references:
<1061734581.3f48c8b51cc06@www2.helsinki.fi>
	<3F48E2C9.5060706@chaos-productions.com>
	<3F48E6C4.709@chaos-productions.com>
	<3F4909D8.80303@chaos-productions.com> <3F4A6F1C.3030005@pobox.com>
	<3F4A7A9B.4080703@chaos-productions.com>

body:
Lightning wrote:
> Hmm I see where you are going, but that looks like it generates one
> e-mail per article, per user, this would generate a huge e-mail load.

Sure, then grab the names & e-mails first and just use user_id to group on.

> Also, since its feeding from cur_id on recent changes this
> would cause the subscription feature to just grab the last change
> correct?

Nope. See below...

> where can i find osme documentation on the RC table. i looked in the
> docs but that particular part is absent in schema.doc

Use the source, luke! :)

Off the top of my head... The fields mostly look like their counterparts
in cur, but some notes:

rc_bot is '1' for edits by a user account with 'bot' in their
user_rights. These edits are by default hidden from recentchanges; this
was done in response to complaints about the Rambot US cities edits last
year.

rc_cur_time... I don't think it's used right now, but I think this was
meant for grouping edits by page. The timestamp of the _current_
revision of the given page.

rc_cur_id is the cur_id of the _page_ edited. This remains for old edits.

rc_last_oldid: points to the old_id of the previous edit. Used for
producing diff URLs.

rc_this_oldid: For still-current revisions, this is 0. When a new edit
is saved, the previous edit is moved from cur into the old table and
gets an old_id assigned to it. Its corresponding entry in recentchanges
is updated so its rc_this_oldid points to that version's old_id.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] paypal

body:
Michael Becker wrote:
> Is paypal charging for transactions, or is it free since wikimedia is a
> non-profit?  If they are taking a cut of donations, I would like to
> suggest we use another service which is made specifically for
> non-profits that doesn't take a cut of donations, and is free of charge.

Do you know of one?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikien-l

from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
At 02:10 PM 8/25/2003, you wrote:
>This might seem a small point now, as we don't have that many
>controversial user nics. But as wiki grows the number of new users and
>usernics will rocket. If two or three people use them and get away with
>it, the likelihood is that more new members will follow, on the basis that
>'if he can call himself 'x', then I will call myself 'y'.'  Sooner or
>later we will face the problem. It makes sense to do it now, with the
>small community, than try to deal with it when there are twice or three
>times as many users, by which time offence may already have been caused to
>some, and potential wikipedians frightened off by the impression given by
>the unfortunate use of badly chosen names.
>
>Any observations?
>
>JT

Sounds like a good enough idea to me. At the very least we'd have a
clear-cut statement of our position on controversial names that we could
point people towards if such direction is warranted.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] my email address archived online

body:
Sure!  I'll remove the address from the mail right now.

Jason

Karl Wick wrote:

> Hey I just noticed that my email address is here on this
> public web page. Is there any way to delete it ? I dont
> want spam !
>
> (Its from a message I sent saying that the WP was down).
>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-July/004657.html
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


body:
This is done.  I modified the message so that it doesn't include the
address.  I also rebuilt the archives.  Everything should work as
normal.  Let me know otherwise.

jason

Karl Wick wrote:

> Hey I just noticed that my email address is here on this
> public web page. Is there any way to delete it ? I dont
> want spam !
>
> (Its from a message I sent saying that the WP was down).
>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-July/004657.html
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Lightning

subject: [Wikitech-l] article primary key

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>
> Well, you kinda hafta use the text when all you've _got_ is the text
> that's given to you in a link. :) cur_id is used in various places for
> intertable joins already (for instance in the links, brokenlinks and
> searchindex tables).

I am more thinking of other internal operations, not just page views.
Specifically I am thinking of watch lists, and history views, although
in the future it could become useful to be able to identify a specific
article (not revision) by a specific primary key. However, I do
understand that the databse load that adding a new column into the cur
and old tables would cause is very much not welcome at the moment. I do
think that we should file this into a "TODO at some point" list.

The conversion itself would be quite simple, and could be done over time
without disturbing the database.  Not to mention that, like you said,
eventually combining cur and old would simply the code at various points.

> The win of separating it would largely be from being able to combine
> cur and old _revision_ data into a single table, which would save some
> trickery on page save / rename / load / diff / contribs /
> recentchanges where we have to deal with two
> almost-identically-functioning tables.
>
> I don't know what it is so I don't have any comments...

Look in message : "[Wikitech-l] Subscribe to article feature (code
included)" from yesterday. It is basically a sort of e-mail watch list.
except it lists a summary of ALL changed to articles one is subscribed
to over the last 24 hours, not just showing the latest change. If no
changes are made, no e-mail is sent. I know its similar to the watch
list, but the watch list has the problem that one must look at the
article history to see the changes that might have been made in between
the last change and the last time you looked at your watch list.  The
script is fairly simple and shouldnt cause too much of a load since it
uses no GROUPing JOINS or anything else like that, just (very) simple
selects. Of course now that you point out to me the lack of a priamry
key for an article (as opposed to revision) It would make the
implementation a bit more complicated, and less efficient.  The best way
to understand it is probably by reading the code.

Lightning


body:
Jason Richey wrote:
> This is done.  I modified the message so that it doesn't include the
> address.  I also rebuilt the archives.  Everything should work as
> normal.  Let me know otherwise.

Lovely. I was about to e-mail you to complain that the archives were
missing, but that was temporary. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Merritt L. Perkins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
What language should be used in the Encyclopedia? The English language
used in the UK and other parts of the world differs from that used in
North America. Translating an encyclopedia into another language is an
overwhelming project. It should be done by someone who translates it into
his native language. One approach might be to follow each paragraph in
English by the paragraph translated into the other language. This could
be tried out gradually, adding more and more of an article and then
starting on a few other articles
I have had correspondence in English with more than 50 people all over
the world. Some of them were fluent in two or three other languages. In
one place on the island of Borneo there are no roads so people travel by
boat on crocodile infested rivers. In Malawi one family sleeps standing
up when it rains because the roof leaks.
In poor countries some families could not afford to operate a computer
even though it was given to them. Their diets are poor, they have no
shoes, and sanitation is bad. They might be able to use computers in
schools and libraries.
Schools or libraries would need to have several computers that can
connect to the Internet so that each user would have time enough to use
one
It takes too long to read a long Encyclopedia entry while connected to
the Internet so there should be a way to copy it so that it can be read
later.
It seems like a great idea to record the encyclopedia on a CD but by the
time we can make a copy (an hour) it would be out of date. When a
prominent person dies his article needs to be changed, when a government
changes or a building is destroyed the encyclopedia needs to be updated.
Subjects that have only an obscure mention should have their own article,
other articles should be brought up date or deleted, new articles added.
This was dictated with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7. Sometimes it works
perfectly, at other times it prints out things that are not said or after
the material is edited it inserts things on its own. Spell check changes
things that are correct to something else.
This was formatted as text.
Merritt L. Perkins
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20030825/341cab39/attachment.htm


body:
Jason Richey wrote:
> This is done.  I modified the message so that it doesn't include the
> address.  I also rebuilt the archives.  Everything should work as
> normal.  Let me know otherwise.

On second thought, there's something very wrong... the archives are
badly corrupted. July 2003 is missing, and August 2003 contains messages
from over the last couple of years...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] RK and paper trails

body:
At 03:58 PM 8/25/2003, you wrote:
>Colour me unimpressed.
>-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedians_by_favorite_color#Unimpressed

Hehe....

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


body:
Okay, I'm a big liar.  When the archives were rebuilt, the script
choked on a message somewhere in July 2003, and Threw out a bunch of
messages.

So, I've reverted to the old archive, and I'm going to remove the
address he complained of by hand.

There could be a couple of messages missing from the archives...

Jason

Jason Richey wrote:

> This is done.  I modified the message so that it doesn't include the
> address.  I also rebuilt the archives.  Everything should work as
> normal.  Let me know otherwise.
>
> jason
>
> Karl Wick wrote:
>
> > Hey I just noticed that my email address is here on this
> > public web page. Is there any way to delete it ? I dont
> > want spam !
> >
> > (Its from a message I sent saying that the WP was down).
> >
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-July/004657.html
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> > http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
> --
> "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] article primary key

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Lightning wrote:
>
>> Brion Vibber wrote:
>>
>>> Well, you kinda hafta use the text when all you've _got_ is the text
>>> that's given to you in a link. :) cur_id is used in various places
>>> for intertable joins already (for instance in the links, brokenlinks
>>> and searchindex tables).
>>
>>
>>
>> I am more thinking of other internal operations, not just page views.
>> Specifically I am thinking of watch lists,
>
>
> Watchlist uses namespace/title instead of cur_id to better survive the
> case of disappearing/reappearing pages.
>
> If a page is deleted, it's got _no_ cur_id. If it's recreated, it'll
> have a different cur_id. So if we wanted to handle watched, but
> presently nonexistent, items with a cur_id index in watchlist in
> general, we'd have to make another table just for those, or weird
> non-normal columns in watchlist, and then fix up the watchlists
> whenever a page is created / deleted.
>
> That's why watchlist was changed _from_ using cur_id to using
> namespace/title.

Oh, yeah. I get it. That never crossed my mind. I completely forgot you
could watch non-existent articles.

>> I do think that we should file this into a "TODO at some point" list.
>
>
> Certainly.
>
>> The conversion itself would be quite simple, and could be done over
>> time without disturbing the database.
>
>
> If you mean, we could create a new_old table and make a mess of
> spaghetti code to check new_old and old_old and transfer articles'
> data one at a time while carefully locking another attempt to do the
> same, well hypothetically perhaps.

