from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikitech-l] What happened?

body:
After half an hour of trying to access Procellariiformes to see what someone
else added to it, I get this:

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in
/home/wiki-newest/work-http/wikiUser.php on line 24

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in
/home/wiki-newest/work-http/wikiUser.php on line 32

Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output
started at /home/wiki-newest/work-http/wikiUser.php:24) in
/home/wiki-newest/work-http/wiki.phtml on line 48

Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output
started at /home/wiki-newest/work-http/wikiUser.php:24) in
/home/wiki-newest/work-http/wiki.phtml on line 50

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in
/home/wiki-newest/work-http/databaseFunctions.php on line 33

What happened?

phma


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion L. VIBBER

subject: [Wikitech-l] What happened?

body:
On lun, 2002-05-27 at 06:21, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> After half an hour of trying to access Procellariiformes to see what someone
> else added to it, I get this:
>
> Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in
> /home/wiki-newest/work-http/wikiUser.php on line 24
>
> Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in
> /home/wiki-newest/work-http/wikiUser.php on line 32
>
> Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output
> started at /home/wiki-newest/work-http/wikiUser.php:24) in
> /home/wiki-newest/work-http/wiki.phtml on line 48
>
> Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output
> started at /home/wiki-newest/work-http/wikiUser.php:24) in
> /home/wiki-newest/work-http/wiki.phtml on line 50
>
> Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in
> /home/wiki-newest/work-http/databaseFunctions.php on line 33
>
> What happened?

Still going on or temporary problem? (ie, database glorked out for a
sec)

What does your WikiUserID cookie look like?

Does it still happen if you log out and log back in? What if you
manually clear the Wikipedia cookies from your browser?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] What happened?

body:
On Monday 27 May 2002 13:43, Brion L. VIBBER wrote:
> Still going on or temporary problem? (ie, database glorked out for a
> sec)

Temporary. After that I couldn't access Wikipedia for a while, but it's back
up.

> What does your WikiUserID cookie look like?

/wiki
1123
2003-03-22 20:11

phma


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikitech-l] google and umlauts

body:
Google doesn't seem to like our umlauts in page titles. Try
http://www.google.de/search?q=%C3%84nderungen+site%3Ade.wikipedia.com&hl
=de&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8

Google says "Ung?ltige Seite Letzte_??nderungen. " (which means "invalid
page Recent_Changes").

Is it a problem on google's or on our side? Will it be solved with the
new software?

----

The most important bug in the new software on test-de.wikipedia.com
seems to be that the upload feature doesn't work. All others shouldn't
be too hard to solve, but I'm no programmer :-)

http://test-de.wikipedia.com/wiki/wikipedia:Beobachtete+Fehler

Bye,
Kurt


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] Status of new codebase

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from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikitech-l] google and umlauts

body:
Kurt Jansson wrote:

> Google doesn't seem to like our umlauts in page titles. Try
> http://www.google.de/search?q=%C3%84nderungen+site%3Ade.wikipedia.com&hl=de&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8
>
> Google says "Ung?ltige Seite Letzte_??nderungen. " (which means "invalid
> page Recent_Changes").

It works fine for me.  Google gives me a list of 1610 hits, and only
the first hit has the title "Ung?ltige Seite...".  This is because it
points to the URL
http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Letzte_%C3%84nderungen
for which Wikipedia will return a page having exactly that title.
This is explained by the old UseModWiki software's lack of support for
UTF-8.  If the URL is changed from UTF-8 (%C3%84) to ISO 8859-1 (%C4),
the correct page is returned,
http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Letzte_%C4nderungen

This is not Google's fault.  Some webpage somewhere has a link to
the wrong URL, and Google has indexed the page that Wikipedia returns
for that URL.  Neither the old nor the new Wiki software return 404
errors for pages that don't exist.

--
  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/


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Manning Bartlett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Max Weismann...does he deserve an article?

body:
On the talk page for Max Weismann maveric wrote the following...

And what has this person done to warrent an encyclopedia article? There are A
LOT of presidents and directors of entities and a lot more editors -- why is
this one so special? --[[user:maveric149|maveric149]]

Now I'm not criticising Dan at all here, simply exploring the issues that this
comment raises.

It is a question that strikes at the very heart of the Wikipedia project... who
decides what deserves to be here and what doesn't? The article in question does
not contravene any of the Wikipedia rules, it does not advertise, it's not
offensive... it's just boring and trivial, and probably of no interest to
anyone except his close friends.

But IMHO, it deserves to be here. Mainly because choosing to get rid of it
solely on its lack of "significance" (as opposed to its violation of 'pedia
rules) would severely damage the project.

Unfortunately "boring and trivial" is what I would say about a lot of Wikipedia
content. So who decides? I think the ultimate standard is "If someone feels
that an article needs to be written, then it deserves to be here". I know we
have an entire series of articles on central mexican hip-hop bands, including
ones without recording contracts. They stayed for the very reason that someone
bothered to write about them.

To extend our authority into the realm of "deserves to be here or not" is to
open ourselves to a cabalism and disenchantment by the community. For example,
if I had "MY" way, all of the articles on all of the sub-characters of the
Simpsons would go, you'll never convince me they have any merit at all. Ditto
for the articles on the minor characters from Star Wars. However, I personally
regard the individual musicians who played with Frank Zappa on his various
tours to be far more interesting, and one day I might write about them. I
suspect some of you would disagree... etc etc etc.

So who will decide which of these articles "deserve to be here" ? To do so
means answering the question: "Are the Simpsons more important than Frank
Zappa?" How can you answer that question from a NPOV?

I am aware we have standards for articles such as advertising content, these
are fairly black and white. But discriminating on "significance" is much more
dangerous.

What criteria will be applied?
How do you (and who will) create the criteria?
How do you apply them without bias?
Is the winner of the Uzbekistani Fish-slapping championship "trivial"? Says who?

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Damn I can't wait to get out of India :) I hope they don't nuke Bombay as my
flight connection is through there, and it's so hard to change your flight to a
different city.

Cheers
Manning


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

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from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
>On the talk page for Max Weismann maveric wrote the following...
>
>And what has this person done to warrent an encyclopedia article? There are A
>LOT of presidents and directors of entities and a lot more editors -- why is
>this one so special? --[[user:maveric149|maveric149]]
>
>Now I'm not criticising Dan at all here, simply exploring the issues that
>this
>comment raises.
>
>It is a question that strikes at the very heart of the Wikipedia
>project... who
>decides what deserves to be here and what doesn't? The article in question
>does
>not contravene any of the Wikipedia rules, it does not advertise, it's not
>offensive... it's just boring and trivial, and probably of no interest to
>anyone except his close friends

The deal is that "Great Ideas" is a cult more or less of the same order as
"Star Trek" or "Ayn Rand."  One soon realizes that when one encounters a
devotee.  So that probably why it's here and why it's significant. I think
the decision was make long ago from the looks of the topics in Wikipedia
that if at least a small group was passionate about something articles on
it were ok.

The topics I wonder about are the cheeses. Now, Cornish Yarg Cheese is just
a made up name that folks who run one dairy, mostly using milk from one
farm make. Hardly a generic variety.  Course I wrote the article on that
myself, and might write more on that long list under cheese. It was fun.

Now is it advertising if one says how to get Yarg cheese? Or gives a web
site where it may be purchased. Given that I've nothing to do with those
folks.

Fred Bauder


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Validation process (fiability)

body:
Hello,

While trying to bring new people to internat.
Wikipedia, I have been asked what was the validation
process in terms of reliability for the article...

I don't exactly know where to find an approach to this
question (there's much to be said) and I don't know
either where to ask the question :-)

Is it possible to have a "short" answer to it and to
be provided help to find the right pages where this
point is raised ? There are so many pages on the
english wiki, and I can't read them very quickly. I
don't know whether he speaks english (I YM_M4I5S3S_6
hope he does, the en YM_M4I5S3S_7 contains great stuff
!), so I maybe will have to translate a minimum for
him (and the next ones ?) to understand the concept.

I guess if the guy answered, he is interested in some
way, and I would like to avoid answering to him in two
weeks. Could somebody help me here please ?

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Password handling--request for input.

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body:
On mar, 2002-05-28 at 12:49, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> The intended functionality (and what should be the current
> functionality of http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml) is this:
...
> If they have
> entered an email address for their account, their password can be
> sent to that address (in plain text).

!?

> As I see it there are three options:
...
> (2) Change the feature to "email me a new password".  Passwords will
> be encrypted, and when the user forgets his, the system will create a
> new random password and email _that_.  The user will then log and
> change his password (hopefully to something he can remember).

I rather thought that's what was meant by "email my password"...
E-mailing the *existing unchanged* password strikes me as a highly
unusual practice.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
At 06:59 AM 5/28/02 -0500, you wrote:
 >What criteria will be applied?
>How do you (and who will) create the criteria?
>How do you apply them without bias?
>Is the winner of the Uzbekistani Fish-slapping championship "trivial"?
>Says who?

Well, on the one hand, evidently every single person who died in the
September 11, 2002 terrorist attack on New York and Washington deserves a
whole article to themselves.

But on the other hand, nobody seemed terribly upset when I deleted the
pages describing various students of "Gate House" and friends during the
vandalism kerfuffle involving them a month or two back.

Personally,  I believe that a person should have some sort of historical
significance, no matter how slight, to warrant a Wikipedia article. But
then, I suffer from an overdeveloped sense of structure and philosophical
elegance, so perhaps that's just me. :)

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A proposed approval mechanism.

