subject: [WikiEN-l] An idea for deletions

body:
On 2/14/07, Keitei <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:

> And for that, all we need is a bored developer who can make decent
> special pages or some such, and maybe a bugzilla request. Unless it
> was intended to be a mailing list, in which case I think it's a
> horrible idea and mailing lists for issues intended to be acted upon
> should all be shot.

No I wasn't thinking of a mailing list. I was thinking of a web form
with submissions going to a queue of some kind. The team would then
process the queue on a first come first served basis and take whatever
action is appropriate (speedy keep/delete, pass to ADF etc.)

The whole point would be to pass only those noms that need consensus to AFD.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Flame Viper

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 43, Issue 98

body:
A higher authority than me (who has jurisdiction) just said that I have
to quit Wikipedia and has threatened legal action :(

Just replace my userpage on en:wp with "flameviper has left the building" in all
lowercase. Blank my talk page, and protect my userspace...

I'll miss this place.

...

/me leaves the room

---------------------------------
Cheap Talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Andrew Dunbar

subject: [Wikitech-l] Exporting sections of pages

body:
Wiktionary's case is a bit easier because we don't need to transclude sections
but merely make them accessible to MediaWiki extensions written in PHP.

For instance most users don't care about translations so that section
would not be displayed by default unless enabled in preferences.

A good incremental design path might be 1: wrap sections/subsections
in DIVs 2: provide section/subsection APIs for extensions. 3: make
sections transcludable.

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

On 2/14/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/14/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> > Well, my snap reaction is 'microformats'.
>
> Say what?
>
> > I think that there should be some way (and perhaps this is as easy as
> > puting an "<a href="thisisatag"> link in after the section header.
> >
> > Isn't there some pipe-y syntax that already does something akin to this
> > and tracks the section header?
>
> Yeah, I was wondering that. Something like this might work:
> ==List of highways|List==
>
> Where "List" is a code. Alternatively, and imho more readably:
> ==List of highways==
> {{SECTION|List}}
>
> Steve
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


from_name: Mark Clements

subject: [Wikitech-l] Massive Hook Proposal

body:
"Jim Wilson" <wilson.jim.r at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:ac08e8d0702140949u83cc418hd6f54fca61b1ec64 at mail.gmail.com...
>
> How do you feel about this alternative? (continuing the UploadForm
example):
>
> function instantiate( &$request ) {
>     $uploadForm = NULL;
>     wfRunHooks('BeforeInstantiate_UploadForm', array( &$uploadForm,
> &$request ));
>     if ($uploadForm != NULL) {
>         return $uploadForm;
>     }
>     $uploadForm = new UploadForm($request);
>     wfRunHooks('AfterInstantiate_UploadForm', array( &$uploadForm,
&$request
> ));
>     return $uploadForm;
> }
>

AfterInstantiate_X should be run regardless of where the object came from.
The above should probably be (in some kind of pseudo-code form):

function instantiate( &$args) {
    $objResult = NULL;
    wfRunHooks('BeforeInstantiate_X', array( &$objResult, &$args));

    if ($objResult === NULL)
        $objResult = new Object($args);

    wfRunHooks('AfterInstantiate_X', array( &$ojResult, &$args));
    return $objResult;
}

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Samuel Klein

subject: [Foundation-l] Mayflower: Wikimedia Commons media search

body:
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>> 3) matching the template tags with the licenses array and using that to
>> display the license in the Mayflower results screen?
>
> Because there are so many different minor permutations, even if you
> could extract all the licenses, figuring out the mapping to something
> small enough to put in the interface is a challenge alone.

This is a resolvable problem; the more minor the permutation, the smaller
its effect on the image that shows up in the interface...

SJ


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Platonides

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] How to edit wikipedia when stupid
 mods block all Thai ip addresses

body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
> Hi Walter,
>
> I would like to ask you to donate at least 10% of your efforts which
> are usually spent on this list by you to convince the Thailand
> government or the Thai ISPs to fix their internet access so we might
> be able to ban "just the right people" in the future. 10% should be
> more than enough to convince them.
>
> Mathias

If i correctly geussed what's happening:
a) Thai ISPs put their users under transparent proxies.
b) A nl admin regularly blocks them as "open proxy"

a1) If the ISP proxy provides X-Fordwarded-For: header, talk with Tim
Starling to add them to the XFF list.
a2) Convince the ISP to remove the Proxy (almost imposible).

b) No admin should block "open proxys" unless he confirms they're open
proxys.

Trick: Accesing via
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/nl/wiki/Hoofdpagina will probably
bypass transparent proxys.

I have found myself several times blocked on en.wikipedia due of being
behind a proxy. Sometimes it was there were previous vandalism by other
users. Others, it was alledged an "Open Proxy", either without reason or
pointing to a proxy-list page.
Astounishing, as neither the admin or the page mainteiners could have
checked that proxy (maybe the lists were done by listing visitors behind
it?).
I sent several mails stating this, and asking for a lesser block (some
were infinite hard blocks!). Well, i had no answer about this matter
(could be unblocked without answering, however).

Worse, my ISP doesn't provide means for stating if a given ip is one of
their proxys or not. If an ip vandalised a page and -being accused of
doing it- a checkuser showed that i had used that ip, i'd have no way to
prove that ip being a transparent proxy, and not my personal ip. I'd
probably be blocked forever. :(


subject: [Wikitech-l] WMDumper

body:
Boris Eetgerink write:
  > You'll probably get the answer that the MediaWiki developers don't
> support third-party extensions, so you'd better give it a try with the
> maintenance/importDump.php script first (run it from the command-line).
>
> Good luck,
>
> Boris

MWDumper is supported by MediaWiki. I don't know the author, but it's
certainly not a "third party extension", but the recommended tool.
importDump.php is too slow for using it with a full wiki dump (it
renders each page).

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MWDumper
http://download.wikimedia.org/tools/


from_name: Boris Eetgerink

subject: [Wikitech-l] WMDumper

references:
<45D335DE.2070608@informatik.uni-leipzig.de>
	<45D33908.1080401@planet.nl> <eqvg7b$d44$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Platonides wrote:
> Boris Eetgerink write:
>   > You'll probably get the answer that the MediaWiki developers don't
>> support third-party extensions, so you'd better give it a try with the
>> maintenance/importDump.php script first (run it from the command-line).
>>
>> Good luck,
>>
>> Boris
>
> MWDumper is supported by MediaWiki. I don't know the author, but it's
> certainly not a "third party extension", but the recommended tool.
> importDump.php is too slow for using it with a full wiki dump (it
> renders each page).

My apologies then, and thanks for the information.

Boris


from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Your comments on wikien-l regarding adminship

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
> Wikipedia is not an experiment - the scientific method does not apply.

This is just plain wrong.

It is true that Wikipedia is not an experiment in a lot of things (incl.
online democracy, anarchy, etc.), but Wikipedia *is* and has always been
an experiment to create an encyclopedia using a wiki. A lot of things
have changed in Wikipedia because people realised at some point that
certain aspects didn't work very well (e.g. the CamcelCase convention
was removed because people eventually realised that having articles
titled "DemocracY" and "TelephonE" is stupid). There is no reason to
believe that Wikipedia has now reached a perfect state and requires no
further changes to the way it works.

Timwi


from_name: the wub

subject: [Foundation-l] Support WMF via GoodSearch

body:
You can also use a link like
http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=812661<http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=xxx>that
links to the search page with WMF pre-selected, which will be good to
promote this.
** <http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=xxx>


from_name: Dorozynski Janusz

subject: [Wikitech-l] WMDumper

body:
| -----Original Message-----
| From: wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
| [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
| Rob Church
| Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 6:38 PM
/
| On 14/02/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
| > MWDumper is supported by MediaWiki. I don't know the author,
?
/
| Brion Vibber, I thought?

Without doubt! :-))

	Reg., Janusz 'Ency' Dorozynski


from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [19930]
	tags/REL1_9_2/phase3/includes

body:
On 14/02/07, leon at svn.wikimedia.org <leon at svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Revision: 19930
> Author:   leon
> Date:     2007-02-14 10:26:41 -0800 (Wed, 14 Feb 2007)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
> * (bug 8988) Added missing $
>
> Modified Paths:
> --------------
>     tags/REL1_8_3/phase3/includes/DatabasePostgres.php
>     tags/REL1_9_2/phase3/includes/DatabasePostgres.php

WTF?

*No one* except the release manager is supposed to alter *tags*, ever.
If code *has* to be backported, then it gets backported to a branch.

Rob Church


from_name: Tuvic

subject:
[Foundation-l] The Communist Vandal Trashed the Dine (Navajo)
	Wikipedia

references:
<45D2D49E.8040302@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<9ac45b70702140557n1a9bcebbu33757885d822aec4@mail.gmail.com>
	<45D34545.8050209@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
As did he, now placing it back in the sitenotice.

