subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Control of and responsibility for various
	wikipedia projects

body:
Nikos-Optim wrote:
> I think wikipedia should look the same, have the same
> policies and customs, and the same spirit, no matter
> the language.

In terms of very high level policies, I agree with you.  But there are
lots of little things that are dependent on culture.  Let me give a
couple of examples.

1.  I am told that in some languages, what is known as an encyclopedia
tends to include more 'mere definitions' that in English would
properly belong in a dictionary.  So, if the French wikipedia chooses
to draw the line differently than we do about that sort of thing, I
don't see a problem with that.

2.  It has been reported to me that on the Japanese wikipedia, there
is a stronger tendency to discuss things first on the talk page,
reaching a consensus, and then to update the article page.  That's
consistent with Japanese culture.  In en, of course, there's more of a
custom of boldly updating pages and while simultaneously arguing about
it on the talk pages.  Either custom is valid, if it suits the people
who are doing the work.

--Jimbo


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Angela

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Policy question: Interwiki links on disambiguation
	pages?

body:
Timwi wrote
>Do we want to inter-wiki-link disambiguation pages?

Yes, I think they're useful.

> there may be a disambiguation page for a term which
> is ambiguous only in English and not in other
>languages ([[jack]] comes to mind).

Then there wouldn't be a disambiguation page in
another language to link to, so that wouldn't be an
issue. Only languages which have a disambiguation page
that matches one in another language would have these
inter-language links, so I don't see why [[jack]]
would cause any problems.

Often a disambiguation page does map well to those in
other languages, such as [[Mars]], which has links to
[[Mars (god)]] and [[Mars (planet)]] in English, that
maps to the [[Mars (Mythologie)]] and [[Mars
(Planet)]] on de for example. There will also be links
on the foreign disambiguation pages that aren't
included on en, like fr has [[Mars (mois)]], but that
doesn't mean the English Mars page has to link to
[[March]]. I don't think that's a problem.

What benefit is there to removing them?

Angela.

________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping"
your friends today! Download Messenger Now
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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
The notion of policing Wikipedias in most languages is a nonstarter. Much
will depend on the level of cultural and political development of the
language users. One can anticipate that the Finnish wikipedia will function
well, partly because most Finnish internet users know English partly because
of their cultural and political traditions. Certain other languages will run
into various sorts of difficulties but it is just not practical to monitor
these things intensively except to the extent folks come to the English
lists and to Jimbo with problems. A light touch is appropriate in light of
the plain reality that we will seldom have access to specifics. One must
assume that at least some interpretation of Neutral Point of
View is adopted and used.

Fred

> From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
> Reply-To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 06:49:45 -0800
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Control of and responsibility for various
> wikipedia projects
>
> Nikos-Optim wrote:
>> I think wikipedia should look the same, have the same
>> policies and customs, and the same spirit, no matter
>> the language.
>
> In terms of very high level policies, I agree with you.  But there are
> lots of little things that are dependent on culture.  Let me give a
> couple of examples.
>
> 1.  I am told that in some languages, what is known as an encyclopedia
> tends to include more 'mere definitions' that in English would
> properly belong in a dictionary.  So, if the French wikipedia chooses
> to draw the line differently than we do about that sort of thing, I
> don't see a problem with that.
>
> 2.  It has been reported to me that on the Japanese wikipedia, there
> is a stronger tendency to discuss things first on the talk page,
> reaching a consensus, and then to update the article page.  That's
> consistent with Japanese culture.  In en, of course, there's more of a
> custom of boldly updating pages and while simultaneously arguing about
> it on the talk pages.  Either custom is valid, if it suits the people
> who are doing the work.
>
>
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikimedia on-site documentation

body:
Dan-
> If the documentation used a "Help:" namespace, then none of
> the links would have to be updated, and all an administrator of a new
> site would need to do would be to download the documentation database
> dump and upload it.

Yes, a Help: namespace would probably make sense. Compare:

        Help:Edit conflicts     Wikipedia:Edit conflicts
        Help:Editing            Wikipedia:Editing help
        Help:Sections           Wikipedia:Sections

Besides, our own spin-off projects have the exact same problems as Memory
Alpha when it comes to these help texts.

Offering this for download would be very easy if it contains no self-
references and is nicely isolated. For bonus points, write a script that
automatically fetches and installs the latest version of the help texts
(preserving older versions and warning if they exist).

What to do with "Help talk:"? Should they point to the Meta talk pages?

If everyone agrees, I can set up the Help: namespace on meta, and you
people can try to come up with a site-independent structure and contents
for it. All that needs to be done then is add the Help: namespace to the
default, export it into a tarball regularly, and optionally, provide the
aforementioned import script.

Regarding translations, since Meta is supposed to be multilingual, we'll
just have to set up separate namespaces for each language there, e.g.
Hilfe:, Aide: etc.

As for the policies, this would be the kind of stuff I'd like to see in a
web-based installation script (phpBB like), where you then could just
select some key policies

        [ ] NPOV
        [ ] Naming conventions
        [ ] Fiction

And the script would automatically import these into the $wgSiteName
namespace. Yeah, I'm dreaming, I know.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Server troubles (as always)

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

> Hopefully the disk can be swapped out or something in the next couple
> days... In the meantime, things are offline.

[Please, don't take it personal, but it's time to think different ;) ]

What about buying Linux certified hardware? And running an "stable"
Enterprise Server software on it?

Disclaimer: I'm working for a Linux vendor.

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


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Account balances

body:
As of 16:20 UTC 31 Dec 2003

PayPal breakdown
U.S. Dollar:     $18,574.90 USD
Canadian Dollar: $665.61 CAD
Euro:            ?5,184.23 EUR
Pound Sterling:  ?1,146.15 GBP
Yen:             ?41,283 JPY

PayPal total: US$27,817.00
Checking:  US$3,955.98
Petty cash:  US$200
Grand total:  US$31,972.98

I'll be updating
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising once or
twice a day with new info.

Somebody else will have to update
http://wikimedia.org/letter.html since I do not have
access to that server.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Disambiguation policy

references:
<8+emCHjxpVB@erik_moeller> <3FEF0F0A.8010404@planetunreal.com>
	<E052583B-3984-11D8-AB5A-000A27B3913C@shaysnet.com>

body:
Peter Jaros wrote:

>Tarquin wrote:

>>The purpose of disamb pages is to catch links made to [[Forest]], and
>>only this. Nobody will write "De[[Forest]] Kelley", will they? Nor
>>will they write "Epping [[forest]]", unless they actually want to link
>>to what a forest generally is.

>Not just for links.  They're also to catch lookups when readers use the
>'Go' button.  The page should also include anything a reader might be
>looking for by looking up 'Forest'.  Though this is probably the same
>as what would link to it if we give the readers any credit.  :)

It could reasonably link to [[List of forests]],
but doesn't need to contain such a list itself.
And [[DeForest Kelley]] is just silly. ^_^

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] News from fr:

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote in part:

>For me, the key to the wikipedia volunteer experience is just that --
>it's all volunteer.  Everything that we have accomplished together we
>have accomplished voluntarily, no one has been forced in any way to
>help us.  Government funding is pernicious to volunteer efforts
>primarily because it means that some people -- the taxpayers footing
>the bill -- are being forced to do so.

And corporate funding is also pernicious in its own way,
since the labour force that makes money for the corporation
typically has no say in how that money is spent in philanthropy.
There is less forcing here -- people are forced to get a job,
but they have some choice in which job to get -- than with the state,
but at the same time, the state gives its victims (citizens) more say
in how the coerced money is used -- at least in the US and France.

Yes, these are political opinions.  Since our political opinions are diverse,
it might help to declare that:
1)  You (Jimmy) prefer corporate donations to government;
2)  Some other Wikimedians prefer government donations to corporate;
3)  Wikimedia intends to go with voluntary personal donations entirely,
    and to rely on the efforts of volunteers more than their money.

I think that you already have these plans,
but it people may confuse your personal opinions (#1)
with your plans for the Foundation in general (#3).

-- Toby


from_name: Peter Jaros

subject: [WikiEN-l] Disambiguation policy

body:
On Dec 27, 2003, at 3:24 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:

> The purpose of disambiguation pages is to list articles with the same
> title where I'd otherwise have no idea where to find them. And this is
> made much harder by these chaotic linklists, as the actual information
> that I want gets buried under a heap of "Oh, look, I found another name
> with 'forest' in it" style crap.

I think it's fair to say that if something is *ambiguous* it needs
*disabmiguation*.  Disambiguating the unambiguous is Just Plain Silly.