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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Max Weismann

body:
Gesh... Another post about something I've done. I'm
sure Jimbo is becoming convinced that I am a troll or
even worse. :(

What I wanted was either a statement why this person
was important (so that it could be included in the
article) or for someone else to review the darn thing
and see if I wasn't crazy in thinking the thing was
not encyclopedic. Sorry, I wasn't here for these
earlier discussions and was therefore working under
the premise that wikipedia at least was trying to
become an encyclopedia in some modern sense of the
word. That definition being; "The circle of arts and
sciences; a comprehensive summary of the entire
range of human knowledge, or of a branch of knowledge;
esp., a work in which the various branches of science
or art are discussed separately."

Usually in a summary we leave out the non-essential
parts and players. But then you do have a point in
noting that we have articles on each of the Simpsons
characters and nobody really finds this too
objectionable. Heck, I have even contributed to some
of the Star Wars character pages! BTW it was <me> who
wikified [[Max Weismann]] right after it was created
(so let's not get the idea that I'm trying to be an
overbearing censor here -- I'm not very keen on doing
work and then having it removed <unless> it is best
for the project ;). JHK later wrote why this person
was at least marginally important - which was good
enough for me - so I changed my vote from removal to
rewrite for clarity (before I read this message BTW).

I guess I can now write that article about my boss
that I have been wanting to write for several months
-- she isn't widely known outside of her very narrowly
focused field but has been very important in trying to
advance the application of a particular type of
transit-oriented smart growth strategy by working from
within California's bureaucracy. I never wrote it
before because I thought others would think that it
would be un-encyclopedic and delete it. But if
allowing the minor players is allowed, then I'm all
for it -- but I think that the people and things we
cover  do have to be players in at least some
sense (I don't think we want to become geocities or be
responsible for spreading misinformation or
propaganda, right?).

maveric149

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com


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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Max Weismann

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Gesh... Another post about something I've done. I'm
> sure Jimbo is becoming convinced that I am a troll or
> even worse. :(

Oh, no, not at all.  I'm not mad or anything.

> Sorry, I wasn't here for these
> earlier discussions and was therefore working under
> the premise that wikipedia at least was trying to
> become an encyclopedia in some modern sense of the
> word. That definition being; "The circle of arts and
> sciences; a comprehensive summary of the entire
> range of human knowledge, or of a branch of knowledge;
> esp., a work in which the various branches of science
> or art are discussed separately."

I think that's a good definition of what we're trying to do.  In
particular, we aren't a random text repository (though sometimes
having some texts stored here can be o.k.), we aren't a humor site
(though we hopefully aren't dull and dry, either, we aren't a
generally discussion and commentary site (although there is a lot of
discussion and commentary).

So there is such a thing as something be "not encyclopedic" and
therefore "not suitable for wikipedia".

> Usually in a summary we leave out the non-essential
> parts and players.

*nod* I agree with this.  For example, there's no need for an article
about my mom, fine woman though she is.  But unlike paper
encyclopedias, there is a lot of room here, so we can be more
expansive.

One of the things that a future "qualification process" might do is
flag or rate articles based on both quality and "importance", so that
reproductions in media with space constraints might find some guidance
as to what to leave out.

>  I guess I can now write that article about my boss that I have been
> wanting to write for several months -- she isn't widely known
> outside of her very narrowly focused field but has been very
> important in trying to advance the application of a particular type
> of transit-oriented smart growth strategy by working from within
> California's bureaucracy.

That's probably fine.  This is a good example of the kind of article
that is probably good in wikipedia-the-website but that might be left
out in a paper production based on our good work.

Similarly, articles about the mayors and city councilpersons of the
umpteen zillion small towns of the world.  Why not include them in the
wikipedia?

> I never wrote it before because I thought
> others would think that it would be un-encyclopedic and delete
> it. But if allowing the minor players is allowed, then I'm all for
> it -- but I think that the people and things we cover do have
> to be players in at least some sense (I don't think we want to
> become geocities or be responsible for spreading misinformation or
> propaganda, right?).  maveric149

I think that's right.

I don't think there is a simple answer to these questions.  I think
that what to include is a tough question, and opinions will differ.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <200205281949.g4SJnv318842@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Tue, May 28, 2002 at 12:49:57PM -0700

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> (2) Change the feature to "email me a new password".  Passwords will
> be encrypted, and when the user forgets his, the system will create a
> new random password and email _that_.  The user will then log and
> change his password (hopefully to something he can remember).
>
> Plaintext passwords won't exist anywhwere with options 1 or 2--this
> is the most secure.

The slashdot software does something similar to this.  Here's something to think
about.

Each account should have a field for 'password' (encrypted, of course)
and 'new password' (encrypted, of course).  When a new password is
requested, it is sent out (unencrypted) and stored (encrypted) in the
'new password' field.  But the old password can be untouched and still
functional until the new password is used, at which time it is copied
to the 'password' field.

The point of these steps is to prevent a certain kind of
denial-of-service attack.  If I don't like you, maybe I'll just sit
here requesting a new password for you, over and over, thus forcing
you to be logged out over and over.

But if the old password continues to work, then all the repeated
requests do is barrage you with annoying email -- this email should
identify the ip number of the person clicking on 'send a new
password'.

--Jimbo


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 5/28/02 4:00 PM, "Brion L. VIBBER" <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> I rather thought that's what was meant by "email my password"...
> E-mailing the *existing unchanged* password strikes me as a highly
> unusual practice.
>
It's really not that strange, and for low-security situations, such as this,
it wouldn't be at all bad if people didn't have the habit of using the same
password for everything. But they do. So it's not so good.


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Jimbo's idea 'bout a qualification process

body:
On Tuesday 28 May 2002 05:02 pm, Jimbo wrote:
> One of the things that a future "qualification process" might do is
> flag or rate articles based on both quality and "importance", so that
> reproductions in media with space constraints might find some guidance
> as to what to leave out.

What an great idea! That way we can fully integrate many of the ideas of
"beta/stable" and eventaully be able to create a printed Wikipedia on the
fly. Excellent and most useful!

--maveric149


body:
At 01:26 AM 5/29/02 +0200, you wrote:
>I don't know anything about Max and so I don't know whether he
>deserves an article, but the underlying question is important and
>interesting: should anything that somebody bothered to write up be
>accepted into Wikipedia, assuming it is NPOV?

Something else to consider; is there any way we can _tell_ if it's NPOV? If
I write an article about some guy that nobody else here has ever heard of,
I could put anything I wanted in there and nobody could edit it because
nobody would know if what I wrote was true or not. I could make people up
from scratch and immortalize them for posterity.

This has already come up with some other super-obscure topics in Wikipedia;
[[pre-automatic dictatorship]], for example. Only the original author of
that article seems to know anything about this, and so nobody can tell if
the article is legitimate information or crackpottery.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New password features.

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New password features

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikicities? (pun of geocities)

body:
On Tuesday 28 May 2002 05:02 pm, Lee wrote:
> One possible downside is that many of them might become orphans,
> making database maintenance harder, because even if we allow such
> articles, we should not necessarily allow links to them from relevant
> articles.

I can think of another downside - new contributors and visitors become
increasingly clueless as to what the project is about and the difference
between personal posts about their friends and family and actual encyclopedia
content. That is, unless we somehow hide the "non-qualified" articles from
search engines or visitors to the site -- but then what use would they be?

Who is going to be the one to tell new contributors <not> to do things the
natural wiki way and link their personal biographies to other pages? New
contributors generally don't read our policy pages before contributing and it
is already a struggle to get them to up-to speed on naming conventions and
NPOV -- let alone having to explain the difference between the two
incompatible, yet, side-by-side types of articles. What is described is
another project altogether (Wikicities anyone?).

For example: Under this setup, if I were a new contributor and just wrote a
bio on myself after seeing many other personal bios in RecentChanges, It
would seem pretty logical for me to place [[Daniel Lee Mayer]] on [[1975]]
(my birthyear) and on [[December 31]] (my birthday).  It would also seem
natural to add my name to [[Biologists]] since I have a degree in
biology.....

Minden' the shop is difficult enough as it is. I for one don't want to have
to constantly check to make sure links actually link to encyclopedia content
and not personal bios. But then, that's just me.

Cheers!

--maveric149


body:
On 5/28/02 8:00 PM, "lcrocker at nupedia.com" <lcrocker at nupedia.com> wrote:

>> I don't know anything about Max and so I don't know whether he
>> deserves an article, but the underlying question is important and
>> interesting: should anything that somebody bothered to write up be
>> accepted into Wikipedia, assuming it is NPOV?
>>
>> I say no. The item has to be of relevance in some way...
>
> I was inclined to agree, and I definitely think there are topics
> that don't belong in an encyclopedia.  But if we do implement some
> approval system, especially a multiple-valued one such as I suggested
> earlier today, I like Jimbo's suggestion of making relvance one of
> the approval criteria.  If that's done, then there's really little
> reason not to allow reasonable articles on anything and anyone, and
> simply consider them potential articles (which might get promoted
> to "relevant" status if, say, Jimbo's mom gets elected to congress or
> something).

One of the nice things about the fact that we're building a hyperlinked site
is that we, the individual human contributors, don't have to worry or even
think at all about the question of relevance. The system will deal with
that. All we have to worry about is article quality.

Not only is there really little reason not to allow reasonable articles on
anything and anyone in the current system, without any other features, but
there are major reasons for not instituting hard systems of approval.