2007/2/14, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>:
> Pedro Sanchez wrote:
>
> >On 2/14/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>The Communist Vandal trashed the entire Dine (Navajo) Wikipedia at
> >>nv.wikipedia.org sometime earlier today.
> >>
> >>I have reverted all of his edits -- it took a while.  He managed to
> >>vandalize every single article on this wiki in a matter of minutes.
> >>
> >>Jeff
> >>
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>foundation-l mailing list
> >>foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >why was his block length shortened to 19 days?
> >
> >
>
> This admin, Node ue, has been placing spamming links to their personal
> email address. They changed it from an indefinite block due to ignorance.
> I reinstated the indefinte block. Node ue placed spamming links into the
> site notice as well. I reverted these as well.
>
> Jeff
>
> >_______________________________________________
> >foundation-l mailing list
> >foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: commons-l

from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Commons-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2006

body:
Dear Wikimedians,

Phase 1 of the POTY 2006 election is coming to its end.

If you didn't participate yet or want to change your vote, you can
still do it until 2400 Feb, 14 (today) at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006.

Phase 2, to elect the winner and 2 runners-up, will start February 17
at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/final.

Note: the final date has been postponed 2 days as has been stated in
the first mail. We are trying our best to have the preparations for
the final on time

Joaquim [[commons:User:Alvesgaspar]]
Bryan [[commons:User:Bryan]]


subject: [Foundation-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2006


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:02:47 -0800, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>Whe  the expression, "I'll kill you," is used in a TV comedy nobody
>seems to get upset or take it seriously.
>Often some of our editors interpret much less explicit statements as
>death threats or otherwise seriously offensive without recourse to any
>kind of reality check.  Sometimes it seems that there are people who
>thrive on being offended.

Or it's Chicken Little.  Or maybe an excuse.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] We're famous!

body:
http://www.beevnicks.com/d/20070209.html
http://www.beevnicks.com/d/20070212.html
http://www.beevnicks.com/d/20070213.html

I can smell the AFD from here ...

- d.


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Help with Admin Burnout - 2

body:
on 2/14/07 1:36 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> Marc Riddell wrote:
>
>> To any & all,
>>
>> I am doing some thinking about how the WP Community could help Admins who
>> are struggling with the work. My goal is to come up with a formal mechanism
>> that these Admins can turn to for help and support before they choose to
>> simply give up and leave the Community. It could serve as a form of
>> intervention before a burnout occurs.
>>
>> What are your thoughts about this?
>>
> What this probably needs is a "Father Confessor" type of person that
> stressed out admins can go to privately when they have a problem.  Such
> persons need to appreciate confidentiality and be non-judgemental.
>
> Ec
>
Or possibly a group of objective persons who could offer the same
confidentiality and nonjudgmental input. Is this possible within the present
structure of WP?

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] "About Wikipedia" in navigation sidebar

body:
On 14/02/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/11/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:

> > Historically, are either of those things done with Wikipedia?

> Usability testing on Wikipedia? Not that I know of.

There has been a bit on de:wp, which someone posted to wikitech-l
about. In particular, the image page format and the process for
uploading an image both need to be taken out and shot.

- d.


from_name: Filip Maljkovic

body:
Cary Bass wrote:
> While this is my opinion, I believe a number of other Commoners share it.
> I'd certainly like to see the Picture of the Year be one that was originally
> photographed or Illustrated by a Commons participant, rather than one that
> was found on a U.S. Government site or Flickr and uploaded.
>
> Cary Bass
> Bastique
>
Couldn't agree more.

Filip


body:
Yes, me too. Unfortunately, it is now 14 days to late to change the
rules. Next year we probably will do vote per category or vote only
for commons images, but we can't change the rules now.

Bryan

On 2/14/07, Cary Bass <bastique at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Bryan wrote:
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: commons-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:commons-l-
> > bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Tong Minh
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 2:41 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List; Wikimedia Commons Discussion List
> > Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2006
> >
> > Dear Wikimedians,
> >
> > Phase 1 of the POTY 2006 election is coming to its end.
> >
> > If you didn't participate yet or want to change your vote, you can
> > still do it until 2400 Feb, 14 (today) at:
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006.
> >
> > Phase 2, to elect the winner and 2 runners-up, will start February 17
> > at:
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/final.
> >
> > Note: the final date has been postponed 2 days as has been stated in
> > the first mail. We are trying our best to have the preparations for
> > the final on time
> >
> > Joaquim [[commons:User:Alvesgaspar]]
> > Bryan [[commons:User:Bryan]]
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Commons-l mailing list
> > Commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
> >
>
> While this is my opinion, I believe a number of other Commoners share it.
> I'd certainly like to see the Picture of the Year be one that was originally
> photographed or Illustrated by a Commons participant, rather than one that
> was found on a U.S. Government site or Flickr and uploaded.
>
> Cary Bass
> Bastique
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Help with Admin Burnout - 2

body:
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>> on 2/14/07 1:36 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:
>>
>>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>>
>>>> To any & all,
>>>>
>>>> I am doing some thinking about how the WP Community could help Admins who
>>>> are struggling with the work. My goal is to come up with a formal mechanism
>>>> that these Admins can turn to for help and support before they choose to
>>>> simply give up and leave the Community. It could serve as a form of
>>>> intervention before a burnout occurs.
>>>>
>>>> What are your thoughts about this?
>>>>
>>> What this probably needs is a "Father Confessor" type of person that
>>> stressed out admins can go to privately when they have a problem.  Such
>>> persons need to appreciate confidentiality and be non-judgemental.
>>>
>>> Ec
>>>
>> Or possibly a group of objective persons who could offer the same
>> confidentiality and nonjudgmental input. Is this possible within the present
>> structure of WP?
>>
>> Marc

on 2/14/07 9:25 PM, Gurch at matthew.britton at btinternet.com wrote:
>
> Group of people to offer nonjudgemental input? Sure. Confidentiality?
> Not a hope in hell.
>
> -Gurch

I don't know. I want to believe that there are mature enough persons in the
Community that can honor a trust. OK, Pollyanna lives - but I need her to,
to survive the rest of it.

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Favour

body:
Sorry to send this to the list, but please read on.

My broadband is playing silly buggers, up and down every few seconds.
Outbound email is going eventually (the server at home keeps retrying
and gets the messages out after a few dozen retries).

If someone would be so kind as to stick a message on [[User talk:JzG]]
to say I'm suffering connectivity problems, so people don't think I'm
ignoring them / their requests I'd be very grateful.

Thanks,

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] We're famous!

body:
On 2/14/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.beevnicks.com/d/20070209.html
> http://www.beevnicks.com/d/20070212.html
> http://www.beevnicks.com/d/20070213.html
>
> I can smell the AFD from here ...
>
>
> - d.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Beevnicks

Went for merge rather than delete and it is quite hard to list
sections of articles on AFD.

--
geni


from_name: Leon Weber

body:
Am Mittwoch 14 Februar 2007 20:48 schrieb Brion Vibber:

> Have reverted them.

Thank you.

> Apply fixes for release branches only in the *branch* directories, eg
> branches/REL1_8 and branches/REL1_9. New tag snapshots will be copied
> off of the branch directories at the next release.

Okay, didn't know that. Apologies.

-- Leon


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout (deputy admins)

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>I'm glad to see that you are finally moving out of Utopia (=Nowhere)
>>into the real world.  Your conversion to logic would be welcome.
>>
>>
>That reads like an ad hominem attack, although I have no idea what you
>are getting at. For a start, there is a difference between an
>unachievable ideal place and "nowhere". I can't see how anything I've
>said could be taken to be nieve, which is the only interpretation I
>can come up with for your first sentence, and I have no idea what you
>think I've been basing my arguments on if it isn't logic. To convert
>to something, you have to convert from something.
>
You are clearly unaware that when Sir Thomas More chose the title
"Utopia" for his novel it was precisely taken from the Greek for "no
place".

Ec


body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>I can't see how anything I've
>said could be taken to be nieve, which is the only interpretation I
>can come up with for your first sentence, and I have no idea what you
>think I've been basing my arguments on if it isn't logic. To convert
>to something, you have to convert from something.
>
Nieve?  Obsolete Scottish dialect for clenched fist?  Spanish for snow?


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] How to edit wikipedia when stupid mods block all
 Thai ip addresses

body:
Hoi,
Thanks for being this kind.
Thank you,
     GerardM

Tim Starling schreef:
> Walter van Kalken wrote:
>
>> I am getting extremely impatient with RonaldB he seems to have a fetish
>> for blocking Thai IP addresses on the Dutch wikipedia and he doesn't
>> answerd emails send to him. I cannot even edit when I am logged in, not
>> from a friends computer which uses a different provider. Is it the
>> wikimedia foundations goal to block me??
>>
>> The last two weeks I have found the IP adresses of my provider
>> constantly blocked, pre-emptively by RonaldB without any sign of
>> vandalism by those IP adresses. Wikipedia can be editted by anyone? Not
>> by me!
>>
>
> The first time this happened, we fixed it by listing the True Internet
> proxies in the trusted XFF list. True Internet have since expanded their
> proxy list. A polite request to the devs to update the list would have
> seen this problem fixed immediately. However, Waerth is apparently not
> capable of polite requests, he only knows screaming and yelling, and I had
> no desire whatsoever to put myself in the path of his tirade. But I think
> this has gone on long enough. I'm going to list the extra proxies, polite
> request or no.
>
> True Internet appear to have secured their proxies properly now, denying
> requests that come from outside their network. So adding them to the list
> is no longer any kind of security risk for us. In time, they may even be
> removed from the open proxy lists that sysops like RonaldB use as a source.
>
> -- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admins and elitism

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>More tricky when those policies involve matters outside wikipedia. For
>>instance, when there're legal issues involved, and the community wants
>>to do it the other way
>>
>>
>If there are definite legal issues then it's easy - the law definitely
>takes precedence over consensus. Possible legal issues (ie. lots of
>comments starting: "IANAL") are quick tricky to handle. Chances are
>there is no legal issue and you should go with the community, but if
>you're wrong, the consequences could be nasty.
>
The "legal issues" are often red herrings.  There is very little
disagreement about getting rid of what is obviously illegal.  Beyond a
certain point being safe becomes being paranoid.

