Domas Mituzas wrote: Disagree. I've talked to a lot of organizatons and groups who love WMF content but want to filter it for in-house use similiar to CleanFlix. Most educational facilities and religious groups who really love wikipedia want a "clean" version of the content, with most of the sexual revolution/pro-alternate lifestyle propoganda materials removed from the dumps. WMF does a great job allowing all points of view and all knowledge in the dumps -- I respect this -- unfortunately, a lot of conservative groups who like WMF content don't want the information overload from much of the topics, or perceived erotic imagery in many of the articles. My tools let you filter import XML dumps for certain classes of content -- so there's a "clean" version of the content. I doubt the LDS church wants to host WMF materials with articles on beastialiy, same sex marriage, etc. It's a matter of degrees. Making WP more pervasive also means accomodating folks who have differing views and values. We offer a family oriented version that's customizable as well as Native American translation support. The tribes hosting translations will consume a large number of these units along with conservative religious groups and family oriented groups. I have included a "donate now" button pointing back to WMF in the main pages. Jeff

Domas Mituzas wrote: Good point. I don;t know where to start on that one, so some suggestions would be welcome. Perhaps I should post the filtering code somwhere and let folks who know better than I on the china issue create a categories template for filtering China content. They use an algorithm developed at U of U that detects pixel ratios of human skin tone (the ratios are the same no matter what complexion) and tags them for removal. From what I have seen its only a handful of images (@ 100) in most of the dumps, and medial articles like "penis" and "vagina" I think are ok. Certain art images are objectionable to folks, along with articles on words like F__K, etc. which needs cleaning up. Well, that's also my view as well, I hate censorship, but like it or not, the conservative element of the US comprises 98% of the folks who run these organizations and have real $$$ to support Wikimedia, and the criticisms I get when I talk to folks about supporting Wikipedia are: 1). It's in the press due to inaccurate bios 2). It hosts radical left wing content 3). It is used as a lobbying platform by various political groups Saying we support "filtering" and a "clean" version, whether its really clean or not, shuts these people up and at a minimum provides some level of comfort they can use the content and have a degree of control over certain categories of content use. Were it up to me, I would say "let them eat Wikipedia as is", but its not up to me, and I have to deploy Native Translations in areas like the Cherokee Nation which is 99% hard core Southern Baptist, and other areas which do not have such an open view. Jeff

Domas Mituzas wrote: Yes, the Bible is full of violence, sex, and lots of other "nasty stuff"; and so is Wikipedia. Sure, you can filter them, but you're going to end up with a lot of holes. A better use of time/effort would be not to filter articles on their subject area, but on their quality; if you have the time, going through an article to find which is the "best" revision and then letting everyone else know, and/or making a list of what the "best" articles are, will ultimately be more productive than filtering out a (hopefully NPOV) decent article because you don't think that your readers should have access to this kind of information. -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

Lars Aronsson wrote: It sounds like you are not here to accomodate and please, but I doubt this reflects everyones views. Since I am married to a German Citizen I can answer that. I am not adapting it to serve anyone, I simply provide filtering mechanisms they can use to filter the dumps. That's up to the users, not me. I personally don't care what's in it. Jeff

On 7/26/06, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se> wrote: Do you also find it problematic that someone can remove what you wrote with a later edit and yet your username still remains in the history?

Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote: Yes of course, but then the article history shows that someone else had edited the text after I was there, and the diff (included in the distribution or available by link to the Wikipedia website) shows exactly what my contribution was. Does your filter program show its own modifications in the article history? -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

Folks, Jeff is actually trying to build a business based on reusing Wikipedia content, and yet a good half of these posts attack him for making use of the content. Nowhere in our charter does it say that we're building an immutable work. Let people who want to tweak it, rename it, change my username to a foul word, rename all mentions of Jimmy Wales to "Evil Dictator" or whatever do so. The source material is Wikipedia. The end users can't call theirs Wikipedia, since that's the WMF's trademark. Beyond that, we should be encouraging all uses -- On 7/26/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Ilya Haykinson wrote: Yes. The more of these there are the better. This includes the right to use all or part of the Wikimedia material to start a new wiki. The result still has to be consistent with GFDL, and trademark limitations should not be that much of a problem. These new wikis aren't bound by NPOV, and they can be as liberal or conservative as they want around copyright law. If they want to avoid wikilove and establish a flame-wiki that's up to them too. This all seems consistent with freedom of information. Ec

Hoi, In the past encyclopedias have played a certain role. They explained how things are. They did this with quite some disregard to what the powers that be thought about this. When information is filtered from Wikipedia, you explicitly allow people to be blindsighted because of an intentional lack of information. Statistics show that kids who are exposed to sexual education, in an atmosphere where the functionality of sexuality is not a taboo subject are less likely to get prematurely pregnant. They are also less likely to get venereal deseases. Indeed the GFDL allows you to do this "service" to your communities. It is as they say: the law is an ass. Thanks, GerardM On 7/27/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey(a)wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:

On 7/27/06, Kim Bruning <kim(a)bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote: NPOV, used properly, makes life bearable for a broad spectrum of *editors*. NPOV does nothing to help someone who has decided that an image of a penis will scar their children for life.

