subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
>From: "Nathan J. Yoder" <njyoder at energon.org>
>
> > Well, that's not really accurate, but most blocked users can no longer
>us a
> > different Userid to avoid the block, precisely because Wikipedia blocks
>the
> > IP address when attempts are made to do this.  That wasn't the case
>before
> > the IP blocker was added.
>
>You're not listening at all.  I was editing only with my User:Njyoder
>account, not a sock puppet nor logged out.  If you block a username, it
>has _always_ been the case that that username can't edit.

Right.  This feature stops sockpuppet editing (at least for fixed IP
addresses).

> > If only that were the case.  In practice, blocked editors edit all the
>time;
> > this simply stops the ones with fixed IP addresses from editing with
> > sockpuppets.
>
>As stated above, it also renews it for non-sock puppets.  This is how
>it currently works:
>
>1.  Admin blocks User:foo.
>2.  User:foo logs in as User:foo.
>3.  User:foo hits 'edit page.'
>4.  User:foo block is renewed for another 24 hours.
>
>So what exactly is the purpose in reblocking the original account that
>was already blocked to begin with?

Because the system can't tell whether you were trying to get around the
block or simply doing something odd with no intent of actually editing when
you hit the "edit" button.  What, again, was the net effect of this?  Your
valid block was extended for a few more hours?

Jay.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
>From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>
>
>On 7/5/05, Nathan J. Yoder <njyoder at energon.org> wrote:
>
> > So what exactly is the purpose in reblocking the original account that
> > was already blocked to begin with?
>
>It's a bug and should be fixed.
>
>The sign on the shop door says "Back in five minutes", but every time
>you peer into the empty shop the shopkeeper gets a snit and waits
>another five.

No, it's more liked you've been tossed out of the shop for trespassing, but
whever the shop door says "back in five minutes" you feel a need to go in
and look around to see if the owner is back.  Then when you're tossed out
again for trespassing, you complain that you weren't planning to steal
anything, you were just trying to find the owner.

Jay.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Export format tweaks

body:
I've updated the Special:Export schema in MediaWiki 1.5 to include a
<siteinfo> chunk with some site configuration information.

For example at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Export/Chlamyphorus_truncatus
you can see the custom namespace assignments.

and at:
http://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/Especial:Export/aristocratizar
you can see that wiki's marked as case-sensitive.

This should make it easier to ensure that page titles are processed
correctly on import.

I've also added an xml:space="preserve" hint to the <text> elements,
which may or may not keep some overzealous tools from stripping the
whitespace automatically.

The XML Schema definition for version 0.3 of the export format is at
http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.3.xsd and in the docs/
subdirectory in MediaWiki CVS HEAD.

We'll be providing the full-wiki public data dumps in this format
starting in a few days, replacing the old SQL dumps. For the reasons
behind this switch, see my earlier posting:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-May/029298.html

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 253 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20050704/b0141d4d/attachment.pgp>


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
>From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>
>
>On 7/5/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >From: "Nathan J. Yoder" <njyoder at energon.org>
> > >
> > > > Well, that's not really accurate, but most blocked users can no
>longer
> > >us a
> > > > different Userid to avoid the block, precisely because Wikipedia
>blocks
> > >the
> > > > IP address when attempts are made to do this.  That wasn't the case
> > >before
> > > > the IP blocker was added.
> > >
> > >You're not listening at all.  I was editing only with my User:Njyoder
> > >account, not a sock puppet nor logged out.  If you block a username, it
> > >has _always_ been the case that that username can't edit.
> >
> > Right.  This feature stops sockpuppet editing (at least for fixed IP
> > addresses).
>
>No it doesn't. The IP is already blocked. The IP address CANNOT edit.

No, as far as I know IPs are not immediately blocked, only userids.

> > Because the system can't tell whether you were trying to get around the
> > block or simply doing something odd with no intent of actually editing
>when
> > you hit the "edit" button.  What, again, was the net effect of this?
>Your
> > valid block was extended for a few more hours?
>
>That's the point. You have just conceded that even if an editor was
>"simply doing something odd with no intent of actually editing" the
>block is extended for another 24 hours. Or a week or a month or
>whatever.
>
>I think that this is a bug. What do you think?

I think the likelihood of a true positive is vastly greated than that of a
false positive, regardless of the many protestations of innocence on the
part of those who get blocked by this.  I also think it's easy enough to get
an admin to reverse the block if you have a reasonable story as to how it
happened.

Jay.


from_name: Nicolay A Vasiliev

subject: [Wikitech-l] Dump uploading trouble

body:
Hello there!

I am trying to upload the Norwegian wikibooks dump. When I upload the
20050623_cur_table.sql I get an error message "ERROR at line 1: Unknown
command '\'." Does anyone know what happens and how can I solve it?

TIA


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-free images, there has to be a better way

body:
>> Wikipedia has passed the stage of being comparable
>> to other encyclopedias you can access at no cost.
>
> It's an encyclopedia. It's always comparable.

I meant "comparable" in the sense "about as good".

> ... and just as is the case for any other encyclopedia, the world
> doesn't end because we can't include some images.

Certainly. Nor will the world of our downstream users
if they can't use every single image Wikipedia itself
can. They can't do that anyway because fair use only
applies in the U.S.

>> This argument is getting a bit tired. Do you have an
>> [[IBM 360]] in your backyard? Do you have a [[Z machine]]?
>
> Funny you should ask that...
> I don't actually have a IBM360, but I have at various times had a
> number of large vaxen, and a few flavors of PDP.
> I've also had in my garage at various times, an airport style x-ray
> machine, several multiwatt lasers, the complete line of NeXT
> computers, a large optical jukebox, several hundred Sun workstations,
> and many other things.
>
> So, no, I don't have a IBM 360, but people have a lot of equipment
> that you wouldn't expect.. If not at home then at work... I'm willing
> to bet some other Wikipedia user does, but they aren't likely to shoot
> pictures of it if there is already an unfree image on the page.

I'm sorry - this was a typo for [[IBM 1360]] which
is the machine in question if you're following the
thread. It's nice that we have free pictures of the
IBM 360. And it's nice that you have had lots of
stuff in your garage at various times.

> and the Z machine is a
> perfect example of something where we can probably get a grant under
> CC-BY or GFDL.

Have you followed the discussion on the permission
for the Z-machine picture? By all means, go ahead
and ask them to release it under CC-BY.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Zmachine.jpg

Currently the image information page has a license
which says:

"encyclopedia articles are fine. We only require a
credit in the form, 'Courtesy, Sandia National Laboratories,'"

In my opinion there's nothing wrong with Wikipedia
using that image even if non-encyclopec down-stream
users can't. I'm sure they would allow a Wikibook
too if you ask them. If you can get them to release
it under CC-BY that would of course be great. And
if you can get a PD image of a z-machine which is
as good as this one I salute you.

>> > If Wikipedia isn't getting enough photographs, we should reach out and
>> > encourage more photographers to join our community.  A lack of content
>> > isn't an excuse to break the law.
>>
>> No-one is suggesting we do.
>
> Yes, actually people are... or rather there are some suggesting that
> images they've found on the internet should be acceptable for us to
> use.

No-one in this thread has suggested we break the law.

>> It is a simple matter for downstream users
>> not to include images tagged used-with-permission.
>> Wikipedia articles very rarely rely on the images
>> in their main text.
>
> Actually, it's a pain in the butt to remove the images because of the
> way we store the tagging.. once you mix in the inconsistency of the
> tagging it becomes impossible.

It's a straightforward technical problem.
It's not "impossible", it's not even really
that difficult.

> The vast majority of the images going up on WP:PUI are images that are
> likely copyvio for even for us to use.. and are not examples of used
> with permission.

And it's good that we're removing those. I'm only
concerned with used-with-permission images here.

>> And I can sympathise with people who don't give a
>> rat's toenail for the current downstream users,
>> much as I believe in the GFDL.
>
> Sympathize as much as you like. Preserving freedom downstream is a
> goal of the project.

Yes. One that I am aware of and agree with.

> Downstrem users doesn't just refer to random
> useless mirror on the internet, but also refers to people publishing
> printed works, and to other sister projects like wikibooks.

Yes. Unfortunately most downstream use up to this
point has been useless mirroring.

> I brought up fair use because it is almost universally the response to
> complaints that images are unfree.

It shouldn't be and we agree on that.

>> And, sadly, it seems that Jimbo's fatwah against UWP has
>> increased the number of far-fetched rationalizations for
>> fair use on Wikipedia.
>
> I'm am strongly against abuse of fair use.  I haven't noticed WP:PUI
> accepting images as fair use which shouldn't be... can you cite some
> examples?

No. But your comment above indicates that you are aware of
the tendency of people to claim fair use when they're told
that they can't use an image - including a used-with-permission
image.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Stephan Walter

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Non-free images, there has to be a better way

body:
Maury Markowitz wrote:
>>The only images that are acceptable are those that are either fair use
>>or under a free license. Anything else is shot on sight, and rightly so.
>
> Why? This is still a complete mystery to me. If we have permission to use
> them, why not use them?

