subject: [Wikipedia-l] A slightly 'out there' suggestion for colour use

body:
Kajikit wrote in part:

>In paper encyclopedias they often use colour to help distinguish
>sections, and I know that the new tables are going to use colour as a
>feature, and the user pages have a pale coloured background to
>differentiate them from the main articles. Why not make an option to put
>a coloured header, or a coloured border, or a pale coloured background
>onto the Fictional pages to help identify them? When you hit the random
>button and landed up on a fictional page you'd see instantly by the pale
>pink (or whatever colour was decided) background.

Colour is pretty, but we should never let it encode information.
Many people won't be able to see our colours
(and I don't just mean colour blind people,
a problem that we could avoid with judicious selection).
I don't oppose this idea as such, but I think that the vital task,
and the only ultimate solution to this problem,
is to check each article to make sure that the text gives it away.
If the text doesn't say, then anything else is just a stopgap.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jaap van Ganswijk

subject: [Wikipedia-l] policy suggestion: SAMPA

body:
At 2002-08-05 17:03 +0100, tarquin wrote:
>Paper encyclopedias expect their readers to learn the order of the letters of the alphabet. Learning SAMPA is relatively simple. While the table on [[SAMPA]] is increasingly complex, there is a shorter version on a sub-page which a link like [[pronounced]] should direct readers to.
>It's a small effort to learn, for a large gain afterwards.

Unlike what is possible in a paper encyclopedium,
why not add a small wav file of someone
pronouncing the word correctly?

Some weeks ago I tought my mother how to add
the pronunciation of some of the words to her
Esperanto course (which is in Dutch):
http://www.xs4all.nl/~wvganswk/les1.htm

Greetings,
Jaap


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Helga Jonat

body:
J Hofmann Kemp wrote:

>Besides, I think we all know now that
>she is Old Prussian, descended straight from the legendary Widewuto..

But aren't the Old Prussians more closely related to Poles than Germans,
if language is any guide? (which it is, I think, albeit imperfectly).
OTOH, now that I think about it, mentioning Balto-Slavic was one of
the alleged errors in US textbooks that somebody put on a junk page,
and I seem to recall that this page was in fact Helga's.
Perhaps she believes in Balto-Germanic?

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] How idiot-proofed is the 'move' feature?

body:
>> Does it give you any warning if you try to replace a current
>> page when you rename another one with the same title? Or does
>> it just quietly overwrite it? If so, then it's a very dangerous
>> feature to have available to the general public...

Move is not destructive; it will fail with an error message if the
destination page already exists or is an illegal title.  I also
just fixed one remaining bug in the way it updated the link tables,
so I don't see much reason to restrict it anymore.  It is, however,
still a fairly drastic move since it changes a lot of stuff at once
and creates links to redirects, so it should probably still be
restricted to logged in users at least.

> I move that if B is a redirect to A, and you move A to B, the
> software exchange the two pages.

Can't do it--you have to move A to X, delete A, move B to A, delete
B, move X to B, delete X.


body:
Lee Daniel Crocker (?) wrote:

>phma wrote:

>>I move that if B is a redirect to A, and you move A to B, the
>>software exchange the two pages.

>Can't do it--you have to move A to X, delete A, move B to A, delete
>B, move X to B, delete X.

Which is not what you want anyway, since then A redirects to itself, not to B.
Delete B, then move A to B, and you're done; A redirects to B automagically.
(Except, as always, you must fix other redirects to A by hand.)

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special pages menu

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

>"Show "s and "List "s should be removed.
>They are only distracting.

I was just thinking the same thing earlier today.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikitech-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
>Yes, it's not very wiki, and since we agree it's not vandalism (only
deeply misguided and ill-informed political evangelism) then there's
no reason to ban her either.  Though she is frustrating.

Vandalism isn't the /only/ possible reason to ban someone.  We banned
Mr. "24" because he consistently refused to work with the community,
undermined our goals, and made personal attacks.  If Helga continues
to interfere with our job of making good articles, won't participate
in our process, doesn't contribute in other ways, and eats up the
time and energy of others here who /do/ contribute, then maybe
banning is the right thing.

Or perhaps a new feature for non-vandals like them: being restricted
to editing Talk pages only?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
Koyaanis Qatsi (sp?) wrote about H. Jonat:

>Yes, it's not very wiki, and since we agree it's not vandalism (only deeply
>misguided and ill-informed political evangelism) then there's no reason to ban
>her either.  Though she is frustrating.

I at least think that it's appropriate to ban somebody
for consistently posting copyrighted material despite correction.
(I'm not in a position to judge whether this applies to Helga,
so I'm speaking theoretically here.)

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] policy suggestion: SAMPA

body:
Tom Parmenter wrote:

>The intimidating SAMPA table gives examples like { "as in London
>English cat".
>
Hm. Must go clean that up!

>Would that be Cockney or BBC?  I don't speak
>either. The best system for me would be to render it in Spanish,
>Norwegian, or German, phonetic languages that I know how to
>pronounce. (smiley)
>
>
>
Absolutely. We could have a SAMPA/German, SAMPA/Norwegian and
SAMPA/Spanish pages, each giving pronunciation guides for the same
common symbols.
And there's another case for using the IPA or a derivative: non-English
speakers won't necessarily know how to pronounce "CHOW-pek"


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] policy suggestion: SAMPA

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>>Tarquin wrote:
>>>And for that matter, how does the writer pronounce the word "chop"?
>>>AmEng and BrEng have different vowels for that word.
>>
>>I would expect that same difference to be reflected in their
>>*anglicized* pronunciation of "?apek". Am I wrong?
>
> IANAB (I am not a Brit), but I think that you are wrong.
> But this doesn't invalidate your ultimate point;
> it just means that the guide should say "CHAHP-ek" instead.

Great! Then please change it.

>>See [[Clitoris]] for an example: it has a link to [[SAMPA|pronounced]],
>>a SAMPA representation (correctly in [phonetic transcription brackets]),
>>an approximation in English orthography, and a wav file (should it be an
>>ogg?).
>
> How are the phonetic brackets correct?  *I* don't pronounce it that way!
> But change it to phonemic slashes, and suddenly I do.
> Unless we're describing distinct dialects, brackets will always be wrong.

Is the wav file incorrect, then? It's much more precise and dialect-
specific, including detail that the phonetic transcription does not.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Special pages menu

body:
>Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
>
>>"Show "s and "List "s should be removed.
>>They are only distracting.
>
>I was just thinking the same thing earlier today.

Must have been about the time I was doing it.  I love easy fixes.


body:
>> Move is not destructive; it will fail with an error message if the
>> destination page already exists or is an illegal title.  I also
>> just fixed one remaining bug in the way it updated the link tables,
>> so I don't see much reason to restrict it anymore.  It is, however,
>> still a fairly drastic move since it changes a lot of stuff at once
>> and creates links to redirects, so it should probably still be
>> restricted to logged in users at least.

> Okay... I wasn't sure about that, because after I renamed a
> particular page I looked at the recent changes and it appeared as
> if somebody else had already been working on the (so far as I
> could tell non-existent) page... that's a relief.

Yes, it's kind of magical; it moves history too, so it will make
the recent changes page look like all the changes to the old
article were actually to the new one.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] delete

body:
> Someone just uploaded an orphan image, apparently a personal
> picture, called "Sistur.bmp". This is of course a delenda, but the
> delete function is disabled. When will it be reenabled?

By the end of the day, I hope.  I just want to make it a bit
safer and do some more testing.


from_name: Pierre Abbat

body:
On Monday 05 August 2002 20:47, Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> Does it give you any warning if you try to replace a current page when
> you rename another one with the same title? Or does it just quietly
> overwrite it? If so, then it's a very dangerous feature to have
> available to the general public...
>
> It needs to either refuse to perform the operation if the name is
> duplicated, or to give you a warning 'You are over-writing X page, do
> you wish to continue?' Yes 'Are you SURE you wish to continue?'

I move that if B is a redirect to A, and you move A to B, the software
exchange the two pages.

phma


from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] policy suggestion: SAMPA

body:
On 05-08-2002, Jaap van Ganswijk wrote thusly :
> At 2002-08-05 17:03 +0100, tarquin wrote:
> >Paper encyclopedias expect their readers to learn the order of the letters of the alphabet. Learning SAMPA is relatively simple. While the table on [[SAMPA]] is increasingly complex, there is a shorter version on a sub-page which a link like [[pronounced]] should direct readers to.
> >It's a small effort to learn, for a large gain afterwards.
> Unlike what is possible in a paper encyclopedium,
> why not add a small wav file of someone
> pronouncing the word correctly?
Someone has started it already on the page 'Clitoris'.

Regards,
kpj.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protected Copernicus as Ermland Administrator and the Prussian Coin Reform

body:
On 05-08-2002, Ray Saintonge wrote thusly :
> >On 04-08-2002, Jeroen Heijmans wrote thusly :
> >>I've just protected the page Copernicus as Ermland Administrator and the
> >>Prussian Coin Reform, because Danny and Helga are adding and deleting
> >>the contents back and forth. Although I think Danny is right in his
> >>actions, I want it to be sorted out on the talk page instead of having
> >>this constant editing. If I was wrong to do so, simply undo it, and I
> >>will not do this again.
> I see that protecting a page to stifle debate as an abuse of sysop
> status.  At present this is a blank page, and that makes the protection
> even more silly.  If people want to continue the debate they can do so
> by simply restarting the whole debate under a slightly different title
> that respects the Wikipedia policy about capitalizing words in an
> article title.
> And what do opinions about the Polish Communist government have to do
> with Copernicus in the 16th century.
Oddly enough quite a lot. Probably the Communist propaganda persuaded
Helga into embarking on her pro-Prussian/anti-Polish crusade.

