from_name: Phroziac

body:
I know nothing about this dispute, but I looked at the diff for the
userpage (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AUriah923&diff=24075760&oldid=23977347).
I don't see a problem with having the links there, I clicked the
sprinkler system one, and I don't see anything wrong with it. But, the
name sure sounds like the beginning of a spam email address. Maybe
this has something to do with it?

On 9/28/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Have you asked Taxman and Jmabel why they removed the links and blocked you?
> They probably know their own reasoning best.
>
> --Mgm
>
> On 9/26/05, Brandon Hansen <buhansen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I've been involved in a dispute with Taxman and others about posting any
> > links to articles on the OmniNerd domain. I have been blocked twice
> > concerning the issue and finally agreed with Taxman to follow his OmniNerd
> > gag order, meaning I can't even suggest an OmniNerd article be listed in a
> > WP article as an external link - no matter how the suggestion is worded.
> >
> > After my block expired, I made some significant edits to WP pages (not
> > OmniNerd related) and also decided to put some effort into my user page
> > (Uriah923). I noticed that other users - even an admin, Jmabel - included
> > links to writings they had online. I did the same. Taxman then erased the
> > links and blocked me again because the articles I've written are on
> > OmniNerd.
> >
> > If Taxman and others don't want OmniNerd mentioned in WP articles because it
> > is not "worthy", so be it. But, preventing me from listing the articles I've
> > written on my own user page is going too far. The articles listed there do
> > not have to be worthy of an encyclopedia article reference, or even of an
> > external link - they are just listed because I wrote them. Having the links
> > on my page might affect the PR of the articles, but if this alone is enough
> > to erase them then any external link on anyone else's user page needs to be
> > deleted also - and we all know that's just silly.
> >
> > So, I hope someone who reads this will be able to look at the case and
> > recognize the abuse. My recent edits (since the gag-order agreement) have
> > been constructive and I plan on doing many more of them. I see nothing wrong
> > with having links to external articles I've personally written on my user
> > page as I do so.
> >
> > -Brandon (Uriah923)
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia legal threat (forwarded email now sent)

body:
*LOL*. So he's going to sue Ward over something on wikipedia? That's dumb.

On 9/28/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 28, 2005, at 12:03 PM, Josh Gordon wrote:
>
> > Gods no. Mathematicians are relatively sane. This is about physics.
>
> We're doomed.
>
> -Snowspinner
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: No more new Wikipedias !

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>On 9/28/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Most conlangs should not even be considered. But, certainly there are
>>conlangs that are as notable as Esperanto, which we don't have
>>wikipedias for?
>>
>>
>I don't think there is any other conlang "as notable as Esperanto".
>Wikipedia currently exists in Esperanto, Interlingua, Ido, Lojban and
>Volap?k, although the last two aren't very big.
>
I looked at ISO 639-3 and it proposes to recognize 24 conlangs:
<http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Afrihili&action=edit>Afrihili,
Brithenig, Ceqli, Delason, Dutton World Speedwords, Esperanto, Glosa,
Ido, Interglossa, Interlingua, Interlingue, Jakelimotu, Klingon, L?adan,
Linga, Lojban, Novial, Occidental, Orcish, Quenya, Romanova, Sindarin,
Tceqli, and Volap?k  This unfortunately includes Klingon.  Toki Pona is
not on the list.  It looks as though they have dropped Europanto.  It
does put their reliability in doubt.

Ec


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] request regarding deleted page

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> I have no idea what the current rules of Wikipedia are, and whether or not
> an admin has the authority to do such a thing, but I really don't care about
> that.

And you are still using Wikipedia because...?

--
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OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
On 9/28/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> If I had
> been playing a drawn-out game of whack-a-mole with someone like Alberuni,
> I'd likely ban one or more ISPs to put an end to the fun. But if you do
> something bold like this, tell the rest of us so we can act appropriately.
> At the worst, another Admin will then revert your actions -- & if that
> happens, it becomes Someone Else's Problem ...

It doesn't become Someone Else's Problem, Geoff, if the disruptive
editor is targeting a specific individual or ethnic group. When
unblocked, he'll simply continue to target them, so they continue to
have to deal with it.

Sarah


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: How to build mwsearch under windows XP?

references:
<56EDA62D2FE6314A99BD963936765F0C031F6A4A@srv01mail1.corp.trumpf.com>
	<51dd1af8050928083848474b5a@mail.gmail.com>
	<dhegiq$ro5$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 9/28/05, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> Brion said NO ! :)

haha


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
Yes, and yes.

On 9/28/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Does our software automatically block users by IP - when their only
> crime is to share an IP address with a vandal?
>
> It should be possible for a trusted user (like me for example! ;-) to
> log in from a banned IP range - as long as I can prove it's really me by
> typing in my secret password.
>
> Should we talk to the development team about this?
>
> Ed Poor
> Developer Emeritus
>
> > >Jayjg set an IP block on this range for one month, which I
> > think was a
> > >huge mistake since it appears to be a dialup pool and a lot
> > of people
> > >were affected. I didn't find out about it until a few hours
> > before the
> > >block expired though, or I would have reversed it. Sorry about the
> > >throuble.
> > >
> > >- Ryan
> >
> > Ryan, how would you suggest dealing with a banned user who
> > has, in the 6
> > months since his ban, been continually coming back to Wikipedia and
> > disruptively editing using almost 50 different sockpuppets
> > (some extremely
> > sophisticated) and almost 20 different IP addresses?  I refer you to
> > [[User:Jayjg/Alberuni]] for more detail.
> >
> > Jay.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Roadmap for a GIS-Extension

body:
On 9/26/05, topi <topologis at t-online.de> wrote:
> Does there exist a roadmap for including GIS into Wikipedia. Many wp
> meanwhile did a lot work on georeferencing articles.

I tested it the other day to see if it was sutable for being installed
as an extension and found that the code could use a lot of cleanup, it
spews errors in invalid input and doesn't re-use functions that are
present in the rest of the code base.

I know that JeLuF has been working on improving it, ask him.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 9/28/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > I have no idea what the current rules of Wikipedia are, and whether or
> not
> > an admin has the authority to do such a thing, but I really don't care
> about
> > that.
>
> And you are still using Wikipedia because...?

Using it how? I haven't made any significant edits in months.

> --
> Alphax | /"\
> Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign
> OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards
> http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Multilingual error messages

body:
"Mark Ryan" <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:a4a7077050928092077f9e5b3 at mail.gmail.com...
> Multilinugal error messages have now been implemented on the Wikimedia
> squids. I would like to thank everyone who helped to make this a
> reality over the past couple of weeks. I was keeping a running list of
> everyone who had helped, but I lost track of everyone :)

Kudos to you and your helpers!

Can you remind us of where we can see these messages *without* requiring a
WP failure?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia legal threat (forwarded email now sent)

body:
"Oskar Sigvardsson"
<oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4ed666e60509280953e3117f0 at mail.gmail.com...
[snip]
> Wait, wait, wait.... The patriot act? Chris Hillman is a terrorist?
> He..... I mean..... ehmm.....HOW? I mean, I could kinda grasp it if he
> called it harassment (it's ridiculus, but I can still grasp the
> argument), but terrorism? That's one fnord that's gotten way out of
> control.
> This is.... well.... surreal.

So WhoTF is "Chris Hillman" anyway? I must have taken my eye off the ball,
this came out of nowhere...
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

body:
?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:
> You could always ignore his advice and try to get it running anyway.

Brion said NO ! :)

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

body:
Wait, wait, wait.... The patriot act? Chris Hillman is a terrorist?
He..... I mean..... ehmm.....HOW? I mean, I could kinda grasp it if he
called it harassment (it's ridiculus, but I can still grasp the
argument), but terrorism? That's one fnord that's gotten way out of
control.

This is.... well.... surreal.

--gkhan

On 9/24/05, Fl Celloguy <flcelloguy at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Oops, seems like the forwarded message didn't get sent by the system. Here
> it is:
>
> ----
> From: JackSarfatti <sarfatti AT pacbell DOT net>
> To: Flcelloguy <---->
> Subject: Wikipedia e-mail
> Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 01:23:58 GMT
>
>
> I am starting legal action against Wiki this Monday with IRS
> Attorney General & Registry of Charitable Trusts in Florida to
> have tax exemption of Wiki removed because it is a vehicle for
> domestic terrorists (invoke Patriot Act). I consider Chris Hillman such a
> terrorist. At this point it will be up to FBI et-al to decide that. His
> repeated vicious smearing of me at this particular moment in time suggests
> he is a terrorist because of other stuff happening with me right now you
> are, I assume, not involved with. Rita may delay me a few days if Florida is
> hit hard.
>
> Reply to sarfatti at pacbell.net directly
>
> -----
> Thanks!
>
> Flcelloguy
> >From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.
>
>
> Flcelloguy
> >From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to
> get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Dennis Dikkerboom

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Date and time-formats

body:
Dear all,
My name is Dennis Dikkerboom and since a couple of days I'm the new
ambassador of the Frisian Wikipedia. Since the new version of wikimedia (3th
of July) changed the format of dates and times to an American style, like
this: 22:10, 2005 jul 4 (UTC). We wondered if we could change it somehow
back to the original style, like this: 23.02, 1 jul 2005 (UTC).

