on the server
in /usr/local/src?  That's where I've got all the post-install
stuff including Apache, MySQL, etc.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the  Wikipedia family

body:
--- lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> >Pepe Lepew is a Loony Toons cartoon character. He
> is a
> >French skunk. Sort of. In Pepe Lepew cartoons,
> >"french" is spoken by adding "le" to English words.
> In
> >every cartoon, a hapless black cat somehow gets a
> >white stripe of paint on her back, and Pepe falls
> in
> >love with her, thinking she is a "petite femme
> skunk".
> >She does not, however, reciprocate his amorous
> >feelings, especially since his smell is rather
> >offensive to all of God's creation.

Okayyyyyy

interesting article; the end also is.

Since some (humhum) proposed my language to be
represented by the guy, I think it would be
appropriate if we were able to recognise the man.
Would any of you be kind enough to add a nice pict in
the en.article ? (kq, the link didnot work :-()

> >I can understand why he isn't famous in France...
>
> What, you don't think the French would appreciate
> the
> fine American humor of stereotyping the French as
> sexual
> predators with poor bathing habits?

This is hardly stereotype. We play together
differently than american do. We like human smell more
than soap smell. And we make big money at selling
american people our expensive perfumes.

I'm sure there
> must
> be some equally offensive English-speaking cartoon
> character popular over there.

I can't think of any. Our most willing partners are
from England, Belgium and Switzerland. But, we thank
you for renewed humor pictures since you elected Bush.
Between Bush and LePen, our humourists had it easy
this year.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>>Aside from my general distaste of the double-encoding, it doesn't
>>handle the case of manual input: someone who types
>>http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/AT&T into their URL bar shouldn't
>>end up at [[AT]].
>
> If you ask me, they should.

I disagree...

 >  People who don't care about the
> details of HTML/HTTP/etc. will either follow links or type "AT&T"
> into the search box, and all is well.  If they want to type in
> URLs, then they have already committed themselves to knowing
> about the quirks of URLs.

I agree, which is why I disagree with the previous statement.

 >  One of those quirks is that the URL
> http://...AT&T is badly formed, and the browser is allowed to
> interpret it in more than one way.  It might choose to interpret it
 > as "fetch the page http://...AT" and pass it the query string "T".

Untrue. The ampersand is not reserved in URL path sections (though it is
in the query string) and is allowed as a legitimate path character; see
RFC 2396, section 3.3. When we use /wiki/Title URLs, we're putting the
title in a _path_, not a query string, and we must treat it as such.

Further, the query string can never be delimited by an ampersand, only
by a question mark.

> URLs are code--URLs are not user interface elements.  If people who
> choose to use URLs have to contend with their nuances as code,
> that's OK.

I agree, which is why we should treat them according to the standards!

> Now, all that said, I understand that the web rose so fast that
> we never had a chance to replace URLs with something usable, so
> many users are forced to use them when they never should have been.
> So I'm not opposed to making them easier sometimes.  Let's make
> them as simple as possible /but no simpler/.  If we have to muck
> with ampersands a bit just as we convert spaces to underscores,
> then that's what we'll have to do.

...

> BTW, would you mind putting source like that on the server
> in /usr/local/src?  That's where I've got all the post-install
> stuff including Apache, MySQL, etc.

Done, see /usr/local/src/ampersand.diff

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] The Wikipedia server is displaying random pages again

body:
The Wikipedia server is displaying random pages again: same pattern as
the previous behaviour.

Neil


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Not a vandal, but...

body:
Magnus Wrote:
>...someone who didn't fully grasp the concept of wikipedia yet. Please
>watch "12.39.92.87" (last one might change). Seems to edit film-related
>articles (only 3 so far), deleting things and adding non-encyclopedic
>content, but some info as well.

Thanks for the heads up.

kq


from_name: Imran Ghory

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] The Wikipedia server is displaying random pages
         again

body:
On Tue, 15 Oct 2002, Neil Harris wrote:

> The Wikipedia server is displaying random pages again: same pattern as
> the previous behaviour.

It appears to be only affecting the English wikipedia other Phase III ones
such as the German wikipedia aren't having the problem.

Possibly a scalability issue ?

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Random page bug

body:
I just got the "random page" bug when trying to access
"http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topic_lists". I got "Unicode" and
"Gender roles", "OANA" and "Operating system advocacy" on reload.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] please don't allow subhead links

body:
On Mon, Oct 14, 2002 at 09:43:07PM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> They may not be subpages but they will most certainly lead to the creation of
> needlessly long pages. There is nothing more intimidating to edit than a huge
> page therefore we shouldn't encourage their creation.

Well, the question of when a page is too long is a matter of judgement.

I think a Wiki page is better for reaching consensus than a mailing
list, so I've put my thoughts at

http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Consolidating_v/s_breaking_up

. You'll have to scroll to the bottom, because I didn't use an in-page
anchor :-)

-M-


subject: [Wikipedia-l] apache restarted

body:
On Tue, 15 Oct 2002, Brion VIBBER wrote:
> (the fragile feature was implemented in response to this problem:
> http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikitech-l/2002-October/000996.html )
>
> and have asked for help fixing it:
> news://news.dfncis.de:119/aoab9j$khdp8$1 at ID-114427.news.dfncis.de
> http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikitech-l/2002-October/001011.html

As I understand it all urls that wikipedia serves (and have variables in)
are in the form,

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=NAMEOFARTCLE&action=ACTION

So couldn't we just use regular expression matching to convert any
ampersands between "http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=" and
"&action=" ?

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Not a vandal, but...

body:
...someone who didn't fully grasp the concept of wikipedia yet. Please
watch "12.39.92.87" (last one might change). Seems to edit film-related
articles (only 3 so far), deleting things and adding non-encyclopedic
content, but some info as well.


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moving the wikis (en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org/xx/)

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>I kinda like the idea of doing the reverse now; have
>all the language wikis at www.wikipedia.org via the
>syntax www.wikipedia.org/xx/ where xx is the language
>code. Brion is floating a similar idea over at the
>meta
>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_language_integration
>. However his proposal leaves-out the www which I
>think is a mistake since www.foobar.org is universally
>recognized as an Internet address whereas forbar.org
>is not. I like this idea because every language will
>then have the promotional benefit of being at the
>www.wikipedia.org address and no language is left at
>the rather odd looking, IMO, xx.wikipedia.org. This
>also improves the url for the English Wikipedia;
>instead of being at the redundant
>www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ it will be at the cleaner
>www.wikipedia.org/en/
>
Fine by me.
The fundamental aim of the "www to en" move was to give all the
different languages URLs that are perceived as "equal".
This new proposal to move to www.wikipedia.org/xx/ would also achieve
that aim.
And I agree, it's better too.
and www.wikipedia.org can be the portal page with Goethe & co ;)


from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Some answers with the "users'" point of view in mind.

body:
Hi Members,

     I am offering my opinion on two issues that have come up in the last few
days. I do so, trying to keep the user, or pure inquirer in mind, as well as,
the editors and authors.

     First, in regard to "redirect highlighting" proposed by Mr. Manske, I
think that a regular Wikipedia reader will find this quite disconcerting.
At most, I think it should be a logged-in user's choice.

     Second, in regard to the "first page" or "main page" contents, I think the
main page, as it is, is far too "busy" for the everyday user. They should be
looking for a choice of language and a place to put a search argument. I think
that is pretty much all that belongs there, in terms of content. This doesn't
mean the page cannot be attractive.

     I don't think either of these choices would be a big imposition to our
editors and authors.

     Again, just my opinion...

              As Ever,

                  Ruth Ifcher

--


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: [Intlwiki-l] Enciclopedia Libre

body:
I'm forwarding this from Intlwiki-l.

Stephen G.

--- Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas <juanan at us.es> wrote:
> From: "Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas" <juanan at us.es>
> To: <intlwiki-l at nupedia.com>
> Subject: [Intlwiki-l] Enciclopedia Libre
> Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 09:38:23 +0200
>
> Hello everybody, greetings from "Enciclopedia
> Libre".
>
> First of all I want to clarify that general sense
> from people in EL is
> about friendship and goodwill towards Wikipedia
> project, though some of
> us disagree about some questions concerned to
> Wikipedia we are talking
> about in the past.
>
> We were talking and voting about the reunification
> as we made at
>

http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Enciclopedia:Retorno_a_Wikipedia

> and finally we have decided to stay in the same
> server here at
> Sevilla and under the name of "Enciclopedia Libre",
> nevertheless we do
> not discard the possibility on returning Wikipedia
> in the future
> (whenever people in Wikipedia agree) and our wish is
> about
> collaboration, talking and good relationships.
>
> I think the time talk us about our community finally
> approaching
> themselves, depending on mutual desires and the way
> both projects shall
> take.
>
> About Phase III Program I am trying to test in over
> an old PC but I am
> fighting against Linux and time.
>
> I read this mail list each day and wish to
> collaborate in embassy
> projects between Wikipedia and EL, you can write to
> me in English or
> Spanish at juanan at us.es.
>
> Best regards,
>
>         juanan &8.)
>
> Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas
> Centro de Formaci?n PAS
> Universidad de Sevilla
> tfno. 954487458
> juanan at us.es
> ----
> Hola a todos, saludos desde la Enciclopedia Libre.
>
> Ante todo me gustar?a aclarar que el sentir general
> de la gente que
> trabaja en EL es de amistad y buena voluntad hacia
> el proyecto de
> Wikipedia en donde la mayor?a comenzamos, aunque
> algunos discrepemos con
> algunas cuestiones relativas a Wikipedia que ya han
> sido comentadas en
> otras ocasiones.
>
> Hemos estado discutiendo y votando sobre la
> posibilidad de volver a
> Wikipedia tal como se plante? en
>
http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Enciclopedia:Retorno_a_Wikipe
> dia y finalmente nos hemos decidido a seguir aqu? de
> momento tal como
> estamos, sin descartar la idea de volver alg?n d?a a
> Wikipedia e
> intentando estrechar lazos en la medida de lo
> posible.
>
> Creo que el tiempo dir? si finalmente nos acercamos
> o alejamos de
> Wikipedia, esto depender? del inter?s que pongamos
> las dos partes y del
> rumbo que tomen ambos proyectos.
>
> En cuanto a la fase III del software estoy
> intentando hacer unas pruebas
> en un PC un poquillo viejo y a?n tengo alg?n
> problemilla con la
> instalaci?n del Linux.
>
> Sigo normalmente las discusiones en esta lista y me
> gustar?a participar
> en el proyecto de embajadas que se est? poniendo en
> marcha, pod?is
> escribirme en ingl?s o en espa?ol a la direcci?n
> juanan at us.es.
>
> Saludos a todos,
>
>         juanan &8.)
>
> Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas
> Centro de Formaci?n PAS
> Universidad de Sevilla
> tfno. 954487458
> juanan at us.es
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Intlwiki-l mailing list
> To unsubscribe and otherwise manage your list
> subscription, please go to
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/intlwiki-l
> Intlwiki-l at nupedia.com

__________________________________________________
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Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] Enciclopedia Libre

body:
Juan,

Thank you for your message. I took the liberty of
forwarding it to the wikipedia-l mailing list.

We're glad that the EL is generally friendly in
feeling toward Wikipedia. There are a few comments
over there that seem to be based on bad feelings
toward us; I'm happy that they don't reflect the
feelings of the majority of your contributors.

We have also been discussing cooperation between our
projects, and the possible reunification. I'm not a
spokesman for all of Wikipedia, but the general
agreement here seems to be working toward bringing the
two projects closer together while maintaining our own
Spanish articles at http://es.wikipedia.com (soon to
be changed to .org).

I think you'll like the Phase III software, and I hope
you can get it up and running. You might be interested
in wikitech-l, the software developers' mailing list.

Regards,
Stephen Gilbert

--- Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas <juanan at us.es> wrote:
> Hello everybody, greetings from "Enciclopedia
> Libre".
>
> First of all I want to clarify that general sense
> from people in EL is
> about friendship and goodwill towards Wikipedia
> project, though some of
> us disagree about some questions concerned to
> Wikipedia we are talking
> about in the past.
>
> We were talking and voting about the reunification
> as we made at
>
http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Enciclopedia:Retorno_a_Wikipe
> dia and finally we have decided to stay in the same
> server here at
> Sevilla and under the name of "Enciclopedia Libre",
> nevertheless we do
> not discard the possibility on returning Wikipedia
> in the future
> (whenever people in Wikipedia agree) and our wish is
> about
> collaboration, talking and good relationships.
>
> I think the time talk us about our community finally
> approaching
> themselves, depending on mutual desires and the way
> both projects shall
> take.
>
> About Phase III Program I am trying to test in over
> an old PC but I am
> fighting against Linux and time.
>
> I read this mail list each day and wish to
> collaborate in embassy
> projects between Wikipedia and EL, you can write to
> me in English or
> Spanish at juanan at us.es.
>
> Best regards,
>
>         juanan &8.)
>
> Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas
> Centro de Formaci?n PAS
> Universidad de Sevilla
> tfno. 954487458
> juanan at us.es
> ----
> Hola a todos, saludos desde la Enciclopedia Libre.
>
> Ante todo me gustar?a aclarar que el sentir general
> de la gente que
> trabaja en EL es de amistad y buena voluntad hacia
> el proyecto de
> Wikipedia en donde la mayor?a comenzamos, aunque
> algunos discrepemos con
> algunas cuestiones relativas a Wikipedia que ya han
> sido comentadas en
> otras ocasiones.
>
> Hemos estado discutiendo y votando sobre la
> posibilidad de volver a
> Wikipedia tal como se plante? en
>
http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Enciclopedia:Retorno_a_Wikipe
> dia y finalmente nos hemos decidido a seguir aqu? de
> momento tal como
> estamos, sin descartar la idea de volver alg?n d?a a
> Wikipedia e
> intentando estrechar lazos en la medida de lo
> posible.
>
> Creo que el tiempo dir? si finalmente nos acercamos
> o alejamos de
> Wikipedia, esto depender? del inter?s que pongamos
> las dos partes y del
> rumbo que tomen ambos proyectos.
>
> En cuanto a la fase III del software estoy
> intentando hacer unas pruebas
> en un PC un poquillo viejo y a?n tengo alg?n
> problemilla con la
> instalaci?n del Linux.
>
> Sigo normalmente las discusiones en esta lista y me
> gustar?a participar
> en el proyecto de embajadas que se est? poniendo en
> marcha, pod?is
> escribirme en ingl?s o en espa?ol a la direcci?n
> juanan at us.es.
>
> Saludos a todos,
>
>         juanan &8.)
>
> Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas
> Centro de Formaci?n PAS
> Universidad de Sevilla
> tfno. 954487458
> juanan at us.es
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Intlwiki-l mailing list
> To unsubscribe and otherwise manage your list
> subscription, please go to
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Call for a vote (was: Moving the wikis)

in_reply_to: <B9D2E541.44F3%cunctator@kband.com>; from cunctator@kband.com on Wed, Oct 16, 2002 at 09:43:29AM -0400

body:
Yeah, it's too soon for me, too.  And voting bugs me too.

Maybe we should just relax about this and revisit it a couple of
months from now, while everyone chews over the consequences?

It doesn't seem like a clean consensus is developing yet.

The Cunctator wrote:

> On 10/16/02 8:44 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>
> > All right, then, let's vote:
> >
> > RESOLVED:
> > 1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to
> > www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
> > 2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page, with links to
> > the wikipedias of each language.
> >
> > If debate is over, and the above resolutions are ready for a vote... either
> > here, or on a Wiki page.
>
>
> Not resolved. And votes are a poor idea.
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: French

body:
Anthere wrote in part:

>Apr?s un "-" ou tiret, les r?gles typographiques de
>langue fran?aise indiquent que la minuscule est de
>r?gle

>Par contre, apr?s un num?ro ou une lettre de
>classification, majuscule:

You have specific *rules* for this sort of thing?
So precise that it goes one way in one place and another in the other?
Your Academy is insane!!!

-- Toby
   Who vacillates between minuscule and majuscule according to taste,
   knowing that nobody can ever accuse me of being wrong about it.


body:
Mav wrote:

>Tarquin wrote:

>>At any rate, have we agreed on the move
>>from www. to en. ?

>I kinda like the idea of doing the reverse now; have
>all the language wikis at www.wikipedia.org via the
>syntax www.wikipedia.org/xx/ where xx is the language
>code.

Mav, you're just making it harder for us by complicating the issue.

What's especially hard about it is that you are absolutely right;
I'm with you.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Redirect detector

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>On Lee's test site (http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml), I have
>patched the stub detector so that /when the stub detector is active/, it
>will also show links to redirects with a yellowish background.

>Should I use that on the live software
>1. not at all
>2. only when the stub detector is activated
>3. for all logged-in users as an user option, off by default
>4. for everybody

>The most simple implementation is #2, and it doesn't require an
>additional database query. That's what I will do if I don't here good
>arguments against it ;-)

I like the stub detector, but I can't imagine ever wanting this.
To avoid unnecessarily making Wikipedia look like
a box of rainbow sprinkles, I would vote for 1 but settle for 3.
But please no 2 (and 4 is just unspeakable).

-- Toby


body:
All right, then, let's vote:

RESOLVED:
1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page, with links to the wikipedias of each language.

If debate is over, and the above resolutions are ready for a vote... either here, or on a Wiki page.

