User talk:Skizzerz/LQT Archive 1

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Safe mode
Thank you for your answer. I tried to rethink the article and published a honest opinions from both sides and made a clear article structure. --Jehy 21:23, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks once again for correcting me. I completely forgot about so many formatting issues... And my English is too bad - right now, I can translate everything in Russian with a pretty good quality - but not vice versa :( --Jehy 00:28, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I made a mistake
And then I didn't realize what I had done until it was completed. Sorry about it, I promise it won't happen again. Drini 00:35, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * It doesn't seem like that bad of a mistake. I rebuilt it soon after and Skizzerz caught the oldid issue. By the way, at what point do you guys decide to clear out the history on the Sandbox? Just whenever, or after so many edits?Matt 00:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a matter of whenever a sysop feels like it. Generally I try to refresh it after it hits 500-1000 revisions, but sooner or later is fine, there really isn't a policy. @Drini: Don't feel bad, I made the same mistake my first time doing it (I kept clicking reset and it kept saying "No Old revision found" or something as the page text, making me very confused), and it was caught before anyone could've accidentally hit it anyway, so no harm done. Just something to keep in mind in the future :) -- Skiz zerz  01:59, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Eyecandy
Thanks very much. Your help is much appreciated. Anyway, where can I find the MediaWiki:Common.css page and will it work on MediaWiki 1.6.5 software (unfortunately the ultimate powers that be at wikicars have been dragging their feet at updating to the latest version)? I also have another question, is it possible to make images transparent via the wiki software or not?

-Red marquis 07:04, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It's the page called MediaWiki:Common.css. And no, you need image editing software to add transparency to images. -- Skiz zerz  16:47, 26 October 2008 (UTC)


 * That's strange. We don't have that page. Thanks anyway. btw, I have another question: recently, we had a server crash and after having got it back up again our site came back with an anomaly. Whenever we post a picture on a page, especially when we encase it in a thumbnail or resize it to any pixel or insert it into a gallery, we either get a blank box or we get this text: "Error creating thumbnail: sh: /usr/sfw/bin/convert: No such file or directory ". The only pictures affected are the ones uploaded after the crash, the ones before that show up fine. They also upload fine however it's linking it to a page where it gets all whack. Do you know what problem we're having and how we may be able to fix it? Thanks.

-Red marquis 13:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Extensions and later MediaWiki versions
Sorry if I became a nuisance while trying to be helpful. The "+" does not mean that it works with all later versions, it only means that someone thought that it would work with all later versions. A future version may break backwards compatibility and if no one checks the extension again and updates the page then people who wish to use the extension may face errors. So, we need to re-check compatibility with all later versions from time to time and note our results in the page, perhaps not in the infobox, but surely somewhere, either in the extension page or somewhere else. NSK Nikolaos S. Karastathis 02:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Now whenever I check an extension for compatibility with a specific MediaWiki version I will note it in a Compatibility section in the extension page. If you think that's not good tell me now. NSK Nikolaos S. Karastathis 02:48, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

AuthorProtect Problem
Hi Skizzerz, I'm trying to implement AuthorProtect and probably missed something very basic... when I check "Version" on my special pages, AuthorProtect shows up just fine as an extension, but when I go to my user rights management, the author and authorprotect rights do not appear. I am both a bureaucrat and sysop, so I should be seeing this... any suggestions? Thanx! Paul Z 128.107.248.220 00:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * No, you shouldn't be seeing it. They are rights, not groups. You don't assign people to the authors group, they gain the appropriate rights automatically when they are the author of a page. Since you are a sysop, the only place you will ever see it is when you click the "protect" tab and an "Authors only" option should appear. -- Skiz zerz  20:17, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, very illuminating... thank you!! -Paul Z.

Sorry... one more quick question... is the author the person who created the original page or who last edited the page? Or anyone who has edited it? Thanks! (Paul Z again)

128.107.248.220 23:37, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

extensions version compatibility
No it's not pointless because even though MediaWiki authors may focus on backwards compatibility, a bug could easily break it for a specific version or svn revision. Bugs can happen any time and are unpredictable. Verifying compatibility of each extension (and its versions) with each MediaWiki version and a few selected svn revisions could help with more adoption of MediaWiki and extensions by users that need such compatibility checks, for example enterprises. Of course you could say that there are probably other tasks that are of higher priority, which is another matter than pointlessness. So, checking compatibility could be of low usefulness, depending on your priorities, but not of no usefulness at all (it is, at least, useful to some potential users). NSK Nikolaos S. Karastathis 05:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Wiki bug
Recently, we had a server crash at Wikicars and after having got it back up again our site came back with an anomaly. Whenever we post a picture on a page, especially when we encase it in a thumbnail or resize it to any pixel or insert it into a gallery, we either get a blank box or we get this text: "Error creating thumbnail: sh: /usr/sfw/bin/convert: No such file or directory ". The only pictures affected are the ones uploaded after the crash, the ones before that show up fine. They also upload fine however it's linking it to a page where it gets all whack. Do you know what problem we're having and how we may be able to fix it? Thanks.

