Timwi wrote:
>Everything should be included ;-)
Only when information on a subject can be independently confirmed by third
parties. Then the writer has to make sure the information is organized
correctly; is there enough independently verifiable information on the topic
to have a whole article on the subject? If not then the info should be
incorporated into a related article that does.
We cannot include everything.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Hi all,
I am fairly new to Wikipedia and I would like to ask the advice of some
of the more experienced wikipidians.
To begin with, I am impressed with the high quality of the writing of
some of the articles. But there are also plenty which need lots of
work, and I enjoy wrestling with these ungainly creatures, restructuring
them, chopping out redundancies, tightening up the prose, adding
sub-headings and good intros, improving transitions, etc. etc. etc.
Of late, however, I have been coming into conflict with another user,
whom I will refer to as X.
X is a prolific contributor to Wikipedia with a proclivity for gathering
large amounts of information about fairly obscure topics, such as
provincial towns and cities, transportation networks, and the like. It
is perhaps an extreme example, but I even encountered a entry he had
written on a metro system currently under construction in a major
European capital, listing all of the proposed subway stations. All well
and good; it is all valid information, except that this metro system
won't be operational until 2011 (!). It made wonder about X's
priorities.
And herein lies the crunch. To begin with, X favors wikifying words, such as
beach
theater
city hall
performance
pool
reflection
beach
in situations where there is no high-level thematic relation; they are
simply used as common English words. In my view, such items shouldn't be
Wikified. In support of my view, I found the following Wikipedia page:
Make_only_links_relevant_to_the_context
(I have also noticed other users unwikify contextually insignificant
words so I know I am not alone.)
X wrote on a Talk page that he thinks they all belong, that people can
ignore them if they are not useful, that they alert people to
other articles in the encyclopedia.
OK, no big issue.
More critical for me, however, is that X adamantly opposes removing ANY
information from Wikipedia: everything that goes in cannot go out.
X doesn't oppose my copyedits -- fortunately, because he is no stylist
-- but if I remove so much as a single factoid from an article he has
edited, X replaces it within fifteen minutes or so.
In brief interchanges via Talk pages, it is becoming clear that X and I
have diametrically opposed philosophies on how to create encyclopedia
articles. X appears to believe that all information is of equal value
and all should be collected in the encyclopedia, what I would call the
"warehouse" approach. I feel an encyclopedia is more like
building a pyramid, developing hierarchies, prioritizing
information, developing a critical eye for what should be included and
what not, all with the aim of producing well-organized, well-written,
balanced articles containing the right amount and right kind of
information.
Up until a short while ago, X rolled back deletions I made one by one,
which didn't please me, but I could live with it. However, yesterday he
reverted an entire article in which I dewikified a couple of common
words, thereby junking other edits I had also made. It was a short
article, not particularly important to me, so I let it be. But there
are other more substantial articles dearer to my heart (that X has also
worked on) which I feel need work, but I don't feel that now I can
comfortably do so.
I respect X's formidable information gathering skills; raw data is of
course indispensable in the construction of an encyclopedia. But he
doesn't appear to respect me as an editor interested in presenting
information in a useful way. I would be interested in suggestions
anyone may have for resolving my predicament, as I would very much like
to continue to contribute freely to Wikipedia.
--
Viajero
>Erik wrote:
I can do that, but you
>have to cover the traveling costs.
What??? Meet a wikipedian in the flesh?? Well at least it would be in euros
(opps. Slap. Must do what the European Commission tells me. The plural is
euro, not euros! Slap. Bold boy!) and not in dollars or pounds! *wikilove*
JT
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>Look, James, I know that it's fun slandering me, but I would appreciate it
>if you could stop for a second and actually read what I wrote. Thanks.
Yes I did read what you wrote and no I am not slandering you. I have a great
deal of respect for you but I think unilaterally rewriting a policy page
without a debate is grossly wrong. I am not always on wiki, neither are most
people. How are we to know if you have made a major change to a page if by
the time we come on your change has slipped from the Recent Changes list,
unless we go into every policy page and link it to our watchlist. A debate
can only happen if people know about it.