Ed Poor


body:
On 10/16/02 8:44 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:

> All right, then, let's vote:
>
> RESOLVED:
> 1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to
> www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
> 2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page, with links to
> the wikipedias of each language.
>
> If debate is over, and the above resolutions are ready for a vote... either
> here, or on a Wiki page.

Not resolved. And votes are a poor idea.


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] all the other wikis

body:
What would everyone think if I were to move all of the current UseMod
wikis to the new server?  This might be a performance concern...  I
just wanted to get an idea of what you all think...

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikitech-l] all the other wikis

body:
Jason Richey wrote:
> What would everyone think if I were to move all of the current UseMod
> wikis to the new server?  This might be a performance concern...  I
> just wanted to get an idea of what you all think...

Which of them have any significant traffic?  We might prioritize them
for conversion in accordance with traffic levels.

I'm all for it -- I really want to free that server up.  Also, this would
make it easier for non-Bomis developers to work on these.


body:
>> All right, then, let's vote:
>> 1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to
>> www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
>> 2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page,
>> with links to the wikipedias of each language.

(1) I vote NO.
(2) Voting is a bad idea in the first place.


subject: [Wikitech-l] all the other wikis

body:
That's what I was thinking...  I don't think many of them are getting
much traffic, but I do know that the register.com account for
wikipedia.com has *.wikipedia.com pointing to the old server, and that
it would be a pain to point it to the new server because I would have
to add entries for all of the wikis that are still on the old server.
I recognize myself as a slight bottleneck in the conversion of many
wikis, because I have to add an "A" record for every wiki that gets
converted...  This could all go away.

Jason

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Jason Richey wrote:
> > What would everyone think if I were to move all of the current UseMod
> > wikis to the new server?  This might be a performance concern...  I
> > just wanted to get an idea of what you all think...
>
> Which of them have any significant traffic?  We might prioritize them
> for conversion in accordance with traffic levels.
>
> I'm all for it -- I really want to free that server up.  Also, this would
> make it easier for non-Bomis developers to work on these.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Moving the wikis (en.wikipedia.org vs

body:
>Daniel Mayer wrote:
>>
>> I kinda like the idea of doing the reverse now;
>> have all the language wikis at www.wikipedia.org
>> via the syntax www.wikipedia.org/xx/ where xx is
>> the language code. Brion is floating a similar
>> idea over at the meta
>>
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_language_integration
>> However his proposal leaves-out the www which I
>> think is a mistake since www.foobar.org is
>> universally recognized as an Internet address
>> whereas forbar.org is not.
>
>(anything).com is universally recognized as an
> internet address. Is .org really so unknown?
> Never been to slashdot.org?

Yes I visit /. daily. Our motto here isn't "News for
Nerds, Stuff that Matters", I think our audience is
not as technically inclined as the /. crowd is on
average. www.string.org also is nicely balanced and
elegant looking whereas string.org is one-sided and
looks like a file name (to me at least).

www.string.org        vs        string.org

>> I like this idea because every language will
>> then have the promotional benefit of being at
>> the www.wikipedia.org address and no language
>> is left at the rather odd looking, IMO,
>> xx.wikipedia.org. This also improves the url
>> for the English Wikipedia; instead of being at
>> the redundant www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ it will
>> be at the cleaner www.wikipedia.org/en/
>
>Still got the redundant www. Www provides nothing
>that http:// doesn't, and in today's webcentric
>Internet little that .com, .org, .de, .foobar
>doesn't.

But http:// is terrifying to many of the technically
uninclined -- therefore having the www buffer is nice.
If we were a techy website I would have to agree that
the www is not needed and is wasted keystrokes, but we
are not a techy website (or at least we shouldn't be).

>But, if everyone loves the wuh wuh wuh, I can't
>complain too much. Both ways can be allowed
>whichever one is canonical.
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

This isn't that important so I will yield to the
popular will as well without much protest.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: French

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> Anthere wrote in part:
>
> >Apr?s un "-" ou tiret, les r?gles typographiques de
> >langue fran?aise indiquent que la minuscule est de
> >r?gle
>
> >Par contre, apr?s un num?ro ou une lettre de
> >classification, majuscule:
>
> You have specific *rules* for this sort of thing?
> So precise that it goes one way in one place and
> another in the other?

Yep! You can't even begin to imagine how precise it
can get !
And rules are different on printed versus electronic
material of course.
French are very troubled by your near-lack of
grammatical and typographic rules.

> Your Academy is insane!!!

Yep! Mostly very old white males academics !
(Euh, Victor Hugo was elected in 1841 at the Acad?mie
fran?aise (at an unusually young age!))

Fortunately most people tend to "forget" the
rules...and very few really care...EXCEPT...when
writing an encyclopedia...as it becomes a sign of how
serious the project is...:-)))

> -- Toby
>    Who vacillates between minuscule and majuscule
> according to taste,
>    knowing that nobody can ever accuse me of being
> wrong about it.

-- Anthere
Who vacillates between miniscule and majuscule on
purpose, knowing that some accuse her of being wrong
about it.

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Enciclopedia Libre

body:
Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas wrote:
> Hello everybody, greetings from "Enciclopedia
> Libre".
>
> First of all I want to clarify that general sense
> from people in EL is about friendship and goodwill
> towards Wikipedia project, though some of
> us disagree about some questions concerned to
> Wikipedia we are talking about in the past.
>
> We were talking and voting about the reunification
> as we made at
>http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Enciclopedia:Retorno_a_Wikipedia

> and finally we have decided to stay in the same
> server here at Sevilla and under the name of
> "Enciclopedia Libre", nevertheless we do
> not discard the possibility on returning
> Wikipedia in the future

I'm only speaking for myself and how I see things;

It's great that your project is keeping open the
possibility of reunification but with each passing day
the two separate projects grow apart as articles
become distinct from each other. This will make
reunification in the future increasingly more
difficult. Since the Spanish Wikipedia software is so
badly broken right now there are very few contributors
and there really isn't that much difference between
the Spanish Wikipedia today compared with the database
you took to Seville many months ago. But now the
Spanish Wikipedia is going to get Phase III software
and I foresee much more activity there as first bi-
and multi-lingual people from the other Wikipedia
languages start contributing and then as more native
speakers join es.wiki.

We would be much stronger together rather than apart.
I am saddened that your community decided to vote on
this before we were even done discussing the matter. I
feel we were moving in a very positive direction,
reaching consensus, and trying to change Wikipedia so
that it will be agreeable to you (and more agreeable
to the current non-English Wikipedias) but the
pre-emptive vote has halted our reunification efforts
before we even had a chance to formally ask you to
rejoin (or even start any negotiations for that
matter).

> (whenever people in Wikipedia agree)

We were reaching consensus on this before the vote
ended the process. The emerging consensus I feel was,
"Yes we want you back" and "Yes we are willing to
change in order to make this possible". I for one have
been doing some serious soul-searching to see why
there was a fork in the first place and exploring ways
that we could address those issues in a reasonable
way. But your project has made its decision and I have
to respect and accept that. I also wish your project
well and hope the Spanish Wikipedia and EL can be
friends and exchange content without hard feelings (we
need to discuss how to best do this).

> and our wish is about
> collaboration, talking and good relationships.

I also hope that we can collaborate and have a good
working relationship but competition for
Spanish-speaking users may overshadow this if we are
not careful. Very soon there will be two different
very active wiki communities both trying to write a
free content, neutral focus, encyclopedia in Spanish.
Right now there really is only one active community,
yours.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Andre Engels

subject:
[Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org
 and the  Wikipedia family

in_reply_to:
<200210142034.g9EKYCu32006@ross.bomis.com> from "lcrocker@nupedia.com"
 at "Oct 14, 2002 01:34:12 pm"

body:
>
> >> When writing on Phase II, I was thinking about little flags for the
> >> different languages. We'd just need a merged GB/US flag for
> >> en.wikipedia.com...
>
> > I don't like flags, and I guess many others also don't like them.
> > If we really need some kind picture to represent a language, then
> > please let's choose an image of a famous person who used this
> > language to produce something important/famous/extraordinary/...
>
> I don't like the idea of a "portal" page at all, and the idea
> of using flags is even worse; flags represent /countries/, and
> the very concept of "country" is something I want nothing to do
> with.
>
> I do, however, like the idea of representing languages with images
> of famous contributors in that language; this could be used in
> lots of places writing about Wikipedia.  I'd suggest Shakespeare,
> Hugo, Cervantes as the obvious English/French/Spanish ones.
> I don't know who would be appropriate for the others.