If someone cares enough about a topic or a person to write a Wikipedia-style
entry for that person, and can plausibly link to that topic from some other
entry, then that, in my opinion, should be the end of discussion about
whether such entry "deserves" to be in Wikipedia.

--tc


body:
On mar, 2002-05-28 at 18:10, Guardian Tor wrote:
> Hi Anthere,
> > While trying to bring new people to internat.
> > Wikipedia, I have been asked what was the validation
> > process in terms of reliability for the article...
> >
> > I don't exactly know where to find an approach to this
> > question (there's much to be said) and I don't know
> > either where to ask the question :-)
>
> Here's the short answer. Wikipedia works on a similar principle to
> open source software development. Anyone can pop in and write or
> change an article and it is immediately posted. Thus, there are no
> technological mechanisms to prevent people from posting nonsense.

Well, just for the record there's one really big difference:

In open source software development, yes anyone can make any
modification they want to a piece of software and if they like
distribute it _separately_, but that doesn't make those changes
automatically appear at the _main_ or official source for the software.
Generally, the official version is maintained by a small number of
people who will review and may or may not accept changes that are sent
to them.

In other words, the people who maintain the official version must
explicitly intervene to _accept_ additions to the official version.

Here in wikiland, however, the people who maintain the official version
(read: everyone else who uses the wiki) must explicitly intervene to
_reject_ additions, which in the absence of intervention automatically
become a part of the work.

The upside is extremely fast (instantaneous!) turn-around time for
improvements and greater participation -- you don't have to wait for
some reviewer (if there even is one familiar with your specialty) to
look over your article before it goes online. The downside is the
potential for abuse (vandalism etc) -- which is counterbalanced pretty
well by the extemely fast turn-around time for removing abuse.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

body:
Manning Bartlett wrote:
>
> On the talk page for Max Weismann maveric wrote the following...
>
> And what has this person done to warrent an encyclopedia article? There are A
> LOT of presidents and directors of entities and a lot more editors -- why is
> this one so special? --[[user:maveric149|maveric149]]
>
> Now I'm not criticising Dan at all here, simply exploring the issues that this
> comment raises.
>
> It is a question that strikes at the very heart of the Wikipedia project... who
> decides what deserves to be here and what doesn't? The article in question does
> not contravene any of the Wikipedia rules, it does not advertise, it's not
> offensive... it's just boring and trivial, and probably of no interest to
> anyone except his close friends.

[snip]

Hmmm... IMO, if you can write at least three interesting paragraphs
containing valid information on a subject/person/thing, then it deserves
to be there. To take Star Wars as an example, I don't think we need a
page for say characters who said two lines in Attack of the Clones, or
for the actors who played them. There just isn't enough to say about
them. But if there's a character who says 2 lines in AOTC and pops up
again in the next one whatever it's called and was also in the first
one, well then there's something to say about them.

I guess it's a matter of personal taste more than anything else.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


body:
I would vote for the "email me a new password" option but we should probably
put up a warning anyway that we don't use secure connections so people
shouldn't use highly safety-critical passwords. Having said that I still
feel we should make it hard to get to these passwords in case some edit-wars
get ugly.

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Axel Boldt

body:
I don't know anything about Max and so I don't know whether he
deserves an article, but the underlying question is important and
interesting: should anything that somebody bothered to write up be
accepted into Wikipedia, assuming it is NPOV?

I say no. The item has to be of relevance in some way. It would be
fruitless to try to define "of relevance" on many policy pages. It is
implicitly defined by the overriding goal of writing an
*encyclopedia*. Reasonable people will usually agree, and if not, it
can be resolved the wiki way.

Lists of phone numbers, a description of my dream of last Tuesday, a
biography of my father are all irrelevant and don't belong in
Wikipedia. Imagine Encyclopedia Britannica was completely freed of
their space and money constraints: they still wouldn't include a
biography of my father.

Now, Simpson characters on the other hand are relevant: a very popular
show in the largest consumer market of the world. Simpson shows are
being analyzed in literature departments, and no doubt EB would
include an extensive treatment if they could.

Axel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Max Weisman

body:
Hi maveric and all

Just wanted to make it clear that I was not criticising your comments re Max
Weisman in any way! I'm quite sorry if you got that impression. I simply
started with what you said, but then went off on a tangent completely.

I hoped I had made that distinction clear in my original post, and if not, let
me make it clear now. I thought you had every right to question the validity of
the article, although if JHK says he has some merit then I certainly won't
argue.

Cheers
Manning


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Max Weisman

body:
One thing that occurred to me last night is that if we start adding
*everybody*, we'll be up to our ears in disambiguation pages.

There are at least two Vicki Rosenzweigs in the US who have net access.
Neither of us needs a Wiki entry (other than my "what I've worked on" page
in the user: space); creating one for either of us would complicate things
if the other later did something worthy of coverage, or a third person of the
same name appeared as a senator, or a Canadian cancer researcher, or
the real name of a pop star.

I'm not proposing a rule, or even a policy, here, just tossing an idea into
the ether.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Guardian Tor

body:
Hi Anthere,

> While trying to bring new people to internat.
> Wikipedia, I have been asked what was the validation
> process in terms of reliability for the article...
>
> I don't exactly know where to find an approach to this
> question (there's much to be said) and I don't know
> either where to ask the question :-)

Here's the short answer. Wikipedia works on a similar principle to open source software development. Anyone can pop in and write or change an article and it is immediately posted. Thus, there are no technological mechanisms to prevent people from posting nonsense. However, most Wikipedia participants are intelligent people dedicated to making a high quality encyclopedia. There is a page that shows all the recent changes made in the database, and at any given time there are many pairs of eyes checking those additions. When nonsense or vandalism is found it is removed and/or edited immediately.

This sounds like an unreliable system to many people, but it is surprising how well it works. Ifyour friend is skeptical, have him look around Wikipedia to get a feel for the quality of the articles.

-- Stephen Gilbert

________________________________
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
   http://www.wikipedia.com

--
_______________________________________________
Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/

Powered by Outblaze


subject: [Wikitech-l] Stream-oriented diff algorithms

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Manning's note and appology to the list (again)

body:
--- Manning Bartlett <manning at bartlett.net> wrote:
> Hi maveric and all
>
> Just wanted to make it clear that I was not
> criticising your comments re Max
> Weisman in any way! I'm quite sorry if you got that
> impression. I simply
> started with what you said, but then went off on a
> tangent completely.
>
> I hoped I had made that distinction clear in my
> original post, and if not, let
> me make it clear now. I thought you had every right
> to question the validity of
> the article, although if JHK says he has some merit
> then I certainly won't
> argue.
>
> Cheers
> Manning
>

Yes the intention was made clear ? and the comment, by
itself, was not 'overtly' critical of what I had done.
Implicitly, however, it was critical of my actions
because the example was from something I had done that
was being questioned.

I really wouldn?t have minded (much) this 'particular'
example, except for the fact that it occurred right
after I screwed-up on another mater so severely that
Jimbo openly considered removing my sysop status. So
it was the timing that was the most sensitive issue,
not really what was said in this particular case. I
hope this distinction is clear, because I bear no hard
feelings towards you Manning.

However, in general, it is oftentimes
counter-productive to cite very specific and
real-world examples when trying to spark a general
discussion on policy (not always mind you ? actual
examples can be useful when they are appropriate ? I
tend to prefer to make up my own examples whenever
possible though). Somehow, for me at least, Talk pages
are different. This might have something to do with
having the guy who owns the server and who is
editor-in-chief as part of the regular discussion. An
analogy would be telling a coworker in their cubicle
that they had possibly made a mistake (still audible
to others in adjacent cubicles) vs. telling a coworker
they had might have made a mistake during an official
meeting with all present including the coworker?s
boss.

BTW, I?ve been far more egregiously guilty of using
unnecessarily specific examples than anybody I can
think of on the list (concerning an unfortunate and
totally incorrect and unfair statement I made about
another member of the list while making an argument
during the 24 fiasco). That?s the problem with
specific examples ? they may not be good ones, may be
outright wrong or are special cases made under
extenuating circumstances. The devil is in the details
my friends.

So my suggestion is this: In order to move the
discussion along and try and prevent unnecessarily
hurt feelings and keep on topic, we should, in
general, avoid using specific examples of things
?gone wrong? when a general or hypothetical example
would suffice  ? <especially> when a specific example
would concern another list member or something they
had done. In addition, we should also consider
not stating the names of who did what unless we
want to discuss disciplinary actions or warnings. Of
course, we can always start with the general and go
down to specific examples when and where appropriate,
if we keep in mind that the people on the other side
of the computer screen have feelings and egos too.

With that said, I do think that in no way should we
make this any sort of official rule for discussion on
the list (Free Speech rules!) ? just something to
consider in order to keep on topic and have the best
and most productive policy discussion possible.

Which, by the way, this is not -- I therefore (again)
apologize to the list for introducing unnecessary
drama.

Power to the wiki!

--maveric149

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com


from_name: Julie Hofmann Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] The whole Max Weismann thing

body:
Begin semi-rant, apologies to all...

PEOPLE!!!  Why are we wasting time on this?  First, somebody thought
Weismann was important enough to warrant an article.  Why not ask the
person who added him?  Alternatively, one could look on google.  The
information there pretty much shows that Weismann is a close colleague
(and maybe sycophant) of Adler.  Adler IS important, whether or not one
agrees with his philosophy.  He's influential -- a large part of a
generation of American pedagogy has been influenced by his ideas -- not
just the Great Books/Great Ideas thing, but also, if I'm not mistaken,
New Math.  Weismann seems to be fairly influential in peddling off the
Great Ideas thing into home-schooling -- a major trend in the US these
days.