Because we want everyone to be able to use them. That's what freedom
means in the GFDL.

If someone wants to put a picture from Wikipedia on his website, he
should be able to do so.

If someone wants to include pictures in a book and sell it, she should
be able to do so.

(... they must respect the GFDL, of course.)

-Stephan


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
>From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>

>
>On 7/5/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>
> > >
> > >On 7/5/05, Nathan J. Yoder <njyoder at energon.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > So what exactly is the purpose in reblocking the original account
>that
> > > > was already blocked to begin with?
> > >
> > >It's a bug and should be fixed.
> > >
> > >The sign on the shop door says "Back in five minutes", but every time
> > >you peer into the empty shop the shopkeeper gets a snit and waits
> > >another five.
> >
> > No, it's more liked you've been tossed out of the shop for trespassing,
>but
> > whever the shop door says "back in five minutes" you feel a need to go
>in
> > and look around to see if the owner is back.  Then when you're tossed
>out
> > again for trespassing, you complain that you weren't planning to steal
> > anything, you were just trying to find the owner.
>
>If the door is locked, you can't go in, no matter how many times you
>rattle the knob.

Turns out that people keep getting kicked out of the shop for a day for
disruptive behaviour, and the doors are automatically locked and their 24
hour ban is automatically renewed when the alarm system sees them trying to
get back in wearing different disguises.  Now some new guy kicked out for a
day for disruption gets caught by the alarm system, and he says "but I
wasn't trying to sneak in in disguise and disrupt like those other people, I
was coming in openly and making note of your inventory so I could buy it
legally when I'm allowed back in".  So, he writes 500 abusive e-mails to the
owners of the shop, insisting that he has been unjustly locked out, and
demanding that the employee on duty at the time should be punished, claming
that the alarm system is broken, and insisting that the shop is a disgrace.
Another guy who has been kicked out for disrupting the shop  has also been
regularly writing the owners, generally whining and complaining about how
terrible the shop is, how rude their employees are, how they practice
favoritism to their regular customers, and how much better are the shops
that he frequents.  He takes up the cause of the first complainant, making
erroneous claims, and insisting that the alarm systems are faulty, and need
to be fixed right away so no-one is ever locked out like this again.

What a tragedy.  Maybe they should both take their business elsewhere.

Jay.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Foundation votes on Wiktionary.

body:
One of the effects of the recent page capitalization issue has been that
the notice about this has overwritten direct access from en:wiktionary
to the foundation vote pages.

I was only able to find it by rooting around special pages.  It would be
helpful if the appropriate links were re-established

Ec


list: wikimedia-l


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Foundation votes on Wiktionary.


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
>From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>
>
> >
> > No, as far as I know IPs are not immediately blocked, only userids.
>
>On checking, I see that this is so. Fair enough.
>
>Nevertheless, as NYJ noted:
>
>"1.  Admin blocks User:foo.
>2.  User:foo logs in as User:foo.
>3.  User:foo hits 'edit page.'
>4.  User:foo block is renewed for another 24 hours."
>
>You don't seem to be addressing this point.

Actually, I have.  It's an alleged phenomenon, and if it happens in the real
world, it's extremely rare, and caused by completely unnecessary activity.
The solution is simple; go cool off for a day.  And if you simply must hang
around, then don't hit edit.

> > >That's the point. You have just conceded that even if an editor was
> > >"simply doing something odd with no intent of actually editing" the
> > >block is extended for another 24 hours. Or a week or a month or
> > >whatever.
> > >
> > >I think that this is a bug. What do you think?
> >
> > I think the likelihood of a true positive is vastly greated than that of
>a
> > false positive, regardless of the many protestations of innocence on the
> > part of those who get blocked by this.  I also think it's easy enough to
>get
> > an admin to reverse the block if you have a reasonable story as to how
>it
> > happened.
>
>So this bug doesn't stop users from editing, because they are already
>blocked,

Actually, it generally does stop them from editing, because up until now
their IPs weren't blocked.  When they try to use a sockuppet (whenever it
was created), or edit via IP, they are now stopped from doing so.

>and it doesn't work anyway because all the editor has to say
>is "my cat ran over the keyboard", regardless of whether he intended
>to attempt to edit or not.

No, he has to give an admin a convincing story.  Unsurprisingly, most of
those blocked simply rant of rave.  The more creative use stories of the "it
was a different person using my exact same fixed IP address, they were doing
digging in the neighbourhood" kind.  Amazing I know, but some people
actually use that kind of excuse, and then stick to it, even re-using it for
several different sockpuppets.  Even more amazingly, other people actually
defend them as plausible when they use it.  However, the strong vetting
process for creating admins typically ensures that none are dumb enough to
fall for it.

>I think that this is a bug. What do you think?

I think it's a feature that's working quite well, and that might *in very
rare circumstances* provide a minor inconvenience to a banned user who is,
at the very least, doing something odd and unnecessary.

Jay.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
On 7/4/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Turns out that people keep getting kicked out of the shop for a day for
> disruptive behaviour, and the doors are automatically locked and their 24
> hour ban is automatically renewed when the alarm system sees them trying to

This is silly. In addition to not being paper, wikipedia is not a china shop.

I'd agree with extending blocks if there were actual evidence of an
evasion, but hitting edit to see if you are still blocked or to see
the instructions related to being blocked is not an attempt at
evasion.

If we were instead to have an infectious block, where when a user is
blocked every IP they used while blocked is blocked in addition to the
IP they first used while blocked... and when an IP is blocked it
blocks every user that touches that IP.... At least then you could
claim the system was preventing evasion... although what a mess that
would make.


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
>From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>
> > I'm talking about the same user, using a different login, or no login.
>
>Yes, I've pointed this out. Why did you move away from addressing
>NYJ's valid point?

I've addressed all valid points.

>It doesn't STOP people from editing. The car has no engine, remember?
>It's not going anywhere.

It only has "no engine" because the automatic block exists in the first
place  That's what STOPs them.

> > The block is reset because attempts to avoid blocks (e.g. by creating
>new
> > userids and attempting to edit with them, or attempting to edit without
> > logging in) are violations of the block, and the general rule is that
> > attempts to violate blocks reset the timer.
>
>Yes, but as you've pointed out, it doesn't work, and as NJY noted, it
>affects the original, logged in user.

I haven't pointed out any such thing.  It works just fine at stopping what
it is intended to stop.

>NJY, despite what other
>failings he might have, raised a valid point, and you've just spent
>three hours waffling about other things.

His *claim* is that he got innocently caught; I've pointed out that for
every *claim* of innocence, there are hundreds who are validly blocked, that
there was no need for him to do what he did to get caught in the first
place, and that if he was indeed innocently caught the "punishment" is minor
and the fix easy.  That pretty much covers every possible angle, so it's
hard to see why you keep insisting that I haven't dealt with the point.

> > It
> > is not completely effective, and may have other side effects.
>
>Thanks. It's a bug, wouldn't you say?

No, I'd say it's a good tool that generally works well.  The fact that it
can't stop all sockpuppets etc. is not a bug, but merely a limitation.  As
for the fact that it *may* once have caused some minor discomfort to a
blocked user who *claims* he was trying to do something legitimate, see
previous e-mails or above.

Jay.


from_name: A. Nony Mouse

subject: [WikiEN-l] SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin Power

body:
Kurita77 actually sent emails from MANY IP addresses in his block.

As far as I know, Enviroknot only ever posted from one IP address.

Furthermore, Enviroknot stated several times that he was against swearing
and would not do it - a marked contrast not only from Kurita77 but also from
the users that (Gerard claimed and I still don't believe) he was accused of
being a sockpuppet of, KaintheScion/ElKabong.

I checked the record. Enviroknot's edits and emails to this list do not
contain a single swear word, anywhere.

The same can't be said for Kurita77 or KaintheScion/ElKabong.

Kurita77, on his initial 25 edits, made only one set that were on the same
subject as Enviroknot. But we have policy on Wikipedia about that. Merely
editing on the same subject or sharing similar opinions is NOT an indication
of sockpuppetry.

Kurita77 was an example of a bunch of Inquisitionists running around needing
someone else to persecute, and biting the newbies. There was no good faith
involved in dealing with him.

"No Rational Person" would choose to believe that Kurita77 was the same as
Enviroknot? I COMPLETELY dispute that statement. There is plenty of evidence
to indicate that Kurita77 is NOT the same person as Enviroknot.

Instead, the Kurita77 case has proven a few things about the bad faith
inherent in the behavior of editors/admins like YOU:

1 - You believe that no editor is smart enough to read the rules and
tutorials before posting, and that (therefore) any editor who comes in and
doesn't sound like a l33t skr1pt k1dd13z poster is guilty of being a
sockpuppet. This CANNOT be allowed to be the case.  We want editors to come
in and meet high standards as soon as possible, which is why we put those
tutorials up and made the rules available for them to read.

We should not bite the newbies for actually paying attention.

2 - You believe that quoting someone (which is as simple as copying and
pasting their edit) is evidence of sockpuppetry. Again, this CANNOT be
allowed to be the case.