Best regards,
Dennis Dikkerboom


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

> On 9/28/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > If I had
> > been playing a drawn-out game of whack-a-mole with someone like Alberuni,
> > I'd likely ban one or more ISPs to put an end to the fun. But if you do
> > something bold like this, tell the rest of us so we can act appropriately.
> > At the worst, another Admin will then revert your actions -- & if that
> > happens, it becomes Someone Else's Problem ...
>
> It doesn't become Someone Else's Problem, Geoff, if the disruptive
> editor is targeting a specific individual or ethnic group. When
> unblocked, he'll simply continue to target them, so they continue to
> have to deal with it.
>
Well, let me put it this way: if someone (say, Admin Example) reverts
a block on a given troublemaker for whatever reason, then the troublemaker
becomes that person's (i.e. Admin Example's) problem. The Admin who
blocked the troublemaker in the first place should be allowed to go on
with her/his business on Wikipedia.

That's my opinion on the matter. YMMV.

Geoff


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Multilingual error messages

body:
On 9/28/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have also removed
> the link to the "offsite donation page" at Angela's request.

Just to clarify - this is because the hosting for my site where the
"offsite donation page" was ran out a couple of days ago and I wasn't
sure if I was going to renew it, and I'm also likely to move it a new
URL at some point. Either way, it wasn't an ideal place for the
offsite page to be since it was on a fairly limited bandwidth per
month, which was previously exceeded when the error message was up for
too long, so ended up being a link to a dead site. If someone has an
alternative offsite donation page, then it would be good to link to
that, along with an alternative wiki page to replace the OpenFacts one
(I would suggest Wikicities, but since that's based in the same colo,
any colo-related problems that cause Wikipedia to go down would also
affect Wikicities).

Angela.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
On 9/28/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Does our software automatically block users by IP - when their only
> crime is to share an IP address with a vandal?

Yes, see bug 550 at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=550

Angela.


body:
Fl Celloguy wrote:
> Oops, seems like the forwarded message didn't get sent by the system.
> Here it is:
>
> ----
> From: JackSarfatti <sarfatti AT pacbell DOT net>
> To: Flcelloguy <---->
> Subject: Wikipedia e-mail
> Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 01:23:58 GMT
>
>
> I am starting legal action against Wiki this Monday with IRS
> Attorney General & Registry of Charitable Trusts in Florida to
> have tax exemption of Wiki removed because it is a vehicle for
> domestic terrorists (invoke Patriot Act). I consider Chris Hillman such
> a terrorist. At this point it will be up to FBI et-al to decide that.
> His repeated vicious smearing of me at this particular moment in time
> suggests he is a terrorist because of other stuff happening with me
> right now you are, I assume, not involved with. Rita may delay me a few
> days if Florida is hit hard.
>

We can assume that he will not be suing us IN A COURT OF LAW in Trenton,
New Jersey then?

(As a bonus, can "Wikipedia in violation of the Patriot Act (and other
BJAODN)" go on the naming queue?) :)

--
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OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
I don't have a problem with blocking the range, but I have a problem
with blocking the range for a month. A week would be the maximum that
sounds reasonable for this, to me.

On 9/28/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com>
> >
> >JAY JG wrote:
> >
> >>Ryan, how would you suggest dealing with a banned user who has, in the 6
> >>months since his ban, been continually coming back to Wikipedia and
> >>disruptively editing using almost 50 different sockpuppets (some extremely
> >>sophisticated) and almost 20 different IP addresses?  I refer you to
> >>[[User:Jayjg/Alberuni]] for more detail.
> >>
> >>Jay.
> >
> >Contact his ISP.
>
> ISPs don't appear to care.
>
> >If that doesn't work, do our best to block individually and revert the
> >damage. Innocent people shouldn't be blocked for a month because of what
> >one person did.
>
> He was able to get new IPs every couple of minutes; at one point he was
> blocked over a dozen times in a couple of hours.  Individual IP blocks
> weren't working.
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Fastfission

subject:
[WikiEN-l] I can't have links to online articles I've written on
	my user page?

body:
The comment Taxman used when removing them the first time was that
they were "SEO links", which I presume means "Search Engine
Optimization" -- i.e., he's (allegedly) trying to piggyback his page's
own pagerank onto Wikipedia's high pagerank.

I'm not sure there's any reason why people can't do that on their user
pages, anyway, especially when it is something like "the writings of
so and so" and not "BUY CANADIAN PHARMA HERE" or something like that.
But anyway, that's what I'm betting the reasoning was, right or wrong.

FF

On 9/28/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Have you asked Taxman and Jmabel why they removed the links and blocked you?
> They probably know their own reasoning best.
>
> --Mgm
>
> On 9/26/05, Brandon Hansen <buhansen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I've been involved in a dispute with Taxman and others about posting any
> > links to articles on the OmniNerd domain. I have been blocked twice
> > concerning the issue and finally agreed with Taxman to follow his OmniNerd
> > gag order, meaning I can't even suggest an OmniNerd article be listed in a
> > WP article as an external link - no matter how the suggestion is worded.
> >
> > After my block expired, I made some significant edits to WP pages (not
> > OmniNerd related) and also decided to put some effort into my user page
> > (Uriah923). I noticed that other users - even an admin, Jmabel - included
> > links to writings they had online. I did the same. Taxman then erased the
> > links and blocked me again because the articles I've written are on
> > OmniNerd.
> >
> > If Taxman and others don't want OmniNerd mentioned in WP articles because it
> > is not "worthy", so be it. But, preventing me from listing the articles I've
> > written on my own user page is going too far. The articles listed there do
> > not have to be worthy of an encyclopedia article reference, or even of an
> > external link - they are just listed because I wrote them. Having the links
> > on my page might affect the PR of the articles, but if this alone is enough
> > to erase them then any external link on anyone else's user page needs to be
> > deleted also - and we all know that's just silly.
> >
> > So, I hope someone who reads this will be able to look at the case and
> > recognize the abuse. My recent edits (since the gag-order agreement) have
> > been constructive and I plan on doing many more of them. I see nothing wrong
> > with having links to external articles I've personally written on my user
> > page as I do so.
> >
> > -Brandon (Uriah923)
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Jonathan Stewart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Multilingual error messages

body:
On 9/28/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope the community likes the new error page. Well, they'll probably
> hate seeing it, but I hope they feel comfort in the fact that it's now
> a much prettier error message.

Great work Mark, but could we see these error messages BEFORE there's
an error?  That is, do you have a preview page of these errors for the
curious?

Cheers,

--
     Jonathan


body:
On 9/28/05, Arbeo M <arbeo_m at yahoo.de> wrote:
> This surely sounds sensible. A decision not to allow
> constructed languages anymore could certainly be
> regarded as a strategic decision. Since the board
> seems to be unanimous on this matter and the issue
> keeps on coming up again and again - causing
> unproductive strife each time - wouldn't it make sense
> if the board turned this attitude into an official
> policy?

Most conlangs should not even be considered. But, certainly there are
conlangs that are as notable as Esperanto, which we don't have
wikipedias for? And, we know wikipedia is going to be around forever
in one form or another, what if the international auxiliary language
i'm starting now is as useful and notable as Esperanto in 100 years? I
think that no formal rules should be written that will ban all
conlangs from becoming wikis. I think we should mention somewhere in
the policies that almost all conlangs will pretty much be rejected
instantly, unless there is a significant reason to make the wiki.

Other then Klingon, I don't see how any of these wikis hurt our image.
I've even heard arguments like this about simple:. And speaking of
simple:, what about other supposed conlangs that are based on natural
languages? Modern Hebrew is technically a conlang, in that Hebrew was
dead for many years, and a group of people revived it into a modern
version, based on ancient Hebrew, coined new terms for modern things
like computers, etc.

Almost all Jews are *supposed* to speak Hebrew. They have to make a
speech for their barmitzfa to prove it, don't they? I think it's the
official language of Israel.

Now, I don't know if we have a Hebrew wikipedia yet, so if we do,
don't laugh at me. I have to assume we do. But, this is really about
any other similar conlang that could pop up.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
On 9/28/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> Note: I am not condemning Jay for his actions: I think they fall under
> the "Be bold" guideline, & at most he should be given a warning. If I had
> been playing a drawn-out game of whack-a-mole with someone like Alberuni,
> I'd likely ban one or more ISPs to put an end to the fun. But if you do
> something bold like this, tell the rest of us so we can act appropriately.
> At the worst, another Admin will then revert your actions -- & if that
> happens, it becomes Someone Else's Problem, leaving you free to work on
> other & more important things.

I agree, but I don't think we should even warn him. Certainly this
discussion is embarrassing for him and will be enough to keep it from
happening again? :)


from_name: Anthere

body:
Mark Ryan wrote:

> Multilinugal error messages have now been implemented on the Wikimedia
> squids. I would like to thank everyone who helped to make this a
> reality over the past couple of weeks. I was keeping a running list of
> everyone who had helped, but I lost track of everyone :)
>
> Here is an incomplete list of those in IRC who helped me with
> translations: taw, Mackowaty, WarX, SuiSui, aoineko, Submarine, Rama,
> Frieda, Quistnix, galwaygirl, Fenix, mnemo and avatar. Everyone's help
> has been greatly appreciated. :)
>
> Particular thanks must go to fuddlemark for extensive Javascript help,
> and to Jeronim for implementing the new message across the squids.
>
> Note that I have removed the link to OpenFacts.berlios.de, which was
> getting overloaded as soon as Wikipedia went down. I have also removed
> the link to the "offsite donation page" at Angela's request. The
> French, German and Japanese messages direct those people to that
> language's IRC channel.
>
> I hope the community likes the new error page. Well, they'll probably
> hate seeing it, but I hope they feel comfort in the fact that it's now
> a much prettier error message.
>
> ~Mark Ryan

Very coooool.