I was actually talking about the adding of an article_id field, that
should be quite simple. But yeah, combining both tables into one would
be a messy, torturous operation at best if the wiki was not put in read
only mode while the conversion took place. I didn't even go into that
because I know that at this point we can't justify this at all, however
the first step to the transition, which is the adding of an article_id
field to both cur and old doesn't seem that far fetched except for the
slowness of adding a field problem.

I am seeing something like this:

TABLE 'revisions'
-PRIMARY KEY article_id   -- (completely new)
-rev_id UNIQUE -- (corresponds to cur_id and old_id)
-parent_rev (the revision this revision was edited from)
....the rest of the fields

/*this table just maps an article to its current revision. editing an
article INSERTS a new revision and UPDATES this table to point to the
new revision. only the current revision may be edited.
*/
TABLE 'current_revisions'
-article_id
-revision_id

////////////

as a side effect this all would allow us to implement a simple 'branch'
system for articles. sort of like we branch source code into stable and
development revisions. this would allow us to for example branch certain
articles to be introduced into nupedia for example. The article is
branched, fact checked, reviewed, and submitted. I am not saying to do
this, I am just saying with a system like this it *could* be done.
almost like CVS for wiki text.

This is just stuff to keep in mind, I know at the moment its hard enough
keeping the website running well under the load to go and mess with all
this, but in the future, they are options to consider

Lightning


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Relaying donations

body:
Jimmy-
> Well, we'll be accepting credit cards directly, but my understanding,
> which is limited at this point, is that people were saying that
> Europeans often don't have credit cards.  Anthere reports that the
> French do, but other reports have suggested (if I understood) that
> Germans mostly don't?

Last time I checked, CC coverage was only about 15% in Germany, but quite
a few cheap offers by VISA & Co. have popped up in the last couple of
years, so things may be changing. Still, there's a lot of suspicion
concerning "plastic".

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Subscribe to article feature (code included)

references:
<1061734581.3f48c8b51cc06@www2.helsinki.fi>	<3F48E2C9.5060706@chaos-productions.com>	<3F48E6C4.709@chaos-productions.com>	<3F4909D8.80303@chaos-productions.com>
	<3F4A6F1C.3030005@pobox.com>

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> It doesn't store the last x number of edits, but rather the last 7
> days' worth, occasionally culled.

My mistake.  I guess then it should feed from RC.

>
> [snip many queries]
>
> Hmm, that sounds like a lot of trouble to go to; and if the number of
> subscribers becomes relatively large, we'll be pumping a lot of
> numbers into SQL statements. What about something like:

I was under the impression IN() was highly optimized for that kind of
task. plus I just wanted to keep it simple and readable. But yeah, that
was a lot of querys, however they were very simple and joins can
sometimes be slower than separate queries.

>
> SELECT
>   user_name,user_email,
>   rc_namespace,rc_title,rc_user_text,
>   rc_minor,rc_timestamp,rc_comment
>   FROM user,recentchanges,subscriptions
> WHERE
>   user_id=sub_user
>   AND rc_cur_id=sub_page
>   AND rc_timestamp > $cutofftime
> GROUP BY
>   user_id,rc_cur_id
> ORDER BY
>   rc_timestamp DESC
>
> foreach( $results as $item ) {
>   if( $item->user_name != $last->user_name ) {
>     email_last_batch()
>     reset()
>   }
>   add_to_output($item)
>   $last = $item
> }
>
> with of course the same caveats on cur_id use as mentiond for
> watchlists. Moves, deletions, and renames need to be specially handled
> or things drop off the list.

Hmm I see where you are going, but that looks like it generates one
e-mail per article, per user, this would generate a huge e-mail load.
Thats why I was thinking more of a one e-mail per user listing all
changes. Also, since its feeding from cur_id on recent changes this
would cause the subscription feature to just grab the last change
correct? The core idea in my proposal was being able to list all the
changes to a certain article whithin a given period of time, other wise
this would be exactly the same as the watch list. As for article moves,
Thats why I brought up the point of article id's so an internal link to
an article by id would not be broken when the name changes.

where can i find osme documentation on the RC table. i looked in the
docs but that particular part is absent in schema.doc

Lightning


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [WikiEN-l] copyright on old paintings

body:
The Bridgeman case was a British publisher; it is important to
remember the national treatment principle in international copyright law.
The regarguement in Bridgeman surrounded around the question of
applying British law to infringement under US law.  It was put aside
because the British case on which Bridgeman relied was no longer
good law in the UK (it was an 1865 that said a photograph that was
just a copy of something else was copyrightable because at that
time it was not just "slavish copying" as it is now considered.

Is such an  issue of applying another countries law in the US
a possibility for Wikipedia? Yes. Will someone bring an infringement
suit? I doubt it because Wikipedia has a very strong fair use AND
fair dealing defense (depending on the country). Regarding privacy
rights Wikipedia's NPOV approach will also make any lawsuit
that might deal with such privacy invasions a nonsuit, after all if
someone does not like what they read on Wikipedia they can change
it and make it more accurate. It is probably the problem of the
person posting the information rather than the Wikipedia collective;
there is a strong argument that Wikipedia cannot police its own
content and thus cannot be responsible for copyright violations,
libel or any other tort that might be committed by its volunteers;
the volunteer attempts at policing are laudable, but in and of themselves
doing so does not appear to create any kind of obligation to do so;
after all Wikipedia does not have any resources to apply to such
due dilligence.

Anyway, the publicity from any infringement/privacy suit
will be good for Wikipedia, no?

Of course Wikipedia 1.0 will have to have much higher standards
as it will be a fixed product.

Alex756

From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>

> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > But what is legal to have on the Wikimedia server is a separate
> > issue and only the laws of the United States and California apply to
> > that.
>
> One caveat that I would like to introduce here is that we do want
> Wikipedia to be easily redistributable in the majority of countries
> around the world.  Therefore _some_ concession to non-U.S. law is
> warranted in _some_ cases.
>
> But really, this sort of discussion is generally just fun abstraction,
> since I'm not sure that there are really that many cases in which the
> copyright or censorship laws of the countries we're most interested in
> actually restrict us much.


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: howdy folks

body:
Tucci wrote:
> hey, I had some trouble subscribing due to Yahoo
> placing the confirmation request in my bulk mail
> folder, but TUF-KAT is back to Wikipedia and the
> mailing list.
>
> Quite naturally, the first thing I did upon my
> much-heralded return is get confused.  Is there a page
> somewhere that explains how the table of contents
> thing works?

Not that I'm aware of.

> Most specifically, why is [[All Eyez on
> Me]] messed up, formatting-wise? (IE 5.0 on MacOS 9.2)

There is, however, a very large page for complaints such as this one,
and the responses to queries there go a long way towards an informal
explanation of the new system. It is [[Wikipedia talk:Software
updates]]. It started as moved village pump discussion.
[[Wikipedia:Software updates]] seems to be just Eloquence's personal
scratch-pad, and contains little useful information.

-- Tim Starling <tstarlingphysicsunimelbeduau>


subject: [WikiEN-l] And the award goes to...

body:
And the "understatement of the century" award goes to....

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Saddam_Hussein&diff=0&oldid=1345899

Seriously though, I appreciate the effort to remain unbiased, but we really
need stronger language than this.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


subject: [Wikitech-l] Update to gfdl copyright notice needed

body:
Michael Becker wrote:
> It has been discussed (here:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content)
 > that the gfdl notice on the bottom of every page needs updating.
 > The following notice is the result of the discussion
 >    "All text is available under the terms of the [[Wikipedia:Text of
 >     the GNU Free Documentation License|GNU Free Documentation License]].
 >     See [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]] for suggested practices."
 > I would like to request that as long as no one has any more suggestion
 > to make on the talk page, this new notice be instituted ASAP.

Hmm, it wouldn't hurt but I don't see it as substantially different.

 >  Also, the "Printable version" pages need to have the same notice
 > (currently they don't).

The printable pages currently have the identical notice as the regular
page view:

   "All text is available under the terms of the
    GNU Free Documentation License."

where "GNU Free Documentation License" is a link to
[[Wikipedia:Copyrights]] which is more detailed. (Yes, it's a redirect
through [[GNU FDL]] at present.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Michael Becker

from_email: "User:Mbecker" at jumpingjackweb.com

body:
It has been discussed (here:  http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content) that the gfdl notice on the bottom of every page needs updating.  The following notice is the result of the discussion "All text is available under the terms of the [[Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License|GNU Free Documentation License]]. See [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]] for suggested practices."  I would like to request that as long as no one has any more suggestion to make on the talk page, this new notice be instituted ASAP.  Also, the "Printable version" pages need to have the same notice (currently they don't).

--
Michael Becker


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bug in Mailman

body:
I recently changed the e-mail address I used for the mailing lists to
User:Mbecker at jumpingjackweb.com.
This has seemed to hit some sort of error in the Mailman program.
I am receiving e-mail to Mbecker at jumpingjackweb.com rather than
User:Mbecker at jumpingjackweb.com.

When I try to logon to the site to change the address to something else,
I get the following error:
Bug in Mailman version 2.1.2

We're sorry, we hit a bug!

