User talk:Ilmari Karonen/archives/8

Thank you for defending CatDiffuse

Thank you for your defense of CatDiffuse: I had no idea it was up for deletion, and I am amazed at the response it has generated. I invite you to review and participate in WP:∫, to bring order to Wikipedia. P.S. If you've got a better color scheme, experiment! Cwolfsheep 05:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Image tagging for Image:Bread_clip.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Bread_clip.jpg. The image has been identified as not specifying the source and creator of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the source and creator of the image on the image's description page, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided source information for them as well.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:

• Wikipedia:Image use policy
• Wikipedia:Image copyright tags

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 07:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, OrphanBot. :-) I already moved the previous notice I got for this image to the original uploader's talk page, but I guess I'll let this one stay here so no other bots will come and post another one... —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Map of Islay conversion

Brilliant - many thanks. Pstuart84 Talk 23:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Unwatch link

I wrote an unwatch link script a long time ago, and it's been edited and modified by a few other people. I was using Quarl's AJAX version as part of his PowerTools package, but that whole package has become too convoluted with dependencies and such for me to pick and choose which parts I want to use anymore. So there are several alternatives. Do you know which is the best?

• Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Unwatch
• User:Ilmari_Karonen/unwatch.js
• User:Quarl/unwatch.js (original AJAX version)
  • User:Quarl/watchlist.js?
  • User:Quarl/wikiwatch.js?
• User:Matthewmayer/monobook.js — Omegatron 16:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The first two should be identical, plus or minus some personal customizations which I haven't bothered to merge back into the "official" version (or any improvements by others that I haven't had time to merge into my copy). I've never tried the ones by Quarl, so I can't say much about them. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Alright. I guess I'll just have to read through them all and figure out how they work for myself.  :-) — Omegatron 22:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The last one, which you just added, might be based on an old version of my unwatch script or could be an independent reinvention. Either way, it looks like it probably only works if you haven't selected "Enhanced recent changes" in your preferences. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok. — Omegatron 22:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I've just decided to use yours, as you've integrated it with things like wgServer and seem to have made it load faster. I'd like the asynchronous crossing out of the link like Quarl's version, but I don't know enough javascript to reverse-engineer it. — Omegatron 16:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It might not be particularly hard to combine my link-adding code with Quarl's AJAX backend, I've just never really taken the time to look into it yet. Incidentally, I just replied to your comment at bugzilla:424. I'm thinking I might try adding those unwatch checkboxes to the main watchlist view if I find some time for it. It's not the most straightforward part of MediaWiki, but it shouldn't be that hard. Of course, any such feature, should it get implemented, wouldn't stop these JS solutions from working too. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikibits.js

Hi, and thanks for your edits to User:Howcheng/quickimgdelete.js. However, I've gotten bug reports about this not working properly in IE now which I was able to confirm. This has to do with using addPortletLink() (specifically, line 568 of http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/wikibits.js). In my own examination of the code, something seems to be missing. I don't know how to do edit this file myself, so I'm hoping you do, but what happens when nextnode is null? In IE, we're getting an "invalid argument" message. Shouldn't it be something like:

  if ( nextnode && nextnode.parentNode != node ) nextnode = null;
  if ( nextnode ) 
    node.insertBefore( item, nextnode );
  else
    node.parentNode.appendChild( item );

Thanks. howcheng {chat} 18:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, have a look at the old version of addLink() [1]. That's probably how it should look in addPortletLink. howcheng {chat} 18:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. As far as I can tell from (even Microsoft's) documentation, insertBefore() should do the same as appendChild() if the second parameter is missing, but of course that doesn't mean it actually works that way in all browsers. I've fixed the bug in svn, and it should go live in a few days (along with a bunch of other improvements). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

it should be working now, let me know if you find any more problems. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Nofollow

Hi Ilmari,

Remember me. Nofollow is now on mainspace, okay. So simplest route to generate a sysop controlled "whitelist" for non-nofollow links doesn't even require messing with WikiMedia:

Have a page on meta for sysops to list url stems approved. Generate a new "pseudolanguage" whitelist generated from the meta page at wl.wikipedia.org with diverts set up to take wl.wikipedia.org/abc/sample.htm to http://abc/sample.htm for any approved url stem http://abc/.