I hope I never see it, but I fear I will see the page one day or
another... so great to have it multilingual.

Thanks to all

Ant


from_name: Arbeo M

body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> schrieb:

> I consider the board is not here to micromanage
> things and that natural
> leaders or natural groups of decision makers should
> appear to make the
> final decision on whether to open a new language or
> not.
[...]
> But once a project has be agreed upon, I do not see
> the decision of
> opening one language or not being the job of board
> members, EXCEPT for
> decision such as whether to work in real languages
> only, or to accept
> constructed languages, because again, it might be a
> strategic decision.
> My opinion on the matter is simply that languages
> such as Klington are
> not welcome. And it seems the other board members
> agree with this.
>
This surely sounds sensible. A decision not to allow
constructed languages anymore could certainly be
regarded as a strategic decision. Since the board
seems to be unanimous on this matter and the issue
keeps on coming up again and again - causing
unproductive strife each time - wouldn't it make sense
if the board turned this attitude into an official
policy?

Thus, the community would be disburdened from a
controversial issue that obviously is not really
solvable here and concentrate on making the existing
Wikipedias work and starting successful new ones.

Arbeo

___________________________________________________________
Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - Jetzt mit 1GB Speicher kostenlos - Hier anmelden: http://mail.yahoo.de


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Foundation-l] Information about software for Serbian conversion

body:
(Which can be implemented on some other Wikipedias, too.)

Just to inform you that we (re-)staretd our work on that issue again.
Any interested person can see progress of our work at
http://conversion.vikimedija.org/ . In this moment we don't have
informations in English, but we would have it soon.

We have two goals:

1. To finish SrConversion which Zhengzhu almost finished (for reading
only). This is PHP-based code.

2. To make TCP server and change some parts of EditPage.php (for
writing). We intend to make the server in Python (not in C).


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Information about software for Serbian conversion


from_name: TGGG85 at aol.com

body:
This sounds like a personality conflict between two Wikipedians who can't
communicate their feelings in a friendly manner. I don't know the parties
involved BUT I know for SURE that the Wikipedia community as a whole is blameless. I
suggest that the individuals settle their differences privately and leave the
rest of us OUT of it.


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
On 9/28/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:

> Most conlangs should not even be considered. But, certainly there are
> conlangs that are as notable as Esperanto, which we don't have
> wikipedias for?

I don't think there is any other conlang "as notable as Esperanto".
Wikipedia currently exists in Esperanto, Interlingua, Ido, Lojban and
Volap?k, although the last two aren't very big.

Andre Engels


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
On 9/28/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh yeah, definitely. I think what he did was rather inappropriate, but
> not something to get really huffy about. My point is just that a 1 month
> block on an entire range of IPs is quit excessive and should not be done
> ever*. If we can all agree about that, then the issue is pretty much
> resolved, as far as I am concerned.
>
> - Ryan

I think it is safe to say that we can't all agree on that.

--
geni


from_name: Kat Walsh

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: Multilingual error messages

body:
On 9/28/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:

> For a preview, use the following URL:
> http://www.mindspillage.net/braindump/friends/error-utf8.htm
>
> I don't expect it to remain up on Mindspillage's webspace for long.
> She has been very generous in allowing me the use of that webspace for
> testing and really does deserve a cookie.
>
> ~Mark Ryan

No big deal to me to keep it there for however long. I will be sure to
give myself a cookie. ;-)

-Kat
[[en:User:Mindspillage]]

--
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily
escaped the chronicler's mind."  --Douglas Adams


from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
Multilinugal error messages have now been implemented on the Wikimedia
squids. I would like to thank everyone who helped to make this a
reality over the past couple of weeks. I was keeping a running list of
everyone who had helped, but I lost track of everyone :)

Here is an incomplete list of those in IRC who helped me with
translations: taw, Mackowaty, WarX, SuiSui, aoineko, Submarine, Rama,
Frieda, Quistnix, galwaygirl, Fenix, mnemo and avatar. Everyone's help
has been greatly appreciated. :)

Particular thanks must go to fuddlemark for extensive Javascript help,
and to Jeronim for implementing the new message across the squids.

Note that I have removed the link to OpenFacts.berlios.de, which was
getting overloaded as soon as Wikipedia went down. I have also removed
the link to the "offsite donation page" at Angela's request. The
French, German and Japanese messages direct those people to that
language's IRC channel.

I hope the community likes the new error page. Well, they'll probably
hate seeing it, but I hope they feel comfort in the fact that it's now
a much prettier error message.

~Mark Ryan


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Multilingual error messages


from_name: Guettarda

body:
On 9/28/05, TGGG85 at aol.com <TGGG85 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> This sounds like a personality conflict between two Wikipedians who can't
> communicate their feelings in a friendly manner. I don't know the parties
> involved BUT I know for SURE that the Wikipedia community as a whole is
> blameless. I
> suggest that the individuals settle their differences privately and leave
> the
> rest of us OUT of it.

Actually, have a look at AN/I - Chris Hillman said he gave up and asked that
the article be reverted to Sarfatti's favoured version and left so - which,
of course, the community would not do. More to the point, while Hillman
wrote the version that offended Sarfatti, many other editors were reverting
to Hillman's version.

More to the point, if editors are threatened with lawsuits for making good
faith attempts to write NPOV articles (which, given community support, it
would appear that Hillman did) we can't just leave them out on their own.
That would be great for community spirit - when someone threatens you were
abandon you? Not a good precident.

Ian


from_name: Phroziac

body:
Klingon? rofl.

On 9/28/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Andre Engels wrote:
>
> >On 9/28/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Most conlangs should not even be considered. But, certainly there are
> >>conlangs that are as notable as Esperanto, which we don't have
> >>wikipedias for?
> >>
> >>
> >I don't think there is any other conlang "as notable as Esperanto".
> >Wikipedia currently exists in Esperanto, Interlingua, Ido, Lojban and
> >Volap?k, although the last two aren't very big.
> >
> I looked at ISO 639-3 and it proposes to recognize 24 conlangs:
> <http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Afrihili&action=edit>Afrihili,
> Brithenig, Ceqli, Delason, Dutton World Speedwords, Esperanto, Glosa,
> Ido, Interglossa, Interlingua, Interlingue, Jakelimotu, Klingon, L?adan,
> Linga, Lojban, Novial, Occidental, Orcish, Quenya, Romanova, Sindarin,
> Tceqli, and Volap?k  This unfortunately includes Klingon.  Toki Pona is
> not on the list.  It looks as though they have dropped Europanto.  It
> does put their reliability in doubt.
>
> Ec
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Rowan Collins

body:
On 28/09/05, Phil Boswell wrote:
> "Mark Ryan" wrote:
> > Multilinugal error messages have now been implemented on the Wikimedia
> > squids. I would like to thank everyone who helped to make this a
> > reality over the past couple of weeks. I was keeping a running list of
> > everyone who had helped, but I lost track of everyone :)
>
> Kudos to you and your helpers!
>
> Can you remind us of where we can see these messages *without* requiring a
> WP failure?

Well, as I just discovered looking for something else, you can always
"use the source, look":
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/tools/downtime/language-support.php?view=markup

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: Multilingual error messages


body:
AH. That makes sense. Well, I can see that being a decent allegation
in article space, but I think a few links on his userpage won't matter
a whole lot. Additionally, it might not be such a great idea to add
links to something you run or wrote on an article, especially after
being accused of such a thing. I have added a link or two on wikipedia
to a wiki I run, but I've done  it so people can find the information
there. And others have added links to it too, some of them I've never
seen edit on my wiki. So, they must think it's useful too. There's
probably a link to it on three or four articles on wikipedia, and it's
still difficult to find on Google without specifically entering it's
name. I would have no problem if someone accused me of SEO linking,
and I would stop adding them. (Not that I have in a very long time..)

My suggestion is to give up the fight over the external links. It's a
big thing to get a link from wikipedia, and only a handful of sites
get onto any article. If it's really a good site, someone will revert
it back in eventually, hopefully.

I did look at your sprinkler page, and it was interesting. I barely
read anything and learned things.

On 9/28/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> The comment Taxman used when removing them the first time was that
> they were "SEO links", which I presume means "Search Engine
> Optimization" -- i.e., he's (allegedly) trying to piggyback his page's
> own pagerank onto Wikipedia's high pagerank.
>
> I'm not sure there's any reason why people can't do that on their user
> pages, anyway, especially when it is something like "the writings of
> so and so" and not "BUY CANADIAN PHARMA HERE" or something like that.
> But anyway, that's what I'm betting the reasoning was, right or wrong.
>
> FF
>
>
> On 9/28/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Have you asked Taxman and Jmabel why they removed the links and blocked you?
> > They probably know their own reasoning best.
> >
> > --Mgm
> >
> > On 9/26/05, Brandon Hansen <buhansen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I've been involved in a dispute with Taxman and others about posting any
> > > links to articles on the OmniNerd domain. I have been blocked twice
> > > concerning the issue and finally agreed with Taxman to follow his OmniNerd
> > > gag order, meaning I can't even suggest an OmniNerd article be listed in a
> > > WP article as an external link - no matter how the suggestion is worded.
> > >
> > > After my block expired, I made some significant edits to WP pages (not
> > > OmniNerd related) and also decided to put some effort into my user page
> > > (Uriah923). I noticed that other users - even an admin, Jmabel - included
> > > links to writings they had online. I did the same. Taxman then erased the
> > > links and blocked me again because the articles I've written are on
> > > OmniNerd.
> > >
> > > If Taxman and others don't want OmniNerd mentioned in WP articles because it
> > > is not "worthy", so be it. But, preventing me from listing the articles I've
> > > written on my own user page is going too far. The articles listed there do
> > > not have to be worthy of an encyclopedia article reference, or even of an
> > > external link - they are just listed because I wrote them. Having the links
> > > on my page might affect the PR of the articles, but if this alone is enough
> > > to erase them then any external link on anyone else's user page needs to be
> > > deleted also - and we all know that's just silly.
> > >
> > > So, I hope someone who reads this will be able to look at the case and
> > > recognize the abuse. My recent edits (since the gag-order agreement) have
> > > been constructive and I plan on doing many more of them. I see nothing wrong
> > > with having links to external articles I've personally written on my user
> > > page as I do so.
> > >
> > > -Brandon (Uriah923)
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
mindspillage.net/braindump? Haha.