Wikipedia isn't paper.  Helga puts up insane articles about obscure
(hired famous German painter X) city council members in Hansa cities in
the 17th century, and we keep them (despite wanting to nuke most of
them)... Dan, why is this an issue?

Unless there is a huge demand to police relevancy, shouldn't people be
more worried about making sure information is first accurate, and then
NPOV?  As much as I'd like to see articles weeded out (like every effing
chapter of Atlas Shrugged), I don't go all sysop and delete at will, nor
have I blocked any of the people I consider intellectual vandals or
liars....or just stupid cows... DESPITE GREAT TEMPTATION.

So, could we perhaps work on being a kinder, gentler, less punitive
wikipedia?  Rules are great, but sensible application of guidelines
might be a better approach...and too much information may be better than
too little.

End semi-rant.

Jules


body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> This has already come up with some other super-obscure topics in Wikipedia;
> [[pre-automatic dictatorship]], for example. Only the original author of
> that article seems to know anything about this, and so nobody can tell if
> the article is legitimate information or crackpottery.

Perhaps it would be useful to know that "14 people have contributed
to this article".  Those who don't know, normally don't contribute.

--
  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: [Wikipedia-l] Side-by-side diffs in new codebase

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in_reply_to: <B9199497.1103%cunctator@kband.com>; from cunctator@kband.com on Tue, May 28, 2002 at 08:09:59PM -0400

body:
On Tue, May 28, 2002 at 08:09:59PM -0400, The Cunctator wrote:
>
> One of the nice things about the fact that we're building a hyperlinked site
> is that we, the individual human contributors, don't have to worry or even
> think at all about the question of relevance. The system will deal with
> that. All we have to worry about is article quality.

Well said. The number of incoming links will always be the best indicator of
relevance, even better than any "relevance rating". (Can you say Google?
:-)) Having said that, I do share the concern with many people that if
newcomers see a lot of trivial/personal stuff they will start adding their
own and even add links to it from pages that are relevant. But I think and
hope that having a clear mission statement plus the usual "social pressure"
will keep people from adding such links. For example, if people start adding
their own name to the list of mathamaticians because they have a degree in
mathematics then this is not so much irrelevant as it is simply wrong
because it is a list of *famous* mathematicians.

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Chuck Smith

subject: [Wikipedia-l] very simple beta --> stable article

body:
Hmmm... here's a simple idea.  If ten (or some other
arbitrary number) of logged in users have read the
article since the last update, then it is stable.  We
could also require that articles have 1000 pageviews
or something as well.  Simple, no hassle, in the wiki
spirit.  :)

Chuck

=====
Homepage: http://amuzulo.babil.komputilo.org/
Taglibro: http://amuzulo.livejournal.com/
====
Enciklopedio en Esperanto, 2250+ artikoloj!
http://eo.wikipedia.com/

__________________________________________________________________

Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - http://mail.yahoo.de
Yahoo! pr?sentiert als offizieller Sponsor das Fu?ball-Highlight des
Jahres: - http://www.FIFAworldcup.com


body:
The difflib code which I took from phpwiki can be used for stream
based diffs (in fact, we do that: we first use a line based diff to
figure out the lines to present, and then we do a word based diff on
those lines in order to mark the changed words red.)

The code works as follows (see
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/wikipedia/phpwiki/fpw/difflib.php?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup):

The main workhorse is the Diff class. You construct it with two arrays
of strings that you want to compare. You then get a list $this->edits;
this is a list of _DiffOp's which describe how to get from the first
array of strings to the second array of strings with a minimal number
of changes. With that, you can do whatever you want. Normally, you'd
pass such an Diff object to a DiffFormater (which you should extend),
which then looks at the edits list and produces some output.

Currently, we cut the two article version into lines, pass those two
arrays to Diff, then to TableDiffFormatter for presenting in a table.
This TableDiffformatter, when printing out changed lines, calls a
WordLevedDiff (which extends Diff) to color changed words in red.

It might be nice to change TableDiffFormatter to produce side-by-side
output, similar to what the sourceforge cvs viewer does.

Axel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Dan why is this even an isse?

body:
I asked why the person was important, JHK answered and
that was good enough for me. Everything else important
has already been said.

Shall we get back to business now?

--maveric149

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Recent Changes layout

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body:
> So, could we perhaps work on being a kinder, gentler, less punitive
> wikipedia?

Amen. Along the same lines, I personally would like to see most of the sysop powers removed (deleting and locking pages, baning IPs, etc) from the general Wikipedia population. I just don't think it's necessary in most cases to take (or threaten) such actions, even in the case of vandalism. We had vandals before everyone had these powers, and they were easily delt with: a dozen Wikipedians undoing every act of vandalism within 30 seconds is hard to get around. Of course, there are some instances when banning an IP is necessary, such a continuous attack over the course of a week. But I am in fabour of leaving these powers in Jimbo's hands and letting himmake the call. It just seems too tempting to use these powers, with good intentions, unnecessarily.

- Stephen Gilbert

--
_______________________________________________
Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/

Powered by Outblaze


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Recent Changes layout

in_reply_to: <200205302224.g4UMOEk27076@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Thu, May 30, 2002 at 03:24:14PM -0700

body:
On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 03:24:14PM -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> Axel makes a good argument that the new code's simplified layout of the
> Recent Changes page (see
> http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtmltitle=Special:Recentchanges )
> really is an important loss of functionality.  Since his comment, I added
> an article history link, but I think his comment still applies in general.
> I think it is of critical importance that this feature be optimized both
> for function and for speed.  I don't want to put the old code back because
> it's a dog, but if I can find a way to implement the needed features in a
> faster way, I'm all for it.

I'd really like to help but I'm very busy at the moment and next week
I'll be in Madison Wisc. attending a conference. So I can only make a few
quick remarks here.

First I would check if the old SQL code was really that bad. Just put it
side by side with the new SQL in your code and time it. A lot depends here
on how MySQL optimizes this query and uses the indices, but I am now at work
and cannot check with EXPLAIN how MySQL actually deals with it.

> First, I'd like to solicit an opinion from Jan or other database gurus
> about what might make the speed better.  Currently, it is driven by a
> single SELECT from the current article table, which is sorted by reverse
> timestamp (on which there's an index), and with a LIMIT.  The old (N
> changes) feature also required accessing the old versions table and an
> expensive GROUP BY, which I'd like to avoid if possible.

Grouping on an indexed column is not always expensive. Again, it depends on
how MySQL optimizes the query.

> One way I might do that is to create a new "changelog" table, updated
> on each page change.

Also here it depends upon the details of how MySQL stores its records with
fields such as those of type text.  It could very well be that it only needs
one disk read per record to retrieve the necessary information from the
'old' table, in which case the extra table will not make a difference. (In
fact if MySQL is really smart it could do it only with the indices.) Also
here I would suggest to simply experiment a litte. It's quite easy to create
once the redundant table and then try a few queries and time them and
compare them to the original ones.

> Jan, would the increase non-atomicity of the article save process be a
> problem?  MySQL doesn't have transactions, so it's possible that either an
> aritlce might be saved while recording that fact in the changelog fails,
> or vice versa.

That chance is very small if you put the SQL statements very close to
eachother. We are already non-atomic as it is because when a page is changed
we do a delete and two inserts, and then I'm not even talking about the work
that is done for the linked and unlinked tables. As long as the updates of
cur and old go right you can always regenerate the changelog with a simple
SELECT over old.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New codebase status

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] New codebase status- Now, Editors?

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Recent Changes layout

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> One way I might do that is to create a new "changelog" table, updated
> on each page change.  This would hold the information needed for the

Read the source code of the old UseModWiki software.  It does all of
this with plain files and Perl, but you could easily apply the same
method to PHP and MySQL.

--
  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: rose.parks at att.net

body:
Members,

     I have tried to read the endless posts to the Wiki
lists, but perhaps I missed something. On Mr. Crocker's
test site, did we decide to show on the Users page, that
certain members are "editors," and "sysops?" And, if so,
what is a "editor?"

     I think all members should be aware of this. I have
seen no consensus on making anyone an editor. Please
explain. Please explain, also, what makes a member an
editor?