If you would like to help us identify the problem, please email a copy
of this page to the webmaster for this site with a description of what
happened. Thanks!
Traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/mailman/scripts/driver", line 87, in run_main
    main()
  File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/options.py", line 206, in main
    password, user):
  File "/home/mailman/Mailman/SecurityManager.py", line 219, in
WebAuthenticate
    print self.MakeCookie(ac, user)
  File "/home/mailman/Mailman/SecurityManager.py", line 235, in
MakeCookie
    c[key] = binascii.hexlify(marshal.dumps((issued, mac)))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/Cookie.py", line 585, in __setitem__
    self.__set(key, rval, cval)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/Cookie.py", line 578, in __set
    M.set(key, real_value, coded_value)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/Cookie.py", line 456, in set
    raise CookieError("Illegal key value: %s" % key)
CookieError: Illegal key value:
wikien-l+user+User:Mbecker--at--jumpingjackweb.com

Python information:

Variable	Value
sys.version	2.2.3 (#1, Aug 15 2003, 19:26:31) [GCC 2.95.3 20010315
(release)]
sys.executable	/usr/local/bin/python
sys.prefix	/usr/local
sys.exec_prefix	/usr/local
sys.path	/usr/local
sys.platform	linux2

Environment variables:

Variable	Value
PATH_INFO 	/wikien-l
HTTP_ACCEPT
text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plai
n;q=0.8,video/x-mng,image/png,image/jpeg,image/gif;q=0.2,*/*;q=0.1
CONTENT_TYPE 	application/x-www-form-urlencoded
HTTP_REFERER 	http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/options/wikien-l
SERVER_SOFTWARE 	Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) PHP/4.3.1
PYTHONPATH 	/home/mailman
SCRIPT_FILENAME 	/home/mailman/cgi-bin/options
SERVER_ADMIN 	lee at piclab.com
SCRIPT_NAME 	/mailman/options
SERVER_SIGNATURE
Apache/1.3.27 Server at mail.wikipedia.org Port 80
REQUEST_METHOD 	POST
HTTP_HOST 	mail.wikipedia.org
HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE 	300
SERVER_PROTOCOL 	HTTP/1.1
QUERY_STRING
REQUEST_URI 	/mailman/options/wikien-l
CONTENT_LENGTH 	72
HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET 	ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
HTTP_USER_AGENT 	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US;
rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624
HTTP_CONNECTION 	keep-alive
SERVER_NAME 	mail.wikipedia.org
REMOTE_PORT 	21868
REMOTE_ADDR 	66.250.143.140
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE 	en-us,en;q=0.5
PATH_TRANSLATED 	/usr/local/apache/htdocs-mail/wikien-l
SERVER_PORT 	80
GATEWAY_INTERFACE 	CGI/1.1
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING 	gzip,deflate
SERVER_ADDR 	130.94.122.197
DOCUMENT_ROOT 	/usr/local/apache/htdocs-mail

--
Michael Becker


subject: [Wikipedia-l] paypal

body:
Well, as I said to Jimbo earlier, I think we should use Networkforgood:
http://www.networkforgood.org/npo/fundraising/donations/index.html.
Although Jimbo pointed out that they charge 3%.  (which is still less
than paypal).  I told him I would feel more comfortable donating through
a service provided by a non-profit for non-profits.  He said the more
ways to contribute the merrier, and that he would look into it.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 5.57
To: wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] paypal

Michael Becker wrote:
> Is paypal charging for transactions, or is it free since wikimedia is
> a non-profit?  If they are taking a cut of donations, I would like to
> suggest we use another service which is made specifically for
> non-profits that doesn't take a cut of donations, and is free of
> charge.

Do you know of one?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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


body:
Michael Becker wrote:
> Let me quote User:Dgrant "if the link text says GFDL, few people will
> bother going to it, at least I personally wouldn't, I've already read
> the GFDL before."  He has a point, the notice is misleading in it's
> current form, and I think people are discouraged from reading the
> Copyright page b/c the link is titled "GFDL."

That sounds reasonable. Unless there's a huge objection I'll make the
change tomorrow.

As a reminder for those listening in, the suggested new version of the
notice reads:

   "All text is available under the terms of the
    [[Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License|
    GNU Free Documentation License]]. See [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]]
    for suggested practices."

thus giving explicitly separate links for the license text and our
explanation of what it means and how it applies.

(It's still got the "text" problem, but that's a separate can of worms.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Nupedia articles-in-progress licensing status?

body:
Anybody know the answer to this?

Hi Mav,

I asked a question on the Wikipedia talk:Nupedia_and_Wikipedia about whether
articles-in-progress on Nupedia qualify under the GFDL, or are they like the
Nupedia "Chalkboard". I also asked at the Wikipedia:Village pump but I got no
response (the question has since been moved to the Village pump archives).
Some of these articles have been languishing since 2001 and it would be nice
if it were possible to use some of them as a basis for articles (or at least
good stubs) right now. I searched the Nupedia website, mailing lists, history
etc. and there appears no mention whatsoever of the copyright or licensing
status of the articles-in-progress on Nupedia. I was hoping that you might
have some insight. Thanks. -- Lexor 02:21, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)


from_name: james duffy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
We have a policy about no offensive usernames. But does that cover the names
of famous figures who are themselves controversial? Saddam Hussein is a
classic example. To some he is a middle east hero. To most people he was a
mass-murdering tyrant. In the circumstances it is at the very least
inadvisable to use his name as a user name (even if it produces some
farcical and comical events, as when, in reverting vandalism, I found that I
had to revert the article on Saddam Hussein to the last version by Saddam
Hussein!)

Many other world leaders are themselves controversial to some large segment
of society, with their name if used being seen by some potential potential
wiki users somewhere. One needs only to think of the attitude in parts of
the US towards France to see the problems using 'Jacques Chirac' , the
problems with using 'George Bush' given how he is seen some people
internationally. Ditto with 'Tony Blair', 'Yasser Arafat', 'Ariel Sharon',
'Auguste Pinochet', 'Hugo Chavez', 'Ian Paisley', 'Josef Stalin', 'Chairman
Mao', 'Benito Mussolini', any of the names of the candidates in the
Californian recall election, 'Gerry Adams', 'Maggie Thatcher' etc. The
problem is that, if even the user is absolutely credible in their edits, a
bad choice of name can leave people with suspicions of bias that leads to
others constantly targeting their edits for constant checks. NPOV should
also guide choice of user names, because a proliferation of controversial
names could lead visitors to doubt the neutrality of the site if a snap
visit shows edits being carried out by politically controversial user nics.
Having 'Saddam Hussein' edit articles on the Kurds, for example, could raise
all sorts of fears about impartiality, as would having 'Yasser Arafat'
editing [[Israel]], or 'Lord Wigery' editing pages on Northern Ireland. The
edits may well be fine, but people would approach them with suspicion and
presume a bias until shown otherwise. We have enough to worry about in terms
of NPOV in articles, without badly chosen names creating ill-feeling,
tensions and suspicions also.

I think out policy on user nics should be:

--------

Remember when using a user nic that a controversial name that may colour
other users' perspective on your own credibility or political vewpoint. In
addition remember that wikipedia is a world-wide source book and so take
care in selecting a name to avoid anything that might potentially cause
offence to someone from a different culture, religious or ethnic group. As
such wikipedia recommends that users avoid

1. Names of twentieth or twenty-first century politicians, military or
religious figures or events;
2. Any other names that may be seen as potentially offensive, or endorsing
the politics, policies or beliefs of a public figure.
3. The following specific public names or any variation should not under any
circumstances be used due to their controversial nature and potential
offence:

Adolf Hitler,
Josef Stalin,
Benito Mussolini,
Saddam Hussein,
Chairman Mao,
Pol Pot,
Yasser Arafat,
Ariel Sharon.

4. Historic names (19th century or earlier) may of course be used but the
less controversial the better. People should be able to judge you purely on
your contributions, not an emotional response to a potentially controversial
nickname. Avoiding an offensive or insensitive name is in your own interest.
So do please be careful. Remember you are working as part of a community.
Show everyone else the respect for their beliefs that you expect them to
show to you.

---------

This might seem a small point now, as we don't have that many controversial
user nics. But as wiki grows the number of new users and usernics will
rocket. If two or three people use them and get away with it, the likelihood
is that more new members will follow, on the basis that 'if he can call
himself 'x', then I will call myself 'y'.'  Sooner or later we will face the
problem. It makes sense to do it now, with the small community, than try to
deal with it when there are twice or three times as many users, by which
time offence may already have been caused to some, and potential wikipedians
frightened off by the impression given by the unfortunate use of badly
chosen names.

Any observations?

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikipedia-l] mangle addresses (Re: Re: PayPal is set up)

references:
<20030821130355.B456@joey.bomis.com>
	<dvi1xve9nbp.fsf@proto.pvv.ntnu.no>
	<20030822071941.H23554@joey.bomis.com>
	<dviptix92wu.fsf@proto.pvv.ntnu.no>
	<20030823094149.GA6542@chiark.greenend.org.uk>

body:
Matthew Woodcraft
<mattheww at chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote in
news:20030823094149.GA6542 at chiark.greenend.org.uk:

> Gustav Foseid wrote:
>> It was gmane that that mangled the address.
>
> Why don't we turn that feature off? It's clear that it can cause
> confusion, and we don't mangle addresses in the web archives of the
> lists.
>
> -M-

If there is support for it I can ask gmane to swith it off. But this is not
a good idea i find.

The email adress is not realy mangled but "encrypted". If you send a email
to  a @public.gmane.org email adress you recieve a auto-responds that you
have to confirm befor it is forward to the real adress.

It is a very good anti-spam function and you still can send a email to
person. It is one the reasons i like the gmane acces to much, your email
adress is save from spammers.

--
Contact: walter AT wikipedia.be
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
james duffy wrote:

> This might seem a small point now, as we don't have that many
> controversial user nics. But as wiki grows the number of new users and
> usernics will rocket. If two or three people use them and get away
> with it, the likelihood is that more new members will follow, on the
> basis that 'if he can call himself 'x', then I will call myself 'y'.'
> Sooner or later we will face the problem. It makes sense to do it now,
> with the small community, than try to deal with it when there are
> twice or three times as many users, by which time offence may already
> have been caused to some, and potential wikipedians frightened off by
> the impression given by the unfortunate use of badly chosen names.
>
> Any observations?

