from_name: Nikos-Optim

body:
I support to let robots run free when we have this
capacity and allow access to clients who report no
useragent.

--Optim

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> This is something we should discuss.  Right now, by
> refusing access to
> people who don't send a user agent, we may be
> messing some people up
> who are coming from behind a proxy?  That's what I
> understand him to
> be saying.
>
> Ideally, when we get our capacity up, we'll let the
> robots run free.
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Phil Howard
> <phil at ipal.net> -----
>
> From: Phil Howard <phil at ipal.net>
> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:41:16 -0600
> To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
> Subject: Re: Who do I contact when
> webmaster at wikipedia.org does not work?
>
> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 06:56:02AM -0800, Jimmy
> Wales wrote:
>
> | I am told that this is because you don't send a
> user-agent string.
> | We block those requests because they are usually
> from badly-written
> | spiders that clobber our site.
>
> Ah.  That would be the case.
>
> RFCs require that if a web cacher sends a user-agent
> string, each received
> document must be cached separately on the basis of
> that entire string so
> that a new request for the very same document from a
> different browser does
> not get the one previously requested.  Thus if 20
> different users go to a
> given web site from 20 different browsers, the cache
> has to access the origin
> server all 20 times, and no cache benefit is
> obtained, even for the image
> files.  Given that browsers not only put major
> version numbers, but also
> minor version numbers, and in many cases even build
> numbers/dates, in the
> user agent string, that makes it appear to be a lot
> of different browsers
> for the purpose of caching.
>
> Here's what my broswer does send:
> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US;
> rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030728 Mozilla Firebird/0.6.1
> I think that's excessive, but that is what is going
> on.
>
> I think you need to reconsider the issue with
> user-agent.  There are a few
> commercial web caches that do this to enhance
> performance for businesses
> that are on slower network links.  And I don't see
> any way to make it make
> an exception for certain sites.
>
> Maybe I can hack the code in Squid (which is what we
> use here) to make it add
> a generic user-agent string in place of the deleted
> one.  If you decide you
> cannot change your action for lack of user-agent,
> then clearly the step to
> be taken is to fake one that can't be interpreted as
> any specific browser.
> User-Agent: generic cache
>
>
> | But I notice that the screenshot is of mozilla
> firebird.  May I
> | share that link with the developers?
>
> Sure.  If by developers you mean the mozilla
> developers, be sure to tell them
> it's not a mozilla issue; it's a caching issue.
>
> BTW, I had heard that some spiders specifically
> omitted user-agent so that
> they could be sure to cache something generic for
> every browser.  Maybe they
> will be going to the fake user-agent string, too.
>
> So why not at least put up a page that says why the
> site cannot be accessed?
> Just don't put any links in that page for any
> spiders to continue following
> so they cache/index only that one, and leave.
> Surely they are not accessing
> the same page over and over and over because it
> didn't have an error status.
>
>
> |
> |
> | Jimmy Wales wrote:
> |
> | > wow that must have been a very temporary thing,
> let me know if you see
> | > it again.
> | >
> | > Phil Howard wrote:
> | >
> | > > On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 04:26:55AM -0800,
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> | > >
> | > > | Phil Howard wrote:
> | > > | > Who do I contact when
> webmaster at wikipedia.org does not work?
> | > > |
> | > > | Me.  Hi, what's up?
> | > >
> | > > webmaster at wikipedia.org did not work, which is
> what I first tried when I
> | > > could not access the web site.
> | > >
> | > > I get a 403 permission denied.  Here is a
> screenshot:
> | > >     http://phil.ipal.org/wikipedia.png
> | > >
> | > > Here's the bounce from the original message I
> sent:
> | > >
> | > >
>
=============================================================================
> | > > [-- Attachment #1: Notification --]
> | > > [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size:
> 0.5K --]
> | > >
> | > > This is the Postfix program at host
> vega.ipal.net.
> | > >
> | > > I'm sorry to have to inform you that the
> message returned
> | > > below could not be delivered to one or more
> destinations.
> | > >
> | > > For further assistance, please send mail to
> <postmaster>
> | > >
> | > > If you do so, please include this problem
> report. You can
> | > > delete your own text from the message returned
> below.
> | > >
> | > >                         The Postfix program
> | > >
> | > > <webmaster at wikipedia.org>: host
> mail.wikipedia.org[130.94.122.197] said: 550
> | > >     <webmaster at wikipedia.org>: User unknown in
> local recipient table (in reply
> | > >     to RCPT TO command)
> | > >
> | > > [-- Attachment #2: Delivery error report --]
> | > > [-- Type: message/delivery-status, Encoding:
> 7bit, Size: 0.3K --]
> | > >
> | > > Reporting-MTA: dns; vega.ipal.net
> | > > Arrival-Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 23:31:44 -0600
> (CST)
> | > >
> | > > Final-Recipient: rfc822;
> webmaster at wikipedia.org
> | > > Action: failed
> | > > Status: 5.0.0
> | > > Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; host
> mail.wikipedia.org[130.94.122.197] said: 550
> | > >     <webmaster at wikipedia.org>: User unknown in
> local recipient table (in reply
> | > >     to RCPT TO command)
> | > >
> | > > [-- Attachment #3: Undelivered Message --]
> | > > [-- Type: message/rfc822, Encoding: 7bit,
> Size: 0.8K --]
> | > >
> | > > Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 23:31:44 -0600
> | > > From: Phil Howard <phil at ipal.net>
> | > > To: webmaster at wikipedia.org
> | > > Subject: still not working
> | > > User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i
> | > >
> | > > Here's the screenshot:
> http://phil.ipal.org/wikipedia.png
> | > >
> | > > --
> | > >
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | > > | Phil Howard KA9WGN       |
> http://linuxhomepage.com/      http://ham.org/ |
> | > > | (first name) at ipal.net |
> http://phil.ipal.org/   http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
> | > >
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | > >
>
=============================================================================
> | > >
> | > > --
> | > >
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | > > | Phil Howard KA9WGN       |
> http://linuxhomepage.com/      http://ham.org/ |
> | > > | (first name) at ipal.net |
> http://phil.ipal.org/   http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
> | > >
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | > >
>
> --
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | Phil Howard KA9WGN       |
> http://linuxhomepage.com/      http://ham.org/ |
> | (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/
> http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Wikitech-l] Takedown notice for Easter Bradford page

body:
When an author requests an article he/she wrote to be
deleted, we should delete it imediatelly. Especially
when nobody else has contributed into the article.

The possibility of a fake request exists. This is a
serious consideration.

--Optim

--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Jimbo forwarded to Wikien-l what looks like an
> "official" takedown
> notice for the article about Easter Bradford -- a
> man who has been, from
> time to time, a contributor to Wikipedia.
>
> See:
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-January/009529.html
>
> I'm not sure what we should do. If I still had ssh
> software on my PC, I
> would probably delete the pages from the database
> (just to be safe).
>
> On the other hand, it might be a good idea to back
> them up them
> somewhere, accessible only to the head developer, in
> case the notice is
> either (a) faked; or (b) not something we have to
> comply with, even if
> it's real.
>
> Cautiously,
>
> Ed Poor
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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list: wikien-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
Sascha Noyes a ?crit:
> On Wednesday 14 January 2004 10:00 am, Anthere wrote:
>
>>>Yes, that is correct. I consider the position that it is harmful to
>>>children to look at their nude body to be ridiculous. If you want to make
>>>an assertion that something is true, you must offer some evidence that
>>>supports that claim. Do you have any such evidence? I should like to see
>>>it. I don't subscribe to the wishy-washy notion of not being able to give
>>>my opinion about that of another simply because it is their opinion.
>>>Which is what you seem to be implying.
>>>
>>>Best,
>>>Sascha Noyes
>>
>>As long as you do not write such a thing in Wikipedia without good
>>attribution of someone whose opinion is relevant, I have no problem with
>>that opinion of yours :)
>>
>>(you might have not understood I was not speaking of the opinion it was
>>harmful or not harmful, but rather of the comment given about such a
>>position)
>>
>>Am I clear there, I dunno...
>
>
> Attribution is always good.  I don't have a problem with the opinions of
> others, if they are in any way founded on some evidence. What I do have a
> problems with is people pushing unfounded opinions on others. By unfounded I
> mean "making an assertion as to the truth of a proposition without giving any
> evidence to support this assertion."  We are presently discussing potential
> policy on the mailing lists, not writing encyclopedia articles, so I don't
> see how your comment about writing my opinions on Wikipedia is relevant.
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes

Apology, I forgot we were not chit-chatting forum, but encyclopedia
building :-).

Then if we are only currently talking about a policy case, to what were
you refering when you said "I will freely admit that I did not hesitate
to point out the stupidity of finding nudity offensive ;-)" ?

Ah, never mind, I had enough of genitalia stuff these days.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
just visit a government statistics page and check.

