subject: [WikiEN-l] Disruptive users

body:
Jimbo wrote: "Actually, of course, we have huge volumes of guidelines, all
carefully
discussed and debated, and we have institutional mechanisms set up to
deal with such things, right?

What do you mean when we say we have "no guidelines against users who
are out to disrupt things"?"

We have policies against the most disruptive things a user can do. There are
plenty of
ways to disrupt Wikipedia without violating written policies. (Emphasis on
"written"). We
also have plenty of users who go right up to the edge of what is acceptable
behavior, and
admins are helpless to use common sense and ban these users for fear of
acting
"unilaterally" or being accused of abusing their powers. The institutional
mechanisms (the
arbcom, for example) are crowded out by cases that any admin with a modicum
of
common sense could have dealt with in 5 minutes. The "hard" cases, where the
issues
aren't so clear-cut, get ignored so that the most blatant cases can be
adjudicated.

--Mark


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject:
[Foundation-l] fund drive update - why was the message
	removed from en.wikipedia?

body:
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:27:54 -0700, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales
<jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I think what we should do is move the notice toward the bottom of the
> page, and have it read something like this: "If you found this article
> or other Wikipedia articles to be useful to you, please visit our
> donation page to find out how you can help support the
> nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation."

This could be added to [[MediaWiki:Lastmodified]]. I've put a message
at [[MediaWiki talk:Lastmodified]] to check there are no strong
objections and will add the message there if there aren't. See
http://simple.wikipedia.org/ for an example of the message in use.

Angela.


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: "Michaël P."

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Installation of mediawiki 1.3 beta 4 upon a 1.2.6
	failed

body:
This installation was done upon a base with a mediawiki 1.2.6, as
  I was adviced previously.

(It seems to be a little bug concernning the php memory limit.
3072Mo is said to be not enough)

Checking environment...

     * PHP 4.3.8 ok
     * PHP server API is apache; ok, using pretty URLs
(index.php/Page_Title)
     * Have XML / Latin1-UTF-8 conversion support.
     * PHP's memory_limit is 3072M. If this is too low,
installation may fail! Attempting to raise limit to 20M... ok.
     * Have zlib support; enabling output compression.
     * Found GD graphics library built-in, image thumbnailing
will be enabled if you enable uploads.
     * Installation directory: /var/www/le/all4dev
     * Script URI path: /le/all4dev
     * Connected as root (automatic)
     * Connected to database... 4.0.20-log; enabling MySQL 4
enhancements
     * Database all4dev exists
     * There are already MediaWiki tables in this database.
Checking if updates are needed...

...ipblocks is up to date.
...already have interwiki table
...indexes seem up to 20031107 standards
...have linkscc table.
...linkscc is up to date, or does not exist. Good.
...have hitcounter table.
Adding rc_ip...ok
Converting links table to ID-ID...
Loading IDs from cur table...
Finished loading IDs.

Dropping temporary links table if it exists... done.
Creating temporary links table... done.

Processing 82 rows from links table...
Inserting 82 tuples into links_temp... done. Total 82 tuples
inserted.
82 valid titles and 0 invalid titles were processed.

Dropping backup links table if it exists... done.
Swapping tables 'links' to 'links_backup'; 'links_temp' to
'links'... done.

Conversion complete. The old table remains at links_backup;
delete at your leisure.
Adding user_real_name field to table user...ok
Adding querycache table for slow special pages... ok
Adding objectcache table for message caching... ok
Adding categorylinks table for category management... ok

Warning:  mysql_query(): 99 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/var/www/le/all4dev/includes/Database.php on line 177

Warning:  mysql_query(): 99 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in
/var/www/le/all4dev/includes/Database.php on line 177

Unable to free MySQL result

Backtrace:
Database.php line 210, in wfdebugdiebacktrace()
DatabaseFunctions.php line 83, in database::freeresult()
moveCustomMessages.inc line 38, in wffreeresult()
index.php line 448, in movecustommessages()

--
Micha?l P.
gpg:        D4C8 F73D A000 71C7 44EF  27E6 8982 4991 7126 3CE3


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Requests related to sound files

body:
Mark Pellegrini wrote:
> (1) The 2 megabyte upload limit - I discovered through trial and error
> that uploads
> are capped at 2 megabytes. For full-length songs, this is way, way too
> small. A
> 3-4 minutes song in ogg format at average quality is about 5 megs. I
> have to set my
> encoder to its lowest settings (0 or 1 out of 10) to get it under 2 megs.
>
> Angela has said (rightly so) that full length songs belong at
> Wikisource, not on
> Wikipedia itself. So the above changes should be made there.

I've raised the limit site-wide to 5 MB. This was just a simple change
to php.ini. Maybe it's possible to have different limits for different
projects, but I didn't think it was worth the mucking around.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikisource pages disappeared

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> The following appeared on the [[Wikisource:Scriptorium]] (out Village Pump:
>
>>
>>     "What is Wikisource?"
>>
>> http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikisource:What_is_Wikisource%3F
>> Doesn't exist as of five seconds ago, according to my browser.

This is an old escaping problem rearing its ugly head yet again. It
should be fixed soon. Note that the page exists, as does its history,
it's just the rewrite rule for /wiki/ pages that is broken. You can
reassure yourself by viewing it with the following URL:

http://sources.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikisource:What_is_Wikisource%3F

-- Tim Starling


list: wikien-l

from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Maybe its a glitch in my e-mail, but...

body:
Maybe it is just a glitch in my e-mail, but have we seen a
repeat of a dozen or so messages sent out on the Wiki-En
list today?

Robert

__________________________________
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from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Dev request re rollback

body:
--- David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> If we're going to have a rollback button, I have a request: a text
box
> for a meaningful summary next to it. It can start filled with the
> present default summary, but make it easy to make a rollback
meaningful.

David's idea is something I decide (but never get around) to ask
for every time I use the rollback feature.  It would make the
feature much more flexible and also make us sysops look a bit less
like a lot of cold bastards who can't be bothered explaining why they
are reverting something.  So I would like to ask the developers to
please consider this.  Thanks muchly.

Zero.

__________________________________
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New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
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from_name: alteripse at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] pedophilia pages

body:
I subscribe to the daily combined letter list, and this is the first time I have tried to post. The subject was mentioned yesterday as a question about what to do about the [[childlove]] and associated pages that were being interpreted as providing a possible platform for justification of pedophiles attempting to change public perception of pedophilia. User Erich alerted me today and suggested I help edit on this issue. He provided a link to a recent JAMA article that represents the mainstream medical viewpoint on this issue as well as that of our small band of wikidocs.

I am writing to point out an additional risk to this that has not to my knowledge been mentioned publicly. I am a pediatrician and cannot afford for all the obvious reasons to be participating in a project that could be construed as providing a forum for justification or for separating some kinds of pedophilia as "not so bad" or of allowing separate articles for support and for criticism. Please do not think that I imagine that WP revolves around me, but I may not be the only professional person who is unwilling to risk association in the name of "free speech" or "allowing all sides to have their say."

I am supporting someone's excellent idea that we maintain a single article on this topic. Within that article we can provide the detached observation that "some groups advocate recognizing different forms of pedophilic behavior, or argue that some forms do warrant the social opprobrium... etc etc" so that the fringe point of view is represented within an article that clearly presents the overwhelming consensus of western society. Allow no other detached articles where uncriticized "milder" or "harmless" forms can be advocated. Think of it as a social smallpox containment unit.

In my opinion this is a defensible compromise (however "unfair") and I hope you would rather lose those offended because "childlove" is presented as a face of "pedophilia" rather than gamble as to how many other contributors will be lost if WP attracts any public attention as a platform for this type of taboo opinion. I won't even argue at the article.

Thanks for considering.
David Langdon, MD


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Foundation-l] fund drive update - why was the message removed
	from en.wikipedia?

body:
On 07/22/04 15:36, Angela_ wrote:

> As it was only supposed to be a temporary measure, there is no reason
> for it currently to be up. However, perhaps we should consider whether
> it needs to be a more permanent measure. If the notice is bringing in
> significantly more donations than we normally get, should it be there
> permanently, and just made more prominent during the fundraising
> drives?

Up periodically whenever we declare a funding drive. It could do with
a goal and a running total, by the way. It should be up from now until
a week after Jimbo's Slashdot answers, I think.

- d.


subject:
[Foundation-l] fund drive update - why was the message	removed
	from en.wikipedia?

body:
On 07/22/04 17:21, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Angela_ <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:

>>This could be added to [[MediaWiki:Lastmodified]]. I've put a message
>>at [[MediaWiki talk:Lastmodified]] to check there are no strong
>>objections and will add the message there if there aren't. See
>>http://simple.wikipedia.org/ for an example of the message in use.

> That just obscures the *very* important copyright and disclaimer info.

Yes, it's way too subtle.

> If we are going to have a fund drive we really need to have notices up that
> people can't miss. They will be taken down when the fund drive is over.

Indeed. No reason to be ashamed of a funding drive. We get our bandwidth from
girlie pics after all, what are we supposed to do for servers? ;-)

- d.


from_name: Sj

subject: [Wikitech-l] Patent nonsense proposal

body:
I think the decision re: media standards, and the decision re: fair
use images, are
closely related.  The sweet spot for WP seems to me to be accepting all formats
that improve content, recording the encumbered nature of their formats, and
actively working to replace any encumbered content with unencumbered content.

It is partly a matter of scalability and efficiency.  A new contributor may find
dealing with strange new standards and formats a real barrier to
contribution. We
can have focused groups of volunteers which efficiently convert from
encumbered to
unencumbered formats, thousands at a time....  but it is far more
difficult to efficiently
create from scratch relevant content for thousands of articles at a time.

