from_name: Michel Clasquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fork within a language

body:
On Monday 18 March 2002 23:57, Lars Aronsson wrote:

> I'm trying to understand where the boundaries for Wikipedia are.
> Forgive me if this gets philosophical, and not very practical.
>
> Could a Wiki devoted to history have a place outside of Wikipedia?
> When describing London, it would focus on the city's historic
> features, not on the facets of today's London.  Then again,
> Wikipedia's entries on many things are focused on history.  It is
> almost as if Wikipedia is that history Wiki.  History, after all, is
> so much more in line with the contents of an encyclopedia than is
> object-oriented software development.

Assuming FDL for all instances, perhaps cut'n'pasting from a history wiki
into wikipedia might be easier than the other way round.

> Could a leftist-point-of-view Wiki exist side by side with Wikipedia?

Only on the sinister side ... <g>
<<OK, how many of you figured that one out?>>

> It would carefully point out any misuse of power

You mean as in [[Stalin]], [[Pol Pot]], [[Mao]] . . . ?

>, and list activist
> and political groups.

Expect lots and lots of vandalism.

> A youth culture Wiki might list all the hot dance clubs in London, but

Feasible, but youth "culture" changes so quickly that you might as well
start from scratch every two years or so.

> If all of these Wikis existed side by side, how would Wikipedia best
> take advantage of this expanded network?  Should Wikipedia be its
> backbone, or try to be self-sufficient, ignoring the outside world?

If you want to start a page on [[London - dance clubs]] (as opposed to
[[London - Snobby Oak-panelled Gentlemens' clubs]]) and expand from there,
nobody is going to stop you. But they would still have to be NPOV:

    '''DruggedOutOfMySkull''' is a dance venue in Totally Wasted  Street,
    [[London]]. It became notorious after the largest collection of
    [[ecstacy]] tablets in history was found there during a police raid
     in 2001.

But as soon as people arrive and start writing stuff like "Hey, had a
great time here last weekend, if you want the good stuff ask for Charlie",
the wiki NPOV thought police are likely to descend on it, I'm afraid <g>

BUT once this particular period of youth culture passes into oblivion and
is replaced by another, a record of it in a separate wiki  could serve as
a useful primary source from which, with  a lot of editing and material
from elsewhere, you could create a fascinating wikipedia article on
[[London - Youth culture in 2002/3]].

--
Michel Clasquin, D Litt et Phil (Unisa)
clasqm at mweb.co.za/unisa.ac.za   http://www.geocities.com/clasqm
This message was posted from a Microsoft-free PC

Only drug dealers and software companies call their customers "users"


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Minor conversion script problem

body:
Conversion script tries to convert q{/foo/} to q{[[Articlename/foo|/foo]]/}
But q{/foo/} are not subpage links in UseMod wiki.
They aren't links at all.

q{/foo/} are actually used to write down pronunciacion in a few
articles. But maybe that should be used that way.

q{} are of course quotes.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ian

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fork within a language

body:
Its not your English, I'm sure that has more to do with the politics of
Sweden. I just read George Orwell's /Homage to Catalonia/ and he refered
to right-wing Socialists (Stalinists) and left-wing Socialists (the
marxists he was fighting with). This concept is absent in the US; at least
I've never heard of it before. Interesting stuff, though totally off
topic.

Ian Monroe
http://mlug.missouri.edu/~eean/

On Wed, 20 Mar 2002, Lars Aronsson lars at aronsson.se XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote:

> Michel Clasquin wrote:
> > > It would carefully point out any misuse of power
> > You mean as in [[Stalin]], [[Pol Pot]], [[Mao]] . . . ?
>
> It might be my limited command of English, but these dictators aren't
> referred to as "leftist" in my country. I should have left politics
> out of this.  My point was merely that today we use separate wikis for
> different languages, but perhaps there is also a reason to use
> separate wikis for different audience/attitude/point of view.
>
> > BUT once this particular period of youth culture passes into oblivion and
> > is replaced by another, a record of it in a separate wiki  could serve as
>
> That would be the combination of youth culture and a history
> wiki.  You are way ahead of me here.  :-)
>
>
> --
>   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>   Aronsson Datateknik
>   Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
>   tel +46-70-7891609
>   http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fork within a language

body:
Michel Clasquin wrote:
> > It would carefully point out any misuse of power
> You mean as in [[Stalin]], [[Pol Pot]], [[Mao]] . . . ?

It might be my limited command of English, but these dictators aren't
referred to as "leftist" in my country. I should have left politics
out of this.  My point was merely that today we use separate wikis for
different languages, but perhaps there is also a reason to use
separate wikis for different audience/attitude/point of view.

> BUT once this particular period of youth culture passes into oblivion and
> is replaced by another, a record of it in a separate wiki  could serve as

That would be the combination of youth culture and a history
wiki.  You are way ahead of me here.  :-)

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Main page access

in_reply_to: <200203202155.g2KLt6f07945@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Wed, Mar 20, 2002 at 01:55:06PM -0800

body:
If there are no objections, I propose that we give it out on the same
basis as we did on the old software -- pretty much anybody who asks
gets access to the admin features, with a promise not to use it for
ill, which means basically don't delete page histories.

--Jimbo

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> On Talk:Main Page there is a comment about giving modification
> rights on the main page to more people, now that Larry's
> participation is sporadic (and Jimbo's always was).
> It is getting rather out of date, and I'm sure there are a few
> other folks we can trust not to screw it up too badly.
>
>
>
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Main page access

body:
On Talk:Main Page there is a comment about giving modification
rights on the main page to more people, now that Larry's
participation is sporadic (and Jimbo's always was).
It is getting rather out of date, and I'm sure there are a few
other folks we can trust not to screw it up too badly.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Main page access

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> In a related subject, I'm also wondering about the "page titles to be
> deleted" listing. When was the last time someone with admin access went
> through the ones listed and cleaned out the derserving?

A while, I'm sure!  I don't have time to do it.

This is one of those potentially controversial areas... we've had
people get into fights about it, in the past, and I don't like
fighting.  The idea was bandied about, and I like it, that deleting a
page might not need to delete the history, so that although deleting a
page IS a big deal, it isn't irreversible.

So we could let admins delete pages on the page titles to be deleted
page, but we'd want to set strong (social) policy that this is to be
used only as a technical housekeeping function, not as a tool for
battle.  :-)

> Last I saw on the bug report page:
> "We introduced new separate tables for the linking information, but they
> were only filled with a tiny fraction of the actual links. This is mainly
> due to me not telling Jimbo clearly enough what he should do. I've given
> him new instructions now and hopefully Jimbo gets around soon to redo the
> procedure soon. Apologies for the inconvenience. --Jan Hidders 2002 Feb 27 "
>
> Not meaning to sound demanding, of course, but that particular bit of
> housekeeping is starting to get in the way of some of the stuff I've been
> doing.

Well, I'm not sure what the status is on this.  :-(

One problem was that there was a script that needed to be run zillions of times
over and over from the web.  A commandline tool would be a lot better, because I
could just open a window, run it, and come back hours later when it is done.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Main page access

body:
At 01:55 PM 3/20/02 -0800, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>On Talk:Main Page there is a comment about giving modification
>rights on the main page to more people, now that Larry's
>participation is sporadic (and Jimbo's always was).
>It is getting rather out of date, and I'm sure there are a few
>other folks we can trust not to screw it up too badly.

In a related subject, I'm also wondering about the "page titles to be
deleted" listing. When was the last time someone with admin access went
through the ones listed and cleaned out the derserving?

And when is the page link database going to get updated, so that the
Orphans, Pages That Link Here, and Most Wanted pages will again be useful?
Last I saw on the bug report page:
"We introduced new separate tables for the linking information, but they
were only filled with a tiny fraction of the actual links. This is mainly
due to me not telling Jimbo clearly enough what he should do. I've given
him new instructions now and hopefully Jimbo gets around soon to redo the
procedure soon. Apologies for the inconvenience. --Jan Hidders 2002 Feb 27 "

Not meaning to sound demanding, of course, but that particular bit of
housekeeping is starting to get in the way of some of the stuff I've been
doing.

--
"Let there be light." - Last words of Bomb #20, "Dark Star"


from_name: Brion L. VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Main page access

body:
On mer, 2002-03-20 at 13:57, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
> > Last I saw on the bug report page:
> > "We introduced new separate tables for the linking information, but they
> > were only filled with a tiny fraction of the actual links. This is mainly
> > due to me not telling Jimbo clearly enough what he should do. I've given
> > him new instructions now and hopefully Jimbo gets around soon to redo the
> > procedure soon. Apologies for the inconvenience. --Jan Hidders 2002 Feb 27 "
> >
> > Not meaning to sound demanding, of course, but that particular bit of
> > housekeeping is starting to get in the way of some of the stuff I've been
> > doing.
>
> Well, I'm not sure what the status is on this.  :-(
>
> One problem was that there was a script that needed to be run zillions of times
> over and over from the web.  A commandline tool would be a lot better, because I
> could just open a window, run it, and come back hours later when it is done.

Run as "php rebuildLinks.php". I've just checked in a fix to CVS that
disables the execution time limit and goes for all entries by default,
so it'll take as long as it needs without timing out.

I'll try tweaking the wiki conversion script to import the old usemod
article histories similarly painlessly.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Adding the old history data (was Re: sample database dump with new
 schema)

body:
On lun, 2002-03-18 at 14:10, Axel Boldt wrote:
> I took the old database test dump
> http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/newiki.sql.gz and applied the
> database scheme changes from updSchema.sql and updLinks.php to create
> a new dump which conforms with our current database scheme, so that
> new hackers have something to play with. Where can I upload it?

