James has set up a general chat channel for UK Wikimedia-related matters:
#wikimedia-uk on irc.freenode.netirc://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-uk
All are welcome. He appears to be in there 24 hours, I'll be in there
when my laptop is on.
- d.
I've just discovered http://www.placeopedia.com/ and also
http://www.yourhistoryhere.com/. They are both from
mySociety<http://www.mysociety.org/>,
the same people who gave us pledge bank. The first allows you to put
Wikipedia articles onto google maps, and the second allows you to add local
information onto maps.
I wondered if anyone else had spotted these and whether placeopedia has
permission to use the Wikipedia logo on its page.
Thanks
Ben Webb
Jimmy has added a link to the answers.com Wikipedia edition to the
[[Wikipedia:Tools]] page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Tools&diff=48023818&old…
Since Jimmy has also said that the decision to list this tool, and
where to list it, should be an editorial decision, I have begun an
editorial discussion on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Tools#Answers.com_tool
about whether it is wise to effectively advertise this tool, which is
at the heart of Answers.com's software patents lawsuit against Babylon
Software. You can find more information about Answers.com's lawsuit in
their press release on the matter:
http://www.answers.com/main/ir/press03082006.jsp
I have also pointed out the issue on foundation-l and asked the
Wikimedia Board to re-evaluate the Answers.com deal in light of the
software patents lawsuit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-March/006356.html
The Board has not responded to this request. Again, failing any
comment to the contrary, I will assume that the decision whether to
list this tool on [[Wikipedia:Tools]] and/or highlight it in other
forms is up to the community. I personally object to it unless the
software patent lawsuit is mentioned on the page in an NPOV manner.
Erik
I had several emails in my inbox this morning because my tools were
returning incorrect data.
It appears that about 6 hours ago enwiki, and only enwiki, stopped
replicating. I now see that the Wikimedia developers have moved enwiki
to its own cluster without warning or coordination. Not like they'd
have anyone to warn: If I can't contact someone with authority, no
doubt that they are unable as well.
Based on the prior track record I expect this to never be fixed, just
as text replication was never fixed and the replication of the asia
cluster wikis was never fixed.
Toolserver had become mostly useless for many of my projects without
high speed text access, now it is almost completely useless for all of
my projects... and I'm tired of catching flack for the unreliability
of the server. People have depended on the tools I provided, but are
constantly let down by the unreliability of the service.
When I was granted access and when I spent many hours writing software
I had an expectation that someone would be at least trying to maintain
the system. I never expected that it would be ignored, that my work
would go to waste, and that if I offered to do the work I too would be
ignored. When I provided tools that allowed enwiki users to adjust
their processes and work more effectively, I believed that they could
rely on these tools working most of the time. I understand now that I
was mistaken.
I am tired of wasting my time.
Because I can't even expect the nonexistent toolserver administration
to perform the trivial action of turning off my account, I have
deleted my ssh authorized key... thus my account is effectively
disabled. So don't worry, you can go on doing nothing.
On 4/10/06, kate(a)zedler.knams.wikimedia.org
<kate(a)zedler.knams.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> hello,
>
> the account expiration date was originally scheduled for April 1st, but has
> been extended to May 1st. on this date, all accounts will expire (and no
> longer be usable) except those which have had the expiration date extended.
>
> if you have an account, and you would like to keep it:
> - if you have one or more working projects, please describe these (preferably
> with examples, URLs, etc.)
> - if you do not yet have anything ready (particularly if you're a new user),
> please describe what you intend to work on. a rough estimate of when you
> expect it to be ready would be useful. if some issue is holding you up
> (e.g. lack of text access), please mention that.
>
> if you no longer wish to use your account, please say so.
>
> this information should be mailed to <dab(a)daniel.baur4.info> and cc'd to
> <zedler-admins(a)wikimedia.org>. (there's no particular deadline, but if you
> wait until one day before the expiration, you might find that your account
> expires because no-one managed to look at it yet...)
Last week I noticed that Oscar had mentioned me on this list.
Oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote on Fri Mar 24 02:01:14 UTC 2006:
> after a fight over articles moving onto user talk pages and
finally irc,<BR>
> muijz and waerth have been blocked this night by galwaygirl "they
are both<BR>
> blocked until they work out a solution between themselves", for
one week, on<BR>
> nl.wikipedia.<BR>
> several attempts at mediation had failed before this measure was
taken, the<BR>
> last one on irc, in which it became clear that no peace would be
agreed<BR>
> upon: both kept on provoking the other.<BR>
> oscar
Whereupon Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> on Fri Mar 24 07:42:29
UTC 2006 replied with:
> You have my full support.
Oscar has used those words of Jimbo to defend his actions at
Wikipedia-NL.
However his statement is incorrect. Therefore I have asked him to
correct his statement here.
As Oscar is not willing to do so, I will correct it myself then.
1) at Wikipedia-NL, there has been a conflict between Waerth and *a
group of other users*
(Danny has described the conflict as "his conflict with the
nl.wikipedia community";
see: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-March/
006381.html )
2) there has been *no* attempts at mediation
3) Muijz and Waerth did *not* keep on provoking the other
You can find the full text of my message here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Muijz/2_blocks
grtz,
Muijz
Seems like the spammers have found the web equivalent of an smtp open relay.
For example:
[http://wiki.cs.uiuc.edu/VisualWorks/DOWNLOAD/sb/index.htm sitz bath]
[http://www.buddy4u.com/view/?u=monophonic+ringtone monophonic ringtone]
[http://www.buddyprofile.com/viewprofile.php?username=nextelringtone
nextel ringtone]
These are links to legitimate sites that perform poor input
validation... The spammers have managed to convert the pages into http
redirects.
Because of how the various search engines work a link to a redirect
page is just as good as a link to the redirect target.
Since the spammers can make an infinite number of unique URLs at these
sites, blocking the exact URL is pointless. So right now our only
choices are to block legitimate sites because their poor hygiene
allows them to be used as a spam-bouncer, or allow ourselves to be
spammed with these sites and contribute to the declining usefulness of
the internet.
Things like this make nofollow more attractive all the time. Has
there ever been any discussion on perhaps allowing a white-list for
non-spam sites that we won't no-follow? This would be useful for
wikis who don't want to kill all their externals with no-follow.
Actually the bullet points were from the SA constitution. Any comments on
the sanctity of Gaddafi are my own.
Extending my suggestion on the "rules" for wikibooks could have a simple
statement of what the purpose of books is to serve, and then specify that
any and all books will be evaluated by a special executive. Books found to
be against the spirit of wikibooks will be removed and the subject listed on
a banned list. An appeal should be allowed during which the people behind
the controversial book may submit their reasoning as to why the book should
remain. Once heard the executive should have a set period to decide. Once
a decision is made, however, it is final.
For instance:
"Wikibooks are to offer specific guidance, education or knowledge on any
topic with the specific limitation that the subject be one likely to benefit
society. Where a subject is likely to cause harm (material or otherwise)
then such a subject will be reviewed by the wikibooks executive. A current
list of subjects specifically banned from wikibooks is as follows:
- how to rape
- how to commit an act of terrorism
- .... and so on"
The executive and other terms in the above can be defined and agreed upon.
That way one person doesn't get saddled with making all the decisions, and -
most importantly - there is a context to the decision making process and
precedents can be set.
---
Gavin