Talk:Main Page

Living in an area where the cost of being on line is high, I am trying to set up an 'offline' version of Wikipedia.

Have downloaded the cur_table.sql (all 65 MB on a thin pipe!) and cygwin-1.3.9-1 to try and read the database, but am unable to get it working.

Any suggestions most welcome.

If this works out, should we not post a link in Wiki so others can do the same?

Peter - Bangkok

Peter, please see Wikipedia client and related pages. --Brion VIBBER 20:54 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

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Should this wiki show 'meta.wikipedia.com' or 'metapedia', rater than just 'wikipedia' on the front page and elsewhere? Dave McKee

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Yes!  :-) --LMS

You mean the image to the left? -agree. /jakob.

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OK, the original text is now carefully framed to be neutral. If you don't agree that Sanger's departure has created some governance questions that we should keep front and center for now, you can always move that part off to a file called "governance" or something. But it seems at least as central as the software concerns to me. We should at least solicit an opinion from the people who show up at meta, in a way that makes it quickly useful to the rest of us, e.g. value system

If you see that the meta has been "neutralized" to the point where all mention of governance has been removed, by all means, restore it, this is going to be everyone's responsibility... sooner or later some consensus will arise. There aren't a lot of us using the meta anyway.

Oh, and apologies, 207, I should have framed it better the first time around. I didn't intend to try to set priorities for meta "as a whole", more like reflect the stuff that has repeatedly come up in talk pages. All the links solicit other people's opinions about wiki, I am not trying to impose that, and the only reason governance matters now more than other topics is Sanger's departure. That's it that's all.

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request to solicit input to governance on main meta page

All right, here I am, proposing a change to the meta main page. The same change as above: to put Larry's quote re: anarchy and a solicitation for contributors and users to comment on governance and the wiki value system. I don't care how this is phrased, I don't care who is perceived as running it, but I will note that the visions, worst cases and best cases files have got a trickle of participation, and threats might soon too. So there is some willingness to share these perceptions of the project, and some procedure (e.g. only, mine in status quo) could knit them together to understand the collective will here.

Without that, I don't see how to avoid falling back into anarchy, or empowering a clique of people who happen to have IP ban and page lock power, and who may or may not be able to take the project from 31,000 questionable articles to 100,000 balanced, neutral articles that satisfy someone who is not an English-as-a-first-language citizen of the U.S.A.. - if that's not the goal, pardon me, I thought it was, but I think we all should know what each other think it is. That's what best cases is for. If we just asked everyone to contribute to that on the meta main page, or to complain in worst cases, we might be able to get around personal debates and into the values we have to assess in order to take this project forward.

Thanks, 24.

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I approve of mirwin's proposed change to the meta page, and propose he add a link to w:social capital so people know what that means. I'd like to know if the concepts of Governing Operational distinction and Governing Ontological distinction would help to explain the w:instructional capital trellis on which this w:social capital garden grows...? 24

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Mirwin, if you read everything in 24's contributions you will notice that almost all of it is related to your conflict resolution process, and framed in simple terms that anyone can understand, unlike the various theoretical discussions of NPOV which come from G.O.D. (the Governing Operational Distinctor) Himself. If you could solicit others to contribute to the process of governance outlined there, we might eventually have an anti-clique party here. We might even manage to convert Larry Sanger out of his perceived trollishness. 2

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from Main Page: 'This site needs a mechanism to allow users to delete accounts for themselves.

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a nearly-undisputed morals and ethics article and two pages of discussions are now visible again from the main page, and remain also under 'personal views'. If we cannot agree to non-personal semi-objective views of morals and ethics at least for purposes of working together as writers and editors, then why are we here? It's anti-social to assert that such views are always/only 'personal'. If you have a problem with the term 'moral' or 'ethical' or 'ethics' then take it up in those articles, but don't deny that we *have* such shared social views.

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The front page of Meta-Wikipedia is a bit of a monstrosity. Are there any objections to splitting it up and spinning off topic lists onto separate pages? -- Stephen Gilbert 14:14 Nov 28, 2002 (UTC)

I'll object if you don't clean it up. :) --Brion VIBBER

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I can't find anywhere else to discuss this. Some of the special pages have been supposedly put offline during "peak" hours, which, according to the blurb, are 9 pm to 9 am EST in the US (0200 to 1400). But some of these pages are never being put back on-line during ANY time of the day or night. I haven't been able to find "orphaned articles", for instance, up during any hour. What's the problem? Also, why are pages no longer showing hits?

--user:jaknouse

With articles in Slashdot, Wired, Heise.de, The Guardian, and soon Linux Journal referencing us, all hours are peak hours lately. :) We're working on a more efficient mechanism for caching the results so these pages can be got at 24 hours per day; until then, they're staying disabled to keep things more or less moving.

