Wikipedia-l February 2005

wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

115 participants
89 discussions

Two scripts/directions in one Wiki?
by Erdal Ronahi 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

Hi, We at the Kurdish Wikipedia/Wiktionary have the (maybe unique) problem, that Kurdish is not only written with two different alphabets (latin and arabic-based), but that these two scripts are written in different directions. I am looking for technical support here before I post anything as a feature request to the bugtracker. While the majority of all articles is (and probably will be) left to right, often both directions are needed on one page, while some can be entirely right-to-left. Until now, noone has proposed to split the Wikipedia, on the contrary we want to include both scripts and provide optimal usability for both. Following are some problems for the right-to-left support: *Page titles are partially incorrectly displayed, because all browsers interpret left-to-right words different that left-to-right paragraphs *Lists appear incorrectly. Example: http://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%87%E2%80%8C%D8%B4%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8E%… *Font problems. The main problem seems to be that it is not possible to define a whole page as right-to-left. After a lot of trying we found a patial solution. Pages that are RTL use a template with a <div>-tag with a .rtl-class. This works, but it is a suboptimal solution, especially because a newcomer who wants to write RTL faces problems. A solution would be something that defines whole pages as RTL, optimal would be a connection with the pagename: when the pagetitle is in arabic script, the page content should be RTL. I would be glad about any help on the issue. Greetings, Erdal

1 0

Wikipedia as a learning community
by Cormac Lawler 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

I'm writing this mail to make public my project, which is studying Wikipedia as a learning community. This is for an M.Ed. I am undertaking in the UK. I've already had some contact with a limited few people who have filled out a questionnaire, some of whom are on this mailing list, but I am now mainly looking at interpersonal dynamics and sociological aspects of the project at large which will serve as research for my dissertation, which I hope to eventually make available to Wikipedia. I'm already aware of a number of people who are either engaged or interested in studying similar aspects, for example a recent post to the wikiEN mailing list: http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019136.html I will be pursuing a similar methodology in the sense that it will be low-key 'monitoring' of various exchanges/discussions within the Wikimedia network. But how my approach differs is that I would also like to include Wikimedia mailing lists such as this one, as part of my inquiry. This means that I'd like to (with permission) use discussions that arise here as part of my research. The key issue here is permission/consent - I wouldn't assume consent unless someone explicitly gave me theirs. This then raises the issue of whether I would have to write individually to each person whose opinion/mail I would like to use, or whether I could use these opinions and assure confidentiality as a basic given to all. That is my main question to the list - whether this latter approach or the former seem reasonable, or what you would suggest I do instead? I'm also interested in comparing languages, which is why I'm posting this message to the foundation list among others. In addition to this I'll be contacting particular individuals for their individual experiences and of course consent, but details of that are outside the purpose of this list. I expect that there will be several comments and possibly some objections arising from this message. If you would prefer to contact me directly with any questions as opposed to posting to the list, that is fine. But this email is not a request to participate, rather an announcement of my project and a query as to the feasability and ethics of reproducing material from this list. Further details can be found at my en:WP user page [[User:Cormaggio]], which also has details of my previous small scale pilot study. I have also set up a page in Meta, which I hope will serve as a discussion for those interested, at this address: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research/Wikipedia_as_a_learning_community There are a number of questions there to which I would be interested in hearing the answers from as wide a range of people as possible. However, I am not putting out these questions as a questionnaire per se, rather a prompt for further research. Thank you for your attention. Best regards, Cormac Lawler cormaggio(a)gmail.com, cormaggio(a)yahoo.co.uk

4 4

This is becoming relatively urgent.
by Mark Williamson 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

Can somebody PLEASE create the Ossetic and Voro Wikipedias and the Amis Wiktionary? Ossetic -> os:, Voro -> fiu-vro:, Amis -> i-ami:. I mean, seriously!!! The Voro people already even have the entire language file translated! They are clearly very eager to get started. Why are we holding them back like this?? The other groups are also very clearly eager to get started. We created a chiTumbuka Wikipedia with many less supporters, and almost as soon as it was requested, but developers have practically turned a blind eye to these widely-supported requests with next to no detractors. Mark

3 3

Sin-chiaⁿ
by Mark Williamson 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

Sin-chiaⁿ-khòai-lo̍k! Kiong-hí-hoat-châi, bān-hok-lîm-lâi. Sì-sî-ûi-pìⁿ liân-chia̍t-seng bûn-koe-khui-bú nî-nî-tāi-hoat. Chit-it-iú-liân, sêng-sim hē-gōan chiok ta̍k-ke: ióng-sin, iū-ū chìn-pō· iū-ū hoat-tián iū sêng-kong, sim-thài-jû-khòai, bān-sū-jû-ì, tng-hoat-chhái, ha̍k-gia̍p-béng-chìn, thài-pêng-sēng-tāi. Mā hē-gōan chiok Tiong-hôa-gú-cho̍k in-gú-giân Ûi-ki-pekh-kho. Mark

6 10

watch out out for a vandal whit the name "External Linkz"
by Walter Vermeir 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

"External Linkz" is bot changing external links and put them in a template whitout authorization of WikipediaNL. And this very fast whit many pages. From his userpage; "I will not ANSWER Questions or DISCUSS. So please do NOT give reactions here. They will be DELETED" after blocking he use a other ipadress and keeps doing it. Look out for this imbecile on your wiki -- [[w:nl:gebruiker:walter]]