If people are strongly against allowing any encumbered content in the
public view of
the projects, perhaps we could have a special holding area for
uploaded content which
does not meet high standards of free-formatting, but could be
converted -- providing for
a way to indicate via links? that such content exists in association
with a page -- rather
than disallowing it altogether.

~~~sj~


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Identifying locations,
	how to use many remote systems

body:
user_Jamesday wrote:
> How we will use the Celeron systems in Europe hasn't been decided yet - there's still regular discussion going on in the usual technical discussion place, #mediawiki. Anyone not participating there routinely is missing a high proportion of the productive technical discussions.

Bill... I think that comment could be seen as a suggestion to join the
fun on irc :-)

And if you are bored one day, we might discuss again that feature for
information display on all wikimedia projects ? I would love this.

Hum ?

ant


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: French hardware donation - technical choices made

references:
<1090420006.a621479cuser_Jamesday@myrealbox.com>	<40FE85A9.5040602@tonal.clara.co.uk>	<cdnuvh$atc$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<40FFB33E.6050904@tonal.clara.co.uk>

body:
>> For c) point, the biggest european countries internet wise are really
>> well connected. Just restrict to De / Fr / Nl / Uk. Other countries
>> might be less connected (aka Es, Cz, Ee).
>>
>> Also lot of ISPs just got their transatlantic links connected to
>> London, while NL is really the central place of the european internet.
>>
> Hence my choice of London and NL. There's plenty of capacity between the
> two, as well.
>
> -- Neil

Perhaps.
But hosting servers is one thing. Having human technical help now and
then is necessary as well. There are people to do this in Paris.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Dev request re rollback (was issues)

body:
moink wrote:
>>>If admins are abusing this feature, then they should be told to knock it off
>>>and only use their sysop user rights to fight vandalism. Using those powers as
>>>a tool to use against your opponents in an edit war is not acceptable and was
>>>my main point with former-admin 168...
>>
>
> Just to clarify then, are admins only supposed to use the rollback
> link in cases of simple vandalism?  I wasn't aware that this was
> policy, and I've used it a couple of times to revert things that were
> a little more complex than run-of-the-mill vandalism.  Of course, I've
> never gotten into a revert war (how *do* people manage that?) but I'd
> still like to make sure I'm following the rules.
>
> moink

If you refer to what happened to 168, I would certainly recommand that
you only use that feature against pure vandal. Though there seems to be
no rule about it, it was perceived an abuse to use it in an edit war,
all the more against a non sysop.

It is not a rule, but I think it is best that sysops should not use
power they have in disagreement with other users who do not have that
power. Yes, both can do revert, but using the rollback feature is
perceived as a "power".


from_name: Emmanuel Engelhart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Sorting interwiki links

body:
On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 09:55:22 +0200
Emmanuel Engelhart <emmanuel at engelhart.org> wrote:

> Hi
>
> Is somebody against the idea of sorting interwiki links in the alphanumerical
> order (by language: en always before fr) ? It will be easier to find a
> corresponding article in a specific language thus.
>

Thx for all your comments.  Follows a proposition:

-By default sort  the interwiki links in the  alphanumeric order (sort
on en: fr: and other: )

-Set up an option for a spefic order

Emmanuel

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dans toute action qu'on entreprend, il y a quelque chose qui finit, ?
la longue, par vous d?former.
				Stefan Zweig "Clarissa"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emmanuel Engelhart      ICQ UIN : 53388731    TEL (+49) 06.22.15.88.03.31


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> That just obscures the *very* important copyright and disclaimer info.

It could go underneath that then, if it is felt necessary to have a
permanent notice, which I'm not convinced about anyway.

> If we are going to have a fund drive we really need to have notices up that
people can't miss. They will be taken down when the fund drive is over.

Yes, but we're not having a fundraising drive right now. This is about
having some sort of permanent notice because you complained about the
other one being taken down. If we don't need a permanent one, then the
suggestion of having it at the bottom can just be ignored. This was
not to replace real notices during fundraising drives, which obviously
need to be prominent. It was about providing an alternative for the
periods that we are *not* having fundraising drives.

David Gerrard wrote:
> Up periodically whenever we declare a funding drive. It could do with
> a goal and a running total, by the way. It should be up from now until
> a week after Jimbo's Slashdot answers, I think.

Would it not be more effective removing it until we are on Slashdot
again? Keeping it there now when people have already started to tune
out from it doesn't seem as worthwhile as removing it now and putting
it back up when we are on Slashdot again.

> Yes, it's way too subtle.

Too subtle for a fundraising drive, yes. But we're not currently
having one of those, so isn't it better than nothing?

Angela.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: fund drive update - why was the message removed
	from en.wikipedia?

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>>....
>>It will be less prominent there, but I think highly effective.  Even
>>if it brings in less month than a top-page notice, it will likely
>>bring in enough that we can delay much longer between major begging.
>
>
> There is nothing wrong with quarterly fund drives and having the message up
> constantly will just mean that people will tend to tune it out. This is
> *especially* true if it is at the bottom of pages.
>
> Thus periodic messages in parts of a page that can't be ignored will generate
> the biggest response.
>
> These fund drives could also be coordinated with press releases, meet-ups, jam
> sessions, WikiReader distribution, quarterly foundation meetings and other
> special events clustered around certain weeks each quarter.
>
> -- Daniel Mayer

I agree with Mav on this. This is likely to be much more effective and
less intrusive generally, ihmo.

ant


from_name: Neil Harris

references:
<1090420006.a621479cuser_Jamesday@myrealbox.com>	<40FE85A9.5040602@tonal.clara.co.uk>	<cdnuvh$atc$1@sea.gmane.org>	<40FFB33E.6050904@tonal.clara.co.uk>
	<410009DF.60608@yahoo.com>

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
>>> For c) point, the biggest european countries internet wise are
>>> really well connected. Just restrict to De / Fr / Nl / Uk. Other
>>> countries might be less connected (aka Es, Cz, Ee).
>>>
>>> Also lot of ISPs just got their transatlantic links connected to
>>> London, while NL is really the central place of the european internet.
>>>
>> Hence my choice of London and NL. There's plenty of capacity between
>> the two, as well.
>>
>> -- Neil
>
>
> Perhaps.
> But hosting servers is one thing. Having human technical help now and
> then is necessary as well. There are people to do this in Paris.

Then Paris is fine by me! Please don't take my comments as denigrating
Paris; it's on the same pan-European fibre rings as most of the other
big western EU cities.

-- Neil


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Rethinking Meta (was- Wikiquote now has
	subdomains)

body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

> I agree with mav. In the german chapter we thought about setting up an
> own wiki for the chapter but in the end we decided to use meta to avoid
> balkanization and to facilitate cooperation.

I think I already said it, but I will repeat then :-)
I was really glad you move the chapter things to meta.

> I'd like to have a setting to switch the interface to german to make
> german meta-contributors feel more at home, but there's no need for
> separate wikis and zillion of translation pages.
> My thoughts:
> * our representation for visitors (the WMF website) should be multilingual
> * the most important pages on meta should be translated (we don't have
> the capacities to translate everything)
> * we should accept that we need a working language (english) for wikimedia
> * pages in other languages should contain english abstracts
> * pages in english can have abstracts in other languages
>
> In my opinion, it's an illusion that participation in wikimedia affairs
> is possible without a basic knowledge of English. People should have the
> possibility to inform themselves about the goings-on, but it makes no
> sense f.e. to translate the german preparations for the Linuxtag L?rrach
> into spanish. On the other hand, the spanish people should be able to
> see that there are preparations done and ask the germans for experiences
> and tipps for a congress in Spain. If everything was done in separate
> wikis, they would probably not realize it.
>
> greetings,
> elia
> n

You are totally correct on this.


from_name: Timwi

references:
<003201c46f64$a7d7b180$6401a8c0@ozymandias>	<cdnvbr$dhh$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<cdocfa$eku$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<200407221549.17220.yann@forget-me.net>

body:
Yann Forget wrote:

> Le Thursday 22 July 2004 14:37, Timwi a ?crit :
>
>>Tim Starling wrote:
>>
>>>I've raised the limit site-wide to 5 MB.
>>
>>Why do we need a technically enforced upload limit at all? Why can't we
>>leave the decision on whether to keep a large file or not to the
>>respective wiki community?
>
> It is necessary for security raisons, at least, otherwise you will see people
> trying a DoS in uploading complete cdroms.

Firstly, uploading such files would be cumbersome and take ages, and
deleting them again is easy as pie (and easy on the servers, too).

Secondly, nothing is stopping people from already doing that. Regardless
of whether PHP accepts the upload or not due to the limit, people can
already send gigabytes worth of data to the server. I doubt the server
cuts off the connection at 2 MB already, because (a) the way I
understand it the request is received in its entirety before it is
passed to PHP at all, and (b) such behaviour would make the server
non-HTTP-compliant.

Timwi


references:
<003201c46f64$a7d7b180$6401a8c0@ozymandias>	<cdnvbr$dhh$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<cdocfa$eku$1@sea.gmane.org> <opsbjkxwkov3cvyb@hause.local>

body:
tic at tictric.net wrote:

> Am Thu, 22 Jul 2004 13:37:34 +0100 hat Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> geschrieben:
>
>> Why do we need a technically enforced upload limit at all? Why can't
>> we  leave the decision on whether to keep a large file or not to the
>> respective wiki community?
>
> Because there's a lot of idiots hanging 'round.
> If they find out they'll find it fun to tease the community with
> DVD-uploads or so.

So? Deleting these files is ridiculously easy.

Timwi


body:
Angela_ wrote:

> This could be added to [[MediaWiki:Lastmodified]]. I've put a message
> at [[MediaWiki talk:Lastmodified]] to check there are no strong
> objections and will add the message there if there aren't. See
> http://simple.wikipedia.org/ for an example of the message in use.

It's running of the screen and widening the page, thus producing a
horizontal scrollbar.

Timwi


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: RSS-Feeds

body:
Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote:
> Is it currently possible to limit the number of entries returned from a
> feed?

