From Wikitravel Shared

[edit] Archives

• Archive 2006-2007

[edit] Request for XML data base dump or other possible collaboration.

Hi Riggwelter, I am creating an new home exchange website and would be most interested in using the wikitravel database for the benefit of our members. If it is possible to collaborate it could a real benefit to wikitravel users as well as our home exchange site. I have outlined how it would benefit and what we are proposing on my user page here: User:Calverley Could you take a look at it and pass it on to the appropriate people. I would like to know what is possible. I have also sent this note to Evan's user page. Thanks for you help ,Grant Calverley

Hi Grant! I suggest that you also talk to the owners of WIkitravel, Internet Brands. Riggwelter 07:47, 16 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] image licenses

Hi Riggwelter! I just wanted to make sure you were aware of the outcome of the licensing discussions we had here recently... the consensus pretty much was that we are not going to delete any images that are unlicensed, since special:upload has always stated that images are ccbysa 1.0 by default if nothing else is selected. We should still encourage people to select licenses, but their images won't be deleted if they don't... thanks! – cacahuate ^talk 18:44, 12 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi! Yes, I have asked myself (at least since I worked on the text on the upload page... which I think I did ages ago) why we delete images based on that very reason... i e that they do not tag them with a valid license. So, it's good to have it settled. Riggwelter 09:30, 17 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi again! The issue was coming up during some mass vfd'ing by a couple of users, they were vfding images without licenses and images that are ccbysa 2.0 or 3.0, etc... there's an archive of some of the discussion at [1] (and scroll down for a few more sections on that page too), though I think that there was discussion going on in the shared vfd page too, but I'm too lazy to search further at the moment... it turned into quite a heated debate unfortunately. But consensus seems to be that no license selected has always meant that it defaults to 1.0, same as text... and that bysa >1.0 are likely compatible, or at least not yet proven to be incompatible. So we've been allowing all to stay, and closing vfd's on either of those as "keeps". :) – cacahuate ^talk 20:22, 17 May 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Admin request

See User talk:Jpatokal – cacahuate ^talk 02:42, 5 July 2008 (EDT)

Just to make that clear, that's for User:Sergey kudryavtsev. Thanks! --Peter ^Talk 23:38, 6 July 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Spamming

Saw your earlier post about the rising level of spamming. I run a wiki and after a few months, spammers started registering user names and posting spam links using automated bots. The problem was easily solved by using Captcha system asking for a simple calculation. May be the developers should introduce a captcha here. --79.75.253.6 17:42, 21 September 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Tampere

Hej! It's true that the website is (C) by the city of Tampere, but they have "silently" accepted their public transit logo to public domain (at least if used in context). Why else would they have a material bank with many logo variations? [2]. But I will ask them if it's OK or not to have the logo in WT. — Ultrix 14:16, 23 May 2010 (EDT)

Hi! Sorry ab out the late answer. Unfortunately, there is no thing as a "silent accept" here. They have to relicense it actively. If you plan to e-mail them or so, send them the following text which they have to accept:

I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of WORK [the filename].

The text of this web page is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribute Share-Alike, version 3,0 and earlier.

I acknowledge that I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product, and to modify it according to their needs, as long as they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws.

I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be attributed to me.

I am aware that the free license only concerns copyright, and I reserve the option to take action against anyone who uses this work in a libelous way, or in violation of personality rights, trademark restrictions, etc.

I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the work may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikitravel project.