--- Sascha Noyes <sascha at pantropy.net> wrote:
> On Wednesday 14 January 2004 04:58 pm, Ray Saintonge
> wrote:
> > In [[Acad??mie fran??aise]] there is the statement
> "a musician named
> > Gourville, who named it the Acad??mie fran??aise".
>  Another established
> > contributor and I both independently looked for
> some kind of
> > substantiation for this statement; neither of us
> was successful.  At the
> > same time we did not find any information
> indicating that someone else
> > was responsible for the name.  This particular
> piece of data was
> > contributed by an anonymous contributor on
> December 31, 2002.  The last
> > contribution of any sort by him was on April 12,
> 2003.  He may still be
> > with us, and with a real identity, but I can't
> know that.
> >
> > What do I know about 17th century musicians.  I
> found a contemporary
> > Gourville who was in a position to exercise such
> influence, but no
> > evidence to connect him with the issue.
> Fact-checking is a painstaking
> > and tedious process, and tracing the type of thing
> that I used as an
> > example could take hours, and may require material
> that is not on the
> > internet.  Wikipedia's credibility depends on it.
> Everybody knows to
> > expect bias in a hotly disputed topic like
> Israeli/Palestinian
> > relations, and is on alert for that bias.  This is
> not so with obscure
> > little details.  A credibility test for Wikipedia
> might be to take a
> > random selection of obscure details and attempt to
> verify them, or at
> > least find some source.  How well would we do?
>
> This is indeed a problem. I have begun, and plan to
> continue to in my edit box
> summaries to indicate the source of the information
> I add to an article (if
> that information is non-obvious). Which reminds me
> that it would be a good
> idea to _require_ users to fill in the edit summary
> box.
>
> What worries me every time is when I see an anon
> change numbers in wikipedia
> without any edit summary. Eg. changing statistics on
> the population of
> spanish speakers in California from (hypothetical)
> 15% to 40%. It is often
> impossible to tell whether this is vandalism or a
> correction.
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes
> --
> Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
> www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
On Wednesday 14 January 2004 04:58 pm, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> In [[Acad?mie fran?aise]] there is the statement "a musician named
> Gourville, who named it the Acad?mie fran?aise".  Another established
> contributor and I both independently looked for some kind of
> substantiation for this statement; neither of us was successful.  At the
> same time we did not find any information indicating that someone else
> was responsible for the name.  This particular piece of data was
> contributed by an anonymous contributor on December 31, 2002.  The last
> contribution of any sort by him was on April 12, 2003.  He may still be
> with us, and with a real identity, but I can't know that.
>
> What do I know about 17th century musicians.  I found a contemporary
> Gourville who was in a position to exercise such influence, but no
> evidence to connect him with the issue.  Fact-checking is a painstaking
> and tedious process, and tracing the type of thing that I used as an
> example could take hours, and may require material that is not on the
> internet.  Wikipedia's credibility depends on it.  Everybody knows to
> expect bias in a hotly disputed topic like Israeli/Palestinian
> relations, and is on alert for that bias.  This is not so with obscure
> little details.  A credibility test for Wikipedia might be to take a
> random selection of obscure details and attempt to verify them, or at
> least find some source.  How well would we do?

This is indeed a problem. I have begun, and plan to continue to in my edit box
summaries to indicate the source of the information I add to an article (if
that information is non-obvious). Which reminds me that it would be a good
idea to _require_ users to fill in the edit summary box.

What worries me every time is when I see an anon change numbers in wikipedia
without any edit summary. Eg. changing statistics on the population of
spanish speakers in California from (hypothetical) 15% to 40%. It is often
impossible to tell whether this is vandalism or a correction.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Genitalia, etc.

body:
<humour>

I suggest to put this image in [[Penis]]:

http://www.sporeworks.com/gal2/penisclose.jpg

</humour>

--Optim :)

--- "Daniel P.B.Smith" <dpbsmith at world.std.com> wrote:
> I just don't see what the big deal is. There should
> probably be
> pictures of a lot of things. If you think there
> should be a picture,
> put one in. If a picture seems much too strong,
> substitute on that's
> more toned down. If it seems absurdly prudish,
> substitute one that's
> franker. Why is there any need for this to be any
> different from any
> other controversial material requiring editorial
> judgement? What's the
> big problem?
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
Please, could someone censor that ?

;-)

Poor, Edmund W a ?crit:
> We want our articles to be sensitive and exciting -- like [[clitoris]]
> -- warm, embracing, and all-encompassing -- like [[vagina]] -- and we
> also want them to be penetrating and strong and capable of endless
> growth -- like [[penis]].
>
> ;-)
>
> Uncle Ed


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Penises

body:
On Wednesday 14 January 2004 03:36 pm, Dan Miller wrote:
> Just wanted to make a note: Sascha, Peter, the article
> on "Lung" actually has no photos, just a diagram.
> Thought people might want to know.

And if the Johns Hopkins Autopsy Resource (JHAR) Image Archive
(http://www.autopsydb.org/iadbimag.htm) were working and they had a good
picture I'd probably add it.

Maybe we could also include the lung of a smoker and label it "tarred lung"
and the normal one "untarred lung"? ;-) (Sorry, Anthere)

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


from_name: Viajero

subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
On 01/14/04  at 11:22 AM, Peter Jaros <rjaros at shaysnet.com> said:

> So what's so great about a picture of an anus?  Will it
> help you recognize one if you see it in the wild? :)

> It seems like a diagram, rather than a picture,

Better yet, a poem:

  Sonnet: To the Asshole

  Dark, puckered hole: a purple carnation
  That trembles, nestled among the moss
  [...]

  (Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, circa 1871)

Perhaps it sounds better in French. Anth?re?...

V.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] German Wikipedia Inavailability/Hardware Status

body:
We get more and more complaints from german Wikipedians about the
inavailability of the german language Wikipedia. So, what's the status here
right now? The hardware that went down at christmas time should be replaced
by now?!? Or are we still running on that low-performing fail-over-system,
and if so, why?

Uli


from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Genitalia, etc.

body:
It seems to me that there's no difference between this and any other
controversial or contentious issue. I have the impression that some are
asserting that there's some kind of fundamental difference that has to
be handled in some fundamentally different way because it involves
taboos or offensiveness. That's what I don't get.

It seems to me that the right word for these issues is "tastefulness."
As in "de gustibus no disputandum est." Well, we know darn well there
certainly est disputandum, but I don't see that's it's different from
issues such as whether, say, Nazism is a kind of Socialism.

This is a wikiwiki, and just recently someone moved some pictures of
peni from the article on "penis" to the article on "circumcision" by
the process of deciding they ought to be moved and moving them. They're
there now, and they'll stay there until someone else decides to do
something else, and eventually it will or will not reach a metastable
state.

As for diagrams versus photos, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to
communicate information, not to induce sexual arousal, and deciding
what picture is likely to do what is a matter of editorial judgement
based on a guess as to the expected audience and on what the Supreme
Court once called "contemporary community standards." You can't predict
exactly what the audience is going to be, however. The "Professor
Somebody" who authored the anatomy textbook mentioned in _Tom Sawyer_
probably did not expect the teen-aged Becky Thatcher to read his book
or view the "handsomely engraved and colored frontispiece -- a human
figure, stark naked." We had not expected our copy of "The Whole Earth
Catalog," a rather Wikipedian enterprise, to serve as sex education
material for our children, either.

We probably don't need to be as restrained as the 1911 Encyclopedia
Britannica.

I just don't see what the big deal is. There should probably be
pictures of a lot of things. If you think there should be a picture,
put one in. If a picture seems much too strong, substitute on that's
more toned down. If it seems absurdly prudish, substitute one that's
franker. Why is there any need for this to be any different from any
other controversial material requiring editorial judgement? What's the
big problem?

Now, for something serious to argue about: what is the correct plural
of the word "clitoris?"

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at world.std.com alternate:
dpbsmith at alum.mit.edu


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: German Wikipedia Inavailability/Hardware Status

body:
In message <400588E3.1040805 at apple.com>, Stan Shebs
<shebs-2kanFRK1NckAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
>
>>>The replacement motherboard apparently didn't solve everything though,
>>>and it's been sent back again.
>>>
>>
>>So when do you exepct a new motherboard to arrive? These downtimes
>>drive our contributors away, and are blocking us in getting new ones.
>>I think this is really a serious issue. Since there are more than
>>enough funds available now, I cannot understand why that much time is
>>needed to get the system back to the status we had in the beginning of
>>December. Sorry if that sounds a bit angry, but the german language
>>Wikipedia is more or less unuseable since three weeks now.
>>
>Keep in mind that some of the December troubles might have been avoided if
>the new hardware had gotten more testing before being put online, so let's
>not be so impatient this time around. All the Wikipedias are slow, it's not
>just the German one.

Actually I'm finding the Welsh Wikipedia is running pretty well these
last few days...

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


body:
> The replacement motherboard apparently didn't solve everything though,
> and it's been sent back again.

So when do you exepct a new motherboard to arrive? These downtimes drive our
contributors away, and are blocking us in getting new ones. I think this is
really a serious issue. Since there are more than enough funds available now,
I cannot understand why that much time is needed to get the system back to
the status we had in the beginning of December. Sorry if that sounds a bit
angry, but the german language Wikipedia is more or less unuseable since
three weeks now.

Uli


from_name: Lance Murdoch

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia funds

body:
On Special:Booksources, I am pointed to places like Amazon.com by ISBN.
Why not open an account on Amazon.com for referrals?  You can make money,
and the only difference to the user is that the URL clicked on will say

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140123456/Wikipedia

instead of

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140123456

Not much of an intrusion, and it would bring in some bucks for Jimbo the
capitalist who runs Wikipedia.

-- Lance


from_name: Menchi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Genitalia, etc.

body:
Suitable, but the rims are too sharp to be representative of normal "hunan"
penses.

--
___________________________
Menchi


from_name: Agon S. Buchholz

subject: [Wikitech-l] re: new system ideas

body:
Jimmy Wales schrieb:

> First, we are committed for internal ideological/political reasons to
> run Wikipedia on all free software.  Perhaps if it could be shown
> that every element of Xserve that's actually in use by Wikipedia is
> open source (of course the OS X kernel is, and apache/php/etc would
> be, but I really don't know what else), this objection could be met.

OS X is neither Open Source nor free, but there's a Linux distribution
for Power Mac called Yellow Dog which is based on Red Hat Linux. Xserve
is fine technology on the paper, but IMHO there's too little know-how
with us about this technology. However it's never worth 10-30% more
money for our purposes - unless Apple would donate or discount them ;)

Regards, -asb


from_name: Rick

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [beatnickblanket@bellsouth.net: Wikipedia: Easter
	Bradford page, and all related pages - immediate action required.]

body:
In other words, if he can't have only his words on the article, he doesn't want any?  Tell him to go to court.  After all, HE created the article.