Same as everything else, &limit=X

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] A WikiJamSession Fantasy

body:
On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 14:48:29 -0700, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales
<jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> So, I had this idea for something we could do as a part of a drive
> towards 1.0.  We could get permission from a library or libraries in
> some densely populated centers around the world to gain admission
> during a holiday or weekend that they would normally be closed.  We'd
> set up a wireless broadband network and bring together as many people
> as possible to work together day and night in a fun atmosphere to fact
> check articles and process them for final publication in a CD-ROM,
> with an eye towards print as well of course.

I like the idea of having the libraries to ourselves, and of symbolically being
there when they would otherwise be closed.  However, there would still have
to be library staff, guards, etc. in the library 24/7 during this time
-- a donation
by the library, perhaps, but a significant one.
   ( 3 staff @ $14/hr for 72 hrs : $3k )

To improve our chances of having libraries agree, it would be nice to
start trying
libraries where many librarians are already Wikipedians or fans, and would be
willing to donate some of their time. It might also help to use
libraries that already
have a wireless network set up...

> Imagine (go with me on this fantasy here) 1000 people working around
> the clock with timeouts just to sleep and eat, for 3 full days, to
> fact check, copyedit, and approve as many articles as possible.

I like this fantasy, and don't think it has to be linked to a print
edition -- as a general
validation exercise, it has great appeal.  However, having a mass of
people converge
on a library will inevitably involve some extra wear and tear; it
might help to address
that in any proposal to a library...

~sj~


from_name: S. Vertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protected page policy rethuk

body:
...Wikipedia RC seems to be zipping by quite fast
lately. (Its already impossible to just scan RC as a
way to catch up; Im actually using my watchlist for
the first time...) But it seems that with the
controversial set, its time for a rethinking of the
protected page policy, and Ive written some basic
stuff here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protected_page/Draft]]

Basically, my idea calls for sort of dance steps to
how to deal with contested articles. Essentially,
allowing certain sysops to act according to formal
roles with respect to each contested article, and to
have those articles be protected in degrees, based on
what the situation calls for. Protection is
degree-less, but sysops can and should act responsibly
to continue developing articles in accordance with the
concerns of the partisans. Because any disputes about
who can act in each role are an abstract issue from
the article, they can be dealt with judiciously as a
separate dispute by moderates not interested in
getting mud thrown at them. With templates and
categories, this can be more quickly done.

Of course, this would mean that sysopdom does have
some responsibility and privelige for which they would
be more accountable, but this is weighed against the
need to have controversial articles not be such black
holes on Wikipedia.

>From out of nowhere's left field,
SV

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from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] pedophilia pages

body:
Thank you for your excellent comments. I completely agree with you and would
support that.

Danny
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references:
<003201c46f64$a7d7b180$6401a8c0@ozymandias>	<cdnvbr$dhh$1@sea.gmane.org>	<cdocfa$eku$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<opsbjkxwkov3cvyb@hause.local>	<cdp6sc$2eq$2@sea.gmane.org>
	<opsbj3uvduv3cvyb@hause.local>

body:
tic at tictric.net wrote:

>> So? Deleting these files is ridiculously easy.
>
> You're right, shure. But it still has to be done and this gonna annoy
> somebody, somwhere.

We are not currently disallowing users to create articles with offensive
content, even though it might annoy somebody, somewhere.

The Wiki way is not to use technical means to disallow something, but
community means.

In other words, the "correct" way to handle large files would be to have
a Special page to list the largest files by their size.  In fact, I'm
pretty sure one of the Special pages can already do this.  Then all we
need to do is to get some volunteers to patrol this list to see if there
are any ridiculously large files that don't belong on Wikipedia.

Timwi


from_name: tic at tictric.net

references:
<003201c46f64$a7d7b180$6401a8c0@ozymandias>	<cdnvbr$dhh$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<cdocfa$eku$1@sea.gmane.org> <opsbjkxwkov3cvyb@hause.local>
	<cdp6sc$2eq$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
>>> Why do we need a technically enforced upload limit at all? Why can't
>>> we  leave the decision on whether to keep a large file or not to the
>>> respective wiki community?
>>  Because there's a lot of idiots hanging 'round.
>> If they find out they'll find it fun to tease the community with
>> DVD-uploads or so.
>
> So? Deleting these files is ridiculously easy.
>
> Timwi

You're right, shure. But it still has to be done and this gonna annoy
somebody, somwhere.
Well, ya can run a shellscript once a day and delete files bigger than a
certain size.
Just whatch out for iso images :-)

--tictric


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Wikitech-l] EasyTimeline is no longer invoked it seems

body:
When I try to edit a <timeline>...</timeline> section nothing happens, not
even an error box on invalid syntax, so it seems EasyTimeline.pl script is
no longer invoked.

---

Probably unrelated: I used to browse timeline upload dirs of major
wikipedias once in a while to spot new timelines (de: is really active, 40
timelines so far) where some assistance might be required.

e.g. http://de.wikipedia.org/upload/timeline/?M=D

Now I get "Forbidden. You don't have permission to access /upload/timeline/
on this server."
Is this on purpose?

Erik Zachte


subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:AskSQL

body:
I second this request.   especially if you can enable a remote "kill
this request" feature
accessible to the same people, for requests that hang...

>sj<

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 21:25:40 +0200, Michael Diederich <dev-null at md-d.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> today i was asking in #wikipedia to reopen the SQL-queries again for admins.
> The new hardware and the low server load of SQL-queries should be a reason
> to reable the most important tool of an admin.
>
> It don't need to be on the main db-server - i could be on a slave or just
> availble on low load times (1-3UTC?)..
>
> In #wikipedia someone suggested, the option should only be granted to some
> users - i also would accept that solution.
>
> I have spoken to some de.wikipedia admins, and all of them support my
> enquery.
>
> Best regards,
>
> da didi
> --
> ===========================================================================
> Gentoo Linux:                   Gentoo Base System version 1.5.1
> kernel-2.6.7                    Pentium III (Coppermine)
> ===========================================================================
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
Firstly, the next time there is a system-wide message about anything other than
server downtime, armageddon, or imminent confiscation of all WM property
DOWNLOAD LAST DUMPS NOW~   ...  for normal things like fundraising...
can we have a blue border perhaps?  Or anything other than red?

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 20:54:46 +0100, Angela_ <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Too subtle for a fundraising drive, yes. But we're not currently
> having one of those, so isn't it better than nothing?

How about this:
* Change the color of the "Donations" sidebar link, and bold it
* Add a short, sweet note, perhaps at the bottom:  "Please help keep
this site running!
     <link>'''Contribute'''</link> to the <link>Wikimedia Foundation</link>.

And finally, what's with the text on the Donations page which says "this is not
a solicitation to make a donation" ?  Is that why some of the "Please
help support us!"
messages are so convoluted?

+ sj -


references:
<1090420006.a621479cuser_Jamesday@myrealbox.com>	<40FE85A9.5040602@tonal.clara.co.uk>	<cdnuvh$atc$1@sea.gmane.org>	<40FFB33E.6050904@tonal.clara.co.uk>	<410009DF.60608@yahoo.com>
	<41001C24.9080509@tonal.clara.co.uk>

body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>>
>>>> For c) point, the biggest european countries internet wise are
>>>> really well connected. Just restrict to De / Fr / Nl / Uk. Other
>>>> countries might be less connected (aka Es, Cz, Ee).
>>>>
>>>> Also lot of ISPs just got their transatlantic links connected to
>>>> London, while NL is really the central place of the european internet.
>>>>
>>> Hence my choice of London and NL. There's plenty of capacity between
>>> the two, as well.
>>>
>>> -- Neil
>>
>>
>>
>> Perhaps.
>> But hosting servers is one thing. Having human technical help now and
>> then is necessary as well. There are people to do this in Paris.
>
>
> Then Paris is fine by me! Please don't take my comments as denigrating
> Paris; it's on the same pan-European fibre rings as most of the other
> big western EU cities.
>
> -- Neil

I was certainly not taking them as denigrating :-)
just pointing out to the most logical choice :-)

I would *not* recommand my city as hosting place... the net is regularly
down :-)


body:
Matt Brown wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 20:43:19 +0200, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>It is not a rule, but I think it is best that sysops should not use
>>power they have in disagreement with other users who do not have that
>>power. Yes, both can do revert, but using the rollback feature is
>>perceived as a "power".
>
>
> The problem with rollback is the dismissiveness of it, for one thing
> -- it's fundamentally treating an addition 'as vandalism' - not even
> worth a comment as to why it's removed.

Yes, this is *exactly* it. You have the exact word.
Once, I did a roll back with someone (not a sysop) for an addition I
perceived wrong. The person pointed out to me how dismissed he felt.
Since then, I have decided not to use this again, except for extrem
cases of vandalism.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Czech wikipedia: how to ban users?

body:
On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 07:59:47 +0200, Jens Frank <jeluf at gmx.de> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 03:44:42AM +0100, Arwel Parry wrote:
> > I've had a request for an update to LanguageCy.php for over two weeks
> > now, because we've got a mis-spelling in the name for "July".
>
> Hi Arwel,
>
> the problem with the LanguageXX.php pages on meta is that they are
> maintained by people who act in good faith, but are not involved in
> the development processes. LanguageCy.php for example is based on
> revision 1.12. That is a revision from the current "development" branch,
> not from the "stable" branch wikipedia.org is based on. If I apply that

I imagine that Arwel would be happy to provide a file based on the
current wikipedia.org
branch, if it were easy to figure out what branch that was... it looks
as though she has
been regularly uploading new revisions to the file as new branches
come out.  Where
can that information be found?  This is not the first time I have wished that
Special:Version provided more detailed information.

What is the correct current process for updating messages not
currently customizable
by Mediawiki?  If for some reason [1]  the four-month backlog on
[[Requests for languageXX.php update]]