Well, the file release section of the sourceforge site sounds like a
great place! You might need someone with appropriate permissions to
induct you into the secret society of people who can upload, though.
Magnus?

Also; I've added a history-import mode for the conversion script, so you
can take just the old usemod page histories and plunk them into the live
database:

  php -q convertWiki2SQL.php --history

This does not create a newiki.sql file, but goes straight to the
database. wikiLocalSettings.php thus should be appropriately configured.
(I've also changed it to use the $wikiLanguage variable that's set there
for determining the language properties, and automatically include the
table setup commands from wikipedia.sql into the newiki.sql output when
the --history option is not given.)

I haven't tried it on the full English database yet, so there may still
be bugs.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Trusted user access to machine

body:
I'd be interested in giving a small subset of the developers login
accounts on the machine where wikipedia runs.  This will enable people
other than me to install the latest versions of the software, run update
programs, and things of that nature.  This will surely be beneficial if
it works out, because I'm something of a bottleneck in the process.

Right now I'm thinking of Brion and Axel and Magnus, because they've
contributed the most code and I've talked to them the most in email
about technical stuff.

I don't want this to be a prestige thing, or for anyone's feelings to
be hurt if I don't give access to them.

If we set group permissions correctly, I think that 'root' access is not
necessary.  I can still install new versions of PHP, or recompile MySQL, or
things of that nature, from time to time as needed.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Postgre Support

in_reply_to: <1016740356.811.36.camel@localhost.localdomain>; from theo@theoretic.com on Thu, Mar 21, 2002 at 02:52:36PM -0500

body:
I believe and hope we are not using any MySQL specific nonstandard
extensions to SQL.  If that's true, then supporting a different
database engine should be easy enough.

While it seems likely that Wikipedia software will be useful to lots
of people doing lots of different things, I think that we developers
of the software should continue to think of these uses as secondary to
our central mission, which is the encyclopedia.

In other words, I'd like for wikitech-l to continue to focus on tools
for wikipedia, as opposed to general collaborative authoring tools.

Of course, in many ways, it's the same thing.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] Minor conversion script issue

body:
On ?a?, 2002-03-21 at 13:50, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> Conversion script adds link to parent page from subpage:
>
> Foo/Bar:
>  <text of subpage>
>
>  See also: Foo
>
> Where is this q{See also} text ?
>
> It should be q{Zobacz też}

Add the appropriate translations in the Polish section for:
$wikiSeeAlso = "See also" ;
$wikiConversionScript = "conversion script" ;
$wikiAutomatedConversion = "Automated conversion" ;

> That's the only problem I could find.

Woo-hoo! :)

Now we just need to fix the search... Yecch.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Adam Theo

subject: [Wikitech-l] Postgre Support

body:
Hello, all.

I just began looking into using the Wikipedia software for my thinktank
website, Theoretic Solutions [ www.theoretic.com ]. I had been staying
away from Wikis despite their clear benefit to managing lots of
information from different people because of the awkward CamelCase-ing.
However, When I stumbled upon Wikipedia's new PHP script, I realized it
was perfect. Unfortunately, it requires MySQL, whereas I have Postgre
installed. Is there any way to add Postgre support easily enough, or
should I continue my search elsewhere? I'm afriad I do not know PHP,
although often employ Perl programmers, so hopefully I could return the
favor somehow. Thanks, all.

--
    /\  Adam Theo, Age 22, Tallahassee FL USA
   //\\   Email & Jabber: theo at theoretic.com
  //  \\    MSN: theo at theoretic.com   YIM: adamtheo2
=//====\\=  (Boycotting AOL, therefore no AIM or ICQ)
//  ||  \\  Theoretic Solutions: http://www.theoretic.com
    ||         "Bringing Ideas Together"
    ||      Jabber Protocol: http://www.jabber.org
    ||         "The Coolest IM on the Planet"
    ||  "A Free-Market Socialist Patriotic American Buddhist"


subject: [Wikitech-l] Postgre Support

body:
On Thu, Mar 21, 2002 at 02:52:36PM -0500, Adam Theo wrote:
> Hello, all.
>
> I just began looking into using the Wikipedia software for my thinktank
> website, Theoretic Solutions [ www.theoretic.com ]. I had been staying
> away from Wikis despite their clear benefit to managing lots of
> information from different people because of the awkward CamelCase-ing.
> However, When I stumbled upon Wikipedia's new PHP script, I realized it
> was perfect. Unfortunately, it requires MySQL, whereas I have Postgre
> installed. Is there any way to add Postgre support easily enough, or
> should I continue my search elsewhere? I'm afriad I do not know PHP,
> although often employ Perl programmers, so hopefully I could return the
> favor somehow. Thanks, all.

Many Wikis can use freelinks in addition to CamelCase,
so the easiest think you can do is just check other Wikis.

For what I know, PHP script uses some special MySQL features,
like full text search, so it probably won't be trivial to port.

I think that your Perl programmers will be able to program PHP.
After all, PHP is very similar to ePerl.

But it's database issue, not PHP programming, so DB expert would
be more appropriate than PHP or Perl expert.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Minor conversion script issue

body:
Conversion script adds link to parent page from subpage:

Foo/Bar:
 <text of subpage>

 See also: Foo

Where is this q{See also} text ?

It should be q{Zobacz też}

That's the only problem I could find.

Btw, Jimbo or whoever else has access to wikipedia.com:
when will you setup test site for Polish PHP wikipedia ?


from_name: kband at www.llamacom.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] History/Daily news

in_reply_to: <MLEPJFEEOFMFHGIHGJPIKECDCAAA.magnus.manske@epost.de> from "Magnus Manske" at Mar 22, 2002 10:59:53 PM

body:
>
> I remember vaguely we tried some sort of "wikipedia newspaper" some time
> ago, but it didn't work. Today I saw a similar attempt on the German 'pedia,
> where you should add today's date each day on a special page and write about
> current events from the news.
>
> This might actually work on wikipedia.com, if we'd automatically add a link
> to "today" (like [[2002-03-22]]) in the sidebar. It would draw attention and
> remind people there's something they might want to write about. That way,
> we'd get at least links to many current topics, and on wikipedia, links tend
> to turn into articles ;)
>
How is this different from
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Current+events

?


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] History/Daily news

body:
I remember vaguely we tried some sort of "wikipedia newspaper" some time
ago, but it didn't work. Today I saw a similar attempt on the German 'pedia,
where you should add today's date each day on a special page and write about
current events from the news.

This might actually work on wikipedia.com, if we'd automatically add a link
to "today" (like [[2002-03-22]]) in the sidebar. It would draw attention and
remind people there's something they might want to write about. That way,
we'd get at least links to many current topics, and on wikipedia, links tend
to turn into articles ;)

Might be worth a try, another link in the sidebar is a small price to pay.

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] History/Daily news

body:
It would differ
* by making the existence of such page(s) more obvious and more easy to
access
* by reminding the 'pedians to go there (red "edit me" link!); I myself
haven't visited the "current events" in a while
* by making it more prominent, more edits should occur, covering more
topics, thus making the 'pedia more complete

Magnus

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of
kband at www.llamacom.com
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2002 11:58 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] History/Daily news

>
> I remember vaguely we tried some sort of "wikipedia newspaper" some time
> ago, but it didn't work. Today I saw a similar attempt on the German
'pedia,
> where you should add today's date each day on a special page and write
about
> current events from the news.
>
> This might actually work on wikipedia.com, if we'd automatically add a
link
> to "today" (like [[2002-03-22]]) in the sidebar. It would draw attention
and
> remind people there's something they might want to write about. That way,
> we'd get at least links to many current topics, and on wikipedia, links
tend
> to turn into articles ;)
>
How is this different from
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Current+events

?
[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: wojtek pobratyn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] History/Daily news

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Magnus Manske" <magnus.manske at epost.de>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2002 9:56 AM
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] History/Daily news

| It would differ
| * by making the existence of such page(s) more obvious and more easy to
| access
| * by reminding the 'pedians to go there (red "edit me" link!); I myself
| haven't visited the "current events" in a while
| * by making it more prominent, more edits should occur, covering more
| topics, thus making the 'pedia more complete
|
| Magnus

I think its a good idea and worth a try. Should it be a dud we can always
get rid of it with no harm done.

regards.

WojPob

<wojtek[at]seti23[dot]org>
what burns twice as bright, burns half
as long, and you have burnt so very,
very brightly roy.

<snip>


body:
Sorry for taking so long...

Axel, I'll need your SourceForge user name to add you to the "inner
circle";)

Magnus

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikitech-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Brion L. VIBBER
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 3:59 AM
To: Wikitech-L
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Adding the old history data (was Re: sample
database dump with new schema)

On lun, 2002-03-18 at 14:10, Axel Boldt wrote:
> I took the old database test dump
> http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/newiki.sql.gz and applied the
> database scheme changes from updSchema.sql and updLinks.php to create
> a new dump which conforms with our current database scheme, so that
> new hackers have something to play with. Where can I upload it?

Well, the file release section of the sourceforge site sounds like a
great place! You might need someone with appropriate permissions to
induct you into the secret society of people who can upload, though.
Magnus?

Also; I've added a history-import mode for the conversion script, so you
can take just the old usemod page histories and plunk them into the live
database:

  php -q convertWiki2SQL.php --history

This does not create a newiki.sql file, but goes straight to the
database. wikiLocalSettings.php thus should be appropriately configured.
(I've also changed it to use the $wikiLanguage variable that's set there
for determining the language properties, and automatically include the
table setup commands from wikipedia.sql into the newiki.sql output when
the --history option is not given.)