RickK

Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
----- Forwarded message from beatnickblanket at bellsouth.net -----

From:
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:34:25 -0800
To:
Subject: Wikipedia: Easter Bradford page, and all related pages - immediate action required.

Greetings,

This email is being wrtten to demand that the Wikipedia web page for
"Easter Bradford" as well as all related pages (including but not
limited to the "Talk" page) be deleted from your web servers
immediately. All current and former edits of this page are to be
deleted. These pages contain libelous content which, if maintained,
can and will result in litigious action against Wikipedia and it's
owners.

If this action is not taken within 48 hours of the time this email was
sent, a certified and registered letter will be sent via United States
Post. You will then have 7 days from the reciept of that letter to
take appropriate action.

I would prefer to avoid these measures, but can no longer tolerate
inaction in this case. This is not the first time I have contacted you
about the situation. If you are NOT the person to contact about the
issue, I suggest you inform me of who that person is at once.

This is the last email that will be sent in this matter,

James Warnock (aka "Easter Bradford")

_______________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
The US locality articles were created by RamBot from the official statistics from the US Census Bureau, so the ones that are there SHOULD be the correct ones.

RickK

Nikos-Optim <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
just visit a government statistics page and check.

--- Sascha Noyes wrote:
> On Wednesday 14 January 2004 04:58 pm, Ray Saintonge
> wrote:
> > In [[Acad??mie fran??aise]] there is the statement
> "a musician named
> > Gourville, who named it the Acad??mie fran??aise".
> Another established
> > contributor and I both independently looked for
> some kind of
> > substantiation for this statement; neither of us
> was successful. At the
> > same time we did not find any information
> indicating that someone else
> > was responsible for the name. This particular
> piece of data was
> > contributed by an anonymous contributor on
> December 31, 2002. The last
> > contribution of any sort by him was on April 12,
> 2003. He may still be
> > with us, and with a real identity, but I can't
> know that.
> >
> > What do I know about 17th century musicians. I
> found a contemporary
> > Gourville who was in a position to exercise such
> influence, but no
> > evidence to connect him with the issue.
> Fact-checking is a painstaking
> > and tedious process, and tracing the type of thing
> that I used as an
> > example could take hours, and may require material
> that is not on the
> > internet. Wikipedia's credibility depends on it.
> Everybody knows to
> > expect bias in a hotly disputed topic like
> Israeli/Palestinian
> > relations, and is on alert for that bias. This is
> not so with obscure
> > little details. A credibility test for Wikipedia
> might be to take a
> > random selection of obscure details and attempt to
> verify them, or at
> > least find some source. How well would we do?
>
> This is indeed a problem. I have begun, and plan to
> continue to in my edit box
> summaries to indicate the source of the information
> I add to an article (if
> that information is non-obvious). Which reminds me
> that it would be a good
> idea to _require_ users to fill in the edit summary
> box.
>
> What worries me every time is when I see an anon
> change numbers in wikipedia
> without any edit summary. Eg. changing statistics on
> the population of
> spanish speakers in California from (hypothetical)
> 15% to 40%. It is often
> impossible to tell whether this is vandalism or a
> correction.
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes
> --
> Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
> www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] ezresults not playing fair?

body:
This web site is, I think, not playing fair.

http://www.ezresult.com/article/Easter_Bradford

See the non-links to original articles, and image of wikipedia reference.

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

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from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
Martin Harper wrote:

>??? wrote:

>>After all, what other September 11 attack could one possibly
>>be talking about?

>I thought there was an attack by the US some exact number of years before
>11/9/2001? I seem to recall some heated discussion in the aftermath over
>which had the most fatalities.

You're probably thinking of the 1973 ''coup'' in Chile
that the US ''supported''.  "September 11 ''attack''
should refer pretty clearly the 2001 attack on the US.

>On the other hand, "primary topic" disambiguation would probably be workable.

I'd rather have the year in there than the word "terrorist".
Either disambiguates, but the year is more restrained.
The article itself can say plenty on whether it was terrorism
(I'd say obviously so in NY, but not as clearly so in DC).

-- Toby


from_name: Dan Miller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 6, Issue 57

body:
Message: 9
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:05:44 -0800 (PST)
From: Nikos-Optim <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Genitalia, etc.
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID:
<20040115020544.71821.qmail at web25003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

<humour>

I suggest to put this image in [[Penis]]:

http://www.sporeworks.com/gal2/penisclose.jpg

</humour>

--Optim :)

Message: 10
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 19:25:13 -0800
From: "Menchi" <ebeins at hotmail.com>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Genitalia, etc.
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID: <bu5170$j6b$1 at sea.gmane.org>

Suitable, but the rims are too sharp to be
representative of normal
"hunan"
penses.

<humour>
So why not include it under the captions "human penis"
and "spore penis"?
</humour> Meelar the infantile

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subject: [WikiEN-l] ezresults not playing fair?

body:
Oh great, not slashotted, wikipedia-ed...

--- Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> This web site is, I think, not playing fair.
>
> http://www.ezresult.com/article/Easter_Bradford
>
> See the non-links to original articles, and image of wikipedia
> reference.
>
> =====
> Christopher Mahan
> chris_mahan at yahoo.com
> 818.943.1850 cell
> http://www.christophermahan.com/
>
> __________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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body:
> Keep in mind that some of the December troubles might have been avoided if
> the new hardware had gotten more testing before being put online, so let's
> not be so impatient this time around. All the Wikipedias are slow, it's not
> just the German one.

I don't think you have to do much hardware testing. Hardware it's working, or
it's not working. Some errors may shine up only if the hardware is running
some weeks. Ok.  If there's an error, hardware as simple as we are running
right now should be replaceable within days.

We need to overcome the current problems fast with a solution that isn't for
eternity, but that works for now. It's a bad idea to wait for the new
hardware, since *this* hardware and *setup* needs to be tested, probably
software must be rewritten and so on. I do not believe the new server farm
will be up and running smoothely before end of february.

I've got the feeling that everyone right now is concerned with and waiting for
the new hardware, and forgetting the one we have. As I said, we get
complaints from contributors, we are losing contributors. Today we got a mail
from the PhD assistant of a german university professor announcing he and his
boss would like to write an article. What do I tell them? "Sure, we like to
have it, but keep in mind to save it well on your hard disc, probably the
ipload will fail. Or please, wait until end of February, probaly we have new
hardware then, but probably we have not? " That's ridiculous. This guy will
turn away faster than you can watch.

Uli


body:
Am Mittwoch, 14. Januar 2004 20:04 schrieb Brion Vibber:
> On Jan 14, 2004, at 11:00, Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> > We need to overcome the current problems fast with a solution that
> > isn't for
> > eternity, but that works for now.
>
> Ulrich, do you have any suggestions? If so, please stop dancing around
> and give them.

Brian, I do not "dance around" - you told me the new mainboard wasn't working,
so you sent it back. Ok. But my question was, when will the replacement
arrive? That's a phone call to the supplier, and probably it's pressing the
supplier a bit. If he can't assure you to deliver a new mainboard within
let's say a four days, go to another one.  I do not know too much about the
old configuration, but obviously it wasn't such high-tech stuff that has
months of order lead time.

As far as I can see, we had a working and well performing solution at the mid
of december. Please bear with my for not reading wikitech, I've got to much
to do doing the editing part. But from my point of view, all that needs to be
done is to buy exact replacements for the failed hardware we had in december.
And I don't think that should need that much time, given the funds we (still)
have.

Uli


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
Viajero a ?crit:
> On 01/14/04  at 11:22 AM, Peter Jaros <rjaros at shaysnet.com> said:
>
>
>>So what's so great about a picture of an anus?  Will it
>>help you recognize one if you see it in the wild? :)
>
>
>>It seems like a diagram, rather than a picture,
>
>
> Better yet, a poem:
>
>   Sonnet: To the Asshole
>
>   Dark, puckered hole: a purple carnation
>   That trembles, nestled among the moss
>   [...]
>
>   (Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, circa 1871)
>
> Perhaps it sounds better in French. Anth?re?...
>
>
> V.

L'idole.- Sonnet du Trou du Cul

Obscur et fronc? comme un oeillet violet
Il respire, humblement tapi parmi la mousse
Humide encor d'amour qui suit la fuite douce
Des Fesses blanches jusqu'au coeur de son ourlet.

Des filaments pareils ? des larmes de lait
Ont pleur?, sous le vent cruel qui les repousse,
A travers de petits caillots de marne rousse
Pour s'aller perdre o? la pente les appelait.

Mon R?ve s'aboucha souvent ? sa ventouse;
Mon ?me, du co?t mat?riel jalouse,
En fit son larmier fauve et son nid de sanglots.

C'est l'olive p?m?e, et la fl?te caline,
C'est le tube o? descend la c?leste praline:
Chanaan f?minin dans les moiteurs enclos !

---------

Fantastique ! Admirable !
How much love those two must have shared for such a splendor !

(feel jalous)


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] ezresults not playing fair?

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
>This web site is, I think, not playing fair.
>
>http://www.ezresult.com/article/Easter_Bradford
>
>See the non-links to original articles, and image of wikipedia reference.

It uses a cgi script or something like it to redirect users to the real
Wikipedia article - users still get there. But they do say that the "Original
article" is available under terms of the GNU FDL.

For them to use our content *their* version also has to be under the GNU FDL.
This, IMO, is a violation of the letter of the GNU FDL and therefore
technically voids their rights to use our articles. But I'm sure they would
change this if pressed. It is, IMO, a minor point considering the many other
websites who have outright stolen our articles with no credit or links.