The case of Kurita77's quote - which you call "complete support" - is YOU
misrepresenting the event, nothing more. His actual behavior was to take a
small paragraph from out between the bickering between Zeno of Elea and
BrandonYusufToropov/Anonymous Editor, because it held a valuable suggestion
- a suggestion that BrandonYusufToropov even agreed was a good one, though
the suggestion itself stirred up the usual hornets' nest of Islamic
detractors and defenders pushing alternate readings of the Koran.

If saying "hey, this guy had a good suggestion" is evidence of sockpuppetry,
then that is COMPLETELY wrong.

Let me put it bluntly. Maybe you'll get it then.

You Are Operating in Bad Faith, Maxwell.
You Are Ignoring The Evidence.
You Are Completely In The Wrong.

A. Nony Mouse

>
>It has been pointed out several times that Kurita77 used the same IP
>as enviroknott. The IP does not appear to be a proxy. Enviroknott is
>blocked from wikipedia for being an abusive sockpuppetting troll.
>Furthermore Kurita77 initial edits were on the same subjects and
>enviroknott, and even came out in support of enviroknott. Finally,
>this is the third user to magically appear, turn out to be from the
>same IP as enviroknott.
>
>With these facts in mind, no rational person would believe that
>Kurita77 was anyone but enviroknott. That you choose to ignore this
>and continue to cite events related to this user in the furtherance of
>your complaints shows a remarkable lack of reason on your part. You
>have posted dozens of angry, drama inducing posts on this and related
>matters. If someone were actually being wronged this would be
>forgivable... But anyone who understands the issues can see that this
>is clearly not the case. As a result you are, whether or not you
>intend to, trolling this list.
>
>I understand that you believe the community is mishandling the matter,
>but you aren't the one that is going to be able to fix it. I'm sorry,
>because of your behavior we can not accept your help.
>
>At this point, I think it is fairly clear that you have been asked to
>leave. In case it is not, I'll do it again: Nony, your participation
>here is not productive for anyone. Please leave.
>
>I'd encourage others to cite the url to this message in the archives
>when replying in a critical way to Nony in the future.  I don't think
>it ethical to be rude to scare away users, as the users who need to go
>enjoy the dispute... However I also feel no sorrow for those who have
>been politely asked to leave and who receive some harsh words when
>they refuse to cooperate. Quite frankly, we've assumed good faith and
>I think we should continue to assume good faith, but I will not
>complain about those who have run out of good faith for you.
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Create a cute, funny or sexy Meego - click for more info!
http://meegos.msn.ie


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
>From: Bishonen <bishonen at ungoodthinkful.com>
>>What, again, was the net  effect of this?  Your valid block was extended
>>for a few more hours?
>>
>>Jay.
>
>No, the block wasn't extended beyond the original 24 hours. Whether
>editing from your own account is supposed to extend the block, or is  doing
>it as the result of a bug, I didn't think it was reasonable for  it to work
>like that. Therefore I unblocked Nathan after about 23 1/2  hours.
>
>Bishonen

And 200 e-mails later, here we all are.  Wikipedia is obviously a terribly
flawed system filled with software that causes terrible hardships to validly
blocked users, and admins abusing their power and just itching to "dominate"
other editors.

Jay.


from_name: David 'DJ' Hedley

body:
Can we get rid of this Mouse guy? Hes bugging me. On a more serious note,
there is plenty of evidence that he is Enviroknot, enough to be conclusive
that he is - You are making excuses with completely minor issues - So what
if Enviroknot, under his normal alias didn't swear in his e-mails? If I
create another account, and start swearing, does that mean that i'm not the
person on the other account?

You can only assume so much good faith. Thats been assumed already for
Enviroknot. Kurita77 = Enviroknot. Unlucky for you, I guess.
----- Original Message -----
From: "A. Nony Mouse" <temoforcomments4 at hotmail.com>
To: <gmaxwell at gmail.com>; <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Monday, July 04, 2005 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin Power

> Kurita77 actually sent emails from MANY IP addresses in his block.
>
> As far as I know, Enviroknot only ever posted from one IP address.
>
> Furthermore, Enviroknot stated several times that he was against swearing
> and would not do it - a marked contrast not only from Kurita77 but also
from
> the users that (Gerard claimed and I still don't believe) he was accused
of
> being a sockpuppet of, KaintheScion/ElKabong.
>
> I checked the record. Enviroknot's edits and emails to this list do not
> contain a single swear word, anywhere.
>
> The same can't be said for Kurita77 or KaintheScion/ElKabong.
>
> Kurita77, on his initial 25 edits, made only one set that were on the same
> subject as Enviroknot. But we have policy on Wikipedia about that. Merely
> editing on the same subject or sharing similar opinions is NOT an
indication
> of sockpuppetry.
>
> Kurita77 was an example of a bunch of Inquisitionists running around
needing
> someone else to persecute, and biting the newbies. There was no good faith
> involved in dealing with him.
>
> "No Rational Person" would choose to believe that Kurita77 was the same as
> Enviroknot? I COMPLETELY dispute that statement. There is plenty of
evidence
> to indicate that Kurita77 is NOT the same person as Enviroknot.
>
> Instead, the Kurita77 case has proven a few things about the bad faith
> inherent in the behavior of editors/admins like YOU:
>
> 1 - You believe that no editor is smart enough to read the rules and
> tutorials before posting, and that (therefore) any editor who comes in and
> doesn't sound like a l33t skr1pt k1dd13z poster is guilty of being a
> sockpuppet. This CANNOT be allowed to be the case.  We want editors to
come
> in and meet high standards as soon as possible, which is why we put those
> tutorials up and made the rules available for them to read.
>
> We should not bite the newbies for actually paying attention.
>
> 2 - You believe that quoting someone (which is as simple as copying and
> pasting their edit) is evidence of sockpuppetry. Again, this CANNOT be
> allowed to be the case.
>
> The case of Kurita77's quote - which you call "complete support" - is YOU
> misrepresenting the event, nothing more. His actual behavior was to take a
> small paragraph from out between the bickering between Zeno of Elea and
> BrandonYusufToropov/Anonymous Editor, because it held a valuable
suggestion
> - a suggestion that BrandonYusufToropov even agreed was a good one, though
> the suggestion itself stirred up the usual hornets' nest of Islamic
> detractors and defenders pushing alternate readings of the Koran.
>
> If saying "hey, this guy had a good suggestion" is evidence of
sockpuppetry,
> then that is COMPLETELY wrong.
>
> Let me put it bluntly. Maybe you'll get it then.
>
> You Are Operating in Bad Faith, Maxwell.
> You Are Ignoring The Evidence.
> You Are Completely In The Wrong.
>
> A. Nony Mouse
>
> >
> >It has been pointed out several times that Kurita77 used the same IP
> >as enviroknott. The IP does not appear to be a proxy. Enviroknott is
> >blocked from wikipedia for being an abusive sockpuppetting troll.
> >Furthermore Kurita77 initial edits were on the same subjects and
> >enviroknott, and even came out in support of enviroknott. Finally,
> >this is the third user to magically appear, turn out to be from the
> >same IP as enviroknott.
> >
> >With these facts in mind, no rational person would believe that
> >Kurita77 was anyone but enviroknott. That you choose to ignore this
> >and continue to cite events related to this user in the furtherance of
> >your complaints shows a remarkable lack of reason on your part. You
> >have posted dozens of angry, drama inducing posts on this and related
> >matters. If someone were actually being wronged this would be
> >forgivable... But anyone who understands the issues can see that this
> >is clearly not the case. As a result you are, whether or not you
> >intend to, trolling this list.
> >
> >I understand that you believe the community is mishandling the matter,
> >but you aren't the one that is going to be able to fix it. I'm sorry,
> >because of your behavior we can not accept your help.
> >
> >At this point, I think it is fairly clear that you have been asked to
> >leave. In case it is not, I'll do it again: Nony, your participation
> >here is not productive for anyone. Please leave.
> >
> >I'd encourage others to cite the url to this message in the archives
> >when replying in a critical way to Nony in the future.  I don't think
> >it ethical to be rude to scare away users, as the users who need to go
> >enjoy the dispute... However I also feel no sorrow for those who have
> >been politely asked to leave and who receive some harsh words when
> >they refuse to cooperate. Quite frankly, we've assumed good faith and
> >I think we should continue to assume good faith, but I will not
> >complain about those who have run out of good faith for you.
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Create a cute, funny or sexy Meego - click for more info!
> http://meegos.msn.ie
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
>Can we get rid of this Mouse guy? Hes bugging me.

Gee. That looks like a personal attack to me. I thought those were
disallowed?

>On a more serious note,
>there is plenty of evidence that he is Enviroknot, enough to be conclusive
>that he is - You are making excuses with completely minor issues - So what
>if Enviroknot, under his normal alias didn't swear in his e-mails? If I
>create another account, and start swearing, does that mean that i'm not the
>person on the other account?

IF they were the same person, sooner or later Enviroknot would have slipped
up and started swearing. Enviroknot was around for MONTHS and in all that
time, not one swear.