There are plenty of things on the policy pages that I believe are misguided
but I would not dream of going on and unilaterally changing them. I have
noticed a few changes to policy pages (not by you BTW). I always presumed
that they must have been debated and agreed first and that I had simply
missed the debate. Now you have me wondering if every change ''was'' debated
or if they were the unilateral work of some user that no-one noticed in
time, they know becoming a 'rule' by default.
JT.
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>
>Because he protected a page in an edit war/heated discussion in which he
>was involved -- see [[Talk:Catholicism]] -- I have temporarily revoked
>172's sysop privileges. I would not have done so if he had followed my
>advice not to do it again, but after I unprotected the page he immediately
>reprotected it, and there is no point in engaging in "protection wars" --
>we should be clear about the guidelines we follow.
>
>Note that I was not substantially involved in the relevant discussion, but
>I am generally on 172's side; the edits were desperately in need of work.
>However, sysops are not editors, and should not use their privileges to
>enforce their own views. If the page should have been protected, it should
>have been done by an independent third party. This is what our protected
>page policy has said for months.
>
>I am also concerned by the definitely non-Wikiquette tone in the above
>discussion.
>
>Unless there are any objections, I will only reinstate 172's sysop status
>if he agrees to follow our protected page guidelines.
I think Erik's decision is misguided and wrong, as he would have realised if
he followed the debate in detail. The problem arose when on person tried to
insert a semi-literate POV rant against catholicism onto the page.
The stuff this user tried to include included such nonsense as stating that
1. 10% of popes were paedophiles;
2. Mormons are catholics;
3. Born Again Christians are called 'New Born Christians;
The semi-literate nature of the rant can be judged by the following lines
from it.
- Many people in such competition claim they castigate the group that has
lesser dedication and rules, rules that are not as strict as the ladder.
- One could look at the branching and creation of different ideals such as
Christianity, New Born Christians, Mormon, and so on. These divergences in
the religion have support the belief that Christianity has divided into a
group of sects
- There is much evidence to show the Catholic church has had sexual
offenders as it's heads.
- This degradation could be supported through the change of the puritan
ways, as seen in the history of America.
The author outrageously also equated paedophilia with homosexuality.
An indication of Nostrum's agenda and anti-catholic agenda can be seen in
his comment to Pizza Puzzle - '' It seems everyone is against the truth. I
suppose the breeders want their kids molested.'' And he told 172 that '' Oh,
and if you're wondering, the reason my coments seem so outragous is because
I'm an ignorant athiest. I really don't know much about the Bible, simply
because I've only read about 2 pages.''
I removed the nonsense he kept putting in the article and put a critique of
it on the talk page. JHK, referring to the additions, commented 'BTW, I also
find Nostrum's stuff unreadable and his posture amusing.' Harris7 in one
revertion "Substantial excision of anti-catholic rant" and in another case
'The recent mods were highly POV and rather nonsensical '' Nostrum's
justifications included ''added overbearing proof to people who would like
to live in big holes under bridges, Say hi to sammy for me'' ''If you think
there is POV in homosexual abuse in Catholocism then take it out, don't
delete it, remember, fix, not censor, otherwise I will list you as a censor
and you don't want to be on my bad side''
172 is not a religious believer but came to the page because of the edit war
and like most people was horrified at the sheer awfulness of the text which
this one user /kept/ over and over again trying to insert, each time
insisting it was NPOV. (The user, Nostrum, also insisted on putting it near
the top of the article, giving it more importance that such things as the
Catholic belief in sacraments, the liturgy etc.)
172 commented: 'I know that I've been warned against this, but I'd be
tempted to protect this page from that garbage.' -172
Mav's response was - 'I tend to agree.'
No-one urged him not to, in fact many openly agreed. Protection had also
been requested on the wiki-list.