So that we may never have to buy another server for decades... or until we need more processing power. On 7/26/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I wouldn't know -- I think the longest I kept a computer was 3 years before I got a new one. I'm highly impatient with old computers. On 7/26/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 7/26/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote: If you are doing mass computerised translations you could burn through it pretty fast. -- geni

Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote: And one more thing. If we are truly going to challenge google and yahoo at some point for internet search engine supremecy, this is the path to go. Google got there by seeding the internet with appliances which skulk and harvest content from the web with massive storage. I am currently adding search engine capabilities combined with automated translation and wiki formatting so we can construct a search engine over time. It will take us about two years to get where google is, but I have more powerful technology than they use, so over time, I think we can eventually get there and wikify the internet. That's where this is going long term. Native Language preservation is a huge deal right now -- one step at a time. Jeff

On 7/26/06, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: A directory isn't a search engine, so I wouldn't expect it to do so. A wiki is also not a search engine... But what I think Jeff is thinking about isn't so much directly competing in the search space but instead supplanting the world wide web with the world wide wiki. It is interesting to ponder the social implications of a massive switch to highly participatory systems like Wiki... perhaps delivering on some of the promises that people used to promote 'blogging'... In any case, it's interesting.. but off topic.

Hi!!! I never thought the appliances they sold (and that was their revenue..) did ever participate in their global search. Is this another myth used, or do you really believe they used spiders they _sold_ to harvest information for them? Why did they build their datacenters at all? They did market their appliances as company-wide search boxen. Stuff we do with lucenes. Search engine of what? "Distributed" in search engine context doesn't mean John in Alaska is having a cluster with Jeb in Texas. It means that people run datacenters with lots of servers stacked there, and sub-millisecond medium connecting all that. Unless, of course, you are following bittorrent lead. Um. You could share your technology, for common good, sure! That really requires advanced tech. At Wikipedia revision pages are compressed, and a proper compression run contracts whole dataset into 0.5T or so (or less). irony 1 |ˈīrənē; ˈiərnē| |ˌaɪrəni| |ˌʌɪrəni| noun ( pl. -nies) the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect : “Don't go overboard with the gratitude,” he rejoined with heavy irony. See note at wit . • a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result : [with clause ] the irony is that I thought he could help me. • (also dramatic or tragic irony) a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character's words or actions are clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character. hypocrisy |hiˈpäkrisē| |həˌpɑkrəsi| |hɪˌpɒkrɪsi| noun ( pl. -sies) the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense. I did not :( I just opened Five Pillars article, and I know that I may fail at 'code of conduct' sometimes, sorry, but, Wikipedia has neutral point of view. No 'please donate' buttons will make filtered forks (a.k.a. mirrors) worth mentioning as "helping Wikipedia". Filtered resource/mirror does not give full power to edit the free content. Sure, $$$ attracts business people, and we have few business people here, but we have the pride of not taking that with strings attached. We have pride to make free information resource ;-) It would be an easy task to make a list of countries worth visiting to provide wikifilter (I'm quite amused to find wikifilter.org is still free ;-) - there're lots of things people should not know (because it is all very very depressing (c) Colbert ;-) But I hope foundation has more noble causes to exist. Cheers, Domas

Hi! Um again. I don't see direct link between [automated] censorship and credibility. I somehow stay at the idea that there's more freedom, when you can edit wikipedia without owning a mirror. Unless you want to fork ;-) Now strings are defined by community, as community supports Wikipedia. I'm not CFO, so I'm quite happy about that ;-) And I'm happy if there's anyone else who would like to support without strings attached (especially on content), let it be some nice big foundation. On the other hand, currently computers and hosting are enjoying economy of scale - we run quite efficient system, and cost to run personal mirror (cost per view) may be somewhat higher than the cost wmf is facing. This is where community joins and assists with keeping the site up. Well, it is really nice that wikipedia activities attract people who maintain the solid delivery! Wikify the world? Intentions are clear, now the methods are not. I guess concepts of distributed wikis might be better discussed at wikitech-l rather than foundation-l. There it would be really more on topic! BR, -- Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]

