subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
Indeed. Having an (E)BNF grammar is invaluable to creating efficient,
reliable parsers. (E)BNF grammars have enormous numbers of tools
available including automatic detection of ambiguity and (as I mentioned
before) automatic conversion into efficient parsers.

MediaWiki's parser is currently a product of years of subtle additions
and compatibility fixes. Instead of being a proper parser, it relies on
regular expressions.

This is not to malign Brion, Erik, and others' work. It's amazing
everything works as well as it does and that they've been able to keep
improving Wiki syntax without significantly changing existing semantics
or syntax.

However, I'm not sure a MediaWiki syntax -- as it is now -- can be
modeled unambiguously in BNF.

?ukasz Garczewski wrote:
> Virgil did not even hint at the fact that this is to be used by
> editors. You assumed that and it's most probably a wrong assumption.
>
> Maybe it's for developers? Maybe it's for research and comparison with
> other similar markups? Maybe it's just for the fun of it?
>
> Personally, I'm intrigued. Virgil, could you elaborate on the purpose
> of this project? In what ways can it help us (and who exactly is the
> 'us' in this case :))?
>

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list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Strauss

subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
Indeed. Having an (E)BNF grammar is invaluable to creating efficient,
reliable parsers. (E)BNF grammars have enormous numbers of tools
available including automatic detection of ambiguity and (as I mentioned
before) automatic conversion into efficient parsers.

MediaWiki's parser is currently a product of years of subtle additions
and compatibility fixes. Instead of being a proper parser, it relies on
regular expressions.

This is not to malign Brion, Erik, and others' work. It's amazing
everything works as well as it does and that they've been able to keep
improving Wiki syntax without significantly changing existing semantics
or syntax.

However, I'm not sure a MediaWiki syntax -- as it is now -- can be
modeled unambiguously in BNF.

?ukasz Garczewski wrote:
> Virgil did not even hint at the fact that this is to be used by
> editors. You assumed that and it's most probably a wrong assumption.
>
> Maybe it's for developers? Maybe it's for research and comparison with
> other similar markups? Maybe it's just for the fun of it?
>
> Personally, I'm intrigued. Virgil, could you elaborate on the purpose
> of this project? In what ways can it help us (and who exactly is the
> 'us' in this case :))?
>

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list: wikien-l

from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] defused timebomb

body:
On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, Jeff Raymond wrote:
> Meanwhile, I've already restored about 5 of those in the article, and
> I'll try to get to more later.  a quick post somewhere saing "we know
> these things are true, can we find sources" and it'd be done in 5
> minutes.  Instead, knee-jerk reaction time, whee!!!

It isn't knee jerk reaction time, it's [[WP:BLP]] time.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Anthony schreef:
>
>
>> Don't take my word for it. Read up on what Brewster Kahle from
>>
>>Internet Archive had to say about Google Book Search, or find out more
>>about the Open Content Alliance he co-founded largely to respond to
>>it.  "They don't want the books to appear in anyone else's search
>>engine but their own, which is a little peculiar for a company that
>>says its mission is to make information universally accessible," Kahle
>>said.
>>
>>"Google, for instance, is digitizing some great libraries. But their
>>contracts (which were actually secret contracts with libraries ? which
>>is bizarre, but anyway, they were secret until they got sued out of
>>them by some governments) are under such restrictions that they're
>>pretty useless... the copies that go back to the libraries. Pretty
>>much Google is trying to set themselves up as the only place to get to
>>these materials; the only library; the only access. The idea of having
>>only one company control the library of human knowledge is a
>>nightmare. I mean this is 1984 ? a book about how bad the world would
>>be if this really came about, if a few governments' control and
>>corporations' control on information goes too far."
>>
>>I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to choose sides on this one, and I'm
>>going with Kahle, not with Google.
>>
>>
>I have read enough to learn why Google is getting the opposition to its
>program. I agree with that opposition. However, you will also have read
>that Bruster Kahle acknowledges that his project is very much a reaction
>to the Google project. The opposition that exists is not unlikely to
>have Google to reconsider its position. When we consider Google a
>friend, we can as a friend discuss these issues. When we consider Google
>an enemy, we will not even try to engage in a conversation.
>
>I object to see enemies everywhere, I prefer to see friends that have a
>different outlook, friends that may be convinced to consider an other
>approach. I think this approach is more productive.
>
While I understand that we must find accomodation with Google, it would
be naive to give them our complete trust.  We don't know if their deals
with the libraries are exclusive ones that would prevent anyone else
from doing the same thing.  For now, database protection laws are
limited to Eueope, but if they were to be adopted in the United States
they would be give a tremendous advantage to Google which could then
develop a user pay system for which only they are capable of providing
convenient access.  The major future problems will not be with the
publishers who are currently in court with Google.  Control of the old
material whose copyright has already expired will make for a far more
important battle.  For now I don't think we have the funding or
organization to challenge them, certainly not by ourselves.  Whether
that level of collaboration can coallesce among a wide range of open
access supporters is unclear.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] WikiGadugi Wikipedia Rating???

body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/22/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Under the GFDL you give consent to relicense your changes. This means
>>whomever is the last editor of an article is the "Author", not the
>>whole chain of editors to that point since subsequent editors are simply
>>relicening your content when they add their own edits. By editing and
>>saving the article, the final editor is the author in this sense.
>>
>>
>>
>
>Please re-read the GFDL:
>4.
>
>B List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
>responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
>Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the
>Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five),
>unless they release you from this requirement.
>
>I do not release you from this requirement.
>
>

Then Wikipedia in its dumps must IDENTIFY AT LEAST FIVE AUTHORS AUTHORS
since I have no crystal ball as to who wrote what.
In this case, Wikimedia is violating the GFDL by failing to publish
authors along with content.

>
>
>>The GFDL and Wikipedia's posted policies state that Wikipedia must be
>>given attrbution to comply with the GFDL.
>>
>>
>
>That isn't the case. see:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights#Reusers.27_rights_and_obligations
>
>
>
>>Your website is then listed
>>in the "Mirrors and Forks" as a BAD WEBSITE if you do not.
>>
>>
>
>There are a number of ways of following the GFDL. Which one you chose
>it up to you. IF you think you can't mention wikipedia to give credit
>then you must give credit localy.
>
>

>
>
>>Wikipedia
>>cannot give consent to use "Wikipedia" since it does not own the
>>trademark, the foundation does.
>>
>>
>
>I would be rather impressed if the foundation managed to win a legal
>case against someone  useing thier name to say where the text was
>taken from.
>
>
>
No progress I see here ...

Jeff


from_name: Łukasz Garczewski

subject:
[Foundation-l] Promoting non-en Wikipedias (was In defence of
	Google)

body:
On 1/21/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> So what can small Wikipedias (say, under 100,000 articles) do to
> achieve these effects - breadth and being up-to-date - as well? Are
> there other tacks they should try taking to achieve greater public
> awareness?

Thank you for mentioning this, David.

I suppose I wouldn't be a good ChapCom member if my first reply to
this question was other than "START A CHAPTER!"

The problem with promoting Wikipedias in languages other than English
is that the promotion is not very effective if done in English. The
impact is far greater if the communication is done in the native
tongue of the journalists and readers/viewers. Also, some of you might
be surprised how much the "hot topics" of Wikipedias may differ from
one language edition to the other - the English-language press team is
simply not prepared to tackle questions on a per project level. Only
active contributors to that specific project can do that.

So, my advice to the editors of the various Wikipedias is: If you want
to help promote Wikipedia in your language, think about starting a
chapter. If you have any questions regarding that, see:
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Local_chapter_FAQ
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Step-by-step_chapter_creation_guide
(other helpful documents are on the way, stay tuned)
Or contact ChapCom directly (see
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee for more info on how
to do that)

We hope for a Wikimedia chapter in every country on earth, and then
some (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikimedia_local_chapters_map.png).
And we're here to help YOU achieve that. :)

--
?ukasz Garczewski [[m:User:TOR]]
Chapters Committee member


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] defused timebomb

body:
Pedro Sanchez wrote:

> Probably many people will complain and ask for my head, just telling
> you people why I did it.

Good call.  You made a decision and you gave notice, allowing that
decision to be reviewed.  That's a good call on two counts.