Regards,
kpj.


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Why there is no rsync yet ?

body:
> Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> > The fact that tarball is generated only once per day is serious
> > problem for topological analysis that must be done in Polish
> > Wikipedia to make optimal start page.

Did you try the URL ending in ?action=links
There is a lot of unexplored stuff in the UseModWiki source code.
It's an amazing program.

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


from_name: Jan Hidders

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Parsing TeX

body:
On Sun, Aug 04, 2002 at 10:55:03PM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
>
> There's another reason for having a simple method producing <var>
> and a complicated method producing a PNG by calling LaTeX.
> LaTeX is hardly more easy for a technophobe to learn than HTML,
> and we don't want them to think that they can't edit a math expression
> without learning LaTeX.

Since all math will probably then be rewrittin in TeX anyway, that will be the
situation anyhow.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] policy suggestion: SAMPA

in_reply_to: <3D4EB8DA.7020604@telus.net>; from saintonge@telus.net on Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 10:41:46AM -0700

body:
On Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 10:41:46AM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:
> >At 2002-08-05 17:03 +0100, tarquin wrote:
> >
> >>Paper encyclopedias expect their readers to learn the order of the
> >>letters of the alphabet. Learning SAMPA is relatively simple. While the
> >>table on [[SAMPA]] is increasingly complex, there is a shorter version
> >>on a sub-page which a link like [[pronounced]] should direct readers to.
> >>It's a small effort to learn, for a large gain afterwards.
> >
> >Unlike what is possible in a paper encyclopedium,
> >why not add a small wav file of someone
> >pronouncing the word correctly?
>
> This is a much better idea than most attempts at divining pronunciation
> into a strange set of symbols including highly accepted sets such as IPA.

As a reader I think I would prefer having all three options. Sometimes I
only want to quickly get a rough idea of the pronounciation, sometimes I
want to know it exactly, and in some cases I even want to know how a Russian
pronounces Glasnost. So what is the problem with having all three solutions?

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Language.php as a database

in_reply_to: <200208051740.g75Hela02825@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 10:40:47AM -0700

body:
On Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 10:40:47AM -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> I'm all for that of course; and maybe a database system could
> be setup that generates a LanguageXx.php file as output, and
> which could be added to by non-programmers.

It might be interesting to have a namespace "script:" that contains an
article for every phrase that is used in the script? The translation would
then simply consist of editing these articles and filling them with the
appropriate translation. As Lee already indicated the title should not
simply be the current English text but something that more precisly
indicates its usage in the script. Whenever such an article would be saved
the file 'Language.php' could be regenerated. To facilitate the process of
translation there should of course be a special page that lists all phrases
in the "script:" namespace as links that lead to their edit page.

That would simplify the set-up process for a new language Wikipedia very
much.

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Main Page.

body:
The Main Page appears to have been totally deleted from the database, including
its history.

Is someone working on this? I don't have access to the server myself.

-- Daniel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] delete

body:
Someone just uploaded an orphan image, apparently a personal picture, called
"Sistur.bmp". This is of course a delenda, but the delete function is
disabled. When will it be reenabled?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Main Page.

body:
On Mon, 5 Aug 2002 lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> Looks like I'm the one who deleted it.

:) Thank god! I was worried it was a database problem, Wikipedia coming apart
at the seams.

-- Daniel


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] policy suggestion: SAMPA

body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>This is a much better idea than most attempts at divining pronunciation
>>into a strange set of symbols including highly accepted sets such as
>>IPA.  The .wav file would, of course, be by a native speaker of the
>>language.  It could also be a vehicle for understanding the precise
>>manner in which Americans don't speak English.
>>
>
>Ah, but WHICH prononciation of an English language word? American?
>English? Australian? Canadian? The correct official dictionary version
>often varies by country, and what people actually say is even more
>widely different.
>
>Actually, this would be a good addition to the page on international
>language differences... instead of just seeing that the Yanks say
>a-LOOM-in-um and the rest of the world prefers al-u-MIN-e-um you could
>hear it and it might make more sense...
>
All could provide a sample - or maybe the same rule should apply as with
spelling, and the first to the post gets to have his version kept. ;-)

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Curly brackets and teaching the unteachable

body:
Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
> secondary, IM very fed up with her O; however, she isn't a vandal in the
> true sense of the word, and usually is only borderline troll-like.

Perhaps you mean Wend?  The Vandals were a Germanic tribe that
settled in northern Africa, not northern Poland.  The Wends lived in
northern Poland, but they were Slavs, not Germanic.

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wends
http://wwww.wikipedia.com/wiki/Vandal

Or perhaps you just didn't mean the "true" sense of the word.

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


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Rsync is available now

body:
You can now update Wikipedia using rsync.
Get directory wiki-xx/ from tarball
or create empty one and then:

rsync -rz wikipedia.com::xx/ wiki-xx/

Because rsync works in real time (unlike daily tarballs)
and transfers only what actually changed,
now it's quite reasonable to have mirror of wikipedia that's
updated by cron every hour or even more often without using any
extraordinary bandwidth.

Only pl, de and eo wikipedias are available now.


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Helga Jonat

body:
Helga has also contributed to the German Wikipedia. Maybe someone who
can speak German and knows about Helgas bias could take a look at the
articles she has listed on her userpage
http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?H._Jonat

Kurt


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
Well, he also said Larry Sanger was not a human and something else--I forgot what exactly--that sound very much like a threat.  That was the final straw, as it were: Jimbo banned him, and he's been banned ever since (and for good reason!)

kq

Lee wrote:
>Vandalism isn't the /only/ possible reason to ban someone.  We banned
>Mr. "24" because he consistently refused to work with the community,
>undermined our goals, and made personal attacks.  If Helga continues
>to interfere with our job of making good articles, won't participate
>in our process, doesn't contribute in other ways, and eats up the
>time and energy of others here who /do/ contribute, then maybe
>banning is the right thing.
>
>Or perhaps a new feature for non-vandals like them: being restricted
>to editing Talk pages only?


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Deletion of Main Page.

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> Naturally, a few days after I argued that our deletion policy should
> be less rigorous... :-)

[oops]

> This is probably a bad idea.
>
> I've locked the database and disabled the delete function for now.
> When I finish restoring the main page from the tarball I made
> yesterday, I'll unlock the database, but I'll leave delete disabled
> until I can make it safer.

The obvious answer is to make it impossible to delete a locked page
until it has been unlocked by a sysop, which takes a seperate step. That
would prevent accidental deletion as well as anything else.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature that
will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

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

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] policy suggestion: SAMPA

body:
At 12:02 PM 8/6/02 +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote:
>Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> > Ah, but WHICH prononciation of an English language word? American?
> > English? Australian? Canadian? The correct official dictionary version
> > often varies by country, and what people actually say is even more
> > widely different.
>
>Let's have all of them.  And if the difference is interesting, let's
>have an article that discusses the pronounciation.  Let's forget about
>that old "correct official dictionary version". This is Wikipedia.
>Time to be radical.

Even dictionary versions generally say something like "this is
pronounced with "a as in father", so the reader knows that *however*
she pronounces "father", she should use the same vowel sound in
the word being described. The idea is that there are consistent
patterns in how pronunciations shift, not that there is one canonical
way to say "father".

It's still imperfect, of course, but it's not as bad as we seem to be
assuming.

That said, I agree with Lars.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


body:
The other day there was a minor debate about how many pages should be
devoted to fictional characters, and previously I've seen concern about
people making these pages for fictional things, and not adding anything
to differentiate them from the 'real world' articles. Sometimes it
really can get confusing - you may not know whether say Gulliver was a
real explorer or a fictional character.

In paper encyclopedias they often use colour to help distinguish
sections, and I know that the new tables are going to use colour as a
feature, and the user pages have a pale coloured background to
differentiate them from the main articles. Why not make an option to put
a coloured header, or a coloured border, or a pale coloured background
onto the Fictional pages to help identify them? When you hit the random
button and landed up on a fictional page you'd see instantly by the pale
pink (or whatever colour was decided) background.

I know that's yet another feature that you may not want, but I could see
it being very useful.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature that
will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

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

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Link Syntax

body:
I'd vote for the double straight line because it's already used in
links, and people are used to it. It's not hard to surround the
characters you want to show up. A normal bracket is already used in
disambiguation headers, so we don't want to use that, and the addition
of other brackets is extra confusing.

+ bought an [[|English| language]] textbook
= bought an [[English language|English]] textbook
Shown as: bought an _English_ textbook

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature that
will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

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

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Move feature

body:
LDC wrote:

>Move is not destructive; it will fail with an error
>message if the destination page already exists or is
>an illegal title.  I also just fixed one remaining
>bug in the way it updated the link tables,
>so I don't see much reason to restrict it anymore.
>It is, however, still a fairly drastic move since it
>changes a lot of stuff at once and creates links to
>redirects, so it should probably still be
>restricted to logged in users at least.

I would be wary of allowing somebody who has been
logged-in for 5 minutes the ability to move pages
around so easily. Again we should have an 'old hand'
status to start porting these types of sysop functions
to long-time users (with the goal of eventually
porting all sysop functions as soon as safety
mechanisms are established for each). There should be
a minimum expectation that those with these abilities
have been exposed to our policies and naming
conventions. There is also the issue that if a newbie
make a mistake during a move only a sysop can correct
it because the old page title needs to be deleted
before the move can be reversed.

I know the automatic promotion idea will take some
time to implement but creating an interface for sysops
to do this manually has already been done for phase II
so should be easy enough for phase III. We should
begin working toward phasing-out sysop status by at
least porting the move feature to old hands.

--mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


from_name: Julie Hofmann Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Short notes re: Eclecticology's and Kurt's messages

body:
Hi Eclecticology -- thanks so much for the nice note -- it made me feel
ever so appreciated and glad I went back to teaching!  By the way, you
have a very cool last name -- is it from one of the Low Countries?

Kurt -- I looked at some of Helga's stuff on the German wikipedia.  I'm
not sure what you think, Kurt, but my opinion is that her stuff is much
less controversial.  Perhaps she doesn't think the Truth is being hidden
from Germans? She writes more fluidly in German, too - no surprise
there, but it also isn't IMHO ''korrektes Hochdeutsch''.   Knowing that
she has problems with grammar and spacing in her native language makes
me somewhat more charitable towards her English.

It would be great if a couple other German speakers -- especially
natives -- could also look.

Jules


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Short notes re: Eclecticology's messages

body:
Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:

>Hi Eclecticology -- thanks so much for the nice note -- it made me feel
>ever so appreciated and glad I went back to teaching!  By the way, you
>have a very cool last name -- is it from one of the Low Countries?
>
>Jules
>
The name is of a former French province before Napoleon started screwing
up French geography. Now mainly the department of Charente Maritime.  In
its Latin form, Santonici, it was first mentioned in Caesar's Gallic Wars.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Move feature

body:
>I would be wary of allowing somebody who has been
>logged-in for 5 minutes the ability to move pages
>around so easily. Again we should have an 'old hand'
>status to start porting these types of sysop functions
>to long-time users (with the goal of eventually
>porting all sysop functions as soon as safety
>mechanisms are established for each). There should be
>a minimum expectation that those with these abilities
>have been exposed to our policies and naming
>conventions. There is also the issue that if a newbie
>make a mistake during a move only a sysop can correct
>it because the old page title needs to be deleted
>before the move can be reversed.
>
>I know the automatic promotion idea will take some
>time to implement but creating an interface for sysops
>to do this manually has already been done for phase II
>so should be easy enough for phase III. We should
>begin working toward phasing-out sysop status by at
>least porting the move feature to old hands.

I agree that I do need to implement some auto-promotion
feature, but Sysop status is never "going away" as far as
I'm concerned.  It is an unavoidable fact of reality that
some people are trustworthy and others are not, and human
judgment is required to tell the difference.  That fact
must continue to be reflected in our process, regardless of
any pretty-sounding egalitarian dogma to the contrary.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Francis Bacon

body:
I've been working through the Francis Bacon article, mostly wikifying
and reducing the wordy prose of the 1911 Encyclopedia.  The version that
we have is of course identical to the on-line version put up to support
the Republican Party, right down to the scanning errors.  Since I'm
editing and cleaning all that out I'm not at all worried about potential
copyright issues.

I do have one problem.  There is a page missing from the Republican
version which is therefore also missing from our version.  If anyone has
ready access to the original encyclopedia I would very much appreciate
if that page could be scanned and uploaded to the Francis Bacon talk
page.  I could then take and put an edited version at the appropriate
place in the article text.  The missing biographical page covers the
time period at the end of Elizabeth's reign, and the beginning of that
of James I including the execution of the Earl of Essex.

Thanks,  Eclecticology


body:
Does it give you any warning if you try to replace a current page when
you rename another one with the same title? Or does it just quietly
overwrite it? If so, then it's a very dangerous feature to have
available to the general public...

It needs to either refuse to perform the operation if the name is
duplicated, or to give you a warning 'You are over-writing X page, do
you wish to continue?' Yes 'Are you SURE you wish to continue?'

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature that
will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

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

Love and huggles to all!


body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:

>The other day there was a minor debate about how many pages should be
>devoted to fictional characters, and previously I've seen concern about
>people making these pages for fictional things, and not adding anything
>to differentiate them from the 'real world' articles. Sometimes it
>really can get confusing - you may not know whether say Gulliver was a
>real explorer or a fictional character.
>
>
>
I often edit articles so they say:
"Homer Simpson is a fictional character in the television series [[The
Simpsons]] ... etc

I've put something about that on the "establish context" policy page.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Parsing TeX

body:
On Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 06:42:50PM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
> Jan Hidders wrote:
> >Toby Bartels wrote:
>
> >>LaTeX is hardly more easy for a technophobe to learn than HTML, and we
> >>don't want them to think that they can't edit a math expression without
> >>learning LaTeX.
>
> >Since all math will probably then be rewrittin in TeX anyway, that will
> >be the situation anyhow.
>
> That's exactly the situation that I want to avoid!
> Why *shouldn't* it be easy to edit a math expression without knowing LaTeX?
> That's the case now; you only need to know '' or <var>
> (depending on whether I've edited the page significanlty or not,
> and even this will become easier if we encode <var> as $$ or such).
> I'm all for a system that makes complicated math easier to edit
> (and easier to get right in the first place),
> but not at the expense of the simple math that is the majority.

Note that I was talking about math *expressions* and not about simple
variable names! For simple variable names the required knowledge of LaTeX is
going to be near zero. I would even argue that always using the TeX markup
makes things simpeler there. An example in your notation:

  .. let $$v1$$, ..., $$vn$$ be a finite list ..

and in mine:

 .. let [$v_1$], ..., [$v_n$] be a finite list ..

Note that all that I'm arguing here is that we have one markup for math and
not two (one for <var> and one for LaTeX). Whether we output the expression in
question as <var>, MathML or a PNG could be decided by the script on the
basis of the browser and the contents of the expression.

Deal?

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikitech-l] Deletion log is out of order

body:
I just deleted Asianlove.wma at 8:33 according to the server. Jeroen Heijmans
previously deleted it at 16:53, before which I deleted it at 7:45.

1. How can 16:53 be before 8:33 on the same day?
2. How can a file be deleted thrice if it was uploaded only twice?
3. Why is the server not on UTC?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] policy suggestion: SAMPA

body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> Ah, but WHICH prononciation of an English language word? American?
> English? Australian? Canadian? The correct official dictionary version
> often varies by country, and what people actually say is even more
> widely different.

Let's have all of them.  And if the difference is interesting, let's
have an article that discusses the pronounciation.  Let's forget about
that old "correct official dictionary version". This is Wikipedia.
Time to be radical.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How about the legal stuff when use of audio on wikipedia

body:
> How is the legal point of this? Are there things that the
> English Wikipedia can do and things that other wikiepdia's
> may not do?

> To know if the use of a very small part of a song is allowed
> I have looked at the site of SABAM, the watchdog of copyrights
> in Belgium.  In their FAQ it is stated very clearly that it is
> absoluly not allowed to use ANY music whitout permission.
> Also for 5 or 10 seconds.

I don't know Belgian law, but U.S. law very clearly allows
"fair use" of excerpts under certain conditions, and Wikipedia
meets those conditions about as well as anything could.  I'ts
possible that a copyright holder might complain anyway, in which
case I hope we would not cower in fear but rather publicly
ridicule the company and shame them into backing off (Jimbo, if
you ever get such a letter, I'd love to write the reply!)

It's also quite likely that the Belgian site you refer to is
lying to you, because holders of copyrights routinely lie about
what rights consumers have and don't have.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] download

body:
>On the FAQ it says that it is possible to download the entire
>Wikipedia.
>
>I would expect that this would be something that is easy to
>do, but there does not appear to be a link for download.  Is this
>FAQ answer just a promise?

It's in http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/cur_table.sql.gz and
http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/old_table.sql.gz (history).
Where would be a good place to document this?


body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> >> Does it give you any warning if you try to replace a current
> >> page when you rename another one with the same title? Or does
> >> it just quietly overwrite it? If so, then it's a very dangerous
> >> feature to have available to the general public...
>
> Move is not destructive; it will fail with an error message if the
> destination page already exists or is an illegal title.  I also
> just fixed one remaining bug in the way it updated the link tables,
> so I don't see much reason to restrict it anymore.  It is, however,
> still a fairly drastic move since it changes a lot of stuff at once
> and creates links to redirects, so it should probably still be
> restricted to logged in users at least.

Okay... I wasn't sure about that, because after I renamed a particular
page I looked at the recent changes and it appeared as if somebody else
had already been working on the (so far as I could tell non-existent)
page... that's a relief.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature that
will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

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

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Jimmy Wales

in_reply_to: <200208061919.g76JJHs15185@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Tue, Aug 06, 2002 at 12:19:17PM -0700

body:
I agree with this.  We should be vigilant about making sure that our
fair use really is fair use, i.e. snippets only of copyrighted stuff,
and in the context of criticism and commentary.

Posting a snippet from a song is not materially different from quoting a paragraph
from a book.

We DO want to make sure that the Napster/Gnutella crowd doesn't get the idea that
we're running some kind of underground file swapping service, of course.  I am very
interested in the changing nature of copyright in the face of technological changes,
so I'm glad *other people* are testing the boundaries.  But Wikipedia is not about
copyright activism, it's about making an encyclopedia.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] download

body:
> On Tuesday 06 August 2002 15:20, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>>It's in http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/cur_table.sql.gz and
>>http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/old_table.sql.gz (history).
>>Where would be a good place to document this?

How about [[Wikipedia:Database download]]?

Pierre Abbat wrote:
> Wait a minnow, that sounds like the files I deleted because they contain
> passwords. If we make the Wikipedia database dump available for download, we
> must make sure it does not contain passwords.

There are no passwords in the cur or old tables, only in the user table
(and they're now encrypted). Unless, of course, somebody wrote their
password in the text of an article!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] download

body:
>> It's in http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/cur_table.sql.gz and
>> http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/old_table.sql.gz (history).
>> Where would be a good place to document this?

