[Toolserver-l] Privacy Violation?

[Brett Hillebrand]

I have reason to believe that one of Betacommand's tools is currently
violating the Toolserver's privacy policy by profiling individual users
editing times and edited articles for comparative reasons as seen at:

http://toolserver.org/~betacommand/UserCompare/

This information would not normally be aggregated in such a way that it is
easily obtainable and would require some effort and maths to do so.

"Tools that allow profiling of individual user's activity (beyond what can
easily be achieved directly on the public wiki sites) must only be applied
with the respective user's consent (opt-in)."

Whilst such information can be used against abusive editing, it promotes a
gross violation of privacy.

Cheers,

Brett Hillebrand
User:Promethean @ en_wiki
ACC Developer

This message and it's attachments may contain confidential information that
is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named
addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please
notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by
mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot
be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be
intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or
contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any
errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result
of e-mail transmission.


-----Original Message-----
From: toolserver-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:toolserver-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Krinkle
Sent: Friday, 1 April 2011 9:47 AM
To: toolserver-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Toolserver-l] Toolserver Intuition - Tech spec (Toolserver
goes I18N!)

Platonides wrote:
> Krinkle wrote:
>> -- Other features
>>
>> * Variable replacement ($1, $2, etc.)
>>
>> * Fallback languages:
>> * Getting language names
>>
>> * Escaping (ie. options = array( escape => html )
>
> How much duplication will TsIntuition have with MediaWiki i18n code?

The basic principle is the same: Loading messages from i18n php files,
translating at TranslateWiki, getting messages with fallback, etc..

However the main difference will be it's more basic / simplified.
* No registered users
* No dependencies on other code or database connections to be made.
* Other than replacing variables and gender/plural there will be no
  parsing (ie. no ''markup'', {{templates}}, [[links]], {{#or}},  
<whatever>)
* No 'site language' vs. user language.
* Language/gender choice come from cookies and/or browser agent.
Rather then database user account preferences retrieval.
* Isolated text domains.
* No converters, backwards compatibility or wiki-environment factors
to take into account.

One could describe TsIntuition as a lightweight i18n system for  
Toolserver
tools written in a way that is compatible with TranslateWiki's  
workflow and
as such is similar to other TW projects (like MediaWiki core/ 
extensions/Wikia).

Or one could describe TsIntuition as a stripped down version of
MediaWiki's Language-class and rewritten without dependancies and with
Toolserver tools in mind.

Both descriptions would match what TsIntuition is most of these  
functions
are very simple in nature anyway. To save time and to avoid wheel-
reinvention I have taken a closer look at MediaWiki's i18n system and
may end up using some of it's code, why not ?

>> * Automated updates: Since the messages are file-stored in the
>> messages-directory of the tool. There's no need to keep track or
>> update anything for you.
> (...)
>> -- TranslateWiki
>>
>> I'm currently in talks with TranslateWiki how to best set up the
>> syncing system. Although initial chat with Nikerabbit didn't bring up
>> any expected problem (as it's fairly similar other projects they
>> translate), it still needs to be set up. I expect to have something
>> going within one or two weeks.
>
> Wouldn't DBA be preferible?


I'm not sure which definition of DBA you're referring to in this
context. Can you elaborate ?

Thanks for your email,
--
Krinkle



_______________________________________________
Toolserver-l mailing list (Toolserver-l at lists.wikimedia.org)
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/toolserver-l
Posting guidelines for this list:
https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Mailing_list_etiquette