My observation on these names is that most of these users have an
attention span that matches their social grace.  Once [[User:Adolf
Hitler]] has joined us, he is not likely to stay long.  His usage of the
name, however,  means that all others are blocked from using that name
in the future.  The problem will effectively solve itself without the
need for more rules.

Ec


body:
Let me quote User:Dgrant "if the link text says GFDL, few people will
bother going to it, at least I personally wouldn't, I've already read
the GFDL before."  He has a point, the notice is misleading in it's
current form, and I think people are discouraged from reading the
Copyright page b/c the link is titled "GFDL."  So, we change the notice
so that the link to Wikipedia:Copyrights does not masquerade itself as
the GFDL.  Since we have to provide a link to the GFDL, we make it a
separate link in the notice.  You might not like the version that Toby
Bartels, Dgrant, and I have come up with, but I still think it is not
right in it's current state.  I would be more than happy to change the
notice in the code myself (actually, I would love to) but I wouldn't
even know where to start looking.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 10.13
To: A mailing list for discussing about the technical organization of
theWikipedias
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Update to gfdl copyright notice needed

Michael Becker wrote:
> It has been discussed (here:
>
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_fo
r_content)
 > that the gfdl notice on the bottom of every page needs updating.  >
The following notice is the result of the discussion
 >    "All text is available under the terms of the [[Wikipedia:Text of
 >     the GNU Free Documentation License|GNU Free Documentation
License]].
 >     See [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]] for suggested practices."
 > I would like to request that as long as no one has any more
suggestion  > to make on the talk page, this new notice be instituted
ASAP.

Hmm, it wouldn't hurt but I don't see it as substantially different.

 >  Also, the "Printable version" pages need to have the same notice  >
(currently they don't).

The printable pages currently have the identical notice as the regular
page view:

   "All text is available under the terms of the
    GNU Free Documentation License."

where "GNU Free Documentation License" is a link to
[[Wikipedia:Copyrights]] which is more detailed. (Yes, it's a redirect
through [[GNU FDL]] at present.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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


from_name: martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] RK and paper trails

body:
Jimbo says "leave a clean paper trail"

Tried that. As a result Mr. Robert Kaiser has shifted his position subtly from telling
me that I'm "engaged in neo-Nazi-like revisionism", back in May, to telling me that
I'm "mentally ill", and should "fuck off, you sicko". And plenty more in the intervening
weeks.

Colour me unimpressed.
-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
At 02:10 PM 8/25/2003, JT wrote:
>This might seem a small point now, as we don't have that many
>controversial user nics. But as wiki grows the number of new users and
>usernics will rocket. If two or three people use them and get away with
>it, the likelihood is that more new members will follow, on the basis that
>'if he can call himself 'x', then I will call myself 'y'.'  Sooner or
>later we will face the problem. It makes sense to do it now, with the
>small community, than try to deal with it when there are twice or three
>times as many users, by which time offence may already have been caused to
>some, and potential wikipedians frightened off by the impression given by
>the unfortunate use of badly chosen names.
>
>Any observations?
>
>JT

Sounds like a good idea to me.

-- mav (in lurk mode)


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
I have been thinking lately about [[PPR:RealNamesPlease]].
(That's <http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RealNamesPlease>.)
This is a longstanding policy on the orginal wiki
which perhaps Wikipedia should have adopted a long time ago.
???

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
How about your real name, a real pseudonym or
a fanciful name? If you try and change your name
to something offensive, no judge will allow you to
do that, but most places allow people to use any name
they want without any formalities if the use of that
name is not meant to be confusing, misleading or
fraudulent. Using a famous name as a pseudonym
can be confusing, misleading and/or fraudulent.

How about a bright line rule: no historical or actual
public figures i.e. "absolute person of contemporary history"?
see:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#Personality_rights_in_Germany

No one should be allowed to use a name that could
be considered offensive, misleading or fraudulent,
that includes IMHO calling onself Albert Einstein,
Beethoven or Blaise Pascal (amongst others).
Alex756
----- Original Message -----
From: "james duffy" <jtdirl at hotmail.com>
> I think out policy on user nics should be:
>
<,,snip>

> Any observations?
>
> JT
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
>
> _______________________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: PayPal is set up

body:
"Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> wrote in
message news:20030822075641.P23554 at joey.bomis.com...
> Delirium wrote:
> > I was unable to find any more information by logging in either.
>
>
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help-ext&eloc=0&loc=281&source_pag
e=_home&flow=
>
> This page explains things for 'non-U.S. accounts'.  It seems that
> there are no fees to send money from a non-U.S. account.  There's
> little explanation that I can find of how to get money *into* PayPal.

You have to pay a $1.95 fee to sign up if you live outside the US. They were
very sneaky about it. You click on "sign up for your FREE PayPal account",
then you read the contract carefully (no mention of this behaviour), you
give them all your details and your credit card number, and then they say
"congratulations you have created a PayPal account", but when you try to
send money, they tell you that you have a transaction limit of $0, with an
extra $0 per month, and that you have to enrol for "expanded use" if you
want to raise it. To do this, you pay them $1.95, then wait for your next
credit card statement which contains the secret number, which you then type
in.

I finally found the place where they tell you about this behaviour, hidden
amongst the multitude of claims that it is free to sign up and free to send:

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_payments-outside

At this point I got rather annoyed and closed my account, with some nasty
comments in the "why are you leaving us" form. Sorry Wikimedia.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
At 09:48 PM 8/25/2003, you wrote:
>How about your real name, a real pseudonym or
>a fanciful name? If you try and change your name
>to something offensive, no judge will allow you to
>do that, but most places allow people to use any name
>they want without any formalities if the use of that
>name is not meant to be confusing, misleading or
>fraudulent. Using a famous name as a pseudonym
>can be confusing, misleading and/or fraudulent.
>
>How about a bright line rule: no historical or actual
>public figures i.e. "absolute person of contemporary history"?
>see:
>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#Personality_rights_in_Germany
>
>No one should be allowed to use a name that could
>be considered offensive, misleading or fraudulent,
>that includes IMHO calling onself Albert Einstein,
>Beethoven or Blaise Pascal (amongst others).
>Alex756

I'm just curious how my user name could be considered confusing, misleading
and/or fraudulent. Since I can't figure out what "contemporary history"
means (since you've listed people who have been dead for centuries) I'll
just have to assume that my name would be forbidden under your proposal.

Aside from the fact that the historical Dante Alighieri died 682 years ago,
I'm sure that I could change my name legally to Dante Alighieri if I so
desired. As a matter of fact, I don't suppose there's any way that you
could prove that my name /isn't/ legally Dante Alighieri.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


from_name: Geoffrey T. Dairiki

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bug in Mailman

body:
On Mon, 2003-08-25 at 16:55, Michael Becker wrote:
> I recently changed the e-mail address I used for the mailing lists to
> User:Mbecker at jumpingjackweb.com.
> This has seemed to hit some sort of error in the Mailman program.
> I am receiving e-mail to Mbecker at jumpingjackweb.com rather than
> User:Mbecker at jumpingjackweb.com.

According to my reading of RFC 822, colons are not allowed
in email addresses unless they are quoted.
So <User:Mbecker at jumpingjackweb.com> is not a legal RFC 822 _mailbox_.
If I read the RFC correctly, <"User:Mbecker"@jumpingjackweb.com>
is legal.  I wouldn't be surprised if it gives some software
gas, however.

(This is not to say there isn't a bug in Mailman.  But I think
the fact that the colon doesn't cause trouble with more MTA's
etc. is just luck...)


from_name: Paul Ebermann

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: mangle addresses

body:
"Walter Vermeir" skribis:

> Matthew Woodcraft [...] wrote [...]
>
> > Gustav Foseid wrote:
> >> It was gmane that that mangled the address.
> >
> > Why don't we turn that feature off? It's clear that it can cause
> > confusion, and we don't mangle addresses in the web archives of the
> > lists.
>
> If there is support for it I can ask gmane to swith it off. But this is not
> a good idea i find.
>
> The email adress is not realy mangled but "encrypted". [...]
> It is a very good anti-spam function and you still can send a email to
> person. It is one the reasons i like the gmane acces to much, your email
> adress is save from spammers.

As Matthew said:

> > we don't mangle addresses in the web archives of the lists.

So the spammers could get your adress anyway ...

If you want to switch it off:

http://gmane.org/info.php?group=gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc&edit=t

(No need to "ask gmane to switch it off",
 you can do it yourself.)

Paul


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:

> At 09:48 PM 8/25/2003, you wrote:
>
>> How about your real name, a real pseudonym or
>> a fanciful name? If you try and change your name
>> to something offensive, no judge will allow you to
>> do that, but most places allow people to use any name
>> they want without any formalities if the use of that
>> name is not meant to be confusing, misleading or
>> fraudulent. Using a famous name as a pseudonym
>> can be confusing, misleading and/or fraudulent.
>>
>> How about a bright line rule: no historical or actual
>> public figures i.e. "absolute person of contemporary history"?
>> see:
>> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#Personality_rights_in_Germany
>>
>>
>> No one should be allowed to use a name that could
>> be considered offensive, misleading or fraudulent,
>> that includes IMHO calling onself Albert Einstein,
>> Beethoven or Blaise Pascal (amongst others).
>> Alex756
>
>
> I'm just curious how my user name could be considered confusing,
> misleading and/or fraudulent. Since I can't figure out what
> "contemporary history" means (since you've listed people who have been
> dead for centuries) I'll just have to assume that my name would be
> forbidden under your proposal.
>
> Aside from the fact that the historical Dante Alighieri died 682 years
> ago, I'm sure that I could change my name legally to Dante Alighieri
> if I so desired. As a matter of fact, I don't suppose there's any way
> that you could prove that my name /isn't/ legally Dante Alighieri.