> Wait a minnow, that sounds like the files I deleted because they
> contain passwords. If we make the Wikipedia database dump available
> for download, we must make sure it does not contain passwords.

Those are just the "cur" and "old" tables of the database, which
contain articles and histories.  We do not leave the "user" table
available for download, and even if we did, it no longer contains
passwords in plaintext.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] download

body:
Viktor Kuncak wrote:
> Brion VIBBER:
>  > > On Tuesday 06 August 2002 15:20, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>  > >>It's in http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/cur_table.sql.gz and
>  > >>http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/old_table.sql.gz (history).
>  > >>Where would be a good place to document this?
>  >
>  > How about [[Wikipedia:Database download]]?
>
> Whatever the internal name, I would a link to that entry
> from the Main Page, in the part of the page that says Wikipedia.
> I guess "Wikipedia database download" was supposed to be that?

It used to be exactly that.

> It would be good to make clear which one is the software running
> Wikipedia and which one is the content of the database.
>
> Another question.
> Clicking on "Recent Changes" to the Main Page yields
> "No such special page" error.  Is this the intended behavior?

You're either looking at http://wikipedia.com (or anything other than
http://www.wikipedia.com) which is still the old phase II software (but
only for the first page you look at, since all URLs there point
explicitly to the new server!), or you have an old version stuck in your
browser or proxy's cache.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


in_reply_to: <B975AF88.2696%cunctator@kband.com>; from cunctator@kband.com on Tue, Aug 06, 2002 at 04:53:28PM -0400

body:
O.k.  :-)

The Cunctator wrote:

> On 8/6/02 3:43 PM, "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> > But Wikipedia is not
> > about
> > copyright activism, it's about making an encyclopedia.
>
> Since it's about making a free encyclopedia, part of the Wikipedia mission
> is a form of copyright activism--not through picking fights with copyright
> holders, but by creating a massive creative commons resource--positive, not
> negative copyright activism.
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
> We DO want to make sure that the Napster/Gnutella crowd doesn't
> get the idea that we're running some kind of underground file
> swapping service, of course.  I am very interested in the changing
> nature of copyright in the face of technological changes, so I'm
> glad *other people* are testing the boundaries.  But Wikipedia is
> not about copyright activism, it's about making an encyclopedia.

Fair enough, but *I AM* about copyright activism, whether or not
you and/or Wikipedia are, so don't hesitate to use me as a resource
or as a guinea pig.


from_name: Viktor Kuncak

subject: [Wikipedia-l] download

body:
Hi,

On the FAQ it says that it is possible to download the entire
Wikipedia.

I would expect that this would be something that is easy to
do, but there does not appear to be a link for download.  Is this
FAQ answer just a promise?

Thanks,

  Viktor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] policy suggestion: SAMPA

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:

> >Unlike what is possible in a paper encyclopedium,
> >why not add a small wav file of someone
> >pronouncing the word correctly?
> >
> This is a much better idea than most attempts at divining pronunciation
> into a strange set of symbols including highly accepted sets such as
> IPA.  The .wav file would, of course, be by a native speaker of the
> language.  It could also be a vehicle for understanding the precise
> manner in which Americans don't speak English.
>
> There would still be room for making written explanations about words
> that are not pronounced in an intuitive manner, such as "mnemosyne" and
> "more" when used to refer to a custom.

Ah, but WHICH prononciation of an English language word? American?
English? Australian? Canadian? The correct official dictionary version
often varies by country, and what people actually say is even more
widely different.

Actually, this would be a good addition to the page on international
language differences... instead of just seeing that the Yanks say
a-LOOM-in-um and the rest of the world prefers al-u-MIN-e-um you could
hear it and it might make more sense...

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature that
will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

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

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] download

body:
On Tuesday 06 August 2002 15:20, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> >On the FAQ it says that it is possible to download the entire
> >Wikipedia.
> >
> >I would expect that this would be something that is easy to
> >do, but there does not appear to be a link for download.  Is this
> >FAQ answer just a promise?
>
> It's in http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/cur_table.sql.gz and
> http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/old_table.sql.gz (history).
> Where would be a good place to document this?

Wait a minnow, that sounds like the files I deleted because they contain
passwords. If we make the Wikipedia database dump available for download, we
must make sure it does not contain passwords.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] download

body:
Brion VIBBER:
 > > On Tuesday 06 August 2002 15:20, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
 > >>It's in http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/cur_table.sql.gz and
 > >>http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/old_table.sql.gz (history).
 > >>Where would be a good place to document this?
 >
 > How about [[Wikipedia:Database download]]?

Whatever the internal name, I would a link to that entry
from the Main Page, in the part of the page that says Wikipedia.
I guess "Wikipedia database download" was supposed to be that?

It would be good to make clear which one is the software running
Wikipedia and which one is the content of the database.

Another question.
Clicking on "Recent Changes" to the Main Page yields
"No such special page" error.  Is this the intended behavior?

  Viktor


subject: [Wikitech-l] what links here - and how often

body:
Perhaps this could be interesting for the Wikipedia as well...

Inspired by Wikipedia's "What links here" function, I implemented a
in susning.nu, my Swedish wiki website, a MySQL table that contains a
line for each link, with a column for the source (the page that
contains the link) and one for the destination (the page the link
leads to).  Fine.

But I also added a counter to each row of that table, and that counter
is updated on each access (no sweat, it works fine, no performance
degradation), based on the referer URL.  And if the referer URL isn't
already in the table, a new record is created.  This means also
external referer URLs will be recorded.  And if they belong to Google
or some other wellknown search engine, the script extracts the search
expression.  This is a way to find out who or what links to wiki page
and how often those links are used, without access to the server logs.

If you want to check it out, my version of the "what links here" is
called "L?nkar" and is available in the menu bar at the top and bottom
of each page. The displayed page lists links to and links from each
page, ordered by the frequency of their use.

For example, the page on Ericsson T68, http://susning.nu/Ericsson_T68
has a Link page on the URL
http://susning.nu/susning.fcgi?action=links&id=Ericsson_T68

Since the function was introduced four days ago, that page has seen
this access pattern (my translation):

 Most frequently used links to [[Ericsson T68]]
 6 - HomePage
 5 - external link(-) - external search(t68)
 2 - external search(ericsson+t68)
 1 - external search(t68+and+t68i+difference) -
     external search(wap+settings+for+t68+i)
 0 - Ericsson - Xpedio
 A total of 8 links, that have been used 20 times.

 Most frequently used links from [[Ericsson T68]]
 2 - RecentChanges
 1 - Buzzword - GPRS - SyncML
 0 - Bluetooth - Ericsson - Nokia 8210 - POP3 - SMTP - WAP
 A total of 10 links, that have been used 5 times.

The links with zero count are links that exist between wiki pages, but
haven't been used.  External referer URLs never get a zero count.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] How about the legal stuff when use of audio on
	wikipedia

body:
On 8/6/02 3:43 PM, "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> But Wikipedia is not
> about
> copyright activism, it's about making an encyclopedia.

Since it's about making a free encyclopedia, part of the Wikipedia mission
is a form of copyright activism--not through picking fights with copyright
holders, but by creating a massive creative commons resource--positive, not
negative copyright activism.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] DICT protocol

body:
> http://www.dict.org (DICT protocol)

I plan on implementing a stable API of some sort; if this
or some similar protocol catches on, it shouldn't be difficult
to write a gateway server between DICT and WikiAPI.  But I
don't see much need for that yet until we have a resource
worth fetching that way, and I think that's still a year or
more away.

> A other project that is very alive to think about is
> http://freenetproject.org

Ah, yes, my previous free time sink (I was involved in that
project early on--I wrote the FAQs and such).

I don't think Freenet as it is will catch on--it's not really
that great a protocol, and some of its fundamental problems
aren't fixable.  But I /do/ think that a peer-to-peer distributed
database might be an interesting back end for Wikipedia someday.
But again, I think it needs to develop in a centralized way for
a while before risking that.  I may be labelled a heretic for
saying this, but part of what make Wikipedia great is its /lack/
or freedom and universal participation.  Everything2 showed us
what that devolves into.  We have a central goal here--a narrow
focus, and people to keep the masses pointed in the right direction.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moves, sysops and old hands

body:
> That is, if a newbie or anyone else makes a mistake or moves
> an article to where they shouldn't, it should be possible for
> anyone to reverse the change, just as it is possible to revert
> an article to a previous version.

That's a good idea.  I could ease the restriction on the target
being empty to allow the move if the target is a redirect to
the source page, with no other content and no history.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Moves, sysops, and old hands

body:
Tim mentioned a wariness about old hands abusing sysop rights, and I
agree this is a possibility.  On the other hand, there are currently a
bunch of old hands who DO  have sysop rights, and I'm not sure I'd say
anyone has -- although there have been a couple of instances where
people on this list have questioned the actions of others.  I think
that's good, and helps keep everybody more objective.  Here's my take
(not that you asked, but you all know me ;-) ).

1. An automatic thing to give rights would be great, Lee.  As long as
it's limited to people who consistently log in and contribute.

2.  if this is put into place, I would also suggest that anyone who
qualifies (consistent contributions WHILE LOGGED IN over x amount of
time) get a pop-up informing them that they can have these rights, and
need only sign onto this list to turn them on.  This will keep people
who really don't care to become that involved a way to opt out, and will
ensure that people who do want the rights also take the time become a
bit more involved.