I haven't tried it on the full English database yet, so there may still
be bugs.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at ross.bomis.com
http://ross.bomis.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Marian layout

body:
Hi all,

I just liked the layout suggestion from Marian
(http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/user:Marian) so much that I couldn't resist
to check in a variant as a skin to the CVS archive.

It has the (preliminary) name "Cologne Blue", as both Marian and I are
living in Cologne, and the layout uses some blue ;)

Please check it out and help me. There are some things I didn't finish: Some
links (marked with a "!"), part of the links are not using the language
files, and of course, the colors are not nearly as good as those Marain
uses...

Magnus


from_name: Marian Steinbach

subject: [Wikitech-l] Marian layout

body:
Hi all!

Ok, it seems as if you want to jump the gun. I didn't expect people to
react that quickly and positive. Thanks for that!

My offer to provide you with cleanest HTML and CSS code is still valid,
but until tomorrow I have to write my "Vordiplom" (pre-diploma) which
makes me quite busy.

I also wanted to take the time to answer to some of the suggestions
given at my talk page.

Marian

Magnus Manske wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I just liked the layout suggestion from Marian
>(http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/user:Marian) so much that I couldn't resist
>to check in a variant as a skin to the CVS archive.
>
>It has the (preliminary) name "Cologne Blue", as both Marian and I are
>living in Cologne, and the layout uses some blue ;)
>
>Please check it out and help me. There are some things I didn't finish: Some
>links (marked with a "!"), part of the links are not using the language
>files, and of course, the colors are not nearly as good as those Marain
>uses...
>
>Magnus
>
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Marian layout

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> I just liked the layout suggestion from Marian
> (http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/user:Marian) so much that I couldn't resist

Is this based on an HTML table with three columns?  Some browsers are
terribly slow if inline images without specified sizes are part of a
table layout.

It looks very nice, and as long as the traditional design is available
as an alternative, all is fine.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Marian layout

body:
On dim, 2002-03-24 at 08:27, Magnus Manske wrote:
> It has the (preliminary) name "Cologne Blue", as both Marian and I are
> living in Cologne, and the layout uses some blue ;)
>
> Please check it out and help me. There are some things I didn't finish: Some
> links (marked with a "!"), part of the links are not using the language
> files,

Ack!! A pox on ye!! I think I've got them all into wikiTextEn.php now...

> and of course, the colors are not nearly as good as those Marain
> uses...

No. No, they're not. Perhaps you'd best leave that to Marian. :)

Also, I've checked in a change for the wikilink parser so that it will
recent invalid page titles as links. This should cut down on "why is
this page title all wrong, when I put invalid characters in the title?"
bug reports...

And, in case I forgot to mention earlier, I've added a description field
to the file upload form. The description will go in the upload log and
the recentchanges notice for said log.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Marian layout

body:
On lun, 2002-03-25 at 13:20, I wrote:
> Also, I've checked in a change for the wikilink parser so that it will
> recent invalid page titles as links. This should cut down on "why is

s/recent/reject/

> this page title all wrong, when I put invalid characters in the title?"
> bug reports...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Lorraine Lee

subject: [Wikipedia-l] is_sysop

body:
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>

> I made a bunch of people sysop.  I think I got everyone who requested
> it.  Plus, I got a few more besides.

I didn't even know there was a sysop privilege.  Does
wikipedia come with a long laundry list of specific
privileges, like VMS?  When was sysop implemented?
What does it consist of?  I must confess that when I first
encountered the wikipedia, I was immediately attracted to
it because, unlike arch-rival nupedia, it didn't come with a
few dozen pages explaining why an intellectual lightweight
such as myself with no advanced degrees is unlikely to
have anything of value to offer.  Now I find out that even
the wikipedia organization includes the concept of a
"sysop".  This, in itself, is not something I find alarming,
but it does lower wikipedia a peg on my opinion scale and
potentially on larger scales such as the mythical "public
relations".

> The only thing I ask of sysops is that you not delete pages unless you
> are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that there will be no controversy about it.
> :-)

According to the Reality Cracking school, it's impossible
for anyone to delete anything.  So why make it a rule for
people to obey?

> If we have fights about deleted pages, then I think the best thing to
> do is to implement some form of nondestructive delete.

I assumed you already had.  Perhaps periodic posts of
compressed content to obscure administrative regions of
usenet?  Or if even that is no longer part of the commons,
maybe intellectual commoners like myself could be
recruited as volunteers for the relatively simple tasks
involved in downloading and archiving compressed
wikipedia content.

> But, better to just not fight in the first place.  :-)

That would be a good first commandment.  Perhaps a
good second commandment would be that all records of
infighting that somehow arises within the wikipedia
organization be destroyed.

:-)

>
> --Jimbo
>
> p.s. Anyone else who wants sysop, just email me.
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Admin status?

in_reply_to: <200203262331.g2QNVZn05093@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 03:31:35PM -0800

body:
Done.  Going through all the other requests, too.

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> The front page still has "Winter Olympics" on it as a current event,
> which I'd be happy to update if I could.  And if you do give me admin
> status, I promise not to ban 24.150.61.xxx just because he's pissing
> me off. :-)
> 0


subject: [Wikipedia-l] is_sysop

body:
I made a bunch of people sysop.  I think I got everyone who requested
it.  Plus, I got a few more besides.

The only thing I ask of sysops is that you not delete pages unless you
are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that there will be no controversy about it.
:-)

If we have fights about deleted pages, then I think the best thing to
do is to implement some form of nondestructive delete.

But, better to just not fight in the first place.  :-)

--Jimbo

p.s. Anyone else who wants sysop, just email me.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Admin status?

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] is_sysop

in_reply_to: <OE33aZbLAX3cf3ednHM000058a2@hotmail.com>; from n8chz@hotmail.com on Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 10:47:48AM -0000

body:
Lorraine Lee wrote:
> I didn't even know there was a sysop privilege.  Does
> wikipedia come with a long laundry list of specific
> privileges, like VMS?

No, just is_sysop.

>  When was sysop implemented?

In the old site, we locked the homepage due to people putting
disgusting pictures there.  I said that anyone who wanted the password
could have it, so as to preserve the wiki-consensus-nature of the
homepage.

When we moved to the new software, it became the case that there isn't
just a single password, but each member can have privileges.

And I just now got around to saying "anyone who wants can have".

> What does it consist of?

Very little.  First, it means you can edit the homepage.  Second, it means
that you can delete pages including all traces that the page ever existed.
But this latter will probably change.

We don't want sysops to be special or set apart from regular users.
Anyone can be a sysop.  All it means is that you're not a vandal.

> According to the Reality Cracking school, it's impossible
> for anyone to delete anything.  So why make it a rule for
> people to obey?

Well, I'm afraid I don't know anything about that.

> > If we have fights about deleted pages, then I think the best thing to
> > do is to implement some form of nondestructive delete.
>
> I assumed you already had.  Perhaps periodic posts of
> compressed content to obscure administrative regions of
> usenet?  Or if even that is no longer part of the commons,
> maybe intellectual commoners like myself could be
> recruited as volunteers for the relatively simple tasks
> involved in downloading and archiving compressed
> wikipedia content.

Now I really don't even know what you are talking about, sorry.  :-)

The issue of deletion is that administrative deletion, unlike deletion
by an end user who merely blanks the content of the page is (a)
irreversible, in that the history is deleted as well and (b)
beneficial, in that it turns the page back into a nonexistent state so
that links to it will not indicate incorrectly that the page exists.

Administrative deletes should be reserved for mere uncontroversial
typos that don't serve any useful function, and for really awful
vandalism that shouldn't exist on the site.  It should also exist for
copyright violations!  If someone puts copyrighted material on the
site, we have to delete it bigtime.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] is_sysop

body:
On mar, 2002-03-26 at 02:47, Lorraine Lee wrote:
> From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
>
> > I made a bunch of people sysop.  I think I got everyone who requested
> > it.  Plus, I got a few more besides.
>
> I didn't even know there was a sysop privilege.  Does
> wikipedia come with a long laundry list of specific
> privileges, like VMS?

As far as I know, there's just the one.

>  When was sysop implemented?

Since we had the PHP script, at least. Before that, there were similar
priveleges conferred to users who had asked for the administrator
password. (Handed out pretty much willy-nilly to anyone who asked for it
-- not much of a cabal, eh?)

> What does it consist of?  I must confess that when I first
> encountered the wikipedia, I was immediately attracted to
> it because, unlike arch-rival nupedia, it didn't come with a
> few dozen pages explaining why an intellectual lightweight
> such as myself with no advanced degrees is unlikely to
> have anything of value to offer.  Now I find out that even
> the wikipedia organization includes the concept of a
> "sysop".  This, in itself, is not something I find alarming,
> but it does lower wikipedia a peg on my opinion scale and
> potentially on larger scales such as the mythical "public
> relations".

Is_sysop isn't *that* great. Here's what you get:

* Ability to permanently delete pages including their history. (Which
I'm not convinced is entirely wise a function to have at all.)

* Ability to delete uploaded files. (Regular users already can upload a
blank file to overwrite obnoxious material, so this just keeps the
upload directory cleaner.)

* Ability to edit pages that have protection set to "is_sysop"
* Ability to protect/unprotect pages

* Ability to ban an IP address from editing access. (However, this
function is limited and, I think, buggy.)

* Ability to run SQL queries on the database. Not useful unless you
really know what you're doing.

Jimbo:
> > If we have fights about deleted pages, then I think the best thing to
> > do is to implement some form of nondestructive delete.

What I would recommend for a non-destructive delete is to move the
article from the 'cur' to the 'old' table in the database, then remove
it from 'cur'. The article will then still be in the database with its
complete history, but wouldn't show up in regular links, searches, etc.

It ought to be relatively simple to then set up a "restore deleted
pages" function.