is intentional, there are 15 people who have filed requests who should
be informed
of that (and I would be glad to inform them... but should be able to
tell them the
answer to the above question first).

--sj--

[1] http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-July/016115.html


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] __ADDSEC__ keyword - A new (unfinished) feature

body:
I thought of a neat feature today while browsing the Village pump,
pages in all talk namespaces have a neat + link besides the Edit link
so you can add a new section to it, so i thought it would be nice for
things like the Village pump to be able to have that link added with a
keyword to every page that had that keyword in the wikitext. I named
that keyword ADDSEC for "add section" and it's invoked with
__ADDSEC__.

I found out what i needed to do to get this, thanks to the help of
Gabriel Wicke. I modified the language/Language.php,
includes/MagicWord.php file and found that some changes had to be made
to includes/Parser.php and of course includes/SkinPHPTal.php.

I didn't implement it fully, due to a couple of reasons, but most of
all that my development box is wasted right now so i couldn't execute
the code, so i quite while i was ahead.

What needs to be done is:

1. Make Parser.php detect the presence of the MagicWord::get ( ADDSEC
) and set a variable
2. change the now "if ( $istalk ) {" in SkinPHPTal.php  to "if (
$istalk || $thatvariable ) {

I'm sorry that i had to resort to such lame measures as not finishing
a simple feature, but having my box trashed and not fully
understanding how variables are passed around in mediawiki i'm just
sending this, perhaps if someone finishes it i'll have a better idea
of how to accomplish such things in the future.
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from_name: Henry H. Tan-Tenn

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: RSS-Feeds

body:
Is it currently possible to limit the number of entries returned from a
feed?  I've been watching the Minnan newpages feed grow longer and
longer with seemingly no end in sight.  So I tried the English version
and the server kept on loading until I felt I was abusing it so I
stopped it.  I don't know how popular Wikipedia feeds are, but surely a
limit would help the servers.

My 2 cents.

Brion Vibber wrote:
> Jakob wrote:
>
>> [[meta:MediaWiki_roadmap]] states that RSS syndication is available
>> for many
>> special pages, such as Special:Newpages. Which special pages are you
>> talking
>> of?
>
>
> Right now, Newpages and Recentchanges only.
>
>> http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Categories
>>
>> There is a Link in the Toolbox (rss/atom) but it does not work?
>
>
> Odd. That shouldn't show.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


body:
Thank you, i've gotten quite rusty with CVS of late due to extreme
lack of use of it in favor of subversion, i remembered some old skills
though and attached is the output of the even better cvs -Q diff -u

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 17:34:22 -0700, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:
> > diff -ru phase3_2/includes/CVS/Entries mediawiki/phase3/includes/CVS/Entries
> > --- phase3_2/includes/CVS/Entries     2004-07-22 23:48:04.974484648 +0000
> > +++ mediawiki/phase3/includes/CVS/Entries     2004-07-22 22:53:51.957541168 +0000
> > @@ -58,11 +58,13 @@
> >  /LinksUpdate.php/1.23/Thu Jul 22 22:53:51 2004//
> >  /LoadBalancer.php/1.8/Thu Jul 22 22:53:51 2004//
> >  /LogPage.php/1.12/Thu Jul 22 22:53:51 2004//
> > +/MagicWord.php/1.20/Thu Jul 22 22:53:51 2004//
>
> Quick note: it's best if you can make patches with 'cvs diff -u' rather
> than a recursive diff of two separate checked out source trees. This
> keeps CVS's bookkeeping files out of the diff and makes things a little
> easier to manage.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>
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from_name: Mark Pellegrini

subject: [WikiEN-l] A list of speakers of language v.s. number of articles

body:
Since I have nothing better to do, I compiled the data you wanted. German has the highest articles/speaker, followed by English and Polish.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/upload/0/02/Wiki_language_data.xls

--Mark
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subject: [WikiEN-l] pedophilia pages

body:
These type of articles more than others perhaps relly test the NPOV
policy, granted it is *hard* to get a neutral point of view across on
such an article but we should try nonetheless, its only natural to
include the common views of any group on an article about any group,
criticisms of this and so on.

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 20:03:43 -0500, alteripse at verizon.net
<alteripse at verizon.net> wrote:
> I subscribe to the daily combined letter list, and this is the first time I have tried to post. The subject was mentioned yesterday as a question about what to do about the [[childlove]] and associated pages that were being interpreted as providing a possible platform for justification of pedophiles attempting to change public perception of pedophilia. User Erich alerted me today and suggested I help edit on this issue. He provided a link to a recent JAMA article that represents the mainstream medical viewpoint on this issue as well as that of our small band of wikidocs.
>
> I am writing to point out an additional risk to this that has not to my knowledge been mentioned publicly. I am a pediatrician and cannot afford for all the obvious reasons to be participating in a project that could be construed as providing a forum for justification or for separating some kinds of pedophilia as "not so bad" or of allowing separate articles for support and for criticism. Please do not think that I imagine that WP revolves around me, but I may not be the only professional person who is unwilling to risk association in the name of "free speech" or "allowing all sides to have their say."
>
> I am supporting someone's excellent idea that we maintain a single article on this topic. Within that article we can provide the detached observation that "some groups advocate recognizing different forms of pedophilic behavior, or argue that some forms do warrant the social opprobrium... etc etc" so that the fringe point of view is represented within an article that clearly presents the overwhelming consensus of western society. Allow no other detached articles where uncriticized "milder" or "harmless" forms can be advocated. Think of it as a social smallpox containment unit.
>
> In my opinion this is a defensible compromise (however "unfair") and I hope you would rather lose those offended because "childlove" is presented as a face of "pedophilia" rather than gamble as to how many other contributors will be lost if WP attracts any public attention as a platform for this type of taboo opinion. I won't even argue at the article.
>
> Thanks for considering.
> David Langdon, MD
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Are you sure those arent just replies to a topic instead of duplicats
of a topic, in any case i think it's your client, I'm using gmail as
you can see and i havent had any of those.

Though of course it could be some global conspiracy to drive you crazy..

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 19:07:52 -0700 (PDT), Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Maybe it is just a glitch in my e-mail, but have we seen a
> repeat of a dozen or so messages sent out on the Wiki-En
> list today?
>
> Robert
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: RSS-Feeds

body:
Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote:
>>> Is it currently possible to limit the number of entries returned from a
>>> feed?
>>
>> Same as everything else, &limit=X
>
>
> I tried that before as an obvious parameter to use, but it didn't yield
> the expected result.  For example, with the following test URL I got
> well over 10 items (cache cleared).

Oops, you're right. Feed requests seems to be hardcoded to a limit of
50. That's probably not the best idea... though I guess I didn't want
arbitrarily _large_ feed requests. hmm...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Choosing the Featured Article (was: some questions)

body:
Anthony mentioned the idea of "a certain user [being] the accepted
dictator of a page" and I'd like to comment.

No one may assume ownership of an ordinary article, even if they have
acknowledged expertise in the field to which it pertains: science,
history, etc. I have just as much right to edit math articles as
Axelboldt does, for example.

But apparently we've given the job of choosing the "featured article" to
one particular user. I sure don't want the job, and I think he's been
pretty good at making his picks, so I have given my, er, "tacit
consent". So have a lot of other people, so there has apparently been a
"consensus" that he's in charge of that selection.

If Anthony wants to have a turn occasionally, why not? I think it was
poor form to TAKE a turn without prior discussion and to FORCE the issue
with multiple reverts. But that doesn't mean he should be forever barred
from making a Featured Article Choice.

Perhaps it's time to consider allowing other people to submit
recommendations, or even to take a turn (say, a week or a month at a
time) in the role of Chooser, eh?

Ed Poor
Bureaucrat


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: RSS-Feeds

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote:
>
>> Is it currently possible to limit the number of entries returned from a
>> feed?
>
>
> Same as everything else, &limit=X

I tried that before as an obvious parameter to use, but it didn't yield
the expected result.  For example, with the following test URL I got
well over 10 items (cache cleared).

http://minnan.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Newpages&feed=atom&limit=10


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: [Wikitech-l] File formats

body:
Mark Pellegrini wrote:
> Ok, so Jamesday proposes that we use any open or common file
> format. Should I write this into the Wikipedia:Sound policy, or is
> this debate going to go on forever?  (I'd prefer it be settled
> before I write the policy). Jimbo - is James's idea OK by you?

Absolutely not.  I don't think I could be any more clear about this.

The policy is that we must avoid file formats that can not be used by
legal free software.  Yes, we can make special allowances in some
special cases.  Yes, we have to make some judgments about the patent
status of some popular formats.

In the case of MP3 versus ogg, there's very little question.  Ogg is
easily readable and playable by all major players on all major
operating systems (requiring at most the download of a plugin or
codec, and usually not even that).  There is very little inconvenience
to end users anyway.

But that's what our policy has to be (i.e. can the format be used by
legal free software?), not "any open or common file format".

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Patent nonsense proposal

body:
Sj wrote:
> I think the decision re: media standards, and the decision re: fair
> use images, are closely related.

Only in the sense that they fall under the general heading of "how can
we best create a GNU-free encyclopedia?"

The key difference is that fair use is a perfectly legitimate
copyright doctrine which ought to be expanded considerably.  Going
under different names ("fair dealing" for example) and with different
limits, it exists under every sane copyright jurisdiction.  It's what
allows you to quote from a book in a review of the book, which to my
knowledge, you can legally do anywhere that has anything remotely
approaching the freedom of speech.

Therefore, there is nothing at all inconsistent with fair use and
GNU freedom.

I have taken the view, which I still hold, that we should be
conservative with fair use, because we have to be cognizant of fair