Google is pretty good at unravelling transparent diverts. Anyone could use the syntax to send the link to the wl site but the links won't work for non-approved sites. Make sense? Thoughts? --BozMo talk 22:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

We already have the interwiki link syntax which can be used to achieve a similar effect, although the procedure for adding new prefixes is somewhat cumbersome and in any case only works for sites that accept titles mangled in the same way as MediaWiki mangles them (although that's actually quite many of them). Another possibility might be to use the existing spam whitelist for this, or to create a separate whitelist for this specific purpose. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 10:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I think the existing spam whitelist serves a specific purpose (nofollow does not negate the need to have a blacklist which is partly to block links being put in for human surfers: the existing whitelist is needed for exceptions as long as the blacklist is needed). Perhaps to avoid confusion we should call the non "nofollow" list a "greenlist". But a new greenlist requires a new patch and I am always told never change the Wikimedia code if any other fix exists. So why not send it all through interwiki to a greenlist-generated site of diverts? --BozMo talk 10:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Patches to MediaWiki code are always welcome, especially for features like this which could be useful for other sites as well. That said, it might be best to implement such a "greenlist" feature as an extension, as the spam blacklist is, so that it can be optionally installed by any sites that wish to use it. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Too many ideas in circulation for the moment. Where would any decision be taken?--BozMo talk 22:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

PS: well done sorting this guy below out...

For developing a greenlist extension, you basically just have to convince someone to code it. That someone might be me, if I happen to get around to it, but any other MediaWiki developer, or enyone else who knows the code well enough, could do it. Once that is done, you or someone else needs to to convince Brion or someone else with shell access that the extension a) is not going to crash Wikipedia and b) would be useful to have. For the latter, pointing to a discussion on, say, the Village pump that shows a consensus for it might be useful, but for such a completely optional feature might not really be necessary.

The place for filing a formal request for both the development and the installation is at bugzilla; discussion is also possible there, but might be better carried out on the wikitech-l mailing list or, even less formally, on the #mediawiki IRC channel, since those are more visible than individual bugzilla entries. (See also: meta:MediaWiki feature request and bug report discussion) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 09:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The other problem is populating the greenlist. I guestimate 250,000 legit links. Perhaps I should start by fetching all the links in say the non commercial sections of DMOZ or something. I am sure it is fixable. However, I do think it is an important contribution to society and we ought to do it. I will try the wikitech list. --BozMo talk 12:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Ref the wikitech thing: do you see a problem with scaleability or only list managability?--BozMo talk 15:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I see no fundamental scalability problem. We're already keeping several copies of this data in the database, both in the article contents and in the existing external links table, so an additional table will not increase the disk usage by more than a tiny fraction. And answering queries like "which of these keys are found in this table?" is exactly what databases are good at. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Not very familiar with these things but the maillist discussion seems to have ended with a "lets discuss when we've got something working"? Which basically is a sort of "don't call us"... that right?--BozMo talk 14:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say more like "okay, now who wants to code this? somebody? anybody? eh... why are you looking at me, I'm busy right now." :-/ Which is really par for the course with any volunteer software project. The only people who are getting paid to do this are Brion and Tim, and they often tend to be genuinely busy with other things (such as Single login). My suggestion would be to wait a while and see if anyone picks it up. If nothing happens within a month or so, try gently reminding people that the issue is still open, just in case they forgot or things stalled for some other reason. Repeat as necessary. (Or of course, if you can, code it yourself. Just like on Wikipedia itself, that's often the fastest — and the only guaranteed — way to get something done.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

ok will do. thanx --BozMo talk 16:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Spam in blogs