I don't see what's won with that - in most cases it would cost me quite some
time to recognize a person, and I would therefore consider it a waste of space.
Be that as it may, I think Goethe is the obvious choice for [de:], and
Multatuli for [nl:]. With some more doubt, I would propose Dante for [it:],
although I don't know whether there is any image of him. For [la:] I am
doubting between Cicero and Julius Caesar, while for [eo:] Zamenhoff himself
looks like an obvious choice. Maybe Tolstoy for [ru:]?

Andre Engels


body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> mattheww+wikipedia at chiark.greenend.org.uk wrote:
>>> 1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to
>>> www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
>>
>> I think this is worse than using en.wikipedia.org. It would make it
>> hard to run the different languages on different servers later, should
>> we wish to do so.
>>
> I find that a convincing argument against this proposal. More thought is
> needed.

It was suggested in the first place because many people (including
Cunctator) are begging for the abilities to:

* Have a single username and login for the encyclopedia in all languages
and meta

* View things like Recentchanges for the encyclopedia in multiple
languages and/or meta combined.

These demand a single server.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] User check idea

body:
Could it be made possible to look at the User changes using just the first
part of the user's IP number rather than a complete one? Yhat way, people
who have a dynamical IP can be checked for all their changes rather than
just those of their last login. Especially useful for those who are not
really vandals, but do leave cleaning up to do after them.

Andre Engels


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Towards a consensus on Goals (not solutions -- yet)

body:
>>> 2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page,
>>> with links to the wikipedias of each language.
>>
>> This seems to be a really good idea.
>> Let the opposing three convince the rest that it is a bad thing to do.
>
> I don't know if it's still the case, but a non-content front page used to
> be able to loose 20-40% of visitors to a site.
>
> Imran

There seems to be consensus on user requirements (rather than on solutions):
1. First time visitors get an enticing content page (TBD: what language should this be?)
2. Logged-in contributors get their favorite language site; after they choose it from their preferences page.
3. English language shouldn't appear domineering.
4. One URL (like www.wikipedia.org) for the organization itself, which explains the international wikis (with English as "just another language").

Ed Poor


from_name: Khendon

body:
On Wed, Oct 16, 2002 at 08:44:48AM -0400, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> RESOLVED:
> 1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
> 2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page, with links to the wikipedias of each language.

Concur.

--
Khendon  (Jason Williams)
khendon at khendon.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> >lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> >> I do, however, like the idea of representing languages with images
> >> of famous contributors in that language; this could be used in
> >> lots of places writing about Wikipedia.  I'd suggest Shakespeare,
> >> Hugo, Cervantes as the obvious English/French/Spanish ones.
> >> I don't know who would be appropriate for the others.
>
> >I don't like even this idea.  My reason is that I wouldn't know what
> >Hugo and Cervantes looked like if they were in my bathtub.  It's hard
> >to know what image could universally represent various languages, and
> >this is especially true for "smaller" languages.
>
> True, but you'd know your own, and I'm only suggesting that
> these be used as "decorative" illustrations rather than flags
> to /accompany/ plain text, not replace it.  And of course you're
> right that many would be very unobvious.

Why would we recognise the images even for our 'own' language? While I
certainly know who these people were, I wouldn't know their pictures
from a bar of soap! I think using 'talking heads' is a VERY bad idea...

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

To err is human... to really foul things up add kitten and stir.

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
Ample Aussies Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Anthere wrote:

>>What, you don't think the French would appreciate
>>the
>>fine American humor of stereotyping the French as
>>sexual
>>predators with poor bathing habits?
>>
>This is hardly stereotype. We play together
>differently than american do. We like human smell more
>than soap smell. And we make big money at selling
>american people our expensive perfumes.
>
Then Pepe, who views himself as a fine french parfumier, is only
fulfilling his national destiny.

>>must be some equally offensive English-speaking cartoon
>>character popular over there.
>>
>
>I can't think of any. Our most willing partners are
>from England, Belgium and Switzerland. But, we thank
>you for renewed humor pictures since you elected Bush.
>Between Bush and LePen, our humourists had it easy
>this year.
>
Funny that the names Le Pew and Le Pen are so similar; it makes it hard
to tell which is the skunk.

>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] JW edit war

in_reply_to:
<E079C39257D0D845AC39E2CA261C43E00706D7@sm-nyny-xm04.nena.wdpr.disney.com>
 from "Poor, Edmund W" at "Oct 14, 2002 02:51:30 pm"

body:
> The talk page for "Jehovah's witnesses" had 909 accesses just now.
> Is that a record for a talk page?

No, it's not. I did a query, and it was at 1090 in the meantime, but
Talk:Main_Page, Talk:Julius:Caesar and Talk:List_of_famous_Canadians had
more.

The top 20 of most-read talk pages:
Talk:Main Page							3508
Talk:Julius Caesar						3479
User talk:Maveric149						2471
Talk:List of famous Canadians					1345
Talk:Jehovah's Witnesses					1090
User talk:Isis							 971
Wikipedia talk:Wikiproject Countris				 920
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names)			 808
User talk:Ed Poor						 804
User talk:Zoe							 724
Talk:Anti-Semitism						 717
User Talk:Lee Daniel Crocker					 699
Talk:Actor							 688
Talk:Jesus Christ						 657
Talk:Incest							 622
Talk:Genocide							 621
Talk:Aria Giovanni						 601
Talk:Current events						 581
Talk:Famous gay lesbian or bisexual people			 573
Talk:Law							 572

> What's all the fuss about?

Well, about the same thing it usually is when there's an edit war going on:
NPOV. How much should be said about a certain POV to get the whole as close
as possible to NPOV?

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Put your text for the new page here

body:
We get a lot of junk new pages that say:

"Put your text for the new page here. Hello"
or
"Put your text for the new page here. Er, I don't know"
or
"Put your text for the new page here. What does this do"

These, to me, don't seem to be vandalism -- rather, someone who doesn't
yet know how a Wiki works has clicked a ghost link, is a little confused
when faced with a form and instead of just closing their browser window
they feel they must *do* something.

Could we make the text that appears in a new page form more helpful? eg:

"This article does not yet exist in Wikipedia. You can begin writing a
new article here, or just close the browser window" etc etc.

This might prevent a few junk entries, and save on housekeeping time. :)

- tarquin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Call for a vote (was: Moving the wikis)

body:
On Wednesday 16 October 2002 09:31 am Jimmy Wales  wrote:
> Yeah, it's too soon for me, too.  And voting bugs me too.
>
> Maybe we should just relax about this and revisit it a couple of
> months from now, while everyone chews over the consequences?

Since the issue of es.wiki/EL reunification was preemptively decided for us by
EL there is no longer any real urgency to do this sooner rather than later.

I still vote that all the languages should have their URLs in the same syntax
and we should have a 'gateway page' for the whole project at
www.wikipedia.org but this can wait until the next major change to the
software or we set-up the non-profit (whichever comes first).

> It doesn't seem like a clean consensus is developing yet .

It's just getting bogged-down in details.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>Not resolved. And votes are a poor idea.
>
>
>
Aw crap.  But yesterday you said:

 > Though I think this is a mistaken priority, this is definitely a step
in the right direction.

We can't even agree on a simple URL, and whenever we seem to agree,
someone has to go and change their mind.
It's not surprising the EL forked. and it's not surprising they don't
want to come back.

JW said
 > It doesn't seem like a clean consensus is developing yet.

I may be wrong, but my impression is that it's only Cunc and Gareth Owen
who are opposed to the URL change -- but they've between them made
enough racket for a dozen.


from_name: Gareth Owen

body:
tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> writes:

> I may be wrong, but my impression is that it's only Cunc and Gareth Owen who
> are opposed to the URL change -- but they've between them made enough racket
> for a dozen.

I think LDC has spoken out against, but its possible I'm mistaken.
--
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)


from_name: Brion VIBBER

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> I think Jimmy promised me a year ago that the old URLs would be
> permanently valid.   Is this something that can be voted on?  Would
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/William_Shakespeare still be a valid
> URL to the article in English on William Shakespeare?

All URL forms we have used to point to articles will be valid forever
insofar as I have anything to do about it.

> Wikipedia should have a written policy for URLs, just like the GFDL
> license.  Why should I want to contribute to a project where all URLs
> can be changed by a vote the next month?

We use redirects to preserve old links when titles and URLs are refined,
both within the wiki and without. Anyone who violates that is an enemy
of this project and its purposes and should be severely walloped on the
head with a Nerf ball while someone yells "404 FILE NOT FOUND!" in their
ears until they learn the error of their ways.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Yeah, it's too soon for me, too.  And voting bugs me
> too.
>
> Maybe we should just relax about this and revisit it
> a couple of
> months from now, while everyone chews over the
> consequences?
>
> It doesn't seem like a clean consensus is developing
> yet.

Indeed. Cunc has convinced me that a portal page is a
bad idea. I think we should be working toward a
unified project composed of different languages,
rather than remaining the English Wikipedia, the
German Wikipedia, the Spanish Wikipedia, etc.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
Hi tarquin, hi list!