Ec


from_name: William Pietri

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 2/11/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
>> At least in my professional life, I'd user-test all of the suggestions
>> to see how they play in Peoria. Then the ones that passed that I'd to
>> A/B testing with a modest percent of the traffic to see which ones were
>> clearly better by the numbers.
>>
>
> I'd be wary of applying the results of testing on smaller wikis
> directly to Wikipedia. In this case, "Recent changes" probably
> performs much better on smaller wikis.
>

Sorry if I wasn't clear; I'm suggesting doing typical user testing,
where you use the real thing or simulations as close as you can get. I
agree that smaller wikis may not be good substitutes.

>> Historically, are either of those things done with Wikipedia?
>>
>
> Usability testing on Wikipedia? Not that I know of.
>

Interesting. Is that a conscious choice? Or more a historical habit?

Thanks,

William


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 43, Issue 95

body:
I'm starting to think Flameviper needs to be put on mod.

On 14/02/07, Flame Viper <flameviper12 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Lamest digest ever
>
> wikien-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org wrote: Send WikiEN-l mailing list
> submissions to
> wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> wikien-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> wikien-l-owner at lists.wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of WikiEN-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Admin burnout (deputy admins) (Thomas Dalton)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:58:12 +0000
> From: "Thomas Dalton"
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout (deputy admins)
> To: "English Wikipedia"
> Message-ID:
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> > "Utopia (from Greek i.e. "no place" or "place that does not exist")"
> > I think maybe it was a joke? A continuation of the original punning?
> > I didn't see it as an attack, at the least.
>
> Ok, so that part was a pun, the rest was an ad hominem attack. He
> referred to me multiple times and never made any mention of my
> arguments - it's an excellent example of an ad hominem attack.
>
>
>
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body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> Everyone thought that about editing too, until Wikipedia proved everyone
>> wrong.
>>
>
> Wikipedia didn't prove them wrong by showing that vandalism doesn't
> happen, it proved them wrong by showing that vandalism can be dealt
> with. The way we deal with it involves having some people with more
> power than the vandals. You can move the goalposts wherever you like,
> you still end up needing some people with more power than the vandals.
>

Is this true? I thought the primary way Wikipedia dealt with vandalism
is by treating it as just another edit, the bad ones of which are more
likely to be nixed by subsequent edits.

My personal experience is that a tiny percentage of vandalism requires
more power to solve. Is that not the case?

Thanks,

William


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-02-15

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r19935).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  18 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 493 of 511 tests (96.48%)... 18 tests failed!


subject: [WikiEN-l] - category clutter on biographical articles

body:
Sage Ross wrote:

>charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>The problem is that risks going the Citizendium rout and getting major
>>>fallings out over which cat things should be in rather than say both.
>>>
>>>
>>Yes, I think the WP model has scored here, by allowing a bit of soft pedal when it comes to aspects of the categories that are not quite right. I actually made a public comment about the category system and failure-in-principle (you know, Leibniz, [[universal characteristic]], all that) at the first ever meet-up, in London. Fortunately Jimbo moved swiftly on.
>>
>>
>Keep in mind, though, that the primary conflict over categorization at
>Citizendium is that categorization entails editorial authority...
>being in one category instead of another means an article is the
>official territory of one discipline rather than another.
>
WP had well over 100,000 articles before it instituted categories, and
even then only after considerable debate.  I'm amazed that Citizendium
should have such an argument about categories before it has any
significant population of articles. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admins and elitism

body:
Rich Holton wrote:

>Given the recent discussions on this list, and the continuing increase
>in de-facto requirements for new admins, I have to wonder if we are not
>now well on the way to the creation of an elite class on Wikipedia.
>
Nah!  It's more like the time of the French Revolution when all citizens
were equal but some were more equal than others.

>It appears to me that the vocal representatives of the current crop of
>admins (meaning those who have become admins within the last year or so)
>  have left far behind the idea that being an admin is "no big deal".
>They see being an admin as a big deal, and want things to remain that way.
>
It's called self-interest.

>Of course, the admins point to the very real challenges that vandals
>pose as the reason for the rigor of the application process. They reject
>any proposal that might place Wikipedia is peril.
>
Right!  The right to bear arms is justified because it keeps America
safe from being overrun by elephants.

>Perhaps they're right. I'm certain that they truly want what it best for
>Wikipedia.
>
As the saying goes: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admins and elitism

body:
Jeff Raymond wrote:

>Rich Holton wrote:
>
>
>>Given the recent discussions on this list, and the continuing increase
>>in de-facto requirements for new admins, I have to wonder if we are not
>>now well on the way to the creation of an elite class on Wikipedia.
>>
>>It appears to me that the vocal representatives of the current crop of
>>admins (meaning those who have become admins within the last year or so)
>>  have left far behind the idea that being an admin is "no big deal".
>>They see being an admin as a big deal, and want things to remain that way.
>>
>>
>You're not wrong, and I'm of the opinion that we are in a situation where
>we have an elite class already.  The problem is twofold:
>
>1) Adminship *is* a big deal, whether we want it to be or not.  We trust
>them to do too much, expect a lot of them, and it's very difficult to
>remove or sanction an administrator who acts inappropriately.
>
>2) More importantly, adminship is viewed as a reward rather than a
>responsibility, thus creating a protector group of admins.  There's one
>recently-promoted admin in particular who embodies this concept, but there
>are many like him.
>
Yes and yes.

>>Perhaps the solution will require a complete re-thinking of how "special
>>rights" are allocated on Wikipedia, or even a complete re-thinking of
>>how vandalism is handled. But unless those involved are willing to
>>perceive the problem, and willing to engage the problem, nothing will
>>happen towards solving the problem.
>>
>>
>It has to, and you're absolutely right.  Judging by the current RfA crop,
>it doesn't appear to be changing either - one person I'm very
>uncomfortable with but can't figure out why is sailing through, and one
>person who really should be given the bit is being opposed for even
>sillier reasons than some of the opposes on mine.
>
>The Foundation is unlikely to get involved, and Jimbo really should, but
>won't.  I wish there was a better answer.
>
If Jimbo has to step in to solve this problem we have failed.  What it
takes is a person with the power to act to take _bold_ action and start
appointing admins according to more liberal and sensible criteria.
Those of us who have been here a long time need to be ready to support
him during the inevitable storm that follows.  Just talking about this
problem will solve nothing.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admins and elitism

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 16:24:10 -0500 (EST), "Jeff Raymond"
>
>
>>2) More importantly, adminship is viewed as a reward rather than a
>>responsibility, thus creating a protector group of admins.  There's one
>>recently-promoted admin in particular who embodies this concept, but there
>>are many like him.
>>
>>
>You might want to run that past a few admins and see how loudly they
>laugh.  Seriously, anyone who wants to be an admin should try it for a
>couple of weeks and see how they like it.
>
>Some people get the God complex on promotion, but I don't see it
>lasting long.  Everyone grows up.
>
It has less to do with what they do after promotion.  It's the title not
the work that garners prestige.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] expunging copyright violations (Was: Re:
	Admin	burnout)

body:
John Vandenberg wrote:

>On 2/13/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>John Vandenberg wrote:
>>
>>
>>>However, the issue of access to copyvios increases with the number of
>>>admins.  In my opinion this isnt solved with less admins, but by
>>>expunging copyvios completely or further restricting access to them.
>>>In this, I am more thinking about copies of articles from other
>>>encyclopedias, as opposed to the snippets taken from a website.  These
>>>copyvios are of limited usefulness to admins after a few days and
>>>should be inaccessible, both in the article history and the deletion
>>>log; instead a boilerplate page should alert the reader that the
>>>version they have requested is a copyvio and provide the details, such
>>>as source, contributors name, etc.  All access to these copyright
>>>violations after it has been removed should be restricted to case by
>>>case needs.
>>>
>>>
>>Some broad access to these copyvios may still be needed for admns.
>>Putting "COPYVIO" in big letters across its face could make it unusable
>>except for checking out possible copyvios.
>>
>>
>I'm not a lawyer, but I'd be surprised if an overprint was sufficient
>to bypass the copyright laws.  Also, some copyright holders explicitly
>state that overprinting is not permitted.
>
Circulation would still be limited to admins, albeit a much larger group
than now.  It would not be indexed for public access.  The overprinting
shouldn't be a factor given the purpose for doing it.

>>Some popular pictures may
>>very well keep being uploaded by other users who are unaware of the
>>previous determination.
>>
>>
>I'm not familiar with how image copyvios are tackled.  For repeated
>attempts to upload the same image, wouldn't the URL of the source
>image be sufficient, maybe with some keywords to assist searching?
>
No.  A commonly uploaded copyvio is likely available from several
sources, not just one URL.