-Red marquis 15:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No idea, but it sounds like you don't have the thumbnailing software installed. -- Skiz zerz  16:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

OpenID extension
Please, check, if I was wrong. I just think that the guy didn't understand what I wrote :)

Look here please --Jehy 11:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Why don't you ask him about it instead of me? -- Skiz zerz  23:01, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Extension:CiteNG
Hi, I thought that new extension docs should be placed there? רנדום 01:59, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, they do. However, I deleted that page because there was no code for the extension and no link to the code for the extension. Please provide the code or the appropriate link to it, now that I have restored it. -- Skiz zerz  21:50, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It is Several weeks later where is the code in Extension:CiteNG? --Zven 06:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not the author, and have just recently re-deleted the page since it appears that the author isn't going to add the code either. Try using Extension:Cite instead. -- Skiz zerz  22:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Skizzerz, the message was for he:User:רנדום, I was a bit sloppy not putting the comment directly under his thread, I checked out his user page on an arabic version of wikipedia but wasn't game to try to leave a post to him as it was another language where the interface was backwards :p --Zven 08:43, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

GroupPermissionManager
Hi, I'm using your GroupPermission Manager. It works really good, especially with other extension. But I got a problem with this. I need to delete some group rights, but it is not possible. Everytime when I deleted all unnessecary permission and save the changes, the permissions are right back when the page is refreshed. How can I get them out off the permission?

Thank you for any help.

--Fightgnome 14:09, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Define "delete the permissions." Are you setting them to false in Special:GroupPermissions? Also, v4 is going to be a lot more intuitive when it comes to adding and removing permissions, I should hopefully get that version up before Christmas. -- Skiz zerz  14:29, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

No, I mean I don't want to have the permission in the GPM any more. I open the SortPermissions and click on (delete) right after the permission, cause I don't need it any more. But it does not remove from this list.

How could I handle this?

--Fightgnome 14:42, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, as I said it's very counter-intuitive in v3, which is one of my main focuses in v4 to fix. In order to delete a right, you have to do one of two things:
 * Set it to false in every group via Special:GroupPermissions. The right will automatically disappear afterwards.
 * Edit /extensions/GroupPermissionsManager/config/GroupPermissions.php and remove every line with that permission. The right will automatically disappear afterwards.
 *  Skiz zerz  14:44, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Now I did both, but the rights are still there. I' m just going to try an other possibility. Maybe that would work. Otherwise I have to wait on the next release. When will it be launched? We really need your extension for our MediaWiki.

--Fightgnome 15:34, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Admin
I'm very curious. What exactly do you look for in a user here for them to be a sysop? And what to be a bureaucrat? Like qualifications, contributions/occupations here and whatnot. And by the way, ''' I do not want to be an admin here. ''' I'm already a sysop at one site and my nomination is pending on another. The last thing I need is a third wiki to take care of. I'm just so curious I could stand it anymore. I'll I've seen on this site positions on this has been in the opposing votes for admin nominations. I have not seen a page that gives a detailed list of what the expected qualifications are. I'm wrong and such a page does exist the I do apologize.--Matt 10:02, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * There aren't any specific requirements, it's basically called "convince a bureaucrat that you're worthy." I've made my personal criteria for these requests available on my user page. -- Skiz zerz  23:33, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Is promoting MediaWiki software appliances advertising?
Hi,

I'm responding to the note you left on my talk page.

I'm sorry I didn't realize I was doing anything inappropriate by educating the community that software appliances existed that were a convenient alternative for deploying MediaWiki. I only edited relevant pages that are related to the installation of MediaWiki.

I'd like to suggest that perhaps there is a difference between "advertising" a specific "product" and informing users about useful alternatives to manual installation.

I'm a contributing developer for TurnKey Linux (which is a non-commercial opensource project BTW) and the feedback we have been getting from users is that the whole software appliance approach made it much easier to get up and running with MediaWiki compared with the traditional approach, especially when installed to a Virtual Machine using software such as VMWare and VirtualBox.

I tried tastefully editing references of software appliances into the wiki to inform users that there is an alternative to manual installation, which can be painful and time consuming, especially for users who lack technical proficiency. Note that using free virtual machine software such as VirtualBox a software appliance can be pretty much deployed anywhere, instantly, regardless of which operating system in inside it (in our case Ubuntu).