3. I think there should be some guidelines (for people, not the system)
for use of IP blocking, page locking, etc.    For example, I suggest
that, in cases of clear and immediate vandalism control, IPs should be
blockable based on one sysop's judgement.  In cases of edit wars, or
where the sysop is actually involved, I think that a note should go to
the list asking for review and get two other sysops to agree there's a
problem -- and have one of them do the locking.  I know this is more
complicated, but 1) it might help keep abuses from happening in the heat
of debate, and 2) it should help prevent the appearance of an evil
cadre, militia, cabal, etc.

--In response to the obvious question, Cunc (because I know you worry
about this type of thing), my assumption is that it would work this way.
I would be involved in (or witness -- I wouldn't feel comfortable
locking a page without consulting anyway, but that's just me) an
interminable edit war.  I would say to myself, "Self, I can see no
contributions here, only angry reversions, I think this should be locked
till tempers cool and people have something constructive to offer."  I
would then write a note to the list "Attention sysops:  there is a
flame/edit/revert war going on at article x.  I think it needs locking
for a bit.  What do you think?"  Then, I would wait to see responses.  I
wouldn't know in advance who would respond.  The second person to agree
(unless someone disagrees) would perform the lock.

In the case of disagreement, I would say that the "leave unlocked"
should prevail.

As I said, I know it's a bit complex, but I think it or something like
it would be a good idea.

Jules
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] When faced with the question: To GNU or not GNU? We chose to GNU and it has made all the difference.

body:
On Tuesday 06 August 2002 05:08 pm, you wrote:
>But Wikipedia is not about copyright activism,
>it's about making an encyclopedia.
>
> --Jimbo

Then why do we use the GNU FDL?  GNU is /all/ about using copyright law to
free code, content and the people who use and create code and content.

The fact that Wikipedia even exists, not to mention is so successful is a
major form of GNU-directed copyright activism. I have little doubt that
Wikipedia will one day be /the/ source for encyclopedic knowledge for the
world. And what copyright license will all that content be under?

GNU FDL

What copyright license will anybody have to use to incorporate their work
into that huge body of knowledge?;

GNU FDL

The fact that we use this license and are headed to be /the/ repository of
knowledge will lead to many derivative works. All of these will have to be
copyrighted with the;

GNU FDL

Forget mere activism, we are doing far more than that here -- we are
beggining the process of changing the way copyrights are used for content
through our continued increases in both depth and breadth.

Britannica doesn't fear us now but Microsoft likewise did not fear the Linux
operating system during its first few years.

Stepping down from my soapbox.

Sorry, that's why they call me mav


body:
Minor technical detail:  I hope you don't mean an actual pop-up window.  They're evil incarnate ;-) and many people have popup killers because, in their eyes, popup==spam that bothers you while you're /not/ checking email.

kq

JHK wrote:
>2.  if this is put into place, I would also suggest that anyone who
>qualifies (consistent contributions WHILE LOGGED IN over x amount of
>time) get a pop-up informing them that they can have these rights, and
>need only sign onto this list to turn them on.  This will keep people
>who really don't care to become that involved a way to opt out, and will
>ensure that people who do want the rights also take the time become a
>bit more involved.


body:
>> That's a good idea.  I could ease the restriction on the target
>> being empty to allow the move if the target is a redirect to
>> the source page, with no other content and no history.
>
>Sometimes redirects have histories (there were two articles on a
topic, then
>they were merged and one turned into a redirect). In that case, the two
>histories should be exchanged. Can you do that?

The redirects created by the "move" function will not, because
it will have been non-existent.  If there's history on both ends,
then you'll just have to swap content the old fashioned way.


from_name: mllnzeyclymq at spammotel.com

body:
Hy,
I have noticed the tread "[Wikipedia-l] Please test sound clips."
The articel [[Simon and Garfunkel]] has some audio on it and the general
evolution on wikipedia is more sound and images.

How is the legal point of this ? Are there things that the English
Wikipedia can do and things that other wikiepdia's are not may do ?

To know of the use of a very small part of a song is allowed i have
lookt at the site of SABAM, the bloodhound of copyrights in Belgium.
In there FAQ is stated very clear that it is absoluly not allowed to use
   ANY music whitout permission. Also for 5 or 10 seconds.

I have the impression Wikipedia is in a clear violation of those
copyrigths. How do you think about it ? -- giskart

Dutch
http://www.sabam.be/sabam/sabamdada/pa_faq.p_faq_list?PIV_ISS_DEPT_NAME=Gebruiken&PIV_ISS_NAME=Media%20on%20line&PIV_LANGUAGE=NL&piv_html=Y&piv_inserta=-W100p-H120-TH-Nmenu_f3da_gdNL&piv_insertz=-W100p-H100-TO-LNL-N0_pied#400
French
http://www.sabam.be/sabam/sabamdada/pa_faq.p_faq_list?PIV_ISS_DEPT_NAME=Utiliser&PIV_ISS_NAME=Media%20en%20ligne&PIV_LANGUAGE=FR&piv_html=Y&piv_inserta=-W100p-H120-TH-Nmenu_f3da_gdfr&piv_insertz=-W100p-H100-TO-LFR-N0_pied#313


from_name: Pierre Abbat

body:
On Tuesday 06 August 2002 20:09, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > That is, if a newbie or anyone else makes a mistake or moves
> > an article to where they shouldn't, it should be possible for
> > anyone to reverse the change, just as it is possible to revert
> > an article to a previous version.
>
> That's a good idea.  I could ease the restriction on the target
> being empty to allow the move if the target is a redirect to
> the source page, with no other content and no history.

Sometimes redirects have histories (there were two articles on a topic, then
they were merged and one turned into a redirect). In that case, the two
histories should be exchanged. Can you do that?

phma


body:
On Tuesday 06 August 2002 19:28, you wrote:
> I wholeheartedly agree with this - there will always be a need for trusted
> people to oversee the system.  While a democratic system of 'old hands'
> sounds appealing, I think preading out the really drastic powers - like IP
> blocking - to more users could have the reverse effect to that intended.

What does "preading" mean?

phma


body:
On 8/6/02 8:20 PM, "Pierre Abbat" <phma at webjockey.net> wrote:

> On Tuesday 06 August 2002 19:28, you wrote:
>> I wholeheartedly agree with this - there will always be a need for trusted
>> people to oversee the system.  While a democratic system of 'old hands'
>> sounds appealing, I think preading out the really drastic powers - like IP
>> blocking - to more users could have the reverse effect to that intended.
>
> What does "preading" mean?

spreading.


body:
On 8/6/02 8:23 PM, "Julie Hofmann Kemp" <juleskemp at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 2.  if this is put into place, I would also suggest that anyone who qualifies
> (consistent contributions WHILE LOGGED IN over x amount of time) get a pop-up
> informing them that they can have these rights, and need only sign onto this
> list to turn them on.  This will keep people who really don't care to become
> that involved a way to opt out, and will ensure that people who do want the
> rights also take the time become a bit more involved.

I don't really think that joining the list should be a requirement. I think
instead some effort should be made to make a web interface to the mailing
list, as in the Yahoo groups. We shouldn't prevent people who don't want
to/can't use mailing lists from getting more Wikipedia rights.

> 3. I think there should be some guidelines (for people, not the system) for
> use of IP blocking, page locking, etc.    For example, I suggest that, in
> cases of clear and immediate vandalism control, IPs should be blockable based
> on one sysop's judgement.  In cases of edit wars, or where the sysop is
> actually involved, I think that a note should go to the list asking for review
> and get two other sysops to agree there's a problem -- and have one of them do
> the locking.  I know this is more complicated, but 1) it might help keep
> abuses from happening in the heat of debate, and 2) it should help prevent the
> appearance of an evil cadre, militia, cabal, etc.


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] DICT protocol

body:
|From: "Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz" <kpj at kki.net.pl>
|Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 01:03:05 +0200
|
|
|Hello all,
|
|Probably I am looking ahead too far but is there a need for implementing
|DICT protocol (http://www.dict.org/) ?
|
|IMO Wikipedia is well suited for this project.
|
|What do you think ?
|
|Regards,
|kpj.
|[Wikipedia-l]

I just looked up "rocket" and "virus".  Not impressive results,
however warm I might feel to see what they have done.

On the other hand, obviously a word lookup would be a great feature
and if there's nothing better, it wouldn't be bad, but, judging from
this quick test, it wouldn't be great either.

And then I looked up "war".  I grew up on the Devil's Dictionary (and
wrote most of [[Ambrose Bierce]]), but if we are to be NPOV, then do
we want to return Bierce definitions?  Or Easton's 1897 Bible
Divtionary?  Again, cool, but is it Wikipedia?

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:

> In paper encyclopedias they often use colour to help distinguish
> sections, and I know that the new tables are going to use colour as a
> feature, and the user pages have a pale coloured background to
> differentiate them from the main articles. Why not make an option to put
> a coloured header, or a coloured border, or a pale coloured background
> onto the Fictional pages to help identify them? When you hit the random
> button and landed up on a fictional page you'd see instantly by the pale
> pink (or whatever colour was decided) background.

IMHO (In my humble opinion)

It seems to me that in a well written "complete" article, fiction
should be identified as such in the text.   Also, references to the
author or discussion of literary factors should provide clues that
the article is about fictional characters or events vs. reality.

Casual readers who hit the random button and land on a fictional
character or are looking at an article turned up in a search should
not need to known a lot of specialized formatting or color codes
to correctly understand the content.

Regards,
mirwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> Vandalism isn't the /only/ possible reason to ban someone.  We banned
> Mr. "24" because he consistently refused to work with the community,
> undermined our goals, and made personal attacks.

Interesting.  I was unaware that 24 was banned.  How was this decided?