I'm not saying it's not possible, but people don't just switch behavior on
and off like that. Enviroknot ought to have slipped up and let loose with a
swear here and there if he were really the freely-swearing
KaintheScion/ElKabong. Kurita77 took a bit of prodding from the members of
this list who can't be bothered to act in good faith, but it didn't take
long.

Sorry, no. If they were the same person, we would have seen at least a
couple of slipups from Enviroknot. A couple of naughty words. We didn't.

>You can only assume so much good faith. Thats been assumed already for
>Enviroknot. Kurita77 = Enviroknot. Unlucky for you, I guess.

No, that's not the case. I still do not believe Kurita77 is Enviroknot, and
once again you're ignoring the evidence.

Prove to me that Kurita77 is Enviroknot. Bring forth some REAL evidence, not
this pathetic garbage that you've been putting forward.

If Kurita77 was Enviroknot, how did he slip into swearing so quickly?

If Enviroknot was KaintheScion/ElKabong, why did we never see Enviroknot
swear ONCE?

If Kurita77 was Enviroknot, WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE? The IP addresses matched,
BRIEFLY, and then don't any more. All this proves is that they live in a
nearby geographical area. The edits don't match up, and you can't claim that
they do and still be within bounds of Wikipedia policy.

All I've seen out of this case is a bunch of newbie-biting and then
bad-faith admins scrambling to cover it up rather than admit they were
wrong.

A. Nony Mouse

_________________________________________________________________
Create a cute, funny or sexy Meego - click for more info!
http://meegos.msn.ie


body:
> I'm not saying it's not possible, but people don't just switch behavior on
> and off like that. Enviroknot ought to have slipped up and let loose with
a
> swear here and there if he were really the freely-swearing
> KaintheScion/ElKabong.

People do switch behaviour like that. Its called putting on an act, making
it look like you are different people. Your only 'evidence' is that
Enviroknot didn't swear, and Kurita77 did. Thats really not even a case to
go on.

>The IP addresses matched,
>BRIEFLY, and then don't any more.

The chances are he now fakes the IP, then. Whether they matched briefly or
not, they still matched. With all the other evidence, it makes your case for
it being two people impossible.
----- Original Message -----
From: "A. Nony Mouse" <temoforcomments4 at hotmail.com>
To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Monday, July 04, 2005 7:31 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin Power

> >Can we get rid of this Mouse guy? Hes bugging me.
>
> Gee. That looks like a personal attack to me. I thought those were
> disallowed?
>
> >On a more serious note,
> >there is plenty of evidence that he is Enviroknot, enough to be
conclusive
> >that he is - You are making excuses with completely minor issues - So
what
> >if Enviroknot, under his normal alias didn't swear in his e-mails? If I
> >create another account, and start swearing, does that mean that i'm not
the
> >person on the other account?
>
> IF they were the same person, sooner or later Enviroknot would have
slipped
> up and started swearing. Enviroknot was around for MONTHS and in all that
> time, not one swear.
>
> I'm not saying it's not possible, but people don't just switch behavior on
> and off like that. Enviroknot ought to have slipped up and let loose with
a
> swear here and there if he were really the freely-swearing
> KaintheScion/ElKabong. Kurita77 took a bit of prodding from the members of
> this list who can't be bothered to act in good faith, but it didn't take
> long.
>
> Sorry, no. If they were the same person, we would have seen at least a
> couple of slipups from Enviroknot. A couple of naughty words. We didn't.
>
> >You can only assume so much good faith. Thats been assumed already for
> >Enviroknot. Kurita77 = Enviroknot. Unlucky for you, I guess.
>
> No, that's not the case. I still do not believe Kurita77 is Enviroknot,
and
> once again you're ignoring the evidence.
>
> Prove to me that Kurita77 is Enviroknot. Bring forth some REAL evidence,
not
> this pathetic garbage that you've been putting forward.
>
> If Kurita77 was Enviroknot, how did he slip into swearing so quickly?
>
> If Enviroknot was KaintheScion/ElKabong, why did we never see Enviroknot
> swear ONCE?
>
> If Kurita77 was Enviroknot, WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE? The IP addresses
matched,
> BRIEFLY, and then don't any more. All this proves is that they live in a
> nearby geographical area. The edits don't match up, and you can't claim
that
> they do and still be within bounds of Wikipedia policy.
>
> All I've seen out of this case is a bunch of newbie-biting and then
> bad-faith admins scrambling to cover it up rather than admit they were
> wrong.
>
> A. Nony Mouse
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Create a cute, funny or sexy Meego - click for more info!
> http://meegos.msn.ie
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Boris Lohnzweiger

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage

body:
Hi Mark!

I was quite perplexed to read that they write Missingsch in the Low Saxon Wikipedia. So I just went there and checked out ten random pages. Having grown up in a rural area near Hamburg, it`s easy for me tell apart Low Saxon from Missingsch. The whole issue seems to be very exaggerated. All ten articles I've read were without a doubt in Plattd??tsch. Of course single articles might not be - I haven`t checked the whole Wikipedia. However, one can note that depending on the subject of the article the share of words that very closely resemble standard German words or are even identical (in writing !) is sometimes quite high. But this is a usual phenomenon in Low Saxon. Generally speaking, the more scientific a text gets the closer it comes to Hochdeutsch. Surely, sometimes this can lead to the fact that certain passages of articles don`t look too much like Platt. This can been seen very clearly in this article: http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilia . It has two sections, both written by the same author, as far as I can tell. The first ("Nordd??tsche Slangen") is very "pure" Low Saxon. The second ("Systematik") looks very much like standard German, due to its topic. I think even without knowing both languages in detail you can easily tell the difference. But this is not to be confused with Missingsch. You just couldn`t say that differently or more "real", if you want.

I don`t who actually brought up this Missingsch issue (native speaker? hobby linguist?). But as a matter of fact, nds-WP is written in Low Saxon. If individual pages are in other languages (which to some degree happens in many Wikipedias) the guys at nds can certainly cope with that. However,  I disbelieve that this part of the reason native speakers of Low Saxon in the Netherlands ask for a separate WP.

Boris

Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 04.07.05 01:38:06:

Also, it seems to me that Walter, Wouter, and Servien are intent on
ignoring the issue of nds.wiki being in Missingsch rather than real
nds. But this is a real issue, and we need to deal with it. I have
personally received complaints from members of lowlands-l about
nds.wiki being in Missingsch, which is not actually Low Saxon but
rather a "contact variety".

Surely, mutual intelligiblity would be increased very much if this
huge problem were solved. I'm sure one of the main problems is the
fact that it's written in Missingsch.

Perhaps before starting nds-nl.wiki, somebody should start
real-nds.wiki, and after that we can see if things are any better.

Mark

_________________________________________________________________________
Mit der Gruppen-SMS von WEB.DE FreeMail k?nnen Sie eine SMS an alle
Freunde gleichzeitig schicken: http://freemail.web.de/features/?mc=021179


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and U.S. specific laws (was Non-free images
	etc.)

body:
> The goal of the project is not to produce an encyclopedia with content
> that is free for some people for some uses.

But that's exactly what's happening as long as
all the focus is on U.S. laws. Fair use won't
protect you if you're publishing Wikipedia derived
content in Denmark. Nor will Bridgeman v. Corel.

Recently a picture of the Lindisfarne Gospels
taken from the British Library website became
a featured picture even though the BL explicitly
claims copyright on it and that claim may well
hold up in a British court.

>> In my opinion there's nothing wrong with Wikipedia
>> using that image even if non-encyclopec down-stream
>> users can't. I'm sure they would allow a Wikibook
>> too if you ask them. If you can get them to release
>> it under CC-BY that would of course be great. And
>> if you can get a PD image of a z-machine which is
>> as good as this one I salute you.
>
> Well, the policy of Wikipedia disagrees with you,
> and has for a fairly long time.

I know. And I will abide by it. But I will also argue
that it should be changed.

>> No-one in this thread has suggested we break the law.
>
> Fair enough. Pardon my tunnel vision, because the vast majority of
> images being canned right now are not cases where we have been given
> permission and in those cases people are suggesting we break the law.

Fair enough. I'm sure this is a stressful job
and I applaud you for doing it.

> As I said, if the images are not tagged it is impossible short of
> having someone read all of the image texts and removing a lot of
> images that are free but left untagged.

Agreed. But if we properly tag everything the
technical problem is a minor one.

> Downstream work which is visable to you, there is a lot of substanital
> downstream work which isn't useless and in any case we are not
> providing freedom if we exclude even the stupid mirrors.

I don't want to exclude stupid mirrors or anyone else.
If a neo-nazi wants to publish Wikipedia content modified
to a nazi POV that's fine with me as long as she respects
the GFDL.

But I hope you'll agree that we have a visibility problem
here. We're losing the excellent Eastern Yellow Robin.jpg
because its author won't release it for use outside of
Wikipedia, due to concern about stupid commercial mirroring.

We should by all means try to highlight the positive reuse
that the GFDL allows.