I have no complaint about those who want to use these famous names as
nicknames.  This issue is much ado about nothing.  There is little
likelihood that such a use would fall into any of the categories of
offensive, misleading or fraudulent.  No one would for a moment be
misled into believing that our recent [[User:Saddam Hussein]] was the
same as the Iraqi leader.  There are likely some who feel offended by
it, but that is the personal choice of the humourless.  Fraudulent is
the least likely of the three, given that none of us are in Wikipedia
for the money.

We have had attempts to be misleading here (as in the Anthere/Anth?re
issue), and a few instances where choices have gone beyond good taste
(as in User:TMC).  I would wonder if there have been successful actions
anywhere about the use of pseudonyms on the internet, particularly where
their use is in relation to the limited circumstances of a particular
website.

This issue needs lightening up.

Ec


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user names

body:
Just a reminder for the newcomers (perhaps should I
write a monthly reminder...and perhaps popularity
could be measured by the number of those)

# Anthere2
# Anthiere
# Anth?rement
# Anth?re
# Anth?re
# Anth?re

are not me.

I noticed with interest that Mr Bush father was not
included in the list.

I wonder what would happen where a George Bush appears
and focuse his writing on war articles, propaganda,
and such

or another one on the clitoris article

I think that when it comes to deciding which names are
controversial and should be immediately deleted and
which ones are ok, there is a long way left before
consensus :-)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
> >Ec wrote
> >There are likely some who feel offended by it, but that is the personal
> >choice of the humourless.
>
> It is not merely a case of having no sense of humour if you are someone of
> Kurdish descent and you find a contributor editing an article on the Kurds
> 'humously' using the name of the man who committed genocide against the
> Kurds. Nor is it a matter of a sense of humour if a contributor to an
> article on the Jewish holocaust called himself after a leading nazi, with
> the edit history listing a line of edits by Adolf Hitler.  Or if someone as
> a joke decided that all their edits to articles on child sex abuse use the
> name of some notorious paedophile like Fr. Geoghan or Fr. Brendan Smyth.

A collegue of mine is named Moamer Qazafi -- which may not look
controversial at first glance, but it is simply another way to
transliterate the name of the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.  Would
you ban him simply because his name has an unfortunate and not
particularly humorous similarity to that of a tyrant?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
james duffy wrote:

>Re real names, I'm not in favour. By all means encourage it, but some
>people might prefer to keep their personal identities to themselves, and
>that that attitude may increase as academics, journalists, writers etc
>decide to come on board as we get bigger. They might prefer to be judged on
>what they write on wiki, not on their off wiki identity.

That matter has come up on Ward's wiki as well.
I'd encourage people to read the material there
to see why real names may be a good idea --
we might more actively promote them on Wikipedia.
But I do not think that we should insist on them as policy.

-- Toby


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] wikiversity licensing

body:
[Crossposted to <wikien-L>, since it discusses an edit of the main page.]

Jimmy Wales wrote in part:

>I personally always try to say 'GNU-free' rather than 'open content',
>even though the Wikipedia front page says 'open content'.  I have no
>particular political axe to grind, so I use the term that doesn't seem
>to upset anyway.  :-)

Then it should say "free and open content".
I'll change it right now!

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Textbook-l] wikiversity licensing


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: threats and abuse from IP user

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>james duffy wrote:

>>I have blocked him again. The blocks are on 68.120.204.62, 68.120.205.147
>>and 68.120.205.218. Any suggestions about deal with this bigot?

>A temporary block of the whole IP range would be nice...

68.120.*.* is Pacific Bell, a huge phone (and 'Net) provider in California.

Remember that it included not only our POV user from Pleasanton
but also an unrelated vandal from Irvine, almost 400 miles away.
Presumably it includes a great many other Californians that aren't so bad.

We could ask <nslookup> to tell us which IPs are from Pleasanton --
the text versions of the IPs say which city they're in
(that's how I figured it out!).

Example:
Name:    ppp-68-120-204-62.dialup.pltn13.pacbell.net
Address:  68.120.204.62

(pltn = Pleasanton)

-- Toby


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
Merritt L. Perkins wrote:
> What language should be used in the Encyclopedia?

All of them!

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

in_reply_to:
<BAY1-F115fdN4EtwwUF00009352@hotmail.com>;
	from jtdirl@hotmail.com on Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 10:10:31PM +0100

body:
james duffy wrote:
> We have a policy about no offensive usernames. But does that cover
> the names of famous figures who are themselves controversial? Saddam
> Hussein is a classic example.

I would say that it would be best to not use the names of famous
figures, especially famous figures who are still living or only
recently deceased.  I would include both real names of real people, as
well as famous character names from books, movies, etc.

It seems unlikely that this needs to rise to the level of enforceable
policy, although encouraging a high standard of conduct generally is a
good thing.

Therefore, I really like the way you wrote this, although I'm sure
someone clever can suggest some improvements.  I like phrasing things
in terms of recommendations and community norms, rather than in terms
of 'you are not allowed to do this'.

I should add, of course, that for some offensive names, I do think
'you are not allowed to do this' is the appropriate response.

> Remember when using a user nic that a controversial name that may
> colour other users' perspective on your own credibility or political
> vewpoint. In addition remember that wikipedia is a world-wide source
> book and so take care in selecting a name to avoid anything that
> might potentially cause offence to someone from a different culture,
> religious or ethnic group. As such wikipedia recommends that users
> avoid
>
> 1. Names of twentieth or twenty-first century politicians, military or
> religious figures or events;
> 2. Any other names that may be seen as potentially offensive, or endorsing
> the politics, policies or beliefs of a public figure.
> 3. The following specific public names or any variation should not under any
> circumstances be used due to their controversial nature and potential
> offence:
>
> Adolf Hitler,
> Josef Stalin,
> Benito Mussolini,
> Saddam Hussein,
> Chairman Mao,
> Pol Pot,
> Yasser Arafat,
> Ariel Sharon.

> 4. Historic names (19th century or earlier) may of course be used
> but the less controversial the better. People should be able to
> judge you purely on your contributions, not an emotional response to
> a potentially controversial nickname. Avoiding an offensive or
> insensitive name is in your own interest.  So do please be
> careful. Remember you are working as part of a community.  Show
> everyone else the respect for their beliefs that you expect them to
> show to you.

> Any observations?

Primarily, that I like things that are written like this, emphasizing
mutual respect and the seriousness of what we are trying to
accomplish.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

in_reply_to:
<5.2.0.9.2.20030826015347.02d364e8@digitalgrapefruit.com>;
	from dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com on Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at
	01:55:40AM -0700

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:
> Aside from the fact that the historical Dante Alighieri died 682
> years ago, I'm sure that I could change my name legally to Dante
> Alighieri if I so desired. As a matter of fact, I don't suppose
> there's any way that you could prove that my name /isn't/ legally
> Dante Alighieri.

I don't really have a problem with Dante Alighieri, as a famous
character from very old literature.  I don't prefer such names, but I
don't think they raise the same kind of issues as 'Saddam Hussein' or
'George Bush'.

I think anyone seeing the name with either not recognize it (if they
are uneducated) or will instantly know that it's just a pseudonym, one
which probably conveys only a little bit of information about you.
(As for me, I don't really know what it's supposed to _mean_, if
anything.)

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

in_reply_to:
<3F4AF431.6020701@telus.net>;
	from saintonge@telus.net on Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 10:46:25PM -0700

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> My observation on these names is that most of these users have an
> attention span that matches their social grace.  Once [[User:Adolf
> Hitler]] has joined us, he is not likely to stay long.  His usage of the
> name, however,  means that all others are blocked from using that name
> in the future.  The problem will effectively solve itself without the
> need for more rules.

I think that's a very clever observation, and adds to my conviction
that we might have a set of recommendations, but that except in some
extreme cases, we need not have a formal policy that forbids these
names.

If [[User:Saddam Hussein]] turns out to be a good user, then that
person can likely be persuaded to change the username to something
more serious.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] RK and paper trails

in_reply_to:
<3F4AA2A8.26728.313579F@localhost>;
	from martin@myreddice.freeserve.co.uk on Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at
	11:58:32PM +0100

body:
martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
> Tried that. As a result Mr. Robert Kaiser has shifted his position
> subtly from telling me that I'm "engaged in neo-Nazi-like
> revisionism", back in May, to telling me that I'm "mentally ill",
> and should "fuck off, you sicko". And plenty more in the intervening
> weeks.

Well, write to me with detailed examples.  A link to revision
histories is a good thing.  If you weren't doing anything to him, and
he called you names, then that's worth bringing to my attention.

--Jimbo


body:
I don't know the answer.  In my opinion, everything on Nupedia is
under the GNU FDL, but then again, I'm not sure what was officially
said or done back in the day.

Daniel Mayer wrote:

> Anybody know the answer to this?
>
> Hi Mav,
>
> I asked a question on the Wikipedia talk:Nupedia_and_Wikipedia about whether
> articles-in-progress on Nupedia qualify under the GFDL, or are they like the
> Nupedia "Chalkboard". I also asked at the Wikipedia:Village pump but I got no
> response (the question has since been moved to the Village pump archives).
> Some of these articles have been languishing since 2001 and it would be nice
> if it were possible to use some of them as a basis for articles (or at least
> good stubs) right now. I searched the Nupedia website, mailing lists, history
> etc. and there appears no mention whatsoever of the copyright or licensing
> status of the articles-in-progress on Nupedia. I was hoping that you might
> have some insight. Thanks. -- Lexor 02:21, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

in_reply_to:
<200308261217.h7QCHg5a014428@orwen.epoptic.com>;
	from sean@epoptic.org on Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 05:17:42AM -0700

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:
> A collegue of mine is named Moamer Qazafi -- which may not look
> controversial at first glance, but it is simply another way to
> transliterate the name of the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.  Would
> you ban him simply because his name has an unfortunate and not
> particularly humorous similarity to that of a tyrant?

