User talk:Tim Starling/Archive 2

Since no one responded before, I'll ask again. Is there some sort of (meta)page that will list, instead of all recent changes, only those recent changes made by users who are not logged in? This might be an easy way to track vandalism, as it seems to me that most vandalism is caused by passersby rather than established users... with the obvious exception of "career" vandals such as Lir or Michael. I'm thinking a DDQ would probably do it, but I'm new to such fancy-shmancy type stuff. Any help would be appreciated. --Dante Alighieri 08:32 23 May 2003 (UTC)

No. Might be useful, but keep in mind that you would then be missing in-between and on-top edits by non-anonymous users, making it hard to get a coherent picture. But just to detect unchecked vandalism it might be a good idea, perhaps in the same style as the contributions page, with the "(top)" flag to indicate whether a change has been edited since, or only listing (top) edits. --Eloquence 09:21 23 May 2003 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking. I was hoping to have some sort of resource to make it easier to find unchecked vandalism. Can someone construct such a page or at least direct me how to do it myself? --Dante Alighieri 09:33 23 May 2003 (UTC)
"SELECT * from recentchanges where rc_user=0 order by rc_timestamp desc" gets you the anonymous changes. The top mark is a little harder, take a look at SpecialContributions.php in the Wikipedia source code and search for "topmark". Feel free to hack a page together, we can always use more developers. --Eloquence 09:41 23 May 2003 (UTC)

I submitted this exact idea to the Sourceforge feature request tracker months ago, and I also pointed out that it would only take a few lines of PHP code to implement. Preferably the option would be hidden to the "anonymous" users themselves -- if it was displayed in full view on RC, it would encourage vandals to log in. -- Tim Starling 05:23 24 May 2003 (UTC)

Yes, a quick hack that only shows anonymous edits would be simple -- but not very useful, because you need to know if someone else has already edited the page in question, and you need the proper diff links. But since you seem to know enough about PHP to implement it yourself, we look forward to seeing your full implementation. --Eloquence 11:18 24 May 2003 (UTC)
I don't like writing code when I can't test it. My one submission so far (salted passwords) broke the code in about 5 different ways -- it took Lee quite some time to find all the bugs. I might be able to set up my own test server in a few weeks from now... Unless someone wants to lend me an account on test.wikipedia.org? Can I have CVS access as well? -- Tim Starling 15:04 24 May 2003 (UTC)
Give me the name of your SourceForge account and I'll set you up with CVS access. Double-check with Jimbo about a login on the server, I guess. I don't think I'm supposed to hand them out willy-nilly ;) --Brion 16:34 24 May 2003 (UTC)
My sourceforge account is "timstarling". And obviously if you can't give me access to test.wikipedia.org without giving me access to the whole machine we'll have to get authorization from Jimbo. That's fine. -- Tim
Okay, you should be added to the project and able to check in to CVS. You might also want to drop Lee Crocker a note; he's got a test installation on his server and has handed out logins to a couple other developers. --Brion 05:20 25 May 2003 (UTC)
What makes setting up a test server difficult? Grab a copy of Apache and MySQL, a database dump and you're ready to go, it doesn't need to be a remote machine. I have no objections to giving you CVS access, but please check back on wikitech-l before implementing that mega-move-page feature of yours; I'm afraid it might cause major breakage (potential for substantial abuse; multiple parallel edit conflicts etc.). --Eloquence 01:11 25 May 2003 (UTC)
The primary thing I'm worried about is HDD space: I've only got 500MB left and as far as I'm concerned that's swap space. Maybe I'll get a new one soon but it's not going to be just for Wikipedia's sake. The other thing is the time required to get Wikipedia working under Windows. My PhD, and a number of other commitments, are making me very conscious of time-management at the moment. -- Tim Starling 04:52 25 May 2003 (UTC)
Heh, I know the feeling - I'm on my diploma myself. But this thing is just too damn addictive ;-). As for HD space, you could use one of the smaller databases from Wikipedia:Database download. But setting it up under Windows may be a PITA. <insert OS flame here> --Eloquence 05:00 25 May 2003 (UTC)

I noticed that you rewrote TextOut after seeing my vote for deletion. I still think it should be deleted. Wikipedia is not an SDK (to coin a policy). I haven't come across any other functions from APIs listed in the Wikipedia, and even then, the TextOut article does not provide anything more than the Windows SDK. Why do you think it should say (and by letting it stay, saying that Wikipedia should contain articles on specific functions)? CGS 20:40 28 May 2003 (UTC).

Answer at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion -- Tim Starling 00:01 29 May 2003 (UTC)
Ok, but I just dread the idea of someone writing a bot that copies across the entire PHP manual or something like that. CGS 14:54 29 May 2003 (UTC).