I apologize if I was too aggressive. I know public wikis can suffer from abuse by spammers and as such become especially sensitive to this sort of thing. We don't tolerate spam on TurnKey Linux community sites either.

Note that I first edited the Manual:Installation_guide page three weeks ago to reference software appliances and also added a comment to Talk:Installation suggesting that software appliances should be mentioned as a deployment option. Three weeks passed and I didn't receive any negative reaction so I interpreted this (mistakingly?) as permission to go ahead, be bold and edit the page myself. (thats the point of a wiki after all isn't it?)

I can now see that you reverted most of my edits, even the original November 7th edit to Manual:Installation_guide which brought us so many thankful users (who would never have otherwise realized the option existed).

Update: In fact, you even deleted my comment on the Talk:Installation! Why would you do that? I reverted it back. LirazSiri 01:13, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Bottom line is I think you may have been a bit overzealous in "protecting" the community. I usually don't argue with admins on Wikipedia sites, but in this case I really feel that you are doing a disservice to MediaWiki users and should reconsider. Users are unlikely to find out that there is a "quick shortcut" now. Is there any way we can bring more people into the discussion and get a second opinion? Perhaps you could take a closer look at my edits and consider whether they add or distract.

LirazSiri 00:06, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm looking at Category:Installation and note that there is a great deal of information on the wiki about MediaWiki software in relation to its interaction with other software. How to run MediaWiki on Windows, Ubuntu, Debian, NetWare, SuSE, Mac OS X. I don't really see how software appliances are any different. Why is it offensive to provide information on the availability of possibly the easiest way to get MediaWiki to run on ANY of the environments (I.e., with virtualization software an appliance will run anywhere)? Is the problem with how my campaign-ish editing style was interpreted or is there really a problem with the subject matter? LirazSiri 00:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd like to submit a bit of supporting empirical evidence that users do in fact find MediaWiki software appliances useful. TurnKey MediaWiki was released on the Oct 30th 2008. On Nov 7th I added a section on Software appliances to Manual:Installation guide. According to the sourceforge downloads statistics there have been 460 downloads since. According to the referer logs most of the people who downloaded TurnKey MediaWiki came from that single reference on mediawiki.org. This proves that several hundred people who happened to browse the Installation guide page in the last 3 weeks found the software appliance concept interesting enough to download and give it a try. This is also supported by the kind of positive feedback we have received from the community. The rules against "advertising" exist to prevent abuse of the community's open communication channels which would eventually decrease their value as a non-biased source of information that users can trust. Educating users on the existence and merits of software appliances (a superior type of deployment option) is very different. At least our users seem to think so. LirazSiri 01:03, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * OK... where should I start? First of all, there is nothing wrong with informing users that something exists. However, by no means should it be used "whenever possible" or the "preferred" way to do things, which is how you worded it. In addition, you placed these notices in the top of every page so that people further get the impression that we want them to use one of these pre-packaged appliances instead of installing and maintaining their own software (if they are up to such a task). I reverted the edits because I did not want to spend 5+ minutes on each page trying to figure out how to reword what you wrote to make it pertinent to that page (your wording was more of a generic notice on the top of each page instead of something tailored to offer an alternative method to what was explained on the page itself, which again makes it sound more of an advertisement than an informative excerpt).
 * Also, I am well aware of the usefulness and portability of these solutions. I wouldn't be opposed if they were mentioned, as long as said mention is worded correctly as an alternative method to installing MediaWiki and not as the "whenever possible" or "preferred" method. As for the operating system page (Installing MediaWiki on Ubuntu or whatever), it really doesn't belong there at all. Simply because your LiveCD or whatever you use happens to implement Ubuntu doesn't mean that it automatically deserves a mention. This would be like saying that some random computer program deserves an article on Wikipedia simply because it works on Windows, which does have an article.
 * As for the Talk:Installation page, I reverted that because you already posted the exact same question elsewhere, and it is better to keep discussion in one location instead of two. It was not because I wanted to prevent your voice from being heard. Also, I do not consider these as a "shortcut" at all. It is not a shortcut to help someone install and maintain their own MediaWiki package, it is an alternative for doing so. So I again bring up my main point that I'm not opposed to the idea, but I am opposed to how that idea was worded, like it has official status from the developers or something like that (such as "whenever possible," "preferred," or "shortcut" imply).