Was there a decision made to not ban me (mirwin)?  I was attacked
for merely stating my personal opinion that I did not consider "24"
a troll.

I was called a nutcase because I concluded that the software engineering
article was biased and erased the heavily biased content to start the
article over.  Lee, I, and others eventually reached an acceptable
compromise
on the material but I did not consider it helpful being called a nutcase
to begin the negotiations/discussion on how to properly restructure
the article.

I was ridiculed on various talk pages after attempting to participate
constructively in "24" attempt at meta to establish a process to
develop and define community mores, policies, procedures, etc.

Was the ban on "24" applied to meta as well as wikipedia?

Was there any discussion of banning others who were making personal
attacks in this time frame?

As I recall grade school disciplinary actions they were typically
applied to instigators or all parties.  24 alleged at one point
that others were attacking him and camping on articles he originated
or attempted to modify.

It is not clear to me that others were behaving towards 24 and his/her
material in ways that were consistent with the published guidelines.

If Helga continues
> to interfere with our job of making good articles, won't participate
> in our process, doesn't contribute in other ways, and eats up the
> time and energy of others here who /do/ contribute, then maybe
> banning is the right thing.
>
> Or perhaps a new feature for non-vandals like them: being restricted
> to editing Talk pages only?

This is really moving into revision control.   It is fundamental
to the discussion "24" and a few others were attempting to stimulate
at various times at meta.  Apparently "24"'s antics also made him/her
unpopular enough that banning or censorship was deemed appropriate
rather than addressing the issue of how legitimate revision authority
is established or derived in this "community".

I think it would be better long term for the wikipedia if this
issue were resolved through a general mechanism that is hard
for individuals, small groups, or cabals to subvert or misuse.
Alternatively, the "community" could be honest up front with new
people regarding who has what authority and simply must be placated
to retain write access.

Perhaps a "draft" or "proposed revision" page could be added
where proposed changes could be seen and revised.   When a change
has acquired a defined threshold of approval then it automatically
occurs.

If Helga's (or 24s or mirwin's or some other unpopulist) perspective
cannot attain the threshold then they would automatically remain
on the draft page until rewritten to a form acceptable to
sufficient others.

mirwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
>Perhaps a "draft" or "proposed revision" page could be added
>where proposed changes could be seen and revised.   When a change
>has acquired a defined threshold of approval then it automatically
>occurs.
>
>If Helga's (or 24s or mirwin's or some other unpopulist) perspective
>cannot attain the threshold then they would automatically remain
>on the draft page until rewritten to a form acceptable to
>sufficient others.

The last thing we need is layers of goddamned bureaucracy. "24" was
banned, when it comes right down to it, because Jimbo said so, and
I frankly was happy about it because he did nothing but regurgitate
megabytes of incoherent drivel and took up the valuable time of those
who are trying to make something here.  That's not a point of view,
that's vandalism of the process, and subversion of the project.  I
don't know that there was ever any suggestion of banning you, or Ed
Poor, or anyone else around here just because they're "unpopular".
Give us credit for a little personal integrity.  Anyone with any
point of view is welcome here, and always has been, and always will
be--it takes people with different points of view working together
to produce some of the good work we've produced here.  It is only
those who actively subvert that process and get in the way of the
work that we would consider taking action against.  And when that
happens, it should be done by those whom we have entrusted to make
this process work, and we should stand up and take responsibility
for it.  If that makes us a cabal, then dammit we're a cabal, and
should be.  If someone doesn't like that, the database dump and the
software are there for downloading--let him start his own, and see
if that democratic nonsense will fly in the real world.


from_name: Tim Marklew

body:
> >...There is also the issue that if a newbie
> >make a mistake during a move only a sysop can correct
> >it because the old page title needs to be deleted
> >before the move can be reversed.
In my view, the move feature will be sufficiently safe for general release
if the effects are easily _reversible_ - just being non-destructive isn't
enough.  That is, if a newbie or anyone else makes a mistake or moves an
article to where they shouldn't, it should be possible for anyone to reverse
the change, just as it is possible to revert an article to a previous
version.  At the moment, only sysops can revers a move, because of the need
to delete a page.  I think this needs to change before the move function
goes on general release.

I would suggest making possible to move a page without creating a redirect
at the old page title by checking a tickbox.  Then, even if a redirect was
getting in the way of moving an article back to where it once was, a user
could then get around this by moving the redirect to a new title to make way
for the article.

LDC wrote:
>I agree that I do need to implement some auto-promotion
>feature, but Sysop status is never "going away" as far as
>I'm concerned....
I wholeheartedly agree with this - there will always be a need for trusted
people to oversee the system.  While a democratic system of 'old hands'
sounds appealing, I think preading out the really drastic powers - like IP
blocking - to more users could have the reverse effect to that intended.
The more people who have access to IP blocking (for example, by a 'vote to
block this person' system), the more likely it is to be abused and used in
arguments over controversial content rather than cases of genuine vandalism.
  A group of 'old hands' abusing the system, perhaps because of their strong
views on a topic, would be very hard to deal with unless there were
sysop-type users overseeing things.

Tim (the Enchanter)

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> Well, he also said Larry Sanger was not a human and something else--I forgot what exactly--that sound very much like a threat.  That was the final straw, as it were: Jimbo banned him, and he's been banned ever since (and for good reason!)

Perhaps you should quote the entire argument or some context.

24 alleged the first thing Larry Sanger said to him was an attack.

The "threat" in context appeared to be rhetorical hyperbole
to me.  Further, it was stated in the form that people like
Larry (clearly referring to his attitudes and prejudices that
were being applied to "24", deserved to have bad things happen
to them)  It appeared to be an angry response to pretty intense
steady harrassment in the stacks because some regulars did
not like "24"'s material, beliefs, attitude, etc.   There appeared
to be some rather abrubt deletion taking place.   Several times
material that I was attempting to NPOV ended with abrubt
deletion/erasure of the entire article or content in the middle
of my editing.

This got extremely irritating to me, I am sure it probably
bothered "24".   When I erased the biased [software engineering]
article in its entirety it seemed to provoke an astonishingly
intense reaction from "64" (maveric149) and Lee Crocker.  Perhaps
they were involved in writing it.

Later, when I reviewed this mailing list archive, several
"regulars" had started wondering out loud whether they should
fear for their personal safety.   Quite a leap in my opinion.
It clearly escalated the controversy.

Perhaps the reason for banning appeared to good to you.

To me it looks like "24" was banned because he had interests
similar to my own in participating in establishing or modifying
the community standards and processes.    "24" appeared interested
in methods that would support large diverse participation
levels.  "24" was apparently interested in green issues and
other political activism.

"24" was interested in establishing community processes that
would be compatible or attractive to people who could help
fill in gaps in those areas.

You say he was banned appropriately in effect, because he would be
not nice when Mr. Wales contacted him privately because the "community"
complained of his behavior and opinions and good riddance.

I say he was banned inappropriately because
when he brought up issues of community governance and content
completeness and attempted to add his own perceptions to the
gesalt he would not quietly roll over when arbitrarily
trumped by "long standing respected community members".
This appeal to authority persisted along with refusal to
engage in any meaningful dialogue regarding how to establish
a participatory process.   I do not allege that Mr Wales
actions were inappropriate but that the "community" created
the situation in which the controversy between "24" and others
were not resolved amicably.   Rather "24"s material and opinions
were routinely arbitrarily deleted and dismissed out of hand
by long term participants and their cronies.  When "24"s
provoked behavior got offensive enough, Mr. Wales was called
in for totalitarian action and apparently "24" resisted his
attempts to exercise a calming influence.

The reasons were poor and, in my opinion, do not bode well for
the unstated goal of Wikipedia to be a high quality NPOV
encyclopedia.  The stated goal of 100K articles is quite
achievable by a small closed "community", 35K and counting.

I wonder if, after passing the 100K mark, I will be able to
find anything authoritative, comprehensive, fun, informative,
wonderous, astonishing, etc. regarding the Amazon basin provided
by native English speakers or translated from the Spanish
Wikipedia or if I will have to proceed to the English translation
of the Spanish Fork?

regards,
mirwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
> "24" was interested in establishing community processes that
> would be compatible or attractive to people who could help
> fill in gaps in those areas.

Frankly, I don't care what he was interested in or what his
intentions were.  Intentions don't matter--results do.  The
result of his presence was that lots of intelligent, hard-working
authors were spending more time cleaning up his nonsense than
writing good articles--and 90% of stuff was genuine, grade A,
nonsense. And worst of all, he /actively opposed/ any attempts
at moderation or working with the community.  And lastly, he
simply refused to act like a civilized, adult human being.  I
for one don't have time to waste on the likes of him.

I don't remember you like that at all.  I reverted your change
to software engineering because you replaced a long, useful
article with a short polemic about a minority point of view--an
educated, experienced one, but a minority one nonetheless.  We
then took your suggestions seriously and made changes. To me,
that's an example of the system working exactly as it should.
That's why I made you a sysop.

Another good example is Ed Poor.  He is pretty much diametrically
opposed to everything I stand for--he's a Moonie, a creationist,
homophobic, and a few other things I don't care for.  We had a few
content wars when he first showed up too.  But if he asked me to
make him a sysop, I would with no problem, because he's proved
that he actually cares about the project and he works with other
people to make articles better.

It's not about agendas, it about the project.  Either you're an
asset to the project, helping to create an encyclopedia, or you're
a detriment to the project, getting in the way.  Some people just
simply get in the way of making an encyclopedia, and we simply
shouldn't let them.  It's not that they're bad people, or that
their points of view don't matter--it's just that they have
different goals, and they should be free to pursue those goals
on their own time, with their own resources; they just shouldn't
get it /our/ way.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Short notes re: Kurt's message

body:
> Kurt -- I looked at some of Helga's stuff on the German wikipedia.
I'm
> not sure what you think, Kurt, but my opinion is that her stuff is
much
> less controversial.