Notice that the proposal didn't say anything about banning anyone.
It's just a set of recommendations.  Certainly, a valid response to a
complaint about a possibly problematic name is that it just happens,
unfortunately, to be one's actual real legal name.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

in_reply_to:
<3F4B5884.9010208@telia.com>;
	from bjrn.lindqvist@telia.com on Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 02:54:28PM
	+0200

body:
Bj?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> Adolf Hilter
> Ariel Sharon
> Josef Stalin
> Mussolini
> Yassir Arafat
> Pol Pot
> Chairman Mao
> Nigger
> Usama Bin Laden
> George W Bush
> Muhammed
>
> Around. Why? Cause I just registered them - Problem solved!

I think that's an excellent thing to have done.


from_name: Gustav Foseid

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: paypal

body:
Michael Becker <"User:Mbecker"@jumpingjackweb.com> writes:

> Is paypal charging for transactions, or is it free since wikimedia is a
> non-profit?  If they are taking a cut of donations, I would like to
> suggest we use another service which is made specifically for
> non-profits that doesn't take a cut of donations, and is free of charge.

The credit card company takes a cut of _all_ credit card transactions.
I don't know exactly how much PayPal takes, but I have understood
things right it is about 2-3%. You are probably not going to find a
very much cheaper way to charge a credit card.

If you live in the US and want to give a considerable amount you
probably want to send a check.

--
Gustav Foseid


from_name: Robert

subject:
[WikiEN-l] It is time to act on two obsessed users who are
	violating Sysop requests

body:
Martin, you really can't stop the harassment, can you? You
really have no ability to control your rage, do you?

You and Entmoots Of Trools have now created som SIX
WIKIEPDIA PAGES dedicated to slander and harassment of me
alone. I can't imagine how many hours you two have spent
obsessed with me, and damaging Wikipedia in the process. So
yeah, I do really think that you are in some clinical
sense, obsessed (i.e. "sick"). You have spent months
harassing me, so has Entmoots of Trools, and your
collective harassment and libel is over the top.

Again, I request a ban on both Martin (MyRedDice) and
EntmootsOfTrools.  I fail to understand why the Wikipedia
community is still allowing them to create more and more
Wiki sites dedicated to slander and harssment. They even
have created fake User Talk pages, which distract readers
from my genuine User Talk page. That itself is a bannable
offense.  Wiki Sysops have written to them and asked them
to stop their harssment multiple times, but they refuse to
do so. What course of action is left?

Please ban these unrepentant vandals who refuse to follow
any semblance of Wikietiquette.  This is getting more than
annoying; it is harassment (in the legal sense of the
term), and is now bordering on dangerous.

Robert (RK)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] su:

body:
On Tue, 26 Aug 2003, Andre Engels wrote:
> I was checking language names from
> http://www.rtt.org/ISO/TC37/SC2/WG1/639/ISO-FDIS-639-1.pdf for the Dutch
> Wikipedia, and there I noticed there is an error in the general file:
> su: is given as "Sudanese", this should be "Sundanese".

Confirmed in http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html#st,
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/tei/iso639.html and elsewhere.

However I find also in http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm:
sun      su    Sudanese

This looks like a typo in w3's copy... which of course a lot of people are
going to find and take as authoritative. Sigh...

> I have corrected
> it in nl:, but I am not sure whether I am supposed to do so in en: and
> other languages as well, so I will ask someone else to do that instead.

Sure, go ahead.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [Textbook-l] wikiversity licensing

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Yes, but there's a solution to that, at least I
> think so.
>
> Anything released under FDL 1.x or 2.0 with no
> invariant sections, no
> Front-Cover texts, and no Back-Cover texts can be
> distributed under
> the terms of LFDL 2.0 *or* FDL 2.0.  Anything
> release under FDL 1.x
> with invariant sections can be released under FDL
> 2.0.
>
> And then LFDL can be simpler and worded carefully so
> as to maximize
> compatibility with CC SA.
>
> A similar change would need to be made to CC SA 2.0,
> so that it would
> allow for relicensing under LFDL.
>
> --Jimbo

Sorry that this is so late, I've been on vacation.

Does the CC SA have provisions for transparent
coppies? I think that that's a major difference in
some people's minds (in the case of ebooks, etc).
LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] animal encyclopedia

body:
Jurriaan wrote:
>I have been thinking about starting an open content animal encyclopedia. I
>would like to know if someone has any thoughts on what would be the best way
>to integrate this with wikipedia.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of many different integrated encyclopedias. One
of those is an animal encyclopedia:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiProject_Tree_of_Life

-- mav


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: mangle addresses (Re: Re: PayPal is set up)

body:
"Walter Vermeir" <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote in
message news:bie2fj$qs5$1 at sea.gmane.org...
>
> If there is support for it I can ask gmane to swith it off. But this is
not
> a good idea i find.
>
> The email adress is not realy mangled but "encrypted". If you send a email
> to  a @public.gmane.org email adress you recieve a auto-responds that you
> have to confirm befor it is forward to the real adress.
>
> It is a very good anti-spam function and you still can send a email to
> person. It is one the reasons i like the gmane acces to much, your email
> adress is save from spammers.

The entire list is archived on the web with email addresses unencrypted, at
mail.wikipedia.org. It's even indexed in Google. The only thing the
encryption does is annoy people. I say turn it off.

The encryption of "from" addresses should stay on, because they're also
hidden in the archive. Just the encryption in the email body should be
turned off.

-- Tim Starling <tstarlingphysicsunimelbeduau>

=======@=======


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] animal encyclopedia

body:
At 04:33 PM 8/26/03 +0200, Jurriaan wrote:
>I have been thinking about starting an open content animal encyclopedia. I
>would like to know if someone has any thoughts on what would be the best way
>to integrate this with wikipedia.

If you want to integrate it, you might want to start a WikiProject.

We have a bunch of articles on animals already--especially birds--and
that information would be available either to include, or as a starting point
if you wanted to write longer or differently-styled articles.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
WARNING: Sarcasm rampage.

--- Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Martin, you really can't stop the harassment, can you? You
> really have no ability to control your rage, do you?

RK, you really can't stop the anti-harassment, can you? you
really have no ability toe control your rage, do you?

> You and Entmoots Of Trools have now created som SIX
> WIKIEPDIA PAGES dedicated to slander and harassment of me
> alone.

Woot? Only six measly pages for such an illustrious Wikipedia
Intelligensia Esteemed and Most Honoured Member? Six hundred, even
six thousand would be more fitting!

> I can't imagine how many hours you two have spent
> obsessed with me,

Narcissim at its best, my hat is off to you. O High One.

> and damaging Wikipedia in the process.

Quick, the Fire Brigade.. Hum, the Antibodies, hum... What are they
called these days? The Phlegm Patrol?

> So yeah, I do really think that you are in some clinical
> sense, obsessed (i.e. "sick").

A most astute diagnosis my Dear Colleage. I am sure the autopsies
will prove you right.

> You have spent months
> harassing me, so has Entmoots of Trools, and your
> collective harassment and libel is over the top.

Alas, I fear your humility has come between you and reality. Indeed,
theirs is but a poor attempt at expressing the true nature of your
greatness. You should encourage them to blossom into full-fledged
woshippers.

> Again, I request a ban on both Martin (MyRedDice) and
> EntmootsOfTrools.

So noted, Your Excellency. But, well, as you know, our democracy is
not what it used to be... In the good old days they would have been
hanged and quartered, of course...

> I fail to understand why the Wikipedia
> community is still allowing them to create more and more
> Wiki sites dedicated to slander and harssment.

The Wikipedia community is, at large, busy with working on an
encyclopedia, which, the spies report, Your Majesty, with all due
respect, grows unchecked in all corners of the Your illustrious
Realm.

> They even
> have created fake User Talk pages, which distract readers
> from my genuine User Talk page.

They have? Oh dear. It would have been better if they had vandalized
valid encyclopedia pages. Then the Rebel Alliance would have surely
struck them down.

> That itself is a bannable
> offense.

If we get our hands on them Your Highness, they will wish they had
been banned. (Whispers sinisters words to shadowy figure behind
curtain).

>  Wiki Sysops have written to them and asked them
> to stop their harssment multiple times, but they refuse to
> do so. What course of action is left?

Indeed, The World and All That Is Good has come to a Most Fateful
End.

> Please ban these unrepentant vandals who refuse to follow
> any semblance of Wikietiquette.  This is getting more than
> annoying; it is harassment (in the legal sense of the
> term), and is now bordering on dangerous.

Your Excellency, the FBI, CIA, and Los Angeles Police are once more
powerless against this ignoble enemy. What shall we do ourselves but
flee to the ends of the earth; outcasts hunted by the very demons of
Hell?

> Robert (RK)

Yes, Robert, King of Wikipedia and All the Articles.

Now that I feel better, what was your problem again?