>With regard to WP:OVER and WP:RFO, it already does cover copyright,
>but only on the advice of the lawyers, and all very hush-hush (for
>good reason in the cases of personal and libellous information).  I'm
>guessing that amounts to requests under OCILLA (and similar) only.
>Are copyvios that are found by volunteers also being expunged?
>
I don't know what you mean here.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> What you describe seems like a sign of frustration and siege mentality.
> [...]
>
> Every admin should severely limit the amount of time he spends on admin
> duties.  Spending a greater proportion of time on what really matters
> helps maintain a vision of what this is all about.
>

Some of my work involves getting software development teams to change
the way they do things. One of the things I've noticed over the years is
that people who are stressed, frustrated, or overworked are averse to
change. It can lead to a downward spiral, where nobody has the time to
improve things so they have more time.

Could that be a problem in this discussion?

I have a hard time telling how stressed or burnt out the average admin
is, so this is an actual question, not a rhetorical one.

Thanks,

William


from_name: Husky

body:
I don't think you have to start with *all* licenses (that would indeed be a
very long list). Simply starting with some of the most popular ones you
could capture a major part of the collection. Licenses like
* {{PD-old}}
* {{PD-Art-YorckProject}}
* {{PD Art}}
* {{self2|GFDL|cc-by-2.5}}
* {{self2|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0}}
* {{PD-self}}
Are used by many pictures throughout the whole project. If you could only
match these you could already display the license under a lot of the images.

And for more licenses you could take one of the main license categories such
as
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain
And extract all categories from there and use it for the 'license array'.

However easy it might seem, i'm not sure if this will work out. As i said
before, i'm not a programmer :)

-- Hay Kranen / [[User:Husky]]

On 2/15/07, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> >> 3) matching the template tags with the licenses array and using that to
> >> display the license in the Mayflower results screen?
> >
> > Because there are so many different minor permutations, even if you
> > could extract all the licenses, figuring out the mapping to something
> > small enough to put in the interface is a challenge alone.
>
> This is a resolvable problem; the more minor the permutation, the smaller
> its effect on the image that shows up in the interface...
>
> SJ
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Sean Black

subject: [WikiEN-l] In hospital

body:
On 2/13/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13/02/07, Joshua Brady <somitho at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/13/07, ? Firefoxman <enwpmail at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Why in the world did the mods let this through?
>
> > Why did you have to reopen this?
>
>
> "The list moderators cannot undertake to insulate readers of the list
> from human stupidity."

That's a convient way of saying "we don't particularly care".


from_name: Gurch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Help with Admin Burnout - 2

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> on 2/14/07 1:36 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:
>
>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>
>>> To any & all,
>>>
>>> I am doing some thinking about how the WP Community could help Admins who
>>> are struggling with the work. My goal is to come up with a formal mechanism
>>> that these Admins can turn to for help and support before they choose to
>>> simply give up and leave the Community. It could serve as a form of
>>> intervention before a burnout occurs.
>>>
>>> What are your thoughts about this?
>>>
>> What this probably needs is a "Father Confessor" type of person that
>> stressed out admins can go to privately when they have a problem.  Such
>> persons need to appreciate confidentiality and be non-judgemental.
>>
>> Ec
>>
> Or possibly a group of objective persons who could offer the same
> confidentiality and nonjudgmental input. Is this possible within the present
> structure of WP?
>
> Marc

Group of people to offer nonjudgemental input? Sure. Confidentiality?
Not a hope in hell.

-Gurch


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] An idea for deletions

body:
On 2/14/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just an idea I have been bouncing around for deletion nominations.
>
> If a user, any user either with an account or anonymous wants to
> nominate an article for deletion. Instead of posting directly to AFD,
> he instead enters the name of the article and the reason he thinks it
> needs to be deleted into a web form. The nomination then goes to a
> "deletion preview" team who can take one of several actions...
>
> 1. Speedy delete. Only for obvious no doubt speedy deletion
> candidates, nonsense pages and troll pages. Example "Jimbo Wales is a
> bonehead" or "list of glups that glip".
>
> 2. Speedy keep. Article is definitely not a candidate for deletion ie
> some bozo nominates "George W. Bush" or "Star Wars". Also could be
> used to keep articles with a strong keep consensus from being
> constantly renominated by a troll.
>
> 3. Bounce back. The nominator (if a registered user) will be asked to
> resubmit the nom. ie "please be more specific then "fancruft" or
> "unencyclopedic""
>
> 4.Pass to ADF. Only then does the nomination go to AFD and only then
> does the article get tagged.
>
> 5. Rewrite by previewer. The nomination as written is invalid but the
> previewer notices something else about the article that bugs him.
>
> I think such a system would reduce the load on AFD but still allow us
> to deal with problem articles promptly.

Just FYI, when the discussions about deletion where at their peak
(right after Ed Poor deleted Votes for Deletion, boy was that an
interesting night to be in #wikipedia), the page [[Wikipedia:Deletion
reform]] was created. There's tons of different ideas there for how to
handle deletion. Some of them makes for quite interesting reading.

--Oskar


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conspicuous only in its absence (was Moldavian)

body:
I'm not sure how naming random Moldovan nationals as admins would help
with the script issue.

What is needed here is input from bona-fide Transnistrians, or at lthe
very least from Moldovans who prefer Cyrillic. Given the
circumstances, I'm not sure which is more likely -- foreign internet
websites aren't widely visited in Transnistria, on the other hand
preference for Cyrillic in Moldova proper is limited to middle-aged
rural farmers and others who are unlikely to have internet access.

Mark

On 15/02/07, Liviu Andronic <landronimirc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
>
> [..] but here we have a real problem and need a real solution, okay?
> >
> Now that's good. This is definitively a more constructive approach than
> organizing carnivals.
>
>
>
> > > If it is "language" that you mean
> > FYI, the upcoming ISO 639 standard has totally abandoned your terminology.
> > There are NOT anymore languages and dialects, all that we have is
> > "Linguistic entities".
>
> This "linguistic entity" term is still a mystery to me. There is no word
> about it on Wikipedia and Google doesn't say much (maybe someone has a
> pertinent link?). So that for the purpose of this email, I'll hold to my
> old-fashioned terminology.
>
>
>
> > You mean that RO.wiki
> > would accept having on ALL of its pages a link saying "this page in
> > cyrillic", or something like that?
>
> Before answering this, I hope that the Language Committee agrees on the
> following two points.
>
> First of all, the WMF does *not* want to have any content in the Moldovan
> dialect (Romanian as *spoken* in the historic region of Moldavia, which
> would currently comprise Eastern part of Romania and Moldova with
> Transnistria included). This would be completely stupid and trolls would be
> the only serious contributors.
>
> Secondly, the "Moldovan language" in its standard form is standard Romanian.
> You might look here<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language#Controversy>,
> here<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Moldovan_Wikipedia#What_reliable_sources_say_about_Moldovan_Language>and
> here<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Moldovan_Wikipedia#What_decision_makers_need_to_know>for
> more information. "Even the loudest defender of the Moldovan language
> concept, Vasile Stati, has
> agreed<http://www.vremea.net/news/2005-01-13/18:45:35.html>that
> Moldovan and Romanian are identical in their literary forms".
>
> With these two points cleared out, the situation becomes less confusing. As
> said in my previous email, the current content on the Moldovan Wikipedia is
> standard Romanian written in Cyrillic, Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet (of course
> with stylistic and grammar faults, and bad transliterations). It is not
> reasonable to dedicate an entire Wikipedia section to this content, when the
> Romanian Wikipedia exists.
>
> The best solution would probably be installing a conversion script over the
> Romanian Wikipedia with, as Berto mentioned, a link on all pages "in
> Moldovan alphabet" or something similar (special attention should be paid to
> the name of this link, as there has to be a contrast between the Moldovan
> alphabet <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_alphabet> and the Romanian
> Cyrillic alphabet <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Cyrillic_alphabet>;
> on a side note: personally, I would like a lot if a conversion script of
> Latin Romanian to Cyrillic Romanian were also created, but technically this
> would be more than a challenge).
>
> The good news is that there already is a partially functional conversion
> script <http://mcworld.org/McChirilic/?pagina=Limba_moldoveneasc%25C4%2583>(you
> may change "Limba_moldoveneasc?" to any relevant article on
> ro.wiki). To my knowledge, it was created by Bogdan
> Giusca<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bogdangiusca>,
> and as he says himself, "It's not yet perfect, but it can be improved". And
> it definitely needs improvements. It might get implemented in the way it is
> on the Serbian Wikipedia<http://sr.wikipedia.org/sr-ec/%D0%91%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%88%D1%82>,
> with Latin being the storage content and Cyrillic conversion performed on
> demand by clicking the link. Two reasons: nowadays Latin is, somewhat, the
> "standard" for the Romanian language and you've already seen how many people
> are willing to contribute in Cyrillic. Taking into consideration that the
> main objective here is for people still using this script to be able to
> access content in Cyrillic, this is acceptable.
>
> Now, I do not say that the Romanian Wikipedia would accept this. It is,
> however, a reasonable solution to this controversial issue. Romanian was
> historically written in three different scripts, so it would be logical to
> have *one* Wikipedia section dealing with all the three writing systems. I
> do not know the position of the Romanian Wikipedia admins, but I would
> suppose that they'd need to be persuaded in a similar way that I am trying
> to persuade the Language Committee. In any case, it would be better if
> someone more familiar with the Romanian Wikipedia shed more light on this
> point.
>
>
>
> > Now do me a favour, will you tell me how we can verify that the ro.wiki
> > admin structure will respect users and content coming from the cyr
> > interface? It's no provocation, it's a serious question, and I want a VERY
> >
> > serious answer.
>
> I seriously doubt that such problems arise. Romanian speaking persons from
> Moldova are contributing to the Romanian Wikipedia for some time, already.
> And, to this day, I've never heard of flag-based conflicts. As long as
> content added is in line with NPOV and the rest of Wikipedia's principles,
> there should be no persecution. There is no hatred between Moldovans and
> Romanians. Frictions, yes. Maybe a bit of disrespect, randomly. But no
> hatred. From personal experience, I would say that Romanians are generally
> more friendly-intentioned towards Moldovans than the vice-verse. And they
> don't really care if you come from Transnistria or not. In the sense that in
> their eyes, Moldovans coming from the East of the Pruth river are their
> Romanian brothers.
>
> However, if you want to set some system of control (and there should be one,
> for the beginning at least), there'd be two ways. Either name one-two
> Moldovan nationals as Romanian Wikipedia admins (according to the rules, of
> course, that I personally am not familiar with) that would be empowered to
> intervene into relevant conflicts. Or simply - and probably better - empower
> some existing respectable Romanian Wikipedia admins, that - in case
> conflicts arise - will not act based on flag, but with respect to neutrality
> and a given situation. Furthermore, upon account creation, users could get
> informed on the admins dealing with different abuse problems.
>
>
> Regards,
> Liviu
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] An idea for deletions