          As Ever,

            Ruth Ifcher

        --

> I think Recent Changes and page history are in something like a final,
> usable, and efficient form.  Recent changes shows /all/ changes,
> without collapsing changes to the same page into one line.  Each has a
> link to a diff page and the history page.
>
> Each entry on the history page now has a link to a diff with the
> current version, and diff with the immediately previous version.  The
> date and time, rather than the page name, is the link to the revision
> (it seemed silly to have a pageful of links with the same name).
>
> The diffs are in side-by-side format with context.
>
> Since the last update, I've also finished a few miscellaneous things
> like Random page, user list, and printable versions (this now works
> for all pages, even special pages and forms).
>
> The running version is still at
> (http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml)
>
> I've set up the Sourceforge bug database at
> (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=34373&atid=411192)
> to which the public can add bugs.
>
> The feature request tracker is at
> (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?group_id=34373&atid=411195)
>
> REQUEST: A useful thing for some non-techie to do would be to go
> through the old wiki pages of bug reports on the old software, try
> the new software, and add bugs to the tracker.  Now is also a good
> time to go ahead and add missing features to the feature request
> tracker so they don't get lost.
>
> Special thanks to Axel and KQ for their diligent QA work.
0


body:
On 6/1/02 6:52 PM, "lcrocker at nupedia.com" <lcrocker at nupedia.com> wrote:

>
> We need some status for a generally well-known member of the
> group who we trust to make content choices like editing
> protected pages, temporarily banning vandals, deleting pages,
> and so on.  We also need a status for more dangerous things like
> database queries and other maintenance tasks.  The current
> software calls these "sysop" and "developer", but I think "editor" and
> "sysop" makes more sense.  Developers will probably have logins to the
> server and direct database access, so they don't need any rights the
> software knows about--they exist outside the software.
>
"Editor" is a bad name, because everyone is an editor, and should be
considered as such. I've already expressed my views on the need for sysops
etc.


from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikitech-l] Demonmoo

body:
64.26.170 put the demonmoo page back after it had been deleted. I'd like to
figure out who this is and what else he's done but:
1. A "This user's contributions" query on an incomplete IP returns nothing.
There is no indication what the last byte was.
2. How do I find the history of a page that's been deleted?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Caste system? I don't like it.

body:
On Sunday 02 June 2002 12:01 pm, Ruth wrote:
> ? ? ?Another issue is whether we want to identify
> members' functions, at all, on the user page. There are
> many other ways to identify developers and sysops on
> Wikipedia and they should be considered too. There could
> be a sysops page and a developers page with a list of
> such people.
> ? ? ?Frankly, I like the site as it is. Developers are
> identified by going to Source Forge, usually, and if a
> developer has not been included on this site, I think
> they can simply ask. Sysops know who they are by the
> sidebar on their view of the Wikipedia pages.

I agree with Ruth here and don't think it is necessary to label anyones
"status" as a matter of policy. If a sysop or developer wants his or her
status known, then they will say so on their user page.

Contributors are already able to get a good idea who is a sysop, developer or
whatever by either digging a little, paying attention to RecentChanges for a
few weeks or by asking.

I kinda like the fact that potential vandals don't know who is a sysop and
who isn't or even if a sysop is online at a particular moment.

Anybody of good intentions can be a sysop if they want to be.  I don't think
we should label people as having a particular status and thus imply that this
status is anything particularly special. Having different user's labeled as
having particular status would only enforce a sense that a cabal exists here
-- which it doesn't. It might also lead to confusion when there are valid
disagreements about an article between a non-sysop party and a sysop. The
non-sysop would be able to see that a particular person is a sysop and this
knowledge might imply that the sysop is acting in some type of official
capacity -- which they seldom are in these cases.

I for one don't want that weight constantly on my shoulders.

But, that's just me.

--maveric149


body:
Members-

     I couldn't agree more. The title "editor" implies a
totally different job function to me. Yes, editors deal
with content, but they usually review, alter, and/or
approve content. As was already said, in this sense, all
Wikipedians are editors.
     Another issue is whether we want to identify
members' functions, at all, on the user page. There are
many other ways to identify developers and sysops on
Wikipedia and they should be considered too. There could
be a sysops page and a developers page with a list of
such people.
     Frankly, I like the site as it is. Developes are
identified by going to Source Forge, usually, and if a
developer has not been included on this site, I think
they can simply ask. Sysops know who they are by the
sidebar on their view of the Wikipedia pages.
     Maybe someone in favor of ths system can explain
the advantages to me.

           As Ever,

             Ruth Ifcher
--

> On 6/1/02 6:52 PM, "lcrocker at nupedia.com" <lcrocker at nupedia.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > We need some status for a generally well-known member of the
> > group who we trust to make content choices like editing
> > protected pages, temporarily banning vandals, deleting pages,
> > and so on.  We also need a status for more dangerous things like
> > database queries and other maintenance tasks.  The current
> > software calls these "sysop" and "developer", but I think "editor" and
> > "sysop" makes more sense.  Developers will probably have logins to the
> > server and direct database access, so they don't need any rights the
> > software knows about--they exist outside the software.
> >
> "Editor" is a bad name, because everyone is an editor, and should be
> considered as such. I've already expressed my views on the need for sysops
> etc.
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


in_reply_to: <20020602231248.NHZW20219.sccrmhc03.attbi.com@there>; from maveric149@yahoo.com on Sun, Jun 02, 2002 at 04:04:41PM -0700

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Anybody of good intentions can be a sysop if they want to be.  I don't think
> we should label people as having a particular status and thus imply that this
> status is anything particularly special.

I agree.

The ability for any random person to show up and edit any page at any
time, on an equal footing with oldtimers, is the most frightening and
appalling way to run a website that I can imagine.  It's the secret of
our success.

--Jimbo


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Demonmoo

body:
On Sunday 02 June 2002 20:25, Axel Boldt wrote:
> He doesn't seem to have done any other damage:
> http://wikipedia.com/wiki/special:contributions&theuser=64.26.170.155

Where do you get 155 from?

phma


body:
On 6/2/02 11:01 PM, "lcrocker at nupedia.com" <lcrocker at nupedia.com> wrote:

> Like most features of the software, it will be decided by
> programmer fiat unless we get specific direction.  I'm
> quite happy to remove any mention of user rights from the
> user list, I'm happy to call them whatever you like.  You
> make good arguments, so I'll take those suggestions unless
> I hear otherwise.
>
Lee, please don't make such changes unless you get a consensus. The idea of
hiding or even obscuring information about who is in power is a profoundly
bad one.

One of the reason representative democracies work even at all is because
it's well known who the representatives are. Whenever it's a secret who's in
the government, who's in power, problems are created.

I think it's reasonable that the sysop/developer etc. status is listed on
pages separate from the user (aka editor) list, but that it's utterly
unreasonable for a sysop or developer to get to choose to announce that
status.

Contributors should never have to work to find out who holds the reins of
power.

maveric wrote:
> Anybody of good intentions can be a sysop if they want to be.  I don't think
> we should label people as having a particular status and thus imply that this
> status is anything particularly special.

It is something special. To say otherwise is to be disingenuous.

> It might also lead to confusion when there are valid
> disagreements about an article between a non-sysop party and a sysop. The
> non-sysop would be able to see that a particular person is a sysop and this
> knowledge might imply that the sysop is acting in some type of official
> capacity -- which they seldom are in these cases.

Rather, sysops are NEVER acting in some type of official capacity. End of
discussion. Only Jimbo can act in an official capacity. Everyone else has
equivalent authority. Or, another way of looking at it, is EVERYONE is
ALWAYS acting in some type of official capacity, from non-sysops to sysops.
We are all equivalently vested.

I suspect the easiest proper long-term solutions to this issue are either
1) Get rid of sysops entirely, and figure out other methods of dealing the
stuff they deal with now, or
2) Do something like the Slashdot moderation pool, where some percentage of
active participants are always active moderators, and each individual
participant only gets to moderate for a few actions over a limited period of
time.

--tc


subject: [Wikitech-l] Demonmoo

body:
He doesn't seem to have done any other damage:
http://wikipedia.com/wiki/special:contributions&theuser=64.26.170.155

The history of deleted articles is lost.

Axel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Image uploads (new codebase)

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from_name: Larry Sanger

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #407 - 5 msgs

body:
</lurk>

> From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > Anybody of good intentions can be a sysop if they want to be.  I don't think
> > we should label people as having a particular status and thus imply that this
> > status is anything particularly special.
>
> I agree.
>
> The ability for any random person to show up and edit any page at any
> time, on an equal footing with oldtimers, is the most frightening and
> appalling way to run a website that I can imagine.  It's the secret of
> our success.

I agree totally as well.  There's going to continue to be a tendency on
the part of a few people (and, by the way, I certainly wouldn't accuse Lee
of having this tendency) to want to designate a Wikipedia elite and an
underclass.  Ultimately, this would undermine the process, and I hope
we'll keep nipping it in the bud whenever we see it.

By *highlighting* differences, we would *create* the impression of a
political elite, when in fact none really exists.  This would politicize
Wikipedia--something I hope we can unite in opposing.  But Wikipedia is an
encyclopedia project that thrives on freedom and the common understanding
that everyone is on the same footing, as Jimbo says.  To remove this
freedom and this common understanding is to undermine the very thing that
has made the project work so well this far.

Larry

<lurk>


subject: [Wikitech-l] New server is in

body:
The new server is in.

I'd like to send out passwords to people via pgp, except that I do not
know how to use pgp.  A terrible confession, but there it is.  :-)

Therefore, what I'd like to do is talk on the phone with one of the
developers who does know how to use pgp, and that person can
distribute passwords to the rest of the team.

I don't know where most of you live, except that I know Magnus is in
another country.  So probably Brion Vibber or LDC would be a good
choice, so as to keep the phone bill down.  :-)

Basically, the first devteam person to send me their phone number will win
a free phone call from me, with the root password for the new server.

--Jimbo


body:
At 10:32 AM 6/03/02 -0700, you wrote:
>I've added a database table which contains for each image its name,
>size, the time it was uploaded, and by whom.  So we'll be able to get
>a listing of images sorted by name to make maintenance possible.

Will there be any sort of "history" function, or even just a "recycle bin"
directory, so that when old files get overwritten with new ones it can be
reverted if necessary? With the current implementation, it's very easy for
any random yahoo to irrecoverably wipe out lots of images by overwriting
them with junk.

>Any other issues I haven't thought of?

How about talk: pages for individual images? They could be used for
discussing copyright issues, for discussing details of diagrams that might
need to be changed, etc.

Basically, I think it would be neat if images were treated more like articles.

