Since I'd at least like to think of myself as not one of those
classic trolls who are unwilling to listen to others or admit that
I'm sometimes wrong, I'll admit now to probably overreacting in this
case, and being too quick to find slippery slopes where they might
not really exist. I still think the other side could have done
better at explaining in a logical way why that particular site needed
to be purged, and to consider that I might possibly also have a point
too, and not just be trolling to be disruptive, even if I might not
have been right this time.
Giving a clear explanation that somebody was insidiously spamming
that link and it needed to be blacklisted would have worked better
with me than the seemingly vague and shifting rationales that people
were actually giving in the debate, about it being an unreliable
source (irrelevant when it came to removing links from discussion
archives), it being a copyvio (maybe true, but the only proof they
were showing was a boilerplate disclaimer in the site about not
having copyright permission, but the identical text is used in many
sites, some of which have valid fair use purpose), and it being spam
(but even non-spammed links to it were being purged). It seemed like
the explanations were being made up on an ad hoc basis so people
could justify what their friend was doing.
My point, that making exceptions to the normal principle against
editing others' comments in discussion was potentially dangerous, and
was just the mindset that led to stuff like BADSITES, even if
mistaken in this case, was never considered to be in any way a
serious point rather than an irrelevant troll.
--
== 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/
On 25 Mar 2008 at 12:18:57 +0000, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> One point that bobolozo is missing, in his enthusiasm to get
> mass-deleting, is that [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is itself ...
> not a reliable source. It's a guideline, and one with truck-sized
> holes in it. Applying it robotically is a recipe for bureaucratic
> stupidity. Thinking it can be applied bureaucratically suggests a lack
> of the level of judgement one should have before performing such a
> drastic mass action. Precis: if you think WP:RS justifies such a
> course of action ... you shouldn't even be considering the action in
> question, and need to go back and think more first.
Just today, I got (metaphorically speaking) beaten up bloody and left
at the side of the road for "trolling", when I objected to JzG doing
a mass purge of links to a site regarded as not a reliable source...
he was purging it not only from articlespace but also from talk and
project pages and even closed archives, with the justification that
this made it easy to monitor for inappropriate links to it in the
list of all links to the site. I regarded this justification as
bogus, but was shouted down by the AN/I crowd.
--
== 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/
Reading this article, for some reason kept bringing to my mind the WPism of 'undue weight' [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources and undue weight]]:
"Why Apple fans hate tech reporters: On hot-button issues -- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the Mac-PC divide -- we're quick to see bias in even the most objective news." <http://machinist.salon.com/feature/2008/03/18/true_enough_excerpt_2/index.h…>
"The researchers showed the students six news segments covering the massacre; the clips were collected from national evening news programs, and were intended, in the way that network news is, to be mainstream, non-partisan depictions of the events in Lebanon. The participants were asked to rate the programs in several ways, all covering the same basic point: how fairly had the networks presented the case of Sabra and Shatila?
People who were neutral on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- presumably those from the psych classes -- came down somewhere in the middle. They didn't think the news clips supported either party in the conflict. But proponents of each side saw it differently.
Pro-Palestinian viewers said the news clips excused "Israel when they would have blamed some other country"; that the news accounts didn't focus enough on Israel's role in the massacre; that the segments would prompt neutral observers to take Israel's side; and that the journalists who'd put together the stories were probably advocates of Israel. Israel's supporters, meanwhile, said the exact opposite.
On issues we're passionate about, we all tend to think our own views are essentially reasonable, Ross explains. Thus when a reporter, editor, news network, or pundit mentions the other side's arguments, it stings."
....
"But for people who feel strongly about an issue -- for Apple fanatics, for abortion partisans, for folks who think they know the truth about global warming or what's going on in the Middle East -- personal views feel distinct and luminous. Journalistic "objectivity" inevitably produces a muddier picture.
When they come upon that difference -- the gulf between what's in their heads and what's on the page -- the audience tends to assume the worst: The reporter must be licking someone's balls."
--
gwern
World IWIS Terrorism EO chameleon Bubba r00t Z-150T W3 MOD
Anyone in range of CUNY? They start dismantling it on Monday!
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Magnus Manske <magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com>
Date: 25 Mar 2008 13:18
Subject: [Commons-l] Someone take an image of that cyclotron...
To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
I'd put this under "requested images", but it's rather urgent...
A historically important cyclotron at Columbia University will be
dismantled soon. Last chance for someone to take a free picture for
Commons.
Or is there one already? It's US and probably related to something
military, so the government probably took an image of it at one point,
which should be PD...