body:
On 2/15/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2/15/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > For this to work, the direct nomination method would have to be
> > scrapped or else a troll/vandal could get a bullshit nom past the
> > team. However, using such a system and keeping direct nominations

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[would still have a benefit]

> Huh? As soon as we implement the new system, the old system is
> suddenly worthless, insecure and must be dismantled? Because of the
> risk of "bullshit noms", which we've coped with until now?

I did offer two possible options here. Why didn't you comment on the
second part of the paragraph?


from_name: luke brandt

subject: [Foundation-l] Clearing up Wikimedia's media licensing policies

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> luke brandt wrote:
>
>> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>> The first clause in the quotation is remarkable for its ambiguity.  My
>>> first inclination was to read this as indicating that property is
>>> essential to the definition of culture, or that a society that does not
>>> believe in capital does not have a culture.  A more acceptable
>>> interpretation is that a culture does not exclude the existence of
>>> property.  In other words
>>>
>>>
>>>> A free culture is not a culture - without property
>>>>
>>>> A free culture is not - a culture without property
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Having artists be paid is acceptable in both circumstances.  In
>>> accounting terms, property is an asset on the balance sheet; getting
>>> paid belongs in the revenue portion of the financial statements.
>>>
>>>
>> Hi, and thanks for your thoughts. In clarifying the quote how do you
>> think you should take into account the second sentence - seemingly the
>> counterpoint and twin of the first in the quotation, which is in
>> essence: "A culture without property ... is anarchy, not freedom."  - luke
>>
> One really needs to look at that second sentence in its entirety: "A
> culture
> without property, or in which creators can't get paid is anarchy, not
> freedom. ..."
>
> Does payment imply property?  Is that second premise an explanation or
> an alternative.  If I really wanted to emphasize grammatically fine
> points I would suggest that in order to be an explanation a comma would
> be required after "paid".  I hesitate to cast this into the areana of
> capitalist (property) versus Marxist (payment) dialectic.  There is a
> certain idealist thread in Marxism that forsees an anarchic workers'
> paradise; some doctrinnaire views of libertarianism might get us there
> too.  That aside, I can see neither the capitalists nor the Marxists
> promoting anarchy.  Wikinomics is in its infancy, and in that context it
> is perfectly understandable that Lessig would use the jargon of the
> society around him.
>
> There are a lot of grammatically negative words in the Lessig quote, and
> I wonder if he would have done better to express things in more positive
> terms.  Even "free" has a basis in an absence.
>
> One of the consequences of living in a paradigm shift is the destruction
> of presumptions.  That curse of interesting times escapes its box, and
> makes itself felt where it was not expected.
>
> The fact is that there are a lot of people providing a lot of
> intellectual effort for nothing other than the personal satisfaction of
> doing a good job.  They need to put food on the table as much as anybody
> else. There is a profound disconnect between work and compensation for
> that work.  The marketting and manufacturing structures that supported
> the enterprises that have heretofore been highly profitable are no
> longer needed, casting aside an army of Willy Lomans.
>
> Most of us who have an interest in Wikipedia and this mailing list also
> have an interest in free access to knowledge.  We are highly critical of
> the notion of intellectual property, particularly copyright.  Property,
> as we traditionally define, it generates revenue solely on the basis of
> its own existence.  Is that the kind of property that Lessig considers
> to be the antidote to anarchy.  In summary I agree with him in relation
> to creators being paid, but have serious reservations in relation to
> property.
>
> Ec
Once again, thanks. For myself, I don't see the absence of that comma
being significant except stylistically. Lessig seems to have quite
deliberately positioned himself four-square in the 'Adam Smith camp' if
it may so be described. Doing so entails consequences for the particular
'freedom' paradigm that the movement espouses, doesn't it? - eg perhaps
our attitude on NC ... that's just one small reason why Lessig's axioms
need examining carefully, in my thinking on this, just as you did :)
Maybe there are other views. Take care - luke


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] precisions about the recent WMF "fair
	use"	decision

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 12/02/07, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Sorry, couldn't see what you meant for a minute. You refer to the (c) which
>>used to be in the *caption* of the image in the actual article. I hadn't
>>realised that could be a problem...yet more evidence that those of us who
>>are trying to do things properly just keep blundering on.
>>
>>So what is the general rule: no (c) notices in articles at all?
>>
>>
>Generally speaking, Wikipedia doesn't give bylines or the like to
>articles, and actively discourages signing your work - should images
>really be given special treatment in this regard?
>
I have mixed opinions on this.  I generally agree with the general "no
ownership" policy of the material we include, but I can forsee all sorts
of long-term difficulties in distinguishing between copyvios and
legitimate usages. when those usages have gone through several
downstream generations.

Ec


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Commons-l] Mayflower: Wikimedia Commons media search

body:
2007/2/14, Eugene Zelenko <eugene.zelenko at gmail.com>:

> Great tool! Thank you for your work!
>
> I found minor problem. I tried to search for Rakaw/?????/????? and it
> find images only for query Rakaw. Images contain descriptions with all
> variants.
>
> May be tool searches only withing references to page titles?

No, this is another problem, which I have already noted on [[meta:User
Talk:Tangotango/Mayflower]]: The  tool does not handle non-ascii characters,
but instead acts as if they were spaces.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
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from_name: Jim Hu

subject: [Wikitech-l] Help! Redirection is driving me nuts

body:
I'm trying to debug an extension on my laptop, and http://localhost/
wiki keeps redirecting to http://<my-computers-hostname>.tamu.edu/
wiki... which doesn't work.  How do I stay at localhost?  This
doesn't seem to happen with other webpages on my laptop.

Jim
=====================================
Jim Hu
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2128 TAMU
Texas A&M Univ.
College Station, TX 77843-2128
979-862-4054


from_name: Jim Wilson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Massive Hook Proposal

references:
<45D349F0.1010603@pobox.com>
	<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKKELLKAAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<7c2a12e20702150738p12288a0ahade460e2f681a2a8@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Thanks Nick,

> Maybe best to not cut it too fine for anything "massive" though ... my
> mental model of what's going on is something like this:
[SNIP]

Thanks for laying this out - it would seem that the first week of March
would be the very last time to hope to put a change like this in place (so
as not to interfere with the periods of grumpiness :).

> Would it be nicer to have a single function / static method that did this
> (by passing in the classname as a parameter), rather than adding the same
> boilerplate code to every class in MediaWiki? Rough, probably-buggy,
> example code below.
>
> Also adds creating singletons; Also adds allowing the class names to
> be overridden to instantiate a different class via a global. Whether any
> of these are desirable behaviour is for others to say (how abstract do
> you want to get?) - it was just a quick & dirty test mockup :

Absolutely!  I like your Factory class a lot - this would definitely reduce
the amount of code replication (always a good thing).  Thanks also for
providing the test cases and a Singleton implementation.  Great stuff!

One thing I'm not sure exactly how to handle is the fact that different
class constructors take different numbers of arguments.  Maybe something
like this? (haven't tested it, includes Simetrical's change):

==========================
       /*
       ** Instantiate a new object, running before and after hooks.
       */
       public static function wfNew( $class, &$args = NULL ) {
           $objResult = NULL;
           wfRunHooks('BeforeInstantiate_' . $class, array( &$objResult,
&$args) );

           // must use is_a because instanceof doesn't work with strings
           if (!is_object($objResult) || !is_a($objResult,
self::getRealClass())) {
               $real_class = self::getRealClass( $class );
               $objResult = call_user_func_array(
                   array(new ReflectionClass($real_class), 'newInstance'),
                  $args
               );
               // do the 'is_a' check again here in case someone messed up
the $wgClassOverrides
               // Note: drops reference to previously created object if
incorrect (side effects?)
               if (!is_object($objResult) || !is_a($objResult,
self::getRealClass())) {
                   $objResult = call_user_func_array(
                       array(new ReflectionClass($class), 'newInstance'),
                      $args
                   );
               }
           }

           wfRunHooks('AfterInstantiate_' . $class, array( &$objResult,
&$args) );
           return $objResult;
       }
==========================

It would seem that the only purpose for 'BeforeIsntantiate_*' would be to
modify the arguments, since subclass instantiation could be as  easily
achieved through the $wgClassOverrides.  Should we still pass $objResult as
one of the parameters?