Lorraine:
> I assumed you already had.  Perhaps periodic posts of
> compressed content to obscure administrative regions of
> usenet?  Or if even that is no longer part of the commons,
> maybe intellectual commoners like myself could be
> recruited as volunteers for the relatively simple tasks
> involved in downloading and archiving compressed
> wikipedia content.

Speaking of which; Jimbo, we really need to have a periodically produced
database dump tarball available.

> > But, better to just not fight in the first place.  :-)
>
> That would be a good first commandment.  Perhaps a
> good second commandment would be that all records of
> infighting that somehow arises within the wikipedia
> organization be destroyed.

Trotsky who? :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Tarballs of the database (was Re: is_sysop)

body:
On mar, 2002-03-26 at 17:18, I wrote:
> Speaking of which; Jimbo, we really need to have a periodically produced
> database dump tarball available.

Hey, I just noticed that there *is* a database dump available now at
http://www.wikipedia.com/tarballs/ (as of March 21)! Awesome, thanks!

However, the old usemod database has vanished from there. Since the old
edit histories aren't merged in yet, this is a problem... (There are
still a few articles left that got damaged by bugs in the conversion
script, and it would be nice to be able to restore them.) I dug around
my hard drive and found a saved copy that seems to go up to December 20;
is there a more recent one still available?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] is_sysop

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] is_sysop (again)

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] page deletions

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] is_sysop

in_reply_to: <1017191895.3391.2.camel@rdaneel.moisty.org>; from brion@pobox.com on Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 05:18:14PM -0800

body:
Brion wrote (over on wikipedia-l):
> * Ability to run SQL queries on the database. Not useful unless you
> really know what you're doing.

Gee, this sounds dangerous.

Perhaps we should have is_developer, and restrict this command to developers?

--Jimbo


body:
Kurt Jansson wrote:
> Even today it would be nice to see the complete history of an article -
> is this an problem of discspace or speed? Can it be solved?

Some of the very oldest history is lost forever... the Usemod script
had a length of time parameter that was set to 30 days for awhile,
without my really thinking much about it.

There isn't really any permanent problem with disk space, although the
server is getting a little bit cramped at the moment.  Disks are
cheaper than ever, with no end in sight to the price reductions.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] apologies

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] is_sysop

body:
On mer, 2002-03-27 at 08:55, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Brion wrote (over on wikipedia-l):
> > * Ability to run SQL queries on the database. Not useful unless you
> > really know what you're doing.
>
> Gee, this sounds dangerous.
>
> Perhaps we should have is_developer, and restrict this command to developers?

I second this suggestion.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] page deletions

body:
On mer, 2002-03-27 at 08:23, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> hey, i notice http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Log%3APage_Deletions has a link beside it saying "delete this page."  I find that both hilarious & unwise, & hope the link doesn't work.  ;-)

Consider that a bug that will be fixed! Log pages should not be
deleteable.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
Hi!

> > Speaking of which; Jimbo, we really need to have a periodically
produced
> > database dump tarball available.
>
> Hey, I just noticed that there *is* a database dump available now at
> http://www.wikipedia.com/tarballs/ (as of March 21)! Awesome, thanks!
>
> However, the old usemod database has vanished from there. Since the
old
> edit histories aren't merged in yet, this is a problem...

We should also keep in mind, that in about ten years there will be
scientific studies about the evolution of certain Wikipedia articles,
and in about 25 years there will be an old Wikipedia tarball lying next
to an old Linux kernel in the [[Museum of Free Software and Open
Source]] (existing since 2017).

Even today it would be nice to see the complete history of an article -
is this an problem of discspace or speed? Can it be solved?

Bye,
Kurt


subject: [Wikitech-l] {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}

body: Is this variable properly updated on the front page?


subject: [Wikitech-l] {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}

body:
On mer, 2002-03-27 at 15:22, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Is this variable properly updated on the front page?

Seems to be. In [[Main Page]] I see: ... over 27,452 articles.

Running the query manually:
  SELECT COUNT(*) as number FROM cur WHERE cur_title NOT LIKE "%:%" AND
  cur_title NOT LIKE "%ikipedia%" AND cur_text LIKE "%,%"
I get the result 27452.

Whether that's the appropriate method to measure the figure or not is
another question.

Speaking of which, Jimbo, when can we expect to see that software
upgrade?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}

in_reply_to: <1017275010.9966.0.camel@rdaneel.moisty.org>; from brion@pobox.com on Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 04:23:29PM -0800

body:
Brion L. VIBBER wrote:
> Speaking of which, Jimbo, when can we expect to see that software
> upgrade?

1 minute ago, is it working.  :-)


subject: [Wikitech-l] {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}

body:
On mer, 2002-03-27 at 16:25, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Brion L. VIBBER wrote:
> > Speaking of which, Jimbo, when can we expect to see that software
> > upgrade?
>
> 1 minute ago, is it working.  :-)

Woo-hoo! Now I can wade into the bug reports page and see how much I can
move into "fixed". :) Thanks!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] rebuildLinks.php

body:
I left rebuildLinks.php running from the command line last night.  It looked good when
I left.  This morning, I found this:

26476 of 45991: New_Zealand/People
26477 of 45991: New_Zealand/Transnational_issues
26478 of 45991: New_Zealand/Transportation
26479 of 45991: New_Zealand_English
26480 of 45991: New_directions_and_movements
26481 of 45991: New_liberalism
26482 of 45991: New_materials_(painting)
26483 of 45991: New_moon
26484 of 45991: New_moon/details
26485 of 45991: New_testament
26486 of 45991: New_topics

Warning:  Wrong datatype for second argument in call to in_array() in ./wikiPage.php on line 31

Fatal error:  Call to a member function on a non-object in ./special_newpages.php on line 15

[root at ross work-http]#

I suppose this means that there's some bad data in there somewhere?


subject: [Wikitech-l] rebuildLinks.php

body:
On ?a?, 2002-03-28 at 09:31, Jimmy Wales wrote:
[..]
> 26486 of 45991: New_topics
>

> Warning:  Wrong datatype for second argument in call to in_array() in ./wikiPage.php on line 31

>

> Fatal error:  Call to a member function on a non-object in ./special_newpages.php on line 15

> [root at ross work-http]#
>
> I suppose this means that there's some bad data in there somewhere?

New_topics is a redirect to [[special:NewPages]]. The link building
script shouldn't be following redirects! I've just checked in a quick
fix that should do it:

-        $sql1 = "SELECT cur_title FROM cur LIMIT $offset, $size ;" ;
+        $sql1 = "SELECT cur_title FROM cur WHERE cur_text NOT LIKE \"#REDIRECT%\" LIMIT $offset, $size ;" ;

Try it again... You can set the offset to start things up in the middle
somewhere:
  offset=25000 php rebuildLinks.php

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Missing article

in_reply_to: <200203291807.g2TI73X06635@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Fri, Mar 29, 2002 at 10:07:03AM -0800

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> While in the process of updating some of the articles like policies
> and FAQ and such, I found a link to Jimbo's article "Wiki is fertile
> soil", which currently is empty.  I can't find it under Wikipedia
> commentary or in meta, either.  Did it get lost in transition
> somewhere, or has it been deleted intentionally without deleting all
> the links to it?

I noticed that it was missing and just assumed that someone moved it
to meta, or my user space.  I haven't looked that hard for it.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Missing article

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Security issue

body:
Yes!  I suggested that we have a separate 'is_developer' status.  I
assume that in addition to the problem you mentioned, people could
also issue destructive commands easily enough.

I suspect that even with is_developer, we should also do something
about the password problem.  I don't think there is any good reason to
store the passwords in plaintext.

Well, there's one -- it's nice to be able to email someone their
password if they forget it.  But a better (more secure) solution is to
email them a *new* password if they forget their *old* one.

The way this should work is this:

1.  If you forget your password, you can just enter your email address on the site.

2.  A new password is randomly selected and mailed to your email
address.  At this juncture, though, *either* password should work,
both the old and the new.  (This prevents a denial-of-service pest
from locking you out by requesting your password every 5 minutes, thus
causing your old one not to work.)

3.  If you log in with your new password, it replaces your real
password.  Or else you are prompted to select a new password at that
point.

4.  If you never log in with the new password, nothing else needs to happen.
Your old one will still work.

In any event, ALL of these passwords should be stored encrypted.

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

The key is to protect against people being annoying, while also giving
some degree of security.

Wikipedia passwords aren't so precious -- but still, a certain level
of security makes good sense.  It isn't so much a concern about people
"breaking into your wikipedia account" -- in the old days, the whole
notion of an "account" was a total fiction anyway.  It's more the concern
raised by Lee -- people shouldn't, but they do reuse passwords for both
sensitive and nonsensitive things.

As for me, you can now use my password from the wikipedia database to see all
sorts of things requiring free registration all over the web.  :-)


subject: [Wikitech-l] special_asksql.php removed

body:
In the interests of security, I removed special_asksqp.php from the
live server.  I didn't change anything else, so the link still appears
for is_sysop, but is an error page now.

I think we should bring this function back, but...

1.  Passwords should be encrypted in the database.  In this way no
one, not even me, can see them.

2.  This function should be an is_developer function, so that we can
freely hand out sysops even to people who might not know SQL at all --
or, like me, know just enough to be dangerous.  :-)

In general, under the moral codes of wikipedia social culture, we want
to avoid against the creation of hierarchies of power *over the
content*.  This doesn't imply, though, that developers shouldn't have
some tools for researching problems, tools that aren't made generally
available.  The main thing is that we don't want there to ever be a
method for some people to "pull rank" over a content debate _within
the confines of the NPOV_.