Peter

---
Funding for this program comes from Borders without Doctors: The
Bookstore Chain That Sounds Like a Charity.
		--Harry Shearer, Le Show


from_name: Alexandre Dulaunoy

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server troubles (as always)

body:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2003, Brion Vibber wrote:

> On top of the problems we've been having with Geoffrin, the new
> database server, the secondary web server (and backup database server,
> and mail server) Pliny has developed some sort of disk problem.
>

Which  kernel  version do  you  use? and  do  you  have some  specific
information of  the error  (from the journal  of the filesystem  ? i/o
error on read() or write() ? ...)?

There is various issue on some specifc disk driver (e.g. some specific
IDE  chipset). Are  you sure  that the  hardware problem  is  really a
hardware problem ?

just my 0.02 EUR,

adulau
--
-- 	  	     Alexandre Dulaunoy (adulau) -- http://www.foo.be/
-- 	   http://pgp.ael.be:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x44E6CBCD
-- 	   "Knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance
-- 				  that we can solve them" Isaac Asimov


from_name: zocky

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Server update

body:
> > Jason's got Ursula back up, and our new machine is also installed. I'm
> > copying files over so it can take over pliny's web work and let Ursula
> > do just the db.
>
> Out of curiosity, why did Ursula go down? If the cause is unknown, could
> there be an issue with our database that might cause such crashes?

If machines keep dying, there could also be weird stuff happening with power
supply.

z.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

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

body:
I think Jimbo mentioned last month that there is a
problem with self-written biographies: other contributors
may be excessively reluctant to 'contradict' the person
who presumably knows himself best. This issue arose
over the Sheldon Rampton article, although it little
or no problem for the William Connelley article.

The other problem is alleged "vanity pages", like Easter
Bradford. We haven't come up with strict criteria on
how famous a person has to be, to merit an article.
Apparently the fame threshold interacts with the "self-
promotion" taboo in an undefined way.

As it stands, an article about a contributor is more
likely to survive if it's written by someone other than
the contributor. The reasoning being, if at least one
other person has heard of you, maybe you're important?

Sorry if this didn't make anything clearer other than
how incomplete the policy is on self-written and obscure
biographies.

Ed Poor


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

body:
On Wed, Dec 31, 2003 at 03:18:28AM +0000, Timwi wrote:
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> >Nikos-Optim wrote:
> >
> >>I think wikipedia should look the same, have the same
> >>policies and customs, and the same spirit, no matter
> >>the language.
> >
> >That sounds like a very effective policy for driving people away.
>
> That sounds like a pretty bold statement without any real back-up ;-)

The Esperanto has uppercase-letters for family-names, only one example.
Asian, Hebrew and Arabic Wikipedias need a different look for the Interface
because they don't write left->right like we do.

> It would certainly not drive *me* away -- quite to the contrary, it
> would encourage me to contribute more on non-English Wikipedias.

I doubt you really have enough time to contribute to more than one or
two WPs.
--
http://www.tomk32.de - just a geek trying to change the world
   -.-       http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
   /|>	           http://tomk32.bookcrossing.com
   / \                 http://tinyurl.com/u6de


subject: [WikiEN-l] Disambiguation policy

body:
DeForest Kelley is not silly. On Star Trek he played the straight man;
Leonard Nimoy, on the other hand, was always silly. That's why it was so
much fun to watch Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock go at it ;-)

Ed Poor


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Dec 31, 2003, at 02:02, Alexandre Dulaunoy wrote:
> Which  kernel  version do  you  use? and  do  you  have some  specific
> information of  the error  (from the journal  of the filesystem  ? i/o
> error on read() or write() ? ...)?
>
> There is various issue on some specifc disk driver (e.g. some specific
> IDE  chipset). Are  you sure  that the  hardware problem  is  really a
> hardware problem ?

Please see wikitech-l for the last few days.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Mirror in Europe

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Jake Nelson wrote:
>
>
>>The thought's crossed my mind a few times as well- they've got very good
>>connectivity, and IIRC, it's about $5k for a colo rack slot, which isn't
>>unreasonable for being outside of national jurisdictions.
>>
>>
>
>It might not be unreasonable if we were doing anything illegal or
>controversial.  But we aren't.  If anything, I'm going to be
>struggling with my own moral reservations about government funding
>rather than worrying about governments shutting us down.  We're just
>the sort of feel-good project that politicians love to take credit
>for.
>
>
Ah! NOW I get why you're against government funding!
I agree with this reason completely!!!!


body:
You'd have thought that our current policy list at "What Wikipedia is
Not" is clear enough on the matter of any old person off the street
adding an article about themselves to Wikipedia: self-published authors,
new prophets, and so on.

But with rising awareness of WP, this will be an increasing problem. See
for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:M.R.M._Parrott

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

Should we write a specific policy page about this, to expand the entry
on WWisNot, in a similar way to what I did recently for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research ?


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] dns voodoo- first results

body:
Hi,

i've googled around a bit about possible 'global load balancer' setups.
A proprietary thing that does this is Cisco DistributedDirector. It's
not cheap- i've seen a price of 19000$. Nice if Cisco donated one...

However, there seems to be a good Open Source alternative at
http://www.supersparrow.org/.

I'm into party preparations, have fun tonight!

Gabriel


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Policy question: Interwiki links on
	disambiguation	pages?

body:
Angela wrote:

>Timwi wrote
>
>>Do we want to inter-wiki-link disambiguation pages?
>>
>
>Yes, I think they're useful.
>
>>there may be a disambiguation page for a term which
>>is ambiguous only in English and not in other
>>languages ([[jack]] comes to mind).
>>
>
>Then there wouldn't be a disambiguation page in
>another language to link to, so that wouldn't be an
>issue. Only languages which have a disambiguation page
>that matches one in another language would have these
>inter-language links, so I don't see why [[jack]]
>would cause any problems.
>
>Often a disambiguation page does map well to those in
>other languages, such as [[Mars]], which has links to
>[[Mars (god)]] and [[Mars (planet)]] in English, that
>maps to the [[Mars (Mythologie)]] and [[Mars
>(Planet)]] on de for example. There will also be links
>on the foreign disambiguation pages that aren't
>included on en, like fr has [[Mars (mois)]], but that
>doesn't mean the English Mars page has to link to
>[[March]]. I don't think that's a problem.
>
>What benefit is there to removing them?
>
When I first saw this thread I was mildly negative to such links, but
the more I consider the issue the more I see them as useful.  this is
especially so for people who may be familiar with more than one language
who may appreciate knowing that the term is used differently in English.
 English concepts are often imported by other languages where they take
can take on an entirely different and frequently unexpected meaning.

Ec


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Dan-
>
>>If the documentation used a "Help:" namespace, then none of
>>the links would have to be updated, and all an administrator of a new
>>site would need to do would be to download the documentation database
>>dump and upload it.
>>
>
>Yes, a Help: namespace would probably make sense. Compare:
>
>        Help:Edit conflicts     Wikipedia:Edit conflicts
>        Help:Editing            Wikipedia:Editing help
>        Help:Sections           Wikipedia:Sections
>
>Besides, our own spin-off projects have the exact same problems as Memory
>Alpha when it comes to these help texts.
>
>Offering this for download would be very easy if it contains no self-
>references and is nicely isolated. For bonus points, write a script that
>automatically fetches and installs the latest version of the help texts
>(preserving older versions and warning if they exist).
>
The Help: namespace seems to be a workable idea, but only for the more
mechanical issues, and not for policy issues.  At Wikisource there has
been a demand for this sort of thing, and it would be helpful to be able
to import a few files from one of the other projects.  For the user it
would be helpful to know that the same query format will achieve the
same result on all the the projects.  Perhaps too just typing "help:"
(with the mandatory colon, at least in Wiktionary) in the search box and
hitting "Go" would give a list of available help files.

>What to do with "Help talk:"? Should they point to the Meta talk pages?
>
No.  I expect that after the initial setup these may evolve differently
in each project.  Each should have its own "Help talk:" page.  Meta
would have the template page, and its talk page should be devoted to
more general issues about the template.

>If everyone agrees, I can set up the Help: namespace on meta, and you
>people can try to come up with a site-independent structure and contents
>for it. All that needs to be done then is add the Help: namespace to the
>default, export it into a tarball regularly, and optionally, provide the
>aforementioned import script.
>
Regular exports after the initial one would be a problem when it is
independently editable in each project.

>Regarding translations, since Meta is supposed to be multilingual, we'll
>just have to set up separate namespaces for each language there, e.g.
>Hilfe:, Aide: etc.
>
Certainly.