> With permission isn't a lame excuse, it's a good one.. but it's still
> not one we can always accept.

I'm arguing that in many cases it is
no worse an excuse than the U.S.-specific
legal niceties currently tolerated.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Walter van Kalken

body:
>Veerder lykt et myn 'n goed idee ?m hierover te disk?ssieern in et
>NDS, k?'w drekt sien wies NDS goed genog is ?m dit te verstaon haha!
>:-)
>
>
>
Wel Servien ik begrijp het goed. Alleen schrijven nog niet helaas.
Desalniettemin kan ik meehelpen :)

Walter/Waerth


from_name: Andrew Dunbar

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] en.wiktionary.org temporarily
	broken

references:
<42C33447.50301@pobox.com> <42C3A302.20205@pobox.com>
	<42C3C7A2.5090006@softhome.net> <42C3CBF0.1080401@yahoo.it>
	<42C3F179.7010405@softhome.net>
	<1b98bebe05063008403161d6b@mail.gmail.com>
	<42C43C9B.1040304@gmail.com>
	<op.ss7ncmh22okkek@arcadia.hsd1.co.comcast.net>
	<ba1b6b9f0507030011240e18ee@mail.gmail.com>
	<op.stcftzk22okkek@arcadia.hsd1.co.comcast.net>

body:
Yes it would be very nice to have a proper "browse" function someday.
Right now it's not really possible due to all languages sharing the article
space and few users will be interested in having all languages sorted
together. In the future with a more dictionary-aware wiki this would
hopefully become possible.

Hippietrail.

On 7/4/05, Muke Tever <muke at frath.net> wrote:
> Andrew Dunbar <hippytrail at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> In the US, and probably in other places where spelling is not phonetic,
> >> one of the most common uses for a dictionary (if not the most common)
> >> is to find what the correct spelling of a word is.  If there is not
> >> "spell check" in the form of redirects or see-unders, then the Wiktionary
> >> is useless for this.
> >
> > Only as useless as a paper dictionary already is.
>
> Ehehe :)  At least in a paper dictionary you are given a whole page of
> entries at once, and can skim them.  On wiktionary you either get the
> full, single-article view or the empty index view which gives no indication
> a spelling might belong to the word one has in mind.
>
>        *Muke!
> --
> website:     http://frath.net/
> LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
> deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/
>
> FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
> http://wiki.frath.net/
> _______________________________________________
> Wiktionary-l mailing list
> Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
I entirely sympathise. Personally, I don't see why we have to run
around deleting images with non-free licences from Wikipedia when we
have Commons for the fully free licences. What is the reasoning behind
removing all of these images? Apparently my user page image is going
to be deleted because I refuse to release it under a free licence (as
opposed to used with permission).

~Mark Ryan

On 7/4/05, Maury Markowitz <maury at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> During May I wrote an article on the IBM 1360. This machine is
> historically important, it was the first (commercial) terabit store.
> None of them exist any more, they were all decommissioned in the 1980s
> and scrapped. I spent a week getting permission from the UCal to use
> some of their images, images that really helped make the article, and
> added these on June 2nd.
>
> AFTER posting the images I went back to change the image info on one of
> them. I was shocked to see a notice saying they would be deleted,
> although there was no date given. Needless to say I was more than a
> little pissed off that I was only told about this AFTER going through
> the effort. There was no notice of this, at least at the time, on either
> the main page or the upload page. I wrote about this in the image
> discussion page.
>
> More recently I went back to the article and found all the images
> deleted. The deleter added a note, but as far as I can tell did so AFTER
> deleting them ( I can't get history on the image itself, of course).. He
> stated I should have tagged them differently. Yes, well, thanks for
> that,  maybe someone should have told me that in the month between me
> uploading them and them being deleted so I could have actually DONE that.
>
> My complaint here is the completely arbitrary and largely invisible
> nature of this decision and its ramifications. The entire dicussion
> appears to have take place offline. If there was a public online
> dicussion, it was rather well hidden. I certainly was not privvy to it
> until AFTER the decision was made. Further, reading over the discussion
> here, it seems no dissenting views were considered. Nor is there any
> real reason given, other than "we don't like them". I asked for someone
> to explain it to me, but no one did, and they were simply deleted.
>
> What's particularily baffling is that the deleter suggested I simply
> re-tag them to PermissionAndFairUse. This strikes me as absolutely
> rediculous. First of all, why are these OK and not ones used with
> permission? And if these are OK, why didn't it say so in the warning on
> the Permission tag? And finally why didn't anyone bother to tell anyone
> the answers to these, and all the other questions?
>
> Maury
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Game-playing on Wikipedia

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson (oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com) [050704 20:44]:

> This is a natural consequence of wikipedia, because virtually all
> discussions on wikipedia are about disputes. You don't put something
> on a talk-page if you agree with them, and you don't start an RFC
> either.

Hmm, that's a good point.

> The chess championship is a way for users to interact in a way that is
> not related to disputes.

I do see your point on this. It's why some people complain of an "IRC
clique" - i.e., IRC habitues tend to know each other as reasonable folk to
chat to, so form a picture of each other as humans rather than nametags on
disagreements. In-person wikimeets do this too. Interesting. Do the various
Collaboration Of The Week projects have any similar effect? What else does?

- d.


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
On Jul 4, 2005, at 2:55 PM, Nathan J. Yoder wrote:

> As stated above, it also renews it for non-sock puppets.  This is how
> it currently works:
>
> 1.  Admin blocks User:foo.
> 2.  User:foo logs in as User:foo.
> 3.  User:foo hits 'edit page.'
> 4.  User:foo block is renewed for another 24 hours.

It should probably be noted that in general, the user:foo block is
renewed very quickly. In your case, last time it was renewed within
the first minute of the block, meaning your block didn't get extended
by more than a few seconds.

-Snowspinner


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
On Jul 4, 2005, at 6:52 PM, JAY JG wrote:
>
> Actually, I have.  It's an alleged phenomenon, and if it happens in
> the real world, it's extremely rare, and caused by completely
> unnecessary activity. The solution is simple; go cool off for a
> day.  And if you simply must hang around, then don't hit edit.

For what it's worth, he's right - you're not addressing the point,
which is that it's not until you hit edit this page and get the "you
have been blocked message" (which also renews your block) that you'd
find out you've been blocked in the first place. Since being blocked
doesn't send a "You have a message" link or e-mail you or anything.

Concientious admins tend to either leave a message about the block or
remove the second autoblock when it happens, in practice.

-Snowspinner


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: FW: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage

body:
If I'm the one who doesn't know what consensus means, then what's up
with your "Boris (was it him? I forgot) tried to come up with a
consesnus and you are - again - going counter to him"?

That was the whole point of my private message to you: sarcasm.

What Boris said was his view, not an attempt at a consensus. It was
also a persuasive argument for his viewpoint. However, I am not
obliged to change my views just because of what Boris has said; nor
are you obliged to change your views because of what I have said.

The only way to resolve such a conflict is to respond point-by-point
and elaborate on our opinions with examples, analogies, and the like.
Of course, this doesn't always work, but it would certainly be better
than the responses I've gotten so far. Boris' message is only a
starting-point for a real, constructive dialogue, not the end.

You don't need to worry that a long discussion could hold up the
creation of a new Wikipedia because it will probably take a while
anyways.

None of your responses to my points have been real rebuttals, and you
haven't responded on a point-by-point like Boris did. You've basically
just said "well, that may be true, but they're still too different to
use a single Wikipedia" (this is not, I repeat _not_ a real quote),
Walter has basically just said "people have already responded to your
arguments, and anyways you're not a native speaker so if 5 native
speakers think they need a separate Wikipedia, you must be wrong" (not
a real quote, but his position largely ignores the position of R. F.
Hahn who, although not an active member of the Wikipedia community, is
a native speaker of LS and is very knowledgable about it and other
Lowlands languages), and Servien has actually crafted some good
responses but it would be much easier to follow if he responded to
each point separately, as did Boris. However, some of Servien's
statements are contradictory -- he says that border varieties are very
similar, but later he says "Scots [...] is way closer to English than
DLS to GLS", which although not *directly* contradictory is really
contradictory by example.

Re what other people have said about Scots: Scots and English have an
absolute boundary. Although it's not a strong boundary (there are
transitional dialects), it is definite nonetheless. Also, there are
only two standards for the modern languages descended from
Anglo-Saxon, and from each of them there is a more or less sufficient
degree of intelligibility to all dialects in written form, with some
exceptions (Shetlandic and Orcadian Scots are not easily mutually
intelligible with "Standard Scots").

Differences between Nynorsk and Bokm?l can be exaggerated or minimised
depending on choice of words and grammatical constructions.
Ultimately, though, they are both recognised as separate official
varieties of the same language, rather than as parts of a dialect
continuum divided by national borders.