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
james duffy wrote:

>> Ec wrote
>> There are likely some who feel offended by it, but that is the
>> personal choice of the humourless.
>
> It is not merely a case of having no sense of humour if you are
> someone of Kurdish descent and you find a contributor editing an
> article on the Kurds 'humously' using the name of the man who
> committed genocide against the Kurds. Nor is it a matter of a sense of
> humour if a contributor to an article on the Jewish holocaust called
> himself after a leading nazi, with the edit history listing a line of
> edits by Adolf Hitler.  Or if someone as a joke decided that all their
> edits to articles on child sex abuse use the name of some notorious
> paedophile like Fr. Geoghan or Fr. Brendan Smyth.

The variations on these names are endless.  When you yourself innocently
used the Gaelic for an Irish man there was the potential for some who
didn't understand it to find it offensive.  The instances are numerous
where a perfectly innocent word in one language is grossly offensive,
but Wikipedia is a polyglottal environment.  I've heard of the late Fr.
Geoghan but not of Fr. Smyth.  The name, Geoghan, is probably uncommon
enough for an association with him to be suggested,  [[User:Brendan
Smyth]] (or Brandon) seems like it could be a sufficiently common name
that a person could use it without having heard of the pedophile with
that name.

If we successfully deal with [[User:Adolf Hitler]] someone else can
start the whole problem with [[User:Adolf Hitler2]], or [[User:Adolf
Shitler]] who could offend an entirely different range of people

When certain ones of these individuals ge too far out of line, you can
rest assured that social pressures will be applied by a significant
portion of the Wikipedia community.

In the absence of specific problems, it strikes me that a lot of
complicated rules about User names is equivalent to pre-emptively
feeding trolls.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>A collegue of mine is named Moamer Qazafi -- which may not look
>controversial at first glance, but it is simply another way to
>transliterate the name of the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.  Would
>you ban him simply because his name has an unfortunate and not
>particularly humorous similarity to that of a tyrant?
>
Transliteration problem merely permute the opportunities for mischief as
in Usama or Osama, bin or ben, Ladin or Laden.  That alone gives us 8
possible names.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

references:
<BAY1-F115fdN4EtwwUF00009352@hotmail.com>	<3F4AF431.6020701@telus.net>
	<opruizuhlczs1r4a@localhost>

body:
Richard Grevers wrote:

> Ray Saintonge gave utterance to the following:
>
>> My observation on these names is that most of these users have an
>> attention span that matches their social grace.  Once [[User:Adolf
>> Hitler]] has joined us, he is not likely to stay long.  His usage of
>> the name, however,  means that all others are blocked from using that
>> name in the future.  The problem will effectively solve itself
>> without the need for more rules.
>
> Then why doesn't someone senior and responsible simply create all the
> user names we think are offensive, effectively removing them from
> circulation. Would this create a problem with user:talk pages?

Someone has started this; but the possibilities are infinite.  There may
not be a problem with user:talk pages but [[User:Talk Pages]] may
object. ;-)

Ec


from_name: james duffy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
>From: Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com>
>Reply-To: Discussion list for English-language
>Wikipedia<wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: Discussion list for English-language Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames
>Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 01:55:40 -0700
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>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 26 Aug 2003 08:57:47.0155 (UTC)
>FILETIME=[1ECB1E30:01C36BB0]
>
>At 09:48 PM 8/25/2003, you wrote:
>>How about your real name, a real pseudonym or
>>a fanciful name? If you try and change your name
>>to something offensive, no judge will allow you to
>>do that, but most places allow people to use any name
>>they want without any formalities if the use of that
>>name is not meant to be confusing, misleading or
>>fraudulent. Using a famous name as a pseudonym
>>can be confusing, misleading and/or fraudulent.
>>
>>How about a bright line rule: no historical or actual
>>public figures i.e. "absolute person of contemporary history"?
>>see:
>>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#Personality_rights_in_Germany
>>
>>No one should be allowed to use a name that could
>>be considered offensive, misleading or fraudulent,
>>that includes IMHO calling onself Albert Einstein,
>>Beethoven or Blaise Pascal (amongst others).
>>Alex756
>
>I'm just curious how my user name could be considered confusing, misleading
>and/or fraudulent. Since I can't figure out what "contemporary history"
>means (since you've listed people who have been dead for centuries) I'll
>just have to assume that my name would be forbidden under your proposal.
>
>Aside from the fact that the historical Dante Alighieri died 682 years ago,
>I'm sure that I could change my name legally to Dante Alighieri if I so
>desired. As a matter of fact, I don't suppose there's any way that you
>could prove that my name /isn't/ legally Dante Alighieri.
>
>
>
I had your case in mind when I suggested no /twentieth century/ names that
were political, military etc. I think pre-20th century names are reasonably
OK though the odd problem might crop up. But 20th century/21st century is an
easily understood cutoff off, whereas 'contemporary' is too ambiguous.

Re real names, I'm not in favour. By all means encourage it, but some people
might prefer to keep their personal identities to themselves, and that that
attitude may increase as academics, journalists, writers etc decide to come
on board as we get bigger. They might prefer to be judged on what they write
on wiki, not on their off wiki identity.

JT

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from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] A course of action

body:
At 12:02 PM 8/26/2003, you wrote:
>This 12 step procedure will make everyone happy, I believe.
>Love,
>-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper

Oh, Martin, Martin, Martin.... everyone happy? HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

It is a good idea though, and I back it 100%.. I just think we need to be
honest that such a solution is not liable to make /everyone/ all suddenly
happy go lucky.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


from_name: Alex T.

body:
http://www.nupedia.com/license.shtml
----- Original Message -----
"Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> said

> I don't know the answer.  In my opinion, everything on Nupedia is
> under the GNU FDL, but then again, I'm not sure what was officially
> said or done back in the day.
>
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> > Anybody know the answer to this?
> >
> > Hi Mav,
> >
> > I asked a question on the Wikipedia talk:Nupedia_and_Wikipedia about
whether
> > articles-in-progress on Nupedia qualify under the GFDL, or are they like
the
> > Nupedia "Chalkboard". I also asked at the Wikipedia:Village pump but I
got no
> > response (the question has since been moved to the Village pump
archives).
> > Some of these articles have been languishing since 2001 and it would be
nice
> > if it were possible to use some of them as a basis for articles (or at
least
> > good stubs) right now. I searched the Nupedia website, mailing lists,
history
> > etc. and there appears no mention whatsoever of the copyright or
licensing
> > status of the articles-in-progress on Nupedia. I was hoping that you
might
> > have some insight. Thanks. -- Lexor 02:21, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
>Ec wrote
>There are likely some who feel offended by it, but that is the personal
>choice of the humourless.

It is not merely a case of having no sense of humour if you are someone of
Kurdish descent and you find a contributor editing an article on the Kurds
'humously' using the name of the man who committed genocide against the
Kurds. Nor is it a matter of a sense of humour if a contributor to an
article on the Jewish holocaust called himself after a leading nazi, with
the edit history listing a line of edits by Adolf Hitler.  Or if someone as
a joke decided that all their edits to articles on child sex abuse use the
name of some notorious paedophile like Fr. Geoghan or Fr. Brendan Smyth.

We already have had users posing as Palestinian militants, as Stalinists, as
extreme militarist Americans, etc. We have had tactless and provocative
names used. It isn't a case of 'humourless' people taking offence. It is the
real danger that users may be put off wiki if they come on and find
distasteful, deliberately offensive names being used. 98% of names used as
inoffensive, It makes sense to plan now to ensure a small body of users
aren't used, rather than leaving it until damage has been done, offence
caused and people turned away before we deal with problem. (We have already
had one user, a multiple banned user, who came on any 'posed' as a
paedophile, asking if we had any 'nice' pictures of children to download.
Obviously he wasn't a real paedophile: if he was, he couldn't have drawn
attention to himself, just taken any images we had. It was part of that sick
user's game of trying to cause offence.)

JT

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from_name: Gutza

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user names

body:
Anthere wrote:

>I think that when it comes to deciding which names are
>controversial and should be immediately deleted and
>which ones are ok, there is a long way left before
>consensus :-)
>
>
Completely agreed. Also, please note that "banning" internationally
known names doesn't mean these things won't happen: imagine a
[[User:IonAntonescu]] -- I don't think that would sound in any way
specific to most of you until someone would decide to check
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Antonescu for instance. Incidentally,
Antonescu is a controversial historical figure in Romania, he's not
unanimously accepted as a negative figure by all Romanians (long story,
check the article for hints), so it wouldn't be surprising for someone
to impersonate him for one porpose or another.

Gutza


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] su:

body:
I was checking language names from
http://www.rtt.org/ISO/TC37/SC2/WG1/639/ISO-FDIS-639-1.pdf for the Dutch
Wikipedia, and there I noticed there is an error in the general file:
su: is given as "Sudanese", this should be "Sundanese". I have corrected
it in nl:, but I am not sure whether I am supposed to do so in en: and
other languages as well, so I will ask someone else to do that instead.

Andre Engels


from_name: Björn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
SUCKY IDEA! Sorry JT.

If you want to be offensive in an totally open environment nothing's
gonna stop you. Or rather people who are easily offended shouldn't visit
WP. Rules suck! Recommendations are good though (if you do not have to
follow them).

Nevertheless you wont see any:

Adolf Hilter
Ariel Sharon
Josef Stalin
Mussolini
Yassir Arafat
Pol Pot
Chairman Mao
Nigger
Usama Bin Laden
George W Bush
Muhammed

Around. Why? Cause I just registered them - Problem solved!

BL


from_name: Jurriaan Schulman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] animal encyclopedia

body:
I have been thinking about starting an open content animal encyclopedia. I
would like to know if someone has any thoughts on what would be the best way
to integrate this with wikipedia.

Regards,

Jurriaan Schulman


from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] shakespeare with annotation

body:
I'm interested in starting up a test version of the
annotated document idea with a copy of one of Shakespeare's
plays (I'm partial to Othello).