use being different in different jurisdictions, and because we have to
be cognizant that fair use depends not just on the content itself but
also on the use of the content.

The situation with patents is quite different.

> If people are strongly against allowing any encumbered content in
> the public view of the projects, perhaps we could have a special
> holding area for uploaded content which does not meet high standards
> of free-formatting, but could be converted -- providing for a way to
> indicate via links? that such content exists in association with a
> page -- rather than disallowing it altogether.

I have no objection to something like this.  There is no harm that I
can think of in empowering people to use legal means (but not
necessarily _GNU free_ means, if that's impossible) to help others
have free content.

--Jimbo


subject:
[WikiEN-l] A list of speakers of language v.s. number of articles
	on that wikipedia.

body:
I had a fairly (i think) interesting idea just now. Do we have a list
of wikipedia-article factor per population or speaker of language. I
know we have both but could someone point me to a place where i could
harwest this in an easy manner with a script, i want to compile a list
that reads like:

articles on wiki x / speakers of language x = articles per person.

Then sort the whole thing and post it somewhere,

I think it would be a n interesting statistic, if nothing more.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Wikipedia is not a vehicle for political advocacy and progaganda. (from
[[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]]). His statement, "We are not White
supremacists because we do not feel the need to rule over other people of
different races, we simply want seperation because we feel this is best for
our people.", whether true or not, basically says it all. He is here editing
in order to advocate a political position and engaging in disseminating
propaganda to that end.

Fred

> From: David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 12:04:37 +0100
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: National Alliance article (was Communist Censorship)
>
> Personally I'm almost entirely unconvinced the recent editor was not
> Vogel - not only did the favourite topics match, the characteristic
> spelling errors did too. But let's see if sweet reason gets a
> response. If neo-Nazis^Wwhite supremacists^Wseparatists are going to
> edit, at least they can damn well do so properly.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 11:58:51 +0100
> Subject: National Alliance article (was Communist Censorship)
> To: Robert88 <rchamberlain at gmail.com>, wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>
> On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:07:00 GMT, Robert88 <rchamberlain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Plain libel and communist censorship supported on Wikipedia?
>> I recently edited an entry entitled "National Alliance". This is an entry
>> regarding the American White Nationalist organization. While you state that
>> we are White supremacists and a White supremacist organization, this is
>> blatant and unacceptable libel. Your article also states that we are an "anti
>> semetic" group. Again, another clear case of libel. We do not hate Jews, and
>> we do not hate Arabs or other people that speak Semetic languages. We are
>> avidly Anti-Zionist, Anti-Immigration and pro-White. We are not White
>> supremacists because we do not feel the need to rule over other people of
>> different races, we simply want seperation because we feel this is best for
>> our people. I also added other business entities that were owned by the
>> National Alliance which were removed. Please explain why I was banned from
>> editing the article and why the libel is still published on Wikipedia.
>> Thank you for your time.
>
> Sorry, thought you were Paul Vogel, who is banned for a year for
> grossly obnoxious behaviour. Did the block notice say which IP range
> it was? Let me know and I can unblock it now.
>
> If you dispute the content of the article, I strongly suggest you
> reply with solid and checkable references. On a highly contentious
> topic, solid and checkable references are about the best way to avoid
> this sort of dispute over facts or wording. Third-party ones are best,
> but ones from the organisation in question are of course relevant.
> Don't worry too much about formatting if you're not sure, just make
> sure they're in and someone will clean them up. Solid and checkable is
> essential, because you can be sure people will check them and
> challenge if they consider them dubious.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] pedophilia pages

body:
I am not close to this debate; I've only followed the discussion on
the mailing list.  So I don't want anyone to take what I'm saying here
to be a decree or anything like that.

But I very much agree with the responsible and balanced tone put
forward here by Dr. Langdon:

alteripse at verizon.net wrote:
> I am supporting someone's excellent idea that we maintain a single
>article on this topic. Within that article we can provide the detached
>observation that "some groups advocate recognizing different forms of
>pedophilic behavior, or argue that some forms do warrant the social
>opprobrium... etc etc" so that the fringe point of view is represented
>within an article that clearly presents the overwhelming consensus of
>western society. Allow no other detached articles where uncriticized
>"milder" or "harmless" forms can be advocated. Think of it as a social
>smallpox containment unit.

I don't know if "single article" is the right solution, but there is
no question that the way he advocates presenting the topic is very
good NPOV writing.  The reader deserves to be informed that "some
groups advocate..." because that's solid encyclopedic information.
But the structure of articles must not give rise to a perception that
we condone pedophilia.

An additional subtle point that could be misconstrued is that we also
must not _condemn_ pedophilia.  We are an encyclopedia, not a body of
polemics.  We report, the reader decides.  We can (and must) report on
the consensus of medical scientists, etc.  I trust that we can do this
in a way that allows the reader to draw the right conclusion
effortlessly.

--Jimbo


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: National Alliance article (was Communist
	Censorship)

body:
One thing I discovered in my conversations with Paul Vogel is that
they prefer to be called "white separatists".  I think we can safely
use that terminology as well, because it's more accurate.

<POV>
If they think that "white supremacist" is a pejorative insult, whereas
"white separatist" is a delightful explanation of their terribly
enlightened ideals, well, the joke is on them.  They still sound like
morons to me.
</POV>

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Russian constitutional crisis of 1993

body:
Today's featured article is a delightful read, but strikes me as
terribly one-sided.  The adjectives applied to Yeltsin in this
conflict are consistently negative, and the advjectives applied to his
opponents are consistently positive.  The reality is much more
complex.

It is unusual for  a featured article to be so problematic.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] File formats

body:
Yeah, write it there.

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:39:03 -0400, Mark Pellegrini
<mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
> Ok, so Jamesday proposes that we use any open or common file format. Should
> I
> write this into the Wikipedia:Sound policy, or is this debate going to go on
> forever?
> (I'd prefer it be settled before I write the policy). Jimbo - is James's
> idea OK by you?
>
> --Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] more questions

body:
Regardless of his actions they raise a good question, arent we giving
an article some kind of gold standard by featuring it and havent
fair-use images been tolerated rather then accepted?

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 14:37:37 -0400, Fennec Foxen <fennec at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 11:22:04 -0700, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales
> <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > But, it was a convenience and a custom, and since there would of
> > course be universal consensus to move forward with a different scheme,
> > there was absolutely no reason to have an episode of civil
> > disobedience to change it.  There was no emergency.
> Oh, but don't you see? There was! It was a Fair Use picture or
> something like that and is therefore was inherently an evil heretical
> tool of the Devil. All of Wikipedia was in most grave peril due to its
> existance there. We're lucky that the FBI wasn't bursting into the
> colo even as it was uploaded.
>
> Or something to that effect, I think. Supposedly.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Fennec Foxen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Special:AskSQL

references:
<1370636.4qQF7LjVUm@mobil.md-d.org>
	<742dfd0604072219506ab3e3e5@mail.gmail.com>
	<cdqm2a$bsf$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:37:08 +1000, Tim Starling
<ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Sj wrote:
> > I second this request.   especially if you can enable a remote "kill
> > this request" feature
> > accessible to the same people, for requests that hang...
> I don't want to enable that feature again or try to enhance it, I'll
> just come under attack from Erik yet again.
> -- Tim Starling

Erm. Would you pardon me if I ask why?


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] pedophilia pages

body:
Personally, I don't mind perma-stubs for things like this, a la
[[Racialism]]. Yes, articles like this are invitations to insert POV
into Wikipedia. And for these things were watchlists invented.

-Snowspinner

On Jul 23, 2004, at 8:16 AM, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

> I am not close to this debate; I've only followed the discussion on
> the mailing list.  So I don't want anyone to take what I'm saying here
> to be a decree or anything like that.
>
> But I very much agree with the responsible and balanced tone put
> forward here by Dr. Langdon:
>
> alteripse at verizon.net wrote:
>> I am supporting someone's excellent idea that we maintain a single
>> article on this topic. Within that article we can provide the detached
>> observation that "some groups advocate recognizing different forms of
>> pedophilic behavior, or argue that some forms do warrant the social
>> opprobrium... etc etc" so that the fringe point of view is represented
>> within an article that clearly presents the overwhelming consensus of
>> western society. Allow no other detached articles where uncriticized
>> "milder" or "harmless" forms can be advocated. Think of it as a social
>> smallpox containment unit.
>
> I don't know if "single article" is the right solution, but there is
> no question that the way he advocates presenting the topic is very
> good NPOV writing.  The reader deserves to be informed that "some
> groups advocate..." because that's solid encyclopedic information.
> But the structure of articles must not give rise to a perception that
> we condone pedophilia.
>
> An additional subtle point that could be misconstrued is that we also
> must not _condemn_ pedophilia.  We are an encyclopedia, not a body of
> polemics.  We report, the reader decides.  We can (and must) report on
> the consensus of medical scientists, etc.  I trust that we can do this
> in a way that allows the reader to draw the right conclusion
> effortlessly.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: blankfaze

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Choosing the Featured Article (was: some questions)

body:
I disagree.  I think that, as the Main Page, and this Main Page