Mark

On 04/07/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is what Mark sent to me privately.
>
> >Here's *my* attempt at coming up with a consensus:
> >
> >1. Of course, Wikipedias should try to unite as many people as
> >possible and transcend minor variations in languages (e. g. British
> >and American English share one Wikipedia).
> >
> >2. Of course, the regional variants of Low Saxon form a dialect
> >continuum, i. e. mutual intelligibility decreases with increasing
> >distance.
> >
> >3. Of course, in linguistics national borders don't equal language
> >barriers.
> >
> >4. However, in real-life political borders in Europe have throughout
> >the centuries left clear marks on the way people speak and write. New
> >words and idioms entered the dialects almost always via Standard
> >German or Standard Dutch respectively. Whenever speakers of Low Saxon
> >dialects write something down, they fall back on the languages they
> >were taught writing in - that is either Dutch or German. Furthermore,
> >all Low Saxon speakers in the Netherlands are confronted with Standard
> >Dutch every single day while those living east of the border deal with
> >Hochdeutsch day after day. Nevertheless, these differences may be
> >surmountable and the issue should be explored further rather than
> >acting rashly to create a linguistic fork.
> >
> >5. Of course, splitting nds into Dutch and German editions will not
> >eliminate the difficulties a person from Pommeria will face in trying
> >to understand the vernacular speech of someone from East Frisia.
> >Although it will reduce the overall spectrum the Low Saxon Wikipedia
> >has to cover now, it won't address the other problems that are at work
> >here, not least the fact that nds.wiki is written mostly in
> >Missingsch.
> >
> >When I first read the request for a Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia I
> >considered it a little far-fetched myself. I still do, and so far
> >nobody's actually crafted a logical response to my arguments other
> >than Boris, preferring instead to discount them because I'm not a
> >native speaker, or to repeat the same thing over and over.
> >
> >So I've come to the conclusion that while it might appear to be an
> >acceptable solution from some perspectives to set up a separate
> >Wikipedia for Low Saxon in the Netherlands, it is not a very workable
> >solution from a real world perspective.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> I cannot understand this in any other way than: "I am right, so create no
> nds-nl Wikipedia". Mark you seem not to know the word "consensus". That
> means that two opinions meet somewhere in between, not that either party
> gets what it wants!
>
> Wouter
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> MSN Webmessenger doet het altijd en overal http://webmessenger.msn.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: Michael Turley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 24, Issue 22

body:
On 7/4/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: "J.F. de Wolff" <jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk>
> >
> >It seems Weyes has left. What a disgrace. We've never had such a diligent
> >RC patroller, and he was more right than wrong in his crusade against
> >excessive external links. That's another one gone after RickK. Why on earth
> >do we fail the Wikipedians who do so much to protect our project from
> >vandals, cranks and idiots?
>
> Amen.  Weyes was a diligent vandalism patroller, and his anti excessive-link
> campaign was far more right than wrong.  And I say this knowing that his
> case was an example of a failed admin campaign.
>
> Jay.

Unfortunately, it takes more than just good vandal patrol to be a good
admin.  It takes patience, and a desire and ability to deal with
newbies and long time users alike in a courteous and respectful
manner, even when they don't give the same.  If Weyes left because of
his nomination was unsuccessful, then that, in my opinion, is an
indication that his temperament needed more time to mellow.

I'm always disappointed when I hear of people leaving, but I'd rather
have an unstable person leave because of a failed admin nomination
than promote an unstable person to adminship.  At least this way, the
instability has only driven a single user away.

Weyes is an excellent example of where the "rollback" tool should have
been provided separately.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [WikiEN-l] Game-playing on Wikipedia

body:
On 04/07/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> is "trolling" identical to saying things you dislike? I think it is
> obvious some people intentionally annoy others on the wiki, as well as
> the mailing list, but this certainly didn't seem like an example of
> that to me. This "troll" word is an ugly slur, an intellectually
> dishonest powerword. Call a spade a spade.

I think you've misunderstood something here: "Trolling" is the answer
to "what do Slashdotters do to relieve stress?" In that context, it's
not necessarily even an insult, from the trolls point of view. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_subculture and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_trolling_phenomena

> On 7/3/05, Fredrik Johansson <fredrik.johansson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 7/3/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Slashdot is a similar large project, explicitly aimed at the nerds of
> > > the world. Does anyone know how they relieve stress?
> >
> > Trolling.
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


body:
Hi Boris,

I'm a bit perplexed as this accusation has been made by a number of
people on Lowlands-l, most of the accusers being native speakers of
Low German, and at least one (RF Hahn) also speaking Missingsch. Ahh
wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which
is "based on Missingsch".

Accusations: "Unalike the Laich Saxon edeetion whase warkers dinna
actually ken the leid.
(It's oor Jonny's pet plaint, his windmill faes, an that richtly.)"

"It doesn't help that language competency is wanting in the current
WikiPlatt team.  Those folks are enthusiastic, and I laud that.  But
they don't know the language well enough.  Much or most of it is
"Patentplatt" (based on Missingsch), i.e. invented on the basis of
German.  I am not at all opposed to introducing technical neologisms,
but there needs to be first of all a firm grasp of the basic language,
the grammar and the authentic idiom."

Information on Patentplatt: "The number of Lowlands Saxon speakers ...
would be large if it included people who are somewhat conversant ...
and it would be even larger if it included those who ... can really
only manage lexically, idiomatically and grammatically deficient,
German-based, "made-up Platt" (Patentplatt)."

This is very concerning, and is clearly a major factor in the
difficulty people from the Netherlands are having reading NDS.wiki. I
just dashed off an e-mail to Ron to remind him that he is always
welcome to "fix" the Patentplatt, because of course it's Wikipedia.

Obviously, this isn't the only factor, and I'm not sure if it's even
the greatest factor. But, I feel that we should explore that.

A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:

Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un
kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un
"dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.

Hmm...

Best
Mark

On 04/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
>
> Hi Mark!
>
> I was quite perplexed to read that they write Missingsch in the Low Saxon Wikipedia. So I just went there and checked out ten random pages. Having grown up in a rural area near Hamburg, it`s easy for me tell apart Low Saxon from Missingsch. The whole issue seems to be very exaggerated. All ten articles I've read were without a doubt in Plattd??tsch. Of course single articles might not be - I haven`t checked the whole Wikipedia. However, one can note that depending on the subject of the article the share of words that very closely resemble standard German words or are even identical (in writing !) is sometimes quite high. But this is a usual phenomenon in Low Saxon. Generally speaking, the more scientific a text gets the closer it comes to Hochdeutsch. Surely, sometimes this can lead to the fact that certain passages of articles don`t look too much like Platt. This can been seen very clearly in this article: http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilia . It has two sections, both written by the same author, as far as I can tell. The first ("Nordd??tsche Slangen") is very "pure" Low Saxon. The second ("Systematik") looks very much like standard German, due to its topic. I think even without knowing both languages in detail you can easily tell the difference. But this is not to be confused with Missingsch. You just couldn`t say that differently or more "real", if you want.
>
> I don`t who actually brought up this Missingsch issue (native speaker? hobby linguist?). But as a matter of fact, nds-WP is written in Low Saxon. If individual pages are in other languages (which to some degree happens in many Wikipedias) the guys at nds can certainly cope with that. However,  I disbelieve that this part of the reason native speakers of Low Saxon in the Netherlands ask for a separate WP.
>
> Boris
>
> Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 04.07.05 01:38:06:
>
> Also, it seems to me that Walter, Wouter, and Servien are intent on
> ignoring the issue of nds.wiki being in Missingsch rather than real
> nds. But this is a real issue, and we need to deal with it. I have
> personally received complaints from members of lowlands-l about
> nds.wiki being in Missingsch, which is not actually Low Saxon but
> rather a "contact variety".
>
> Surely, mutual intelligiblity would be increased very much if this
> huge problem were solved. I'm sure one of the main problems is the
> fact that it's written in Missingsch.
>
> Perhaps before starting nds-nl.wiki, somebody should start
> real-nds.wiki, and after that we can see if things are any better.
>
> Mark
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
> Mit der Gruppen-SMS von WEB.DE FreeMail k?nnen Sie eine SMS an alle
> Freunde gleichzeitig schicken: http://freemail.web.de/features/?mc=021179
>
>

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Used-with-permission images, a modest proposal

body:
>>> The goal of the project is not to produce an encyclopedia with content
>>> that is free for some people for some uses.
>>
>> But that's exactly what's happening as long as
>> all the focus is on U.S. laws. Fair use won't
>> protect you if you're publishing Wikipedia derived
>> content in Denmark. Nor will Bridgeman v. Corel.
>>
>> Recently a picture of the Lindisfarne Gospels
>> taken from the British Library website became
>> a featured picture even though the BL explicitly
>> claims copyright on it and that claim may well
>> hold up in a British court.
>
> Well I can't speak for others.
> In general I believe we should never feature a picture not produced by
> a Wikipedian. The behind featuring works is to show the best we have
> to offer, not the best we've found someplace else and are
> redistributing. :)

That's certainly a reasonable opinion. But whether
or not it's featured the fact remains that we're
using it. Look at this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LindisfarneFol27rIncipitMatt.jpg

You'll see that there's a link to the British Library
page from which the image was snatched. Following that
link you'll see that the British Library claims copyright
on the image. As far as I know this may well hold up
under British law (evil as that would be).