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content

and,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content#ezResult.com

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


body:
--- Nikos-Optim <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> When an author requests an article he/she wrote to be
> deleted, we should delete it imediatelly. Especially
> when nobody else has contributed into the article.
>
> The possibility of a fake request exists. This is a
> serious consideration.
>
> --Optim

Shall I remind you of the text on the edit page at wikipedia?

(If he posted it, he agreed to the terms.)

"Please note that all contributions to Wikipedia are considered to be
released under the GNU Free Documentation License (see
Wikipedia:Copyrights for details). If you don't want your writing to
be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it
here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it
from a public domain or similar free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT
COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!"

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
On 01/14/04  at 02:41 PM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> said:

> Someone other than me will have to decide if Lance Murdoch is poisoning
> the Wikipedia with his pro-communist POV.

"Poisoning" seems as yet too strong a term -- most of his edits seem
reasonable and he doesn't get into silly edit wars -- but I have noticed
that he has the habit of turning his edit summaries into rants on how
American-centric corporate press dominates Wikipedia and the like. He
definitely needs to lighten up.

V.


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hi Jimbo and all,

Le Wednesday 14 January 2004 14:27, Jimmy Wales a ?crit :
> How might this bill affect Wikipedia, if I go through with plans to
> set up a French nonprofit?
>
> http://www.computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/C1F6A082562EB682CC256E160006A4
>8E?OpenDocument
>
> The portion that concerns me is that "Internet access providers" (but
> what is the definition of that in the bill?) will be obligated to
> filter "illegal content", which has a much wider scope in France than
> in the US, including "material excusing crimes against humanity".

Yes, this law project is very bad. Obviously French politicians understand
very little about the Internet. :o(
However this law project is not yet written in the books.

1. There is quite a big protest from webmasters and non profit organisations
going on now against it. But this has meet little answer from politicians
upto now.
2. Since today big ISPs have started to protest as well, mainly because it
would cost them millions to check everything according to this law project.
Probably they will have more weight.
3. A similar attempt was made a few years back, but was dismissed by the
constitutional court (it was contrary to the constitution). I except this one
to meet the same fate. (I think it is even worse that the previous one.)

> Currently, if the French government were to find material on Wikipedia
> not to their liking, they would have little recourse against either
> me, the Wikimedia Foundation, or the French end users who wrote the
> material.  I am in the U.S., the Wikimedia Foundation is in the U.S.,
> and therefore I can freely ignore the judgments of French courts.
>
> French end users are protected by this arrangement as well -- in order
> for the French government to pursue an end user, they will need to
> pierce the veil of anonymity given by Wikipedia usernames.  Of course,
> I would completely ignore any court order from France to hand over
> such information.
>
> On the other hand, if we had a French mirror operating under the
> auspices of a French nonprofit subsidiary, that subsidiary could be
> legally liable in such matters, thus putting us all at risk.
>
> Perhaps this is all merely of academic concern -- Wikipedia is
> self-consciously uncontroversial to a large extent.  We don't advocate
> anything, by design.  Likely the law would not be abused to the extent
> that Wikipedia would become a target.  But I do know that French users
> have often expressed concern that this article or that might be a
> violation of French law.  I don't have an opinion about the realism of
> such concerns.

Any way, we will need to check that the content of Wikipedia is valid under
French law before setting a mirror in France. I am mainly concerned about
images put under "fair use" as the law is quite different in France about
this.

As long as a mirror in France would not improve the availibility of Wikipedia
here, there is little reason to set up such a mirror. And as I understand
what I read in wikitech-l, it would not help the current situation.

> And so that's why I ask.  As we move towards a European organization
> and European subsidiary, what concerns should we have as to the proper
> location of the organization?

OMO the main objectives of a French subsidiary would be helping to promote
Wikipedia and collect funds. We have already three more requests for talks.
And we are getting more and more interests from schools and universities.

> --Jimbo

Yann
- --
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
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from_name: Pedro Fortuny

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
For the record: Lancemurdoch has renamed

"September 11 terrorist attack"

to

"September 11 attck"

I guess this is not very very very very good withoug asking beforehand.

Pedro.
--
Pedro Fortuny Ayuso: http://pfortuny.sdf-eu.org
Colegio Mayor Pe?afiel, Universidad de Valladolid
C/ Estudios 6, 47005 Valladolid, Spain -->        www.cmpenafiel.org
pfortuny at sdf-eu.org                         Tfn. Nr. 34  983  298277


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
The point is not about any one example in particular.  Sascha's example
would be a relatively easy one to check, but who would think to check it
if he had not used it as an example.  There are countless such unnoticed
details in the 'pedia.
Ec

Nikos-Optim wrote:

>just visit a government statistics page and check.
>
>
>--- Sascha Noyes <sascha at pantropy.net> wrote:
>
>>On Wednesday 14 January 2004 04:58 pm, Ray Saintonge
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In [[Acad?mie fran?aise]] there is the statement
>>>
>>"a musician named
>>
>>>Gourville, who named it the Acad?mie fran?aise".
>>>
>> Another established
>>
>>>contributor and I both independently looked for
>>>
>>some kind of
>>
>>>substantiation for this statement; neither of us
>>>
>>was successful.  At the
>>
>>>same time we did not find any information
>>>
>>indicating that someone else
>>
>>>was responsible for the name.  This particular
>>>
>>piece of data was
>>
>>>contributed by an anonymous contributor on
>>>
>>December 31, 2002.  The last
>>
>>>contribution of any sort by him was on April 12,
>>>
>>2003.  He may still be
>>
>>>with us, and with a real identity, but I can't
>>>
>>know that.
>>
>>>What do I know about 17th century musicians.  I
>>>
>>found a contemporary
>>
>>>Gourville who was in a position to exercise such
>>>
>>influence, but no
>>
>>>evidence to connect him with the issue.
>>>
>>Fact-checking is a painstaking
>>
>>>and tedious process, and tracing the type of thing
>>>
>>that I used as an
>>
>>>example could take hours, and may require material
>>>
>>that is not on the
>>
>>>internet.  Wikipedia's credibility depends on it.
>>>
>>Everybody knows to
>>
>>>expect bias in a hotly disputed topic like
>>>
>>Israeli/Palestinian
>>
>>>relations, and is on alert for that bias.  This is
>>>
>>not so with obscure
>>
>>>little details.  A credibility test for Wikipedia
>>>
>>might be to take a
>>
>>>random selection of obscure details and attempt to
>>>
>>verify them, or at
>>
>>>least find some source.  How well would we do?
>>>
>>This is indeed a problem. I have begun, and plan to
>>continue to in my edit box
>>summaries to indicate the source of the information
>>I add to an article (if
>>that information is non-obvious). Which reminds me
>>that it would be a good
>>idea to _require_ users to fill in the edit summary
>>box.
>>
>>What worries me every time is when I see an anon
>>change numbers in wikipedia
>>without any edit summary. Eg. changing statistics on
>>the population of
>>spanish speakers in California from (hypothetical)
>>15% to 40%. It is often
>>impossible to tell whether this is vandalism or a
>>correction.
>>
>>Best,
>>Sascha Noyes
>>


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
* Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> [2004-01-14]:
> Actually not bad. In their eyes they are just defending themselves.
>
> Fred
>

Yes, but their eyes are not the only ones (and the move, which is quite
bold, was done without asking/discussing).

Pedro.

> > From: Pedro Fortuny <pfortuny at sdf-eu.org>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:27:29 +0100
> > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch
> >
> > For the record: Lancemurdoch has renamed
> >
> > "September 11 terrorist attack"
> >
> > to
> >
> > "September 11 attck"
> >
> > I guess this is not very very very very good withoug asking beforehand.
> >
> > Pedro.
> > --
> > Pedro Fortuny Ayuso: http://pfortuny.sdf-eu.org
> > Colegio Mayor Pe?afiel, Universidad de Valladolid
> > C/ Estudios 6, 47005 Valladolid, Spain -->        www.cmpenafiel.org
> > pfortuny at sdf-eu.org                         Tfn. Nr. 34  983  298277
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

--
Pedro Fortuny Ayuso: http://pfortuny.sdf-eu.org
Colegio Mayor Pe?afiel, Universidad de Valladolid
C/ Estudios 6, 47005 Valladolid, Spain -->        www.cmpenafiel.org
pfortuny at sdf-eu.org                         Tfn. Nr. 34  983  298277


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
If you show proof of that claim, certainly Edmond :-)

Poor, Edmund W a ?crit:
> LOL! You're confusing the /article/ with the real thing, perhaps ;-)
>
> (I hope Anthere will forgive me...)
>
> Ed
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: KNOTT, T [mailto:TKNOTT at qcl.org.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 12:17 PM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] How much?
>
>
> I'm sorry to have to tell you this Ed, but penises are _not_ capable of
> endless growth.
>
> Theresa


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
Delirium-
> This is an argument that feces is "correctly" considered offensive,
> while those who consider nudity offensive are incorrect.
>

Nonsense. It is an argument to explain why one taboo is more widespread
than the other. I have no specific statistics, neither do you. Unless you
can come up with them, we can only go with arguments. And the arguments I
have shown clearly demonstrate why one taboo (feces) can be considered
"nearly universally" widespread and the other cannot. You have utterly
failed to refute this argument. We can conclude that the "nearly
universal" standard is sufficient, since you used feces as a "slippery
slope" argument (no pun intended).

Regards,

Erik


body:
> So why not include it under the captions "human penis"
> and "spore penis"?

Why not? Of course not! That is the penis of a fungus, not spore!

--
___________________________
Menchi


from_name: Viajero

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
On 01/14/04  at 02:41 PM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> said:

> His edits to [[Red Scare]], as well as his comments to me about it, make
> it seem like:

> A. Communists did nothing wrong.