template in particular, are the most visible parts of the project, a
"director" is needed here.  Management of this template needs to be
centralised and controlled, or we'll end up with disorder.  Disorder
that'll be visible to anyone visiting the site.

If we *are* going to let multiple users control the Feature template,
then I must suggest that it be limited to sysops only.  The bare
minimum for being in control of such a visible aspect of the site
should be sysophood (i.e. the trust of the community)... I would
stipulate that users such as Anthony (who thinks [[13 Colonies]] is
featured-article-quality) should never be allowed to choose it.

Else we'll end up with featured articles like [[Andy Dick]] or [[Set
and drift]].


body:
> Today's featured article is a delightful read, but strikes me as
> terribly one-sided.  The adjectives applied to Yeltsin in this
> conflict are consistently negative, and the advjectives applied to his
> opponents are consistently positive.  The reality is much more
> complex.

I noticed that too, Jimbo.  I was copyediting it yesterday and noticed
that it's pretty much demonising Yeltsin the whole way through.  I
would have tried to NPOV it, but I really don't know too much about
the subject.  Maybe in the future we should put together an NPOV crew
to check featured articles...


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>Today's featured article is a delightful read, but strikes me as
>terribly one-sided.  The adjectives applied to Yeltsin in this
>conflict are consistently negative, and the advjectives applied to his
>opponents are consistently positive.  The reality is much more
>complex.
>
>It is unusual for  a featured article to be so problematic.
>
And the bulk of the content is from - you guessed it - 172! This
is the hallmark of his style; while there are usually no gross
misrepresentations of fact, the wording is so relentlessly slanted
it would take a week to clean up, at the end of which he would just
revert it all in one fell swoop. It's completely exasperating; I
finally stopped looking at anything he touches, scrubbed it all
out of my watchlist, and regained Wikipedia-nirvana.

Even so, I still worry that the unabashed socialist viewpoint will
hurt WP's credibility as an impartial recorder.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] page protection policy (aside:Web of Trust )

body:
Ive got to go in a minute, so I cant deal with the
David and Pir's comments right away.

But on a sidenote, occurrs to me that we could use a
separate branch of the current category scheme (the
cat namespace should be for articles only) to indicate
trust levels for users.

Each user has a trust categrory which contains linktos
from each userpage where their name is added, as a
kind of thumb up or down regarding their effectiveness
as a moderator, editor, etc. Im sure this has already
been thought of, mentioned, debated, and scuttled, but
that seems to be an idea.

-S

--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Pierre Hentges wrote:
>
> >SV is right that the current policy on page
> protection
> >isn't great. Pages are often protected for a long
> time
> >without any progress on the actual conflict. For
> example
> >[[anti-American sentiment]] has been protected for
> nearly
> >two weeks without VV and GBWR making the slightest
> effort
> >to resolve their dispute, despite me trying to
> help. It's
> >very frustrating for everybody else. The current
> policy
> >just isn't conducive to conlict resolution.
>
>
> Con for your otherwise good proposal:
>
> * More bureaucracy. See [[m:instruction creep]] -
> the people causing
> the problem won't read the instructions either, or
> we wouldn't have
> had the problem in the first place.
>
> One thing I've been wishing for lately is some way
> for third parties
> to drag edit warriors to mediation. The recent
> combatants at [[Jew]]
> and [[Anti-Semitism]] have mostly agreed to
> mediation (though they're
> still extremely pissed off at each other), which is
> a big win. But it
> took a *lot* of dragging. And we appear to have a
> shortage of
> mediators ... (This is me not volunteering!)
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Plain text of page?

body:
Gutza wrote:
> Speaking of which (don't want to start a new thread for this), is there
> any way to retrieve only the status of a page? Meaning, "0" if it
> doesn't exist, "1" if it does or an URL if it's a redirect -- I guess
> that would be the logical way to do it. I think it would be nice to have
> for automated quick searches.

No.

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

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Requests related to sound files

references:
<003201c46f64$a7d7b180$6401a8c0@ozymandias>	<cdnvbr$dhh$1@sea.gmane.org>	<cdocfa$eku$1@sea.gmane.org>	<opsbjkxwkov3cvyb@hause.local>	<cdp6sc$2eq$2@sea.gmane.org>	<opsbj3uvduv3cvyb@hause.local>
	<cdpbq8$nmh$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
> The Wiki way is not to use technical means to disallow something, but
> community means.
>
> In other words, the "correct" way to handle large files would be to have
> a Special page to list the largest files by their size.  In fact, I'm
> pretty sure one of the Special pages can already do this.  Then all we
> need to do is to get some volunteers to patrol this list to see if there
> are any ridiculously large files that don't belong on Wikipedia.

Files are uploaded to the /tmp directory on the apache in question. If
the file is of the wrong extension or over the recommended maximum of
150KB, a form is displayed asking the user if they really want to upload
it. There are two buttons, "save file" and "re-upload". Clicking
"re-upload" deletes the file from /tmp. Clicking "save file" moves it to
NFS and registers it in the database. Doing neither leaves the file
sitting on the local hard drive until the machine is restarted, or until
someone manually cleans it off. Currently some of the apaches have only
10 GB free, and in the past they have occasionally run out completely.
Now it's true that an attacker could write a script to upload 2000 5MB
files and thereby fill up the hard drive, but that requires more
technical knowledge than putting one's movie collection into a huge zip
file and clicking "upload".

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikitech-l] suspicious article

body:
Could someone please look at http://wikisource.org/wiki/Shitstorm .  I
don't have the technical expertise to evaluate what User:Goat-see (a
suspicious name?) has done, but it looks like a program for sending out
some kind of vandalism or virus on a large scale.  If so, we need to
consider what to do with this kind of thing, but first I would like a
more informed opinion of just what that piece of source code does.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A WikiJamSession Fantasy

body:
Universities tend to be a little more standoffish about this sort of
thing; faculty and students are focused on their studies, and the
unwashed masses of the general public 1/2 :-) are an unwelcome
distraction.

I'd think public libraries would be more enthusiastic, WP being more
in line with their mission. But somebody will likely have to know
somebody, either in the library administration, or alternatively, at
the local newspaper, heh-heh, who might like this kind of an oddball
story ("Amateur scholars take on Britannica at the local branch"), and
could help grease the skids with the librarians, for whom the extra
trouble is worth a mention in the paper.

Another way to do it is a la Critical Mass - everybody just show
up and overrun the library. That will get some publicity too. :-)

Stan

Angela_ wrote:

>I love the idea of having a weekend where people get together to
>finalize the articles for a print edition. I sent off a few emails to
>libraries in Birmingham (Birmingham being a more central location than
>London, and considerably cheaper) just to get an idea of whether it
>would be possible and the only response I've had so far was not
>positive. The email below was from the University of Birmingham.
>Perhaps finding libraries that have large rooms available that we
>could use during normal library opening hours would be better than
>hoping to have whole libraries to ourselves?
>
>
>>On enquiry to a more senior member of staff the reply is that we would
>>not be able to provide the facilities for this. This building is open
>>all days except Sundays and our computing facilities are restricted for
>>use by members of the University of Birmingham. If we were to open the
>>building for you we would need to employ both security and IT staff to
>>support you and this would be very difficult. Please check the
>>University home page wwww.bham.ac.uk for details of conference
>>facilities if this could be of help.
>>


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Disruptive users

body:
Hear, hear!

RickK

Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:

We
also have plenty of users who go right up to the edge of what is acceptable
behavior, and
admins are helpless to use common sense and ban these users for fear of
acting
"unilaterally" or being accused of abusing their powers. The institutional
mechanisms (the
arbcom, for example) are crowded out by cases that any admin with a modicum
of
common sense could have dealt with in 5 minutes. The "hard" cases, where the
issues
aren't so clear-cut, get ignored so that the most blatant cases can be
adjudicated.

--Mark

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: National Alliance article (was Communist Censorship)

body:
Personally I'm almost entirely unconvinced the recent editor was not
Vogel - not only did the favourite topics match, the characteristic
spelling errors did too. But let's see if sweet reason gets a
response. If neo-Nazis^Wwhite supremacists^Wseparatists are going to
edit, at least they can damn well do so properly.

- d.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 11:58:51 +0100
Subject: National Alliance article (was Communist Censorship)
To: Robert88 <rchamberlain at gmail.com>, wikien-l at wikipedia.org

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:07:00 GMT, Robert88 <rchamberlain at gmail.com> wrote:

> Plain libel and communist censorship supported on Wikipedia?
> I recently edited an entry entitled "National Alliance". This is an entry regarding the American White Nationalist organization. While you state that we are White supremacists and a White supremacist organization, this is blatant and unacceptable libel. Your article also states that we are an "anti semetic" group. Again, another clear case of libel. We do not hate Jews, and we do not hate Arabs or other people that speak Semetic languages. We are avidly Anti-Zionist, Anti-Immigration and pro-White. We are not White supremacists because we do not feel the need to rule over other people of different races, we simply want seperation because we feel this is best for our people. I also added other business entities that were owned by the National Alliance which were removed. Please explain why I was banned from editing the article and why the libel is still published on Wikipedia.
> Thank you for your time.

Sorry, thought you were Paul Vogel, who is banned for a year for
grossly obnoxious behaviour. Did the block notice say which IP range
it was? Let me know and I can unblock it now.

If you dispute the content of the article, I strongly suggest you
reply with solid and checkable references. On a highly contentious
topic, solid and checkable references are about the best way to avoid
this sort of dispute over facts or wording. Third-party ones are best,
but ones from the organisation in question are of course relevant.
Don't worry too much about formatting if you're not sure, just make
sure they're in and someone will clean them up. Solid and checkable is
essential, because you can be sure people will check them and
challenge if they consider them dubious.

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A WikiJamSession Fantasy

