WikiEN-l November 2008

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

81 participants
62 discussions

Fwd: [Foundation-l] Trouble in Ireland
by Michael Bimmler 26 Nov '08

26 Nov '08

Forwarding this to wikien-l which is really the place for this. I would be grateful if the discussion could ensue there, not here. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Michael Everson <everson(a)evertype.com> Date: Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 2:21 PM Subject: [Foundation-l] Trouble in Ireland To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org I don't know whether this is a reasonable place to put this problem, but the articles on Ireland on en.wikipedia.org need a serious look by people with a neutral view. Right now we've got a clique of about 10 editors filibustering and preventing any change to the article naming conventions. It's driving us mad, and preventing the articles themselves from being improved. Somehow I think we need binding arbitration. A number of us think that the most sensible proposal is to move [[Ireland]] to [[Ireland (island)]], [[Ireland (disambiguation)]] to [[Ireland]], and [[Republic of Ireland]] to [[Ireland (state)]]. That's a compromise over an alternative, which is to move [[Ireland]] to [[Ireland (island)]], keep [[Ireland (disambiguation)]] where it is, and move [[Republic of Ireland]] to [[Ireland]]. If any of you would like to take a look, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ireland_(disambiguation)#Proposed_move_to… and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ireland#Proposed_move_to_Ireland_.28islan… . At least I'd like advice as to how we can get out of this mess. Michael Everson _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Michael Bimmler mbimmler(a)gmail.com

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[News Article] Wikipedia set for video explosion?
by K. Peachey 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

Wikipedia set for video explosion? > Wikipedia's decision to increase its server capacity will herald a new era > for the online encyclopaedia. > > According to Sun Microsystems, Wikimedia – the company behind the likes of > Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wikibooks – has bought in a lot of new servers. > > This will bring about the end of a 100 MB upload cap for Wikipedia, > enabling video hosting and better picture support. > > According to CNet<http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10103177-2.html?tag=newsLatestHeadlines…>, > this could include picture editing software and allow users to modify images > and see past revisions in the same way as they can the text. > > Wikipedia is one of the most visited internet sites on the globe, boasting > 2.6 million entries in English alone. > > Currently the vast majority of WIkipedia is text based, and thus takes up > very little room in terms of server space - despite its breadth of material. > > However, as media like video becomes more prevalent, the need for storage > capacity rises. But that's progress for you. Source: http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/11/20/wikipedia-set-for-video-explosion/

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Autoconfirm for uploads to en.wp
by Erik Moeller 23 Nov '08

23 Nov '08

I'm sorry for being behind the curve on this, but could someone point me to a discussion or policy explaining when & why the requirement to be autoconfirmed in order to upload files was created? Doesn't this just shift whatever problem it tries to solve to Commons, which doesn't have that restriction? -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [WikiEN-l] What exactly is Durova saying here?
by Durova 22 Nov '08

22 Nov '08

When seeking to understand someone's statement there are two general ways to go about it. The useful way is to contact the person either firsthand or through a mutually acceptable third party and ask them to explain it further. The unhelpful way is to go to a forum where that person is not present, construct straw man arguments, and broadcast one's objections to the straws. I've signed onto this list temporarily for the purpose of response. Jonas, your request for unbanning has met with universal rejection. Following up in this way is unlikely to hasten your return. The fact is, you created a breaching experiment--which you know is against policy--and you admitted in your description of the breaching experiment that there were additional circumstances some Wikipedians might recognize but that you didn't want to discuss. Well circumstances happen to be that both the subject and the timing line up with a long term vandal, two arbitrations, two desysoppings, and the siteban of a former administrator. Of all the subjects on Wikipedia, you just happened to choose professional wrestling biography merely by chance and that had nothing to do at all with the fact it was also JB196's favorite subject? And pure coincidence prompted you to create the sock account that started a hoax wrestling biography the day before the arbitration committee finished voting to desysop Alkivar for helping JB's vandalism? Of course I know you're not JB196. One of ways we caught him and sitebanned him two years ago was because he was evading an indef block on a sock account, using the sock account to cite himself, and claiming on the sock to be merely a fan--we caught that sock attributing a citation to his 'favorite author' even though the article itself had no byline. The original account was too old to checkuser, but on the strength of that connection we got a checkuser that uncovered his growing sockfarm. I know his name, but I don't broadcast it when it isn't necessary. I hope that fellow finally finishes his book manuscript and gets it published. What's also interesting, though, is that Jonas knows JB196's real name even though the long term abuse page doesn't list it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long_term_abuse/JB196 And of course Jonas is shooting totally straight with us. That's all just a massive coincidence. He's been mistreated and I'm nuts. -Durova P.S. Reply by email or other means; I'm signing off the list again. Life is too short for this. I recently sent an unblock request to Tiptoety, asking him to post it on the Admins' Noticeboard, as he said he would on IRC. Durova made a comment on it, and then she wrote a long-winded addendum to it that I really didn't get the point of, and am unsure of how to respond to. It seems to me that she wasn't accusing me of anything, as I could make out no clear accusation, but why did she write all of that? For nothing? I don't think that she was accusing me of being JB196, because if she read the long term abuse page on him, she would see that his real name is [redacted], and that he is a wrestling commentator who promotes himself. Then again, she's accused me of not being as young as I say I am, and she may think that I am a made-up person. A Yahoo! search on my name can disprove this. Any connection between me and JB196 is purely coincidental. I have never even communicated with Alkivar and Eyrian (who have been accused of editing for JB196), let alone JB196, and I surely didn't "proxy" for him. I don't know what to say in response to her speech, except that I cannot understand a word of it. -- http://durova.blogspot.com/