On 9/29/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/29/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well, as I just discovered looking for something else, you can always
> > "use the source, look":
> > http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/tools/downtime/language-support.php?view=markup
>
> Nope, that's not it at all. I had no idea that existed! Except that
> one's for site maintenance rather than for unexpected errors.
>
> When Squid encounters an error (which makes up a substantial
> proportion of downtime errors) it is configured to spit out a bland
> HTML page. It can't serve images or PHP scripts or anything of that
> nature: all we can have is a plain old HTML file :) The problem there
> is that we cannot use a server-side script to detect a user's language
> preferences. The only way to detect languages on the client-side is
> through Javascript, and that only reports the language used by the
> user's browser. Internet Explorer users have a better deal here,
> because IE can also return the language setting set by the user in the
> Control Panel (which is more likely to reflect the language the user
> is most comfortable with using).
>
> For a preview, use the following URL:
> http://www.mindspillage.net/braindump/friends/error-utf8.htm
>
> I don't expect it to remain up on Mindspillage's webspace for long.
> She has been very generous in allowing me the use of that webspace for
> testing and really does deserve a cookie.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
On 9/29/05, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, have a look at AN/I - Chris Hillman said he gave up and asked that
> the article be reverted to Sarfatti's favoured version and left so - which,
> of course, the community would not do. More to the point, while Hillman
> wrote the version that offended Sarfatti, many other editors were reverting
> to Hillman's version.
>
> More to the point, if editors are threatened with lawsuits for making good
> faith attempts to write NPOV articles (which, given community support, it
> would appear that Hillman did) we can't just leave them out on their own.
> That would be great for community spirit - when someone threatens you were
> abandon you? Not a good precident.
I missed most of the previous stuff, but this sounds insane. I agree
with you. But is he suing in a COURT OF LAW in Trenton, New Jersey?
Anyway, I suppose this is just another issue of the wiki idea having
scaling problems.


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Guettarda wrote:

>
>More to the point, if editors are threatened with lawsuits for making good
>faith attempts to write NPOV articles (which, given community support, it
>would appear that Hillman did) we can't just leave them out on their own.
>That would be great for community spirit - when someone threatens you were
>abandon you? Not a good precident.
>
Indeed, we can imagine many corporations who would like their
articles "improved", and legal threats against editors who add
criticisms would be a convenient way to make that happen.

Stan


from_name: Pawe³ Dembowski

body:
> Klingon funny ...... ? I feel recognizing Orcish actually beats that!
> Waerth

Indeed. Speaking as a Tolkiencruft loremaster, Orcish should
definitely not be there, as it was just an overall name for multiple
different dialects of which only a few sentences are known. Black
Speech would be more reasonable, but there are still only several
known sentences of that.

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


body:
Can you make the Polish one direct to #pl.wikipedia instead of
#wikipedia?

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Brian

subject: [Wikitech-l] Symbian offline Wikipedia viewer

body:
Hey Minty,

I believe TomeRaider 2 had a Symbian version available, although I am a PPC
user so I can't be sure. Here's their website [1].

If you are willing to put in an absolutely incredible amount of work (in the
form of both your time and CPU cycles), I believe it may be possible to do
what you want without writing any code, assuming you can find that reader.
However, this is only a possibility, and you will likely run into an
insurmountable problem ;) That said,

   1. Download the xml data dump [2]
    2. Follow Brion's instructions here [3] for importing into a 1.4schema.
   3. Search the Wikitech-l archives to figure out how to do a proper
   mysql dump from the 1.4 schema [4], or ask in
   irc://irc.freenode.net/mediawiki<irc://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-tech>
    4. Follow Erik's instructions for using his script to create a
   TomeRaider 2 file [5]

I have a dump, including 90,000 images, on my PPC and I really enjoy it, so
I think it's worth the work. In case you don't, just buy a PPC and send me
an e-mail. I'll give you a link to download the 1gb file.

Cheers,
Alterego
http://www.qwikly.com

[1] http://www.tomeraider.com/pages/download.htm
[2] http://download.wikimedia.org/
 <http://www.tomeraider.com/pages/download.htm>[3]
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-September/031347.html
[4]
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/
[5] http://members.chello.nl/epzachte/Wikipedia/ProcedureTR2.html

On 9/29/05, Minty <mintywalker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm looking for a offline (ie, not gprs/3g/wireless) viewer for
> Wikipedia on a Symbian phone.
>
> aka, something that:
> * downloads the latest data dump
> * processes it somehow
> * builds some doodah that I can put on a memory card
> * slot into my phone, and search/access/read wikipedia content
>
> The offline part is key. Any pointers?
>
> I'd also be interested in trying to get the software that does this in
> an open source setup, as I can think of a couple of other large
> datasets I would like to be able to carry around in my pocket.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Walter van Kalken

body:
Klingon funny ...... ? I feel recognizing Orcish actually beats that!

Waerth

Phroziac wrote:

>Klingon? rofl.
>
>On 9/28/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Andre Engels wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>On 9/28/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Most conlangs should not even be considered. But, certainly there are
>>>>conlangs that are as notable as Esperanto, which we don't have
>>>>wikipedias for?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I don't think there is any other conlang "as notable as Esperanto".
>>>Wikipedia currently exists in Esperanto, Interlingua, Ido, Lojban and
>>>Volap?k, although the last two aren't very big.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I looked at ISO 639-3 and it proposes to recognize 24 conlangs:
>><http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Afrihili&action=edit>Afrihili,
>>Brithenig, Ceqli, Delason, Dutton World Speedwords, Esperanto, Glosa,
>>Ido, Interglossa, Interlingua, Interlingue, Jakelimotu, Klingon, L?adan,
>>Linga, Lojban, Novial, Occidental, Orcish, Quenya, Romanova, Sindarin,
>>Tceqli, and Volap?k  This unfortunately includes Klingon.  Toki Pona is
>>not on the list.  It looks as though they have dropped Europanto.  It
>>does put their reliability in doubt.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>>


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

> Oh, you can be sure that Florida will be hit hard.  We terrorists have
> no qualms about taking out an entire state to silence a person as
> important as Mr. Sarfatti, whose consideration is all that is necessary
> to determine that someone is a domesticated terrorist.
> Crank up the Hurricane Machine, Eager Young Mindless Follower!
> What?  The servers are /where/?  Dammit!  Shut it down!  Shut it down
> NOW!  We can't wipe out Florida, the Cabal won't like it!

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/UnNews:Media_outlets_receive_chilling_hurricane_threat_tape

- d.


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
On 9/29/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> It sounds like the Admins need a coordinator or manager. I'd be happy to
> volunteer for that job. (Any Admins who want me to manage them, email me
> or leave me a note on my talk page.{
>
> I've already taken on the role of Coordinator by creating and
> maintaining [[Wikipedia:Account suspensions]]. It survived a vote and
> has received community approval. A number of Admins have used it.
>
> It's for those cases which are not clearcut: things other than "simple
> vandalism" or "3RR violation". Anything where you're not sure enough to
> do it by yourself, quietly, but you don't want to make a big arbcom
> matter out of it.

Yeah, that's the ticket.  Wikipedia definitely needs more managers.

Kelly


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
> Well, let me put it this way: if someone (say, Admin Example)
> reverts a block on a given troublemaker for whatever reason,
> then the troublemaker becomes that person's (i.e. Admin
> Example's) problem. The Admin who blocked the troublemaker in
> the first place should be allowed to go on with her/his
> business on Wikipedia.
>
> That's my opinion on the matter. YMMV.
>
> Geoff

It sounds like the Admins need a coordinator or manager. I'd be happy to
volunteer for that job. (Any Admins who want me to manage them, email me
or leave me a note on my talk page.{

I've already taken on the role of Coordinator by creating and
maintaining [[Wikipedia:Account suspensions]]. It survived a vote and
has received community approval. A number of Admins have used it.

It's for those cases which are not clearcut: things other than "simple
vandalism" or "3RR violation". Anything where you're not sure enough to
do it by yourself, quietly, but you don't want to make a big arbcom
matter out of it.

Ed Poor


body:
On 9/29/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, as I just discovered looking for something else, you can always
> "use the source, look":
> http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/tools/downtime/language-support.php?view=markup

Nope, that's not it at all. I had no idea that existed! Except that
one's for site maintenance rather than for unexpected errors.