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.17.3/642 - Release Date: 20/01/07 22:31


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] template for number of page views?

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> But it's not going to happen unless someone gets around to writing a
> program which:
>
> * Accepts URLs on stdin, separated by line breaks
Seems simple.

> * Identifies plain page views
I assume you mean any /wiki/XXXX url, with no '?'. Quite easy, too.

> * Breaks them down into per-page counts as described
And do it really fast... If wgArticleId was also sent, sorting and using
the hashtable, would be easier.

> * Provides a TCP query interface
I'd share the memory hashtable between process, and simply add a
'reader' one. We can live with race conditions, too.

> * Does all that for 30k req/s using less than 10% CPU and 2GB memory
You mean 10% of the *cluster CPU*, isn't? ;)

> Impossible?
We could start by profiling. Read data for 5 minutes, compute it for 25.
This would low the rate to 1k req/s.


subject: [WikiEN-l] defused timebomb

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>I don't think you did the *wrong* thing, but I think we should always
>>aim to stick to process. The fact that we have processes to delete
>>articles and to remove libelous content (OFFICE) should protect us. If
>>the risk was that great, I'm sure someone in the office would have
>>done something (perhaps you should have e-mailed?).
>>
>>
>WP:OFFICE is there is fix problems after we've received complaints. We
>should be aiming to fix the problems before anyone complains.
>
Of course, and OFFICE is one of the many steps between where we are and
any actual lawsuit.  There is plenty of time to respect the social
structures that allow us to work together.  If there are more than one
ways to deal with a given situation common social skills should tell you
to prefer the one that does the least harm, even if that is not the
easiest to apply.

Ec


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
?ukasz Garczewski wrote:
> On 1/22/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> What the f* is an EBNF .. It does not help that you URL is wrong. Being
>> clever (ahum) I found Extended Backus?Naur form.. A question, do you
>> really think that an average Wiki editor will NOT get hopelessly
>> confused and get it hopelessly wrong as well?
>>
>> Personally I find it horribly ugly as well
>>
>
> Virgil did not even hint at the fact that this is to be used by
> editors. You assumed that and it's most probably a wrong assumption.
>
> Maybe it's for developers? Maybe it's for research and comparison with
> other similar markups? Maybe it's just for the fun of it?
>
> Personally, I'm intrigued. Virgil, could you elaborate on the purpose
> of this project? In what ways can it help us (and who exactly is the
> 'us' in this case :))?
>

The current wikitext parser is basically a pile of regular-expression
hacks, and deeply embedded within the MediaWiki codebase, which makes it
hard to extend and also to use for other projects (like building PDFs of
Wikipedia articles).  So there have been occasional suggestions to build
a "real" parser in a more standard way, like by defining a grammar for
the language.  As far as I know none have actually been completed,
partly because Wikitext wasn't really designed with ease of formal
parsing in mind.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext


body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/22/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Then Wikipedia in its dumps must IDENTIFY AT LEAST FIVE AUTHORS AUTHORS
>>since I have no crystal ball as to who wrote what.
>>
>>
>
>This is why most people link back to the article on wikipedia or to
>the article's history on wikipedia.
>
>
>
>>In this case, Wikimedia is violating the GFDL by failing to publish
>>authors along with content.
>>
>>
>>
>
>I suspect that can be found in:
>
>stub-meta-history.xml.gz
>
>
>
>
>
ok then. I'll post an en: link back to wikipedia for each article by
writing a program that will tag the xml for each article and
create the en: link.

What else is required to get wikigadugi of the BAD WEBSITES list.

Jeff


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Platonides wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>> But it's not going to happen unless someone gets around to writing a
>> program which:
>>
>> * Accepts URLs on stdin, separated by line breaks
> Seems simple.
>
>> * Identifies plain page views
> I assume you mean any /wiki/XXXX url, with no '?'. Quite easy, too.
>
>> * Breaks them down into per-page counts as described
> And do it really fast... If wgArticleId was also sent, sorting and using
> the hashtable, would be easier.
>
>> * Provides a TCP query interface
> I'd share the memory hashtable between process, and simply add a
> 'reader' one. We can live with race conditions, too.

There's only one log stream so I would think there would be only one
process. The task is log analysis, not log collection.

>> * Does all that for 30k req/s using less than 10% CPU and 2GB memory
> You mean 10% of the *cluster CPU*, isn't? ;)

10% of one processor. Maybe we could relax it if that proves to be
impossible, but there will only be one log host for now, and there might
be lots of log analysis tools, so we don't want any CPU hogs. Think C++,
not perl.

>> Impossible?
> We could start by profiling. Read data for 5 minutes, compute it for 25.
> This would low the rate to 1k req/s.

I could make a log snippet available for optimisation purposes, but
ultimately, it will have to work on the full stream. Sampling would give
you an unacceptable noise floor for the majority of those 25 million
articles.

(to nobody in particular) Thinking about the pipe buffer issues we had the
other day, it might make sense to recompile the kernel on henbane to have
a larger pipe buffer, to cut down on context switches. At 30k req/s, it
would fill every 1.2ms.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Ryzvel at 3mail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] editorial oversight, re: afd, fac, etc.

body:
I don't know how common is. It's just that I can't think of a justification for it. Anyway, I may have better luck in the relevant language section whence the thing originates. Tim . . .
K P schreef:
> On 1/19/07, Ryzvel at 3mail.com <Ryzvel at 3mail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I was intrigued last year to find that somebody had deleted one of my
> > contributions on the grounds that the deletor [?] had never heard of it.
> > Acting on this criterion, I would spend my waking hours deleting Wikipedia
> > articles. Tim . . .
>
>
> Yes, that seems to hold a lot of weight in deletionist debates, someone who
> has never worked in the sciences never heard of a scientific concept and
> doesn't understand the underlying basics, but thinks the article should be
> deleted because it's on a concept they "had never heard of."

{{cite}}

That's the second time you've claimed that this is common, and we
haven't yet seen a single example. So I've checked today's AfD (just as
I did last time), and of the 110 nominations so far, there were 0
because the nominator "had never heard of" the subject.

Also, the phrase "never heard" occurs only three times on the page, and
in none of those cases, it is the sole reason for deletion. I do not see
it having any weight in deletion debates. (Where can I find the
deletionist debates you're speaking of?)

Eugene

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


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-01-21

body:
brion at pobox.com wrote:
> An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:
>
> This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r19546).
<snip>
>       * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled

This one worked for me once I tweaked the file rights in my upload
directory. The problem is that the directory I created by apache and my
user can not create the generated math in the directory.

I fixed it using:

mediawiki$ chmod -R hashar:www-data images
mediawiki$ find images -type d -exec chmod g+s {} \;

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/21/07, Dominic McDevitt-Parks <dmcdevit at cox.net> wrote:
> There are a few problems with the site currently. In order to be in
> compliance, you must also credit Wikipedia as your source

Please read the GFDL before makeing comments like this.

>. I'm clicking
> "random page" and not seeing any articles that do this. They are just
> direct copies with no reference to Wikipedia. You should have a note,
> perhaps at the bottom of the page, like:
>
> This article is licensed under the
>  GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the
>  Wikipedia article
> "Foo".
>

This is painfully wrong.

--
geni


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] mydatapages.com mirroring w/o credit or GFDL notice

body:
The website mydatapages.com is returning older Wikipedia page content
for searches, and has no WP credit or GFDL notice on it.  I don't know
who the appropriate internal people are to take a look at this, but I
am hoping that someone here can forward it properly (and/or is the
right person themselves)...

Thanks.

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


body:
On 1/21/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Pardon me folks, but if someone feels we are not in compliance with the
> GFDL, can please someone point out where this is the case?   All of our
> content
> is GFDL compliant and we do not offer any license other than the GFDL
> and post the GFDL to our site.
>
> I am happy to address and correct any issues with use of the Foundations
> content if anyone feels it is not adequately spelled out as GFDL.
>
> Jeff
>

It isn't the foundation's content. Lets look at an example shall we:

http://en.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Rolle_Canal

First there is no direct link to a copy of the GFDL that I can find
which is less than ideal

Now you list 3 authors in the history tab :
Mervyn
geni
Rosser1954

Problem is that list isn't complete list of the authors or even 5 major authors.