3 2

Desysoping
by Jack Lutz 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

How is one to call for a sysop have their privileges removed for blocking? RfC, the first step, states that "at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed." I'm not sure my complaint applies. It is that sysop Ta bu shi da yu blocked user NSM88 in violation of the blocking policy. This may be called "resolved" (I'm not sure) because NSM88 has been subsequently unblocked(?). But regardless, I consider TBSDY's actions to be an abuse of the blocking policy and would like to move for his administrator privileges to be removed. I see ArbCom has rejected a number of cases for not going through RfC. How am I to do this under RfC's terms? Dispute resolution against sysops is currently very, very slim. It should be easier to lose administrator privileges--and these are privileges--than to gain them. I cannot find any information on the consequences of out-of-policy blocks, and Blocking_policy's coverage of ethics consists only of "users should not block those with whom they are currently engaged in conflict." Does that cover personal attacks or threats? Is a sysop permitted to declare text of a user with whom they are in conflict a threat and summarily block them? Yes, I'm talking about TBSDY and User:SS-88 in that case. [[w:User:119]]

4 4

"The God-King drives a Hyundai"
by Sj 19 Feb '05

19 Feb '05

Daniel Pink's WIRED article about Wikipedia, "the self-organizing, self-repairing, hyperaddictive library of the future," has hit the shelves. Titled "The Book Stops Here", the six-page piece opens with a picture of Jimbo gazing levelly over a large stack of Britannica volumes and -- are those the 2001 Florida Statues? It follows up with a set of beautiful sketches of six active wikipedians (Angela, Bryan Derksen, Carptrash, Kingturtle, Ram-Man, and Raul654), whose stories are woven into the article. Pink deals quite well with the nuances and motivations of the en: community, and the Wikipedia healing factor. However he all but ignores other languages (the article's one real flaw), and makes no mention of Wikimedia, New York, or other gatherings. He also demonstrates a Pelligrinesque affection for the term "God-King" (the subject is a quote from the article). More : http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/2005/02/17#a797 Cheers, SJ -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sj

12 17

NSM88, deletion of user page image, personal attacks
by Jack Lutz 19 Feb '05

19 Feb '05

Hello, I understand user NSM88 had at one time an image of himself dressed in some kind of Nazi or neo-Nazi uniform displayed on his user page, and that it was deleted. Two issues stemming from that: deletion justification, and personal attacks by admins. The deletion log reads: 12:06, 15 Feb 2005 Theresa knott deleted Image:Walternsm.jpg (This image will upset a number of users and lead to disruption rather than cooperation) This bothers me. That it will "lead to disruption" is, I think, a strained justification for removing an image of someone used on their own personal page which, so far as I know contained nothing more 'graphic' than a 'Nazi uniform'. If the justification for deleting an image is that it bore a Nazi emblem, then at least one administrator is deleting images which offend their own or other contributors' personal or political beliefs. How can that stand? If I should upload an image of myself wearing a Democratic or Republican pin, for example, would that be "disruptive"? There is no evidence that he did not act in good faith. Looking at it further, I see personal motives for banning and personal attacks against him by an administrator. I've blocked you for being a hateful individual. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:21, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC) [User talk:NSM88] Feel free to visit nsm888 on some OTHER website. Removing advertising for an offensive organisation.) [User:NSM88 edit summary, 11:23, 15 Feb 2005 Ta bu shi da yu] Liberation from what? Liberation from having a brain? - Ta bu shi da yu 11:25, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC) [User:NSM88 hist] You are now only blocked for 48 hours. Don't thank me though. If I had my way, none of you people would be posting on here. But I'll be watching you. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:06, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC) [User talk:NSM88] Sure he has. His political views are extremely hateful. He openly proclaimed that he was a white supremecist (though under the guise of "White liberation"). If you don't like what I did, tough. I've been open about what I've done, but I don't expect you to understand. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:19, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC) [User talk:NSM88] Please, someone tell me this isn't acceptable behavior from administrators. [[en:User:119]]

16 28

Day 0 Fund Drive Report
by Daniel Mayer 18 Feb '05

18 Feb '05

Our first quarter 2005 fund drive officially started at midnight UTC Friday morning. On Day 0 (Thursday eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not available in UTC) we made $1,023.19 (USD) through PayPal (other sources unkown). As of right now we have generated a total of $7,043.80 in the fund drive (PayPal only; other sources unkown), so Day 1 looks like it will be big. Some choice comments from Day 0: See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_0 "Amazing. I've spent many many hours here over the last couple months learning about our world. Please keep it up!" by Sean Vaughan "I wanted to be the first" by Daniel Wool (hi Danny!) "I have learned so much from this site. I used to be frustrated because I couldn't read about things on sites like Encarta, but now I can and it's all here." by Anonymous "I absolutely love Wikipedia, I have never donated to anything before but I gladly do to this!" by Anonymous "WikiPeida rocks!" by David Ouziel And my personal favorite: "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest the underpants of your enemies" by Christopher J Hutten Czaps Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO PS - there still is much translating work to do at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/WMF/Fundraising_pages __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

1 0

Re: [Wikitech-l] French wikipedians requesting to install Wikiforum extension on French Wikipedia
by Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales 18 Feb '05

18 Feb '05

I was prepared to say that I'm against the idea until I tried it. For me the key is: I can edit other people's posts. This keeps it a wiki, and this has very important social implications. I would be opposed to much use of talk pages that allow for discussions that don't let other people edit. It is very important as a matter of mutual trust that we *can* edit comments, even if we almost *never* do, as a matter of custom. Public restaurants might be much safer if every table was in a different room with a locked door. That way, no one could hit each other. But it's good for society that we sit at restuarants peacefully together. Sure, people *could* hit each other, but they *don't*. (Usually :-)) I like it. --Jimbo

2 1

← Newer
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Older →

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

Wikipedia-l February 2005