The image bank is something they, most likely, intend media to use. However, I seriously doubt that they will accept to relicence their logo to a free licence. Which company would? Riggwelter 07:18, 20 June 2010 (EDT)

[edit] vfd archives

Riggwelter, I noticed you archived some VfDs to the 2009 archive. All VfDs should be archived according to the date a decision was made, not the date they were nominated. Could I trouble you to move all of those you recently archived to June 2010? LtPowers 16:28, 22 June 2010 (EDT)

Done! I was a bit too quick when I archived them, but they are now sorted. Well, they are at least put under the correct month and year. As long as we find the images, I think we're OK. Thanks for pointing it out to me! Riggwelter 18:19, 24 June 2010 (EDT)

And while I'm asking questions, how did you come to a conclusion that no consensus was reached on Image:Teslic old postcard.jpg? The only person who commented in addition to myself agreed that is should be deleted. LtPowers 16:30, 22 June 2010 (EDT)

Ah yes, that was what I put. I should have specified that completely differently, but I did that archiving way too late for my own good (hence also the erroneous archiving...) and that was wrong. However, that image should never have been put on VFD in the first place. An old postcard, that old, taken to vfd for fear of copyright problems, is taking the fear of copyright violations way too far. A european postcard of that kind is guaranteed to be from from the beginning of the 20th century and is therefor most likely around 80 years old or older. If you still feel like it belongs on vfd, do not hesitate to bring it back on, but you cannot use copyright infringement as the reason. Better then to put "out of scope" or something. Old postcards are perhaps not the best "ad" for a place. But then again, we cannot let images be discussed for several months... Riggwelter 18:19, 24 June 2010 (EDT)

Well, first of all, I don't think we can assume it's free of copyright. Even if it is 80 years old, copyright terms in most of Europe extend for seventy years after the death of the author, so unless the author died before 1940, we can't be sure. Second, the initial nomination reason doesn't matter anyway if there's agreement it should be deleted for other reasons. LtPowers 19:46, 25 June 2010 (EDT)

We can safely assume it is free of copyright because of the age. I have a bunch of very similar postcards from old Yugoslavia in my own collection, all printed between 1900-1910. Riggwelter 07:41, 26 June 2010 (EDT)

However... while thinking about it... I think that the image in itself is a bit out of scope. Histroical illustrations is not always what you want to find in a travel guide. They are simply not very useful for our purpose. What do you think? Riggwelter 14:53, 26 June 2010 (EDT)

[edit] Redirecting userpages

Just a suggestion: I've always found it cleaner to delete, rather than blank or redirect, userpages, so that other users know without clicking on them that there is no content there. This also keeps the recentchanges from being clogged with the redirects. For me, this saves time. --Peter ^Talk 11:05, 13 July 2011 (EDT)

Ah yes, that is a thought. The reason I redirect user pages to the talk page (and only in the case the user name has been permanently blocked) is that I think it is a good way to further highlight the fact that it is a permanently blocked account. An empty user page can thus be a user who (yet) has not chosen to write something about him- or herself. I simply see it as one way to tell serious users from spambot accounts. As for the clogging of RC - well, that is hopefully a problem which goes away when the spambot operators realises it is more or less futile to open such accounts on WT. Personally, I have optimized my RC so it displays the 500 latest edits. I can understand if it does not work for everyone, though. Riggwelter 18:15, 13 July 2011 (EDT)

[edit] User account rename

Please see Requests_for_username_change#foretopsail_-.3E_beachexplorer. --Peter ^Talk 19:18, 22 July 2011 (EDT)

Thanks! Done. Riggwelter 12:47, 23 July 2011 (EDT)

[edit] User blocks

Thanks for keeping tabs on the spam here on shared:. However, per en:Pub#please help, IP blocked, at least one of the accounts you blocked today weren't actually spambots. Was there a particular pattern you looked for when applying blocks? Otherwise there may be some concern about potentially locking out valid users. -- Ryan 11:35, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

You are quite right Ryan - there is a certain risk of locking out valid users, as long as there is a massive addition of new user accounts (spambots) and a small influx of valid users at the same time. So yeah, I am looking for a potential pattern: a) ridiculous user names b) user names of roughly the same construction d) user names registered in a short time span d) user names with no contributions e) fairly long user names. This shows how important it is to be careful (I do not know which name I blocked which you unblocked), but also how important it is for a newly registered user to indicate that he/she is a serious ditto. However, every user has the chance to indicate they aren't bots by leaving a note on their talk page. As for this specific case, you have to give me some more info, the block log only states you lifted the block for a number, and I cannot trace a user just by its number. Usually, I am told an automatic IP ban is lifted after a certain amount of time and should not affect logging on as a registered user. Riggwelter 12:54, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

