Wikipedia-l April 2003

wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

42 participants
59 discussions

Re: server down
by Daniel Mayer 07 Apr '03

07 Apr '03

On Sunday 06 April 2003 05:00 am, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote: > aparently, the wikipedia server is down. This hasn't been reported on the > list, although this might have been because the email server is down too. You might be surprised to know that the Wikipedia encyclopedia and the Wikipedia mail server are both on the same box. Could all the mailing lists work just fine on a separate cheapo AMD K6-II 500 MHZ Linux box with two 4 gig hard drives, 256MB of SDRAM and a couple network cards? If so, I hereby donate such a dinosaur to serve as a mail server (of course I'll have to test these components to see if they still work so the specs may change - somebody else will have to configure the mail server part though). Not being able to talk to each other as a group during a crash like this isn't exactly an optimal way to run a project the size of Wiki(p/m)edia. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) WikiKarma The usual at [[March 29]]

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The sever is running extremely slowly
by Zoe 06 Apr '03

06 Apr '03

It's taking upwards of three minutes just to get an Edit command to bring up an Edit screen. Zoe --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more

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Wikipedia unscheduled downtime
by Brion Vibber 06 Apr '03

06 Apr '03

The server was down for almost a full day, apparently thanks to a crash which involved a slight bit of filesystem corruption which it couldn't _quite_ recover from on bootup without a human coming in and saying "yes, repair that sector". I love computers. :) Huge thanks to Jason Richey, who drove in to the hosting center to beat up on the server in person tonight. The server is back up; I've locked the wiki while double-checking the database tables for corruption. Messages to the mailing lists sent in the last day should come through, but some may take a while to get resent from intermediate mail servers. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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(no subject)
by Lee Daniel Crocker 05 Apr '03

05 Apr '03

" Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] The "wikidown" address Message-ID: <20030405072235.GA16635(a)piclab.com> References: <20030405001619.GA13657(a)piclab.com> <8jGa0Y6SpVB@erik_moeller> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <8jGa0Y6SpVB@erik_moeller> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i X-URL: http://www.piclab.com/lee/ > (Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de>): > > The "wikidown" address just got spammed. Since there's no way > > to get off of spammers' lists once on, that pretty much demands > > that we change it. Further, whatever means we are using to > > announce that address to human beings should probably be fixed > > to make it less friendly to address-sucking bots. > > What about spamassassin? It's a pretty decent filter that should catch > most of the spam. Getting and staying off spammers' lists seems like a > futile exercise, and many people have now memorized the wikidown address. I run SpamAssassin at Piclab; it's great--it reduces my mail from about 200-300 a day down to 20-30. But the "wikidown" address is attached to my pager, so even one a day is a nuisance. -- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee(a)piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC

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[Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com: [WikiEN-l] How to ban a logged-in user (was: Wikipedia privacy)]
by Jimmy Wales 05 Apr '03

05 Apr '03

Since this would be a system-wide change, not English-only, we should discuss it over here, too. ----- Forwarded message from "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor(a)abc.com> ----- From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor(a)abc.com> Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 15:59:46 -0500 To: <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org> Subject: [WikiEN-l] How to ban a logged-in user (was: Wikipedia privacy) Well, here's an idea. Give sysops emergency power to ban a logged-in user (by name), while simultaneously blindly banning their IP address -- temporarily. And they'd be honor bound to report the ban to the list, just as when a sysop protects a page to stop an edit war. For example, user:Skeezix messes up a lot of pages, so sysop BigCheese spends countless hours cleaning up after him and finally says it's not worth it. After some discussion on the mailing list -- or in a really urgent case, unilaterally -- the sysop presses the magic "Ban this logged-in user" button. Whereupon two things happen: 1. The user's account is blocked. 2. The user's IP address is blocked. And one thing doesn't happen: 3. No user, not even a sysop, can see the blocked IP. So if Skeezix tries to log in as user:Spreitel -- he can't because his IP is blocked. Advantages: * Stops the vandal cold. * Avoids revealing IP addresses. Disadvantages: * Like all banning mechanisms, it could be abused. * If the IP is shared by "innocent" parties, they also get blocked. Ed Poor _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ----- End forwarded message -----