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:
> Another way to do it is a la Critical Mass - everybody just show
> up and overrun the library. That will get some publicity too. :-)

Well, I wouldn't recommend that, exactly.  :-) But it might be
sensible to drop the idea of doing it when the library would otherwise
be closed, since that seemed to be the primary "red flag" of
objection.

My guess is that if a library is open to the public, they can't really
say "no" to a ton of people showing up during regular business hours,
but of course we're kind and thoughtful wikilove people, so we would
prefer to schedule this with the library in advance so that they can
be sure to have "all hands on deck", as well as possibly providing us
with some space.

I do have to confess, though, some warm feelings towards the idea of
just surprising them, a la Critical Mass or some freeform Flash mob.
If we were going to do that, I'd propose that we agree to behave very
quietly but very strangely, with secret hand signals (and ENCRYPTED IRC
CHAT ROOMS!).

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] "The Register" is making fun of us

body:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/23/wiki_fiddlers_big_book/
RickK

---------------------------------
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Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign!
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subject: [WikiEN-l] a proposal: wikigenealogy

body:
sean.clarke at guardian.co.uk wrote:

>hello
>
>I've long wished there were a genealogical database of European monarchs
>etc, where for instance Charlemagne exists as an entry with his wives
>listed in one column, his sons in another, his daughters in another, his
>known mistresses in another and his mother and father in two more.
>
>as it grew (wikistyle) you could then see things like: all male descendants
>of Charlemagne (or whoever) or choose to display the information in all
>sorts of ways.
>
>but I don't know a) how to do it or b) if wikipedia is the right place for
>it
>
>any thoughts?
>
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor for
one possible solution.

Frederick was very active in the cause of ensuring that he had
descendants.  It is quite easy to show parents and grandparents in
ascendence.  The spouses and children are also easily placed, but
descending even one more generation gets complicated.

The Frederick II page was based on
http://faui8l.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/cgi-bin/stoyan/l1/LANG=engl/INDEX=I126381
.  There's a lot of interesting material on this site but, it takes a
while to understand how to navigate it.  The "8" link at the top of an
individual page will shoe three levels of ascendancy.

Ec
.
Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Plain text of page?

references:
<20040723125203.D4C591791B@mailrelay1.informatik.tu-muenchen.de>	<cdr3kv$ber$2@sea.gmane.org>	<410127FC.2070000@moongate.ro>
	<cdrru6$dvn$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Well, if you try this with a non-existent page:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Nonexistantpage&action=raw&ctype=text/css
>
> you get "".

That's a Mozilla bug, the returned data is actually empty.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] http://test.wikipedia.org

body:
Where did it go? I'd like it to demonstrate the "article validation"
feature there...

Magnus


body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>[Choosing the Featured Article]
>
> Ed Poor
> Bureaucrat

Be sure to check out the other proposals for changes in this area at
[[Template_talk:Feature]] - more needless bureaucracy or pertinent
democratization? Who knows? You decide!

Pete


body:
Rick wrote:

>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/23/wiki_fiddlers_big_book/
>RickK
>
Heh heh. Brings to mind the old political advice "Never start a fight
with someone who buys ink by the gallon" (for you young'uns, "blogs
for a living" might be a more meaningful equivalent :-) ).

Stan


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Special:AskSQL

references:
<1370636.4qQF7LjVUm@mobil.md-d.org>	<742dfd0604072219506ab3e3e5@mail.gmail.com>
	<cdqm2a$bsf$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> Sj wrote:
>
>> I second this request.   especially if you can enable a remote "kill
>> this request" feature
>> accessible to the same people, for requests that hang...
>
> I don't want to enable that feature again or try to enhance it, I'll
> just come under attack from Erik yet again.

Doesn't this just go to show that Erik has too much power over you? :)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Plain text of page?

body:
Karlheinz Toni wrote:

> what possibilities do I have to get the plain text of a page?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page&action=raw
if you want the "correct" but uncommon and usually unsupported
content-type of text/x-wiki; or

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page&action=raw&ctype=text/css
if you want the "hacky" but more useful text/css which makes it display
as plain text in browsers.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: A WikiJamSession Fantasy

body:
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
> In fact, if we broaden our location beyond libraries a little,
> Birmingham has perhaps the perfect location - the National Exhibition
> Centre - it is the largest such conference centre in Europe and can
> accommodate tens, 100s, 1000s or 10000s of people as we require. Of
> course internet facilities of the type we would want could be available.

But presumably we'll need books.  Lots of books.  It seems hard to do
this anywhere other than a library.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Dev request re rollback

body:
zero 0000 wrote:

> David's idea [of adding a textbox for an edit summary to the
> "rollback" feature] is something I decide (but never get around) to ask
> for every time I use the rollback feature.  It would make the
> feature much more flexible and also make us sysops look a bit less
> like a lot of cold bastards who can't be bothered explaining why they
> are reverting something.  So I would like to ask the developers to
> please consider this.  Thanks muchly.

While I sympathise with your thinking, from a development point of view
it seems redundant. If you want an edit summary field, you can always
revert the non-sysop way. The rollback link is so powerful because it is
just that -- a link -- and because such a link can be placed in lots of
places (recent changes, user contribs, diffs, etc.). Text boxes for an
edit summary would clutter up all these pages, or you would have an
extra pageview for the text box, which defeats the purpose of the quick
& easy rollback link, and you might just as well use the non-sysop way.

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] nl: Wikipedia asking to use a colored logo

body:
Ronny Raschkowan wrote:
> Do we now accept colored logos or not?

Not that I'm aware of, no.  We had a huge and difficult international
logo competition so that we can maintain a consistent look everywhere.

--Jimbo


from_name: Geoffrey Burling

body:
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004, [ISO-8859-1] ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:

> Any unbashed viewpoint hurts our credibility.
>
> On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 10:12:04 -0700, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> > Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
> >
> > >Today's featured article is a delightful read, but strikes me as
> > >terribly one-sided.  The adjectives applied to Yeltsin in this
> > >conflict are consistently negative, and the advjectives applied to his
> > >opponents are consistently positive.  The reality is much more
> > >complex.
> > >
> > >It is unusual for  a featured article to be so problematic.
> > >
> > And the bulk of the content is from - you guessed it - 172! This
> > is the hallmark of his style; while there are usually no gross
> > misrepresentations of fact, the wording is so relentlessly slanted
> > it would take a week to clean up, at the end of which he would just
> > revert it all in one fell swoop. It's completely exasperating; I
> > finally stopped looking at anything he touches, scrubbed it all
> > out of my watchlist, and regained Wikipedia-nirvana.
> >
> > Even so, I still worry that the unabashed socialist viewpoint will
> > hurt WP's credibility as an impartial recorder.
> >
What is odd about this article in my eyes is that it appears not to have
passed thru the normal process of being nominated, debated, then approved
as a "Featured Article". I admit I made a rather quick search on the history
pages of both the [[Wikipedia: Candidates for Featured Articles]] & the
page in question, but one would think it would be that hard to find some
trace of a discussion & approval.

Can someone supply a link to the nomination for this page, or otherwise
explain how it gained featured status?

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] featuring non-free images

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> But don't you see, Raul has deemed fair use acceptable for the main page,
> and whatever he says goes.  Yes, nowadays he's supposed to give an
> alternative, but if he wants that can contain a non-free image too!

Fair use is a type of freedom, Anthony.

--Jimbo


from_name: Mark Richards

body:
Well, at least in theory, the concept of advocating
for separatism is different to advocating for
supremacy. We should be able to tell from their
literature what they are actually doing. Mark

--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
> >Wikipedia is not a vehicle for political advocacy
> and progaganda. (from
> >[[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]]). His
> statement, "We are not White
> >supremacists because we do not feel the need to
> rule over other people of
> >different races, we simply want seperation because
> we feel this is best for
> >our people.", whether true or not, basically says
> it all. He is here editing
> >in order to advocate a political position and
> engaging in disseminating
> >propaganda to that end.
>
>
> Indeed. But we can put up with the Church of
> Scientology sending an
> editor for the same purpose; dealing with neo-Nazis,
> IME the hard part
> is *not* exploding their heads with unfair tactics
> like logic, history
> and joined-up thinking. One day I may be proven
> wrong ...
>
>
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> >One thing I discovered in my conversations with
> Paul Vogel is that
> >they prefer to be called "white separatists".  I
> think we can safely
> >use that terminology as well, because it's more
> accurate.
> ><POV>
> >If they think that "white supremacist" is a
> pejorative insult, whereas
> >"white separatist" is a delightful explanation of
> their terribly
> >enlightened ideals, well, the joke is on them.
> They still sound like
> >morons to me.
> ></POV>
>
>
> The reason I ask for checkable references is that
> every neo-Nazi who
> comes through seems to want the articles with
> different
> euphemisms^Wterms for the same things and insist on
> their correctness.
> Saying "this group maintains" when it's really a
> case of "this editor
> insists" is not ideal IMO - a bit much of that made
> it into the
> articles in question in an effort to work with
> Vogel.
>
> (I'm real big on references this month.)
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: A list of speakers of language v.s. number of
	articles

body:
Mark Pellegrini wrote:

> Since I have nothing better to do, I compiled the data you wanted.
> German has the highest articles/speaker, followed by English and Polish.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/upload/0/02/Wiki_language_data.xls

Would it also be possible to post this in a format that people can
actually read? :-)

Thanks,
Timwi