(What I mean by that disclaimer: if a large group of people showed up
one day insisting the the true purpose of Wikipedia is as a humor
site, or as an exposition of the truth of their particular religion,
etc., then I'd be very much in favor of "pulling rank" to stop them.
But so long as the debater is even loosely attempting to comply with
NPOV, all of us should be equal -- it's that power which keeps us all
honest, I think.)

(As I've said on wikipedia-l and elsewhere, there's nothing wrong with a
humor wiki or a Christian wiki or whatever.  It's just that none of those
things are wikipedia.)

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Security issue

body:
On ven, 2002-03-29 at 16:48, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I suspect that even with is_developer, we should also do something
> about the password problem.  I don't think there is any good reason to
> store the passwords in plaintext.

Agreed.

> The way this should work is this:
>
> 1.  If you forget your password, you can just enter your email address on the site.

We should probably make sure that there's an e-mail address field on the
signup page; I suspect most people haven't put their address into the
receptacle in the prefs box. Hence accounts and e-mail address aren't
reliably linked.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] special_asksql.php removed

body:
On ven, 2002-03-29 at 17:02, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> In the interests of security, I removed special_asksqp.php from the
> live server.  I didn't change anything else, so the link still appears
> for is_sysop, but is an error page now.

Thanks, I feel much safer now. :) The other thing that worries me is the
permanent delete; if I have time I'll try to throw in the beginnings of
a semi-permanent delete function (remove from cur table; keep in old).
Thus deleted articles could still be fished out of old and restored by
someone else with is_sysop status once a suitable interface for doing
such is also added.

That should protect against accidental deletions or abuse of sysop
priveleges.

A permanent delete is still needed for potential copyright violations
and other illegal materials that we wouldn't want distributed in the
database dumps; a "flush" of unlinked old revisions from time to time
should do it.

> I think we should bring this function back, but...
>
> 1.  Passwords should be encrypted in the database.  In this way no
> one, not even me, can see them.

Most definitely.

> 2.  This function should be an is_developer function, so that we can
> freely hand out sysops even to people who might not know SQL at all --
> or, like me, know just enough to be dangerous.  :-)

Would it be safe to limit use to "select" statements for
non-is_developer folks, so the curious could still explore the database?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: lee at piclab.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] Security issue

body:
If we're going to be giving "sysop" status fairly liberally
(and I don't disagree with that as a policy), you might consider
still making at least one concession to database security:
currently, anyone with sysop access can query the database and see
users' passwords in plaintext.  People tend to use the same
password for several things--so it wouldn't surprize me at all if
I were able to log onto Magnus's email account or something.

It shouldn't be too much work to use some minimal encryption there.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikitech-l] special_asksql.php removed

body:
On 3/29/02 8:45 PM, "Brion L. VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

>
> Would it be safe to limit use to "select" statements for
> non-is_developer folks, so the curious could still explore the database?
>
My thoughts exactly. I'd even consider making sql-selecting available to any
registered user (not just is_sysop or is_developer).


subject: [Wikitech-l] special_asksql.php removed

body:
On ven, 2002-03-29 at 18:38, The Cunctator wrote:
> On 3/29/02 8:45 PM, "Brion L. VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > Would it be safe to limit use to "select" statements for
> > non-is_developer folks, so the curious could still explore the database?
> >
> My thoughts exactly.

Checked into CVS. (But the passwords are still plaintext. This'll need a
scramble-all-passwords function added to updScheme.php, probably -- we
don't want to lock people out of their accounts!)

> I'd even consider making sql-selecting available to any
> registered user (not just is_sysop or is_developer).

Could be done. (Just add "asksql" to $wikiAllowedSpecialPages, and take
out the then-redundant check-user-privs-and-add-on-the-fly in
wikiPage.php.)

Thoughts?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] special_asksql.php removed

in_reply_to: <1017452760.4399.2.camel@rdaneel.moisty.org>; from brion@pobox.com on Fri, Mar 29, 2002 at 05:45:58PM -0800

body:
Brion L. VIBBER wrote:
> Would it be safe to limit use to "select" statements for
> non-is_developer folks, so the curious could still explore the database?

I think so!  But, I'm not the right person to say.

--Jimbo


from_name: Michael Irwin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] remove from list, thanks

body:
remove from list, thanks

__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Greetings - send holiday greetings for Easter, Passover
http://greetings.yahoo.com/


from_name: David Merrill

subject: [Wikipedia-l] remove from list, thanks

body:
On Sat, Mar 30, 2002 at 06:09:35PM -0800, Michael Irwin wrote:
> remove from list, thanks
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Greetings - send holiday greetings for Easter, Passover
> http://greetings.yahoo.com/
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

See the line right above this one? Go to that URL to unsubscribe. In
2002, listadmins do not manually (un)subscribe people.

--
David C. Merrill                         http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                   david at lupercalia.net
Lead Developer                             http://www.linuxdoc.org

DOS will be with us forever. We've learned how passionate people are about
DOS.
	-Former Microsoft Vice President Brad Silverberg


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikitech-l] special_asksql.php removed

body:
>> Would it be safe to limit use to "select" statements for
>> non-is_developer folks, so the curious could still explore the
>> database?

> My thoughts exactly. I'd even consider making sql-selecting
> available to any registered user (not just is_sysop or is_developer).

Or to anybody, with an SQL server that's open to the internet for
reading.

Because of load reasons, we probably shouldn't do that with the live
SQL server though. I would expect that, once we have regularly updated
database dumps for download (hint!), somebody will set up such a
server somewhere (and lots of other interesting things will happen).

Axel


from_name: Ian

body:
Check out www.archive.org - they may have some of stuff your looking for.

Ian Monroe
http://ian.webhop.org

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, Kurt Jansson jansson at gmx.net XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote:

> Hi!
>
> > > Speaking of which; Jimbo, we really need to have a periodically
> produced
> > > database dump tarball available.
> >
> > Hey, I just noticed that there *is* a database dump available now at
> > http://www.wikipedia.com/tarballs/ (as of March 21)! Awesome, thanks!
> >
> > However, the old usemod database has vanished from there. Since the
> old
> > edit histories aren't merged in yet, this is a problem...
>
> We should also keep in mind, that in about ten years there will be
> scientific studies about the evolution of certain Wikipedia articles,
> and in about 25 years there will be an old Wikipedia tarball lying next
> to an old Linux kernel in the [[Museum of Free Software and Open
> Source]] (existing since 2017).
>
> Even today it would be nice to see the complete history of an article -
> is this an problem of discspace or speed? Can it be solved?
>
> Bye,
> Kurt
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] is_sysop

body:
On mar, 2002-03-26 at 16:56, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> The issue of deletion is that administrative deletion, unlike deletion
> by an end user who merely blanks the content of the page is (a)
> irreversible, in that the history is deleted as well and

I've checked in the beginnings of the semi-permanent delete code to the
CVS repository; a deleted page will still be kept hidden in the history
(old) table until it is removed by a (not yet implemented) periodic
sweep of unlinked histories or restored by another trusted user using
the (also not yet implemented) page undeletion tool.

Jimbo, I'd feel better about all this if you could install that on the
running machine when you have a chance. I don't expect anyone to abuse
their delete priviledges deliberately, but there may be disagreements
over appropriateness or accidental deletions (I'm sure I'm not the only
one who's hit a "yes, I'm sure" button automatically before noticing
that I'd been asked about something other than what I had intended!).
There's also the possibility of vandals breaking into someone's account
(think of insecure passwords, or leaving the login cookie open on a
public machine...), and I'd prefer that potential damage be minimized.

> (b)
> beneficial, in that it turns the page back into a nonexistent state so
> that links to it will not indicate incorrectly that the page exists.

Of course, it's even better to add actual content yourself. :)

> Administrative deletes should be reserved for mere uncontroversial
> typos that don't serve any useful function, and for really awful
> vandalism that shouldn't exist on the site.  It should also exist for
> copyright violations!  If someone puts copyrighted material on the
> site, we have to delete it bigtime.

Would it be useful to have a single-version delete? ie, the ability to
drop a single old version of a page from the database, leaving in its
place a notice of removal. That way, gross vandalism (copyrighted or
illegal material) put into an existing article could be cleanly removed
from the database without going so far as to delete the whole article
history.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] is_sysop

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] suggestion

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] If I queried the catalog, what would be there?

body:
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>

> 3. "developers" -- the main extra thing that developers should have
> access to would be "raw" stuff that's pretty technologically
> "dangerous" if you don't know what you're doing.  I.E., ability to
> enter arbitrary SQL select statements, even ones that might be really
> slow.  This extra power should only be used for development purposes,
> and not "in a content fight".

I think I'm metadata-aware enough to be trusted with
read-only SQL access to wikipedia, but I've been wrong
in the past and can't think of anything immediately useful
I'd do if I did have select access.

Since it appears to be a fairly strongly copyleft project, I
assume you have published its SQL data model?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New "Cologne blue" user interface critique

body:
(Also posted to http://wikipedia.com/wiki/user_talk:Marian)

The new "Cologne blue" skin is a tremendous improvement. I think we
should eventually make it the default.

A couple of things I would like to change:

* The exclamation marks in front of actions are not necessary and
  without explanation confuse more than they illuminate.

* The upper right "Log in" should switch to "Log out" if I'm already
  logged in.

* If the side box is switched off in preferences, we need at a
  minimum an "edit this page" link somewhere at the bottom. Also,
  there's currently a bug which displays the page header at the
  bottom in this case.

* The Wikipedia logo in the page header should be a link to the main
  page. That seems to be the standard behavior on all sites nowadays.
  Can we spend the screen real estate to use our current logo?

* "My Settings" should be "My settings", similar to "My watchlist".