My problem is, that I don't know enough about that part of Polish/German
history to judge Helgas articles. That's why I asked for help.

> Perhaps she doesn't think the Truth is being hidden from Germans?

Maybe. But then she doesn't know my 1968-influenced history teachers :-)
I think revisionistic views are more and more dying out in Germany. My
father also is a displaced person, and he's much more forgiving about
these things than my grandfather was. And I am not even interested into
those questions very much. I know that I trust very much in what I
learned at school, but I also know that arguing about these things is
very difficult without having direct access to historic sources.

> She writes more fluidly in German, too - no surprise
> there, but it also isn't IMHO ''korrektes Hochdeutsch''.

No, she writes a bit complicated sometimes, somehow oldfashioned.

> It would be great if a couple other German speakers -- especially
> natives -- could also look.

That whould be nice.

Kurt


from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] DICT protocol

body:
Hello all,

Probably I am looking ahead too far but is there a need for implementing
DICT protocol (http://www.dict.org/) ?

IMO Wikipedia is well suited for this project.

What do you think ?

Regards,
kpj.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia toolbar

body:
Hello all,

For some time now I have installed Google toolbar. It is very convenient
and speeds up web browsing considerably.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] DICT protocol

body:
http://www.dict.org
" Last modified: Fri Jul 16 01:14:24 1999" -- i think this say's it all.

A other project that is very alive to think about is
http://freenetproject.org
It is very beta but it works more or less. It is project for
distributing informaton whitout the posibility of censurship.
Acces to wikipedia can be forbidden but not to a freesite (so far a know)

A Freenet Wikipedia light site would be nice.  --- giskart


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
I posted about this earlier: 24 was banned by Jimbo Wales because he stated that Larry Sanger was not a human, and also made some kind of comment that would be hard to take for anything other than a threat.  Forgive me if I don't remember the exact wording.  He's been banned since, and I for one think that that is as it should be.

kq

mirwin wrote:
>Interesting.  I was unaware that 24 was banned.  How was this decided?
>
>Was there a decision made to not ban me (mirwin)?  I was attacked
>for merely stating my personal opinion that I did not consider "24"
>a troll.
>
>I was called a nutcase because I concluded that the software engineering
>article was biased and erased the heavily biased content to start the
>article over.  Lee, I, and others eventually reached an acceptable
>compromise
>on the material but I did not consider it helpful being called a nutcase
>to begin the negotiations/discussion on how to properly restructure
>the article.

etc.


in_reply_to: <20020807005759.ZPJE221.sccrmhc02.attbi.com@there>; from maveric149@yahoo.com on Tue, Aug 06, 2002 at 05:51:50PM -0700

body:
Yes, I agree.  Since several people have said something about this, I
want to make a little clearer what I meant.

Our _primary_ purpose is to make an encyclopedia.  The GNU FDL is the
liberating influence that allows us all to work together freely.

A _secondary_ purpose *is* copyright activism in the sense outlined by
Daniel and others.  We're expanding the intellectual commons, and
that's a big big part of our identity and purpose.

----

I'm not sure how to say what I was trying to say.  :-) If someone
wanted to start copying articles directly from Britannica into the
Wikipedia as a form of protest against the copyright laws, I don't
think that *kind* of activism would be within our mission.  If someone
wanted to post articles directly from Britannica into Gnutella or
Freenet or something like that, I think that *kind* of activism
*would* be within *their* mission.

That's all I meant.

Daniel Mayer wrote:

> On Tuesday 06 August 2002 05:08 pm, you wrote:
> >But Wikipedia is not about copyright activism,
> >it's about making an encyclopedia.
> >
> > --Jimbo
>
> Then why do we use the GNU FDL?  GNU is /all/ about using copyright law to
> free code, content and the people who use and create code and content.
>
> The fact that Wikipedia even exists, not to mention is so successful is a
> major form of GNU-directed copyright activism. I have little doubt that
> Wikipedia will one day be /the/ source for encyclopedic knowledge for the
> world. And what copyright license will all that content be under?
>
> GNU FDL
>
> What copyright license will anybody have to use to incorporate their work
> into that huge body of knowledge?;
>
> GNU FDL
>
> The fact that we use this license and are headed to be /the/ repository of
> knowledge will lead to many derivative works. All of these will have to be
> copyrighted with the;
>
> GNU FDL
>
> Forget mere activism, we are doing far more than that here -- we are
> beggining the process of changing the way copyrights are used for content
> through our continued increases in both depth and breadth.
>
> Britannica doesn't fear us now but Microsoft likewise did not fear the Linux
> operating system during its first few years.
>
> Stepping down from my soapbox.
>
> Sorry, that's why they call me mav
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I must commend the sensitivity that you show toward
> another
> contributor's "pig ignorance" in the face of what is
> clearly a
> frustrating experience.  You seem to recognize that
> misguided ideas
> often come as sincerely from the heart.  Your
> students are indeed
> fortunate if their essays and term papers receive
> the level of analysis
> that you provided for HJ's Copernicus article.. Too
> many of our
> colleagues are over-hasty with heavy-handed tactics.
>
>
> Eclecticology

Indeed. Julie has shown Helga extreme patience and
considersation while cleaning up the messes that H.
Jonat has made over the months. If I had to follow
Helga around, I wouldn't know what to do with her
contributions, as I find them largely
incomprehensible.

Thanks Julie!

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Link Syntax

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>
wrote:

> I'm beginning to think that we should just drop the
> idea.
> It should only go forward if we find a system that's
> easy to read.
> This isn't like tables and math that can't help but
> be complicated;
> we should have a much lower tolerance in this
> situation.
> (Of course, if others have better ideas, then I'll
> still listen.)

I think it should be dropped too. It's such a small
convenience and confusing to newcomers. It's really
not very difficult to type [[George W. Bush|Bush]],
and it's easy for a newbie to see how it works.

These new proposals look like symptoms of featuritis
to me...

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Helga Jonat

body:
--- Kurt Jansson <jansson at gmx.net> wrote:
> Helga has also contributed to the German Wikipedia.
> Maybe someone who
> can speak German and knows about Helgas bias could
> take a look at the
> articles she has listed on her userpage
> http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?H._Jonat
>
>
> Kurt

Julie, you read German, right? Er... wait,
nevermind...

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edit Wars

body:
--- koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> Well, he also said Larry Sanger was not a human and
> something else--I forgot what exactly--that sound
> very much like a threat.  That was the final straw,
> as it were: Jimbo banned him, and he's been banned
> ever since (and for good reason!)
>
> kq

Something to effect of it was everyone's duty to heap
verbal and physical abuse on Larry and people like
him.

All of 24's others actions, while frustrating, weren't
worthy of a ban. Uttering threats against people is
rather different.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


body:
--- lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> I don't know Belgian law, but U.S. law very clearly
> allows
> "fair use" of excerpts under certain conditions, and
> Wikipedia
> meets those conditions about as well as anything
> could.

Can we use sound clips under fair use on Wikipedia
while maintaining that the encyclopedia is covered by
the GFDL?

What about songs that are under, say, Canadian
copyright? Canadian copyright law has no provisions
for "fair use".

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] download

body:
--- lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> >On the FAQ it says that it is possible to download
> the entire
> >Wikipedia.
> >
> >I would expect that this would be something that is
> easy to
> >do, but there does not appear to be a link for
> download.  Is this
> >FAQ answer just a promise?
>
> It's in
> http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/cur_table.sql.gz and
> http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/old_table.sql.gz
> (history).
> Where would be a good place to document this?

I'd say on [[Wikipedia:Download]], with a link from
the front page.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
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body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:

> We DO want to make sure that the Napster/Gnutella
> crowd doesn't get the idea that
> we're running some kind of underground file swapping
> service, of course.  I am very
> interested in the changing nature of copyright in
> the face of technological changes,
> so I'm glad *other people* are testing the
> boundaries.  But Wikipedia is not about
> copyright activism, it's about making an
> encyclopedia.

Wikipedia is engaging in copyright activism, although
not the same kind as the P2P crowd. We're developing
an alternative to conventional reference works
protected by restrictive copyrights, instead of
breaking current laws by swapping music and movies.

Stephen Gilbert

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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Ddroar

body:
Redirecting [[Ddroar]] to [[User:Ddroar]] did turn up a page.

Fred Bauder

At 07:10 AM 8/7/02 -0400, you wrote:
>There is a page [[Ddroar]] which redirects to itself. There is a page
>[[Ddroar/articles]] which is a list of articles. There's a [[User
>talk:Ddroar]], but no [[User:Ddroar]]. What is this? What does "ddroar" mean?
>
>phma
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Ddroar

body:
There is a page [[Ddroar]] which redirects to itself. There is a page
[[Ddroar/articles]] which is a list of articles. There's a [[User
talk:Ddroar]], but no [[User:Ddroar]]. What is this? What does "ddroar" mean?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] blocked an IP

body:
Can we contact this person?  I don't mind the automated entry at all,
but possibly some of these concerns can be addressed before the entry
proceeds like this.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

in_reply_to: <3D51385A.9030808@tonal.clara.co.uk>; from usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk on Wed, Aug 07, 2002 at 04:10:18PM +0100

body:
Oh, good, it's one of us.  Let's make sure we unblock the IP.

I was afraid some helpful stranger would feel hurt and run away.

Let's chat about this, and let Neil do this after a consensus is reached.