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Wiki-ing in real time
by David Gerard 21 Nov '08

21 Nov '08

http://etherpad.com/ - d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Avoiding the dates issue
by K. Peachey 17 Nov '08

17 Nov '08

> Anyone have any ideas how to set up a system like that cleanly and get > it working on Wikipedia? The relatively poor spread of Persondata > suggests that it is harder than it looks to get something like this > going. Pay MoS to make it standard, then it will be bots ahoy! and doing it automatically on every article >.> Maybe we could get it included in the infobox templates so when one is used that its automatically included and uses the data from that?

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Donation banner and strongly negative reactions
by Nathan 17 Nov '08

17 Nov '08

Here are some areas on the English Wikipedia where the donation drive and banner have been discussed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals#Bring_Back_Hide_Fun… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Will_the_ugly_banner_go_away.3F http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#.22Support_Wikipedia:_a_non-profit_project._Donate_Now_.3E.3E.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Will_the_ugly_banner_go_away.3F It has also been discussed a few times on the #wikipedia-en IRC channel. I don't know if other projects have had similar reactions, but I do know that some projects have disabled the banner. It was for a time not available on the Spanish Wikipedia, and remains unavailable (last I checked) at the Russian Wikibooks. A quick survey of interwiki links on the en.wp Barack Obama page suggests that most or all Wikipedia projects are displaying the banner now. My observation is that the comments have been almost universally negative, and in fact a number of people - including long time administrators and previous donors - have said that this year they will not be donating at all. Reasons have included the banner itself, a sense that the foundation does not use its money appropriately, or concerns related to allegations made by Danny Wool last spring. I don't remember this sort of strong negative reaction before - is it expected? Are we seeing something a little different this year in terms of reaction? Has it translated into any change in the pace of donations? Nathan

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How to get a static English HTML dump from Wikipedia
by raghu0891 17 Nov '08

17 Nov '08

I downloaded the whole english wikipedia from this link http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/2008-06/en/wikipedia-en-html.tar.7z. When I tried to unzip the file using 7-zip, its giving a 'File is Broken' error. Any suggestion, or alternate method to get the english static html wikipedia dump will be appreciated. Thanking you in anticipation, D.Raghuram. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-get-a-static-English-HTML-dump-from-Wikipedia-… Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Ayn Rand and Wikipedia
by WJhonson＠aol.com 16 Nov '08

16 Nov '08

In a message dated 11/12/2008 12:47:23 PM Pacific Standard Time, charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com writes: In what way is the history tab unusable? Are you saying you would prefer an alternate view which lists users in descending order by number of edits to the page (rather than listing edits by user and timestamp)? There's something on the toolserver which does just that..>> ------------------- That could fit the bill. If WP would make something like that an official part of the system. Then we could see at a glance, that an article was 90% by myself or only 2% or whatever. There could be a cutoff like "only list a person if they've contributed 10% or more to the article" That way it could only list 10 people maximum, and most likely would only be ever listing four or less. Will Johnson **************Get the Moviefone Toolbar. Showtimes, theaters, movie news & more!(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212774565x1200812037/aol?red… p://toolbar.aol.com/moviefone/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000001)

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List Syndication Service reboot
by phoebe ayers 16 Nov '08

16 Nov '08

Hi ya'll, You may remember way that back in mid-2006 user:Improv started up the List Syndication Service: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS This was an ongoing weekly summary of the mailing lists, particularly Foundation-L. It was carried on for a good while by Improv and was then taken on by BirgetteSB, but was dropped in early 2007 and not picked back up. I always thought this was a great idea that should be continued. And so finally, I've taken a stab at recreating and rebooting LSS: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/foundation-l-archives/2008_November_2-15 This update covers from November 2-15 (two weeks, Sun. to Sat.) of Foundation-L. I've made some changes from previous summarizers: * summary by topic, not date; related threads grouped together * no attempt to read and distill the content of posts -- instead simply noting what topics were discussed. It was the heavy burden of reading and understanding all the (quite complex) threads on the lists that I believe led previous summarizers to burn out. For this summary, if you want to know more, you have to read the threads yourself. I hope that this will prove helpful in pointing out *what* was discussed, particularly for people who don't have time to read the whole list, even if the substance isn't there. I make no promises, but will attempt to keep up with foundation-l for a while. Suggestions, feedback, helpers, etc. all welcome. best, -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *

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WikiEN-l November 2008