User talk:Walter

Request for admin rights...

Hi, I'm Alejandro Sánchez, Asmarin user of this wiki.

I'm system administrator of EL project, http://enciclopedia.us.es, fork of es.wikipedia.

I'm translating most important articles into spanish and sometimes i need to delete bot vandalism and so....

Can you make me admin privileges to clean and maintain the wiki?

I enter every day and can do this "job".

I'm waiting for your reply. ;-D

--Asmarin 11:51, 21 April 2006 (EDT)

Alejandro -- you're coming to Wikimania in August, I hope... Sj

Ditto

I'm not around every day, but would be glad to help with page deletion and bot blocking. Sj 04:04, 2 May 2006 (EDT)

Anti-spam measures

You should definitely turn on captchas for anonymous edits; a reason to upgrade to Mediawiki 1.6.x

You might further consider throttling the edit-rate for newbies and anonymous users... there is some hackable functionality for this built into MediaWiki. Sj

Navigation

Can you please add the table of contents to the navigation table/block that appears on the left of every page? This seems to be the most frustrating thing thats missing from some wikkis. For me anyway. :) jkinz

Excellent idea. I've started. Any suggestions as to what I should include? Walter 17:56, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

Content links

See Template:Content-list; also linked to from the Content ideas page.

Kudos

Kudos for your diplomatic handling of the "safety concerns" of the design of the rabbbit ears. Of all the dangerous things that are faced on a regular basis to the children for which the laptop is designed, I think falling on the rabbit ears of a olpc laptop is a risk they can live with. --HSTutorials 16:29, 25 July 2006 (EDT)

 Sj 16:05, 27 June 2006 (EDT)

Walter, Kudos on Build 303. It's very nice. -Jeff 17:44, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Wikipedia need an image :)

Hi! I'm writing an article about Wikipedia for Polish Press. I wrote something about collaboration olpc with Wikimedia Foudation. That article with all images is on public domain licence. So, I need an image of that laptop :) with tag {{PD}}, ({{PD-self}} - will be the best ;) I found on commonswiki some images, but only with cc. That article will be promotion of pl wiki and olpc too, I think. You will find me here on pl wiki: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Przykuta

and this article is here: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pi%C4%85te_urodziny_polskoj%C4%99zycznej_Wikipedii

Information about olpc ends it.

Thanks for all what you can do, and sorry for language mistakes ;)

With regards Przykuta 05:14, 14 September 2006 (EDT)

I can take some photos and put them in the public domain over the next few days, but I am curious as to why CC-A is not adequate for your needs. --Walter 23:06, 14 September 2006 (EDT)

thx :) I'm afraid, that people who will copy the article and images, they will not look for a licence. Przykuta 05:14, 18 September 2006 (EDT)

nasa color tool

Hey, check it out! http://colorusage.arc.nasa.gov/ColorTool.php. --Jacobolus 02:39, 1 November 2006 (EST)

Avoiding Spam

Darn it! I hate spam. I've noticed the last wave (I usually check the recent changes page) and was wondering how to make it harder for the buggers... something should be done (or attempted at least).

Is there an easy way to report it? I mean, many don't have the (sensitive) rollback ability, but I would like maybe a simple way to report it so that an administrator could act on it without having to hunt it down. Editing the page to remove the spam instead of doing a rollback is an extra edition that just pollutes the page's history and doesn't contribute anything (except removing the offending spam).

On a more 'aggressive' stance, is it my impression or spammers are more active during weekends? If so (which I haven't really bothered to check) maybe the wiki could be configured so that only people logged in could change pages during weekends? Or do some validation so that no more than a given percentage of the page could be replaced?

An arms race is the last thing we should embark on, but...--Xavi 13:50, 10 December 2006 (EST)

Maybe we should just force everyone to login to edit pages--not my first choice, but it will slow them down somewhat. I'd be nice if MediaWiki had a rollback for all changes a spammer made in one step: something I might write if I ever have some spare time. --Walter 15:19, 10 December 2006 (EST)

I'm constantly logged in, so I couldn't care less, but others may/will think differently. Tagging an user/IP as a spammer and semi-automatically reverting all changes would be a good administrator tool. I have no idea how that could be accomplished in WikiMedia (I'll start reading). Still, it would be nice to have a 'report as spam' or similar so that the community could easily flag things for the administrators... BTW, 'spare time' sounds like an oxymoron for you guys... :P --Xavi 15:46, 10 December 2006 (EST)