If we look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rolle_Canal&action=history

There are more than three authors

Now you could either fix this by hosting the full history of the
article localy or linking to the wikipedia history. Your choice.

Now we move onto the images:

Image:Rolle canal lock.JPG

You have correctly stated that the work is under the GFDL but have
failed to credit the author (in this case geni).

It gets even worse if we look at other images such as:

Image:Wilts and Berks Canal link to Thames.JPG

which fails to mention the GFDL or the author.

So in short you need to fix your author crediting and links to the GFDL

--
geni


from_name: Eugene van der Pijll

body:
K P schreef:
> On 1/19/07, Ryzvel at 3mail.com <Ryzvel at 3mail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I was intrigued last year to find that somebody had deleted one of my
> > contributions on the grounds that the deletor [?] had never heard of it.
> > Acting on this criterion, I would spend my waking hours deleting Wikipedia
> > articles. Tim . . .
>
>
> Yes, that seems to hold a lot of weight in deletionist debates, someone who
> has never worked in the sciences never heard of a scientific concept and
> doesn't understand the underlying basics, but thinks the article should be
> deleted because it's on a concept they "had never heard of."

{{cite}}

That's the second time you've claimed that this is common, and we
haven't yet seen a single example. So I've checked today's AfD (just as
I did last time), and of the 110 nominations so far, there were 0
because the nominator "had never heard of" the subject.

Also, the phrase "never heard" occurs only three times on the page, and
in none of those cases, it is the sole reason for deletion. I do not see
it having any weight in deletion debates. (Where can I find the
deletionist debates you're speaking of?)

Eugene


body:
Platonides wrote:
> The reading process should probably have higher priority than the
> colector. Losing UDP packets is better than fulling the pipe (/me
> wonders what happens when it gets full. Write failed? SIGPIPE? Nuclear
> meltdown?).

The pipe write will block, the collection process will yield, and the
analysis process will gain control and empty the buffer. Not nuclear
meltdown, just some microseconds lost. Losing UDP packets is almost
certainly worse than that, but luckily the UDP receive buffer is quite a
bit larger, and it's configurable at runtime.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] a few new wrinkles in the external link issue

body:
On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, Pedro Sanchez wrote:
> Yes we know, jeff.

Well, I didn't know.


from_name: Gary Kirk

body:
I see you redirected Project:About to http://en.wikigadugi.org/wiki/GFDL.

That page is not what was meant. You need the *verbatim text of the
GFDL*, which can be found at Wikipedia:Text of the GFDL.

On 1/21/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/21/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> > Pardon me folks, but if someone feels we are not in compliance with the
> > GFDL, can please someone point out where this is the case?   All of our
> > content
> > is GFDL compliant and we do not offer any license other than the GFDL
> > and post the GFDL to our site.
> >
> > I am happy to address and correct any issues with use of the Foundations
> > content if anyone feels it is not adequately spelled out as GFDL.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
>
>
> It isn't the foundation's content. Lets look at an example shall we:
>
> http://en.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Rolle_Canal
>
> First there is no direct link to a copy of the GFDL that I can find
> which is less than ideal
>
> Now you list 3 authors in the history tab :
> Mervyn
> geni
> Rosser1954
>
> Problem is that list isn't complete list of the authors or even 5 major
> authors.
>
> If we look at:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rolle_Canal&action=history
>
> There are more than three authors
>
> Now you could either fix this by hosting the full history of the
> article localy or linking to the wikipedia history. Your choice.
>
> Now we move onto the images:
>
> Image:Rolle canal lock.JPG
>
> You have correctly stated that the work is under the GFDL but have
> failed to credit the author (in this case geni).
>
> It gets even worse if we look at other images such as:
>
> Image:Wilts and Berks Canal link to Thames.JPG
>
> which fails to mention the GFDL or the author.
>
> So in short you need to fix your author crediting and links to the GFDL
>
> --
> geni
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: John Doe

body:
regarding this HAVE YOU NO CLUE what spam is? there have been massive
attacks by spammers recently there was one user that added 142 links to the
same site, the reason? to increase the sites rank in google. as for blog,
myspace.com the reason is simple there is no need to link to jimbobs blog as
per my reasoning at WT:EL
Betacommand

On 1/21/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
> I've brought this up at the talk page at [[Wikipedia:External links]]
> and ended up with more contempt than actual answers, so maybe some
> people in the know will be nice enough to actually clear some things up
> for us.
>
> 1) If we're going to blindly attach "nofollow" to all the external
> links, why are we allowing Wikia links to be propped up artificially?
> Are we in the business of conflict of interest now?
>
> 2) Myspace blogs were recently added to the spam blacklist by Raul per
> request of Jimbo, although no one else seems to know why, how, or per
> what rationale.  I won't pretend to know what Jimbo's been up to past
> not having edited Wikipedia since the is-it-or-is-it-not-a decree, but
> perhaps some more explanation on this would be worthwhile?  Seems like
> we're blocking a shitload of otherwise worthwhile primary source
> material for many of our articles for the sake of...well...nothing.
> Meanwhile, a blog ''not'' hosted on MySpace is still a-okay, which is
> patently absurd on its face.  I'm wondering what the thought process was
> on this, since no one else seems to want to chime in.
>
> 3) Did you folks know we have a bot that reverts links that are
> arbitrarily considered spam?  I didn't until today.
> [[User:Shadowbot1]].  I convinced him to post the blacklist where we
> could see it, and while some (most?) are useful, others are pretty
> screwy, and I'm not sure this is helpful in the long run.
>
> I'm starting to think that our focus on spam is becoming a problem
> rather than a benefit to the project.  How much collateral damage are we
> willing to accept in the project to take care of this "problem" that
> people think is massive?  One out of every 10?  5% poor hits?  Do we
> have some sort of measurement we're using here?
>
> -Jeff
>
> --
> Name: Jeff Raymond
> E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
> WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
> IM: badlydrawnjeff
> Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
>         Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
>         - Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] Promoting non-en Wikipedias (was In defence of
 Google)

body:
Birgitte SB schreef:
>
> I have wondered that it would be better to encourage
> translations to purposely "stubify" articles rather
> than focus on full Featured Article translations.
> This would give the less developed langages something
> where they see a need to "edit", eliminate most
> cultural bias without a detailed study, and make the
> limited translation reasources go farther to creating
> a interlinked web of articles.  This idea was brought
> up in BOF at Wikimania but I do not know if anything
> was ever done in this line of thinking.
>
>
> BirgitteSB
Hoi,
There is no one size fits all answer to this question. It depends very
much on what you want to achieve. When you have translators, you can not
"stubify" because that is very much against their ethos. It also
requires them to concentrate on the technical aspects of wikipedia ie
wikification and categories. This means that you do not use translators
and or that you have to train them considerably.

Creating much content in stubs is something that is done on many
projects; they are all the towns of country xxx. This is of particular
interest when they are also the towns of the country where this language
is spoken. There are as far as I know no such lists with the information
for countries like Nigeria, Kazakhstan or Ecuador. The same is true for
the years information; it is very much biased to its source. There are
for instance few African or South American historical figures in the
English Wikipedia.. Translating this as the starting information is
problematic as a consequence because of the bias that you import. For a
language like Neapolitan, the Italian years information was used ...

The advantage of writing background information to the news is that you
work on content that is of current relevance and certainly when you base
it on what can be found in newspapers of that language, you may even
find articles like "Big Brother" in Indian wikipedias. :)

When the aim is to make investments count, it is important to create
relevance. Sex, sport and news is what people read. When the aim is to
get more people to contribute to a Wikipedia, it is eye balls that you
want. I am completely in favour of working on wikification because this
can be one way of enticing people to try and edit. I think it should be
a healthy mix of these activities.

One problem in several projects is that people control how people can
and cannot write. This leads often to political fights that prevent a
healthy community from happening. One bad example is the Belarus
wikipedia where the orthography insisted on is not the one used by
people who live in Belarus. This is in my opinion contrary to what we
hope to achieve with our projects. Wikipedia is not to create new
languages nor is it to force particular orthographies.

My conclusion is therefore, for every language, for every project there
are different things to consider. There is no silver bullet or a one
size fits all solution. It pays off when there is sufficient time to
prepare for a content creation project.