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


from_name: Julie Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Caste system? I don't like it -- but again, why is this an issue??

body:
So I'm looking at this latest thread, and
wondering...why is this an issue?  I seem to remember
that "is sysop" used to appear on the wikipedians
page.  Seeing that I had sysop rights made me ask what
they were and guidelines for use, which forced me to
ask via this list.  Not a bad thing, and a path that I
think other truly interested new wikipedians might
also follow -- can this be bad?  There is enough
information out there that shows that most wikipedians
don't want a cabal.  IF this is an issue, than I would
frankly rather see us all lose our sysop rights.

On that subject, I have yet to use mine (except to
delete misspelled pages, and even then, I try to
follow Brion's advice).  Despite the fact that I have
very strong feelings on what I consider legitimate
use, etc., and often would love to block IPs, I have
avoided the temptation because I think it's too easy a
privilege to abuse.  I'm not sure that everyone else
with those privileges is as able to make the
differentiation.  Would it be possible to have a
system where it took two sysops to block a
contributor? This might help to provoide some of the
checks and balances that I think the site will need
more and more as it grows...

Jules

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki down for an especially long time

body:
Wikipedia was down for 2+1/2 hours this morning instead of the usual 4/3.
During this time I tried accessing ross.bomis.com and that took three
minutes. Normally it takes a few seconds, even when Wikipedia is
inaccessible. What happened?

phma


subject: [Wikitech-l] New server

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from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
> It would be _very_ nice to have a feature to search for pages that
> use a particular image.  I can't think of any way to do that but a
> fulltext search, but possibly that could be made reasonable by
> enforcing naming conventions (for example, requiring a minimum
> length, forbidding problematic characters).

Just list the [[image:stuff.jpg]] in the linkto list...


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] orphans with lots of parents

body:
Why are the years 803 through 809 stuck at the top of the Orphans page?
They each have a dozen or so links to them, so it's not because they are
orphans....

--
 Sean Barrett     | Help! I've morally fallen, and
 sean at epoptic.com | I don't want to get back up!


from_name: Rob Lanphier

subject: Date patch (Re: [Wikitech-l] links in the sidebar)

body:
Hi all,

I'm a frequent Wikipedia contributor, but only recently got motivated
enough to install the software and start hacking around with the code.

The date sidebar "feature" was always one that annoyed me, because it's a
good idea, but just wasn't done quite right.  I can see looking at the
code and recent mails to this list that Brion Vibber got frustrated and
took it out.  I'd like to propose re-adding a modified version, and I'm
including a patch off of a CVS snapshot from just a little while ago.

Here's Brion's criticisms that I hope I've addressed:

On 21 May 2002, Brion L. VIBBER wrote:
> * Doesn't fit article naming conventions and no one wants such pages

I'm linking to "June+3" rather than "June 3, 2002"

> * Not URL-escaped (the space can break on some browsers)

Wrapping this with a simple call to wikiLink() seems to fix this.

> * No path! (Thus doesn't work from http://www.wikipedia.com/ or
>   http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?blahblahblah)

Once again, wrapping this with wikiLink() seems to fix the problem.

Below is my patch.  Please consider adding it.

Thanks
Rob
----
Index: wikiSkinStandard.php
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phpwiki/fpw/wikiSkinStandard.php,v
retrieving revision 1.9
diff -u -r1.9 wikiSkinStandard.php
--- wikiSkinStandard.php	21 May 2002 19:57:42 -0000	1.9
+++ wikiSkinStandard.php	4 Jun 2002 06:15:16 -0000
@@ -138,6 +138,7 @@
 		    $column .= "
\n$wikiMyWatchlist" ;
 		    }
 		$column .= "
\n$wikiBugReports" ;
+		$column .= "
\n".$wikiGetBriefDate()."" ;
 		$a = $page->getOtherNamespaces () ;
 		if ( count ( $a ) > 0 ) $column .= "
".implode (
"
\n" , $a ) ;

Index: wikiTextDe.php
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phpwiki/fpw/wikiTextDe.php,v
retrieving revision 1.11
diff -u -r1.11 wikiTextDe.php
--- wikiTextDe.php	22 May 2002 18:33:31 -0000	1.11
+++ wikiTextDe.php	4 Jun 2002 06:15:16 -0000
@@ -425,8 +425,7 @@
     global $wikiDate ;
     $monthName = $wikiDate [ strtolower ( date ( "F" ) ) ];
     $dayNumber = date ( "j" ) ;
-    $year = date ( "Y" ) ;
-    return "$dayNumber. $monthName, $year" ;
+    return "$dayNumber. $monthName" ;
     }
 $wikiGetDate = 'wikiGetDateDe';
 $wikiGetBriefDate = 'wikiGetBriefDateDe' ;
Index: wikiTextEn.php
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phpwiki/fpw/wikiTextEn.php,v
retrieving revision 1.94
diff -u -r1.94 wikiTextEn.php
--- wikiTextEn.php	25 May 2002 17:25:19 -0000	1.94
+++ wikiTextEn.php	4 Jun 2002 06:15:19 -0000
@@ -454,8 +454,7 @@
     global $wikiDate ;
     $monthName = $wikiDate [ strtolower ( date ( "F" ) ) ];
     $dayNumber = date ( "j" ) ;
-    $year = date ( "Y" ) ;
-    return "$monthName $dayNumber, $year" ;
+    return "$monthName $dayNumber" ;
     }
 $wikiGetDate = 'wikiGetDateEn';
 $wikiGetBriefDate = 'wikiGetBriefDateEn' ;
Index: wikiTextEo.php
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phpwiki/fpw/wikiTextEo.php,v
retrieving revision 1.18
diff -u -r1.18 wikiTextEo.php
--- wikiTextEo.php	24 May 2002 21:17:13 -0000	1.18
+++ wikiTextEo.php	4 Jun 2002 06:15:19 -0000
@@ -395,8 +395,7 @@
 	$dayName = $wikiDate [ strtolower ( date ( "l" , $x ) ) ];
 	$monthName = $wikiDate [ strtolower ( date ( "F" , $x ) ) ];
 	$dayNumber = date ( "j" , $x ) ;
-	$year = date ( "Y" , $x ) ;
-	return "${dayName}n, la ${dayNumber}a de $monthName, $year" ;
+	return "${dayName}n, la ${dayNumber}a de $monthName" ;
 	}
 $wikiGetDate = 'wikiGetDateEo';

Index: wikiTextEs.php
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phpwiki/fpw/wikiTextEs.php,v
retrieving revision 1.3
diff -u -r1.3 wikiTextEs.php
--- wikiTextEs.php	13 May 2002 16:48:23 -0000	1.3
+++ wikiTextEs.php	4 Jun 2002 06:15:19 -0000
@@ -433,8 +433,7 @@
     global $wikiDate ;
     $monthName = $wikiDate [ strtolower ( date ( "F" ) ) ];
     $dayNumber = date ( "j" ) ;
-    $year = date ( "Y" ) ;
-    return "$dayNumber $monthName $year" ;
+    return "$dayNumber $monthName" ;
     }
 $wikiGetDate = 'wikiGetDateEs';
 $wikiGetBriefDate = 'wikiGetBriefDateEs' ;


from_name: Brion L. VIBBER

body:
On lun, 2002-06-03 at 13:17, Bryan Derksen wrote:
> How about talk: pages for individual images? They could be used for
> discussing copyright issues, for discussing details of diagrams that might
> need to be changed, etc.

Yes, this is a desirable thing!

> Basically, I think it would be neat if images were treated more like articles.

One possibility is for [[image:X]] to both show an image and be a link
to a pseudo-article of the same name which would be the informational
page (size, description, who uploaded it and when, etc). Talk pages
would come along with that fairly automatically...

Of course, if you want to link directly to the informational page
_without_ including the image, you'd have to arrange something else.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] New server is in

body:
On lun, 2002-06-03 at 13:30, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> The new server is in.

Woo-hoo!

> I'd like to send out passwords to people via pgp, except that I do not
> know how to use pgp.  A terrible confession, but there it is.  :-)
>
> Therefore, what I'd like to do is talk on the phone with one of the
> developers who does know how to use pgp, and that person can
> distribute passwords to the rest of the team.
>
> I don't know where most of you live, except that I know Magnus is in
> another country.  So probably Brion Vibber or LDC would be a good
> choice, so as to keep the phone bill down.  :-)
>
> Basically, the first devteam person to send me their phone number will win
> a free phone call from me, with the root password for the new server.

Looks like LDC won -- just as well, as I don't know how to use PGP
either. ;)  Time to dig out that old gpg installation...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
At 06:21 PM 6/04/02 +0200, you wrote:
>In addition to a talk: page, an editable image description page would
>be nice. The author could describe the image's copyright there, and
>also how the image was acquired/generated. (If some automated script
>was used to generate a picture, the GFDL arguably requires that the
>source code of the script be available, since that is the "preferred
>form of the work for making modifications to it.")

Also, if something like Photoshop was used to generate the image, then the
full Photoshop file with all the layers and elements unflattened should
probably be uploaded to Wikipedia as well. In the description page you
could include a link to the .psd file or whatever.

Hm... does this apply to jpegging images as well? If I have a
non-lossily-compressed original, I always save that and do all my
modifications on that, jpegging only what's to be displayed. Otherwise, the
jpeg gets recompressed every time I edit it.

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Demonmoo

body:
> Where do you get 155 from?

You can see the full IP number if you are a sysop.