(back to margin) Illmari, you have GOT to be kidding about your edits [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spam_in_blogs&diff=next&oldid=102401933 on the topic of "nofollow" in Wikipedia. Do you actually work for Wikia? Do you realize that Wikia is NOT a Mediawiki "project"? I'm rolling back your edits, and you better discuss them on the Talk page and get some consensus before you edit this topic again. --JossBuckle Swami 14:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Map of Nauru help

Hi, I am seeking just a bit of help using .svg images. I finished labeling the map from another user in English. I have uploaded it to wikipedia, as you can see here: [2] If you can see, only my titles appear, but the original titles that the other user put on the map, including the index box, do not appear. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I want his original text to show as well as my newly added text. Is there a way to merge all the layers or something? I'm new to vector images so please reply ASAP to see if we can solve the problem. Bobo is soft 03:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, the titles look great. Hopefully someone can fix the black box.Bobo is soft 23:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

monobook.js thanks & followup

I think that I can manage that, but is it 'kosher' for me to alter other user's monobook pages? SkierRMH 03:08, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

No need, I went and fixed them already. I've generally found the people won't mind you fixing bugs in their user scripts as long as you clearly explain what you're doing and provide a link to some place with more information. Oh, and try not to introduce any new bugs while fixing the old ones. :-) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 03:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Watchlist

Hello. I am not sure if this is the right place to ask... But someone changed something, and now when I press alt + w while editing messages, it automatically redirects page to watchlist added page while I am still editing the page, instead of just putting a check mark on the watchlist checkbox. Can you direct me to the discussions on this change? AQu01rius (User • Talk) 03:16, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I thought Simetrical fixed that one already. Anyway, it's a bug, and shouldn't be happening. Let me have a look at it... —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 03:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it works for me. What skin are you using? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 03:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

monobook

Thanks for fixing my monobook - I just tried to replicate what I have with my previous ID - clearly I didn't get it quite right. --Fredrick day 09:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Just James' Image Copyright Infringement

Please accept my apology for breaching copyright. It's just that whenever I upload images to wikipedia, all the different license tags confuse me. I'm never certain as to which tags are the appropriate ones to attach to my images.--Just James 04:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Apology accepted. In the future, I'd suggest looking at it less from the point of view of "what tag should I use?" and more from "is it OK for me to upload this at all?". As a rule of thumb, anything you find on the web is probably not OK, unless a) it is clearly licensed as free content, or b) you can make a good case for using it on Wikipedia even though it's a copyright violation.

That said, we really ought to have some kind of flowchart for license selection. Let me try to sketch a one here for you:

1. Did you make it all by yourself, without basing it on or including in it any copyrightable material by others?
   • If so, choose any of the "self made" tags, such as {{PD-self}}, {{GFDL-self}}, etc.
2. Did the creator explicitly release it under a free license which allows unrestricted copying, distribution and modification even for commercial purposes?
   • If so, choose the tag that matches the license. (There almost certainly already is one.)
3. Did you make it based on a freely licensed work?
   • If so, does the license for the original work include a "share alike" clause?
     • If yes, you must license your modified version under the same license (see point 2).
     • If not, you're free to choose your own license, just as if you'd made it all by yourself (see point 1), as long as it is no less restrictive than the original. (For example, you generally cannot release a modified version into the public domain unless the original was in the public domain too.)
   • Using the same license is always the simplest option, and should always be OK.
   • In any case, you're generally required to indicate who made the original — if not by the license, then at least by common courtesy.
   • Modifying (free) images already on Wikipedia falls into this category.
     • If you reupload your modified version over the original, the file history will show the original uploader (and the image description will presumably already show the original author, if different).
     • If you upload your version with a different name, link back to the original image and note the name(s) of the original author(s).
     • Keeping the existing license tag is generally OK. For modifying public domain images (such as photos of old artworks), the {{PD-retouched-user}} tag may be useful.
4. Is it ineligible for copyright (for various reasons) or has the copyright expired?
   • If so, it might be in the public domain. Choose a tag explaining why.
   • Be careful. For example, while works created by the U.S. federal government are by law ineligible for copyright, works created for the federal government by contractors are not. Telling the difference may be difficult — if in doubt, ask.
5. Does it pass our fair use criteria? At a minimum, this means it must be necessary to properly illustrate the article, irreplaceable and no larger than necessary.
   • If so, it might be OK to use it on Wikipedia even though it's not freely licensed. You need to write a detailed explanation of why this is so, and tag it accordingly.
   • The attitude towards such "fair use" images has been getting stricter lately. Many such images on Wikipedia might not pass a careful examination any more, and only exist because no-one has gotten around to nominating them for deletion yet. This is not an area where "I've seen worse cases" is a good justification. If in doubt, don't.
   • You own Utopia planitia.jpg may be a borderline case. It's small enough, and impossible to replace with a free alternative, but there may be some doubt as to whether it's really necessary for proper discussion the subject and not merely decorative.
6. If it's none of the above, you probably should not upload it.