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Alan Greenspan needs to learn about Wikipedia
by Jimmy Wales 05 Apr '03

05 Apr '03

http://www.federalreserve.gov/BoardDocs/speeches/2003/20030404/default.htm >For example, though the set up cost of creating an on-line >encyclopedia may be enormous, the cost of reproduction and >distribution may be near zero if the means of distribution is the >Internet. The emergence of an electronic platform for the transmission >of ideas at negligible marginal cost may therefore be an important >factor explaining the recent increased conceptualization of the >GDP. The demand for conceptual products is clearly impeded to a much >smaller degree by rising marginal cost than is the demand for physical >products. The cost isn't *that* enormous, of course, when a free license empowers volunteers.

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Fwd: [LIG] SITEWATCH: What exactly is gnowledge?
by Yann Forget 04 Apr '03

04 Apr '03

That's interesting. Yann ---------- Message transmis ---------- Subject: [LIG] SITEWATCH: What exactly is gnowledge? Date: Mercredi 2 Avril 2003 20:34 From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred(a)bytesforall.org> To: fsf-friends(a)gnu.org.in Cc: linux-india-general(a)lists.sourceforge.net URL : http://www.gnowledge.org Welcome to Gnowledge! By `gnowledge' we mean the knowledge accessible freely for the community in general, and to the users of the WWW in particular. We expect that the `g' in the term `gnowledge' is pronounced hard, and is not silent as `k' in `knowledge'. The possible Sanskrit and Greek roots of the term `knowledge' and the ideal of GNU to share knowledge in general and software knowledge in particular inspired us to use this term. At this site we will publish software to manage gnowledge. We desire to make this a community portal for those who believe in sharing. We are developing a gnowledge management application called GNOWSYS. Find out more about it by navigating through the menu on the left side. Powered by GNOWSYS, [15]ZOPE, [16]Python, [17]GNU/Linux © Nagarjuna G.[18]Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education -- http://www.forget-me.net Alternatives sur le Net http://keys.indymedia.org/showkey.py?key=0A34CBDA gpg --keyserver keys.indymedia.org --recv-key 0A34CBDA

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Wikipedia scheduled downtime tonight
by Brion Vibber 04 Apr '03

04 Apr '03

The English-language Wikipedia will be in read-only mode for maintenance tonight/in the morning starting around 9pm PST (midnight EST; 5am GMT; 6am most of Europe; the rest of you are on your own). I'll be making some slight alterations to the database structure and installing an updated version of the software to better support client-side web caching for more browsers (so your browser will reload pages only when they've actually changed instead of every time you visit them). This will also enable a future update to do server-side caching which should reduce server load significantly. IE users, this should fix the cache bug where red links remain even after a page has been created; the page should automatically reload with the correct link status. (This update has been running for about a week on meta.wikipedia.org and test.wikipedia.org with no complaints so far.) This will require taking the wiki "briefly" into read-only mode while alterations are made. I don't know exactly how long it will take, but don't be surprised if it takes about two hours. These things always take longer than hoped. :) The other languages will also be done around this time, but should go much faster; there will be brief read-only outages, one at a time. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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Re: [Wikipedia-l] Server-side backlink redirects
by Tim Starling 03 Apr '03