Updates to the page view counters (which are broken by design anyhow, with no indication of age or unique visitors) have also been disabled for performance. Until they're replaced with a system that works (and doesn't bog down the database with a couple hundred thousand extra writes per day to our busiest table), the misleading numbers are being hidden. --Brion VIBBER 23:23 Feb 1, 2003 (UTC)

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I remember when 24 was unbanned from [[en:]], primarily on the grounds that 24 hadn't been around in a long time and the ban was always only meant to be temporary. Was 24 banned again? I remember that Lir was not banned from [[m:]] when she was banned from [[en:]]. Was 24 ever banned from [[m:]]? Has 142 been positively identified (say, to Jimmy's satisfaction) as 24 and hence subject to the same bans? I haven't been paying attention to banning issues lately, or else I'm sure that I'd know, but I thought that it'd be nice to have a simple answer to all of these, now that 142 has engaged me in conversation, and in light of User:Enchanter's recent edit to Main Page (hence my asking here). Thanks to anybody that can answer me! -- Toby 08:12 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Yes - I was the one who unbanned 24. Ironic huh? IMO 24 and 142 are one and the same (at least the majority of 142s - esp the ones that edit meta). The topics 142 writes on, the use of meta (esp. telling is that 142 links to many pages that 24 wrote or substantially contriubted to on meta), and also the implied threats and severe dislike of Larry, Jimbo and other 'cabal' members all are very similar to 24. There is also the fact that 142s isp is in the same part of Canada that 24 is from. But being 24 shouldn't be reason to extend any ban since 24 was unbanned. What matters the most is what 142 has been doing and we do know that one person using one of the 142 IPs made an implied threat to me (specifically a death threat via a straw man). IMO, making such a threat is enough to be banned from the entire project for a long time (permanently if 142 and 24 are the same person). IIRC 24's threat on Larry (which was for 'great bodily injury' and not death IIRC) was on meta but that was enough to also get him banned from en.wiki. This is perhaps a better question for the mailing list. --Maveric149

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In my opinion, 142 and 24 are the same person. They appear to me to share a common set of concerns and vocabulary, to be from the same part of Canada, to use similar editing styles in articles, and that 142 assiduously re-links and works on articles created by 24. And they both seem to me to have a very short temper. The Anome 09:09 5 Mar 2003 (UTC)

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142/24, have you considered trying other wikis? I can think of two that might be more responsive to your ideas. The first is AndStuff, which deals with worldviews, religion and philosophy. The second is GreenCheese, which is... well, hard to describe. I guess you could say it focuses on unconventional ideas. Lest you think I'm trying get rid of you, you should know that I am an AndStuff contributor, and I may become one at GreenCheese. -- Stephen Gilbert 19:10 5 Mar 2003 (UTC)

I am not sure who you are addressing this to, or why. It seems to me that the right thing to do is eliminate Maveric149 and TheAnome and possibly Enchanter and others who simply have no integrity, and attribute what they don't like to who they don't like, and use that as some kind of excuse to keep picking it apart on grounds that have nothing to do with the quality and usefulness to the project as an encyclopedia or news source. For the two idiots I name, let's be perfect clear: to 'eliminate' a pseudonymous entity means to remove its power to ban or edit, and perhaps its false accusations. Unlike these idiots I do not confuse eliminating an identity with eliminating a body or 'person', or 'being' an identity with 'being' a body or 'person'. Nor do I spread that confusion.

Sorry for the confusion. I'll explain in more detail:

• Who: I'm addressing the person who is confused as to whom I am addressing. Since you choose not to use a name or pseudonym, I use the first bit of your IP number(s).
• What: I'm suggesting other sites that you might like, and that may appreciate your contributions. I am not suggesting the elimination of anyone or anything.
• Why: You aims seem to be incompatible with those of the Wikipedia project, but you may feel more at home at AndStuff and/or GreenCheese. -- Stephen Gilbert

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Any reason why the header at the top of the Meta-Wikpedia page shows up as "Wikipedia" instead of "Meta-Wikipedia"? Just an oversight? - 12.248.92.43 23:51 5 Mar 2003 (UTC)

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NOTE: The user known as 142 who edits in the IP range 142.177.xxx.xxx has been banned from Wikipedia. Any edits made by this person should be reverted on sight. See http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-March/009407.html --Maveric149 04:37 6 Mar 2003 (UTC)

I'm in the process of deleting a large number of articles by 142.177 that have been created since the events that led to 142's ban. If 142.177 wishes I can copy all the deleted text onto one page so that he can salvage the text for other non-wikipedia uses. --Maveric149 05:28 6 Mar 2003 (UTC)

If your behavior is allowed to stand, Maveric149, it will be the certain death of this project. I will make certain of that. You are about to cause many of your friends a considerable humiliation. Your behavior speaks for itself - you have no answer, thus you censor what annoys you. You personally can expect a good deal of trouble for your censorious urges. If you wish this to be a war of who controls what technological capacities, then, so be it, you started it, and I will finish it.