How about something as simple as a page which we watch that anyone can post a spam alert to? It could be include a link to the spammer's contribution page, which is the easiest place to do rollbacks from. Maybe SJ has some additional ideas. --Walter 15:54, 10 December 2006 (EST)

Other approaches

How about we call it quits and start funding schools? Just a thought. --Nelson Mandella 01:55, 25 December 2006 (EST)

I am all for "funding schools", but history and experience has shown that that approach is slow and only reaches a limited number of children. We believe that the laptop program will reach more children faster and these children will not be limited by the resources the schools will be able to offer them. But by all means, you work on helping children you way and we will continue to work on our approach. Let's hope we a re both successful. --Walter 07:09, 25 December 2006 (EST)

Correction to your edit

Your editing was not grammatical I think:

In January 2005 the MIT Media Lab launched a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. To achieve this goal, a new, non-profit association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), was been created, which is independent of MIT.

should be

In January 2005 the MIT Media Lab launched a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. To achieve this goal, a new, non-profit association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), was created, which is independent of MIT. --Tonyv 12:30, 29 December 2006 (EST)

Hardware folks

Walter, who is on hardware, specifically power supply/battery/generation? Tom Haws 13:18, 5 January 2007 (EST)

replied on your talk page. Sj talk

Hebrew translation

There is a Hebrew translation for the laptop.org previous site. Zvi Devir 08:58, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

I (think I've) fixed the quotes error. Zvi Devir 11:29, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Bakersdz and Hunter

Users Bakersdz and Hunter are acting really odd. I'm not even 100% sure they aren't bots using the wiki (rather than IRC) for some odd purpose. Nothing they write makes any sense. Perhaps they are the same person. You might want to investigate this a bit. AlbertCahalan 12:58, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Site copy

Hi, we should add a set of content sections to match the other sections in User:Felice/website_copy.1... and update them in depth along with the rest of the site. Sj talk 19:02, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

New colors

Sounds and looks nice. I'll bolden the original & diff links on the right of the Template:Translated Page Template:Translation, as they fade a bit.

I like the idea that {{OLPC}} maps to the 'laptop icon color', and that the translations maps to the 'participate icon color' (nice touch for the community translators :) Something could be thought out for the remaining icon colors... new 'vision' template? And 'content' with the XO child color? ;) --Xavi 10:39, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes, very nice. I like the idea of magenta for 'content'... perhaps we could tag the visionary and inspirational pages with orange, I wonder if we could deal with so much of it in a broad bar.

Now that I think about it, we could use a {{XO}} to refer to the laptop, and convert the {{OLPC}} to the 'vision'.--Xavi 10:47, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Walter: we might also change the default blue and orange in mediawiki to match those colors (for links and for active tabs along the top)... even the 'you have new messages' orange could change. Sj talk 10:44, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

base for POs

Currently the pages PO-laptop.org-top-level-en-US and such are being redirected to User:Felice/website copy top level... maybe they should be 'swapped'? Have no idea what happens when moving unto an existing page... will do some tests elsewhere and see. --Xavi 17:36, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

translation of news

Hi! I just finished translating the 'working news' section of the News page into spanish News/lang-es—I wanted to hook that up before jumping on the rest of it. But, when I was going to add the Translations template to the english page I realized its protected status...

In itself (the protection) is not much of an issue as the News/translations page is handled outside of it—so other translators can add their versions without hassle. My doubt / question is if that page (News) is of interest to be translated, and if so, what (if any) protection should be done in the translation(s)... --Xavi 16:07, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

I am not sure we need ot keep it protected. Probably just the {{OLPC}} tag at the top is enough...

I wasn't looking to de-protect it! :) As a matter of fact, I think it should be protected—not crucial, just a safeguard... I was just wondering about the translated versions... --Xavi 16:19, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Let's try it unprotected. I watch the page, so I'll notice changes anyway. --Walter 17:10, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Latest Release Template

Congrats! You managed to edit Template:Latest Releases' blob! :) I was thinking that the blob is way too nasty for easy maintenance, and was trying to find a way to make the updates simpler (instead of dealing with the blob itself). One alternative is to have other templates (but the updating could turn into a treasure hunt amongst nesting templates). Another alternative is to have simple/plain subpages with the links. Example:

Template:Latest Releases/stable     [http://olpc.download.redhat.com/olpc/streams/development/build406/]
Template:Latest Releases/livecd     [http://olpc.download.redhat.com/olpc/streams/sdk/latest/livecd/olpc-redhat-stream-sdk-livecd.iso]
Template:Latest Releases/firmware   [[OLPC Firmware q2c14]]

And add a couple of edit links in the template page and maybe in the rendered template (ie: a +/- link like for translations).