* The row in the upper right should contain a link to wikipedia:Help

* In the side box, the Edit section should get the link "Edit this
  page", in addition to "Upload file". I think that's where people
  would expect it. The link should go away when editing a page. A link
  to Editing Help could be added.

* The small font (show diff) should be removed. It looks crappy, and
  "diff" is not a term that people are familiar with. Just add a new
  entry "Show last change"

* "All pages" is pretty useless, and expensive on the server, so I
  think that doesn't need to be on the sidebar.

* "Recent Changes" is not self-explanatory. Maybe "Recently changed
  pages" is clearer.

* "Myself" should be changed to "My page", because that's what it is.

* Under "Page options", the link should be "Printable version" instead
  of "Print", because that's what it is.

* The section "Page options" should disappear if there are no Page
  options that apply to the current page, for instance when editing.

Again, please don't mis-interpret this list of criticisms: I am
strongly in favor of "Cologne Blue". A similar list of criticisms for
the current scheme would be at least three times as long.

Axel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] suggestion

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] suggestion

body:
> On http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/special:LongPages I'm seeing "Delete
> this page!" in the table.  I'd rather that not be an option anywhere
> except for on the page to be deleted, and especially not here, on a
> listing of the longest articles we've got.

As some of the longest articles are copies of PD texts (for example, "The
Origin Of Species"), I thought it could be handy to have the delete link
within clicking range. On the other hand, I didn't expect that many sysops,
either...

Magnus


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Levels of privileges

body:
It seems like we should have almost everyone at the same level, and
have that level be available for the asking, and have that level be
mostly nondestructive, i.e. every action is reversible, although some
might be a pain in the neck to reverse.  So it might look like this:

1.  Newcomers -- can do everything except a small handful of actions,
actions which are "pretty serious" like temporarily blocking an ip or
deleting a page.

2.  "sysop" or better terminology might be "community member" -- can
do some extra things like nondestructive delete, temporary ip blocking
(which should affect only newcomers, not other "community members").
The important _wiki_ ideal here is that community members shouldn't be
able to do anything extra "in a content fight" if you see what I mean.
We'll all the same, newcomers and community members, when it comes to
the content -- one "check" here is that anyone can become a community
member just by asking... it shouldn't be all that special, and
certainly not an exclusive "club".

3. "developers" -- the main extra thing that developers should have
access to would be "raw" stuff that's pretty technologically
"dangerous" if you don't know what you're doing.  I.E., ability to
enter arbitrary SQL select statements, even ones that might be really
slow.  This extra power should only be used for development purposes,
and not "in a content fight".

4.  "sysop" -- of which there might only be 1, me, or a very small
number.  The sysop can do things that might be legally necessary, like
immediately and totally deleting copyright violations, or things that
might be necessary to fight a serious troll attack, like
semi-permanently banning whole ranges of ip numbers.  For most things
of this nature, there's probably no need to worry about it in advance.
Anyhow, "sysop" powers must never be used "in a content fight".  This
would be like Superman cheating at poker by looking through the cards.
:-)

--Jimbo


from_name: Julie Hofmann Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Levels of privileges

body:
My $.02 -- I like Brion's idea of a kind of intermediate deletion.
Also,  I have never tried  to block an IP because I'm not sure I
understand the ramifications --- how long would that last?  How is it
reversed?  The only cases where I could actually see myself using it
would be to stop a vandal in progress, or to slow down an overeager
newbie who hasn't bothered to read any of the guidelines and is out
there creating tons of duplicate, 'incorrectly named' pages -- it would
be good to slow them down long enough to be pointed in the right
direction for log-in instructions, sandbox  practice, naming
conventions, etc. -- but without discouraging contributions.  Any
answers, suggestions? -- Jules

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Claude Muncey (SRN)

body:
I would like to "chime in" with thanks for the great job on the "Cologne
Blue" skin.  A couple of minor design and usability issues:

* I've already posted some HTML change suggestions (minor) to the UI feature
changes page -- If you have already gotten to them -- thank you.  If you
don't agree with them, thank you anyway.

* The "Help" link on the standard skin page seems to be missing -- I find it
useful and "newbies" probably more so.

* The "FAQ" link (on the help page) on the standard skin points to
Wikipedia+FAQ while the link on Cologne Blue points to Wikipedia:FAQ, which
''currently'' does not exist.

Nice job, and I too think this skin should be the default!

Claude Muncey


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Levels of privileges

in_reply_to: <001601c1d9c1$d3453c10$ad37a8c0@laptop>; from juleskemp@yahoo.com on Mon, Apr 01, 2002 at 01:11:43PM -0800

body:
Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
> Also,  I have never tried  to block an IP because I'm not sure I
> understand the ramifications --- how long would that last?  How is it
> reversed?  The only cases where I could actually see myself using it
> would be to stop a vandal in progress, or to slow down an overeager
> newbie who hasn't bothered to read any of the guidelines and is out
> there creating tons of duplicate, 'incorrectly named' pages -- it would
> be good to slow them down long enough to be pointed in the right
> direction for log-in instructions, sandbox  practice, naming
> conventions, etc. -- but without discouraging contributions.  Any
> answers, suggestions? -- Jules

I'd be interested in hearing more about this, too.  Without reading
the code, I don't know how this is implemented currently.

I think Julie has exactly the right approach to IP banning -- it's
only for real vandals in progress, where "vandal" is defined very
uncontroversially.  And also for people who, while not necessarily
vandals, are in the process of doing something _big_ ("tons" of
invalid pages) just because they're unaware.`

I think our wikipdia "code of honor" should be: never in anger, never
in a fight over content.  Those have to be settled "on a fair playing
field", through reason, not software powers.

Someday, there will probably be someone who we have to permanently
ban.  I dread that day, because I don't even know how we will
accomplish it.

--Jimbo


body:
I just checked in most of the suggested changes into the CVS. Also, the CB
sidebar now shows the delete/protect options. And, the colors are now
exactly like the ones on the Marian demo image.

A few points:

> * If the side box is switched off in preferences, we need at a
>   minimum an "edit this page" link somewhere at the bottom. Also,
>   there's currently a bug which displays the page header at the
>   bottom in this case.

Using CB, choosing no sidebar will force the sidebar to appear on the right.
Cheap fix, I know...

> * The Wikipedia logo in the page header should be a link to the main
>   page. That seems to be the standard behavior on all sites nowadays.
>   Can we spend the screen real estate to use our current logo?

"WIKIPEDIA" now links to the Main Page, and "The free encyclopedia" links to
"wikipedia".

> * "Recent Changes" is not self-explanatory. Maybe "Recently changed
>   pages" is clearer.

IMHO, "Recent Changes" is just fine. If someone doesn't know what it is, a
click is all it takes...

Magnus


in_reply_to: <OE18jbDt3HvoFOAmEaJ00005044@hotmail.com>; from n8chz@hotmail.com on Sun, Mar 31, 2002 at 10:22:01PM -0000

body:
Lorraine Lee wrote:

> From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
>
> > 3. "developers" -- the main extra thing that developers should have
> > access to would be "raw" stuff that's pretty technologically
> > "dangerous" if you don't know what you're doing.  I.E., ability to
> > enter arbitrary SQL select statements, even ones that might be really
> > slow.  This extra power should only be used for development purposes,
> > and not "in a content fight".
>
> I think I'm metadata-aware enough to be trusted with
> read-only SQL access to wikipedia, but I've been wrong
> in the past and can't think of anything immediately useful
> I'd do if I did have select access.

I'm in the same boat.  And I think read-only access should be fine for
just about anyone.  I mean, unless it proved to be a problem for some
reason.

I personally don't want to be able to delete things directly in the database via
the web.  I mean, if I REALLY have to delete something from the database, then for
now, I'm better off going directly into mysql on the command line and in a very paranoid
and cautious fashion typing it in.  :-)  I've never had to do that, but...

>
> Since it appears to be a fairly strongly copyleft project, I
> assume you have published its SQL data model?
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Brion L. VIBBER

body:
On dim, 2002-03-31 at 14:22, Lorraine Lee wrote:
> I think I'm metadata-aware enough to be trusted with
> read-only SQL access to wikipedia, but I've been wrong
> in the past and can't think of anything immediately useful
> I'd do if I did have select access.
>
> Since it appears to be a fairly strongly copyleft project, I
> assume you have published its SQL data model?

The table setup statements are in "wikipedia.sql" in the source tree;
nothing's really documented as such, but it's mostly pretty
self-explanatory*. You can browse the files in the CVS repository:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/wikipedia/phpwiki/fpw/

* The cur_id, old_id, cur_old_version, and old_old_version fields are
used to put together linked lists of version histories.

A dump of the database (80 megs compressed) is available at:
http://www.wikipedia.com/tarballs/wikipedia_dump_20020321.sql.gz

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Levels of privileges

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Levels of privileges

in_reply_to: <200204020051.g320pKG25430@ross.bomis.com>; from koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com on Mon, Apr 01, 2002 at 04:51:20PM -0800

body:
koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> I agree with this, & would like to hear more about how long the
> blocks last, how to unblock IPs, etc.--the links are close together
> on the History pages, and I'd hate to ban someone unintentionally.  I
> couldn't agree more that blocking an IP should only be done to
> prevent vandalism, & never in anger.  I also like the suggestion that
> we not be able to block anyone logged in--or would vandals simply
> start logging in?

I hope it doesn't sound too corny, but I think that the wiki spirit of
love will prevent this.  Anyhow, I think we should try not to respond
to problems before they actually come up.

A long time ago, I had an idea similar to the wiki idea.  But I didn't
do anything about it, because I thought of all the problems, all the
ways that it wouldn't work, and imagined a very complex system for
preventing abuse.  But it was too much work to program, and had I
programmed it, no one would have participated because it would be too
hard to get started.