( http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/08/03/25/0317224.shtml )
Magnus
_______________________________________________
Commons-l mailing list
Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
In a message dated 3/25/2008 11:14:44 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
saintonge(a)telus.net writes:
This all assumes that the "source" says what it is claimed to have
said. No source at all is preferable to sources that support specious
original research. Strung together these sources, which may each
individually be valid, can support a "Da Vinci Code" style of
reasoning. Properly sourced from second-rate sources is still better
than poorly sourced from first-rate sources.>>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Several unrelated concepts (imho) are linked together here. If the source
doesn't say what it is claimed to have said, that is a very different animal
than "original research by synthesis" which you then advance in the third
sentence. I wouldn't call this sort of research specious, but it is something we
frown on. However these cases are very tenuous and borderline and *each* one
should be taken to NPOV seperately.
The other extreme which I'm sure you wouldn't want to champion, would be
that we don't allow synthesis at all. That position would of course, make the
project pages essentially unreadable. All editors do synthesis at some level.
The synthesis we frown upon is that which "serves to advance a contentious
position."
If Saint Louis is a city in Missouri, and Saint Louis has a million people,
we can certainly say "there is at least one city in Missouri with a million
people".
Will Johnson
**************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL
Home.
(http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom0…)
In a message dated 3/25/2008 6:10:32 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
ritzman(a)gmail.com writes:
The guy with the commercial project is not "our buddy". He's someone
with a beef against Wikipedia. Nobody here is in cahoots with this
guy.>>
-------------
That seems a bit strong to me.
I have nothing against people taking AFD's articles and reposting them.
It doesn't hurt the project one bit, imho. And it preserves knowledge.
Will
**************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL
Home.
(http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom0…)
In a message dated 3/25/2008 5:19:51 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
dgerard(a)gmail.com writes:
[[Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is itself ...
not a reliable source. It's a guideline, and one with truck-sized
holes in it.>>
---------------------
That's a bit poetic, so I'm sure you mean it a bit tongue-in-cheek.
We should employ common sense when citing policy/guidelines as our reasoning
behind some action.
In general mass-deletions might invoke DICK against you.
It's a fine-line. I'm certainly fine with the original poster deleting *a*
source and posting to the talk page the reason why. But if they go on a
rampage with a meat cleaver in a cowshed they are asking for trouble.
Will
**************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL
Home.
(http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom0…)
Hi,
I've written a visual tool for analyzing the graph
of interlanguage links between all 256 editions of
Wikipedia.
Its main advantages, compared to bots, are:
* it analyzes the whole inconsistent component
at once, while bots tend to work "locally" (in
some neighborhood of an article);
* cool (IMHO) graph visualization;
* concrete recommendations: remove a link, split
an article, merge articles, remove redirects.
To stress the advantage of "global" vs. "local"
analysis of a component: the largest connected
component in the graph contains over 48'000
articles, mixing over 2'500 different subjects.
Some of the sources of semantic drift in such
components are not visible "locally".
Main disadvantages:
* works on preprocessed dumps, instead of "live"
Wikipedia, so the recommendations may be outdated;
* (for the moment) does not recognize some of the
redirects, due to poor quality of redirect dumps.
Apparently I'm not the only one affected by the
problem, and the guys at wikitech-l are aware
of the issue;
* Requires Java 6, eats a lot of resources (512M
seems to be enough even for the largest case);
* Doesn't change anything (points to the possible
sources of problems instead).
The tool is far from being complete, "prototype"
would be a more appropriate name here (its
original purpose was to help me evaluate some
ideas for my PhD). Please try it and send me
your feedback, I'd like to make it more useful
for the community.
You can find the tool here:
http://wikitools.icm.edu.pl/
Regards,
Bolo1729
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23422157-5014239,00.html
Interesting in general. Something I'm not sure about is the "tens of
thousands" stat, although since that doesn't include songs/albums it could
be likely.
In any case, being up there with All Music Guide in what AMG *does* is
pretty cool.
In a message dated 3/23/2008 2:30:07 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
bobolozo(a)yahoo.com writes:
My question is, is it a good idea to simply go through
and remove large numbers of these? Are we better off
with no sources at all for portions of text, rather
than have references which consist of message board
postings and personal websites and such?>>
-----------------------
It's a common misconception of our RS guideline/policy that "personal
websites" are verbotem. Actually we don't say that. There are exceptions. While
it's true that *many* or perhaps *most* personal websites are not to be used,
it's not true that they all are.
My second point would be, if the existing link gives evidence pointing
toward other more reliable sources such as "... as he stated in a New York Times
article..." then removing the link removes information that we could use to
improve the article. That is, the link could be changed to say "New york times
blah blah blah as reported by *this site*"
Will Johnson
**************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL
Home.
(http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom0…)