> > Are there reasons why this patch wouldn't be accepted that I should
consider
> > before undertaking the work to implement it?
>
 > I can't comment on whether others will accept it, only on whether I think
it's
> worth doing, and for that I guess my 3 personal evaluation criteria would
be:
> How much performance overhead would it add in real-world tests?

I have no idea - is there a recommended framework for executing load tests
against MediaWiki?

> How much harder would it make it for external people to understand what's
going on in the
> code?

Yeah, any time you add functionality you run the risk of making the code
harder to read for the uninitiated.  I suspect that adding a Factory class
to handle instantiation may make the code a little more daunting for
newcomers.

I personally feel that the added functionality (in this case) outweighs the
potential for new-contributor confusion.  However I am quite biased, as a
developer of MW Extensions :)

What does the community think?

> How many people would use these style of hooks / overrides? (I.e. Not
> much point in doing it if nobody uses it; not much point in software that
does
> wonderful things if it's so slow to use that nobody wants to use it; and
I'm sure
> we've lost something worth having if newcomers look at the code and are
baffled
> as to what's going on).

I would use this quite a bit (can't speak for everybody).  I know everyone
gets tired of saying that "MediaWiki is not a Content Management System" - I
say this all the time.  I believe with the Factory class suggested above,
people could develop extensions which turn MW into a CMS.  Here are some
problems that I believe would be helped:

Editor Approval - Every so often someone asks how they can 'proof' all MW
changes before the 'go live'.  Perhaps have a staging area where content is
proposed before it gets published? I know this feature is against the wiki
principle and is currently unachievable with existing hooks.

Namespace Skins - I have a good friend that some time ago hacked MW to allow
each Namespace to have its own Skin (regardless of user preference).  He
ended up hacking Title to get the job done.  If it were possible to hijack
it, he could have left the source in its pristine condition.

Alternate Parsers - Extension developers could implement alternate parsers.
This _could_ put an end to the _italicized_ and *bold* debates. It might
also offer a way to allow pages to use any of a number of different parsers
for different purposes.  Maybe have some pages use MW syntax, while others
use full XHTML with the aid of a WYSIWYG editor (not a full solution to that
debate, but it's something).

These are just three that I can think of off the top of my head.  Can anyone
think of any more?

Thanks again everyone who's participating in this discussion - I appreciate
it.

-- Jim

On 2/15/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Might it be a good idea, in these factory functions, to check whether
> the object returned is an instance of the intended class?  Like, if
> someone replaces all Title objects with MyTitles that *don't* extend
> Title, that would cause some havoc, not least as we start adding type
> hinting.  It's probably best to catch that particular mistake early.
>
> So instead of "if ($objResult === NULL)", something like:
>
> if (!is_object($objResult) || !is_a($objResult, self::getRealClass()))
> // must use is_a because instanceof doesn't work with strings
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Win Myint Aung

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki Collaboration Space for online class

body:
Dear Members,

Please let me make apologize to you if my mail disturb you.

I would like to introduce myself first. I am a master student studying
in Information Management field of study, Asian Institute of
Technology, Thailand. Currently, I am doing thesis for the development
of wiki collaboration space for e-Learning. Now I am preparing to
collect the necessary features of wiki for e-Learning. My thesis goal
is to figure out the necessary features of wiki for e-Learning. I would
like to request everyone to give suggestions for wiki in e-Learning. I
truly appreciate your helps.

The followings are my thesis goals:

1. To figure out the problems in wiki for collaboration in e-Learning.
2. To fulfill the necessary features of wiki for collaboration in e-Learning.
3. To make the standard guidelines that provide the complete features
of wiki for collaboration in e-Learning.
4. To develop the prototype of wiki for collaboration in e-Learning
5. To evalute the wiki for collaboration in an e-Learning course

Therefore, I need to study the instructor's perspective, students'
persceptive and wiki administrators' and users' perspective for wiki
in e-Learning.

I am looking forward to hearing from you. Almost welcome any comments
and idea for wiki.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

Win Myint Aung

Master Student-Information Management
School of Engineering and Technology, AIT
Klong Luang, Pathumthani 12120,
Thailand
Mail Box 1272


subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 43, Issue 98

body:
You've done nothing but troll with all of your accounts. Can't see where you
can complain. Even legal action, while that does seem a bit drastic at this
point, would probably have been mooted sooner or later, given the path you
were taking.

On 15/02/07, Flame Viper <flameviper12 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> A higher authority than me (who has jurisdiction) just said that I have
> to quit Wikipedia and has threatened legal action :(
>
> Just replace my userpage on en:wp with "flameviper has left the building"
> in all
> lowercase. Blank my talk page, and protect my userspace...
>
> I'll miss this place.
>
> ...
>
> /me leaves the room
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Cheap Talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:24:24 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>"Plain bad luck" in our context means that there may be instances where
>>we will be sued no matter what we do.
>>
>>
>Sure.  But if we have done our best and show it, we'll be OK.
>
IOW getting sued is not the thing to worry about.  Getting sued
successfully is.

Ec


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Limited Sysop

body:
On 2/15/07, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I don't agree with users who don't have sysop- or above (in the
> 'hierarchy') level access viewing deleted revisions.
>
> How many users would have this permission, and how would they get it?
> Autoconfirm-style number of good edits  + time on project = 'editor'
> level?

I am inclined to agree with Gary.  If the bar for adminship has been raised
too high, then lets do something to lower it - but having a discussion here
isn't the way to do it.  It needs to be among the regular RFA voters, and
there needs to be some sort of broad consensus of what adminship should be.
Coming up with a new status won't help - unless there is broad consensus,
the same people are likely to vote in the same way they do now.

The "standards" for admins isn't something that can be changed top-down.  It
has developed in a bottom-up fashion in the community.  The only way to
change it is to change opinions in a bottom-up manner

On 2/15/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I propose that for the "editor" status (my proposal for a user right
> > between user and sysop), one would have the capabilities to edit
> protected
> > articles, view deleted revisions, and generally view admin-olny things
> (but
> > not actually perform sysop actions per se). And they might have a
> toolbar
> > that would allow them to nominate these things...
> >
> > That's a better idea. The protection bit could be done as a form of
> > protection inbetween semi and full (and there could be a
> > super-protection that can only be edited by people with oversight,
> > checkuser and crats). Viewing deleted revisions would be good, but
> > might cause some problems - some things are deleted because it's
> > important that people don't see them (personal info, copyvios, etc),
> > making more people able to see deleted revisions could be risky.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Gary Kirk
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Massive Hook Proposal

body:
Might it be a good idea, in these factory functions, to check whether
the object returned is an instance of the intended class?  Like, if
someone replaces all Title objects with MyTitles that *don't* extend
Title, that would cause some havoc, not least as we start adding type
hinting.  It's probably best to catch that particular mistake early.

So instead of "if ($objResult === NULL)", something like:

if (!is_object($objResult) || !is_a($objResult, self::getRealClass()))
// must use is_a because instanceof doesn't work with strings


body:
Thanks Rob!!

$wgServer did it; I had tried $wgServerName before.

Jim
=====================================
Jim Hu
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2128 TAMU
Texas A&M Univ.
College Station, TX 77843-2128
979-862-4054

On Feb 15, 2007, at 10:17 AM, Rob Church wrote:

> On 15/02/07, Jim Hu <jimhu at tamu.edu> wrote:
>> I'm trying to debug an extension on my laptop, and http://localhost/
>> wiki keeps redirecting to http://<my-computers-hostname>.tamu.edu/
>> wiki... which doesn't work.  How do I stay at localhost?  This
>> doesn't seem to happen with other webpages on my laptop.
>
> This is being detected from the web server configuration, but you can
> use $wgServer and $wgServerName to override if needed.
>
>
> Rob Church
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Favour

body:
On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 17:45:34 +1100, "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

>>Done. Heh, I misread and put it on User:JzG. Looks like someone else
>got to User talk:JzG first.

Thanks, folks.  Frustrating.  Phone line is also in tart's knickers
mode.  I'll go and finish building my spray booth...

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Your comments on wikien-l regarding adminship

body:
Timwi wrote:

>Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
>
>>Wikipedia is not an experiment - the scientific method does not apply.
>>
>>
>This is just plain wrong.
>
>It is true that Wikipedia is not an experiment in a lot of things (incl.
>online democracy, anarchy, etc.), but Wikipedia *is* and has always been
>an experiment to create an encyclopedia using a wiki. A lot of things
>have changed in Wikipedia because people realised at some point that
>certain aspects didn't work very well (e.g. the CamcelCase convention
>was removed because people eventually realised that having articles
>titled "DemocracY" and "TelephonE" is stupid). There is no reason to
>believe that Wikipedia has now reached a perfect state and requires no
>further changes to the way it works.
>
Absolutely.  In relation to scientific method, it is not something that
you turn on and off as you go through the laboratory door.  We do well
to alternate bouts of empirical observation and logical reasoning in
everything that we do.