>As for the policies, this would be the kind of stuff I'd like to see in a
>web-based installation script (phpBB like), where you then could just
>select some key policies
>
>        [ ] NPOV
>        [ ] Naming conventions
>        [ ] Fiction
>
>And the script would automatically import these into the $wgSiteName
>namespace. Yeah, I'm dreaming, I know.
>
Policies will diverge consderably more than mechanical instructions.
 Even NPOV, where there is a clear understanding that it should apply to
all projects, can have different interpretations.  It tends to be less
of a problem in the non-encyclopedic projects, and instructions should
deal with how it integrates with the vision of particular projects.
 Naming conventions will have even more variations.

Ec


from_name: John & Tammy McElravy

subject: [WikiEN-l] help

body:
Hello,
I put some information on the "Foxtrot Class Submarine" And it left my computer number.

Could you delete it and put in my user name. I would really appreciate it.

Also I put in the info before I read your copyright material. I don't know if it is OK.

Send me a reply to both as soon as possible please.

by the by - nice site!

wringing my hands,

John L. McElravy
E-mail: mcelravy at uwtc.net
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Donation History

body:
As the expenses for Wikipedia have generally before just recently been paid
by Jimbo himself there was no need for accounting. Now it seems we should do
what you suggest as there is a public interest in where the money goes.
Donating is pretty much a new thing at this point for us.

Fred

> From: "Adam Hunt" <adam.r.hunt at gmx.net>
> Reply-To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 23:50:10 +0100 (MET)
> To: wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] Donation History
>
> I don't suppose that there is a history graph of the donations to Wikimedia.
> I was currious
> how much of the US$31k was raised as a result of Jimmy Wales' December 28
> letter and the
> associated Slashdot coverage.  I was also wondering if Wikimedia's
> accounting ledegers are
> open to the public.  If not, why (this isn't a flame, I'm sure that there is
> a good enough
> reason)?
>
> Thanks for the great site.  In my opinion Wikimedia deserves at least
> another US$30k in 2004.
>
> --adam
>
> --
> "Any society that would give up a little liberty to
> gain a little security deserved neither and
> will lose both." --Benjamin Franklin
>
>
> "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of
> human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it
> is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> +++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++
> Neu: Preissenkung f?r MMS und FreeMMS! http://www.gmx.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] DNS Voodoo / load balancing- some google results

body:
I did some googling tonight and found some more information about ways to
do some magic distributed caching.

An example for a proprietary product doing this is Cisco
DistributedDirector (19000$). Anybody?

Ok, so here is the open source alternative:
* Super Sparrow http://www.supersparrow.org/
Open Source, linux, and tested. It's running for example vergenet, you can
see it in action at http://www.vergenet.net/vergenet/.

In combination with Linux Virtual Server& Heartbeat plus distributed squid
'mirrors' this looks like a nice way for future growth.

IMO this is nothing for the immediate future, but good to keep in mind and
start playing with. Maybe it would also be possible to ask Horms (Simon
Horman, http://www.vergenet.net/~horms/) for advice, he definetely is an
expert in this field.

Have a nice new year!

Gabriel Wicke


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Account balances

body:
On Wed, Dec 31, 2003 at 09:49:00AM -0800, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> As of 16:20 UTC 31 Dec 2003
>
> PayPal breakdown
> U.S. Dollar:     $18,574.90 USD
> Canadian Dollar: $665.61 CAD
> Euro:            ?5,184.23 EUR
> Pound Sterling:  ?1,146.15 GBP
> Yen:             ?41,283 JPY

5k from Europe. That's excellent, although there was only a News-item
at German Heise.de

Yne is about .01 Euro, so only 400 from there. But still good enough after
ja: has grown strong only within the last half year. I fear they will take
over rank #2 this year ;-)

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
Adam Hunt wrote on Wikitech-l:
>I don't suppose that there is a history graph of
>the donations to Wikimedia.

I was thinking about creating something like that with
Gnumeric (maybe I'll try OpenOffice Calc...). The
trouble is with finding tabular data that do not have
personal information in them (such as names).

But I'll explore around PayPal to see what options
they have. Ah, I just figured it out; there is a
'Download account history to comma-delimited text'
function. That makes it very easy to delete
unpublishable columns. But that leaves the issue of
different currencies which makes graphing grand totals
a bit more complicated... Argh! :)

>I was currious how much of the US$31k was raised
>as a result of Jimmy Wales' December 28 letter and
>the associated Slashdot coverage.

Well when he wrote the letter we had US$4,200 total
(bank account + PayPal; not sure if the petty cash was
included in that figure). You do the math. :) Oh and
from the 28th to the 31st there were 1483 PayPal
donations. Most of which were less that US$20 or the
equivalent but there were a few large donations. There
were only 3 donations between the 24th and the 27th.
But our servers were having a great deal of trouble at
that point and I'm not sure if Jimbo transferred any
money to the foundation's bank account during that
time (I don't think he did).

>I was also wondering if Wikimedia's accounting
>ledegers are open to the public.

Not really right now. We still have to figure out what
is legal to show given our set-up. But account totals
should be fine (charities very often publicize totals
during donation drives). And of course any
expenditures need to be logged and deducted from the
totals (as well as transfers - I plan to track all of
that and make it public on the foundation's website).
All that requires time to set-up though. Hopefully
I'll have something substantial to show in late
January.

BTW, I've been updating the totals at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising

>If not, why (this isn't a flame, I'm sure that there
>is a good enough reason)?

I just got access to the foundation's PayPal account
on New Year's Eve and don't yet have a way to view the
bank account statements. And Jimbo simply isn't
superman. :) That's why I volunteered to help with
this type of stuff.

>Thanks for the great site.  In my opinion Wikimedia
>deserves at least another US$30k in 2004.

I'm sure that the foundation will receive much more
than that. I plan to start figuring out the dos and
don't of grant writing later in January. This may be
an area where it would make sense to hire a
professional grant writer but I still want to do some
research on the subject anyway. At the very least it
will inform us better about what we should tell the
grant writer.

However I am confident that a majority of the money we
get through donations will be from individual donors,
not charitable foundations. All the better as far as I
am concerned (foundation money often comes with at
least implied strings attached to do certain things).

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree


subject:
[Wikitech-l] January 1 backup dump online (and old Tomeraider
	copies)

body:
Enjoy! http://download.wikimedia.org/

Since Geoffrin is still out of service, Ursula is serving this up from
.204.

The December update to the Tomeraider archives isn't online yet. I'll
see if I kept a local copy; if not I'll either have to get them from
Erik again or wait until Geoffrin is back up.

Happy new year, eveybody... and let's not forget that Wikipedia turns 3
on January 15! The terrible twos are coming to an end. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Donation History

body:
Adam Hunt wrote:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-December/007581.html

Response at:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-January/013579.html

Please respond there. This topic is not appropriate
for the tech list.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree


subject: [Wikitech-l] Mailing list archives

body:
Does anyone know offhand how easy/difficult it would be to import stuff
sent through the backup MX into the mailing list archives on the main
server?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Single-sign-on

body:
On Wednesday 31 December 2003 09:38 pm, Timwi wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > I think we should do this ASAP, because the issues are only going
> > to get harder.  But the main issue, Timwi, is social -- there are
> > certainly cases where two different people have the same username
> > but in different languages.
>
> I have already suggested a solution for this some time ago. I'll repeat
> it here because I feel like it ;-)
>
> The basic idea is to mark all accounts as "old" (and make them
> unloginnable), and require everybody to create a new account. Then allow
> users to merge their old contribution-lists into this new account
> provided they know the password to the old account.
>
> So, for example, I would then create a "new" account named "Timwi" and
> then merge "old:en:Timwi", "old:de:Timwi", "old:fr:Timwi", etc. into it.

Umm, this sounds like an incredibly bad idea:

1. Hassle
2. Account stealing: This would be a feast day for any trolls or malcontents
(and wikipedia seems to have quite a few of those)
3. Solution in search of a problem

The only problem with the merge is the collision of accounts (eg. there exists
a [[de:Jan]] and [[en:Jan]], but they are not the same person). Your proposal
does not solve this, but would need to solve it in the same way as the simple
merge would: In the rare cases that this happens, people need to discuss and
come to an amicable sollution. (I would suggest that whoever registered that
account name first should have priority.)

Best,
Sascha Noyes

--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: Adam Hunt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Donation History

body:
I don't suppose that there is a history graph of the donations to Wikimedia.
 I was currious
how much of the US$31k was raised as a result of Jimmy Wales' December 28
letter and the
associated Slashdot coverage.  I was also wondering if Wikimedia's
accounting ledegers are
open to the public.  If not, why (this isn't a flame, I'm sure that there is
a good enough
reason)?