Thanks,
    GerardM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_%28TV_series%29


body:
Tim Starling wrote:
>>> * Provides a TCP query interface
>> I'd share the memory hashtable between process, and simply add a
>> 'reader' one. We can live with race conditions, too.
>
> There's only one log stream so I would think there would be only one
> process. The task is log analysis, not log collection.

Nope, i was thinking on one writer process, and several 'reader'
processes attaching (read-only) to the mapped data.

>>> * Does all that for 30k req/s using less than 10% CPU and 2GB memory
>> You mean 10% of the *cluster CPU*, isn't? ;)
>
> 10% of one processor. Maybe we could relax it if that proves to be
> impossible, but there will only be one log host for now, and there might
> be lots of log analysis tools, so we don't want any CPU hogs. Think C++,
> not perl.

I was thinking in pure C...

>>> Impossible?
>> We could start by profiling. Read data for 5 minutes, compute it for 25.
>> This would low the rate to 1k req/s.
>
> I could make a log snippet available for optimisation purposes, but
> ultimately, it will have to work on the full stream. Sampling would give
> you an unacceptable noise floor for the majority of those 25 million
> articles.

Making the program seems fair easy. But ensuring it will cope with all
that data is a bit scaring.

> (to nobody in particular) Thinking about the pipe buffer issues we had the
> other day, it might make sense to recompile the kernel on henbane to have
> a larger pipe buffer, to cut down on context switches. At 30k req/s, it
> would fill every 1.2ms.
>
> -- Tim Starling

The reading process should probably have higher priority than the
colector. Losing UDP packets is better than fulling the pipe (/me
wonders what happens when it gets full. Write failed? SIGPIPE? Nuclear
meltdown?).


from_name: Liang Chen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Any Search Hook

body:
HI,
   I want get the search keyword and display something on search
result page, so, whether there are some hidden search hook there?

Thanks

--
                     ---BiGreat---
               www.Liang-Chen.com


from_name: Jeff Raymond

body:
I've brought this up at the talk page at [[Wikipedia:External links]]
and ended up with more contempt than actual answers, so maybe some
people in the know will be nice enough to actually clear some things up
for us.

1) If we're going to blindly attach "nofollow" to all the external
links, why are we allowing Wikia links to be propped up artificially?
Are we in the business of conflict of interest now?

2) Myspace blogs were recently added to the spam blacklist by Raul per
request of Jimbo, although no one else seems to know why, how, or per
what rationale.  I won't pretend to know what Jimbo's been up to past
not having edited Wikipedia since the is-it-or-is-it-not-a decree, but
perhaps some more explanation on this would be worthwhile?  Seems like
we're blocking a shitload of otherwise worthwhile primary source
material for many of our articles for the sake of...well...nothing.
Meanwhile, a blog ''not'' hosted on MySpace is still a-okay, which is
patently absurd on its face.  I'm wondering what the thought process was
on this, since no one else seems to want to chime in.

3) Did you folks know we have a bot that reverts links that are
arbitrarily considered spam?  I didn't until today.
[[User:Shadowbot1]].  I convinced him to post the blacklist where we
could see it, and while some (most?) are useful, others are pretty
screwy, and I'm not sure this is helpful in the long run.

I'm starting to think that our focus on spam is becoming a problem
rather than a benefit to the project.  How much collateral damage are we
willing to accept in the project to take care of this "problem" that
people think is massive?  One out of every 10?  5% poor hits?  Do we
have some sort of measurement we're using here?

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.


subject: [WikiEN-l] defused timebomb

body:
Ken Arromdee wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, Jeff Raymond wrote:
>> Meanwhile, I've already restored about 5 of those in the article, and
>> I'll try to get to more later.  a quick post somewhere saing "we know
>> these things are true, can we find sources" and it'd be done in 5
>> minutes.  Instead, knee-jerk reaction time, whee!!!
>
> It isn't knee jerk reaction time, it's [[WP:BLP]] time.

There's a difference?

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.


body:
On 1/21/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> It seems to me that your have a formal problem that requires a formal
> response.

He's got one. I'm a major copyright holder on the article I linked to.

>Am I correct that you require the Wikimedia Foundation to
> express publicly that the Wikimedia Foundation accepts the use of
> Wikipedia TM to links back to the original Wikipedia content in order to
> comply with the requirements of the GPL?
>

There are other ways of staying within the GFDL.
--
geni


references:
<45B32EC9.5070605@wolfmountaingroup.com> <45B3239B.8070103@cox.net>
	<45B3DC25.1090203@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<45B3D19F.5040502@netzero.net>
	<45B3F6F4.2060802@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
On 1/21/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> It could potentially be trademark infrginement and trading on the
> goodwill of the foundation in certain situations. In any event, companies
> are not about civil disobediance. WMG needs permission or implied
> pemission in the form of a statement by he Foundation that use if its
> valuable trademark rights is granted for purposes of attribution through
> the use of its trademarks.
>

You don't need them for attribution.
--
geni


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Promoting non-en Wikipedias (was In defence of
	Google)

body:
On 1/21/07, Ruud Koot <r.koot at students.uu.nl> wrote:
> Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>  > Am I completely crazy, but wasn't that star WAY bigger before? I
> > remember seeing a big star a while ago and liking it a whole lot, but
> > these guys are barely visible.
> >
> > --Oskar
>
> No you're not. I changed the CSS and JS a bit so the star replaces the
> bullet instead of putting the star between the bullet and the language
> name. I had to draw a new image which ended up looking not-quite-gold.
> I've now replaced it with a much more visible monobook-yellow one (you
> may need to clear you browser cache to see it.)
>
> --Ruud

Ahh, yes, that's already much better, now you can actually see it
without looking for it. The big star did seem a little out-of-place.

--Oskar


from_name: Ruud Koot

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Promoting non-en Wikipedias (was In defence
	of	Google)

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
 > Am I completely crazy, but wasn't that star WAY bigger before? I
> remember seeing a big star a while ago and liking it a whole lot, but
> these guys are barely visible.
>
> --Oskar

No you're not. I changed the CSS and JS a bit so the star replaces the
bullet instead of putting the star between the bullet and the language
name. I had to draw a new image which ended up looking not-quite-gold.
I've now replaced it with a much more visible monobook-yellow one (you
may need to clear you browser cache to see it.)

--Ruud


references:
<45B32EC9.5070605@wolfmountaingroup.com> <45B3239B.8070103@cox.net>
	<45B3DC25.1090203@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
Hoi,
It seems to me that your have a formal problem that requires a formal
response. Am I correct that you require the Wikimedia Foundation to
express publicly that the Wikimedia Foundation accepts the use of
Wikipedia TM to links back to the original Wikipedia content in order to
comply with the requirements of the GPL?

If this is what is required, it seems to me that the WMF needs to decide
if it can make a blanket pronouncement allowing this specific use of the
Wikipedia TM, Wiktionary TM WikiEtc TM.