When Squid encounters an error (which makes up a substantial
proportion of downtime errors) it is configured to spit out a bland
HTML page. It can't serve images or PHP scripts or anything of that
nature: all we can have is a plain old HTML file :) The problem there
is that we cannot use a server-side script to detect a user's language
preferences. The only way to detect languages on the client-side is
through Javascript, and that only reports the language used by the
user's browser. Internet Explorer users have a better deal here,
because IE can also return the language setting set by the user in the
Control Panel (which is more likely to reflect the language the user
is most comfortable with using).

For a preview, use the following URL:
http://www.mindspillage.net/braindump/friends/error-utf8.htm

I don't expect it to remain up on Mindspillage's webspace for long.
She has been very generous in allowing me the use of that webspace for
testing and really does deserve a cookie.

~Mark Ryan


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: Multilingual
	error messages


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> > Well, let me put it this way: if someone (say, Admin Example)
> > reverts a block on a given troublemaker for whatever reason,
> > then the troublemaker becomes that person's (i.e. Admin
> > Example's) problem. The Admin who blocked the troublemaker in
> > the first place should be allowed to go on with her/his
> > business on Wikipedia.
> >
> > That's my opinion on the matter. YMMV.
> >
> > Geoff
>
> It sounds like the Admins need a coordinator or manager. I'd be happy to
> volunteer for that job. (Any Admins who want me to manage them, email me
> or leave me a note on my talk page.{

It does? That's a surprise to me -- & I'm the one who came up with this
interpretation. As of this writing, I don't know if anyone else on
Wikipedia agrees with me, so creating "a coordinator or manager" would
just be one more example of instruction creep.

What I'm saying is common sense: if someone asks me as an admin to lift
a block, one of the first things I should do -- if I want to be
responsible -- is a little research to learn why that person got banned
in the first place. Maybe a newbie made a mistake; maybe an admin
made a mistake. Or maybe I've been approached by the latest sockpuppet
of (insert your choice of headache-inducing troublemaker here).

And if I lift the ban, then it is also my responsibility to follow the
user for a while -- maybe a day or two -- just to make sure I did the
right thing. Some veteran troublemakers have learned how to believably
pass themselves off as a newbie who made an honest mistake: I know I've
been fooled once or twice (but fortunately I learned of my misjudgement
before I lifted a block).

Sheesh, if we need managers (or similar ilk) to make us use common sense
on Wikipedia, maybe should close the whole project down & pass the
task back to Brittanica or Encarta.
>
> I've already taken on the role of Coordinator by creating and
> maintaining [[Wikipedia:Account suspensions]]. It survived a vote and
> has received community approval. A number of Admins have used it.
>
> It's for those cases which are not clearcut: things other than "simple
> vandalism" or "3RR violation". Anything where you're not sure enough to
> do it by yourself, quietly, but you don't want to make a big arbcom
> matter out of it.
>
On one hand, this appears to be what I was asking for a few emails back:
when one Admin is bold, let the rest of us know. But on the other, there
is now Yet Another Forum to Read to determine if someone is
a troublemaker. One of the current weaknesses with Wikipedia is that to
do a consciencious job, a member -- whether an Admin, a contributor, or
simply anyone interested in doing more than proofreading or making a
random contribution -- has to follow an increasing number of fora to
keep up with guidelines, proposals & the usual 100 & 1 things needed to
do a good job. (For example, I've stayed away from helping with the
backlog of closing articles at either AfD or the Copyvios because the
process as explained is too difficult to understand. [[WP:IAR]] only
works for a limited number of similar cases.)

The Signpost was one solution to this problem, but keeping something
like it going can be a big job in itself, & I wonder if it will scale
in step with this proliferation of discussion sites.

Maybe I need a Wikivacation. Too many of my last emails have been
rants.

Geoff


from_name: Kevin Hamilton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Question on SQL Query

body:
I am new to the list so I apologize if this has been previously answered but
I couldn't find it in any of the FAQs, Documentation, or existing projects.
I would like to know if there is a way to track the number of words
contributed by user to the current version of Wikipedia.  I would only want
to count words that have not been struck by another user.  Thank you in
advance!


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia legal threat (forwarded email now sent)

body:
On 9/29/05, TGGG85 at aol.com <TGGG85 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> This sounds like a personality conflict between two Wikipedians who can't
> communicate their feelings in a friendly manner. I don't know the parties
> involved BUT I know for SURE that the Wikipedia community as a whole is
> blameless. I
> suggest that the individuals settle their differences privately and leave
> the
> rest of us OUT of it.
>

It's a particular guy, Jack Sarfatti, who has made an over-the-top threat
against MediaWiki Foundation. We don't get to "leave the rest of us out of
it" because Hillman has done nothing wrong.


body:
I was originally only going to include about 5 languages, and have the
very outer languages a lot more faded out than they are now. So the
languages were to be in decreasing order of article count as they went
out from the centre (English), and would be decorated accordingly
(i.e. a paler font). The centre languages have the most articles, the
outer languages have the least. I did make one concession to the fact
that article count isn't everything: I included Chinese, which does
not rank in our top 10 wikis by article count but is responsible for
up to 3% of Wikipedia's traffic according to Alexa, which is more than
the French Wikipedia.

~Mark Ryan

On 9/29/05, Robin Shannon <robin.shannon at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/29/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > For a preview, use the following URL:
> > http://www.mindspillage.net/braindump/friends/error-utf8.htm
>
> Damnit, that looks real damn snazzy. *shakes Mark's hand*
> Just wondering why the languages are in the order that they are in?
> Im not saying its bad, i think thier current order looks really good.
>
> --
> Show me the way to go 127.0.0.1, i'm tired and i want to go to bed...
>
> Hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
> Jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>
> Upgrade to ubuntu linux: <http://www.spreadubuntu.org/>
>


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] ZDNet, CNET articles on Wikibooks

body:
Three articles about Wikibooks ...

Wikibooks takes on textbook industry
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5884291.html
Publishers may face biggest challenge yet
http://beta.news.com.com/2061-11199_3-5884839.html
Until You're Ready for OpenCourseWare
http://www.corante.com/copyfight/archives/2005/09/28/until_youre_ready_for_opencourseware.php


from_name: Robin Shannon

body:
On 9/29/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> For a preview, use the following URL:
> http://www.mindspillage.net/braindump/friends/error-utf8.htm

Damnit, that looks real damn snazzy. *shakes Mark's hand*
Just wondering why the languages are in the order that they are in?
Im not saying its bad, i think thier current order looks really good.

--
Show me the way to go 127.0.0.1, i'm tired and i want to go to bed...

Hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
Jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>
Upgrade to ubuntu linux: <http://www.spreadubuntu.org/>


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
I'm not sure what's wrong with using Javascript to get the user's
Accept-Language.

I just set mine to Italian, and yet the error page still comes up in
English, and for an Italian version I have to click a link.

Mark

On 28/09/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/29/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well, as I just discovered looking for something else, you can always
> > "use the source, look":
> > http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/tools/downtime/language-support.php?view=markup
>
> Nope, that's not it at all. I had no idea that existed! Except that
> one's for site maintenance rather than for unexpected errors.
>
> When Squid encounters an error (which makes up a substantial
> proportion of downtime errors) it is configured to spit out a bland
> HTML page. It can't serve images or PHP scripts or anything of that
> nature: all we can have is a plain old HTML file :) The problem there
> is that we cannot use a server-side script to detect a user's language
> preferences. The only way to detect languages on the client-side is
> through Javascript, and that only reports the language used by the
> user's browser. Internet Explorer users have a better deal here,
> because IE can also return the language setting set by the user in the
> Control Panel (which is more likely to reflect the language the user
> is most comfortable with using).
>
> For a preview, use the following URL:
> http://www.mindspillage.net/braindump/friends/error-utf8.htm
>
> I don't expect it to remain up on Mindspillage's webspace for long.
> She has been very generous in allowing me the use of that webspace for
> testing and really does deserve a cookie.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Minty

body:
I'm looking for a offline (ie, not gprs/3g/wireless) viewer for
Wikipedia on a Symbian phone.

aka, something that:
* downloads the latest data dump
* processes it somehow
* builds some doodah that I can put on a memory card
* slot into my phone, and search/access/read wikipedia content

The offline part is key.  Any pointers?

I'd also be interested in trying to get the software that does this in
an open source setup, as I can think of a couple of other large
datasets I would like to be able to carry around in my pocket.


from_name: Greg Andrews

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia as community service

body:
As part of a college class I am in, we are required to, along with at
least a few other students, do 10 hours of community service.  We are
allowed to present our ideas to the class for others to join our
cause.

My thought is to use Wikipedia as a community service project.  Pledge
to spend those 10 hours (ideally non-consecutive) editing, cleaning,
and writing for Wikipedia.

I'm set to propose this idea to my class tomorrow.  Has anyone done
something like this before, and what are you opinions on it?

-Greg


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Sounds good. I'll take you on as an assistant in an arbitration case
if you like. See Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration. You can do some
leg work, try to figure out who did what. Detective work really.