Thanks for the great site.  In my opinion Wikimedia deserves at least
another US$30k in 2004.

--adam

--
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to
gain a little security deserved neither and
will lose both." --Benjamin Franklin

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of
human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it
is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt

--

+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++
Neu: Preissenkung f?r MMS und FreeMMS! http://www.gmx.net


subject: [Wikitech-l] Donation History


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Single-sign-on

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I think we should do this ASAP, because the issues are only going
> to get harder.  But the main issue, Timwi, is social -- there are
> certainly cases where two different people have the same username
> but in different languages.

I have already suggested a solution for this some time ago. I'll repeat
it here because I feel like it ;-)

The basic idea is to mark all accounts as "old" (and make them
unloginnable), and require everybody to create a new account. Then allow
users to merge their old contribution-lists into this new account
provided they know the password to the old account.

So, for example, I would then create a "new" account named "Timwi" and
then merge "old:en:Timwi", "old:de:Timwi", "old:fr:Timwi", etc. into it.

Timwi


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] Server update

body:
I think it was my fault that Ursula went down... The time she went
down seems to correspond roughly with the time I arrived at the colo.
The last time I was in the colo, I hadmy laptop configured to use what
is now Ursula's IP address.  So, when I plugged my laptopin, it must
have freaked Ursula out even after I changed the IP address on the
laptop.  Sorry for the trouble.

Jason

Erik Moeller wrote:

> Brion-
> > Jason's got Ursula back up, and our new machine is also installed. I'm
> > copying files over so it can take over pliny's web work and let Ursula
> > do just the db.
>
> Out of curiosity, why did Ursula go down? If the cause is unknown, could
> there be an issue with our database that might cause such crashes?
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I think this point of view problem is of the essence for Wikipedia. By
definition what you write about yourself is simply not NPOV. And if there is
any serious criticisms to be made (actually unusual for ordinary people) the
trouble starts.

I think Wikipedia is just not set up to deal with this and most people would
not want it to be.

Fred

> From: Sheldon Rampton <sheldon.rampton at verizon.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 12:18:13 -0600
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Clearer policy on self-written and obscure biographies
>
> (3) Perhaps the best argument against self-written biographies is
> that we all have a strong point of view about ourselves. There might
> be a problem with someone inserting a passionately slanted biography
> about himself and then adamantly defending it against all contrary
> points of view. However, I don't see any evidence that this is a
> worse problem than other POV conflicts that occur on Wikipedia, and
> in practice thus far it seems to be rare.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] ads vs. sponsored bandwidth/hardware?

body:
Delirium wrote:
>Just an idea to see what people's views on it would be:
>I know many people are opposed to ads on Wikipedia,
>but would those of you opposed to ads in general be
>more receptive to sponsored bandwidth and/or hardware?
>For example, a box somewhere that says "bandwidth kindly
>donated by [donating company]".  Yeah, it's an ad of sorts,
>but it's a little more neutral and matter-of-fact than most ads:
>it's simply informing people that the bandwidth of the site
>they're viewing is being provided free of charge by someone.
>More like the "powered by Apache" logos at the bottom of
>some sites than like a typical ad, I think.

I don't have a problem with that, but then again I don't have a problem with
Google Adsense ads. But it would probably be best to have a "Sponsors" link
next to the "Donations" link in MediaWiki's sidebars (compact like so maybe;
[Donations]/[Sponsors]). [Sponsors] would list all the major hardware and
grant sponsors.

We could also list individuals (with their permission) who have contributed
certain amounts of cash that fall into several different categories. I've
seen many charities do this. However there is currently no easy way for
donors to indicate permission for us to list their names....

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-January/013581.html

Thank you for the neat ideas. I've saved a link to your email for future
reference and may be asking for specifics later. ;)

-- mav


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

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

body:
Ed Poor wrote:

>I think Jimbo mentioned last month that there is a
>problem with self-written biographies: other contributors
>may be excessively reluctant to 'contradict' the person
>who presumably knows himself best. This issue arose
>over the Sheldon Rampton article, although it little
>or no problem for the William Connelley article.

Jimbo expressed his opinion that this might be a problem, but he
didn't offer any evidence to support his opinion, and he didn't
propose any policy for dealing with it. Jimbo's theory was that
people might be reluctant to contradict an article about me to which
I have contributed, but his _reasons_ for thinking this were
inconsistent:

(1) Jimbo thought  people might not want to risk clashing with me,
based perhaps on a perception that I have been combative on this
listserv. There are several reasons, however, why this assertion
doesn't hold up under scrutiny. To begin with, most Wikipedians don't
subscribe to the listserv. Furthermore, there is no particular reason
to expect that most Wikipedians consult an article's history before
editing it, so many people wouldn't even _know_ whether I have edited
the Sheldon Rampton article before undertaking their own edits. In
fact, seven different people have made edits to the Sheldon Rampton
article since I first contributed to it.

(2) The other issue, which Ed raises here, is whether other
contributors would be "excessively reluctant to contradict the person
who presumably knows himself best." This is indeed a bit of a
dilemma, but the problem isn't in way unique to articles that happen
to be self-referential. The same question would arise if someone with
a PhD in biochemistry contributed to an article about serotonin, or a
musicologist contributed to an article about Mozart. The fact is that
people without special knowledge about a topic _should_ be somewhat
careful about contradicting someone with special knowledge -- which
of course doesn't mean that they should refrain entirely, just that
they should be careful. But does Wikipedia want to adopt a _general_
policy that says people should make a special effort to avoid
contributing to topics on which they have special knowledge, for fear
of inhibiting lay contributors? That would be bizarre, and I think it
would be equally bizarre to adopt that policy with regard to
biographical articles.

(3) Perhaps the best argument against self-written biographies is
that we all have a strong point of view about ourselves. There might
be a problem with someone inserting a passionately slanted biography
about himself and then adamantly defending it against all contrary
points of view. However, I don't see any evidence that this is a
worse problem than other POV conflicts that occur on Wikipedia, and
in practice thus far it seems to be rare.

Interestingly, the concerns expressed in points (1) and (2) above
could be entirely eliminated simply by adopting a policy that says
people should contribute _anonymously_ whenever they contribute to a
biography of themselves. If I had adopted some user name other than
"Sheldon Rampton" when I contributed to the Sheldon Rampton article,
no one would worry about clashing with me or about the presumption
that I "know myself best." This, however, would come at the price of
less transparency, and as a general rule I think transparency is a
good thing.

As another interesting aside, the Disinfopedia recently had an
exchange with Philip Stott, a British professor who is profiled
there. Stott himself made a number of contributions to the Philip
Stott article, and I think his participation improved it. Moreover, I
saw no evidence that people who disagree with Stott's self-assessment
were at all reluctant to contradict him. If people want to see how
that article has developed to date, they can read it at the following
URL:

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Philip_Stott

Having said all this, I think there _is_ a potential problem with
"vanity biographies," but this is really just a special case under
Wikipedia's NPOV policy. It might be a good idea to have a policy
against people _creating_ biographies of themselves, even though this
would be impossible in practice to enforce.
--
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
--------------------------------


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Donation History

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

Hm. Nicely said. OK, that and the fact that we were able to raise well over
US$20,000 in two days convinces me that ads simply are not worth the bother
for the foreseeable future. But just as we might have to one day limit edits
to logged-in contributors we may one day have to accept some form of
non-obtrusive advertisements. However, we should continue to find clever ways
to avoid both of those evils.

One could also argue that if our community of readers don't care enough about
Wikipedia and her sister projects to pay the bills, then our products aren't
worth supporting and further development on those products should die-off.

I'm confident that that will never happen since as we get more popular there
will be more donors and as time goes by our products get better.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Agon S. Buchholz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Single-sign-on

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:

> The only problem with the merge is the collision of accounts (eg.
> there exists a [[de:Jan]] and [[en:Jan]], but they are not the same
> person). Your proposal does not solve this, but would need to solve
> it in the same way as the simple merge would: In the rare cases that
> this happens, people need to discuss and come to an amicable
> sollution. (I would suggest that whoever registered that account name
> first should have priority.)

Since the en:Wikipedia is longer with us, fist-come-first-serve would
favor Accounts from en, possibly causing some unhappyness, but it's the
most straightforward solution. Ambiguous accounts could be simply
numbered (jan1, jan2). Very nice would be a feature to rename the (own)
account resp. the ability for admins to do this.

In any case the editing history and the signatures on talk pages etc.
have to be synchronized with these changes; this could be either done by
a bot, but it would be non trivial (when is the account on which
Wikimedia site being changed, when does the bot start renaming, when
does it finish, when can the account be used again) and cause much load,
if many accounts have to be merged, or (probably preferred) by direct
database manipulations when the database is read-only until all changes
are completed and the integrity is verified somehow. Or is there a
simpler way?