Thanks,
    GerardM

Jeffrey V. Merkey schreef:
> OK Dominic, lt's g through it. Couple of points I must make first.
>
> 1. I do not ever use Wikipedia logos, trademarks, or other materials as
> these violate US Trademark laws. I don't care
> if Wikipedia says "Please link back to us with attribution", it is
> irrelevant. I have received no permission from the foundation
> to use its trademarks in such a way. Whether or not the Wikipedia
> community says this is ok and should be done for
> GFDL compliance, the FOUNDATION has given no such consent to anyone, and
> any sites doing it are subject to legal
> action from the Foundation. The Wikipedia Community has **NO** authority
> to release third party sites from
> claims and causes of action from the Foundation for trademark misuse, on
> the **FOUNDATION** has such
> authority. Before I post any attribution back to the Foundation (which
> would make the foundationliable for the
> content) I need the Foundation to grat permission for use of its
> trademarks in this manner.
>
> 2. http://en.wikigadugi.org/wiki/WikiGadugi:About points to the GFDL.
> This statement is apprently not
> accurate.
>
> 3. The date the articles were uploaded and the last author is already
> listed in kanohesdi (history) for each article,
> so this statement is inaccurate.
>
> I request persmission from the Foundation to use its trademarks solely
> for the purpose attribution as required by the GFDL. Email of such
> consent to
> this list is acceptable as a reply to this email. The foundation must
> release WMG and Wikigadugi from any and all liability, claims, and causes
> of action for the use of its trademarks and names SOLELY for the purpose
> of GFDL compliance. I ca find no page on the wikimedia.org site
> that grants such a release. I will not use or misuse Foundation
> trademarks without such permission.
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
> Dominic McDevitt-Parks wrote:
>
>
>> There are a few problems with the site currently. In order to be in
>> compliance, you must also credit Wikipedia as your source. I'm clicking
>> "random page" and not seeing any articles that do this. They are just
>> direct copies with no reference to Wikipedia. You should have a note,
>> perhaps at the bottom of the page, like:
>>
>> This article is licensed under the
>> GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the
>> Wikipedia article
>> "Foo".
>>
>>
>>
>> Also, your content does not appear to be licensed under the GFDL; it
>> says on each page: "Content is available under Wikigadugi Public License
>> <http://www.wikigadugi.org/index.php/License>." And the link to that
>> license is broken. Your disclaimer and about pages linked at the bottom
>> are also blank, so I'm not sure where the GFDL is posted to your site.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>> In order to comply: You must link to a local copy of the GFDL, you must
>> make it clear that the content from Wikipedia is available under the
>> GFDL license, your materials in turn have to be licensed under GFDL, you
>> must credit Wikipedia and link back to the source article.
>>
>>
>
>
>> We also
>> recommend that you include the date of the version copied, so that one
>> is able to clearly figure out the authors by checking the history tab
>> (it will likely have changed since you copied the content, and the
>> authorship will have changed, too).
>>
>> Dominic
>>
>>
>> Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Wikigadugi is listed here at:
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GFDL_Compliance
>>>
>>> as
>>>
>>> " ...Either more research is needed, or it is disputed Fail in a very
>>> significant way such as claiming their own copyright without including a
>>> GFDL <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFDL> notice ..."
>>>
>>>
>>> Pardon me folks, but if someone feels we are not in compliance with the
>>> GFDL, can please someone point out where this is the case?   All of our
>>> content
>>> is GFDL compliant and we do not offer any license other than the GFDL
>>> and post the GFDL to our site.
>>>
>>> I am happy to address and correct any issues with use of the Foundations
>>> content if anyone feels it is not adequately spelled out as GFDL.
>>>
>>> Jeff


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

body:
On 1/21/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
> 3) Did you folks know we have a bot that reverts links that are
> arbitrarily considered spam?  I didn't until today.
> [[User:Shadowbot1]].  I convinced him to post the blacklist where we
> could see it, and while some (most?) are useful, others are pretty
> screwy, and I'm not sure this is helpful in the long run.

Yes we know, jeff.


from_name: Tim 'avatar' Bartel

subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
Hi,

Gerard Meijssen schrieb am 18.01.2007 18:16:
> I want to remind
> you all that it is because of the value Google attaches to our content
> that we became the number 10 or whatever in the Alexa rankings. When
> Google were to drop the value it attaches to Wikipedia in favour of for
> instance Citizendium, it will become clear how important Google is for
> the dissemination of our Free content.

My english isn't the best for sure, but I think your posting implies
that Google is tempering search results by adding a bonus to results
from Wikipedia and/or that Google will perhaps adjust this bonus down
and adding a higher one to results from Citizendium. I hope I don't got
you wrong.

In my understanding this is NOT the case and I have no data or source to
believe otherwise. I believe that Wikipedia entries are listed high in
Google because they match the existing automatic pagerank and search
algorithms and there is no 'handwork' needed. If someone has other
informations, please share them, thanks.

Bye, avatar.

--
http://wikipedistik.de


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Virgil Ierubino

subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
I'm working on writing out an EBNF description of Wikitext at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wikiWikitext_Metasyntax , which I hear is much
needed, but have encountered a snag. I don't think EBNF has the power to
describe Wikitext. If anyone here can work out how EBNF can describe
Wikitext's system for bullet points, I'd like to see it. The problem is that
bullet points can build on each other, except each new level has to retain
the markup from the old level, plus a new symbol. e.g. **#* then **#* * then
**#** * then **#*** # etc.

On the topic of "things that need to be done" if writing an EBNF of Wikitext
isn't going to be beneficial for MediaWiki's longstanding success, I'll not
bother, but is there anything that needs to be done like this to create a
standard?

Please forward to any other mailing lists in which this might be
appropriate. Thanks!


subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext


body:
On 1/21/07, John Doe <phoenixoverride at gmail.com> wrote:
> regarding this HAVE YOU NO CLUE what spam is? there have been massive
> attacks by spammers recently there was one user that added 142 links to the
> same site, the reason? to increase the sites rank in google. as for blog,
> myspace.com the reason is simple there is no need to link to jimbobs blog as
> per my reasoning at WT:EL
> Betacommand
>
> On 1/21/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
> >
> > I've brought this up at the talk page at [[Wikipedia:External links]]
> > and ended up with more contempt than actual answers, so maybe some
> > people in the know will be nice enough to actually clear some things up
> > for us.
> >
> > 1) If we're going to blindly attach "nofollow" to all the external
> > links, why are we allowing Wikia links to be propped up artificially?
> > Are we in the business of conflict of interest now?
> >
> > 2) Myspace blogs were recently added to the spam blacklist by Raul per
> > request of Jimbo, although no one else seems to know why, how, or per
> > what rationale.  I won't pretend to know what Jimbo's been up to past
> > not having edited Wikipedia since the is-it-or-is-it-not-a decree, but
> > perhaps some more explanation on this would be worthwhile?  Seems like
> > we're blocking a shitload of otherwise worthwhile primary source
> > material for many of our articles for the sake of...well...nothing.
> > Meanwhile, a blog ''not'' hosted on MySpace is still a-okay, which is
> > patently absurd on its face.  I'm wondering what the thought process was
> > on this, since no one else seems to want to chime in.
> >
> > 3) Did you folks know we have a bot that reverts links that are
> > arbitrarily considered spam?  I didn't until today.
> > [[User:Shadowbot1]].  I convinced him to post the blacklist where we
> > could see it, and while some (most?) are useful, others are pretty
> > screwy, and I'm not sure this is helpful in the long run.
> >
> > I'm starting to think that our focus on spam is becoming a problem
> > rather than a benefit to the project.  How much collateral damage are we
> > willing to accept in the project to take care of this "problem" that
> > people think is massive?  One out of every 10?  5% poor hits?  Do we
> > have some sort of measurement we're using here?

Let's assume for the moment that everyone reading knows what spam is
and what the level of spam problem is for WP.

What we don't all know, is enough about what's being done about it,
and how it's implemented.

As that can bite anyone, and in particular more experienced editors
and admins working on problem issues, it might be better if there was
more communications regarding anti-spam measures taken...

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


subject: [Foundation-l] wap.fluffypeople.com/wiki is gone

body:
Hi,

David Gerard schrieb am 18.01.2007 21:32:
> ANYWAY - it occurred to me that if we want to make Wikimedia projects
> available to people - should we run our own WAP server? Or supply a
> suitable feed or software as a paid feed for phone companies who want
> to sell this to their customers? Or get them to give us the access to
> supply knowledge to the world this way?

Perhaps interesting: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unterwegs
(well, it's german).

For example the solution by Sevenval:
http://en.wikipedia.7val.com/

... or wapedia:
http://wapedia.mobi/en/

Have fun, Tim.

--
http://wikipedistik.de


body:
On 1/21/07, Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net> wrote:
> This is a copy-and-paste from Wikipedia's own information pages on the
> matter. I won't claim to be the expert here. Perhaps you could fix them
> then, or maybe even *say* what the problem is?
>

The problem in short is that neither wikipedia or the foundation are
significant copyright holders. Thus there is not normaly a need to
credit them. The people who need to be credited are the authors. In
the case of the pictures I mentioned that would be me.  Legaly I could
file a DMCA takdown notice over those pics (well once I figured out
which legal system applied). The foundation couldn't.

The GFDL requires the author be credited not a publisher.

--
geni


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-01-22

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

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r19566).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  18 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold
      * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.

Passed 489 of 507 tests (96.45%)... 18 tests failed!


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> No you're not. I changed the CSS and JS a bit so the star replaces the
> bullet instead of putting the star between the bullet and the language
> name. I had to draw a new image which ended up looking not-quite-gold.
> I've now replaced it with a much more visible monobook-yellow one (you
> may need to clear you browser cache to see it.)