> Could we make the text that appears in a new page form more helpful?
eg:
>
> "This article does not yet exist in Wikipedia. You can begin writing a
> new article here, or just close the browser window" etc etc.
>
> This might prevent a few junk entries, and save on housekeeping time.
:)

I think this is a very good idea. We're getting more and more of these
in the German Wp, too.

And also the number of copyright violations increases (like all other
statistical numbers - there might me a relation ;-)
So, someone (sorry, I forgot who) had the idea of placing the "Please
don't ad copyrighted material ..." passage _above_ the [Save] button for
not logged in users. I think this is also a good idea.

Kurt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: French

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>Anthere wrote in part:
>
>>Apr?s un "-" ou tiret, les r?gles typographiques de
>>langue fran?aise indiquent que la minuscule est de
>>r?gle
>>
>>Par contre, apr?s un num?ro ou une lettre de
>>classification, majuscule:
>>
>You have specific *rules* for this sort of thing?
>So precise that it goes one way in one place and another in the other?
>Your Academy is insane!!!
>
*Some* French have a passion for language stylistics that is
incomprehensible to the anglophone community.  It is a far stronger
influence in French poetry than in English where we tend to become
obsessed with the requirement that poetry should mean something.  French
school teachers also have a passion for the "dict?e" long after the need
for spelling tests has run its course.

Eclecticology


body:
--- Imran Ghory <imran at bits.bris.ac.uk> wrote:
> I don't know if it's still the case, but a
> non-content front page used to
> be able to loose 20-40% of visitors to a site.
>
> Imran

Exactly. It's not the move to www.wikipedia.org/en/
that I'm opposed to. I'm against using
www.wikipedia.org as a portal page.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


body:
--- Brion VIBBER <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> It was suggested in the first place because many
> people (including
> Cunctator) are begging for the abilities to:
>
> * Have a single username and login for the
> encyclopedia in all languages
> and meta
>
> * View things like Recentchanges for the
> encyclopedia in multiple
> languages and/or meta combined.
>
> These demand a single server.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

They also demand input from the other language wikis.
We'll have a lot of unhappy people if we take a vote
on this list, then move the wikis to
www.wikipedia.org/xx/.

The support expressed from the other wikis was to move
the English Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org, which is a
different matter: the change only affects the English
wiki.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


from_name: Paul Ebermann

body:
"tarquin" skribis:

> We get a lot of junk new pages that say:
>
[...]
>
> Could we make the text that appears in a new page form more helpful? eg:
>
> "This article does not yet exist in Wikipedia. You can begin writing a
> new article here, or just close the browser window" etc etc.

IMHO better than "close the browser window" would be

    ... use the back-function of your browser or click
    on "Cancel".

Paul


from_name: Imran Ghory

body:
On Wed, 16 Oct 2002, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:

> On 16-10-2002, Khendon wrote thusly :
> > On Wed, Oct 16, 2002 at 08:44:48AM -0400, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> > > RESOLVED:
> > > 1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
> > > 2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page, with links to the wikipedias of each language.
> > Concur.
> This seems to be a really good idea.
> Let the opposing three convince the rest that it is a bad thing to do.

I don't know if it's still the case, but a non-content front page used to
be able to loose 20-40% of visitors to a site.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


in_reply_to: <E079C39257D0D845AC39E2CA261C43E00706E5@sm-nyny-xm04.nena.wdpr.disney.com>; from Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com on Wed, Oct 16, 2002 at 08:44:48AM -0400

body:
> 1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to
> www.wikipedia.org/en/ and

I think this is worse than using en.wikipedia.org. It would make it
hard to run the different languages on different servers later, should
we wish to do so.

-M-


from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

body:
On 16-10-2002, Khendon wrote thusly :
> On Wed, Oct 16, 2002 at 08:44:48AM -0400, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> > RESOLVED:
> > 1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
> > 2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page, with links to the wikipedias of each language.
> Concur.
This seems to be a really good idea.
Let the opposing three convince the rest that it is a bad thing to do.

Regards,
Kpjas.


from_name: Neil Harris

body:
mattheww+wikipedia at chiark.greenend.org.uk wrote:

>>1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to
>>www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
>>
>>
>
>I think this is worse than using en.wikipedia.org. It would make it
>hard to run the different languages on different servers later, should
>we wish to do so.
>
>-M-
>
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>
>
I find that a convincing argument against this proposal. More thought is
needed.

Neil


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On Wed, 2002-10-16 at 20:10, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 October 2002 09:31 am Jimmy Wales  wrote:

> > It doesn't seem like a clean consensus is developing yet .
>
> It's just getting bogged-down in details.
>
Hardly.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Some answers with the "users'" point of view in mind.

body:
On Wednesday 16 October 2002 12:01 pm Ruth Ifcher wrote:
> Hi Members,
>.....
>      First, in regard to "redirect highlighting" proposed by Mr. Manske, I
> think that a regular Wikipedia reader will find this quite disconcerting.
> At most, I think it should be a logged-in user's choice.

I must have missed that one. Yeah, I agree, highlighting redirects is a bad
idea. If there are valid alternate ways to title something then an alternate
but still perfectly valid name shouldn't look different. At worst this would
be very confusing, at best this is needless feature creep.

>      Second, in regard to the "first page" or "main page" contents, I think
> the main page, as it is, is far too "busy" for the everyday user. They
> should be looking for a choice of language and a place to put a search
> argument. I think that is pretty much all that belongs there, in terms of
> content. This doesn't mean the page cannot be attractive.

For the main or 'gateway page' for the whole project I tend to agree -- but my
view of what isn't too "busy" may differ from yours.

However the whole 'International Wikipedia gateway at www.wikipedia.org' thing
has one very serious flaw as it is now; There is no direct and obvious link
to Recent Changes.

In our rush for the URL switch, it would have been a mistake just to put up a
static page at www.wikipedia.org that merely directed users to each
language's Main Page. IMO what really is needed is a combined Recent Changes
at www.wikipedia.org. That way somebody landing at www.wikipedia.org can look
to the top of their page, hit Recent Changes and see the last 100 edits made
for the whole project (each language). Until that is possible, I don't think
a gateway page will work at all.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Giskart

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>All right, then, let's vote:
>
>RESOLVED:
>1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
>2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page, with links to the wikipedias of each language.
>
>If debate is over, and the above resolutions are ready for a vote... either here, or on a Wiki page.
>

If this means that www.wikipedia.org becomes the international Wikipedia
project frontpage for all member wikipedias and all the non-english
wikipedias can ceep there own xx.wikipedia.org adress then this is a
internall matter of the english wikipedia..

I do not find it a good idea that you use www.wikipedia.org/en/......
 It do not understand that you find that more easy then en.wikipedia.org
but that is a internal affair.

If the idea is to put all wikipedias there, that somthing very different
and not somthing that can be done by a quick vote on wikipedia-l

Giskart


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

body:
mav wrote:
>In our rush for the URL switch, it would have been a mistake just to put up a
>static page at www.wikipedia.org that merely directed users to each
>language's Main Page. IMO what really is needed is a combined Recent Changes
>at www.wikipedia.org. That way somebody landing at www.wikipedia.org can look
>to the top of their page, hit Recent Changes and see the last 100 edits made
>for the whole project (each language). Until that is possible, I don't think
>a gateway page will work at all.

This to me is a fascinating idea, and much more attractive than the portal as we proposed it.  You could see a streamlined Recent Changes page, showing only what changes were made to what article where, e.g.

    * [[Fig]] [English]; 01:11
    * [[Kommunismus]] [Deutsch]; 01:12
    * [[The Elephant Man]] [Fran?ais]; 01:12
    * [[PNG]] [Polski]; 01:13
    * [[Stephen Spielberg]] [Espa?ol]; 01:14
    * [[Fran?ois Rabelais]] [English]; 01:14

It might be more enticing than a static portal page.

kq


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: French

body:
Anthere wrote:

>French are very troubled by your near-lack of
>grammatical and typographic rules.
>

They exist in English: Fowler. (qv in wikipedia). That will tell you,
for example, that it's the 1980s not the 1980's.

They're not as "top-down" as the Academie though, they're a mix of what
is being used with a healthy dose of pedantry.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Maybe "portal page" was a poor choice of words

body:
On Wednesday 16 October 2002 08:56 pm Stephen wrote:
> Indeed. Cunc has convinced me that a portal page is a
> bad idea. I think we should be working toward a
> unified project composed of different languages,
> rather than remaining the English Wikipedia, the
> German Wikipedia, the Spanish Wikipedia, etc.
>
> Stephen G.

Ah, I see; One unified project with the most visible and widely known url
going only to one language and one language alone.