Under the section "Reactions to the Red Scare" in the paragraph:

> Though many of the more outr? accusations of the McCarthy
> period—such as the claim that President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]
> was a communist—now seem laughable, the opening of Soviet
> historical archives following the collapse of the Soviet Union has
> provided evidence for less grandiose accusations, such as the claim by
> [[Whittaker Chambers]] that [[Alger Hiss]] worked for Soviet
> intelligence. Similarly, reports of mass murders committed by communist
> states including the Soviet Union under [[Josef Stalin]], China under
> [[Mao Zedong]], and Cambodia under the [[Khmer Rouge]]—once
> dismissed as anti-communist [[propaganda]]—are now
> well-documented in the historical record.

Lance removed the last sentence (Similarly  --> historical record), which
I am assuming is an edit Ed finds controversial. I think after due
consideration that Lance /may be/ right: that this doesn't belong here
because it is a bit of subtle editorializing suggesting that perhaps the
anti-communists /weren't/ "paranoid" after all; moreover, Khmer Rouge were
much later the Red Scares. I am guessing that what LM thinks is that
central issues of the Red Scare were "infilitration" of the government and
the labor movement and so forth and not atrocities in distant lands and to
use these matters after the fact to justify the Red Scares may be a subtle
bit of POV. I think he has a point.

> B. Anti-communism of the 1950s was "hysterical".

The phrase is in question "Red Scare hysteria".  I did a Google search
("red scare" + "hysteria") and found more than 2,600 hits for this phrase,
including a reference to a book entitled "Red Scare: A Study in National
Hysteria, 1919-1920" which looks reasonably serious. I think there is a
good case for stating it in the article as a "hysteria" whether or not we
personally agree; it is clearly an established usage. On the Talk page,
Mirv agreed, and mentioned other titles which refer to the "hysteria" of
the time.

In conclusion, I think his edits are ok but I think he needs to justify
them on the Talk page. I'll leave a note on his Talk page.

Ed, satisfied?

V.


from_name: Ruimu

subject: [Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 9:27 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law

> How might this bill affect Wikipedia, if I go through with plans to
> set up a French nonprofit?

Not much, I guess, except if Wikipedia becomes a den of negationists
(revisionist seems to be the only translation but I don't like it as any
historian is "revising" History), suicide apologists, or paedophiles.


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [phil@ipal.net: Re: Who do I contact
	when	webmaster@wikipedia.org does not work?]

body:
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:52:01 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> This is something we should discuss.  Right now, by refusing access to
> people who don't send a user agent, we may be messing some people up
> who are coming from behind a proxy?  That's what I understand him to
> be saying.

They're running Squid then and take the User-Agent out (header_replace
User-Agent). They could as well replace it with something else of their
choice instead, for example:
header_replace User-Agent: Mosaic 0.1

Was there a lot of traffic from misconfigured spiders? All search engines
i've come across send a header, often with url to the search engine.

--
Gabriel Wicke


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
> I am guessing that what LM thinks is that
> central issues of the Red Scare were "infilitration" of the government
> and the labor movement and so forth and not atrocities in distant lands
> and to use these matters after the fact to justify the Red Scares may
> be a subtle bit of POV. I think he has a point.

After sending the my last message, I noticed that he summarized this edit
with:

> The Red Scare was a US domestic issue, some of the issues are still disputed

so my analysis was correct.

V.


from_name: Martin Harper

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
> After all, what other September 11 attack could one possibly
be talking about?

I thought there was an attack by the US some exact number of years before
11/9/2001? I seem to recall some heated discussion in the aftermath over which had
the most fatalities.

On the other hand, "primary topic" disambiguation would probably be workable.

-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


from_name: zero 0000

body:
> > Now, for something serious to argue about: what is the correct
> > plural of the word "clitoris?"
>
> You could use either the regular plural "clitorises," or the Latinate
> plural  "clitorides."

Since "clitoris" is derived from a Greek word, it is certainly not
permitted to use a Latin plural.

Zero.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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from_name: Matt M.

body:
> > After all, what other September 11 attack could one possibly
> be talking about?
>
> I thought there was an attack by the US some exact number of years before
> 11/9/2001? I seem to recall some heated discussion in the aftermath over
which had
> the most fatalities.

The coup against Salvador Allende, IIRC. For that matter, the Catalan
national day on September 11 commemorates a military defeat as well.

> Now, for something serious to argue about: what is the correct plural
> of the word "clitoris?"

You could use either the regular plural "clitorises," or the Latinate plural
"clitorides."

And the Latinate plural of "penis" is "penes," not "peni." (Just like
"testis" and "testes.")

(Does "anal-retentive" have a hyphen?)

Matt


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Censorship and self-censorship [Ex: French net
	censorship law]

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Gervai" <grin at tolna.net>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law

> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 11:05:49PM +0800, Ruimu wrote:
>
> > > How might this bill affect Wikipedia, if I go through with plans to
> > > set up a French nonprofit?
> >
> > Not much, I guess, except if Wikipedia becomes a den of negationists
> > (revisionist seems to be the only translation but I don't like it as any
> > historian is "revising" History), suicide apologists, or paedophiles.
>
> Maybe you're low on imagination. For example what if there's an article on
a
> politician which describes what he really have done, but what he does not
> like to have published? (Monsieur XY member of the parliament raped his 3
> daughters and the dog of the neighbour at age 12.) Or criticising
> (providing alternative points of view of) political moves, like cutting
> countries apart, killing people, etc?
>
> Oh well, maybe I get it wrong. It would happen in Hungary.

    Well, erh... It's not my imagination. I listed those few topics (I may
have missed a couple more) that are actually under legal censorship in
France. (The law against negationism is, imho, a very awful law, one of the
worst in this country, but a necessary one in the context.) Censorship means
here that it is forbidden to publish a book that will be an apology of
suicide, paedophilia, or denying the reality of some crimes against humanity
(without having to prove anything). If you write a book stating that "Mr XY
raped Z...", you may face a libel suit, and have to prove your allegations.
(That's very different, as you can see.)

Censorship is a bad thing, but, except if you strongly believe that ALL mens
are good (at least "good enough"), it cannot be abandonned without being
replaced by something else. This "something else" could be (or has to be,
imho) replaced by self-censorship. Self-censorship is merely when you don't
reply to a Wikipedian that he is a pure idiot, even if you strongly think
that it is absolutely true. On usenet, I found an easy way to censor myself:
switch of "send immediatly" and always wait for the next day to send my
burning reaction. You can't imagine how many lines I have dropped this way
(and, incidentally, how many spelling and grammar mistakes that have been
fixed). That's self-censorship. Sadly, I don't see how to do this in a
simple way on Wikis.

Self-censorship is also here when one try not to push one's agenda too much,
or not to write on topic where it is too hard to achieve (as Uncle Ed said).
I used above the "good enough" expression: I think being "good enough" on WP
means to be able to censor oneself (what is much harder than simply being
polite).

P.S. : I know that censorship is a widely hated thing, so my ideas here may
seem to be hateful for some of you. Please consider that I tried to soften
them as much as possible, and that I'm not helped 'cause I'm not using my
mother tongue. Many evil things are necessary (on WP, banning someone is
this way; in society, I could say cops, laws, ...). Most of those evil
things are bad (and rejected) when they come from outside, I mean from
someone else. When you internalize them, they may not be so evil--that's my
key point.


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
On 01/14/04  at 11:28 PM, "Martin Harper"
<martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk> said:

> > After all, what other September 11 attack could one possibly  be talking about?

> I thought there was an attack by the US some exact number of years
> before  11/9/2001? I seem to recall some heated discussion in the
> aftermath over which had  the most fatalities.

Perhaps you are thinking of the US-backed coup led by Pinochet against the
Allende government in Chile which took place on 11 September 1973? During
the coup and aftermath ~3000 killed or missing so it is comparable with
the US 9/11.

V.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Censorship and self-censorship [Ex: French
	netcensorship law]

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ruimu" <ruimu at uestc.edu.cn>

> P.S. : I know that censorship is a widely hated thing, so my ideas here
may
> seem to be hateful for some of you. Please consider that I tried to soften
> them as much as possible, and that I'm not helped 'cause I'm not using my
> mother tongue. Many evil things are necessary (on WP, banning someone is
> this way; in society, I could say cops, laws, ...). Most of those evil
> things are bad (and rejected) when they come from outside, I mean from
> someone else. When you internalize them, they may not be so evil--that's
> my key point.

    Just to make it clear: I don't support French law that was previously
the topic of this thread, and I personnally don't care at all on where a WP
server is to be installed in Europe. I just tried to link a little bit this
censorship issue on VfD, edit wars and Ban issues.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] watchlist idea

body:
On Jan 15, 2004, at 01:46, Peter Gervai wrote:
> I suspect the problem is that when User checks her watchlist,
> mediawiki gets the list, and
> searched through all the articles to see the recent changes. Right?

There are two ways the db may search the watchlist.

It can look through all the items in your watchlist, check their
timestamps etc, then sort the result and take only the recent items.
This is efficient for small watchlists.

Or, it can look through the most recently changed pages to see which
are on your watchlist. If you have a really big watchlist this can be
more efficient, but the rate at which pages are edited on
en.wikipedia.org this only helps if the cutoff is quite short indeed.

> I suspect there are 150000+ articles to check against 10-500 entries
> on the watchlist.

The longest watchlists are in the range of a couple thousand, iirc. A
few hundred is not atypical for power users. Most people have
relatively few.

> I do not know how many watchlist entries are there (brion?), but I
> suspect at least a
> magnitude less. Let's say 10000 entries.

Actually, it's about on the same order as the total number of pages.
de.wikipedia has 60419 watchlist entries; en.wikipedia has 263770.

However any given page has at most a couple hundred people watching it.