Axel


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikitech-l] [axel@uni-paderborn.de: RecentChanges missin]

body:
I did nothing to the database today.  I do not know the cause of this. :-(

----- Forwarded message from Axel Boldt <axel at uni-paderborn.de> -----

From: Axel Boldt <axel at uni-paderborn.de>
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 01:19:15 +0200 (MET DST)
To: jwales at bomis.com
Subject: RecentChanges missin

Hi Jimbo,

apparently, some changes were done to the database today (Tuesday) and
old article histories were restored, but now RecentChanges is empty;
it gives the old "Supplied argument is not valid" error on line 82 and
83 in special_recentchanges.php.

Axel

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


body:
In the mornings (US time), Wikipedia is always very slow, probably
because everybody arrives at their desk and checks RecentChanges.
It's especially bad on Monday mornings.

Axel


subject: [Wikitech-l] special:RecentChanges broken! Database needs myisamchk/repair

in_reply_to: <1023234158.2995.0.camel@rdaneel.moisty.org>; from brion@pobox.com on Tue, Jun 04, 2002 at 04:42:37PM -0700

body:
Brion L. VIBBER wrote:
> I got this MySQL error message: "Got error 127 from table handler".
> Well, I don't know what it means, but there it is.
>
> Apparently (http://www.mysqldeveloper.com/faqs/index.pcgi?id=40) this
> means:
>   What does "Got error 127 from table handler" mean
>   This error literally means: Record-file is crashed
>
>   To correct this error; simply run myisamchk or REPAIR <tbl>; against
>   that table.

So I have run this:
# myisamchk -r /usr/local/var/wikipedia/cur
- recovering (with sort) MyISAM-table '/usr/local/var/wikipedia/cur.MYI'
Data records: 347
- Fixing index 1
- Fixing index 2
- Fixing index 3

And this seems to have not fixed anything.

I'm a little vague on how to run REPAIR <tbl>; against that table.

I mean, look at this please:

[root at ross /root]# mysql -uroot -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 65 to server version: 3.23.37

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer

mysql> use wiki;
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

Didn't find any fields in table 'cur'
Database changed
mysql> repair cur;
ERROR 1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax near 'cur' at line 1
mysql>

So this suggests that I don't understand.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Working on this...

body:
http://www.mysql.com/doc/R/e/Repair.html

I'm reading this, and implementing what it says.  This seems hopeful.

We have nightly backups, so the worst case is we lose today, I hope.


body:
For at least the last half hour or so (since ca 4:00 pm PST) and perhaps
longer, special:RecentChanges has been spewing out an error instead of
links:

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in
/home/wiki-newest/work-http/special_recentchanges.php on line 82

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in
/home/wiki-newest/work-http/special_recentchanges.php on line 83

This is the main query, which when I try it manually via special:AskSQL
as:

SELECT cur_timestamp, cur_title, cur_comment, cur_user,
                     cur_user_text, cur_minor_edit,
                     COUNT(old_id) + (IF(cur_minor_edit = 2,0,1)) AS changes
              FROM cur LEFT OUTER JOIN old ON cur_title = old_title
                AND old_timestamp > SUBDATE(CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, INTERVAL 2 DAY)
                AND old_minor_edit <> 2
              WHERE cur_timestamp > SUBDATE(CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, INTERVAL 2 DAY)
              GROUP BY cur_title
              ORDER BY cur_timestamp DESC
              LIMIT 250

I got this MySQL error message: "Got error 127 from table handler".
Well, I don't know what it means, but there it is.

Apparently (http://www.mysqldeveloper.com/faqs/index.pcgi?id=40) this
means:
  What does "Got error 127 from table handler" mean
  This error literally means: Record-file is crashed

  To correct this error; simply run myisamchk or REPAIR <tbl>; against
  that table.

(Note that in order to get the possibly useful MySQL error message when
a query goes wrong, you have to explicitly check the return values from
the database calls and then return the string from mysql_error(); by
default, all PHP gives you is the complaint about invalid result
resources when the return code from a query is used in another call.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Site down for repair

body:
I'm running the command to repair the broken table.  The documents
seem very reassuring that everything will be o.k. in a situation like
this.

But the command is taking a long time to run.  As a precautionary
measure, I've turned off the website completely during the rebuild, so
that we don't spook the database while I'm repairing the table.

It's a big table.  I guess it makes sense for the command to take a long time.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Site down for repair


subject: [Wikipedia-l] REPAIR TABLE cur -- worked!

body:
So, I repaired the broken table, and recent changes looks good again.
There may have been data loss, but I don't think so.

I don't know what happened or why.  The documentation suggests that if
this happens often we should try to find the reason for it.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] REPAIR TABLE cur -- worked!


body:
In addition to a talk: page, an editable image description page would
be nice. The author could describe the image's copyright there, and
also how the image was acquired/generated. (If some automated script
was used to generate a picture, the GFDL arguably requires that the
source code of the script be available, since that is the "preferred
form of the work for making modifications to it.") This description
page would also show the current version of the image and uneditable
meta information (when uploaded, by whom etc.), and have a talk page
attached. You would access it by clicking on an image.

If at all possible, the history of the image description page should
show older versions of the image.

Like Brion said, we'd need another namespace:
image: for the image
image description: for the description
image description talk: for talking

Axel


body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] PRE and NOWIKI

body:
In the present software, text inside a <pre> section is not scanned
for wiki markup--i.e., <pre> implies <nowiki>.  I think this is the
wrong behavior.  If you want <nowiki>, you can still use it, but I
think <pre> sections should just output a pre-formatted (i.e., line
breaks not ignored) section of text; if that section has [[links]]
and ''quotes'', they should be rendered.

HTML 4.01 is kind of odd on this matter: things like <em> and
<b> are allowed inside <pre> and interpreted, but it specifically
excludes a few things like <img> and <small>.

I seek opinions.


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] upload/filelist.PHP

body:
Done...  I added 'AddType' directives for .php and .phtml to make them
text/html.  Should they be text/plain?

Jason

Jens Frank wrote:

> Hello,
>
> the user "Mrzha" uploaded a file named filelist.PHP. This file provides a
> file system browser to inspect all directories on the web server it is
> installed to. Can an administrator please delete this file and ensure
> that no PHP-files are interpreted when stored in /upload/?
>
> This filelist.PHP is not very harmful, but using the same way it might be
> possible to hijack the entire server. (As done with www.apache.org some
> years ago, also starting with an upload directory executing PHP to get an
> "initial contact").
>
> 	Best regards,
>
> 		jens
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at ross.bomis.com
> http://ross.bomis.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikitech-l] upload/filelist.PHP

in_reply_to: <1023314836.3907.0.camel@rdaneel.moisty.org>; from brion@pobox.com on Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 03:07:14PM -0700

body:
Ah...  Done.  I removed my lame fix and put in this much better fix.
Thanks Brion!

Jason

Brion L. VIBBER wrote:

> Something like this should override the PHP setting (and anything else
> in that directory that would be getting special treatment from the
> server):
>
> <Directory /bla/bla/wikipedia/upload>
>   SetHandler default-handler
> </Directory>

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikitech-l] upload/filelist.PHP

body:
On mer, 2002-06-05 at 14:27, Jens Frank wrote:
> Hello,
>
> the user "Mrzha" uploaded a file named filelist.PHP. This file provides a
> file system browser to inspect all directories on the web server it is
> installed to. Can an administrator please delete this file and ensure
> that no PHP-files are interpreted when stored in /upload/?

I've deleted it, but I can't do anything preemptive.

It's occasionally been suggested that the software might be changed to
reject certain file types, or only accept certain file types, but it's
never really gotten discussed or implemented. Theoretically, one might
well want to upload a sample PHP source file to go along with the
article about PHP (as, for instance, there are a couple Ruby scripts up
there)... but it sure as heck shouldn't be runnable on the server!

> This filelist.PHP is not very harmful, but using the same way it might be
> possible to hijack the entire server. (As done with www.apache.org some
> years ago, also starting with an upload directory executing PHP to get an
> "initial contact").

A while ago I sent Jimbo a fix for this problem (that is, uploaded .php
files being runnable) for the Apache configuration. I don't know if it
didn't get installed, or if it got installed but didn't work.

Here it is again:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Something like this should override the PHP setting (and anything else
in that directory that would be getting special treatment from the
server):

<Directory /bla/bla/wikipedia/upload>
  SetHandler default-handler
</Directory>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Can someone please confirm when this has been put in place?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] upload/filelist.PHP

body:
On mer, 2002-06-05 at 14:56, Jason Richey wrote:
> Ah...  Done.  I removed my lame fix and put in this much better fix.
> Thanks Brion!

Okay, now if I go to an uploaded PHP file I get an offer to download a
file of type application/x-httpd-php. So far, so good! Renaming the same
file as test.html, it now gets treated as plain HTML instead of as PHP.
Excellent, big thanks Jason!

(Hmm, better make sure this gets done on meta.wikipedia.com as well.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] "sysop", etc. in new codebase

in_reply_to: <200206052354.g55NsgT19731@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 04:54:42PM -0700

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> I am swayed by Rose's suggestion that "editor" is not the best term
> for the "can edit protected pages" user status, so I've changed it
> back to "sysop".  The "can make arbitrary SQL queries" status will be
> called "developer".  A still open question is who can grant these--my
> take on that is that sysops ought to able to grant and revoke sysop
> status, and developers should be able to grant and revoke developer
> status, and Jimbo resolves any disputes that may occur.

I think that sounds right.  As a social custom, it should be that
sysop status should be granted to pretty much anyone who we know, even
if we don't like them, unless they are a total jerk.  And developer status
should be restricted to just people who really are developing.