Now I realize -- build it in a spirit of trust, and only do something
about problems when they come up, always resisting the temptation to
solve problems that don't exist, or to over-do the solution.

If vandals start logging in, we'll have to do something about it.  But
until that happens, maybe our trusting nature will make it less fun to
vandalize us.

--Jimbo


from_name: Daniel Lee Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking

body:
Is there a message that pops up to explain to a person who has his/her IP
blocked that they have their IP blocked? I often wonder if I have offended
anyone when I can't access wikipedia at all for several hours to sometimes
days from home (and then am able to access it from work or school for a
while, then nothing - no other sites seem to be affected). Are these outages
normal? Is there a problem with me being behind a firewall? Or am I in fact
on somebodies sh*t-list? Just wondering.....

BTW since everyone else that contributes regularly seems to have admit status
now, I was wondering if I could also be given that status - for the times
when I catch somebody uploading copyrighted material or when a nasty vandal
is having fun in the wee hours in the morning.

Cheers!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 'pedia unreachable?

body:
hi all.

is it only me or is wikipedia really unreachable right now (about midnight
servertime)? www.bomis.com works fine but ross.bomis.com where the 'pedia
resides can neither be pinged nor tracerouted. hmm....

regards,
wojpob

ps. sending out this message doesn't really make a lot of sense because
nupedia.com is also unreachable

--
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
http://www.gmx.net


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Downtime

in_reply_to: <200204021810.g32IAVW12091@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 10:10:31AM -0800

body:
> When the site was down all last night, the mailing lists were as well.
> Are they being run on the same server or group of servers?  If so,
> you might want to consider some separation there.

Yes, but...  it's sort of a big job, and I'm not sure when I'll get the time.

The downtime was caused by, well, I'm still studying it.  The machine
was not down.  But the network driver was freaked out.  I suspect some
kind of script kiddie exploiting something or other.  The same thing
happened to another one of my servers a couple of weeks ago.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking

in_reply_to: <20020402040409.QBFV2974.rwcrmhc54.attbi.com@there>; from maveric149@yahoo.com on Mon, Apr 01, 2002 at 08:03:23PM -0800

body:
Daniel Lee Mayer wrote:
> Is there a message that pops up to explain to a person who has his/her IP
> blocked that they have their IP blocked? I often wonder if I have offended
> anyone when I can't access wikipedia at all for several hours to sometimes
> days from home (and then am able to access it from work or school for a
> while, then nothing - no other sites seem to be affected). Are these outages
> normal? Is there a problem with me being behind a firewall? Or am I in fact
> on somebodies sh*t-list? Just wondering.....

I hope that IP blocking is very rare and confined to the sort of
character very unlike yourself, i.e. the type of person who just goes
around inserting foul language randomly and the like.  You don't do that,
I imagine.  If you've merely _offended_ someone, that's no excuse for an ip
block.

Is the history of ip blocks made public somewhere?  I should know, but I don't. :-(

> BTW since everyone else that contributes regularly seems to have admit status
> now, I was wondering if I could also be given that status - for the times
> when I catch somebody uploading copyrighted material or when a nasty vandal
> is having fun in the wee hours in the morning.

Yes, what's your wikipedia id?  (You can answer me in email and we won't need to bother
the list.)

--Jimbo


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Downtime

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking

body:
On lun, 2002-04-01 at 20:03, Daniel Lee Mayer wrote:
> Is there a message that pops up to explain to a person who has his/her IP
> blocked that they have their IP blocked?

"Your IP has been blocked! Your edits will not be saved. Please contact
a sysop to have the block removed, or try again later."

> I often wonder if I have offended
> anyone when I can't access wikipedia at all for several hours to sometimes
> days from home (and then am able to access it from work or school for a
> while, then nothing - no other sites seem to be affected). Are these outages
> normal? Is there a problem with me being behind a firewall? Or am I in fact
> on somebodies sh*t-list? Just wondering.....

No, if you were blocked you just couldn't edit pages. You could still
access the site.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking

body:
On mar, 2002-04-02 at 10:08, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Is the history of ip blocks made public somewhere?  I should know, but I don't. :-(

[[wikipedia:Blocked IPs]]

However the log's a bit buggy (pretty UNIX timestamps instead of dates!)

The IP ban function needs some interface work as well; there should be a
confirm-and-explain step, and perhaps an obvious way to unblock, should
it ever be necessary.

Incidentally, I've protected said log page, since allowing anyone to
edit it is tantamount to allowing anyone to ban IP addresses, which I'm
not so sure is a good idea. It can be changed back easily enough if
there's a good reason.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking

body:
> BTW, I don't think that anyone has used the block IP
> 'feature' yet as it seems to be pretty buggy (according to
> Magnus and/or Brian V.).

I blocked the "CARROTS" vandal on Friday.  He hasn't
reappeared, but of course I have no way to know whether
that's really because of the block or if he just went away.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking

in_reply_to: <200204022236.g32MatW10807@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 02:36:55PM -0800

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> Likewise, the "you've been blocked" page should have a lengthy
> explanation that accounts for the accidental case.

I think I agree with you, but I also wonder if it wouldn't be better
to simply make the block silent.  The troll can edit, and save, but
the save doesn't "take".  The idea is hopefully to let them think that
our site is broken or something, rather than letting them feel the
victory of pulling us into a "fight", a fight which they can win by
escalating ways of getting around our filters, which are of course
always going to be relatively ineffective.

Of course, if you ask me, the whole of wikipedia is impossible.  :-)
No one could possibly put up a well-advertised and open site that anyone
can edit without it quickly degenerating into a battleground for trolls
and counter-trolls.  It's impossible.

Except, it obviously isn't, since it's working great.  :-)

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Search bugs; logins; histories; upgrades

body:
I took advantage of yesterday's outage to spend some time fixing bugs:
* Fixed backlash escaping problems in page editing, the delete function,
and the SQL query page.
* Fixed url-encoding bugs in the file upload log and the page edit link.
* Bad [[wikilinks]] no longer drop the rest of the line following them.
* Text after a redirect link no longer gets included in the link.
* Non-ASCII characters now work in search!!

Thought that last one might get people's attention. :) It seems to
more-or-less work now (though not case-insensitive, as MySQL doesn't
understand the UTF-8 characters). I recommend we upgrade the Polish and
Esperanto wikis as soon as possible so we can get these in real usage.

Also; I've split the login screen into two separate forms: log in with
existing account, and create new account. I'm trying to add an e-mail
field to the new account form, but it always comes out as NULL instead
of the input text, so I commented out those lines for the time being.
Could someone take a quick look at special_userlogin.php and check it
out? I probably did something really dumb that I'm just overlooking...

As far as the old page history import goes, I'd really like to see this
done soon, but I haven't been able to test it myself. I'm having
problems importing the 3-21 database dump into MySQL (I get a "1006
server gone" error at line 45, not very helpful). If someone else is
having better luck with the SQL dump (and if we can get a more recent
dump, post last week's deletion frenzy?) and has a more recent old wiki
tarball (mine is Dec 20, I'm sure there are later ones), could you
please give it a try and let me know if it works? In particular, that it
doesn't explode horribly and destroy the database...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: wojtek pobratyn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking

body:
> Is there a message that pops up to explain to a person who has his/her IP
> blocked that they have their IP blocked? I often wonder if I have offended
>
> anyone when I can't access wikipedia at all for several hours to sometimes
>
> days from home (and then am able to access it from work or school for a
> while, then nothing - no other sites seem to be affected). Are these
> outages
> normal? Is there a problem with me being behind a firewall? Or am I in
> fact
> on somebodies sh*t-list? Just wondering.....

I don't think the firewall has anything to do with it. If you can access
other webpages then you should be able to edit the 'pedia... There has been a
ca. 16 hour outage today (erm, that is Tuesday) though.

BTW, I don't think that anyone has used the block IP 'feature' yet as it
seems to be pretty buggy (according to Magnus and/or Brian V.).

> BTW since everyone else that contributes regularly seems to have admit
> status
> now, I was wondering if I could also be given that status - for the times
> when I catch somebody uploading copyrighted material or when a nasty
> vandal
> is having fun in the wee hours in the morning.

e-mail Jimbo with your request and he'll probably be more than glad to do it
for you;-)

regards,
wojpob

--
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
http://www.gmx.net


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Downtime

body:
> When the site was down all last night, the mailing lists were as well.
> Are they being run on the same server or group of servers?  If so,
> you might want to consider some separation there.

both wikipedia and nupedia.com (which host the lists) seem to run on
ross.bomis.com [130.94.122.195]. I agree that a separation would be more than
desirable.

wojpob

--
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
http://www.gmx.net


subject: [Wikipedia-l] IP blocking

body:
In order to unblock an IP number, go to [[wikipedia:Blocked IPs]] and
remove the corresponding line. The software does not unblock any
number automatically: as long as the number is listed under Blocked
IPs, it is blocked.

I looked a bit at the oeuvre of that 62.98.* guy. It's quite an
interesting case. I don't think he's malicious. You don't enter
hundreds of (correct!) digits of pi if you want to discredit a
project. He's misguided, for sure. He looks to me like somebody who
has had many idiosyncratic ideas brewing in his head for years, and
now they pour out in a couple of days. Maybe not unlike our Slovenian
Rastafarian prime number lover.

Axel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] junk pages?

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from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Complete list of encyclopedia topics

body:
I have started a little discussion over in [[talk:Complete list of
encyclopedia topics]] about the "complete list of encyclopedia topics"
article in Wikipedia. Specifically, it's my belief that this article and
its subpages are hiding a heck of a lot of orphans from the LonelyPages
finder, and I was kicking around a few ideas to possibly overcome this.