Thanks for the tip about name changing. I might just do it. Probably not right away: a) I'd like to come up with a reasonably clever pseudonym (I prefer to remain anonymous) and b)I seem to be locked in a feud in which my credibility and good faith are constantly being questioned (to say nothing of my taste, knowledge and intelligence), and I'm afraid that changing my name would make me look as if I am suffering from shame and ducking for cover (rather than confident as ever that God is on my side, so to speak). I think you're right about the PR value of a non-IP name. I imagine I'd have gotten better treatment if I'd started that way. Good luck with the quantum computing. It sounds like cool stuff.168... 18:18 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Terrific! it reads nicely. Kingturtle 13:54 30 May 2003 (UTC)


Hi Viking. Why didn't you choose the same name for yourself here as in the German Wikipedia? There is no sysop called Viking on de:Wikipedia:Administratoren. Which sysop are you? -- Tim Starling 14:03 30 May 2003 (UTC) ---

hallo Tim,
the way wikipedia is built all imput is tracable - we just do not want to have our names linked towards content of the like (because our children and students do sometimes look at "users contributions" - we allow you to edit our project, so why do you question or challenge a viking? Become a sysop too! We invite you! Maybe we can meet then and discuss matters of honor - a real viking would have never answered to your way of addressing, however we have not given up on cooperation and communication within wikipedia
Viking 14:17 30 May 2003 (UTC)

Tim - heya. Just curious, regarding Erythrophobia, is the source of a user's IP sufficient information to grant us permission to republish stuff on Wikipedia? Even if it was posted by the original author (or someone at his university), it seems that we would need some explicit declaration of rights, from them, to publish the material. -- Wapcaplet 00:16 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I think I'll do some editing/rephrasing anyway, to be on the safe side. As it stands, it does not even mention the word erythrophobia. Thanks for the clarification. -- Wapcaplet 00:31 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Tim - thanks for following up on the Erythrophobia thing. Glad to see that Dr. Gerlach was the source. I usually try to avoid copyright paranoia, but this one seemed significant enough to be concerned about. Thanks again! -- Wapcaplet 00:12 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Just for kicks, I thought I'd try making [[spectral envelope]] just the tiniest bit harder to create by unlinking it. Of course, if you object, the only place that had a link was [[Linear predictive coding]], and you can put it back. -- Someone else 05:07 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)


In case you didn't already know, I've created a group watchlist of sorts at Wikipedia:Favorite pages of banned users to help with tracking when Michael is vandalizing (and any future vandals like him). So feel free too use it, I have already found it helpful, and please add to it when he vandalizes more. Thanks. MB 22:12 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)


Thank you for you hard work on figuring out HP's Cartography Conference. A word of warning however: On some of HP's other pages on which he had written some deliberately cryptic stuff, I wrote a version explaining that "Writers on Subject X aredeliberately cryptic.. Here is an example...". Then some other well-meaning (I assume!) wikipedian saw that there was a problem with the page (on VfD) and merged HP's content with mine.. making it impossible for a reader to know what is really the heart of the matter. I have given up trying to clean after HP... it was taking up all the time I have available for the 'pedia but just thought I would warn that you are in for a long slog if you want to keep his contributions on track. Pcb21 09:53 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)


I am not an advocate of pataphysics. (that is just for the record, take it as you will) I do however want to make clear that the current practitioners of pataphysics do not necessarily have anything to do with the original science of pataphysics by Alfred Jarry; any more than say any form of christianity has to do with christs actual teachings. Uhm. I think that is all I really wanted to say. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 07:38 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)


After your last comment i thought I had better reply here. I have no great problem about living in a structured and coherent society, but I don't believe we do. You may feel safe on your streets but I am not sure that I do. (one of my neighbours was stabbed in the streets on Monday. Fortunately he is off the critical list. The last stabbing a couple of hundred yards down the street in March was fatal.) I think we live in a structured but incoherent society where wealth and resources arer taken from the majority of poor people to support islands of extravagance - well that's what I see when I look out of my window (aside from Sir Christopher Wren's Royal Observatory which I can peer at over my computer screen). I live in one of the poorest wards in England which is alongside the opulebnce of Canary Wharf. I checked out your work on Newton. When i get a chance I want to do some stuff on Gresham College, a fascinating topic - but this might involve doing some prior work on the Antwerp rebellion and the development of the bourse which Thomas Gresham emulated before setting up Gresham College (probably inspired by Humphrey Gilbert's essay proposing setting up an Academy. Harry Potter 06:08 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Unfortunately I think it will be impossible to do justice to Gresham College without drawing out plenty of accusations of "unverifiable factoids" and "nonsense". This is why I have hung back from the task, starting in around about way, such as Knights of St Thomas - which needs lots of development first, developing the items on other actors in the drama like Gresham, Gilbert, Francis Bacon and other such influential people before getting really to grips with the College.

By the by are yoiu familiar with John Greaves, the Gresham professor who visited Mount Athos and the pyramids and wrote "On Cubits" which I think may have been wrongly attributed to Newton. Of course there is also Newton's alchemical works which were discussed by John Maynard Keynes at a meeting of teh Royal Society in the forties (I have not tracked this text down). Oh dear so much to do and so little time!!!Harry Potter


Did the dingo eat your baby?

The dingo ate many of my babies. I can't have it going hungry, can I? -- Tim Starling 05:53 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I know exactly how you feel mate!