On 7/27/06, Domas Mituzas &lt;midom.lists(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: And although you might disagree, I have no reason you are not Hardware Officer either. I know Delphine calls herself "the former" Chapter Officer (and now Chair of LCCom). Danny thinks himself GrO still, Elian resigned, as for other officers, I have no clue. Related to a certain website, I would like to know the exact contact Wikimedia Officers or their successors concerning updates of reports from each field. Is there any latest chart of the Wikimedia Foundation Organisation? Or we can say "the officers are still in office, unless they resigned" Um, however, as for Hardware, I think we need to argue with whom and on what a comcom member should talk to get a new update? <g> -- Aphaia aka Kizu Naoko email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com

On 7/28/06, Domas Mituzas &lt;midom.lists(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: /me notes "the bureaucracy and hierarchy of WMF is as complicated as ... some christian denominacions which claim their apostelic traditions You makes a good note. Let me explain here our situation in general. Currently _all_ editors of its are voluntary, and I understand committees' members are too, say, it is mundatory for none of us to edit / update the website (IIRC the resolution which demanded periodical reports from committe(s) has been pending, so no binding for us). It's one pole of our world. The other pole is that it is the official website of the WMF, and external people, including donors visits that. And the most of informatiom provided to them on that site is outdated. We are sustained by those good people but they might know nothing in details for what they contributed to the Foundation. And as far as I know, many of them believe they donate for hardware purchase. It would be good to inform them how their former donations were used. That is why I think Report on Budget and Hardware purchase, those two items would be crutial parts of that website. But not only hardware, but also other activities are matters, as far as the Foundation budget is spent for those. Or it was done under the name of WMF. Other kinds of reports are therefore informative and helpful to develop the Foundation's and consequently our own activities on the projects. Formerly Quarto provided its readers quarterly reports but it hasn't been issued since last year. A report twice a year (it's currently just my personal thought, I need to discuss this idea on Comcom lter) for example might be easiler to make than quarterly ones, and more visitor-friendly than webpages not undated through about one year. Yep. And our currently potential problems are, so I presume, 1) there is no particular community on that [and perhaps it would be one reason most of its editors are inactive] and 2) many people who have an account on that seem to tend to think they need titles or tags alike to make a significant contributions [and it makes a sense in some cases; but personally some people seem to take it too a big deal, as if even they are disqualified to make a draft for updating. The tag "Official" might scare them]. So we expect you remember other present and important issues clearly, including the informally proposed Houserule for Wikimania? -- Aphaia aka Kizu Naoko email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com

Hi, On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, Domas Mituzas wrote: Problems and visions : useful things to report on. We could use a designated reporting setup -- either a person or a place/schedule -- for each committee and major project, with some standards tats/report-elements that would help minimize scaling pains. SJ

On 7/29/06, Anthere &lt;Anthere9(a)yahoo.com&gt; wrote: ah it's a joke. Danny proposed "R35 for alchol" and certain people like our Lithuanian friend don't like it. Toolbar is one of improvement needed things definitely. It can be optimized through MediaWiki:Sidebar only for sysop. Other potential addition is "policies" -> Privacy policy & Visual guideline. The latter is hardly found too, I'm afraid. It is fine to know the Board gets reports steadly. As the nect step, would the Board be interested in re-releasing some of those reports to the Foundation wiki or passing to Comcom as potential materials to the foundation wiki? Since 1) it is suggested some of those reports might contain things not suitable to be in public, 2) those reports haven't been passed to Comcom [even by itself, IIRC]. I think we are rather better to bother the Board in this area. Delphine permitted me to reuse her reports on early summer European tour as report from Chapter Com (see my meta talk), but it would be nicer much newer stuffs could be published. -- Aphaia aka Kizu Naoko email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com

On 7/26/06, Domas Mituzas &lt;midom.lists(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: [snip] A minor nit.. with braindead stupid compression (toasted columns in PGsql which use a modified LZ algo which gets less compression than gzip -3 but is much faster and compresses a single row at a time) you can get the whole of english wikipedia into 0.4TB including the needed indexes and the (not insubstantial) DB overhead. With state of the art compression (lzma) you can get all the revisions into 6gb, but you lose random access. At wikimania tech days I'll be presenting a system which achieves similar compression perform ace but preserves random access... Which is at least a mildly interesting subject, although perhaps without practical implications for wikimedia until the disk/cpu performance gap widens a bit further. :)