This may conceivably get someone publishing Wikipedia
in Britain, even just mirroring it on a British server,
into trouble.

Using used-with-permission images will not get Wikipedia
into trouble. With all such images properly tagged it would
be simple for downstream users to avoid mirroring them.
And if they needed particular images they could always
apply for permission for themselves.

Of course I agree that we should get free images wherever
possible. But in a few cases it may not be. The Z machine
picture I keep coming back to will not be easily replaced
(and I doubt the lab will release it under a free license).
Nor will the deleted IBM 1360 images.

As for the idea of restoring the IBM 1360 pictures using
a "fair-use-and-used-with-permission" tag - I think that
nicely illustrates my point that disallowing used-with-
permission will encourage shady "fair use".

And if "permission" is useful after all, as Michael says:

> the fact that we have permission bolsters our claim to fair use
> ... it is very useful to note that we have permission.

Then I don't think the image upload text should discourage
users from trying to get permission - as it currently does.

Overall I think that a few used-with-permission images are
far less harmful to the universal distributability of the
project than over-reliance on the U.S. legal code.

I'm not talking about thousands of pictures here - more like
a few dozen we may not be able to replace. That's something
we can easily keep tabs on and provide appropriate warning
labels for downstream users. We can use any number of methods
to quarantine these images and strictly limit their use.

How about a voting mechanism? Anyone proposing we use a
new used-with-permission image must obtain a consensus
that the image is sufficiently useful and hard to replace
to justify a used-with-permission exception. That is my
modest proposal.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Alphax

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160

Maury Markowitz wrote:
> More recently I went back to the article and found all the images
> deleted. The deleter added a note, but as far as I can tell did so
> AFTER deleting them ( I can't get history on the image itself, of
> course).. He stated I should have tagged them differently. Yes, well,
> thanks for that,  maybe someone should have told me that in the month
> between me uploading them and them being deleted so I could have
> actually DONE that.
>

It is considered courteous for the uploader to be notified when an image
is listed on [[WP:PUI]]. In fact, the image deletion process is normally
quite long and requires the uploader to be contacted, original copyright
holder to be contacted requesting permission if there is any possibility
of release under a free licence, etc. Not doing so in this case seems
rather rude. I am curious to see what exactly the confirmation of
permission was. I have been through the process of requesting permission
for an image that had become featured because it was wrongly assumed
that it was under a free license, and the image ended up being deleted
when permission was refused.

> My complaint here is the completely arbitrary and largely invisible
> nature of this decision and its ramifications. The entire dicussion
> appears to have take place offline. If there was a public online
> dicussion, it was rather well hidden. I certainly was not privvy to
> it until AFTER the decision was made. Further, reading over the
> discussion here, it seems no dissenting views were considered. Nor is
> there any real reason given, other than "we don't like them". I asked
> for someone to explain it to me, but no one did, and they were simply
> deleted.
>

The only images that are acceptable are those that are either fair use
or under a free license. Anything else is shot on sight, and rightly so.
[[Special:Upload]] states (possibly not quite clearly enough):

> Please do not upload files under a "non-commercial use only" or
> "copyrighted, used by permission" licence. Such files will be
> deleted.

If the image was uploaded before May 19, it should have gone onto
[[WP:PUI]] before being deleted, not just speedied on sight.

> What's particularily baffling is that the deleter suggested I simply
> re-tag them to PermissionAndFairUse. This strikes me as absolutely
> rediculous. First of all, why are these OK and not ones used with
> permission? And if these are OK, why didn't it say so in the warning
> on the Permission tag? And finally why didn't anyone bother to tell
> anyone the answers to these, and all the other questions?
>

Again, the upload warning needs changing, and the uploaders need notifying.

I think this highlights a larger problem here - admins don't know what
the hell they are doing. They see an image with a non-free license, an
article which they think is nonsense, a user making nonsense edits, a
revert war brewing - they don't take the sensible options of notifying
the uploader, asking for a second opinion, or warning the user(s) - they
just delete, delete, block, revert and protect pages to their hearts
content.

I've done RC patrol, I've seen the nonsense articles, the unfree images,
the revert wars brewing, the vandalism - and every time, I've done my
best to remain courteous, leave notes on talk pages, and seek a second
opinion, because it's the only option available to me. Maybe you're just
tired and bitter, but I wonder what some of the admins would do if they
were forced to do the same instead of using their awesome powers.

- --
Alphax
OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFCyVAZ/RxM5Ph0xhMRA9ZlAJ0SG/5kWUiHWkqADnk6yT5r0/i7CACeKJxU
PW0eKjyuRT/1XZdhfqmUN6U=
=DesI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Bishonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
<snip> Nathan J. Yoder wrote:
>>
>> You're not listening at all.  I was editing only with my User:Njyoder
>> account, not a sock puppet nor logged out.  If you block a
>> username, it
>> has _always_ been the case that that username can't edit.
>>
>
> Right.  This feature stops sockpuppet editing (at least for fixed
> IP addresses).
>
>
>> > If only that were the case.  In practice, blocked editors edit
>> all the time;
>> > this simply stops the ones with fixed IP addresses from editing
>> with
>> > sockpuppets.
>>
>> As stated above, it also renews it for non-sock puppets.  This is how
>> it currently works:
>>
>> 1.  Admin blocks User:foo.
>> 2.  User:foo logs in as User:foo.
>> 3.  User:foo hits 'edit page.'
>> 4.  User:foo block is renewed for another 24 hours.
>>
>> So what exactly is the purpose in reblocking the original account
>> that
>> was already blocked to begin with?
>>
>
> Because the system can't tell whether you were trying to get around
> the block or simply doing something odd with no intent of actually
> editing when you hit the "edit" button.  What, again, was the net
> effect of this?  Your valid block was extended for a few more hours?
>
> Jay.

No, the block wasn't extended beyond the original 24 hours. Whether
editing from your own account is supposed to extend the block, or is
doing it as the result of a bug, I didn't think it was reasonable for
it to work like that. Therefore I unblocked Nathan after about 23 1/2
hours.

Bishonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] Thoughts on the process of requesting adminship

body:
On 7/4/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are many axis to consider harm.
> For example, after making 2000+ edits, failing to abuse procedure, no
> vandalism, etc.. A user goes up for adminship and is denied. We have
> 500 admins, why not one more?
> *Most* people would feel hurt by that.
>
> I'd call that harm.
>
> Obviously we can't just make everyone admins because their feelings
> would be hurt otherwise... but I think that in cases where a user is
> likely to abuse the tools after they've been around long enough for 2k
> edits that it is abundantly clear. In these cases we see unanimous or
> near unanimous opposition.
>
> In other cases, I think we should give the user a chance to prove
> themselves as an admin. That the risk of a vandal becoming an admin is
> infinitesimal at that point, and the the risk of bruising a valuable
> editors ego is more important.

If an editor's ego is bruised by failing their first RfA, then I'd say
that either their ego is too fragile for them to be a good admin, or
they bring too much ego to the project in the first place.

Reaction to a failed admin bid is probably the best indicator of who's
likely to be a good or bad admin.  Too bad we can't see that reaction
before selecting admins. ;-)

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
I think this is a great chance to point out that Jay JG, rather than
operating in good faith, is working very hard to construct a strawman
argument.

Look below. What does his rant and rave have to do with the case? NOTHING.
But it doesn't stop him from ranting and raving.

How's the Inquisition going Jay?

>From: "JAY JG" <jayjg at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship
>Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 18:42:47 -0400
>
>>From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>
>
>>
>>On 7/5/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > >From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>
>> > >
>> > >On 7/5/05, Nathan J. Yoder <njyoder at energon.org> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > So what exactly is the purpose in reblocking the original account
>>that
>> > > > was already blocked to begin with?
>> > >
>> > >It's a bug and should be fixed.
>> > >
>> > >The sign on the shop door says "Back in five minutes", but every time
>> > >you peer into the empty shop the shopkeeper gets a snit and waits
>> > >another five.
>> >
>> > No, it's more liked you've been tossed out of the shop for trespassing,
>>but
>> > whever the shop door says "back in five minutes" you feel a need to go
>>in
>> > and look around to see if the owner is back.  Then when you're tossed
>>out
>> > again for trespassing, you complain that you weren't planning to steal
>> > anything, you were just trying to find the owner.
>>
>>If the door is locked, you can't go in, no matter how many times you
>>rattle the knob.
>
>Turns out that people keep getting kicked out of the shop for a day for
>disruptive behaviour, and the doors are automatically locked and their 24
>hour ban is automatically renewed when the alarm system sees them trying to
>get back in wearing different disguises.  Now some new guy kicked out for a
>day for disruption gets caught by the alarm system, and he says "but I
>wasn't trying to sneak in in disguise and disrupt like those other people,
>I was coming in openly and making note of your inventory so I could buy it
>legally when I'm allowed back in".  So, he writes 500 abusive e-mails to
>the owners of the shop, insisting that he has been unjustly locked out, and
>demanding that the employee on duty at the time should be punished, claming
>that the alarm system is broken, and insisting that the shop is a disgrace.
>  Another guy who has been kicked out for disrupting the shop  has also
>been regularly writing the owners, generally whining and complaining about
>how terrible the shop is, how rude their employees are, how they practice
>favoritism to their regular customers, and how much better are the shops
>that he frequents.  He takes up the cause of the first complainant, making
>erroneous claims, and insisting that the alarm systems are faulty, and need
>to be fixed right away so no-one is ever locked out like this again.
>
>What a tragedy.  Maybe they should both take their business elsewhere.
>
>Jay.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Start dating right now with FREE Match.com membership! http://match.msn.ie


body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
<snip>
> I'd encourage others to cite the url to this message in the archives
> when replying in a critical way to Nony in the future.