Regards,
-asb


from_name: Nicolas Weeger

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Single-sign-on

body:
What about keeping accounts as they are, but letting users define links between
them?

For instance, EnUser on en: declares his user matches DeUser on de:, does the
reverse. And automatically when s/he logins on either of the sites, login occurs
on the other sites. Because the system knows that EnUser on en: <=> DeUser on
de: (obviously you need both declarations for the match to occur).

Ok that would still let users with different accounts on different wikipedias.
But you could retrive interwiki modifications from the user, using linked
information.
And it would let users keep their current accounts, so no friction.

OTOH, it means 'User' on en: is not necessarily the same as 'User' on de:.

Just my 2 cents of ?

Nicolas


from_name: Schneelocke

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
Hi mav,

[...]
> But I'll explore around PayPal to see what options
> they have. Ah, I just figured it out; there is a
> 'Download account history to comma-delimited text'
> function. That makes it very easy to delete
> unpublishable columns. But that leaves the issue of
> different currencies which makes graphing grand totals
> a bit more complicated... Argh! :)

Why not just create a chart with several graphs for the different
currencies? A "grand total" chart may be more marketable, but this would
certainly be more accurate and informative.

--
 1:07PM  up 44 days, 16:07, 2 users, load averages: 0.22, 0.22, 0.17

Every non-empty totally disconnected perfect compact metric space is
homeomorphic to the Cantor set.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Single-sign-on

body:
Timwi wrote:

> Sascha Noyes wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday 31 December 2003 09:38 pm, Timwi wrote:
>>
>>> The basic idea is to mark all accounts as "old" (and make them
>>> unloginnable), and require everybody to create a new account. Then
>>> allow
>>> users to merge their old contribution-lists into this new account
>>> provided they know the password to the old account.
>>>
>>> So, for example, I would then create a "new" account named "Timwi" and
>>> then merge "old:en:Timwi", "old:de:Timwi", "old:fr:Timwi", etc. into
>>> it.
>>
>> Umm, this sounds like an incredibly bad idea:
>>
>> 1. Hassle
>
Any conversion process will involve some degree of hassle, but by the
same token it is a one time hassle.  Only nothing about it will make
sure that it is a recurring hassle.  I have no idea how big the account
conflict problem really is.  Once we move unconflicted accounts, users
with equivalent multiple accounts (i.e. same name and password), and new
users into the new database , how much will be leftover?

>> 2. Account stealing: This would be a feast day for any trolls or
>> malcontents (and wikipedia seems to have quite a few of those)
>
> You're forgetting that this would require actually hacking into an
> account (i.e. cracking the password). Seeing as this is already
> possible, and no easier or more difficult, I believe this concern of
> yours is invalid.

This problem is possible but improbable.  We are dealing with a
transitional issue where the vulnerability will not be long-lived.
 Problem accounts will retain their problem status.  Problem title
accounts will be transferred just like anything else.  During the
transition concerned Wikipedians can be on the lookout for unusual activity.

>> The only problem with the merge is the collision of accounts (eg.
>> there exists a [[de:Jan]] and [[en:Jan]], but they are not the same
>> person). Your proposal does not solve this,
>
> It does solve it. Perhaps you haven't quite understood my suggestion.
>
> Maybe what you're thinking of is that these two people cannot both
> continue to use the name "Jan". But that's normal. It would be the
> same way if we had had single sign-on all the way through. Whoever
> comes first on that "day of the switch" will get the username Jan, and
> the next person will just have to pick another name.

OK,  but I would not favour the name going to the one that was longest
established.  If one of the Jans joined more than a year ago then
disappeared after contributing for one week, he should not have priority
over the more recent Jan who may have become a steady contributor.

I also think that there should be an association segment to each user
file.  Each user will by default have an association with the wiki where
he first registered, and each entry  transferred from the old system
will retain its association with each wiki where the owner is also
registered (perhaps even retaining the registration number).  If, as a
registered user, I visit another project where I am not associated, I
would be told, "If you want to be associated with this Wiki, please
press here."  I would then be assigned an association number with that
project.   This could also be useful if anyone wanted to have a list of
all who are interested in a particular project, particularly a small
one.  A similar system could be used for accreditations as sysops or
developers.

Ec

>


from_name: Nick Hill

subject: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

body:
I throught I would throw some ideas of configurations for new wikipedia
systems:

Assuming we have a fast and reliable infrastructure for wikipedia to
operate on, I would hope and expect many more people to benefit from the
gret project. The new hardware configuration needs to have redundancy
built in and reliability.

The DNS system is, by nature, distributed and designed to have many
systems adding redundancy to the resolution service.

A single ip address will always be a single point of failure as the
routers leading up to the physical ip destination will take some time to
propogate a new physical destination for the ip address.

It therefore makes sense to have redundancy switching at the DNS level
and having systems located at different network locations offering
equivalent service.

This brings issues of updates and authentication into the question. The
slave machine cannot authenticate or take database updates. A mechanism
is needed to automatically nominate a machine as master or slave. The
DNS system and each machine would respond to this.

Each wiki server, when booted, will, by default, be a slave. Each wiki
server will periodically request master status from the arbitration
server. The arbitration server can have an algorithm thus:

a)Each wiki server requests master status every 5 minutes.
b)The arbitration/master DNS server checks whether the wiki server
making the request was the last server to have the request granted. If
it is, the request is granted again.
c)If the server making the request is other than the wiki server who had
the request granted last, then if the last grant was >10 minutes ago,
the request is granted. Otherwise, the request is denied.
d) If the master wiki server makes a request and does not receive a
grant, it demotes itself to slave. (Including if it receives no answer
at all)

A specific host name is used for all updates. The 'master hostname'.
After each grant, the ip address of the master hostname is compared with
the ip address of the machine which just received a grant. If it
differs, the ip address of the master hostname is changed. This change
is pushed to the slave DNS servers using ordinary BIND8 protocol. The
DNS TTL for the domain name of the master wiki server would be set to
300 seconds. If a master went down for any reason, everyone should see
the alternative master within 20 minutes.

If the arbitration server failed, all wikis would remain available for
read access.

Redundancy switching:
Exactly the same system can take care of system redundancy. The master
server takes each request for master as an indication that the wiki
server is ready to handle queries.
To complement a master hostname is a 'slave hostname'. The slave
hostname resolves to the ip address of any machine which is ready to
handle a query. The DNS server may have multiple IP address entries for
the slave hostname. The query load will be spread evenly between all
machines whose ip address is registered against the slave hostname using
round-robin.

If a machine fails to request master status for 10 minutes, it's ip
address entry is de-registered from the slave hostname, all DNS servers
are updated using normal BIND protocol. If a machine goes off-line,
after 15 minutes, no more requests should be sent to it until it is
working again.

This system provides a totally automatic redundancy switching, master
arbitration and master/slave database selection.

--
Server requirements for fine grained databases:
The database containining the text of each article is fine grained. Each
article text being a few K in size. The cost of putting this in memory
would be small. The benefits of avoiding hard disk head movements large.

Hard drive head movements are expensive; both in terms of I/O time (and
therefore server performace) and mechanical wear and tear/ reliability.
As the number of articles increases, the number of seeks across a disk
surface increases. By copying the fine-grained database to ramdisk when
the machine boots, and using the ramdisk image for all queries, much
load is removed from the hard drive. System performance should improve
(at least when first powered on) by an order of magnitude. The ramdisk
database must be replicated to another database located on the physical
hard disk 1) So that when the machine boots, a database image is
available to load into ramdisk and 2) In order to keep a more solid copy
than the ephemeral ramdisk image.

