>I'm assuming you know what you're doing, but it's perhaps worth
pointing
>out that when (per the instructions on
>http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Wiki_ASCII_codes_page )
>I hold down alt key and then, using the number pad, type the number
of
>the character in question, I do indeed get the character in question.
>I'm fairly sure it works the same way for many other people, too.
It gets complicated, because the Alt-Number trick gives different
results whether you use 3 or 4 digits. Before Windows 1.0, MS-DOS
used national code pages, so typing Alt-151, for example, would
produce code 151, which in the standard code page of the time was u-
grave. By the time Windows came around, ISO-8859-1 had become a much
more prominent standard, and it was decided that WIndows fonts would
use that encoding. But since people were used to Alt-XXX doing
certain things, Windows grabs those and translates them into the ISO
equivalent of what used to be at that position, so when you type Alt-
151, you really get character 249, u-grave (the ISO code). This is
what's on the ASCII codes page, and why it works for most Windows/ISO
machines, but it's misleading. Your chart shows "151" next to what
is actually character 249 (look the file in hex if you doubt this).
Now, since ISO-8859 leaves characters 127-159 explicitly undefined
and not usable for printable characters, Windows decided to put some
stuff there that's not in the ISO code, such as curly quotes and real
dashes. Character 151 is, in fact, an em dash. Type Alt-0151 and
you'll see. But since it's not defined in ISO, it won't appear in X
fonts, and so you won't see that dash on a Linux box. The Mac uses
another set entirely, so 151 is a o-acute and 249 is breve accent.
To be in strict compliance with *ML standards, you can either specify
which character set is used in you HTML DOCTYPE header, or you can
just use plain old 7-bit ASCII and encode the specials with named
character entity ("&") references. Numerical references are
theoretically standard as well, but officially they reference into 16-
bit Unicode codes (the first 256 of which are the same as ISO-8859-
1), and no browser I know will correctly display an em dash, for
example, whose code is in the 2000s, but many will display the
"mdash" named reference correctly, even displaying "--" if the local
font doesn't have it.
--------------------------------------
With regard to special characters--I'm in the process of updating the
Wiki pages related to ASCII, extended characters, and *ML character
entity references, so in a few days you'll have all the information
you never wanted to know about character sets. The current Wiki
ASCII codes page will be entirely replaced--the characters on that
page don't even correspond to the codes that label them--perhaps Wiki
software munged them at some point.
At any rate, after these pages are done, I'll make some
recommendations about how Wiki should handle special characters, and
you'll have the information you need to evaluate them or offer
aternative suggestions. I should have that done next week.
--------------------------------------
Vote for nihongo.wikipedia.com.
Question: Can people who do not have Japanese Language
Support on their computers see kanji, katakana, hiragana?
i.e. is www.asahishinbun.com viewable on a regular PC,
Mac??? I thought not.
As Ever,
Tired....
Ruth Ifcher
--
> I want to set up some alternative language wikipedias.
>
> French and German would be good, and Cdani has offered to not inflict his
> terrible English on us if we make a Catalan wikipedia. :-) (I'm just
> teasing, but he has expressed an interest.)
>
> I intend to setup the following domain names and wikis:
>
> french.wikipedia.com
> francais.wikipedia.com
> (both pointing to the same thing)
>
> german.wikipedia.com
> deustche.wikipedia.com
> (both pointing to the same thing)
>
> spanish.wikipedia.com
> espanol.wikipedia.com
> (both pointing to the same thing)
>
> Are those the right words to use?
>
> I would also consider
>
> nihongo.wikipedia.com
> japanese.wikipedia.com
>
> One problem is going to be technical support of these languages, since if there
> are "fancy letter" problems, I will not know much how to deal with them.
> Japanese
> is pretty much _all_ "fancy letters", but I assume that Linux/Apache/Perl will
> just
> magically support it? Or will they be forced to use non-fancy ASCII urls?
>
> Anyhow, it seems like a useful thing to do this.
>
> --
> *************************************************
> * http://www.nupedia.com/ *
> * The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia *
> *************************************************
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I want to set up some alternative language wikipedias.
French and German would be good, and Cdani has offered to not inflict his
terrible English on us if we make a Catalan wikipedia. :-) (I'm just
teasing, but he has expressed an interest.)
I intend to setup the following domain names and wikis:
french.wikipedia.comfrancais.wikipedia.com
(both pointing to the same thing)
german.wikipedia.comdeustche.wikipedia.com
(both pointing to the same thing)
spanish.wikipedia.comespanol.wikipedia.com
(both pointing to the same thing)
Are those the right words to use?
I would also consider
nihongo.wikipedia.comjapanese.wikipedia.com
One problem is going to be technical support of these languages, since if there
are "fancy letter" problems, I will not know much how to deal with them. Japanese
is pretty much _all_ "fancy letters", but I assume that Linux/Apache/Perl will just
magically support it? Or will they be forced to use non-fancy ASCII urls?
Anyhow, it seems like a useful thing to do this.