> There's also no chance of killing existing articles: the script checks
> in advance, and refuses to over-write existing articles.

I think this might have been the main concern.

> a) the bias in many of the articles (in which case I can add a
> disclaimer, saying "This is from an old Bible Dictionary, and it has the
> biases of its author and period -- please use this material as a basis
> for a new article")

Possibly the wording of this might be different, but I personally have no
suggestions.

> b) the rate of the scripted additions

So long as the server doesn't die....

> c) auto-addition of any material, even when filtered for stubs and nonsense?

I think we want to be careful about it.

The only other concern I personally might raise is that sometimes a blank article
will do more to encourage new writing than an old and obsolete article.  This is
a tough call.

How many articles is it, total?


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] blocked an IP

body:
just wanted to give you all a heads up:  if you check out [[Special:Ipblocklist]] you'll see I just blocked somebody:

* 07:42 Aug 7, 2002, Koyaanis Qatsi blocked 213.253.39.188 (contribs) (unblock) (scripting in about 24 Easton's Bible Dictionary entries per minute--wikified, which I appreciate, but otherwise untouched, that is, heavily biased.)

I email this because I'm about to go pick up equipment for a shoot I'm going to in L.A.  I'll be out most of today and I'm leaving Friday morning and will be gone until early Sunday a week later.  I'm not dodging the debate that will undoubtedly come up.

If you're curious, I consider [[Anger]] a prime example of the bias inherent in the dictionary, and think also that many of them are no longer historically accurate.  At the rate of 24 a minute, the cleanup (if left unchecked) would IMO be quite an undertaking.  Feel free to unblock if I've acted unfairly or in haste.  I probably won't be around to discuss it until much later tonight.

cheers,

kq


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary (resend)

in_reply_to: <3D5158EC.6020208@tonal.clara.co.uk>; from usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk on Wed, Aug 07, 2002 at 06:29:16PM +0100

body:
Whatever anyone may think about these particular proposals (they sound
great to me), I think Neil has really shown true wiki spirit here.

I'm impressed.

Neil Harris wrote:

> This is a trimmed-down version of my earlier over-length post.
>
> I've now added an extra filter, so that entries whose titles  occur in a
> very large list of common words are rejected.
>
> Thus, the script will now not attempt to transfer the entry for "Wheel"
> or "Silk" or other common words, regardless of whether Wikipedia has an
> entry for that word. This is in addition to the check for not clobbering
> existing articles.
>
> I have also eliminated any articles containing the words "modern" or
> "current", which seems to catch a lot of stuff that refers to the
> author's contemporary information.
>
> I have also pushed the length filter up to 500 characters.
>
> Doing all of these takes the list down to around 640 filtered articles.
> Wiki links to the non-imported topics still remain, inviting Wikipedians
> to write new articles about these topics. These remaning articles are
> almost entirely about obscure figures and places from the Bible.
>
> I intend to add a header to each imported article, reading something like:
>
>      ''This is an entry from Easton's Bible Dictionary. The material in it
> is written from the viewpoint of the 19th century, and may be
> out-of-date or biased. Please review and edit this article to bring it
> up to date''
>
> and a trailer:
>
>      From [[Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)]]
>
> I intend to drip-feed the finished articles in at a rate of one every 20
> minutes, allowing lots of time for human review and assimilation, once I
>   think that there is a consensus that this is OK.
>
> Can anyone suggest any further improvements, short of proof-reading all
> 1200 articles?
>
> Neil
>
> --------------------------------
>
> Here are some of the results of the filtering of the original Easton's
> topics:
>
> lines with the word TITLE at the start denote articles that passed;
> lines with the word BAD represent articles that failed to pass the
> filter, with the reason for failure.
>
>
> BAD A = familiar word
> BAD A type Adam = no comma
> BAD AEnon = too short
> BAD Aaron = familiar word
> BAD Aaronites = too short
> BAD Abaddon = too short
> BAD Abagtha = no comma
> BAD Abana = modern
> TITLE 1 510 Abarim
> BAD Abba = familiar word
> BAD Abda = too short
> BAD Abdeel = too short
> BAD Abdi = no he
> BAD Abdiel = familiar word
> TITLE 2 745 Abdon
> BAD Abednego = too short
> BAD Abel = familiar word
> BAD Abel-beth-maachah = modern
> BAD Abel-cheramim = too short
> TITLE 3 551 Abel-meholah
> BAD Abel-mizraim = too short
> BAD Abel-shittim = too short
> BAD Abez = too short
> BAD Abi-albon = too short
> BAD Abia = too short
> BAD Abiasaph = too short
> TITLE 4 1872 Abiathar
> BAD Abib = too short
> BAD Abida = too short
> BAD Abidan = too short
> BAD Abieezer = too short
> BAD Abiel = too short
> BAD Abiezrite = too short
> BAD Abigail = familiar word
> BAD Abihail = too short
> TITLE 5 891 Abihu
> BAD Abihud = too short
> TITLE 6 2766 Abijah
> BAD Abijam = too short
> BAD Abilene = too short
> BAD Abimael = too short
> TITLE 7 3025 Abimelech
> TITLE 8 817 Abinadab
> BAD Abinoam = too short
> TITLE 9 574 Abiram
> TITLE 10 502 Abishag
> TITLE 11 911 Abishai
> BAD Abishua = too short
> BAD Abishur = too short
> BAD Abital = too short
> BAD Abitub = too short
> BAD Abjects = too short
> BAD Ablution = familiar word
> BAD Abner = familiar word
> BAD Abomination = familiar word
> BAD Abomination of Desolation = too short
> BAD Abraham = familiar word
> BAD Abraham's bosom = too short
> BAD Abram = familiar word
> BAD Abronah = too short
> BAD Absalom = familiar word
> BAD Acacia = familiar word
> TITLE 12 1943 Accad
> TITLE 13 574 Accho
> BAD Accuser = familiar word
> BAD Aceldama = modern
> TITLE 14 767 Achaia
> BAD Achaichus = too short
> TITLE 15 823 Achan
> BAD Achbor = too short
> TITLE 16 1026 Achish
> BAD Achmetha = familiar word
> BAD Achor = familiar word
> BAD Achsah = too short
> BAD Achshaph = modern
> BAD Achzib = modern
> BAD Acre = familiar word
> TITLE 17 5435 Acts of the Apostles
> BAD Adah = too short
> BAD Adam = familiar word
> BAD Adamah = modern
> BAD Adamant = familiar word
> BAD Adar = familiar word
> BAD Adbeel = too short
> BAD Addar = no he
> BAD Adder = familiar word
> BAD Addi = too short
> BAD Addon = too short
> BAD Adiel = familiar word
> BAD Adin = familiar word
> BAD Adina = no he
> BAD Adino = too short
> BAD Adjuration = familiar word
> BAD Admah = too short
> BAD Adnah = too short
> TITLE 18 1328 Adoni-zedec
> BAD Adonibezek = too short
> TITLE 19 984 Adonijah
> BAD Adonikam = too short
> BAD Adoniram = familiar word
> BAD Adoption = familiar word
> BAD Adoram = no he
> BAD Adore = familiar word
> BAD Adrammelech = familiar word
> BAD Adramyttium = too short
> BAD Adria = modern
> BAD Adriel = too short
> BAD Adullam = familiar word
> BAD Adullamite = familiar word
> BAD Adultery = familiar word
> TITLE 20 571 Adummim
> BAD Adversary = familiar word
> BAD Advocate = familiar word
> BAD Affection = familiar word
> BAD Affinity = familiar word
> BAD Afflictions = too short
> BAD Agabus = too short
> BAD Agag = familiar word
> BAD Agagite = too short
> BAD Agate = familiar word
> BAD Age = familiar word
> BAD Agee = familiar word
> BAD Agony = familiar word
> BAD Agriculture = familiar word
> TITLE 21 615 Agrippa I
> TITLE 22 655 Agrippa II
> BAD Ague = familiar word
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
> Can we use sound clips under fair use on Wikipedia
> while maintaining that the encyclopedia is covered by
> the GFDL?

The GFDL applies to our original content.  If someone wants
to use an article from here (or an original image or sound clip),
he is free to do so if he abides by the GFDL.  WE are free to
include some sounds and images that are fully copyrighted under
fair use; someone else who gets them from our site will still
himself have to qualify for fair use--the GFDL does not apply to
works we have included here under that doctrine.  That's why it's
important do document the source of an image on its description
page--just because WE have the right to use it doesn't mean that
everyone using Wikipedia articles also has that right (though
many probably will).

> What about songs that are under, say, Canadian
> copyright? Canadian copyright law has no provisions
> for "fair use".

If Canada wants to extradite, let them try.


from_name: wiki pedista

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
What about making the dump (slowly) to
EBD:article_name,
or somthing like that? In that way, it can be
used as a source for new articles, but it is
left clear that is not part of "our" enciclopedic
information.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Easton's Bible Dictionary

body:
> Is your objection
> a) the bias in many of the articles (in which case I can add a
> disclaimer, saying "This is from an old Bible Dictionary, and it
> has the biases of its author and period--please use this material
> as a basis for a new article")
...
> c) auto-addition of any material, even when filtered for stubs
> and nonsense?

I think it is important that all articles in Wikipedia be
individually reviewed by a human editor.  "Data dumping" is not
building an encyclopedia--quality is important, and out-of-date
material is not quality.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] XMMS is broken and the ogg player got lost

body:
> I have libogg0-1.0-0.beta4.1mdk ...

XIPH released the 1.0 versions of everything a short while ago, so
you don't have to use the betas anymore.  Go to www.xiph.org to get
all the latest.