Or should I revert the whole thing and forget about the template? --Xavi 17:14, 27 May 2007 (EDT)

OLPC Nigeria/Galadima

Oops.. .sorry... didn't see you were editing Galadima... I was about to add the {{Schools-nav}} template... --Xavi 13:08, 10 June 2007 (EDT)

Suggest wiki sidebar item "Learning parables" be replaced with Educators

The wiki sidebar section "about the laptops" currently has an item "Learning parables" linked to Learning Learning. Perhaps this was once a major article for the wiki. But now, given the other and growing content, it seems an inappropriate link. It gives an impression of site immaturity. I've added a link to the page from Constructionist. I suggest it be removed from the sidebar.

The sidebar doesn't currently have a clear entry point for teachers. Content comes closest. I suggest a link to Educators be added. This would help visiting teachers get oriented and involved, by providing easy access to a page tailored to their interests. There is a link "content" to Educators in Home. But there is a lot of text above it, and not everyone keeps reading a page when earlier material isn't what they are looking for. And it's easier to tell someone "see educators on the sidebar" than "enter 'educators' in search", or "look for a link labeled 'content' on the top page" (hmm, the last has the additional difficulty that there are two "content" links to different pages). "For educators" might be nice link text.

Feel free to remove this section once you've seen it. MitchellNCharity 08:32, 16 June 2007 (EDT)

Dear Walter

Hi.

May I know roughly when it is possible for non-programmer volunteers like me to translate SUGAR UI and other key Activities into Korean?

And, a Korean Squeak user named Kim Seung-Beum (김 승범) has translated Squeak and Daemon's Castle into Korean. Could you let me know how to include Korean version of Squeak, Etoy, and Daemon's Castle into XO laptop? sincerelyphp5 10:46, 16 June 2007 (EDT)

I don't know much about eToys localization, but I am sure the eToys community can help you. We are just in the process of sorting out the details re internationalization details. I'll post things as soon as I know. --Walter 16:21, 16 June 2007 (EDT)

Dear Walter. From several months ago, I have planned an OLPC presentation tour in Korea to meet various teachers, professors, governmental officers, civil organizations, and so on..please persuade OLPC people send me THE 10(ten) B4 machines which I have long long long waited. I hope your help. php5 21:49, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Jejudo Local Government in Korea, one of 16 local governments in Korea

Its Office of Education has shown very strong interest in the OLPC project during an unofficial meeting last week, and they surely hoped to participate in. I believe the other 15 local governments in Korea will show the same reaction as it.

I'll meet a few officers of Ministry of Education of Korea, and some political parties Friday this week, and am sure there will be more than 1 million orders from the Korean government at this very moment. However, as I am just an OLPC volunteer, I strongly recommend OLPC to contact the Korean government directly.

BTW, because currently only a few Korean people have ever heard about OLPC, I'm preparing a few news articles and XO laptops reviews in collaboration with some renowned Korean newspapers and broadcasting channels. Those articles will be publicized or broadcasted next week. What do you think about including Korea as a pilot country, green zone

Please let me know any help you need for the OLPC project; a few volunteers including me are fully prepared to any requests from OLPC php5 23:17, 23 July 2007 (EDT)

Dear

Yesterday, I met a few governmental officers in Ministry of Education, Korea. Their reaction to my B3 machine was What a supprise!!. They promised to deploy XO laptops for Korean children, but currently all their educational plans are based on MS Windows. So they need some time to adjust their plans, and worried about possible maintenance problems; repairing XOs, network management, and server architectures etc. There are about 4,150,000 primary school students in Korea.

Seoul, the capital of Korea, is an hour distance from my home town via airline, Jejudo Island. So, I can contact them any time without any burden. Today, I'll meet some renowned journals in Korea to introduce them XO laptops. Though currently only a few people have ever heard about OLPC, millions of Korean people will become acquainted with OLPC exactly in one or two weeks. Next week, I will visit 16 local Office of Educations in Korea one by one to explain what OLPC project is as much as, and as exactly as I understand.