Ec


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] In hospital

body:
On 15/02/07, Sean Black <smblac at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/13/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > "The list moderators cannot undertake to insulate readers of the list
> > from human stupidity."

> That's a convient way of saying "we don't particularly care".

Or rather, "it's way too much like work to take on policing such a
subjective criterion; you're grown-ups, a stupid message won't kill
you."

- d.


from_name: Gregory Kohs

body:
David Gerard said:

++++++++++++++++
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 14:17:36 +0000
From: "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] corporate "problems with articles" seems to be
       working a       bit

The "problem with your article?" page for en:wp is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Factual_error_%28from_enterprise%29

It directs people to either the Help Desk or to OTRS. The Help Desk
appears to be getting a few reasonable queries from organisations,
which are being dealt with properly.

No flood of crap yet, which is good :-)

OTRS volunteers - how's it looking from your side?

- d.
++++++++++++++++

My experience with it has not been so impressive, and I've e-mailed David
Gerard about this privately, and I didn't receive a response back from him,
so I don't know why he's saying things are being "dealt with properly".  I
will assume good faith.

I submitted through "Factual error from enterprise" form what I thought was
a reasonable request for remedy, on January 30th. Having not heard back from
them by February 8th, I sent a follow-up e-mail asking if I should expect a
response, or whether my query had fallen through the cracks.  The rather
frazzled response from "Wesley Northrup" came to me a few hours later:
>>   Dear Gregory Kohs,

>>   Thank you for your mail. You said: "Should I expect that the info-en-q
team
will be responding to me directly in any way?"

>>   Do you have any idea how clogged our mail queue is? We're doing the
best we
can.

- - - -

 I think you can see the inherent problem of Wikipedia handling corporate
concerns of libel this way -- 10 days is a little long for a concerned party
to wait for any reply, and even then, only after a second query had to be
sent.  Now it is February 15th (two and a half weeks from the first
missive), and I have still not received any meaningful response, other than
the information that the OTRS mail queue is "clogged".

I don't mean to be a wet blanket -- I'm actually glad that Wikipedia is
seeking to take some of the "corporate concerns" issues out of the hands of
Jimbo and Brad (I feel that they are too busy, and rightly so, with more
important operational matters), and letting some of the esteemed volunteers
process these concerns is likely to result in more cooperative outcomes.
But, to me, it looks like my concern is not being "dealt with properly", as
Gerard would suggest.

Kindly,

   Greg

--
Gregory Kohs
Cell: 302.463.1354


subject: [Wikitech-l] Massive Hook Proposal

references:
<45D349F0.1010603@pobox.com>
	<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKKELLKAAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<7c2a12e20702150738p12288a0ahade460e2f681a2a8@mail.gmail.com>
	<ac08e8d0702150805q39071a3ew4e0d136f6de07f91@mail.gmail.com>
	<7c2a12e20702150921u51126c11ue01c3ea5ed610f78@mail.gmail.com>

body:
> This would run into serious problems with stuff like system messages
> (which contain lots of wikitext, at least by default) and hardcoded
> strings (many of which are at least going to be HTML, if perhaps not
> often wikitext).  Nice idea, though.

Thanks Simetrical, that's a good point.  Definitely something to consider
when attempting to extend the Parser.

Can anyone think of something they currently can't achieve with the existing
hooks?  Something that might be solvable with a Factory class?

-- Jim

On 2/15/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/15/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Alternate Parsers - Extension developers could implement alternate
> parsers.
> > This _could_ put an end to the _italicized_ and *bold* debates. It might
> > also offer a way to allow pages to use any of a number of different
> parsers
> > for different purposes.  Maybe have some pages use MW syntax, while
> others
> > use full XHTML with the aid of a WYSIWYG editor (not a full solution to
> that
> > debate, but it's something).
>
> This would run into serious problems with stuff like system messages
> (which contain lots of wikitext, at least by default) and hardcoded
> strings (many of which are at least going to be HTML, if perhaps not
> often wikitext).  Nice idea, though.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] We're famous!

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>http://www.beevnicks.com/d/20070209.html
>http://www.beevnicks.com/d/20070212.html
>http://www.beevnicks.com/d/20070213.html
>
>I can smell the AFD from here ...
>
It seems from today's edition that he has been getting complaints about
his taking shots at Wikipedia users.  Maybe there are some people out
there who take things too seriously. :-)

Ec


from_name: Yaroslav Boychuk

subject: [Foundation-l] Mayflower: Wikimedia Commons media search

body:
Hello Husky,

Thursday, February 15, 2007, 2:24:15 AM, you wrote:

H> I don't think you have to start with *all* licenses (that would indeed be a
H> very long list). Simply starting with some of the most popular ones you
H> could capture a major part of the collection. Licenses like
H> * {{PD-old}}
H> * {{PD-Art-YorckProject}}
H> * {{PD Art}}
H> * {{self2|GFDL|cc-by-2.5}}
H> * {{self2|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0}}
H> * {{PD-self}}
H> Are used by many pictures throughout the whole project. If you could only
H> match these you could already display the license under a lot of the images.

H> And for more licenses you could take one of the main license categories such
H> as
H> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain
H> And extract all categories from there and use it for the 'license array'.

H> However easy it might seem, i'm not sure if this will work out. As i said
H> before, i'm not a programmer :)

H> -- Hay Kranen / [[User:Husky]]

+ new one way.
Once a month take 10 popupar licenses from db. And mark all other as
"other".

--
Best regards,
 Yaroslav                            mailto:rodovid at andatra.kiev.ua


subject: [Wikitech-l] Massive Hook Proposal

body:
What's the hooking way to redirect search to a custom advanced search
system?  I could imagine doing this by extending class
SpecialSearch...but I don't know how to get the system to instantiate
the subclass instead of the base class.

"Imagine" here includes imagining that I actually understand oo
programming, a condition that currently evals to false. : )

Jim
=====================================
Jim Hu
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2128 TAMU
Texas A&M Univ.
College Station, TX 77843-2128
979-862-4054

On Feb 15, 2007, at 11:26 AM, Jim Wilson wrote:

>> This would run into serious problems with stuff like system messages
>> (which contain lots of wikitext, at least by default) and hardcoded
>> strings (many of which are at least going to be HTML, if perhaps not
>> often wikitext).  Nice idea, though.
>
> Thanks Simetrical, that's a good point.  Definitely something to
> consider
> when attempting to extend the Parser.
>
> Can anyone think of something they currently can't achieve with the
> existing
> hooks?  Something that might be solvable with a Factory class?
>
> -- Jim
>
> On 2/15/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 2/15/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Alternate Parsers - Extension developers could implement alternate
>> parsers.
>>> This _could_ put an end to the _italicized_ and *bold* debates.
>>> It might
>>> also offer a way to allow pages to use any of a number of different
>> parsers
>>> for different purposes.  Maybe have some pages use MW syntax, while
>> others
>>> use full XHTML with the aid of a WYSIWYG editor (not a full
>>> solution to
>> that
>>> debate, but it's something).
>>
>> This would run into serious problems with stuff like system messages
>> (which contain lots of wikitext, at least by default) and hardcoded
>> strings (many of which are at least going to be HTML, if perhaps not
>> often wikitext).  Nice idea, though.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Keitei

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requirements for Adminship

body:
With all this hubbub about admins and making more admins with no
criteria and why shouldn't we just bump everyone up a level! and all
that jazz, I think it is high time we evaluate what admins need to be
or do to be successful. Then from there, in my opinion, we can lower
the bar, leave things as they are, or continue to pursue this
everyone's an admin!!! deal. (Sorry if I've inserted my POV too much
into the preceding paragraph)

So. This is how I see it.

Admins must:
	be neutral, above all else.
		when they block
		when they protect
		when they delete
	recuse when they are unable to be neutral
	have the understanding of policy to know when it is objectively okay
to block/protect/delete
	be able to judge consensus
	not be a timebomb

Therefore, admin candidates must:
	demonstrate they can participate in discussions in which they have
no personal invested interest, with positive effect to those who do
have personal invested interest
	demonstrate they know the difference between their opinion,
consensus, and the Truth (which doesn't exist on wiki)
	demonstrate they recognize their own bias and will refuse to act
upon it

To be honest, I have no idea how they would demonstrate this. But
perhaps if we switched to a system of vouching, whereby different
people would say "I have worked with this user and they have always
been neutral in disputes and blahblahblah." like the nomination,
except more of them. And no edit counts and no FAs and no namespace
distribution. If one is cautious enough to always work within policy,
one will always check unknown policies before doing anything one has
never done before. And then perhaps once the candidate has enough
people vouching for them, they're promoted.

Or maybe something completely different. But in my opinion, adminship
is not edit counts and vandal fighting; it's dealing with things as a
neutral agent of the 'pedia. Well, at least when one has one's admin
hat on.