Fred

On Sep 29, 2005, at 2:56 PM, Greg Andrews wrote:

> As part of a college class I am in, we are required to, along with at
> least a few other students, do 10 hours of community service.  We are
> allowed to present our ideas to the class for others to join our
> cause.
>
> My thought is to use Wikipedia as a community service project.  Pledge
> to spend those 10 hours (ideally non-consecutive) editing, cleaning,
> and writing for Wikipedia.
>
> I'm set to propose this idea to my class tomorrow.  Has anyone done
> something like this before, and what are you opinions on it?
>
> -Greg
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
On 9/29/05, Greg Andrews <gregandrews at gmail.com> wrote:
> As part of a college class I am in, we are required to, along with at
> least a few other students, do 10 hours of community service.  We are
> allowed to present our ideas to the class for others to join our
> cause.
>
> My thought is to use Wikipedia as a community service project.  Pledge
> to spend those 10 hours (ideally non-consecutive) editing, cleaning,
> and writing for Wikipedia.
>
> I'm set to propose this idea to my class tomorrow.  Has anyone done
> something like this before, and what are you opinions on it?

As long as your instructor doesn't require anyone at Wikipedia to
certify that you did the community service.  It would be hard for us
to certify how many *hours* you spent editing.

Kelly


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Why am I being blocked?

body:
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Phil Boswell wrote:

> On 9/29/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> wrote:
> > > It sounds like the Admins need a coordinator or manager. I'd be happy to
> > > volunteer for that job. (Any Admins who want me to manage them, email me
> > > or leave me a note on my talk page.{
> > > I've already taken on the role of Coordinator by creating and
> > > maintaining [[Wikipedia:Account suspensions]]. It survived a vote and
> > > has received community approval. A number of Admins have used it.
>
> Hasn't been updated since 23Sep, and the talk page is even older.

A look at "What links here" shows that almost nothing links there: a
number of Talk pages, & [[Deletion Log]]. (On the other hand, 23 Sept.
is not that long ago: I just responded to a comment from February of
this year.) I added a link to it from the Admin's Required Reading
page; let's see if that improves its visibility.
>
[snip]
>
> Wikipedia needs more people to stand up and say: "Here's a job needs, doing,
> let's do it." And then be willing to coordinate things until the job is
> done; sometimes the job is *never* done.
>
I've made one possibily important discussion page easier to find by Admins.
Anyone else want to help collect these things?

Geoff


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Why am I being blocked?

body:
"Kelly Martin" <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
wrote in message news:bd4c411e05092908302303f09b at mail.gmail.com...
On 9/29/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
wrote:
> > It sounds like the Admins need a coordinator or manager. I'd be happy to
> > volunteer for that job. (Any Admins who want me to manage them, email me
> > or leave me a note on my talk page.{
> > I've already taken on the role of Coordinator by creating and
> > maintaining [[Wikipedia:Account suspensions]]. It survived a vote and
> > has received community approval. A number of Admins have used it.

Hasn't been updated since 23Sep, and the talk page is even older.

> Yeah, that's the ticket.  Wikipedia definitely needs more managers.

Wikipedia needs more people to stand up and say: "Here's a job needs, doing,
let's do it." And then be willing to coordinate things until the job is
done; sometimes the job is *never* done.

"Manager" isn't automatically a dirty word, you know. There's a few rotten
apples :-)
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Add prefix to existing Media Wiki database

body:
Kerim Friedman wrote:
> When I first installed Media Wiki a while ago I neglected to add a
> useful prefix to the MySQL tables, such as "wiki_". Now, I've merged
> my MySQL tables and I don't know which is which. How could I add a
> prefix to all the MediaWiki tables on an already installed Wiki? I'm
> using version 1.4.x, I'd be happy to upgrade to a newer version if it
> would help with the process...

You can rename a table in MySQL using the ALTER TABLE statement like this:

ALTER TABLE cur RENAME TO wiki_cur;

The complete set of table definitions is in maintenance/tables.sql, so
you can make a list of all the tables you need to rename there.

You'll also have to set $wgDBprefix in LocalSettings.php to match, eg:

$wgDBprefix = "wiki_";

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

body:
On 9/29/05, Minty <mintywalker at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm looking for a offline (ie, not gprs/3g/wireless) viewer for
> Wikipedia on a Symbian phone.

I'm not aware that there is one yet, though it sounds a great idea.
There is, however, a new mailing list at
<http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-offline-reader-l> for
anyone interested in developing offline versions of Wikipedia. There
are 15 subscribers, but so far no posts. Perhaps you could start some
discussions off there?

Angela.


from_name: Kerim Friedman

body:
When I first installed Media Wiki a while ago I neglected to add a
useful prefix to the MySQL tables, such as "wiki_". Now, I've merged
my MySQL tables and I don't know which is which. How could I add a
prefix to all the MediaWiki tables on an already installed Wiki? I'm
using version 1.4.x, I'd be happy to upgrade to a newer version if it
would help with the process...


body:
No, just offering him some serious work.

Fred

On Sep 29, 2005, at 5:54 PM, Phroziac wrote:

> heh Fred. Trying to get out of some work? :P
>
> On 9/29/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>> Sounds good. I'll take you on as an assistant in an arbitration case
>> if you like. See Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration. You can do some
>> leg work, try to figure out who did what. Detective work really.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> On Sep 29, 2005, at 2:56 PM, Greg Andrews wrote:
>>
>>
>>> As part of a college class I am in, we are required to, along
>>> with at
>>> least a few other students, do 10 hours of community service.  We
>>> are
>>> allowed to present our ideas to the class for others to join our
>>> cause.
>>>
>>> My thought is to use Wikipedia as a community service project.
>>> Pledge
>>> to spend those 10 hours (ideally non-consecutive) editing, cleaning,
>>> and writing for Wikipedia.
>>>
>>> I'm set to propose this idea to my class tomorrow.  Has anyone done
>>> something like this before, and what are you opinions on it?
>>>
>>> -Greg
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Multilingual error messages

body:
Mark Ryan wrote:
> Multilinugal error messages have now been implemented on the Wikimedia
> squids. I would like to thank everyone who helped to make this a
> reality over the past couple of weeks. I was keeping a running list of
> everyone who had helped, but I lost track of everyone :)

Hello,

Good job all. Maybe the Squid messages can be translated too ?

The french 404 show an english message:
  http://fr.wikipedia.org/this_is_404
:)

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


body:
On 9/29/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Sounds good. I'll take you on as an assistant in an arbitration case
> if you like. See Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration. You can do some
> leg work, try to figure out who did what. Detective work really.

Arbitration assistants have been talked about several times before.
Can't see how it would be a bad thing, although the Arbs would be
obliged to at least spot-check the assistant's findings for accuracy
before relying on them.

Kelly


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 9/28/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We can assume that he will not be suing us IN A COURT OF LAW in Trenton,
> New Jersey then?
>
> (As a bonus, can "Wikipedia in violation of the Patriot Act (and other
> BJAODN)" go on the naming queue?) :)
>

Done (at the bottom of the section):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BJAODN:The_Next_Page_Title#W.C3.AFk.C3.AFp.C3.A6di.C3.A6

By the way, I was reading [[Trenton, New Jersey]] and can you believe
there isn't any information there about the law courts?

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Nicholas Moreau

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: foundation-l Digest, Vol 18, Issue 28

body:
Wikijunior, as many already know, is publishing a series of books, the first
of which is funded by the mysterious Beck Foundation.

This message has worried many of us:

"According to the United States Code for registering a copyrighted work, you
must include your nationality (what country you claim citizenship in) and
the country you are currently residing in, if different. It is also
suggested by the U.S. Copyright office to include the year you were born,
for identification purposes. They also ask for the year of death, and if you
know of a Wikibookian who has passed away, this would also be useful. How
exactly we are going to collect this information for users and contributors
of this Wikibooks is totally unknown, and is going to be an interesting
little ride. Please add comments in the discussion
page<http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors&action=edit>if
you have any reservations about giving this information out. This is
moving into new territory here, so we don't know exactly what is going to be
required or if new policies should or ought to be developed."

(sample of the pages in question:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors)

We are going to publish formal credit to any contributor that provides their
name, but the project's shot if we do indeed need everybodies' info, no
matter what. Many don't feel comfortable revealing such detailed info, like
their birth year, and we should respect that.

Can anyone provide insight on the level of necessity to include everyone's
info.

Nick/Zanimum


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Why am I being blocked?

references:
<E506B3FF6BC1254C9AC1B948C380BC28040A6D04@sm-nyny-xm05.nena.wdpr.disney.com>
	<bd4c411e05092908302303f09b@mail.gmail.com>
	<dhh2d0$9en$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
> > Yeah, that's the ticket.  Wikipedia definitely needs more managers.
>
> Wikipedia needs more people to stand up and say: "Here's a job needs, doing,
> let's do it." And then be willing to coordinate things until the job is
> done; sometimes the job is *never* done.
>
> "Manager" isn't automatically a dirty word, you know. There's a few rotten
> apples :-)
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]

The only reason the wikipedia still exists is because ordinary people
are impowered to do things needing done, rather than being obligated
to report to some "manager". The answer to this particular problem is
decentralisation of power, not the placement of yet more power in the
hands of Ed Poor. Fer Crissakes...

Jack (Sam Spade)


body:
Thanks Brion. You are always so helpful.