I'm sure that, if OLPC contacts Korean government (Ministry of Education) directly, there must be more than 4,000,000 laptop order without any hesitation, and it must be helpful for OLPC initial production.

Contact to Ministry of Education: Lim Kwang-Bin (General Officer of Educational Adminstration) kbim@moe.go.kr

Please let me know if you need additional information or request for me to do. Sincrely yours php5 19:24, 26 July 2007 (EDT)

Russian translation of laptop.org and country status

Hi! Translated laptop.org to Russian, would it be possible to have a preview of translated site to check correctness in context? Also, was there a reason to mark Russia green in wiki? Maxim 16:08, 28 July 2007 (EDT)

Check out http://www.laptop.org/ru/index.shtml --Walter 09:43, 29 July 2007 (EDT)

Hi Walter! Please update Russian translation of laptop.org with latest wiki. Also I notice that http://laptop.org/ru/languages.shtml points to http://www.laptop.org/index.ru.html - could you change it to http://www.laptop.org/ru/index.shtml? In general, languages page seems to be inconsistent with English version...

Hello again! http://www.laptop.org/ru/jobs.shtml should be updated from http://wiki.laptop.org/go/PO-laptop.org-auxiliary-ru I guess. Maxim 01:44, 29 September 2007 (EDT)

Hello Walter! Please update Russian translation of laptop.org from wiki PO files. Thanks! Maxim 05:49, 28 October 2007 (EDT)

Done. Please check it when you get a chance. --Walter 09:54, 28 October 2007 (EDT)

Looks Ok. One minor - from http://www.laptop.org/ru/index.shtml link to givemany.shtml points to English version of page, should point to http://laptopfoundation.org/ru/participate/givemany.shtml Maxim 05:34, 29 October 2007 (EDT)

Got it. Thanks. --Walter 09:52, 29 October 2007 (EDT)

Hi Walter. Please update the Russian translation of the site from http://wiki.laptop.org/go/PO-laptop.org-top-level-ru I have done some minor edits and added strings on G1 G1. Maxim has approved the changes 8-) - --Biarm 16:18, 20 November 2007 (EST)

Done. --Walter 16:28, 20 November 2007 (EST)

Hi, a new version of http://wiki.laptop.org/go/PO-laptop.org-vision-ru is ready. Please update - --Biarm 15:24, 21 November 2007 (EST)

done. --Walter 17:21, 21 November 2007 (EST)

Image:Galadima4.jpg and Image:Galadima3.jpg

Why are these so tiny? Don't people make normal-sized drawings? AlbertCahalan 12:00, 13 August 2007 (EDT)

RE: XO: The Children's Machine

follow-up to User talk:Xavi#XO: The Children's Machine

I didn't find anything wrong with how things were, you seem to have managed the moving just fine. Maybe I missed some of your edits due to the vandal...

I totally agree that it's a bit messy when moving a page that has translations attached as sub-pages (as the move only takes care of the talk page). But regardless of being sub-page or full-page, they all had to be tweaked to point to the new 'source' page... coincidentally I had been playing in the Template:Sandbox to avoid the need to declare the source (as it would be the 'super' or 'upper' page), in which case having the translations as sub-pages is an advantage.

A page I've found helpful in these situations is the Special:Allpages to actually review all pages in a branch. Another handy page is the Special:DoubleRedirects. Cheers! :) Xavi 20:27, 26 August 2007 (EDT)

letters of intent

Youth_Energy_Initiative wants a non-binding letter of intent with us re: educating the youth of the world about how to be green. We should have a standard letter that we can send out once we agree to share focus with an outreach or creative group. Sj talk 14:11, 12 September 2007 (EDT)

In xogiving.org/faq.html, a questionable answer to "What can a $1,000 laptop computer do that the XO Laptop cannot?"

Hi. http://xogiving.org/faq.html currently says:

What can a $1,000 laptop computer do that the XO Laptop cannot?
Not much.  In fact, the XO laptop can do many things that a $1000 dollar laptop can not...

I strongly suggest this needs to change.

A random ~$900 laptop [1] is >3x faster, with 4x the memory, 120x the disk, and vastly faster graphics. What can a $1,000 laptop computer do that the XO Laptop cannot? A very great many things.