Perhaps the choice of words "portal page" was a very poor one on my part. Here
is what I meant by it:

A user types in www.wikipedia.org. They are greeted with a welcome page in
English that has a very brief intro to the whole project and the non-profit.
It mentions the total number of articles in all languages and also mentions
the total number of language that have articles (we might want to set a small
threshhold for inclusion in this count). Above this is a string or hyperlinks
in a row. Each one is the word "welcome" in several different languages. A
non-English speaker could click on his or her language's welcome page and be
greeted the the text I described above translated into their language (this
might also change the language.php file for that user's browser session to
display that language's localized interface). Each welcome page would also
have below this;

A search field with a clean, simple interface along with a link to "advanced
options". This search bar could be set to search all languages at once by
default.

A simple table with the words "Welcome to Wikipedia" in every language we have
an active community for along with direct links to the main pages for those
language communities (maybe by leading-in with a quick note saying "We are
working on X articles in language Z at....").

A listing of the non-active languages with maybe a note asking viewers to
contribute to an "orphan" (or whatever we call them) language.

And above all this would be Recent Changes right where you would expect it to
be (or Seneste ?ndringer, Lastaj ?an?oj or Cambinos Recientes etc.; depending
on which Welcome page you last visited). But this Recent Changes would by
default list the last 100 edits made by the whole project (just the
encyclopedia part, not Metapedia). There would also be links to each of the
individual recent changes.

Of course we can't do this now since each language is on a separate wiki with
its own own separate database. But adding a language meta-tag to each article
would make it possible to have truly unified project by only having one
database and only one wiki. The fact that everything is in one database will
not be visible to users. Only the multi-language benefits would be
noticeable.

NOTE: This would still allow a language community the option to "jump-ship" if
they wanted too (preserving their leverage). All that would be needed is for
somebody to select all articles based on their language's language meta-tag
via a My SQL query and dump this into an archive (or so I gather). There
would probably a script to do this for each language on a regular basis
anyway for backup purposes. Also, defaults for individual language spaces
would display everthing only in that language. Users would have to set their
preferences to have a combined recent changes or to override default language
interfaces, etc once they are in a particular language space (that is, in
either the English, German, Spanish, French .... Wikipedias).

For more read a discusion Giskart and I had about this on the bottom of:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org

Another good page on this:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_language_integration

Anything else would be just extra.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Towards a consensus on Goals (not solutions --
 yet)

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>There seems to be consensus on user requirements (rather than on solutions):
>1. First time visitors get an enticing content page (TBD: what language should this be?)
>2. Logged-in contributors get their favorite language site; after they choose it from their preferences page.
>3. English language shouldn't appear domineering.
>4. One URL (like www.wikipedia.org) for the organization itself, which explains the international wikis (with English as "just another language").
>
Yes, it's a good idea to separate the debate into the requirements and
the implementation.

whether we have xx.wikipedia.org or www.wikipedia.org/xx/ is an
implementation question. There apear to be pros and cons for both of
these URL schemes.

I'm not really bothered what the URL scheme is, but I would like the
English wikipedia's URL to be of the same form as the other languages.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the  Wikipedia family

body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
> >I can't think of any. Our most willing partners are
> >from England, Belgium and Switzerland. But, we
> thank
> >you for renewed humor pictures since you elected
> Bush.
> >Between Bush and LePen, our humourists had it easy
> >this year.
> >
> Funny that the names Le Pew and Le Pen are so
> similar; it makes it hard
> to tell which is the skunk.

ouuuu, mes compliments...!

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #753 - 16 msgs

body:
Matt M. wrote:

>>May I suggest Coluche or Desproges ? I supposed these
>>are not known by canadians ? I don't see why french
>>langage would be represented by a French man. By the
>>way, we write "fran?ais" for the language and
>>"Fran?ais" for the french man. These two words are
>>absolutely not interchangeable. That's both grammar
>>flaw and countrycentrism.
>>
>
>?a me semble que dans une liste on devrait mettre une majuscule comme ?a:
>
>- Anglais
>- Fran?ais
>- Espagnol
>- Latin
>- Esp?ranto
>
>n'est-ce pas? Mais de toute fa?on, in English we try not to say "the
>Frenchman" if referring to an indefinite person; that's sexist. We say "a
>French person." But I don't think you were trying to be sexist - all this to
>say that we should cut each other a little slack when dealing with languages
>not their own.
>
Canadian or even more generally English usage on capitalization is often
a matter of individual choice, and I can remember when, at least for
adjectives, a distinction like the one Anth?re makes was taught in
schools.  But the situation is so muddled that writing guides simply ask
writers to be consistent within their own works..  Translating
"Fran?ais" as "french man" is acceptable, but I would prefer "French
man" with a capital letter.

Sexism doesn't enter into this at all.  "Frenchman" in one word that
does have associated difficulties, but attitudes are by no means
unanimous on this.  The movement for non-sexist language does see it as
sexist, but others of us would see the "a French person" as bringing
unnecessary awkwardness to the language.  Those afflicted with political
correctness often draw the false conclusion that those who do not follow
their solutions for non-sexist must be speaking in a sexist way.  I
certainly do not consider the word "frenchman" to be sexist.

The "-man" suffix used in conjunction with a nationality is often seen
as somehow a racial slur.  In Canada their has been a movement in the
Chinese ethnic community to rename all geographical places with
"Chinaman" in their names.

Eclecticology


from_name: Lightning

body:
> There seems to be consensus on user requirements (rather than on
solutions):
> 1. First time visitors get an enticing content page (TBD: what language
should this be?)
> 2. Logged-in contributors get their favorite language site; after they
choose it from their preferences page.
> 3. English language shouldn't appear domineering.
> 4. One URL (like www.wikipedia.org) for the organization itself, which
explains the international wikis (with English as "just another language").

ohhh i like this idea, but non-registered users should get a cookie that
remembers their prefered language.

Lightning


body:
> It was suggested in the first place because many people (including
> Cunctator) are begging for the abilities to:
>
> * Have a single username and login for the encyclopedia in all languages
> and meta
>
> * View things like Recentchanges for the encyclopedia in multiple
> languages and/or meta combined.
>
> These demand a single server.

umm.. not really.. you can make domain wide cookies that work accross
subdomains

Lightning


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> All right, then, let's vote:
> RESOLVED:
> 1. That the English language wikipedia step down one level to
> www.wikipedia.org/en/ and
> 2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page, with
> links to the wikipedias of each language.

I think Jimmy promised me a year ago that the old URLs would be
permanently valid.  Is this something that can be voted on?  Would
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/William_Shakespeare still be a valid
URL to the article in English on William Shakespeare?

I might have written such URLs into several thousand web pages in
more or less static HTML, e.g.
http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/authors/shakewil.html
When I discover that such links are broken, I remove the links rather
than correct them, since a website that changed their URLs once is
likely to do so again.  I don't hate websites that change their URLs,
I just don't link to them.

Wikipedia should have a written policy for URLs, just like the GFDL
license.  Why should I want to contribute to a project where all URLs
can be changed by a vote the next month?

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Access counters (was: JW edit war)

body:
On wikipedia-l, Andre Engels wrote:
> > The talk page for "Jehovah's witnesses" had 909 accesses just now.
> > Is that a record for a talk page?
>
> No, it's not. I did a query, and it was at 1090 in the meantime, but
> Talk:Main_Page, Talk:Julius:Caesar and Talk:List_of_famous_Canadians had
> more.
>
> The top 20 of most-read talk pages:
> Talk:Main Page				3508
> Talk:Julius Caesar				3479

When did these access counters start at zero?  Are they ever reset
again, or will they just permanently grow?

I have similar counters in susning.nu, introduced on August 3, 2002,
and so far they have never been reset.  I guess there could be cases
where a monthly or yearly average is more useful, emphasizing the last
month.  But so far I haven't figured out how I want to do this, and
there might be a point in using the same method as someone else.

Technically, the implementation is not difficult.  Counters could be
reset at the 1st of each month, or a sliding window can be used with a
bucket accumulator for each day where the 30th bucket is subtracted
from the sum once each day, or a decaying average can be inflated by a
computed percentage at regular intervals.  The only difficult decision
is to choose which method to use.  Is there a standard?

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] mailing lists

body:
Hi everybody,

I dunno about you all, but I am getting overly confused between all the different points discussed at the same time, url adresses, contents of a page we have not agreed to exist, common recentchanges, common servers or not, auto-redirection or not, cookies or not, common meta ...

It's nice that so many ideas are proposed, but it's really getting confusing. Maybe even more to non-english speaking, and certainly for those not following all lists thoroughly.

Another thing adding to the confusion is that *mailing list(s) matter*. I think that could be a point to start with, and one on which we could maybe easily agree on, which would be nice for a change.