--
*************************************************
* http://www.nupedia.com/ *
* The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia *
*************************************************
I don't expect to convert anyone here, but I will correct your facts:
> There are excellent reasons why intellectual property rights
> exist and have existed in one form or another in so many places
> and for so long;
The very first thing that resembled a copyright was the Statute of
Anne in 1710. Many countries today still have none. "Excellent
reasons" is of course just an unsupported value judgment.
> probably the most important is that, without them, artists
> and inventors lose an extremely important incentive to carry
> on their work.
This is indeed the common justification for them. But clearly the
entire Renaisance is a counterexample: art, invention, culture, and
creativity flourished as never before in human history--witout
benefit of copyrights or patents.
> Of course, if one were a luddite, for example, one might want to
> oppose intellectual property protections, because getting rid of
> them would almost certainly have a very chilling effect on the
> development of technology.
I personally am an Extropian, which is roughly the exact opposite of
a Luddite (I should point out that the majority of Extropians still
support your view of things--though I'm working on that:). I want
technology and creativity to grow and flourish--and profit--and I
sincerely believe that copyrights and patents get in the way of that
goal. I have not been brainwashed by a culture shaped by intrenched
status-quo interests who use these scare stories to justify present
law; I have examined the history and the facts for myself, and drawn
my own conclusions.
--------------------------------------
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/is/20010314/bs/brittanica_com_look_under_m_for…
I think that Britannica's woes will only deepen. It's hard to compete against
_free_ volunteer projects like Nupedia and Wikipedia. Of course, we aren't really
making a dent in them yet, but anything they do which presupposes that people will
be willing to pay for their content will be disastrous for them in the "long" run --
the 5-10 years it will take for Nupedia to be competitive with them, or the 1-2 years
that Wikipedia will take.
--
*************************************************
* http://www.nupedia.com/ *
* The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia *
*************************************************
I'm willing to make this change. Mostly I just want to have something
"punchy" that gets the message across.
However, although I'm willing to make the change, I don't agree with
your reasons for it. The concept "steal" is quite broad -- broader
than theft of property. If I steal your girlfriend, that doesn't mean
that she's your property or mine.
Similarly, plagiarism is a moral issue quite separate from the legal
status of things. Even someone opposed to copyright laws can agree
that it is immoral to use an author's work without permission, that it
amounts to stealing, in the broad sense.
But *my* point wasn't to take a specific position _in the Wikipedia_ on
copyright laws. That's not appropriate for an encyclopedia. So I'll
make a change.
lcrocker(a)nupedia.com wrote:
> I understand your position, Larry, and I agree that you need the
> warning. But "DO NOT COPY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL" would work just as
> well, and would not be personally offensive to me and other
> dedicated, moral, hard-working, law-abiding, intelligent people
> working to abolish copyright law as it is today.
>
> Imagine it like this: bigamy is illegal in every state. It is
> frowned upon by most religions and most people. But there are some
> people who are quite decent, loving, moral people working to change
> the laws and attitudes to make it legal. For them (and especially
> those not actively practicing) to see themselves called "perverts"
> or "criminals" in public is offensive, and doing so is most
> definitely a biased expression of political opinion, even though it
> happens to be the opinion of the vast majority.
>
>
> --------------------------------------
--
*************************************************
* http://www.nupedia.com/ *
* The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia *
*************************************************
----- End forwarded message -----
--
*************************************************
* http://www.nupedia.com/ *
* The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia *
*************************************************
> O.k., well, I'm thinking we shouldn't argue too much about this
> here on the wikipedia list, lest we bore people. :-)
In this we are in total agreement.
> In any event, do you like the change that I made to the notice?
Yes, it's perfect. Thanks.
--------------------------------------
> The concept "steal" is quite broad -- broader than theft of
property.
Yes, the word is ambiguous; that does not mean the various concepts
covered by the word have to be, but I agree that it does allow you to
use the word without implying one specific meaning of it.
>Similarly, plagiarism is a moral issue quite separate from the legal
>status of things. Even someone opposed to copyright laws can agree
>that it is immoral to use an author's work without permission,...
Plagiarism is copying another authors work _and claiming it as your
own_, which is fraudulent, and I agree immoral. Using an author's
work without his permission for your own use or profit, but openly
without deception, is copyright infringement, with which I find not
the slightest moral objection. This is our moral disagreement.
I think of ideas like children. We create them, develop them,
benefit from them; but once they are released into the world, we no
longer have any right to control what becomes of them or who benefits
from them.
--------------------------------------
I understand your position, Larry, and I agree that you need the
warning. But "DO NOT COPY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL" would work just as
well, and would not be personally offensive to me and other
dedicated, moral, hard-working, law-abiding, intelligent people
working to abolish copyright law as it is today.
Imagine it like this: bigamy is illegal in every state. It is
frowned upon by most religions and most people. But there are some
people who are quite decent, loving, moral people working to change
the laws and attitudes to make it legal. For them (and especially
those not actively practicing) to see themselves called "perverts"
or "criminals" in public is offensive, and doing so is most
definitely a biased expression of political opinion, even though it
happens to be the opinion of the vast majority.
--------------------------------------