On 9/29/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Kerim Friedman wrote:
> > When I first installed Media Wiki a while ago I neglected to add a
> > useful prefix to the MySQL tables, such as "wiki_". Now, I've merged
> > my MySQL tables and I don't know which is which. How could I add a
> > prefix to all the MediaWiki tables on an already installed Wiki? I'm
> > using version 1.4.x, I'd be happy to upgrade to a newer version if it
> > would help with the process...
>
> You can rename a table in MySQL using the ALTER TABLE statement like this:
>
> ALTER TABLE cur RENAME TO wiki_cur;
>
> The complete set of table definitions is in maintenance/tables.sql, so
> you can make a list of all the tables you need to rename there.
>
> You'll also have to set $wgDBprefix in LocalSettings.php to match, eg:
>
> $wgDBprefix = "wiki_";
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>

--
_______________________________________
P. KERIM FRIEDMAN
http://kerim.oxus.net

DO NOT hit "reply" to send me personal messages!
This address is for BULK mail only.
My private address is: kerim (dot) my last name (at) oxus (dot) net.
_______________________________________


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I being blocked?

body:
On 9/29/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
> > > Well, let me put it this way: if someone (say, Admin Example)
> > > reverts a block on a given troublemaker for whatever reason,
> > > then the troublemaker becomes that person's (i.e. Admin
> > > Example's) problem. The Admin who blocked the troublemaker in
> > > the first place should be allowed to go on with her/his
> > > business on Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > That's my opinion on the matter. YMMV.
> > >
> > > Geoff
> >
> > It sounds like the Admins need a coordinator or manager. I'd be happy to
> > volunteer for that job. (Any Admins who want me to manage them, email me
> > or leave me a note on my talk page.{
>
> It does? That's a surprise to me -- & I'm the one who came up with this
> interpretation. As of this writing, I don't know if anyone else on
> Wikipedia agrees with me, so creating "a coordinator or manager" would
> just be one more example of instruction creep.
>
> What I'm saying is common sense: if someone asks me as an admin to lift
> a block, one of the first things I should do -- if I want to be
> responsible -- is a little research to learn why that person got banned
> in the first place. Maybe a newbie made a mistake; maybe an admin
> made a mistake. Or maybe I've been approached by the latest sockpuppet
> of (insert your choice of headache-inducing troublemaker here).
>
> And if I lift the ban, then it is also my responsibility to follow the
> user for a while -- maybe a day or two -- just to make sure I did the
> right thing. Some veteran troublemakers have learned how to believably
> pass themselves off as a newbie who made an honest mistake: I know I've
> been fooled once or twice (but fortunately I learned of my misjudgement
> before I lifted a block).
>
> Sheesh, if we need managers (or similar ilk) to make us use common sense
> on Wikipedia, maybe should close the whole project down & pass the
> task back to Brittanica or Encarta.
> >
> > I've already taken on the role of Coordinator by creating and
> > maintaining [[Wikipedia:Account suspensions]]. It survived a vote and
> > has received community approval. A number of Admins have used it.
> >
> > It's for those cases which are not clearcut: things other than "simple
> > vandalism" or "3RR violation". Anything where you're not sure enough to
> > do it by yourself, quietly, but you don't want to make a big arbcom
> > matter out of it.
> >
> On one hand, this appears to be what I was asking for a few emails back:
> when one Admin is bold, let the rest of us know. But on the other, there
> is now Yet Another Forum to Read to determine if someone is
> a troublemaker. One of the current weaknesses with Wikipedia is that to
> do a consciencious job, a member -- whether an Admin, a contributor, or
> simply anyone interested in doing more than proofreading or making a
> random contribution -- has to follow an increasing number of fora to
> keep up with guidelines, proposals & the usual 100 & 1 things needed to
> do a good job. (For example, I've stayed away from helping with the
> backlog of closing articles at either AfD or the Copyvios because the
> process as explained is too difficult to understand. [[WP:IAR]] only
> works for a limited number of similar cases.)
>
> The Signpost was one solution to this problem, but keeping something
> like it going can be a big job in itself, & I wonder if it will scale
> in step with this proliferation of discussion sites.
>
> Maybe I need a Wikivacation. Too many of my last emails have been
> rants.
>
> Geoff

Actually, rant or no, you make a brilliant meta-point. On articles or
on policy pages, there need to be "hubs" (or "nodes", call it what you
will) where various related articles are all linked to from a central
hub. Otherwise, useful content can't be found, and is neglected or
ignored, to the detriment of both those who would like to use / read
it, and the article itself, which stagnates. We need more "hubs", and
less random articles badly strung together. Looking for a useful
policy page should be less like untangling last years christmas
lights. Thats why I'm a mergist (or is that emergent? ;) Wikipedian.

Jack (Sam Spade)


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
I have speedy kept the following vfd nominations, and been threatened
with a block:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Freehold_Circle
"Here is another nn traffic circle. Roadcruft. Delete --JAranda | yeah
02:40, 28 September 2005 (UTC)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Laurelton_Circle
"I don't normally get into the road wars on AfD, but this is a former
traffic circle, now converted to a traffic light. Its notability derives
from the notability of the history of the traffic light. Delete. Chick
Bowen 21:36, 26 September 2005 (UTC)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Flemington_Circle
"This is one of three traffic circles in Flemington, New Jersey, a
village of 4000 people. Pilatus 18:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/White_Horse_Circle
"Oh cmon its a traffic circle nn Delete --Aranda56 01:26, 22 September
2005 (UTC)"

What the fuck is with people?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
SPUI wrote:
> I have speedy kept the following vfd nominations, and been threatened
> with a block:

Make that have been blocked, as I forgot when I went to bed last night.
22:01, 29 September 2005 Fvw blocked "User:SPUI" with an expiry time of
24 hours (3RR violation on Freehold Circle)


from_name: Marco Chiesa

body:
On 9/29/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/29/05, Greg Andrews <gregandrews at gmail.com> wrote:
> > As part of a college class I am in, we are required to, along with at
> > least a few other students, do 10 hours of community service. We are
> > allowed to present our ideas to the class for others to join our
> > cause.
> >
> > My thought is to use Wikipedia as a community service project. Pledge
> > to spend those 10 hours (ideally non-consecutive) editing, cleaning,
> > and writing for Wikipedia.
> >
> > I'm set to propose this idea to my class tomorrow. Has anyone done
> > something like this before, and what are you opinions on it?
>
> As long as your instructor doesn't require anyone at Wikipedia to
> certify that you did the community service. It would be hard for us
> to certify how many *hours* you spent editing.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

I suppose Special:Contributions could be used to certify your work on
wikipedia!
Cruccone


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
Phroziac wrote:
> why are they invalid vfds, Cindy?
>
Because they don't establish deletability. There was a recent discussion
on this list about that, but I can't seem to find it.


from_name: Nikola Smolenski

body:
On Thursday 29 September 2005 17:25, Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> Mark Ryan wrote:
> > Multilinugal error messages have now been implemented on the Wikimedia
> > squids. I would like to thank everyone who helped to make this a
> > reality over the past couple of weeks. I was keeping a running list of
> > everyone who had helped, but I lost track of everyone :)
>
> Good job all. Maybe the Squid messages can be translated too ?
>
> The french 404 show an english message:
>   http://fr.wikipedia.org/this_is_404

Squid's error messages have already been translated to a lot of languages,
including French; see
http://cvs.devel.squid-cache.org/viewcvs.py/squid/squid3/errors/ . But it
seems that Squid can't send language which is appropriate to Accept-Language,
but that one language must be set as default? If that is the case, maybe
French servers could have French set...


from_name: Koos Jol

body:
Nice that the web finally has heard about Wikibooks.
Also in the Dutch language there is written about us.
I've had an interview with an editor of livre (http://www.livre.nl/), a
small monthly magazine about all kind of open source. Not a really big
magazine (around 3000 readers), but when looking at the size of the
Wikibooks in Dutch, it's great.
It can be found in Livre 16.
(http://www.livre.nl/Content/Headlines/Inhoud_Livre_16_-_oktober_2005_20050826183/).
The story I'm talking about is the fourth point, which starts with the
headline:
 'Voor dit soort projecten is internet oorspronkelijk bedoeld'
Translated: This kind of projects, is what the internet original was meant
for.

It's a pity that you have to register (e-mailadress) to read the full text
and yes, the whole story is in Dutch.

Well, since not many people on this list will speak Dutch, this mail might
be useless, but I wanted to let you know that more and more people become
acquainted with Wikibooks, which is a good signal.

Yours sincerly,

Koos Jol
(http://nl.wikibooks.org/wiki/Gebruiker:Koos_Jol)
(http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Firefox)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Wick" <karlwick at gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia textbook discussion" <textbook-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 8:38 PM
Subject: [Textbook-l] ZDNet, CNET articles on Wikibooks

Three articles about Wikibooks ...

Wikibooks takes on textbook industry
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5884291.html
Publishers may face biggest challenge yet
http://beta.news.com.com/2061-11199_3-5884839.html
Until You're Ready for OpenCourseWare
http://www.corante.com/copyfight/archives/2005/09/28/until_youre_ready_for_opencourseware.php
_______________________________________________
Textbook-l mailing list
Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l


from_name: Frank v Waveren

subject: [Wikitech-l] Question on SQL Query

body:
On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 11:37:08AM -0700, Kevin Hamilton wrote:
> I am new to the list so I apologize if this has been previously answered
> but I couldn't find it in any of the FAQs, Documentation, or existing
> projects.  I would like to know if there is a way to track the number of
> words contributed by user to the current version of Wikipedia.  I would
> only want to count words that have not been struck by another user.  Thank
> you in advance!

There's no 100% accurate way of doing that. If one person writes
"There was a mouse", and someone else replaces it with "The mouse that
was there", who originated the word "mouse"? Who originated the word
"there"? If you want to do this heuristicly, your best bet would
probably be iteratively diffing each article backwards until you've
found the source of each word. It'll require a bit of work and
certainly won't be a simple SQL query though.