Dual 64 bit Opteron mainboards are available with 8 DIMM sockets capable
of taing 16Gb. eg:
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8w_spec.html

If the system will be using >4Gb memory, moving to 64bit is a good idea.
4Gb is an addressable limit for 32 bit.
Mainboard $432:
http://shopper.cnet.com/Tyan_Thunder_K8W_S2885ANRF___mainboard___extended_ATX___AMD_8111___AMD_8131/4014-3049_9-30535109.html?tag=pl&q=thunder+k8w

Memory throughput is probably more important than CPU Mhz.
2xAMD Opteron 240 @$220 each =$440

8x1Gb Registered ECC $300 each
http://www.crucial.com/store/listModule.asp?module=DDR+PC2700&cat=RAM&package=allModules

Mainboard and CPU solution:
8Gb Dual 64 bit Opteron hypertransport with 8Gb ram:
US$3272
Eric card:
http://us.daxten.com/overview.cfm?prodID=37
$715
plus ancilliaries (good PSU, two HDDs CD rom with Knoppix left in for
remote system repair via Eric. Total around $4500.
Two of these to provide redundancy comes to around $9000.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>But that leaves the issue of
>different currencies which makes graphing grand totals
>a bit more complicated... Argh! :)
>
In the report you could show three columns for each currency: 1) total
in that currency, 2) current exchange rate, and 3) US$ equivalent

>>I was also wondering if Wikimedia's accounting
>>ledegers are open to the public.
>>
>Not really right now. We still have to figure out what
>is legal to show given our set-up. But account totals
>should be fine (charities very often publicize totals
>during donation drives). And of course any
>expenditures need to be logged and deducted from the
>totals (as well as transfers - I plan to track all of
>that and make it public on the foundation's website).
>All that requires time to set-up though. Hopefully
>I'll have something substantial to show in late
>January.
>
This should be easy. :-)   Set up a table with a column for "Date",
"Description" and each account.

On that you could show:
    1) Daily total donations with relevant amounts in the appropriate
columns in that currency,
    2) Expenditures as negative amounts from the account used for
payment, and
    3) Transfers as negatives in the source account, and currency
equivalent positives in the target account.

Column totals can be done after each entry, or (to look less cluttered)
periodically as required.  This will give a quickly set up overview that
can be easily understood by readers.  Other accounting features can be
developed later to cope with reporting and other legal demands.

>I plan to start figuring out the dos and
>don't of grant writing later in January. This may be
>an area where it would make sense to hire a
>professional grant writer but I still want to do some
>research on the subject anyway. At the very least it
>will inform us better about what we should tell the
>grant writer.
>
I think that it is much too early to think of a professional grant
writer, or even if we will take that route at all.  If it gets to the
point where seeking grants is the way to go we should begin by looking
to see if we already have those skills available.  We should also
examine possible grant application forms to see if they are so
complicated that we can't do them ourselves, and if making such
applications will need any kind of structural madifications to the
orgsanization.  Financial statements are often required, but we should
be developing those anyway.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autobiograpies

body:
May I suggest you are all being too hard on folks. Here's a suggested rule
of thumb: If someone generates 100 or more google hits and their
autobiography is reasonably brief then let it go, especially if they are a
regular wikipedia contributor. I think you are needlessly hassling folks.

Fred


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Single-sign-on

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:
> On Wednesday 31 December 2003 09:38 pm, Timwi wrote:
>
>>The basic idea is to mark all accounts as "old" (and make them
>>unloginnable), and require everybody to create a new account. Then allow
>>users to merge their old contribution-lists into this new account
>>provided they know the password to the old account.
>>
>>So, for example, I would then create a "new" account named "Timwi" and
>>then merge "old:en:Timwi", "old:de:Timwi", "old:fr:Timwi", etc. into it.
>
> Umm, this sounds like an incredibly bad idea:
>
> 1. Hassle

It takes no more than a few minutes for everybody. I don't see a major
hassle in this, considering the advantages it brings.

> 2. Account stealing: This would be a feast day for any trolls or malcontents
> (and wikipedia seems to have quite a few of those)

You're forgetting that this would require actually hacking into an
account (i.e. cracking the password). Seeing as this is already
possible, and no easier or more difficult, I believe this concern of
yours is invalid.

> 3. Solution in search of a problem

Pardon?

> The only problem with the merge is the collision of accounts (eg. there exists
> a [[de:Jan]] and [[en:Jan]], but they are not the same person). Your proposal
> does not solve this,

It does solve it. Perhaps you haven't quite understood my suggestion.

Maybe what you're thinking of is that these two people cannot both
continue to use the name "Jan". But that's normal. It would be the same
way if we had had single sign-on all the way through. Whoever comes
first on that "day of the switch" will get the username Jan, and the
next person will just have to pick another name.

Greetings,
Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

body:
Nick Hill wrote:

> A specific host name is used for all updates.

For example, updates.wikipedia.org would receive form data from any
update. Which physical server/ ip address this goes to depends upon the
result of the negotiation system I previously described.
>The 'master hostname'.
> After each grant, the ip address of the master hostname is compared with
> the ip address of the machine which just received a grant.

To put it clearer, if a different machine has just been granted master
status, the ip address which updates.wikipedia.org resolves to will
change to the ip address of the machine which just been granted master
status. Bind reloads and the change is pushed to the secondary DNS servers.

> If it
> differs, the ip address of the master hostname is changed. This change
> is pushed to the slave DNS servers using ordinary BIND8 protocol. The
> DNS TTL for the domain name of the master wiki server would be set to
> 300 seconds. If a master went down for any reason, everyone should see
> the alternative master within 20 minutes.

Each wiki server has a cron job running which periodically runs a shell
script. This shell script first checks the web server and database are
running as expected by performing an http get command and comparing the
result of the get with the expected result. If they match, the database
and web server are considered working. If this fails, the script exits.
If the script keeps exiting, the arbitration server will never receive
notification the machine works. The arbitration server will remove the
IP address of the failing wiki server from the DNS record.

If the http get is successful, the shell script goes on to invokes SSH
to connect to the arbitration server and run a script on the arbitration
server. The return status of the script on the arbitration server is
communicated as the return value of the ssh command to the script
running as a cron job on the wiki server. This return value tells the
wiki server whether it has been granted master status.

The script running on the remote machine updates the hosts file for the
DNS server according to the algorithms previously described.

All this can be achieved using cron, shell scripting, perhaps a little
PERL for editing the hosts file on the arbitration server (although this
can be done in shell also) and SSH with public/private keys for
communication between the machines.

>
> If the arbitration server failed, all wikis would remain available for
> read access only.

The arbitration server is the same as the master DNS server. The
secondary DNS servers should be running a recent version of Bind and
configured to accept push updates from the master.

Whenever a machine tries to obtain master ststus and fails, the ip
address of the current master server is compared to the current master
MySQL server ip address. If it differs, the config file is autmatically
updated and mysql reloaded.


subject: [WikiEN-l] auto-biography

body:
Robert Graham Merkel wrote:

>>Should we write a specific policy page about this, to expand the entry
>>on WWisNot, in a similar way to what I did recently for
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research ?
>>
>
>We had this debate some time ago, at [[Wikipedia:Auto-biography]].
>At the time I left it, it imposed a blanket ban on starting articles
>about oneself.  Some people wanted a broader imposition.  Others like
>Cunc objected to it (primarily on the basis that rules are bad - a
>sentiment I can understand, but disagree with in this specific case).
>
>Eloquence rewrote this later to tone it down - suggesting merely that
>creating an article on yourself is probably not a good idea, and that
>it is likely to be listed on VfD and that some people strongly
>disapprove of the creation of pages on yourself.
>
>Personally, I still think a blanket ban on creating articles about yourself
>or your own works is a good idea.
>
I am opposed to an outright ban in either of these two areas.  I find it
difficult to deal with those that want to suppress all knowledge that
has nothing to do with their unique visions of just what an encyclopedia is.

There are of course many of these that are really user pages.  Wouldn't
it be simpler if the material were just moved to the relevant user page,
and a notice were left at the page where the autobiography was to say
something like, "The material formerly here was autobiographical
material.  It has been moved to [[User:....]]".  Most will accept this
change.  Those that don't agree may restore the material.  That's OK.
 They then need to understand that it may then be subject to  merciless
editing to an extent that would not happen on a user page.  With enough
merciless editing they may get the point.  Blanket deletions of such
pages only provokes animosities.

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

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

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

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autobiograpies

body:
You don't HAVE to write it...

Fred

> From: tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2004 23:44:09 +0000
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Autobiograpies
>
>
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> May I suggest you are all being too hard on folks. Here's a suggested rule
>> of thumb: If someone generates 100 or more google hits and their
>> autobiography is reasonably brief then let it go, especially if they are a
>> regular wikipedia contributor. I think you are needlessly hassling folks.
>>
>>
> Hey, by that rule, *I* get one! "tarquin unreal" gets 1470 Google hits!
> Wow!!!!!!!!!! And I've done nothing of note except release a tiny
> software add-on three years ago!
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

subject: [Wikitech-l] user rights

body:
Hi,

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

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

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


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

body:
Sheldon Rampton wrote:

>
> Having said all this, I think there _is_ a potential problem with
> "vanity biographies," but this is really just a special case under
> Wikipedia's NPOV policy. It might be a good idea to have a policy
> against people _creating_ biographies of themselves, even though this
> would be impossible in practice to enforce.