The most-watched page on de.wikipedia is the Hauptseite with 115
watchers; on en.wikipedia it's Wikipedia:Village pump with 288. [Aside:
Jesus Christ is less popular than World War II at 59 vs 60 watchers,
but He still beats out George W. Bush by two Wikipedians!]

> What if the entries have:
>
> watchlist db:
>   the user id
>   watched article #
>   article last changed (date, submitter, comment)
>
> And every time an article gets updated, it updates all the _watchlist_
> entries
> for itself.

Updating up to a couple hundred rows on page save may or may not be a
worse performance drain than the current system. If it works, it might
be worth it for the faster reads.

Tests I did some time ago were inconclusive about read improvements,
but they may not have been properly indexed for the join to cur to get
the revision data.

Also a slight complication; currently the watchlist only uses a single
entry for each page and its talk page. To add timestamps to sort on,
we'd have to double the number of rows involved.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 1:32 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How much?

> Jimmy-
> > The goal of our articles is to be informative, not offensive.  It
> > turns out that in most cases (penis, for example) the ways of
> > presenting the content that are offensive are also lacking in terms of
> > informativeness.  A photo "in the style of" pornography takes away
> > from our mission of informativeness, while a photo "in the style of" a
> > medical text comports with that mission.
>
> It's simply not true that a photo of a penis or vagina is not informative.
> Ironically, it is particularly informative in families where the parents
> would likely consider it offensive. It helps people to actually identify
> sexual organs and to understand the wide range in their looks and sizes
> (many people are anxious to find out whether they are "normal"). Every sex
> education book that is worth its name contains pictures of genitalia.
>
> I would also like to point out that there is near consensus for inclusion
> of links, and a slim majority for inclusion of photos (where the minority
> typically argues that not they, but mysterious "other people" might be
> offended).

    Those "other people" aren't "mysterious". Could be my gran'ma, for
example. For me, near consensus is a nice thing, and therefore links are
enough. BTW, for me, photos are not that much informative: they could be
"sexually educative". Well... Does Wikipedia intends to be "educative"?
(Politically "educative"? Morally "educative"? Religiously "educative"? I
guess that it could be hard to find a consensus on how to be "educative"
those ways.)


subject: [WikiEN-l] please announce (and if necessary explain) protections

body:
Someone protected [[anti-Zionism]] without either an edit summary
or a notice on the Talk page.  I'm not arguing with the protection
decision, but whoever did it should take public responsibility.

Zero.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] [richard@adbusters.org: powered by wikipedia]

body:
What's the URL for a high resolution image of the Wikipedia logo?
Do we also have one for the Wikimedia Foundation logo?

----- Forwarded message from "richard at adbusters" <richard at adbusters.org> -----

From: "richard at adbusters" <richard at adbusters.org>
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 12:33:59 -0800
To: <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: powered by wikipedia

Dear Mr. Wales,

We would like to do a blurb for the encyclopedia in our next issue of
Adbusters magazine (circ. 120,000; see www.adbusters.org). To do so, we
would need a high resolution image of the Wikipedia icon. We love the
encyclopedia and, although we don't print any paid ads in the magazine, we
do print some free ones.

Hope to hear from you or someone on the staff at your/their convenience.

All best wishes,

Richard DeGrandpre
Associate Editor

----- End forwarded message -----


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [beatnickblanket@bellsouth.net: Wikipedia:
	EasterBradford page,
	and all related pages - immediate action required.]

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> I don't think that Jimbo's message was meant to tell us to comply;
> he could have reverted the article himself had he wanted to.

Right.  But, I personally think that we should just delete it and be
done with it.  It's not worth fighting him over.

> IIRC, this has come up before, and Bradford's charges were without merit.

In this case, someone is accusing him of fraud, etc., and these sort
of serious charges ought not to be made, even in the article history.
It seems that the simplest thing to do is delete the article.  If
someone wants to start a new article on him after the deletion, then
save the text you want to insert, and start a new article after the
deletion, taking great care to be NPOV.

But, really, I'm not sure why we should care to force the guy to have
an article about himself, if he doesn't want one.  He's not really all
that famous.  It's not like Madonna is asking us not to have an
article, or Tony Blair.  It's just some guy.

--Jimbo


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I'm talking to him, there's no need to delete the page right away.
>Some clever person already listed it on VfD, and I've let "Easter
>Bradford" know that.  I told him that if there's consensus among the
>editors, the page will be deleted within 7-10 days, and that if there
>is not such a consensus, I'll step in to make sure that his legal
>rights are fully protected.

>That's entirely consistent with his demands, so I think it's fine.

>(I.E. he says that if I don't do something soon, he's going to send me
>a letter, which will take a couple of days, and then I'll have 7 days
>after that to delete the stuff.)

>Your action, Ed, is a good enough one for now, I think.  It takes the
>page out of general circulation.

So if somebody doesn't like our coverage of them,
then they only have to send us an "official take-down notice" [*],
and we'll remove the page from general circulation
and list it to possibly be deleted?

In that case, Saddam Hussein should contact us.
(The real one this time.)

[*] Unless Bradford is suggesting a copyright violation
(and that can't be the stuff that ''he'' submitted!),
then I don't even know what an "offical take-down notice" is.
There's the DMCA procedure for copyright,
but Bradford's letter charged defamation (libel/slander).

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
tarquin wrote:

> Martin Harper wrote:
>
>>> After all, what other September 11 attack could one possibly
>>
>> be talking about?
>>
>> I thought there was an attack by the US some exact number of years
>> before 11/9/2001? I seem to recall some heated discussion in the
>> aftermath over which had the most fatalities.
>>
>> On the other hand, "primary topic" disambiguation would probably be
>> workable.
>>
>
> Or call it "World Trade Center attack" ?
> At any rate, I agree with the removal of the term "terrorist" from the
> title. That is was an attack, at least, is undisputed :)

"World Trade Center attack" doesn't work because of the related attack
on the Pentagon, unless there is some need to distinguish the two..

If disambiguation is needed using the year strikes me as the most
obvious first line approach.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Easter Bradford

body:
Allan Crossman wrote:

>[[Easter Bradford]] should either be deleted for being a vanity page
>(but it's already been through VfD on this count) or it should be
>kept. I don't see how we can bow to such vague claims that a page is
>libelous. At the very least he should have to specify what the
>problem is.
>
The funny thing about this name is that I have a vague recollection from
my youth when it referred to a chess tournament (or congress) that would
normally be held in Bradford, England around Easter time.

Ec


from_name: Graham Cox

subject: [Wikitech-l] re: new system ideas

body:
On 15 Jan 2004, at 5:39 am, Agon S. Buchholz wrote:

> Jimmy Wales schrieb:
>
>> First, we are committed for internal ideological/political reasons to
>> run Wikipedia on all free software.  Perhaps if it could be shown
>> that every element of Xserve that's actually in use by Wikipedia is
>> open source (of course the OS X kernel is, and apache/php/etc would
>> be, but I really don't know what else), this objection could be met.
>
> OS X is neither Open Source nor free, but there's a Linux distribution
> for Power Mac called Yellow Dog which is based on Red Hat Linux.
> Xserve is fine technology on the paper, but IMHO there's too little
> know-how with us about this technology. However it's never worth
> 10-30% more money for our purposes - unless Apple would donate or
> discount them ;)
>
> Regards, -asb
>

I think what Mr. Wales meant was that Darwin, the core of OSX, is open
source and free. I believe this would be sufficient to run Apache, etc,
but of course the Linux solution could possibly be better.

As for the 10-30% extra cost, wouldn't it really depend on its
performance? Suppose such a server could manage 50% more
connections/load than the AMD? That would be like having 1.5 AMD
machines, so it could well be "worth it". Unfortunately I have no idea
whether this is in fact the case, though presumably somebody, somewhere
does know. As for know-how, that's easy to come by. For a start you can
simply use your favourite Unix (or Linux if you go that route) standard
command line to set it up and run it, the rest will follow. I never
felt that "the unknown" was ever much of an argument against doing
something - how did mankind ever progress with that attitude?

Anyway, I read the rest of Mr. Wales' response with interest. I have no
strong opinion, so I remain neutral on the subject - but I do feel all
options should be given serious consideration and that appears to be
the case.

--Graham


subject: [Wikitech-l] single-sing-on

body:
Ivo wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I am new at wikitech-l, so I dont know what is said before to the theme
>"sinle-sign-on" (yes I know I could read the archive and I tried, but it is
>too long for today :-)...) but here are some thoughts from me...
>
I've always supported the idea of a single "sign-on", but would be
highly sceptical of the single "sing-on" suggested in the title.  Many
of us may not have the vocal skills to enable us to continue with
Wikipedia. :-)

>If I`ve got it, we have 3 main problems:
>
>1. There could exists users on different lang-WPs with the same name.
>2. There is no (good) way to find out automatically which accounds with the
>   same name in different lang-WPs belong to different persons and which
>   belong to the one person.
>3. We have actually no good solution for the first problem but as long as we
>   wait the problem gets larger.
>
>So we should think first about to solve the third problem.
>
Certainly, one begins with new users and preventing them from choosing a
name which duplicates anything already being used in any of the
projects.  All existing unambiguous names can also be moved immediately.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] more wordIQ badness

body:
On Jan 15, 2004, at 09:54, Sascha Noyes wrote:
> How do things like google's image search work. I
> believe they also load images from other's servers. Is there anything
> specified in robots.txt about this?

Google's image search loads the images (as it does the text) while
spidering, then they create a thumbnail image and keep it locally.
Browsing the thumbnailed results doesn't impinge on the servers where
the images came from at all.

When  you click a thumbnail, it sends you to a framed document which
loads the page where it came from off the original server, and also in
the top frame the image alone.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Tying Threads together (Was: ezresults not playing fair?)

body:
Maz's mention of ezresults misusing material form WP reminds me of a
research problem I had this week -- which relates to another thread
in this maillist.