It took two shots at clearly my browser cache before I could see it,
but now it's there, it's much better! Thanks!


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] defused timebomb

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:

>On 21/01/07, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>No, no, and just plain... no. "Process" is what killed Nupedia. The OP
>>has our sincere thanks for removing another of our drive-by-stupidity
>>magnets. Seriously. Next thing you know [[snopes.com]] or [[The Straight
>>Dope]] will have entire sections labelled "according to Wikipedia..."
>>where they debunk all of the unreferenced tripe that's lying around.
>>
>>
>Just to clarify: Keeping to established processes when it comes to
>contentious actions (deletion process, etc.) is important to ensuring
>the project works day-to-day, flows well and reduces editor annoyance.
>
That's the main point.  Keeping the article around for another week with
big warnings at the top would not have been harmful to anyone.  The
value of the list was dubious to start with.  People really interested
in this stuff would have been pushed to do some work if they wanted to
keep it.  Processes that keep activities transparent tend to be the good
ones.

>Having too much process (for example, when it is not necessary) is not
>good. It takes away from the ease and enjoyability of volunteering for
>Wikipedia. More importantly, it stops users taking spontaneous
>decisions which are usually beneficial to the project (I, for one, am
>less likely to do something if there are lots of hoops to jump
>through.)
>
Here too I agree, especially when those processes require that people
sift through a lot of picky details.

Ec


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] defused timebomb

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:
<snip>
> I don't think you did the *wrong* thing, but I think we should always
> aim to stick to process.
>

No, no, and just plain... no. "Process" is what killed Nupedia. The OP
has our sincere thanks for removing another of our drive-by-stupidity
magnets. Seriously. Next thing you know [[snopes.com]] or [[The Straight
Dope]] will have entire sections labelled "according to Wikipedia..."
where they debunk all of the unreferenced tripe that's lying around.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [WikiEN-l] defused timebomb

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On 21/01/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Meanwhile, I've already restored about 5 of those in the article, and
>>I'll try to get to more later.  a quick post somewhere saing "we know
>>these things are true, can we find sources" and it'd be done in 5
>>minutes.  Instead, knee-jerk reaction time, whee!!!
>>
>>
>That knee-jerk reaction was absolutely a right process per WP:BLP -
>blank the unsourced silly thing, then add back sources with hard
>verifiability.
>
Simply blanking without deletion means that anybody can fix it up, not
just admins.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
Tim 'avatar' Bartel schreef:
> Hi,
>
> Gerard Meijssen schrieb am 18.01.2007 18:16:
>
>> I want to remind
>> you all that it is because of the value Google attaches to our content
>> that we became the number 10 or whatever in the Alexa rankings. When
>> Google were to drop the value it attaches to Wikipedia in favour of for
>> instance Citizendium, it will become clear how important Google is for
>> the dissemination of our Free content.
>>
>
> My english isn't the best for sure, but I think your posting implies
> that Google is tempering search results by adding a bonus to results
> from Wikipedia and/or that Google will perhaps adjust this bonus down
> and adding a higher one to results from Citizendium. I hope I don't got
> you wrong.
>
> In my understanding this is NOT the case and I have no data or source to
> believe otherwise. I believe that Wikipedia entries are listed high in
> Google because they match the existing automatic pagerank and search
> algorithms and there is no 'handwork' needed. If someone has other
> informations, please share them, thanks.
>
> Bye, avatar.
Hoi,
All search engines have metrics and these are adjusted to perform in the
way that is considered best. Wikipedia has demonstrated in most
languages great quality and this made sure that Google has valued us.
When Citizendium proves that it does a better job, they deserve to be
rewarded by a higher Google rating than us. Nothing special, nothing
sinister.

In contrast it is well known that Microsoft has downgraded Wikipedia
because we compete with one of their products. It is this type of bias
that makes their search offering unpalatable and why I advise against
its use.
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Announcement] Welcome to our new Communication
 Manager

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Florence Devouard wrote:
> The Foundation is pleased to announce the addition of Sandra Ordonez as
> Communications Manager. Sandy is a public relations specialist living in
> Tampa, Florida, with prior experience in for-profit and non-profit
> organizations. Her role will include press relations, written and oral
> communications, and various other assignments. We are fortunate to have
> had Sandy approach us about a position, and we are excited to have her
> start working in the office. Please say hello if you run into her online
> (her wiki and irc name is "wiki blue") and welcome her to the community.

Welcome aboard, Sandy!

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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from_name: geni

body:
On 1/22/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately, I do.
>

How do you need the foundation's logos to credit me?

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
Hoi,
What the f* is an EBNF .. It does not help that you URL is wrong. Being
clever (ahum) I found Extended Backus?Naur form.. A question, do you
really think that an average Wiki editor will NOT get hopelessly
confused and get it hopelessly wrong as well?

Personally I find it horribly ugly as well

Thanks,
GerardM

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikitext_Metasyntax

Virgil Ierubino schreef:
> I'm working on writing out an EBNF description of Wikitext at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wikiWikitext_Metasyntax , which I hear is much
> needed, but have encountered a snag. I don't think EBNF has the power to
> describe Wikitext. If anyone here can work out how EBNF can describe
> Wikitext's system for bullet points, I'd like to see it. The problem is that
> bullet points can build on each other, except each new level has to retain
> the markup from the old level, plus a new symbol. e.g. **#* then **#* * then
> **#** * then **#*** # etc.
>
> On the topic of "things that need to be done" if writing an EBNF of Wikitext
> isn't going to be beneficial for MediaWiki's longstanding success, I'll not
> bother, but is there anything that needs to be done like this to create a
> standard?
>
> Please forward to any other mailing lists in which this might be
> appropriate. Thanks!


subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext


body:
On 1/22/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Under the GFDL you give consent to relicense your changes. This means
> whomever is the last editor of an article is the "Author", not the
> whole chain of editors to that point since subsequent editors are simply
> relicening your content when they add their own edits. By editing and
> saving the article, the final editor is the author in this sense.
>

Please re-read the GFDL:
4.

B List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the
Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five),
unless they release you from this requirement.

I do not release you from this requirement.

> The GFDL and Wikipedia's posted policies state that Wikipedia must be
> given attrbution to comply with the GFDL.

That isn't the case. see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights#Reusers.27_rights_and_obligations

>Your website is then listed
> in the "Mirrors and Forks" as a BAD WEBSITE if you do not.

There are a number of ways of following the GFDL. Which one you chose
it up to you. IF you think you can't mention wikipedia to give credit
then you must give credit localy.

> Wikipedia
> cannot give consent to use "Wikipedia" since it does not own the
> trademark, the foundation does.

I would be rather impressed if the foundation managed to win a legal
case against someone  useing thier name to say where the text was
taken from.

--
geni


body:
On 1/22/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Then Wikipedia in its dumps must IDENTIFY AT LEAST FIVE AUTHORS AUTHORS
> since I have no crystal ball as to who wrote what.

This is why most people link back to the article on wikipedia or to
the article's history on wikipedia.

> In this case, Wikimedia is violating the GFDL by failing to publish
> authors along with content.
>

I suspect that can be found in:

stub-meta-history.xml.gz

--
geni


from_name: Łukasz Garczewski

subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
On 1/22/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> What the f* is an EBNF .. It does not help that you URL is wrong. Being
> clever (ahum) I found Extended Backus?Naur form.. A question, do you
> really think that an average Wiki editor will NOT get hopelessly
> confused and get it hopelessly wrong as well?
>
> Personally I find it horribly ugly as well

Virgil did not even hint at the fact that this is to be used by
editors. You assumed that and it's most probably a wrong assumption.

Maybe it's for developers? Maybe it's for research and comparison with
other similar markups? Maybe it's just for the fun of it?

Personally, I'm intrigued. Virgil, could you elaborate on the purpose
of this project? In what ways can it help us (and who exactly is the
'us' in this case :))?