I guess we have to distinguish between cases:

Case 1: a person about whom we'd write an article anyway. In this case,
we'd perhaps be wary of NPOV problems. If the person is just adding
information, this should be fine.
Case 2: a person about whom we *wouldn't* write an article. This is the
"vanity biography". It's this I was alluding to.

Anyway, it seems we have a couple of pages on this already
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Probably_not_famous_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Auto-biography

They need a bit of cleaning up though


subject: [Wikitech-l] New system ideas

body:
I have uploaded a diagram in pdf and Openoffice draw illustrating the
redundant system idea.

http://www.nickhill.co.uk/wikipedia-redundant-system.pdf
http://www.nickhill.co.uk/wikipedia-redundant-system.sxd


from_name: Delirium

body:
Just an idea to see what people's views on it would be: I know many
people are opposed to ads on Wikipedia, but would those of you opposed
to ads in general be more receptive to sponsored bandwidth and/or
hardware?  For example, a box somewhere that says "bandwidth kindly
donated by [donating company]".  Yeah, it's an ad of sorts, but it's a
little more neutral and matter-of-fact than most ads: it's simply
informing people that the bandwidth of the site they're viewing is being
provided free of charge by someone.  More like the "powered by Apache"
logos at the bottom of some sites than like a typical ad, I think.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autobiograpies

body:
On Thursday 01 January 2004 05:54 pm, Fred Bauder wrote:
> May I suggest you are all being too hard on folks.

May I suggest that you are being too easy on this person. He added himself to
[[list of ethicists]] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethicists), which
includes the following in the intro paragraph:

"List of ethicists including religious or political figures recognized by
those outside their tradition as having made major contributions to ideas
about ethics, ..."

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autobiograpies

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>May I suggest you are all being too hard on folks. Here's a suggested rule
>of thumb: If someone generates 100 or more google hits and their
>autobiography is reasonably brief then let it go, especially if they are a
>regular wikipedia contributor. I think you are needlessly hassling folks.
>
>
Hey, by that rule, *I* get one! "tarquin unreal" gets 1470 Google hits!
Wow!!!!!!!!!! And I've done nothing of note except release a tiny
software add-on three years ago!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Autobiograpies

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>You don't HAVE to write it...
>
>Fred
>
>
>
>
>
My point was that it's a terrible idea.
This guy MRM Parrott is basically abusing the open nature of Wikipedia
and using it as a platform for self-promotion.


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: DNS Voodoo / load balancing- some google results

body:
Sorry for similar posts- my subscription at the backup wasn't
accepted anymore, so i sent a new message...

Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autobiograpies

body:
Fred-
> May I suggest you are all being too hard on folks. Here's a suggested rule
> of thumb: If someone generates 100 or more google hits and their
> autobiography is reasonably brief then let it go, especially if they are a
> regular wikipedia contributor. I think you are needlessly hassling folks.

Problem is verifiability, and highly idiosyncratic/POV stuff. These
policies are really non-negotiable, and because self-written biographies
are, from my experience, highly likely to be in violation, it's a good
idea to recommend against starting them in the first place. But I see no
problem with people contributing to their biographies -- we should extend
a modicum of trust, but remove irrelevant stuff ("learned swimming at age
3") and ask for documentation on key facts.

I do agree that people have been somewhat unreasonably hassled. I blame
that on a certain contingent of Wikipedians who seem to be OK with every
article as long as it is written in correct English. This makes it
difficult to agree on clear policies, which in turn leads to aggressive,
prolonged disputes.

To be fair, there is another contingent that has very high standards as to
what kind of material should be included, which are often in conflict with
a totally open project like ours. IMHO it would be good for Jimbo to make
some of the criteria for inclusion more definitive. We should always look
at "worst case" scenarios. Do we want a million auto-generated articles
from public records, for example?

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiTella, of sorts

body:
It's past midnight here, so if the following is rubbish, apologies :-)

Suppose we had a few separate MySQL databases for a single language
running on different servers around the world. As far as I can tell, the
only real problem would be edit conflicts; nothing else would have to be
in "real-time". So why not have something like this:
* Someone hits the "Save" button below his new edit
* The server which handles the request/the database informs all other
servers that it is about to change that article
* The other servers return "OK", or "nope" if that article was changed
* If any of the other servers answer "nope", the others are informed
that the article won't be changed, and the local user gets an edit conflict
* If all others answer "OK", the change is commited to the database. The
other servers know that they have an old version of that article and
sync it sooner or later

Summary: By *not* replicating each and every byte in real-time, but
rather exchanging yes/no information, this might be fast enough to keep
the wait upon saving to a minimum. Yes, the details would prove to be
tricky (think page deletions), but think a server on each continent -
the ultimate redundancy! :-)

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

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

Fundraising is perfectly fine. People will just have to get used to it.
We'll do it once a year and cover our operating costs that way. Sure,
Google text-ads aren't too bad, but if we can easily do without them, why
bother? Maybe I can even convince Jimbo to drop his silly "government
money is evil" stance. Our project is so international that it should be
possible to get EU funds.

Nobody should feel compelled to donate, and certainly no contributor. I
didn't donate a single cent and I have a perfectly clean conscience. :-)
This model of voluntary giving will become much more wide-spread. It's
called the [[gift economy]].

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Robert Graham Merkel

subject: [WikiEN-l] auto-biography

body:
>
> Should we write a specific policy page about this, to expand the entry
> on WWisNot, in a similar way to what I did recently for
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research ?

We had this debate some time ago, at [[Wikipedia:Auto-biography]].
At the time I left it, it imposed a blanket ban on starting articles
about oneself.  Some people wanted a broader imposition.  Others like
Cunc objected to it (primarily on the basis that rules are bad - a
sentiment I can understand, but disagree with in this specific case).

Eloquence rewrote this later to tone it down - suggesting merely that
creating an article on yourself is probably not a good idea, and that
it is likely to be listed on VfD and that some people strongly
disapprove of the creation of pages on yourself.

Personally, I still think a blanket ban on creating articles about yourself
or your own works is a good idea.


from_name: Sean Childers

body:
On Thursday, January 1, 2004, at 09:55 PM, Delirium wrote:

> Just an idea to see what people's views on it would be: I know many
> people are opposed to ads on Wikipedia, but would those of you opposed
> to ads in general be more receptive to sponsored bandwidth and/or
> hardware?  For example, a box somewhere that says "bandwidth kindly
> donated by [donating company]".  Yeah, it's an ad of sorts, but it's a
> little more neutral and matter-of-fact than most ads: it's simply
> informing people that the bandwidth of the site they're viewing is
> being provided free of charge by someone.  More like the "powered by
> Apache" logos at the bottom of some sites than like a typical ad, I
> think.
>
> -Mark
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
I've been reading the list for a few days and I've been hanging out in
the irc channel for a while (handles:  seanchil, flamingantichimp).  I
don't know if this makes my opinion worth more or less, but I feel
strongly about this, so I want to let my opinion be known.  I'm sorry
if I'm making enemies here but I hold no grudge against anyone on this
issue, no matter the opinion.

I think a lot of people support this project, at least partly, because
of the ideals it contains.  It's something free, done by the community,
upheld by the community and knowledge-driven.  I think the server
trouble and fundraising emphasizes the second point:  upheld by the
community.

An Ad-free status gives the authors and wikipedia more power.  Maybe
nothing would change within the first week, maybe not within the first
month, maybe not within in the first year, but is that what this
project is about?  We need to be planning for the future, just like we
are in the purchase of the new equipment.  I don't know if the
wikipedia will be around when I'm 40 but this is a project that is
growing and growing, so who knows?

How might selling ads remove power from authors?  Let's say ford
decided to purchase an ad on the wikipedia.  Now they may have vested
interest in making their ford entry more opinionated.  Does anyone
remember the nasty issue of tires and Ford Explorers a few years back
(also; correct me where my facts are wrong, but keep in mind this is
just a random example)?  When an article is created about that recall,
maybe Ford will ask the article to be removed.  Of course, we can say
now that we will promise tell them to buzz off and remove their ads if
they persisted, and I'm sure we probably would.  Still, we might become
depended upon the income, and, honestly, what is one article in
comparison to
a few thousand a month in revenue?

Here's another example: on ESPN there was a show called "Playmakers".
"Playmakers" was design to show the 'real' side of football, it made
some very obvious allusions to the NFL and drew both praise from T.V.
critics and sports fans as well as criticism from the NFL.  The show's
ratings were more then high enough to warrant more seasons.  But ESPN
(and more so, ESPN's parent company, ABC) has a contract with the NFL
to show games.  It is being rumored that there won't be a second season
because the NFL doesn't want it.