I've been rewriting the article on king [[Hezekiah]] of the ancient kingdom
of Judah (my work is up on the English Wikipedia, if you're curious), &
encountered the problem that the material an anonymous contributor added
that Hezekiah's reign could be dated by an eclipse conflicts with the
dates of two widely-quoted scholars. So I thought to use Google to
investigate just who "Professor Aurel Ponori-Thewrewk" was, & learn just
what he said in the cited article, & how reliable of an authority he was.

The anon contributor only provided an incomplete citation for Ponori-Thewrewk's
work, so I cut-n-pasted about ten words including his name into Google to
see what I could find -- which was two different sites that were using
Wikipedia material. Fortunately, both credited WP as the source, & had
the proper licensing notice attached. (I couldn't find the reference page
that lists known users of our material to see if they were listed. Thanks,
Mav, for the link.)

As for Prof. Ponori-Thewrewk? Except for some pages in German & Hungarian
(the German ones appeared to be either from a college catalog of classes
or a reading list; I don't understand Hungarian at all), the only explanation
for who he was came from another Wikipedia page -- [[eclipses]] -- which
identified him as the former director of the Budapest Planetarium. I still
have no idea what he actually asserted concerning the sundial mentioned in
2 Kings 20:8-11.

Just an example of why including proper citations ("X says Y") is important,
not only for NPOV reasons. (To tie in still another thread.)

Geoff


subject: [Wikitech-l] more wordIQ badness

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:

>Thanks to [[user:DrBob|DrBob]] for finding this: Apparently wordIQ are not
>only infringing the GFDL and the copyright of wikipedia (or its
>contributers), but are also stealing our bandwidth. Images in the articles
>they have illegally copied from us are loaded from the wikipedia servers. (I
>did a quick test by replacing [[Image:BernardLortie.JPG]] with a modified
>version and having a look at
>http://www.wordiq.com/cgi-bin/knowledge/lookup.cgi?title=Bernard_Lortie)
>
>My question: Is there any legal precedent that such action is illegal? From a
>pragmatic point of view, it is clearly wrong: they are making money with
>their (most probably spyware) toolbar at wikipedia's expense. Or, more
>precisely, Jimbo's expense. How do things like google's image search work. I
>believe they also load images from other's servers. Is there anything
>specified in robots.txt about this?
>
This kind of problem was entirely forseeable.  There is consistent
acceptance among Wikipedians of the principle that the material is there
for anybody's use, and a common irritation when a user purports to apply
his own copyrights.  They do this not only with GFDL material, but also
with material that is clearly in the public domain.

I don't think that any of this will ever be resolved until there is a
legal determination of who owns the public domain, and who has the
responsibility of defending the public domain.  This is not a trivial
question, and dismissing the question by saying that nobody owns the
public domain does not provide us with any kind of solution.  When it
comes to GFDL material, or any other similarly licensed material, there
is a collective right owned by a group which is much smaller than "the
public".  Still, what remains undefined is who has the right or
responsibility to take the necessary action on behalf of the collective
group.

Ec


from_name: Peter Gervai

subject: [Wikitech-l] watchlist idea

body:
Okay. Since watchlist on en: is disabled I have to think.

I suspect the problem is that when User checks her watchlist, mediawiki
gets the list, and
searched through all the articles to see the recent changes. Right?

If not, discard my email.

If not....

I suspect there are 150000+ articles to check against 10-500 entries on
the watchlist.

I do not know how many watchlist entries are there (brion?), but I suspect
at least a
magnitude less. Let's say 10000 entries.

What if the entries have:

watchlist db:
   the user id
   watched article #
   article last changed (date, submitter, comment)

And every time an article gets updated, it updates all the _watchlist_
entries
for itself.

Checking the watchlist from then on is one simple lookup and print.
Nothing.

Updating is a _simple_ update (UPDATE watchtable SET changed=NOW() WHERE
artnum=666; etc.)
on article change.

Well?


body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Delirium" <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 5:43 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Censorship and self-censorship [Ex: French
netcensorship law]

> Ruimu wrote:
>
...
> I understand you're likely not a lawyer, but do you (or anyone else)
> know to what extent this requires *you* to be presenting the arguments,
> vs. reporting on others?  For example, we *do* have articles on
> Holocaust deniers, summarizing their arguments (including that infamous
> "there were no Nazi gas chambers" report a few years back), and we *do*
> have information on the arguments of philosophers who wrote in favor of
> suicide.  We're not personally promoting these viewpoints, but to be a
> reasonable encyclopedia we do have to give them a fair summary.  In the
> Holocaust denier case we can fairly easily point to a lot of other
> evidence that the Holocaust actually did exist, and conclude that
> historians generally disagree with them, which probably covers us.  But
> with suicide, we can't really reasonably conclude "these philosophers
> were wrong, and suicide is bad and you shouldn't do it", since there is
> no accepted consensus answer to "is suicide always bad, sometimes bad,
> or never bad?"

I hope the consensus is easier to find on "apologia for suicide is never
good"...

> So I guess my question is: can we still get in trouble for publishing a
> neutral description of pro- and anti-suicide arguments (and those in
> between), without concluding in favor of either?

I suppose that the answer is "non". As "neutral description" is usually very
far from apologia, WP won't have any troubles. Same with negationism: what
is forbidden is to deny the Holocaust existed, to report that someone
denied it is not forbidden.


from_name: Gareth Owen

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:

> James Warnock (aka "Easter Bradford")

Take it down.  It's a vanity page for a non-entity.  Boyer lite.

--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sep 11 (wasL User:LanceMurdoch)

body:
tarquin
>Or call it "World Trade Center attack" ?

Uh, no. What about the Pentagon and Flight 93?

>At any rate, I agree with the removal of the term
>"terrorist" from the title.

Why? The term 'terrorist' is almost always in the title of the incident when
it is referred to in any place I've ever seen a reference (although it is
very often just called "9/11" or "September 11" in the USA but those titles
are not specific enough for us). The incident also perfectly fits the
definition of terrorism. So there is no reason not to use it unless it is
unreasonably offensive. I would, in fact, argue that *not* having the word
'terrorist' in the title would be unreasonably offensive (IMO, that would be
white-washing, or at lest sanitizing, the title).

>That is was an attack, at least, is undisputed :)

Taking out the word "terrorist" in light of the fact that the word is very
commonly used in the title and fits the definition, goes against our common
name naming convention and also creates a needlessly vague title. It also
supports the POV that the incident was not a terrorist act which is absurd
since it perfectly fits the definition.

So if something is commonly called something, fits the definition, is not
unreasonably offensive, then that term should be used.

More generally (meaning not directed toward Tarquin):

Blacklisting terms is a very bad idea and is more PC than NPOV. Let's not
forget that PC is in fact an extreme form of POV and is *not* akin to NPOV at
all (which really deals with article *content* and not titles - titles are
dealt with through our naming conventions).

PC = "politically correct" . Political correctness in the United States is a
political and social movement which aims to use changes in language to
prevent offending people who leftists think are offended by the use of
certain terms. PC also aims to help change the way other people think by
changing the use of certain terms (rather Orwellian if you ask me). This is
*not* at all NPOV and should *not* be associated with the 'unreasonable
offensiveness' clause of our common name naming convention (which is largely
agendaless, unlike PC).

Wikipedia needs to *follow* common usage, not try to change it!

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> writes:

> After all, what other September 11 attack
> could one possibly be talking about?

Ask the Chileans.
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Private email lists for mediation

body:
It might be a good idea to have a private email list for mediation: list
members would have to approved by a list moderator and when a particular
mediation is over all list members would be unsubscribed by the moderator.

There would be no public archive.

If needed there could be several mediation lists so that several mediations
can go on at once.

Just a thought.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] First formal request for a Mediator

body:
I've been asked to be a mediator, by Jack Lynch (seconded by
Danny) re: RK.

This is going to be hard.

First, I might wind up recusing myself early on because my
"interest" in Israel might make me biased. I invite those who
know me well (and who have earned my trust) to contact me
privately /immediately upon/ seeing any signs of bias on my
part that may tend to sabotage the mediation.

Second, there haven't been enough specifics presented. I hope
people will either post diffs as links, on my user talk page so
I can see EXAMPLES of what they're complaining about.

Third, I am sometimes pretty contentious myself, so I might
turn a blind eye to someone else's contentiousness and
troublesomeness.

This might be easy.

First, I am aware of a lot of my limitiations, and publicly
acknowledging them will help keep me honest.

Second, despite my weaknesses a lot of people trust me --
possibly /because/ I rather freely admit to these weaknesses,
rather than trying to hide them.

At least one person on each side of the current conflict (the
world vs. RK ;-) has written me some very nice personal e-mail.
Without revealing confidences, I can say that the contents of
these e-mails inspires me the hope that a quick and lasting
resolution is within our grasp.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
A member of the official Mediation Committee

P.S. Gosh, I wear a lot of hats!


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>tarquin
>
>>At any rate, I agree with the removal of the term
>>"terrorist" from the title.
>>
>
>Why? The term 'terrorist' is almost always in the title of the incident when
>it is referred to in any place I've ever seen a reference (although it is
>very often just called "9/11" or "September 11" in the USA but those titles
>are not specific enough for us). The incident also perfectly fits the
>definition of terrorism. So there is no reason not to use it unless it is
>unreasonably offensive. I would, in fact, argue that *not* having the word
>'terrorist' in the title would be unreasonably offensive (IMO, that would be
>white-washing, or at lest sanitizing, the title).
>
It should be taken out because it is both a characterization and
unnecesary for identifying the incident.  There are numerous other
incidents which might be qualified as "terrorist", but where that term
might be more hotly disputed.  By completely avoiding the term
"terrorist", even when it seems obvious, we can avoid the need to set
boundaries that define what is and what is not a terrorist act.