Hi, Tim, and thanks; I had my browser setted to disable cookies. It's fixed now. Very grateful.-- The Warlock June 13, 2003, 6:34 (GMT) O, please excuse my misspelling of "setted" instead of set; I was so shocked of being logged in that almost forgot how to write... A teacher that cannot forgive himself: The Warlock 8:51 (GMT):-)


Hi, on my talk page I have a strange comment where somebody refers to me as the Irish god, Lir. I just noticed that u left a comment when you edited a page, stating, "I am turning into Lir" I can't help but wonder what the connection is between Irish mythology and encylopedias? Pizza Puzzle

[name removed] (recently discussed on Wikipedia talk:Wikipedians by number of edits), also known as Lir and half a dozen other names, is a troll who hung around Wikipedia for about 6 or 9 months. He now seems to be gone, thank God. He was well known for not using the "preview" function, and constantly making perhaps half a dozen minor edits in a row, in the space of a few minutes. That was why I said "I am turning into Lir", because I didn't bother with preview and it took me three edits to make a redirect. -- Tim Starling 03:02 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It doesnt seem to matter whether I use preview or not, I invariably find just "one more" thing to fix after I click save page. . Pizza Puzzle


same here. fmt

Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License, 4D
"Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document".
IANAL, but I suggest that if someone uploads a photo to Wikipedia and they put a copyright notice on the image description page, then third parties should preserve that copyright notice in any modified version they produce. That may be a sufficient assurance for some photographers. Martin 09:20 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thank you. I did say they were uninformed opinions, but they will be slightly more informed in the future. The trademark issue still remains, I assume? -- Tim Starling 10:09 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I frankly don't have a clue how trademark law and copyright law might interact! Martin 10:14 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Well yes, it's an interesting question. My (again uninformed) understanding is that you can pick which one you want to sue under. GFDL isn't copyright law, it's a contract. It applies to trademark law just as it applies to copyright.

I don't think it is - there needs to be some sort of agreement, and mutual benefit between parties to establish a contract. Under copyright law, by default, everything comes with all rights reserved. The GFDL is a set of conditions under which the copyright holder grants additional permissions - you can use, redistribute and/or modify only if you follow the provisions of the license, anything else has to be discussed with the copyright holder as usual. -- Jim Regan 18:15 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)
A contract requires "consideration", which is mutual cost, not benefit. Here, the consideration on the part of the copyright holder is the release of information, and the approval given to copying. The consideration on the licensee side is the agreement to various restrictive terms, including redistribution only under GFDL. The "agreement" in this case is towards the implicit end of the scale, but certainly not without precedent. For example, an easily visible sign on the outside of a store warning customers bags may be checked on exit, constitutes a contract agreed to by the customer on entry. A sign on the inside of the store is not automatically a contract, but regular customers may enter such a contract through "continued action". That is, they saw the sign previously, they were aware of the terms, and yet they continued to enter the store repeatedly. GFDL has all the essential characteristics of a contract. Of course, a contract is void if it has illegal object, so someone posting copyright material on this site without permission will find no protection under GFDL. -- Tim Starling 00:49 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi Tim,

Have you voted yet on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (years in titles)?. I am afraid that wiki is about to make a major captioning error. It seems to be voting to putting the year first when naming elections, sports events, etc. While people often do so in spoken english, in titles and captions it doesn't do so, because to do so makes the year the central fact, whereas in reality what the event is is central, the year the disambigulation point. For example, media outlets caption election coverage as Election 2000, General Election 2000, Presidential Election 2000 etc because the the fact that it is an election is the main fact to know, that it is a general/presidential/local/state/congressional election central. We have been following this rule for ages on wiki, so we have everything from UK general election, 1970 to U.S. presidential election, 1932 to Irish general election, 2002, etc. Moving to [[1932 US presidential election]] goes against standard media caption style and would involve the wholescale renaming of pages covering elections and all sorts of events from all over the globe. You are talking about hundreds if not thousands of pages having to be renamed and go against standard caption style, which is often called the where what, when rule. After all, people if they are searching for a page on an election will use the name of the election as their entry point for a list (particularly if they don't know the year). Typing in a search for U.S. presidential election throws up a clear orderly list of US presidential elections, with the disambigulation year at the end uniformly.

As you may guess, I do think wiki's proposed to system would amount to a pointless waste of energy in remaining vast numbers of pages, especially when it is to a format that is generally not used in titles and captions but only in speech. And this debate is all about titles. So I am canvassing support to vote down what I think is a flawed, ill thought through and pointless that originated initially with Adam Rinkleff (in the Susan Mason persona) some months ago and survived as an idea after SM was banned. FearÉIREANN 01:51 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)


And why don't you want me posting Wops? to wikiwiki.org?

reply on User talk:165.230.149.164

Congratulations! You finally deleted that guy with the orgy and the weird name! What took you so long to get around to it?


http://www.googlism.com/index.htm?ism=Adam+Rinkleff&type=1 Pizza Puzzle