172 then wrote
'After hearing support that this page be protected, I agreed to do it only
when the garbage was restored. The page was stable for a couple of hours or
more, but then it reappeared. Hence the protection.' 172
As no sysop who had not taken part in the debate or expressed an opinion
chose to impose the necessary protection and stop the illiterate POV
nonsense from being inserted, 172 did what had to be done, which was to
protect the page, having given people advanced notice and received no
opposition at the time. What should have happened is that he then contact an
independent third party with sysop powers when one came on and asked for
them to remove his own temporary protection and insert their own indepedent
one but due to an oversight that was not done. 172 simply did what someone
had to do but which no-one was available to do.
In the circumstances I think Erik's response was an over-reaction. It wasn't
as if 172 unilaterally decided to use his sysop powers in a row he was a
longterm participant in. He simply did what had to be done on the page and
which no-one else at the time was available to do. If he hadn't wiki would
have had an article (one the major articles in any encyclopaedia) turned
into a garbled, POV anti-catholic rant in pidgin english.
In an attempt to NPOV Nostrum's stuff (if you could work out what it meant)
I wrote an additional section on the issue of clerical child abuse but that
didn't stop Nostrum added his strange stuff. In an attempt to create an
agreement, having protected the page, 172 wrote to Nostrum saying
''Due to all the problems with the text at question that have been
identified, please post the portions that you want to have added on a talk
page. They will be reviewed promptly by those who have actively contributed
content to Catholicism-related topics and topics pertaining to the sex abuse
scandal. If they meet encyclopedic standards, a place will be found for
them.'' 172
One of Nostrum's responses was ''who are you to say your opinions of
standards are higher than mine? You're gone boi.'' Nostrum
Furthermore Erik's decision to leave the page unprotected was clearly wrong.
What he should have done is put his own protection on in place of 172's,
not leave it unprotected when the user planting the anti-catholic rant had
already indicated his intention to insert the rubbish over and over again.
In the circumstances, it was perfectly understandable that 172 would
reinsert the protection. What else did Erik expect to happen if a page that
/has/ to be protected if left wide open for Nostrum to return for the
umpteenth time and add it in? It had to to be protected. It should have been
protected by someone not connected to the date. They didn't come to do it
and when someone did come they left it unprotected. 172 acted to stop the
clear vandalism on the page, nothing more.
JT
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>Daniel-
> > An editor /cannot/ unilaterally change policy.
Erik wrote
>An editor (everyone is an editor on Wikipedia, so you might as well say "a
>user") can change policy pages if there are no objections to them doing
>so. They should use common sense to determine whether their change would
>require prior discussions, or be reasonably minor or non-controversial not
>to. The same principle applies to edits of non-policy pages. Be bold in
>updating policy pages.
Actually people /don't/ do that without discussing ideas first on the talk
page. If it is a proposed /major/ change it is put on the wiki-list. What
they don't do is unilaterally make major changes without making sure people
know the change is being made. Otherwise it looks like the page is being
highjacked in the hope that no-one will notice that policy is being changed.
And if no-one notices on time, then if anyone tries to use the 'old'
/agreed/ policy finds them being told - "oh but we changed that a while
ago". That is clearly unfair and disrespectful of everyone else.
When I've proposed changes, I've put them on the talk page, left a message
on the talk page of everyone who had ever contributed to the talk page
debates asking their views, and left a summary message that would appear on
the recent changes, saying a proposed change was being made and asking
anyone interest to comment on the talk page. /If/ there was agreement that
the proposal should be implemented, I then put together a formal wording
taking account people's observations, then showed it to people to make sure
there was a consensus on it. Only /then/ was it put on the actual page.
Where I made a minor change, or sought to clarify something whose meaning
was unclear in the actual wording but where what it was meant to be was
clear in the discussion, I'd contact those who took part in the debate and
invite them to review the change, and would explain the change on the
summary with an invitation for anyone who wished to review it. Just
bulldozing ahead with changes without a full and frank debate is I believe
disrepectful to all wikipedians and highjacking a page.