Actually the talk page note doesn't seem to be true - I blocked my account on en: as a test and couldn't edit my talk page. Justme2 left a note in the en: Pub due to not being able to edit here. But in any case, your work in cleaning up spam is definitely appreciated, I just wanted to point out that some recent blocks may have inadvertently caught legitimate users. -- Ryan 13:10, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

Ah, Justme2 - I did block him, because he did fulfil some of the criteria as stated above. However, I was a bit uncertain and put my faith in the talk page possibility. So, it is good to know that it does not work like that right now. What I do know is that an MediaWiki upgrade should sort it, since you get more options for a block. Riggwelter 13:18, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

Well, thanks for the welcome now :-) I saw the edit history of today and the huge number of new users/spambots you blocked, so I get the need to make quick decisions. However, to help the "valid users" along for now it might help to give them at least a short time to show their intentions. You blocked me after 2 minutes or so, I was in the process of making a first edit. Secondly, if blocked users can't edit any page on shared wikitravel (which was the most frustrating part), perhaps we could mention the option of seeking help on one of the other wiki's (e.g. the pub on en:wikitravel)? Justme2 17:09, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

Haha, sorry about that. It is of course not your fault that you fell victim of my botkilling spree... I did believe that you could give us a shout on your talk page, but that seems not to be the case. I am not sure using another wiki would solve the problem - for example, I am very rarely on en:, which would have made it impossible for me to rectify the problem rightaway. Fortunately, there are more people around to sort such problems now. So, a very warm welcome to Shared - and perhaps you'd like to put something on your user page? :-) Riggwelter 17:31, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

Hehe I will ;-) It's quite alright, I just think we should try to find a way to help people like me out of that ban, since it's a rather frustrating experience. I didn't mean a cry for help on another wiki which /you/ could respond to, but a way to at least communicate. When you can't edit /at all/ here at least other users on another wiki might assist, by changing the ban as they did today or just by contacting the admin who blocked on shared? It might seem obvious to do so for you, but for new users it's not necessarily so. Anyways, just a thought. Cheers, Justme2 17:41, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

Just to add, though, it is extremely important to make sure that bans are only applied to spam accounts. I would recommend waiting until they have made edits that are clearly spam until blocking. It is easy to undo damage done by spambots, but potentially losing new contributors (which is all but guaranteed in this type of circumstance) could be immensely harmful to our project. --Peter ^Talk 17:47, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

Of course. But most spambot accounts never make any edits (at least not the ones I blocked this summer...) and therefor are potentially more damaging to the project. Riggwelter 17:55, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Closing feature requests

Thank you for your work to help clean up the old feature requests. I did reopen a few that you closed though, as I do not think low priority is a sufficient reason to close a request. Priority has and, I think, should be dealt with at Roadmap. --Peter ^Talk 17:50, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

Well, I closed them mainly because they simply were really old (more or less). We should go through all feature requests and bug reports to see what can be cleaned up. I think it is a waste of time and space to have loads of open requests which IB will never look at anyway... so, giving them something of a clean slate would be a good idea. I suggest we put them on the backburner instead - i e not closed, but not very active. What do you think? Riggwelter 17:57, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

Definitely. I actually had categorized them that way, with a third category "On the backburner," but someone else did not like that and switched back to the two category version.

I doubt, though, that we will see IB crawl through the category lists. iBobi has already stated that they intend to interact with us on the feature/bug end via Roadmap and Top bugs. --Peter ^Talk 18:09, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

I support you fully if you want to put them (back) on the backburner as you did. I am here to help if we should make a joint effort! Things have changed over the years (as have the requests...), and I think it gives the community goodwill (and saves us all a lot of work...) to go with IB and keep it on the roadmap/top bugs. Riggwelter 18:27, 10 August 2011 (EDT)