--
Frank v Waveren                                  Key fingerprint: BDD7 D61E
fvw at var.cx                                              5D39 CF05 4BFC F57A
Public key: hkp://wwwkeys.pgp.net/468D62C8              FA00 7D51 468D 62C8
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: mediawiki block table indexing

body:
Anyone?

On Tue, Sep 27, 2005 at 12:38:45AM +0200, Frank v Waveren wrote:
> I just had a look at the current version of CVS HEAD mediawiki and it
> would appear to me that bug 1244[1] (block table access doing a full
> scan of the block table) is back or has never left.
>
> I've forgotten most of the intricacies though, so perhaps I'm
> mistaken. I seem to recall that even if the query was being run with
> FOR UPDATE, a union (instead of OR) needed to be used to prevent the
> table scan (which was only supported in mysql4).
>
> Was the solution to this problem moved off elsewhere, or is this
> performance problem back?
>
>
> 1: http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1244
>
> Here is what I thought was the relevant section of Block.php:load()
> for your viewing ease:
>
> function load( $address = '', $user = 0, $killExpired = true )
> {
>    global $wgAntiLockFlags;
>    $fname = 'Block::load';
>    wfDebug( "Block::load: '$address', '$user', $killExpired\n" );
>
>    $ret = false;
>    $killed = false;
>    if ( $this->forUpdate() ) {
>       $db =& wfGetDB( DB_MASTER );
>       if ( $wgAntiLockFlags & ALF_NO_BLOCK_LOCK ) {
>          $options = '';
>       } else {
>          $options = 'FOR UPDATE';
>       }
>    } else {
>       $db =& wfGetDB( DB_SLAVE );
>       $options = '';
>    }
>    $ipblocks = $db->tableName( 'ipblocks' );
>
>    if ( 0 == $user && $address=='' ) {
>       $sql = "SELECT * from $ipblocks $options";
>    } elseif ($address=="") {
>       $sql = "SELECT * FROM $ipblocks WHERE ipb_user={$user} $options";
>    } elseif ($user=="") {
>       $sql = "SELECT * FROM $ipblocks WHERE ipb_address='" . $db->strencode( $address ) . "' $options";
>    } elseif ( $options=='' ) {
> # If there are no options (e.g. FOR UPDATE), use a UNION
> #  so that the query can make efficient use of indices
> $sql = "SELECT * FROM $ipblocks WHERE ipb_address='" . $db->strencode( $address ) .
>          "' UNION SELECT * FROM $ipblocks WHERE ipb_user={$user}";
>    } else {
> # If there are options, a UNION can not be used, use one
> # SELECT instead. Will do a full table scan.
>       $sql = "SELECT * FROM $ipblocks WHERE (ipb_address='" . $db->strencode( $address ) . "' OR ipb_user={$user}) $options";
>    }
>
> ...
>
>
> --
> Frank v Waveren                                  Key fingerprint: BDD7 D61E
> fvw at var.cx                                              5D39 CF05 4BFC F57A
> Public key: hkp://wwwkeys.pgp.net/468D62C8              FA00 7D51 468D 62C8

--
Frank v Waveren                                  Key fingerprint: BDD7 D61E
fvw at var.cx                                              5D39 CF05 4BFC F57A
Public key: hkp://wwwkeys.pgp.net/468D62C8              FA00 7D51 468D 62C8
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from_name: Phroziac

body:
heh Fred. Trying to get out of some work? :P

On 9/29/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Sounds good. I'll take you on as an assistant in an arbitration case
> if you like. See Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration. You can do some
> leg work, try to figure out who did what. Detective work really.
>
> Fred
>
> On Sep 29, 2005, at 2:56 PM, Greg Andrews wrote:
>
> > As part of a college class I am in, we are required to, along with at
> > least a few other students, do 10 hours of community service.  We are
> > allowed to present our ideas to the class for others to join our
> > cause.
> >
> > My thought is to use Wikipedia as a community service project.  Pledge
> > to spend those 10 hours (ideally non-consecutive) editing, cleaning,
> > and writing for Wikipedia.
> >
> > I'm set to propose this idea to my class tomorrow.  Has anyone done
> > something like this before, and what are you opinions on it?
> >
> > -Greg
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Just giving you a hard time. I think that would be a pretty neat job
for "community service". Would be a LOT of work though. ;)

On 9/30/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> No, just offering him some serious work.
>
> Fred


body:
Concur.
On 9/30/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Arbitration assistants have been talked about several times before.
> Can't see how it would be a bad thing, although the Arbs would be
> obliged to at least spot-check the assistant's findings for accuracy
> before relying on them.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Why am I being blocked?

body:
On 9/30/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> I've made one possibily important discussion page easier to find by Admins.
> Anyone else want to help collect these things?
>
> Geoff

Nope. Anything really dodgey should turn up at AN/I. Otherwise learn
to take responcbility for your descissions.

--
geni


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Multilingual error messages

references:
<a4a7077050928092077f9e5b3@mail.gmail.com>
	<dhh4h7$h9n$1@sea.gmane.org> <200509292233.56739.smolensk@eunet.yu>
	<dhisof$8es$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Yeah... would it be possible to have a client-side script to determine
the proper error message based on the requested subdomain?

Mark

On 30/09/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Nikola Smolenski" <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote in message
> news:200509292233.56739.smolensk at eunet.yu...
> > On Thursday 29 September 2005 17:25, Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> [snip]
> >> Good job all. Maybe the Squid messages can be translated too ?
> >> The french 404 show an english message:
> >>   http://fr.wikipedia.org/this_is_404
> > Squid's error messages have already been translated to a lot of languages,
> > including French; see
> > http://cvs.devel.squid-cache.org/viewcvs.py/squid/squid3/errors/ . But it
> > seems that Squid can't send language which is appropriate to
> > Accept-Language,
> > but that one language must be set as default? If that is the case, maybe
> > French servers could have French set...
>
> Forgive me for butting in, but surely Accept-Language is irrelevant.
>
> The message for FR.wikipedia.org should be "en FRancais".
> The message for CY.wikipedia.org should be in Welsh (sorry, don't know the
> Welsh for that :-).
>
> Assuming there is at least one person for each ??.wikipedia.org who can type
> in the appropriate language, it must be possible to translate a minimal set
> of messages properly?
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
why are they invalid vfds, Cindy?

On 9/30/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> SPUI wrote:
> > I have speedy kept the following vfd nominations, and been threatened
> > with a block:
>
> Make that have been blocked, as I forgot when I went to bed last night.
> 22:01, 29 September 2005 Fvw blocked "User:SPUI" with an expiry time of
> 24 hours (3RR violation on Freehold Circle)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> The majority of the votes on those articles is to delete them.
> You can't just speedy keep and impose your opinion on others keep it
> when there isn't even a remote consensus to keep the article.

The consensus of those that actually care about the subject is to keep
it. If we listened to the assholes we'd have killed all the Rambot stubs.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Captcha in progress

body:
I've been tinkering with an extension to provide for a captcha to reduce
automated linkspamming while still staying out of the way for common use.

My preliminary code is running now on test.leuksman.com; the actual
"captcha" part is a really primitive plain text hack which would take
all of a few minutes for a dedicated attacker to crack, but don't worry
about that -- I'm not testing the protection yet, just the framework it
plugs into.

By default the captcha prompt will only kick in if an edit adds new URLs
to the text. Most regular editing shouldn't trip this -- wiki links,
plain text, or just preserving existing links. But if you add new HTTP
links that weren't there before, it'll then make you pass the captcha
before it saves.

The captcha step can also be bypassed based on user group (eg registered
bots, sysop accounts, optionally all registered users), and can also be
set to skip for any user who has gone through confirmation of their
account e-mail address.

I haven't coded it yet, but it should also be possible to add a URL
whitelist, for instance for the site's own local URLs.

As for a 'real' captcha generator to put into this system; I'm not too
sure what code is already out there that's not awful. There's a Drupal
plugin which would be easy to rip GPL'd PHP code from, but it doesn't
seem very robust.

There's a set of samples of various captcha output and their weaknesses
here: http://sam.zoy.org/pwntcha/

Obviously it would be good to either find something on the 'hard
captchas' list rather than 'defeated captchas', or roll our own that
doesn't suck too bad.

There's also the question of whether we can feasibly provide an audio
alternative or whathaveyou.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] User rights bungle

body:
Domas recently disabled Special:Makesysop because of some kind of
replication problem, by commenting out the inclusion of the extension.
What he didn't realise is that that extension also sets up the rights
for Wikimedia-style steward and bureaucrat groups. Thus, these groups
reverted to the MediaWiki default.

The MediaWiki default is to give the initial user (a bureaucrat), the
ability to change all user rights, using Special:Userrights. So
bureaucrats across Wikimedia were pleased to find that they had been
granted total, unrestricted access to their wikis. Though hopefully few
of them realised it, this included the right to grant themselves steward
access, and perform operations such as locking the wiki with
Special:Lockdb, or requesting user IP addresses with Special:Checkuser.
When Special:Makesysop is re-enabled, anyone still retaining developer
privileges will have full interwiki rights, such as the ability to sysop
or desysop anyone on any wiki.

Access to Special:Userrights has been disabled once more, although if
anyone was granted high-level access without proper process during this
period (developer, checkuser or boardvote), they should own up so that
it can be reverted.

-- Tim Starling