 * To summarize everything I previously said in a few short bullet points:
 * I am not opposed to the idea and alternative method you are trying to present, only the way that you worded it. These mentions should be relevant to the page that they are placed on (not just a generic notice copy/pasted across fifteen pages), and they should be made clear that it is an alternative for those who do not wish to mess around with installing MediaWiki, not a shortcut for installing it.
 * The articles for installing MediaWiki in certain environments are just that: articles for installing MediaWiki in certain environments. Chances are if a user has followed a link to these pages, they are already at the point where they know they want to install it themselves and not use a 3rd-party application to do it for them. This should therefore only be mentioned as an alternative method on the main entry points to the installation manual.
 * I reverted your edit to Talk:Installation not to quiet you, but because you already posted the exact same thing elsewhere, and it is harder to track down a discussion if it takes place across multiple pages.
 * Mea culpa, you're right. I forgot all about that until just now when I found that entry in the Manual:FAQ talk page. I deleted the redundant comments and linked to this page. -- LirazSiri 16:04, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If you feel you can reword it to make it come across as an alternative method instead of as a shortcut, then feel free to re-add the paragraphs where needed. The "undo" feature may be helpful in getting your original wording back so that you have a base to modify.
 * And yes, I suppose I was a bit overzealous when it came to reverting you, but I do have a life as well and did not want to spend a lot of time in rewording everything you wrote to make it more pertinent to the article and so that it portrays what it really is -- an alternative to having to install all the dependencies that MediaWiki has (Apache, MySQL, PHP, etc.). Please feel free to mention that it is a lot easier than maintaining one's own install, but keep the division between an alternative to installing and a shortcut to installing in place when doing so. -- Skiz zerz  02:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Regarding mentioning of TurnKey MediaWiki on the Manual:Running_MediaWiki_on_Ubuntu, I did that because I believe it is likely that a significant subset of the users interested in getting MediaWiki running on top of Ubuntu would be interested in TurnKey MediaWiki which is in fact exactly that - MediaWiki on Ubuntu. If a user takes Ubuntu and installs MediaWiki + dependencies along with a few other conveniences such as auto-updating security patches and a web interface, he'll get a system that is equivalent to TurnKey MediaWiki. The only difference is that using the appliance he would probably save a few hours (at least). I think the relevance should be judged in respect to helping the user achieve the end-result he wants. Perhaps some might prefer to roll their own, thats fine, but a brief notice that informs users of the alternative will not make that page any less useful. You could argue that it isn't appropriate for every product to add its own notice and that would reduce the signal to noise ratio of an article and decrease its readability. I agree. If there are multiple products we should only have one notice that links to a page listing all of them separately. What I'm saying is that circumstances matter and we should always try to place our hypothetical reader above abstract out-of-context principles. Thats just a recipe for loosing sight of what is important.


 * Regarding placing the notice on top "like an advertisement": the rational for doing this is very simple. It's pretty reasonable to expect a reader to read top to bottom. If your intention is to inform of an alternative to following a set of manual instructions it doesn't really make much sense to place the notice on the bottom of the page. Try to imagine two users, the first is interested in installing MediaWiki manually, the second would prefer to follow the path of least resistance (e.g., with a software appliance). If we place a short notice on top then the first user will merely skip it and read on - for him it doesn't really make much of a difference. For the second user however by placing the notice on top we save him the trouble of reading quite a bit of technical information he is only reading because he doesn't know there is an easier alternative. It is also likely that we can save him from a false start since unfortunately many people don't read top to bottom fully and then start. They read enough to understand the next step, get their prerequisites, follow the instructions in sequence etc. It's likely that a user which wants MediaWiki to just work would be frustrated to follow the manual instructions only to find a mention of the alternative at the bottom of the page.


 * Both points above can be summarized briefly as "let's try to put ourselves in the user's shoes and try to anticipate what he is trying to achieve". As a fellow programmer I think I can understand where you are coming from as well. You are trying to look at this in terms of where you think things belong (I.e., Separation of concerns). In the context of developing software that type of thinking is spot on, but when your goals are different (e.g,. figure out what users are trying to accomplish and help them do that) then a different type of thinking is required.


 * Now that I have explained my viewpoint I will try and reintroduce the references to software appliances while keeping your comments in mind. You have point. I can see how the original wording might have mislead some users that the officially sanctioned way to setup MediaWiki was via a software appliance. I'll try to be more careful this time.


 * If you have issues with my edits in the future I'd like you to keep in mind that the choice doesn't have to be between rewording them yourself and systematically reverting all of my edits. You can drop me a line explaining your objections and I'll take responsibility for cleaning up myself if I make a mess of things. If I think I'm right I'll try to make my case of course, but if you do not find my arguments appealing, I have no illusions regarding who will have the last word (I.e., given the rather dramatic power imbalance).

-- LirazSiri 06:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. -- Skiz zerz  22:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)