--
?ukasz 'TOR' Garczewski


subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext


body:
Jeff Raymond wrote:

>I've brought this up at the talk page at [[Wikipedia:External links]]
>and ended up with more contempt than actual answers, so maybe some
>people in the know will be nice enough to actually clear some things up
>for us.
>
It looks like yet another POV zoo.  Sometimes the swath of destruction
from these rule-mongers is beyond belief.  I can no longer be bothered
with these rules debates, because unlike the rule-mongers I find there
are more interesting things to do.  Left to their own devices they can
invent whatever silly rule they want by sheer brute force.  No stretch
of the imagination will conclude that any type of consensus has been
reached.  Most of these rules are unlikely to affect what I do, but that
does not prevent me from being troubled by the fundamental disrespect of
fairness that these rule-mongers practise.

>I'm starting to think that our focus on spam is becoming a problem
>rather than a benefit to the project.  How much collateral damage are we
>willing to accept in the project to take care of this "problem" that
>people think is massive?  One out of every 10?  5% poor hits?  Do we
>have some sort of measurement we're using here?
>
No problem like spam can ever be eradicated completely.  When some
people become obsessed with removing any link that might seem to be
promoting a product, no matter how relevant to the article things have
probably gone too far.  I am very much aware of the dangers of excess
advertising, and how easy it would be to be overrun by it, but once it
has gone below a certain threshhold maybe there are other priorities.

Ec


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Nofollow back on URL links on en.wikipedia.org
	articles for now

body:
On 1/21/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmm an I evil for enjoying this:
>
> http://www.seorefugee.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4655
> http://www.wickedfire.com/industry-news/7373-wikipedia-external-links-now-nofollow.html

Lots of fun.  Anyone caught our friend MyWikiBiz posting in the first one?

-Matt


from_name: David Strauss

subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
To address the issue of the two quotes, EBNF does not directly help
there. EBNF does not define the tokens you use or their semantics. It
only helps you verify and convert raw text to a structured tree of
tokens. If one of your tokens happens to be a double quote, then the
problem remains.

EBNF would help, however, to expand MediaWiki markup and update it. With
the token trees EBNF provides, we could actually update existing
versions of articles to newer syntactical structures with relatively
little risk. (That's dependent on having a perfect characterization of
existing MediaWiki markup in EBNF, which might be impossible.)

So, theoretically, we could create an EBNF grammar for the current
MediaWiki markup, devise a replacement for the two quotes, and have the
parser output an equivalent in a newer MediaWiki markup form.

GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> Your do not address my main question; is this thing Internationalisation
> proof. I care little for something that brings new and or other
> incompatibilities. Bringing technical advantages does not necessarily make
> it work well in the real world and our real world is multi-linguistic.
>
> PS I do understand why something like EBNF is useful from a TECHNICAL point
> of view.
>
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
> On 1/22/07, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On 1/22/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hoi,
>>> When this provides a better result than our current wikisyntax when it
>>> comes to internationalisation there might be something to it. As you may
>>> know the use of two quotes to indicate italics breaks the usage of these
>>> same two quotes in languages like Neapolitan.
>>>
>>> When it provides this better result, there might be something to it.
>>> Otherwise to me it is a hopeless "see how clever we are" exercise never
>>> mind how "standard" it is. A standard that does not take
>>> internationalisation seriously is useless in an international
>>> environment like the Wikimedia projects.
>> EBNF is not a replacement for or variation of wikisyntax. It's a
>> different approach for a parser that understands the /current/
>> wikisyntax. That would
>> * clean up the mess that is the current parser
>> * allow the parser to be generated from EBNF automatically in
>> C/C++/C#/Perl/whatever
>> * ease generation of different output formats, such as XML (or PDF or
>> docbook or...)
>> * avoid most of those little implementation bugs that come with manual
>> parser writing
>>
>> Magnus
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
To address the issue of the two quotes, EBNF does not directly help
there. EBNF does not define the tokens you use or their semantics. It
only helps you verify and convert raw text to a structured tree of
tokens. If one of your tokens happens to be a double quote, then the
problem remains.

EBNF would help, however, to expand MediaWiki markup and update it. With
the token trees EBNF provides, we could actually update existing
versions of articles to newer syntactical structures with relatively
little risk. (That's dependent on having a perfect characterization of
existing MediaWiki markup in EBNF, which might be impossible.)

So, theoretically, we could create an EBNF grammar for the current
MediaWiki markup, devise a replacement for the two quotes, and have the
parser output an equivalent in a newer MediaWiki markup form.

GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> Your do not address my main question; is this thing Internationalisation
> proof. I care little for something that brings new and or other
> incompatibilities. Bringing technical advantages does not necessarily make
> it work well in the real world and our real world is multi-linguistic.
>
> PS I do understand why something like EBNF is useful from a TECHNICAL point
> of view.
>
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
> On 1/22/07, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On 1/22/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hoi,
>>> When this provides a better result than our current wikisyntax when it
>>> comes to internationalisation there might be something to it. As you may
>>> know the use of two quotes to indicate italics breaks the usage of these
>>> same two quotes in languages like Neapolitan.
>>>
>>> When it provides this better result, there might be something to it.
>>> Otherwise to me it is a hopeless "see how clever we are" exercise never
>>> mind how "standard" it is. A standard that does not take
>>> internationalisation seriously is useless in an international
>>> environment like the Wikimedia projects.
>> EBNF is not a replacement for or variation of wikisyntax. It's a
>> different approach for a parser that understands the /current/
>> wikisyntax. That would
>> * clean up the mess that is the current parser
>> * allow the parser to be generated from EBNF automatically in
>> C/C++/C#/Perl/whatever
>> * ease generation of different output formats, such as XML (or PDF or
>> docbook or...)
>> * avoid most of those little implementation bugs that come with manual
>> parser writing
>>
>> Magnus
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
To address the issue of the two quotes, EBNF does not directly help
there. EBNF does not define the tokens you use or their semantics. It
only helps you verify and convert raw text to a structured tree of
tokens. If one of your tokens happens to be a double quote, then the
problem remains.

EBNF would help, however, to expand MediaWiki markup and update it. With
the token trees EBNF provides, we could actually update existing
versions of articles to newer syntactical structures with relatively
little risk. (That's dependent on having a perfect characterization of
existing MediaWiki markup in EBNF, which might be impossible.)

So, theoretically, we could create an EBNF grammar for the current
MediaWiki markup, devise a replacement for the two quotes, and have the
parser output an equivalent in a newer MediaWiki markup form.

GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> Your do not address my main question; is this thing Internationalisation
> proof. I care little for something that brings new and or other
> incompatibilities. Bringing technical advantages does not necessarily make
> it work well in the real world and our real world is multi-linguistic.
>
> PS I do understand why something like EBNF is useful from a TECHNICAL point
> of view.
>
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
> On 1/22/07, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On 1/22/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hoi,
>>> When this provides a better result than our current wikisyntax when it
>>> comes to internationalisation there might be something to it. As you may
>>> know the use of two quotes to indicate italics breaks the usage of these
>>> same two quotes in languages like Neapolitan.
>>>
>>> When it provides this better result, there might be something to it.
>>> Otherwise to me it is a hopeless "see how clever we are" exercise never
>>> mind how "standard" it is. A standard that does not take
>>> internationalisation seriously is useless in an international
>>> environment like the Wikimedia projects.
>> EBNF is not a replacement for or variation of wikisyntax. It's a
>> different approach for a parser that understands the /current/
>> wikisyntax. That would
>> * clean up the mess that is the current parser
>> * allow the parser to be generated from EBNF automatically in
>> C/C++/C#/Perl/whatever
>> * ease generation of different output formats, such as XML (or PDF or
>> docbook or...)
>> * avoid most of those little implementation bugs that come with manual
>> parser writing
>>
>> Magnus
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
I'd be concerned how to implement ''''' without a reduce/reduce
conflict. That said, this is probably getting too technical for
foundation-l.

Magnus Manske wrote:
> It's been tried long before - see the "flexbisonparse" directory in
> the MediaWiki SVN. It was half-way but got stuck on nested HTML tags,
> IIRC.

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subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
I'd be concerned how to implement ''''' without a reduce/reduce
conflict. That said, this is probably getting too technical for
foundation-l.

Magnus Manske wrote:
> It's been tried long before - see the "flexbisonparse" directory in
> the MediaWiki SVN. It was half-way but got stuck on nested HTML tags,
> IIRC.

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subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
I'd be concerned how to implement ''''' without a reduce/reduce
conflict. That said, this is probably getting too technical for
foundation-l.

