As some of you may have noted, we now have a couple of new options to
choose when blocking users. Tim Starling, who implemented the feature,
posted the following clarification on the wikitech-l list:
Tim Starling wrote:
> A couple of people asked me about interaction between various kinds of
> blocks and block options, and indeed, in some cases the behaviour was
> undefined or accidental. I've now implemented the following rules:
>
> * The "anon only" and "prevent account creation" options will be silently
> ignored on username blocks.
> * The precedence of blocks in cases of conflict, from highest to lowest, is:
> * Username block
> * Single IP block
> * Range block
> * Autoblock
>
> This holds regardless of the anon-only option. This means that anon-only
> range blocks or IP blocks can be used to mitigate the effects of autoblocks
> on shared IP addresses, because an anon-only block will allow logged in
> users to edit regardless of the presence of a matching autoblock. This has a
> potential to be counterintuitive -- unblocking someone's IP can in fact
> cause them to be blocked. But I thought it was better than the other solutions.
Given the above, would it now be advisable to block the entire AOL proxy
pool from editing by unregistered users? This would have the side
effect that AOL users would no longer be hit by random autoblocks.
(If you're unfamiliar with the AOL proxies and why they're a problem for
us, please see [[Wikipedia:Advice to AOL users]] and [[Wikipedia:Dealing
with AOL vandals]], plus the associated talk pages.)
--
Ilmari Karonen
This is related to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Limited-access_roads . Necessary
background is that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited-access_road is
an ambiguous term: "It can mean anything from a city street to which the
maintaining authority limits driveway access to a freeway (or other
equivalent terms)."
The category was originally created at "Freeways" and listed for
renaming to "Freeways and motorways":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_Mar…
This discussion has little input, and ends up renaming it to
"Limited-access roads" (though there doesn't seem to be definite
consensus for that, going back and reading it). No one mentions there
that "limited-access road" is ambiguous.
I come across the category a while after and realize that it was renamed
and that that renaming was a mistake. I list it for renaming back to
"Freeways" and clearly explain why other options won't work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_Jul…
Most people end up supporting "Freeways and motorways"; very few support
keeping "Limited-access roads". Yet it is closed as no consensus by one
of those editors.
I take it to DRV:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/200…
It is relisted, mainly because of who it was closed by. So it goes on
for another week:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_Jul…
A few more people comment. Again there is rough consensus to rename to
"Freeways and motorways", and again it is closed as no consensus. I take
it to DRV again, where the closer admits he counted votes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2006_July_20#Cat…
So even though almost no one now supports the name "Limited-access
roads", including several who also commented in the original CFD, it is
kept there because of a vote-counter. I fail to see why we have chosen
to operate this way - there is certainly not consensus to keep it there.
If I choose to ignore all rules I will probably be banned for violating
my probation against "provocative edits". But the current name does not
correctly describe the purpose of the category.
Hi all,
I've written a short essay to tackle notability from a different
direction: why do we want to exclude certain articles? It's at
[[Wikipedia:Exclusion]]. I'd appreciate your thoughts and additions!
Steve
I am not online, or I would just edit this myself. But I thought it
sort of sadly humorous enough to mention here. :)
I am offline, reading our biography of Desmond Tutu. A great man, a
Nobel Peace Prize winner, instrumental in the fight against apartheid,
and of incredible cultural importance and impact on our era.
I quote our article:
>In the Friends episode The One With the Two Parties RACHEL is quoted as
>saying "My parents happened. All they had to do was sit in the same
>stadium, smile proudly, and not talk about the divorce. But nooo, they
>got into a huge fight in the middle of the commencement address. Bishop
>Tutu actually had to stop and shush them."
I think that's one of the worst examples of fancruft I have seen in a
very long time. (And, I note, there is no source. :))
--Jimbo
--
#######################################################################
# Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge #
# http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world #
#######################################################################
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/bill-tancer/2006/07/the_mystery_of_the_golden_sp…
I love talking about mysterious tables. But from what I can see,
wikipedia has surpassed our former most famous internet topic by far.
I am not sure how people were counted who were looking for sex related
articles in wikipedia :)
Mathias
Due to repeated requests, my reference generator tool
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/makeref.php
can now parse BibTex input. Example is in place for the "paper in a
journal" type.
Magnus
Folks,
The Sydney Morning Herald rated Wikipedia #2 on its list of amazing music
sites behind ITunes and ahead of my space. The article is found in full
here.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-music/15-most-amazing-music-sites-on-the…
Our entry reads:
*2. WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG <http://www.wikipedia.org/>*
*Best for:* band biographies and free classical music.
Almost everyone knows about Wikipedia - the free-content, web-based
encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers. Evidently those
volunteers include a fair share of music fans: you can find a vast store of
musical knowledge here, covering pretty much every base. One noteworthy
aspect of Jimmy Wales' creation is that Wikipedia also contains a vast
reservoir of free sound files.
Because of copyright laws, the site doesn't have much by contemporary
artists but its classical collection is growing daily. Mozart and Beethoven
are best represented, with more than 20 pieces each. Other composers have
fewer files, and they are in the "Ogg Vorbis" format, which won't play on an
iPod although they are compatible with most computer players.
*KILLIAN FOX*
Regards
Keith Old
Keith Old
The Firefox 2.0 beta is a superb engine for editing Wikipedia. Among
other things, it features something web browsers have traditionally
lacked -- an internal spell checker that actually works. the utility fo
this for a wikipedia editor should be obvious -- it eliminates the
neccesity to go to a second application for spell checking which would,
in turn, foul up the wiki formatting.
However, this might be why Firefor 2 seems to crash when switching to
the edit view on very large articles. Has anyone else had a similar
experience when switching to edit view on a very large page?