If you find the later questions confusing, note that you don't have to understand them, as log as you just don't upload any such images. A perfectly good guideline that will keep you out of trouble is "only upload images you made all by yourself". If you're not sure whether a particular image is OK or how to tag it, you can also ask for help from others. Also note that uploading any images matching points 1–4 directly to the Wikimedia Commons is usually a good idea. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 08:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki request

This is a question regarding interwiki between the Swedish and Finnish Wikipedias. As you may know Sweden and Finland share a limited amount of legislation dating back to the law revision of 1734. It would therefore be of interest to link the corresponding articles. I have tried to search the Finnish Wikipedia using what I think are the corresponding terms, but due to a lack of Finnish knowledge I have come up empty handed. If you happen to have the time to briefly look into this, it would certainly be much appreciated.

The articles of particlar interest includes 1734 års lag, Handelsbalken (Finnish perhaps Kauppakaari), Byggningabalken (Finnish perhaps Rakennuskaari) and Rättegångsbalken (Finnish perhaps Oikeudenkäymiskaari).

Best regards, Nomer 19:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC) (see also sv:user:Nomer).

I believe the problem is that the Finnish Wikipedia doesn't have articles on any of those topics. For the law of 1734, the article on the Constitution of Finland has a redlink to Vuoden 1734 laki, while 1734 currently redlinks to Ruotsin yleinen valtakunnanlaki ("Swedish general state law" / "Sveriges allmänna rikslag"). For the "balks" (I don't suppose there's an English word?), the translations seem to be correct, but they're all redlinks. (For Rättegångsbalken, I've also heard the name Oikeudenkäyntikaari, but according to Google that's much less common and probably incorrect. By the way, when searching, it might be useful to also look for the genitive form kaaren.) I might try to start stubs on those topics based on the Swedish articles, but I won't do it right now — now I'll instead go get some sleep. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into the matter. Nomer 19:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Help needed

Hi, I need help from an admin, I've picked up a name from the list and you're the lucky one.
Some months ago (5 July 2006) I created an account on en.wiki (User:Jalo). Unfortunately I've forgotten my password, and I've set no mail, so I can't recover it. I suppose that you cannot get it back for me, and so today I've created a new account (User:Jalo2). I wish to sign my posts as Jalo and so, in order to avoid mistakes, my question is: Could you block (infinite) my old nickname? I'm using the same nickname on it.wiki and on Commons, so I can prove (if you want) that this nickname is the mine. Thanks for all, in any case --Jalo 17:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

You can do better than that: see Wikipedia:Usurpation. Following the instructions there should let you reclaim your original account. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, new one to me. Good thing he didn't pick my name off the list... --BozMo talk 20:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The policy is pretty restrictive, but his case seems to match the requirements (the main one being no edits by the account to be usurped). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki

At Wikispam we have just noticed that the interwiki list at Meta is full of spam sites and rubbish seeWikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Wikipedia:Interwiki_map_--_some_spam_on_the_list_of_interwiki_links.3F. Ok, so we clean it up. However it also bypasses nofollow (see MoinMoin: for example: the moinmoin link is clean. So is this an easy way forward (extend interwiki to all whitelisted sites, or maybe write a patch very similar to interwiki which takes from a local list instead of meta) or am I missing something? I haven't forgotten your comment that I may need to swot up and do this myself but some guidance on which bits of the code I need to look at would help since I'll be starting from nowhere. Thanks--BozMo talk 16:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

BTW started getting a greenlist together at User:BozMo/whitelist. I think the short list so far covers about 300,000 links from wikipedia. Is the format ok? --BozMo talk 15:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Block school

Hello. You have blocked my school, Niverville Collegiate Institute, yet again. Over the years you have blocked us many, many times. If you would like you could permanently block us from editting rights. It would save you time because whenever we are unblocked a student gets us blocked again. Here is the IP address of our school 64.56.135.200. Feel free to block us indefinately. Thank-you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.112.173.205 (talk) 23:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

I've now placed an indefinite soft block on this IP address. If you wish to edit Wikipedia from school in the future, you'll need to register a user account at home and log on to Wikipedia with it when editing from school. If you try to edit without logging in, you'll now get a block message telling you to do so. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

GTHS Template

Hi Ilmari Karonen. I noticed you reverted my changes to the Template:User GTHS page. I'm well aware that the first image I used was in breach of copyright so I replaced it with a different GTHS emblem that was uploaded by a completely different user that does not breach copyright. You yourself replaced the copyrighted GTHS emblem from the Gymea Technology High School article with this other GTHS emblem that I am referring to. Believe me, after you left me that warning I have been very careful when it comes to images. So the way I see it is that either this other emblem I used is also copyrighted (in which case you will have to remove the new GTHS emblem you yourself added to the Gymea Technology High School article) or you have made a mistake on the Template:User GTHS page and you will have to revert your changes.

You removed this emblem that I uploaded which was a breach of copyright --> Image:Gths emblem.jpg

So instead, I used this image which was uploaded by the user OSX. OSX attached the proper tags to this image:Image:Gymea technology high school emblem.png

So if you have made a mistake, please make the appropriate correction. The next time you think I'm in error, leave me a message. I see from the history that you edited the Template:User GTHS on the 26th of January.

Please inform me of your decision. In the meantime, I am going to revert your changes to the GTHS template.--Just James 06:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I've responded at Template talk:User GTHS. To summarize, the rules are stricter for user pages than for articles. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Image:Month8fetus.jpg

The uploader of this image clearly specifies in their summary that they are releasing it under fair use and even link to Stanford's website about fair use to back it up. Without any evidence that they actually understand what the GFDL means I do not think it can be assumed they selected the right tags for it — there is active evidence that they do not understand what the GFDL means. I think we need to point that out. The author was asked to clarify and has not done so yet; in my mind the copyright status of the image is ambiguous at best. --24.147.86.187 14:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Ambiguous is indeed the key word here. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that they did intend to release it under the GFDL: they not only selected "GFDL" from the license menu but also manually typed "{{GFDL-self}}" into the image description box (hence the double tagging), and they edited the image description page (to add a source URL) after they'd uploaded the image and presumably seen the license tags on the page. On the other hand, as you point out, there's also plenty of evidence to suggest that they're confused about something; the whole concept of "released under fair use" doesn't seem to really make much sense, and it's hard to say what, if anything, they might've meant by it. What's also interesting is that the Stanford link they included was dead until I changed it to point to archive.org, and apparently has been that way since 2003. This could suggest that the entire paragraph may have been a piece of boilerplate text they pasted in without really thinking about it (or checking to see if the link still works). Or maybe not. Anyway, Andrew c has already asked the uploader to clarify the license status on their talk page, and I guess the best thing to do for now is probably to wait and see if they respond. If we don't get any response in a while, it might be good idea to contact the source site directly — I assume they have an e-mail address listed somewhere. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)