Magnus Manske wrote:
> It's been tried long before - see the "flexbisonparse" directory in
> the MediaWiki SVN. It was half-way but got stuck on nested HTML tags,
> IIRC.

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subject: [Foundation-l] Some paths toward communication improvements

body:
Anthere wrote:
> * OfficeWikimedia.org (bug Brad)

I believe you mean <http://office.wikimedia.org/>.

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body:
Anthere wrote:
> * OfficeWikimedia.org (bug Brad)

I believe you mean <http://office.wikimedia.org/>.

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body:
Anthere wrote:
> * OfficeWikimedia.org (bug Brad)

I believe you mean <http://office.wikimedia.org/>.

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subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

body:
On 1/22/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Personally, I'm intrigued. Virgil, could you elaborate on the purpose
> of this project? In what ways can it help us (and who exactly is the
> 'us' in this case :))?

As explained already, an EBNF of Wikitext will allow for expansion of
Wikitext easily as it's conforming to a standard, and a more efficient
parser, etc. I'm not the expert in WHY it's good though, I just know it is.
And I know how to write EBNFs, and I can't work out how to code Wikitext's
bullet points in EBNF - if EBNF can't handle Wikitext, then the efficient
parsing and expansion won't be possible (as easily).

Would very much appreciate help from anyone clued up as to how to proceed if
Wikitext can't be EBNFed, or who can show me that it, in fact, can.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikitext_Metasyntax


subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext


from_name: Delirium

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 1/22/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
>> 2) Myspace blogs were recently added to the spam blacklist by Raul per
>> request of Jimbo, although no one else seems to know why, how, or per
>> what rationale.  I won't pretend to know what Jimbo's been up to past
>> not having edited Wikipedia since the is-it-or-is-it-not-a decree, but
>> perhaps some more explanation on this would be worthwhile?  Seems like
>> we're blocking a shitload of otherwise worthwhile primary source
>> material for many of our articles for the sake of...well...nothing.
>> Meanwhile, a blog ''not'' hosted on MySpace is still a-okay, which is
>> patently absurd on its face.  I'm wondering what the thought process was
>> on this, since no one else seems to want to chime in.
>>
>
>
> Other blogs aren't a-okay, but it's simply not possible to block all blogs.
> Personally, I will allow blogs as sources when its contents can clearly be
> attributed to a notable individual. 99% of MySpace members isn't remotely
> notable at all.
>

The point is that many MySpace blogs *are* hosted by notable
individuals, which is what makes the blanked technical-level blocking
(as opposed to editor-level exercise of judgment) problematic.  And also
note that we're not talking about *sources*, but *external links*.
While I agree that rarely is a blog a good source for anything, it seems
absurd to me that the blog of Professor X is not a suitable external
link from the page [[Professor X]].

-Mark


from_name: Anthony

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Citizendium trying out not being a fork of Wikipedia
	for a while

body:
On 1/22/07, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > CC-by-NC isn't a copyleft license, so the compatibility would be
> > really strange.  A derivative of a GFDL article (which wasn't an
> > aggregate) would have to be GFDL.  But a derivative of a CC-by-NC
> > article doesn't have to be CC-by-NC.  However, the original work would
> > still be under CC-by-NC, so unless the original authors gave [you]
> > other permissions, you'd still have to follow CC-by-NC for any
> > derivatives.  As for a work entirely released under *both* GFDL *and*
> > CC-by-NC, that'd be kind of cool.  You could use the work under the
> > GFDL, complete with all its obnoxious requirements, *or* you could use
> > the work under CC-by-NC, without all the GFDL's obnoxious
> > requirements, but only if you do so for noncommercial purposes.
>
> ...or you could just go with CC-By-SA, which _is_ a copyleft license,
> but not nearly as obnoxious as the GFDL.
>
Absolutely, and personally I much prefer CC-by-SA to the GFDL.  But
CC-by-NC does have one big advantage.  An article licensed under
CC-by-NC can be legally combined with other articles licensed under
different licenses to create a derivative work.  I don't think
CC-by-NC is a good license to use *by itself*, but combining it with a
free copyleft license makes for an interesting scenario.

Copyleft was a tremendous idea when the GPL was essentially the only
copyleft license.  Now that there are multiple competing copyleft
licenses things get a lot more tricky.  Hopefully someone will come up
with a new innovation which fixes the problem of competing copylefts.

Anthony


body:
Yes, the Royal Canadian Mounted Wikimedia. (Hey, I'm a Canadian citizen,
too.)

More seriously, such a chapter seems to be in the works:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada

teun spaans wrote:
> About the map: What about Canada? Didnt they start a local chapter recently?

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body:
Yes, the Royal Canadian Mounted Wikimedia. (Hey, I'm a Canadian citizen,
too.)

More seriously, such a chapter seems to be in the works:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada

teun spaans wrote:
> About the map: What about Canada? Didnt they start a local chapter recently?

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body:
Yes, the Royal Canadian Mounted Wikimedia. (Hey, I'm a Canadian citizen,
too.)

More seriously, such a chapter seems to be in the works:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada

teun spaans wrote:
> About the map: What about Canada? Didnt they start a local chapter recently?

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from_name: Florence Devouard

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Announcement] Welcome to our new Communication
	Manager

body:
The Foundation is pleased to announce the addition of Sandra Ordonez as
Communications Manager. Sandy is a public relations specialist living in
Tampa, Florida, with prior experience in for-profit and non-profit
organizations. Her role will include press relations, written and oral
communications, and various other assignments. We are fortunate to have
had Sandy approach us about a position, and we are excited to have her
start working in the office. Please say hello if you run into her online
(her wiki and irc name is "wiki blue") and welcome her to the community.

Florence Devouard
Chair of Wikimedia Foundation


from_name: Jeff Raymond

body:
John Doe wrote:
> regarding this HAVE YOU NO CLUE what spam is? there have been massive
> attacks by spammers recently there was one user that added 142 links to the
> same site, the reason? to increase the sites rank in google. as for blog,
> myspace.com the reason is simple there is no need to link to jimbobs blog as
> per my reasoning at WT:EL

I certainly have a clue.  And I bet we simply reverted him, right?
That's how we should be dealing with it.

Also, I have yet to see a useful defense of blacklisting MySpace blogs,
so if you have one, I'd love to see it.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.


body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>
> Other blogs aren't a-okay, but it's simply not possible to block all blogs.
> Personally, I will allow blogs as sources when its contents can clearly be
> attributed to a notable individual. 99% of MySpace members isn't remotely
> notable at all.

So because most blogs aren't useful, we'll simply assume they all
aren't.  Hey, most websites aren't useful, either, why not disable all
external linking altogether?

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.


body:
It's very annoying to have to remember to hit "reply to all."  Can list
admins fix this, please?

Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> 1) If we're going to blindly attach "nofollow" to all the external
>> links, why are we allowing Wikia links to be propped up artificially?
>> Are we in the business of conflict of interest now?
>
> Looks like Wikia is treated as an interwiki link, which assumes it's
> part of the same project. I'd report it as a bug, if I were you.
>

I'm hoping that the nofollow is temporary/abandoned in that time.

> MySpace blogs are never a reliable source for anything other than a
> MySpace blog, and they are virtually never notable, so I don't see a
> problem.

This will be the last time I repeat it here to save people's inboxes -
"virtually never" doesn't mean we ignore the "sometimes," especially on
the technical side.
>
>> 3) Did you folks know we have a bot that reverts links that are
>> arbitrarily considered spam?  I didn't until today.
>> [[User:Shadowbot1]].  I convinced him to post the blacklist where we
>> could see it, and while some (most?) are useful, others are pretty
>> screwy, and I'm not sure this is helpful in the long run.
>
> I knew, but I've never looked at the blacklist. I've just trusted
> it... was I wrong to?

Trust but verify, at the least.

> I don't think there is much if any collateral damage from our
> anti-spam efforts. I can remember one problem with ShadowBot removing
> a link that it shouldn't have, and I think it was resolved by fixing
> the blacklist (I don't remember exactly, I wasn't actually involved to
> a great extent).

Between the heavy-handed use of G11, having a blacklist BOT,
blacklisting an arbitrary blog site on the blacklist, I think there's a
lot more collateral damage than we're owning up to.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.