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Chinese Wikipedia get together in Beijing

body:
Following in the footsteps of successful European Wikimeetups...

The first organized meeting of Chinese Wikipedians will be happening
in Beijing this weekend, on Sunday.  Thanks to User:Mountain for
helping to organize this.

While Chinese details can be found below, with the particulars into
English in case any other English-speaking Wikipedians might be
interested. Check the web site for any last moment changes.

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E8%81%8A%E5%A4%A9#.E5.8C.97.E4.BA.AC.E7.BB.B4.E5.9F.BA.E4.BA.BA.E8.81.9A.E4.BC.9A

    Date: 25 July (Sunday)
    Time: 7:00pm
    Venue: Room 1364, Science Faculty, Beijing University

--
Andrew Lih
andrew.lih at gmail.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Chinese Wikipedia get together in Beijing

body:
Andrew Lih wrote:

> The first organized meeting of Chinese Wikipedians will be happening
> in Beijing this weekend, on Sunday.  Thanks to User:Mountain for
> helping to organize this.

Is the whole thing with Wikipedia being blocked in China over now? Is it
completely accessible for everyone again? And how big are the chances of
this happening again?

These are just questions out of curiosity.


from_name: Karlheinz Toni

subject: [Wikitech-l] Navigation

body:
Hi there,

is there any possibility of changing the navigation on the left side? What
files do I have to edit?

Sincerely
Charly


subject: [Wikitech-l] Plain text of page?

body:
Hi there,

what possibilities do I have to get the plain text of a page? On the one
hand I would like to have access to the source on the other hand I would
like to be able to get the formatted text. Are there any possibilities of
doing so?

Sincerely
Charly


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Special elections for Arbitration Committee

body:
Rebecca Leighton wrote:
> In my opinion, particularly considering the slow rate of proceedings
> of late, and that we are now down to seven active arbitrators (two
> away, one inactive, as well as these two spots), it would be wise to
> attempt to fill these.

I support this.  Excellent suggestion.  To review the original appointments:

C - Gutza
C - MyRedDice
C - NoHat
C - Epopt
B - Fred Bauder
B - Delirium
B - Maveric149
B - Camembert
A - Jdforrester
A - Kat/UninvitedCompany (NOW VACANT)
A - Cunctator
A - Erik Moeller (NOW VACANT)

Those in group A are up for election this December.

Kat/UnivitedCompany and Erik Moeller were slotted for group A, and
since their resignations, those two slots are available.  Those terms
are slated to have re-elections in December.

So I propose that we have elections now for the two vacant seats.  The
terms will be from now until December.  This gives 2 new people the
chance to try the job out and see if they like it, and also gives the
community a chance to see if they handle cases well.

Then in December we'll have regular elections for all 4 seats.

Since we now have the nifty election thingy, we should use that.  The
top two vote getters in an approval voting process will win.  In the
event of a tie, the top three will all serve.

There's no reason to delay on this, so let's set the elections up
ASAP, and have them end 1 week from today.  That is, the 30th at
midnight.

I may have sketchy net access for a few days, so Angela or Anthere
should be consulted regarding any further questions.  If Danny and
Imran would volunteer to run the election, that'd be great, but
otherwise someone else can do it.

Since I'm saying all this on a Friday afternoon, I understand things
might not get done right away of course.  I don't think it matters
much because just 2-3 days of voting is sufficient for this if it
comes down to that.

My feeling is that the community is generally in the mood to elect
some "hanging judges".  But I might be wrong.  Anyhow, in any
candidate statements, I would recommend outlining a general view on
how strict we should be, how aggressive about bans.

--Jimbo


body:
Timwi wrote:
> Would it help if one of the Wikipedians is a student of the University
> in question, and the session is done this summer before the beginning of
> the next term?
>
> If so, then August/September in Cambridge would be a possibility. :-)

I was really thinking of next summer, because I don't think we can
reasonably expect to have an article approval process in place until
then.

--Jimbo


body:
This was done earlier this year, but could stand to be improved upon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Multilingual_coordination#Per_million_stats.2C_Internet_users

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:10:34 +0000, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason
<avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> I had a fairly (i think) interesting idea just now. Do we have a list
> of wikipedia-article factor per population or speaker of language. I
> know we have both but could someone point me to a place where i could
> harwest this in an easy manner with a script, i want to compile a list
> that reads like:
>
> articles on wiki x / speakers of language x = articles per person.
>
> Then sort the whole thing and post it somewhere,
>
> I think it would be a n interesting statistic, if nothing more.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Andrew Lih
University of Hong Kong
andrew.lih at gmail.com


from_name: Dori

subject: [asbl-libre] Re: [Wikipedia-l] And now a bit of fun... (fwd)

body:
On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 15:44:15 +0200 (CEST), Philippe Teuwen
<philippe.teuwen at ael.be> wrote:
> > Wikipedia by itself: 11,200,000
> > Roll over, John Lennon, Wikipedia is more popular than Jesus and the
> > Beatles combined.
>
> Mm this is not fair ;-)
> Wikipedia pages are of course referring to wikipedia itself...
> Let's try:
> wikipedia
> -> 11,400,000 (hey, +200,000!)
> wikipedia -site:wikipedia.org
> ->  2,420,000

That's still not fair :) You'd have to subtract all the wikimedia
domains, plus all of our mirrors (some are actually compliant with the
GFDL and mention wikipedia on every article)

--
[[en:User:Dori]]


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Big surprise!

Fred

> From: Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 10:12:04 -0700
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Russian constitutional crisis of 1993
>
> 172!


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Wikipedia is not a vehicle for political advocacy and progaganda. (from
>[[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]]). His statement, "We are not White
>supremacists because we do not feel the need to rule over other people of
>different races, we simply want seperation because we feel this is best for
>our people.", whether true or not, basically says it all. He is here editing
>in order to advocate a political position and engaging in disseminating
>propaganda to that end.

Indeed. But we can put up with the Church of Scientology sending an
editor for the same purpose; dealing with neo-Nazis, IME the hard part
is *not* exploding their heads with unfair tactics like logic, history
and joined-up thinking. One day I may be proven wrong ...

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>One thing I discovered in my conversations with Paul Vogel is that
>they prefer to be called "white separatists".  I think we can safely
>use that terminology as well, because it's more accurate.
><POV>
>If they think that "white supremacist" is a pejorative insult, whereas
>"white separatist" is a delightful explanation of their terribly
>enlightened ideals, well, the joke is on them.  They still sound like
>morons to me.
></POV>

The reason I ask for checkable references is that every neo-Nazi who
comes through seems to want the articles with different
euphemisms^Wterms for the same things and insist on their correctness.
Saying "this group maintains" when it's really a case of "this editor
insists" is not ideal IMO - a bit much of that made it into the
articles in question in an effort to work with Vogel.

(I'm real big on references this month.)

- d.


body:
Timwi wrote:

> Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>> Universities tend to be a little more standoffish about this sort of
>> thing; faculty and students are focused on their studies, and the
>> unwashed masses of the general public 1/2 :-) are an unwelcome
>> distraction.
>
>
> Would it help if one of the Wikipedians is a student of the University
> in question, and the session is done this summer before the beginning
> of the next term?

If said student was the child of a top donor, perhaps. :-) Not to be
too cynical, but students are pretty low in the academic hierarchy.
I think it would take a dean or full professor who was a WP enthusiast
to have sufficient pull to arrange to commandeer part of the
university's library - we have some academics on this list, perhaps
they could weigh in on what they think they could arrange at their
own institutions.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] page protection policy

body:
Pierre Hentges wrote:

>SV is right that the current policy on page protection
>isn't great. Pages are often protected for a long time
>without any progress on the actual conflict. For example
>[[anti-American sentiment]] has been protected for nearly
>two weeks without VV and GBWR making the slightest effort
>to resolve their dispute, despite me trying to help. It's
>very frustrating for everybody else. The current policy
>just isn't conducive to conlict resolution.

Con for your otherwise good proposal:

* More bureaucracy. See [[m:instruction creep]] - the people causing
the problem won't read the instructions either, or we wouldn't have
had the problem in the first place.

One thing I've been wishing for lately is some way for third parties
to drag edit warriors to mediation. The recent combatants at [[Jew]]
and [[Anti-Semitism]] have mostly agreed to mediation (though they're
still extremely pissed off at each other), which is a big win. But it
took a *lot* of dragging. And we appear to have a shortage of
mediators ... (This is me not volunteering!)

- d.


body:
Angela_ wrote:
> I agree a WikiJamSession a year earlier just to work on articles
> rather than to approve them would be a good idea.

Well, that's not what I originally had in mind, but what the heck, it
sounds fun!

We can discuss this in Boston as well as here on the list, and maybe
we can do something simultaneously in the UK and US (and other places,
too, of course!)

The more people who can come, the better, part of the point is to get
a critical mass of a large enough group of people to make it
media-interesting.

--Jimbo


from_name: xmlizer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Adding search in broken links

body:
Hello !

I was thinking that adding in the search window (Special:search) the
possibility of searching among the broken links

I looked in the code and seems not to be so difficult (??)

We have to add a conditonnal part of the SQL code which do a

{ UNION select bl_to in brokenlinks where .... }

and to add a checkbox to activate this functionnality or not

What do you think of that ?

Cordialy

Xmlizer


from_name: Michael Diederich

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Special:AskSQL

body:
<begin name="Tim Starling" date="Friday 23 July 2004 11:37"/>

>> I second this request.   especially if you can enable a remote "kill
>> this request" feature
>> accessible to the same people, for requests that hang...
> I don't want to enable that feature again or try to enhance it, I'll
> just come under attack from Erik yet again.

Where can i contact Erik, that he can blame me instead of you?

Best regards,

da didi
--
===========================================================================
Gentoo Linux:                   Gentoo Base System version 1.5.1
kernel-2.6.7            Pentium III (Coppermine)
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