>Taking out the word "terrorist" in light of the fact that the word is very
>commonly used in the title and fits the definition, goes against our common
>name naming convention and also creates a needlessly vague title.
>
I don't find anything vague about the title, and, if needed, there are
other ways of disambiguating.  The common name naming convention should
not be used as an excuse for overriding good judgement.

>It also supports the POV that the incident was not a terrorist act which is absurd
>since it perfectly fits the definition.
>
The absence of the term is neutral, and neither supports nor condemns
the act in question.

>So if something is commonly called something, fits the definition, is not
>unreasonably offensive, then that term should be used.
>
>More generally (meaning not directed toward Tarquin):
>
>Blacklisting terms is a very bad idea and is more PC than NPOV. Let's not
>forget that PC is in fact an extreme form of POV and is *not* akin to NPOV at
>all (which really deals with article *content* and not titles - titles are
>dealt with through our naming conventions).
>
This sounds very much like saying that since titles are immune to POV,
naming conventions should take precedence over NPOV in the naming of
articles.  That makes no sense at all, and is inconsistent with the
earlier statement that omitting the word would support some POV.

>PC = "politically correct" . Political correctness in the United States is a
>political and social movement which aims to use changes in language to
>prevent offending people who leftists think are offended by the use of
>certain terms. PC also aims to help change the way other people think by
>changing the use of certain terms (rather Orwellian if you ask me). This is
>*not* at all NPOV and should *not* be associated with the 'unreasonable
>offensiveness' clause of our common name naming convention (which is largely
>agendaless, unlike PC).
>
Political correctness is not just applied to leftist causes.  There is
just as much rightist political correctness.  Orwell was critical of
extremes on both ends of the political spectrum.


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [Wikitech-l] more wordIQ badness

body:
Thanks to [[user:DrBob|DrBob]] for finding this: Apparently wordIQ are not
only infringing the GFDL and the copyright of wikipedia (or its
contributers), but are also stealing our bandwidth. Images in the articles
they have illegally copied from us are loaded from the wikipedia servers. (I
did a quick test by replacing [[Image:BernardLortie.JPG]] with a modified
version and having a look at
http://www.wordiq.com/cgi-bin/knowledge/lookup.cgi?title=Bernard_Lortie)

My question: Is there any legal precedent that such action is illegal? From a
pragmatic point of view, it is clearly wrong: they are making money with
their (most probably spyware) toolbar at wikipedia's expense. Or, more
precisely, Jimbo's expense. How do things like google's image search work. I
believe they also load images from other's servers. Is there anything
specified in robots.txt about this?

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: watchlist idea

body:
On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 02:35:45 -0800, Brion Vibber
<brion at pobox.com> wrote:

>> I suspect there are 150000+ articles to check against 10-500 entries
>> on the watchlist.
>
> The longest watchlists are in the range of a couple thousand, iirc. A
> few hundred is not atypical for power users. Most people have
> relatively few.

Ok.

>> I do not know how many watchlist entries are there (brion?), but I
>> suspect at least a
>> magnitude less. Let's say 10000 entries.
>
> Actually, it's about on the same order as the total number of pages.
> de.wikipedia has 60419 watchlist entries; en.wikipedia has 263770.

Huh. I thought it's much less.

> However any given page has at most a couple hundred people watching it.

>> What if the entries have:
>>
>> watchlist db:
>>   the user id
>>   watched article #
>>   article last changed (date, submitter, comment)
>>
>> And every time an article gets updated, it updates all the _watchlist_
>> entries
>> for itself.
>
> Updating up to a couple hundred rows on page save may or may not be a
> worse performance drain than the current system. If it works, it might
> be worth it for the faster reads.

You should check how many updates and how many watchlist checks are there
in every sec/min.

I think it should be tested (dunno how big piece of code would that
require,
which would be discarded is it turns out not to be better)...

I don't know about locking issues and difference on read/write performance
on
a loaded mySQL; maybe lots of small writes (update on save) slow the db
more than lots of
larger reads (check watchlist now).

> Tests I did some time ago were inconclusive about read improvements,
> but they may not have been properly indexed for the join to cur to get
> the revision data.

I can't help in that. :-)

> Also a slight complication; currently the watchlist only uses a single
> entry for each page and its talk page. To add timestamps to sort on,
> we'd have to double the number of rows involved.

Well, you can usually only gain speed by using more space for auxilary
tables. I do not believe in that hardware upgrade is the solution for lack
of
design. :-]

(...which doesn't mean that I have the holy grail handy, though.)

cya,
grin


from_name: Bob Mellish

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ezresults not playing fair?

body:
Actually, if you follow the "original article" link at the bottom of the
page, you do eventually get back to the wikipedia version of the article,
even though ezresults is doing some kind of frame-redirect so that the
URL doesn't seem to change.

More worrying than ezresults is WordIQ (www.wordiq.com) which not only
swipes wikipedia content without link back, GFDL compliance, or even a
mention of WP (see
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content),
but also each article still links to wikipedia servers for all the images,
thus stealing bandwidth from WP.

I wonder if it would be (a) technically possible, and/or (b) a good idea, to
prevent images from being served that are offsite linked from pages on
either WordIQ in particular, or all non- *.wikipedia.org sites in general.

The second option might break many GFDL-complient copies of WP, though,
depending on whether they have local copies of article images.

--
Bob [DrBob] Mellish.


body:
> > I've been asked to be a mediator, by Jack Lynch (seconded by  Danny)

> > re: RK.
>
> First, what exactly you are mediating? "Re. RK" is a rather broad
> concept; moreover, mediation implies two parties.

Not exactly sure. I'm getting a general sense that they "don't like
him". If it doesn't get any more specific than that, this could turn
into a non-starter.

> > I invite those who
> > know me well (and who have earned my trust) to contact me
> > privately /immediately upon/ seeing any signs of bias on my  part
that
> > may tend to sabotage the mediation.
>
> Second, aren't mediations handled more or less confidentially? Or do
> you plan to debate things on a public page or mailinglist?

Oh, not to mention: "signs of obvious incompetence". I guess we won't
be mediating on wikien-l.

>
> > P.S. Gosh, I wear a lot of hats!
>
> Well I hope for your sake that this one doesn't turn out to be a crown
of thorns!

Interested metaphor, there was a Jewish man once, a fella from
Galilee (or was it Nazareth?) ...

Ed


subject: [Wikitech-l] more wordIQ badness

body:
OK, Jamesday has informed me that we could block this by setting up some
referrer limitations. Is there a good reason why we would want to allow other
websites to load images from wikipedia for display on their sites? (Except,
eg. google)

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


from_name: Viajero

body:
On 01/15/04  at 03:37 AM, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> said:

> Someone protected [[anti-Zionism]] without either an edit summary or a
> notice on the Talk page.  I'm not arguing with the protection decision,
> but whoever did it should take public responsibility.

If you look on:

  [[Wikipedia:Protection log]]

you will see:

  08:55, Jan 14, 2004 PMelvilleAustin protected Anti-Zionism

Alas, he did not list it on

  [[Wikipedia:Protected page]]

as behooves him. Just left a note on his Talk page.

V.


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
On 01/14/04  at 09:05 PM, Viajero <viajero at quilombo.nl> said:

> most of his edits seem reasonable and he doesn't get into silly edit wars

Having written this yesterday now I am not so sure. LM just edited
[[Shining Path]] and I found myself in disagreement with ALL his edits.
Here are just two:

For one, he insists that the group be called the Peruvian Communist Party,
claiming that Shining Path is a perjorative label used by the US media
(!!!). For his rationale and my counterargument, please see to the Talk
page.

He also deleted this text

> During this era, Shining Path used tactics that included conscription
> of children, forced labor, executions by stoning and throat-slitting
> (ostensibly to save bullets), destruction of the electricity
> infrastructure, indiscrimate bombings, and targeted assassinations of
> political opponents.

yet left the text following it intact:

> However, in fighting Shining Path, the Peruvian armed forces also
> committed many atrocities. It destroyed villages and massacred
> campesinos it suspected of being supporters of Shining Path.

The problem is that during this period, unlike in Soviet Russia, Peru did
have a relatively free media and the atrocities of Shining Path /have/
been well documented.

LM seems to have a serious problem acknowledging atrocities on the part of
his ideological bedmates.

Jiang and I have both asked him on his Talk page to devote more effort to
justifiying his edits on Talk pages; I suggest others do as well.

V.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia Toolbar

body:
Thomas R. Koll wrote:
> I think about 100% of the core-developers use Linux or MacOS as
> operating system. I bet that you will find no one who programms
> the toolbar for you ;-)

Nonetheless, it is a fantastic idea.  I have done some research,
but some months ago now, and apparently

(a) it is not that hard to create a toolbar for MSIE, using Visual
Basic even, and

(b) there seems to be no open source toolbar project out there.

---

For Mozilla (and at least some derivatives), it is possible to create
a toolbar using only, what, xml?  Some crazy thing about skins, blah
blah blah.  I seem to recall that this is what took Mozilla so long to
develop.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] single-sing-on

body:
tarquin wrote:
> Let's imagine we've implement it. (yay! :) )
> I go to the Swedish Wikipedia to make langlinks, but I make a mistake
> and mess it up. My user page on se: is blank, because I've never edited
> there before.
> How do the people on se: know to find my user page on en: ?

I would say that this isn't "an additional problem" with single
sign-on, but a good example of what single sign-on has the potential
to solve.  The solution is that if we had single sign-on, the system
could theoretically detect all of the wikis at which you have a
userpage, and automagically link to them on your user pages.

See additional user pages for this user at: [en] [se] [fr].

Right now, there's no guarantee that your id at en is the same person
as the same id at se.