I already stated a couple of time, there was a problem with the definition of the mainlist and the interlist.

1)The main list is both used for internal english matters AND integrated wikipedia matters

2 The inter list was initially set up to take care of matters dealing with creating and organising inter wiki

A side effect of 1) is that some en.wiki editors tend to generalize typical english matters to the rest of the wikipedias.

A side effect of 1) is that all inter that want to be involved in the decision process have to register the main list. Thus making the inter list useless.

A side effect of 2) is that new inter comers tend to believe they can post messages to the inter list, and trust the information there is complete. Both points being clearly untrue (especially since we sometimes forget to double post, on one, or on the other list)

Other side effects are multiple cross posting between the two lists, implying
- additional posting time (specially when we forget the cc)
- additional reading time to check the message is the same
- additional time for deletion
- cluttering of the mail box
- incomplete information for those who are not registered at *both* lists

My belief is that we need to set up that issue.
Ideally, I think there should be:

1) A "main" list, dealing with integrated issues (I don't know the best word to say that, I don't want to mean integration, I want to say issues important to the enlarged community)

2) Plenty of language-specific lists, among which the english list, to deal with naming conventions and majuscule/minuscule typo conventions. Lists only to be set up if there is a need and a demand of course.

In concrete terms, for example

Option1: either a new list (a "metalist") is created, and the mainlist deals with english matters (the inconvenience of that option will be that most people would continue nevertheless to post everything at the main list)

Option2: the interlist really becomes the integrated list and the mainlist stays only for en.issues (that option could maybe be accompanied by an automatic registering process for english not yet on the interlist; but again, I fear lazyness will prevent this process, and posting will stay on the main list anyway; also, this might become a diplomatic issue to some)

Option3: the main list becomes the main list (metalist), and a new en.list is created for english issues (is that possible that all users of the main list are automatically registered to that en.list, and an automatic message send for easy unsuscribing for those not interested to stay on it? it would make the switching process less labourious...)

The 3rd process could be nearly transparent for english users, as most of the time, people reply to messages, so it won't change habits much. They will be registered to two lists, but ain't that the case of many already ?

This option would help avoiding cross posting and information loss. It would save time. It would avoid mailbox cluttering. It will also make clearer that setting up an integrated encyclopedia is a one of the goals; not helping side projects to develop.

A conceptual point is also bothering me, but I admit I have no idea to prevent that right now.

That is the word "international" to be opposed to the english-speaking_main_wikipedia.
It is just the same than the words "importation" and "exportation"; just depends on your own position.
International has a smell of countries. While english versus non-english just have a smell of language. I like that option better.

Just my thoughts. Sorry if it was too long and laborious task to read. But I think it important that somehow, one day, this mailing list issues are dealt with.

Anthere

---------------------------------
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> I think Jimmy promised me a year ago that the old URLs would be
> permanently valid.  Is this something that can be voted on?  Would
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/William_Shakespeare still be a valid
> URL to the article in English on William Shakespeare?

I stand by that promise.  Nothing will _ever_ break those URLs if I
can help it.  To break URLs for any reason at all is unacceptable.

> Wikipedia should have a written policy for URLs, just like the GFDL
> license.  Why should I want to contribute to a project where all URLs
> can be changed by a vote the next month?

Don't worry about that.  However we resolve the question of political
sensitivity surrounding 'www' being 'English', we will not ever break
the old URLs, even if this means that there is some lingering small
disparity of treatment between the wikis.

I'm not even in favor of "redirecting" versus just "aliasing", just
because it makes the browser do an extra step for no particular
reason.  I'm not adamant about this point, though.  I would just say
that it's best not to redirect.

--Jimbo

p.s.  Here's what redirection means...

User: "Hi wikipedia, may I see the article about Thomas Jefferson"

Server: "I know which article you mean, but I won't give it to you until you ask
me properly, like this: <new url>"

User: "Sigh, O.k., may I please see <new url>"

Server: "O.k., here you go."

Versus aliasing:

User: "Hi wikipedia, may I see the article about Thomas Jefferson"

Server: "O.k., here you go."

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: French

body:
Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:
> The English-speaking countries never change their official
> spelling. That also has it's charmes, because you can still
> (almost) read Shakespeare as if it were in a modern language.

Stated a bit more accurately, at least as pertains to the United
States (I don't know about others), there is no such thing as
"official" spelling.  Anyone can spell anything any way that they
like.  Multiple reference dictionaries are published, with varying
opinions.

British spelling and American spelling differ to a degree, but there's
nothing other than convention stopping Americans from spelling words
in the British way.

To Americans, the French way is a mystery.

> Ah, and again about us Dutch: We care so little about our own
> culture and language that modern media of expression like
> commercials are full of English words and even sentences.
> My mother (of age 73) doesn't understand commercials anymore
> and therefore doesn't watch them anymore. It's not only a
> matter of language buit also of culture. Most commercials
> try to appeal to young people that know a lot about the
> present (last decades) culture.

English is rapidly assimilating many Japanese words, and vice-versa.

--Jimbo


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 October 2002 08:56 pm Stephen wrote:
> > Indeed. Cunc has convinced me that a portal page
> is a
> > bad idea. I think we should be working toward a
> > unified project composed of different languages,
> > rather than remaining the English Wikipedia, the
> > German Wikipedia, the Spanish Wikipedia, etc.
> >
> > Stephen G.
>
> Ah, I see; One unified project with the most visible
> and widely known url
> going only to one language and one language alone.

I didn't say that, mav.

What I would like to see is this. All articles in all
languages are in one database. When someone comes to
www.wikipedia.org, the server gets the prefered
language setting from the visitor's browser, and then
serves a Wikipedia front page (similiar to the one we
use at the English Wikipedia, but simplified somewhat)
and user interface in that language, complete with a
search form. At the top of the page would be other
language options, just in case the browser's language
setting is incorrect. People could then set their
prefered language in their Wikipedia preferences.

I think the non-profit foundation should have a
separate URL from the encyclopedia.

Stephen G.

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Random page bug fix

in_reply_to: <3DAEA416.2090608@tonal.clara.co.uk>; from usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk on Thu, Oct 17, 2002 at 12:50:46PM +0100

body:
I restarted apache.

Also, I made the following change in /apache/conf/httpd.conf

   RewriteRule ^/wiki/(.*)$ /w/wiki.phtml?title=$1 [NE]
#    RewriteRule ^/wiki/(.*)$ /w/wiki.phtml?title=${urlencode:$1} [L]

That is, I reverted to the older, simpler form, on the theory that
until the bug in urlencode is worked out, it's better to have a *few*
broken links to things like /wiki/AT&T, rather than have the whole
site freaked out.

There are at least two possible permanent solutions...

1.  Fix it so the rewrite works 100% correctly.  Since '&' is a legal
character in a url, but not in a query string, the _idea_ here is not a
bad one.  Plus, it's nicer in a way for end users.

2.  Ban '&' from article titles to simplify our lives.  While it is true
that '&' is _legal_ in a url, there's no reason we have to use it, other
than usability for articles like 'AT&T'.

But in the meantime, let's not let the site keep breaking completely.


from_name: Jaap van Ganswijk

body:
At 2002-10-16 18:44 -0700, Stephen Gilbert wrote:

>--- Brion VIBBER <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>> It was suggested in the first place because many
>> people (including
>> Cunctator) are begging for the abilities to:
>>
>> * Have a single username and login for the
>> encyclopedia in all languages
>> and meta
>>
>> * View things like Recentchanges for the
>> encyclopedia in multiple
>> languages and/or meta combined.
>>
>> These demand a single server.
>>
>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>They also demand input from the other language wikis.
>We'll have a lot of unhappy people if we take a vote
>on this list, then move the wikis to
>www.wikipedia.org/xx/.
>
>The support expressed from the other wikis was to move
>the English Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org, which is a
>different matter: the change only affects the English
>wiki.

What we are arguing about is a flaw in the design
of URL's:

The basic format http://www.site.com/path0/path1
should have been: http://com/site/www/path0/path1

How it is organized server-wise doesn't matter to
the user. By the way, everyone can easily see that
'www' is redundant in this notation. 'com' versus
'org' etc. also doesn't make much sense, because
there is no 'ibm.org', 'ibm' is always 'ibm.com'.

But as things are now, I think 'mav'-s suggestions
make a lot of sense. I think the www should be added
in all cases, so you can leave 'http://' out.

As regards centralizing the whole system on one
server, I have mixed feelings: On the one hand,
I believe that individual language sites should
be able to be independent, but who would benefit?
The users or the ego's of the developers? I guess
the latter. On the other hand: One big project
(which has many advantages) might collapse at a
certain point, whilst a decentralized approach
might offer more chances of survival.