03 Apr '03

> >(*) Move page only > >( ) Make the page a redirect, and update all links so that they point to > > the new article > >( ) Move page and update links > >Q1: What's the difference between the last two options? I thought option 2 might be controversial, but I guess if no-one understands it that would explain why no-one has commented on it yet. Option 2 simply changes the first page to a redirect as if someone had edited it normally. It does not move the edit history to the new location. This would effectively allow someone to move a page to an occupied location, without deleting it first to make way. I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not. >Q2: I don't really trust this idea yet and would hesitate to use it -- > although I have no objection to other editors' having it available. > But what I'd really like is an option that changes only redirects, > to automatically avoid double redirects. Can we add that? > Perhaps it should even be the default? Okay, that can be done. Let me get this straight, is this what you want: * Double redirect exists from [[redir1]] to [[redir2]] to [[content]] * User navigates to [[redir2]] and clicks "move/redirect page" (probably a better name for Special:Movepage with new functionality) * User selects the option "No move, update redirects only" * Software chages "#REDIRECT [[redir2]]" in [[redir1]] to "#REDIRECT [[content]]" Is that about right? Here's another scenario: * [[redir1]] redirects to [[old content]]. User wants to change the title of [[old content]] to [[new content]]. * User navigates to [[old content]], clicks "move/redirect page", and selects "Move, update redirects only". * Software moves the page, and changes [[redir1] to "#REDIRECT [[new content]]" For a UI, something like: (*) Move ( ) Change to redirect [*] Update redirects to here [ ] Update links from article namespace [ ] Update links from other namespaces Where ( ) indicates a radio button or option group or whatever you want to call it, and [ ] indicates a checkbox. -- Tim Starling _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp

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Server-side backlink redirects
by Tim Starling 03 Apr '03

03 Apr '03

After a discussion on wikitech-l titled "bot approval request", we decided that perhaps it would be better if my bot were implemented on the server side, so that everyone could use it, and so that it would be relatively efficient. I offered to do the coding, on the condition that someone will block me if I try to make any ordinary edits -- I don't want Wikipedia totally taking over my life :) Anyway, here's my proposal. I originally posted it on wikitech-l, but it drew no responses. What I'm suggesting is a significant extension to Special:Movepage capabilities. ------------------------------------------------ What we want to be able to do is: 1) Change a set of links pointing to a redirect, so that they're pointing to the real article 2) Change a set of links pointing to an incorrectly named image, to a new, correctly named image. The second one was suggested by Tarquin on [[User talk:Timbot]]. Now the problem with this feature is that it has the potential to create excessive server load, especially if an edit war breaks out utilising it. My scheme below is intended to do the following things: * Make it appear weighty and time-consuming, so that users won't do it frivolously. * Make the smallest impact on the server possible while not wasting people's time. * Make edit wars utilising the feature take up a minimum of server load, and to favour a conservative (changeless) outcome. As a tentative short name, I suggest the "backlink redirect". It's a mouthful, it doesn't make much sense, but it's better than anything else I've come up with. Here's my current vision for how it will operate: On Special:Movepage, you now get an OPTION group looking like this: (*) Move page only ( ) Make the page a redirect, and update all links so that they point to the new article ( ) Move page and update links Any logged in user has access to these options. If the user selects the second or third option, a new thread is created on the server, set to low priority -- low enough that it might take an hour or more during peak times to fix a large set of articles. This new thread does the following: * Updates Wikipedia:BacklinkRedirects (or related DB table) to indicate that a backlink redirect has started. This appears on RC. * Starts updating the links, one at a time. Changes do not appear on RC. * After it finishes updating each article, it checks to see if someone has clicked on the "cancel" link in Wikipedia:BacklinkRedirects. If so, it reverts its changes and stops, indicating this on RC and Wikipedia:BacklinkRedirects. * Once it has finished, it updates the table related to Wikipedia:BacklinkRedirects to indicate that the job is now over. This does not appear on RC. The job stays there on the lower half of the page for all time, with some method of accessing multiple pages of them. Anyone can revert such completed jobs. Reversions of complete jobs are handled at the usual thread priority (arguable, I could be wrong). Articles which have changed since the initial update are, of course, not reverted. As you can see, with this scheme, even an edit war over a huge set of links will create little server load in peak times, as long as both sides of the fray watch Wikipedia:BacklinkRedirects vigilantly. -- Tim Starling. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp

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Wikipedia-l April 2003