I am surprised and more than a little disappointed to find that Erik, whom I
have always respected notwithstanding our disagreements, thinks it OK just
to unilaterally rewrite policy pages when he feels like it. It makes me
wonder how many times have rows where Erik has criticised some member for
'not following the rules' really been a case of people breaking 'new' rules
Erik had created and which had never been noticed until it was too late,
everyone presuming that if it in the rules, it must have been agreed after a
full discussion that they simply missed, not Erik's own invention.
JT
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The Daniel C. Boyer bandwagon is getting a bit out of control. Daniel is a
user on wiki who has an article about himself on wiki. While that seems OK
as he is a real if rather minor celebrity and artist, his articles relating
to himself are breeding like rabbits.
17 (yes, 17) redirects to forms of his name - all were put on the Votes for
deletion page and in cleaning up the page in view of the general agreement
on the page I deleted them.
He has articles about the company he founded, [[Idealist Press
International, Ltd]], with some other people, on which we find that he
designed a special watch for the company. One of his co-directors
[[Elizabeth M.B. Davis]] has her own wiki page of one line to tell us when
she resigned from the company, which BTW he listed on [[List of American
companies]]. His grandfather [[Carl Benjamin Boyer]] gets a page (OK he was
sorta famous, but the article (surprise, surprise) of course mentions his
grandson!). Daniel even has a link to the [[Polyvinyl chloride]] (PVC) page
which I half expected to contain a line stating ''Idealist Press
International, Ltd, on whose board Elizabeth M.B Davis sat, specially covers
the books of internationally famous poet, filmmaker and creator of the Echo
Poems technique, Daniel C. Boyer, with black [[Polyvinyl chloride]].''
Daniel's tendency to . . . em . . . write about Daniel, his companies, his
art-form, his former company director, his granddad, himself, another
company . . . is getting a tad tedious. Maybe Jimbo might like to ask him to
try to write a couple of articles not containing the words ''Daniel'',
''Boyer'' or any of the 17 variants he dreamt up as redirects. He isn't
doing any major harm, but unless stopped, wiki is in danger of looking like
a vanity press publishing attempt.
JT
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Erik wrote:
>Wikipedia policy pages can be openly edited
>by anyone, as they could always be.
Edit, yes, change the meaning, no. Anybody can edit a policy page to correct
typos, misspellings or to make a good faith effort to clarify policy per
established consensus.
An editor /cannot/ unilaterally change policy. But I have no opinion on
whether or not you did that since I haven't looked over the changes yet.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
I'm glad to see everything has been sorted out. But 1 thing puzzles me.
>Erik wrote
>. . . this enforces a class distinction that I am not very comfortable
>with. I
>think it should be avoided.
>. . . I have now edited the policy
>to favor my interpretation -- this is of course open to discussion.
Surely some contradition, Erik? You rewrite the rules unilaterally to stop
someone unilaterally doing what you disapprove of. You are opposed to cabals
because they exclude people, so you unilaterally rewrite the rules to stop
people unilaterally excluding people. :-)
Is this what we should call 'Erik's Law of Unilateralist Logic'? :-)
JT
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>From: Adam von (whatever his name is /this/ time - well the last time Uncle
>Adam took offence at being called Rickleff but he has yet to tell us what
>his real name is!).
>
Now suddenly you can't write anything at all. But hey- some people still
can. You're a second class user now.
>
>
>Boy, that sure sounds familiar....
>
But it shouldn't, Adam. As a multiple banned user who has had more illegal
identities on wiki than Pavorotti has had hot dinners you are not meant to
be a user on wiki at all. But since you are so concerned about wiki, maybe
on the the fourth time of asking you could answer the questions:
1. Are you on wiki?
2. What is your identity?
Oh and BTW, since you don't like being called Adam von Rickleff, what /is/
your real name?
JT
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