As it stands I tend to lean towards keeping it
all central. Bandwidth-wise this isn't a real
problem as long as the central server is inside
of the USA. Most providers outside of the USA
buy 50% local bandwidth and 50% bandwidth to
the USA.

Keeping the stuff central also means that most
things will be the same on all language variations
of the site, which benefits the user. I see no
reason why some of the sites would use a green
color to indicate articles that don't exist yet
and others still use a '?' behind the link.
I'd also like to have to log-in only once for
all sites.

As regards the entry-page which looses 20-40%
viewers. I think, it's a valid point. I am not
opposed to www.wikipedia.org being the entrance
to the English version, but treating all languages
the same also has it's charms.

I have been searching the Netscape site for a while
earlier today, because I seemed to remember that
it had some sort of solution for the language problem.
I think that one could write several files like
index.html.en
index.html.de
index.html.nl
and in your browser you (as a client) could give
a sequence of prefered languages and even when just
asking for index.html you would get it in the language
that you liked best. Of course I hate intelligent
systems that make (usually wrong) decessions for
me. I don't have a prefered language that I want
to read everything in. When the orginal language
is German and the translations are bad I prefer
to read the original German text, the same goes
for English and Dutch. But in case of French and
Italian etc. I prefer a bad translation over the
original.

Ah, and back again about the server issue: I don't
see why http://www.nl.wikipedia.org/ can more easily
be on a server in another country than
http://www.wikipedia.org/nl/. I tend to assume that
these redirection issues have already been solved.

I tend to like the second format better, but somehow
I don't really feel comfortable with the language
being coded into the path. I don't know why. I'll
program myself to dream about this problem tonight...

Greetings,
Jaap


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: French

body:
At 2002-10-16 18:28 -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>Toby Bartels wrote:
>
>>Anthere wrote in part:
>>
>>>Apr?s un "-" ou tiret, les r?gles typographiques de
>>>langue fran?aise indiquent que la minuscule est de
>>>r?gle
>>>
>>>Par contre, apr?s un num?ro ou une lettre de
>>>classification, majuscule:
>>You have specific *rules* for this sort of thing?
>>So precise that it goes one way in one place and another in the other?
>>Your Academy is insane!!!
>*Some* French have a passion for language stylistics that is incomprehensible to the anglophone community.  It is a far stronger influence in French poetry than in English where we tend to become obsessed with the requirement that poetry should mean something.  French school teachers also have a passion for the "dict?e" long after the need for spelling tests has run its course.

It's very interestingly to see how different cultures treat
their languages. The French issued a law some 10 years ago
that English words were forbidden and had to be translated.

Here in the Netherlands we have a new spelling rule every
30 years or so. Normally this makes the spelling rules more
modern and efficient and more adapted to how people speak,
but the last ruling was going back to the past. We tended
to write c's that were spoken as a k to be written as a k
and c's that were spoken as an s to be written as an s.
I applauded that change. It would make it easier for
children and the lower classes to spell. But our minister
of education and his colleague in Belgium decided otherwise.

The English-speaking countries never change their official
spelling. That also has it's charmes, because you can still
(almost) read Shakespeare as if it were in a modern language.

Ah, and again about us Dutch: We care so little about our own
culture and language that modern media of expression like
commercials are full of English words and even sentences.
My mother (of age 73) doesn't understand commercials anymore
and therefore doesn't watch them anymore. It's not only a
matter of language buit also of culture. Most commercials
try to appeal to young people that know a lot about the
present (last decades) culture.

Greetings,
Jaap


from_name: Nick Tarasen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] linguistic issues

body:
in something that perhaps proves anthere?s point?

there?s no stated preference for American or British spelling in wikipedia
English, as far as I can tell, and I?ve been looking.

Is this true?  I don?t mean to start a debate that?s been done?just looking
for an answer.

The UN, or at least the WHO, uses a sort of hybrid.  Just looking for
comments.  what about it in names?  (for example, UN programmes are?well,
programmes).

in any case, thanks for creating wikipedia.  it?s a great project, and one I
?m enjoying participating in.  the bickering on this listhost is a testament
to the commitments you all make to it.

.nick tarasen (user:nwt)

ps ? The academie francaise is one of the best examples of something where
one throws up one?s hands and says, ?that?s the French for you.?  That said,
despite all of the rules, it seems that the formal American English rules
are a lot easier to follow for a good majority of the population.  Museum
placards explaining paintings in the US almost never have grammatical
errors, because there?s no agreements to be made.  The same cannot be said
for their francophone counterparts.  There?s just so much more to think
about grammatically?it?s on one hand impressive and boggling, on the other
just puzzling that such a language has existed for so long.

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body:
At 2002-10-16 23:52 -0500, Lightning wrote:
>> It was suggested in the first place because many people (including
>> Cunctator) are begging for the abilities to:
>>
>> * Have a single username and login for the encyclopedia in all languages
>> and meta
>>
>> * View things like Recentchanges for the encyclopedia in multiple
>> languages and/or meta combined.
>>
>> These demand a single server.
>
>umm.. not really.. you can make domain wide cookies that work accross
>subdomains

And anyway, this is hardly relevant. Our main goal
should be to try to achieve user experience value
and not developer experience value.

Greetings,
Jaap


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Towards a consensus on Goals (not solutions
  -- yet)

body:
At 2002-10-16 14:32 -0400, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>>>> 2. That www.wikipedia.org be the language-neutral front page,
>>>> with links to the wikipedias of each language.
>>>
>>> This seems to be a really good idea.
>>> Let the opposing three convince the rest that it is a bad thing to do.
>>
>> I don't know if it's still the case, but a non-content front page used to
>> be able to loose 20-40% of visitors to a site.
>>
>> Imran
>
>There seems to be consensus on user requirements (rather than on solutions):
>1. First time visitors get an enticing content page (TBD: what language should this be?)
>2. Logged-in contributors get their favorite language site; after they choose it from their preferences page.
>3. English language shouldn't appear domineering.
>4. One URL (like www.wikipedia.org) for the organization itself, which explains the international wikis (with English as "just another language").

Please also consider that on any serious site well
over 50% of the new visitors get in via the sub pages
from a search engine.

I often see website designers (and advertisers)
think that every visitor comes in via the
'official entrance' of the site, but that is usually
not the case. I often go to a site, because of a
link to a sub-page and when I want to learn more
about the nature of the site I peel layers off of
the URL until I get relevant information.

Greetings,
Jaap


from_name: Matt M.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #760 - 12 msgs

body:
>But the situation is so muddled that writing guides simply ask
> writers to be consistent within their own works..  Translating
> "Fran?ais" as "french man" is acceptable, but I would prefer "French
> man" with a capital letter.

Buh? What style guides are you reading? I've read a few (my field is
proofreading and translation) and I have not ever come across one that
suggests that not capitalizing nationalities is acceptable. Names of
nationalities and languages are always capitalized. English capitalization
has got rules. Some of them can be bent - some cannot.

> Sexism doesn't enter into this at all.

Well, I wasn't really talking about sexism, but just pointing out that
different languages have different rules, and that Anthere shouldn't get too
exercised about an English speaker getting "fran?ais" and "Fran?ais" mixed
up by accident because they forgot the French rule.

> "Frenchman" in one word that
> does have associated difficulties, but attitudes are by no means
> unanimous on this.  The movement for non-sexist language does see it as
> sexist, but others of us would see the "a French person" as bringing
> unnecessary awkwardness to the language.  Those afflicted with political
> correctness often draw the false conclusion that those who do not follow
> their solutions for non-sexist must be speaking in a sexist way.  I
> certainly do not consider the word "frenchman" to be sexist.

You would be fine with calling a woman a Frenchman?

Matt


body:
 "Matt M." <matt_mcl at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>But the situation is so muddled that writing guides simply ask
> writers to be consistent within their own works.. Translating
> "Fran?ais" as "french man" is acceptable, but I would prefer "French
> man" with a capital letter.

Buh? What style guides are you reading? I've read a few (my field is
proofreading and translation) and I have not ever come across one that
suggests that not capitalizing nationalities is acceptable. Names of
nationalities and languages are always capitalized. English capitalization
has got rules. Some of them can be bent - some cannot.

I know some guide exist. I have a Merriam Webster's Guide to Punctuation and Style at home. Had to be bought because of one American who insisted very much on how important punctuation was ! I don't use it anymore.

> Sexism doesn't enter into this at all.

Well, I wasn't really talking about sexism, but just pointing out that
different languages have different rules, and that Anthere shouldn't get too
exercised about an English speaker getting "fran?ais" and "Fran?ais" mixed up by accident because they forgot the French rule.

Please Matt, my comment was a "matter of fact" one. Sorry it was not clear; I *never* intended to imply english should know themselves about our rules. English-speaking have no reason of course to know or to remember them!!

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