Perhaps what was intended was something like "the things we think important, and thus designed the xo to do, are done by the xo as well as a $1000 laptop can do them". Or at least will, when we get more time to tune and optimize. Though even that's not true, as many things we think important (eg, touch screen, more power), and would have liked to include, and can be done by some ~$1k laptop, just didn't fit the mission envelope and price point. And regardless, that's not what the answer currently says.

What can a $1000 laptop do that my digital watch cannot? Or the rock I use as a door stop? Not much? That's true in some sense, but it's certainly not a scientifically honest response, and perhaps not even a legally honest one.

Even with our very best efforts at expectation management, explaining what the XO is not, there will be people who feel they made a mistake, or that we have misled them, and not provided what we implied. Here, we are not even trying to communicate an accurate picture.

Perhaps something like: ...on the market today. That comes at a cost. The XO is less powerful than laptops have been for several years. It is more like a powerful handheld. It will not run normal PC software. And its innovative software is unfinished, and is still being written. But we think what it does offer, at $200, is worth this sacrifice.

It's one thing to picture geeks understanding what this is, and being able to afford it. But my bus driver today was wondering if she should invest in one for her daughter. I suspect such people may far out number the geeks. And at present, I suggest we are doing them a disservice. MitchellNCharity 00:29, 29 September 2007 (EDT)

Good point. I've let the people doing that site know. --Walter

VMWare todos

Talk:Emulating_the_XO#VMWare_TODO Sj talk 16:48, 11 October 2007 (EDT)

Pootle & PO-laptop

We are about to start final integration & testing of Pootle and although the drive is geared for activities, I was wondering what do you think of switching PO-laptop.org files also to it. --Xavi 09:56, 16 October 2007 (EDT)

I've never used poodle, but it sounds like a good idea. But there is no rush, as there is so much else on everyone's plate right now. --Walter 10:23, 16 October 2007 (EDT)

xogiving feedback

Just to make sure someone actually sees this, I drop it here. Feel free to garbage collect once seen. MitchellNCharity 13:35, 18 October 2007 (EDT) http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:XO_Giving#Using_testing_for_expectation_management

rollback

yes... I've been stung by that critter more than once: rollback is just one edition (no matter what amount of diffs you are comparing). Would that be a bug in mediawiki? this wiki? or a feature? --Xavi 13:57, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

If only we didn't need to use it so often!! I was in a hurry and I always have fat thumbs. --Walter 17:00, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

Inaccessible link in 2007-10-20 community news

The 2007-10-20 community news says "By going to [1] you will see all of the peripheral ideas and are welcome to post any new ideas you may have.", with a link of http://laptop.org/teamwiki/index.php/Team:Peripherals . Howerver, that link yields "Login Required", and after a delay, bounces you to "Main Page - TeamWiki". This is perhaps not what was intended. MitchellNCharity 21:09, 21 October 2007 (EDT)

Working on it. Thanks. --Walter 21:40, 21 October 2007 (EDT)

Please go to the public peripherals page.

wikinews questions for you...

User_talk:Brianmc#Nicholas_Negroponte_-_Questions_about_OLPC Sj talk 09:17, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

dialog design

file open dialog comparison from zdenek. Sj talk

Implementation of Website Translation

Hi Walter, I have been working on translating laptop.org into Bulgarian. I am almost finished now and am interested in the process for taking the translation "live". Here are the current files. There is one to go - the more technical "laptop" list. Regards, --Cryout 10:28, 5 November 2007 (EST)

I'll put the site up tomorrow and once you sign off, I'll link it to the main site. Thanks --Walter 20:41, 5 November 2007 (EST)

Front page on Wikinews

Hi Walter! As a prelude to hopefully interviewing Mr Negroponte Wikinews was covering the recent developments in the project, see http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page right now for a story on your project as the main lead. I don't know where on the laptop.org wiki to promote something like this, the dream-come-true would be actually get one of the teachers from the Indian pilot to comment on our have your say pages. If you can also pass on to Carla that she is featured/heavily quoted in this piece I would appreciate it. I know Wikinews is supposed to be neutral, but it relies on contributors writing about what they're interested in. OLPC has enough interested people to have great coverage. --Brianmc 16:33, 8 November 2007 (EST)