Is there any further software we need before we can start ?

Barring objections, I plan to get in touch with the
University of Virginia Library (
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/conditions.html ) for
permission to use their copy. It isn't public domain. Does
anyone know of a (good) public domain version of
Shakespeare's works available on the web ?

--Karl

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from_name: Nils Kehrein

subject: [Wikitech-l] Random feature

body:
Hi,

i found an interesting random feature on the german Wikipedia:

-- 8< --
[..] <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> [..]
-- >8 --

is translated to
-- 8< --
[..] 3iyZiyA7iMwg5rhxP0Dcc9oTnj8qD1jm1Sfv4 [..]
-- >8 --

It seems, that is just "works" on that [1] single page.

Regards,
Nils.

[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Artikel%2C_die_verschoben_werden_sollen


subject: [Textbook-l] public domain shakespeare

body:
My bad, I realized that the archives at MIT are all public
domain texts. So I could use those.

http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/

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from_name: Steve Vertigum

subject:
[WikiEN-l] It is time.. die clock ist ticking... le End c'est
	nearer..

body:
Dr. Duffy wrote:
"Much of what went on was simply Robert-baiting and
anti-Robertism. That does not make it right, but it is
wrong to attach religious or ethnic connotations to
what has been going on. There have been cases of
jew-baiting on wiki, a few cases, and I have blocked
on the most recent culprits and called for the banning
of another."

This is highly quotable. May I? While I agree with
nearly everything James has said, I disagree that EofT
deserves banning. Punishing one child and not the
other is a typical manifestation of lopsided parenting
- usually resulting in a
great despartity between how they are each treated,
and consequently how they each continue to behave.
Banning EofT, despite his rudeness, and inability to
take good sound advice -- and not banning RK -- in all
fairness, would only exacerbate the percieved problems
of rampant anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism on
Wikipedia.

While one may deserve the other, and while the rest of
the world may deserve neither, this does not mean that
misplaced force will ever solve anything. Of course,
HL Mencken disagreed:  "Hanging one scoundrel, it
appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it?
The first one is at least disposed of." But then so
many good turn of the century commentarians were
speechless after 1945. Will Rodgers... Harry Truman,
etc. etc.

-S-

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] animal encyclopedia

body:
Thank you for the answers. Although I find the layout of these WikiProjects
a bit confusing, I think for now I'll just start adding some articles then.

Jurriaan

Daniel Mayer wrote

> Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of many different integrated encyclopedias. One
> of those is an animal encyclopedia:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiProject_Tree_of_Life
>

Vicky Rosenzweig wrote:

>If you want to integrate it, you might want to start a WikiProject.

>We have a bunch of articles on animals already--especially birds--and
>that information would be available either to include, or as a starting point
>if you wanted to write longer or differently-styled articles.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: distributing 1.0 (was: Re: [WikiEN-l] copyright on old paintings)

body:
Richard Grevers wrote:
>And in some countries High-speed internet is charged
>for by data volume transferred. There is no way I'd be
>downloading any ISO images on an account with 1GB/month
>"free" and the rest at $0.2 ber MB.

Eh gads! 1 GB/month? That is so draconian. I do that easily in a week and
periodically in a single day when I'm updating my system. And that is just
/my/ computer; my partner and our roomate use even more bandwidth with online
games and downloading media files (and they are both Windows users so they
also have to update /way/ more often). We are only limited by speed; at any
one moment we are only able to share a single 1.5 MB/s DSL connection.
America is grand!

But the beauty of even having such a restricted pipeline as you do, is that
only one person in your community needs to download the ISO; then many, many
copies can be made of that single file. Then the updates can trickle-in
easily under your 1 GB limit.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
Delirium wrote:
[...]
> At this time they may
> inform us of the copyright violation, and ask us to remove the offending
> material.  Doing so from the website is trivial, but it would also force
> us to stop distributing Wikipedia 1.0 until a modified version without
> the copyright violation has been prepared.  This could be disastrous for
> attempts to produce a paper or CD-ROM version, as any inventory copies
> have to be destroyed and a new print run prepared.  If we got, say,
> three copyright violation notices spaced a month or so apart, it would
> effectively make it impossible to distribute Wikipedia in such a form,
> since the costs of starting a new print run each time would become
> prohibitive.

Every new computer today has a CD-burner, and when 1.0 is ready for
distribution every computer will have a DVD-burner. We just have to
produce some ISO-images and a handbook in PDF ready for print (and some
nice artwork with a "handicraft work guide" (?) for those people who
want "paperboard boxes" (?)).

People can make as many copies for their friends as they like. We can
distribute the process of sending copies to universities or libraries
(like theopencd.org did) among Wikipedians, especially in developing
countries. No need to order huge amounts from the "press shop" (?).

BTW, I find all this talk about a paper Wikipedia completely useless
(sorry if someone feels offended). It's (much!) too much work, too risky
and I don't see a necessity for it. Can't we talk about this again in
five or ten years when the DVD-version has stabilised and we are sure
that our 50.000 most important articles (and pictures!) have no
copyright violation in them? Book-on-demand production might also be a
bit cheaper than today.

Just my two WikiCent.
Kurt

P.S.: Sorry if I choose some strange word constructions :-)


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

body:
> What course of action is left?

Here's my suggestion:
1. Robert accepts that it is wrong to insult people on
Wikipedia, apologises, and agrees not to do so in the
future.
2. Those who Robert has insulted accept his apology,
forgive him, and agree not to
bring up the subject in the future.
3. Robert accepts that it is wrong to ask for bona
fide Wikipedians to be banned, apologises, and stops
doing so.
4. Those who Robert has asked to be banned accept his
apology, forgive him, and agree not to bring up the
subject in the future.
5. Robert accepts that it is wrong to accuse bona fide
Wikipedians of being vandals, apologises, and stops
doing so.
6. Those who Robert has accused of being vandals
accept his apology, forgive him, and agree not to
bring up the subject in the future.
7. Those who created all the junk on this topic accept
that it was wrong to create so much junk, apologise
for doing so, and agree not to do so in the future.
8. Those who were affected by all the junk on the
subject accept the collective apology, forgive those
who created it, and agree not to bring up the subject
in the future.
9. All the junk on this topic, scattered over various
talk pages, user talk pages, ban pages, mailing lists,
etc, is all sent to the big recycle bin in the sky.
10. Time passes.
11. People start to forgive.
12. People start to forget.

This 12 step procedure will make everyone happy, I
believe. However, I welcome alternative suggestions,
or improvements. If you want to edit it, it'll be at
[[Wikipedia:Community case RK]], replacing the big
pile of junk previously located there.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to sort out step
zero: filling in my tax return... ;-)

Love,
-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper

------

It is not entirely clear to me if we have to "close
the eyes and pretend we see nothing wrong in the talk
pages" after we agreed to mutually apology and forgive
and be good girls and good boys.

But I know RK has agreed he might have been mistaking
on some points about me, and he agreed to rephrase all
the junk he wrote about me, and I have agreed to talk
to him politely again and to try not to hold him bad
feelings and assume good faith from him.

However, the rephrasing and removing of insults was
not done. The comments will stay forever in article
history, and the mailing lists are very well known by
google, and the articles quite easy to retrieve since
he spread my name in all the message titles, with
quite unpleasant statements to me. Type Anthere in
google, one of his messages is there, first page.

So, I ask "How are those people on the net, who find
such comments about me on mailing lists, and such
comments about me on talk pages are gonna understand
them and know where they come from if all references
about the current debate are gone ? No where.

So, I stay polite, and I could forgive in time, but I
do not expect to *forget* *anytime in the near future*.

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from_name: Geoffrey Thomas

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Controversial user nicknames

body:
Someone calling himself Dante Alighieri but not named Dante wrote:
> As a matter of fact, I don't suppose there's any way that you
> could prove that my name /isn't/ legally Dante Alighieri.

Hmm...I think I remember something...<goes to Google, searches
WikiEN-l archives>

In
 http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-May/003655.html
the same e-mail address <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com> wrote:
> Yeah, that last one from Karim Moussally was from me. That's my real name.
> Darn multiple sig files. ;)

Q.E.D. ;-)

-[[User:Geoffrey|Geoffrey Thomas]] (which is my real name)

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from_name: martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] A course of action

body:
> What course of action is left?

Here's my suggestion:
1. Robert accepts that it is wrong to insult people on Wikipedia, apologises, and
agrees not to do so in the future.
2. Those who Robert has insulted accept his apology, forgive him, and agree not to
bring up the subject in the future.
3. Robert accepts that it is wrong to ask for bona fide Wikipedians to be banned,
apologises, and stops doing so.
4. Those who Robert has asked to be banned accept his apology, forgive him, and
agree not to bring up the subject in the future.
5. Robert accepts that it is wrong to accuse bona fide Wikipedians of being vandals,
apologises, and stops doing so.
6. Those who Robert has accused of being vandals accept his apology, forgive him,
and agree not to bring up the subject in the future.
7. Those who created all the junk on this topic accept that it was wrong to create so
much junk, apologise for doing so, and agree not to do so in the future.
8. Those who were affected by all the junk on the subject accept the collective
apology, forgive those who created it, and agree not to bring up the subject in the
future.
9. All the junk on this topic, scattered over various talk pages, user talk pages, ban
pages, mailing lists, etc, is all sent to the big recycle bin in the sky.
10. Time passes.
11. People start to forgive.
12. People start to forget.

This 12 step procedure will make everyone happy, I believe. However, I welcome
alternative suggestions, or improvements. If you want to edit it, it'll be at
[[Wikipedia:Community case RK]], replacing the big pile of junk previously located
there.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to sort out step zero: filling in my tax return... ;-)

Love,
-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper