On 20 Oct 2007 at 23:38:39 +0000, fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info wrote:
[long line rewrapped]
> Well, yes, you add little to legitimate dialog, but part of what
> you see is the contrast between the very liberal rules which
> govern this mailing list and the level of tolerance on the talk
> page of the article about a subject who is actively being
> harassed. If you have something to say about such harassment, you
> are expected to be knowledgable about it. Cla68 adopted a pose of
> naive ignorance. You like that pose too, and it is an effective
> debating technique, in fact, Socrates often used in the dialogues
> published by Plato. However, when you get down to cases, and there
> you are, in the midst of an active dispute, acting dumb, well...
This isn't the first time you've referred to my "effective debating
technique". In fact, when I was a kid, my mom always urged me to get
on the debating team at high school because I'd be good at it;
unfortunately, my high school didn't have one, and I had to settle
for the math and quiz bowl teams. I guess being compared to Socrates
is pretty impressive, at least if I don't dwell on the fact that his
fellow citizens voted the death penalty on him.
Your statements in that area seem to imply that I'm logically correct
in my views, but politically incorrect because those views offend the
wrong people. Is that accurate?
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel R. Tobias [mailto:dan@tobias.name]
Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2007 06:51 PM
To: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] [[Views of Lyndon LaRouche]] indefinitely full protected
On 20 Oct 2007 at 15:58:57 -0700, "George Herbert"
<george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Groups and their individual members always will want to slant Wikipedia;
> we're all human. We have lots of policy and precedent to deal with that.
> But extended, organized campaigns are another thing entirely.
...and LaRouche's group is extremely unlikely to be the last. Has
the Church of Scientology been doing anything of that sort? If they
haven't, they probably will eventually, since that's their style. So
will lots of other groups, big and small. Eventually, there may be a
whole bunch of contentious articles in this category.
--
== Dan ==
_______________________________________________
Scientology has presented a significant problem of the same nature, but as they are not attempting to take over the government, opponents are not quite as determined and excited. Although, the situation in some European countries is much more heated.
Fred
On 20 Oct 2007 at 15:58:57 -0700, "George Herbert"
<george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Groups and their individual members always will want to slant Wikipedia;
> we're all human. We have lots of policy and precedent to deal with that.
> But extended, organized campaigns are another thing entirely.
...and LaRouche's group is extremely unlikely to be the last. Has
the Church of Scientology been doing anything of that sort? If they
haven't, they probably will eventually, since that's their style. So
will lots of other groups, big and small. Eventually, there may be a
whole bunch of contentious articles in this category.
It may still be a state of affairs more conducive to some semblance
of NPOV than the situation with some other articles, where they're
open for editing but one side of the heated dispute involving them
has been labeled trolls, harrassers, etc., and banned, and anybody
else expressing views anywhere on that side are subsequently called
sock/meatpuppets of a banned user, or trolls republishing views of a
banned user, and so only one side of the dispute is allowed to have
any say at all.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
-----Original Message-----
From: William Pietri [mailto:william@scissor.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2007 05:31 PM
To: 'English Wikipedia'
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Harassment sites
Durova wrote:
>> We do it for shock sites, and antisocialmedia.net is odious enough to
>> deserve not being linked.
>
> The purpose is that it reduces incoming traffic from one of the most
> powerful sources of link traffic on the Internet. If that discourages
> people from using their sites to intimidate particular editors, then so much
> the better. NPOV *is* harmed when good editors decide "this isn't worth it"
> and leave the project.
The reason we don't link shock sites is not because *we* find them
offensive. It's because we believe the vast majority of our readers
would find them so immediately and pungently offensive that we want them
to be sure they don't accidentally get an eyeful. I don't see
antisocialmedia.net in the same category: we personally may find parts
of it odious, but it will not cause most readers mental scarring. [1]
The question I keep asking myself about these proposals is: Who does it
serve? Delinking shock sites serves our readers. Delinking sites that we
don't like because of how they treat us most obviously serves ourselves
at the expense of our readers. Your argument that it also has a subtle,
long-term effect on our ability to serve readers is interesting, but
unproven, and could just as well have the opposite effect.
William
_______________________________________________
You never seem to understand the issue. One suspects your sustained mischaracterization of the issue is not an accident. We have plenty on the site which shocks the average reader and are strongly committed to presenting such information without censorship. Harassment is attacks directed at our users. We support our users by minimizing the degree of harassment they are exposed to.
Fred
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Summit [mailto:scs@eskimo.com]
What's debated is:
1. whether the attempt to minimize down to zero is worth the cost, and
2. whether removing links truly minimizes exposure in all cases.
_______________________________________________
And the obvious answer is of course not. Any policy must respect natural limits (not "go to zero") and imperfect results are to be expected. However, user who are being harassed should see efforts to reduce its frequency and impact, however ineffective in absolute terms such efforts are.
Fred
-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel R. Tobias [mailto:dan@tobias.name]
Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2007 04:57 PM
To: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Cla68 blocked for asking question
Durova has blocked Cla68 for 24 hours for responding to Jimbo's
posting on [[Talk:Gary Weiss]], which included "No nonsense, zero
tolerance, shoot on sight.", with "Most of us usually try to give
some reasoning for any action, proposed action, or threatened action
that we discuss on an article's talk page. Would you mind doing the
same?" It was claimed that this was a "WP:POINT" violation. Just
how is asking the reasons behind a draconian statement a block-worthy
violation?
I swear, with every passing minute Wikipedia becomes more of a self-
parody, with people getting subjected to punitive sanctions for
having the effrontery to question whether the authorities on
Wikipedia are getting overly punitive. It reminds me of the
government of Singapore, which once sued a journalist who had written
that the government suppresses criticism by suing its critics.
People sometimes justify the need for "getting tough" on trolls,
harrassers, and the like because they're driving good editors out;
however, I've been feeling more and more like I'm about ready to take
a Wikibreak myself, being constantly disgusted at the direction the
Wikipedia culture is going and how Jimbo seems to be actively
supporting this development himself. I'm sure there are a bunch of
people who will cheer if and when I go away.
--
== Dan ==
_______________________________________________
Well, yes, you add little to legitimate dialog, but part of what you see is the contrast between the very liberal rules which govern this mailing list and the level of tolerance on the talk page of the article about a subject who is actively being harassed. If you have something to say about such harassment, you are expected to be knowledgable about it. Cla68 adopted a pose of naive ignorance. You like that pose too, and it is an effective debating technique, in fact, Socrates often used in the dialogues published by Plato. However, when you get down to cases, and there you are, in the midst of an active dispute, acting dumb, well...
Fred
-----Original Message-----
From: Oskar Sigvardsson [mailto:oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2007 04:50 PM
To: 'English Wikipedia'
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] [[Views of Lyndon LaRouche]] indefinitely full protected
On 10/21/07, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> It's not a routine protection; it's a longstanding, active, serious abuse
> case.
Even so, this is not what we've ever done! What this is is an
effective elevation of admins into a specially protected
"super"-editor class that have full powers to decide and control what
goes in an article. That is NOT what an admin is supposed to do,
article contents have always been decided by community consensus. It
is a foundational issue, right up there with Free Content and NPOV.
This is counter to what wikipedia is. We're not Citizendium.
--Oskar
_______________________________________________
I guess "anyone can edit" is the fundamental principle. However the article in question is being edited only by the operatives of an organization and a few others who have become expert regarding the organization. Essentially, one side of the debate is being carried on by sock and meatpuppets that never give up.
Fred
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Magnus Manske <magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com>
Date: 20 Oct 2007 21:57
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Behold the FIST
To: wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
My "missing images" tool, a toolserver script to find free images to
use in WIkipedia articles by looking at what other langues have about
the topic, has been running for almost a year now, and was used ~42000
times.
Recently, I published "WatchFlickr", which does a very similar thing,
but searches free Flickr images.
Enter the FIST (Free Image Search Tool), a "unified" version of both
tools, and then some:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/fist.php
It has the known, now "merged" features:
* Follow language links and look if they have free images
* Look on Flickr for free images
I have added:
* Direct Wikimedia Commons search (results from the internal Commons search)
* GIMP-SAVVY (lots of PD images from the US Gov.)
Together with a truckload of options (scan title lists, categories to
depth X, replace placeholder images) and fine-tunings for the
individual searches, it is already likely to be one of the most
comprehensive free image (meta-)search tools on the web.
Please try it out, report bugs and feature requests (link in the
header bar), and throw lots'o'images at wikipedia articles :-)
Both Missing Images and WatchFlickr will eventually be "phased out"
and redirect to FIST.
If you know any other sources of free media, I'll be happy to add them, provided
* they have at least a few thousand images
* they have an API, to are easy to screen-scrape;-)
Cheers,
Magnus
P.S.: Sorry to spam wikipedia-l with this, but it seemed significant
to me, and the easiest way to reach wikipedians in all languages.
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>> Earlier: "...anything that isn't a
>>> wiki shouldn't be running on Mediawiki..."
>> Response: ...please don't "should" on us.
>> Reply: Why not?
Peter Blaise responds: It's a philosophical thing. "Should" happens.
Some of our contributions are full of "should". Don't step in the
"should". The word "should" sounds so much like that other "sh..."-word
that it's all I hear when someone's "shoulds" on me! I think you
understand. As Albert Einstein is reported to have said,
"Example isn't just another way to teach. Example is the only way to
teach." -- Albert Einstein
In other words, we shouldn't "should" on each other, so to speak! If we
think someone else "should" do something, all we can do is set an
example of how we do it, and hope they learn from our example. When was
the last lecture you paid attention to? Me neither!
Also, it's not really up to anyone else what is or is not a wiki. Wiki
is in the eye of the beholder (just as "should" is on the shoes of the
be-stepper?). Me? I see a wiki as a quick way for a community to build
something, and I see both elements as, well, elemental: the community,
and the something built. Others see only the community, while some
others see only the something built, I guess.
I can also understand that all wikis may need to be different in some
essential way. I have one-page wikis, I have wikis with thousands of
pages that only one person can edit, but all visitors can discuss. Each
wiki seems to be the unique product of the community that built it, even
a community of one. Will we ever find "the" truth about what is a wiki?
Let me quote Albert Einstein again:
"Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate
striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the
bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and
the greatest." -- Albert Einstein
So, I guess the meta-message here is to keep on trying, just don't
expect any result other than maintaining the perpetual process of
trying, itself.
==
> Earlier: "...Technically, Wikipedia is (and
> almost certain, always will be) a wiki..."
Peter Blaise responds: We disagree (and I do not expect to convince you
to change your mind). For me, a wiki is a free and open community
gathered for a purpose. I see elitists, the deletionists, and banners
as anti wiki when they delete and ban anything BUT spam and vandals,
that is, when they review content and pass judgment. I suggest that
they improve what they read (EDIT - what a concept!), or, move on and
let someone else pitch in, but stop getting in the way. I believe that
even people who write pretty lame stuff may come back and clean up their
own stuff - given time, and given positive examples. Regardless, biting
somebody's heads of and spitting them out because we don't like what
they wrote is anti wiki, in my book.
> Earlier: "...Do you mean the Wikimedia
> Foundation? There is no
> MediaWiki Foundation..."
Peter Blaise responds: Oops, I can never keep those trademarks clear no
matter how hard I try. Of course I know there's:
- the software: MediaWiki
- the web site: Wikipedia
- the company: Foundation
I just can't remember the Foundation's name:
- MediaWiki Foundation
- Wikipedia Foundation
- Mediapedia Foundation
- Wediapicki Foundation ...
... I know they've spent thousands of dollars on trademark registrations
(look at my email address - doh!) but I just can't keep 'em straight!
> Earlier: :...but Wikipedia was the main
> reason-to-be for the MediaWiki
> Foundation, and they don't seem to know
> what they've got, nor remember
> how it got there..."
Peter Blaise explains: To reiterate, I find that what I consider to be
the elitist exclusivity, deletionist, and banning attitudes as practiced
at Wikipedia.org, and at MediaWiki.org, and at
whatever-the-name-of-the-Foundation-is.org, to me, are anti wiki. To
me, it smells like now they want to claim glory and limelight for
something other than what made them famous: customer service, wiki
style, come one, come all, hey, it's a wiki, edit every page!
Not.
On 10/20/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20/10/2007, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 10/19/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > There should be a downloadable copy of the full history soon, for
> > > forking purposes.
>
> > Do you have some sort of inside information on this? Just because a
> > dump starts doesn't mean it'll finish.
>
>
> http://leuksman.com/log/ is my s3kr1t inside source.
>
Which part of that implied "soon"? "that's probably feasible" and "In
theory an incremental dump could be made" imply the opposite. What am
I missing?