For reference, the URL is
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-July/025786.html

- --
Alphax
OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFCyVbE/RxM5Ph0xhMRA+TbAJ0ecp3NUjLrPiqIOOlTmdro6J8rXACeJMdC
VuPij39+1Dsw9MByGsDoxRw=
=VZjg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 7/4/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>It is considered courteous for the uploader to be notified when an image
>>is listed on [[WP:PUI]]. In fact, the image deletion process is normally
>>quite long and requires the uploader to be contacted, original copyright
>>holder to be contacted requesting permission if there is any possibility
>>of release under a free licence, etc. Not doing so in this case seems
>>rather rude.
>
>
> As far as I can tell the uploaders are always contacted for images on
> [[WP:PUI]] which are questionable some time prior to deletion. The
> notice does not usually occur concurrently with the posting of the
> image on the list because it is useful for others to remove mistakes
> before contact is made.
>

As I understood it, {{idw}} or similar should be placed on the uploaders
talk page immediately the image is being considered for deletion.

> Can you cite a specific example where an image went through the entire
> [[WP:PUI]] process without a contact? Please provide a diff link to
> the edit that removes it from the PUI page... not all images are
> deleted via pui, so just evidence of a deleted image isn't enough to
> implicate PUI.
>

I'd like to think that it hasn't happened yet. I'd also like to think
that it won't ever happen. Hopefully, this is entirely hypothetical. I'm
not trying to implicate PUI in anything.

- --
Alphax
OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFCyV7r/RxM5Ph0xhMRA6WbAJ4joLa7n+Y6QoijNQVa2TAQFFVwLQCgoZto
V3i8Wh/OWPsXOFmW1KafhGk=
=sxaF
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
Angela wrote:

>On 7/5/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>One of the effects of the recent page capitalization issue has been that
>>the notice about this has overwritten direct access from en:wiktionary
>>to the foundation vote pages.
>>
>>I was only able to find it by rooting around special pages.  It would be
>>helpful if the appropriate links were re-established
>>
>>
>
>You, or any en.wiktionary admin, can add the message at
>http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sitenotice
>
>[[Special:Boardvote|vote]] can be used as a link to the local version
>of the vote page.
>
>
Thanks.  It was there on the edit page all the time but someone had
turned it into a remark.

Ray


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.5beta2 released

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

MediaWiki 1.5 beta 2 is a preview release of the new 1.5 release series.
While most exciting new bugs should have been ironed out at this point,
third-party wiki operators should probably not run this beta release
on a public site without closely following additional development.

Anyone who _has_ been running beta 1 is very very strongly advised to
upgrade to beta 2, as it fixes many bugs from the previous beta
including a couple of HTML and SQL injections.

This release should be followed by one or two release candidates and
a 1.5.0 final within the next few weeks.

Beta upgraders, note there are some minor database changes. For upgrades
from 1.4, see the file UPGRADE for details on significant database and
configuration file changes.

Beta 2 includes a preliminary command-line XML wiki dump importer tool,
maintenance/importDump.php, paired with maintenance/dumpBackup.php.
These use the same format as Special:Export and Special:Import, able
to package a wiki's entire page set independent of the backend database
and compression format.

Release notes:
http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=339820

Download:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.5beta2.tar.gz?download

MD5 checksum: 00b867fce68f0549ecb9a4938191dd19

Before asking for help, try the FAQ:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_FAQ

Low-traffic release announcements mailing list:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce

Wiki admin help mailing list:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

Bug report system:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/

Play "stump the developers" live on IRC:
#mediawiki on irc.freenode.net

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFCylIewRnhpk1wk44RAkYcAKCXIXwwEww0BWYkfwd23W44ZqjV2ACgli/R
aUg/ZaK2CwI6uASuTav+Iag=
=L57c
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Angela

body:
On 7/5/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> One of the effects of the recent page capitalization issue has been that
> the notice about this has overwritten direct access from en:wiktionary
> to the foundation vote pages.
>
> I was only able to find it by rooting around special pages.  It would be
> helpful if the appropriate links were re-established

You, or any en.wiktionary admin, can add the message at
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sitenotice

[[Special:Boardvote|vote]] can be used as a link to the local version
of the vote page.

Angela


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
On 5 jul 2005, at 04.53, Phil Sandifer wrote:

>
> On Jul 4, 2005, at 6:52 PM, JAY JG wrote:
>
>>
>> Actually, I have.  It's an alleged phenomenon, and if it happens
>> in the real world, it's extremely rare, and caused by completely
>> unnecessary activity. The solution is simple; go cool off for a
>> day.  And if you simply must hang around, then don't hit edit.
>>
>
> For what it's worth, he's right - you're not addressing the point,
> which is that it's not until you hit edit this page and get the
> "you have been blocked message" (which also renews your block) that
> you'd find out you've been blocked in the first place. Since being
> blocked doesn't send a "You have a message" link or e-mail you or
> anything.
>
> Concientious admins tend to either leave a message about the block
> or remove the second autoblock when it happens, in practice.
>
> -Snowspinner

I did both. (I'm the one who blocked Nathan originally.)

Bishonen


from_name: Skyring

body:
On 7/4/05, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, pressed send by mistake prematurely, here is the rest of my message
>
> This is a natural consequence of wikipedia, because virtually all
> discussions on wikipedia are about disputes. You don't put something
> on a talk-page if you agree with them, and you don't start an RFC
> either.
>
> The chess championship is a way for users to interact in a way that is
> not related to disputes. Please let us have it. If it gets out of
> hand, I'll be the first to send it to a VfD

I'm amused to see that for this topic GMail has given me a set of
advertising links related to computer game geeks.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Oskar! My first encounters
with a particular editor made me think I'd met a smart-arse teenager,
and I was startled to see that he thought the same of me.

We should have more opportunities for collaboration, and they should
begin right from the start. If that takes the form of game-playing and
we begin to see each other as real human beings rather than faceless
edit opponents, then this is a good thing.

Perhaps we should have a "buddy" system in place - a new member gets a
designated buddy to guide them in their first steps in Wikipedia and
stop them from making mistakes and enemies.

As for the games, if they aren't consuming significant resources and
they reduce stress, then keep them by all means. Just find some way to
stop them clogging up RC. And make sure that people don't come here
just to play games. There are a zillion game sites on the net - let's
not make WP games TOO enthralling!

--
Peter in Canberra


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
On 7/5/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>
> >
> >On 7/4/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > >From: "Nathan J. Yoder" <njyoder at energon.org>
> > > > > No, it's supposed to work that way.  It's doing exactly what it is
> > > >intended
> > > > > to do.
> > > >
> > > >No, it's supposed to protect against block evasion, how is it doing
> > > >that in this case?
> > >
> > > Attempts to edit while you are blocked are attempts to evade the block.
> >
> >That doesn't make sense. A blocked user CANNOT edit. It is like
removing the engine from the car of a driver whose license has been
suspended and saying that turning the key in the ignition is an
attempt to drive. It isn't - the car's not going anywhere. The driver
KNOWS this.

> Well, that's not really accurate, but most blocked users can no longer us a
> different Userid to avoid the block, precisely because Wikipedia blocks the
> IP address when attempts are made to do this.  That wasn't the case before
> the IP blocker was added.

I'm talking about the same logged-in user. The system has removed the
engine and they are merely turning the ignition key. Obviously if they
use a different IP address and don't log in, then they can edit, but
in such a case the system doesn't know who they are, it doesn't stop
them editing and it doesn't reset the block.

Please focus on the point of this discussion.

> > > >What purpose does it serve exactly?
> > >
> > > Protects against block evasion.
> >
> >How so? A blocked user CANNOT edit.  If you already have absolute
protection, then you don't need any more. Surely this is plain common
sense.

> If only that were the case.  In practice, blocked editors edit all the time;
> this simply stops the ones with fixed IP addresses from editing with
> sockpuppets.

No it doesn't. In such a case they CANNOT edit. The system stops them.

The fact that the block is reset doesn't stop them editing. They can't
edit anyway.

Please address the point. I notice that you removed the sections of
text that I included to make the point clear (which I've now
reinserted), so I'm assuming that you have grasped the point I am
making and now you are trying to erect a strawman. This doesn't really
help.

--
Peter in Canberra