--keitei


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requirements for Adminship

body:
Keitei wrote:
> With all this hubbub about admins and making more admins with no
> criteria and why shouldn't we just bump everyone up a level! and all
> that jazz, I think it is high time we evaluate what admins need to be
> or do to be successful. Then from there, in my opinion, we can lower
> the bar, leave things as they are, or continue to pursue this
> everyone's an admin!!! deal. (Sorry if I've inserted my POV too much
> into the preceding paragraph)
>
> So. This is how I see it.
>
> Admins must:
> 	be neutral, above all else.
> 		when they block
> 		when they protect
> 		when they delete
> 	recuse when they are unable to be neutral
> 	have the understanding of policy to know when it is objectively okay
> to block/protect/delete
> 	be able to judge consensus
> 	not be a timebomb
>
> Therefore, admin candidates must:
> 	demonstrate they can participate in discussions in which they have
> no personal invested interest, with positive effect to those who do
> have personal invested interest
> 	demonstrate they know the difference between their opinion,
> consensus, and the Truth (which doesn't exist on wiki)
> 	demonstrate they recognize their own bias and will refuse to act
> upon it
>
> To be honest, I have no idea how they would demonstrate this. But
> perhaps if we switched to a system of vouching, whereby different
> people would say "I have worked with this user and they have always
> been neutral in disputes and blahblahblah." like the nomination,
> except more of them. And no edit counts and no FAs and no namespace
> distribution. If one is cautious enough to always work within policy,
> one will always check unknown policies before doing anything one has
> never done before. And then perhaps once the candidate has enough
> people vouching for them, they're promoted.
>
> Or maybe something completely different. But in my opinion, adminship
> is not edit counts and vandal fighting; it's dealing with things as a
> neutral agent of the 'pedia. Well, at least when one has one's admin
> hat on.
>
> --keitei
>

Sorry, but I have to disagree. The only real criteria I can figure is
that we want to avoid admins who go completely zonkers and start
systematically working against the aims of Wikipedia. If we can be
reasonably sure someone won't do that, then there's no reason to keep
them from becoming an admin.

Of course, we need to be willing (and able) to de-admin someone when
they consistently demonstrate the sort of behaviors you mention (or
worse). But the whole wiki concept is one of self healing and
resilience, not pre-approval. What we don't want to have is a class of
users (admins) who are placed into the spotlight every time they make a
mistake, or every time one of them turns out to be less than desirable.

I respect the concerns of those who want to avoid granting large blocks
of admin rights to what end up as sock-puppets intent on destruction.
Perhaps we do need a sizable class of users whose sole role is granting
and revoking admin rights--but these users should not be themselves
admins. These people should be very carefully selected, and should for
the most part stay out of controversy.

-Rich


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I just entered the cause of death and Category: Lung cancer deaths to the
> Article on Illinois Representative Charles Arthur Hayes. His name now
> appears in that Category, but not in the Category: Cancer deaths. Shouldn't
> he appear in this Category also since cancer is what he died from? It seems
> the only way to accomplish this is to include both Categories in his
> Article. However, when I have done this in the past, in other similar
> situations, I have gotten a whole lot of grief. What gives?
>
> Frustrated.
>
> Marc Riddell
>

Marc,

I can tell you that there is no mechanism in the software to implicitly
include articles in categories, such as you seem to want. If you want an
article in a category, you must specifically place the category tag on
that article.

Note, however, that many templates do include the necessary tag to place
an article that uses that template into one or more category.

On the other hand, if you mean "should" as a desired behavior, that's
another discussion altogether.

-Rich


from_name: Timwi

body:
Luna wrote:
>
>>There is no reason to
>>believe that Wikipedia has now reached a perfect state and requires no
>>further changes to the way it works.
>
> True, but that doesn't even come close to implying that this particular
> crazy idea should be implemented.

You are right; however, it *does* refute the previous argument that
tried to justify that it "should not" be implemented.

The reason it should be implemented is because nobody can currently know
whether it will work better than the current situation or not because
no-one's tried it before. If it doesn't work out, we can still go back
to the old system, but then we'll at least *know* that it didn't work
and can address whatever problems came up. I have given several ideas
why I think it might work, and why the proposal addresses existing problems.

> What's the line of defense when somebody lines up 20-30 admin socks,
> blocking and desysopping everyone in sight, resysopping each other and
> retaliating when anyone tries to stop them?

Surely this is the same old argument that also says that wikis can't
work because anyone could rack up 20-30 socks and keep reverting their
favourite articles to their favourite biased version.

If you let more people be admins, there *will be* enough admins around
to block 20-30 misbehaving accounts. Notice that if one of them gets
blocked (desysopped) for good reason, one of the socks resysopping him
would also qualify as misbehaving; eventually all of the socks will be
blocked (desysopped). Vandals will soon realise that it is not worth it,
and after a short initial rage, people will stop even attempting to
create 30 sockpuppet accounts.

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Massive Hook Proposal

references:
<45D349F0.1010603@pobox.com>
	<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKKELLKAAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<7c2a12e20702150738p12288a0ahade460e2f681a2a8@mail.gmail.com>
	<ac08e8d0702150805q39071a3ew4e0d136f6de07f91@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 2/15/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r at gmail.com> wrote:
> Alternate Parsers - Extension developers could implement alternate parsers.
> This _could_ put an end to the _italicized_ and *bold* debates. It might
> also offer a way to allow pages to use any of a number of different parsers
> for different purposes.  Maybe have some pages use MW syntax, while others
> use full XHTML with the aid of a WYSIWYG editor (not a full solution to that
> debate, but it's something).

This would run into serious problems with stuff like system messages
(which contain lots of wikitext, at least by default) and hardcoded
strings (many of which are at least going to be HTML, if perhaps not
often wikitext).  Nice idea, though.


from_name: Flame Viper

subject: [WikiEN-l] Short-lived retreat

body:
Well, the legal threats turned out to be BS, so I'm back. And rightfully so.

In response to the attacks against my "limited admin" idea, I would like to defend my position.

The "demisysop" status (as I have taken the liberty of calling it) would be much like the sysop status. It would be subject to much of the restrictions of sysop; you would have to demonstrate acumen and have responsibility, NPOV, understanding of policy, etc.

So nobody's going to get something they don't deserve. And nobody will be deprived.

The point of this status is so that excellent EDITORS (not vandalfighters,  arbitrators, etc) would be able to have special tools that would allow them to easily edit.
The problem is that there are two different fields of Wikipedia work: Editing and maintenance. Editing is the general writing and improvement of articles, citing, cleanup, categorisation, etc. Maintenance is the vandalfighting, blocking, arbitrating, mediating, and policy that provides the framework for the wiki.

Sysop tools are designed for maintenance, and too often, the mop is awarded or declined based on editing.

The "writer" class would solve that.

---------------------------------
We won't tell. Get more on shows you hate to love
(and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list.


from_name: Lane, Ryan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Massive Hook Proposal

body:
> Can anyone think of something they currently can't achieve
> with the existing hooks?  Something that might be solvable
> with a Factory class?
>
> -- Jim

Well, say for instance I wanted to replace the built in gallery stuff
with my own. I could either hack up ImageGallery, or use a different
syntax for the new gallery using a parser extension. I would then have
to make sure users use <mygallery></mygallery> instead of
<gallery></gallery>, and if I decided I wanted to go back to regular
galleries later I would have to change a bunch of wiki pages.

If I could hijack the ImageGallery class, I could replace that
functionality without worrying about compatibility problems later.

Is there another way to do this? Can I override <gallery></gallery> with
my own extension, or would they conflict?

V/r,

Ryan Lane


subject: [WikiEN-l] ATTN: Truthholder

body:
Message: 12
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 14:19:50 -0600
From: "Truth Beholder"
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Fascistopedia as Slashdot notes it,
 definitely
To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

And now the fascist patrol has locked my page so I can't request unblock,
how fucking fascist typical of fascistopedia.

Slashdot was right, you're nothing but a bunch of arrogant fascist assholes.

Truth Beheld, Wikipedia is a bunch of Fascist Assholes.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Truth Beholder
Date: Feb 15, 2007 2:14 PM
Subject: Fascistopedia as Slashdot notes it, definitely
To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org

So I followed a slashdot link to an essay on you fascists and to a user
discussion on your admins noticepage and I noticed one of your bad faith
people closed the discussion despite people raising questions.

I made a note and went on and was trying to edit wording on the atomic
energy page when one Theresa Knott comes along and decides to be a fascist
bitch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=108404754&oldid=108404198

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:TruthBeholder&action=history

She even goes around lying what she does too, claiming the discussion wasn't
blocked when clearly the note left there by the bad faith admin facsists
said otherwise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATruthBeholder&diff=108407885&oldid=108406787

Wikipedia's just a bunch of lying fascists I see.

TruthBeholder, beholding the truth of the fascistopedia.

------------------------------

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WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

End of WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 43, Issue 104
*****************************************
Please stop being an asshat. You were blocked because you joined Wikipedia and immediately started calling us "fascists" and making a scene.
If you want someone to agree with you and sympathize with your point of view, calling them "fascist assholes" won't help.

---------------------------------
We won't tell. Get more on shows you hate to love
(and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list.


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fascistopedia as Slashdot notes it, definitely

body:
On 2/15/07, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> My goodness.  Diving right in with accusations of fascistry.
> Usually, people *work their way up* to Godwin's Law -- this must
> be some new tactic with which I wasn't previously acquainted.

Don't bother.  Just block them from the mailing list.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com