I think the best point, though, in favor of not adopting
advertisements, is Why?  If there comes a point in time in which we
need this money, and donations and the community can no longer uphold
us, then we resort to ads.  No sooner.

Thanks for those who read it all; just my two cents.

~seanchilders
Shut down inhuman boot camps for kids:
http://www.petitiononline.com/130662/
(House: iMac DV 400mhz 384 MB (Mac OSX), Titanium Powerbook 800 MHZ
(Mac OS X), Titanium Powerbook 500MHZ (Mac OS 9), IBM PL 300 (Linux:
Redhat 9), Powermac 9500 (Debian), Powermac 6100 (Mac OS 8.5)


from_name: Jaap van Ganswijk

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.chipdir.org/

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings,
Jaap


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
Jaap-
>> People will just have to get used to it.

> It's not new.

True, but it's now more ubiquitous than ever.

> Why not raise much more using advertising and pay the authors
> some?

But which authors do you want to pay? The guy who writes 200 Star Trek
episode summaries? The one who collects bird photos? The one who spends 6
months researching a single subject and then writes a 500 word article
about it? It would end up being unfair one way or the other.

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

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

Oh, but I am a professional writer, and I do write for free in my spare
time. I'm working on a book and simulatenously checking RC to look for
stuff to edit. We've beaten Britannica in terms of quantity in less than 3
years, and we'll beat them in terms of quality as well, without payment if
necessary.

> It's probably less bother than having to raise money through
> charity drives etc.

It's no bother at all. We just need to automate it to some degree, which
is also true for ads.

> I'm against the government subsidizing anything that should
> be able to gain it's own money.

I'm against silly philosophical justifications for not accepting good hard
cash ;-). The money would likely go to some arms manufacturer, or some
poorly conceived EU initiative otherwise. I agree that it's not hard to
raise money. I also think that it's always a good idea to tap additional
sources.

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

I won't rehearse all the arguments that have been posted a billion times.
But if you nag me again, maybe I'll put it into an FAQ somewhere. For
starters, see the K5 discussion:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/12/29/55411/573

> Advertising when applied properly is also additional information.

Sure, but it's also propaganda.

> But why? In heaven's name? Please consider that every euro
> that you would get, will have gone through several layers
> and eacah layer will have taken his part of the loot.

Damn lawyers! Kill them, kill them all!

Oh, you said layer. That's OK then.

> your project will only get
> money as long as it's hip and that can change anytime.

Exactly. So let's get it while we're hot!

> What when the big regular encyclopedia publishers find out
> and send their flock of lobbyists to Brussels?

None of them is as international as we are, none of them is non-profit and
open content. And the only company that we should be worried about is
Microsoft, the others do not have the resources to fight us.

>> This model of voluntary giving will become much more wide-spread. It's
>> called the [[gift economy]].

> Like in shareware, which never really worked on a big scale? ;-)

It didn't? I know shareware authors who've made 100K or more only on the
basis of more or less voluntary donations, and that was before the web and
PayPal. The key are ease of transaction, reputation mechanisms and some
kind of feedback. The Dean campaign just made >$1.5 million in one week.
We can learn a lot from them.

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

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 01:47:00AM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Jaap-
> > It seems that paying for the hardware and bandwidth
> > can be done by the authors, but I don't think it should.
> > The readers should pay for it, either directly or by
> > having to lookat/ignore advertisements.
>
> Fundraising is perfectly fine. People will just have to get used to it.
> We'll do it once a year and cover our operating costs that way. Sure,
> Google text-ads aren't too bad, but if we can easily do without them, why
> bother?

One could test the ads on a inofficial mirror, every money that's not need
to operate the mirror could be given to Wikimedia. That would be a good
and semi-official method.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
At 2004-01-02 01:47, Erik Moeller wrote:
>Jaap-
>> It seems that paying for the hardware and bandwidth
>> can be done by the authors, but I don't think it should.
>> The readers should pay for it, either directly or by
>> having to lookat/ignore advertisements.
>
>Fundraising is perfectly fine.

I have nothing against fundraising amongst individuals.

>People will just have to get used to it.

It's not new.

>We'll do it once a year and cover our operating costs that way.

Why not raise much more using advertising and pay the authors
some?

As I said, I have a site with free information myself and
everyday I have to choose between writing for Wikipedia for
free and anonymously or on my own site 'nonymously' and
getting paid for it.

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

>Sure, Google text-ads aren't too bad, but if we can easily
>do without them, why bother?

It's probably less bother than having to raise money through
charity drives etc.

>Maybe I can even convince Jimbo to drop his silly "government
>money is evil" stance.

I'm against the government subsidizing anything that should
be able to gain it's own money. Wikipedia is clearly something
that should be able to make it's own money. People using a free
encyclopedia should be willing to pay for it by ignoring ad's.

It's not that hard. On TV or radio it's much harder, because
they are broadcast during a certain space in time and there
is nothing other to watch or listen too. When it's just a part
of your screen, you can look at another part.

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

Advertising when applied properly is also additional information.
People or companies find products or services via advertising
that they otherwise might not have found. Some advertisers on
my site (including myself) promote services that a lot of
visitors didn't know existed and that I didn't existed before
I started my site and that now provide most of my income.

(It's providing chips that aren't produced anymore or are
scarce for another reason.)

Even when I answer messages in newsgroups, telling people that
they can ask us to search for scarce chips for them I get
thank-you letters.

You shouldn't let the excess of advertising that's on TV and
radio (especially in the USA) blur your mind about this issue.

There is nothing wrong with a modest use of on-topic,
non-screaming and non-misleading ads. Of course on a serious
site like mine I never allowed too excessive advertising.
(Which is a changing notion of course.)

>Our project is so international that it should be
>possible to get EU funds.

But why? In heaven's name? Please consider that every euro
that you would get, will have gone through several layers
and eacah layer will have taken his part of the loot. First
the tax-collector, then the country, then the EU, then the
civil servants and their third-party adviser friends that
allot the money. Also consider the centimeter thick
applications you'll have to write or rather will have to
have written (and those guys probably don't work on a
no-cure-no-pay basis) and your project will only get
money as long as it's hip and that can change anytime.

What when the big regular encyclopedia publishers find out
and send their flock of lobbyists to Brussels?

>This model of voluntary giving will become much more wide-spread. It's
>called the [[gift economy]].

Like in shareware, which never really worked on a big scale? ;-)

Greetings,
Jaap


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donation History

body:
At 2004-01-02 02:22, Thomas R. Koll wrote:
>On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 01:47:00AM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
>> Jaap-
>> > It seems that paying for the hardware and bandwidth
>> > can be done by the authors, but I don't think it should.
>> > The readers should pay for it, either directly or by
>> > having to lookat/ignore advertisements.
>>
>> Fundraising is perfectly fine. People will just have to get used to it.
>> We'll do it once a year and cover our operating costs that way. Sure,
>> Google text-ads aren't too bad, but if we can easily do without them, why
>> bother?
>
>One could test the ads on a inofficial mirror, every money that's not need
>to operate the mirror could be given to Wikimedia. That would be a good
>and semi-official method.

For the average visitor the difference between an official
and unofficial site is very unclear, because (if I may
transpose the statistics of my own site here) about 50%
of the people come in via search engines and they will
regard whatever of the mirror sites they found first, as
the original site.

My own site is being mirrored about 25 times all over the
world, so I know a lot about what mirroring entails.

Just try advertising using Google Adsense on certain
categories of (perhaps statistically relevant) pages.
If it wasn't so easy to do I'd offer to help... ;-)

Greetings,
Jaap


from_name: zocky

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

body:
Maybe there should be the central server, which would handle the "official"
copy of the database and process page saves, and several mirrors around the
world,  which would display pages and previews, but forward all save
requests to the central server.The central server handles nothing but page
saves and feeding of mirrors (and probably user logins).

The mirrors could be kept in sync by querying the central server for recent
changes (i.e. changes since last synchronization). If the syncing is done
every couple of minutes (or even half an hour for low-usage mirrors), the
mirrors will be completely useful for browsing and editing. The central
server doesn't even have to know what's going on with other servers, (who's
running them, do they work...) since they can't make a wrong save, anyway,
and the encyclopaedia is safe.

What I don't know is whether this can be made completely transparent to the
user.

~~~~  zocky


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Outrageous!

body:
> From: Robert Graham Merkel <rgmerk at mira.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 20:35:32 +1100
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] cranks and deleting
>
> If the Wikipedia had existed back in the 1530's and
> user:Copernicus had added a piece on [[Sun-centred universe theory]] we
> would have been perfectly correct to delete the article after listing on
> VfD and suggest that he first publish his work elsewhere.