In all cases, we should treat roles as sysops/developers as being completely
separate from our roles as contributors.

> I am also persuaded by Cunc that they should remain on the user list.
> It's clear that we must have the feature--we tried living without it,
> and it didn't work.  So all comfy anti-elitism aside, the feature is
> needed, so it stays.  Given that, I think secrecy is a far greater
> sin than elitism.  If we have the feature, we should not be ashamed
> of it or downplay it.  Showing those settings on the user page will
> also encourage newcomers to ask about them, which is a good thing--it
> gets people involved and interacting with the community, even if that
> interaction might initially be a complaint.

It might be neat to have a link "What is this?" beside the note on the
user list.  People can click and there we have our anti-elitist
propaganda assuring people that sysop status and developer status is
just a technical thing, very much open to them for the asking.

--Jimbo


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subject: [Wikitech-l] Pipe characters in URL

body:
I just added Tracheobionta and the URL has pipes in it and gets truncated on
clicking. Can someone fix it?

phma


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] upload/filelist.PHP

body:
Hello,

the user "Mrzha" uploaded a file named filelist.PHP. This file provides a
file system browser to inspect all directories on the web server it is
installed to. Can an administrator please delete this file and ensure
that no PHP-files are interpreted when stored in /upload/?

This filelist.PHP is not very harmful, but using the same way it might be
possible to hijack the entire server. (As done with www.apache.org some
years ago, also starting with an upload directory executing PHP to get an
"initial contact").

	Best regards,

		jens


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] continued growth rate and quality

body:
Wikipedia now has more than 50,000 pages (28,000 articles), and the
1,000 most recent changes were made in the last 5 days.

But is there any way to judge/measure/monitor the quality of the
contribution as volume grows?  Are new articles still written on new
topics of general interest, or do more and more cover obscure topics?
Do more duplicates appear?  Is there any way to tell from statistics?

I guess the number of different authors that a new article attracts in
its first three months could be an interesting statistical measure.

--
  Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se>
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
Hi Lars!

> Wikipedia now has more than 50,000 pages (28,000 articles)

Cool, 22,000 user pages! ;-)

> But is there any way to judge/measure/monitor the quality of the
> contribution as volume grows?

The more page views an article got in the last x months, and the less it
has been edited in the same time, the better is the article?

> Are new articles still written on new
> topics of general interest,

The number of page views without edits a few days after the article was
created could be a measure for the general interest. Perhaps only the
visitors coming from search engines should be counted here, because
older articles might have more links to them inside the WP. But this
wouldn't be unfair if we assume that we have no blind spots (what I
don't).

> or do more and more cover obscure topics?

=> few links to it, few page views, maybe few different people that
contributed to it

> Is there any way to tell from statistics?

> I guess the number of different authors that a new article attracts in
> its first three months could be an interesting statistical measure.

Yes!

A differnt thing, but I'd also like to know which sites the visitors of
the German WP come from. I've seen such a page on the English WP
somewhere and found it quite interesting.

Kurt


subject: [Wikitech-l] Another MySQL search annoyance

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body:
My opinion is that we'd be better off "rolling our own" as I did with
the old perl software, using dbm files and updating the search engine
nightly.

The nice thing about using MySQL as the search engine is that we get it
"for free".  The data is in the database anyway, so why not just let MySQL
handle it?

But the downside is that we have to more or less accept all the quirks
(or lack of quirks!) that come with the MySQL behavior.

If we roll our own, then we get to preprocess the text in any way we
like, plus we get to *score* the results in any way we like.  We can
do neat things like taking care of the wiki syntax optimally.  We can
do things (in theory) like scoring an article slightly higher as a
search result if lots of other articles link to it.   We can give higher
points to italicized words, maybe.

We can choose to handle singulars and plurals in any way we prefer.

All of these things will be a more or less empirical matter, but my
own experience suggests that some tiny clever tricks can massively
improve the relevance to the end user.

--Jimbo


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: "sysop", etc. in new codebase

body:
On Thursday 06 June 2002 11:53 am, lcrocker wrote:
> I am also persuaded by Cunc that they should remain on the user list.
> It's clear that we must have the feature--we tried living without it,
> and it didn't work. ?So all comfy anti-elitism aside, the feature is
> needed, so it stays. ?Given that, I think secrecy is a far greater
> sin than elitism. ?If we have the feature, we should not be ashamed
> of it or downplay it. ?Showing those settings on the user page will
> also encourage newcomers to ask about them, which is a good thing--it
> gets people involved and interacting with the community, even if that
> interaction might initially be a complaint.

Is this currently enacted yet? As it is, at least non-logged in users
(possibly regular users too) can't see who has what status on the user list,
and there is no indication on sysops' user pages that they are sysops (same
for developers).

I guess I could live with this if it is OK with Jimbo and Larry and so long
as any mention of this is a link to a strong statement saying that sysop
status isn't anything really special.

Also, before anybody thinks of the idea, please don't display sysops' user
names differently on RecentChanges -- we don't want vandals to know just when
and when not sysops are working on the wiki.

Cheers!

mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requesting Sysop Status

body:
Okay, I give up.  I thought I would just let the rest of you dedicated
Wikipedals handle the page-deleting chores, but then I stumbled over
[[PootPoot]].  I hereby request sysop status.  I've been around a while,
mostly contributing military articles -- I'm known as [[the Epopt]].

--
 Sean Barrett
 sean at epoptic.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l]  "sysop", etc. in new codebase

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] French logo

body:
A new logo, differing substantially from the community-established
standards, has been installed on the French wikipedia.  The person who
created the logo felt that Jason's asking the community was
inappropriate, and threatened to lead a fork of the project so that
the French wikipedia would be under the complete control of
Francophones.

His remarks included such phrases as "my frensh friends are angry" and
"you want the war?"

Well, no, I don't want the war.

So, the new logo is installed for now.  If a consensus develops among
the speakers of French that it would be better to pursue a more
harmonious logo with the world community, that'll be fine.  I really
don't care about the logo one way or the other.

Again, I am deeply saddened when I find the globally neutral spirit of
our pursuit of knowledge without regard to barriers of any kind
becomes entangled in what can only be called nationalism.  But, I do
not wish to fight.  I only wish that the project move forward.  It is
the articles that matter, not us.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] French logo

body:
On ven, 2002-06-07 at 09:18, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> So, the new logo is installed for now.

Hmm, I still see the ancient N-ball-thing. Did you overwrite the old
"wiki.jpg"? If not, you have to change the config to use the new file.

>  If a consensus develops among
> the speakers of French that it would be better to pursue a more
> harmonious logo with the world community, that'll be fine.  I really
> don't care about the logo one way or the other.

It might also be pointed out that the new interface ("Cologne Blue") on
the new software doesn't even use the logo image! Once the bugs are out
it will be made the default, so I really don't see the point of having
wars over logos -- which as far as I'm concerned can vary all they wish!

That said, the new French logo has a circular shape and includes the
"Wikipedia" name and a localized version of "the free encyclopedia",
what more do you need? Is it really vital that there be stretchy
pretentious text in the circle? Sheesh.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Why are the years 803 through 809 stuck at the top of the Orphans page?
They each have a dozen or so links to them, so it's not because they are
orphans....

--
 Sean Barrett     | Help! I've morally fallen, and
 sean at epoptic.com | I don't want to get back up!


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] file uploads

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] file uploads

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] file uploads

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] file uploads

in_reply_to: <200206100218.g5A2IiN09529@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Sun, Jun 09, 2002 at 07:18:44PM -0700

body:
I'd be in favor of eliminating all GIFs from the site.  Although I'm
personally comfortable with GIFs, I think we have a large userbase
from the free software community who aren't.  And software patents are
evil.

--Jimbo

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> > Still, as long as Wikipedia neither codes nor decodes GIFs, how can
> > it be in violation?
>
> It can't.  Derek is completely mistaken on that score.  Only software
> that encodes or decodes GIF has any problem, and even the case for
> decoders is pretty thin.  So the patent itself is no reason to forgo
> use of GIF in web sites.  But it does make a political statement to
> avoid their use, in that in the long run, avoiding GIFs on web pages
> may in time reduce their use to such low levels that free software
> developers might be able to produce more non-patent-encumbered
> software for producing images.
>
> And PNG is a superior format anyway (and I'm not just saying that
> because I'm one of its developers--I was on the committee that
> created GIF too).
> 0


from_name: Derek Ross

subject: [Wikipedia-l] file uploads

body:
GIF is in itself a copyrighted, or rather a patented, file format.
Therefore it is just as legally problematic to upload GIF images to the
Wikipedia without permission from the patent-holder as it is to upload any
other form of copyrighted material without the permission of the
copyright-holder.

If we aren't allowing other forms of copyright material, why are we allowing
GIF materials ?  I strongly recommend that we don't in order to reduce
Wikipedia's exposure to possible legal problems.

Cheers

Derek

----- Original Message -----
From: <lcrocker at nupedia.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 09, 2002 6:27 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] file uploads

>
> I redid this whole area from scratch in the new codebase.  Let
> me know if my changes address your concerns.  It allows deletion
> of files, revision histories, lists what pages link to which images
> (the database is a bit out-of date on that--but the features work
> in the software).  Currently it warns about, but does not restrict,
> the uploading of files other than PNG, JPEG, and GIF.  I can easily
> be talked into eliminating GIF from that list and adding OGG, and
> we might want to add a feature for being able to include sounds,
> especially for things like pronunciations of words.
>
> As always, I welcome bug reports and suggestions.
>
> http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml
>