The consensus seems to be that this page was created to serve as a
collection of ideas for new articles, and that the links to existing
articles from this page are essentially useless; people aren't going to be
looking here in order to find stuff. So, deleting the links to existing
articles seems like the right approach. However, doing this manually would
be a major pain; I wonder if it would be possible for someone to come up
with a magic script to do something like that? Alternately, perhaps there
is some way to specifically exclude "Complete list of encyclopedia topics"
and its subpages from the link database that LonelyPages uses to find
orphans; this would serve the same goal. Unfortunately, I know nothing
about the guts of wikipedia or related scripting, so I can't offer any real
help on this myself.

(URL for those whose email programs are not wiki-enabled:
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Complete_list_of_encyclopedia_topics :)

--
"Let there be light." - Last words of Bomb #20, "Dark Star"


subject: [Wikipedia-l] junk pages?

body:
On mer, 2002-04-03 at 14:52, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> [[special:Statistics]] lists "junk pages."  How is a junk page
> defined?  What can we do to eliminate or improve them?  How do we
> find them?

$z = $totalPages - $talkPages - $commaPages - $redirectPages ;

So, in theory at least, it should be all pages that aren't in a talk
namespace, aren't redirects, and don't have a comma. Unfortunately, the
actual number isn't valid, since the sets of talk, comma, and redirect
pages can overlap.

There's no function that lists pages with these exact properties, but
[[special:ShortPages]] (labeled as "Stub Articles" in the sidebar) will
find most of the same stuff -- non-redirect articles with no actual
content -- sorted from the smallest zero-byte-long pages on up.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: bderksen

body:
>===== Original Message From Florian Schnadt
<schnadfn at isis.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de> =====
>Hi,
>
>Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
>> Alternately, perhaps there is some way to specifically exclude "Complete
list
>> of encyclopedia topics"
>> and its subpages from the link database that LonelyPages uses to find
>> orphans; this would serve the same goal. Unfortunately, I know nothing
>> about the guts of wikipedia or related scripting, so I can't offer any real
>> help on this myself.
>
>Changing the links to weblinks should be enough: [[apple]] ->
>[http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/apple apple]

Clever! Hadn't thought of that option. But if we did that, the pages would
lose some of their functionality for their intended purpose; one wouldn't be
able to browse around looking for ideas for new articles to write, since the
links would no longer indicate visually which articles existed and which
didn't (weblinks all look the same whether the article exists or not).


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Site becoming a bit disquieting

body:
Hi all -- just wanted you to know that I might be around more on the
list than the Pedia for a bit (unless something egregious comes up and
needs editing).  I'm teaching two new classes this quarter, so time's a
bit short...and frankly, I'm finding 24's rants somewhat disquieting.  I
know this probably sounds dumb, but I've come to think of us as a
community of nice people -- or at least people with whom I feel safe in
revealing my name, etc. (more info is no longer on my page).  24's
comments on meta make me wish I hadn't.  I don't know if it's in
earnest, or if it's just its unpleasant way of playing games, but
without trying to sound paranoid, do we have any systems in place to
discourage the frighteningly anti-social types?  Anyway, maybe it's just
me being paranoid... JHK

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] HOWTO include GFDLed text?

in_reply_to: <1017936674.3cac7b22b9f66@email.ethz.ch>; from tobias.hoevekamp@ilw.agrl.ethz.ch on Thu, Apr 04, 2002 at 06:11:14PM +0200

body:
Tobias Hoevekamp wrote:
> I would like to build into wikipedia some of the information given
> at http://kstars.sourceforge.net/handbook/astroinfo.html which is
> part of Kstars GFDLed handbook and explains various
> astronomical concepts. The author, Jason Harris, didn't reply
> to my inquiry about including it in wikipedia but that is - as
> far as I understand the GFDL correct - not neccessary...

I think you can just add it!  Please do be sure that it is GFDL and
not GPL or LGPL.  And we need to talk about how to handle the "author"
requirement, too.

And there's all that gobbledygook in the GFDL about "cover texts" and
"invariant sections" and the like.  So we need to see what his site
says about that.

However, I would say this: if Jason Harris specifically doesn't want
us to include it, then I think we should respect his wishes, GFDL or
not.  It looks like about 20 neat little articles, but there's no
reason for us to get into a fight with anyone over it.

--Jimbo


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in_reply_to: <200204042159.g34Lxev21975@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Thu, Apr 04, 2002 at 01:59:40PM -0800

body:
I don't think that 24 really understands the NPOV policy.  24 writes:
"It remains to be see if people here wish to find the actual median of
global human opinion."  And also: "There are 6100 million potential
readers of the wikipedia, long term, and views shared near-universally
by 100-300 million of them just aren't good enough to qualify as
neutral point of view, if there is serious dispute about them among
the other 5800-6000 million people."

But NPOV is not about finding the 'median' of human opinion, nor about
presenting only views that are "shared near-universally" by only
Western, technologically advanced, American, or whatever other group
he means.

The examples he gives of things that we wouldn't even want to have in
the encyclopedia betray his misunderstanding.  Selecting just one of
them, "hate views of ethnic groups" is certainly something that
Wikipedia should have an article on.  But the wikipedia should take no
position "for" or "against" those views, but should instead present
those views in such a way that both proponents and detractors can
mutually agree.

Similarly, imagine that 24's hypothetical poll of the entire world
shows that most beleive that "9/11 was caused by US foreign policy" --
what should the wikipedia say about that?  Well, nothing less than
that a poll of the entire world showed that a majority of the world
believes that "9/11 was caused by US foreign policy".  Hopefully our
reporting on this fact would be enhanced by an NPOV discussion of the
reasons why many people believe that, an NPOV discussion of what
Americans believe, and why, and so on.

His threat to post to indymedia.org to bring an onslaught of
progressives is interesting and revealing, as well.  Brion Vibber's
response was correct: please do, go and bring them in.  If lots of
them come all at once, there will be a period of chaos while they come
to understand our NPOV policies, but after that, those who can
tolerate NPOV writing will stick around, and that'll be great.  It'll
help keep those of us who do not share their viewpoints "in line".

But if his indymedia.org friends want to violate the NPOV, then they
will be just as unwelcome as, say, libertarians who come in and want
to violate the NPOV.  Even such "stupid" followers of Ayn Rand, as
your humble host would be held to the fire just as heartily for NPOV
violations.

The interesting thing about the NPOV is that all reasonable people can
understand why we have the policy and adhere to it.  I suppose that if
a large group of people descended on us, people who steadfastly reject
the NPOV *itself* for some reason, insisting that instead of working
hard to reach unanimity on articles, wikipedia should be like Usenet,
with endless shouting and reversals back-and-forth and back-and-forth
of articles from one point of view to another until someone gets too
exhausted to continue...  if that happened, then we'd have a serious
problem.

But I don't think that such people exist in large numbers.  Even
people who I might personally regard as religious fanatics of one
stripe or another generally _can_ agree to a neutral presentation of
the issues.

Having said all of this, I think there is more to say about systemic
bias in wikipedia.

Is there a systemic bias due to the types of people initially
attracted to the project?  Quite possibly, but I don't think that this
has been demonstrated convincingly.  To be sure, the wikipedia is
_uneven_, as the Amazon rainforest example shows.  But unevenness and
incompleteness is not bias, otherwise wikipedia will be "biased" until
every possible sentence in every possible language has been entered.

How is Wikipedia biased?  There are many articles that take into
account what large numbers of people believe, even if no one here
believes those things.  We have some good articles on Islam, even
though -- to my knowledge, at least -- they were not written by
followers of Islam.

But other articles (or perhaps even the Islam articles!) may
inadvertantly leave out important points of view unknown to the
author.  To the extent that this is true, then Wikipedia is _not_
NPOV, even when we think it is, because of our current ignorance.  But
this is always true of every publication by every author -- we cannot
write about that which we know too little.  At least with Wikipedia,
our _model_ is fertile for change in the right direction.

--Jimbo


from_name: Florian Schnadt

body:
Hi,

Bryan Derksen wrote:

> Alternately, perhaps there is some way to specifically exclude "Complete list
> of encyclopedia topics"
> and its subpages from the link database that LonelyPages uses to find
> orphans; this would serve the same goal. Unfortunately, I know nothing
> about the guts of wikipedia or related scripting, so I can't offer any real
> help on this myself.

Changing the links to weblinks should be enough: [[apple]] ->
[http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/apple apple]

cu,
Flo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] page count

body:
hi.

could someone enlighten me and tell me how the counter on the
main page ( {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} ) differs from the statistics page?
how is it calculated?

regards.
WojPob

<wojtek[at]seti23[dot]org>
what burns twice as bright, burns half
as long, and you have burnt so very,
very brightly roy.


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

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from_name: Tobias Hoevekamp

body:
Hi there!

It's been discussed several times at wikipedia but I am still
clueless on what actually has to be stated in order to include
GFDLed third-party texts.

I would like to build into wikipedia some of the information given
at http://kstars.sourceforge.net/handbook/astroinfo.html which is
part of Kstars GFDLed handbook and explains various
astronomical concepts. The author, Jason Harris, didn't reply
to my inquiry about including it in wikipedia but that is - as
far as I understand the GFDL correct - not neccessary...

Hmm. How shall I proceed?

Bye,

Tobias

TOBIAS HOEVEKAMP
mailto:tobias.hoevekamp at ilw.agrl.ethz.ch
http://www.vt.ilw.agrl.ethz.ch/~hoevekam
WORK: ETH Zurich, LFO E21, CH-8092 Zurich, +41 1 632 3304
HOME: Anna Heer-Str. 2,  CH-8057  Zurich,  +41 1 350 5986

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